FORGIVING MAGNETS

It was an adorable magnetic bookmark. "What can I say?" the puppy said; "I didn't mean to. Really." He'd been caught in some act of mischief; chewing up his master's slipper, maybe. Aww; so cute. Only a cold-hearted owner could hold anything against him after this!

But I realized too often, I do the same thing. If, unfortunately, an offense I committed comes to light, I shift responsibility from my need to repent to the victim's unwillingness to understand me.

I found another magnet: a pump organ, the kind found in old churches. Tragic but true--those who line the pews of those places--I am one of them--tend to want to be seen as "not meaning to do anything wrong", as good persons.

It's taking me a lifetime to begin to see what the Bible has been saying forever.

The truth of the matter is, God is crazy in love with me just as I am, NOT BECAUSE OF WHAT I AM, BUT BECAUSE OF WHO HE IS.

So I changed the words on the bookmark to read: I DID mean to. Really. But can you find it in your heart to forgive me anyway?"

We'll All Look Different ONE DAY

I'd called him "My Funny Bird on Tengan River" and a few minutes ago found out he's called a black crowned night heron. Heron? But he's the size of a duck, and his legs are about 6 inches long. His beaks look sharp and pointy like a heron, but nothing else would've let me guess he's part of that bird family!

It was on the river that ran on the side of our new home in Okinawa I saw the bird. This week, I finally found out what he was. Mon, my sister Joyce drove me down that river towards the capital of Okinawa to apply for my passport renewal. The picture of myself ten years ago looks so different, I thought.

On the way back, she was kind enough to take the time to drive around the neighborhood where we'd grown up, and lots of old memories revived.

 

The way we found the place was because our home used to be behind a huge tomb. As we drove, we could see a little ways from the road--unkempt now because the custodian himself probably had need for a tomb himself--was a large stone structure.

"Joycie--the TOMB!" We turned up the narrow path and looked at the completely changed appearance of the place, the area around it. The only thing that looked the same was that you could look all the way down the hill and see the ocean.

So...we used to live...here?

When we got home, I saw a snail on the wall and almost said to it, "One Day, we're ALL going to look completely different.

You probably won't need to be lugging your house around on your back either."

I get in these moods.