When the Lost is Found

 When the Lost Is Found
Can you remember the intense feeling of relief when you finally find something that you’ve misplaced; your wallet, your keys, your checkbook, or your glasses? Can you recall the feeling of that huge weight being lifted off your shoulders? A wave of comfort floods your being when that all consuming worry has been removed and is no longer a pressing concern.
In Luke 15:8-10 a woman lost a valuable silver coin. She was distressed and she lit a candle, swept every room, and searched every corner of her house. She couldn’t rest. When she found it, she was so elated that she called her friends and neighbors saying, “Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.”
In the same chapter a shepherd noticed that one of his hundred sheep was missing. He left the flock and diligently searched for the lost one. He returned to his trail, looking for signs where the sheep wandered away. When he found the lamb, he laid it across his shoulders, rejoicing that the lost sheep had been found. The shepherd went home and called his friends and neighbors, saying, “Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.”
In a similar vein, there’s the story of the prodigal son. Luke shares the parable of a second-born son who approached his father asking for his share of his expected inheritance. He was bold enouugh to ask for his share of the wealth that his father earned before the father died. The father didn’t deny the son’s request, but gave it to him.
Immediately the young man left his home and fled to a far away country. He began to spend his inheritance on riotous living. He began to live a carefree life with wanton spending of the inheritance. The word wanton has a meaning of senseless lewdness. He bought “friends” to help him spend his money on extravagant spending for food and drink. His capricious lifestyle soon left him penniless and his “friends” deserted him when he was in need.
The young man found a job tending pigs. It got to the point he was eating what he was feeding to the hogs. Coming to his senses, he went home to his father. Instead of tunrning the son away, he greeted the boy with open arms. The father said, “For this my son who was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” The father made a feast and rejoiced for he who was lost is now found. The Bible says there is rejoicing in heaven when a lost soul accepts Christ as Saviour.

Beasts in the Buckwheat Patch

 Beasts in the Buckwheat Patch
Friday and Saturday I volunteered at the annual Buckwheat and Sausage Festival for the Ohiopyle Fire Department just like I have form ofer fifty years. The differfence this year was that my son Andrew Beck joined me. He picked me up and we rode together. We were able to talk and I shared the history of the places that we passed. It was dark and foggy and sometimes couldn’t seethe spots.
We found a place to park and joined the other volunteers inside of the firehall. Soon we had the griddles heating and more men arrived. It was chilly outside, but soon everyone was in tee shirts. Eventually we had to open the garage doors to cool the room down. It doesn’t take long for twelve 32X18 inch grills to warm a truck bay. When the doors opened, we could see our breath, but the cool air felt good.
Andrew said that he had to slam on his brakes to avoid a deer. On Saturday morning I had to do the same to avoid three deer as they emerged from the darkness and into my headlights. The crowd of diners started out as a rush but lulled into a trickle. We fried and took breaks. Leaning over the waist-high grills causes lower back pain. People weren’t created to stand in that position. Smokey the Bear visited and mingled with the customers. For the most part, even the children enjoyed Smokey’s visit. When the expected crowds thinned, Andrew and I got to come home about three pm. I was glad we’d sprnt the day together and talked.
Saturday as I drove to Ohiopyle, I couldn’t help but notice the fantastic clouds and sunrise. It was impressive and I wish someone would have been with me to take photos to share. There were already a few men were there and we started to heat the griddles. Let the games begin. Wrapped in an apron, the chore of flipping sausage patties went into full operation.
In the early afternoon, a second beaast appeared. It was a large gentleman who donned a Sasquatch costume and worked the crowd, selling photos of himself and customers for $2.00. It was another vendor to add to the others who sold their wares from tents.
I was glad to get home and shower the grease from my body and hair. The wonderful blessing each year is that from the lard, my hands get as smooth as a baby’s bottom.

Adjusting

Adjusting
All of us need to adjust sometimes in our lives, whether it happens with folks as newlyweds, with new parents at the birth of a child, or the grief with the death of a parent, sibling, spouse, or God forbid the death of a child. These are major adjustments that we must make in order to continue living. But we must make hundreds of minor adjustments each day; from what to make for breakfast when there’s no milk for our cereal to what to wear when the clothing we wanted is in the laundry waiting to be washed.
During each day we readjust our clothing to fit more comfortably, adjust our seatbelts when we intend to drive our cars, or adjust the channel on the television set changing to the program we want to watch. I’m still adjusting to an experimental medication for a trial study with my diabetes. I’ve tolerated it farlywell. I’ve found several of the side effects are present and discomforting but no severe reactions yet. I’ll continue with the medication until the trail is over in November.
Because the medication is working almost too well, my PCP is worried that my blood sugar is too low, so I’ve halved some of my daily medications and try to adjust my insulin to parallel what I’ve eaten for supper. She would lke my morning fasting blood sugar to be nearer to 100 and sometimes I’ll drop down into the 70’s.
Before I started the experimental drug, if my blood sugar would drop anywhere 100, I would know it and often feel faint. I am careful and always have some candy near at hand.
Later today I plan to go to Ohiopyle to fry sausage for the Sausage and Buckwheat festival. I have volunteered to work there for fifty years, except when health issues have interferred.

Hey Bud What's Happening

 Hey Bud What’s Happening
Yesterday was another Connellsville Area Senior Highschool monthly get-together. It was a time of laughter and some tears. About eight peoplegathered to have lunch, tease, and talk. The topics may range from memories to what is happenng now. With all of us getiing older, the issue of our health and complaints of knee pain, back pain, and general aches will come up, but rather than to dwell on those things we make jokes and change the subject.
I shared that we purchased a memorial brick for the Cameron Park in Connellsville, Pennsylvania for a class mate who has graduated to his heavenly reward. It wasn’t a pleasant thought of John no longer being able to share a meal with us.
Sharing the receipt I got in the mail for the purchase of the brick caused a few tears, even our wait-person Heather was missing him and teased us about John’s now absent humor. Just before we finished eating, two younger, good-looking men entered and sat a table away from where we were gathered. Our loud teasing flowed over to them. We heard their conversation, which caused our interaction with them. It was their first time at Bud Murphy’s and as they perused the menu, we made suggestions, but jokingly “warned” them about Heather the wait-person.
As I said, the young men were handsome and one of our class ladies tried out her “cougar skin” and teased them, saying she needed a better view. I think she was still wound up about finding a dead battery in her car yesterday. I commented that at least the battery for her pacemaker wasn’t dead. It is a wonderful relief from the stress and strain to be with friends and let our hair down. (For those who still have hair and for others who have occasional “bad hair” days)
Before we left, I gave each of the men my business card. I am still writing in my blog and am trying to write another novel, so until I publish again, I pimp for readers of my old books and for those who read my blogspot.

Purity

 Purity
Not so long ago there was an advertisement for a certain laundry detergent. The magazine and television ads displayed a blue and white box with a photo of a mother holding a smiling infant in her arms. Its slogan proclaimed that Ivory Snow flakes were ninty-nine and forty-four percent pure. It was the soap to which mothers turned to safely clean their infant’s diapers and clothing. Ivory Snow wasn’t harsh for the baby’s skin, but really cleaned the soiled diapers for the infant’s tender bottom.
Today we hear gold and silver being advertised for sale either in coins, ingots, or jewelry with guarentees fof their percentage of purity. So mnay products are being labeled as pure: cooking oils, spices, salt, and we musn’t forget water. The advertisements for bottled waters are described as coming from fresh mountain streams, filtered mountain springs, unpolluted water from distant unspoiled lakes, or from exotic, far away islands.
Purity is prized by God. Moral purity is God’s standard. What God has defined as sin is still a sin no matter what mankind now says. Words that were not so long ago were considered crude and not fit to be said in normal conversations now flow out of even babies. The words are the crux of many of the popular songs and have gained entrance into television and movies. Wholesome movies with interesting plots have been replaced by salacious perversions of entertainment.
Music videos are just another way for musical hacks to sell their perversions to the younger generations. The advertisements and half time shows pander to sins and perversions. The everyday television advertisements all seem to try to use double entendre or perverted leanings to sell their products.
The perveyors of perversions are indoctrinating children by instilling false views on gender to children who are still learning to read. They are filling libraries with verbal pornography. They are contorting children’s thoughts into ideas that were considered a mental illness a decade ago. What was once a hidden sin is now openy and pridefully flaunted as normal.
The book of Philippians says to think on these things, truth, honesty, things that are just, pure, lovely, and of good report and virtue. The peace of God shall keep hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

What Are You Looking For

 What are You Looking For
With so much turmoil in the world today, people are looking for something secure, something safe, something that satisfies, but if they are looking for those things in the physical world, they will be sadly disappointed. If they are relying on health, see how quickly that has disappeared with the Covid 19 scare. If they are relying on finances, look how rapidly businesses were restricted or closed and jobs were lost. Knowledge and education, the schools were closed without warning. If people were trusting in the government, see how quickly they lost control to anarchists who looted and burned their cities. The very same government that refuses to take a stand against these criminals are trying to remove guaranteed Constitutional rights such as our freedom of speech (hate speech laws), the right to life (tax funded abortion clinics), the second amendment right to bear arms (government’s constant push to infringe with regulations on guns and ammunition), the assault on the first amendment of freedom of religion (not the false interpretation with freedom FROM religion, the assault on the biblical definition of marriage, of sex, of worshipping when and where we deem necessary). It has been proved over and over that anything worldly is built on shifting sand. It is only temporary, fleeting, and may crumble at any moment.True contentment, real joy, deep peace, genuine satisfaction, lasting delight cannot be found in these temporal things. Temporal things will be destroyed by rust, decay, and will continue to be worn away until they become useless and are cast aside.
God in His goodness has offered a gift, a generous gift. He offers this largesse of love to all who willingly accept it. It is the greatest gift ever given. God allowed His only begotten Son, Jesus to take on the form of a man, bear our sins, and die on the cross of Calvary. Jesus became the ransom for our sin debt that needed to be paid. Although He was sinless, He died to pay a debt he didn’t owe, that we accumulated, and a debt we couldn’t pay.
Through the death and resurrection, Jesus became the sacrificial offering that secured our joy, our peace, our security, and our home eternally. There will be no more tears, no more pain, no more disappointments, no fear, and no more death. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.” John 14:6.
Salvation is a gift. We can do nothing to earn it. All we need to do is to believe that Jesus paid that price and to accept it. “For God loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16

Mirror Mirror On the Wall

 Mirror Mirror on the Wall
While I was talking on the phone to a cousin, we reminded each other of a few of our memories in the past. Her parents, Melvin and Estella Strawderman lived in the house next door to my grandparents, Edson and Anna Beck. Their homes were located in the small town of Indian Head, Pennsylvania. My grandparents’ home was brown Insulbrick and the Shirley’s parent’s home was sided with red Insulbrick.
Both homes were constructed from a larger farm house that had been torn down. From the lumber rescued they were able to build two. Estella and Shirley were caught in a flood in Melcroft, Pennsylvania. They almost perished when that home was destroyed by the rush of water. Erecting the new houses was necessary.
In the house Granddad Beck built was a short hallway connecting the kitchen to the “parlor.” The parlor was a room that was only used when “company” came. I guess we were company, because that’s where we sat when visiting. The itchy maroon material of the sofa would scratch my legs and yet I was expected to sit quietly without fidgeting when visiting them.
One redeeming quality with the visit was a pair of matching ornate gold-gilded framed mirrors that hung on opposing walls of the short hallway. It was the only exciting thing about the visit to my grandparents’ home. Looking into one mirror, I was able see an endless parade of receding reflections of myself.
My grandparents Ray and Rebecca Miner owned a farm. Grandma Miner had the same itchy material covering her sofa, but in blue. I was glad that we weren’t required to sit on it. I could play elsewhere in the house. Here, I was ablr to roam more freely. Knickknacks and other immensely interesting drew me to check things out. Grandpa Miner was known to tussle with the grandkids…even in the parlor.
Their sitting room was supposedly off limits all kids, but entering the forbidden territory was tolerated if I was quiet and just looked around. Grandma had a large mirror that hung above the floor model wood case radio. The mirror had three connected sections. The center part was a normal silver reflecting mirror, while two blue beautiful etched mirrored panels flanked each side. I was in awe of the deep blue color and impressed that it reflected an image as well. On top of the radio sat a shiny black ceramic cat that peered into a globe shaped glass fish bowl. The bowl was always empty, but iIt glistened when sunlight shone on it. The sunshine danced on the cat’s ebony surface.