I'll Be Home for Christmas

What' s home? We're approaching the week of Christmas, and the highways are full, the airports are overflowing and the schools have let out. The line at Barnes and Noble spread all through the calendars, past the Christmas cards and buy 2, get 1 free games for kids. The checkers called for reinforcements; they were by no means peevish with us customers, but they were decidedly peckish toward any co workers they thought in the wrong place at the wrong time. I assume they were making good money this Sunday morning before Christmas, but if you asked them, I'd also bet they had a list a mile long of tasks to be done at "home".

I just got back from a couple of days in Jefferson City with Blake, followed by an overnight in Springfield. The lights came on in this old house and the little Hallmark ornament chimed in with 'Jingle Bell Rock' when I plugged in the Christmas tree. We completed the familiar routine as Blake off loaded our baggage and I divided the dirty clothes from the clean ones. The house was chill and the hibiscus drooped on the stair landing, but these signs of neglect were easily solved with a tumbler of water and the whoosh of the gas log. Before long, the expectant feeling of our waiting house was supplanted with the grinding of the washer, the cascade of newspapers by the couch and the aroma of c0ffee brewing.

Sunday evening the front of the church was transformed into a friendly living room complete with welcoming hosts, guests decked out in red vests and Christmas sweaters, everyone ready and willing to break into song or read Scripture. The songs were familiar; the story second nature, but peace and comfort spread over the proceedings as the organ rolled, the voices rose and the piano led us through the old, sweet story. Reflect on the adjectives and draw them 'round like your favorite afghan; 'tis the sound and description of home.

Mark and Laura are safely back in St. Louis after our second annual Christmas visit from our Pernod Gardens family. We were jolly and boisterous around the kitchen island, seated in the dining room toasting family accomplishments and New Year's ambitions, but the roof didn't really raise until the kids, already excited by the prospect of opening packages, dived into the big peppermint striped box of goodies, tossing wrappings like the Momma Dog in pursuit of a rodent. Fernando the pinata presented a temporary challenge with three kids coughing and the outside temperature well below freezing, but Abbie solved the problem by jumping on his back. Before we knew it, the volume rose several more notches and little flakes of tissue paper floated down on us like a ticker tape parade. We donned reindeer ears, elf hats with jingle bells, and other even more holly jolly headbands with snowmen and Santas bobbing in agreement that this was a fabulous family party with all the appropriate trimmings. Ben tossed Aaron's new juggling balls; Matt blew up long skinny balloons for animals and head dresses; Kenzie helped LIzzie construct a long domino trail in the dining room while Laura demonstrated proper tiddly wink technic to Abbie. Gabe made mournful whistling sounds with a fascinating colored tube and we cheered on the Rockin' Sock'em robots wielded by Ryan and Matt. Through it all, we avoided stomping on Mr. Josh and he looked on and listened to the merriment. Who knows what went through his baby brain?

After the ball game the four of us walked back home through the chill. The Christmas lights always seem to take on a added clarity and brightness when you walk at night. I know it borders on trite to observe the great leveling effect of Christmas lights; all displays speak to hope and anticipation and even a type of generosity. After all, Christmas lights are rarely "hidden beneath a bushel" or limited to someone's walled and gated backyard. Modest or ostentatious, they are right out there in front for all the world to see.

Blow up Santa has appeared on the front porch in all his illuminated glory. Two years ago, I was craven and overly cute with my attempt to have him waving from the third floor porch. He sagged and wilted under the onslaught of winter's gales. But this year I gave in to the overwhelmingly obvious nature of a blow up Santa; I AM A GIANT INFLATABLE, he proclaims with his sheer existence, I SHALL NEVER BE SUBTLE. To pay homage to his ineffable nature, he waves 24-7, this final week of Advent from the porch, tethered to the lawn chairs in Blake's favorite corner. I like to think the Ghost of Christmas Past would approve.

Aaron and Lizzie look like the little kids "with visions of sugar plums" as they snooze on the floor, wrapped in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sleeping bag and the Mizzou Snuggie. Their cheeks are rosy and a peaceful snore emanates from time to time. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, a day of baking and wrapping, followed by an time of reflection and the night of ineffable mystery and wonder. I can never be thankful enough, appreciative enough, grateful enough for the blessings of this my temporal home. I can never fathom the love of a Father expressed in His Son. But I can weep with joy and amazement on Christmas Eve as every mother can and cast my arms and heart wide around my loved ones here at home.

Musings on Trisha Yearwood

So you cannot lift a spirit that has turned to lead
Or shine a light in shadow when the batteries are dead
Or fly like a bird over all the works of man
Or always think of the perfect words
But you do the best you can

Nothing seems as easy as it did when you were young
Myths may be invincible, but we are only strong
Strong like a memory, strong like a willow in the wind
Strong as you'll ever be, you will always need to bend

And if you feel the weight of the world
Put your mind at ease
Little Hercules

There are times when being a grown-up gets to be too much
And your sense of humor seems to vanish in the crush
Of the daily 9 to 9 that keeps your family alive
You're just putting in your time
Does anyone really go home at 5?

You've made a life where no one ever tells you what to do
Now the only tyrant that you're working for is you
It's never easy to keep all the promises you make
But no one's gonna get you fired
If you'd just give yourself a brake

And if you feel the weight of the world
Put your mind at ease
Little Hercules
'Cause there's so much on your shoulders
But you know it's a breeze
Little Hercules
Little Hercules

I know, this is rather a downer during the uplifting Christmas season, when we should, uniformly and at all times, rejoice in the miraculous and unfathomable Gift to us lowly humans. But its a lovely and winsome song, like a pat on the shoulder by a good friend or a heartfelt hug from a little child. Its a song for all the folks trying to make it into the house from the car with all the bags when the one with the gallon of milk breaks. Its the song for the moms with little kids sick at home, missing work with no vacation time, the song for dads with dead batteries, guttering pilot lights, plugged drain pipes, for grandmas and grandpas too far away to ease day to day worries.

How do you lift a spirit that has turned to lead? Or think of all the perfect words? Its hard to resurrect that sense of humor on your own but the temptation is strong to keep a stiff upper lip and prove you're a grown up. Its fine to run wailing if one is three or four and under, but no way to run a world.

The myth is that anything is ever easy, young or not. Its the state of man and the good things of our lives may be life long or fleeting, but never earned nor deserved. They are gifts and grace, pure and simple, and this realization may be what makes life easier and makes us adults. "Don't Dwell" was an admonition in our household, one administered by parents quite familiar with the tendency to pick up and gnaw at a worry in hopes of reducing it to a more manageable size. We want to fix things, and fix them NOW; I struggle with the temptation to stay up and do one more thing, to solve one more puzzle, to clean up one more mess, instead of setting that problem aside to deal with in the morrow in a more measured and grown up fashion.

Don't be Little Hercules. Don't bear the weight of the world on your shoulders. Its not your task, to do it on your own. You can't! Give somebody the warm feeling that comes from giving themselves; ask a favor and let someone lend a hand.

'Tis the season, not just for packages.

New Roads

We're here at the Lake, at Tantara, on the first weekend in December. For this family, there is nearly as much tradition connected to the Farm Bureau meeting as any other holiday season occurrence. Since 1982 or so, our family has taken this trip to the Lake to meet and greet first family, then later on, a multitude of friends and colleagues, to shop, to consult, to politic, to stay up too late, to swim, to play, to vote, to listen, then finally to pack up a carload again and make the drive home. The Lake is resplendent with lights this time of year; Tantara puts on a good show. When we first started coming down here, we stayed in the nicest and most spacious rooms we'd ever seen. The girls and I would meet up with my mother, who worked for Farm Bureau then, after she'd finished her official tasks, and browse the quaint shops, or walk the Lakeside, or buy caramels for my father. We were too cheap to eat any of the group meals, but Sunday morning my folks would buy us the fancy breakfast buffet at the Black Bear. We'd progress from there to ice cream sundaes and sausage and cheese courtesy of the Farm Bureau. Sunday evening was pizza; breakfasts were carry in, as we always did when we traveled.

The kids all grew up with Farm Bureau. From the time they could sit in a meeting, Greg Gaines would help entertain them as they sat and colored, as Lee and Ann did, or pushed tractors and airplanes, as Ben did. The girls thought they were pretty neat when they got big enough to know their way around and could go to the swimming pool, or down to the arcade room, by themselves. They were good babysitters and shuttled their brother up and down the escalator over and over. There wasn't a giant outlet mall way back when, so most of our entertainment happened right here at the resort. We could keep plenty busy if the weather was nice just walking the labyrinth of the grounds, but if it was raining (it was never cold to us northern denizens), we could play ping pong for free. It was a special treat when Laura and Mark came to spend a weekend; then we might bowl or even go ice skating.

But the center of attention was the meeting itself. Whether Blake was county president or a voting delegate or, good fortune of all, a member of the Resolutions (or Policy Development committee back in olden times!) sitting up front, the big packet of colored paper was center attention. Looking back, we hope no one remembers how, well, let's say, over enthusiastic, we could be about Farm Bureau policy. We were excited to be in the midst of folks who got down and dirty about ideas and politics, a situation we had been away from since college days. We might be bottom rung, but we were part and parcel even as we sat in the back or sides with our two little girls, and, later, little boy.

Now, some twenty some years later, Blake is moving from the back of the meeting hall up to the front. All of a sudden, it seems, I'm matching up dress socks in the drawer, instead of my normal theory on work socks (hey, if there are two socks and two feet, what more do you need?). We are trying to sync computers, calendars, cell phones, though I realize we'll still have the days in April and May when time reverts to its most primitive measurement, daylight and darkness, work and sleep. The man with the smashed black thumb is deciding which pictures he'd like to have with him in a new office. What part of home will be in Jefferson City? The black and white drawing of the little boy yawning on the Minneapolis Moline, plowing out rows of baby corn? The photo of Grandpa Hurst posed in front of the first sixteen row Kinze planter? The grandkids, of course, in a constant rotation of older versions, no doubt. But how about the picture of two other little girls, wistfully looking at their grandma's camera lens from the top of a tin roof as the setting sun softens the sky behind them? How about a yellowed newspaper clipping of Blake's first (and we obviously thought, last, since we framed it) article in the Wall Street Journal? All these carry a story, a life lesson, a reminder from the past to the future.

In that case, maybe I should get the little combo clock/picture frame from the office. Its a Farm Bureau hand me down from a year or two back, about the size of a hard cover book. The clock on one side counts time present, but the square picture opposite remembers time past. It is a square Instamatic shot dating from early summer 1977. That's the summer Blake and I were engaged but apart, him in Tarkio and me in Washington, D.C. I had the picture under glass thirty some years ago, to keep me company. There's a little three room house in a yard of overgrown grass with a dust driveway and a tall cottonwood as the sole source of beauty. Its a long ways from suburbia for prospective new marrieds and college grads. But the young man leaning against the fence post in the foreground looks pretty proprietorial, maybe even a bit smug, though maybe I'm reading that into his overly nonchalant pose. His tan is deep; his hair is too long; his hat is pulled way down against the sun, or maybe because it won't fit over all that hair.

There's still some of that kid in the guy heading south tomorrow. But its not the cocksure pose part; time and experience has tempered that! No, its the optimistic part, the part that sees a home in a shack, the potential of the good earth and ties to family and land and community. Times change, kids grow, but we are folks of deep roots and memory. We carry that wherever we go.

Snow Village and other Fantasies

When I was little, we brought our Christmas trees home to Orland Park from Callaway county Missouri in the trunk of our car. All the long cold way home, the essence of cedar oozed into the back seat and, warmed by the car heater, gave us a sneak preview of the fragrance of Christmas soon to grace a corner of our living room. While other families visited the virtual forests springing up on vacant town lots, or brought home nicely manicured long needled Scotch pines from a tree farm, we hung our ornaments with care on the ever so flexible,invisibly poky branches of our Missouri cedar. On any other day of any other year, that tree would have been mere "brush" and destined to join a fiery pyre with black locusts, persimmons, sassafras, but mostly, other cedars. But fortune and symmetry smiled and now it was adorned and adored in a flat land development on top of the black peat soil of northern Illinois.

Our trees looked delicate when trimmed, almost lacy, with the ornaments barely dangling from the thin branches and the old fashioned heavy tinsel reflecting the colors of the big egg shaped lights. We were diligent in watering the tree; in those days, the lights packed a thermal punch and a dried cedar was a torch waiting to happen. Laura and I loved every tree, every year; the little manger scene ornaments, the frosted glass balls, the heat seeking spinners, the glass birds with their fiber tails. But, most of all, we lived to put the village up under the tree.

I don't know the provenance of the village. It just was: a half dozen or so little bungalows of a very stiff and sturdy cardboard with red cellophane paned windows, snowy "tiled" roofs and hard green sponge shrubbery. Entwined with Christmas memories as they were, I always associated them with the houses in the neighborhood on Greenberry Road,where my grandparents lived: hipped roofs, stucco, and other design elements antithetical to the low eaves and cookie cutter facades of the treeless neighborhood we lived in.

In addition to the friendly homes with their warm Christmas lighted interiors, the village included a white spired church not unlike the Lutheran church we attended, if one ignored the crooked steeple that required a fresh bandage of Scotch tape annually to keep it upright.

In our village, it was always a Silent Night. The children were surely asleep in their beds,visions of sugarplums in their dreams, rosy cheeked after a day of building the smiling snowmen outside their doors. The little creche nestled close by the church and deer wandered down from the forests near the trunk of the tree. Snow, or billowy cotton full of last year's needles, piled around the bristly brushes of the villages "evergreens". Not a soul lingered in the bleak midwinter; all were apparently snug and warm indoors waiting for Santa to arrive.

With this history, it is only natural, meet and right that a Snow Village should spring to life at Spruce every Christmas. It is not a Snow Metroplex, by any means, but it is certainly a friendly place with amenities much beloved by residents of Spruce. Snow Village proper sports a chocolate shop the size of a department store, a bridal shop, a bank (to be used when paying for the weddings), a greenhouse (well, duh), a Krispy Kreme, a Starbucks (double duh...what came first, the coffee or the doughnut) and a couple of pleasant homes. There are two town Christmas trees, one with tiny colored LED bulbs and the other(thanks, Aaron!) an electric pink with sparkling tips, rather the Brobdingnagian version of the tinsel trees we children of the sixties remember. This year the Mayor is again presenting the keys to the city to Santa while the town band serenades. Unlike real life, the musicians' lips are NOT sticking to their mouthpieces; the children shopping do not have sodden feet, and the vehicles nestled in the snow drifts are not actually stuck. Everyone apparently has a Monica Martin Bailey attitude about the white stuff :)

On the other side of the dining room is the country crossroads with the grain elevator and the little white church from my childhood. A bride and groom are gazing rapturously at each other, blissfully ignorant of the weather and the proximity of their black getaway car. The church dates from Ann and Matt's wedding in 2001. More recent amenities to the country are the rustic gas station and old fashioned mill; at least the bride and groom will be able to fill up en route to their honeymoon.

Way farther out in the country, so far out that there is, literally, no electricity(on top of the pie safe), is the little creek and bridge, a barnyard of farm critters, the treehouse I can never get back into its styrofoam cocoon, some skaters, a photographer, a couple on a sleigh ride, and three children perpetually warming marshmallows on a cool orange fire. No vignette is spectacular; all embody simple and domestic pleasures. To some, Snow Village might be part and parcel of the Norman Rockwell school of life, maybe even more sticky and sugary. But, to me, its another very pleasant ritual of the Christmas season, a tradition with its start after Thanksgiving and its farewell after New Year's, and a very present reminder of the spirit we should all adopt and will, if we're lucky.

Food Armistice Day

Ok, you foodie grinches, where were you hiding when we stopped by the St. Joseph HyVee tonight? You should have come down from your narrow insulated rarefied studios and pushed a cart. It was a zoo, a mob, a cacophony, a mishmash, a potpourri, a gumbo, a goulash, a shepherd's pie, an Irish stew. A bouillabaise? Nah, probably, being St. Joe, a buffet, a smorgasbord, would better fit the bill. There were folks loading up on pop, milk, still buying their fowl, still buying their whole dinner, judging by the number of (paper or plastic?) bags. There were folks stocking the produce aisle with carrots, apples, broccoli, any variety of greens. There was a helpful young man attempting to discern what cheese exactly the man-sent-to-the-store-with-a-list was supposed to bring home. A lady with just one pumpkin pie. Another lady with but two bags of frozen hash browns. A young man with a package of deli cheese and a pound of Greek olives from the bar. A man with a three year old in one arm and a red plastic basket in the other. A case of bumper carts at the canned goods end cap. No one, but no one in the frozen foods aisle. People buying nuts, grapes, bacon, egg nog, muffins, mushrooms, pickles, baguettes.....not exactly the bare necessities, but the stuff of which holidays are made. Everyone was busy, motivated, courteous if preoccupied, but primarily intent on the business of celebration.

What an amazing place this supermarket is! A typical store in a typical city with more choice than anyone needs to live well and eat better. Can anyone possibly need that many apples? All colors, organic and not, names unfamiliar, bagged or shined. Carrots with tops, carrots in bags, carrots baby, carrots pencil thin. A deli of cheeses at one end of the store; a dairy of cheeses on the opposite wall. Generic milk; boutique milk in cunning glass flasks.

I was there to pick up the grace notes of our holiday meal. I had my heart set on a table with two pottery bowls of green and black olives (one blue cheese stuffed, please) and some soft mild herbed cheese. How about some sesame crackers for that cheese? Oh, and wait, look at the size of the Holiday Seedless Grapes! My inviting table of tasty morsels has a good start. I needed the fixings for a broccoli salad, but splurged on two expensive dressings (olive oil based with blue cheese morsels suspended, an oriental ginger vinaigrette). Wouldn't impress a true gourmand, but will give me the private satisfaction of adding a fillip of extra care to my contribution to the table.

The operative mood overall was of bustling excitement and anticipation. No tussling over the last item on the shelf, ala the hottest gadget at Christmas, because this was a supermarket in the breadbasket of the U.S. at Thanksgiving, the very definition of beauty, bounty, and variety. The baguette was sliced and toasted for a peppered dip (a dab of chili to pep it up); apples became partners with ginger snaps for a pumpkin dip; the olives and cheeses did indeed find their way to a pottery bowls and platters. All these were warm ups for a kitchen steaming with pyrex dishes of yams and beans, glazed carrots and green rice. Snicker salad and deviled eggs. Biscuits, yeasty rolls, apple loaf. The crowning glories of cranberry stuffed pork loin, goose, and the impossibly named turduken, carved by their respective creators. Food for family, for company, for fun. Replicated in kitchens across our nation.

And just for this day, food for love. No food police, no food wars, no politics.

And, Lord knows, no calorie counters!!

Vote For this Man

I thought I needed to wait a decent interval after the mid term elections to pen this post; after all, the echoes of the word 'vote' have barely faded from the news channels and the last campaign signs are blowing into the fence rows to disintegrate with the winter winds and snows. On the other hand, the potential candidates may not have begun jockeying for position with appearances on above mentioned news shows, but several have thrown down the gauntlet in the form of assorted books and appearances. Thus it begins again....

Nope, I won't get a chance to speak out front of a crowd for this candidate; no one will ever consider me an impartial voice. On the other hand, I stand front and center as the authority on the candidate's actions, viewpoints and abilities. I've been there and done that. After all, we've worked as partners in love and war, work and play, politics and religion, richer, poorer, sickness, health....well, you get my drift.

So, I'm making my campaign pitch for my husband in his bid to be the next president of an organization we've devoted a lot of energy to during our adult lives, Missouri Farm Bureau. I've pictured myself making a nominating speech for Blake, figuring I can best describe the efforts I know he makes to be an advocate for the industry he believes in and loves. It is more than self serving, this belief in farming as a vocation; he sees the health of the food production system as a humanitarian effort, a moral imperative for consumers present and future. The work we do now cannot fail to have an increasing ripple effect on the people who will eat in the future. We have a family farm and we sincerely and earnestly hope our children and some of our children's children will grow crops on the land we work now, but that is a personal hope, the kind any parent or small business owner might have for their life's work. No, being leader of our farm organization has a bigger obligation and opportunity: making it possible to sustain the system that has, almost miraculously, provided the growth in agricultural production unpredicted and unprecedented in human history. Whew! What a load! But one need not be a particularly acute observer to recognize that the means to our end of abundant food are under siege by folks with the idea that "technology", "scale", "genetic modification" are terms that lead directly to cruelty to animals, degradation of the environment and the destruction of human health. This is a battle Blake is eager, willing, and well prepared to join. I know, because it has possessed many of the working hours behind the wheel of a combine, or pickup, or at the desk of the computer evening after evening.

Life on the farm has never been simple,or easy. As farmers, we accept as part of the job the risks of weather and income. But we have never once doubted that way we perform our job and its outcome is not only good, but inherently Moral. I may have my doubts at times about the long term necessity to the world of another flat of Super Elfin Paradise Impatiens, or even cherry tomatoes, but I KNOW the world needs our glorious glacial soil, our temperamental but temperate climate, our Grant Wood repetition of corn and beans, beans and corn. We never needed to convince our consumer friends in the past; they were appreciative, or at worst, blissfully ignorant of the nuts and bolts and nitty gritty of the food in their local grocery. But times change, I guess, and abundance is no longer sufficient. At each and every level, our methods are under intense scrutiny and sometimes found not up to snuff. We find ourselves fighting an evasive battle, knocking down one straw man after another.

So, vote for this guy. Vote for Blake. Give him a chance to take the bully pulpit of our farm organization and defend our vocation, our living, our countryside, our philosophy. This is a man who has been faithful in the little things, who takes care of family, farm, philosophy, future. Before we were married, I could see him jostling grandkids on his knee, and, bless all, that vision has come to life. Yep, he can't make it through Burn Notice without falling asleep on the couch; yes, he might tell bad jokes, or be flippant when you might not find it called for. But, take it from a person who knows well and honestly: if you want a friend and earnest eloquent voice for those who feed the world, this is your guy....and this is my chance to say so.

Now We Can Give Thanks

The cycle of seasons progresses apace with pickups, hunter orange, deer unlucky enough to be flushed and squished along roads from the interstate to gravel. I saw the first flush of ducks high above today. I told Blake I wished I could paint during this season, but all I can do is describe the light, the textures, the grass, the barn boards, as reminiscent of Andrew Wyeth. The fading sun leaves deep shadows and well defined planes on every farm stead. This year, a few trees still sport glowing crimson leaves and the crab apples are resplendent with jeweled fruit, even as some folks jump the gun on Thanksgiving and hang their Christmas lights in celebration of the milder weather.

I suffer no such temptation. The Thanksgiving feast and festivities are coming to our house so pumpkins still line the steps and the mantle above the fireplace is warm with autumn colors. E-vites have been sent and menu possibilities fill the ether. The kitchen and dining room will groan with tempting dishes as each family contributes a special favorite and most bring along something new and experimental as well. Without closing my eyes, I can smell the aromas and feel the warmth of a dozen steaming oven-to-table dishes. For once, the entry hall, the stairs, the dining room, the kitchen will ALL be warm without the aid of the gas log. The sound level will be dangerous. We are too numerous to add the clink of china to the conversation in my imagination, but wine and water glasses, sippies and coffee mugs will overflow the sink even as turkey tableware fills the trash.

Glen gave a thoughtful sermon on prayer last week, reminding us of the example set by our Lord regarding prayer. He showed us a particularly useful mnemonic device utilizing the word ACTS. ACTS stands in for Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. The obvious lesson of the sermon is how frequently we turn our prayers on their heads, beginning and maybe even ending with what we want or need: Supplication. I was reminded of the show we just finished, in which Cinderella begins and ends the musical with the fairy tale words, 'I wish'. The entire story revolves around the consequences of those self centered words, both happy and tragic. The wishes of the characters range from trivial (I wish to go to the festival) to the heart felt (I wish we had a child!). But in each case, the wishes set into motion events that prove that the "ends" don't necessarily "justify the means".

This is why Jesus gives us direction. Start at the beginning, recognizing the greatness of our Father, the Creator and Sustainer of all. As we praise Him, we are acutely aware of our shortcomings. And if we aren't, then the prompt 'Confession' shows us our error! Don't come before the altar without asking forgiveness; get right with your Father, children.

Only then is it time for Thanksgiving. Think about that! But after reflection, we will be even more thankful, not just for temporal blessings, but for the existence of such a powerful God and His overwhelming grace in forgiving our wrongs against Him and each other. Every Sunday, we sit in a circle and let the little kids pray. Every week, we attempt to speed the process by telling them to tell us just ONE thing they are thankful for. But they can't do it! Instead, prayer time stretches way past the ability of the three year olds of the group to sit still as each little child tells God thanks for every person they know. The little children lead us by example, I laugh to myself, even as I attempt to keep the kids around me on their carpet squares.

I am the first to admit I always get to Supplication in my prayer. So many to pray for! So many people, loved ones, tests, travel, illnesses, for which to ask aid! So many answered prayers as well. Its pretty hard for me to keep things in proper order as I drive down the road, or, for that matter, lay my head on my pillow! One more thing to confess, I guess.

We may sing the Grace song on Thanksgiving...or perhaps Charlie will offer his usual thoughtful and inclusive thanks before our meal. At any rate, with lots of kids in the house, I doubt we stand for a lengthy prayer. But as I cook, set the table, confer over appetizers, wait for buzzers to go off, and welcome our loving family to the meal, I will, this year, try to spend some time in Adoration and Confession, even on this Thanksgiving day.