Honey Dues

     Although it is not clearly spelled out in our marriage contract, there are only a certain amount of "honey do" hours allotted to a wife per year.  Fortunately, any project that the husband considers essential, in my husband's case lawn mowing, watering, and snow removal, do not count against the honey-do allotment. It is the chores the wife considers necessary and the husband considers nuisance that count. For that reason, I try to spend my allotment as frugally as I spend money.  Raking is one of the necessary/nuisance no-mans-land areas in our marriage. Reed, my manic mower, would be happy to let leaves litter the lawn indefinitely. After all, soon snow will fall and no one will see the slimy, sodden blanket beneath the snowy surface. This year, he was even doing internet research to justify not raking. I am willing to help rake as long as he understands I am helping him with his job. Chores are kind of like nicknames, accepting it one time may mean being stuck with it for life. The last thing I want at this low energy era of my life is extra responsibility.
     This year I encouraged my husband to buy an attachment for the riding mower that would do the raking for him. Associating raking with using power tools might make it more manly or, at least, less time consuming. Less honey-do time consuming. I use a simple method to make dreaded chores, like housecleaning, go faster. I lower my standards. What is the least I can get by with doing and still make the house look good? I also have a low standard for raking. All I want is a two hour power sweep of the main drag. My all-or-nothing hubbie, who would be perfectly content leaving every leaf on the lawn, now requires every cranny of our half acre yard to be leafless. Admittedly, being meticulous is a good trait in an aircraft mechanic, but not when he's using my honey-do hours.
    Because his raking job took twice as long as I was hoping, I will be forced to remove a two hour project from my honey-do list. . .but wait, I can offset those hours because I let him by a new tool. Marriage may be a two way street, but it is a toll road. One way or another you have to pay the honey dues.

Repeal Reveal

     This year Montana voters have an opportunity to repeal election day voter registration which has been legal here for the past eight years. As an election judge, I feel same day registration further complicates the already complicated responsibilities of the election department's busiest day, slows processing and increases the likelihood of error. But my love for simplicity, efficiency and laziness aside, I think it is a bad idea because, for the most part, people who have somehow failed to notice hundreds of signs and radio and tv campaign ads are probably not people you want to vote anyway. Those against repeal say that taking away same day registration would deny people the right to vote, with particular emphasis on the elderly. Based on my experience working at polling places, the elderly are often the most committed voters. I have seen older couples hobble into the polling place when they could barely walk, vote seated because they could barely stand, and vote using the automark because they could barely see. They are not the people who forget about registering until election day. They are the people who respect the right to vote as the blood-bought privilege it is.
     It is true that there is only one day in which to vote at your polling place but, like Christmas, there is more to the season than one day. Absentee ballots were mailed out October 6th, allowing nearly a month to vote. I vote only absentee since redistricting moved my polling place seven miles away. Previously, if I knew I would be out of town on election day, I voted absentee at the election office. Since the Americans with Disabilities Act, we can vote in almost any form imaginable:

     Vote from home--absentee.
     Vote from your car. Two judges will come outside the polling place with a ballot.
     Vote seated. There are chairs, tables and privacy screens for those who need them.
     Vote by letting a friend help you mark your ballot.
     Vote by automark which is equipped with large print, braille, verbal prompting, even sip-n-puff voting for quadriplegics.

      The idea that repealing election day voter registration denies people the right to vote is like saying people who can't go to Black Friday sales are denied the right to Christmas shop. The election department was already well equipped to accommodate all those who wanted to vote before the same day registration mandate. Who it does accommodate are those rounding up busloads of students, minorities and welfare recipients that THEY want to vote--their way. If that assumption is offensive, it is not nearly as offensive as of those arranging the buses, who assume their passengers are too stupid or too lazy to vote without their help.

     

Fall Equi"not"

    Montana and the calendar are not always in sync with when the seasons are supposed to begin and end. Winter starts sooner and lasts longer than it's allotted three months, spring lops over into summer, making summer that much shorter. But fall, fall comes right on time, again not by the official calendar, but when I think it should, just after Labor Day. Fall comes when the scent of corn dogs has faded from the fairgrounds, when the sound of school bells or sirens remind me I actually have to slow down in school zones again, when the sun streaming in the window is a welcome friend, instead of the enemy I worked so hard to banish with shades during the summer.  Autumn in Montana is like biting into a sun sandwich, a thick warm slice of afternoon between refreshing layers of cold. The leaves change and so do I, from long sleeves in the morning to short sleeves in the afternoon and back to long sleeves again for the evening.
    Autumn is a perfect balance of beginnings and endings. The beginning of the school year, the end of summer vacation. The beginning of harvest, the end of growing season. Rest for the farmers and their fields, the trees and the grass, the parents whose children were home all summer.  Fall embodies the crunch of apples and leaves, the smell of smoke, the multi-colored splendor of the turning leaves juxtaposed with the muscle soreness of gathering up the deserters. According to calendar, today is the equinox, but I think autumn should begin wherever it falls.            












  

Sovereignty "Seuss"ily

      Sovereignty, despite its fancy spelling, is not a complicated doctrine. It simply means that what God says will happen, happens. Children get it. It is we adults who don't understand. We see the evil in the world around us and doubt God's plan. That is why we worry. Worry is one of those pardonable sins in Christian circles, especially now that we have 24 hour access to programming designed to make us worry, but it is actually a serious offense. Worry is slander against God. It is a statement that God is either not strong enough, or not good enough, to take care of us. So I state sovereignty simply, in Seussical style.

God is sovereign. God is good.

His plans all happen as they should.

He works His will when men obey.

He tells them what to do and say.

He works His will through wicked men

who laugh at God and hate His plan.

They cannot change what God will do.

I don't think they should try. Do you?

Why do we worry, fuss and fret

when our desires have not been met?

Christians should not fear and mope
and live as if we had no hope.

God's plans work out the way they should
for God is sovereign, God is good.

10 Reasons Why I Don't Worry

1.  God is sovereign. He is in control, regardless of how a a situation seems.
2.  God is all powerful. Which is why He can be in control.
3.  God is good. Which makes #2 not so terrifying.
4.  God commands us not to. I recommend obeying. See #2 again.
5.  It does not help. I have never heard of a situation improved by worrying.
6.  It maligns God. That is bad. Again #2.
7.  It negates our witness for Christ. If God left us on earth to be a witness and we are doing a poor job, He may put us in His relocation program.
8. I have people for that. Since I have friends who worry on a semi-professional basis. I tell them the problem, they worry for me.
9. It robs me of joy today and the eternal reward of having trusted God. Why should I steal from myself?
10. God is sovereign. What more can I say?

Willard's Daughter

     In Montana my Dad goes by the name Bill. His actual name is Willard, but that is not as common in Montana as it is in Missouri, and he doesn't want to to be nicknamed Willie, thus the name Bill. So in Montana I am Bill's daughter and in Missouri I am Willard's daughter. It is an honor to be identified this way because Willard is well thought of in his home state. I know this because I am in Missouri with him now, as I was five years ago, and as we were about every three years throughout my childhood, despite the expense involved in getting our family of six from Montana to Missouri. Dad's determination made our paycheck to paycheck purse strings stretch far enough to get there.
     The road must be longer from Missouri to Missoula than the other way around because few of his relatives made it to our house in Montana, but Dad made sure we knew our grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins nonetheless. I am staying at a cousin's house now, so that investment has matured. Dad, a spry 87 years old, believes this may be his last trip to Missouri. I don't yet know if I will have the heart or desire to come here without him but, whether I am in Montana or Missouri, whether he is on earth or in heaven, I will always be proud to be known as Willard's daughter.

The Locket

     There are times when you see the sovereignty of God at work more clearly than others. The story of my daughter-in-law's locket is one of those glimpses of grace. Too beautiful to be written in prose, I have told the story in a poem which, despite the title, is not about a locket. It is, as all things are, about God.

 The Locket

It circled her neck on her wedding day

just as it had twenty two years ago

as she lay in her basket, crying low,

loved, but abandoned,

left with a locket and a note.

The note the Chinese mother wrote

said this child whose life had just begun
 was second child in a land of one,

one more than she could care for.
  Her daughter was abandoned to chance.

Not by chance, the baby was found

by an older couple--childless, poor
in a one room shack lacking even door,
but with love enough to give her up

to begin a new life in America.  

In America, she was home at last.

 And she loved her family, outdoor fun,
her Lord, her life and, in time, my son.
 One final time, their daughter was given

into the keeping of another.

The circle completed when she took his name,

Lamb--just like the lamb engraved

on the back of the locket she had saved,

left long ago by the hand of her mother--

by destiny, not by chance.

        For Emily       8/12/14