“Ring Around the Collar”

I have been very remiss – actually, that’s putting it mildly. I have neglected my promise to write a monthly newsletter – for a long time. My life, which I thought was going to give me lots of time to reflect and write glowing stuff for this newsletter and site, has gotten in the way. For some good reasons, I just let other things get in the way of this website. I had good intentions.

That’s Not All

But, that’s not the main reason for my hiatus. I have been fighting some physical issues – mostly due to the 30-something years I have had to lock my left leg after losing my ACL playing basketball and falling. Now I have serious scoliosis which is causing impingement on some nerves, one of which keeps me off my left “butt” as much as possible. Typing is ok but not for very long. I’ve also had a shoulder replaced, which DID keep me from typing for some time. I’ve got the nerve impingement fixed in March but I have also developed another nerve impingement in my back which causes me terrible pain off and on. I never know when it’s going to hit me. Now, I’m awaiting an injection in my back in February so hopefully, I’ll be back to getting around soon. 

Much Exploration Going On

The CoVid pandemic was awful as it kept us cooped up inside for so long. After several months, several of my friends and I started riding all around the area, just to get out of the “house.” It’s been wonderful as we found places we didn’t have any idea existed in this area. It has given us the chance to bond as friends as we have explored many square miles together. We have also had serious conversations about the coronavirus, the racial violence, and the political ridiculousness. Of course, we have also explored the sense of being abandoned which many people have been feeling lately.

I’ve also had some pretty deep conversations with them and others; one of my phone friends asked me the other day if I thought that God had left us to our own devices. My first reaction was, “No way!” Nothing could make me believe that God had taken a powder and gone off to the North Pole.

So, that brings me to the monthly newsletter – one day, the “Explorers” and I got to talking about that question, “Has God gone off and left us?” At first, everybody agreed that there was no way God would ever forsake us; after all, He had promised us, through Jesus, that “He would be with us, even to the end of the age.”

So Where is God Anyway?

We all wanted to know, where is God in the middle of this pandemic? Just what is God doing to fix it? Just when is God going to put this virus in the ground where it belongs and show the world who’s boss? How can God let this go on and on while people are sick and dying? How can God stay quiet as more and more people are thinking that God doesn’t even care what’s happening?

Well, of course, my friends all looked to me for answers since I’m the one who “wears the collar.” And I looked back at them and said the same thing I’ve often said to my brother-in-law, Joe – “Beats me – that’s God’s stuff!” Now, before you scoff, thinking that’s a cop-out, let me explain what I call “God’s stuff.” It’s kind of like all the toys on the top shelf of the closet in the heavenly mansion.

They are the type of toys that we don’t know what to do with or how to make them work. They are also the ones that if we did figure out how to play with them, we’d probably start to burn up everything around us, even ourselves. That’s because they do things we can’t even imagine, much less can we understand.

Who Me? God?

That’s the way I think of viruses and other forms of suffering and death. If I knew where they come from or why we get them, I’d be something close akin to God. That holy state of mind would be more than my very human brain could handle. If I knew why God lets things like pandemics go on and on and on, well, again I would know way more than my seriously limited intelligence could tolerate.

God’s Stuff

These are the things I call “God’s stuff.” These are the things that only God knows all about. We do have some ideas about what causes some sickness and even some things that we can do to control and even cure a few of them. We do have some ideas about how to fight things like racism and we have some idea about how to deal with the horrors of war. The reality is, however, we can do none of those things on our own.

It is God’s gift that allows us to discover treatments and cures for cancer, heart failure, and other dread diseases. It is God’s power that helps us overcome the hatred and despair that fuels racism and war. And it is God’s strength that gives us what we need to fight those evils. It is God’s wisdom that gives us what we need to cure and fix bodily ills.

These are our things – those we can, with God’s help, use to take care of and do something about the things we don’t understand in this world. All else is God’s stuff and we can only pray and ask God to take care of it while we pray and ask God to help us take care of ours. We can do that every day and don’t forget to thank God for taking care of you and yours and ask God to keep at it!

 

 

To receive “Ring-Around-the-Collar” – Lady Father’s monthly newsletter – just come back in February.