In Gennesaret

A lot of things changed in our lives during the pandemic, yes? Here’s one: we started using curbside pickup for groceries. I mean, we started doing it and kept doing it. At least I did. (Is it just me?) Very rarely am I inside a grocery store anymore. But I needed something the other day and stopped at HEB on my way home from the gym. And oh, friends . . . I am seriously out of practice here. I forgot how crowded your average HEB is at noon on a Saturday. Good grief. I forgot how BIG your average HEB is. And how it is organized. I couldn’t find salsa. What the heck? This is SAN ANTONIO, people. There is no excuse for salsa not being easily accessible. But most of all, I forgot how looking at food makes me want to buy it . . . and that HEB knows this full well. This is why the basic necessity items (like milk) are in the very back of the store so that you have to walk through aisles and aisles of tempting, delicious-looking stuff to get to it. Oooh . . . blueberry muffins! I l...

I wrote recently about a production of Godspell that I directed earlier this summer – a wonderful experience. But while watching rehearsals, I noted again a line in the Beatitudes section that was one of my assigned lines in the production I performed in years ago. Blessed are those who hunger . . . “and thirst for righteousness.” “That’s justice, not righteousness,” my director Randy corrected me in notes one day. “Really? Are you sure?” “Yep. Check the script.” And he was right. And I got my gander up a bit. Because I had memorized the Beatitudes long ago, and that verse says “righteousness”. Whatever, Mr. Tebelak. Just change the words of scripture to say what you want it to say. Except he didn’t really do that. The Greek word is dikaiosyne , and it can apparently be translated as either righteousness or justice. That’s how closely related the two concepts are. Which brings me back to my viper post  (which you can click there to read). You see, there has been a b...

I used to be rich. I mean, relatively speaking. For most of my married life, we lived in nice houses – some of them big, very nice houses. We honestly never really wanted for anything. That was mostly due to my ex-husband’s good income (which he worked hard for, to his credit) and to the fact that we both were raised not to waste money. I had a few friends during my years of plenty who had real attitudes toward the “greedy, rich people” out there. They were always careful to say that they didn’t include me in that crowd, but once in a while, a comment would slip that would hurt. Yes, I’m financially secure, I thought, but I’m not one of THOSE rich people. And, well . . . I’m certainly not rich now. I’ve had some lovely social events in the last couple months with some good friends, and a lot of them have been talking about the traveling they’ve done this summer or plan to do. And people, please understand: I don’t begrudge them those trips at all! I’m glad they get to have tho...