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...

So, I haven’t posted a blog for quite a while. That’s because I was directing a production of Godspell . And oh, y’all. It was so wonderful. The show itself is wonderful. I was in a production almost 20 years ago, and the songs and script have had residence in my heart ever since. To be able to direct my own production was a dream. Our audiences were wonderful. Small, but wonderful. So appreciative! So enthusiastic! But yes, smaller than we’d hoped for. It saddened me how many of my friends, who are always asking me to let them know about the next show I'm doing, couldn’t make it to the one I might be most proud of. But still, the people who were able to be there were responsive and complimentary. The crew was wonderful. My daughter came back from Atlanta to be stage manager (she’s great at that), and she said she was almost bored because everyone was just doing their jobs like they were supposed to. She wasn’t having to remind or nag people. What a concept! The cast was ...

They seem eager to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right. Ouch. Thus sayeth the Lord through Isaiah in chapter 58. He’s raking Israel over the coals for their false religion. They put on their righteous faces and do all the “right things”. In particular, here, fasting is the hot topic. “Why have we fasted and you have not seen it?” the people are asking. Why aren’t you paying attention to us when we’re such good, religious people? But the Lord lays to rest their righteous notions. They aren’t good people. “Is this the kind of fast I have chosen?” he asks. Just a day for you to look and act all humble and show off your righteousness? But in the same breath, you take advantage of people and quarrel and fight? You’re missing the point here, folks. THIS is what I have in mind for your “fasting”, he tells them: To loose the chains of injustice                And untie the cords of the yoke,...

Fourteen years ago, a couple of dudes who were frustrated at the cost of razors got this wild idea to start a business shipping monthly supplies of shaving products to men in their homes. They ended up selling the business five years later for a billion dollars. That's billion. With a "B". We love those stories, don’t we? The big risk that paid off. Netflix moving from DVD rentals to streaming services and shifting the paradigm entirely. The two Steves starting Apple in their garage – and then Apple changing the world with a phone that could browse the internet. But for every success story, you know there have to be dozens of failures – big risks that did NOT pay off. And probably a lot of them were great ideas! But for whatever reason, they just didn’t take off like the iphone and streaming and razors in your mailbox every month. I was reminded of this recently thinking of the adventures my youngest has had living in Atlanta. She has gotten involved with a few ventur...

Jonah was a pretty sorry excuse for a prophet, y’all. That man failed in so many ways. I mean, let’s take a look at that story in the Old Testament book that bears his name. From what we read there in the first few verses, I think it’s a safe assumption that Jonah was someone with a significant relationship with God – significant enough that God used him to speak to others because it is stated rather matter-of-factly that God told Jonah to go deliver a message to the Ninevites, as if this was not an unusual exchange between them. Apparently, the man was familiar enough with God’s voice to recognize it when he heard it. But he didn’t go. And it’s not like he just sat at home and ignored that familiar voice; he ran away . He purposefully moved in the opposition direction because, as he tells the Lord later, he didn’t want to give his enemies a chance to receive mercy from God. Thus the infamous fish story that you can read in chapters 1 and 2. Do you notice, by the way, that when J...