Seeing Ourselves Through New Eyes

Yesterday’s cookout proved a great success.

For one thing, for the first time in ages I did not present a devotional talk and demonstration. Amazingly, no one appeared to miss my lecture at all.

The family met Eve’s friend Mark for the first time. I hope he did not find us too crazy. He appears to be an accomplished young man with many varied talents. He speaks enthusiastically about his work helping folks who were exposed to radiation. And he designed a website for his parents’ Arabian horse farm (You’ve probably seen their equestrian units on tv Thanksgiving Day Parades). The site Mark designed can be found at http://www.harmonyacresparadehorses.com/ .

Mark hails from Michigan; he is a newcomer to Jacksonville. Ginny and I were amused and amazed as he told us what he considers the best features of the city, features we would have never even thought of in describing our home town. He certainly enlightened us with his insights as to how new comers see our provincial little world.

Another newcomer also attended the cookout with Jennifer and Pat. The young man ran away from his family at church Sunday morning and turned up at their house seeking temporary asylum from the pressures of just turning 16. God! What a painful age.

His birthday was yesterday so our friends and family put together an impromptu birthday party for him. Shocked and amazed the young man. I knew he collected coins so I pulled out an old $2 bill as a gift. I don’t think he’d ever seen one before. Eve baked a cake for the party. Ginny gave him an odd electric fan with flashing colored lights on the blades. We gave him an autographed copy of one of my books (Didn’t thrill him as much as the fan). Everyone signed a card for him. And our friend Randy, who is an expert at origami, folded him a paper dragon with flapping wings.

After the short appearance at our party, Jennifer and Pat drove him back to his parents.

On a personal level, Randy (we’ve been friends since the early 1970s) remarked that he thought of me as a Christian mystic. This shocked me. I can’t imagine how he came up with such an idea. At best I see myself as a mystified Christian. Ginny and I got a good laugh out of his remark.

When Donald and Helen, God bless them, came inside the house for more potato chips, I asked one simple question about the computer and those intrepid souls spent the whole party laboring over some mistake I’d made. I bitch and complain about their “fooling” with my computer all the time, but I’d never be able to anything without their help. I need to show more appreciation and not ask them stuff so often. I don’t want them to dread coming over because I do enjoy their company for non-geek things also.

Now, Ginny & I have the rest of the long holiday weekend to ourselves.