Rainey Days

There was once a young pastor who was struggling to make ends meet. He and his wife sat down one night to take another look at their finances, hoping to pinch a little more out of their meager budget. They had already eliminated all the extras; now was the time to look at the grocery list. They clipped coupons and planned cheaper meals. The wife agreed to let her husband take over the shopping, because he had a better skill at comparison shopping. So, he went out to save them money. He did a good job. He bought items on double-coupon days, during "buy one, get one" sales, and bought their staples in bulk at a warehouse store. They set up a few shelves in their basement to stack the bulk items and the extras they were amassing at cheaper prices. A few months went by. One day the wife said, "We're out of salt; run down to the basement and bring up a new bag." But when the husband brought up a fresh bag, it was as hard as a rock. A quick look at the othe...

In case you can't read the headline on the poor guy's newspaper: "Sales Way Down This Year."

It's Just Not Christmas Until . . . My mother has made 8 kinds of cookies (if not even more!) We've brought up a few of my younger sister's finest moments from Christmases past (ex: the year "the cat" broke the head off the ceramic wise man of the nativity set--and then "the cat" conveniently balanced the broken head back on the statue so Mom wouldn't find out). We've all admired my cousin Keith's artwork on his hand-designed Christmas card I've been given a baggie of hard candy and an orange at my home church My family has our annual Christmas party and even the leftovers have been eaten the next day. I've laughed my way through the Beam family Christmas letter. While other families brag about their family's triumphs and accomplishments, the Beams focus on the year's tear-your-hair-out, scream-in-frustration hassles and headaches. We have family communion at church on Christmas Eve and then go home to eat cream of crab sou...

Pastor's Challenge Shocks Congregation By HELEN O'NEILL, AP Posted: 2007-12-22 07:00:06 CHAGRIN FALLS, Ohio (Dec. 20) - The Rev. Hamilton Coe Throckmorton shivered with anticipation as he gazed at the loot - wads of $50 bills piled high beside boxes of crayons in a Sunday school classroom. Cautiously, he locked the door. Then he started counting. It was a balmy Friday evening in September. From several floors below faint melodies drifted up - the choir practicing for Sunday service. Throckmorton was oblivious. For hours, perched awkwardly on child-sized wooden stools surrounded by biblical murals and children's drawings, the pastor and a handful of coconspirators concentrated on the count. Forty-thousand dollars. Throckmorton smiled in satisfaction as he stashed the money in a safe. That Sunday, the 52-year-old minister donned his creamy white robes, swept to the pulpit and delivered one of the most extraordinary sermons of his life. First he read from the Gospel of M...

Today, after 41 years, my family business closed its doors. My grandmother started a day care center in 1966, long before day care centers were on every corner. She left the plastics plant where she'd been working and began to take children into her home, using the living room and dining room as the play area. Over the years, it expanded: an entire wing of the building was added to make extra rooms for more children, until the day care could accommodate 60 kids. My mother, working there from age 14 to the present, went from cooking and cleaning to teaching to directing and finally owning the business. My sister and I both worked there for years; as soon as we were able to dust and scrub toilets, we got pocket money for helping. Both of us eventually completed our Maryland early-childhood certification and at different times were on full-time staff. However, day care has become increasingly more popular over the years, and the business has become far more competitive. Maryl...

Last night I did a service in Capital Heights, Maryland for Pastor Sullivan McGraw. The service went well, and I appreciated the chance to meet the folks there who have already been supporting me for a few years. After the service, the pastor commented that he and his wife still had some Christmas shopping to do, so he was trying to get out of the church a little earlier than many Wednesday nights. We had a little chitchat about shopping--the crowded stores, the benefits of online shopping, and more. It reminded me of a conversation I had years ago with the Palestinian mother of one of my students. She and her husband were pharmacists who raised their two daughters in the US until they were about 12; the whole family then returned to their homeland. I asked her if there was anything she missed about life in the States, and she answered, "Christmas." I thought that was a little funny for a Muslim to miss Christmas, so I asked her about it. She said, "I loved the w...

I've been meaning to do a newsletter for quite some time--months, in fact. It's just that when I'm traveling on furlough, there isn't much exciting to report, so I tend to put it off. Two weeks ago, I decided that I had to do a newsletter before the holidays, serving as a Christmas letter and an update on my itineration. Doing these newsletters is a huge production, involving many steps: writing, editing, and printing (or getting color copies) the letter itself. Then comes the envelopes: return address labels, mailing address labels, and stamps. I use a "mail merge" process to the address labels, so I have to update the information before I print them. Pastors change churches, and churches change addresses; Ariel changes her data files. I printed 345 copies of my newsletter, changing ink cartridges two or three times. When it snowed two weeks ago, I was out (like a crazy person) driving in the snow to the store just to get more ink. By that point, I ...

I'm still trying to figure out how to link to youtube here on my blog, but in the meantime, I don't want you to miss out on quite possibly the best Christmas medley EVER! (make sure your sound it turned on!) Just click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Fe11OlMiz8

I spend hours driving alone in my car on my furloughs, so last time around, I got hooked on books on CD. Cracker Barrel has a great rental program with the latest bestsellers, and the public library has longer, unabridged classics (sometimes slightly damaged, but free). I also check at outlet malls for discounted audio books that I might listen to more than once. In 2004, I found the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy on CD in a discount bin, and the value was even further increased by the fact that the audio trilogy is 57 hours long! That's a lot of drive-time entertainment. But before I could open them, I left for my term and they didn't make the final cut when I was packing my limited luggage. Last month, I dug them out of storage, and I've just finished the 19 hour Fellowship of the Ring (book 1 in the series). Last week, I was listening to a dramatic portion in which the ring wraiths are attacking Frodo, his hobbit friends, and "Strider" as they make ca...

Today my nieces Sydney and Ellie are here at the house; my mother and I are babysitting. Sydney got to help us with cookie baking for the holidays. Her job was to roll the snickerdoodle dough in the cinnamon sugar, but I caught her sneaking some cookie dough into her mouth rather than the sugar bowl.

1. Avoid carrot sticks. Anyone who puts carrots on a holiday buffet table knows nothing of the Christmas spirit. In fact, if you see carrots, leave immediately. Go next door, where they're serving sweet and sour meatballs. 2. Drink as much eggnog as you can. And quickly. You can't find it any other time of the year. So drink up! Who cares that it only has 10,000 calories in every sip. It's not as you you're going to turn into an eggnog-aholic or something. It's a treat. Enjoy it. Have one for me. Have two. It's Christmas. 3. If something comes with gravy, use it. That's the whole point of gravy. Gravy does not stand alone. Pour it on. Make a volcano out of your mashed potatoes. Fill it with gravy. Eat the whole volcano. Repeat. 4. As for mashed potatoes, always ask if they are made with whole or skim milk. If it's skim milk, pass. Why bother? It's like buying a sports car with an automatic transmission. 5. Do not have a snack b...

Yet another sign that winter is here: I'm sick. I've had a cold for a few weeks now, that just seems to hang on and on. My nieces have all been sick, and between the three of them, it seems like germs just get passed back and forth. All three of them are too young to get "cover your mouth" so I suppose its understandable that the rest of us can't get rid of our colds. Dad continues to receive good reports from his doctors about the hip infection. We think he'll soon get the "all-clear" confirmation. Thanks for your prayers for him!

My bedroom (here at my parents house) has a skylight right above the bed. It makes a perfect observation point for the weather when I wake up each morning. Today there was a dusting of snow across it, so I couldn't wait to hop up out of bed to see how much snow was laying on the ground. It's not much, but it's enough to know that winter has firmly planted her feet and she isn't going anywhere soon. I enjoy watching the snow flakes fall; I never get enough of it when I'm overseas. I always feel a little thrill ("snow day!") that takes me back to childhood, when I didn't have to go to school. It felt like a free gift of time, something I appreciate more and more as I get older. Of course, today I still have work to do, newsletters to get out, financial reports to finish. But at least I can do those things while watching out the window at the snow falling.

As I mentioned, I've had a friend visiting for a few days; I'm sorry that I was unable to post. I've been busy traipsing hither and yon in the local tourist spots. Wednesday we went to Washington, DC and saw the monuments and other sights around the Mall. We went into the National Archives to see the exhibit "From the Schoolhouse to the White House: the schooldays of the Presidents." I had read a blurb on this exhibit and thought it would be interesting. It was a truly fascinating collection of memoribilia including photos, report cards, compositions and essays, sports awards, teacher's memories, and even film footage of the 20th centuary Presidents. I enjoyed the glimpse of average boyhood of young men later to become powerful and famous leaders. I had never been to the Archives, so this was a new addition to my usual list of "touring" sites for friends and visitors. After walking blocks and blocks, feeling every step in my calves, we metro'ed b...