T-Day!

I don't know why I would think that just because it's Thanksgiving I would have a good night's sleep. The really strange thing has been the weather around here! It was 70 degrees here last night and we sat on Mom and Dad's back porch and enjoyed the breeze and each other's company. We opened up the windows before we headed off to bed and at 2:13 this morning I was wide awake! I laid there hoping to fall back to sleep, checked the watch at 3:17 and got up to go to the bathroom. It was then that I realized I had left my contact in my eye and I couldn't focus to safe my life. After 10 minutes and 20 tries, I got the thing out and headed into the living room to see why the lights were on. My niece and nephew had fallen asleep all over the place and I decided it was a good time to read some of the book that I have to have done by the end of the month, which is fast approaching in five days! So I got through two chapters and one of them was titled "We-Questions". When we start asking 'we-questions' we stop focusing on ourselves. We start to focus on others which brings us into community and out of self absorption. Check out what Augustine has to say:
Each of us has something to learn from the others and something to teach in return. If any are away, we miss them with regret and gladly welcome them when they come home. Such things as these are heartfelt tokens of affection between friends. They are signs to be read on the face and in the eyes, spoken by the tongue and displayed in countless acts of kindness. They can kindle a blaze to melt our hearts and weld them into one. This is what we cherish in friendship, and we cherish so dearly that in conscience we feel guilty if we do not return love for love, asking no more of friends than these expressions of goodwill. This is why we mourn their death, which shrouds us in sorrow and turns joy into bitterness, so that the heart is drenched in tears and life becomes a living death because a friend is lost. Blessed are those who love you, O God, and love their friends in you and their enemies for your sake. They alone will never lose those who are dear to them, for they love them in the One who is never lost, in God, our God who made heaven and earth and fills them with his presence, because by filling them, he made them. No one can lose you, my God."
Isn't that cool? This makes me think of my Grannie and Grandaddy and they are not really gone because they are in God. How bout you? Who does this bring to mind for you?

Have a joy-filled Thanksgiving! May your team win only if they aren't playing mine and may you sleep the sleep that is brought on by a well cooked turkey!