A
Valentine’s post? Why not.
The
theme of the week always comes from a complex ritual of eastern Buddhist
meditation, reading of tea leaves, Gregorian chants, and the direction of the wind. Just kidding.
Whoever texts first with an idea wins. If it’s Monday without an idea we start
to get a little antsy and resort to creativity-on-demand.
I
have no idea why, but Wynonna’s “Only Love” was running through my head for
days, and I downloaded it last weekend. Nineties country. I lived in the south
for most of the nineties, so there you go.
I
tend not to be sappy and sentimental. I was raised to be fluent in sarcasm. But
I like Valentine’s gifts as much as the next girl. Bob Russell has a great post
on the subject. Note that he backs me up on my theory that a four foot teddy
bear may not be the best gift. Dust mites! Clutter! Ack!
No.
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If
you are celebrating next Sunday as Singles Awareness Day (i.e. SAD) don’t lose
heart. Jesus was single. It worked for him. I’ll be playing two services in the
morning and probably watching a Hallmark movie later in the day.
Sometimes you have to kiss a lot of frogs.
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Not
that I’m any role model for dealing with stress, but I see too many people
stressing over too many in-my-humble-opinion unnecessary things. Relationships
or lack thereof. Politics. Miscellaneous meanie-poopoo-heads who aren’t going
to change because someone vented about them on the social media. Don’t even get
me started on the memes laying out how men should treat women. If you need to
post a snarky meme about how your man should treat you … are you with the right
one? Are YOU the right one? How do you treat him when not on the interwebs?
Sure
there are reasons in all of that for stress, but let’s keep some perspective,
people.
Only
love. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:8. My favorite verse. I’ve heard it
whispered by the holy spirit many times. Even at times when I’d rather not
think about it.
I’ll
spare you the agape versus logos versus romantic love yada yada yada blah blah
blah sermon … go read the whole chapter if you’re not familiar. To me it comes
down to this …
Love God. Love people.
Love
your neighbor. And who’s your neighbor? Yeah.
Many
moons ago I was working in West-by-Gawd-Virginia. It would have been around
1999 – and I was probably still listening to country – because every electrical
and controls engineer and their brother and sister and cousin including those
at our contract engineering firms were working on the Y2K Project. Except me. I
was part of the leadership team on a project where we were going to actually
build something. For the young’uns among us … the Y2K Project was all about
checking every computer, copy machine, coffee pot, and pretty much anything
with a chip in it … to evaluate whether, when the year rolled over to 2000,
cyberspace would become confused and something would blow up. I worked at a
chemical company. It behooved us to be prepared. You see, back in the dark ages
when Al Gore first invented the internet, it was common to use a two-digit
field for the year. Soooo … when the clock changes from ’99 to ’00 … will that
coffee pot think it’s 2000 or 1900?
Oh
the humanity.
So I
was doing this dance where as lead control systems engineer I single-handedly
supported two dozen process engineers split between West Virginia and Texas. I
visited my manager’s office almost daily to ask, “When am I going to get
so-and-so? What about this other person? Anyone? Beuller?” I started visiting
my buddy the acting manager once our mutual boss was also sucked up by Project
Y2K.
So
my coworkers and I were a little busy. On my project we would do drawing
reviews every few weeks or months as we worked through the design. The core
team would take up residence in a conference room for a week or two, and we
would parade the other engineers and their drawings through, checking for
consistency, catching any problems, and getting questions answered. Lunch was
ordered in, and sometimes dinner as well. I recall at least one time when there
was a power outage at our usual tech center location, giving all tech center
employees the day off. Never fear, we found a conference room at the nearby
plant and worked anyway.
One
of the process engineers was a contractor named Ronnie. From his accent I’m
sure he was a native West Virginian. Seriously, put me around him and my
Appalachian twang would come back immediately. He was super nice and patient,
but he really needed the manufacturing rep and me to go through some design
questions with him. The manufacturing rep and I were so busy we once chose to
carpool to a nearby engineering firm so we could talk through some of our “to
do” list on the twenty minute drive.
“Come
on, show me some love!” was Ronnie’s mantra. He was hilarious. I will never
forget that phrase. Show me some love! Give me some attention. I need your time
over here.
We
made time for him. Only slightly very overdue. “Thanks for showing me some
love!”
Who
do you need to show some love to?
My mailman needs some love. A+ for MacGyverness. F for effort on a day when it's 19 deg & snowing.
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Nope. No. Don't do it.
For more on “Only Love” from my writing
partners, see Sue Bowles at bebold7.wordpress.com and Leisa Herren at
life4inga.blogspot.com.
I
have sailed a boat or two
Out
on the wild blue
Yonder
to dreams that rarely come true
As
far as I can see
From
the island of green
I
can put my trust in just one thing
And
only love sails straight from the harbor
And
only love will lead us to the other shore
Out
of all the flags I've flown
One
flies high and stands alone
Only
love
Peaceful
waters, raging sea
It's
all the same to me
I
can close my eyes and still be free
When
the waves come crashing down
And
the thunder rolls around
I
can feel my feet on solid ground
And
only love sails straight from the harbor
And
only love will lead us to the other shore
Out
of all the flags I've flown
One
flies high and stands alone
Only
love
~ Wynonna Judd’s “Only
Love”
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