December 2, 2023
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Twas the night before the chess games
Jesus told his disciples to be vigilant at all times, and pray for the strength to stand before the Son of Man.
Sleeping on the living room floor in our tent, Miles and Jasper will sleep all night, I hope. And in the morning Miles and I will drive to a chess tournament, which includes many K-3rd graders, Miles is in first grade.
We didn’t play chess today. On Wednesdays he plays a couple or three games of chess with his friends and classmates. I am a volunteer helper during that hour after school, and sometimes I get to play a game of chess too.
The most fun games are the ones where we each capture as many pieces as we can as fast as we can, not worrying too much about strategy. Well, not worrying at all about strategy.
We told stories again tonight after they were bedded down in the tent.. All of us had a hand in the stories today – Grandma and me, Jasper and Miles. We ended in a forest with two alligators and one elephant, as well as Obachan and Gigi, the grandparent Tomitas, who wanted to take the elephant home but there was no room in their room. Plus the toilet was too small. I wonder what will happen next.
Miles and Jasper played all day together. We signed our lease for next year, we spent an hour or so in the apartment whirlpool (it was 100 degrees on a 70 degree day), we took afternoon naps after corn on the cob for lunch, and when we woke up we made root beer floats with three kinds of ice cream. Dinner was at Jack in the Box – tiny tacos and burgers, peach lemonade and a chocolate shake.
Too much sugar for all of us, and not enough protein. We can do better. Miles loves to eat, he’s hungry all the time, and he’s not that big a fan of sugar. Jasper isn’t sure what he wants. But at the restaurant he did take bites of my burger without using his hands. And he claimed most of the milk shake for himself. And we are confident that he will reconnect with the appetite he has had all his life for fruit, vegetables, cheese, and meat, as he finds his way through second-born gauntlet. He knows he is loved.
Beware that your hearts do not become drowsy from the anxieties of daily life.
Tomorrow will be the first Sunday of Advent. O come, O come Emmanuel. The fourth Sunday of Advent is also Christmas Eve. We will pack a lot of activities into those four weeks and, as Ron Rolheiser says, we might not find much “real energy to make Christmas a special time of spiritual renewal, for Christ to be born more deeply in our lives.”
Today I think all four of us felt spiritual life surging in our lives. Energy of all kinds and thoughtfulness too, of grandparents with those boys, and those boys with us. Miles and Jasper are growing up sweet and strong.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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