In Which I Encourage You to Celebrate a Birthday

Today is Jack's birthday. That's what his family and friends called him...Jack. If he were alive, he would be 113 years old today.

Jack's real name was Clive Staples Lewis, better known to the public as C. S. Lewis. Aha! Now you recognize him, don't you!

Lewis was a writer, a Christian apologist, and was on the English faculty at Oxford University. He wrote this in regards to his coming to Christ...

"You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."

Most people do not know that Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings and others. G. K. Chesterton was also a close friend.

I encourage you to view the 1993 movie, "Shadowlands", wherein Lewis meets and marries his wife, Joy Gresham. Their marriage lasted a short 3 years, ending when Joy succumbed to cancer. You will weep. If you did not before, you will then, have a huge heart for C. S. Lewis, the man.

Happy Birthday, C.S. (I don't think I'm close enough to call him, Jack, although I'm sure he would beg to differ. He was that kinda guy.)

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My Friend Debbie is Tossing Lotsa Stuff!

My friend Debbie has decided to pare down the "stuff" in her house. In a simple one hundred (100) days. One hundred days of tossing out "stuff". Lotsa stuff. Weird kinds of stuff. Perfectly good stuff. Brave soul, that Debbie.

Debbie is currently on Day 23. And today's "stuff" includes linens. Lotsa linens.

Read more at her blog here. Be sure to tell her what "stuff" you are cleaning out of YOUR house these days.

And, hey! Tell her I sent ya.

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Do Ya Suppose It Would It Be a Sin............

We have lotsa trees on our street. Green ash, American linden, maples of every sort. We love our shady street.

However, there is one fly in the ointment. I mean, there is one pin oak amongst the trees. It stands tall, wide, and proud. It's a lovely tree. (The tree is much larger than it appears in the photo! Much! Larger!)

But in spite of its loveliness everyone on our street (except the owner) hates that tree with a ferocity that defies description.

This oak does not drop its leaves at the appropriate time as does every other tree. No, indeedy! It takes all winter for them to drop. They begin dropping at the top and gradually move downward. In the middle of the fiercest February blizzard the bottom third of the tree will still be in full leaf. The final release will be in the spring when the tree begins nudging out new leaf tips.

So you see....all winter long there is a steady influx of leaves from across the street. Leaves made of steel that never decompose! Never! Ever!

So I'm thinking....remember the Biblical story where Jesus cursed the fig tree and the tree died?

Do ya suppose it would be a sin to curse that tree? Do ya suppose? Because I'm praying that tree will die.

P.S. The neighbor has numerous other trees that provide summer shade. It would not be a terrible loss to lose ONE tree!

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