Float Like a Hummingbird

Morning devotions
(couldn't snag one of our Picnic Dinner)

Acts 2: 42-45 “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common.”

Wilderness Tour ’15 – Float Like a Hummingbird

I know, I now. Muhammad Ali said, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” Well, I felt like I was floating like a hummingbird during our Wilderness Tour Picnic Dinner the Monday evening after our first day-hike. I floated, I flitted from one person to the next, darting in and tasting their day. We shared; old friends, young friends, old not-so-young friends, and a collection of new friends shared the best that the day had to offer.

Earlier, while four of us waited for the shuttle that would take us from Agnew Meadow back to Mammoth Village after our hike to Shadow Lake I had the opportunity to observe a pair of Rufus Hummingbirds. This should explain my use of these amazing birds in my analogy. First, the male appeared across the road and darted about from flower to flower occasionally popping up to hover and turn this way and that, searching and looking over the landscape while checking us out as well. Soon his mate turned up and alit on a nearby bush. The male went into his courtship dance rising straight into the air twenty or more feet before diving straight down to his love interest. I’ve seen them rise up to fifty or sixty feet in more open country. Just as he passed her and before entering into his loop to rise again he let out an ear-piercing chirp, easily the loudest sound I hear from these tiny birds. After several of these displays the two rose together and spiralled round and round each other in a frantic dance. They broke off to taste a flower or two and then darted off into the forest.

I felt just like my little friend as I darted around the picnic area and then pulling back to hover and turning, first one way then another, while I considered where to pick up a little nectar of someone’s glorious day. It was such a pleasant sight; twenty-eight of God’s people in animated discussion and reliving experiences while on wilderness trails of varying difficulties. We all should have been tired and ready for some quiet in-room contemplation but we couldn’t get enough of being with each other. This was as it should have been.

We were blessed with an infusion of LCPC kids in Mammoth for a week of altitude training with the CVHS Cross Country Team. They’d run, worked out, ran some more, and yet, were as lively (and lovely) as the rest of the WL Tour people. We ate our picnic dinner that was largely designed and prepared by our own Chef/Pastor Andy Wilson. That guy is a dynamo. Dinner was followed by a wonderful discussion about the local geology as delivered by Doug Given. The group gobbled up the information like desert only to follow it up with insightful questions asking for more.

I had full day, first waking early with hummingbirds darting about my stomach (have to maintain theme here) with thoughts of starting off the week with my devotion knowing that the brokenness that had been building for days was just below the surface. I shared my little story, choked up and let a tear fly as I am apt to do, and all in the midst of heroes in every sense of the word. Missionaries were sprinkled about through the group like raisins in a prime cup of Raisin Bran cereal; the whole Kennedy family who serve in Cairo, Egypt here for R&R, Young Chul Oh serving in northern Thailand here on an educational sabbatical, Lauren Gossett back from Chiang Mai, Thailand, and Holly Wilson recently returned from Nepal where she was serving during the massive earthquake that rocked the Himalayas. There were many DR trip veterans and a bunch of friends who’ve served with me on Mission Arizona trips. I was at the same time humbled and uplifted.

As I sit back just now and hover in my chair, first looking at the previous paragraph I’ve just written, then to my notes, then to the list of WL ’15 Tour members, I can see that each one is God’s servant in a critical mission in His Kingdom. ‘Twas grace that brought us together and we found restoration, recuperation, and renewal.

I assure you that the days that followed were full of the same. Praise God!

In His grip, jerry

Thundering Quotes

Wilderness Tour ’15 – Thundering Quotes

This Calvary’s Thread post is more whimsical than most found in this venue. Don’t let that fool you. I took serious joy in collecting these quotes during our Tuesday hike to the Tuolumne swimming hole. A couple of other strategic areas during the day yielded quotable material as well. For me, this is a joy that can only be experienced while talking with members of Christ’s Family. There is one quote that I sincerely plan on resisting but feel compelled to report it anyway in the effort to be fair and objective. I’ll leave it to the reader to determine which it is knowing that the sleepiest will get it right away.

Thunder rolled around off and on throughout our trek alongside the Tuolumne River in the highlands of The Yosemite National Park. Thunder plays a big role in the bible and my thoughts on the phenomenon bounced around like echoes and conjured thoughts about what could be determined in the sound of it. Here are a few that I found flipping through the scriptures:

Mark 3:17 “James son of Zebedee and his brother John (to them he gave the name Boanerges, which means ‘sons of thunder’…”

Job 40:9 “Do you have an arm like God’s and can your voice thunder like his?”

Isaiah 29:6 “the Lord Almighty will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise…”

1 Samuel 12:18 “Then Samuel called on the Lord, and that same day the Lord sent thunder and rain…”

And Psalm 77:18 “Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world…”

While on the trail and upon our return to the trailhead I asked some of my hiking partners from the day their thoughts on thunder. The following are some of their quotes, I’ll leave it to you to determine who the various speakers might have been:

• “We are racing the rain.”
• “Brian.” (for obvious biological reasons)
• “Jesus’ stomach growling…”
• “Bowling” and “God Bowling”
• “Voice of God”
• “There is a song about thunder being God’s voice and not fearing the sound of His voice…”
• “Rattling sheet metal…”

During our commute to and from Tuolumne Meadows for the day’s hike two things stood out to me from our discussions. One was a new term coined by our own Josh Horton, “Assurement”. This ersatz writer’s attempts to define the term came up blank and I can only say that I believe he was using the French term “assurément”. I can attest to you that the term “Bus Plunge” we discussed during our traverse through the Tioga Pass with shear drop-offs and without the benefit of guardrails was no assurément. Thanks be to God for Doug’s expert driving.

One of my own quotes elicited a good laugh but will go on to be the basis of a more serious post later this week. My new friend Michael Lopez gave an inspirational morning talk. One take away I had was “Don’t Tex and climb.” A humorous quote for really serious point that I will attempt to do justice to in a subsequent post.

Scene of the crime: The Burger Barn in Bishop California. The crime: several of our burger hounds had pulled three tables together around the corner of a building and I was the last to go round to find a seat. One of the excellent Burger Barn employees, a heavily tattooed young man and eager to please, picked up a chair and carried it around the corner for me. As he set the chair down at the far end he said, “I’ll just set this down here for you, Pop.” Nuff said.

Tuolumne Swimming Hole
and Slide

My favorite quote of the day came while I was swimming with Sammy Kennedy at the waterhole. There is a main pool fed by a smaller upper hole via a gentle, six-foot slide. Young Oh had been the first use the slide, the older boys who ventured to swim, Michael Van Citters and Austin Marks, followed suit. I swam over to enjoy the cold spa feeling of sitting under the waterfalls feeding the upper pool. When Sammy, an 11 year old jewel complete with his red baseball cap, came to the pool and worked his way over to the slide I asked him if he was going to slide down. To my inquiry he turned and gave me a serious look while saying, “I feel it is part of my obligation of being a boy.” He turned back to the task and promptly slid down to the great pool below.

To all my friends and readers, I wish for you to stay in touch with your inner child and adhere to the obligations therein, to go about life in happiness, and with Joy in your heart. Hear the thunder and smile.

In His grip, jerry

The Trail of Brokenness

Wilderness Tour - 2015 Meditation Opener

For over sixty years I knew who I was responsible to. As a young boy, it was my parents. When I reached school age, it was a mix of parents and teachers and eventually coaches. At church, I knew to be responsible to my Sunday School teachers and pastors. My earliest recollection is being in some long ago torn-down LCPC classroom with Mr. LaClair as my third grade teacher.

Though I’d grown up in the church, it was man’s authority I submitted to and never realized that I’d put them in the way of a real walk with God. Not until my basketball dreams blinked out and I looked down the pathway and into fog did I make a conscious decision to put Jesus on the throne of my heart. From there He led me to churches and schools that I had no idea would be along the path he wanted me walking. He led me to a girl who became my wife whom I’d known but had never considered for the role of 'partner in life', a role she should be rewarded for again and again.

With the new life came a new order, a divine order that I willingly submitted to then and re-submit to every time I search for a new direction. It was defined. I knew where I was to serve, who it was that I was serving, and basically, within a structure that I could easily identify. I have had a life of youth ministry of one level or another since before I made the decision that enthroned Jesus in my heart – 45 years of youth ministry, give or take a year or so with a wrong turn or two thrown in.

My term of service had come to resemble a deeply rutted road leading off into the distance, one where the fog had been creeping in and obscuring the trail for a long time. All that structure began to erode, things and mechanisms that I’d come to rely on wore down. It began to break away when I exited Student Ministries where I’d been ensconced for sixteen, maybe seventeen years. I knew where I’d be every PEAK or TNT night, every Sunday Morning, all the Parents’ Nights Out, Mission Arizonas, special events, and committee meeting nights. It was nice and neat, an orderly life of service.

When I made the exit from full-on Student Ministries involvement I stepped into uncertainty. I still had a boss at work, a family at home, and Jesus as King but I wondered some, trying this line of service and that, asking Jesus where I should go, what I should be doing, and finding myself in a spiritual wilderness.

Eventually I came to believe that my Lord wants me to write. I have a story to tell. He gives me insights that can help others and myself. It is the hardest thing He’s ever asked me to do. There are no built in structures, only a few people expect much in terms of my writing and most of those who do are my motorcycle riding friends, I know that it’s touched some of them. Being my own boss sometimes makes me feel like I’m performing with a net.

I often need to remind myself that if only one person, even if it is only myself, reads what I’ve written and comes closer to Jesus then I’ve served a purpose and advanced the Kingdom of God.

The accountability system is internal and I feel like I’ve been failing at it. Since I stopped working at AT&T I bill myself as a self-employed, unpaid writer but there are too many days that have gone by that have not seen either of my blogs active and nor have I advanced either of the books I have underway. The distractions are many; work on the house, electronic games, life’s business responsibilities, and the like. I was hoping for a divine rush of enthusiasm that would carry my book to a first-draft conclusion within the first year of my retirement. It has not arrived. Don’t pity me here. I’ve been making strides and improving my process. Jesus is re-engineering my way of living.

Let me wrap this up with my personal expectations for the 2015 Wilderness Tour. I have a mediation line that I use from time-to-time. I’d like to share it with you from my main character’s perspective since it so closely relates to where I am right now that my head spins. I wrote this part into the story months ago.

I start out closing my eyes to imagine myself walking along a trail very much like a trail in what I remember as the Paradise Valley alongside the stream rushing down the hillside there. I imagine myself walking along until at some point or another I meet Jesus, kneel in front of Him, confess and worship Him. Sometimes we walk along together talking and discussing things just as we will walk together today on our selected trails. We converse and somewhere along the line he leaves me transformed and ready to move on.

Bishop Pass Trail

My protagonist has used this same meditation only he is in a bad place at this point in his story. He’s in a wilderness that is stark and devoid of much life. He passes through the Paradise Valley failing to encounter Jesus and marches on to a trail leading upward, above the tree-line. He is struggling up a series of switchbacks, rocks obscure his path and Jesus has still not made an appearance. He grows desperate. He’s already mad at God for a great loss that he’s suffered. Finally he comes to a rockslide that has obliterated the trail and he cannot pass. The rocks and boulders on the trail are labeled; sin, anger, unbelief, drunkenness, and a few others that he can’t even recognize as being his own. He knows that in the saddle of the pass above awaits Calvary’s Cross and he needs to get there once again to be the man God wants of him. He goes to his knees and digs out the rocks and moves them out of the way.

This is my hope; that I come to the obstructions and move them out of the way in submission to the King. I fully expect this to happen during the week. It will come during quiet moments alone on the trail, sitting in fellowship with you, and while joking around at the trail’s end with my friends.

In His grip, jerry

 

PS: During that first day’s hike a few of us came to a little rest stop and I found what I was looking for along the trail. I knelt down, bowed my head for a moment and picked up a moderately sized stone from the path and moved it aside and out of the way. The stone represented a habitual gaming regimen, a huge time waster and distraction. On subsequent days on the trails I would line up my footfall to a rock in the path and scoot it away as I walked on, symbolically moving things out of the way in my personal walk with God.

My Dad is Batman

My dad is Batman and for that I am profoundly thankful. During my 8^th or 9^th grade years (’67 or ’68, can’t remember which it was) at Clark Junior High (yes kids, back then we had two 3-year junior highs in the Crescenta Valley) I went to a weekend winter camp with forty or fifty kids. Gary Baker was the LCPC Youth Pastor, my mom and dad were youth advisors, and Batman the TV series was in full swing staring Adam West as Batman, Burt Ward as Dick Grayson, Alan Napier as Alfred and dozens of comedic actors as villains and villainesses such as Catwoman (Julie Newmar & Eartha Kitt – wouldn’t that make it Catwomen?), The Penguin (Burgess Meredith), The Joker (Cesar Romero), and The Riddler (Frank Gorshin). The point here is that some good actors loved being bad guys in a cheesy TV show taken straight from the 40’s comic books. People love parody.

Saturday night at Camp Owongo we gathered for fellowship after dinner and a full day of snow activities - that’s right, back then we had snow in the local mountains during winter. Camp songs had been sung, a lesson given, and a table set up in front of the crowd when out from a side door came Pastor Gary Baker dressed in full-on chef’s regalia or chef’s whites, complete with white double-breasted jacket, white pants, and his head topped by a puffy toque (chef’s hat). He came out carrying a mixer, a bag of flower, and few other odd kitchen implements, set them up and introduced himself as ‘The Mad Baker’ and began telling us of his evil plot to enslave us and began mixing the potent compound he’d use to do it all the while flicking bits of flower at the front row. His performance was consummate and we were rolling in the aisles laughing. The humor was a bit tempered for me because as an advisor’s kid I knew who was a likely ‘volunteer’ for clean-up.

The Mad Baker quieted and, if possible, grew more sinister. He threw out malevolent looks to the crowd until we settled down, if only for a moment because that’s when Batman burst from the kitchen door, complete with a spandex costume straight from the TV screen - grey tights, black silky cape and head gear with matching silky shorts and gloves, and plastic boots and belt completed the scene. My dad’s voice bellowed from below the mask, and he could bellow with the best, “Not so fast Mad Baker!” The place fell apart and the fight scene ensued, worthy of the TV screen, flower puffed in every direction, POW! BAM! and WHAM! - until the foe was vanquished. Legend. For that three-year generation of Junior High kids, my dad was Batman and he was frequently greeted as such.

  

I didn’t mind the cleanup. After all, that was my dad who had saved us. It’s funny in so many ways but still, I find it emblematic of my dad’s heart. He is an Elder in the Presbyterian Church. He looks after the people, guides them, teaches and directs them. And he protects them. I tell you that my dad is a shepherd after God’s own heart.

From time to time I’m asked why I’m in youth ministry or why I’m still doing youth work. Most times I give inquisitor a simple math equation. Genetics plus God’s call. I’m happy with that. It is no wonder that I got involved with youth work early on, informally as a senior high student with junior high kids and then as a Sunday School teacher of third graders while a freshman at Glendale Community College. I hold my folks in high esteem and look up to them and how they conducted themselves as parents with faith. People who know us from those days and are peers of my parents don’t ask, they know why we serve as we do. Some folks shake their heads and wonder if I should be working with youth but until I’m led elsewhere, this is where I’ll be.

I'm not great with PhotoShop but
you get the idea

I don’t have a specific memory of this, but I have a photo of me standing up in the palm of my dad’s hand and looking around as if it were the most normal thing for me to be doing as a one-year old. The photo is emblematic of the way I’ve come to think of dad, holding me up, letting me look things over. ‘He’s got my back’ is the say it would be said these days. I frequently sign off on letters and such for Christian communications, ‘In His Grip’. It’s a phrase I picked up from my friend Darren Bottino shortly after my family first came back to LCPC and I got involved with the junior highs there again. That’s how I think of things, ‘In His Grip’ or in the palm of His hand. From time to time over the years I’ve imagined that photo with my dad in his Batman costume.

We all have choices to make in how we remember the people in our lives and the events that have shaped us. Choose the ones that give you peace and make you smile. Laugh a little, it’s okay.

Dad, thanks for having me in the palm of your hand and teaching me early on that putting on tights and a cape in front a bunch of junior high kids is natural.

In His Grip,

jerry white

Heavenly Transport

Naked Voices - Spring 2015

Voices raised in harmonies and tones, beats and reverberations, rang out through the hall. Naked Voices blended in ways that bespoke and confirmed my belief that God deposits a bit of His creativity in each of us. These young musicians, Brothas From Otha Mothas, Vocal Motion, and Intervals have touched upon the Mother Load and worked their craft to refine the ore and graced us in the purity of their performance. Thank you.

Sundaes on Sunday, how can I have said no to that? The after dessert fair the concert was kicked off by Brothas From Otha Mothas (BFOM, all male a cappella) with a rendition of Come Sail Away by STYX written by Dennis DeYoung. I saw waves breaking, heard gulls crying out, and was transported pleasantly away to carry on. Thank you BFOM.

Vocal Motion (VOMO – all female a cappella) followed up with a RAP/Hip Hop medley out of which I did not recognize any of the songs. You’ll just have to forgive me on this one because I just might have been the oldest person in the audience this past Sunday night, certainly in the top two percent – finally, I’m in the top of something. Nevertheless, while they sang never gonna get us I might have a gotten a little glimpse of them. The group was in constant motion and their sound was an eruption from the soul, I was delighted to see, hear, and feel their performance. Thank you VOMO.

I have a little observation tempered by my long career in the phone factory. Telephone men like their acronyms and I noticed that a cappella groups do as well. It must be a communications thing. What?

InterVals, the co-ed group of seven between the first two openers and the host group sent us a long with a rendition of _____. When I stalked their YouTube channel I noticed they sported several more voices on other occasions. I won’t hesitate to tell you that I closed my eyes and felt carried along like a raft on a stream, I love that easy-going way that rivers have while moving through the country. Thank you InterVals.

Naked Voices, sixteen co-ed voices deep, hosted Happy Sundae as the last concert of the year and honored their outgoing seniors, my nephew Trevor among them. With a full ten-song set plus an encore to pay tribute to, my post will run longer than my personal word limit but since it’s my blog and my limits I can stretch them when I want. The group is full-bodied, like a good Merlot.

You’re the One I Love, lead solo _____; you can’t close the door on this performance, it made me want to give a standing O. The energy bundled in the execution of the piece was barely contained, contagious, and was a fine kick off for the set.

Rather Be by Clean Bandit, solo ______; there was no place I’d rather have been, I loved the life NV gave this rendition. There was something satisfying listening to a love song while being with my core five, wife, three kids, and me. There will be times when we’ll be a thousand miles from comfort, make sure to have someone in your heart to love and you’ll be where you want to be.

Being a child of the sixties, The Beatles Medley hit me where I lived back then and evoked memories of crazy sing-alongs, then and now. Leading with Paperback Writer sucked me right in because it’s no secret now, I want to write something worthy of putting out in paperback. Hey Jude with my nephew Trevor on solo was awesome. We are thankful to Naked Voices and all that you’ve meant to him.

This Love by Maroon 5, solo performed by _____ was par excellence, sung with feeling and honesty. Loved it.

Fix You by Coldplay, senior solo sung by Trevor; one of the purest things that I’ve seen or heard Trevor do and he’s as honest a person as I know. I know he touched the audience as a whole but it felt like he was singing to each of us from the depths and so, from this song my hope for us all is to have someone sing to us “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones and I will try to fix you.”

Treasure by Bruno Mars, solo performed by _____. Full of life, your energy was contagious. Contagious in a good way but brings me to another observation. A cappella crowds are a rowdy bunch and very demonstrative in their delivery of appreciation, love it over and over again.

I’ll break here for a couple of personal notes; most often the beat box guys/gals are standing alone and I just wanted to run on stage and hug them so they wouldn’t feel apart from the scene. And, we heard that otters hold hands while they sleep so they won’t drift apart. With all the love songs and songs about love and this being a senior night with summer staring us in the face allow me to say this about drifting; I have seen in print and am grateful to have it in my life – the best of friends though separated by time and distance never drift apart and when reunited take up where they left off. May it be so for all of us and our best of friends.

Woods by Bon Iver, solo by _____, amazing tones with harmonics especial. Time was slowed down and I was amazed at the end of the concert that time had barely passed.

_______ by _______, solo by Sheila, an organizational maven who sings like in instrument played by angels. Happy trails Sheila, you’re wonderful.

Love the Way You Lie (Part II) by Rihanna, solo by _____; a wonderful rendering of a disturbing song. Always be a hero but I suggest we do it without lying, my personal bias.

The Michael Jackson montage was electric with energy and the joy of performance, the perfect way to the end the official set. Great choreography, the wolves were especially captivating.

The encore wrapped things up nicely, “where there is love, I’ll be there.” Can’t go wrong with that. May there always be an encore.

While I try not to engage in wishful thinking too often, with the possible exception of the lottery, I do attempt to participate in hope and prayer and mine for you all is that nothing comes along to keep you from singing, that life gives you plenty to sing about, and that there is always someone in your life to cause you to raise your voice in song.

         

In His Grip,

jerry

Keep the iron side up.

Just Add Water

          “¹In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. ²Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” Genesis 1: 1&2 (NIV)

Just add water.

“¹On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ²and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴”Dear woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My time has not yet come.”

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

⁷Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

⁸Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

^9aThey did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the waster that had been turned into wine.” John 2: 1-9a (NIV)

Lord, there is a bushel full in those readings. My friends and pastors Andy and Lee could probably preach half a dozen sermons from them and not repeat each other. Early this morning the LCPC Men’s Ministry group read chapters 2 through 5 out of the Gospel of John and a couple of things struck me about Jesus’ first miracle. Hopefully, I won’t be steeling the pastors’ thunder.

Water plays a huge part in Biblical writings starting with the first couple of versus when God created the orb we live on and covered it with water. Water continues to play big through to the end of the New Testament with Jesus’ baptism, his first miracle, the man by the healing pool that Jesus healed on the Sabbath, the Samaritan woman at the well where Jesus started a revival in the town, just to name a few NT stories.

Jesus’ miracle was very simple, just add water and take it to the banquet master. This basic miracle would never have happened without Jesus’ mother taking the bold step of faith and first commanding the servants to obedience to Jesus. First the servants obeyed Mary, then they twice obeyed Jesus and the miracle became evident to kick Jesus’ ministry into high gear and giving us a story rich in allegory, abundant material for generations of sermons.

What step of faith do we need to take? What act of obedience to we need to make to precipitate a miracle in our lives and the lives of those we’ve been called to love?

         

In His Grip,

jerry

Dear Mom

Dear Mom,

Mother’s Day Sunday brings out a host of sermons about what it is to be a mother and many point to Mary as a shining example. All the pastors really need to do is lean a photo of you on the easel up front and have them give me a call; I’ll tell them all about you and how you’ve become and been the model mom. There is plenty that I can tell them and whenever I can, I brag about you and tell people how fortunate that I am to have a mom like you.

People sometimes ask me, or sometimes they don’t and I tell them anyway, what inspires me to youth ministry. Before I tell them it’s in my heart and I feel called to it by our Lord, I tell them it’s genetic, both my mom and dad were youth advisors to me while I grew up and my mom in particular carried on over many years – ‘carried on’ being such a descriptive phrase for how we are when we are in youth ministry. We carry on is so many ways; goofy, pragmatic, doggedly, silly, tearfully… You have been a guiding light to me with the pathway having been lit to what looks to me in the rearview mirror to have been a lifetime of youth work in one form or another with the times that I’ve felt most alive and most in tune with the Holy Spirit having been while working with young people. Thank you.

You have been an example of selfless love that you show us by your actions, the way you set up your priorities, how you go about Christian service – your lifestyle. The Love Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13, is your guidebook, your itinerary for living and it’s etched upon your heart.

You are the mother to two of the greatest treasures I have, Stacey and Denise. Sisters, as annoying as siblings can be to each other, are priceless and you have done a wonderful job with them, not so much like a sculptor with mallet and chisel as like the river washing away the roughness, leaving behind smooth stones, graceful and elegant, water and rock, perfect compliments, one to the other. Thank you.

You are and have been a bonus mom to my friends, my wife, and anyone I’ve loved and brought to the house. It has been an open door for the three of us and your extended family has grown and I know, has blessed you in return many times over, that’s the way giving of yourself is. Thank you for being there for my friends and caring for them as you have. We have a few bonus kids of our own and understand the appeal and fun of it; thanks for that as well.

By the way, your mom job as translated into a very nice gig as Gramsey and now GeeGee, hasn’t it? Thank you for being such a wonderful example to my own family unit. I am so grateful that God brought me a woman who has also been a great mom and reflects many of the same qualities as you. I’m quite certain that she would agree that you have influenced her on this in a very complimentary fashion with her own mother.

Thanks mom, I love you.

jerry james