GOOD MORNING, FRIENDS

A REMEMBERAMBLE FOR TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2025

I bid you a grand good morning, and wish for you a fine day. The weather has been nice of late, not cool, warm, but not hot, and there have been frequent breezes. Those humid, scorching dog days of summer, with withering heat that envelops you like a box wrapped to be sent by parcel post, burden the soul. Those days and nights, yes, hot nights as well, with no air stirring, no cooling sea breeze rolling in softly in the early night, are dimming in memory as we move slowly to autumn. There are words like "autumn" that are mostly written, and words like "fall," that are generally spoken.

Written English is different from spoken English, and the same is true for most languages, the Romance Languages, in particular. If you are not familiar with the term "Romance Languages," those are Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French, and Romanian, which were all of the lineage of the Latin spoken by the people of ancient Rome. I am still smiling from Saturday, it is like the Balm of Gilead for me to be able to see and visit with those of you who are able to attend. I went to NBIC today to pick up the folding table, chair and roasting pan I had left there on Saturday.

I am having really bad muscle weakness lately, so I asked one of the young men to take those things to my truck, and another young man stopped me as I was walking through the chapel to leave, and asked if I had a minute to talk to him. I told him of course, I would never say no to someone who asked for bit of my time. I told him I would meet him out front, as he said he had something to do first. I went out and sat in one of the porch swings on the chapel's front porch and waited for him. He came back with a wooden rack with a large selection of small, beautiful, wooden crosses, with leather thongs to be worn around the neck.

He made them in the woodshop at NBIC. He wanted me to choose one for him to give to me. I picked a very nice one with dark wood stain, and red paint on it. He then asked if he could pray for me. I was glad for him to, so I held my new small cross he made, as he put his hand on me and prayed for me. It was such a beautiful kindness. The Holy Spirit dwells in that place. Okay. this reminded me of a funny happening a few years ago, at a church where Bryan Sparks was the guest preacher, as the church was without a pastor and had guest preachers until they found a new pastor.

Generally, Bryan's practice is to have his wife and the kids go on to our church as usual, and I would go with him to the church where he would be preaching. Usually our late beloved friend, Chris Fisher went with us also, and did that day. It was a very nice church with some really good folks, but not all churches have the same customs, as ours. We were an "amening" church. If the preacher made a salient point, it got loud amens. If a member stood to pray as part of the service, I would give a big, deep AMEN for a good line in the prayer.

We thought everybody's church had old men whose only contribution other than a dollar in the collection plate, was to give that basso profundo AAAAAaaaamen, as needed. So, we are at this church...yes some of our group members are members of that church...we are seated on the back pew, me, Chris, and Bryan, waiting for the service to start, when a gentleman asked one of the men of the congregation to open the service with a prayer. He stood, and was giving a particularly genuine, and heartfelt prayer, and at one point, I felt led to give him a great big ole AMEN!

The man stopped praying, and sat down as if he had been shot. Ole uncle Wade had done it again, embarrassed myself, Bryan, and Chris, literally right in front of God and everybody. The poor man's face was crimson, about the same shade as mine. Bless his heart, he and the entire congregation assumed that I had "amened" the man to let him know to WRAP IT UP! He thought I was telling him he needed to sit down and be quiet. Chris was sitting to my left, and had slipped off the pew, and hid crouched down laughing hysterically as quietly as he could, and I had to put my head down to keep anyone from seeing me laugh.

I was getting worried about Chris, I feared he would stop breathing eventually, because you literally can die laughing. I felt so bad for the nice man, but Chris and I both found it way too funny. Bless his heart, Bryan took it in stride and it was a very good service. I "slunked off," as soon as another man gave the closing prayer, during which I bit my tongue. I have always wanted to go back and 'splain myself, alas, I have not found the courage. Oh, lil Merle really felt special, since I took him to the Gathering without babee Conway. Seriously, I was so happy that he enjoyed it, and many of you got to see him.

He is as I say, "just a lil puddle of love." He loves being loved. I guess we will pull over and put it in park, and idle awhile on the couch now. We love having you here for our daily visit. Thank you for the love and kindness. NUMBERS 6: 24-26 KJV

..... we boyz three, babee conway, lil merle, & me

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