I will write tomorrow.

I'm almost through with the quotes from Ecclesiastes.  Three more.  "A time to keep silence, and a time to speak."  This is a hard one for me.  Because...

I have a very hard time keeping silent.  When I know something, and someone else doesn't, I figure that they would like to know what I know.  Wrong.  Not true.  Sometimes you just need to keep your mouth shut.  Sometimes if you wait a minute or two--another person will say what you wanted to say.  And if it is not well received, you don't have to take the flack.  You don't need flack anyway.

And many times, the very thing that is not well received is the truth.  People don't want you to tell them the truth.  They would much rather live with their own delusions.  And just because something is true doesn't mean that you are the one who is supposed to deliver the message anyway.

However:  There is a time to speak up.  If it can be done in casual conversation, great.  If it can't, and it absolutely has to be said, practice in front of a mirror.  Better still, write down exactly what you want to say and memorize it.  Be sure you don't deliver words for spite, or to prove how smart you are.  Be sure that the time to speak is now rather than later.  Be sure it needs to be said.

Sometimes a thing should be said in a public arena.  Sometimes, privately.  Most of the time nothing should be said at all--this is a tricky one.  You don't want to be pompous, but some issues do need to be aired.  Hopefully discussed.  I've carried a picket sign before--for a moral reason--when discussion failed. (Porn, pages open and displayed in a shop right next to the Junior High.)  It wasn't easy.  But by the end of the morning a huge, huge crowd of people had picked up a picket sign and joined me, people who had been fearful of taking the first step--they just needed someone to lead them who was willing to take the flack.  I don't mind taking flack.  (Threatened with a boycott, the store quit displaying and selling it.)  It was such an unusual thing for a woman to do that it made the national news from East to West coast.  Larry Flynt (Hustler) wrote me a horrible letter.  Flack.

However, when it comes to the facts concerning the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, "now" is always the perfect time to speak.  Don't wait.  Sure, you may be rejected, but you also may save someone's life.  People won't know the truth unless someone tells them.  Share the truth.

Ken's sister Mary Lou, who was ninety-two, left us Saturday to be with the Lord and join all of the members of her family.  They are all gone now.  But it is such a blessing to know that they were all Christians.  I know where they are.  We will celebrate her life on Wednesday.

I remember the day Ken took me to meet her.  I was eighteen years old.  Ken had been trying to convince me to marry him, and I think he hoped Mary Lou would tip the scales in his favor.  She was certainly a wonderful person.  When I walked into her house, she smiled at me with a big welcome that said, "We hope you say yes."

Ken adored her.  So did we all.  I will miss the reminiscing with her about the things that only we knew.  Things of long ago.

Ken and Mary Lou's mother and father were such a big part of my growing up.  Their mother, Mary Jane, was my Sunday School teacher.  Their father, "Preacher," was the pastor of my church and baptized me when I accepted Christ.

Although I didn't know Mary Lou when I was growing up, our parents were good friends.  I was in the second grade when Preacher accepted the pastorate at our church.  Mary Lou had already left for college.  But years later, from the day I met her, I loved her.  And she loved me.

Life is so short.  And losing the people you love is hard.  But even harder is losing the people who love you.  There aren't that many of them.

"A time to rend, and a time to sew."  I have not been an expert at very many things in my life.  I have been better than average in a few, and totally incompetent in others.  But one thing I have been an expert at is sewing.  A few weeks ago, Becky did an estate sale for a seamstress who had died.  She told the workers, "We'll put mom in charge of the sewing room."  Which they did.  I know fabric.

When I was about 9 or 10 years old, my mom was in the middle of making me a velvet dress. She and her two sisters were always making me and my cousins dresses out of feed sacks, or out of old dresses they had torn apart--rended--to repurpose.  So getting something made of new cloth, and velvet at that, was special.  But when she tried it on me to adjust the fitting, I told her the dress was ugly because it was brown.  She didn't scold me.  She just folded the dress up, laid the pattern on top of it--along with the thread she had been using and said, "When you are old enough to know what you like and don't like, you are old enough to sew for yourself."  And that was the last thing she ever made for me.

There wasn't money for store bought dresses, so I had to live with the result of the rude insult I had made of my mother's work.  And it didn't take long for me to realize that I had made a big mistake.  My mouth had gotten me into a world of hurt.  From then on, if I wanted clothes, I had to make them for myself.  Out of whatever I could find to make them out of.  I learned what it meant to "rend" old garments and figure out how to redo the fabric.  And ultimately, I learned to sew.  And being the perfectionist that I am, I became an expert at it.

I can run my fingers down a stack of cloth, or a rack of dresses, and identify the content of the fabric by the way it feels to the touch.  I can fit a garment to your body so that it looks like you paid a zillion dollars for it.  I am an expert seamstress because my mom didn't overreact to my rudeness.  She just quit sewing for me.  I don't blame her--why sew for a kid who doesn't appreciate it.  Some of the best lessons we learn in life, are that our actions have unintended results.  There are consequences.

I taught math for 20 years on a college campus.  I sing, I play piano and marimba.  I write. I garden.  All of which I would say I might be a little better than average at doing--but not expert by a long shot.  But I am an expert seamstress.  I learned the hard way.  I don't recommend it.

The next Ecclesiastes "saying" is, "A time to keep, and a time to cast away."  When I was younger, I kept almost everything that came my way.  Plastic bags, bread twist ties, empty glass jars, cardboard shoe boxes, paper towel and toilet paper tubes.  I had four children, and school projects were always in need of that kind of stuff.  But there came a day when I gladly threw it all away.  The same for extra linens, kitchen gadgets that I never used, cosmetics that were tried once and stuffed in a drawer.

When money is short, you have that feeling that there might come a day when you will need those things and won't be able to dig up the cash to repurchase--if you throw it out.  So you keep it.

My folks were "Depression survivors."  They came through the 20's when no one had anything.  My generation, and those that came after me, has no concept of the degree of poverty they endured.  When my mom died, and I was cleaning out the house, there were canned goods stashed under the beds and in the closets.  The freezer was crammed.  She had a real fear of not having enough to eat someday.  Women from that period didn't know if they would have enough food to be able to put a meal together for their families.  Men were desperate for jobs.  What we call a "depression" today is a small hiccup in the stock market.  In the twenties, people didn't know where their next meal was coming from--or if they would have one.

But there is a time to "cast away."  Sometimes, Ann and I go to garage sales--and I am amazed at some people's garages.  You can't get in them for the stacks of stuff.  So crammed that they couldn't find what they were looking for even if they needed it.

We need "give away" hearts.  If we don't need it, the best thing to do is to find someone who has a real need.  God provided for us.  Maybe we can provide for someone else.

Matthew, who was a tax collector, learned that lesson from Jesus.  He wrote Jesus' words to remind us:  "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal.  But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal."  Matthew 6:19-20

"A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing..."  I'm a hugger.  I'm usually the one who reaches out with my arms open and draws you into a hug whether you want one or not.  I have no idea why that is.  But I do know that there are times when it is inappropriate.  Knowing when, and when not, is the secret.

Some young people today don't have a clue when they have crossed over the line of PDA.  (Public Displays of Affection.) They probably don't even know there is a line--in today's world.  But there is, and observing it shows that you have good manners.  So much for the subject of embracing and not embracing.  Use discretion.

The next phrase the "Preacher" in Ecclesiastes says is: "A time to get, and a time to lose..."  Some people live their entire lives getting.  More, more, more.   Yes, getting is important when it comes to the basics of life.  Food, shelter, transportation, medical help, etc... but sometimes some of our most important life lessons are learned by losing.

When I was fourteen, I wanted to try out for twirler in the band.  I lost.  However, I met the band director at those tryouts, and he told me that I should be playing an instrument in the band for the coming year.  So I joined the band and learned to play percussion instruments:  Timpani (kettle) drums, bell lyre, and marimba.  Which I never would have done had I won at twirling tryouts.   As a result of losing, I won.  And for the last 65 years have played marimba for civic events, churches, orchestras and just this week for a service at a local retirement community.  Marimba has lasted.  Twirling wouldn't have.

I am dubious of the "self esteem" movement that gives every child a prize in sports, etc.  I think there is something to be learned by losing.  For one, when you win, it makes your success much sweeter.  And sometimes it is a reality check to tell you that you need to change your focus to something different--something at which you can be successful.  Losing can be a superb "re-director."  If you are led to falsely believe that you have won something that you have actually lost, you will face the real world unprepared.  Losing is a part of life.  Sometimes you will learn something new through your loss--like playing the marimba.

"A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together..."

If you ever lived on a lot or acreage that was stony ground, and you wanted to plant a garden, there were a lot of rocks that had to be removed before a garden could happen.  And you had to dig deep.  Those stones had to go--to give the roots of the plants a place to flourish and grow.

You don't buy stony ground if you plan to be a farmer.  The soil is your livelihood and must be free from rocks, or you will destroy your plow before you can even think about planting crops.  Even the best land occasionally has stones.  They have to be cast out.

However, stones are the building blocks of civilization.  You don't have to drive very far in Oklahoma to find a house built from red rock.  In Oklahoma, larger buildings in most small towns dot the landscape--constructed with red rock.  And in towns across America, court houses, jails, fire stations and banks are still standing that were built in the 20's and 30's by using rock--local rocks that change colors as you move West--depending on what kind of stones are in the ground in that area.   We have a cemetery in Edmond that is surrounded by a fence of random red rocks that people gathered up for that purpose.  "There was a time to gather stones together."

The man who does my yard work has brought me a load of large stones every week this year.  He has surrounded my Koi pond with them.  And lined some of the flower beds as well.  The farmer who lives across from my daughter Pat--out in the country--is clearing his fields of these huge boulders and piling them up at the fence.  Free for the taking.  So, my gardner has gathered them up in his pickup every week to bring to me.

Now, when it rains, my Koi pond doesn't fill up with dirt washed down from the house behind me.  The stones stop the run off.  No more muddy water.  My fish are happy.  I am happy.

The farmer cast the stones away, and my gardner gathered them up.  Biblical!