Rebecca S. Ramsey's Blog

The Sunday School Uprising of 2025: A Second Grader Makes His Case

I’ve taught kids the Ten Commandments for years, so when Sunday came around, I didn’t worry.

I love the way we share them in Godly Play. God’s people have finally escaped Pharaoh. Yay! They’re no longer enslaved. They can go where they want, do what they want, and live however they want. “God loves the people so much,” I say to our first and second graders, “that God shows them the ten best ways to live. Sometimes we call these ways the Ten Commandments.”

I take out the heart-shaped box that holds the ten stones, and I tell them the story about Moses and Mount Sinai. Before I share each commandment, I give a summary: Love God. Love people. God loves us. Everybody nods.

In Godly Play, we usually wait to discuss the story until the leader has finished sharing it, but I bend that practice a little this time. I want to make sure we understand each commandment as we go along.

The first one (Don’t serve other gods) makes sense to everyone…until my grandson raises his hand. “But I love the Greek gods,” he says. “They’re very interesting. Plus, they have all kinds of powers.”

I look at Josiah. He’s serious. “The stories are fun to read,” I say. “But do you serve the Greek gods?”

“I read them,” he says. “I enjoy them.”

“But are the Greek gods real to you?” Josiah thinks for a moment. “Do you pray to them?”

“No,” he says. “I don’t pray to them. I just pray to God.”

Moving right along…

For the second commandment, (Make no idols to worship), I add, “Some people treat money as an idol. That’s all they think about.”

“Oh, I know all about that,” a child says.

“Yeah,” says another. “I’ve always wanted a yacht.”

The children understand #3 just fine (Be serious when you say my name), as well as #4, (Keep the Sabbath holy.) “That’s what we’re doing!” a child says proudly. Honor your mother and father make sense to them, too, as well as Don’t kill.

“Obviously!” one child says.

“Well, sometimes it’s tricky,” I add. “Some people take this best way very seriously when they plan their meals. Like, what about chicken nuggets?”

“Oh, that’s right!” a child says. “Somebody has to kill the chicken!”

Another child raises her hand. “But maybe the chicken is a very old chicken, and it dies and somebody finds it and they make it into nuggets. You could eat that one.”

“THAT’S NOT HOW IT WORKS!” they say.

“Like I said, it’s tricky,” I say. “Families have to figure out what they think about that.”

I barely get the words out to commandment #7 (Don’t break your marriage) before the children start talking about divorce. “That does happen sometimes,” I say. “When people get married, they want to be married forever. But sometimes it doesn’t work out, no matter how hard they try.” Everyone nods. “These best ways to live are hard! Sometimes they even seem impossible. But we have to try.”

The next two commandments make sense to them. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. Before they start sharing the lies they’ve told, I move onto #10.

Don’t even want what others have.

“WHAT?” Josiah said. “HOW CAN THAT BE A COMMANDMENT?”

“I hear you,” I said. “That one’s super hard.”

“I DON’T LIKE THAT ONE,” Josiah said. “I DON’T LIKE IT AT ALL! We need to get rid of that one. HOW CAN YOU KEEP FROM WANTING SOMETHING?”

“That’s a good question,” I said. “What do you all think?”

“You could think about something else,” a child said.

“THAT WON’T WORK,” Josiah said. “If you want something, it stays in your head.”

A girl raised her hand. “I think that #10 is connected to #1, the one about not serving other gods. See, if you want something real bad, it might become your god.”

“Yeah,” said another child. “And if it belongs to your friend, you might fight over it!”

“Yeah!” said another child. “And before you know it, you might lie! And you might be sassy to your parents! You might even steal it!”

“Or kill!” said another child.

“It’s a toughie, for sure,” I said. “But Josiah, you know what’s good?” He refused to look at me. “What’s good is that you don’t have to try to follow these ways alone. You can ask God for help.”

“Okay, but nine commandments are enough,” Josiah said. “I don’t think that last one is fair.”

“I understand,” I said.

“I mean, it’s almost Christmas!”

“I know,” I said. “All we can do is try our best. And when we mess up, what do we do then?”

“Say sorry,” the kids said, “and try again.”

Once we finished all the wondering questions, sharing our favorite commandments and the hardest ones, (you can guess Josiah’s answer) we moved to the art tables. The kids wrote out each commandment on a slip of paper and put it into their very own heart-shaped boxes. It was a lot of writing and they worked super hard. Josiah wanted to roll up his commandments like ancient scrolls, so he only got through commandment #7.

“Here, Josiah,” said my co-teacher, Jennifer. She offered him three slips of paper so he could finish them at home.

“Thanks,” he said, “but I only need two.”

I got a Christmas toy catalog in my mailbox today. I usually share it with the boys, but maybe I’ll keep it to myself for a while.

 

 

 

 

The post The Sunday School Uprising of 2025: A Second Grader Makes His Case appeared first on beckyramsey.info.

A Parade! (And a Second One I Didn’t Expect)

Something super fun happened this week! The kindergarten classes at Daniel’s neighborhood school officially finished their study of each letter of the alphabet. They were ready to celebrate, so a parade was in order!

Each child in the class was assigned a letter, along with a hat and a paper bag vest to decorate in honor of their letter.

Daniel was thrilled to get the letter P. Did I ever tell you that for a while he asked us to call him Pizza Orange? He did! I’m still not sure why, but whatever! Pizza Orange got the perfect letter.

Anyway, Daniel covered his vest with pink and purple pompoms and polka dots, popcorn and pepperoni, pretzels and pigs, and the day finally came.

Lucky for my Chicago son, Sam, he was home visiting, so he got to come too. We rolled out of bed early Tuesday morning and made our way to school. We left twenty five minutes early, even though school is five minutes away, because I knew Parking would be a Problem. (So many P words!)

Sure enough, it was. So we found an empty street in a nearby neighborhood and walked.

The Parade was fantastic!

All five classes marched, doing a double loop around the back parking lot, singing the ABC song. The crowd loved it, cheering them on and taking lots of Pictures.

Once it was over, the kids marched back to class, and we headed back to the car.

But as we left, I saw another parade I didn’t expect. One I loved just as much.

A parade of people who cared, heading back to their cars or their nearby homes. People who’d rolled out of bed like us, people in scrubs, suits, sweatpants and work uniforms. Parents pushing strollers, grandparents holding hands, aunts and uncles standing in for parents who had to be at work.

It was beautiful! I was lucky to see it.

 

 

 

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You’re Still Here, Too? Yay!

I had no idea the world was in a dither over today’s scheduled rapture (or is it tomorrow?) until I did my Meals on Wheels route and talked with Miss Roberta. She greeted me on the porch with a pretty big question.

“People are saying it’s the end times,” she said. “Do you think they’re right?”

Maybe for democracy, I thought inside my head.

But the end times for humanity?

“No, I don’t think they’re right at all.” I didn’t share all my reasons. “I see too many good things happening to worry about that.”

It’s kind of funny that I said that, because…

At the moment that it came out of my mouth, I didn’t even know what was about to happen over at Mr. Knighten’s house! I’ll get to that in a minute.I’m always telling Todd that I’m sick and tired of living in a dumpster fire. (Not our house–the world!) Who was I, being so positive?

But I do believe it. In spite of everything, there are good things happening.

This week, I’ve been remembering good things that came from something horrible–something that’s about to have an anniversary.

If you live in the Carolinas, you know what I’m talking about. Almost a year ago, Helene stormed in, killing 250 people, plus 71 more during the aftermath and cleanup. My family and friends were really lucky. We lost no one. My dear neighbors, Sarah and John, lost their home and their cars, but thankfully their family stayed safe.

Even in the worst times, beautiful things managed to happen.

The storm brought my neighborhood closer. We checked on each other and helped each other. FEMA brought some super skilled people in  from neighboring states. They helped us so much, clearing trees off houses and roads.

A few weeks after the storm, we drove to see our son, Ben. He works in western North Carolina in an area that was hit hard. We weren’t sure we should go, but after being without power in his apartment for a several weeks and flushing his toilet with creek water, he’d found a house to buy. He wanted us to take a look, so we went. As you can imagine, the devastation was mind-blowing. Cadaver dogs were still at work under bridges. Houses were left where the water dragged them.

We met Ben, saw the house, and it was time to come home. Well, it was actually time for lunch, if we could find a store with food. There were cars at a café down the road. We walked over.

The place was packed. “Sit where you want,” said a guy in muddy work boots, eating with his family. He nodded at a table in the back, loaded with crockpots and sandwich bread. “It’s for everybody. Free of charge. If you want to leave some money, there’s a can there. But you don’t have to.”

Ben bought the house. It’s a great community.

Mr. Knighten’s community is pretty great too. (Yay, I’m still here to tell you!)

When I drove up to the house, I hardly recognized the yard. It was freshly mowed and neat. An old man in a hat was dragging a branch onto a giant pile of pulled up bushes. The home health aide was settling Mr. Knighten back in his wheel chair after going down the steps.

“Oh, you’re just in time!” she said, rushing over to take the meal I brought. “He’s getting a blessing, and you get to see it!”

A blessing? I’d heard about ministers blessing a home, how they go room to room, asking God’s blessing on each space. Where was the minister?

“A blessing?” I said.

“Yes, see?” She pointed to the man in the hat. “That man there, that’s his neighbor! He did all of this OUT OF THE GOODNESS OF HIS HEART! Trimmed the trees, mowed the lawn, pulled weeds, took away the trash, EVERYTHING!”

“That’s so nice,” I said.

“It sure is!”

We said goodbye, but I couldn’t leave yet. I sat in the driveway and watched his neighbor push Mr. Knighten through the grass, showing him his beautiful yard. Mr. Knighten beamed.

I probably did, too.

The end times? No. Let’s not rush it. We’d miss stuff like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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What I Saw at School That Made Me Flinch

I was the Secret Reader today at kindergarten!

I was so secret, in fact, that even I was surprised when the receptionist told me that I’d arrived an hour early!

Oopsie!

No problem. I hung out in the school office and watched the parade of cute mamas (and one daddy in golf clothes) arriving (with food!) to eat lunch with their children.

“If I could have a dollar for every Chick-Fil-A meal that comes through this office,” the receptionist said, “I’d be a rich woman!” I laughed as she buzzed in another daddy.

He walked in hesitantly, not sure where to stand.

“Yes?” she asked. “How may I help you, sir?”

He stammered a little in a heavy accent. “I need..uh…early…uh…”

“Early dismissal?” she said. He nodded, and said a child’s name which I couldn’t understand. She didn’t understand him either. “Hmm,” she said. “What grade is your child in?”

“Five K. Five.”

“Two children? Five K and fifth grade?”

“Yes please.”

“Would you please spell that last name, sir?”

I felt myself flinch.

She wasn’t being unreasonable. She was perfectly kind and patient.

I flinched because I’d time-travelled back to 1999. I was the mom version of this daddy, trying to raise my kids in a country brand new to me, not fluent in the language that everyone spoke. (What? Three years of high school French didn’t make me fluent 17 years later? What a joke!) Constantly having to talk in rooms of curious people who watched my every move and made their own assumptions and judgements about who I was, why I was there, and how smart (or not smart) I was.

I flinched because being asked to spell something in another language isn’t as easy as you might think. I know this sounds obvious, but not only are the words different, the letters are pronounced differently too, and sometimes the accent is really hard to get right. Try spelling your first and last name in another language in front of a captive audience when your two kids are whining for snacks and your baby’s trying to nurse your elbow!

I LOVED our four years away. Even at first, when the embarrassment made me cry in my car. Even when clerks heard my accent and ran to hide. (It didn’t happen often. French people love it when you try.)

But as I saw that kindergartner race to kiss his daddy—and as I watched them cuddle and talk as they waited for big brother—that daddy’s bravery moved me.

It was beautiful. I was lucky to see it.

Enjoy your weekend!

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What Do You Do When Your Country Breaks Your Heart?

What do you do when your country breaks your heart… over and over again?

When the present saddens you, the future worries you, and you just want to pack up everyone you love and run away from it all?

Here’s what I do—besides deep breaths and desperate prayers:

I turn off the news. (They’ll still be talking about it later.)I send some money to a cause I believe in, like Sandy Hook Promise or Everytown for Gun Safety.I skim our family text string. It’s a fun mix of awkward photos—some oldies, some new, some with captions like, “Does this mole look weird to you?” It also contains bizarre quotes from the grandkids, (“When I grow up, I want to farm moss,”) and my husband’s latest use of teenage slang, (“The drip is bussin, Sam,”) just to make everybody cringe.

Okay, I hesitate to tell you about action item #4. It makes me sound like a materialistic American who soothes her feelings by going shopping, but here it is anyway:

Sometimes I walk the aisles of Miracle Hill.

Miracle Hill is the thrift store up the street. It’s a cheap distraction, okay?

I was there this afternoon, trying not to think about the horror of political violence and how I wish our leadership would take it seriously no matter who’s on the receiving end, when I spied something familiar.

Hey! I know those soup bowls!

They were made back in 2012 by kids at Duncan Chapel Elementary School. Our church sold them as a fundraiser for Mission Backpack, a program that feeds hungry kids on the weekends. Every week during the school year, volunteers gather in our food pantry to fill backpacks with a weekend’s worth of food. On Fridays, the backpacks go home with kids who may not have enough to eat. School staffers choose which kids need the food, and our volunteers never meet the recipients, so the families’ privacy is protected.

I didn’t buy the bowls. We have three beautiful bowls of our own. I love their wiggly lines, their jagged edges, and the children’s fingerprints in the clay. I LOVE thinking about kids helping kids. Just looking at those bowls gives me hope.

If you’re wondering if it bothers me that someone donated them to Miracle Hill, are you kidding?! I’m all for cleaning out cabinets. And get this—not only did those bowls make money for Mission Backpack, but now their sales will make money for Miracle Hill Ministries! The thrift store funds four rescue missions, addiction recovery support, and foster care programs. The kids helped each other back in 2012, and now they’re helping the community!

I look at all that helping, and I feel my heart mending!

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When Sunday School Becomes a Horror Show

Kids love a good story. Sometimes they notice things.

Like this past Sunday morning, when I shared the story of the flood and the ark with our first and second graders. It’d been a while since I’d talked about God with kids at church, and I was so excited. They say the most profound things!

It started out great.

“OOH!” they said when I brought the materials to the rug. The wooden ark, the basket of animals, the tiny perfect dove, Mr. and Mrs. Noah, and the prism that brings a rainbow to our classroom. They’ve been hearing the story for years now, so they know the words we say. How we start by remembering the part of the creation story, when God made the earth and said it was very good.

“But people began to do bad things,” I said. “So, God decided to send a great flood of water to wash everything clean and make it new again.”

I know. It was definitely a white-washed, sanitized version. Good thing. It’s a dark story.

Anyway, I told them how Noah finished the ark, and I hopped the bunnies right inside it. Next came the giraffes—at which, an observant child reminded me that giraffes don’t hop and that I’d forgotten the gangplank. Once all the animals crawled and slithered and trotted inside, I continued the story, rocking the ark higher and higher above my head.

You know how the story goes. It rains for forty days and forty nights, God sends the wind to dry up all the rain, (at which point a certain grandson started singing about the itsy-bitsy spider, which confused me at first.) Eventually our dove flew off to make a new nest, signaling to Noah that it was time to come out.

Once the story was over, I asked the kids the wondering questions we always use in Godly Play: what was your favorite part, what was the most important part, what part was about you, etc. Their answers were lovely. They were glad God stayed close to them on the ark. They liked the ending, when everybody came down the gangplank to the shiny new world and thanked God.

We sat down at the tables to make some rainbows.

That’s when they brought up the bones.

“I bet when they got off the ark, there were bones everywhere,” my grandson said, adding some crunching sound effects.

“Actually,” a little girl said, squirting a blob of glue onto her half paper plate, “if they were just on the boat for forty days and nights, the bodies were probably still lying around.”

“Yeah,” a child added. “What if people tried to climb into the boat?”

I looked at my co-teacher Beatriz. “Wow,” I said. “Y’all sure go straight to the gruesome parts!”

At that point I had to decide what to do.

Now, I’m not a person who takes this story literally, but I didn’t want to go there with them. What’s your goal here? I asked myself.

It’s always been the same thing: to help them see God’s unconditional love for them, to help them get to know Jesus, so they can see the world and others (and scripture) through his eyes, and to help the kids wonder and ask questions about God.

They were wondering! So yay for bone talk, I guess.

“You know what I like about this story?” I said. “I like the part where God changes God’s mind.”

“Yeah!” a child said. “He promised to never send a flood again!”

“Like Helene!” said another child. Poor kids. We all remembered Helene.

“God didn’t send Helene, right?” I asked.

“RIGHT!” They laughed, like I was telling a joke.

“What about when people do bad things?” I asked. “God hates it when people hurt people. Right?”

“RIGHT!”

“God wants them to change,” a child said. “Like he changed!”

Wow.

I’d say that’s mic-drop wisdom, right there!

 

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Miss Minnie, The Rest of the Story

Hey again, friends. While I work on my novel and wait for blogging inspiration to strike, I’m sharing some reflections I wrote back in 2010 about one of my favorite Meals on Wheels clients, Miss Minnie Jackson (not her real name.)  If you missed parts one and two, check them out here. Hang in there through part three! Her situation gets happier!

Part Three, June 2010

The last time I delivered a meal to Miss Minnie, a wheel chair blocked her front door. What was that doing there? She never used a wheel chair.
“Hey there, Miss Minnie,” I said. “It’s Becky, with Meals on Wheels.” She reached up from her bed to unlock her screen door.
“Hey.” Her voice sounded weaker than usual. “You weren’t here last time. Somebody else came.”
“Yes ma’am. My family went to the beach.”
“Oh, that’s nice.”

I opened the door. She always kept the lights off when it got hot, and it was nearly 100 degrees. When my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I tried not to shudder at the sight of her. She seemed to have shrunk. There were little red scabs all over her face. I looked down at the bugs scattering across her floor, across her sheets. Were the scabs from bug bites?

“I brought you your mail,” I said. “Maybe somebody’s sent you a check!” That’s our long running joke, that maybe one day there will be a check in her stack of bills. “Looks like you got a package.” I held up a puffy envelope.
“Oh, yeah. That’s probably my gun.”
What? “A gun?”
“Yeah.” Miss Minnie laughs, enjoying my shock. “It’s one of those tester things. For my diabetes.”
We laugh as I pull at the envelope. I say that I thought she meant a real gun, and she says no, but she’s thought about buying one with all the break-ins lately. I tell her that she’d better not do that. How would she aim? (I keep that thought to myself.)
Finally I manage to rip the package open. “Well, let’s see what you’ve got here.” Wrapped in Saran wrap is a box of toothpaste, a new toothbrush and a travel package of Kleenex. I hand it to her and tell her what it is. “There’s a card,” I say, and read it to her: For Minnie, We’re thinking of you and hope you’re doing well. We love you. Love, Your Church Family.

We look at each other for a moment, neither of us knowing what to say.
Well,” she says as I hand her the card, “isn’t that helpful.”
She looks at me and we laugh a little.
She cradles the toothpaste and toothbrush and Kleenex in her lap, laughing her weak little laugh, and I want to cry.

Part Four, August 2020

Two weeks later, Miss Minnie’s name was missing from my client list. I drove by her house since it was on my route anyway. A sign was on her door.

Condemned.

The wheelchair was still on the porch, a puddle of rainwater in the seat.

I remembered how angry she’d been with the DSS worker who threatened to force her out of her home. She must have been so scared!

A month or so later, I found out where she was. She’d been in her nursing home for a week. Was she still mad? According to the social worker, she’d thrown a big fit. They carried her out scratching and kicking.

I decided to pay her a visit at her new home. As I pulled into the parking lot, I was having second thoughts. What if the social worker told her I’d reported her situation? Would she even want to see me? The place didn’t look like much from the outside.I braced myself for the worst. Then I walked through the doors.

It was beautiful, really. There were murals on the walls. It smelled clean.
I walked through the corridors, searching for her wing. It was almost time for lunch.

Finally I found it. “I’m looking for Miss Minnie Jackson.*”
“Look behind you,” a nurse smiled.
I scanned the room. Where was she?
The nurse laughed.”You’re looking right at her!”
“Miss Minnie?” I said to the white haired woman hanging down her head.
She looked up. I hardly recognized her! The scabs had healed, her clothes were clean, and she was clean! Her fingernails were neatly trimmed. Her hair was snow white and slightly curled, like my Granny Farley’s used to be. Her face reminded me of Granny’s too, soft and smooth.

“Miss Minnie, it’s me. Becky, from Meals on Wheels.”
“Oh.” Her eyes glimmered a little.
“I’m so glad to see you. Are you doing okay?”
“I guess so,” she said, and straightened up in her chair. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you. Is that okay?”
“Well yes,” she said, as if that were a silly question. “You want to eat lunch with me?”
“I can sit with you during lunch, if you want.”
“Okay, but you’ll have to show me where it is I’m supposed to go. I get so turned around in this place.”
The nurse pointed us the way, and we went into their small dining room. It was full of other people in wheelchairs, each pulled up to tables, all in their own little worlds. A nurse was putting paper bibs on each one, calling them by name, asking how they were doing today. The lady in the corner kept calling out to no one in particular, “Sweetheart, please.”

“She’s out of her mind,” Miss Minnie said, seeing me glance at her. “I wanna say, ‘Please what?’ but she don’t know what she’s saying. She never shuts up.”

So we sat together, with another woman who smiled when I introduced myself and didn’t say another word. Miss Minnie and I talked a little, but I mainly watched her eat. She was hungry, eating nearly all her Beef Stroganoff, roll, and jello with strawberries. “I think you like it,” I teased her.
“It’s not bad.”
“It’s not bad?” I laughed. “You want me to hold the plate up so you can lick it?”
She laughed a little. “No, I can’t do that. They might stick me in exercise again, say they need to teach me to eat. They call it therapy, but it’s really exercise. You know I haven’t exercised in sixty some years? But I have to do it here.”
“Is it hard?” I asked.
“No, it’s not hard. It’s good for me, I guess. But I don’t like it much.”

“You don’t like what much?” A nurse wrapped her arms around Miss Minnie and kissed her on the cheek. “We just love Miss Minnie,” she said to me. “She’s a character.” She turned back to Minnie. “Now what don’t you like much?”
“Exercise. Therapy.”
“Yeah, well, we got to get you chewing right. We worked on popcorn this morning, didn’t we? That’s probably why you can’t eat all your noodles, today, right? Cause I stuffed you full of popcorn.”
“Maybe. Could I have some coffee please?”
“Sure honey. How do you take it?”
“One pack of sugar. That’s all.”

I wanted to cry again. But this time, for happiness!

 

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Meet Miss Minnie

Hey there, friends. You may have wondered where I’ve been since it seems like I’ve taken a blogging break. Actually, I’ve been walking around, waiting for inspiration to strike, trying not to despair about the world, and working on my novel. It’s a fun place to be, that novel, full of laughter and weirdness and hope. But I’ve missed interacting with you, so I thought I’d introduce you to an old friend of mine.

I started writing about Miss Minnie (not her real name) back in 2009. I fell in love with her on my Meals on Wheels route. When I hear about cuts to Meals on Wheels and Medicaid, she’s one of the people who come to mind.

I’m only sharing Parts One and Two of her story today, but don’t worry. It has a happy-ish ending. I’ll post the rest next week, unless inspiration finally comes through. I promise not to leave you and Miss Minnie handing.

Part One, September 2009

Miss Minnie Pond’s house is the last stop on my Meals on Wheels route, which is a good thing since she usually has plenty to talk about. She’s almost 90 years old, white-headed with a bit of a beard, and she walks with a walker from time to time. Some days she wears a bow in her hair and other days she answers the door with her shirt unbuttoned, a boob hanging out. I ask her if she’s trying to put on a show and we laugh.

Usually she tells me the latest news about the sneaky lady at the Department of Social Services and how that woman is conspiring to make her leave her home of more than fifty years. And then she tells me how SHE ISN’T MOVING no matter what anyone says. “My mama and daddy’s long gone, so I don’t have to listen to NOBODY!” She can get along fine, she says, even though we both know that I help her write checks when it’s time to pay bills, and back in July she needed me to come in and plug in her fan because she couldn’t see the outlets and was burning up in the heat.

Part Two, March 2010

Minnie’s life seems to be getting harder by the day. I keep reminding myself that she’s nearly blind. She can’t see how filthy her house is–the trash scattered on the floor, the grime. She uses a walker all the time now, and the last time I came, I noticed she had a chamber pot by her bed. She must empty it often because there isn’t an odor.

Once a month, we get out her bills and she points to her purse. (She keeps it at the end of her bed, along with an open box of cereal for snacking.) I find her wallet and write the checks. The first time I did it, I signed her name for her, and boy, she gave me a talking to! Now I put my thumb by the signature line. She feels for it, and then carefully writes her name. Usually her shaky signature floats up the check towards the date line, but the bank always accepts it.

Last month when we did her bills, she’d put them in a bill holder on the wall. When I pulled them out of the holder, a dozen bugs showered down on us. I guess they were nesting in there, feeding on the glue of the envelopes. I tried not to react too much. Miss Minnie didn’t see them, so I just flicked them off of both of us, wrote her checks, and drove straight to report what happened, flicking at imaginary bugs the entire way. No one should live like that. She can’t see well enough to take care of herself and her home without help, and she has no family nearby. Hopefully her social worker will get her some help so she can stay in her home. We’ll see.

I hope I haven’t ruined your breakfast or lunch. I tell her story because there are so many Miss Minnie’s out there, barely making it, invisible to everyone else. I’m sure I’m not telling you anything new. You may love a Miss Minnie yourself.

I’m thankful for her courage and stubbornness and persistence–and for the way she makes my life richer.

See you next time!

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Sleepover, with a Side of Smarts

When Sarah asked if we could keep the kids last night, I was quick to say YES!

Why not? Sleepovers are fun! We’d eat ice cream, snuggle, maybe watch a movie in bed. Sure, I’d probably get boy toes pressed into my ribs all night, but it’s not like I’d end up re-examining my life or anything. We’d play, we’d go to bed, and then we’d wake up. There’s always coffee. No big deal!

How quickly we forget!

Strange things do happen at sleepovers.

Like the sleepover we had when Sarah turned seven. Around 1:30 am, I had to beg a sobbing party-goer to let me babysit her Tamagotchi virtual pet which required constant playing, training, and virtual poop cleaning OR IT WOULD DIE.

Like the sleepover party we had when Ben turned eight and he broke his wrist climbing out a window.

Like the sleepover Sam had in middle school, when he and his buddy showed each other their pocket knives and Sam ended up with 15 stitches.

On reflection, maybe I should re-examine my parenting life! Were virtual pets invited to the birthday party? How much candy had I let Ben eat? Who brings a knife to a sleepover? (A 2009 middle school boy, that’s who.)

Don’t worry. The boys got through their sleepover with Lala and Pappy without a single teardrop or injury. But I’ll admit it, something did happen that caused me to reflect.

Around 9:30 pm, we were just getting settled in to sleep, when Jack hopped onto the foot of our bed and meowed at the bedroom window. Jack’s our inside/outside cat. I know it sounds weird, but we’ve gotten into the habit of letting him in and out our window. (We do not do this with children. That was Ben’s idea, and it was a one-time thing.)

Josiah and Daniel found this fascinating.

They liked the whole process. That first, he meows at the window. That second, he’s trained us to LIFT him to the window sill, like we’re his personal cat elevator. That third, we open the window and let him stand there a moment.

“Before he jumps down, he needs to know that he’s safe,” I explained. “He needs to be sure no predator is out there, waiting to surprise him.”

Jack demonstrated, as if he and I were team-teaching the boys CAT 101. He stretched. He sniffed the air. He looked into the darkness. He felt the breeze.

“Go on, now.” I said to Jack.

Jack sniffed some more. He looked some more. He stood some more.

“Sometimes he does this,” I said.

Jack kept standing. Sniffing. Looking.

“Come on, Jack. Move.”

He was giving the boys their money’s worth.

I did what I do sometimes. I lowered the window sash, just enough to let Jack feel it against him. So maybe he’d think to himself, Oh yeah, I’ve been standing here a while. Gnats are flying in. Mosquitos, too, probably. I should really get a move on.

But Jack didn’t have time to think all those thoughts because in a split-second, Josiah jumped in front of the window and threw up the sash! “Lala! Gentle!” he said. “Jack needs to feel safe!”

Did he just say Gentle!?

He did.

The funny thing is that just this Sunday, I taught an adult Sunday school class on the spiritual gift of gentleness. We defined it as powerful care with a soft touch. Or, put another way, the practice of holding back your own strength as you care for those you’re to love and protect, so that you don’t damage them in any way. To help us think about it, I brought in a hard-boiled egg and challenged someone to crack open the shell with a sledgehammer. No one volunteered, so I volun-told my husband. It was fun to watch. The egg only got mushed a little.

Did I need to go back to Sunday school?

It made me wonder how gentle I really am. When do I say gentle words, but lower the sash against people I love, just to let them feel it? To prompt them to move a little faster? To try a little harder? To put a little more oomph in what I’ve asked them to do?

“It’s okay, Jack,” Josiah said. “Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.”

Well, we were going to bed.

We made it there, eventually. What’s a few extra gnats? A few toes in my ribs? It was a fun night. And in the morning, before I even got up, guess who was there to greet us?

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Searching for Maurice: My Groundhog Story

People seem to have strong feelings about groundhogs.

The only feeling I had was that I WANTED TO SEE ONE!

I wanted to see one—and I kind of needed to. A groundhog (AKA woodchuck, whistle-pig, land beaver,) plays a part in the novel I’m working on.

Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to be transfixed by a groundhog’s fears and desires.

This book is for kids, ages 8-12. Maurice, the groundhog, isn’t the star of the novel, but as Chair of the Animal Council, he sends Penelope, my 10-year-old human protagonist, on a journey she’d rather ditch, given that she wants to lose her reputation as a liar, not make it worse. To make the story believable (at least to readers who want to believe it) I needed to know how groundhogs move, talk, breathe, sit, and eat. Sure, I could watch videos online. But wouldn’t it be better to see one in person?

I used to see them all the time, twenty-some years ago. When my children were little, I’d spot them every Tuesday and Thursday evenings, as I was driving back and forth to Clemson for graduate school. They’d stand up straight in the grassy shoulder of Highway 123 like they were waiting for a Tiger Transit bus to stop and give them a ride to Herbology class. But it’s been a while since then.

I was sure the groundhog of my dreams would show up last week at my writing retreat in Pennsylvania. After all, I was at the Highlights Foundation, a retreat center in Milanville, a small rural town in the northern part of the state, with a wooded campus so crawling with deer and rabbits (and groundhogs, supposedly,) that you might suspect Highlights paid the animals to hang out near the cabins. It’d kind of fit. If you want to write or illustrate books for kids, Highlights is the place to go. People go there all year long to work independently or attend workshops led by well-known kid lit authors. That’s where I met some favorite writers of mine the summer of 2022: the six other women in my writing group.

Nearly every Tuesday night since then, we meet on Zoom for an hour, to read each other’s work, to listen, offer thoughts, and cheer each other on. I love and treasure these ladies. They understand me. Even my need to meet a groundhog.

As my week at Highlights progressed, I kept watching and searching and waiting.

I went on hikes. I took my laptop to the porch, and scanned the horizon every other paragraph. I walked by the chef’s garden more times than necessary. I wandered around fields of wildflowers, alongside the creek, beside the art studio. No groundhog.

Several of the women in my writing group had seen at least one—and they weren’t even looking! Why couldn’t I?

Forget it, I told myself. I watched videos. I moved on.

The week was GREAT! The women gave me really helpful feedback and I attacked my second draft like a hungry…groundhog! We laughed, we cried, and we got a lot of work done. I’m so excited about their novels! And I’m excited about mine!

And my trip wasn’t even over yet! I had planned to take an extra day for a little field trip to Amherst, Massachusetts to visit the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. Yes, it’d mean more driving, but it was just four hours away. When I told the ladies about my plans, my friend Dawn asked if I’d tour Emily Dickinson’s house while I was there.

EMILY DICKINSON’S HOUSE IS IN AMHERST TOO?

YES! I WILL TOUR IT!

And so I did. Well, kind of. The tour was sold out, but it was still worth the stop. After listening to four hours of podcasts on Emily Dickinson, I LOVED walking around her house, seeing the gardens, reading her poetry right where she wrote it.

I thought I was finished. I thought I’d enjoyed all that Emily had to offer me, so I walked back to the mostly empty large parking lot where I’d left my car, enjoying the weather the locals were complaining about. (82 degrees with 70% humidity! The horror! Ha ha.)

I opened my car door, tossed in my purse, and heard a strange, scratching noise.

I turned around to find A HUGE AMOEBA-LOOKING BAG OF FUR ON THE ASPHALT BEHIND ME, GALLOPING DIAGONALLY ACROSS THE ENTIRE PARKING LOT!

GROUNDHOG OF MY DREAMS! YOU CAME TO ME!

I was so excited, so beside myself, that I called out to an old couple walking across the parking lot, “DID YOU SEE THAT?!!”

The man shrugged. “It’s a groundhog,” he said.

It was.

So, friends, If my book ever gets published, and you ever get the chance to stop by Emily’s house in Amhurst, Massachusetts, take a short jaunt over to the parking lot on Dickinson Street. Keep an eye out for an alarmingly large groundhog. Tell Maurice that I said hi.

 

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