Thank you for your Support?

Dear Blog Reader:

I hope this finds you doing well. I am fine. The weather is still great. Thanks to all of you who are heeding the warnings of your ancestors and leaving the flannel sheets on your beds until May. Your words of encouragement were very touching. For those of you who are leaving your flannel sheets on and turning on the air conditioning, remember you are doing the Lord’s work during these unprecedented times, and it’s not ridiculous. For goodness sakes, don’t let the objections and ridicule of your spouses, significant others, friends, and enemies dissuade you from this important work. You are the lynch pins that are holding our fragile world together. Without you there will be a freeze. Fruit and vegetable prices will skyrocket. Shortages, famines, riots; we have been forewarned.

I am sorry to say that the Sharritt household has abandoned the cause. Bev accepted the responsibilities of possible mass starvation and changed the sheets. Know this; I remained strong and refused to help remove those comfortable flannels that provided so many protections and replace them with those easy breezy cotton pretenders that may see us through the summer. However, they won’t protect us from the early spring freeze.

Alas, I wrote those prophetic words on Saturday. Today, Monday, we have a freeze warning; more importantly, a freeze warning for areas North and East of Indianapolis, which is where we live. My grandmother undoubtedly is raising her arms in solemn victory. She told us so. And we did not heed her advice.

If you don’t know what I am talking about, you can gain insight and understanding by reading last week’s blog “The Affects of Global Warming?”

This week I must say that I am a bit afflicted. Bev leaves for Ghana in two days. That’s right: on Wednesday morning she will board a plane, it will rise into the air and fly (as far as I’m concerned) to the ends of the earth. She is visiting our lovely daughter Grace in Ghana. I have not written much about Grace’s excursions. I am heavily influenced by the same voices I wrote about last week. Somehow my mind has convinced me that if I ignore the situation everything will turn out okay. The situation? The situation is that my 20 year old daughter has gone to the third world for 10 months to participate in their “educational” system. (My quotes). Eight months into the excursion and my supportive fatherly instincts are starting to flag. It is the dog days of fatherly support.

“Sounds like things are going well.”

“Yeah, it’s been four weeks since you have fallen into an open sewer. Things are going well.”

“That’s a shame that the electricity has been out for so long that you can’t work on your computer. Those electrons are slippery things.”

“Don’t worry. The professors will show up eventually. It is a University after all.”

“No. Africans yelling,  “Umbruni!” whenever they see a white person would have no parallel to behavior exhibited in the deep South during our formative years as a nation.”

Yes, it the dog days of fatherly support. What do you do when your enthusiasm is waning? You double down. You tell your wife that it is okay with you if she goes to Ghana for 10 days to visit your daughter; one’s fatherly support bolstered by being a supportive husband.

You hold on tight

to being enlightened,
to not letting fear rule your life,
to everything will be okay,
to don’t sweat the small stuff,
to the great adventure,
to do we have any Tylenol pm?,
to let go and let God,
to living in the moment,
to you can’t run their lives,
to you worry too much,
to it will be okay won’t it?

Take care,

Roger