"Bonding.................................."

Approaching five in the morning here. My sister-in-law has an appointment for eye surgery at six-thirty. Beth usually drives her wherever, whenever she has such need, but darkness, anymore, is a bit too much for her to navigate. The plan, therefore, is for me to get them to the hospital; then home for me to get my car and fulfill my obligation with school while she, with the sun “up and about”, returns to take them back after the operation. A little lost sleep, but no big deal… The monthly meeting with the men at the mission last night went well. A cold drizzly rain was falling outside, but the “sanctuary” inside still had a few empty seats, not what one might expect in such weather. Mark stepped in with his saxophone between Tony and me, speaking first of personal experience endured the last few weeks and then blowing that horn as if he and it were one in a connection to a divine stream from on high. On either side of that heavenly honey, my compadre and I simply shared with those there the truth of salvation being, not a list of “thou shalt nots”, nor a “free pass through the Pearly Gates” button passed out upon conversion for a fellow to present to St. Pete upon arrival. Christianity is about inviting God into the next step no matter where you are in your journey. The “kingdom” is a “reconnection re-established through Calvary’s Cross, the only question being whether we will use it, abuse it, or lose it by rejecting what is freely offered us in Him. In ending, I took them to the son in the movie who quoted his preacher father in observing that “Eventually all things merge into one; and a river runs through it”. I believe that. I believe we all are born of the same spiritual umbilical cord and spend all our life trying to get back upstream to the One who birthed us……