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We can never get bored with the spiritual basics.  Can we?  What tempts us to get bored?  Why do we think the basics ae relatively unimportant?  Do we even think about such things?

Is it because they are too basic.  Too elementary?  Too simple?  Is this why it’s not on our daily radar screen?

Why?

We can never get bored with the basics.  Ever!  What example do we set for the people following us – family, friends, colleagues and others we don’t even know about.

Tomorrow marks the seven month “anniversary” of starting every day on my knees.  After 50 years on our planet, it occurred to me that starting each day on my knees was as basic as it gets.  And yet, I had never done it.  Why?

Nobody called me.  I didn’t call anyone either.

Wanted to.  Thinking back, it seemed like I had promised to.

Oh well. Today is another day.  We all get a second chance today. Hopefully, we’ll take it.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend.  Trick or treat.  Happy Halloween.

Maybe.  I hope so.  Ever have something that’s been sort of nagging at you?  Something important?   Some critical piece of the puzzle?

Me too.  And often (not always), what we seek is an opportunity (an ice-breaker) to open the door.

I think it happened last night.  Thanks to my wife for being a positive catalyst.

Now it’s up to me to push the door open a little wider. Please pray that I’ll have the wisdom to demonstrate compassion as well as courage.  And I’ll do the same for you.  Carpe diem.

If there is one thing that I (we) need to figure out, it’s how to become better at communicating with Family and friends in distant places. And if this is possible, it could bring a whole new level of peace and joy to life.

Upon an inventory of my life, this is the one area I feel disgustingly inadequate with.  Seriously.  It often causes me to feel hypocritical. Maybe I worry to much about this. Maybe not.

Anyone out there have any suggestions?

Build children or repair adults?

No brainer, isn’t it?

Then why are we so challenged to invest the time in children?

“Busy.  Busy.  Dreadfully busy.  You’ve no idea what I have to do”.  – Line from VeggieTales song

At the root of this challenge is me.  And you.  And every other adult with an opportunity to inspire a child by the power of our own example.

jeff noel, blogger, average guy, Father, Husband, teacher, is blessed and stressed after yesterday.

Blessed because I am all those things.

Stressed because I am not all those things.

Yes, my wife and I conducted an excellent Children’s Liturgy of the Word yesterday. Yet stressed, because at the afternoon birthday party, I realized there is a long way to go with helping our son work through his competitive nature.

He actually has a gift.  We all do, don’t we?

Some us simply need help unwrapping it.  Now, where did I put those scissors.

Children’s Liturgy of the Word.  God’s Word.

And the fact that I would be delivering homilies (sermons) to dozens of elementary school children boggles the mind.

Yet, it will happen again today, like it does the fourth Sunday of every month.  My wife and I volunteer to do this.

Four years ago, a woman from our Church made an appeal to the congregation that she needed more volunteers or Children’s Liturgy would go away.  After Mass, we volunteered, thinking we would simply be helpers “on the sidelines”.

Funny how things turn out exactly opposite from the way we expect.

“All I want to do is help you, and teach you, so you’ll learn the important things about life”.

He understands this.

Why?  Because I’ve been saying it since he was an infant.

Over and over and over.

He knows that punishments or consequences are not something a parent wants to do, but something a great parent is obligated to do.

And we both are learning that even though society has long subscribed to “punishment for failure“, we are going to challenge the status quo with “reward for not failing“.

“Nothing you ever do for a child is ever wasted”.

“My goal is to help you”.

Had a “deep” conversation with our son (9) last night.  He has several chores he’s responsible for.  One of them is daily. This is the one that we discussed last night.

We finished our simple dinner from our screened-in back porch.  The sun had set and it was dark outside, with only the light from inside the house gently illuminating our peaceful surroundings.

Conditioning led me to first offer a consequence for not doing what he is supposed to do.  Then it hit me, what about a reward for doing it, instead of a punishment for not?  We agreed to use both.

Generally, children are conditioned to think, “when you don’t do something you get in trouble”.  I reminded him that the goal isn’t to catch him doing it wrong.  The goal is grand and noble.  And the goal is deceptively simple.

“My goal is to help you”.

Ever heard the phrase, “It was the straw that broke the camel’s back”?

It’s a phrase I’ve heard a 1,000 times in America.  Camel’s are incredibly strong and resilient.  However, they do have a breaking point, a threshold that can be too much, and they collapse.

And when the breaking point is about to be reached, it can be something as small and light as a piece of straw.

Yesterday was like that.  Was asked to substitute as lead teacher for last night’s Catechism class.  For a variety of reasons (one’s I feel are valid), my son and I skipped Catechism last night.

Just couldn’t do it.  Preparing for and leading the class was more than I could bear.  Yes, guilt started to overwhelm me.  Yes, felt I couldn’t say no, but did anyway.

Yes, from a distance, it only looked like a small and light piece of straw.  Carpe diem.

PS.  We did do the lesson at home, so our son wouldn’t fall behind.