Faith, Folklore, and Friends

Ferguson The camera grabs their anger, flings it all over the world to eyes and ears waiting to join the shindig, to benefit from long-distance pain. Common sense, courtesy, and human kindness are overtaken by cruelty, by vengeance, by a pulsating need to destroy. Burn it down, burn it now. She remembers the dream, the work, the sweat; the long nights with little rest; she watches them go up in flames to satisfy their animalism. The alphabet crowd screams their fury, lashes out at any entity except their own despair.  The idiot commentator goes to commercial. Across town, small children gather to celebrate a birthday, a festival  of life with a Barney theme and alphabet cupcakes with fluffy icing. Fathers have settled in recliners with beer, letting go of rat-race stress, rejoicing over the four-day weekend, and days of football ahead. Mothers gather around the children, watching, as they lament the days of cooking to celebrate Thanksgiving, fam...

She had beautiful feet. Her lot in life was simple. She embraced it, gave it all she had. A farm wife who never had a real "job", who never earned any money of her own, who never had a "girls' night out" or a manicure. Her house was unadorned, basic furnishings made by her man. Her floors, always clean, were covered with the cheap linoleum that drummers brought once a year. Her house was filled with laughter, comfort, quiet. One always felt welcome entering there, gratified. Ratty-haired little children who came to her house were offered Kool-aid, cookies and kindness. She told them about the Lord, that He loved them, that they were important to Him, yes, even barefoot girls. She said He had plans for them. Some of the seeds she sowed fell away, lost, never recovered. Others struggled, feeling too small before a big God. Some fell in love with the Lord and served Him with all their heart, reproducing from the seed she had sown while ro...