random ramblings

It's been a slow few days for blog traffic and blog ideas.   Oh well.

My teenage sons have discovered a new freedom in the past week.  We live on a highway.  Riding bikes in the neighborhood has not been part of their growing up experience.  No neighborhood, for one thing.  But they do have bikes.  For riding in the driveway, I suppose.  My 15 year old had a brain flash and wanted to know if he could ride his bike "to the gas station".  It's about a half mile away.  It's just the fact that we live on a highway.  But dad gave the OK.  So he pulled his bike out of the shed and aired up the tires.  I would keep them home forever  - where it is safe.  From the gas station (convenience store), he's thought of all kinds of destinations - his high school (about two miles), the soccer fields down the road, the cemetery where his grandfather is buried, and probably places I don't ever want to know about.  Can you say FREEDOM??  Unfortunately, he does not have a whole lot of bike riding skills and knowledge about traffic.  Not to mention the ADD brain that just jumps from one thing to another.  Scary to think he could get a driver's license (to drive a car) in less than a year...  I am SO not ready for this.

Wednesday I made a visit to the Adoration chapel.  It had been a while and it was just time.  It was a good visit, though I don't think I made any profound discoveries or realizations.  Friday morning my phone rang at school.  I didn't answer it; it was an "unknown" number, but I listenend to the voice mail later.  Someone was callling to ask me to substitute for the 6 a.m holy hour on Sunday.  I thought about it.  6 a.m. is early, but not like 3 a.m. or anything.  Friday evening after I got home, I called back.  I figured if the lady hadn't found anyone else by that point, it was God saying that He wanted to continue our conversation.  Guess where I was this morning at  6 a.m?  It felt good to be there and to connect.  While I was there, a nun stopped in.  She walked with a cane.  But that didn't stop her from genuflecting on both knees before the King of the Universe.  What a witness!

After a long weekend, I posted as a Facebook status a question wondering if teenage boys get stupider as they get older.  It was pretty much unanimous.  Some went so far as to suggest that it is a "blood flow thing".  There is only enough blood for one "brain" at a time...  Sigh.

Mass was wonderful.  Our strength comes from the Lord - the maker of Heaven and Earth.  That was my "theme song" at the end of last year and the responsorial psalm this weekend.  Father asked, by way of opening his homily, if our strength really does come from the Lord.  I'm thinking I've got that working pretty well.  I know I didn't make it through alone.  Then he went on to develop it.  Faith is surrender - surrender to what God wants for us.  When we pray, it often appears that God doesn't answer.  And He doesn't - at least not in the way that we want.  But He doesn't send us what we want; rather what we NEED.  Whatever we offer to God in prayer is always imperfect, because we are not God.  But God takes what we offer Him, perfects it, and gives it back to us so that we might glorify Him.  Still working on the whole surrender thing.  I've made progress, but it is very much a work in progress.

Wal Mart ticked me off today.  But perhaps that deserves a whole post of its own....

Have a great week!