Another semi-quiet day. Diane resting on the couch while I just relax — good for both of us.
She’s been home for less than a week from almost a month in the hospital and rehab. She seems happy, but we need to exercise more, so she can continue rebuilding her strength. I think I’ll also help her take another shower today. That should make her feel even better.
Our friend, Pat, made a serving of chicken parmesan for Diane yesterday, delivered by Pat's husband, Larry. I decided to serve it for lunch today. That, too, should make Diane happy…it did!
Then I got a text from another Bible Study friend, Phyllis, who wants to present us with a nice chicken dinner. That'll happen on Thursday, since tomorrow is my day to cook something for the two of us, something Dear Diane might actually want to eat. My cooking improves...but agonizingly slowly.
Everything else around us is so busy and strange. Illness, weakness, lots of meds, physical therapy, visiting nurses, appointments with specialists whom we've never met...it all overwhelms. We're left with so many unanswered questions...
And so, we conclude that we don’t know the future, at least not much of it, but what we do know is always good, although it might occasionally be sad.
For example, I just heard that Dolly Parton died today at 80. Sad indeed, but also joyful. Those who knew her, those who loved her, will miss her, but she’s where she wants to be, where she planned to be, with her God and with those she loved, especially her husband of 59 years, Carl Dean, who died last year.
What a loss to our nation! Dolly Parton was a brilliant, talented, humble, and extraordinarily kind and generous human being. She was a woman who lived the Christian faith she received from her parents and her family and community. She grew up in material poverty, but was the recipient of true spiritual wealth and never forgot it.
I’d like to hear what the so-called Democrat Socialists have to say about Dolly Parton, who grabbed the American dream and ran with it. She did not let her impoverished roots in Appalachia — the 4th of 12 children of an illiterate share cropper — decide her future. She used her intelligence, talents, and drive to make herself into one of the most successful women in the country. One suspects the socialists — who always lie — will stupidly ignore her death, or attribute her success to “white privilege”. Can’t wait to see what happens.
In any event, all of this drove my thoughts back to events I experienced years ago during the war in Vietnam. Back then we were told to kill communists. Most of us didn’t object because those communists were trying to kill us. Also, they were brutal in their treatment of civilians and of our POWs who, like so many of us, were mostly aviators. Close to 50,000 Americans died in Vietnam, but at least a half-million died among the communists in both North and South Vietnam.
This caused me to reflect on what I see as a great contradiction: In both Korea and Vietnam -- from the 1950s through the 1970s -- Americans in the armed forces were told to kill communists, but now, rather surprisingly, we’re told to elect them. And we're encouraged to do the latter by many seemingly mainstream politicians. Believe me, this new crop of American “socialists” are truly full-fledged communists. They follow the communist line to the letter. Anyway, I find it all very strange.
As I mentioned above, the left always lies. For example, when they claim to want to eliminate prisons, they’re lying. In truth, the left always expands prisons because they need to imprison all those who disagree with or threaten them in any way. Don’t believe me? Just look at the history of leftist nations.
Please don’t think this deacon is advocating the killing of socialists or communists…not at all! I simply encourage folks to pray for them. Let God change the world; we certainly can't do it. But I also think it a bit bizarre that the world, and the attitudes and awareness of many Americans, has changed so radically during my lifetime.
Enough for now. Keep praying for Diane and me...and our nation.
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