Grace was said before the barbeque was served at the Pie Town, New Mexico Fair (LOC) (Photo credit: The Library of Congress)

We hope we never have an open sore on our leg only to get turned down at the doctor’s office  because we don’t have health insurance or we don’t have the right kind of health insurance. The doctor says no and sends us away.

We wish we never have to be so broke we can’t buy the cigarettes that help keep us calm and even if we don’t say it, we can’t imagine why anyone would pick up a cigarette butt off the street for a smoke with somebody else’s spit on it.

Maybe we can’t even imagine living in the projects or in a cardboard lean-to faraway and maybe we secretly hate those ugly cars with stuff piled up inside and the swooping old tan fabric hanging down inside.

Not me, no not me we think or hope or pray or assume or mostly fear. I gotta work hard and that way I won’t have to walk or take the city bus where people ride with cockroaches crawling out of their pockets, especially in winter.

We won’t ever get out late at night to go to Wal-Mart to desperately purchase phone minutes because that’s it, that’s the only connection.

Oh, please, we think or hope or pray or assume or fear, who are these people? Who are these people who don’t know where the rent’s comin’ from and who hang out in our community lookin’ so broken down? Not ever gonna be me, never let it be me, don’t ever let me rest my dirty feet on somebody else’s pretty lawn. Please don’t let that happen, no it can’t happen to me.

Oh no, not me, we say from the always unthinking unfeeling unimagining bed of roses. It can’t be me who can’t afford the dentist or the deodorant. It couldn’t be me who spilled the beans; stole the cash; ridiculed the weak; flirted in church; threw the cup; cut to the quick; lashed out the tongue; gossiped out the town or refused to give out the help.

No sirree it couldn’t be me I’m a fine church goin’ man. No not me I’m a fine church goin’ woman and don’t you remember all those self-protective casseroles and cakes I made? How did you miss it? I’m always one up and never one down. I can get the first place in line and make it look like a sacrifice.

But where did I read it? I think it was on a blog called “Grace is for Sinners,” which is one of the very best blogs if you want grace and truth.That blogger shared that the day we can’t imagine ourselves in a bad situation–the day we cannot imagine how so-and-so got that way–that is the day we cannot feel compassion. To feel compassion for people you have to at least be able to imagine being in that very same bad situation. That blog offered that up and that is some of the wisest and costliest writing that will ever be written.

So if you’re on a bed of tears right now, God can turn it into a bed of roses giving off the fragrance of mercy everywhere. Your bed of tears is your bed of roses and someday, you’ll be glad. Meanwhile, my friend Pamela Kay said hangin’ on is important. Just hang on.

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The flowers of Lily-of-the-Valley (Convallaria majalis), the finnish national flower, are now opening. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday was my daughter’s birthday. I texted her in the morning, right around the hour she was born.

She texted back and it felt so good to know she’s here, in this world, which she tries to make a better place every single day of her life, building up hearts and homes.

So while we were texting, she asked me a question, one she’d asked before and she criticized herself in a way for having to ask again. But I didn’t mind at all that she asked again and I said, ask anything. I love you *exactly* like you are. You are *precious* in my sight.”

My heart nearly burst with joy, yearning to grant any little request. How wonderful it is to love somebody that much, so much that doing just about anything for that person seems almost like doing nothing, because love takes away drudgery.

Just a couple of days before my daughter asked me that question, my son asked me for something, nothing difficult, but something important. It made me so happy to be able to do something doable for him. For them.

These incidents showed me for the first time how Jesus really feels when He says in John 14:13, “You can ask for anything and I will do it so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.” He longs to hear us; help us; console us; steady us; guide us; love us! Oh, if we only knew how much He feels our feelings and wants to do even one little thing to show His love. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?

Besides her work for a non-profit organization, my daughter–who was named after one of the women who followed Jesus, supported His ministry (out of their own means) and who was among the first witnesses (all women) to the Resurrection–enjoys floral arranging, apparently a gift passed down from her paternal great-grandmother, who also loved this delicate, elegant craft.

The flower for the month of May is The Lily of the Valley, a tiny white flower also known as Our Lady’s Tears. According to Babies Online (for parents trying to give their babies meaningful names) the little white flowers were said to be what grew when Mary mother of Jesus shed tears at the Cross where He died.

White flowers are among the many flowers and colors my daughter enjoys, but she especially loves the focal flower Ranunculus. At Teleflora, you can see that, in the language of flowers, the Ranunculus says, “I’m dazzled by your charms.”

While I was thinking of my daughter and looking up flowers, I ran across the New York Times Bestseller “The Language of Flowers,” by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. The artful, floral cover says, “Anyone can grow into something beautiful.” She did. My daughter did exactly that. My daughter is beautiful, inside and out. She is like flowers, and music, in person.

Portrait Ludwig van Beethoven when composing the Missa Solemnis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few people smoked their cigarettes in peace while people of all ages milled around or chilled out at Rock the Relief 2012 held off Morgan Road in a beautiful pastoral setting in Bradley County, Tennessee.

I went to hear one band. (TheGoldRoom-bandcamp.com). Before The GoldRoom played, a young woman in a peach-colored cowgirl hat leaned back on her tanned arms and it seemed like her whole soul was happy when she stretched her blue-jeaned legs out in the grass. Two little girls danced and pranced around the front of the stage and one of them wore shoes that flashed pink light when she took her steps.

When The GoldRoom started playing, people seemed shy about the bold clear sound of progressive rock. But as the band played the songs they write themselves, the crowd got more and more interested. Some songs were light, some dark, some slow and some fast. They say whatever is most personal is most universal. The band’s songs, whether about a crisis in a Catholic daycare or the Lone Ranger‘s divorce proceedings, were both.

As the band rocked on, one man in the crowd yelled out, “You guys kick ass!” It wasn’t long before women moved their shoulders and dance-walked. A woman wearing a long flowing chocolate and white sundress floated through the wide open space, gentle like a firefly.

This band’s refreshingly unapologetic sound is so big it seemed like the band perfectly suited to the generous stage that night. The GoldRoom thinks; stuns; mesmerizes; stimulates; soothes; mystifies and satisfies.

When it comes to music, I am not a professional. I cannot tell you one thing about the layers and psychology and technical skills and lyrical meanings and shadings or anything like that about music. All I know is whether music moves me or not, whether what’s happening on stage is real or not. The GoldRoom is real. The sound takes you by the shoulders and won’t let go, but somehow, you know it will never hurt you on purpose.

If one more thing stood out about this band it was joy. These four men plain had fun and you could see they were in their own world but invited you in as well.

That’s what I thought about later–Ode to Joy. I learned that before Ode to Joy was music by Beethoven, it was a poem by Friedrich Schiller. “Joy, joy moves the wheels in the universal time machine…Brothers, above the starry canopy a loving father must dwell.”

And then Schiller, who wrote the poem to honor a friend, proclaimed the privilege of being a friend’s friend, which is what I could sense when I met all the band members before they played that night.

“Run, brothers, run your race, joyful as a hero going to conquest.” And this is exactly what The GoldRoom did, one Saturday night, right under the starry canopy.

http://thegoldroom.bandcamp.com/