Let me interrupt this blog reading for a very important announcement: Which way did you vote?

*** The baby is a : BOY!

weighing in at 9 pounds 13 ounces and 22 1/4 inches…a BIG little brother for Rutledge!

He missed most of the St. Paddy’s celebration (arriving around 10:30 last night) but he is the celebration himself to all of us! Walsh and Mollie are narrowing down names and the baby’s name will be announced soon.

The voting contest ran 31 votes for a BOY- 13 for a GIRL (Johnny…you get a 1/2 vote for being right half the time) You blog readers are equally as good as predicting genders as you are with prayer results….thank everyone who participated…you “done” good!

Anne Peterson is the real psychic, however, as she told me two weeks ago she had no doubt the baby was Irish and waiting for St. Patrick’s Day to arrive…Way to go Anne…you nailed it on the head!

Yesterday the blog talked about the “afterglow” of life and I mentioned the special moments after birth …that sacred, beautiful time between mother and child is probably the most special afterglow of all. Look at the following picture of Mollie and baby… it proves the point.

Dear Reader:

A good portion of the Unity of Charleston’s service last Sunday dealt with (what we Presbyterians would call “silent prayer”)…quiet times of reflection after each reading or discussion. Instead of just one time to pause and reflect in prayer or meditation…this ritual was done in intervals throughout the service.

“Be Still and Know that I am God” becomes an important part of the daily life of each congregational member of this church.

It reminded me of a demonstration I used to do in workshops on student retention and achievement. Some teachers were trying to “cram” the standards into a classroom period of so many restricted minutes…and sigh in relief when the dismissal bell rang…congratulating themselves that they had gotten all the material and standards “covered.”

What they didn’t realize was that the fast-fed information was “covered” so shallowly that a slight wind could blow the covering away… leaving an (exposed) empty brain.

To demonstrate this…I took a pitcher of water and a drinking glass and started pouring….the object was to get the entire pitcher of water into the glass. Impossible, you say? Yes…if you did it the way some teachers were trying to force-feed the students so much material into one little “glass” period.

It always ended disastrously …like  Donald Davis felt when he asked his teacher, Miss Daisy…”May I go to the bathroom? My head is hurting. It is overflowing with all those names of countries and capitals and rivers…I can’t take any more in without something going out…if you know what I mean?”

But if the “pour-er” (teacher) stopped intermittently and gave the students time (a pause) to ingest/drink the information covered up to that point…and then resume teaching…the knowledge was retained longer and the goal was still accomplished.

Shouldn’t we all have time set aside each day…to drink from the “Pitcher of Life?” To ingest God’s Word…question Him, talk to Him, and give praise to our Creator?

One phrase at the church service kept coming back to me after we left….”Remember…God resides in the Now.” “Don’t put off spending time with Him each day in the present moment.”

In an editorial review from The Toronto Star Week about this book…two suggestions are shared with readers that I really liked…

“Life Lesson #21: You must remember: You are here now . . . no, no, now . . . NO, NOW! You are a human being and not a human was or a human will be.

Life Lesson #22: It doesn’t matter how fast you get there if you’re heading in the wrong direction.” —From HOW TO BE HAPPY, DAMMIT” – Offers tasty mood food. . . .a fascinating read.” —The Toronto Star Week

Haven’t we all gone through stages of life when we were a “human was” or a “human will be” but not a “human now?” The major problem with living this kind of life, besides letting life pass us by, is that God lives in the Now…and if we don’t…communication is (obviously) seriously hampered.

When Eva Cate spent the night with me a couple of weeks ago…she started playing with the coasters on the table in the “Happy Room.” Several of them had pictures of St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope on them…some came from Honey and some from the Summerville MS group… for sharing a Christmas story with the group last year.

Eva Cate wanted to know where the chapel was and if I would take her to the mountains…she hadn’t ever seen them. She wanted to know if God lived in the chapel and if that was why I loved to go there. (She takes after her Boo Boo…she’s an “asker”!)

In my “busyness” I almost answered and stopped short with “Yes…God lives there and I love going to talk with Him in this special place to me.”

Instead I started showing Eva Cate the old finger rhyme with hand movements…

Here’s the church, and here’s the steeple
Open the door and see all the people.

A sort of epiphany came over me…I explained to Eva Cate that God doesn’t just live in that one little chapel…waiting for me to come see Him…God is everywhere…because He lives inside all of us. So by just showing up… God has traveled with me /within me to the chapel.  And then by being very quiet and listening…I am able to hear God better there than anywhere else.

…That is why the little chapel in the hills is so special to me.

…And that is why every place of worship is so special…not for the building itself, or the beautiful artwork or pews or stained glass windows…but for the people who bring God with them into the sacred place.

So until tomorrow…1 Corinthians: 3-16. (See below) Let us take time daily to “open the door” to the inner sanctuary of our soul and have a heart to heart talk with God….now…not later.

“Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?”

“Today is my FAVORITE  day”  Winnie the Pooh