Bathroom Reading

Oh, the thoughts we think. A friend's comment on Facebook recently, about bathroom reading material, has led me to ponder the matter further. Since my husband and I have been married, forty years in August, our bathrooms have never been without literature. Never. (Actually, there is really NO room in our house without something to read...but that's another story.)

Now, my friend mentions that her bathroom literature includes short, quick reads, like "Reader's Digest". A "must", I agree. Magazines with short, easy-and-quick-to-read articles must always be included in the bathroom library. I have always kept a bathroom magazine-basket. Our bathrooms would never be complete without them. The baskets will change as to color and/or style - but there will always be one - full of colorful magazines.

When we were living in France, and had no email or Facebook, we received cards and letters from family and friends in the states. Mail. REAL mail. In envelopes. This mail would often include newspaper clippings - and these were wonderful for bathroom reading. They were added to the bathroom reading basket, and enjoyed at leisure ... even by our French visitors who could read English.

However, OUR bathroom reading material includes books, too. Short-story books, books with topics that can be covered in one chapter ... photo books ... joke books. "How-to" books. Amazing what you can learn in one sitting from a "how-to" book! There are also "regular" books, with regular chapters. Fiction. Biography. There are, after all, bathroom visits that sometimes last for a chapter or two. And, you can always pick up where you left off the next time you come in. Oh, no ... do not overrule "regular" books in the bathroom.

My bathroom library can change from one day to the next. I may become so engrossed in reading something while hanging out in the "facility", that I carry it out with me to finish it. Or, my husband may be so taken with something he is reading that he will carry it IN with him, and leave it behind when he exits. When our four children were still at home, our bathroom library contents changed often. We had so much variety then ... sometimes I still miss seeing those "Little Golden" books, or the comic books, or the school texts (yes, you CAN study in the bathroom!) in our bathroom library.

At any rate, let me say that I am not a real stickler about what reading material is in our bathroom ... I am just adamant that it IS there.

Allow me to share with you our current bathroom library selections (and my husband will want any readers to know that these are his wife's choices). Right now, sitting neatly on top of the toilet tank (a convenient place) are a variety of titles (I shall include authors/editors in case something strikes your fancy):

1. STYLE DE PROVENCE - by: Angelika Taschen

2. TUMBLEWEED HOTEL - ANGELS IN DISGUISE - by: George Whitman (owner
of the little Paris bookshop, "Shakespeare and Company" ... the people in the book
have all, at one time or another, spent some time in the bookshop. We've been to
the bookshop - quite original and interesting.)

3. ANGELS,MIRACLES AND MESSAGES - edited: Guideposts

4. ROCKING CHAIR READER - edited: Helen Kay Polaski

5. Ooops! A magazine ... a 1947 (my husband's birth year) Dec. copy of CORONET
magazine

6. POETRY booklet - a pretty, self-made booklet by our daughter Rachel, with some
of her poems - my favorite one in it being, "...but she is not going to be with us
always...", about her grandma

7. GOD'S STORIES - edited: Donna Douglas

8. THE TRAIL TO PROGRESS - by: Herbert Jones - a small paperback, a history
of Easton, Kansas

9. CHICKEN SOUP FOR THE CHRISTIAN FAMILY SOUL - by: Jack Canfield,
Mark Victor Hanses, Patty Auberg, and Nancy Mitchell Auteo ... of COURSE, there
must be a "Chicken Soup" book there!

10. LOCKED DOORS - FACING THE INNER-CITY CHALLENGE - by: David Dolin

11. TRUE TALES OF OLD-TIME KANSAS - by: David Dary

12. COOKING BY HEART - A DEVOTIONAL COOKBOOK - by: Ruth C. Ikerman ......
a very tiny book - and I'm moving this one back to the kitchen, as I just saw a
good recipe. This often happens with our bathroom books. The "moving", I
mean.

13. LES TRESORS DE LA FOI (TREASURES OF THE FAITH") - by: C. H. Spurgeon

Well, there you have it. Because a friend dared to admit she considers bathroom-reading a necessity ... I felt obligated to stand with her. We bathroom-readers need to stand together on this. Do not back down; or hide in shame. Let our voices be heard: bathroom libraries are a necessity! We spend so much time there. Why shouldn't we be improving our minds, even as we use the "facility" for its intended purpose?

We will!!! We shall use the facility. And we shall READ in the facility. Yes! Bathroom-readers everywhere - STAND UP (well.........when you can) and be heard!!!!

Then sit down and read.

zazzle.com/samecla*

English Bulldog

We are once again dog owners. In spite of ourselves.

When we moved back from France in 1995, after about sixteen years there, we brought back our little French mongrel, "Popcorn". When we moved to where we are now, about three years ago, Pop came with us, but was "elderly" and not in good health. She died a few months after we moved here....and we told ourselves that we wouldn't get another dog. But - here we are with a chunky English Bulldog!

A friend called a couple of days ago to tell us about the dog - that their neighbors needed to find a good home for him. We kept saying "no, thanks", but agreed to go over and take a look at him - "but, you can still say 'no'", said our friend. Big mistake!!! When we saw "Sullivan" he captured our hearts...and we returned home with him and his dinner-dishes. :) He is a beautiful brown and white color, with that funny wrinkly face full of expression, a purebred with papers, housebroken, two years old, very affectionate, calm, great around kids (a MUST because we have eight grand-kids) ... and our friend says she will always babysit him for us when we must be gone (she's a real dog lover)! Plus, the price was certainly right, especially for a pure-bred: free. :) So far, after two days, there are no regrets.

Happy Valentine's Day!

It's HERE!!! The "day of love" ..... well, the day we oughta be thinking even MORE about love. :) Hope you all are. My husband, John, just surprised me with a beautiful potted plant and a GREAT card. And, it IS a surprise because we'd said yesterday that we'd wait until Monday to celebrate because Saturdays, for a pastor, are pretty much "getting-the-last-minute-stuff-done-for-Sunday" days. (now I'm the one behind, 'cause I WAS waiting until Monday......:( ) I love his card - he picked a really good one - but it's the part he WROTE in it that I especially love......I just LOVE that man!

LOVE MONTH

THE LOVE MONTH ....

This is February, the "love month". Getting close to Valentine's Day ... another retailer's delight. Red and pink hearts are everywhere, not to mention the chocolate ones (yum!). Recipes in magazines show us how to tempt our true loves - both high- cal and low-cal ones. Take your choice.

It's not a bad thing, you know, to think about love. To really take a moment to stop and consider the truth and reality of love. Real love. Honest love. Truthful love.

The definition of love is, unfortunately, a tarnished definition in today's society. I think it began tarnishing back in the 60's, and went downhill from there. Oh, maybe I say "the 60's" because they were my teen and young adult years. But, then, who can really deny that "recreational sex" began back then. Well it's been around "forever", but it began in the 60's to be "accepted". "Love" began to mean "sex". It was a lie then and is still a lie. Sorry, but "sex" does NOT translate to "love"!

Sex within a loving marriage relationship (meaning one man and one woman!), is a great part of that relationship - a most satisfying way to express the love. It is not, though, the sum of the relationship; not even the most important, in my opinion, because the satisfied sexual experiences stem from understanding the true definition of love. If real love is not there, is not lived out between the married couple, as God intended, then sex has no real meaning. It DOES become purely "recreational" then. With anyone, at anytime ... or many "ones", many times. Feels good for the moment but without real love there is nothing there after the moment. Except waiting for the next moment.

My heart breaks for today's youth, so many of whom are believing the lie. They are constantly bombarded with the "sex=love" theme. We all are. Through today's music, movies, television, the internet, magazines, books.

It saddens me greatly to know that so many of our youth will never know what love really is; and that a man and a woman can actually join together in marriage, can stay married through all the ups and downs of marriage and can watch that love grow even stronger year by year. Yes! They can grow old together because they know real love. They have the real thing. They believe God's definition of love - not Hollywood's.

What is God's definition of love? In the Bible, in I Corinthians 13, in verses four through eight, the definition is found. We see what love is and what love is not. My pastor-husband recently preached on this in our church. I SO love God's definition of love:

"Love is patient, kind, doesn't envy, doesn't boast, isn't proud, isn't rude, isn't self-seeking, isn't easily angered, doesn't keep a record of wrongs, isn't happy with evil, IS happy for truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

Now that's a definition of love I can stake my life on - and I have. With a man who has also staked HIS life on it. We both committed to that love when we married and are, almost forty years later, still committed to it.

I'm not saying we always, every day, live out this love-definition perfectly. We are human and we stumble. At times my love is not very patient, at times my husband's isn't. Many times, over the years, I was too easily angered. Or he was. But the "love never fails" part is true. In spite of any human failures, love never fails. Not REAL love.

While watching an Oprah show once (April 7, 2008), I quickly jotted down something she said, as she was rationalizing why she "lived together", instead of marrying her long-time "significant other". She said, "I wanted to be married so I could say to everybody, 'Look, someone loves me enough to want to marry me - then I got over that'".

Well, Oprah, someone loved ME enough to want to marry me, too - and I HAVEN'T gotten over that. I also loved HIM enough to want to marry him - and he hasn't gotten over that. Neither of us are ashamed or embarrassed to say so. We understood what real love is; and have come to understand it even more over the years of being together. We loved each other enough to sign that paper ... to stand before God and the world committing ourselves to each other - in love. In REAL love. And because it wasn't the "recreational sex" kind of love, we have lasted and will continue to last until one or both of us dies.

A man who understands real love is a treasure of a husband. Mine is. He was, and is, there through the illnesses, the surgeries. He has changed diapers, wiped up vomit, rushed a child to the emergency room. He has wrapped me in his arms and held me tightly as I sobbed through another of life's catastrophes. He has brought me beautiful flowers and wonderful fresh veggies he's grown in our garden. He has explained when I didn't understand. He has been patient when I wasn't. He has grieved with me and prayed during times of great pain and hurts. He has given me "just the right presents" (and sometimes the wrong ones!).

A perfect man? No. He, too, has his moments. He's been angry when he shouldn't have been. He's not always been patient. He can leave his socks in the living-room and spend too much time (according to me!) in his workshop. But God spoke the truth when He said, "love never fails". REAL love never fails. In spite of our imperfectness, when we understand what love really means, then we KNOW that love never fails.

So let's celebrate Valentine's Day. Let's take time to reflect on love. I am a Christian, and I love and believe in God's definition of love. Even if I weren't a Christian, though, I don't think I would find a better definition of love than God's.

Let's tell our youth that love and marriage CAN still "go together"। That, yes, you CAN love for a lifetime। Yes, you CAN stay married and grow old together। And you CAN actually enjoy doing so! Let's give our youth another version of sex, too - that it CAN be exciting and fun and warm and loving even in a marriage। (Marriage is not the dead-end of all things "fun"!) Those of us who are experiencing happy, real-love marriages need to speak up about it. We need to let our youth,especially, know that it's not just Hollywood or Oprah's versions of marriage that exists. Let's tell Oprah and Hollywood that "yes, someone loved me enough to want to marry me - and, no, I've NEVER gotten over that!"

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