Just a few words of Joy

On my birthday, we played a question and answer game.

The guests picked from multiple answers. Which musical group is her favorite? Which magazine? Which dessert would she choose?

Then we got to this question:
Outside of her family, who does the birthday girl admire most?
A. Gloria Steinem
B. Beth Moore
C. Joy Roberts

Everybody knew the answer was C.

Joy is the embodiment of Proverbs 31. And she would hate to hear me say it. She would even laugh and say she never "made linen cloths" for her family like that woman in Proverbs 31. But these few verses from that chapter truly describe her.

"She welcomes the poor and helps the needy ... She is strong and respected by the people. She looks forward to the future with joy. She speaks wise words and teaches others to be kind."

Yep. All that and more.

So, on HER birthday, I'm sharing just a little of the wisdom she has spread around over the years.

A few gems:

* Don't make your children the focus of your life. If you do, they'll get used to being the center of attention. No spouse can live up to that and your children will grow up to be miserable.

* God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of love, power and self control.

* When you don't know what to do, just take the next step.

* Our new nature must be fed daily so we can be strong enough to fight the battles.

* Pride and self pre-occupation are at the bottom of all of our negative emotions.

* One of the barriers to temptation is constant belief in the goodness of God.

I especially love Joy's cure for "Me-itis." It's not original, and she wouldn't want to take credit for it. But she passed it along and it stuck with me.

In order to get rid of "me-itis," you should daily take this medicine:
1. Do something for someone else
2. Do something for yourself.
3. Do something you don't want to do.
4. Exercise your body
5. Exercise your mind.
6. Pray an original prayer to God, beginning with thanking him for your blessings.

Joy is a lady who is rarely casual -- in her dress, in her relationships or in her faith. Good thing, since Billy Graham says: "The casual Christian has little or no influence."

Thank you sweet Joy, for being a blessing, a model and oh, such a huge and profound influence.

Streams in the desert

The locals tell us that it rains here 15 days out of 365. Phoenix. It's the desert. Full of saguaro cacti and prickly pears. Tiny desert wrens. Scampering little brown nut hares. Sandstone boulders and huge shale formations.

We climbed to a Native Amerian cliff dwelling. We ate fabulous guacamole with pomegranates. We watched the Australian Open in our luxury villa. We played a round of Spades with good friends.

We did not play tennis. Not even once.

We pleaded with the pro at the tennis shop. We circled the courts and checked weather.com hourly. We asked for a rain dance in reverse....To no avail.

Complaining is unbecoming. Especially when you get to spend evenings with one of your long lost best friends and days admiring vistas straight out of National Geographic.

So we will just state the facts. It rarely rains in the desert. We went to the desert to play tennis. It rained on our tennis parade.

Really not our best friends!

I was amazed to hear about my friend Ira's dog Piney. Piney, a small rescue bulldog, is more debilitating than OCD or agoraphobia. Piney is possessive. He is offensive. He is expensive.

Ira and Piney

Piney keeps Ira and his wife from having friends over because he bites -- any person who looks him in the eye. Piney must eat special meat. Piney awakens his owners to go outside and then turns on them just as they return to the warmth.

Ira is not really my friend. It just feels that way since I listen to his voice so much on the This American Life podcast.

Ira's dog Piney would certainly not be my friend.

I wonder, though, why we -- like Ira -- tolerate so much when it comes to our animals.

Take Jake. He's the long-haired tomcat we unabashedly call Satan, Lucifer or Beelzebub. Jake will tempt you with his alluring fake sweetness. But if you don't bow to temptation, he will leave you alone.

Sometimes if you do not do his bidding -- getting his food, looking at his food, letting him in and out on cat command -- he will bite you. He definitely bites other cats, visitors and anyone who tries to put him into a cat carrier.

But we continue to pay his vet bills and stitch him up after every fight. We are enablers, I know.

Recently there were two more Jake incidents. The tennis party incident, where a forewarned friend tried to be a cat whisperer. Jake does not put up with that stuff. Yes, he bit her. Yes, she was bleeding profusely. Yes, she had to seek medical attention.

Then on Christmas Eve, when all were caught up in the glow, Jake chose this moment to get in a cat fight and come inside and bleed all over the floor. Once again, we did Satan's bidding, calling the harried vet out on Christmas Eve to stitch up Jake's neck. Jake would live to fight again.

We would never dream of allowing such misbehavior from our children. There would be punishment, lessons learned, attitudes adjusted.

But with Jake, we are at a loss. We can only use him as an object lesson, pointing out that he is a deceiver, the father of lies and, like Satan, he prowls the earth, seeking whom he may devour.

Be afraid.

Have a cup of tea with the doc and you'll understand

What is it about this rude British man called Doc Martin that keeps us coming back for more?

Every night we find ourselves tuning in to another episode of this BBC series set in beautiful Portwenn (which we know from Google is really Port Isaac), located on a gorgeous, sun-drenched harbor in the south of Britain.

Wikipedia tells me that five Doc Martin series have aired between 2007 and 2011. So we arrived late to the Doc Martin party.

My daughters are hooked on "The Walking Dead" (too scary) and my friend Karen swears by "Parenthood" (hits too close to home). But we fixate on this odd man who is awkward and rude, unfriendly and blunt.

The actors are exceptionally British in look and manner and fashion choices. Even the lovely star Luisa (or Lou-EEE-zer if you're really British) wears white babydoll shoes with her blue jeans in winter. They live in houses with low ceilings and tiny refrigerators. They wear neck collars or suspenders or sensible shoes or horrendous platform heels with orange, lace-trimmed socks.

Maybe it's the contrast of lifestyles that draws us in. Maybe we've just become friendly Anglophiles thanks to our Canasta-playing British friends, Helen and Nick.

Whatever ...  it's a nice quick trip from our reality to theirs.

Doc Martin and his lovely and goofy receptionist, Pauline

Don't worry, be happy

We had a voicemail from Nanaw last Sunday:
"I've called the cell phones, the house phone and the office. I can't find you anywhere!" She didn't say so, but the sheriff and the FBI were next on the call list.

Never mind that we drive safely, live in a gated neighborhood and don't associate with criminals. We could have been kidnapped or shipwrecked or stricken with diptheria. You never know.

Did I mention that it was Sunday morning and we had just gone out for a 30-minute walk?

Headed to Passion

Moms can be prone to irrational behavior, also known as worry.

So when baby daughter left for Atlanta in a rainstorm this morning, I wasn't irrationally worried, but I was concerned. Her vehicle was safe. I love her friends. But there was the rain. And big-city driving can be scary.

Through the magic of modern technology (this is a cliche, but it really is magic), I saw Rachel and friends on Instagram by mid-morning. The caption said "headed to Passion." Passion is the name of the annual Christian conference at the Georgia dome, lest you think I really DID have something to worry about.

By mid-afternoon, I was wondering if she had made it to Atlanta, so I logged onto iCloud. There I tracked storm Rachel and her iPhone. I discovered that she had stopped for gasoline on the outskirts of Atlanta. When I checked an hour later, the green dot that was Rachel showed her safely at the Marriott in downtown Atlanta.

Later in the evening, she sent a text picture of the concert, spotlights beaming.

Amazing. In the 19 short years since she was born, we have come to this.

Rach would have a hard time fathoming that, on the day of her birth, I did not own a cell phone. I could not text the news to my friends or put her wrinkled baby face on Facebook. I could not Skype with the out-of-town relatives or send an iPhone video of her crying in the nursery. I couldn't even read an electronic book while recovering or choose an iTunes playlist to accompany the occasion. The times they have a-changed.

Now, if we could just teach Nanaw to text, use Instagram and visit the iCloud. Until then, Sheriff Hodge, you might expect a call.

The Passion Conference and Praise Fest in Atlanta

To eavesdrop on the conference and hear speakers like Beth Moore and Louie Giglio,
and singers like Matt Redmon and Chris Tomlin, click the link below:

Passion 2013