He, A Rose

Angel bunny. Photo Jennifer Weber 2009

I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.  ~Song of Solomon 2:1

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When I was a little girl I was not taken to church. I learned exactly two things about organized religion as a child: one, we were not Catholic; two, we were Baptists. My mother imparted this knowledge to me in a course of events completely unrelated to any stripe of faith-based instruction.

The non-Catholic part I learned when, as a grade-schooler, I picked out a St. Christopher medal on a neck chain for my mother's Christmas present.

She had a taste for fine jewelry and I was even then a person of refinement.

But the cashier at our local K-Mart was brought up short when my mother, spying the trinket in my hand along with a sweaty dollar, told her we wouldn't be buying it.

"We're not Catholic," she explained in a low voice.

The cashier stashed my wholly inappropriate gift choice under the counter as she and my mother shared a conspiratorial chuckle at my expense.

That must have spurred me, ever the inquisitive one, to demand of my mother as we walked home exactly what we were, if not Catholic (a word which meant nothing to me).

"We're Baptists," she said.

But if you'd been witness to the lack of activity around our house at any time church services were being held in the community, I am certain you would have been justified in questioning the depth of our piety.

To put it plainly, Sunday mornings were for sleeping in, eating a late breakfast, and reading the funnies in living color. Later in the day you might sortie with your family, ending up at the beach or a drive-in movie.

Someday I will live there too.

The occasional Easter Sunday would, however, find our strange little clan bedecked in homemade finery -- to include hats of plastic straw and shiny white vinyl shoes with matching purses for my sister and me -- and ensconced for an uneasy hour in the back row of some packed-out local sanctuary or other.

I remember nothing about these visits to places of worship because they are memorable only for their marked infrequency.

My sister and I always received Easter candy in abundance, however. Our parents were generous and downright ceremonious when it came to the presentation and distribution of chocolate bunnies, jelly beans -- indeed, Easter candy of every variation -- the sugar blitz mitigated somewhat by the heavy, brightly-colored real eggs nestled in the shreds of synthetic "grass" that lined our baskets.

I can still smell the hot vinegar and see the little stemmed plastic loop one used to fish the stained eggs out of the steaming, garishly-hued liquid that had transformed them from plain white ovals into psychedelic freaks of nature.

(Nothing like a good hardboiled egg -- any shade of shell -- eaten standing by the sink, studded with grains of salt from a puddle in your palm.)

But at the age of fourteen, by God's grace, I learned the truth about Easter. That was when I recognized my need for a Savior and was told that my need had been met long before I existed, in the person of Jesus Christ. I accepted His finished work on the cross as being sufficient for my salvation, and I'm so glad I did.

From that day until this I have never doubted that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day after His crucifixion, and that He lives in a real, actual Heaven with God, His Father, and that someday I will live there too.

I was privileged to marry a man who had come to the Lord at the age of twenty-two, and who, like me, wanted to establish a Christian home and rear children who would be taught the true meaning of Easter.

In the spring of 1998 our eldest daughter, Stephanie, had an opportunity to visit London and the Holy Land. Then a senior in high school, she had professed her faith in Christ as a six-year-old. When she returned home around Easter time, we all gathered in the family room to listen to her stories and receive the gifts she had brought us from abroad.

We hadn't been seated long when Stephanie began telling us about the day the group visited the "garden tomb" -- a borrowed sepulchre where the body of Jesus Christ had been placed after the crucifixion:

When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple: He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed. ~Matthew 27:57-60

And yes, I'm a Baptist. 

As she described the ancient place, I began to play the skeptic. "How can anyone be sure that's the very tomb where Jesus's body lay for three days before His resurrection?" I wanted to know.

After all, it was a long time ago. Had the merchants made an appeal to her tender, sympathetic heart, wanting her to buy something? Just outside the place they identify as the borrowed tomb, they will try to sell you a splinter, claiming the very cross of Jesus as its provenance.

Religion is big business.

Stephanie, patiently and with the aplomb of a seasoned traveler, explained that even though it occurred more than two thousand years ago, Bible scholars and historians are fairly certain that they have correctly identified the very tomb made available by Joseph of Arimathaea for securing the remains of Jesus.

I must have continued to register doubt, because suddenly my daughter burst into tears.

"Mom," she said. "All I can say is that when you stand there, you just know that it really is the place."

We were all in tears by then. I handed Stephanie a Kleenex and she wept into it. I still have that long-dry tissue, stored away amongst other mementoes of her trip.

Today Stephanie is a (Baptist) pastor's wife and the mother of two little girls who will always know the true meaning of Easter. Although her tears have long since evaporated, her words -- and the conviction with which she spoke them -- still resonate with me.

I don't eat chocolate bunnies on Easter anymore -- although I am not averse to consuming a raft of marshmallow peeps at one sitting -- but I do go to church on Easter. On that day I rejoice that Christ arose ... just as I do every other Sunday.

And yes, I'm a Baptist. I learned that on the way home from K-mart one day, my sweaty unspent dollar burning a hole in my pocket.

The Garden Tomb. AP PhotoIn the end of the sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre. And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. His countenance was like lightning, and his raiment white as snow: And for fear of him the keepers did shake, and became as dead men.

And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified. He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. ~Matthew 28:1-6

Jesus said ... I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? ~John 11:25-26

Happy Easter!

A Sunday kind of love

Romance. Photo Jennifer Weber 2010I'm the poster child for hopeless romantic.

What's that you say? I'm simply hopeless?

Well, incurable romantic, then.

When it comes to romantic love, you can't get it sappy enough for me. Impossible.

To quote Mary Engelbreit: Too much of a good thing is wonderful.

(Unless you're talking about a Nicholas Sparks novel -- or the unfortunate movie adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel.)

There is, after all, an exception to every rule.

But I digress.

For example -- and this is the truth so listen up -- I sense romance in the produce department at the grocery store.

Like I said, no lie, and I'll thank you not to snicker.

I look at cauliflower and see a bridal bouquet. The apples are blushing flirtatiously; the bell peppers are canoodling in the cool mist. Nobody can convince me otherwise.

We live in a disposable society.

If you are out and about and you happen to see me, go ahead and tell yourself you can read my mind ... because you can.

Nine hundred ninety-nine times out of a thousand, I'm thinking about romance.

If I'm not doing that, of course I am praying. For you.

You know how most little girls dream of someday being a bride? I wasn't that kind of little girl.

As a girl I dreamt of being loved as passionately as Mr. Rochester loved Jane Eyre.

I dreamt of a Heathcliff-and-Cathy variety of romance; the kind that endures past even the gossamer scrim of time and mortality.

I've been known to brood for hours over the eternal love of Captain Gregg for Lucy Muir.

(I still cry when Lucy's young, beautiful ghost rises up from her old, withered body and she rejoins her late lamented but still-faithful man, and the door to her house by the sea opens all by itself and they walk out into the clouds, holding hands.)

That's what I'm talking about.

We live in a disposable society. Life is no longer precious, and neither are commitments. People take sacred vows before God and everybody, then break them at whatever point in time it becomes expedient for them to do so.

Things didn't work out in your marriage? Hey, don't waste your time grieving over that failure! Better yet, don't even consider it a failure. Move on, and the sooner the better.

Half of marriages end in divorce; am I right? It's no big deal anymore.

Besides, everybody who matters knows you're not to blame. It was the other person.

(News flash: God's law of sowing and reaping applies to marriage. As in, you get what you give.)

But that's how we roll in this brave new heartless world where hardly anything or anyone is safe ... even in places where once upon a time a person could take safety at least a little bit for granted, like the womb and the school room and the church house and the Christian home.

Still crazy after all these years.

By the way ... when I did begin fantasizing about marriage, I fixed my hopes on achieving an Austenesque "incandescent" one.

Because I know that, although Miss Austen's heroines are fictional, those kinds of marriages do exist.

For purely magical romantic mystery, only a few occasions in my life rival the moment when I looked through the little oblong window in the vestibule door at Forrest Hills Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia, at high noon on June 16, 1979, and saw TG standing at the altar, waiting for me.

Standing there tall and handsome in black cutaway tails, waiting for me to come to him so that he could make me his wife.

Because although he probably could have survived without me, he didn't want to.

Why, he told me just the other day ... never mind. Suffice it to say that if he can be believed, he'd still rather not live without me. And God in heaven knows, I won't make it without him either.

Still crazy after all these years.

Thanks babe, for giving me a Sunday kind of love. You're not perfect and neither is your wife, but you'll do until something better comes along ... and I can say that without a trace of irony because I know full well that nothing better ever will.

How many husbands and wives who haven't made it and who won't make it, could -- if they purposed in their respective hearts to grant one another a Sunday kind of love?

It's the one thing everyone wants to get ... and which everyone has the power to give.

If only they would.

NOTE: I apologize for the offensive Google ads that appear on the YouTube. I hate them but I've tried everything and cannot figure out how to remove the code. Just click the little "x" and it'll go away.

March Sadness

Where is my America? Photo Erica Weber 2009Springtime is a season of renewal and rejoicing. Flowers bloom; temperatures rise; balmy breezes caress grateful faces on days when nourishing showers aren't bathing the landscape in liquid hope.

Pretty pastel dresses throng the store racks in anticipation of Easter Sunday, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The candy aisles of retail outlets bulge with chocolate bunnies, bright jellybeans, marshmallow peeps, colorful plastic grass, egg-dyeing kits, and baskets just waiting to be filled.

Millions of sports fans spend an inordinate amount of time on their NCAA Final Four picks, and breathlessly watch the tournament unfold.

School kids get their first whiff of impending freedom as the weeks wane, the academic year which only yesterday seemed to be crawling now hurtling toward the finish line and summer vacation.

Elected lawmakers virtually spat in the faces of voters.

I, three of my children, one of my grandchildren, my son-in-law, and two of my best friends in the entire world celebrate our birthdays.

Springtime is a happy time.

But much as September 11, 2001 will  be remembered as a day as achingly beautiful as it was unspeakably terrible, history will mark March 21, 2010 as the first Sunday of spring … and the day the United States of America ceased to be a free nation.

For on that day, in a time when civil unrest ran as high as presidential approval ratings ran low, a radically far-left progressive ideologue and his godless, capitalism-hating henchpeople seized control of one-sixth of the already troubled American economy.

And they did it in the name of "healthcare," and they did it in the face of voter opposition which would have overwhelmed "public servants" possessed of more garden-variety decency and less raw, unadulterated arrogance.

Elected lawmakers virtually spat in the faces of those voters who sent them to Washington in hopes that their values would be represented and their express wishes carried out. 

Instead, much to the dismay of patriotic citizens, cultural and political vicissitudes that were to be expected with the advent of a new administration gave way to an increasingly disturbing anti-American zeitgeist.

This is how the first black President of the United States enslaved a once-free people.

As the "healthcare" debate heated up and it looked as though the votes of a few pivotal quasi-principled Democrats might deny their bloodthirsty comrades a pound of flesh, their support was systematically purchased by soulless minions whose war chest of elitist earmarks and prestigious private-sector jobs is all but infinite.

Predictably, the holdouts became sellouts.

This is how the United States of America -- heretofore a beacon of liberty to all mankind, and the most beloved Republic ever to grace Planet Earth -- succumbed to the insatiable ambition of a Chicago-style thug politician who just happens to be the most powerful man in the world.

This is how the first black President of the United States doomed an entire country to debilitating debt, hyper-intrusive bureaucracy, substandard medical care, many more years of economic recession, and unwilling participation in the cruel slaughter of innocent children.

This is how the first black President of the United States enslaved a once-free people.

It is dark; it is bitter; it is immoral. And above all, it is sad.

God Bless the United States of America. Preserve her precious liberties (what few of them remain) and confound her enemies, foreign and domestic. 

Especially domestic.

Leave ... and take your attitude with you

Just leaving. Photo Erica Weber 2010A Wal-Mart store in Washington Township, New Jersey, earlier this week was the scene of an outrage.

For it was there that an unidentified male availed himself -- without, one must assume, the permission of management -- of an open microphone and said, storewide:

"Attention, Wal-Mart customers. All black people leave the store now."

Judging by the reactions of shoppers of color, you'd have thought the disembodied directive had been significantly more pejorative in nature. Like, "All black people go immediately to the fields and begin picking cotton."

Despite the lameness of the "incident," high dudgeon ruled the day.

And I have no doubt that their "anger" motivated them to lawyer up.

"I want to know why such statements are being made, because it flies in the face of what we teach our children about tolerance for all," said Wal-Mart shopper Sheila E. "If this was meant to be a prank, there's only one person laughing, and it's not either one of us."

Uhm … I hate to burst your bubble, dear, but the last time I checked, most black folks weren't heavily into the concept of "tolerance" for anyone who isn't black.

And it wouldn't hurt you to laugh at a harmless prank … even if you did perceive it to be at your expense. Are you so precious you cannot be mentioned indirectly, in the abstract, by skin color, in a rogue ten-word "order" as outlandish as it is inane?

Sheila and her friend, Patricia, plan to boycott Wal-Mart until they have the retailer's "assurance" that the issue has been addressed so it "doesn't happen again."

Again I am loathe to disillusion you, but if it happened once, it could conceivably happen again. And it wouldn't harm you a second time any more than it did the first.

But the women seem determined to make a mountain of what would struggle to attain the status of miniature molehill. 

They claim they were "stunned" when they heard the announcement, and thought they had misheard. But once the words "sank in," they became angry.

And I have no doubt that their "anger" motivated them to lawyer up before they cooked up another mess of collards or mixed up another pan of cornbread.

I wouldn't think a thing of it if I were shopping at Wal-Mart and someone demanded over the PA that all females leave the store. Or all Baptists, for that matter … or all white people, or all brown-eyed people, or all left-handed people, or all Republicans, or all people wearing polka-dots, or all goldfish owners, or all Johnny Depp fans.

Or all those who believe Lee Harvey Oswald, wearing a sparkly tutu and a Superman code ring, acting alone except for a pet ferret in his back pocket, shot from the grassy knoll while sipping Ovaltine and trading baseball cards with Abraham Zapruder.

Stop thinking in terms of wounded entitlement.

Sticks and stones, luv. If I heard an announcement like that, I'd laugh out loud and keep on doing what I was doing.

I'd think to myself, just try and make me leave before I'm ready.

"Minorities" need to get over themselves. In this situation, I'll bet you a truckload of watermelons they wouldn't be so mad if the reason they were being urged to leave the building was for a sidewalk giveaway of cash, merchandise, or hairweaves.

People everywhere are starving, suffering, dying for a little bit of love. No matter the color of your skin, or how badly you think you or your ancestors have been misunderstood or mistreated, discover the freedom of forgetting yourself.

Move on, on purpose.

Put that energy to better use. Reach out to someone in need of your encouragement, your understanding, or your material largesse. 

Or, here's a really radical idea: practice some tolerance toward the person who was thoughtless enough to mash your hair-trigger buttons in the first place.

Stop thinking in terms of wounded entitlement. Stop walking around like a spoiled two-year-old with a chip on your shoulder the size of Michelle Obama's … er, biceps. 

Then you won't have either the time or the inclination to pay heed to public-address-system pranksters or anyone else who tries to get your goat … and both you and everyone else in America will be better off.

Let me be clear

For some strange reason, this Subaru commercial reminds me of Bret Baier's recent interview with President Obama.

Well ... not the part about tested and approved ... and certainly not the LOVE part.

Maybe it's because he's the first president in the history of this great nation who speaks Static ... fluently.

Must be the native tongue of whatever place he came from.

By the way ... did you know that "Subaru" backwards spells "Urabus"?

And did you further know, you're about to be thrown under it?

We'd be better off with dogs driving the country.

Dogs are wise, loving, and loyal ... they are eloquent without speaking a word ... and they know how to listen.

p.s. Did you notice the "soft meat" on the menu? That yellow dog wants some so badly, he can taste it.