Thoughts on "Joy"

Hi! I am JOY / A fruit of the Spirit;
I come to all Christians / But am often neglected. . .
I dance through creation / And make the stars twinkle
And fill the dry ground / When rain starts to sprinkle. . .

I'm there in all seasons / I love them ALL best.
After a day of hard work / Together we rest. . .
I haunted the Maker / Before He made time;
When all was pronounced good / The pleasure was mine. . .
I bestowed warmth upon earth / At Easter's SON-rise;
I'll escort you to heaven / When someday YOU rise!
---Marie Byars, 1984 (extractions from a longer poem)

Christian Nature Poetry: Full Poem on Joy

An Erma Bombeck Life*

Nature abhors a vacuum. And so do I. Especially since it's moving time! ---Marie Byars

*Erma Bombeck was a humorist who wrote mostly on the drudgery of household upkeep.  She once teamed up with Bil Keene, creator of the comic strip "Family Circus", to create the book Just Wait Till You Have Children of Your Own.

(More) Reasons to Hate SUV's!!!

 "Don't drive like my brother."  Don't drive like my brother."  --Tom & Ray Magliozzi, as Click & Clack, in their weekly sign off from NPR's "Car Talk."

   This is an opinion piece, some snarking at the oversized SUVs on the road.  [For my googlebot crawling friends, this is snarking, mild sarcasm.  I am not attempting to put false data about acceleration rates nor other things out into the internet.]

     We already know the $4.00+ gallon-a-gas reason to hate 'em. Here are more (in hyperbole form): (1) they obnoxiously slow down to .0001 m.p.h. to make a simple right turn around a corner; (2) they take 4.7 minutes to go from 0-15 m.p.h., clogging up traffic behind them waiting to pull out when the light turns green (my 4-cylinder stick shift starts out much faster w/o burning up fuel!); (3) they may not get smashed up as much as a compact in an accident, but they roll easier (and compacts are easier to navigate away from an accident, anyway!). ---Marie Byars