My doctor explained that people who are immunocompromised by certain specific conditions are also particularly susceptible to the more common opportunistic illnesses like colds and flus and the like. Not everything is the C-word these days. Some illnesses are just old fashioned temporary and non-life threatening conditions like mom used to fix with soups, juices, rest and forehead kisses to check your temperature.

I could have used a mom yesterday when I woke up with all the symptoms, no soup, no juice and lots of work deadlines awaiting my urgent attention. My temperature broke at some point during the night and while I’m still a world of hurt, I’m over the hump in my home office satisfying yesterday’s email requests of my coworkers.

It’s comforting to know I’ll survive this but I’m convinced those magical mom kisses are the real antidotes to healing at any age.

We get more than our share of odd and unusual folks at my church located in a highly traveled homeless neighborhood. Many show up at services looking for a hand up or a hand out and we’re happy to oblige and get them resources to begin their path out of a life of drugs and danger on the streets.

Today, during one of those conversations, a man asked me if I was ready to die today. I told him that was an unusual way of greeting someone when hi-how are you would’ve been just fine. But as I said, it’s sometimes a strange crowd. He pressed on with his greeting and I consented that if it was my day, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.

For him, living on the street, I suppose it must be a question he asks himself more than once every morning so perhaps it was well-intentioned.

I invited him in and he was welcomed by everyone. I suppose that’s what I enjoy most here.

‘Come as you are’ is a real thing.

Driving around listening to podcasts, it became apparent that I need an alignment.

My tires are fine but the accumulated wisdom of some well-informed podcasters indicated some critical life trajectories are off, slowly dragging me out of my own lane and into directions and places I shouldn’t be traveling at my age and maturity.

Interesting how we can sense that uncompromising tug in one direction or another and you know things aren’t rolling on as ideally as they should.

Diet, money, sleep, how I spend my elective time, all just went enough right or left of center to make a perceptible difference which I fear, without a realignment, could easily send me off roading on paths for which I am not designed nor well-suited.

For some, this may sound like a labored metaphor of a perfectionist splitting hairs but living by higher-than-average standards was something I was taught from a very young age. Moreover, living life according to a singular mission cues you to the ever so slight variations from that mission, demanding corrections to keep you on course.

So, I got home and had a chat with my Mechanic.

The perks of being beautiful are undeniable.

By nature’s good genes or by other more costly means, life usually works in their favor. While the eye of the beholder is a factor, the result is generally the same. Handsome and pretty, (maybe a little of both these days) they hold an edge in most of their endeavors and advantages in life for which the rest of us slave to earn. Seems a bit unfair and privileged but it’s the way of the world–which brings me to my point.

This world of ours preaches standards unrealistic for most of us, yet we take the bait each morning spending ungodly amounts of time, product and money on a meaningless move from maybe a 5 to a 6 and a half on a good day. We put more effort into our outer appearance than we often devote to our own inner peace about who we are.

You were born with the gift of being truly beautiful in all the ways it matters most.

I’d like to think

That all my friends

Who’ve met their ends

Caught flights to the heavens

And into the arms of a loving God

Now walk their streets of gold in wait for others like me.

I’d like to think

The best of them all

That it wasn’t the fall

Which took them down

To that fiery second death

For lack of belief in something and someone so much better.

I’d like to think

There are exceptions

And blessed receptions

For good people and nice folks

Who hoped that was enough

And paved their way with good intentions.

I’d like to think

I did my part

To win their heart

For One who saves

From eternal graves

To live the one and only life that truly matters.

I’d like to think

It all works out

And yet I doubt

It does or will for those who believed

Forever deceived by the lies of this world and now exist

No more.

And while I’d like to think I will miss you forever

no doubt I surely will.

We all walk daily on a ledge where balance and prayer keeps us horizontal and hope and love moves us forward, together making chance increasingly irrelevant.

People who want real change in this country put their money behind candidates with hopes but no promises it will actually happen. People who want real change in their city put their money behind causes of hope that both promise and create real change. The power of charity lies in its ability to be held accountable to actually deliver what politics only promises, and then usually at less than half the cost.

If more people actually lived

for that which they say they’d die,

they might die

but for thousands more to live

longer and better lives

where far fewer would need to die

for their beliefs.