Emotions make life worthwhile, but sometimes threaten to betray us.  If they’re controlled by the outer cortex of the brain, the seat of reasoning, they’re fine and life can go on as we planned.  If they are not controlled – mayhem.  I have seen too many adult males mess up their married home life with an illicit affair or downright abandonment of wife and kids.  Everybody hurts from that.

But let’s look at the bright side.  The role of a novel, or opera, or movie, is to bring into play our emotions in a safe way; thus we don’t make a god out of them.  Knowing how to prioritize, is, of course, a key to a successful life.  Everybody should learn how to do it.

But do we all? The Christian faith helps those who fail, so don’t knock religion.  There are some religions that are really here to serve.

Today I saw a squirrel carrying two butternuts the size of tennis balls in its jaws.  Of course it dropped one, but continued to a branch in a nearby tree where it began to eat the soft outer shell and proceeded to the hard inner core that protects the sparse meat.  He never went back to retrieve the dropped nut.

It is amazing to see these mammals go through the agenda of their primeval brains, to stop when it had enough (there was no way he could bury that other tennis ball nut for future use) and live out their designated lives fulfilling a role of Nature.  Yes, I have a role too.  I’m not going to say my life is aimless.

I was a father to three contributing boys, a husband to a lovely wife, and a teacher to over one thousand children.  It’s not over yet.  If my life were an opera, then, as Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ‘til the fat lady sings.”  But I have another lady, one dressed in blue, who’ll speak to the Lord—true. 

I call them all-weather friends.  Like the patio furniture, which dries out in sunny weather, they are there when the rain storm passes.  But more than that, they contribute ideas and emotions, and fill our souls with gratitude.  Gratitude does not come spontaneously, but a friend can bring it out.

Some may be relatives, but some come from regions of our country with which we are unfamiliar, like the Bronx.  My World War II friend was drafted from the Bronx, and saved by the President from Missouri, Harry S. Truman, when he gave permission to drop the bomb.  Armand was on his way from the European theater to Japan, where he was to take part in a massive invasion.  You might say it was part of providence.

We call it providence, but who can figure out what expressions of free will can effect these results.  To see it all start to play out would require the foresight of God.

The thing about having a cane is you’re constantly in fear of losing it by leaving it someplace you’ve stayed.  I have left premises, only to realize I didn’t have it and gone back to find some kind person had put it aside for me.  That’s how it went when I returned my rented Enterprise car, and they had already rented it out again.  But the agent looked in back of the office, and there it was.  They had checked the car before renting it out again, and put it aside.  I say that’s Western Civilization.

As Jonathan Cahn (leader of Jews for Jesus) might say, those are the people who take up the slack left by the People of the Promise.  Those Western people have carried the burden for two thousand years, and done pretty well with it.  I mean a man on the moon is nothing to be sniffed at.

The trick is to work with what God gives you.  You don’t believe you were given a lot?  The fact that you’re reading this is proof already, not counting your next meal, and the starry sky you’ll see on your way home.

Sometimes we seem to fail, and then the good Lord vindicates us.  In elementary school a fellow was picking on my brother in the next grade below me.  I caught him after school, and asked what the problem was.  He replied by catching me on the left cheek with a roundhouse right, and then ran.  I’m not going to pretend that at that age (eighth grade) I knew the story of turning the other cheek but I let him go.

Four years later I was a senior and my antagonist a junior.  I was standing with a group of seniors talking when an underclassman ran up to my friend Virgil and complained that a junior was picking on him.  I spotted my antagonist of four years ago right away, and had him in a headlock in seconds.  As I bore him to the asphalt there was a tap on my shoulder.  It was my beloved physics teacher, Brother Augustine, who conducted me to the principal.  I explained what I was doing, and the principal let me go with an admonition.  Now I keep telling you, the Lord takes his time.