Solving The Lord’s Problems!

Solving the problem:THAT GIRL’S GONNA GET HIT!
I loved John’s attitude. As a psychiatric nurse at a permanent care facility his idea wasn’t to dominate the mentally ill clients, bully, or demean them. He believed and acted as though he was a butler to special friends and actually their employee. One day a massive, unshaved, severely non- showered (therefore smelly), man argued with another worker. The worker was a small young woman and he hovered, ready to pounce; over her. She insisted the big guy, in vulture mode, COULD NOT go bowling with the rest of the residents. HE had not earned enough points (as reflected in his smell and decoratively stained shirt .)
Their argument got louder, the posturing closer; the care worker was going to get hit!

So John sundered over. He asked the woman if he could take the lead. She nodded yes.
John said, “Oh, I’m sorry. We can’t do without YOU! We’re having a party and you’re the guest of honor! You might want to go get cleaned up, and put on some clean clothes.”
IN LESS THAN A HALF HOUR the big man walked into the common room, IN A SUIT and clean shirt and newly showered man, excited to stay behind.

John’s attitude is to be a tool in order to help others succeed. Great fun for him and the big man felt an honored guest instead of a failure in a systemic game he didn’t understand. The woman succeeded in going home at the end of her work day instead of the hospital!   nancymauerman.com

Miracles Stacked Up

There was a time when John and I prayed to be of more service; the result was instantaneous, surprising, exuberating, and exhausting. Often odd opportunities stacked up high.  I’ll tell you of just one day but to put the miracle in perspective, let me first tell you about our long block (thirteen houses on our side of the street, thirteen on the other.) We had several break ins within one week so John and a neighbor formulated a plan. John introduced himself to each family and asked if they would like to be represented on a map of our immediate area. Each square on the notebook paper indicated a home held the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the occupants. We could all the map to check on only fishy looking occurrences. Everyone participated, although for several days a few neighbors, further down the street, refused to answer their doors when John knocked. They explained later they’d seen him around for a long time and always though he was a homeless guy looking for hand- outs.
John wasn’t offended; he was pleased! He had succeeded in dressing for success! He was invincible! By dressed “down” people wouldn’t bother HIM. Strangers would NEVER walk up to him and talk to him! Therefore he was greatly surprised when a woman walked up to him in the library and asked, “Will you break into my car?”

He opened the back of our truck and there was that odd piece of aluminum he’d been meaning to throw away for two weeks. He used this and had her car open within minutes. We laughed later because a week before he couldn’t break into OUR car when we’d locked our keys in!  We had to call a locksmith.
We waved good bye and drove two blocks to Walmart where he helped a small woman change her tire. We drove home and by the time I’d put items away he was on the front side walk, where someone’s bicycle had fallen. John was fixing it with spare parts he’d been hoping to get rid of!
Similar “coincidences” happened every day, up to seven occurrences on a few days. We’d wake up in the morning wondering what could possibly happen next, in spite of John’s couture.nancymauerman.com

Broken Parsimony!

I worried about God during all my youth and childhood days. I went to church every week and read the Bible through a few times before I was an adult and asked hundreds of, :What does that mean?” questions. I watched my mother and teachers reason out an answer and every answer seemed to say, “I don’t understand it and if I can’t no one can!”
Then my questions were, “Why dress up to worship something you don’t believe exists?” Their answers were, “Well, it’s better to base a civilization on a fable that teaches a set of ethics than to have a group of people with no morals.”
In high school we were taught through poetry and literature, “Man created God.” That is pretty much what I’d seen men do.
I kept asking who God was. And even though I knew my logical mind it had limits I put those exact same limits on God and found there was no superior being.
As a young adult I felt a fool but I stuck my neck out. To stick a neck out is to expose it to the ax and I did feel I might die. I experimented with faith. and I found a Father who loves me and answers prayers, spoken and silent. Often answers appear NON LOGICAL, sometimes humorous and occasionally impossible. The word ‘impossible’ now means; today I can’t understand how it happened just as at three I scribbled outside the lines of my coloring book, and wondered how scribbling could ever fulfill my desire to paint “realistic” pictures. I did learn to render realistic drawings by scribbling.
I read earlier this year, in Science News about a size 50 nanoparticle of iron in crystalline form which was PUT THROUGH a tube of a much Smaller size. the smaller size was a 5 nanoparticle tub of crystalline carbon! The tub did not break. How can this be? I laugh out loud!

How about BREAKING THE LAW of parsimony by finding Comb Jelly Fish, a complex organism, to have developed first evolutionally. But then it devolved into the much simpler one. That one then evolved into a different complex kind of or jelly fish. Jellyfish are creations of God and lack of a better word it I’d call them Christians. Talk about a Born Again Christian.  nancymauerman.com

Women In Silence?

Sometimes I hear men say if you put women together it is impossible for them to leave even a moment to silence. A man can hardly fit a word in. And if a man does the women acknowledge his comment with half a sentence, mix it with another thought, and off they go again. There’s nothing that can be said that would cause a thoughtful pause or impose  a moment to to ponder. But sometimes it’s not so much what you say; it’s when you say it!
I’ve known Margaret for years and years and over that time she’s developed Macular Degeneration. She’s considered blind because she sees so little and the small amount getting through is all a big smear but there are some imaginings getting through and it meets with a lot of memory. One evening not long ago Margaret and I were in a car full of chattering ladies. We were laughing and talking around over each other and adding to previous conversations when the driver announced she planned to drop me off next. Margaret called out above the rest, “Turn at the next street. No not here. Pass this one and turn on the street after it. Yes here. Go up two blocks then turn right, go around the block and you’ll be on the correct side of the street to let Nancy out.” There was sudden silence as the rest of us watched the blind woman tell our driver which way to go!
In the late fifties my father worked on a high tower for the phone company. Often he started his climb up the outside ladder of the tower in the rain but as he climbed up hundreds of feet, the precipitation fell in the form of snow.
When trouble with the equipment surfaced, he worked with open lines while people talked on them. A few times when he opened the line he heard familiar voices; my mother and his mother were taking. He listened for a while, them not knowing of course. After he’d caught the conversation, he’d wait for a delicate moment then he give an elaborate and family specific answer to his mother’s question and asked my mother a personal question of his own. The response was stunned silence. You see women can be silent.  nancymauerman.com

If An Art Teacher ‘s On A Train Going Sixty MPH…

I let my mind wander around at night in my elementary school years. I’d think myself into two or three possible choices; A, B, and C. I’d choose all three. I’d run down scenario A until I came to a choice. I’d create two or three specific decisions then return to B and follow it to a set of specific choices, then return to C, and repeat the process. Then I’d return to A’s three branches and run scenarios off each one of those.
This kind of thinking was not conducive to math word problems. They’d set up the scenario with information such things as; a man walks south INside a train traveling north etc. I could see the guy ballet leaping, facing south, but in actuality landing behind himself. If the train was driving in small circles and the man inside was twirling, would he twice as dizzy? If the first leaping man landed in a heap would he be twice as hurt? Or, if in mid leap he grabbed the dangling light fixture would he feel like he was floating? Or if the man began walking north and loudly recited a poem as the train ran north, would the recitation sound so fast to a woman outside the train that she couldn’t understand it? Or could the woman understand fast talking but maybe not men.
This organized thinking helped in art school where I completed two to five drawings for every one assignment. I learned two to five times as much. But one teacher got angry with my exuberance and after a while when I wouldn’t stop he insisted I pick only one picture to pass in for his feedback and grade. I picked the worse one in order to learn the most. He didn’t like this either but I wasn’t afraid of him. I didn’t care what grade I got just as long as I was learning. He insisted I just wasn’t playing right. He got a little nasty, so I just kept drawing and imagined him on a train.nancymauerman.com

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Perserverance And Sand Jumping

In the 50s John and the neighborhood troupe of boys mounded up a giant pile of sand, jumped into it, then wondered if they’d survive a higher jump. They all did. They kept wondering and jumping from greater and greater heights until, as John tells me, they almost all survived a 200 foot drop.
Perseverance is a wonderful virtue which is a main theme in my very funny book ‘If Mrs Greeby Asks,’ free for a short time as an eBook at Amazon.nancymauerman.com

Reflections on the Lottery

Ever wonder about you family history? Do you wonder how many cousins you have and where they are today? My friend would like to find more of her family but she says, ‘it’s so time consuming’. She decided to win the lottery instead and pay someone to do the work, but I worry about what Rabi Lapin says: “If it comes easy, you can be assured it will bring misery.”
My church will not accept tithing or any type of donation, from a gambling increase. That’s interesting.
I wonder at people lining up to buy little pieces of paper from a machine. The charm must not be in pushing machine buttons or lines would form behind machines that spit out savings account receipts! The delight must be associated with the dream. Listen to old folk and blues songs and we’ll see people used to dream of being with their families again and wearing golden crowns. This fancy head gear is GUARANTEED to all who sincerely try and desire to please God. Plus the ‘trying’ part of this arrangement is a lot more interesting than standing in a line to push buttons.
Wanting to be with a big family brings me to my last refection on this easy win. If you happen to be “lucky” enough to win the lottery every minute part of your family will show up at your door having already done your genealogy for you. But they may not pleasant company.  nancymauerman.com

Holy Men In The Grocery Store

I saw a Buddhist monk wearing saffron robes at the grocery store. He looked to be from Vietnam. He was older than me by a bit and I wanted to shake his hand and say, “I’m looking too.” Or “I’m LDS. Latter-Day saints are all in the clergy and I’m wearing holy clothes too.” I wanted to ask,” How far have you’ve gotten? Found any good enlightenment yet?”
Too many words just to acknowledge a fellow traveler. But there was something bigger I most wanted to communicate. The monk turned and caught my eye and I’m not sure how he’d tell this story but it seemed to me we both giggled somewhere behind skin and muscle.  nancymauerman.com
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