The Ramblings of Weesatch Joe

The world stopped turning Friday.  Not literally, of course. Ask any astrophysicist and they’ll tell you that the Earth is so perfectly-yet-delicately balanced in it’s position in the planetary lineup that if it were just a few feet closer or further away from the sun, if it’s axis were tilted ever-so-slightly more or less, all hell would break loose. If our planet suddenly started accelerating or slowing around it’s axis, we would either be crushed by gravity or be flung toward Mars like Elon’s shiny, red Tesla. If the Earth’s rotation around the sun changed in any way, we would freeze or melt.  Since none of those things happened – we’re all still standing, no one has left the atmosphere, and fall is finally starting to arrive in South Texas – the Earth must still be spinning. But for one family, a widow, a daughter, two sons, a step-daughter, a step-son, and a mother and father, their world came to a full, complete stop. A dead stop, you might say. It was the day her husban...

I've spent a lot of time the last two weeks in the ICU of a local hospital, watching, waiting and praying - not only with a member-family from church, but with others as well. The power of a clerical shirt and what it represents is not to be underestimated in places and times like that.  Robert's family had been waiting for hours for their priest to arrive. Meanwhile, doctors and nurses scurried about, trying desperately to save the older gentleman. For whatever reason - and let the reader understand: I offer no judgement - the priest did not come. I was there. The wife accepted my offer to go to the bedside of the dying man, pray for and bless him.  This came from watching the day's events from the neighboring ICU room.  Fanfare of the Intensive Care Copeland wrote for The Common Man,     Melodies strong and bold, This is Fanfare of another kind,    A score that must be told. The IV infuser chirps away,    Singing in minor key, While fl...