June 5 – “Uniforming”

Quick fishing report from yesterday.  I caught quite a few whiting, so we are on our way to replenishing out stash of fillets for fish frys with the family.  There was one black drum and one speckled trout in there as well.  The water wasn’t all that rough, and I ended up staying several hours.  I’ll probably be sore tomorrow. 

Which might prove to be a bit of a problem.  The fire chief called and asked if I was going to be able to go to the special memorial service for the Houston fire fighters killed in the line of duty.  I was kind of hesitant since my uniform hasn’t come in yet.  Well, that reminded him that my badge had come in, and he offered to bring it by the house on his way out of town.  He had a chance to go to Houston to see the bagpipes practice for the ceremony tomorrow.  As it turned out, by the time I left for Jachin’s baseball tournament game, Nathan had located a uniform shirt and pants and hat and tie.  One of the captains in my district wore about the same size as me, so he graciously offered to let me borrow his stuff.  I just had to make a quick trip over to station four.  That’s the one that covers our neighborhood, so it is close by.  Thanks Captain Bowen.  There are so many little things that go into completing the uniform, that even when my shirt and pants do come in, I won’t be really ready for some time.  I still need a hat and the chaplain hardware that goes with it.  I’ll also need some chaplain hardware for my lapels.  That will probably be crosses.  I also need a nametag.  Nathan is loaning me one of his for tomorrow.  Here I was just excited that the department was getting me some business cards and maybe some kind of ID card (although the business cards had my name and hence my email address misspelled, so they had to redo them, and I don’t know what happened with the ID card.  They weren’t sure how to go about assigning me one since I don’t actually work for the city.  They were supposed to figure out something and call me back, but they never did). 

So I’ll wear the put-together uniform proudly.  But we have to leave from the fire station at 4:15 a.m., so I better get some sleep while I can.  That memorial service promises to be one of the biggest events in Houston since the super bowl.  And it ought to be.  After all, we’re talking about honoring some real heroes who earned respect by laying down their lives.  Hmm.  Something about that sounds familiar …

John 15:13 says, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” 

Father, thank you for the lives laid down a few days ago.  And the folks they did it for probably wouldn’t considered themselves friends at all.  Amen.