November 6 – “Unthinkables”

Well, we did the unthinkable yesterday.  Well, two unthinkables, I guess.  Number one, we actually went to WalMart.  On a Saturday.  During a specially themed tourist weekend.  Now it wasn’t really all that bad when we first got there.  But as we made our rounds gathering up fruit and milk and gift bags, the crowd mushroomed.  Of course that wasn’t a bad thing as far as I was concerned.  Made for more folks to look at.  And most of the new folks were in town for the Biker Rally.  Motorcycle enthusiasts from all over descend upon us once a year to ride around and show off their bikes.  I tried to get into position to see some of the names on the backs of the rising tide of  vests and leather jackets.  It was hard to see, but I managed to make out a few.  “G” Call from New Orleans was there, as was La Familia from Dallas / Fort Worth.  And there were several from some kind of Boyz out of Houston.  One guy had “Ferrum Ferro Acuitir” on his shirt.  That one sounded interesting to me.  Obviously Latin, so in lieu of calling my grandson Zak and asking for his help, I went on the internet and looked it up.  It means “Iron Sharpens Iron.”  Certainly a noble sentiment.

Number two, we drove off the Island during Bike Rally weekend, dodging the thousands of motorcycles that have descended upon us for the weekend.  We braved these elements to get to Hitchcock so we could watch Jachin and Micah play baseball.  It was actually a Fall scrimmage game.  The highlight of the evening for me was watching all 4 foot nothing Micah pitch to his catcher, five foot nine Jachin.  Quite the picture.  In this Fall league they have nine and ten year olds playing with twelve and thirteen year olds.  It helps the little guys a lot.  Not so much the older ones.  Jachin tried to be cagey on one play while he was catching.  One of the tiny guys was batting.  Jachin recovered a passed ball and looked to see if he had a shot at throwing out the runner heading to third.  Seeing that was not possible, he maneuvered into position behind that little sprite of a batter and gently tossed the ball … right into the kid’s helmet.  Then he vied for an interference call.  The concept was right on.  And the idea actually showed an incredible grasp of the rules and the playing of the game itself.  But for that to be believable, Jachin would have had to make the throw from his knees.  Leaning over.  As little sister Noa suddenly blurted out the other day as I was peacefully swinging her in our backyard, “Oh, snap.”

Galatians 6:15 says, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything; what counts is a new creation.”

Father, keep the bikers safe as they start to head home today.  Amen.