October 6, 2026

The Foliage

How many of you have heard the name of Daniel Grand? I remember reading about his issue but honestly would not have been able to give you his name if questioned when discussing his story.
Mr. Grand is on the way to the Supreme Court to question why he is unable to pray in his own living room with his friends. And he lives in Ohio, which is supposed to be a red state but has moved towards purple the last few years. And this is obviously not any doing of Trump, which a no-kings practitioner would yell out as a reason for this happening.
I just finished reading a book by Ken Follett set in the early 1940’s when the Germans were trying to take over the world and set mostly in England and Denmark. The description of life was something that I doubt many of the younger generations would be able to endure, understand, or even emphasize with.
I have been thinking about my early life and how different life was when I was growing up and the life of my 29 year old daughter when she was in diapers and grade school. The book made me think about life when I was in diapers and grade school, which was at the end of WWII and up through the Brown v. Board of Education time frame, where Mr. Marshall made his bones. How far would today’s youth get without their cell phones? I think Ali’s phone is glued on her palm. Dorothy, Ali’s mom, has become one of those in the older group of geriartics who always has her phone close, talks to Siri on a regular basis, and might be a little lost without her phone, even though she did not grow up with one to always give her instant companionship.
I, am often missing calls because I do have to have a phone to feel like a whole person. The ladies went to Carmel for Ali’s birthday last weekend, Thursday to Sunday evening. On one of the days, Ali started calling me and she must have called at least 5 times without an answer. She got her mother to start calling and they said they were going to call the police for a wellness check on me. It was only about maybe 8 hours duration for this period of unanswered calls. I did not charge my phone at night and put it on the charger early in the morning. I did not retrieve it until way after the first call by Ali. And I might not have checked it even then except I realized Ali had not called to check on her cat.
The bottom line is there are different priorities concerning phones in this house. I will go out on a limb and say there are different priorities on many things in this house, e.g., there are 2 with TDS and one MAGA person. But the foundation is the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Chant with me the last sentence of Joshua 24:15: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” NASB
I purchased a plaque with that statement on it. I hang it up in different places in the house. Hanging the plaque on the wall does not necessarily make it so and at times I feel I need to hide the plaque and it may never come out of hiding. I wish I could say it was always the others that make it necessary to hide it, but that would be misinformation. It is not that any of us have quit serving the Lord, it is that we move from walking in the Spirit to walking in our own desires, our own weaknesses, our own selfish motives, and the list goes on and on.
You would think after so many years of serving and walking on the narrow path, the path would be so well worn, with the weeds on the side so high and thick, I could not get off the well beaten path. But I am able to see that opening in the dense foliage, which I’ll bet no one else can see, even with their glasses clean and no sun shining in their eyes. When I get through and turn around, even I am unable to see it and I just went through it.
There is no opening in that foliage as I travel along the wide path. There are times the wide path seems so much easier to travel and if it was not fun, I would definitely crash through the foliage and take my chance with all the stickers I see hanging there.
I know I will never find my way through the foliage unless I repent and seek forgiveness. Not for my salvation but for my transgression after being born again. AND, it my be for more than one transgression I need to seek God’s mercy and grace. Praise the Lord, forgiveness is always available and can not be used up. Even though the wide road does have an ability to make you forget you need to move back onto the narrow path as quick as you can, the desire to return to living in the presence of the Holy Spirit brings you back to the realization it is you who moved, not God and the wide path is not as enjoyable as when you make your way through the invisible hole in the foliage.
Lord, thank you for that huge hole in the wall of weeds and stickers. Like Fred Sanford always said, Lord, (I think he said Elizabeth), this is the big one, here I come.