Vacation... All I Ever Wanted

What an incredible couple of weeks it has been!  Now I know, according to my last post on August 7, it has only been about five days, but that's the beauty of modern technology -- I can post days, even weeks ahead, and schedule them to post in the future.  So, technically, I could be stinking and dead but still posting on Brokentobreathless -- oh, the literality!

So, the last two weeks... Well, let me do one of those TV-type recaps for you:

I have been lied to and lied about.  I have heard some of the best sermons I've heard in my life, and read one of the worst books to ever undergo publishing.  I have screamed with exhuberance, and been screamed at with a fear and sadness only deep emotional disorder can explain.  My heart has broken for my children; my heart has burst with love for them, and joy with them.   I have stood laughing while a gallon of milk swirled and dissipated into a fresh rain puddle in the Pathmark parking lot, and stood crying while my family united their hearts in prayer in a church parking lot.  I have witnessed betrayal and deception so convoluded and evil I have questioned even how to pray; I have felt true love so deep it has moved me to tears and implicit belief in its existence.  I have been enraged by those who erect their comic reputations on making others -- specifically Christians -- look utterly foolish and depraved; I have experienced Christian life -- with all its victories and failures -- on a level I pray continues to rise with each new storm.  Our children have reached new heights in maturity and wisdom; our children have found themselves firmly entrenched in childhood, with all its irrational worries and bouts of faintheartedness.  We have been separated by 1100 miles, and only days later, tirelessly sang our way home from a fabulous family outing.  I've heard the quiet of a sleeping household at dawn, and the cacophany of every moment thereafter.  I have revelled in the "plainness" of life and all its vicissitude. 

That, Dear Aristotle, is The Good Life!