
“Table for one, please.”
“Yes, just one. No, no–leave that other chair there.”
“What? No, there’s nobody else coming.”
Even with my eyelids shut I know this place all too well....
...“Go back to where you came from, Ruth, while you still have a chance. I have nothing left to give you,” my mother-in-law pleaded with me.
Oh, I could fill a riverbed with all the tears I have cried for her son. If only I could swim across it and touch his hand on the other side, if just for a moment. There are some days I still seem to forget: Mahlon is never coming home from the war...
...His eyes lit up with a lustful glow as he peered at her exquisite rare gem twinkling marvelously beneath the fluorescent lights.
“Where did you get this?” he asked.
“It was given to me by my father,” she said proudly. His eyes lowered. “Let me take this off your hands. I’ll give you seventy-five bucks for it.” She was not certain just how valuable it was, but she knew it was far above that offer. With a sigh, she put the gem back into her sack and left the shop, wondering if the man had any clue what he had just seen...
...When I think about the Martin Luthers and William Wilberforces and Sophie Scholls of the past, I get absolutely elated because so many of these reformers were young people! In their 20’s and 30’s, these folks made drastic impacts on their generations and the ones that followed. Wow! Their influence crossed state and country lines, it leapt over cultural barriers, and is told about in storybooks and movies. Their legacies will live forever.
It screams out to me that there are reformers amongst us, too...
“Table for one, please.”
“Yes, just one. No, no–leave that other chair there.”
“What? No, there’s nobody else coming.”
Even with my eyelids shut I know this place all too well....