catching up

i'm back from breakfast now. want to write about something that happened yesterday. in the momrning i read online a notice about the walt whitman award for a first book of poetry, a notice from the american academy of poets. i thought the entry fee said $20. i decided i could invest in that remote possibility, so i spent the day preparing the manuscript, a 78 page book. in the evening when i got ready to post i found the fee to be $30 which was a little bit more than i wanted to invest. i decided not to do it this year. i went back to look at the original notice, but i could not find it. i sort of wonder if i might not have hallucinated that $20 figure, wishful thinking. i've been known to do that sort of thing. i don't take even my own most certain perceptions too dogmatically. i know i can be wrong sometimes. but i will say this: i don't think the Word of God is ever mistaken in its essential message to us. it may not always be perfectly factual in some of its details; it's not a book of history, it's a book of theology, the story of God's relationship with and to His creation and His people. "His love never fails". if we believe in our hearts that He loves us, and try to live accordingly, we can count on Him to bring us through even if that includes sickness and suffering and death...we will come through to the other side and be with Him in paradise.