By Nicole

This is a re-post.  Everyone else is doing it (you know who you are).  And I love you all so much, I am going to recycle an oldie.  Add a little sparkle, a couple of links, and this is a decent Valentine's gift.  I am off to snuggle with my hubby and drink tea. The Foolishness of Grace "And a certain sign of grace is this.... through broken earth, flowers come up, pushing through the dirt." What a foolish notion, grace. Who deserves it? Many feel they don't need it. Only fools understand and accept it. The educated scoff at the idea that men, the most "evolved" species with the highest intelligence would have need of God's love and forgiveness. After all, we are capable of doing good. Those of us who are positive forces in the community, who believe in the inner good of man and the power of being in balance and in tune with nature and ourselves have no need of grace. We are good enough on our own. We don't hurt anyone. We pay taxes. We put a...

A coworker of mine reminded me the other day of Days of Our Lives. We talked about how much we loved Hope and Bo and how evil Samantha was. You see, back in the day, when I didn't do much but nanny for part of the day in the summer, I used to get done just in time to race home and watch Days of Our Lives.  It was this mindless, mind-numbing escape.  Everyone was glamorous and rich and had horrible family and relationship problems.  There was also plenty of bad acting, which helped my teenage brain think that I could so easily be a movie star.  (Maybe I'll tell the story of my one and only  college drama class another time).  I remember thinking how messed up things were in their lives and how their relationships were so screwed up. Fast forward through life a little, and I have learned about and seen some pretty screwed up things happen in real people's lives and homes.  I think I would rather be kidnapped by Stefano than deal wit...

"And a certain sign of grace is this.... through broken earth, flowers come up, pushing through the dirt." What a foolish notion, grace. Who deserves it? Many feel they don't need it. Only fools understand and accept it. The educated scoff at the idea that men, the most "evolved" species with the highest intelligence would have need of God's love and forgiveness. After all, we are capable of doing good. Those of us who are positive forces in the community, who believe in the inner good of man and the power of being in balance and in tune with nature and ourselves have no need of grace. We are good enough on our own. We don't hurt anyone. We pay taxes. We put a nickel or a dollar in the little red bucket yearly. Some of us volunteer, donate our old clothes and fundraise for orphans. We have no need for unconditional love. We are educated. We majored in humanities. We realize that some choose to do bad things, but it is what we believe that d...