Roots

Last week, while doing the sales thing, I stopped to visit my Grandparents. They live in a little farming community about 4 hours north of me. It's not often I get to see them. It's nice my job allows the flexibility for me to stop while I'm in the area.

My wife has a saying she stole from Bill Cosby, "old people get nicer cause they are trying to get into heaven." I find that very funny and half truthful. Well, everytime I visit these Grandparents, we talk about Christianity. I spent a good three hours there and it dominated the majority of our conversation. It makes me think of my wife's saying.

I am finding them becoming less rigid in their thoughts. My grandmother, whose mother use to say "If you're not Baptist and Democrat, your going to hell," says she finds Baptists too rigid and wants to go to the Assembly of God. Wow, that's quite a statement, Grandma. We talked about the differences of faith and beliefs. And how many proclaiming to be Christians have a great deal of beliefs but no faith. We had a couple of disagreements. Grandpa believes we should live a good life to be a testimony to unbelievers. I told him I could never depend on my life to be an example, and that his thought process was way off course to what the good news is really about. To show my life as an example only perpetuates the idea that you have to be good to get into heaven. I said the gospel speaks for itself and doesn't need my life as an example. I'm not sure he understood what I was trying to say, though.

Anyway, it was a great visit. Grandma gave me a yo-yo blanket my mother made when I was just a little boy. It has swatches of my baby clothes in it. I was very grateful for that. I learned my great-great grandfather was an Englishman and he married a Comanche woman, my great-great grandmother. Interesting.

It's always good to visit them.