GeekForce

My buddy’s over and we ate dinner awhile ago.  Thin-cut rib-eyes are terrific (broiled is the way to go, I should think). 

He pulled down one of my bibles (he’s a minister) and the book he holds stirs a memory or two.

 When my daughter was about 10 (fifth grade), she and I participated in a divorce recovery group. 

Of the fifty-or-sixty participant adults, perhaps eight (ten?) were guys.  We shared the commonality of all the crap that happened to us (groups are nearly always the ‘dumpees’ rather than the ‘dumpers), and the whole thing was a grand old time.

This wasn’t the amazing, tragically-killed program “Second Chapter”.  It was a less intense program, designed for large groups.  To the titanic credit to Central Presbyterian Church (Clayton, MO), they were, at the time, the lone ‘white’ church to offer a program to cope with the exploding divorce industry that flourished up the street where ‘Family’ attorneys still hang out.

Anyway, I just flat got into it.  We all became friends, we all were pretty tied down with young children, and a grand time was had by all.

At the end, we all sat to hear speeches of thanks and final words of encouragement.  They gave away a gift certificate, Billikins tickets, clothing store coupons, a gift for Bianca to further her artistic endeavors (she thought that was cool!) and at the very end they announced that they had a gift for a particular father…

….which was the Bible Andy’s looking over, the nifty, red-leather NIV version that’s full of notes, poems that are quite obviously written by somebody with a strikingly shaky hand.  

A fat, red felt bookmarker than my then 4-year-old younger son colored, and phone numbers and addresses of members to a bible study group that I crashed a couple of  years later.  It worked then, also, and picked me up some real steam.

I reckon it’s working for Andy.  He’s writing in it, even, so I have yet more reading to do tonight.