A couple of
mercy missions this morning, visiting the afflicted here at Bel Aire. Some talk
about their lives--many of them abandoned early in bad marriages. I shared a Dr. Pepper with Anne, who is
blind and alone, though she has two good daughters close by who help her. Other residents don't relate to her,
however.
I thought again of Pio's Prayer-Blessing
for me. It is something which
means more now, even though I only recover the feelings, not the Spanish.
It was a
bold move asking Pio to give me a blessing, Lora. A private moment with Pio, a teacher or priest and
doubtless marginal in the institutional church. But he indeed knows how to talk to God and I wanted him of
all the male members in your ward to intercede for me at that time. His Spanish was beautiful, as he
blessed my “broken heart” (literally and figuratively).
The
strangest recollection, lately, was of a beautiful little gal I dated off and
on, Dolly Golich. One day at school, my senior-screwed-up-year, she stopped me,
pulled out of my front shirt pocket a scripture I had typed up. "So if you study the Bible, Larry,
why do you make out with girls in your trailer?" There was my chance! Why didn't I hold her cheeks in both
hands and kiss her, saying, "You're right. I begin today; now." Strange how this little hot make-out would chide me. A messenger of
counsel.
Wendy Ulrich [Experiencing
the Temple] cautions us that people, sometimes people very different from
us, just may come into our lives with a "message." Be on the lookout for so-called wolves
who are really sheep, often unconscious of their lamb-like counsel.
Love, Dad
P.S.
It was, after all, Steve Oakey who ushered me into the Assisted Living
[Homestead] Ranch decision. He, no
wolf, by the way, was there at the right
moment with the right advice. Did
he know in his bones I was inevitably heading for a complete physical and
emotional collapse?
