Mother Goose?

Warning: Get a beverage first.

Normally, I would do an “Odd Days” post at the beginning of the month, but with my winter writing hiatus, I’m a little behind. So, since I just know you can wait no longer (yeah, right) for my commentary on the weird holidays of May, here goes:

May 1st – Mother Goose Day -This holiday celebrates fairy tales and does not celebrate goosing mothers, right?

May 2nd – Space Day – I’m sure we’re supposed to be focused on NASA, etc. on this day, but my mind fervently wants to put “Cadet” between Space and Day here

May 3rd – Lumpy Rag Day – I’m so relieved they finally made this a holiday–Smooth rags are just no help at all.

May 4th – National Candied Orange Peel Day – Since most December fruitcakes are composed of this stuff, why is it celebrated in May???

May 5th – Oyster Day – Since I’m not too fond of oysters, could we insert “Cracker” between Oyster and Day??? If so, I’m in.

May 6th – No Diet Day – Probably because I ate too many oyster crackers on May 5th.

May 7th – National Tourism Day – The ever-traveling hubby despises any day that encourages tourists to be tourists–just visit any airport from May to September and you’ll understand why.

May 8th – No Socks Day – Texans stopped wearing sox in April. Thus, this one must be for Midwesterners. It’s way too early for the northerners who might, emphasis on might, get to go sockless by the 4th of July.

May 9th – Lost Sock Memorial Day – Shouldn’t Lost Sock Memorial Day come before No Socks Day just naturally??? And memorial suggests the sock is not only lost, but also dead. I didn’t know that socks could be alive. But that just gave me an idea for a Mother Goose fairy tale.

May 10th – Clean Up Your Room Day – Because your mother is tired of your offensive alive socks all over your room

May 11th – Twilight Zone Day (Actually this is the correct labeling for May 9th–either that or having Star Wars Day on May 4th made the Twilight Zone fans a little jealous.)

May 12th – Fatigue Syndrome Day – Please note that this day came right after Mother’s Day.

May 13th – Frog Jumping Day – Is this the only day frogs should jump? Are you supposed to pounce on unsuspecting frogs? Are you supposed to play leap frog this day?

May 14th – Dance Like a Chicken Day – Had to be invented by a Texan since random Texans will instantly get in a circle to do the Chicken Dance when the appropriate music is played. No inebriation necessary…but probably helpful.

May 15th – National Chocolate Chip Day – I celebrated this day by consuming an entire large-sized bag of chocolate chips. It was my duty, right?

May 16th – National Sea Monkey Day – Because there just aren’t enough artificially colored brine shrimp in the world

May 17th – Pack Rat Day – Let’s not tell Hoarders about this day.

May 18th – No Dirty Dishes Day – Either this was invented by a mom who got tired of doing dishes after Mother’s Day or is an evil Communist plot by the paper plate industry.

May 19th – Boy’s Club Day – Ummm….and where, oh where is Girl’s Club Day??? Hmmmm….another evil Communist plot.

May 20th – Be a Millionaire Day – Is this when Bill Gates finally makes good on paying all of us for liking some status on FB?

May 21st – National Memo Day – To: Millionaires: From: MIP Date: May 21st, 2014 Re: We Hate You and Your Stupid Holiday on May 20th

May 22nd – Buy a Musical Instrument Day – Why? Because a pile of parents are tired of paying rent for their band kids’ instruments all year

May 23rd – Lucky Penny Day – The Unlucky Penny Union will be wanting equal time.

May 24th – National Escargot Day – I’m sensing a seafood theme here. See May 5th and May 16th.

May 25th – Tap Dance Day – Wear ear plugs?

May 26th – Sally Ride Day – Now, I’m sure this refers to astronaut Sally Ride, but my warped mind goes immediately to Mustang Sally by Wilson Pickett. You just sang, “Ride, Sally, Ride”, didn’t you??? 😉

May 27th – Sunscreen Day – This would have been more helpful on the day (earlier in May) when I endured a TCU graduation for 4 hours in the hot Texas sun. May 27th will probably still be “Recover from Sunburn” Day at my house.

May 30th – Water a Flower Day – I’m thinking that if you only water one flower on this day (and no other?), you won’t be seeing flowers at your house for very long.

May 31st – National Macaroon Day – I guess coconut is under-appreciated???

Friday’s Post: Slow Reader Friday & Book Club Announcement Day!

You Might Also Like: The Odd Days of January 2014, The Odd Days of December,  and The Odd Days of November

Warning: You might want to get a beverage first.

“As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10: 38-42, NIV

It took me a long time to understand that most people, when reading or hearing this Scripture, identify with Martha and are a little stunned to hear Jesus chastise Martha. I am not most people. Perhaps my parents knew, instinctively, that I was much more like Mary and thus, gave me her name as part of mine. Now, for the record, I completely understand that the world needs “Marthas.” In fact sometimes I can almost pull off a good “Martha impression.” But, that is not who I am.

I almost always have my head “in the clouds.” I am dreaming, thinking, analyzing, planning, and “writing” constantly, constantly in my head. I live in my head. Thus, I generally do not notice that my house needs dusting, sweeping, cleaning and that my guests might like to be fed after several hours at my home. When you live in your head, it just doesn’t need a whole lot of dusting very often. Yes, there are a few cobwebs up there, but the cobwebs usually connect all the disjointed and diverse ideas in my head, so they’re actually helpful.

Would I like to be more of a Martha? Oh, my goodness, YES! Because Marys have a very bad reputation in our world. Marthas are much more often appreciated by society. Marys generally are very messy, irresponsible, insensitive, spacey little critters (or so it appears to the world). But, Marthas are organized, tidy, clean, thoughtful, generous and perfect hostesses. They are the ones who show up at all events with their kids perfectly clothed, perfectly coiffed, and perfectly mannered.

So, given this perception, why on God’s green earth would Jesus praise Mary and not Martha??? Because Mary figured out something while her sister was busy thinking about cooking and cleaning and entertaining…that she probably wasn’t going to have too many opportunities to hear Jesus speak in her very own home and she shouldn’t miss that opportunity. In other words Mary decided her relationship with Jesus was far more important than doing something FOR Jesus.

I cannot tell you how often I do what Martha did–I think that the way to improve my relationship with Jesus is to do stuff for Him and for his people. But, the other night I suddenly woke up at 2:45 am (Why does God keep doing this to me???) and God decided it was time to have a “conversation” with MaryAnn that was, quite frankly, unprecedented. In most of my “conversations” with God (my prayers), I do all the talking. If you know me personally, you know this is no big surprise. This time I ventured one (in my head) question to the Heavens above, and a still, small voice (still in my head) immediately answered with a very un-MaryAnn-like answer. Cue the Twilight Zone music.

I have long suspected that my little blog may never be “popular” with others. But, I still feel very “convicted” that I should keep writing it. During this unusual convo, I asked God, “If I’m supposed to write this blog, Lord, but it’s never going to reach many people, why do You want me to write it?’ He replied quietly, “Because I love you and so you and I can be together.” Tears streamed down my face. After all these years in “Christendom,” you’d think I would have figured out that my relationship with God comes first with Him and everything else is secondary. And you’d think I also would have figured out that I should feel the same way about that relationship. But, I had thought, quite mistakenly, that I had to do something for God (Of course, it has to be something important!) in order to demonstrate my faith in Him and my desire to be with Him. I felt hugely ashamed by my silly, faulty thinking, particularly because I tend to identify more with Mary in this story and not with Martha.

So, to all of my messy Mary friends and family, guess what? We really don’ t have to pick up after ourselves to be good Christians (Let’s be honest–we’re too busy reading Christian books and listening to  Mandisa anyway.) And to my Martha friends and family? Sit down. Take a load off. Get silent…really silent. And let God do the talking. He just wants to spend time with you because He thinks you’re really cool…even if you do clean too much. 🙂

Point to Ponder Challenge: When’s the last time you scheduled time just to further develop your relationship with God? How about an entire weekend? I plan to attend the Dallas Women of Faith conference this September to work on this. Want to join me? Great! Send me an email via the Contact page. You’re a guy??? Then, how about a guys’ weekend with the Ultimate Guy? Go here for more info: http://www.promisekeepers.org/

Tomorrow’s Post: Are you going places?

You might also like: Absolutely, It’s All About the Splash, Think You Don’t Have What It Takes to Change the World…Think Again, Just Because She’s Her, Lessons Learned from a 9 Year Old