Monday, March 25, 2019

Three Beautiful Things 03/24/19: St. Luke's, Casual Shopping, Pizza and the Oregon Ducks

1. I drove to Coeur d'Alene this morning and attended the 10:30 Eucharist. I loved worshiping at St. Luke's. This morning's Lenten service stirred me and the homily reinforced ways I experience and think about the Divine. What I experienced this morning took hold, struck deep spiritual chords in me, but I cannot articulate what I experienced. So, I will continue to live with the readings, prayers, hymns, and homily privately within myself.

2. Often after church, I feel some urgency to return home so that Maggie and Charly aren't alone for too long of a time. With Debbie visiting, I was relieved of this urgency and I made trips to Fred Meyer, Kohl's, Costco, and the liquor store. I didn't purchase much, but I enjoyed slowly checking out some things and, as I was leaving Costco, two or three people from the church startled me by recognizing me, calling out, "Sir, Sir", and waving hello.

3. Tonight was my turn to host family dinner, but because Debbie, Patrick, and Meagan are visiting, I asked Carol to host dinner and suggested we do something a little different. A new pizza place called Zany's recently opened in the Sunshine Inn building, so Debbie ordered and purchased three pizzas and Christy, Everett, Paul, Carol, and the rest of us sat in the living room and casually yakked it up and ate slices together. I thought hosting tonight's dinner in our small house would be uncomfortably crowded and I was happy and relieved that we enjoyed one another's company in Carol and Paul's much roomier house.

By the way, my day of worship, shopping, and family dinner pretty much pulled me away from today's NCAA men's and women's basketball tournament action.

I watched the last of the second half of the University of Central Florida's heartbreaking loss to Duke, 77-76. After dinner, I saw much of Oregon's thrilling win over the University of California-Irvine, 73-54.

The Ducks game got pretty interesting in the second half. Oregon led by twelve at halftime and started the second half, as Byrdman and I like to say, Foreigner-- that is, "Cold as Ice". The Ducks went scoreless for the second half's first seven and a half minutes, missing eleven straight shots.  The Anteaters charged back to take the lead. But, Ehab Amin broke the drought with a three-point shot, made some hustle plays on defense, and jolted the Ducks with a sudden surge of adrenaline and energy. The Ducks resumed dominance, went on a 15-3 run, and before long Kenny Wooten was swatting Anteater shots and dunking alley-oop passes, Payton Pritchard and Louis King joined Amin in the scoring spree, and the Ducks won in resounding fashion.

I will add that while I didn't see any of their game, Oregon's women's team scored a runaway win over Indiana, 91-68, led by Sabrina Ionescu's 18th triple double of her career, her 8th this season. She scored 29 points, snagged 10 rebounds, and dished out 12 assists. 

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