I blew out and kaputted a computer right after moving here and was saving that lovely keyboard for the day I got a new computer. After two years I figured out that was not going to happen. I took the keyboard out of storage and put it on my office computer. My employer provides a very wonderful computer, but the keyboard is the $5 job.
Today, the "V" key stopped working. Being in storage is not good for electronics. So I put the cheap keyboard back on. For the first few emails it felt weird, but after that I put my hands straight and typed away. Now, at home, I have one computer in the basement (thanks to Jason for fixing it) and then a laptop upstairs and the girls both have their own Apples. Why is all this stuff named after fruit? One of them has a Blackberry too. I did not think I would use this laptop for much other than checking email, because I hated the little crowded keyboard, and now I type at my normal speed on it without any problem, in the dark.
For a few moments, I thought I could do without using the letter v. But I was wrong. Half my user ids and passwords use something with a v. I have a one vanilla orchid thing going on and I got that from the Awake! magazine, about 2003 or 2004, an article about how out of over 10,000 species of orchids, the vanilla orchid was the only one which produced an edible fruit. I like that idea. And there are so many nice words with that letter. I would be unable to write about love, clover, vigor, avenues, venues, or vermilion without that key. But I also could not write about vices, violence, or viruses. I could have no friends named Vincent, Victoria, Victor, Veronica, or Valerie. And I confess, my children were almost named Valerie and Veronica. I love V names better than A names, but their father's first girlfriend was named Valerie, so I vetoed that very quickly.
Of course, that letter shows up in slave, which is bad in American history in the 17th to 19th century, but good if you are faithful and discreet. The letter is lovely in ovulate, because I had to do it to have my daughters. And v shows up in some superb verbs: strive, arrive, derive, drive, give, live, save, and plenty of adverbs as well: vacantly, vainly, vaguely. I could never write about veins or any medical conditions with vena in them. I could describe no vehicles nor their velocity, ventricles, valves, vacuums, vacations, no various vases nor vast ventures. No violins, even though the older they are the sweeter the music.
We had a very nice meeting tonight. Aren't they all? Well, the program is always good because this is a spiritual paradise. Sometimes I leave feeling unloVed. Tonight I just left feeling very happy and like I belonged there. I am homesick a lot, and while we all speak the pure language, some of ya'll speak it with a weird twang. We have a lot of friends visiting here working unassigned territory. They are from New Jersey. They got a twang, but something else. They're all black. And it felt a lot like being in Lawton, Oklahoma again. I had some of the best friends ever there and our hall was always comprised of a lot of diversity. It was an army town so the soldiers would bring home German and Korean wives who later became our sisters. One was from Australia and pronounced God's name "Jehover."
In Arkansas, Tyson Foods, Inc., moved half the people off the Marshall Islands to pluck chickens. We had to get up a language group to speak Marshallese to witness to them. In 2005, we had the largest Memorial in that language outside the Marshall Islands. And the area continues to grow. Here, this is the whitest place I've ever been. A few weeks ago eating at Main Moon on a Sunday after meeting, I saw a priest. This is the most Catholic place I've ever been. I don't recall ever seeing a priest before. I must have, but I sure can't put my finger on the event.
Now I've seen Baptist preachers to beat the band. And, we had a lot of Muslims in Arkansas, and me, having studied Arabic literature, I got a lot of calls there that I will never have here. Sometimes I leave thinking no one really talked to me and I don't sound like anyone here and this group doesn't even look like a congregation I've belonged to before. I don't think Satan is chasing Cherri Randall personally, but I do think he has a minor demon assigned to this area, and sometimes I come up as the prime target in his rotation, and also my children do. The other day, Carly points out that brother so and so has not spoken to her this entire month nor greeted Sara at the hall. Tonight, I want to feel hard hearted at brother so and so.
Instead, I remind us both that brother so and so has responsibilities and even if he hates us, he ain't worth dying for. The Hall is the place to be.
In Arkansas, every year we had this big talent show and we'd have a lot of acts, and one of them was always me reading poems I wrote. The first year, I wrote one about every member of the West Fork congregation. I read it and had big ole deer hunting brothers in the audience crying. Those are the same events at which we put on the dramas with all the young ones doing the acting. I was always busy and I never doubted that I belonged in the middle of the excitement. I was thinking about that first poem tonight when we had our closing prayer. In that poem, I mentioned how I used to cry at meetings, just a little, when Bob (of my earlier blogs about his falling asleep in death) would say the prayer. Not just because they were heartfelt prayers, but because I would peek at his face and watch him as he prayed. I think sometimes that is not a nice thing to do, but I loved doing it with Bob.
I learned that from my grandmother. She told me if I was ever to marry a brother, to look at his face when he prayed and I would know if he was worth his spiritual salt or not. So I thought it sounded like a good idea to do to everybody. I'm pretty sure my grandmother was a smart cookie. Bob's face would be so earnest, so loving and kind that I would feel my throat closing up on the tears that rose up from my heart, my lowly heart throbbing between two pink frothy lungs trying to breathe without letting a sob escape.
For the first time since I've been here, I wanted to write a congregation poem. I have written a few individual poems, anniversaries, thank yous, just being thoughtful, but I have not done anything on the scale of Arkansas. So maybe I will write one in August when I am through teaching this summer session and get caught up. Maybe not. Brother so and so gets on my nerves and I have to include everyone in the poem. But tonight it sounds like a good idea.
What this really means is that the local demon pool has rotated duty to someone else, and whoever it is, I am sorry, but it is so nice that I am not quite on my maximum stress load for the first time in about a year, that I am just going to enjoy the peace for however long (or short) it lasts.
Tonight I sat by Pam, and I have missed Pepper in Arkansas for three years especially when it came to singing. Now there are new songs, and we sang two of my faVorites tonight, and I sang better with Pam like I used to sing better with Pepper.
Maybe I'm like the V key. It seems like such a little used letter that at first you think you can do without. Then when you think about it, you want the V too. Whatever key you are, there are some words that cannot be written without you there, no matter what key it happens to be.
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