May 8, 2000
DOWN HOME:
How many ways can you say, 'I love you'?
___Kids these days. They sure have strange ways of showing their affection.
___Take Lindsay's friends. Please.
___We know they love her, because they came by our house and told her.
___Not to her face, you understand. But we got the message loud and clear.
___First came Sabrina, one of Lindsay's good buddies, in the still of the night. Sabrina brought her brother, Grant, and her boyfriend, Jacob. Sabrina loves Lindsay. The note she tacked to the pear tree in the front yard says so.
MARV KNOX
Editor
___The seven or eight rolls of toilet paper and a couple of rolls of crepe paper they left behind announced their affection to the whole neighborhood.
___Nothing says, "I love you" quite like a quarter-mile of TP flying from your trees.
___And, since Lindsay, her mom and Molly had to leave the next morning to help put on a bridal shower, guess who got to "feel the love" of all that flying toilet paper?
___Dear ol' dad, of course. I didn't mind most of the chore, until I got to the last 50 yards or so, which was thrown over the tip-top of an oak tree. I imagined how I would explain my broken arm to the nurses in the emergency room. Probably wouldn't have been the first time toilet paper caused a broken bone.
___When I put the ladder up, I only thought the semi-public display of affection was over. That afternoon, I washed Lindsay's car, the former family sedan with the missing hubcap.
___I remember when I used to think washing cars brought on rain.
___Lindsay's clean vehicle invited her friends Amber and Karina to come and express their affection. Amber and Karina love Lindsay. The note written in white shoe polish on the front-passenger window said so.
___This yard-art and vehicle-painting makes me wonder if grownups might start dropping by to show that they actually like each other.
___If so, I hope some things change.
___Instead of hanging TP from trees, maybe dads could show up at a friend's house and mow the lawn. Of course, if they did it in the middle of the night, the neighbors might not associate it with affection, but earplugs would be a nice auxiliary gift. And instead of painting on the car windows, they could show up and change the oil. Nothing says, "I love you" quite like a new oil filter.
___Jesus urged us to display our love for him. And not with TP and shoe polish. He said we show our love by loving the unlovely, the "least of these."
___Nothing says, "I love you, Jesus" quite like sheltering the homeless, feeding the hungry, providing medicine for the sick, clothing the naked and visiting the prisoners. And that love is good anytime--night or day.
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