Rev. Snyder Archive

This week the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and Yours Truly, celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. This week as I pondered our life together it occurred to me, I might be taking some things for granted. Doing this, especially when it involves another person, is dangerous. I decided to take a little stock of myself and my relationship with the Mistress of the parsonage. What makes our marriage so great?

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The past several weeks, I have been trying to keep my curmudgeon levels to a minimum. It has been a struggle but I am happy to report I have been making fantastic progress. That is until the other day.

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and our daughters had planned to spend the day on the town and then have lunch together. That left Yours Truly to fend for myself for the entire day, including lunch. I don’t mind this because it is good for the girls to have a day out by themselves. Not only that, but it gives me a break, if you know what I mean.

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Some things in life are so enjoyable you hope they linger forever. Other things, you hope disappear faster than they came, like relatives during the holidays. Why is it they come in faster than they go out?

Don’t get me wrong. I love my relatives. But I love them more from a distance, which is why we have Facebook. On Facebook, you can get off whenever you want to. However, when the relative is sitting in your living room on your favorite easy chair there is no place for you to go.

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From a practical standpoint, and if I am anything I am practical, well, practically, this year has gone by rather quickly. The fact I have survived this past year has to count for something.

I was musing on this with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage just the other day. I was feeling rather comfortable with myself and was congratulating myself on making it through another year. After all, the facts speak for themselves.

“Well,” my wife began rather deliberately, “I guess you did survive the year.”

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My father used to tell me anything worth doing was worth doing right the first time. If you have time to do it the second time, you have time to do it right the first time.

As fathers go, he was right. It seems most people have not learned this lesson, least of all politicians who are supposedly serving the interests of their constituency. I know there are good politicians in America today. Nobody seems to know who they are, though.

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Every now and then, a thought enters my mind. Once inside my mind, it endures a lonely existence and rattles around long enough to morph into something quite different when it comes out than what went in.

I am not quite sure when this thought entered my mind, but when it came out of my mind it induced me to surprise my wife with a barbecue supper. When this thought first raised its head, I was pleasantly surprised that I, on my very own, could come up with such a good idea.

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By Rev. James L. Snyder

As of late, I have been fighting an insufferable barrage of intruders into that area commonly referred to as, “My Castle.” Normally I’m not a pessimist, but I have a feeling I am losing this battle.

I’m the kind of person that tries to get along with everybody but I must say I do have my limit. Regardless of what else I may have, I have a limit to intrusion into my Castle.

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When a person has reached the ripe old age I have reached there are precious few pleasures left. Actually, there are many pleasures left but no energy to pursue them and if I happen to catch a pleasure, I can’t remember what in the world I’m supposed to do with it.

One pleasure has been by my side for more years than I care to remember. No matter what the circumstances I may be in at the moment, I can always count on this pleasure to lift my spirits and paint a grin on my mug. Of course, if the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage catches me with this pleasure I have some real explaining to do.

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During my high school career I was no thespian, however, I could act the fool when called upon. My friend was the thespian and starred in our senior high school play, “Finian’s Rainbow.” One of the musical numbers was, “When I’m not near the girl I love,
I love the girl I’m near.”

I have altered this title a little to fit my own needs. My version goes, “When I’m not in the season I love, I love the season I’m in.” It is a wonderful motto and has solved quite a few problems down the years. Just don’t ask me to sing it for you. I can, but you do not want to hear it… believe me.

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