Every morning, my wife and I go for a morning walk along the river. It's a special time for us, and a joyful way to start a new day. Through time, we've gotten to know a few other "reg'lars" by name. Vi is one of those who we've come to know a little bit. She's a short woman; maybe five feet tall on her tiptoes. But she moves like she is steam-driven, with her arms stretched out in front of her, and every part of her body going in one direction or another.
The river walk is three and a half miles long, round trip but she's still motoring along at full speed the last fifty feet. The other day when we stopped momentarily to talk with her, we were marveling at her energy, and she told us that she's a cancer survivor: twice. She told us that after she finishes her walk, she was going to go for her volunteer work at the hospital. She also volunteers at the zoo, and God knows how many other places. My wife asked her "Where do you get all your energy? Do you have any to spare for me?" And Vi answered, "Life is short and I want to use my time the best that I can." That's a wonderful message. We're all guilty of thinking that we have a vast expanse of time stretching out before us, so there's no hurry doing the things we want to do. More accurately, we're all guilty of not thinking at all.

These last few months, I've tried to take a serious look at the gifts I've received in my life... good health, the gift of singing and playing instruments, and the gift of writing. I've used my gift for writing songs reasonably responsibly but in recent years, I've started to let things slide. No hurry. Now, I'm feeling more like Vi. Even though I am blessed with great health and energy, I don't take the future for granted. So, I've been busy, these last few months. I started out by learning how to produce a CD of my quartet, The Gospel Messengers. The easiest thing was to write down a long list of why I couldn't do it, or why I should wait awhile before doing it. Buying new software and learning to use it was hard. The first software I bought I was never able to get to work. After two months of exchanging e-mail with the support service with no success, I had a perfect excuse for setting it aside. That's a special gift I have. Putting things aside. But I persevered, bought different software, figured it out and after many long hours of struggling, produced a CD. And like all blessings, I was then able to pass my knowledge and encouragement along to Art Thieme who recently (and triumphantly) sent me a CD that he produced from his cassette collection.

In the last three weeks, I've produced a new CD of songs of mine, covering a time span of over 40 years. It was long overdue. Some of the songs are ones that I've shared on cassette with friends who've recorded them. Yesterday, I sent off all the material necessary to produce a CD of my last folk album, Handful Of Songs.
Like so many things in my life, it was long overdue, postponed and ignored.

More recently a Catter friend has encouraged me to write. I've been encouraged to do that, most of my life. Now, I am finally stepping out to see what I can do with a gift that's long been neglected.

I write this, not so much about myself, but about you. Our friend Vi can tell you from hard experience that life is short and precious.
Is there a gift you have that you've let lie fallow? I have to believe there is. We all have many gifts. The crime is in not using them. We deny ourselves many blessings, and the opportunity to bring blessings to others.

Like my Catter friend who has been so encouraging to me, I encourage you to rummage through those gifts of talents that you opened and set aside so many years ago. Maybe it's time to dust them off and see if they still work.

I'm signing up for a writing course.

Jerry