There are a few lines that run continuously through my mind, taking a brief respite once in a while and then beginning again when the coast is clear. They are the lines that have stuck with me since I first heard them, or perhaps first listened to them at age 16, "Surrender don't come natural to me, I'd rather fight You for something I don't really want then to take what you give that I need." It's a line from Hold Me Jesus, which may go down in history, or at least my history, as The Song of The Redeemed. It's humanity wrapped in cellophane, something we can see so clearly and still not touch with our bare hands. If I could just know, just see, just feel, just know for one second that I am so human that no matter how many times I beat my head against so many walls I'll still fall on my knees finally finding release from that which captures me.

Yeah. I failed again.

I've just read a tribute to the writer of this song. I think, and this is just a thought, that he had a grasp on something that the rest of us struggle with our entire lives; not ever really knowing that the lesson and the final release comes in not struggling, but surrendering.

Fear and Trepidation. Yeah.

In all honesty, my name is not Loree. Of course it pronounced that way. L-O-R-E-E, long E. But on my birth certificate, social security card, drivers license, newly acquired passport, library card and all other manner of official looking stuff my name on paper is L-O-R-E. That's right folks.

Sum people [pun intended, as it is a very small sum] call me Lor as an easy nickname. It is a humbling process for me to accept that as a possible nickname as I have always rejected being called exactly as my name was spelled. Mostly because my name is Lore, long e, but it looks like Lore, silent e. I, in my desire to have things right, insisted on being called Lore, long e. Until very, very recently I have still insisted on the long e being included, but I am coming to see that it is less a concern as it was before. People know my name and if they wish to shorten it to the easier 'Lor' I don't think I'll be the one to stop them.

Lord help me bite my tongue.

The funny, ironic thing in all of this is that the people who know me well are those who shorten it to 'Lor', but they're not the only ones. People who don't know me at all, also shorten it to 'Lor' because they don't know they're shortening it, they think that's how it really is.

You could perhaps understand my dilemma. If, of course, there was a dilemma.

Mostly I'm just a stickler about my name.

Robert Frost said, "You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country." I think he must have known how hard it was to move from someplace he'd lived all his life to another place where the word 'with' shouldn't end a sentence. A kindred spirit is hard to find. I just wish he had written the rules concerning prepositions. . .

In the meantime, please continue to correct my horrible grammar.

There are things that you grow up surrounded by, like the colors your mum uses to decorate, a plant that has raced you since infancy to see who can grow faster, a quilt that your gramma crocheted when you were three, Little House On the Prairie, ever changing school pictures, or a copper tea kettle. For me it has been the framed Fraktur art that has grown in number since Sean was born the 1970's. The first one records my parents marriage, the second Seans birth, then mine, Danny's, Drew's and so on. There are nine in all. I suppose if we all get married mum will make one for each of our unions until there is no longer any room on the mustard colored wall in the living room. Or perhaps she won't.

There is one that I am specifically wondering about recently.