This past weekend - Thursday through Sunday - will fall into that category of  "Precious Memories" for me.  My loving, precious daughter Jessica spent those days here with me and I felt blessed beyond description. 

Making the occasion even more memorable and fantastic was that the event also included the wondrous presence of several of Jessica's girl cousins (my nieces} for what has become known as the Cousins' Reunion. Folks, the main thrust of my column today is to stress the importance of closeness with family. As Chaplain Kerry Egan pointed out a few years ago, we don't live our lives in our heads - we live our lives in our families - the families we are born into, the families we create, and the families we make through the people we choose as friends.

This is where we create our lives, where we find meaning, where our purpose becomes more clear. Family is where we first experience love, and where we first give it. It is probably the first place we've been hurt by someone we love and, hopefully, the place we learn that love can overcome the most painful rejections. The atmosphere for our reunion these past four days was, from start to finish, joyous beyond description. 

It was as if the angels had descended from Heaven to rejoice with us in laughter, voice, and song, and I am certain that the main angel in our midst was MY EMMA. One of her favorite songs, which we sang together, was this one:  "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses, and the voice I hear, falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. 

“And He walks with me and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own. And the joy we share, as we tarry there, none other has ever known."

And this one: "Precious memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul. In the stillness of the midnight, precious sacred scenes unfold."

So THANK YOU, Jessica, for being the most wonderful, loving, precious daughter in the world, and to my very special nieces for making the world a better place in which to live.

Now for a humorous close: The visiting church school supervisor asks little Johnny during Bible class who broke down the walls of Jericho. Little Johnny replies that he does not know, but that if definitely wasn't him. The supervisor, taken aback by this lack of basic Bible knowledge, goes to the school principal and relates the whole incident. 

The principal replies that he knows Little Johnny as well as his whole family very well and can vouch for them, and if Little Johnny said he didn't do it, he, as principal is satisfied that is the truth. Even more appalled, the inspector goes to the Regional Head of Education and relates the whole story to him, to which the Regional Director replies, "I cannot see why you're making such a big issue out of this. We'll just get three quotations and fix the darn wall."

Have a WONDROUS day!