Hyphenated and Overcaffeinated...

It's regular morning time on the weekend.  A lazy time.  Just drinkin' the Elixir Of Knowledge at the table in the Dining Room portion of the Dining/Living/Computer/Family Room as the day takes shape.

Outside the window, only four feet away, there's a morning new enough to still be under warranty.  Suddenly a huge raven drops past the window, making me jump.  Disappearing for a second, it now hops out into the yard, its ebony beak firmly clamped on a dead sparrow that had unsuccessfully tried to fly through the newly-cleaned thermopane.  A quick look around and the big bird rockets off.

Huh.  Don't see that too often.

The Wife has piano duty for both Saturday night and Sunday morning services.  All three of us went to the Saturday service, so this Sunday morning finds the men of the Little-House-On-The-Corner hangin' out.

I'm at the keyboard, looking out the window, and thinking how Nature takes care of the dead.  TechnoBoy staggers by on his way to the Reading Room, making a sound that was either a "hello" or an attempt to cough up a hairball.

II listen to the kitchen radio as I sip the Elixir Of Knowledge, waiting for inspiration to run into me like a sparrow into a clean window.

The guy on the radio is the type I ‘d like to have coffee with...a great sense of humor, a catchy Scottish accent, and profound insights shared in a conversational tone - not barked or screamed like a disgruntled coach.  I like this guy.

And he brings up "the hyphen".

Huh.

Never thought about that.

The Elixir Of Knowledge grabs the idea and runs with it.

Hyphens.

I google it.  A hyphen is the Elmer's glue of the grammar world, sticking two or more words together.  It even glues a word together when the page isn't wide enough.

But wait...there's still more!  (…sorry…commercial flashback.….)

If a space is added to each side of the hypen, it then becomes a "dash".  An "en dash", to be exact.

And a dash means "to", as in "The Complaint Department is open from 3:29 - 3:30 AM on a Thursday to be announced."

So give a hyphen a little elbow room and it can stick things together that are a lot bigger than words.   Whichis the point of the Radio Pastor as he talks about the content of our lives.  And our tombstones.

Wow.

One day, on my tombstone, somebody will carve a birthdate and a death date.  In between those dates will be a dash.  A little line that will contain my entire life.

Everything I've done and had been will be in that chiseled little line.

Gives a new twist to the idea that "Life is short", eh?   It's a flash drive that holds the encyclopedic knowledge of all my thoughts, actions., dreams and fears.

Immediately the Elixir Of Knowledge pushes the picture of a tombstone to the front of my mind. 

It's a not a tombstone we'd find around here.  It's more of a big stone that covered a tomb.  And it has chiseled on its face a birthdate, a dash, and a death date…then there's another dash followed by that side-ways “8”, the symbol for infinity..

Because He lives.

And within the history of my dash I had given Him my life.   So He gives me another dash. One that sticks me with Him - forever.

Incredible, eh?

The final sip of the Elixir brings another commercial to mind.  (What's with these commercials?!)

"What's in YOUR wallet?"

But that's not quite right.

It all boils down to this...

"What's in YOUR dash?"