I’ll have to make this quick—I have an errand to run. I need to pick out a couple of inspirational Mother’s Day cards for Julee. One from me and one from Millie. Unless you knew better you might ask, “Why doesn’t Millie pick out her own inspiring card?” Of course Millie is a golden retriever who won’t even know Sunday is Mother’s Day.

I sometimes wonder what my life would be like if I had served in the military. I wanted to for a while. My brother had been a cadet at a military academy and I dreamed of marching in his footsteps (sailing would be more like it—I wanted to go to Annapolis, not West Point). Of course I wanted to be a priest too, for a time. Eventually I ended up wanting to be what I turned out to be, a writer.

Still, the military has always been close to my heart, as it is with so many of you out there, whether you know someone who is serving or maybe you yourself have served.

It’s Thursday morning and a beautiful weekend is forecast for the East Coast. Julee is stuck at our apartment in the city working on a new music project. Millie and I figure our best move is to pack the Jeep real quick and take off for the mountains. We’ll just be in Julee’s way.

One problem: The weather’s not so great. In fact this evening, when Millie and I plan to escape, it’s going to be raining hard all the way to midnight.

What would it be like if you could Google-search your life? Type keywords into your personal history then look at the results? What sort of inspirational stories might show up? Two search terms that were huge on Google this week would also figure strongly in my life-search: Dick Clark and Pat Summitt.

I have a friend who prays about everything. Nothing is too embarrassing or trivial or pedestrian. The other day I saw him for lunch and he said he thought he would be late because there was no way he’d find a parking space in midtown Manhattan at noon. “But I sent up a prayer and the Lord found a place for me.”

Just a quick word to everyone wishing you a wonderful holiday weekend, whether it’s Passover or Easter you’re celebrating. And of course the two are intrinsically, biblically linked, observing the suffering and joy of God’s love. Both celebrate freedom through faith.

Millie and I were surprised today on our morning walk to see that our local newsstand and lotto operator was open early. I poked my head in and asked the owner if he was keeping new hours.

“No, sir,” he said in his South Asian lilt. “We’re expecting a rush of Mega Millions ticket buyers today. The jackpot is $640 million, you know. So we just wanted to be ready.”

I bought a paper and told him I hoped he sold a lot of tickets.

Among the many big news stories that blew up last week, the Peyton Manning to Denver and Tim Tebow to the New York Jets trades had the biggest boom, at least in these parts. Before you go thinking, Why would Tim Tebow play in such a godless town?, there are churches almost everywhere you go in Manhattan. I can see three from my twenty-first floor window at Guideposts right now.

St. Patrick, the missionary patron saint of Ireland, always reminds me of my days at St. Denis, the Catholic grammar school I attended in Philadelphia.

Like the block I lived on, the school was heavily Irish and Italian, the roll call full of names like O’Malley, Zerelli, Thompson, Nordone, O’Hara and, of course, Grinnan—since there were four of us Grinnans growing up on Hillcrest Avenue in Havertown.  

You have to admit, the guy has class. Tons of class in addition to that gun of a right arm, that Canton, Ohio, Hall-of-Fame right arm. I’m talking about the great ex-Colt Peyton Manning, who inspired me this week with how he handled himself exiting Indy. He could have pouted or glowered or screamed. He could have tweeted a bunch of nasty stuff. Instead he said, “I’ve been very blessed.”