The Adventures of Matthew Townend

Luke 12:33 “ Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys.” Did you know that breathing is technically an involuntary action? But in some trickery of the mind, some evil scheme from the Master Creator, if you think about your breathing, you can contr ol it. Slowly breathe in right now. Hold it in for five seconds, and then slowly breathe out. You are now in control of your breathing because you're thinking about it and you're choosing to breathe. It's freeing knowing that you can override this desire, but it's stressful when you can't stop thinking about it. That's where I was yesterday in the hospital with my family. It's all I could think about as I saw my uncle Phil in the last bed he'd ever lay in. Hooked up to a respirator, unconscious, his breathing came at its own pace. He'd...

My cousin Jonny and I are standing inside the hospice where my uncle Phil is being treated, waiting for our cousin Emma to come back inside. She walks through the door on her crutches, and has this grin on her face that won't go away. “Come outside!” she says. I have no idea what she's so excited about, but we're a little skeptical. After some coercion, we follow her out into the cold night air. “Do you smell that?” she says, looking straight at me. I'm not wanting to diminish her excitement, but I haven't the faintest idea of what she's talking about. “No, what am I supposed to smell?” I ask. “It smells like CHRISTMAS!” The temperature had dropped, and I guess it had dropped just low enough that the air had that “winter” feel to it. I'm not really used to that subtle change in temperature, and I suppose I'd lost my sense of excitement about the holidays that I once had as a kid, but in that moment, seeing the childlike glee on ...