This week on Oprah

There is so much I love, admire and respect about Oprah. And I have been trying to watch her regularly since we are on a countdown to her last shows.

However I have to go on record as saying that there is one of her shows that just gets on my nerve - it is the "Favorite Things" show.

I remember watching the first one many years ago and kind of liking it. Because I thought it was about her favorite things - this is the T shirt she likes, the pj's, the slippers, the cup cake. It personalized her and some of those things were affordable and maybe I would like them. In fact, my friend Mary Anne did give me a pair of PJ's that were on her show and I DID find them soft and warm.

BUT Now that it is a yearly institution it has gotten bigger with more screaming and more and more the sense that these are advertisements for the company that is donating the items for publicity. And so when I see that it is this show - this year it was TWO shows I choose not to watch.

And following those two shows she did a show on the Dominican Nuns in Ann Arbor. From the material to the spiritual in 24 hours! Through my Wellstreams program and through spiritual direction itself, I have been blessed to know and be friends with several nuns. There is no question that life is a good one. But it is a life of not dwelling on the kinds of "favorite things" that Oprah is celebrating in the other shows. In fact it is a freedom from the kinds of "favorite things" that make us happy for a while and then.....

Anyway, I am returning from preaching at Oakleaf the sermon that I preached on Sunday - Philippians 4: 4-9. And one of the points was that there is joy in the Lord that the world (the material world) cannot take away. This week on Oprah reminded me of that.