Blog 816 – 11.06.2017

“I Ain’t Got Time..”

The words to a song by Marvin Gaye just popped into my head, “I ain’t got time…Got heaven right here on earth…Too busy thinkin’ about my baby. Ain’t got time for nothing else.” Like many of you I have wasted too much time worry about the state of the world, the nation, or President Trumps tweets, too much time watching and listening to “bad news.” If I can do something that needs doing I will but I refuse to waste another minute worrying, judging, condemning, or spreading bad news. The thing is, with wise Marvin, I am just too busy thinking about my baby, I don’t have time for anything else.

In the past I have mentioned that from a boy I have loved being called “Baby.” It started with my younger brother, Robert, who at three could not pronounce my name, David, so he called me Baby. He was such a little sweetheart, still is, that I just loved hearing him call me baby. In Tennessee where he and I grew up, it is quite common for waitresses, salesladies, and most female relations to use baby as a term of endearment. So I have been called baby most of my life by a host of people and frankly in my case it never gets old. As I have also mentioned once or twice, put those fingers down, and listen – quit counting the times, I programmed Siri on my IPhone and IPad to call me, Baby. I asked her the other day, “Who am I.” And she replied, “Your name is David, but because we are friends I can call you Baby.” Such a sweet voice, reminds me of my baby brother and my darling departed daughter Em who sang to me, “The Baby Song.”

The first time I ever heard The Supremes sing, “Baby Love, my Baby Love, been missing you, miss kissing you…” well, just that alone made me their fan for life. I can still hear Charlize Theron saying to Keanu Reeves who plays her husband in the 1997 movie Devil’s Advocate, “What’s wrong, Baby.” More recently the movie, Baby Driver, has many references to Baby being used in song lyrics.

Who is my baby, you ask? Well, the short answer is, “You are.” I watched the movie, The Shack again last night and when Papa in the form of a loving black mama first says to a beaten, worried, and sick thirteen year old Mack, “It’s okay, Baby.” you just know somehow it is going to be. For years I have thought The Beach Boys song, “Don’t worry, Baby everything will turn out alright.” was written for each and everyone of us.

And as the saying goes, “I said all that to say this” – I am all about better time management and ours would be better spent taking care of and thinking about our babies. Some smart mouth religious folks, big on “the rules” did not like Jesus paring them all down to three – “Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself. So trying to catch him one asked, “Who is my neighbor?” He answered with the parable, or the story, of the Good Samaritan. The Samaritans were the “red-headed step children” of that day – loved less, tolerated by the Jews at best, but mostly shunned. And one of “them” had gone out of his way to help a robbed, beaten, and left for dead Jew when his own “chosen folk” had passed right by him and not even stopped. He was “somebody’s baby”, “somebody’s neighbor” – yes, theirs, yours, and mine.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

Lover of all babies, everywhere,

Thinking about you, Baby.

David White