Say It Ain't So Cami Rose

When the glass of ice tea sits on the counter too long without any attention, the ice melts and the tea becomes a washed out brown more clear at the top of the glass than at the bottom. The ice loses its definition as condensation coats the glass and wets the surface where it sits. The once refreshing glass of tea loses its appeal. On the way to the refrigerator, a passerby spots it puddling on the counter top, stops, and picks the glass up tempted to take a drink in spite of its lack luster appearance. However, the passerby decides not to drink it and dumps the tea down the drain.

Some days we're the tea.

Some days we're the passerby.

Some days everything goes down the drain.

I'd like to say it ain't so, Cami Rose. I'd like to say it's always refreshing, but never forget. There is an abundance of tea out there just waiting to be brewed. That's the adventure!

Sunday's Blessing

If you remove the yoke from
among you,
the pointing of the finger, the
speaking of evil,
If you offer your food to the 
hungry
and satisfy the needs of the
afflicted,


then your light shall rise in 
the darkness
and your gloom be like the noonday.
The Lord will guide you 
continually,
and satisfy your needs in
parched places
and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

like a spring of water,whose waters never fail.  

 

Your ancient ruins shall be 

rebuilt;

you shall rise up the

foundations of many

generations;

you shall be called 

the repairer

of the breach,

the restorer of streets to live in.

Isaiah 58: 9a-12                              Peace. Love, Linda

How Does it Do That?

If I could go back twenty-three years to the time when my daughter, Nikky, was four, with all clarity and absolute memory, I still could not count the times she said, "How does it do that?" When she was not yet four, I remember her in our little kitchen on Massachusetts Avenue describing to me something she wanted to invent. With her hands in quick motion, she showed me exactly how it would work. At that age, she said, "I want to be an inventor when I grow up." In many ways, she is just that.  

Her question comes to mind as I move through March with a rapidness that leaves my head spinning and an awe for the rich world blooming around me. Daily, as I drive to work or walk through town, I look at the beauty, subtle one day then bold the next, and I ask myself Nikky's question with the same wonder she expressed, "How does it do that?"

Moving Furniture

There was a time I shared an apartment with a girl from the very deep south. She had a winsome personality, a really cool car and a drawl that turned a ten minute conversation into a filibuster. I liked living with her because she was hardly ever home. It was as if I had my own apartment for half the price, except for one critical issue. I was, and still am, a furniture mover. She, on the other hand, was not. A moved ash tray, upon recognition of being moved, was placed back into the original location in exactement. The invisible dotted lines on the coffee table were never revealed to me, but she saw them and was bound to their design.

For me, moving furniture is renewal. It creates an environment for cleaning, restructuring, eliminating, balancing. It makes old new. Stale fresh. Dust bunnies die. I remember, not so many years back, when I learned about Feng Shui, I was intrigued immediately. It makes sense to me. It's not just about the freshness of change. It's about the balancing act. It's requires consistent readjustments.

Sunday's Blessing

 When the Lord created his     

works from the beginning,

and, in making them,

determined their boundaries,

He arranged his works in an

eternal order, and their dominion for all generations.

They neither hunger nor grow

weary, and they do not abandon their tasks.

Holly and Katrina Need Our Thoughts and Prayers

My friends, Holly and Katrina, are both sad right now. I feel for them. If I close my eyes and be very still, going back in my mind to a distressful night, I remember when Daddy died, hearing again that jarring ring when my brother-in-law made the phone call to me in the middle of the night. We lived in Georgia, and I was not with Daddy when he died. I remember sleeping with Mama my first night at the house after his death, holding her in my arms while she wailed like a inconsolable child. Years later, I held Mama's hand and read Psalms watching her slip away. She died on a Sunday, shortly after I left her room to go home to eat lunch. She looked so beautiful to me that day. Peaceful.

I ran from the face of death growing up, but no longer. However, grief is something I don't relish. Grief takes time. That's all there is to it, and to Katrina, who recently lost her mother, and Holly, whose dad just died, that time will have to pass before you will feel "normal" again. It will come, though. It comes quicker than not-if you let it. Living in the moment and thanksgiving are very good medicine for a grief ache. Also, the thoughts and prayers of friends and family carry with them the wonderful capacity to lift. I love you Katrina and Holly.

My thoughts and prayers are with you.

Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones, and give thanks to his holy name.

For his anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime.

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalms 30: 4-5

Peace. Love, Linda

She Likes Strawberries

I was cutting strawberries for dinner this evening because Nikky and Bella Grace are coming to my house. Bella loves strawberries. Her mom loves strawberries, too. Her Memaw loves strawberries, too. Her great-grandma loved strawberries, too. We come from a long line of strawberry lovers. Every generation in my family has strawberry stories to tell.

My Uncle Skip once put "store bought" berries in his backyard strawberry patch way before time for them to ripen to fool his neighbor into believing his strawberries were growing unbelievably fast. His neighbor believed him, for awhile. Uncle Skip loved a good practical joke. 

My older brothers and sisters spent time picking strawberries in the garden with Mama. They tell how they never liked her in their row because she sat on the berries. She had eight kids, but she, in no way, squatted in a field somewhere and pushed them out. She could not squat, so she wore berry stains on the flowing skirt of her shirt waist dress during strawberry season. 

Nikky, my daughter, loved berries so much she would go into her "Packaw's" (Grandpa's) garden with him and pick them before the birds flew in to feast on their juicy lushness. One day, I walked out of Mama and Daddy's porch to see how they were doing in the back yard. Daddy was laughing as Nikky raced toward the house screaming while blue jays circled her head, diving at her just close enough to fill her heart with terror. She looked like a frightened refugee, running for her life. That was how the blue jays and mocking birds said, "Get out of our garden!" Sometimes Daddy's sense of humor was a bit skewed. I on the other hand, rescued her speedily, and never let her see me chuckle. She was not a berry picker after that, but she still loved to eat them. 

On one of our summer vacations when Nikky was quite young and my niece Stacy traveled with us, we stopped at a fruit stand on a country road in upstate New York and bought a cereal box, cut open on the wide side of the box to be a container for strawberries, full of ripe, juicy, deep, red berries. They were amazing. We ate the entire box before we reached the next town. We didn't care back then whether they were washed or not.

Well, I have to go in the kitchen and finish cooking dinner. Maybe I'll make sweet biscuits to serve with the strawberries. I have some chocolate whipped cream in the refrigerator, too. Yum. After all, Bella's coming over, and I sure am glad she likes strawberries.

"He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit." John 15:2

Peace. Love, Linda

Sunday's Blessing

  
If through delight in the beauty of these things people

assumed them to be gods,

let them know how much better

than these is their Lord,

for the author of beauty created them. 

And if people were amazed at

their power and working,

let them perceive from them

how much more powerful is the

one who formed them.

For from the greatness and

beauty of created things

comes a corresponding

perception of their Creator.

Wisdom of Solomon 13:3-5 

Peace. Love, Linda

Perspective

Every time I take the camera out to the back yard to shoot pictures, I see beauty. One day Darren said to me, "You don't have to always shoot pictures in the back yard, you can go other places." I know that, and I do, but there is something special to me about the fact that in my ordinary backyard, there is an infinite number of pictures just waiting to be shot in the same spots. The sights never  bore me because they are forever changing. It's a thing of wonder. You've seen the tree in the picture to the right in my blog many times prior to this one, but if I didn't tell you that, would you know it was the same tree? What's different? Perspective. If we understand this, there is never room for boredom in our lives. If we are tired of the way something looks to us, it can be changed in the blink of the eye or a tilt of the head. I like this word to describe it- fresh.

Transformation

 To flow joyously through life's daily processes, it appears we must understand that transformation is essential. Simply put, I'm talking about change. Everything changes, but earthly forces press us to resist change at almost every level. Truly creative individuals seem to be the ones who understand moving beyond the fear of change. Propelled by a love of freshness and a zeal for challenge, they bring to us new and wonderful inventions, ideas, and stories that will transform our descendants' world into a place you and I will probably not recognize, even if we could look into a crystal ball and see it with our very own eyes.

A ploy of the changeless to force us into anti-transformation is dressing up the doll, Suzy Same in space age polymer outfits.  Ah, good trick, but Suzy's still a Same. We see Suzy in every area of our life that is in dire need of true reform such as many school districts in our public education system across the nation; harsh,judgmental religious institutions; groups coalesced by bigotry such as the KKK; my list, unfortunately, could go on well past my bedtime, but I think the point is made. But why? It just felt right coming out of my fingers and on to the keys. It's the evening snack I'm serving tonight for thought.

With them indeed is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah that says:
'You will indeed listen, but never understand,

and you will indeed look, but never perceive.                                 
For this people's heart has grown dull,                           
and their ears are hard of hearing,
and they have shut their eyes;
so that they might not look with their eyes,
and listen with their ears,
and understand with their heart
and turn-
and I would heal them.'
Matthew 13:15

Peace. Love, Linda

March Fourth

Note:  I didn't bring this poem out on March fourth because I didn't feel as if we could claim victory in the battle, yet. However, after spending a day off cutting bushes, mowing grass and pulling weeds in the balmy, sunny breeze, I can honestly say-we won!

March Fourth

March fourth is the command.
This time the gray comes down from the North                                             
and the blue rises up from the South-
tearing across a tear stained sky.
Moaning and howling,
twisting and turning,
Oak leaves rush across long stretches of pavement.
The remains pile higher.

March fourth is the command.

The Gray presses in fierce fury
and fires with all its forces-
blinding the Southern shores.                                                                    
Dust and sea oats,
dry earth and flood,
Sand dunes rise blocking long stretches of ocean,
Sunday afternoon pleasures erode.

March fourth is the command.
Blue burst across the Southern sky,
(and astounds watchers standing by)
brushing away the furious gray.
Spinning and shaping,
shoving and shouting,
Green rises up through brown earth,                                                                
the royal blue dome sparkles.

As battles subside, the South finds its ease,
tossing flower caps gently

in balmy breeze-
while the gray creeps away to far, northern land,
awaiting its next foreordained command.


For sun and moon and stars are bright, and when sent to do a service, they are obedient. So also the lightening, when it flashes, is widely seen; and the wind likewise blows in every land.
When God commands the clouds to go over the whole world, they carry out his command.
Letter of Jeremiah 60-62                                               Peace. Love, Linda

Sunday's Blessing

I have seen their ways, but I will heal them; 

I will lead them and repay them with comfort,

creating for their mourners the fruit of the lips.

Peace, peace to the far and the near, says the Lord; 

I will heal them. Isaiah 57:18-19

Peace. Love, Linda

At the End of the Day

An expression fired my synapses, or something like that, a few minutes ago as I opened my laptop to write a few words before my brain shut down for the day. It went like this, "At the end of the day..." I know, it's not much, but those five words did the circular thing traveling around inside my head, hitting the walls of one side then another. I thought, if I write this down maybe it will go away, so I decided that I should run with it.

This is it, me, running with it.Well that's all. I'm spent. What did you expect... at the end of the day?

My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding; I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the harp. Psalms 49:3-4

Peace. Love, Linda

Obviously not important

The ride home was not eventful, really. I didn't run into anything nor did anything run into me. I stayed on the road, followed the car in front of me, glanced into the evening sky, noticed the blazing trail of a space launch of some sort leaving a pretty tail, stopped at the mailbox a few driveways from the house, pulled into my driveway and parked the car. The ride home was obviously not important.

However, I don't believe that. A shift of events in any one direction could have changed the universe. The fact the shifts did not occur on this particular ride home is just as relevant to everything else in the world as if they did occur. Maybe the nonoccurance of anything I would perceive as eventful was the shift.

That's my thought for the day, and I'm sticking to it.

Peace. Love, Linda

Wisdom Asks Questions

Bella Grace loves to watch her shows when she comes  home from school. She especially likes the old cartoons,  Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry. Yesterday, she sat on the living room floor with her blanket spread out like a picnic table cloth. Her pink bunny sat on one side and her white bear on the other. She had a small, blue espresso cup filled with sweet tea, a tiny pink plate with three ripe strawberries and a small bowl of whipped cream, the perfect tea party.

I was fixing supper in the kitchen when  a small voice asked, "Memaw, which one is Tom and which one is Jerry?" I answered, "The cat is Tom and the mouse is Jerry." She then seriously asked, "But Memaw, what if you're wrong?" I love that reply!

"...Let  the children come to me. Don't stop them! For the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn't receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it." Then he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on their heads and blessed them. Mark 10:14-16

Peace. Love, Linda

What's the Title?

I took this picture the other morning, and for some reason, I like it. If you had to title this picture, would you call it Duck in the Grass, Duck, or Conformity? Now wouldn't that say something about your personality, but what? Well, if you call it duck in the grass, it could mean you are a very literal person, black and white, a positive attribute, indeed, or is it?  However, if you call it just Duck, does that indicate that you are straight forward and to the point or simple minded? I mean that any way you choose to take it. Finally, does the choice of Conformity for the picture title indicate deepness of thought or a tendency toward nonconformity? Who knows, or as Darren would say, who cares? Just a little food for thought. What? Roast Duck? Whew! It's evident it's been a long month.  I think I should stop this line of questioning right now because I just stumbled upon this piece of scripture..."But whoever it is that is confusing you will pay the penalty." Galatians 5:10   lol.

Peace. Love, Linda