The American Flow

     I was heartened this morning as I stopped by Wawa on my way to the shop.
The bustle of American workers, plumbers, electricians, mechanics, teachers, small business owners such as me, none too proud to stop at Wawa for a cup of coffee or a breakfast sandwich, was evidence of a nation at work. I bought my cup of coffee and breakfast sandwich and walked out to my car with a good feeling about the future of our country, a path we started on after the last recession and continue on today. We have much work to do to get those workers at a higher standard of living with better wages, but seeing the evidence of the work was reassuring.

    I am sure that whatever upcoming events transpire at the national level, we will prevail. Today, I feel as if the soil that covers the top of our national food chain will soon be washed away by justice. I feel the peace that comes with an indestructible belief in Grace with a capital "G" and the surety that darkness must flow to the light to be revealed and forgiven, hence explaining so much of the tarnished news we are seeing daily. Today, I see the flow of America, and I say thank you for the opportunity of living in such a remarkable, diverse land of opportunity.

Peace. Love, Linda

Fissures

If you wonder what you are looking at in this picture, it is a fissure, one that has finally begun to heal. It didn't heal voluntarily. It took a special cream from the doctor and an array of antibiotics. It wasn't the only fissure I had on that finger. There were others that came and went after some sort of toxic thorn stabbed my finger when I was cutting down a diseased lemon tree. As an aside, it was a lovely variegated tree my daughter had given to me as a birthday present. It grew beautifully in the ground and produced pink lemons. One spring, it developed a blister on a few leaves. They eventually, in spite of my tree doctoring efforts, took the tree to the sad place that ended with me in the yard, chopping up the branches and bagging them for the trash pick up, and then I was stabbed. Hence, the fissures. It has been over two years since the stabbing. It says something about toxins, which leads me to my next thought.

The definition of fissure describes it as a split or crack in something that forms a long, narrow opening. The word is usually used to describe something such as earth or rock when used as a noun, but in general, it is used to describe a long, narrow split. After watching the news this morning and buzzing through my Facebook friends, I can't seem to get the word out of my head, so I am writing about it. The purge. I am relieved and heartened by the healing of what I hope is my last fissure, but it reminds me so much of what is becoming of our nation. Whether you like our president or not, it is amazing how since he has taken office, we have become swamped with fissures. Males and females, blacks and whites, north and south, Democrats and Republicans, fake news and real news, NFL, basketball, GUNS, Russian conspiracies, you name it, and it probably has a "fissure". Not only are there fissures, but they seem to be infused with hidden toxins.

If you believe as I do, you follow the philosophy that we draw into our lives the energy we need to create the life we wish to live. If that is so, it appears to me our nation is being led by a lover of fissures. They play out well in real TV drama, but we can turn those shows off. This is our lives we are talking about, and I, for one, am not fond of fissures. I long for healing. Fissures are bad enough on their own, but add toxins to the mix, and it takes years to close those gaps. I may lose you on this note, if not already, as I wax poetic, but America, my lovely lemon tree, please don't let me see your toxic branches being chopped up by men and women with evil intent. If you would like, reader friend, join me in a prayer that our cracks are healed, and knowing that God gives us all that we need, thank him this very minute, for the answered prayers of healing for our land. We will change this. There is sufficient grace available to heal all of our fissures.

Peace. Love, Linda

Rain

     I am sitting in the sticky, hot shop with the fan whirling slowly because it rocks the roof if it goes too fast, and I am thinking about rain. Wet. Cool. Earthy rain. I long for the rains to come back to us and quench fires and service our lawns and hedges and dark forests and marshes and sadly empty ponds. It rained for the first time in a long time, at our house, last week. It was wonderful. I sat on the front porch until I was soggy before going inside for a warm shower and pajamas. It was refreshing, and I thought about nature's songs. I wrote this:

First Rain

Underfoot parched earth cracks
as grass shrivels,
and the roots of the trees
draw up what drops remain.

As spring fights to bloom
drought offers doom,
then heaven's doors open up-
and down flows rain.

And the green trees shout hallelujah
as the grasses sing praises to his name!
As the rains pour down,
God's love strikes the ground,
bubbling brooks, overflowing
quench the flame.

It's going to rain again this week. I just know it. Thank you, God, for the rain.

Peace. Love, Linda

Infinity and Beyond

"Fear not for I am with you always." That's one of my reminders when things seem out of whack, or I am uncertain where payday will come from or illness threatens myself or my loved ones. "Fear not for I am with you always." What is always? Infinity.

I remember when my daughter, Nikky, was only six years old. She was a precocious child, and she sometimes became consumed with thoughts about things I was sure other six year olds were not thinking about at all, let alone with trepidation.  One of her brain worms that plagued her for awhile was the question of infinity. She learned of the concept somewhere, probably Sunday School, but her mind would not let her accept any short, trite lesson. She had to analyze it, which led to a conversation in the pool on a lovely weekend afternoon. I wish I remembered the exact words she said, and I regret I did not write them down, but I remember the emotions and puzzlement as she asked numerous questions trying to grasp infinity. I don't even remember how much of the time I answered questions and how much of the time I comforted, but whatever took place, she gained peace with the issue, and so life moved on to the next thing traveling through infinity.

We live in a world inundated with an over saturation of just about everything. The pace of knowledge expansion and change is daunting at times even to the most adventurous. I am thankful for the words I learned long ago because I had a mama who cared about those things. "Fear not for I am with you always."  What is always? Infinity.

Peace, Love, Linda

Perfect Love Casts Out Fear

The words from my title are forever embedded in my memory from childhood. One of Mama's many challenges with me was to help relieve the angst I felt due to an extraordinarily large imagination.
My emotions were like a sponge sucking in every nearby joy, exuberance, sorrow, or fear. I would cry when my friends were sad and sing with them when they were happy. I loved school, and I particularly loved books. One book  I learned to love deeply as a child was the Bible. However, it was a great classic that brought me intense misgivings and fear.

I remember one Sunday afternoon after a church service at the First Christian Church on Kentucky Avenue. Mama and I usually would have been in the Baptist Church on Sunday morning and at the Christian church with Daddy on Sunday night, but they were having a revival, and so we went that Sunday morning with Daddy. I don't remember many details except that the preacher's sermon was from the chapter of Revelations, those people had some serious dreams to interpret. It made me so frightened that I became sick to my stomach and had to go outside for air. Somehow, Mama knew, I think she had the same sensitivities, that I was sick because I was scared to death.

Mama was a conservative protestant, but she had tools she used to live by that came straight out of a New Ager's book of how to's. She taught me Bible verses to use as mantras for many of life's issues. She didn't use the word "mantra", but that's what they were. That Sunday afternoon she pulled out the line from a verse that stated, "Perfect love casts out fear." I rarely remembered where the verses were found, but I always remembered the mantras and just when to use them. Another line for fear was, "What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee." That one I used on my daughter quite a bit, but I digress. Mama told me that when I felt overwhelmed with fear to always remember the line, "Perfect love casts out fear."  She reminded me that the world would not always be an easy place to live, but it didn't matter what happened around us. She was a firm believer in the second coming and hoping it would happen in her lifetime. I wasn't convinced that was such a good idea, but the message came across, and the words were firmly planted in my mind to do their work.

I haven't always lived those words, but they have always guided me, and at this point in my life, they are so real that I know without a doubt that no matter how much we seem to be at odds with each other and no matter how dysfunctional our government seems to be, that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it for now, we do not ever have to be fearful. God is perfect love, and that is what will save us all no matter what seems to be happening around us.

Today, I am sharing my mantra with anyone who reads this and asking them to plant it in their hearts. I think they are five short words that can heal an individual as well as a divided nation. One final note, not to cause dismay or fear, but I had another piece of a dream that I think related to the gutted pig. I opened the back door and a curled up, cleaned up spine was at the doorstep. Yup!

Peace. Love, Linda

The Things We Have in Common

Two mornings ago, I sat in my leather chair covered with my favorite throw and watched the morning news. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I couldn't quite figure out why the story of a gunned down police officer struck me with such force. We have seen so many shootings, my emotions had sadly become somewhat numbed to an immediate, emotional response to the killing of the day, week or month.


The news story was about forty-two year old Master Sargent, Debra Clayton, who was shot and later died from her wounds in a Walmart parking lot. The call went in to the department at 7:17. She had been with the department 17 years, and she died in 2017, doing a job she appeared to have loved, and doing it with passion for her work and the people she worked with and for, the mark of a true public servant. I feel, somehow, I owe her tribute, and I am welling up again as I write this. Rest in peace, Debra Clayton.


My favorite number is and has always been, 17.

The Bear, the Lion, and the Gutted Pig

Since I was a very young girl, I have had dreams, at times, that have left deep seated impressions on my psyche, and they sometimes related directly or indirectly to something that happened or was about to happen in my daily life. I'm not taking on the name "Madame" or selling tickets to a Friday the 13th reading, but I know this about me, and I accept it with peace.

Two such examples of my night time revelations are as follows:

The first dream involved a day in my life years ago when I was in my early 20's and going to FTU, now UCF. I "slept in a Hay Stack", Hay Stack Apartments, with Mary Beth, my roommate at the time who shared more than just a space to sleep. Her dad married my sister, Ruthie, and we developed a connection sealed for eternity at the First Methodist in Kissimmee, Florida. Many years have passed, and details have been forgotten, but I remember clearly that I had class during the day, and work to go to that night, but I was not feeling good at all. I felt tired and sleepy in the morning, which was unusual for me. Sometime during that day, I lay down on the couch and fell sound asleep. In my sleep, I saw Daddy dressed in white, sitting at a white table. He looked gray and pale. He didn't speak to me but laid his head down on the table. I woke up almost immediately and knew I had to call home. I think I remember telling Mary Beth about my dream before I went down to the pay phone, that dates me, and called the house. I don't remember who answered, but someone told me Daddy was in the hospital. He had had a heart attack, and tried to work through it like he did everything else, but he was too weak to make it, so they hospitalized him. He survived that event and several others before he finally died at the age of eighty. I have never forgotten that dream or the events that followed.

Another memorable dream involved Mama, who was,then, suffering from Altzheimers and my dog Abigail, who was sixteen at the time. I dreamed it, I think, in October 2003. Mama and Abigail both died within two days of each other late the following spring. In that dream, there were two houses on a beach connected by a screened in breezeway. I was in one house, and Abby and Mama were in the breezeway heading to the other house. I saw them out of a window, and I called for them, but they would't answer me. I couldn't connect with them, and it disturbed me so much that I woke myself up from the dream.  It makes sense now, looking back, that I was dealing with frustration and sorrow at the time and processing a loss to come, but it seemed prophetic in a sense, also, another dream that made a lasting impression.

So, what do those dreams have to do with bears, and lions and gutted pigs, oh my? I am just sayin', I have dreams with meanings. Now, for the third and final dream I am sharing, if you are still with me. I just had this recently and shared it with my sisters and our friend Vivian at Saturday breakfast at Frankie's. It caused us consternation, so we moved to sillier subjects rather quickly.  It was dark, but enough light was present to see what was happening in front of me, and I was in a big field behind someone's house. The dream had a "redneck" feel, which I am very comfortable with since I grew up in St. Cloud. No offense intended. Someone had just recently killed a very large pig, and a strange man was on the ground, shuffling through pieces of the pig. I was curious as to what he was doing, so I just stood quietly and watched. He didn't seem to know I was there. He picked up a piece of the tail and the head. It sounds gory, but it seemed normal to me. He walked over to what appeared to be some kind of giant, long earth moving equipment. He placed the head at one end of the giant, long earth moving equipment and the tail, with hind quarters attached, at the other end. They were elevated high on the giant equipment. There was a huge gap between the two that was empty and represented the middle of the giant pig. I was in awe of its size, and I knew it meant something, so I pulled out my phone to take a picture of the gutted pig. I positioned myself at an angle to make my shot, when a woman who looked familiar to me, came quickly and pulled me away from the pig and back into the shadows of the yard. I looked at her and then at the scene I had just left. Standing tall and silent and unmoving, in the background of the scene was a perfect, giant bear. Staring. Not moving. Present. I was shaken by the sight and about to say something to the woman by me when out of nowhere a tall, handsome, male lion sauntered by. Yeah, sauntered. I was certain the minute I woke up that the gutted pig was America. I know, weird, right? So...what does it mean? Dreams that make you go hmmm...

Peace. Love, Linda