Posted on in Amazing Creations, Memories, Traveling

After Albuquerque

As we traveled towards Las Cruces on I-25 we exited onto US 380 a very strange area indeed. We stopped at an old rock shop. They did not have much that we wanted. This area is mostly desert. Along the road there were picnic shelters with a tiny roof for shade. I had to wonder who would go there for a picnic? Perhaps others who were traveling through like us? We went through an area called the Valley of Fires. Here you can see outcroppings of lava flows from an ancient volcano.

Photo by Robert Dutina

The site at https://www.newmexico.org/listing/valley-of-fires-recreation-area-(blm)/1148/ states “Approximately 5,000 years ago, Little Black Peak erupted covering 125 square miles of the Tularosa Basin with molten rock up to 160 feet thick.” Very strange to be driving through the desert and seeing thick lava along the roadside! Dan had shown us the same phenomena in another part of the state. I do not think I would ever “get used to” seeing that.

In the desert plants are kept alive with drip lines.

Along this road we went through Alamogordo, which to this day I have difficulty pronouncing! (I can do each vowel/syllable, but not sight pronunciation.) We HAD to stop at McGinns’s PistachioLand: Home of the World’s Largest Pistachio. Being a nut lover I had to get a bag or two! They also boast the largest pistachio in the world. Here is a 35 second video of that item!

Then on the White Sands area as we worked our way towards the National Monument.

Wikipedia states that White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) “is a United States Army military testing area of almost 3,200 sq mi (8,300 km2) in parts of five counties in southern New Mexico. The largest military installation in the United States, WSMR and the 600,000-acre McGregor Range Complex at Fort Bliss to the south (southeast Tularosa Basin and on Otero Mesa) are contiguous areas for military testing.” I had to imagine with North Korea acting up these guys are plenty busy!

The White Sands National Monument was on our places to see as we had passed through it briefly in 1971. The National Monument gift shop today sells sleds and wax for snowboards as climbing and sliding down the dunes is permitted and obviously encouraged. One of the information rangers told us that the day before they had closed the monument due to such high winds. We had experienced those in Albuquerque and we were so glad we had not left a day earlier! Even this day there was limited visibility. Part way into the park we were both tasting the sand (which is made from gypsum) and I remembered that we had masks in the car console. We both donned the face masks and felt somewhat better. We decided not to get out and hike or slide down the dunes.

Sand blowing in the distance.

To me this is another place of amazement, that the Lord not only created it, but lets us see it! The National Park website states: “WSNM protects the world’s largest geologically unique gypsum dunefield and the flora and fauna living within it.” They occasionally close the monument road due to missile site testing, high temperatures and/or high winds. And we got to see this wonder again. Miles of soft white sand. Dune after dune. We saw people straining to walk in the wind. The vegetation growing out of the gypsum amazed me and their shadows were lovely on the white background. Bob said as the sand on the road got deeper it was like driving on a snow packed road.

Bob’s photo of the sand covered roadway.

Obviously there were some large drifts. Just look at the picnic area sign!

For the most part we had blue skies and as you can see Bob got some lovely shots!

Bob’s photo of the sand blown texture on the dune.

All in one day! Another load of varying experiences 🙂

Posted on in Family

The Machine and Family Language

To Grandma Rush the automobile in the drive was “The Machine,” as foreign-other as a horse and buggy would be to me. She never called the personal vehicle a car – for she had ridden the street cars and they never parked at your home! That was by German Grandmother.

There are so many sayings from my parents and grandparents. They randomly surface, but wow, I wish now I had realized how unique those sayings were and had written them down. Every family seems to have some sayings that others are unfamiliar with.

I remember when we were planning to go to Ireland and I bought a little book about the language. As I read through it I was amazed how many of those phrases we used in my family of origin. My Great Grandmother was Irish and I never knew her, but her language come down through the generations.

Saying someone was old was expressed as ‘no spring chicken.’ To express humidity my mother (along with the Irish) would often said ‘It is close.”If your left hand itches you’re about to receive money. “Pull up the covers” means bedclothes. The colander is a strainer. Growing up I never knew a housecoat was a dressing-gown!

And then there was the refrigerator that Mom always called an “ice box.” When I slip and use that term my granddaughters look at me with wonder, not understanding the term at all! See photo below if you do not know what I am talking about.

Hoping this stirred some fond verbal memories from your childhood, too!

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Family

Complaining About The Heat?

With only one or two days of typical heat and humidity, it seems we are all complaining about the weather in Ohio. I came across this poem I wrote April 9, 2018. Perhaps it might refresh your spirit?

Each twig is crusted with snow this April morning

The junco never looked so lovely

Jumping from branch to branch he blends

With grays and whites of early spring

That looks more like winter

The white hyacinths in full head of flower

Are also topped with a snow cap

It is a wonder their stems can hold such a load

The more sensible daffodils

Just bow and then rise with the thaw

Birds changing branches cause snow loads to

Plop to the ground

The birds are often unseen

Discerned only by lumps of falling snow

As temperature rises there are more plops than visits

The people generally complain

About the hold winter seems to have upon us

But I find the snow preferable to

Long rainy days of cold and wind

Nothing else paints a landscape quite so lovely

Soon I will be transported

By airplane and car to the height of summer

Days in the 80s and 90s

Sun, sand, shells and warm breezes

This morning I say good bye to winter

With a nod to her majestic painting

Posted on in Special Event

Movie with Friends

Our Grandgirls met us at the theater to watch this movie with our friends the Cookseys. Wow it was great. Music was terrific. Technology had me amazed. There were so many times the animals looked real and alive! So not much writing this week as we enjoy company! But enjoy the trailer!

In the credits I saw Elton John and someone else wrote the music and I think it said music producer was Pharrell Williams.

Posted on in Aging, Amazing Creations, Traveling

Spring Roadtrip 2019

From Flagstaff we were on our way to Albuquerque, more specifically Corrales, home of our best friends, Dan and Betty. Going to their house is like coming home to us. Have never found another couple that we can visit with and travel with so effortlessly! All four of us get along great! We had already traveled 4,000 miles when we arrived there. We were more than ready for a rest and restore session!

  • Red dust from hiking the red rocks of Arizona
  • Yes!!
  • Cooksey’s “Trails End” home

Their home faces Sandia Crest, 10,678 feet, in the Sandia mountains, popularly known as Watermelon Mountain because of the red glow at sunset.

From Cooksey’s’ courtyard

And of course love from Betty and Jessie!

Walking Jessie is a delight. Dan has her so well trained! The courtyard is often populated with Gambel’s Quail.

  • Gambels’ Quail on the post
  • Walking Jessie and the old folks!
  • Another lovely walk!

One day Bob and Dan drove up to Sandia Crest and and went shopping at the Henderson General Store and a rock shop in Cerrillos. The next day there was a terrible wind storm that practically obliterated the view of the mountain.

Departing for the remainder of the trip on Day 20 was sweet, but also difficult. It is never easy to leave the Cooksey’s!

Posted on in Faith, Traveling

Arizona – Our Roadtrip 2019

You may remember I last wrote about the wildflowers on the Arizona border. From there we made our way to Flagstaff for a couple of nights. The plan was to see Sedona without paying Sedona lodging fees! One sighting amusing to me was a tractor trailer company that moved mobile homes. Both appropriate and amusing that it was called “La Casa!” They were based in Las Cruces but worked in much of New Mexico and Arizona. There are many mobile homes in the Southwest. I prayed they all had air conditioning and good heat with the huge temperature ranges out there.

It was a nice drive to Sedona, though I am uncertain if we ever found the road we were actually looking for! We did find the Chapel of the Holy Cross, April 6, 2019.

National Register of Historic Places

Built in 1956 it was inspired in 1932 by Marguerite Brunswick Staude decades before the perfect location was finally found. Final design by architects Anshen & Allen, completed 1957.

Along curving walkway to the entrance. Plaque quotes “And He shall give His angels charge over you to keep you in all of your ways. Psalm 91:11”

So to enter you climb a steep walkway up the to the precipice where the chapel is built. It is a lovely chapel. On the inside it is small, and the Catholic diocese eventually moved to another site to accommodate their congregational size. The crucifix in the chapel is not the original one which was said to be too strange. I found this one unusal and also a bit strange.

First off, I believe Christ has risen from the dead so the entire idea of showing his body still on the cross disturbs me. I like the cross with a living Christ the best. The image of the cross is actually an apple tree! If you look closely you can see the apples still upon it. (Think Adam and Eve in the garden?) I thought that quite creative as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15:45 (NRSV)  Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

So perhaps in the keeping of a life-giving spirit or because it was just weird Sedona, this “corpus” has his eyes open!

If you look closely you can see the light reflected in his eyes.
By messing with the colors in the original photo, perhaps you can see the eyes better?

On the curved walk back down to the parking area there was a slow going crowd. Another lady and myself noticed this little pine tree.

It did not seem to be planted there purposely like the flowers on the way up. It inspired us with the hope of “never give up!” Even little trees can take root in mighty red rocks and flourish.

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Faith, Nature

Wood Thrush

One of my favorite birds is the Wood Thrush. Not much to look at and easily confused at a glance with other brown birds, but boy oh boy can this one sing!! Here is a tiny clip. There are times I think it sounds like corillion bells.

Recently after the torrential spring rains, we saw one rolling on the sidewalk a bit aways from our front porch. My husband asked, “What in the world is that bird doing?” I looked and said, “Likely he is rolling in dust to clean his feathers. With all the rain it is probably hard to find dust in the woods!” Thrush must have sensed us watching him because he soon took off for the woods. In fact, we rarely see this fellow. Secretive, but a lovely minstrel!

Whenever a man hears it he is young, and Nature is in her spring; wherever he hears it, it is a new world and a free country and the gates of Heaven are not shut against him.

American Naturalist Henry David Thoreau writing about the Wood Thrush

Often in the brutal heat of this summer weather on my way to the garbage can or getting out of the car I will hear this bird and then I SO agree with Thoreau. It has been way too hot and too many allergy triggers out there to have the windows open. Maybe it will cool off soon so I can hear it from inside, too!

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Book quotes, Faith, Spiritual growth

Some Methods To Find Those Treasures In Plain Sight

Discussing meditation and contemplative prayer and all these other terms can sometimes distract us from actually doing the practice. Mark Buchanan is a wonderful author who often expresses things in a way I had not previously thought about. His book The Holy Wild mentions this:

“Our creativity, at least in part, comes from resting in His creativity until it seeps in. It springs from prayer. Not the busy chatty prayer we often do, but the other kind: prayer as emptiness, prayer as silence, prayer as stillness. Prayer as the absence of wanting and asking. Not the clamoring man waking his neighbor, desperate for bread (LK 11:5), but the suckled child curled up, satisfied in the mother’s arms (PS 131:2).

“Sometimes I just sit there. I don’t speak or ask or think. I watch, devoid of analysis. I just sit and look.

“I let things be, and I simply dwell in their presence. Where there is music or poetry or artistry in these things, I receive it without comment or lament, without the impulse to possess it or explain it. There is nothing mystical about this. This is not a slipping toward pantheism, where every rock bluff or grass tuft brims with divinity. This is simply an act of reverence for the God who makes things, and respect for all that He makes.

 “God’s creativity is, in one sense, the most obvious thing about Him. He saves His most intricate work for the insides and undersides of things. (Molly’s favorite part of the ocean is the underside of waves!)

Richard Rohr has also at times taken as his guide in prayer a simple phrase: “Don’t think. Just look.” He wrote in Near Occasions of Grace “Father McNamara’s definition of contemplation became transformative: “A loving look at the real.” The world, my own issues and hurts, all goals and desires gradually dissolved into proper perspective. God became obvious and everywhere.”

He says “To Practice This Today: Take a loving look at the real. Use the phrase “Don’t think. Just look.” as a reminder throughout the day.”

Often I think of the view out the window nearest to my prayer chair as a cathedral. Not one built of stone and wood, but the most important place of worship. The biggest sanctuary in the area! I dare you to try these methods of prayer, if not for an entire day, then start with 15 minutes. “Don’t think. Just look.” Just sit and look, especially if you can be out of doors. “Rest in God’s creativity. Prayer as emptiness, silence, stillness.” You will never know the benefits until you try this repeatedly. Devote 15 minutes to this practice for one week. And be blessed by a renewed awareness of God’s Presence, within and without.

About jumped out of my skin just now.

While I am typing I have my phone timer set on the silly duck sound, Kay’s favorite on her phone. I keep setting the timer for changing the outdoor hose. My plants are suffering from our near drought conditions. Writing the blog I was deep into trying to explain the practice above and the benefits of meditation and contemplative prayer. I am home alone. That phone quacked and I nearly jumped out of my skin! My Prayer Core-Group friends are never far from my mind! TURN UP YOUR VOLUME TO EMULATE MY EXPERIENCE!

So, just a reminder, to try this practice but also stay aware of the things around you so you might not be as startled as I was just now!

Posted on in Aging, Book quotes, Faith, medical treatment

Sometimes a Writer Must Work and Wait

I have been working to read and then copy out selections from Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning.” That book had a huge impact upon me years ago when I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. For those who have followed this and my other blog I mentioned the book a while ago. Since I continue to age (better than the alternative) and the future is uncertain regarding this shoulder, which means our summer, and then our trip to Cape Cod in the autumn, and on and on it goes in uncertainty – seemed like the right time to take up the project. I had ordered a used copy of the book but it was SO old that pages were crumbling as I read. So I got a newer copy and have completed the part entitled Experiences in a Concentration Camp. Now this might seem totally depressing to some, but Frankl is worth reading. He writes from the viewpoint of a psychiatrist and a prisoner about what happens to humans when choices are removed. This chapter is about 145 pages in a smaller paperback, so not too difficult to accomplish. He actually writes from experience. Bob’s Dad was part of the Liberation Army in WWII and set some of the camps free. I have wondered if he was one of the soldiers who freed Doctor Viktor Frankl?

Frankl focuses repeatedly on the fact that the last of human freedoms is the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstance. Hopefully, my synthesis of his insights will come forth in future blogging.

The attitude choice has come home to me again personally as I wait for diagnosis of the problem in my shoulder after the fall in the living room. I get to choose my attitude. I am NOT always sweet and kind and uncomplaining. When I get weary from pain and frustration I often want to just go crawl under a rock where I will not hurt anyone with my misunderstood tone of voice or sour attitude. Today I will focus on what Scripture says about waiting.

 Because of the LORD’s faithful love we do not perish, for His mercies never end.  They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!  I say: The LORD is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in Him.  The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.  It is good to wait quietly for deliverance from the LORD.

Lamentations 3:22-26 (HCSB)

His mercies never end – even when we are irritable. His mercies are new every morning – He knows so well I will need a daily dose! His faithfulness far exceeds mine.

The Lord is my portion, therefore I put my hope in Him. Well, what else can I say? I trust the doctors and MRI, but He is my highest and best hope, my most thorough Physician. The Lord is good to those who wait for Him. I wonder HOW many times we are admonished to wait for Him in Scripture? Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. In returning and rest I am saved; in quietness and trust will be my strength. Be still, and KNOW that He is God.

Jeremiah ends with “It is good to wait QUIETLY for deliverance from the Lord.” I know a woman who is waiting for healing from a second back-to-back Shingles infection. I know a man waiting to find out if the purchase of the home he wants will go through. I know others waiting to heal after surgery, waiting for back pain to let up and be healed, waiting for a church dedication and celebration after hours and hours of hard outdoor work, waiting to plant their crops after history-making flooding. Some are waiting for asylum in America fleeing violence in their homeland, another waiting to finalize a divorce after a miserable marriage.

As humans we do not generally wait well or quietly. Perhaps remembering His mercies are new daily and His steadfast love for us never changes can help carry us over the bumps and crashes of our dreams in life.

When your particular house of cards comes down, remember that no one EVER said “I want to be ill this summer”, or “I want to be waiting weeks on end for an answer .” Ever. So along with me, rest, wait, hope and watch for a manifestation of His love in our presence.

Posted on in Aging, Faith

Husband is a Treasure

I have a bad habit of kicking off my shoes and not putting them away. Caught up with me last Sunday night. I was getting ready for bed and remembered I needed to enter one more portion of water on my Fitbit app. My phone was charging in the living room. I entered the data. Turned to go to the bedroom and tripped over a sandal. I went down in a huge way! My husband could only watch me fall. There was no time to get up and try to stabilize me before I crashed into the floor.

Turned small toes on left foot under and smashed down on them as I went down bodily. Skidded left knee across the carpet, then left elbow, then smashed down on left shoulder. Saw stars as shoulder lit up in electric explosion. Slammed jaw on the carpet as I hit the floor. BUT thank goodness I did not hit my head, though I came very, very close!

My sweet husband was by my side instantly. Mind you I once fell in the Smoky Mountains at the end of Abrams Falls trail on a wet rock. That time we had to hike 4.9 miles back to the car and me with a dislocated right shoulder. So we were both a bit fearful of the extent of my injuries this time.

Nothing seemed broken as he slowly helped me sit up on the floor. Then slowly helped me stand and get to the sofa to sit down. He bandaged my knee and went to get some ice crushed for an ice bag. Bandaged my arm where forearm had busted open from the impact. Put me to bed with Tylenol and prayers for healing and comfort and another soft ice pack.

We saw a shoulder surgeon Monday as I was unable to lift my left arm without tremendous pain, and then not all the way up. MRI of shoulder is scheduled in case it does not get better in a week “after the dust settles” from the fall. Possible rotator cuff injury. If not better, MRI will determine if surgery is needed and exactly where.

So I am spending most of my time editing past posts. That has been encouraging as I have read, again, how the Lord has sustained me through the past. Acute pain is a bear when it comes on top of chronic pain. I am determined to trust and follow where I am led through this ordeal.

Moral of the story: put your shoes away and trust in the Lord regardless of what comes your way! Even if it involves a mess you made.

Pain is exhausting and I do not know how much more I will actually create today, but you will know by what I do or do not post! When people ask me in stores, “May I help you?” my typical response is “Yes. I need all the help I can get!” Please lift me in prayer until this is resolved. Thanks, Molly