Category: Family

Posted on in Book quotes, Faith, Family, Spiritual growth

Meanwhile, Back at the Soldier Crawl

ABIDE:  me with You, You in me , and flowing forth from me.

You are the vine, I am the branch. Our relationship, love, contacts create the tendrils that help me to cling, ABIDE.

Even at crochet group, I choose to abide. Even at the grocery I choose to abide. While listening to Bob and learning to hear, I choose to abide. 

While traveling a few years ago I found this wrought iron sculpture and remembered the book “Clinging” that I had been reading and ABIDE which I am still trying to learn. The tendril is clearly delineated. I want my tendrils tight and close with Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

Defined: “Tendrils are slender structures that coil around smaller objects to provide support for growing shoots.” So I went ahead and wrote the meditation/prayer outline for our weekly intercessors meeting.  The theme was abide, remain, stay, endure, dwell. I presented it the day before Bob and I went to the Convent for an Advent Quiet Day. Emilie Griffin wrote “Prayer is clinging, not only that we cling to God, but that He clings to us.” We prayed that the persons on our Topics List would cling to God for all of their needs.

At the Convent we were each assigned a room for our personal use during the day. The sign on my door had a quote from Jan L. Richardson: “The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before . . . .What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you . .  So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. . . For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon.”

I was gobsmacked!   Abide   Remain  Stay  Endure  Dwell  Stay  Sit  Linger  Tarry  Ponder  Wait  Behold  Wonder all within 24 hours!

How are you spending your Advent Season?

Hopefully you are able to shed cares and move towards the silence that re-creates.

Posted on in Family

Writing and Meditation

November 14 journal entry: All shall be well – ALL MANNER OF THINGS shall be well. Meditation music from the Insight Timer app (https://insighttimer.com/) is entitled “Floating.” Very useful for centering. The sound of  the kitchen toaster is grounding me in the here and now. 

Writing is not silence, but like doing a soldier crawl towards silence. 

Shedding cares along the crawl. Forearms scraped but dragging me along.

I will drop distractions and invite You to enter deeper Lord, into my mouth and pen and mind – enter dwell ABIDE

WELL! I hit the wrong button in new editor and WHAM! it posted.

Posted on in Family

Twinkle Lights

When I was a child, to me, the twinkle lights on the Christmas tree were just wonderful! I don’t mean garish flashing entire strands. These were soft white lights that would turn off and on randomly, thus the twinkling effect. 

Several years ago after Thanksgiving dinner at our daughter’s house, we took the Grandgirls with us to Target for my husband’s first experience of Pre-Black Friday shopping. Low and behold they were selling twinkle lights! I already had one strand to put on our tree, but I thought a new strand would look lovely around the sliding glass door.

So we stood in the miles long line to purchase those and one or two other things. The next day our youngest Grandgirl helped me hang them around the door. I gave her the honor of plugging them in. Will never forget her comment, which Bob and I still repeat with giggles,

“Are they supposed to twitch like that?” 

Obviously the magic was lost on her. Love that girl and her original thinking! 😉 

Posted on in Family

Maybe I fixed it?

My links were not working.

link broken

I might have fixed the link between the two blogs that I write?

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Click on the message to the right and test it out for me.

Comment either way.

I need ALL THE HELP I can get! Just ask WordPress. They educate me often. They are wonderful to work with.

HOPING! this is the right fix

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Posted on in Aging, Family, medical treatment

Yep, Been Not Writing!

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Remember when we took that lovely boat ride and saw those tremendous whales, seals and birds? The next day I got violent vertigo. No signs or symptoms while on the boat. Had been boats before. Rats! This may kill my wish for at least one cruise before I depart the earth!! The illness was like riding the tilt-a-whirl unwillingly! I never did enjoy amusement park rides.

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The worst sensation was as if I were lying flat and then like a board, my feet were rising over my head.  Eventually I was diagnosed with two types of vertigo that required medication and then physical therapy to reset crystals in my inner ear….right side. I never even knew I HAD crystals in my inner ear! Did you?

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So they flipped me back with my head turned to one side, therapist holding my head.  My eyes felt as if they were spinning like the fruit on a slot machine. I gripped the table in fear that I would fall off it. When the spinning stopped, the therapist moved my head to another position and had me hold that for a time. Then yet another head position. Then eventually I sat up on the sie of the exam table. My husband was uncertain if this was a treatment or just smoke and mirrors.

The first treatment  I gradually felt worse for 18 hours. It set me back a week and I had to walk in our house with a cane for a full day. Did not seem like progress! I was staggering and stumbling and decided I could not return to California for our second trip which would require lots of walking and no rental car. I had to sleep elevated on two pillows. Not allowed to lie on my right side to sleep. Did lots of resting. Not supposed to look up or down. Made sitting at the sewing machine a no go. Headaches, dizziness, increased weakness – NOT A HAPPY WOMAN.

Second treatment only set me back about 1-1/2 days. Third treatment I was fine. So weird. Husband a believer!

Yep, I missed a few days writing, but hey! Saturday November 3 I drove for the first time since October 10th. I made a new friend who was my shower sitter (present in the house while I took a shower when Bob was out-of-town). A neighbor provided a ride to church while Bob was gone. I met a new PT group where I will return if this ever flares up again.

We may never know if I actually had an inner ear infection, too. At least someone knew HOW to correct this awful experience.

 

Posted on in Faith, Family

Authority and Faith

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This photo was taken by my husband for me at the Cincinnati Art Museum when  a few soldiers from the terracotta army China toured at our museum. Dating from 210 BCE they were amazing. When I first saw this General I immediately thought of the Centurion from Capernaum. That man understood authority.

Matthew 8:5-13 (HCSB)
When He entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him,
“Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, in terrible agony!” “I will come and heal him,” Jesus told him.
“Lord,” the centurion replied, “I am not worthy to have You come under my roof. But only say the word, and my servant will be cured. For I too am a man under authority, having soldiers under my command. I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes; and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.”
Hearing this, Jesus was amazed and said to those following Him, “I assure you: I have not found anyone in Israel with so great a faith! I tell you that many will come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Then Jesus told the centurion, “Go. As you have believed, let it be done for you.” And his servant was cured that very moment.

With just the signal of a finger this general told his army what to do. The Centurion understood that Jesus did not need to travel to his home. With only a word our Savior healed a paralyzed servant.

I used this photo and scripture recently for a meditation during church wide prayer night. We have a time of confession in that meeting and I wrote, “Lord we ask Your forgiveness when we have not understood Your authority in our lives and over the powers of darkness that torment us. Forgive us, too, for not using the authority You have given us to push back against the darkness. Increase our faith that we might serve You mightily in all things. Help us Lord, to go when You say, “Go,” to come when You call us to come and to do the things You show us to do.”

LK 18:6-8 (Parable of Unjust Judge) Then the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. Will not God grant justice to His elect who cry out to Him day and night? Will He delay to help them? I tell you that He will swiftly grant them justice. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He find that faith on earth?”

This question often rolls about in my mind, will Jesus find faith on the earth when He returns? The Centurion was not even a believer and he amazed Jesus with his faith and understanding of authority. Do we have faith like the persistent widow in the parable about the unjust judge? Faith like the Centurion? Do we have faith that pleases God, for Hebrews 11:6 says “Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who come to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

That sort of faith.

Posted on in Family, Memories

Great Granny Calls it Paeh!

My mother was a Pie Queen. Apple, rhubarb, strawberry rhubarb, gooseberry, peach, mincemeat, coconut, pecan, lemon meringue, pumpkin. If you could make it into a pie she was all over it! For years she made her own crust. A year or so before she died she declared that Pillsbury could do a refrigerated crust as nice as hers. As far as I know, she never made another crust. I use Pillsbury, too.

One recipe she used was from a McCall’s cookbook. I have never heard of anyone else making this pie. If you like Welch’s grape jam, this is the pie for you! When I bake it the house smells like Mrs. Welch’s kitchen.

My husband used to grow Concord grapes. If our crop did not produce well, there was a farmer lady down the road where we could sometimes purchase grapes by the pound. When we moved the grapevines stayed put. We found an apple orchard that also sold grapes. Last year we waited in expectation, but their crop failed due to the weather. This year we got the call! “The grapes are ready if you want to come pick your own!” We went there the next morning.

Hauling bucket and clippers and gloves to protect against any competing insects, we approached the vines, realizing too late we forgot to take our camera! Suffice it to say we picked many more than we needed and delighted in doing so. After washing the grapes someone needs to “slip the skins.” That just means squeeze the grapes over a bowl until the skins slide off and the grape innards pop out. Bob did all of that for 15 cups of grapes! It takes 5 cups of grapes per pie. We froze the other two fillings. He ate the remaining grapes.

25C36DC1-3C68-4EC7-BA78-DC60665928E2Slipped skins shown above in two containers. Then you bring the grape innards to a boil for a couple minutes. This will make it so you can separate out the seeds from the juicy “meat.”

F5815940-59D6-489E-B466-5825795C8F50CD4AC857-D55E-4310-954A-3E727F9DEC3CMeanwhile, mix the sugar, flour and spices.

Then strain out the seeds from the hot grape pulp.

00AE3AA8-ED9C-4B00-A47C-89BD5700C79FWhen the seeds are removed, mix the strained pulp with the skins and add it the flour and spices. Put in a pie crust and top with butter and the top crust.

Bake and wait for the magic of Mrs. Welch’s aroma to fill the house.

Remove and cool on a wire rack. Try not to burn yourself if you are tempted like I always am to taste the goo leaking from the edges (best part).

Serve with vanilla ice cream or gelato. If you forgot the ice cream, eat the “paeh” anyway! The filling is so rich that a small slice is all one needs.78491F63-D01A-495F-9CC6-23E39642F810Shown below are the ingredients:

Pie recipe

Posted on in Family

We were traveling!

That is why I have not posted lately. But oh, the sights we saw! One of my favorites was the synchronized diving white pelican, but I cannot post the video. Absolutely cracked me up one of our last days on the road when we stopped for lunch in Granite Falls. I also had no idea there were pelicans in a fresh water river. I had only seen them at the ocean.

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So here are these big birds, with really big feet, sitting around. Then they start to swim together and all at once they dive together!

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Bottoms up, boys!!

Posted on in Family, Nature

I’m SO Excited!

A few minutes ago I was dancing in the street, literally, singing, “I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it! I’m about to lose control and I think I want to! Want to!”

Last year we had monarch caterpillars in the garden on the milkweed. The third day I went out to see if they had formed their chrysalis yet and every single one of them was gone! Assumed something ate them.

This year we have two large milkweed plants that Bob had to stake because they are so tall. They have already formed seed pods. And this morning, oh glory! Caterpillars on those two and on shorter plants, also!

I am hoping these will come to adulthood. I am going to enlist a good buddy to help tend them and feed them from our garden, keeping them until they are ready to fly.

Will keep you posted!

Posted on in Family

Change, Change, Change

“The world for which you have been so carefully prepared is being taken away from you by the grace of God.” -Walter Brueggemann

Change is inevitable. Come to Expect it. – Anon.  I heard this as a teenager and hated the saying. I wanted to keep the fun parts of my life going on forever! Why would I want change?

hand 293The only constant in life is change. – Anon. I found this on a bookmark in a parking lot one summer. I had big plans to help build a storage building at a Homeless Shelter in a few days. That same day I tripped over the dog’s tie out, fell in our driveway, and broke my arm. I was not going to be able to help at the Shelter, or cut up my own food, or use my arm and hand for quite sometime!

I heard a minister preach once that control is an illusion. I argued with him all the way home from church. Now that I am older and wiser I know he was right in every way!

Do you remember the song “To everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn turn?”  Wikipedia says: The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the book of Ecclesiastes, as found in the King James Version (1611) of the Bible (Ecclesiastes 3:1-8), though the sequence of the words was rearranged for the song. Ecclesiastes is traditionally ascribed to King Solomon who would have written it in the 10th century BC, but believed by a significant group of biblical scholars to date much later, up to the third century BC.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The Biblical text posits there being a time and place for all things: laughter and sorrow, healing and killing, war and peace, and so on. The lines are open to myriad interpretations, but Seeger’s song presents them as a plea for world peace because of the closing line: “a time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.” This line and the title phrase “Turn! Turn! Turn!” are the only parts of the lyric written by Seeger himself.The song is notable for being one of a few instances in popular music in which a large portion of the Bible is set to music!

Humans do not like change, regardless of age, race, nationality, religion, ethnicity, or gender. Guess that is why we need grace and patience as life unfolds! Try to go with the changes today.