Many years ago I made a retreat at the Convent of the Transfiguration. Bishop Gore was the speaker. He had taken a sabbatical and used the time to study Romans 8. He shared with us his translation of a portion. Read it below.
“His love is our security. And that love is so strong that nothing on earth can come between us and it. The sea of troubles that a Christian has to face, hardship and persecution of every kind, are powerless against it. For I am convinced that no form or phase of being, whether abstract or personal, not life nor its negation, nor any hierarchy of spirits, no dimension of time, no supernatural powers, no dimensions of space, no world of being invisible to us now, will ever come between Jesus and us now – will ever come between us and the love which God has brought to us in Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Now and then, I just need to be reminded of this eternal truth. Be encouraged. Cling to this.
Wrought iron sculpture in Cleveland, Ohio (I think)
Our first grandchild, Lizzie, graduates today. The child was born September 2001, on our wedding anniversary and a few weeks after the terrorist bombings of New York City, attempt at Washington and crash into the Pentagon. School was closed and began on-line classes in March this year. Her Senior prom was cancelled due to Covid-19. She had already purchased her dress.
Now it is time for graduation and it too will be peculiar. The school decided to have each graduate walk across the stage to get their diploma. BUT there will only be one family in the auditorium at a time. The staff will be there from 8:30 to 9:30PM, or some such. Long day for them. Lizzie’s time is scheduled for 10:30 AM. At first they were limiting attendance to four people per student. That meant Bob and I would have to decide which one of us was attending. Then they changed it to seven people per student. Whew! now we both get to attend.
This child has always been shy and does NOT like to have her photo taken. Recently, she did like her new shirt and let me get this photo.
Skidamarink and her cousinHer baptism with Camp Counselors (Pop in the blue shirt in background!)
This sweet girl won three academic awards her senior year. The program was on YouTube with teachers and administrators making the announcements, before no in house audience. Two years in a row she won an award in American Sign Language. She will enroll in the local branch of University of Cincinnati this autumn. The world is in store for a great young lady!!
As a volleyball player she is ALWAYS in motion!
Go 32!
Please pray for her future! I often sang this to her when she was very young. If I am not mistaken the “I love you” at the end is done in American Sign Language!
Years ago I helped Sr. Mary Veronica in the gardens at the Convent of the Transfiguration. She was a master gardener (I am not). She was highly allergic to poison ivy (I am not, but still wear gloves around it). So we hit it off. I had much less arthritis then and could afford to lend help to others. She often sent me home with portions of her plants.
Here is the Solomon’s Seal prospering! We had to take out some plants back there that provided more shade, but I think it will do okay. I was curious about the name. Gardening Know How on line says:
“Solomon’s seal info indicates that scars on the plants where leaves have dropped look like the sixth seal of King Solomon, hence the name.”
Finding it hard to get yourself willing to be quiet before the Lord? I have had that experience, too. I have used and written many images to talk myself into getting quiet. Here is one after my trip to the St. Lawrence Seaway to stay with a friend.
Here at Siesta Drive I have my island of responsibility.
Even here I find it difficult
to push off the dock
into the quiet river of Living Water
for the renewal of my soul
stilling of my heart, quieting of my mind
floating in Your love
awaiting Your instructions and anointing for this day.
I want to power up the boat
or maybe stay on the island
ordering about the mundane
resisting the holy and eternal.
Forgive me, again, my desiring
to be in charge and capable.
Take me to a quiet lagoon
with jumping fish
elusive Great Blue Herons
tree branches trialing their leaves at the water’s edge.
Anchor me in Your incredible center-down silence
wash over me with righteousness
grant me the kiss of peace
Your faithfulness and steadfast love
meeting me in holy embrace
of relinquishment to solitude.
Only then
can I meet the mundane
with correct vision
Your holy Kingdom first and foremost
no matter what my activity might be.
So here at Siesta Drive if I will allow it
energy and solace I was hoping for at “The River”
may ebb and flow, around me, within, overflowing
washing glaring, gaudy colors of importance
off the mundane,
letting those things fall back
into their proper place as incidental
like spoons tossed into the silverware drawer.
Center in His quiet and find yourself renewed once more.
In high school or maybe even junior high we had to read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s House of the Seven Gables. I loved it! On our recent trip to the Northeastern States I realized we would be going very close to Salem, Massachusetts. And they have tours of the house the story is patterned on! I could care less about the witch trials, but mention the Seven Gables and I was hooked.
Before our travels, I re-read the book because so MANY years have passed since I first read it. (Love that we can borrow books in the Kindle format, often for free, from the library!) We planned our route to make a tour of the house in Salem on our way from Maine to New Hampshire.
Hawthorne based his book loosely upon his cousin’s house in Salem. Susanna Ingersoll inspired and often entertained Hawthorne at this home. It has been restored to its former glory and is now a museum. In the story Hepzibah was an unfortunate spinster whose eyesight was so poor that she had taken to squinting and that made her face even more unpleasant. The locals thought she was merely scowling at them all the time. She had fallen on hard times and was forced to open a small shop in the front of her house in order to provide food for herself and her brother.
This is a re-creation of what her shop might have looked like. She might have entered through this door. Robert Dutina’s photo of the shop is better, of course!
Hepzibah’s Shop by Robert M Dutina
Being a descendent of aristocracy, Hepzibah was ashamed of having to open the store. She also rented one gable of the house to Holgrave. The story has sorrow, possible murder, intrigue, the young charming country cousin Phoebe, revenge, the town gossips and all the other interesting characters that Hawthorne created. Ned Higgins, the boy who bought her supply of gingerbread cookies made me smile as I now make gingerbread every Christmas with my Grandgirls! When Nathaniel wrote this starting in 1850 he insisted it was entirely a work of fiction based on no particular house. They have done a great job of restoration though, igniting my imagination!
The outdoor gardens were planted like formal English gardens.
Gardens and gablesRefreshing morning dew
I found the adventure refreshing, even if it was likely a fantasy compared to what Hawthorne actually experienced.
There is a neighborhood in Cincinnati called Mount Washington. For years I have seen a bumper sticker that says “I climbed Mt. Washington” and I would think, so what? Then we traveled to the Eastern United States. Bob wanted to go to the top of Mount Washington, New Hampshire noted as one of the windiest places on earth. So we planned our trip to include the Cog Railway there. 2019 had been a tremendously busy year, with the 7,000 mile road trip to the west, so we scaled this one down a bit! Mountain climbing on foot was not on the agenda.
We lined up to board what looked like a little train ride.The inside o f the car was all lovely wood.
And shortly the climb began. AAA tourbook reports concise details saying, “The Railway opened in 1869 and bills itself as the first mountain-climbing cog railway in the world. Coal-fired steam and biodiesel-powered trains take passengers on a scenic 3-hour trip top the top of Mount Washington – the highest peak in the Northeast.
“At 6,288 feet, Mount Washington, in the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, is the Northeast’s highest peak. The weather at its summit rivals that of Antarctica; the average annual temperature is below freezing. Conditions can change in minutes from balmy to subfreezing.”
We had one of the loveliest weather days the train personnel could ever remember. The panoramas were breathtaking! Our engine was biodiesel driven. They only run the steam engine once daily.
As the train began to climb the slant of the vegetation showed the angle of ascent.
Yes, those trees were growing straight up!
Appalachian Trail cairns
I have never hiked the Appalachian Trail. In fact, I have not hiked much at all during my life. I was fascinated by the rock cairns marking the route of the trail. Just imagine for a moment hiking this during a 15 foot snow in winter. Or even the height of summer, one rock strewn field after another. How would you find your way and not lose the trail? Thus the cairns, also known as rock piles.
Yes, the chain you see was put there to hold the building in place!
Returning down the mountain we passed a train going up. No wind rain or weather change. Bob was a bit disappointed. We had bundled up for sunshine! It was a memorable ride and the cog railway was fun!
My husband took one photo (below) that reminded me of one of my childhood drawings of mountains. One woman in the crochet and quilting group wanted a copy of the photo for a quilting idea!
See the lady in the white dress, white shoes and white gloves? That was my mom!
At my wedding in 1970 I never noticed until now that my mother wore white gloves to our wedding in Live Oak Park, Berkeley, California! As I came toward the groom, trust me when I say, at the time I never saw anyone but him.
My mother died five years later, in her sleep, at our apartment in Lexington, Kentucky. Her death was sudden and somewhat unexpected. Her blood pressure had been high and the doctor was having difficulty controlling it, but there was no indication that she would pass that particular weekend. Today is one day past her birthday.
Mildred Ann was a wonderful cook. When we realized how few of her recipes she had written down, I was furious. To this day I save recipes on my computer and print a card for each of my children (and sometimes for friends, too). Recently I made her chicken and dumplings. It took me several years to find a recipe that approximated hers. Finally found it in James Beard’s American Cookery Book which my sisters-in-law gave me when we were expecting our first child.
This year we celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary, so Mom has been gone 45 years. And yes, there are times when I still miss her. I believe she would delight to know I am still trying to capture her essence in the kitchen. When I made the chicken and dumplings recently I did not use a deep enough pan when it came time for the dumplings. Oh my. I should have taken a photograph. They boiled over magnificently on the ceramic stovetop. I also forgot HOW MANY the recipe feeds. With just the two of us at home now, we had dumplings coming out of our ears. And no, we tried it, they are NOT very good warmed as leftovers! The first meal was tasty though. And I made it in memory of Mom, my best role model as a good cook.
Forced Hyacinths by GARDENPHOTO.com
If your Mom is still around cherish her, even if you rarely get along. There are times after she passes when you will miss her terribly. For years I could barely go in the grocery stores that have floral departments. This time of year they sell forced bulbs to remind us of the hope of spring. As a child my mother once made me an Easter corsage with hyacinth blossoms. Shortly after she passed the fragrance of hyacinths would have me weeping in the grocery store. Now I grow them in the front garden and when they bloom in late spring I delight to bring them in the house.
Moms, memories, grief all roll up into delight, pain, and after they go a void that nothing but God can ever even attempt to fill. One meaning for El Shaddai is “many breasted One.” Yes, God can be both father and mother to each of us.
So we drove past a woman and man setting up their harvest decorations in front of their house. Now tell me if you think this is strange? Maybe it is just me, but the Wizard of Oz confirmed, for those of us brought up in the city, that a scarecrow is stuffed with straw. The craft stores for the past decade or so have sold ready made scarecrows stuffed with pretend straw, but they hope it will look like straw to you.
How weird is it that an item built from human looking clothing and filled with straw is then seated upon a bale of straw? Isn’t that like go to the morgue and get a bunch of organs, pile them up and then have your photo taken while sitting upon them? We are such a weird society.
I love candy, but halloween is just weird overall.
Once I was invited as a room mother to attend the halloween march in costume where the kids paraded through the elementary school. When I got there all the other room mothers were dressed as witches. I was dressed as the Holy Ghost, complete with a white sheet, white face, white keds and wooden cross around my neck. As we went room to room I invited the kids to touch the least scary ghost EVER and told them about my role in God’s plan. Needless to say, I was called the following week by the principal. I almost asked if she called the witches representing everything reprehensible to my faith. I was encouraged when we went in one room and the teacher had donated New Testaments to the kids. They were proudly displayed on their desks. Wonder if that is even allowed these 36 years later?
Accustomed to seeing Angus cattle, as we drove towards Dallas, we now saw Brahman steer in some fields and even longhorns! We began the day going to the Pioneer Plaza to see the Cattle Drive statues. (Reminded me of the Land Run of 1889 sculptures by Paul Moore in Oklahoma.) This is the second most visited tourist site in Dallas. Each sculpture was created by Robert Summers of Glen Rose, Texas in 1992. They were cast at Eagle Bronze Foundry in Lander, Wyoming. There are 40 steer and 3 cowboys. There is a plan to add more cattle. The day we were there we actually saw 4 cowboys!
They say the steer were cast larger than life, but when we saw a live one it looked this large to me!
Somehow I only captured two of the cowboys. Go figure! Actually I discovered that we missed one that was off to one side, beyond a stone wall. First photo is from online and shows what we missed. The remainder are my photos.
I love how Robert Summers captured the movement of the horse!Yes, you can actually walk among them 🙂
Was he resting, overseeing or just watching? Cattle drive positions do not include him. His equipment right down to his pistol were impressive.
And then we met cowboy #4! A young man who told us he used to herd cattle on horseback with his father in Mexico. Here is his photo as his girlfriend snapped his picture!
I was impressed that he could clamber up and down the statue without flinching.
And below, just beyond the park, what is said to be THE official horse of Texas!
Yeah, I know, out of focus!
You get the idea? Mobil, then Exxon Mobil Oil in Texas and beyond.
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 🙂
Treasures in Plain Sight, A Christian Blog 