Category: Traveling

Texas oil

Posted on in Traveling

Simple Cardboard

Recently I have seen  simply cardboard signs written with permanent marker and posted at random corners. These are not yard sale signs. They have two words only, “Be Kind.” With all the rage and insulting verbiage flying through America today I love this simple message. Evidently we have we forgotten kindness so much that we have to be reminded.

When we were in Oregon we saw this ceramic on a wall. It was not for sale, but I love the photo! 

Let’s Be Kind this week and see the difference it can make. It is truly not that hard to do.

Posted on in Memories, Traveling

Kentucky or Ireland?

While traveling in Ireland we saw these rock walls over and over in almost every county we visited. The labor alone to build one of these boggled my mind. Evidently the practice was to take the stones from the fields and build border fences. I cannot imagine being that strong!

If you have ever driven through Kentucky you might have encountered a creation such as this!

Ky not Ireland 1In Ireland we thought of Kentucky! Guess my Grandmother Macdonald’s family brought their practices with them!

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Faith, Nature, Traveling

Rocks and Your Voice

Luke 19:35-40 (HCSB) Then they brought it (the donkey) to Jesus, and after throwing their robes on the donkey, they helped Jesus get on it. As He was going along, they were spreading their robes on the road. Now He came near the path down the Mount of Olives, and the whole crowd of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen: “The King who comes in the name of the Lord is the blessed One. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!”  Some of the Pharisees from the crowd told Him, “Teacher, rebuke Your disciples.” He answered, “I tell you, if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out!”

They obeyed by finding the donkey for him. They helped him get on it.

I saw this in South Dakota.

Cathedral spires and He said “if they were to keep silent, the stones would cry out.” Can you see the man in the right photo above, just waiting to cry out to God in praise? I saw him.

This was by far my favorite though! I see a stately woman in  an evergreeen gown with a turban-like head dress, waiting in prayer and praise before the Lord. Like His handmaiden.stones-cry-1.jpg

Have to wonder if Jesus remembered later when He prayed in the Garden that “as they came near the path down the Mount of Olives the whole crowd had been praising God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles they had seen God do.” He knew abandonment and sorrow. I believe we can bring Him joy by praising and crying out to Him with joy now!

Hope you will listen to this song all the way through. When I play it I want to just sing it over and over!

One less stone, one more voice to praise Him!

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Nature, Spiritual growth, Traveling

Sword and Shield

Ephesians 6 teaches us about the full armor of God to use for spiritual warfare. Paul wrote that we should not only dress in our armor, but “take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God and the shield of faith with which we can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.”

This is not the sword of King Arthur. These weapons are “mighty for the pulling down of strongholds.” (1 Corinthians 10:4) There are several ways to memorize the verses about the armor. One is to recite them while doing something like exercises you must count. Another is to envision dressing yourself in them every morning. I like to put them on head to toe and then the hand pieces. Some teach the belt comes first.  I envision the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the belt of truth, and gird your loins in truth (as if putting on panty hose, you remember those, right?). Shod your feet with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Put on the robe of righteousness that Jesus bought for you. Take up the sword and shield and stand. And having done all, stand and pray!

Once we were in Smoky Mountain National Park driving the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail just outside of Gatlinburg. This is a spectacular drive that begins up in the mountains and follows Roaring Fork river. There are many parking areas to get out and explore spectacular views of rivers, rocks, tumbling water, old buildings, overall fun.

Imagine my surprise when we parked and stepped out in the parking lot to this rock: IMG_2333

After years of putting on the armor this is an image I will never forget. Truly a treasure in plain sight!

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Posted on in Aging, Traveling

Radical Acceptance

… is just another way to say yield.

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Sometimes I have to create my own object lessons with Sculpey clay. Not always professional looking, but seriously mine!

On our recent vacation I developed terrible Vertigo, the type that landed me in Urgent Care getting drugs for the symptoms. Over one week later I am still waiting for the symptoms to be healed. This is a very hard lesson in radical acceptance. Vertigo is like losing total control over your life. No balance, no ability to just “get over it”, no cure in sight. At least not nauseated any more. Waiting for 2 weeks to get into physical therapist who specializes in resetting the crystals of the inner ear. I never even knew I HAD crystals in my inner ear! If I carry a crystal and sleep with it will I be healed before then?

So yielding to my current condition is tough. But then again, what choice do I have? Fight and flail and kick against it and I am just likely to fall down. If I did not have a headache already, then exercises the internist gave me to perform induce one. Yep, I assert once again that growing old is NOT for sissies!

 

Posted on in Humor, Traveling

Ha!

So going down the freeway I saw this white Chevy Tahoe with tinted windows. The Chevy Tahoe is a full sized van built on a truck chassis.

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The license plate said GRU####.

 

I wanted a siren and lights so I could pull it over and ask

E3A5C727-CD0A-43FE-AA4A-F9E97B9A71E3If he had

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In there??!?

My mind goes strange places.

Posted on in Amazing Creations, Nature, Traveling

Smoky Mountains in Spring

We love to hunt wildflowers in the Great Smoky Mountains national park. One of the most elusive is the Lady’s Slipper. I will never tell you where we found these, as folks tend to want to steal them, hoping they will grow in their garden. Well, frankly, that is against the law and most likely they will never grow at your house as they need very specific conditions to grow and then to bloom.

According to the U.S.D.A. Forest service “In order to survive and reproduce, pink lady’s slipper interacts with a fungus in the soil from the Rhizoctonia genus. Generally, orchid seeds do not have food supplies inside them like most other kinds of seeds. Pink lady’s slipper seeds require threads of the fungus to break open the seed and attach them to it. The fungus will pass on food and nutrients to the pink lady’s slipper seed. When the lady’s slipper plant is older and producing most of its own nutrients, the fungus will extract nutrients from the orchid roots. This mutually beneficial relationship between the orchid and the fungus is known as “symbiosis” and is typical of almost all orchid species.

“Pink lady’s slipper takes many years to go from seed to mature plants.  Seed-bearing harvest of wild lady’s slipper root is not considered sustainable. Pink lady’s slippers can live to be twenty years old or more.”

So we go to the Smoky’s to relax.

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And we hunt for these.

And even the ones that are wilting bless our hearts!

Then back to the river for more refreshment.

And maybe one more surprise !

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Posted on in Spiritual growth, Traveling

Structured or Unstructured?

There is an old saying that if you aim at nothing you are bound to hit it. While walking in my friends’ subdivision in Corrales, New Mexico, before the area was fully developed, I came across this image and was pierced with conviction.

There are so many areas of life that are our personal responsibility. How are you at SELF CARE? Most women in America have a lousy track record with self care. We tend to always put others and the needs of the many above our own. When was the last time you took time for self examination, (and I do not mean for lumps or growths) I mean for spiritual and emotional well-being. I learned many years ago that I am personally responsible for myself. Not my husband, not my children, not my family of origin or the pastoral staff at church. Me responsible for me. So how are you doing with that practice?

So back to the image – it seemed as if each rectangle could outline one area of my life: exercise, Bible reading, prayer and mediation, finding joy, study, crochet, cooking, journaling, gardening, small group meeting, church attendance, play, fellowship with friends, family gatherings, marriage building, self examination, confession etc., etc.NewMexico-50

Do you have a plan? In her recent book Talking as Fast as I Can Lauren Graham wrote:

I still find that, in general, having a plan is, well,
a good plan. But when my carefully laid plan laughed at me,
rather than clutch at it too tightly I just made a new one,
even if it was one that didn’t immediately make sense.
In blindly trying a different path, I accidentally found one that worked better.

Can you be this amenable with reality? First plan does not work. Don’t spend time beating yourself up over supposed failure. Just make a new plan that is more in line with reality and possibility. If it does not make sense at first, try it anyway and find the way towards your goals. This is not New Year Resolution talk. This is for self discipline and spiritual growth, well being and overall joy in living. For several years I made a list of those goals and re-read it once a month to see how I was doing towards balancing the activities.

Find a way towards your fulfillment.