Posts Categorized: Faithfulness

And I’m Just Finally Getting Rid of the Last of the Fall Leaves

| Faithfulness, Joy, Patience

Wow. It’s already spring. Sort of.

Officially, the last “average” freeze date for Waco is March 12. We’ve had freezes ‘way into April, but that’s unusual, and I’m impatient. Also, I don’t usually plant really tender things. (I did buy a bougainvillea last week, and it will need to come into the house if the temperature plummets in the next few weeks.)

I’ve talked before about fall raking, and other yard stuff.  There were lots of leaves, and I raked all of them up. Most of them went into big black trash bags, because the green bins that hold yard waste are only emptied every other week on trash day, so there’s a limit to how many leaves can get carted away to be mulched. I put all those extra leaves in those trash bags. Every other week, in addition to whatever weeds and sticks and things that have been damaged by the few frosts we’ve had,  I emptied one or more of those black bags into the green bins. Every other week, through the fall and winter.

This Thursday, after a rather epic rainfall the day before, I thought  I could probably get the last of the bags of leaves emptied into the green bins.

And now, behind the shed, there are ten bags of dirt to spread around in the low places at the back of the yard. They’d been in the car’s trunk for a while. I’d gotten them at a local nursery and hadn’t taken the time to move them. Today, with that space behind the shed now empty, I thought I should transfer them. I’m not all that strong, so it was a one-at-a-time situation. I got the wheelbarrow out of the shed, pushed it up to the garage, opened up the car’s trunk, and pulled and tugged at one of the bags. I got it out of the trunk and into the wheelbarrow, and wheeled it across the back yard and around to the back of the shed, and dumped the 40-pound sack onto the ground. Then, I pushed the empty barrow back up to the garage, and so on. At this point, all ten bags are behind the shed, waiting for a warm day when things have dried up a bit after the several rainy days we’ve had.

 

 Ask the Lord for rain in the spring, for he makes the storm clouds.
And he will send showers of rain so every field becomes a lush pasture

Zechariah 10:1 (New Living Translation)

 

Just this week, several trees have begun leafing out. There are trees with the mistiness of new leaves around them, and a tree that produces purple flowers before the leaves pop out is shimmering with beauty. The trees in my yard are still bare, with leaves that appear later than some others. But it won’t be long.

I Went to a Funeral

| Faithfulness, Goodness, Joy

Last Tuesday, I went to a funeral for a man I’d never met. It seemed appropriate.

The Sunday edition of the Waco paper usually includes a half-page spread highlighting a local veteran. Several weeks ago, I noticed that the article covered a World War II vet, and those folks are few and far between these days. I read the first line, which said that this man grew up in Hillsboro, Texas, a town north of Waco, where my mother and her four older sisters grew up. I read on and saw that, when this man was in the service, he’d had the opportunity to run into his older brothers, also in the service. I didn’t know the man in the article, but I did recognize the name of one of his older brothers.

One of my mother’s older sisters was widowed when I was six. A couple of years later, she remarried, to one of those older brothers. That man was the nicest guy. I remember him as kind and gracious, and, he had this cabin on a lake. And he invited us to come. My family and another aunt’s family and possibly more of us. It was such great fun. The older cousins water skied, and we younger cousins played on the shore, wading at the lake’s edge and finding mussels and other rich, exciting items.

A couple of years after that, my aunt developed breast cancer and passed away. She was buried in the family plot of that kind man.

In a Christmas card, I sent that veteran’s article to my cousin who had been the kind man’s step-daughter for a few years. She phoned to thank me for it, and gave me some more information about the veteran in the article. My cousin’s older sister died a few years back. She had not wanted any funeral or any sort of to-do. She’d been divorced for many years, and there hadn’t been any thoughts or plans for a “final resting place.” This veteran, who was just as kind as his brother, insisted that my cousin’s sister be interred in his family’s plot. “She should be with her mother,” he said. And that is what they did.

That’s why I went to the funeral. I’d hoped to be able to chat with family members, but I was delayed leaving Waco, and there was pouring rain all the way from Waco to Hillsboro. When I did arrive, I found the parking lot packed with cars and the Marshal and Marshal funeral home packed with people. I was overwhelmed and reluctant to walk around asking, “Who are you? Are you a family member? What’s your name?” So, I went to the restroom. Then, I walked around the edges of the crowd and turned a corner and ran into a couple that had been members of my church a few years ago. We were all startled at this unexpected meeting.

Turns out, they grew up in Hillsboro, also. (If I had known that before, I’d forgotten it.) She said that she’d been best friends with the veteran’s daughter, spending more time at that house than her own. “And,” she said, “what’s your connection?” And I explained about the kind man and about the veteran’s insistence on providing a resting place for my cousin.

I said, “This is why I so strongly believe in the concept of Six Degrees of Separation. There are connections all over that we don’t realize. If every time I walked into a store or park or event, it would automatically generate little illuminated dotted lines to all the people I had a connection to, I could go introduce myself, and we could figure out how we’re connected.”

 

 Ask God to bless everyone who mistreats you. Ask him to bless them and not to curse them. When others are happy, be happy with them, and when they are sad, be sad. Be friendly with everyone. Don’t be proud and feel that you are smarter than others. Make friends with ordinary people.

Romans 12:14-16 (Contemporary English Version)

 

Based on the man that I knew and the stories and information I heard at the funeral, this sounds like the men in that Hillsboro family.

 

Now, I do understand that it was Hillsboro, the town were all my mother’s family grew up. So I might have expected to find someone with whom I might have had a connection  But here’s another example:

I have a son and daughter-in-law who live in Brooklyn. Sarah phoned me one Sunday afternoon with this story:

She was going to a friend’s shower and riding on a subway train that she didn’t usually travel on. When the doors opened, she stepped into the train and saw that there was only one empty seat. It was next to a man who looked very much like the actor Tony Hale. She sat down next to this man, took a deep, brave breath, and said to him, “You look a lot like Tony Hale.” And he said, “I am Tony Hale.”

Sarah and Tony Hale on the L train

Now that might seem pretty brash and maybe even invasive, but, there’s more. (Often, there’s more.) When Sarah first moved to New York, fresh out of TCU, she attended worship services at “The Haven,” a place for New Yorkers in the arts communities. A place that was started by . . . yes . . . Tony Hale. She walked into the subway car already having a connection with the actor. They had a nice chat about The Haven and people they knew, and, at one point, he said to her, “Nice bag,” referring to a large, quilted tote that she was carrying. She said, “My mother-in-law made it for me.” Tony Hale liked my bag! She asked if she could take a photo, and he said “yes.”

A year or so earlier, a local songwriter and singer made a movie based on his life and struggles, and how things turned out. Tony Hale was one of the actors in that movie, Sironia. That singer/songwriter and his family were members of my church, at the time. I’d had a couple of his kids in my Sunday School class. The Sunday after Sarah told me about sitting next to Tony Hale on the train, I ran into that songwriter’s wife. I told her about Sarah’s encounter. And she said, with great astonishment, “Tony Hale was riding the subway?!?!?”

But the most interesting thing is that I have two pathways, of only one person each, between me and Tony Hale. It’s like we’re BFFs.

 

Breath of Heaven

| Faithfulness, Gentleness, Goodness, Joy, Kindness, Love, Patience, Peace

Two or three times a year, my church publishes a devotional book, for Advent, for Lent/Easter, for support for teams of church members on mission trips, and other occasions. Church members are asked to write devotionals for the booklets, and sometimes I’m asked to write one. This year, for Advent, our assignment was to choose a favorite Christmas carol and a scripture passage, and to write a devotional based on our experience with those things. This is the one I wrote, inspired by the song Breath of Heaven. The song’s title has the link to  Amy Grant’s singing the song.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

I trust you to save me, Lord God, and I won’t be afraid. My power and my strength come from you, and you have saved me. Isaiah 12:2 (Contemporary English Version)

Breath of Heaven

We have a niece who had a baby about a year and a half ago. While her husband rushed into the hospital’s emergency room to get a wheelchair for her, she gave birth to their third child, a baby boy, in the front seat of their vehicle. Now there’s a birth story.

The birth story Mary has to tell is pretty impressive, too. Well, more impressive, I guess. After all, it is Jesus.

There’s not much detail about Mary, herself, in the Bible. If you go online, there’s lots of information about her, but it’s all pretty much speculation.

I do wonder, though, if Jesus ever said to her, “Please tell me about the night I was born.” It’s not a matter of his not knowing all the facts, but I like to think that he would appreciate hearing her tell the story.

(He listens and responds. As she narrates the tale, she’s also pondering about her own feelings and struggles.)

 

“Oh, Mother! An angel? Were you surprised? Were you scared?”

         Holy father you have come
         And chosen me now to carry your son

“And Aunt Elizabeth, too? Cousin John? Really?”

         Must I walk this path alone?
         Be with me now

“I remember hearing about that census. All the way to Bethlehem. Quite a trip.”

         Lighten my darkness
         Pour over me your holiness

“No place to stay? Then what happened?

         Do you wonder as you watch my face
         If a wiser one should have had my place

“Shepherds came all the way into town? That was a hike!”

         Help me be strong
         Help me be
         Help me

“What was the hardest part for you, Mother?”

         Breath of heaven
         Lighten my darkness
         Pour over me your holiness
         For you are holy
         Breath of heaven

“You are the bravest woman I know, Mother. I am grateful that you were willing to do what you were asked to do.”

 

 

Reflection
You may have heard two people tell the “same” story, but from really different points of view. This holiday season, think about spending time with friends and relatives that you think you know pretty well. Listen to their stories and appreciate how the details may be different from the way you might remember those occasions.

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(We writers are asked to include some bio information. This is what I wrote: My sister was born the October that I was 4 1/2 years old. My mother says that, that December, I would drape small baby blankets over my head and shoulders and wander around the house, stopping at each room, and shaking my head and muttering “No room. No room. No room.” Then, I would erect my toy ironing board, drape IT with blankets, and sit under it, holding a doll. Apparently I would do that for hours, leaving her free to take care of the new baby in the house.

 

What a Time Saver It Would Be to Learn Lessons the Easy Way

| Faithfulness, Patience

I’m an impulse buyer.

“Oh, that looks delicious. I can put that in a salad.”

“That dress looks perfect for me.”

“That plant will look great in the front flower bed.”

“Those shoes look really comfortable.”

And so on …

Sometimes, it’s a good choice. ‘Way too often, it’s not.

 

A while back, at least a year, maybe a year and a half, I was at one of the local nurseries that I really enjoy visiting. It was probably spring. Not last spring; the one before that. I was looking for interesting plants and reading the labels on different sorts of growing things, and I found Turk’s Cap. The little information tag said, “Attracts hummingbirds and butterflies.” That sounded promising. We think that someone in the neighborhood must have hummingbird feeders, because we often see hummingbirds in the yard. They just come for a quick visit, because we haven’t had any flowering plants that seem attractive to the birds. And a variety of butterflies shows up sometimes. So, I thought, perfect.

I was debating where to plant the three that I bought. I debated a long, long time, while the plants did their best to grow while still in the flimsy pots they came in. I finally decided on the bed at the back of the house. This spring, I dug in lots of compost and got the bed all ready. It takes me a while, sometimes, to get everything all done, and, by the time I was ready to put them in the ground, I’d bought a few more of the plants. The first ones have red flowers and the newer ones have pink flowers.

I put on my overalls and went out one morning recently to plant those Turk’s Caps, and, just as I was picking up the tools I would need, I thought Maybe I should see what the sunshine needs are for these plants. I went inside and looked up Turk’s Cap information. They will grow most anywhere, in this climate, but they do best in the sun. Full sun.

I went out into the sunny, ish, back yard. The bed by the back wall had a sliver of sunshine. For about 30 minutes. Otherwise. Shade, shade, and more shade.

Now what?

I thought about the sunny places I have. The side yard at the front corner of the house, which is full of cannas and daisies, reliable plants I like, gets quite a bit of sun, but not the blasting afternoon sun that the front flower bed gets.  And I really want to plant those Turk’s Caps. So I spent all day Wednesday (a nice warm day) digging up the cannas at the front end of that side bed. I moved many of them farther to the back end, filling in some bare spaces. I culled some of the daisies, who have pretty much taken over, and made space. The Turk’s Caps are supposed to grow nice and full, especially in the sun.

I watered the transplants and gave them all some good plant food. And now it’s just a wait and see season. As I was working, I saw one of our resident lizards, enjoying the last sunny day we’ll have for a little while.

 

 

Pay attention to advice and accept correction, so you can live sensibly.

Proverbs 19:20 (Contemporary English Version)

 

A friend from church works for Urban Reap, part of Mission Waco Ministries. I was having a Turk’s Cap conversation with him, about having to change my planting plans. Not enough sun where I wanted to put them. “Oh yes,” he said. They had planted some Turk’s Cap at their house, too. In a shady spot, where they aren’t doing as well as he’d hoped. “They’re growing,” he said. “But they’re not putting on any flowers. Not enough sun.”

 

Whether Weather

| Faithfulness, Joy, Patience

I’m pretty much a fair-weather friend. Dictionary.com defines Fair-weather friend as “A friend who supports others only when it is easy and convenient to do so.” But I’m talking about real fair weather. That’s what I’m a friend of. I like the kind of weather where I can walk around outside and not be constantly searching for a little piece of shade to protect me from the miserable, scorching summer heat.

I complain, bitterly, about the blistering summer heat in July and August, and the fact that it pretty much continues way into September. I see the ads and articles in magazines about Back-to-School fall clothing and recipes for “cooler weather” cooking, and I roll my eyes. I’ve only just, in the past couple of weeks, moved my lighter weight clothes to the guest room closet, and brought the heavier clothes back into my regular closet. I’m glad to see them, those “winter” clothes, even though people who live in, say, Michigan, would laugh at the idea that they are all I have for “winter.” I have a heavy wool coat, and I think that’s the only woolen article of clothing that I own. And I wear that coat about three times a year, otherwise it’s lighter weight sweaters and jackets.

Friday, November 1, 2019–There is frost on the ground. Seriously. the temperature in Waco at 6:00 a.m. was between 27° and 30° depending on where in town you were.

Halloween this year was near freezing. Really. That’s a most unusual situation for us. By Tuesday, the high is predicted at 73, with a low of 57. That’s Central Texas for you. Of course, things are then supposed to drop down to 60’s and low 50’s, but that’s not down-jackets-and-wool-hats-and-gloves weather. It’s rather what we were looking forward to, back in September, when the high temperature was 91°.

I did move some of the plants on the patio close to the house and cover them with a sheet, hoping to get a little more time before a real freeze does them in. Some things in pots will be just fine. There’s a pot with sedum that I’ve had for fifteen years.  It’s just finished blooming and will die back with the first freeze. It will be the first thing to start growing again in March.

There’s lots of lemon-related plants: lemon thyme and lemon mint and lemon verbena and lemon tree, which is a kind of eucalyptus. Lemon scented things are supposed to be mosquito repellents, but I’m not so sure. They are, however, pretty easy to grow and are sturdy.

Eventually I’ve learned to ask the important questions about hardiness and water needs and light. Still, though, I sometimes buy without asking for important information. Like when I bought several Turk’s Cap plants for the bed at the back of the house. They’re hardy and attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Right before I went out to plant them in the nice bed I’d gotten ready, I checked the computer to see what kind of light they needed. Sun. And lots of it. Sun. Which barely touches that bed. They’ll have to go someplace else. I’m not quite sure where.

 

When the clouds are full of water, it rains.
When the wind blows down a tree, it lies where it falls.
Don’t sit there watching the wind. Do your own work.
Don’t stare at the clouds. Get on with your life.

Ecclesiastes 11:3,4  (The Message)

 

When we were first married, David was in the Air Force and was stationed at Hickam Air Force Base, right next to Pearl Harbor, on Oahu. So, Hawaii. Right? I took lightweight, summery sorts of clothes. We went in April, and I was fine all spring and summer and into fall. There are really only two seasons there: Summer and Rainy. In September, I had to ask Mother to please send some of my long-sleeved things, because the temps were going down a little. By February, when I was student teaching, I was pretty chilly on some days. I had a raincoat and a shawl (it was the 70’s), and that was it for outerwear. One day, at school, I was clutching my shawl around me, while I was working with a kid. He looked at my shivering self and said, “Why don’t you ask your mother to buy you a coat?”  Seems like not every day in the tropics is all that fair.

Now, I’m going to get on with things. And I’ll check on those plants under the sheet.

If Someone Is as Old as They Feel . . .

| Faithfulness, Joy

then I’m really, really old. Really.

All parts of me hurt. Some more than others. Some more unrelenting than others. Some come and go. Some have come and stayed. And stayed.

I thinking things are not going to improve.

Meanwhile, or, it’s about time, I enrolled in Baylor’s Lifelong Learning program, designed for retired people. A friend recommended it. I signed up for “WWII, the Pacific Theater,” where I felt like a youngster, as several, actual, real-life WWII vets spoke to us.

And I signed up for a “Behind the Scenes at the Zoo” course. We’ve gone twice so far, and have two more sessions.

They’ve had these recyclable grocery bags made, and encouraged all of us to take one, or more, for public awareness. I took two.

The first week, we went to the zoo’s classroom building, where a couple of bird caregivers described two kinds of birds (which they had perched on their forearms), and how they came to the zoo and how they are cared for. They are rescue birds and had injuries that could not be completely corrected and they therefore could not safely be released into the wild again. And we learned about the other kinds of animals that come to the zoo for similar reasons, and now have a safe place to live, and give local folks an opportunity to see animals living in habitats that resemble as closely as possible where those kinds of animals live in the wild.

We also got lots of information about expansion and a new penguin habitat, African penguins, who are warm-weather penguins. A man asked, a little skeptical, if they were just going to go and get some of these fair-weather penguins and cart them to Waco. Well, no, not at all. This habitat is going to be a rescue and rehab facility. The Cameron Park Zoo is part of a world-wide zoological group that seeks to find animal groups that are endangered and/or at-risk, and bring unhealthy animals to a space where they can become hale and hearty and be returned to their home environments.

We got some information about the number of visitors who come to the zoo, annually, and how those numbers are rising. (There are folks in town who seem to resent the “Magnolia” effect–the idea that the rise in tourism numbers is the result of the enormous popularity of the Magnolia franchise. “We’ve always had a great __________________ (zoo, Dr. Pepper Museum, Mayborn  Museum, city park, etc.),” they say. And that is true, but if there weren’t many visitors to Waco, then who knew about those things. Now, people flock to Waco to visit the Magnolia store and then they say, “As long as we’re here, what else is there to do?” And we are thrilled to show them. The bar graph of zoo visitors for the past few years shows a steady rise, but, after the Magnolia properties were built, there’s a larger rise.

Last week, the zoo veterinarian talked to us a bit about his job and then we got to go see some behind-the-scenes stuff. Our zoo has several large primates, and, in an effort to create a healthy environment for them, the zoo staff has created some ways to determine the health of these animals, like taking blood pressure readings and doing blood draws. They’ve then shared their knowledge with other zoos.

We walked around to the back of the orangutan habitat. This long metal drawer-like apparatus is for taking blood draws. The orangutans are trained to put their arm into the drawer, on a cue. Then the primate professional wriggled her fingers while saying “Fingers!” When the primate stretched fingers through the openings, they were held while the blood was taken from the arm. Then, the fingers were released, the orangutan pulled her arm out, and, as is satisfying, she got a treat. Blood pressure is taken the same way. This is a temporary space for animals who are getting their medical evaluations. They live in an appropriate space. They take turns being out in the open or in spaces with viewing windows, and being in their own private space.

The Cameron Park Zoo is part of a large network of zoos that seek to learn how to keep animals healthy, because animal populations around the world are declining. If they can work with animal populations in other zoos and in the wild, then we can maintain the biodiversity that our planet needs.

 

 

Then we walked around to the back of the elephant’s habitat. We heard lots of interesting information about African and Asian elephants and how African elephant ears are larger, because Africa is hotter and they need their larger ears for flapping to help cool themselves off. This is an African elephant. You cannot tell here, but she’s holding a harmonica in her trunk. The animal keepers explained that they do not teach the animals to do tricks (like playing a harmonica) to entertain zoo guests. In the wild, elephants would take in lots of water from a lake or river, and then swoosh it out, cleaning off their bodies and clearing out their trunks. In a zoo, they have to be taught how to inhale deeply. So the elephant keepers used the harmonica as a teaching tool, to inhale deeply and then to expel quickly. It worked, and now the elephants can inhale water and then whoosh it out, cleaning out their trunks. But, the animal keepers learned that the elephants apparently do like to make sounds with the harmonicas and will do it for quite some time. Even if no one else is around to hear it.

 

 

Let the wise hear and increase in learning,  and the one who understands obtain guidance,

Proverbs 1:5 (English Standard Version)

 

Learning for a moment. Learning for a lifetime. Learning how to make a difference.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, I took this photo on September 25. The temperature was 95 degrees. Not exactly pumpkin weather. And now we’re in that “cool today/roasting again tomorrow,” “possibly not horrid/but hot the day after that,” and then, “it’s anybody’s guess” weather. Whatever I put on in the morning is inappropriate by afternoon.

I Apologize

| Faithfulness, Joy, Patience

A couple of weeks ago, I was working in the backyard, when I began to hear “Hello? Hello? Hello?” The words seemed to be coming from the back pocket of my overalls. I took off one of my gardening gloves and reached back to pull out my phone. April was Face-Timing me.

“Hi!” I said.

“Hi,” she said back. “I really can’t talk right now,” she continued.

I was confused, and must have looked like it. Turns out, I had Face-Timed her. Inadvertently. By sitting down on my gardening cart and then getting up. I guess. I apologized and we hung up.

A few minutes later, I felt a buzz from my back pocket. When I looked at the phone, there was a message, from a phone number instead of a name, and the message said, “I can’t talk right now.” I had, apparently, pocket-dialed someone else. I don’t actually know who it was, because I never went back through my contacts to find the number. It can’t have been someone I know well, because they would have, or might have, called back.

Anyway, I’m just bringing it up in case you’ve received some random call or request from me. If so, I’m sorry. I’m trying to be more responsible, by making sure that, when the phone goes into my pocket, the screen isn’t on the contact list.

Here’s today’s weather information from Thursday’s paper. We’ve had an unusual spring. Rain, rain, rain, and then some more rain. There are parts of the yard where I squish and squish when I walk over the grass. Last Sunday morning, I checked the back yard and, for the first time in several days, there was no standing water. On Monday, it rained some more. And Tuesday. And Wednesday. I’ve been going outside, between rain showers, every day. Thursday, the rain came in really early, and then the sun shone for hours! But still, my shoes were heavy from all the mud that accumulated as I walked around the yard. And, by mid-afternoon, the clouds had come rolling back in.

The rain is supposed to begin again in the wee hours Friday morning, and continue until noon or so. But the high temperature is only supposed to be 62.

And, I’m really not complaining. Every drop of water that falls from the sky is a drop of water that I’m not having to pay for when I need to use the sprinkler system. Every pleasant day is a day we’re not having to run the air conditioner.

 

 

Speaking of the neighbors, they were all busy Thursday, the first really sunny, warm day in ages. The yard right behind me got mowed. The guy next door to me mowed their yard, too. And, there’s a little piece of yard that’s next to the one behind me, that backs up to a back corner of my yard. That guy did a lot of weed-eating. I guess they’re feeling like they should get lots of yard work done because the rain is supposed to be rolling back in. Imminently.

 

A few days ago, I was happy to see the little dark lizard was still on the premises.

 

But instead be kind and affectionate toward one another. Has God graciously forgiven you? Then graciously forgive one another in the depths of Christ’s love.

Ephesians 4:32 (The Passion Translation)

 

Okay, pocket-dialing somebody isn’t exactly a huge mistake, but, I don’t want to bother folks, especially by mistake. Meanwhile, our being kind and affectionate toward each other (and graciously forgiving), seems like the way to go.

April Showers Bring . . . Well, Some More Showers

| Faithfulness, Joy, Patience

We haven’t had standing water in the back yard in years. It takes a few days for the greatly sodden dirt to soak up the excess water. Then it rains, REALLY RAINS, again.

It’s been raining. Quite a bit. According to the weather information in the newspaper, our total rainfall this month has been 6.73 inches. And we’re not done with the month, yet. The weather forecast for the rest of the month says there might be a thunderstorm on Tuesday. The normal rainfall for April is 2.04 inches. The excess seems like a good idea, given what June, July, and August are sometimes like.

 

These days, when it rains, it does pour. I hope the rainfall abates enough to keep the mosquito population from becoming a problem. Meanwhile, the grass is looking great!

On Palm Sunday weekend, there was a big rainfall, lots of wind, and dropping temperatures on Saturday evening. Our Worship in the Park plan seemed to be in jeopardy (when we have our worship service in a park across the street, along with the church that is catty-cornered from us, on the other side of the park). The sun really did come out and the temperature rose, somewhat. Songs were sung, prayers were prayed, choirs sang, pastors preached, children handed out palm branches, which were waved in the air as we celebrated. Peter had come, and David returned him to Fort Worth that afternoon.

 

The afternoon was warm, and I spent a hour or so picking up the small branches that had fallen from the pecan tree. Pecan tree limbs are, apparently, rather easily broken. But they often just break off and stay perched up on the uppermost branches, for what sometimes seem like years. Many of these got blown down. I spent an hour or so Sunday afternoon, picking them up and breaking them up. The large green bin was about half full. I put in enough of the pecan tree’s broken branches to almost fill the green bin to the top.

 

 

 

 The Lord will bring about justice and praise in every nation on earth, like flowers blooming in a garden.

Isaiah 61:11 (Contemporary English Version)

 

 

Lessons that My Mother Taught . . .

| Faithfulness, Love, Patience

 

but, sadly, that I had no desire to learn.

Like cooking. I did do some cooking, mostly baking, cookies and cakes. The first main dish I ever made was macaroni and cheese, and I could not believe that you had to cook the macaroni FIRST, and then make the cheese sauce and cook the whole thing AGAIN!! Wasn’t there a better way?

I think Mother got a little bit panicky, after I got engaged, thinking that I didn’t know how to cook. At all. So she began to find recipes (and gather ingredients) for me to cook for David when he came to town. And, seriously, I could read and I could think, and I had this great cookbook with recipes for 2 (with main dish, vegetable, salad, bread, and dessert suggestions). I prepared many, many of those, and doubled lots of the recipes to include all the members of our family of four, over the years.

I can hardly bear to look at this.

She tried the housework tasks. I remember vacuuming, occasionally. We had an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. It was a canister-type vacuum. There was a large, roundish thing on wheels, and a hose with a metal tube on the end. The vacuumer could attach a variety of nozzles on the tube. There was one for floors, and one for upholstered furniture and one for getting into crevices, and I very strongly disliked each and every one of them. I was constantly getting clobbered from behind by the canister. I desperately wanted one of the upright vacuums that I saw on television.

I’m sure Mother asked me to dust, too. I don’t recall, but I imagine I gave her grief, or at least some eye-rolls.

I remember, once, cleaning the bathtub. Maybe I did that more than once. Maybe. But I don’t think it was more than that.

She developed a strategy that she thought would work. She would pay us. A quarter, which doesn’t seem like very much, but I think it was significant back then. Not lots and lots of money, but enough for a couple of soft drinks or candy bars. I wasn’t interested. But you know who was? My little sister, JoAnne.

JoAnne might not have been money-hungry,  but even then, she knew how to make hard work more fun. She explained to me, much, much later, one of her takes on vacuuming.

You’ve seen the pages from early readers with Dick and Jane. I don’t really recall who were the stars when I started First Grade, but JoAnne remembers, quite well, who were the main characters of her readers. Tom and Betty. And their little sister Susan and their dog Flip. When Mother would ask JoAnne if she would like to be paid a quarter to do some vacuuming, JoAnne would gladly agree. She would go to the closet where the Electrolux, and all its parts, were stored. And as she got them out and assembled, she would say things like, “Good morning, Tom. Glad to see you, Betty. Oh, Susan, be careful!” And so on. And the vacuum cleaner parts would be her friends, as she went from room to room, cleaning up. (Tom was the canister, Betty was the metal tube, and Susan was the flexible tube.)

Who knows what shenanigans went on when they were all scrubbing the tub!

This brings me to the baseboards. A while back, a few years ago, I guess, JoAnne and her family were visiting. As I walked by the bathroom, she came out, holding a cleaning rag. She said, “Oh. I hope you don’t mind. I cleaned the baseboards.”

“Of course I don’t mind. Were they really dirty?” “Well, a little.”

I’m blaming it on being older and not too spry, and, apparently, not seeing much. Way down there. Behind the door.

 

Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity . . .

Titus 2:7 (English Standard Version)

We all have our areas of strength, and we all have our areas of not-so-strong. For me, I could not have come from a better family. I’m hoping that at least some of it shows.

 

 

Yarn Yarns

| Faithfulness, Kindness, Patience

 

 

The living room, when the yarn first arrived.

The room where I emptied out *all* the large bags and worked to organize everything. It felt as though any nice yarn shop could have gone into business with the inventory that I had in my guest room.

I’ve mentioned before, a couple of times or so, the twenty large bags of my Mother-in-law’s yarn that David brought home after his sisters had cleaned out and organized the house after her death. There were 40 bags, but he couldn’t get them all in the car. He had packed the trunk and the car, up to the lower edges of the windows. At our house, they filled the living room.

Eventually, I moved it all into the guest room. I had consolidated all the yarns, finding the same colors and types of yarn and putting them into zip-locking bags, to make it easier for the folks in my knitting/crochet group to locate yarns they were interested in and being able to determine if there was enough for whatever project they were hoping to complete. They meet twice a month, and each time, I took three, four, or five bags

In October, I mentioned the yarn again, saying this: “Tuesday, I took three more big bags of very nice yarn (mostly cotton and wool, this time) to the Knitting and Crocheting group, thanks to David’s mom’s yarn-buying habit. I think one more trip might get them all into the hands of those crafty ladies.” Hah. Here it is, looking January in the face, and I still have yarn.

 

When Jeremy and Sarah came for Thanksgiving (and were scheduled to stay in the guest room), I moved everything to the only spare place I had: my car. Large, black bags of wools and wool blends, and large white bags of man-made materials (acrylics, nylons, that sort of thing) were stuffed into the trunk, filling it up completely, front to back, side to side. Using the two colors of bags helped the yarn workers know which bag they should be searching, to find the kinds of yarn they were interested in. Cottons went into the back seat. I felt like a mobile yarn store. The second Tuesday and the fourth Thursday of each month, I opened up the trunk, pulled out three or fours bags and toted them into our meeting spaces.

Many members of the group knit and/or crochet furiously, daily, to create items for helping agencies around town. Hats for the homeless in our area, shawls and lap-sized afghans for people in nursing homes and rehab facilities, warm “chemo” hats, for cancer patients going through chemotherapy, scarves for participants and families involved in Special Olympics, tiny hats for newborns in local hospitals, hats for young children who attend the therapeutic nursery in our town, and other things I don’t even know about.

People also choose yarns for gifts for family members, and for items they will create for themselves. Because the yarns my mother-in-law purchased are of better quality that those that might be available at Wal-Mart, the yarn-workers are able to make nicer items for themselves and their families. Several people choose skeins of 100% wool because they are learning felting techniques (which require wool), and wool is more costly than acrylic yarn.

There’s a senior adult lady who lives on a meager, fixed income. She makes things that she sells at a monthly craft fair, to earn a little extra. For a while, she’ll be able to keep all the money she gets, because she hasn’t had to buy yarn. And, some things will sell for a little higher price, because the yarn is a better quality than she can afford to buy.

One young member’s spouse is out of work. She has a part-time job, but it’s not enough. She’s furiously making items to sell at a regular craft fair in a nearby town. Free yarn for her work! It’s making a difference.

If, at the end of a yarn group meeting, there is any yarn left, the group’s leader will take it to a woman who is home-bound, on chemotherapy. She knits the yarn into items for a local abuse shelter. She makes toys, hats, blankets, and anything else the shelter needs.

At church, we put out devotional books a few times during the year. Different people are asked to contribute pieces, and they are printed up for us to have, and they are also posted online each day during the season, too. A couple of weeks before Christmas, I read one by a church member that I don’t know. At the end of each devotional piece, the writers are asked to write a one-or-two sentence biographical blurb. This writer said that her hobbies were “voracious reading and crochet.” CROCHET!!  After that week’s worship service, I asked a couple of people if they knew her. Nope. Then, as I was about to leave, one of those folks came and said, “That lady over there in the green flowered shirt. That’s her.” “Did you just go around, asking people if they knew who she was?” I asked him. “Yes,” he said, as though it was the most sensible way to solve the problem, which, of course, it was. I gave up too soon.

I went over and she said, “Gayle! I heard you were looking for me.” I said, yes, that I had read her devotional, and I saw she liked to crochet. She said, yes, and I said, “I have yarn.” I explained the whole mother-in-law thing, and she said she’d love to come over and look at it, and I said, “Oh, no. It’s in my car.” She looked skeptical, as though Who would drive around with very much yarn in their car. I said, “My trunk is full of wool and acrylics and the back seat is full of cotton.” We went straight out to the parking lot to the car.

She was delighted. As she burrowed through it all, she turned to a friend who was with me (we were on our way to my house to make Christmas cookies). She said to my friend, “Do you do needlework? Don’t you want some of this?” “Oh,” said my friend. “I was the first one who got to go through it. I took home four tote bags full of yarn.”

I talked to my sister last week. Thursday, I sent off two large envelopes of yarn to Seattle. She’s not going to knit it, but my brother-in-law is. And my niece.

 

And now, there are two bagsfull still in the trunk, and two handle bags full of the cotton yarn, transferred from the back seat. There’s also a box of yarns that have been partially used and have no label, so knitters might struggle to know the exact size and weight of the yarn, the fiber content, and the care instructions. But they might be great for practicing new stitches, designs, and ideas.

 

 

Another trip or two to knitting/crochet group, and I should be yarn-free. I did keep a couple of things for myself, but, really, I already had some yarn.

 

 

 

She keeps herself busy making wool and linen cloth.

Proverbs 31:13 (Good News Translation)

   

and with her own hands she gladly makes clothes.

Proverbs 31:13 (Contemporary English Version)

 

She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands.

Proverbs 31:13 (New Revised Standard Version)

 

She searches out continually to possess that which is pure and righteous.
    She delights in the work of her hands

Proverbs 31:13 (The Passion Translation)

  

She shops around for the best yarns and cottons, and enjoys knitting and sewing.

Proverbs 31:13 (The Message)

I usually compare different translations, which have the same content, but I like to see what the different word choices are as I choose. I have to admit, I do like The Message’s translation best.