Time to Be

Sometimes days pass so quickly, as if with the blink of an eye. Hours fly and minutes evaporate.  Adventure! Excitement! Everything BUZZES.

Time can also take its time, with precise, graceful, careful passing to create a sense of connection and, dare I say, peace.

Earlier this evening I sat on the couch with a delicious southerly breeze blowing off the lake right into our living room. The oak leaves outside fluttered like luffing hunter-green sails, while a delicate ruby-throated hummingbird flitted between red and pink begonias on the deck.

I was consciously recuperating from yesterday, a day full of activity and auditory challenges.  A 13-year-old guest tried tubing behind the boat for the first time in her life, and quickly graduated to the kneeboard and then the wakeboard!  Hurry, hurry, hurry in order to try it ALL!!  Two squealing babies toddled around the deck while two 3-year-olds, a 7-year-old, and a 10-year-old added their own sideline commentaries.  The BUZZ!

More than 24-hours have passed, and it is almost bedtime.  I am grateful to be sitting on the couch again.  The night breeze is still blowing across the lake; my bare feet are propped on the old cherry chest we use as a coffee table; classical music plays in the background.  I don’t have any idea what time it is, but it doesn’t matter.  This is a timeless moment.  There will be enough time.  I can just BE.

More or Less is All?

Less is more; more is less.  Some is a certain one (according to Old English roots). Enough is also enough. And all is a mindset…more or less.

:-)

Metamorphosis

So many things in life seem static – collectively we call these the “status quo” – but actually nothing stays the same.  A day, a second…a look, a word…a hair, a drop of blood…leaf blowing in the wind, a wave on the lake…a waning moon, a sunrise…all are momentary. The blade of grass today is shorter than it will be tomorrow.  Next winter it will die, weaken, break, and wait expectantly for a new one to rise through the earth in new life. 

This morning I met with a group of dear friends who studied Isaiah with me this past year.  I am not the same this evening, but rather have been enlarged and encouraged because of my contact with them.

Every day blood cells die, and new ones form.  Every day hours tick by, and the clock repeats itself. Every day my heart shrinks in human weakness, and expands with divine love and mercy.  This is a mystery, and yet evidence of a divine status quo, an eternity of which we are a part, even now.

Dirt Cake

This evening I’m baking a cake.  It will be safely stored in the freezer until Sunday, at which time it will emerge to become an exquisite Dirt Cake: voila!

That’s correct, Dirt Cake. D-I-R-T cake.  When decorated, it will appear to be very dirty – sort of like a miniature garden plot waiting to be tilled in the spring.  On the top of the cake, picture slithery worms crawling out of rock piles and loose dirt.  The grandkids love this 4^th of July tradition!

Here’s the secret.  First I bake a 9x13” chocolate cake, and then I smear it with chocolate buttercream frosting.  The grandkids help sprinkle on crushed oreo crumbs (dirt) and form rock piles (chocolate covered cashews) – and THEN they stick red and green gummy worms here and there as if they’re crawling in and out of the cake!!! 

Mmmmmmmm.  Delicious!  Usually we also make homemade peppermint ice cream to accompany the Dirt Cake and thus a classic chocolate-mint treat (with neon gummy worms for garnish).  A fun way to celebrate a summer evening that hopefully will also create lasting memories. 

Big Dipper Dots

This evening my hubby and I relaxed at our hexagonal picnic table on our lakeside deck.  There were no boats on the lake, so it was very quiet and peaceful when he said, “What’s that on your leg?”

I was sprawled next to him on the bench in jean shorts with one leg cris-crossed over the other as he sat next to me. “What?”

“Those dots.”

“What dots?” My reverie had been broken, and I wasn’t sure why.

He poked my leg as if to document them.  “Right here.  And there.”

“I don’t feel anything.  Is it a rash?”

“No.”

“Well, what IS it, then?”

“I guess they’re just little moles,” he said with continued scrutiny.  “Right there.  And there.  And in a row, there.”

“And so?”

“I just didn’t know what they were doing, making a pattern like that.”

“A pattern like WHAT?”

“Well, they look like…”

“Like WHAT?”

“Like the Big Dipper. With the ladle here…”  He poked four times.

“Oh sure.”

“And the handle here…” He poked three more times.

“Nice.”

Meanwhile the leaves of the giant oak shimmered above me with sunlight reflected from the lake.   They seemed to laugh playfully from their lofty position – a challenge to focus on life through childlike eyes.

 

Song Lyrics

Lead Me to the Cross

Savior I come

Quiet my soul remember

Redemption's hill

Where Your blood was spilled

For my ransom

Everything I once held dear

I count it all as loss

[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/h/hillsong_united/lead_me_to_the_cross.html ]

Chorus:

Lead me to the cross

Where Your love poured out

Bring me to my knees

Lord I lay me down

Rid me of myself

I belong to You

Oh Lead me, lead me to the cross

You were as I

Tempted and tried

Human

The word became flesh

Bore my sin and death

Now you're risen

Everything I once held dear

I count it all as loss

Chorus

Bridge:

To your heart

To your heart

Lead me to your heart

Lead me to your heart

Sacrifice of Praise, Holy Determination, Joyful Rejoicing

“Though the fig tree does not bud, and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in my Savior.  The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights. (For the director of music, on my stringed instruments.)” 

- Habakkuk 3:17-19 NIV

The previous scripture verse upholds joyful rejoicing in a Lord who enables light feet to rise above dark valleys.  With a similar theme, A.B. Simpson (1843-1919) discusses the sacrifice of praise and holy determination that shapes such rejoicing:

“The secret of joy is not to wait until you feel happy, but to rise, by an act of faith, out of the depression which is dragging you down, and begin to praise God as an act of choice. This is the meaning of such passages as these: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice’; ‘I do rejoice; yes, and I will rejoice.’ ‘Count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.’ In all these cases there is an evident struggle with sadness and then the triumphs of faith and praise.

“Now, this is what is meant—in part, at least—by the sacrifice of praise. A sacrifice is that which costs us something. And when a man or woman has some cherished grudge or wrong and is harboring it, nursing it, dwelling on it, rolling it as a sweet morsel under the tongue, and quite determined to enjoy a miserable time in selfish morbidness and grumbling, it costs us no little sacrifice to throw off the morbid spell, to refuse the suggestions of injury, neglect and the remembrance of unkindness, to rise out of the mood of self-commiseration in wholesome and holy determination, and say, ‘I will rejoice in the Lord’; I will ‘count it all joy.’"  - Rev. A.B. Simpson

A Way to Live

Meditative prayer - short, meaningful, repetitive phrases that seep into the soul and body and replay automatically – is a form of spiritual meditation that permeates the whole person.

For example, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and some other Christian disciplines, recognize the Jesus Prayer, and/or various forms of it, as a meditative prayer:

“Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

A shortened version could be, “Lord, have mercy” (Kyrie eleison), or “Have mercy on me/us,” or even “Jesus.”  In any case, Jesus’ name is the essential.

Theophan the Recluse was a 19^th century spiritual writer who pin-pointed three stages of meditative prayer:

1.     Oral prayer – Simple, spoken, external recitation.

2.     Focused prayer – Reciting words in a focused way as if they are our own.

3.     Heart prayer – The prayer becomes who we are rather than something we do.

In the deepest expression of meditative prayer, the body utters, the mind repeats, the heart unifies and integrates.  It becomes a lifestyle.  The prayer remains a constant, like background music, but without interfering with usual everyday activities.

Shortcake

Today I’m following-up on blog topics for June 4^th (gluten-free baking) and 16^th  (fresh strawberries) with a report on a spectacular dessert: strawberry shortcake!

It goes without saying that this isn’t my usual strawberry shortcake, but I’ll spell out the differences anyway.  First of all, the biscuit was made of sorghum and tapioca flours instead of good old glutinous white flour.  Secondly, the berries – perfect in their own right and freshly picked just hours before eating - were sweetened with stevia (an extract from an herb with many nutritional benefits) instead of good old refined sugar.  Thirdly, the whipped cream…well…instead of being good old fresh-whipped heavy cream as per usual, I confess that it’s just regular American-canned-squirt-style (zzzz-fuuffffff) with added high fructose corn syrup (*gasp*) and nitrous oxide as a propellant (*gasp*) that was purchased from the gas station down the road.

Gotta love that nitrous oxide.  It’s just delicious.  :-)

The Sunflower

I just finished reading The Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal.

Simon was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp where he suffered and witnessed incomprehensible horrors.  One day he was chosen from his work detail to visit Karl, an injured and dying member of the SS, whose conscience was stricken by his injustices toward Jews.  As a young boy, Karl had closely associated with his local priest who thought he should continue to study theology.  Then Hitler Youth came along and severed his ties with the Church. He had accomplished strict obedience to the Fuhrer (and his own pride and ambition) rather than God, and now lay tormented on his deathbed.

Karl whispered the details of his crimes against Jewish humanity for several hours through wound-soaked facial bandages.  Finally he verbally repented of his evil deeds and sought forgiveness from Simon, whom he saw as a representative of all oppressed Jews.  Simon was unable to give it and instead, walked away. Later Simon wondered if he had done the right thing.  He ends his story by asking the reader, “What would you have done?”

I am now reading a long appendix - over 50 responses from various theologians, writers, psychiatrists, political leaders, other Holocost survivors, and victims of attempted genocide in Bosia, Cambodia, China, and Tibet. They all attempt to answer Simon’s question. The book’s back cover suggests this to its readers:  “The Sunflower will challenge you to define your beliefs about justice, compassion, and human responsibility.” 

In a personal sense, it is also inviting me to reconsider the end of our study of Isaiah in BSF just a few weeks ago.  I’m mulling over the difference between contrition, or repentance out of love for God, and attrition, or repentance out of fear of punishment from Him.  What motivates any of us to turn from mistakes and wrongdoings – love (from God and for God), or fear (of consequential pain and even Hell)?

Contrition.  Deeply felt remorse and sorrow rising out of a pure love for God. Regret for having offended Him (remembering that we all fall short of His glory no matter how we see ourselves).  Resolve to seek Him anew, receive His mercy, and with His strength, to change and become who He created us to be.

“This is the one I esteem:

He who is humble and contrite in spirit,

And trembles at my word.”  Isaiah 66:2

Green and Corny

Today was a very green and corny day in the kitchen. 

I realize the explanation could mean any number of things, depending on the interpretation.  So to clarify…I’m not saying my cooking was inexperienced (green) and funny (corny).   Rather, I’m referring to the kitchen activity of the day being defined by green veggies and corn – you know, the grain.

This afternoon I made cucumber salad, green lemonade, and turnip greens with ham hock.  (The green part.) I also baked corn chips and gluten-free cornmeal muffins. (The corn part).  At various times my counter-top seemed a lovely display of color and texture.  Here are a few pictures to document some of the activity:

Pop

It’s Father’s Day, and I’m thinking about my dad – not in the usual sense of remembered events or experiences from childhood, but rather our last visit.

It was a Sunday in the spring of 1991.  I woke earlier than usual and decided to make a quick trip to the nursing home where Pop had recently relocated.  It was in a rural location, only ten minutes away, so I could visit with him for half and hour or so and still return in time for Sunday School and church with my family.  This decision was atypical, however, since I usually visited him on weekday evenings.

When I entered his quiet room, he lay still in the bed – a marble statue with flyaway white hair.  His eyes seemed unusually clear and bright, however.  He was obviously glad to see me, but in typical fashion had little to say.  Instead, he perched his hand on the top of the tube-like side railing of his bed, inviting me to hold it.

This was a first.  He had never been an emotionally expressive sort, and I didn’t remember him ever initiating such a gesture - EVER.  I slipped my warm hand into his cool one, and was surprised at how naturally and easily they fit. 

Every once in a while he opened his eyes and looked up as if to make sure the rest of me was still connected to my hand.  Otherwise, we just held hands. The mechanical clock on the wall ticked along until finally it was time for me to leave.

“I’ve got to go, Pop.  I’ll be back Tuesday, okay?”

He turned his head sideways and looked at me with a softer version of the old intense furrowed-brow-look I knew so well.  He tightened his grip just slightly, but enough for me to notice, then nodded his head before turning it back to its original position to stare at the ceiling.  Our fingers released.  I placed his limp hand on his chest, and began walking toward the door.  When I was almost there, he called out.

“Little Sis!”  This was what he called me when I was a little girl.  His voice sounded strong – as if he were a younger man again, calling to his little daughter.

I stopped with my hand on the knob. “Yes?”

He was looking my way again. “Be good, and be careful.”  Although a man of few words, he’d said this when I’d gone out on dates as a teenager, or when I’d left home for college.  It was comfortable for him to say and for me to hear – a link to an earlier time that was specific to the two of us.

“Ok, Pop.”

As I stepped out into the hallway, something was different. I knew I’d just had a one-of-a-kind encounter.

The day progressed as usual with Sunday School, church, lunch, and the Sunday afternoon naps and activities typical to our four children.  Toward evening the phone rang.  It was a woman from the nursing home.  I was playing in the front yard with the kids when my husband came out to tell me the news.  Pop had just died.

Whenever I think of him now, I remember our last visit with its unusual clarity, openness, and candid intimacy…..our final good-bye.

Smelling the Sun

It’s a beautiful, summery Saturday afternoon here at the lake. As Mama and Papa Mallard busily preen themselves on the pier, humidity hangs like a thick, earthborn blanket of fog.  Whining boats haul squealing tubers around the lake.  The ice cream truck tinkles its tunes on the road to lure patrons to buy overpriced, FUN-tastic frozen treats.

I spent the last hour heaving a hoe around, sweating like crazy, weeding my new, low-budget landscape project.  Finally I stopped to take a break in the air conditioning, and so am currently reclining on the couch with my feet up on the old chest we use as a coffee table and a tall glass of icy mint sun-tea next to my right hand.

But all of the above is just a lengthy introduction.  I’m here at the blog in this moment of R&R to bear witness to an unexpected diversion that seems more than incidental.  Let me tell you…

I come inside from weeding, and for about five seconds I hug my worker-bee-hubby – ummmmmm-mum! – who has also been puttering outside with lawn projects. The shoulder of his cotton t-shirt smells like sunshine – the odor literally engulfs me – and I’m thrown back in time.  It’s the old hang-the-laundry-on-the-clothesline kind of sunshine–smell I grew up with as a kid at the lake. 

Everything rewinds in that moment until I literally feel like a sweaty little child in my dirty flip-flops and short-shorts.  I close my eyes and imagine my mother driving us into town with two wicker baskets piled high with crumpled dirty laundry.

Then I’m walking into the steamy laundromat and punching a quarter per load in the machines - hauling our heavy baskets full of wet things back out to the car - driving home with the windows down - hanging the clean laundry outside on the clothesline with wooden pins - and finally burying my face in the baskets full of sunshine-scented clothes. Our bed sheets, towels, and clothes always smelled like the sun in those days. Divine!

It’s comforting somehow when things like this happen - when some seemingly small event links the current moment to some other time and place so they intersect in a mystical but very real way.

At the risk of sounding philosophical, I can’t help but wonder if overlapping experiences (ones that seem to touch some inner core) are actually a foretaste of heavenly reality?  If so, they are more than just simple déjà vu – they suggest that earthly time and space are part of a bigger dimension where all of life finally connects and fits together: Paradise.

Auditory Marathon

Today I needed to conduct some personal business by telephone.  This business involved changing a couple of medical appointments, researching a new healthcare provider’s affiliations to learn if it is in-network with our insurance, and requesting several recent medical films and records be sent to me so I can take them with me to the new provider at my next appointment.  The process took almost two hours total with multiple phone calls during which I was repeatedly put on hold with raucous music blaring in my ear (pure pain when you have tinnitus).

I am not bitter because of the many menu options I mis-selected.  Nor am I angry about the repeated calls that sent me back-and-forth, back-and-forth, necessitating that I speak with different service people each time I return-called with new information, requiring me to start at square one and repeat myself over and over. Rather, I am astounded and mind-boggled by the long, drawn-out process of accomplishing relatively simple business, and the way this process compounds stress for the customer - especially one who is hearing impaired.

My head is now spinning and I feel like I’ve just run an auditory marathon.  Please, please, it is only just past noon but I don’t want to talk to anyone else for the rest of the day!   I feel like crawling into a cave where the whistling and screaming inside my head is all I can hear.  Believe me, it is enough.

Strawberry Nostalgia

At dinner this evening I indulged in strawberries similar to those my Granny used to grow in her patch in northwest Indiana.  These sun-ripened, red beauties came from a local farm just 15 minutes from us, and had been picked carefully by hand at exactly the optimal time, just like Granny’s! They were perfectly mature but not overripe - each one a lovely bit of crimson delight for both eye and palate.

I love the memories these strawberries evoked – memories of similar tantalizing berries piled high in Granny’s rectangular red-stained wooden boxes. I can still picture those boxes in my mind’s eye, icons of a hands-in-the-earth lifestyle that has almost disappeared.

Violinists

Today brought a variety of activities and focuses, including a violin concert in the living room.  Featured artists were:

+ our 10-year-old grandson, Caleb

+ his mom, our daughter Emily

+ a local friend, Jean, trained in concert violin (who, by the way, ranks on the charts in Great Britain as a vocalist!) 

Here they are playing a tune in three-part harmony – beautiful!

Fisher-Boys

Our visiting grandsons have SLAYED the fish the past two evenings!  Last night they cruised the lake in the fishing boat with Grampa and hauled in 19 nice-sized crappie.  They repeated the drill tonight, and caught another 11!  

As an aside, these two live in Fishers, Indiana, just north of Indy….the fisher-boys from Fishers!

Burned Spinach

Sometimes it’s not really the burned spinach that gets to you, but rather issues that accumulate BEFORE the smoky smell tells you something’s up.  And yet that one last silly thing, the burned spinach, makes you feel inept - like you’re the one that’s scorched. 

Then someone cares enough about your mistake at the stove (and maybe all the other mess-ups) to voluntarily scrub the blackened pan with the wire mesh thing until you can almost feel the scraping and rinsing deep down inside, like you’re the one that’s redeemed.

Wise Quotes from the Past

(A dictated message written by a scribe:)

“He said that it was a great delusion to think that the

times of prayer ought to differ from other times; that we are

as strictly obliged to adhere to God by action in the time of

action as by prayer in the season of prayer. That his view of

prayer was nothing else but a sense of the Presence of God,

his soul being at that time insensible to everything but

Divine Love; and that when the appointed times of prayer were

past, he found no difference, because he still continued with

God, praising and blessing Him with all his might, so that he

passed his life in continual joy; yet hoped that God would

give him somewhat to suffer when he should have grown

stronger.”

 - dictated by Brother Lawrence (1605-1691) for transcription

“Those who complain that they make no progress in the life

of prayer because they "cannot meditate" should examine, not

their capacity for meditation, but their capacity for

suffering and love. For there is a hard and costly element, a

deep seriousness, a crucial choice, in all genuine religion.”

 - Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941)

____________________________________

“For the first two or three years after my conversion, I

used to ask for specific things. Now I ask for God. Supposing

there is a tree full of fruits -— you will have to go and buy

or beg the fruits from the owner of the tree. Every day you

would have to go for one or two fruits. But if you can make

the tree your own property, then all the fruits will be your

own. In the same way, if God is your own, then all things in

Heaven and on earth will be your own, because He is your Father

and is everything to you; otherwise you will have to go and ask

like a beggar for certain things. When they are used up, you

will have to ask again. So ask not for gifts but for the Giver

of Gifts: not for life but for the Giver of Life -— then life and

the things needed for life will be added unto you.”

- Sadhu Sundar Singh (1889-1929)

_______________________________

Beautiful faces are they that wear

The light of a pleasant spirit there;

Beautiful hands are they that do

Deeds that are noble, good and true;

Beautiful feet are they that go

Swiftly to lighten another’s woe.

- McGuffey’s Second Reader

Banana Cream Pies

Last night I dreamed I’d been hired to bake 500 banana cream pies as preparation for a prestigious event.  It was a one-person job, or at least I was not aware of any helpers in the kitchen with me.  (I know – dreams are weird.)

Rolling the crusts was a marathon in itself, but then I pricked each one a hundred times all-over with a fork to keep air bubbles from forming.  Meanwhile, giant cauldrons of custard stood on the stove requiring constant stirring to avoid scalding – their fragrant steam billowed like giant clouds that threatened to suffocate me.  Boxes upon boxes of bananas had to be peeled and sliced into the baked shells, and then topped with custard that was poured with enormous, heavy, industrial-sized ladles. Then what about whipping so much meringue?  It climbed the sides of the bowl and tried to overflow again and again, or else I beat the egg whites until they were too dry and had to start over!  What about refrigerating all these pies so they could firm up?  How could I possibly manage a project of such overwhelming proportion?

There were countless obstacles and seeming dead ends.  I had a choice: to give up and quit, or else mentally fling aside my doubts, maintain my commitment, trust that others had accomplished such feats in the past, rely on supernatural guidance and strength, and plow ahead to meet my goal. 

I think those banana cream pies were trying to teach me a lesson; Hebrews 12:1-3 was on my mind when I woke.

A Date with My Plates

About four (or five?) years ago I did a quick-spiff-up on the living room while my unsuspecting husband was in Canada on a fishing trip.  I figured if he could spend “x” dollars to catch a few fish, I could splurge on a little paint – right?!  So I went to the hardware store, picked out two new colors, and got busy.

The walls had originally been textured with a trowel (THIS news should date the house for you!) and I just wasn’t happy with the results a paint roller afforded.  A wide brush was clumsy in my hand.  So I spent an entire week painting two coats WITH A TRIM BRUSH.

When finally finished, I decided to celebrate by being creative.  So I dressed up one wall with a hodge-podge of inherited antique plates with one common denominator: their patterns were all in brown tones. When I did some research online, I found the oldest piece dated to the early-to-mid 1800’s! 

After much configuring, I came up with a design I liked that took up almost one whole wall, which was awesome.  Beneath it, on a table behind the couch, I displayed an antique washbasin and bowl with similar brown pattern.   (Brown must have been the color of the era, or perhaps ceramic artisans just didn’t have lots of other colors to choose from.) A nice grouping!

Over the years there has been much speculation about the possibility of the pitcher being swiped onto the floor, or a plate being knocked off the wall.  Well, a few days ago the plate in the center at the very bottom met this very fate and smashed into shards too small to glue.

So yesterday I got busy, took down all the plates, patched and painted the 12 remaining holes, and then stripped two other walls of Purdue-related memorabilia and patched and painted THOSE holes (didn’t count, but there had to be close to 30 total Purdue plaques and etc.).  Once I was done there was nary a trace of ANY of those holes - pat-pat-on-the-back, nice job handy-woman!  Finally it was time for a new DATE with my PLATES! 

Hmmmm.  So I squinted my eyes and did the fuzz-brain thing for a while - layed them out in different configurations on the floor – measured spots on the wall - then pounded nails with tentative confidence. 

Today I’m getting used to the new look.  The effect is quite nice, much less cluttered with the Purdue stuff gone, and I’m not missing the broken plate so much now.  A larger grouping is comprised of three platters and four smaller plates – one platter matches the plate that broke.  Another wall displays three matching plates in a triangle.  And finally, my pride and joy – a large bowl with sparrow-looking brown birds sitting on brown twigs – stands alone by itself above a bookcase with no competition from the others.

Here's the pre-planning:

The pitcher on the piano with an eventual free-form grouping behind:

The platter that matches the broken plate:

Three tea-leaf plates on the wall behind the piano:

The "bird bowl":

P.S. to Thanks Marlene

Even as I posted this blog, a new email arrived from Marlene. “You are in my prayers today,” accompanied by a quote by Gary and Norma Smalley:  “Great faith is the confidence, even during a trial, that it will one day turn out to be to our benefit.  “Dinky” faith is complaining or “murmuring” during a trial that there will be no benefit."

Thanks, Marlene!

Thanks, Marlene

A couple of days ago I reminded myself of a canary momentarily loosed from her cage (in my case the cage was an extended ban on driving enforced by medical protocol).  After six weeks I was finally FREE to drive myself to a doctor appointment – if only because my driver was unavailable at the last minute.  Wooo hooo!

Before returning home I needed to stop and get some groceries.  I was FREE to flit through Meijer as I pleased for as long as I pleased, alone and without restrictions, (wooo hooo again!) and so decided to walk through the garden section, look at some flowers, and daydream of a future time when our yard might be beautifully landscaped and visually enticing.

Day lilies should go in a certain spot, some lavender and daisies in another, I thought.  Tall grasses could wave in the wind down by the lake.  Something cheery and bright might greet the mail carrier by the mailbox. Tentative plans formed in my mind as I walked back and forth, back and forth, around and around the displays of plants.

Meanwhile another unexpected destiny awaited me.  Her name was Marlene.

I’m not sure exactly what was said, or how we started visiting in the aisle with the miniature yellow daylilies, but Marlene initiated with the first comment. 

“I don’t need more flowers, but I can’t resist!”

Something clicked.  Right off the bat we were on a similar page talking about heaven (really?), natural therapies for health issues, faith in God, family, flowers and plants, and….peppermint.

Sweat collected beneath my bangs as the noon sun beat down. In the hot, humid environment Marlene was a cool breath of calm, serene, bright-eyed encouragement.

“Hold out your Kleenex,” she said as I continued to blow my nose and cough through garbled wheezes.  (I’d been fighting a respiratory infection for over a week.) She dabbed some peppermint oil on it.  “Now breathe it through your nose, and then inhale through your mouth.”

I did as suggested, and my convulsive cough eased.

“This is all I need to control my asthma,” she said, holding up a tiny bottle.  “Haven’t used an inhaler in years.  Here.  Take what’s left in here – it’s very concentrated stuff, not like what you buy at the drug store.  I have more at home.”

What?  Do people really meet in public and interact like this?  Share their time, their hearts, even their personal possessions?  Just a couple of hours earlier I’d been a hostage, trapped at home, unable to drive or connect independently with the outside world – and here I was, being ministered to in a deep and meaningful way by someone I didn’t even know.   Incredible.

We exchanged email addresses.  “Even if we don’t ever meet again, I’ll see you someday in heaven!” she exclaimed with a big smile.  Kairos.  Again.

Later in the day the cage door once again swung shut with the knowledge that I’m really not supposed to drive again until late October, if then.  And yet…the memory of the flowers, the hot sun, and Marlene’s cool breath of hope joined me there in the cage. That evening an email arrived: “Just wanted you to know you’re in my prayers – Marlene.”

At 4:00 a.m. when I woke with more coughing, I got out the peppermint, dabbed some on a Kleenex and breathed deeply.  The hack-hacking quieted right down.  In the morning I was greeted by another email.  “Would enjoy getting together sometime!”

Thanks, Marlene. See you in heaven…if not before.

The Last Word

Funny how we want to have the last word – the final say.  Funny how that last word is never THE last word. Funny how circumstances, calendars, or cohorts slap down the trump card.  Funny how, if they miss the cue, our fragile or aging physical bodies do the job.

Funny how, over time, the last word continues to tease us.  Funny how we think we can still have it!  Funny how we insist life is really all about our petty desires, even when experience and wisdom teaches us differently.  Funny how the Father doesn’t give up, but keeps on pursuing us. Funny how He oversees all of this from another higher dimension.

Funny how the last word shifts in our own minds until we get at least start to get it right.   Funny how life stops being so much about having or doing, and starts being more about being and believing.  Funny how the last word is…..faith.

Green Slime

It’s official.  The lake has been invaded….by GREEN SLIME!

I invite you to try a little imaginary exercise.  Picture the Little Mermaid’s long, silky hair.  Got it?  Know the way it flows in the water, sort of like cascading strands of silk? Now color it fluorescent avocado green.  Multiply it, and spread a blanket of it on the bottom of the lake.  Plop tangled clumps of it in patches on top of the lake.  Now stir isolated strands until they slink here and there throughout the lake, like indecisive vagrants that float here and there, unable to decide their final destination.    

It’s a little scary to see such rampant algae-like grown, not to mention the fact that it makes the lake less user-friendly.   When and how will it end, or WILL it end?

In my own mind, I feel fairly certain this problem has been imposed by human intervention – lawn fertilizers or….?  Our neighbor who has lived here for over 50 years has never seen anything like it.  As the days grow warmer, and the water temperature rises, the invading mermaid hair grows more and more vigorously - as if there’s been a massive spill of hair-growing formula in the lake.  (Surely some chemical is at fault?) I wonder about the effect on the fish and waterfowl?

There’s nothing we can do, at least right now, so I’m trying to make peace with the slime - the gooey, thick, slick, swamp-green slime.  Yuck. 

The Lakie-Baker

Yesterday began with…a cinnamon roll bake-off!  In fact, I whipped up a total of 23 large, aromatic, cinnamon-sugar-stuffed tempters in record time.  Never fear, these were not for me/us to eat.  Rather, four were a welcome-to-the-neighborhood gift for a new neighbor, and the rest marched right into the freezer.  They’ll help feed the hungry masses descending upon us during the family-pile-in around July 4^th. 

Also, the editor of our lake association newsletter recently asked me if I would be willing to submit a recipe for cinnamon rolls along with a little blurb about my experience as a bakery owner.  (It’s challenging to scrounge up local news around here; no doubt she was getting desperate.)  She also asked for a picture of me with some finished products (with the lake in the background), so of course I had to MAKE rolls first in order to take such a picture! 

Ta-da, here we are: rolls, lake, and The Lakie-Baker.  Hey, I sort of like that title.  If I were younger, I might open up another bakery and specialize in gluten-free goods.   Nice idea.  But I’m not younger.  So there’s no way I will EVER be a bakery owner again.  Nope.   The Lakie-Baker would rather float in an inner tube and play with grandkids than slave over a hot oven.  Makes total sense, doesn’t it?

In-or-Out-of-Tune?

Our adorable grandkids often like to play (or rather ‘play at’) their Grampa’s baby grand piano - actually a parlor grand, to be technically accurate.  Their techniques range from full-fisted pounding (ouch!) to non-practiced fingering, to something close to creative genius playing-by-ear – but in every case it is evident the piano keys are in tune with one another.

This is only because we hire a professional tuner to visit twice a year and “fine-tune” it. 

Yesterday as my mind entertained an analogy, I got to thinking about particular relationships and how in-or-out-of-tune they seem to be – not in the sense of individuals being perfect people (which we all know is impossible in every case), but rather in the sense of people relating in a satisfying rather than discordant way.  

What makes for an in-tune relationship, anyway?  One that is comfortable, dependable and, to use the piano analogy, harmonious? I think it has to do with several things (among others, I’m sure) that convey, “I care about you”:

1.     Active listening. An in-tune person asks questions and/or seeks input with wide-range antennae, listens with his/her heart, and gives totally undivided attention to catch all the details, nuances, and even body language. 

2.     Attentiveness. An in-tune person pays attention to others’ thoughts and circumstances, is pro-active in initiating, is sold out to relationship before issues, makes eye contact, stops what he/she is doing to pay attention to the other person, includes the other person in his/her schedule.

3.     Intimacy.  An in-tune person receives the other person without placing limits, comes alongside empathetically to shares in the life of his/her friend in a detailed way – the good, the bad, and the ugly…the celebrations, the defeats…the whole journey.  Nothing is too awkward, embarrassing, or condemning to address together.

It seems to me that it is so easy to become out-of-tune with each other (sour notes).  When this happens, we all lose.  Sadly, we may even stay out-of-tune for a while resulting in a cacophony of distortion.  Then we must submit to the Divine Tuner’s twist on our hearts to bring us back into tune with Him first, and then each other.