I don’t think I’ve started with a Bible verse and sometimes I have had to seek and search to match where I hoped I was going. I have always liked Job where God is reminding Job that He (God) takes care of the details that make a difference. “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place……… It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment.” This seemed to fit some ideas I mulled over on having definition.

We usually think of definition as a word by what it means providing clarity or specificity. Demure is feminine word and stalwart leans toward masculine, though not necessarily, Our son sent a customer to an expert for an opinion. When the report back was made, the comment on the information was good, but the customer felt the deliverer was taciturn. My son said, “Yes, he is not loquacious.” Definitely a man of few words.

I am having to make a change in a beneficiary IRA I inherited. Only 7 years have passed to get to this point. At this final step, I needed help with the 21 pages that defined what I wanted to do. It wasn’t just words that slowed the process. It was the meaning of whole sentences. Helper number 1 transferred my call to a “document expert.” Page by page I defined each line with a X or a check in pencil as a guide to filling in. I just got a phone call that all was accepted to this point and we could move forward.

My favorite to notice are the definitions that catch the eye by changing the shape. Teenage girls arch eyebrows with a dark pencil. Block letters assume a 3-D appearance with shading giving depth to the various parts of that letter. I’ve reacted in fright in a semi-dark room because a chair with a shirt over its back was defined in my mind as a goblin coming to get me.

Welcome the winter dawn as it defines the day at 7:38 a.m. where I am now. The paper is clearly seen on the grass. Gently the light defines the curb bending to the street and sunlight moves toward a brightness appropriate for the season. The day once again finds its place, becomes what it is defined to be, and we had nothing to do with the happening.

“Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, ……. It is changed like clay under the seal, and it is dyed like a garment.”

Job 38:12

No, not Shakespeare, rather Sir Walter Scott in 1808 who wrote “What a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive.” Those who know this line assume that to instigate or be involved in a web can lead to harm or entrapment. For a spider, this may be its primary purpose.

Yet, go beyond face value. Some background facts. The alternate name of cobwebs comes from an archaic word “coppe” which meant spider. At least four types of webs exist depending on the family that weaves them: orb, funnel, tubular and sheet. The orb web size depends on how large the spider is because it has to take a free leap from one line to the next nearest to create cross lines. Sheet webs are those messy tangles that encase crepe myrtle trees and are cleaned off with a strong hose spray. Web strands or spiders are used by humans to test drugs, to be cross hairs in telescopes, or to give a tremor to the music in an African cow horn.

Most importantly, web strength defies its nebulous appearance. Some research states it is stronger than steel even though other studies deny this. If you’ve ever run under a web by accident, though, pulling loose does take perseverance and effort. So, think positively and consider the webs we weave to support our life journeys. They do vary by who we are. Mine are a mixture of family, students, church, gardening, sewing, with friends being crosslines between various strands. Each line leads us to a special time, activity, or relationship. I’m noticing that some do get snapped by wind or life changes. They may dangle a bit and leave us hanging on to whatever is left.

So my web is dwindling, a little ragged around the edges. Some treasured activities have been lessened by age or strength, and the support of some friends has been clipped by the completion of their journey. Middle son and I watched the celebration of the end of a 63 year special connection this afternoon. The togetherness was there from marriages to children to trips to not as young as we were.

Not really a web, yet a reminder of a thread still holding on is a poem ” The Threads in My Hand” by Howard Thurman. This is the ending of a litany that identifies life threads: “One thread is a strange thread – it is my steadying thread/ God’s hands hold the other end.”

I will be your God throughout your lifetime— until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.

Isaiah 46:4

You faithful few are less than 100 and I know who you are. My subjects vary from quirky ideas to maybe a stop and consider moment ,and I don’t know who reads and who just shakes a head and moves on. This morning I couldn’t just choose an idea and go forward. Headlines screamed about two daily major wars in the world that are more than just fodder for future history books.

WWII was my active war if that is the correct way to define it. I was 4 – 9 years old and knew specifics in a pre-television days from American heroes war movies. None of my family was actively involved and praying at church for families we knew was my involvement. That distance from the action continued through my life. My husband never left stateside after officer training school for the Korean conflict. Our boys were a miss draft generation. My first involvement for a feeling of this is real was teaching middle school the morning of 9/11. We sat a group of 6th and 7th graders in the hall, told them they could go home when their parents came, and sat with them as they were checked out.

Even after that moment, I have been spared the tension of daily waiting news from family or closest friends. Only small happenings bushed against me. One of my co-teachers told of singing hymns as he made his way up hillsides in Vietnam. I held hands with a friend who had two sons who each went back for second tours. My feelings, sadly, about wars were more we’ve made a political mistake than a death and defending relationship. In the last two weeks, our church had an in house interview with David French where he mostly focused on living in peace with those who differ from our ideas. He spoke of volunteering to Afghanistan when he was 37 because of patriotic feelings. I came to a full stop and paid attention when he spoke of riding in on a helicopter, and he said, “I was scared! It’s all an adventure until we are there.!”

Go back to paragraph one. My life is safe and predictable on Swift Blvd., yet the world is shrinking and danger is not far away or slow to arrive. I have lived with the results of the Ukraine and Russia because I have people whose names I know in Moldova who are taking in or trying to send help to neighbors across a border. Then Saturday a full scale war began between Israel and Hamas. The result of my culture and spiritual choice coupled with unbelievable horror have almost created the feeling that Israel is my country, or should be, yet that is not the whole story that brought retaliation to this point. I have no concluding sentence that comforts me or justifies your adding my angst to the sunshine of your day. I reach out to the same source that made me want to choose sides, hoping these words will help direct me to a standing place in what seems like on-going conflict.

And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet.Matthew 24:6-7

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” Matthew 5:9

At 5:37 Tuesday morning the outdoor thermometer registered 81 degrees on October 3. I planned on this blog being Not Yet! as I wrote about October, one of my favorite months. Fifth grade girls like to write out the name, put a stem in the top of the capital O, and if I didn’t rush them about heading their paper, they could either draw a pumpkin face or color the that first letter an iconic orange. The post office worker had told my middle son that the weather would change on the 15. I just took her word as the seer of the month 12 more days down the calendar.

A cup of coffee and half a banana later, I went out to pull the black garbage can to the curb for noon pickup. I had to move through water in the air enough to have a damp bathrobe: It was a baby rain…that four letter word for moisture from the sky. YET had arrived. Twelve hours later the temperature is 75 and my front yard has muddy spots. Fall is on the way: rain, temperature, and leaves.

I’m a June baby, yet October at heart. From the first it was colors: oranges, yellows, deep reds. They brighten a landscape and create vistas worthy of a bucket list trip. Even when leaves turn brown and fall, a sonorous element is added to the landscape that is missing in green meadows. A change from the summer heat can come in dramatically. I stand on my porch in short sleeves watching a darkening northern sky with clouds rolling toward me. The first blue norther of the year raises goose bumps as I step inside and close the door. Hope of a change is in the offering. I share celebration time in October. I like the individuality of various plump pumpkins and shocks of corn to remind me of harvests. Children sprinkle laughter as they move from house to house in costumes from those that required monetary outlay to the ones from a bedsheet. Our family welcomed a baby girl to our family on an October morning and two weddings added other members some years later.

Houston can count on summer. A few perfect days make spring and a snow or freeze in a lifetime define winter, YET October offers us the opportunity to remember the promise to Noah.

As long as then earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and hear, summer and winter, day and night will not cease

Genesis 8:22

I scan headlines and the education articles I read. Mostly everyone believes in education. It’s at what and how that we start to diversify. Wouldn’t it be perfect to look into non-focused eyes of a new born and say, ” For your calling in life you will need Astrophysics, Advanced math courses, 2 semesters of Chinese history, and a smattering of ethics to balance certain situations.” Hopefully, he or she would also be enough of a self-starter to regroup if needs changed along the way.

This is my op-ed piece. You are not required to agree, just to note the opinion of one who gave her life to the noun education, to the verb educate, and to the adjective that defines a person in a positive way: educated. At the lowest level could be reading – even if just knowing what the sign on a door says; writing – filling out a form for a job; and arithmetic – interest costs more money. Beyond that and the web of knowledge varies. Don’t test me on technology.

I went back to reread daily journals from 1998 and these two quoted paragraphs led me to put these thoughts out there. August 17: “Education – the start of school today. I have good memories of classes – those given to me and those where I was the teacher. So many in the world have passed the same four walls and never have taken mind expanding activities outside that space. Help me teach what learning is!” August 27: “Yesterday was a tangled garden hose at school. The rain didn’t help. Does what we teach make for a difference or just how we teach? If we create a desire for knowledge and ways to get it, does that help more than specific facts. All education is foundation and exposure.”

Spread out what is life knowledge for you. My three dictums each year were these. Everything you know is a hook for for something else. Be alert how or where to learn something new. New knowledge takes time and effort. Stick with it until you can shout, “EUREKA! I FOUND IT!”

One blessing of good knowledge is that wisdom preserves the life of those who have it.

Ecclesiastes 7:12b

Everyone has a little art in their soul. We just usually count painting , drawing, sculpture and even those only if the skill can be a source of income. Around the edges are a well-set table, a blooming flower bed, a highly polished piece of wood, or a poem added to a lunch sack. Mine is pieces of fabric and a needle. Like many talents, it developed slowly. My mother had a sewing machine, but creating for her was a tension filled process. She insisted I take a Home Ec course and we made an apron. That opened up a vision of other possibilities. Patterns were cheap and printed flower sacks were free. I could see what the final product would be and the world was mine

I’ve told of getting a Singer Portable for a high school graduation and my daddy teaching me how to take it apart and put it back together. Til age forty I did clothes for me, my mother, three children, and shirts for David in an upstairs addition Sarah called, “Mommy’s play room.” A friend and I have a long history of going to The Quilt Show to walk amazed among the presentations and a new longing was born. I took a class, bought a book, (a good step for any new task) and have never looked back. I am a piecer and not a quilter. The names are enticing. Monkey Wrench, Sunbonnet Girl/Boy, Dutch Chain, Snail’s Path, Buttterflies, and Flying Geese. Browns, yellows oranges, greens, and a smattering of reds. No pinks! I have made over 70 baby floor quilts with appliqué and name for friends and relatives, several are used in the next generation. I do straight lines, triangles, and parallelograms. Arc and circles are off my list. The most fun was making “like and equal are not the same” quilts for twins with the same shape put together as Tumbling Blocks and LeMoyne Star.

Validation of the use of time wisely is always gladly accepted. The Home Sewing Association has research saying that sewing lowers blood pressure , heart rate, and reduces stress. I just know that finishing a last seam, clipping the threads, and holding up the final product brings a smile and a sigh of success. I have at least two more projects on my want to do list that will involve wandering in JoAnne’s and feeling fabric, matching colors, cutting strips, and a seam at a time building a new creation. The name is Between Friends. Besides, this is one of those attributes that makes me worth more than a handful of rubies.

She makes coverings for her bed;
    she is clothed in fine linen and purple

Proverbs 31:22

The Challenge. I was eight years old. We were staying at the farm of my stepmother’s parents and my brother, age 9, and I were turned loose to free range. Exploring was fun until we got to a small ravine with a balance log the only option for crossing. My brother skipped across and looked back with a sneaky smile. He knew my one foot in front of another skill wasn’t the best. When I tentatively put out one foot to take the challenge, he reached out to jiggle the log. A screamed, “NO!” was his reward. Several false dubious starts and some final promises to keep hands off and I did reach the other side. We took the long circle back home.

Decades later and I was part of a field trip to camp out with 8th graders. Avoid those situations whenever possible. The challenge for the day was to rappel down a cliff and take a glide rope to reach the other side of a stream. I watched and cheered on and then it was my turn. Motto: Never show fear! I trusted the camp guide who told me the procedure. “Just the first step is a doozy!” And it was!. I was safe but leaning backwards and he could do nothing until I righted myself. Amazingly, once I got the rhythm of push and swing, the process did work.

Fifty years past the log story. Once more with a nature time in Colorado. I was chosen over younger possible chaperones with the compliment, “You’re a survivor and will take care of the kids.” The morning run was white water rafting with the river in full spate after heavy spring rains. Four boys grabbed me for their raft. It turned out I didn’t have to paddle. My assignment was to sit in the middle seat and sway on command to help tilt as needed. I held on to the sides and closed my eyes as they whooped their way between rocks. Though it wasn’t part of the directions, they assumed forward motion was a competition. When we pulled up, they all helped me out and I was part of the grand finale back thumping.

OK, so why these made it through unscathed stories. I need them for now for some months ahead and at sometime you may need your own personal remembrances of a time in the past that gives strength to the present moment. We avoid stress when we can, yet as Robert Frost said,  “The only way out is through/” And the only good way through is together. ” A brother who finally helped, a guide to hold the rope, and a gaggle of boys who welcomed me to their group. At every stage, we are given what we need for that time.

Even children become tired and need to rest, and young people trip and fall. But the people who trust the LORD will become strong again. They will rise up as an eagle in the sky; they will run and not need rest; they will walk and not become tired.

Isaiah 40:30 – 31 NCV

So what tied you to Monday, September 4, 2023? Yes, it was a national holiday. That designation made it effect banks, the post office, and publication of The Wall Street Journal. In 1885, the first stirrings were for a time to affirm those who held day labor jobs like steel workers and auto assembly lines. Now, and maybe I am the only one who feels this way, it is a required holiday to make whatever you wish. Mainly, a long week-end to mark the end of summer routine. This year for me, Monday past was a time to write this blog and prepare for a week ahead.

Most of my recollections of Labor Day have to do with food and firecrackers. For some reason gathering to eat seems almost like a command. The group could be a simple as the twelve families around our block in Hammond putting up tables on the vacant lot where we played volleyball. The menu was chicken and potato salad ( brought out at the last minute so mayonnaise didn’t spoil in the heat) and the aunt from Lafayette brewing homemade rootbeer. Some years the last dinner on the grounds for church was a trip to Mandeville to eat by the lake and have another dip in water. Later some of you who read met at Live Oak Ranch and dragged lawn chairs to the fence to watch teenagers in short pants and boots shoot up firecrackers to appreciative “Uooos!” – however spelled.

One year will never be repeated. September 3, 1961, Hurricane Carla struck Houston. I had a new job in Spring Branch. In addition to usual hurricane problems of flooding and tree limbs and and house damaging, Spring Branch lost water for two weeks. The area of my school had wells instead of a piping systems. I saw a group of new children on a Friday and not again for two weeks. As I remember, by May we had read and written what we needed to and in the world today are some seventy-two year olds who have managed with a mangled education.

For this year, this Monday was a regrouping time. I will have one of my friends of 60 years come in from Colorado for a three day visit. Our children grew up together as a group of six, so we in town and the daughter transporting her will have a together time on Wednesday. That requires a readjusting of my solitary routine for groceries and meal preparing. I’m also waiting to see if I need to go outside the city limit to pick up a just pieced quilt from the lady who makes it bed worthy. I’m thankful for a Labor Day to be a free moment for this time of the year. Each month has some day to call us to remember. This one is a gift to both value time to labor and to be free to make this day a time to sustain our needs for this moment.

Also at your times of rejoicing—your appointed festivals and New Moon feasts—you are to sound the trumpets over your burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, and they will be a memorial for you before your God. I am the LORD your God.”

Number 10:10

What have you survived? The flu epidemic. Harvey the hurricane. Covid for two years. Remember the summer of 2023? I have spent my life on the Gulf Coast. Many of the summers without AC, only an occilating fan. Yet the maybe 100 degrees didn’t hit until August and nights cooled off enough to sleep with only a sheet. I went into my research mode and supposedly 2011 had 46 days over 100 which topped what we think was offered this year. I just know my outdoor/indoor thermometer read 106 one afternoon for my back yard.

YET, it is an ill wind that blows no good. Usually along with hot summers in Houston comes humidity and maybe a few showers. Just enough moisture collects in low places to allow our summer infestation – mosquitoes. Newspaper headlines warn about checking on standing water and give information about times the city will have trucks out spraying. Diseases are a possibility. Not so much malaria; definitely West Nile Virus. With no rain, swatting during the few forays outside is at a minimum and nights are quieter without a buzzing that says, “You just think you are safe!”

However, in my house, fruit flies have filled the flying vacancy. In the grocery store bananas rest in piles with no black pin-sized dots swarming over them. After entering my back door the same appear by the hundreds. I wrap bananas in plastic bags. I place cups of vinegar nearby. That is the old wives’ tale recommendation. I tried one commercial offering I had bought my daughter. Finally a friend gave me ZEVO, a plug in sticky attractor that did help right near the banana bowl. A few still lurk in the area of my meditating chair and around the corner to my computer. One more identifier for the term summer season.

Each mention is designed to get our attention: heat, no rain or perhaps hurricanes, red, itchy bites, or black wiggles in front of our faces. Irritants, yes, and also a reminder that we need to pay attention to the time that like happenings were a reminder that an exodus from captivity was on the way. Even as I write, the high may be only 98. A change is in the air. September 23 starts Fall and summer will be behind us.

Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to the Lord, and the Lord did what Moses asked. The flies left Pharaoh and his officials and his people : not a fly remained.

Exodus 8: 30-31

Choose from among mine or create your own. I Need to Get Out More. It Takes a Village. Surprise Endings. So you already know that a certain age and a certain outdoor temperature can create a mind set. Do I really need whatever (and it’s usually ice cream for the freezer) to dress, back the car down my long driveway, and go to some gathering of stores? Also, if I am going for one item, what else needs to be added to make this trip worthwhile. This morning was such a day. I already had a required destination for a church meeting at 11:00, so the sorta list I had could be tacked on to the way there. I felt especially righteous because I spent an hour and a half on a current project – more about that later- before I cleaned up and headed out.

Major item was to buy sticky replacements for the improved plug in to capture fruit flies. I think the inventor was a relative of the same man who built a better mousetrap. I checked Amazon. I could order, yet for some reason they wouldn’t arrive until October 1. I ran a local store check and Target carried them and one of their stores was between here and there. I asked the first red shirt I saw which quadrant of the universe held my product. C-16. Way to the back and to the left. One more question because 16 was horizontal instead of vertical and I missed the seeing. While I had a helper, I asked about lightbulbs which were all the ways across the store to another far corner. I had brought the dead bulb with me. It had lighted my closet for almost 10 years and the curlicue shape had gone out of style. Since most men don’t mind being helpful to white haired ladies, I asked a fellow shopper what was the best thing to do. He had lived out of the country for 6 years and really wasn’t sure. We combined our ignorance and made a choice. I checked out at the DIY line because someone in an electric chair insisted I go ahead of her. She then offered directions about scanning and entering my phone number to get credit for future purchases. The Village Gathered!

Now all I had to do was wend my way to church, except I didn’t go back to the main artery. I soon discovered the way south was a back and forth confusion of blockage and rerouting in order to lay new sewer pipes. I thought I was closer to a solution when a noisy machine and an orange DETOUR sign with arrow appeared next to a deep open ditch. Last time I drove this neighborhood, none of this construction was happening. How long ago was that?

Finally I could turn left on Richmond, a street of choice. I was right by a post office and I did have a letter to mail that wasn’t really on the list. Once inside, I thought of stamps I needed to buy. If you get a letter with flowers or endangered species you know what I went through to make that happen. That stop was the surprise wrap up to this morning adventure. More help, guidance, and blessing may have been in the mix than I noticed.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.

Psalm 32:8