In the long range look, I still believe in survival.  Day by day takes focus and preparation. Maybe since I was five years old, I’ve never had time when the hours were so uncircumscribed.  I spent a week in a dark room when I had red measles, but I don’t remember its being traumatic. Old age has its benefits.  I supposedly am more likely to get the virus.  On the other hand, I don’t have to worry about children, both school and entertaining, or a vast amount of food on hand for a variety of people.

For today, I’d like us to “bunch up.”  That was a term when various grades I taught gathered around me on the floor.  Sometimes I read; we reviewed the day; we untangled a problem.  All considered it a time to be together.  First topic to face:   FEAR.  Each of us is thrown off balance by uncertainty. There is a difference between fear and hysteria. Lay out the worst and sort it into pieces.  Is there falsehood mixed in with facts. This very virtual contact is like holding a hand in the dark.

For me, number 2 is always OPTIONS. Nothing is wrong with making plan A or B or C.  What needs to be put in place to ease stress or lessen chance of disaster?  Everyone has to buy in to do what is necessary. I ate my last lunch out at a good friend’s house, but I will not go out to a restaurant.  (They are slowly closing anyway.) At the same time I plan survival for myself, I keep reminding myself that some do not have a lot of choices. If mortgage is a big budget item, can you still choose that over eating or paying the light bill? Do I need to help create an option for someone else?

Wiggle closer and remember to capture the BLESSING.  It may take a sideways look to find it.  All around are ideas of how to survive. Working from home is better than closing down the business.  Contact with children may be person to person and yield amazing results. Two closets will be cleaned and the yard kept in good shape.   Yet, the missing of daily contact creates a tug of longing. We cannot answer for others, yet we can give purpose to where we are. Joshua stands at the border of new land with only a promise to offer safety. It is enough.

“Be strong and of good courage; be not frightened, neither be dismayed; for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”  Joshua 1:9

Time for Robbie Burns, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men Gang aft a-gley. In modern terms, life can mess up in a minute.  It might be burned toast, or lost car keys, or you forgot daylight savings time. (For my part, I would like never to have to remember it) When upset occurs, we have to recoup, reorganize, and forge ahead as best as we can.

This week has seemed earthshaking.  First, the stock market dropped and paper loses occurred. Now the activity looks like real money gone away. Technology, which can help, in this case spread information and reaction with its available speed.  A virus leapt from country to country with the sequence of illness to quarantine to death to fear.

All of us cope in our way. Make a new budget, disinfect the counters, cry alone in a closet.  Group discussions seems to center around what has happened and who is doing what to make it better.  Others consider what needs to be done to hunker down safely.  Those push carts through the grocery checking shelves for what they might need. Rumors go out as truth and as quickly are pulled back as error.

Here’s what an old lady thinks.  Unless it is the end of the world, in which case there is nothing I can do, we will survive. It may take time, not be as life was, and leave some pain of change.  This I know.  My parents clawed their way through what was named The  Great Depression.  A chemical plant we own has been in a trough several times and turned around.  I am 30 years past a not too good cancer diagnosis and treatment. Hope declares that positive possibility lurks.  Also, this year I have sweet peas, waving scented purple blossoms on slender stems.  Year after year, I plant, and frost or early heat denies a bloom. This year I can be like Habakkuk who listed six awful disasters and ended with that positive conjunction.

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength…He makes me tread upon my high places.  Habakkuk 3: 18 – 19

The Right is a powerful word.  This year marked the 100th year that I as a woman have had the option to cast a vote, and I exercised that privilege.  Memories of my years of voting have been like a big pot of soup:  varied vegetables, savory herbs, tender and substantial pieces of meat and a broth that absorbs all the flavors.

Those vegetables represent various places the event has occurred.  I first became aware of voting when I went with my parents to the Log Cabin in Hammond, Louisiana.  A true oversized log cabin used for a strawberry auction in the spring and college parties in the fall.  At appropriate times locals came to vote. They were given a sheet of newsprint with candidates printed in columns under the party they represented. A pencil eraser was tapped on an ink pad and pressed against the box of choice. After I began voting, the event happened mostly in school gymnasiums or cafeterias, though once in a fire station.  One solemn year it was in the parish hall of a church.

Ah, those flavoring spices.  These are the current issues that go with an election.  Have choices been colored by rumors about pay raises or improper use of funds? Did the location of the polling place hinder some people’s ability to arrive? The number of signs posted or the workers who check validation or the length of time it takes to cast a ballot become tales to be told.

Sturdy and chewy meat has to be the candidates. Each of us has an opinion, as we should.  Some years I have done worthwhile research and vote confidently for the “right person. ” Other years, I take my number and go to a booth barely being a positive statistic. For six years I voted against a certain judge, hoping to single handedly reduce the number of votes he received.

Binding all this together is the broth, my unwavering belief in the worthiness of the process, and the hope that my being a part of it makes a difference.  I have a strong feeling of patriotism and an appreciation of what is offered to me in a democracy. We have had to move beyond the founding fathers’ vision and extend the right of the ballot to groups once excluded.  At times we catch our breath at putting the country’s well-being in the hands of so many disparate people.  When that happens, we need not just to click Enter, but to also offer a prayer.

I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men,     for kings and all who are in high position, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life.

I Timothy 2:1-2

No one has really made a better mousetrap.  In the beginning of time, clothes, if washed at all. were doused in a river and laid out on grass or bushes.   Progress was outside lines with the ends of sheets or trousers tied around the line.  The next step was the one piece, not spring version, with a round ball at the end.  An accessory to help the woman (of course) with the balancing act of hanging out was an apron with pockets.  Even then the sequence was sometimes place the pin in your mouth until one hand could manage to attach the holder. One final Wikepedia fact new to me is that the spring pin was invented in the late 1800’s by David M. Smith, not the one I knew and loved, yet I’m sure my man and the inventor would have found interests in common.

Once the spring one came on the scene, its uses multiplied. Many a Frito was kept fresh because the folded top was clothes pinned in place.  Wood doesn’t rust and no holes were punched because of sharp edges as in paper clips. This very day they hold coverings in place to protect my sweet peas from dipping temperatures.  School teachers require a certain number.  Any piece of cord can become the display line for art work.  One flat side can have a head and arms added, clothing pasted on, and so become a visual aid for a report on an historical person. At school and at home, I seemed to always have an abundance.

However, I needed new fresh ones for a Sunday School project at the last minute and had to try two Dollar Stores and a third grocery before I found a package labeled in Spanish. They are smaller than I remembered. Amazon, though, does have several rows to choose from, even a variety of sizes.  Most interesting is the ad for “needing clothes pins in a pinch”, then order from Just Artifacts.  When I cleaned out my childhood home, the apron with clothes pins was still hanging inside the steps to the attic.  What my mother felt was a defining ordinary need of her life had become at best an artifact of archeological importance.

Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.

                                                            Luke 12:15

Season 1, Episode 2.  The first dividing point between friends and family may be family are yours from the day you are born.  The grandparents and uncles are notified by phone or text that a new one is in the midst.  Family are the people who have known  you all your life.  You return the favor for those who come after you.  ” I remember when your mother first brought you to meet us.  You were so cute.”

Friends are picked up along the way.  They may come from the family who lives next door or the girl or boy who is a cabin mate at camp.  Sometimes they are the seat mate on a airplane.  You chat, exchange phone numbers, and, amazingly, return a call. Your parents allow you to go on vacation with their family, and some even keep a toothbrush at your house for the times they spend the night.

Along the way, the blood line blurs.  The child down the street returns to be a peer in your circle. You call the bridesmaid from your wedding to say your oldest daughter is engaged before you share that news with your mother’s sister. Your hunting buddy is whom you turn to when a job offer goes south.  Your first grade classmate flies in for a funeral, and her shoulder is the one you cry on.

Our loneliness is held at bay by a mix of family and friends. Even tempered by love, putting up with a variety of relatives can be a stress sometimes. We have to develop and nurture those that become the old fashion term of “bosom buddies.”  Those that of all in the world are given to us by grace. However our circle of people grows, we need them each one.  They help make us who we are, and we offer the same to them.  Hold my hand, there exists a place for you.

A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.

Proverbs 17:17 NIV

This is a two episode mini-series. At times I know what each word means.  At other times the line blurs and people change sides and identifying words no longer fit.

Family first.  We all come with at least two sides from father and mother.  In my growing up, specifics counted. Without blinking I could rattle off first cousin, first cousin once removed, second cousin, my uncle’s wife’s sister.  Family appeared in person and spent the night or had a meal on the way to. Those who didn’t appear often were still familiar because they were identified and discussed when two or three others were gathered.  The shift for me was a cousin who moved to the closeness of a sister and to the long time intimacy that one has with a college roommate. Her house was my safe place as a new teacher in a far city.  Her husband took me fishing.  Her sons were my boy sitting charges at one time and later became call on the phone to check up on friends.

My in-laws, though dear, are not blood to me, but they are to our children.  The ten cousins, spanning fifteen years, moved wherever the group was like a swarm of locust.  We have several pictures of them lined up in order. When our daughter married, that was the wedding picture she specifically asked for.  My husband’s family has an enumeration.  The newest is 95. Outside of the tumult of large gatherings, I began to have conversations and sharing moments with various ones of the group that have tied us beyond the title that identifies them.  Even if they were not family, I would choose them to be with.

“He (or She) has no family.” is indeed sad.  I want to flip that coin later and affirm that friends can fill that empty space.  For now, I bask in that inclusive feeling God meant when he called all of us children and family who gather in various places and under diverse names to be His.

I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ from whom the whole family in heaven and on earth is named.  Ephesians 3: 14-15

Choose what your hear.  Granted, a great deal of loud or obtrusive noise exists in the world.  The fire engine blasting down the street certainly makes its presence known.  Jack hammers breaking up concrete are like a never ending dentist drill on a giant’s teeth.  That doesn’t cover the neighbor who mows at 7:00 on a Saturday morning or blows every leaf into submission. The hot-rodder car with windows down and the air vibrating makes me wish for a quick light change. Those sounds seem unfortunately a part of life,

Headphones and earbuds provide different types of protection.  On an airplane, a good pair of headphones can preserve your sanity when the cutting voice four rows back is giving details of  invasive surgery. Earbuds channel your favorite music or audio books as the only sound invading your private space during a walk or sitting at a bus stop. In some cases, though, they create a zone of no-contact with those around.  I have touched the shoulder of a teen bopping distractedly to some music and about to step into a street as the light changed. Giving instructions to a child with headphones and an i-pad requires getting to face level and believing they can lip read.

Some quiet sounds are to be cherished.  Children pass my house on the way to school, leaving chirpy words in the air.  Thunder rumbles in the distance at times to precede needed rain drops. The thump of mail being dropped off creates anticipation, and the click of a key in the lock draws me to welcome an awaited for love.

A friend and I drove her 4-wheel drive to a parking spot in Canyonlands and walked to the edge of a mesa to look down on the confluence of the Green and Colorado River. Without spaces to cut its speed and create a whistle, wind circled us without making a sound.  Very faintly we could hear the water we saw below meshing and blending and flowing on as two became one. Silence can be the ultimate of sound within you, one you have waited for and suddenly hear.

Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord..a strong wind…an earthquake..a fire. And after the fire, a still small voice.  1 Kings 19: 11 – 13

The Houstonian Smiths have had their five days of intense winter.  The trip to Steamboat involved family bonding and eating.  Those who came for the sport went skiing. All of us at different times burned the eating calories with a snowshoeing trip.  The excuse was the dogs needed exercise. I was able to rise early alone, except for the dogs.  Frija assumes the guard position while Millie likes warmth under

my feet.  Nothing is more illuminating than the sun rising almost imperceptibly behind the V in a mountain while above and surrounding all is still dark

All of the above were expected. Mixed in were three amazing blessings I hadn’t factored in.  For the twenty years of visiting, I have heard of Alpenglow.  Like Northern Lights, they do appear, yet not on command.  The sight is considered an “optical phenomenon.”  Just as the sun sinks, the top of the mountain and clouds above are bathed in breath catching luminous light.  Maybe a minute and a half is your viewing chance. Mike had the camera at ready alert.

I have always wanted to flash my boarding pass on my phone instead of unfolding a piece of paper.  The tech granddaughter made it happen.  She downloaded the United App, went through necessary steps, and assured me I could make it work.  I messed up at the check in counter, yet I did it to board the plane.  I think I should write it in my baby book.

Ah, the last is my favorite.  Every trip to Steamboat includes a trip to the library.  It has everything from a coffee bar to a children’s area to easy to access stacks to amazingly helpful staff.  I, who live miles away, was able to sign up for a library card.  This means I now have three libraries I can search for electronic books. This helps the organizational problem I mentioned last week.

The trip was planned.  All else was lagniappe.

The blessings of the Lord make rich.  Proverbs 10:22

 

 

I quit being judgmental when I realized that for every yin there is a yang and for every zig there is a zag.  That means no one is exactly like me (thank goodness!) with a flip side being that I don’t have to be exactly like anyone else.  My mother not only knew where everything belonged, she put it there, and then remembered where it was.  She did her best to mold me.  Truth is, I just have a different way of keeping up.  You have two visible sayings this week.  I keep thinking if I re-sort, like objects will end up together.  I also believe that important papers in sight will be found more easily.  Sometimes this works; sometimes not.

 

DNA may not be the reason.  Just the act of moving on is probably more responsible. In the midst of some grand scheme, a squirrel ran by.  It was time to put clothes in the dryer, or run a carpool, or finish a chapter in a book. My justification for walking away is that I would get back to whatever it was later.  Then company would come and all would have to be swept up, piled in a box, and shoved in a closet.  Several days later I could ponder over now what did I do with.

I have a theory that occupation, parenting choices, and my habits led to organized disorganization.  Have you ever known a teacher – well,, maybe one- who wasn’t flipping through a stack of papers trying to find the right one? I also liked children to entertain themselves which involved Legos and stuffed animals in various places.  My own sewing projects seemed to spill over next to the nearest chair. Again, excuses make everything all right.   When finished, this project said it all.

But all things should be done decently and in order.

I Corinthians 14:40

 

 

This date occurred on January 9.  One more action closes the year, and I don’t know the special day it will happen.  Thursday the 9th I was home after a medical procedure tied to age and not fatal, yet requiring naps and rest.  As I felt better, the task began.  I took the box decorated with a Metropolitan Christmas angel and began sorting and labeling Christmas notes and cards to do the refrigerator museum for the this year.  I had already removed last year’s offerings to create open spaces for new memories.

Now they are in stacks.  One is family generations.  Nieces and nephews and their offspring to even the great-great group. These remind me of the life I have lived.  One grandmother was almost four at our wedding.  She earnestly looked at me and said, “What were you and Uncle Davo talking about up there?” I’ve managed to meet some of the new additions while #s 86, 91, 93, and 95 are identified by the family they are pictured with. A treasure is a cousin I have not seen since I was six, and yet, this is our contact.

Friends are a diverse group.  One couple has been ours for it seems like forever.  Their children and ours were matched one and then another and grew up in various activities. Blessed ones were once young women who were my peers in teaching and still keep in touch with their growing families. A college roommates and I are in phone contact , and her picture has the cheerful smile from years past. A few came sideways as friends of our children, yet they care enough about me to send a card.

A mystery book quote says, “Measurement is interaction.”  Looking at each face is a measurement of a time together.  A favored uncle sent only Biblical cards.  At the center of all these cherished people is an art project from a school where I taught. Each scotched taped memory speaks to this verse.