Do what I ask and I may promise to name my next cat after you, maybe. If you read these regularly, or sorta, or once in a blue moon, I need your momentary help. After five years of my doing what I really wanted to do: three paragraphs and a Bible verse and whatever comments I got at times that made me feel warm and cozy, the wires of the world got crossed. Two major mishaps occurred. In spite of paying a reasonable amount to Wordsmith to take care of internal sending forth, the message appeared that this site wasn’t available. Then return comments were either not going forth or being sent back.

Choices were to try to find a professional who really understood the problem or to see if screen by screen I could uncover a solution alone and standing on a windswept mountain top. I, of course, tried option two. I believe strong women can face a problem and find a solution. Trial and error (lots of errors) revealed that I had never updated my email from hotmail.com. I edited to use the move up to iCloud, pushed save, and have waited two days for a third company to send a validation request on the email. That is now done. Even if you don’t choose to subscribe to the Thursday offerings, you can pop in at letmetellya.org in moments of need. Supposedly the recipient list is intact.

This is what you can do to be a helper in the my world. When you get this on a Sunday night this week (I promise not to do a Thursday coming up), could you do a reply in an email to me that words of wisdom arrived or comment in the appropriate place and we will see what happens. I chose a modern version of the only verse I thought applied because while God my have been available in days past, this particular need of Him may not have been necessary.

 Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

Phillipians 4:6 – 7 The Message

‘

This is an in-between sending. For some reason sending is going ok, but receiving and responding is tangled until some new technology is loaded and I understand how it works. So remember my name and the Thursday comments will go forth. Sometime next week I will have to make some changes that I may need to find help to make work. Please think kind thoughts and figuratively hold my hand while I try to update. Charis, hopefully for progress.

Not necessarily one foot in front of another, but definitely getting there. Sometimes the motion comes with rapidity: a slick hot slide, a perfect arch off a diving board, a caught toe beginning a downward motion. Other times the forwardness is unsure at first. One acquaintance’s first step was to say what he planned. Once that information was out in the world, he was free to begin tweeking it to become what he really wanted to do.

For me most accomplishments from organizing a fabric drawer to starting lunch begin with a list. Scraps of paper litter my house. These are seldom neat and orderly and are not always easy to read. The ones I like best are the CWS/GPS. They help me take out a car and go from one errand to another in an efficient manner. I’ve tried it on brain power alone. I end up with destination 3 being nearer destination 5 and destination 4 gets skipped in frustration to be tried another day. With lists I can recycle on completion and have a righteous feeling.

If I have managed the list correctly then tackling the task is less stressful. Starting to thaw the frozen tapatila by 10:00 am. guarantees a lunch on time. Monday list always has a reminder to take out garbage after 6:00 p.m., so I don’t have to greet the garbage men in my bathrobe early on Tuesday. Pay my house tax bill by the 15th or the post office may not make the delivery downtown in two weeks. The reward for these actions is either a line drawn through or a heavy red check. Either is effective.

I can read these paragraphs and laugh. Fortunately and unfortunately a responsible organized mode is my default. Many times in life that has been just what is needed. I also welcome and gratefully enjoy those people or moments whose steps lead me into impetuous unstructured responses. After all, we had varied costumed personas for Halloween on Tuesday night. Coming up on Sunday is a mighty organ chord and we all rise to sing “For All the Saints”, remembering the different steps taken as they stream in as a countless host .The children’s version “I Sing A Song of the Saints of God” mentions we can meet this varied group “in school, on the street, and in the store,” and best of all, “We can be one too.”

These were all commended for their faith. Hebrews 11:39

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