The church I passed on the way to the plant shop said in all capitals,: “FALL FESTIVAL FOR CHILDREN.”  The next line explained the first: “We are a church and don’t believe in Halloween.”  For the next mile and a half, I thought about what was my verb for Halloween.  Does a holiday require a belief to make it to the calendar? If celebrate means take part in activities of the occasion, I’m for that.  If I have to mix in extreme terror or paranormal activities, count me out.  Enjoy became my best choice.  I just enjoy Halloween.

I like when it comes.  Just the word October is pleasing to me.  My favorite colors are the orange, yellow, brown spectrum. Mornings are crisp.  The air smells smoky. The sound of Halloween to me is giggles and running feet and knocks on a door. After so much activity, this night is a herald toward Thanksgiving, Christmas, and a settling in for winter before awaking again to action.

My elementary celebrations were rather plain.  I think just being disguised was the most important part, so we wore masks.  Those 16 of us who inhabited two blocks were turned loose with a paper bag to go to houses we knew and have the adult say, ” Now who are you?  Oh, I’d never have guessed.” Some pre-chosen house had a soup pot of cocoa. Other adults drifted in while we poured out our candy, sorted, and traded.

When our family had children, they went on both sides of the block, alone.  I made good ghost costumes and then the boys created their own.  One liked pirate motifs, and the middle one was always a hobo.  That selection might not be politically correct now. It was very cheap though, and only required an old shirt and dirty face. They took their younger sister just one year.  After each house she wanted to come home to show her stash. That slowed down the process.

My most important reason for liking Halloween is my daddy loved it.  He carved a pumpkin to be next to the door and left a welcome light on.  He believed heaven was a front yard full of children, and they were all his. Halloween was when those children came to him. He would go to the bank and get rolls of new nickels.  He  visited with each child, chuckling over their costume and discussing what they had in their bag, and then he would hand them a shiny, silver coin all their own.  As they walked down the porch steps, high voices would say, “Thank you, Mr. Joe.”

Halloween is not a time for begging.  We are welcomed and gifts freely given. Smiles and good wishes follow us down the sidewalk.  The completion of the encounter is in our last word.

Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!  Romans 9:15

I tried to choose a different topic this week and just couldn’t do it.  A friend and her son had their names in the Monday paper as shopping for more Astro’s shirts.  Her boss had said they could wear orange all week, and she had to add to their wardrobe. I was in a fabric store and a line of women was waiting for cuts of four (!) different selections of our home team fleece.  Were these to become sweatshirts or toss blankets or just a memory of this hyper fan week?  Our choir director is hoping polishing a November 2 program will take will push through various games.

I have never been a sport enthusiast nor very competitive. I really hope the home team goes all the way, yet I usually find out about the game the morning after.  I was 5’9″ tall in the 8th grade without a coordinated bone in my body.  Arms flapped in various directions, and I could trip over blades of grass.  Proverbially the last one chosen was my calling on playing fields, and the camaraderia and cooperation of a team was not for me. The nearest I came to playing basketball was having a crush on the center.  I carried a lawn chair some spring afternoons to walk with my daddy to the college field and watch a  baseball game which lasted some time this side of eternity. Even watching track and field events from 4:00 on to see my daughter do whatever and whenever her dash was announced required faked enthusiasm.

However, I am a good listener.  Those talking don’t really care if I contribute.  They are engrossed in tossing out names and recounting plays.  A certain frisson of excitement builds as each win leads to a more breathless hope of success.  Strangers in the grocery store comment, “Can you imagine trying to get a ticket to a home game,” as we are picking over apples together. Last night’s loss definitely created a crush mode.  I begin to feel for those players whose lives are publicly involved in the sport.  Over this month they have taken the field one more afternoon or night to accomplish something by endurance and strength that is their gift to those who watch.  Ongoing support and a roar of approval pouring out of a stadium may carry them to extra effort.  Even I have to say, “GO, ASTROS!” Edited, the admonition of Hebrews counts as an encouraging word for their lives and, maybe, for ours.

Therefore, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,….let us run with perseverance the race set before us. Hebrews 12:1

My Christmas list always included books, yet I don’t remember being read to.  My substitute for a printed page was sitting on my daddy’s lap and having him read and explain the panels of comic strips.  I chuckled when he did, even if I missed the point.  The Katzenjammer Kids and Li’l Abner have moved on.  Prince Valiant has married, had children and three different creators and still appears every Sunday in his 82nd year. Each day I turn the pages of disturbing news to snuggle into a time with old friends.  Dagwood comes in with his funny haircut and a need to snack.  Peanuts is a reminder of the gentleness of Charles Schulz, and the Phantom lasts to yet another generation.

I have a green folder with a collection of my favorites.  An unfulfilled dream is to teach a class, give a lecture, or guide a roundtable discussion on perceiving humor.  What makes it hit and why does it miss? The most understood ones are those that touch where we live. (If you don’t subscribe to a paper, you can check the most recent of these on line.) The family in Baby Blues is to the point.  It has a mother for whom disaster looms dealing with a bossy older girl, a loud and troublesome younger son, and the baby just old enough to draw on the walls. A colleague of mine would come to work some mornings still chuckling over ZITS for the day.  He is a teenage boy who eats all the groceries he is unloading on the way to the kitchen.  Luann has survived high school and unrequited love to now deal with college demands.

 

At times, I have used a few strips to help teach 8th graders literary terms.  On of the most difficult for them is allusion.  First, we have to get past illusion to the idea of universal knowledge – generally.  This very morning ZIGGY was looking at elevator buttons labeled Up, Down, Hogwarts.  They would know Harry Potter and a magical way to get to his school.  Mother Goose gave a two for one understanding.  The animals are following a man in uniform asking if he has Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, or Scrabble.  His answer is Nope, Nope, Nope. Their final reply is “Some game warden he is!” Step 1 – board activities.  Step 2 – protector of animals.

The upper levels are those sophisticated, sometimes caustic ones that look at politics and modern attitudes.  Doonesbury has held the top spot for many years, either poking fun or being too close to the truth.  No one or action is sacred.  Lately, I’ve been reading Pearls Before Swine, mainly because I like lisping alligators.  Check out the offering for October 14.  Potato casserole is offended because it is called left-overs instead of pre-eaten.  We are changing phrases every day to avoid appearing uncaring. Sometimes we are caught in an offensive backlash when we had good intentions.  My person problem is a geographical word that used to mean not from here.  Now it is a derogatory term for those seeking asylum, safety, hope.  The word they want to hear is, “Welcome.”

Do not oppress an alien; you yourselves know who it feels to be aliens.

Exodus 23:9

 

New is always demanding. Processes or relationships require paying attention to small details before habit or familiarity kicks in. Finally arriving at auto pilot is freeing.  Yet, that freedom can become stagnating. Fifteen trips to Peru require so little  focus on my part that I packed suitcase and backpack Sunday morning, did church, ate lunch, and left for the airport at 1:30 with everything I needed.

Yet changes have happened to the routine. I can print a boarding pass on line even for an international flight and only have to show my passport and check bag. White hair  allows me to wear jacket and shoes through security. The boarding area has been redecorated for modern times. Instead of comfortable chairs, I have to sit on feet hanging stools at charging stations with my belongings on the floor.

The location of our non-chain hotel is memorized. Bank Scotia on the corner is still a landmark,and inside the fence, the facade is the same. Each year welcomed improvements have been made. New rooms have been constructed. Warm blankets are under coverlets insteadof tattered quits. Most appreciated is the closing of air vents in the bathrooms which allowed all local noise of any kind to be shared with all three floors.

I am amazed that subtle changes have occurred at the mission site. Trash is lessened and swept to the end of a dirt street instead of piling in front of each house.  The one story house we bought as a base now had three stories. The inside is clean and  welcoming.  Local volunteers prepare the children’s lunches in new kitchen instead of on an antiquated stove in an area open to flies and dust.

The most affirming change is to people,  I am suddenly known by a name and can return the greeting to a once a year friend. Women listened to entreneurial classes. They make bracelets and baked goods to sell and add to family income. Dentists now clean children’s teeth instead of making extractions. A young man who grew up with a list of bad choices at the police station has a college degree and is back to help wh the community. Nothing happened in the twinkling of an eye. Just a few blinks, though, and a new normal is right in front of us.

Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it.

Isaiah 43:19

 

On the surface I have two degrees in education.. I read books, quote poetry, and can lose my attention to a whole lecture or sermon if the deliverer doesn’t use a possessive pronoun in front of a gerund.  Others in the audience don’t even know that was a requirement.  I am proud of a tee shirt that says I Am Silently Correcting Your Grammar. Scratch the surface and another strata appears.  I have a minor in Geography.

I can’t always share my knowledge at a dinner table, yet all that pertains to earth, both physical and political, sets off a frisson of excitement.  I cherish names of land masses and how they have changed over eons. That left over lava bed slowly inching down western Colorado deserves a detour on the way elsewhere. I may be at my best explaining latitude and longitude and earth tilt.  I have a picture of me on the Prime Meridian at Greenwich and astride the Equator in Ecuador. I know the importance of the Doldrums in exploration, and why there are Horse Latitudes.  Two of my favorite multisyllabic words are Vernal and Autumnal Equinox.

Which brings us to where we are now.  A few days ago day and night were equal at the equator  Imperceptibly until that moment of the Winter Solstice, changes will happen as the sun retreats to the Southern Hemisphere. Darkness arrives earlier and stays longer at the start of a new day. The iffy part is hopefully waiting for what the weather men call a cold front, and we in Texas designate as a “blue norther.” Weather from now on is conjecture.  Children have shed masks at Halloween to cool off and have also hidden the costume under coat and scarf to survive biting cold. Yet, this is a change for us,  a season that varies our year. Months ago we left the deadness of winter and moved to cherish the lushness of spring and on through the hot stickiness that cries summer. The advertised brilliance of oaks in full color may appear only in magazines.  Piles of leaves waiting to be raked serve as our reminder of a circle of a year.  We welcome the changes however they come and cling to the dependability that undergirds them.

Summer and winter and springtime and harvest. Sun, moon, and stars in their courses above. All I have needed Thy hand hath provided.  Great is thy faithfulness, mercy, and love.

 

Like poached eggs and lemon meringue pie, radio was a comfort moment in my growing up. My favorite piece of furniture was an upright radio that took up one corner of the living room.  Mornings started with the New Orleans station’s program Dawn Busters, a mixture of news, weather, and a Cajun commentary by Pinky Vidacovich.  Like repeated ads, his song is still in my mind.” I’m de Charles Boyer of Kop-Kop since ma wife went to da show.  She make me kiss her big fat hand what made de crab Gumbo.” In the 40’s, school really had an hour off for lunch.  Daddy brought me home and at 12:30 we would listen to Ma Perkins before returning.  I came in from bike riding one Sunday afternoon and sat quietly to hear President Roosevelt tell about Pearl Harbor being bombed. The treat of being sick was having the radio moved to my bedside for entertainment.

We maybe had three TV’s in 56 years of marriage.  My father-in -law gave us a small black and white in 1967 because he thought our children were deprived.  The first program watched was “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.”  Children and I carpooled to school together when all were a certain age.  We came home, picked up a snack, and piled on a king sized bed to watch “Mash”, maybe not the best choice, yet a good zone out time.  Yes, we saw the moon landing.  When I learned I could catch what I wanted on my computer, the box mostly sat there.  Still important though is radio on Sirius where I catch all in life I’ve missed.

That said, I didn’t watch the Emmy Awards.  I was half-listening to the summary on faithful radio as I drove to the Y.  I recognized what GoT meant though I thought Fleabag referred to a sleazy person.  Then I heard the story from Alex Borstein about her grandmother as a Holocaust survivor. No visual, only words to resonate. “My grandmother was in line to be shot into a pit. She said,’What happens if I step out of line.’ The guard replied,’I don’t have the heart to shoot you, but someone will.’ She stepped out of line.” Borstein wanted the story to be a rally cry for strength of women.  In my mind it will be a reminder that moments come when we don’t need to rush like lemmings off the cliff, but step aside and create our own path, for our good and those who come after us.

Be strong and courageous. Joshua 1:9

Choose for yourselves this day. Joshua 24:15

Not a dark and stormy night, but a dark one.  My daughter and I had left Houston for Dallas after she got off from work.  We were going to a Monet exhibit and some museum hopping. Always there is traffic, and  we did stop to eat.  About 9:30, we curved around the freeway and spotted our motel.  We were in the wrong lane to exit midst headlights and moving cars, so we were funneled on until dumped in very unfamiliar territory.  We had a Beta map on a phone.  To use it involved pulling into a parking lot or driveway, trying to read the nearest street sign, and then deciding how we could circle around the one way street we happened to be on.  When we arrived at our lodgings, I started to complain about being lost.  Wisdom came my way in a statement. “That’s what steering wheels are for.  To turn around.”

Now that’s an adage to live with.  We get lost for various reasons.  I’ve started a project without being clear on what was expected of me.  I needed a figurative steering wheel to turn back to a starting point and try again.  Quite often, I am not paying attention, and, suddenly, the landscape is totally unrecognizable.  I don’t have to continue in strange surroundings.  I might have to consult a map.  The saving action, though, is to spin the circle and head toward a known star. The ironic truth is a steering wheel is probably the only part on a car I truly understand.  I failed changing tires, batteries seem to work til they don’t, and I’m not sure carburetors still exist.

I first learned to drive on a Chevrolet with only a center of windshield rear view mirror.  I don’t even know when side mirrors came in.  I never paid much attention until I got a Jeep Cherokee. I loved the height.  The width had to be carefully judged.  My second driving adage:  “Trust your side view mirrors.”  As important as watching behind me, I had to constantly check if space between me and nearest neighbor was adequate.  I was shaky and slow at times.  However, if I could see light, I was safe from scrapes. Regardless of where we are, options are available to help.  A good example is a story about a boy who went away, got caught in a dead end, and had no light around him.

And when he came to his senses, he arose…Luke 15

(Read 15:11- 18 and apply as needed)

Being green, Lessening your carbon footprint. Saving electricity. Loving your fellow people (and using inclusive descriptives inoffensively). Helping rescue animals.  Those don’t even touch choosing a school for your children or eating healthy, or a good decision about refugees on the border. Reading books on any topic or clipping newspaper articles just create almost equal stacks of pro and con that seem to vary with the day.  The option of discussing intelligently with a group of friends does not exist. Do something else for a bit while I go lie down with a cool rag on my forehead.

Ok, Here’s my problem.  I believe in recycling.  It reduces what goes to landfills. I started 40 years ago when aluminum cans could be taken to machines that weighed and spewed out some coins, enough to buy a treat at the end of a month.  No more of that.  Then our neighborhood had a recycle area of several parts:  paper, and colored glass and plain glass (please consider apartments across the street and dump between 6:00a.m. and 10:30 p.m.). Plastics were tumbled together, and tin cans had a section to themselves. Plastic bags went to a grocery store and supposedly had a new life as sports jackets. Revealed truth now is that dumping everything together in a green bin means fewer companies want to buy and separate. Good ecological choices and good economics don’t always mesh.

Let’s move on.  (Pun intended) My current car may be my last one.  While not  21st century efficient, neither is it a gas guzzler. I am almost the little old lady who drives it just to church and the grocery store. I don’t think I am responsible enough to remember to plug an electric in at night, or alert enough to handle moving ahead swiftly and silently with a tap on the accelerator.  Gas pedal can become a vestigial word, still there like an appendix, useful, yet renamed. How responsible do I need to be about pollutants in the air from a crowded freeway compared to the necessity of moving a daily workforce and  the time schedule of soccer moms?

On days when I doubt the effectiveness of my stewardship to the world, I go to a poem by Bonaro Overstreet. “You say the little efforts that I make will do no good; they never will prevail to tip the hovering scale…. I don’t think I ever thought they would.  But I am prejudiced beyond debate in favor of my right to choose which side shall feel the stubborn ounces of my weight.”  If I and someone else make a compost pile, speak nicely to the checkout lady, make a monetary donation for a need that touches us, soon we will have enough ounces to make a pound.  Maybe even enough to tip the scale.

Who then is the faithful and wise steward, whom his master will set over his household?

Luke 12:42

The adjective wild has a consistent meaning.  These are the animals that roam their habitat and tolerate humans, maybe. Push them too far, and they react to attack. People at times think they have made friends with, say a bear or one of the larger cats.  Then the story in the paper tells of being turned on and maimed or killed.

A special word has been coined for those animals that over the years since creation have changed to share domicile and life with humans. We say they are domesticated.  That denotes a step beyond a horse that comes to his owner, or a parakeet who sings in a cage, or even the goldfish that children win at field days. Cats almost meet the criteria. The truth is felines always keep the option of time they spend with you as their choice.

The shining example of domesticity is the dog.  From mutts of unknown breed to carefully groomed purebreds they bond with a human.  They require the same care that children do, and for that they are part of the family.  I have noted this loyalty mostly as an outsider.  The visceral feeling remains none the less. I knew my first dog only in stories.  My daddy had a squirrel dog for hunting in the Catahoula swamps, and no dog was as smart as he.  We  did have a white bitch named Snow White.  She had a litter of seven who were named collectively The Seven Dwarfs. We moved to Hammond when I was four, and they were all given away  “Dogs don’t belong in the city.” was the edict.

We never had a dog in our household.  Two/thirds of our children now have canines, and those have made me a dog person.  Each of the animals has had personality and purpose. I have learned to appreciate the bouncy bossiness of a Jack Russell and the energy needed to walk a Weimaraner.  One German shepherd decided I was the oldest and most needy of a group, and she spent my whole visit being between me and harm.

Today, will you remember Caramel, affectionally known as Cara.  She was one of two dogs who came with a son’s marriage, a lovely, gracious Golden Retriever.  She was chosen as a puppy by an almost teenager and was trained to hunt pheasants. She chased rabbits in muddy fields and barked at bears in the driveway. Age, 14 1/2 years for her, creeps on us all. Movement slowed, and she gave up eating.  Her family took her one more time to a pond for a last swim.  This morning the vet came to ease her way to another existence. Scattered over distance and compass points, family offered the love and sympathy we give for any loss.  In her memory, find a furry ear to scratch.

And God said “Let the earth bring forth living creatures.”….And God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1: 24,25

One summer in the far off past, we had a teen-age nephew who spent most of the summer in his upstairs bedroom with a broken leg.  This was before better cast and mobility  options.  He and a cousin were just old enough to ride the horses in a group of two.  They had gone by the tank and through a gate and then turned around for the barn.  One of them said, “I can beat you back!” and a race was on.  For the horses, it was being given their heads and pointing them toward hay and home, and no one had planned how to stop or slow them.  The horse cut short by the gate post, the boy went off, and that’s where the first sentence started.  Anticipation increases focus.

Heading in is my feeling about August.  Sometime around the first of the month, my inner clock sounds like the opening line of Lassie Come Home when the dog shakes herself and thinks, “It’s time. It’s time. It’s time to go for the boy.”  Summer is almost over, and it is time for school to start.  This feeling must be in my DNA.  My mother and daddy both taught.  I either went to school or taught. This time is the beginning of another year, one of always two numbers.  My first job was the 1957-58 year.  Stretching ahead are hopes and dreams for nine months.

Others of you have the same feeling at different times.  CPAs might start in early January.  Their push to times are April and October 15.  Gardeners and farmers start their year on that indefinable moment when the smell of the air and cessation of frost call to begin turning over soil and plant once again.  A new job after a time of interviewing and searching always marks,”The year I went to work for…”  Some years begin with the throwing out of the first baseball  or the cheers of a stadium crowd chanting for eleven first stringers jogging onto the field, helmets under their arms. From the horse to each of the above, an excitement carries us toward a goal.

Calendars that define our time are various, and man devised. Some of the world still holds on to the Julian calendar, a tweaking of the Roman calendar, though most have changed to Gregorian to adjust for celestial time variance.  Jewish religious calendars begin with year 1 of creation and move through lunar months. We look forward to a rhythm of life that is sometime individual to each of us.  What we really have daily is a nighttime to wrap up and anticipate what may be the gift of tomorrow.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1