No, not completely, and it took my life to put the clues together from noting actions or hearing the tell tale statements for enlightenment to appear. Masculine or feminine, have you ever said, “Don’t thrown that out! It’s my favorite.(insert specific) to wear when ( fill in another blank)” or you have been the one to say, “Oh, honey (or the term of endearment for your family), it’s time to start a new favorite.” Age doesn’t matter My daddy wore khaki pants in his 60’s that barely had two threads that clung together as he assured us the push mower would not circle the yard if he didn’t have them on. I’ve had a three year old be trapped trying to get a certainly outgrown tee shirt decorated with a favorite animal over his head, run into the bathroom screaming, “No, it’s mine!! Don’t take it.”

Wisdom came as it usually does; in small revelations that mesh. My daughter had forwarded me a blog from a New York Influencer of people of a certain age, with the caveat, “You won’t appreciate the content, but she does write well.” Since my life activities now lack varied activities such as daily job, or galas, or even kneeling down and getting up to do yard work, I am trying to weed out clothes in my closet that only take up hanger space. Said influencer includes photos, several steps up from selfies, to illustrate her points. Emphasizing the fashionableness of a skirt that would never cling correctly on me, she said, “Complete this outfit with that cashmere turtleneck you bought several seasons ago.” Cymbals clashed! I had just taken the one sweater I had worn two cold days to be cleaned and put away for a year along with several that hadn’t seen light of day.

So, what I understand, I need to act on. Either sex keeping garments simply for sentimental value is pure stubbornness. There is no time I will not have a choice for a five minute walk to build strength, or an ice-cream moment with a previous teaching friend, or a weekly time of worship. I’ll sign off with religious justification for actions, take a black bag to the bedroom, silently apologize to my daddy and a now grown up toddler, and maybe bestow a good-by kiss as I offer someone else a new favorite.

Got a minute: read Matthew 6:25 – 30. What’s listed is cut to the chase.

³⁰ Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?

Matthew 6:31

Chronological, when I taught it was when I cleaned closets. Earlier decades we had children in three different schools and grades and never had 100% free at the same time. In childhood, I had Good Friday and Easter Monday and then onward to Memorial Day. Now, advertisements are where to go and even my LFL children talk of long plane rides to exotic places. Except for one summer after I was in the 10th grade ,( may have told once and will repeat if sufficient requests come in) all of our trips had destinations to Baton Rouge or New Orleans for seasonal shopping or to Shreveport for family visiting.

However, two destinations occurred more than once a year over a period of time and counted as “getting out of town” excursions. In one way both were the same type of trip involving river camps, yet slight differences set them apart. Let’s start with Tangipahoa River camp which belonged to our next door neighbor over the hedge. It was a women’s and children’s trip whenever the weather was more than the adults could stand. Participants were two middle aged women in tennis shoes, a teen-age girl, myself, and a slightly younger boy. A dirt back road enabled us to drive to the location at the river. The useful room the cabin was a long screen porch for sitting, looking, eating, playing games, and avoiding mosquitoes. The older girl painted her toe nails and worked on a tan. The boy and I were compatible enough to try to coax out craydads from their chimneys before either fishing from the dock or swimming to cool off.

The other camp had more regular visits because they occurred when my daddy and uncle decided it was time to go fishing. My uncle owned the cabin on Cane River near Nacogdoches, Louisiana. Again we could drive to the cabin. I’ve already spoken of the porch. The next long room in was for sleeping, five double beds side by side. Aunt and uncle, my parents, my oldest cousin and her husband, her two boys, and then I got the last bed. Night time was conversation til we all drifted off. Heavy snores filled the air along with the squeaky turning of an exercise wheel for one of the boy’s pet hamster. A minimal kitchen and toilet only room closed off the end of the sleeping porch. Stories abound from a year long Canasta game to avoiding snakes to David’s discovering that if we had shrimp for supper, he had to peel his own.

I started this thinking of the places as showing what I had missed. That turned out not to be true. Those places and people involved taught me common events can take on amazing importance. I learned to make activities relate to a place. Water and its vocabulary became foundational to me from head, channel, mouth to the specifics of estuary. Very few Bible stories lack a river from the Garden of Eden to that River of Life we can only imagine. Crossing a river is a metaphor for big steps in life. Ezra has been given permission to return to Judah after an exile. He is hesitant about asking the king who granted permission to also provide a guard for the journey, When the time comes to cross the river and move on, this is what he asks of God.

There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before our God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. 

Ezra 8:21

I want to hop on the wagon to be ready for change now. Three morning newspapers say a penny’s life is limited. Though it is slightly larger than a dime its value is at the bottom of the pay scale. As far as I can tell, it is only used to figure odd amounts of tax or postage and nobody wants to count a jar full as payment for an ice cream bar. A little history is involved, though, because it’s not the first bit of metal to bite the dust. (That was a joke and deserves at least a snicker.) The base of coinage in colonial times was a Spanish dollar composed of 8 silver reales leading to pieces of 8. Through math I don’t understand that evolved into a group each equal to $.12 1/2 or a bit. After the Coinage Act of 1857 bit was used only by a few old-timers who defined a quarter as two bits and cheerleaders who bounced to “Two bits, four bits, …”and you know the rest.

Having no pennies to spend may take a while even if mints turn off tomorrow the machinery that fills the molds. Unless the government calls in all in circulation as they did with silver dollars, some of your children may have a few odd ones turn up in the back of a drawer or even framed as a memento hanging on the wall as I plan on doing. A few of us will cling to odd sayings that may have had more meaning at one time. Start with, “A penny saved is a penny earned.” Never a word of truth even with compounded daily interest. To define stick with it determination you might say, “In for a penny in for a pound.” While ” Pennies from heaven” may denote blessings, offering “A penny for your thoughts,” doesn’t make them worth much.

To make this work, the first step will be rounding up a final bill. Rounding down will not be the option. Of course, the economy will improve If all the people shopping lose $.03 per item while the stores can count that as a profit. Henceforth my phone bill will be $115.00 month instead of $114.97. All of this has to do with change and with Change. Half dollars vanished almost painlessly and food and shelter could still be paid for. Hold on to what and Who doesn’t change. In the great scheme of things, this verse might help start the morning.

Better is little with the fear of the Lord than great treasure and trouble therewith.

Proverbs 15:16

Defining began with son’s lecture on not falling and my response that falling is never on purpose. By any definition, falling is always an accident. Then the rabbit hole appeared. We older people are more libel to fall. I thought back to years ago and my being in Coventry, England. Research and Google did show the memory of a cross the street sign with a bent over man holding a cane. Behind him holding his arm was a smaller woman. I couldn’t find the proof, but my memory sees the defining sign “WOBBLIES CROSSING” Age moving slowly is definitely wobbly. In 2015 a movement began to remove these signs. Maybe true, yet offensive.

When I emerged from the rabbit hole to daylight, I began to notice words that used to define me no longer do. Early in life by someone else’s complaint I had to move away from man, men, and mankind. Society and community are acceptable and I sing Good Christians Now Rejoice. A mailman delivered our letters to Pine Street. in Hammond ,Louisiana. I was in school with his sister. Now the definitely female who talks on her cell phone as she lifts the lid to my mailbox is a mailperson or a postal carrier. The petit blond in a short shirt whose presence is important to the story on the stage in front of you is an actor. The -ess that used to define has fallen down the rabbit hole. For secretary, teacher, and engineer, one may need to wait for help to decide which pronoun to use in the sentence. Forget pronoun choices….I’m disappearing underground again.

I am left with a few specifics for me, just as you cling to those that give you life and meaning. When I am with those I cherish most I am a daughter, an aunt, a niece. For 56 years I was a wife with rights and privileges there of and widow opens the window to a whole new story. Once, I checked behind a grocery cart I was pushing and no small body was following me. From the far end of the aisle a familiar voice called, “Mother!” That call identified who I was in a Family, the larger group where I always have a place.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. 

1 John 3:1

I really didn’t see it coming. If you are one of the many younger than I am, the headline may just have been a pass under your eyes. Survivors remember the 80 anniversary of the liberation of Aschwitch. I am a child of WWII. Fighting wasn’t on our soil, so it was easy for me to have a them/bad and us/good attitude. Magazines and radio reports did updates and friends we knew offered prayers for family members in battle zones. Then we won and I understood a little more about hatred and exclusion of a group of people. Some groups made their own sacrifices to provide places of hiding or escape and I learned names like Anne Frank and Corrie Ten Boon.

Fifty years passed and I taught in a prestigious private school in Houston. Sometime during each year a Jewish grandparent would speak of their personal route of survival and a glimmer of the part pure hate of a group of people played in this atrocity began to broaden my understanding of what had been just an historical happening. We had a noble, no other word could describe, principal. He was an American citizen of German heritage and had driven one of the tanks for the liberation of Dachau and was also a speaker in assemblies at times. The year my life turned was when when he quietly told of driving his tank to the gate that opened and revealed the malnourished, mistreated fellow humans being offered freedom. With a break in his voice, he said to room full of sixth through eighth graders; “Gott im Himmel! ” At that moment, I desperately never wanted to be a part of the group who hates.

It’s hard! Always there is the feeling of a self-assured eight year old who rests with confidence that in a world of them and us, my us side is mostly right. At this very moment, I’m sure each of us could make a list of choices and directions that are disfranchising some of our most heartfelt beliefs and we feel that supporters of those beliefs are wrong. I may have to speak out, or write a letter or organize a safe way to have another opinion. Yet, even if it’s a struggle, I can’t offer hate and separation as a solution. With God in Heaven, we have to work together.

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave^]nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one.

Galatians 3:28

Adages that defined my week. The Camel Got His Nose in the Tent. When one needs to travel the desert, dromadaries (one hump camels) do the job. They plod mile after mile with a rocking motion, asking for nothing much. When one is forced to halt the journey, though they still want to be part of the group, two legged or four. So last week, when cough and weariness overtook me, they nosed into the tent, folded those spindly legs to allow me to slide off, closed the big brown eyes with lashes to help filter sand, and settled themselves in for a rest. Gradually, I’ve recovered enough to encourage them to stand, and move outside again. I am now able to see ahead, plan the journey, and define an end to the sand dunes.

Ah, I am now left with animal two, a left over necessity. How Does One Eat an Elephant? A Bite at a Time. I have never had an elephant steak or even a tidbit, yet definitely the mass behind that rough skin must be disposed of. This animal requires making appointments with doctors who know how to peel back the skin and provide the spices, otherwise known as medicines, to help make the bites palatable. Throw in passwords for a portal and the possibility of entering incorrectly a time or two plus the days required to see results and that pachyderm, while dwindling, has yet to vanish.

Even when these two are sent on their way, one more will stay simply by virtue of my almost completing my eighth decade and getting a little frayed around the edges. From now on the adage of the day is this. There Is a Monkey on My Back. Each day I choose what I can complete with grace. Be it feed myself, tend to tasks of washing and cleaning, or keeping a journal to prove life has meaning. I throw in Spanish, Mini Puzzle, Connection for Brain Power and, more for my “make it happen” than for you, write old lady comments for the week. Wherever you fit in with this week’s readers, begin thinking about your beasts. Whatever and wherever they are, a sure defense awaits.

“For you will be in league with the stones of the field,
And the beasts of the field will be at peace with you.

Job 5:23

Due to a weak link between willing and able, the publication that usually appears in this space will not be released for this week only. In the meantime, mull over your own inventive thought, tweak an impossible idea, or simply wallow in the delight of suddenly unoccupied space. It is even possible to call to mind that Bible verse hidden in the back folds of your mind. If a total blank, this one is specific to some individuals, to January in Houston with weather and blooming cedar, and is recommended by our publisher.

“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases;” Psalm 103:3.

Just like the stirred together mess of two cups of flour, plus sugar, baking powder, and some eggs gets poured into a pan and comes out a cake, tidbits of one thought, a word from another, and a visual reminder of a moment in time flow together to recreate a hidden memory.

Components. The Wall Street Journal had a holiday section titled My Best Christmas Gift Ever which was choices by important people. The blue ribbons were a variety from a Hello Kitty panini pan to a horse to a Tonto action figure to time given to life after surgery. I found a picture of me at age four holding the reins to a Sheland pony named Bill. Maybe he qualified as best. No, my dad liked my having him more than I did. I couldn’t saddle or mount by myself and he had a bad habit of running under clothes lines to dislodge this weight on his back.

Back to the drawing board. Lately I’ve been re-readibng journals I wrote in 1999 just to see what I was like then. In the middle of October was a story about the winner. It wasn’t a gift to me, but to my best friend Joyce. The year was 1945. Victory in Europe had been won in May and supplies on hold during the war were just coming back. For Christmas, Joyce got a bike. The frame was thin and steel, no chrome or exotic paint design. and it had narrow tires instead of balloon tires to still conserve rubber. The first challenge was to balance oneself while mastering the motion of pushing back the kickstand and hefting your bottom up to the elevated seat without toppling over before you could begin peddling. To win a chance to learn to ride, my helping hand was to run behind and guide the rear wheel until some degree of pedaling expertise was learned.

Eventually, I did get my own bike with a basket to carry the bicycle pump because my tires were the upgrade that leaked and needed refilling. Seven of us, names of my childhood, claimed freedom of motion to cover our world until a driver’s license tweaked the mix. That togetherness was the best gift ever. This Christmas no children were out with new means of transportation. They may have to wait to think of who knew best what they needed and it was the perfect gift. Both being a giver and a receiver count.

A gift opens the way. Proverbs 18:16

First word, have a Happy New Year, or a Healthy one, or a Profitable one, or even an Adventurous one. Whatever it is about this day, we think we have the chance to make it different from any year we have ever known. Truth be told, some change would happen under any circumstances. However, let’s look at options.

The most common word I like least; New Year’s Resolutions, a word heavy with obligation and commitment. It also usually involves some form of intense exercise that in many cases, has been put forth with hopefulness in previous years. Maybe next January will see you as the feature article in the Outlook section of the Houston Chronicle. You will have lost a planned for amount of weight, or clocked an amazing number of miles running each day in the dark, or your membership in a nearby gym has you pressing your weight goal in front of amazed admirers.

Instead, you could just focus on Behavior, those responses that brighten your life and that of others. You might Laugh more, try extra Forgiveness, or even be Grateful for that totally unexpected happening Another umbrella word could be Mindful, which opens all varieties of possibilities. Call up a response of Calmness to ride a tumultuous wave or even Simplify to avoid the wave in the first place.

Unless we are rocking unhurriedly on a front porch, an exhaustive list of “Today I will…” is not possible. I think at this moment my goal is to do a better job of Sorting and Unstacking with a small amount of purging as needed. The temptation of a flat surface calls me to create unclassified groups of bills, notes, and grocery mailings indiscriminately until more action time than I want to give is required to accomplish another despicable word: Organize. Choose whatever fits you as per this unknown admonition. “Every year you make a resolution to change yourself. This year resolve to be yourself. “ Verse 1 to keep on track.

Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed. 2 Timothy 2:15

or Verse 2 if you need extra back-up.

Commit to the Lord whatever you do,
    and he will establish your plans. Proverbs 16:3

If you want just bare bones, read Matthew 2:1 – 18. Google can flesh out some details. Because of a horrific end to their visit, we know it occurred two years after Christmas Eve birth. A unspecified number of Magi, wise men most probably not Jews, arrive in Jerusalem asking Herod , that pinpoints the date, about the birth of the King of the Jews, which Herod thought he was. They asked this question because of their interpretation of a bright star which had led them to this place. Herod gave the question to Jewish chief priests who used Micah to send the Magi to Bethlehem after Herod has asked for more information to be brought back to him. The star led the searchers on to a house where they worshiped and gave three gifts. A dream advised them to not share news with Herod. An angels stepped in again and told Joseph to take the family to Egypt until Herod died. Herod thought he had gotten ultimate revenge by killing all baby boys two years old and under, giving us that heart wrenching statement, “Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted. “

From this comes the obligatory hymn to conclude the season; We Three Kings of Orient Are. Basically it sets the number at three kings, identifies the gifts metaphorically as appropriate to a new-born king, and emphasizes the star in the story. Historical research and inventive story tellers have fleshed out the bare bones. Henry van Dyke’s The Other Wise Man may be considered by some to be part of the canon narrative. I don’t have a Bible verse. Just consider these two offerings. The first is from Scholastic Magazine in 1958, how to travel.

Onward they journeyed, the star in the eyes. straight to a glory that lit up the skies. Most people stay in the place where they are. Only the wisest follow a star.

Christina Rosetti In the Bleak Mid-Winter can define your gift.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.