I know many children’s songs that fit me to a T. One of my favorites is “Look all the world over and what do you see? There’s no one like me!” Either by genetics or environmental shaping, I could feel an affirming glow with the headline: Giving 85% of Yourself Gets a Ringing Endorsement. If you are one of the 15% who has to align silverware as you pass the supper table, that is perfectly acceptable. Just don’t expect me to notice.

So, for a coming on 88 year old with fading eyesight and arthritic hands and a skill marginally kept up to par, I have just finished a project overflowing with mostly love. The recipients don’t care about a few mistakes and their parents are nostalgic about past memories, so all is well.

About 60 years ago, one of the gifts to our first son was a handmade floor blanket with a simple cross stitch decoration and terry cloth toweling as the quilt backing. Using the skill and ingenuity I had in sewing, over the years I created almost 100 of such blankets for great- nieces and nephews and offsprings of co-teachers. Those children on the family tree grew up and I became involved in another phase of my life. The greats produced a great-great generation, and I began to get pictures and notes saying, “Mother saved the blanket you made for me and now my child has it. “

This spring, I girded my loins as the saying goes and flexed my fingers and took myself up to my sewing machine in an apartment over the garage and sewed up love for some great-greats on the list. Not a blanket for each child; however, at least one new for most families. That third boy deserved something that wasn’t hand me down. The patterns and the process were simplified, and I had to wear a magnifying headband to hit 85% of the edges. A few mistakes were ripped out and a few just sewed over. Note: a cognitive science expert from the University of Arizona says, “If you never make any errors you can’t learn from the mistakes.”

By the end of 2024, the Smith enumeration which began with one marriage in 1925, will reach 109. One never loses their number. I will forever be 14. True to 85% being good enough, not all have a sewing machine project. I had to make contact with a book or an ice cream coupon to celebrate the end of a school year. Yet, I am part of the story that says, “This is my family and a lot of people love me.” One good aunt counts even if only 85%. My inspirational article ends: “You have to have enough wisdom to know when to stop.”

A good person leaves an inheritance for their children’s children,

Probers 13:22

On one hand hold the thought that being alone in a car is a unmeasurable blessing. One is in charge of where, when, and in what order. On the other hand is the drawn forth chuckle at how many clowns can be fitted in one car, the uncountable amount tumbling out in amazing hilarity. Land in the middle and remember conversations that have happened only because togetherness was enforced for a time.

My earliest memory is traveling to school with my daddy. He taught at the college and my grades were in a building a short walk from his office. An old stick shift Chevrolet could seat two people up front, no age required seatbelts. He kept his eye on the road and made statements I needed to pay attention to for the day: when he would pick me up after school, did I have all my work done, do what the teacher asked, don’t get in trouble at recess. The last comment was always, “See ya later.”

Driving to San Antonio for various visits after a marriage moved in an arc. David and I had getting used to each other conversations that circled around before settling in an agreeable place. Adding each child created a new adjustment from tending to needs of a baby to settling squabbles in the back seat to bringing out songs and games for entertainment on the way. Then there were the years which provided information invaluable to parents known as car pool time. Add three or four teenagers to a car and the driver becomes invisible. The stress of these years was learning to file away the revelations until the best moment to add to a discussion.

Now I drive alone in a distance from home limit. For longer distances, I depend on others to be a driver and their accepting me as a passenger. Yet within these trips, friendships are nourished. We catch up on how changes in each of our families have played out. We find out that strengths one of us called on to meet some challenge were also used by the other. We can come back to those emotional and spiritual foundations that built our friendship in a long ago beginning.

The Bible’s admonitions were before Henry Ford, and yet conversations have had directions since Eden. So keep these in mind for various times. Agree on a time to be together. Build one another up. Be thankful. Encourage each other. Conversation will flow from where you are and what you are sharing together.

 And they talked together of all these things which had happened. And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.

Luke 25:14 – 15

My story is just personal and that is what matters to me. The solar eclipse Monday is covered historically, scientifically, and worldwide in print, videos, and specific comments on line and passed by word of mouth. You who read ahead look for three parts. Next paragraph is my first viewing in my 87+ year. Last paragraph is one of those poems I keep in my heart and a spiritual response. All else fill in is up to you.

The 4 minute total eclipse was the first in the United States since 2017. It would come over Texas Hill country at a time and location where a son and I could easily be viewers, so we circled the day and waited. Driving to the ranch where a relative had a spare bedroom was easier than we planned. Monday morning we had visiting time and were joined by more relatives bringing three younger boys, so we had lots of discussions about using glasses properly to not be blinded for life. The cloudy day dampened hopes for a perfect viewing, but after an early lunch we headed for a high point to wait and hope. Sure enough, about 1:37 p.m., darkness began building, birds quit singing, a break appeared in cloud cover and the airplane warning light some twenty miles away began flashing. Various members of our group commented breathlessly , “Ohh.” I couldn’t keep my balance and my glasses and find the proper quadrant to follow the process. Finally, the son just said, “Look now!” My eclipse of 15 seconds was the perfect corona, an impressive blink worth remembering.

Next, my poem. Around the world, eclipse seen or unseen, life went on. At some time all may come to the end. At even that moment, we may have a task to complete.

• ‘T was on a May-day of the far old year
  Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
  Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring,
  Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
  A horror of great darkness, like the night
  In day of which the Norland sagas tell, — 
  The Twilight of the Gods. The low-hung sky
  Was black with ominous clouds, save where its rim
  Was fringed with a dull glow, like that which climbs
  The crater’s sides from the red hell below.
  Birds ceased to sing, and all the barn-yard fowls
  Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
  Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
  Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
  Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
  To hear the doom-blast of the trumpet shatter
  The black sky, that the dreadful face of Christ
  Might look from the rent clouds, not as he looked
  A loving guest at Bethany, but stern
  As Justice and inexorable Law.

Meanwhile in the old State House, dim as ghosts,
Sat the lawgivers of Connecticut,
Trembling beneath their legislative robes.
“It is the Lord’s Great Day! Let us adjourn,”
Some said; and then, as if with one accord,
All eyes were turned to Abraham Davenport.
He rose, slow cleaving with his steady voice
The intolerable hush. “This well may be
The Day of Judgment which the world awaits;
But be it so or not, I only know
My present duty, and my Lord’s command
To occupy till He come. So at the post
Where He hath set me in His providence,
I choose, for one, to meet Him face to face, — 
No faithless servant frightened from my task,
But ready when the Lord of the harvest calls;
And therefore, with all reverence, I would say,
Let God do His work, we will see to ours.
Bring in the candles.” And they brought them in.

I’m not scientific. I can name the planets, yet cannot image far-flung space. I only know that even the closeness of the moon and the brightness of the sun affirm my belief in God who can direct a journey to allow a passing of one that blocks the light of the other, leaving an image as a life time gift for me to see.

Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!You have set your glory
    in the heavens.

When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars which you have set in place,
 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?

Psalm 8: 1, 4,5

Ta da! the game’s afoot!. This is the CJWS version of Connections, the brain stretcher that WSJ made ubiquitous as early morning coffee or tea drinkers try to match words that by some stretch of the imagination have a tie. The three above can be various reasons for a word to be revealed after a circuitous route developed by me to define actions of Easter Week.

First consider illucidate. Granted it is a dated late Latin verb, yet the meaning is worth noting: bring life to a latent desire. I cook. At times the thought crosses my mind that I would like to be a gourmet chef. I have yet to master chopping onions with the swift up and down motion of a knife while moving my knuckles out of the way just in time. I do well to crack an egg and manage to hold half of the shell in each hand so I don’t drop loose bits in the cookie dough. No amount of the mystery word will make me more than a line helper, so I stuck with my assignment for Easter lunch.

Then I moved on to imitate. Sometimes progress comes with watching, reading, and doing. My mother had fluidity in her motions and a certain surety about moving food from the kitchen to the table while still warm. I made mental notes, bought a booklet at the checkout stand with an easy ice box roll recipe, and from Good Housekeeping magazine adopted Peg Bracken’s pie crust recipe as my go to for success. Along with calling into play the mystery word, I had two make a good meal skills that I could count on.

I set aside Easter Saturday to meet my calling and ran into a need for immanency, that word which guaranteed a permanence in a skill I knew. At one time I had made both dishes several times a month and hand and mind memory meshed. Living alone has lessen the need for producing often and in bulk. I split the crust lifting it into the pie plate and had to add trimmed pieces to seal a gap. I didn’t roll the dough as even as in past days and some rolls were fat, especially compared to the thinner ones. At this point have you a revelation of the mystery word?.

In our lives practice can be a tipping point. Trying my best illucidated the truth I will never master calligraphy. I watched a twelve year old learn to be the team player who racked up points by watching him imitate exhaustively the sequence of catch, bounce, turn and shoot until he was the one to catch the ball and raise the score. Practice hones a skill one has, so that like an arrow in a quiver it is always imminant: permanently useful. Practice is applicable to the need of any moment from building a respectable character to producing a to die for pie crust.

What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things and the God of peace will be with youl

Philippians 4:9 ESV

March is not for the faint- hearted. You’ve had January and February to get in shape, so grab a red pen and a current calendar. Coming on the heels of usually 28 days for month two, March seems to stretch on interminably. It always has four full weeks and spills over to a few extra days as it tries to wind down before soggy April. In 2022, March began with a Mardi Gras Parade moving to Ash Wednesday for the main observance of the month, Lent. For some of us, that cover of religious preparation is in the background of all activities.

Nature brings its own blessing to the month. A final freeze may brush one random day; however, a promise of change is in the air. The day defining a new season happens on the 20th. Daffodils, anemones, ranuculas, and hyacinths emerge after a winter underground. Pansies and snapdragons are at their prime and camellias in bloom flow into azaleas while doves begin singing, “Who cooks for you?” In Texas, fill your car to take a ride past Katy to oooh and aah over bluebonnets that cause roadsides to look like they are covered with purple shadows.

Mid-month offers three gifts. One has lost its edge because schedules seem to have cut being in school for 3.14 – pi day, that one math day calling for a sweet celebration.This focus gets ignored because of the overarching arrival of SPRING BREAK. Families disappear to all points of the globe, while, I assume, other groups choose to come south. On the 17th enough are still in town to remember St. Patrick even if just providing a moment for honoring distant relatives, wearing the green and taking part in a little riotous living.

And then I with others wrap up with March Madness. Because I graduated from a one sport high school, basketball is the only “ball” activity that I have the vaguest idea of what is happening on the court. Another attraction is it is played indoors and one can even take a pillow to make comfortable an unforgiving bleacher that calls for a straight back. I have already clipped my bracket and picked a few favorites, knowing full well that upsets are bound to happen.

This March has one more blessing. The 31st, that final day of a long month, is Easter, the ultimate day of new beginnings. The Thursday before, my church has a Service of Shadows with the Christ Candle solemnly and silently being carried out of the chapel to leave us with memories of coming to that point. Sunday morning that same candle leads a procession of robed choristers who are filling the sanctuary with exultant praise, proving each day was needed to arrive at the perfect moment of celebration. Not many months can offer such an arc!.

All I am saying is that if the new needed whatever counts for someone that may be progress, but not necessarily for me. In case you think I am just a complainer, I do like an automatic driveway gate opener and a fob to start my car and lock the door. Neither of these would have been on my list even a decade age.

First to be not desired for this week is the new shower head I will never own – a Jolie. Its claim to fame is one can shower in filtered water which will improve hair and skin. In a WSJ article where I learned what I was missing, an influencer said a Jolie could be the reason you asked to go to a friend’s bathroom so you could see if they had the latest improvement. Buying bottled water to drink is all the filtering I need.

This one may be marginal, yet I really don’t feel that strength and time saving is the necessity that leads me to install Siri or one of the 25 voice activators on the market. I want to keep moving even if it is just to go to the light switch or adjust the air-conditioning. Also I am the woman still dealing with password requirements and, at times, choosing the right word. Will I give a command I really want followed?

Ok, this whole topic is partly tongue-in-cheek or as a fun discussion over the dessert offering. Since I accept in amazement that my computer responds correctly when I hit SAVE or command C, it only stands to reason that I am silent while a younger friend mentions using their phone to turn on their oven from afar. A search revealed a list of 30 new gadgets for this year from cutting tooth brushing time (slightly tempting) to expanding ease of digitalizing photos ( creating the need for me to better label and order.) My height of progress for the time being is counting pills correctly to fill the weekly organizer. Ultimately, all the newness needed will be taken care of.

“Behold, I am making all things new.” Rev. 2:15

Before the time for Azalea Trails, camellias are the pride of southern yards. I could match the litany of names with blooms: a pink ruffled Debutant and a tightly formed red Professor Sergeant. White Alba Plena were my bridal bouquet. Guarding our driveway were two tall bushes of Sarah Frosts. Mother’s love was the Purple Dawn Daddy grafted just for her.

Daddy patiently worked through the process of grafting, requiring that I learn the steps. He bought a small susanqua bush to be the root stock. After time for it to settle in place, he brought home a scion from a friend’s Purple Dawn. The bark was peeled back on the susanqua, the scion was cut on the diagonal and brushed with grafting compound and placed inside the peeled bark and the two wrapped together with fine string. The combination was covered with a glass jug and a cardboard box propped by a stick to help create moisture and give protection from cold or too much sun. The stick was replaced by a brick and then an upended flower pot.

Eventually, a tiny green shoot came from the scion. The graft had taken. The grafted bush grew in place for several years before being moved to a raised bed near the back porch steps. Over thirty years time, the bush grew as tall as the roof of the porch and produced five inch blooms with a rose heart that deepened to almost black at the edges.

Blooms were gathered and scattered through the house to float in crystal bowls. Mother sent me back to college with several flowers nestled in tissue paper in a Maison Blanche suit box. She even brought a box to Houston each time they visited.

Time passes. Daddy died. Mother moved to a nursing home and eventually we had to sell the house. Our sons came to help me clean out belongings. I went to spend the night with a childhood friend. The next morning, in the chill of pre-dawn, I remembered one unfinished task. I turned on Linden Ave and drove down the gravel driveway of 115., stopping by a big bush. I broke off several limbs laden with heavy blooms. I didn’t have a suit box, so I laid them gently on clothes in the back seat. That night, at home in Houston, Purple Dawns floated once more in a crystal bowl.

 Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

Matt 6:28 – 29

You can almost go to the bank with it. Put whatever in my hand and it will disappear while you are watching. The “it ” can be as important as a specific tax paper or just as ordinary as, ” Now where are my glasses?,” after I’ve taken a bath. This year has revealed three items, searched for and given up as lost.

I can’t even guess how long I had lost contact with item 1 – maybe 10 years. In my childhood home we had two pair of scissors. One was for sewing and the other lived in the drawer of the kitchen table and were used only for paper and string. They were the “Put the scissors back where you found them!” pair. I inherited them, brought them to Rice Blvd, felt I had moved them to Swift in 2014, but never laid eyes on them. In January of this year, I cleaned a drawer next to the printer and there they were, waiting to be found. As of this moment, I think I can go right to their new dwelling place. Rejoice!

Number 2 on the list vanished one Wednesday night last fall. I have a special house key ring of a giraffe that a first grader brought me home from Kenya. I take only my phone and that key to choir, have a ride home, and go on with life. Except one Thursday, the key ring had vanished. I looked under, and over, and in, and no key ring. I got in the house, didn’t I? I even checked the garbage can. Two weeks ago I put on a light weight jacket, stuck my hand in the pocket and there it was, waiting for me. Rejoice!

Number 3 has a story all its own. About 44 years ago a college student lived with us. At some point he gave me a special coffee scoop. One scoop equalled grounds for one cup of coffee. I kept it a glass next to the coffee grounds to avoid little black bits from collecting in the cabinet. Last fall I was reaching in the cabinet, knocked over the glass, and saw that the scoop had fallen out. It was not on the counter, not on the floor, did not bounce into the washroom. I even had middle son run a ruler under the refrigerator to check. Amazement and puzzlement, yet it was nowhere to be found until last week. I was being extra careful pouring water into the coffee pot and there was the scoop lying in the bottom, just enough space for it to lie flat and unseen. I called the searching son and said, “You’ll never guess what? Rejoice!”

In the 15th chapter of Luke, three items of various worth are lost. All are searched for and a celebration held when each is found. Join with me, my friends, Rejoice!

And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!”

Luke 15:9

A cliche or a wise saying: “It takes a village to raise a child.” For me, the words have matured. “The confines of a Village are needed to rescue an aging adult.” Except for four better forgotten years, all my life in Houston whether single, married, parent, or widow have been lived in or near a place known as The Rice Village. That identifiable space on a map helped me survive this past week’s true life adventure.

Sunday morning began orderly. I planned for a stop at The Village CVS on the way to church. Going in was fine. When I came out, the car had abandoned its get up and go. While not my most welcome happening, I had some leeway of time. Middle son was called into rescue mode. I had a meeting after church and a friend provided a ride home. Since no one could steal a sedentary vehicle, it camped out on the parking lot as a special treat.

Monday morning, son-in-law came into play as helper #2. The Village is a hub for several surrounding areas, so it wasn’t a chore for him to take me back to the car to see if a jump start solved the problem. It didn’t. However, I had already called my insurance to get the number for their towing service. I had specific locations for pick up and drop off. The cut off distance for towing is 15 miles and it is only 1.2 miles (did I mention The Village being centrally located?) to the dealership, so I settled in for the 60 – 90 minutes before help would arrive.

I had come prepared for some wait. I had time for a short walk to the post office and back by the coffee shop to buy a ham and cheese croissant and include a bathroom stop before settling in to read. Then the timing got tangled. The tow truck started from south/west Houston and while the CVS has a Kirby address, its orientation is like a strip mall and the entrance faces a side street called Bolsover. The tow truck driver, to his credit, did call several times to report in and a conglomeration of broken Spanish and Louisiana drawl finally got him to my part of the world, The Village.

Then it was like watching the punch line to the old joke about the man repairing the machinery by knowing exactly where to hit with the ball peen hammer. No words can explain how a 15 foot flatbed got put at the right angle for a seemingly immoveable car to be ratcheted up the incline and locked in place. The driver helped me up to ride shotgun five minutes to the area still within my geographical comfort circle to start repair.

Fast forward. Both car and I are home, three blocks away from The Village where the adventure started. One of my favorite back of mind verses is Ezra 8:31 to be offered after journeys when the worst that could have happened didn’t. Through it all, I was in a place I knew, I had family to call on and a phone that worked, the weather was pleasant and the icing on the cake was a free car wash and an in-warranty battery replacement which cost me $0.00! Definitely deserves a “Praise God!”

 And the gracious hand of our God protected us and saved us from enemies and bandits along the way.

Ezra 8:31

Eighth graders taught me this term as one’s acceptable excuse. Two plunges into could have avoided mistakes were my entrance to the forgiveness of Lent. You are released from having to read to the end if you, of either sex, have never put a strong colored object in with an all white load and had to redeem a wardrobe of a faded undefineable hue.

Start a week ago afternoon with time to spare before an Ash Wednesday service. Cleaning out a drawer revealed a half bag of dried black beans. One of my favorite soups requires overnight soaking. I brought to a boil, turned off, covered, and sat the pot on the back burner with a mental check to start next step after breakfast in the morning. Except the remember part didn’t happen until late the next afternoon when the sour odor of fermented carbohydrates required abandoning the project. Not noting my mother’s admonition, “You know better than that!” I picked up the pot, poured contents in the sink, and ,oh, yes, hit the disposal button. Whirrs and spraying and a total absence of draining. I channelled my daddy, went out for Drano, and it took three full pour and wait sequences to have a clean sink. Little actions can cause a big mess.

I was chagrined and careful until almost the end of Friday. I promised one friend to find a document, write a few personal notes, and let all wobble over that wire that transverses the universe. I didn’t need a lot of time and thought I had just enough until I pulled down the contact list, wiggled the right pointer finger and moved deliberately to send. Correct first name, totally wrong waiting person. I followed with an apology and tried again. The reply was, “Don’t worry. We all make mistakes.” Not doing right seems to lurk.

In spite of errors, I went on to try an excellent new recipe with canned beans and also had a heart to heart needed contact with a friend. For myself, after these two rushing into action impetuously, I want to pay attention during these days ahead: to choose carefully, say kind words, and ask for that forgiveness that was affirmed during this time. Daily, I want to read and reread the words that John the Beloved sent to remind. They are important.

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. ⁸ If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. ⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰ If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John 1:5 – 10