There’s not a way to spell the syllables to make “met” and “me” rhyme.  The sentence though is the story of my food career, and I owe it all to my mother.  She spent her whole life with what to cook was either grown in the back yard or raised in the back pasture. The offerings were to be seasoned with salt, pepper, onions, garlic, and bacon grease.  The bacon grease was generational and sat on the back corner of the Chambers range in a stainless steel special can with a sieve to catch brown bits and a lid to protect from dust.  In case there is a cardiologist among you, she lived to 101 1/2 and my dad to 96 on this diet and did not die of heart problems.

Mother’s first dictum was to have plenty.  She was raised in Mississippi by a widowed grandmother who still had four sons living at home.  Meals were mashed potatoes or rice, vegetable of the season – always fresh – , and a variety of meat from animals killed locally, caught, or hunted.  Hot bread was part of most meals as rolls, biscuits, or cornbread.  We’ll discuss dessert later. My dad was an ag teacher and had scholarship boys who had to stay on campus even if all else was closed. It the cafeteria wasn’t serving, our house was. The most heard phrase was, “Would you have some more….?”

Dessert came in six choices:  two pies, two cobblers, and two cakes.  Apples pie was number one, of course.  Close behind was lemon meringue, my favorite.  Cobblers with biscuit dough to absorb juice were peach and blackberry made in a large iron Dutch oven I still have.  Maybe the cakes were three.  A chocolate and an oatmeal sheet cake and one that appeared only for SPECIAL occasions, so I almost forgot it.  It was three layers of a white cake mix with 7 minute icing – no mean feat- and coconut pressed into the top and sides.

I learned by watching and absorbing.  Mother knew how to plan time and what she wanted to happen, and she couldn’t guarantee I would do it correctly.  I was given the task of setting the table and be ready to “Put this on” when the command was given.  No matter who was there, the meal didn’t begin until all were seated, and she pronounced, “Now, honey.” Breakfast was more individual, but for two meals a day, my dad would offer, “Thank you for the food we eat and the hands that prepared it.  Bless it to our bodies and us to thy service.”

I may have gone beyond her recipes, but for a foundation I can make rolls and a blue ribbon peach cobbler. Basically, I want plenty to go around that a table full of men would enjoy.

She rises early while it is yet night and provides food for her household.

Provides 31:15

A story I heard maybe in my college days.  I have no idea if it is true, but I would like to believe it is.  I can envision the scene and would like my voice to be in the response.

In the days when the Russian government was closing down churches and declaring religion to be inferior to the state, the leaders held an assembly in one town.  On the podium were Communist leaders and the local priest of the Orthodox church.  After the Communist had made his speech about churches no longer being open, he called the priest to the podium to announce the closing of the church in that town.  The priest walked to the podium, raised his hands, and his voice rang out.  “Christ is Risen!” The crowd arose and with one voice responded.  “He is risen indeed.  Hallelujah.”

Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him  the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.   Philippians 2:10 – 11

 

You know what the grumpy cat looks like. He is cocooned in his blanket, nose barely out, and determined not to face what Monday demands.  I didn’t plan on starting that way.  I rose with a determined list, much like one you probably have.  I would have breakfast and look at the parts of the paper I could live with.  My daily Mini Crossword – maybe a whole blog on that – would wake up my mind. Like you who work from home or even keep a home running from where you are, I started the process of washing sheets and cleaning kitchen counters.  I had one issue to tend to and would go forth for a morning walk.

Disruption began with a small crack in the wall.  The CPA wrote he thought he had figured out why the IRS has disliked me to the point of not paying for two years.  Hooray for that.  However it involved putting all on hold while I dug around and contacted third parties to find papers that would validate the claim. Like dominoes waiting to fall, steps two and three are on hold until step one reports back.  Scratch the walk.

John Donne wrote, “No man is an island.” Being sheltered in place for me does not mean I have become invisible.  I had a plan for the week about contacts I wanted to make in an acceptable manner. You know, be a helper.  Someone decided they wanted to revise and expand that plan, and suddenly I had a deadline. All morning I have shifted file cards:  call person A, respond to e-mail B, search for the piece of paper from 2018. Whoops, listen to the voice mail.

Now it is a day half gone.  Thank goodness! Thomas Moore, the 20th century priest, uses the word re-collect as that time to draw back all that has been scattered. I have taken this time to look at where I am, and how you have been a help by listening visually. I have a good story next week about my mother and me and cooking.  Our pastor has a devotion I can join at noon. A tasty left over awaits for lunch.  And, tomorrow is Tuesday.

 I have made myself calm and content like a young child in its mother’s arms. Deep down inside me, I am as content as a young child. Psalm 131:2 

On one hand, my age puts me in the get the virus, move to pneumonia and no more worries stage.  On the other hand, I am responsible for only me, enjoy cooking, am in good health, considering, and live only a door away from the outdoors. Walking at a leisurely pace is my exercise of choice. I did try to rev up to the 10,000 steps a day at the first of all this spare time.  Three days and my body spoke loud and clearly, “What are you thinking of?” Now I have a moment of thankfulness that I am not in a residential home lock down and clock around the block or its equivalent four times a day as enough to stir the blood, as husband David used to say.

Outside with purpose opens more than a wooden door.  Speaking contact with people is readily available.  One family with three children on bikes and a jogging dad speak or wave a hand as they pass.  The nanny of a preschooler down the street brings him and his snack to have a morning break at my Little Free Library bench.  From the 6 feet requirement he and I discussed the literary merit of Learn Your Colors. A teenager I don’t know evidently had mowing the lawn added to his free time.  His mother sat on the house steps to evaluate the process. Oh, I could use an Identify Your Dog book. Big ones, little ones, voiced trained, and on a leash.  When had they all been walked three weeks ago?

If I am the only one out, there is still that amazing varied nature.  I need to be careful not to trip, so I watch my feet and the roots.  Oak trees reaching out can raise a sidewalk and evidently will continue to do so.  A crepe myrtle spreads to the side or underground to appear like a snake across a yard.  House to house the yards can be divided into those cared for with colorful beds or free growing ones that have never known an edger.  Motion of leaves and a slight sound come from March breezes or winds, depending on the day.

In other places, workers without my blessing of time choices are rushing, saving lives, holding danger at bay.  I wish I could offer them a reprieve, Just a moment to notice that spring has come again, that dogs chase squirrels, that children squeal at the flight of a butterfly. Even where we are now, signs of the Creator still point to love and care. I chose a song this week and found there is no way I have the skill to add a link to open. Select your favorite from various This is My Father’s World offerings. I found one from Cedarmont Kids Praise Music Video where the pictures give vistas  leading to the words “ne’er forget that though the wrong seems, oh, so strong, God is the ruler yet.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don’t want to minimize any of the current disaster; however, choose what you want to know.  I almost didn’t write this week.  (Gasp!) Every medical personal, judicial decider, educational expert, economic guru, psycological adviser, meditation expert, and even an interior decorator have a piece in the morning paper to provide important information to re-explain the dangers and offer suggestions on how to survive. A few of them contradict each other.  So, how do you react?

Last night was the overwhelming fear night. I have a good friend, home from her job, with two elementary students not in school.  Her doctor husband goes forth to deal with what an emergency facility demands of him.  The daily decision is whether his life is in danger or whether he is bringing danger home with him. You may match that with your own story that is breath catching.

At some point the demands and problems change to just me and my reactions.  Money is less than I might need to meet what life wants:  food especially and a few entertaining moments. The tipping point for me is no flour in the grocery story.  Come on, are all these stay home people taking up baking bread.

See what is happening?  Introspection can lead to being selfish and sarcastic. I need to refocus.  The word is STOP! By next week all that upsets me may still exist, yet I am going to move on.  I have a word to share on little yellow flowers in the front yard, and maybe a report on children’s sidewalk art.  I’ve started a pandemic diary because putting words on paper forces me to sift wheat from chaff. I promise to pull up my bootstraps and carry on…..and to check on you if you need the cheery person I plan on becoming.

Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Matthew 6:34

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Timothy 2:1-2

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

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

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

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

                                                            Luke 12:15

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

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

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

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

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

Proverbs 17:17 NIV