On my Kindle, at night and in the afternoon, I am reading a book about various birds that have gone extinct and how it happened.  So many at one time that they darkened the sky, yet hunting for food and feathers and destroying habitat decimated the flocks til there were none.  I went to this book after reading about it in a devotion paper and print book that I held in my hand by morning light. Both ways of reading are my life blood.  By my choices will there soon be only one option?

In the last few years, high schools in our area have increased their digital libraries for space and rapidity of use.  No more wandering stacks for a surprise or knowing how to search a card catalogue for a Dewey Decimal number. Four years ago we moved to a smaller house, and I weeded books that occupied shelves.  A few were cradled gently and opened naturally to a oft visited page. I can even tell where some favorite books were read as on the iron bed on a screen porch in Hammond, or the ones that traveled to Holland with me as a paperback.

I caught my breath when I went to help sort books as our church library closed.  We went almost every Sunday when our children were small.  Users has lessened, and the space was needed.  Some books are being kept. We are trying to find homes in schools and other churches for the rest.

A small respite survives with children’s books.  The time may come when sitting on a parent’s lap and turning pages by swiping is the norm. If the change is a fault, it is partly mine.  I try not to buy shelf bound books. A friend passes books sideways, and then I return them. If I do buy they go back through Half-Price or Good Will.  Sometimes the desire to know now is strong enough to purchase if the internet or a library fail to quench the yearning.   Maybe I need to make a bumper sticker:  “If you can read this, go buy a book!”

To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

 

By fits and starts,  I have mothered  three children to adulthood, and they still love on me.  The point of this is to either supply you with a story that allows you to shake your head and say, “I’d never do that,” or to cause you to breathe a sigh of relief and whisper, “There’s hope for me.”

My first advice as a new mother was the nurse reminding me, “Always put Baby on his tummy.” To even find this picture I had to Google bad sleep practices.  I put new baby in the crib. He hunched one shoulder until he resembled a convoluted S, burbled twice and went to sleep.  I spent many a night repositioning until I decided he hadn’t heard the directions. (For the first time.) Since he survived, I told myself I could manage mothering.

Following this intuitive guidebook,  I (gasp!) lost contact with a child, not once, but twice.  Time one I was 7 months pregnant and the sister in law I traded children with had sent me her two girls.  I took a 9, 6, 5, and almost 4 year old to Galveston in a Texas summer. I don’t know what else we did, but ended up with a trip to the Aquarium. I was leading a duck line down the hall to the restrooms before a drive home. Checking back, the four year old with a feather in his back was no longer anywhere in sight.  None of my group remembered when he was last seen.  I sat survivors down and went to ask for an announcement of a lost child.  The door that led to the parking lot opened, and a hot sweaty tike marched in. Of course, we loved and watered and didn’t scold.  To this day, he has never discussed what happened.  He still travels with me, so maybe trauma wasn’t insurmountable.

Time two, our family now had a 3 year old girl to anchor the group.  We were at Galleria watching ice skaters, and there were only two instead of three.  I told the boys to hold on to the rink rail and watch while I made the circle.  I came around to the office where one bought tickets and saw the right color dress marching toward the seller.  I swooped her up to suddenly have a screaming dervish in my arms.  Head was twisted and her back arched as she declared, “Put me down!  I’m going to tell him my name and number!!”  The lesson of what to do had stuck.  Give me points for that.

I’d like the make the excuse that I didn’t lose them; they wandered off.  We do that. Sometimes we turn around and retrace our steps.  Sometimes we declare that we really know what to do.  Whatever the situation, God leaves the rest of the flock and makes sure that we safely join them again. That always is his plan.

 For thus says the Lord God, “Indeed, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.”  Ezekiel 34:11

We just had a week-end holiday and the “c” word needs to be commemorate, maybe with the third verse of the National Anthem.

0 thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand  Between their loved home and the war’s desolation. Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land  Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation! Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,  And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Wars do happen, and we hope the side we are on is just, and that those who have given us the chance to try to do better have been brave and noble. No issued uniforms, yet the women and children have also done their part to try and maintain a new normal.  We have various large congregation pictures of our church. The one from 1942 is almost all women and children.  The men were at war.  Yet, because they were gone in that year, future pictures have new faces to remember ones of the past.

Each of us has some tie to some war.  My dad served in WWI. I heard his stories of troop ships going to Europe and bought poppies to wear on November 11 for Armistice.  He died at 96 on November 11 and Mother commented, “He would have been so proud to know that.” Memorial Day in May is tied to all American servicemen who have died. At an earlier time families gathered that weekend to clean cemeteries, living caring for the place of the dead.  My husband was stateside during Korea, and our family has been the wrong age for more recent conflicts, a slight word for horrific happenings.

The hymn Onward Christian Soldiers is out of favor for some, yet the battle of good and evil is the final picture in Revelation. We shudder still with current news and unwished for possibilities and pray for a time when lions will lie down with lambs. With hope, we hear again these words. 

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.  John 14:27

Wikipedia has not validated the following.  I just needed a beginning first paragraph. History began with writing.  Words you have heard in a distance class like hieroglyphics and cuneiform. They counted as communication, yet their meaning is mostly available to ivory tower professors who have uncovered means of decoding. After chiseling information in stone passed, early monks wrote mostly in Latin by hand on treated sheep skins.

In 1439, Gutenburg invented a printing press, and the availability of messages took off.  These new writings ranged from Bibles to incitements of rebellions. To incorporate pictures or vary types of print required effort by several individuals.  Eventually, the next step forward led to me.

A copy of this poem was sent to me by my daughter-in-law.  It was written by her grandfather who lived from 1870-1943. While the words are tender, the type was my draw to an earlier time.  Instantly, I knew it was not written on a computer, not even the first ones that I knew. It was a typewriter.  I was 17 and taking a typing class. All machines clattered, and a bell and a slam told when a line was finished.  I was responsible for noting when a word needed to be hyphenated, when a ribbon needed changing, and for living with mistakes or laboriously trying to correct. All in all, the skill of its use was probably one of the more important ones of my education.

For years, a Remington reigned.  I struggled up stairs in a dorm to have one on my desk. I earned $0.35 a page typing for spending money. Mystery novels discovered who wrote the ransom note by the nicks on a lower case e, and movies had scenes of reporters typing news of the hour in a smoke filled rooms.

When change occurred, it was with the rapidity of watching a tennis match.  The first question my students would ask was “Can I change the font?” Pica and Elite of the typewriter were nothing compared to Algerian to Trattartello in various sizes and colors and a choice of bold or italic. Images could appear with a click.  It took a strong will to enforce the idea that content counted.

John ends his gospel by saying that the world could not contain the books that might be written about Jesus stories,  Even if that is the case, font and presentation are not important.  Only one thing matters.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  John 1:14

 

Checking ads, reading op-Ed columns, or listening to friends makes me feel that having a variety of devices would free me to live a narcissistic undemanding life. I might just have a strong pointer finger from pushing the start button or a weaker voice from having only to mention needs to Siri.  Some of these options mean more to me than others.  Cell phones evolved from stationary on a wall to a coiled cord allowing movement to a speaker in a car when away from home.  Likewise the convenience of a microwave is enjoyed, though I don’t have an Instant Pot yet.  Mind wandering reminded me of the children’s song, “This is the way we wash our clothes, on a Monday morning.”

I’ve lived through a long cycle of clean clothes.  I learned early to be very invisible on Monday when my mother washed every thing from sheets to clothes of the week in the bathtub, wrung out by hand, and hung on the clothes line next to the garage. If the weather was bad, my daddy had floored the attic and put a line up there as an option. Special accessories, I guess you’d call them, were stretchers for sheer curtains and drying forms for khaki trousers to prevent wrinkles. My friend’s family didn’t have a car, so they had room for a wringer in their garage. Being able to turn the handle and feed in clothes taught us to always watch our fingers…along with noticing where the curious cat had its tail.

World War II ended, and we got a Bendix machine.  Machines have circled back to front loaders after a time for top loaders, yet for this machine that was the only option.  We kept it on a small back porch.  This is difficult to believe, but children in the neighborhood would sit on the floor and watch the soap filled water slosh around in circles. At times, the cycle was overloaded and soapy water spilled out some way, and we had to sweep it out the back screen door. The clothes line was still the dryer.

When I was in the 6th grade we moved to our last house.  A long screen porch was at the side next to the oyster shell drive way.  This machine was a Maytag.  It lasted and lasted, never needing service beyond what my daddy could perform. It was protected from elements on the porch, but it was still exposed to the temperature of the outside air. If a freeze was expected, the water hose was disconnected and drained and an old quilt draped over it for protection. Again, a dryer was never even considered.  Hot air and a breeze were just as effective and cheaper.

Now the choices are overwhelming with a dryer an essential part of the mix. Building new or redoing require considering the choices: side by side, stacked for efficient use of space, and a color to match a decor. One of you readers even has a dry cleaning option I don’t begin to understand.  Cleanliness is next to godliness is not Biblical, yet it is a standard we hold for ourselves and others. To be truly clean sometimes extends our plea beyond outward visible dirt.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin, Psalm 51: 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Look up Family Tree by Norman Rockwell, a favorite picture of mine since Saturday Evening Post days.  I know. I lost some of you younger ones with that reference to a weekly magazine of an earlier time. Most of you who read this are some leaf on my family tree.   Others are close friends who at least know my name.  I didn’t intend this to go viral with unknown readers searching out my comments.  That means along the way what I write will be all about me.  The hope is you will turn the lens to make it all about you.

I have a broad feeling of family because those of birth/blood, adoption/love, marriage/in-laws, and meet a need members are a varied group  For Mother’s Day, I want to introduce the most shadowy one of that group, my birth mother. She was the oldest of one brother and two sisters in Lakeland, Florida.  She married a small town Baptist minister and lived through what were difficult times in the depression  She died when I was two weeks old. At that point, her life story and its intersection with mine stopped. My adopted mother saw that I had contact with her family, and I did write sporadically over her sisters’ lifetimes. Yet, some tension between families arose over her death and no one talked much of this young woman’s life.

Some pictures from one of her sisters show I have a family resemblance. She is the dark haired one in this picture. This is the part of her essence that was maybe passed to me. She must have had a slight arty streak.  Only two verifications remain.  I have the wedding booklet she made herself:  construction paper end pieces with clippings of newspaper comments of a shower and the wedding.  A ribbon is used instead of brads to hold pages together.  My niece, her granddaughter, has a picture of a sailboat she painted.  What I created in Friday afternoon free drawing class was not recognized nor memorable. The most I do is paste pictures in my journal or write decorative words in different colors. Her greatest gift to me was not this talent. Instead,  it is with every breath that I say, “Thank you , Norene, for life.” 

 

Honor your father and your mother.  Exodus 20:12

Take a trip through your house.  Look and pay attention. What possessions are over ten years old?  Thirty years – you inherited, didn’t buy.  If something is 100, it can classify as an antique.

I have a theory that museums exist because of attics.  I was most impressed during a tour of Mt. Vernon that the house had a box room.  It could hold luggage for traveling and non-used objects of the moment. Tread of the Pioneers in Steamboat Springs has a delightful gathering of whole rooms and equipment of an earlier doctor in town. The letter signs say this came from the house of a local family…all stored in an attic.

Another important savings reason is not only did people have an accessible place to amass, they didn’t move in several lifetimes. Houses and contents were available for the next generation. Sometimes the gatherings yield treasures.  Sometimes just junk.  A friend received attic contents from her mother-in-law and is now dealing with out-sourcing her husband’s Cub Scout uniform and a menorah from a good Christian family.

What to do on a rainy day?  Take stock.  Is there another person or place waiting to love what is only put aside while in your possession?   If its worth is the aura of memories more than of its monetary value, take time to write the story or make a shadow box. The palmetto leaf fan above was owned by my mother in her mid-thirties.  In her nineties, sixty years and five moves later she still had it wrapped in tissue in the bottom of a dresser drawer.  Maybe she wanted it available in case the a.c. failed. Someone needs to know who it belonged to and why, and what was its journey to my house.

..a man’s life does not consist of the abundance of his possessions.  Luke 12:15

Or:  One man’s trash is another’s treasure.

Floods come in the spring and move from headwaters south.  This year, 2019, the news is watching those waters of northern rivers move downriver, now as far as Missouri, and more rain is in the offering. This is the maxi story told on evening news .  The tale is real also on a mini level with each family that is involved.  I heard a mini story of another flood,  considered it an adventurous tale, and never asked the right questions.

In 1927, my parents lived in Monterrey, Louisiana.  Daddy was a principal and ag teacher and Mother taught English and (to my amazement) led physical education. Daddy built their house, off the ground on pilings to let waters from the frequent floods of Black River flow underneath. That year, beginning in March, rains began near the Great Lakes and continued all down the mid-section of the country, drawing waters from all tributaries into the Mississippi. Ramifications of that disaster were fights that still exist today over how to control waters and the organization of refugee camps by Hoover which led to his being elected president.

These are the mini parts I heard from Mother only.  “The water was the worst it had ever been.  We had a Ford and your daddy tried to scaffold it in the barn.  We did the same thing to furniture in the house.  Finally we put what we could in a row boat and moved over to the second story of the school.  Insert from me:  (This was the two story brick building you’ve seen in pictures with steps leading up to the first floor. ) We kept the boat tied and crawled through the window.  For 6 weeks your daddy’s feet didn’t touch dry ground.”  (I know that part isn’t accurate because one story was he got all his hogs to a high place and went over to feed them) After those comments, not much was said.  Just a head shake and back to the day.

How could I be so clueless! What was the cleaning out like?  How much did they save?  I did ask one time,”What did you do when it was all over?”  Some of you know too well from Harvey what those answers would be. She gave the reply that covered every eventuality of her life, “We managed.”

Those two words became a banner cry for our family. What will we do?  “We”ll manage.”

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear…though the waters roar and be troubled.”  Psalm 46: 1,3

(History buffs:  Rising Tide  John M. Barry.  Learn about levees, jetties, crevasses)

 

 

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I don’t even want to tell you the name of the book.  The genre was a detective story about a woman investigator in the 1920’s.  It met the criteria of being available on i-pad from the library and not demanding total attention to following the story during a disjointed trip. Toward the end of the novel, this statement stood out:  Never judge a journey by its length. A variety of journeys tumbled into my mind.  Some were planned and others unplanned.  A few involved only crossing a street. A shining important one was metaphorical whose destination was a change in heart.

A spur of the moment going forth has lasting value of inestimable worth.  Forty-two years ago as we left church a friend mentioned that peaches were ripe in Fredricksburg.  Though making preserves is not my favorite use of peaches, somehow having them available for a hot biscuit on a winter day sounded enticing.  The boys were at Boy Scout camp.  Monday morning, Sarah, maybe 8, and I packed sugar, lemons, and jars, and drove to the Hill Country.  We bought a bushel of ripe peaches and headed back to the family ranch near Bergheim, twining the roads through Luckenbach. We bought a Coke at the beer joint.  We crossed a bridge over a creek, pulled over, and dangled our feet in cool running water. We settled in at the ranch, peeled peaches , and cooked down the sugary syrup before adding cinnamon and lemon juice to taste.  We ate supper on the front porch still smelling the flavored sweetness heavy in the air. In coming darkness ,we walked through the gate and up to the road to look for deer. Tuesday morning we packed our efforts carefully and were in Houston by noon.

In memory, this time was never marred by “Are we there yet?”  “How much farther?”“Do we really need to go?” How do you rank the trips of your life?  Was the value weighed by the length?  Two weeks with children may have been given worth by motels with swimming pools. A neighborhood three block walk for ice cream may even be ahead of a trip to England.  Consider the stress in a walk from a waiting room to a doctor’s office and then having it relieved by good news.

My map was redrawn at this point.  I took a break in writing to go to church, Palm Sunday. Our pastor wrote in the church blog of Pontius Pilate’s ceremonial journey that day from Caesarea Maritime to Jerusalem to show off Roman power and prevent a riot if necessary.  That parade meant nothing to me.  Yet that same day Jesus arrived in Jerusalem to celebrate a Jewish feast and hopefully avoid attempts on his life. How long did it take to wind through the streets of Jerusalem surrounded by affirming throngs calling, “Hosanna!”  The length of that journey continues to this day and its value in my life cannot be measured.

 “You see that you can do nothing; look, the whole world has gone after him.”

 

Same time zone.  Six hours and 3,134 miles south, and I may be behind the bricks in the street by OSA house.  Operación San Andres.  My first trip to Peru was fifteen years ago, a spiritual trip for a secular reasons.  Our church was part of a group taking shoes to orphans in Lima.  The middle of the week included a trip to Machu Pichu – my drawing card.  I taught World History and this was on my I want to have been there list.  Other than an altitude headache, walking in ancient trails along with llamas was all I wished for, not so much with digging out shoes to fit a child and then playing games.

Meanwhile, a medical group also from my church had gone the same time the first year as I to an area up in the hills from Lima. I don’t do bandaids without twisting them and have no dental or eye training.  However, they needed a peanut butter sandwich maker to keep the professional people healthy.  Did I ever have experience in that!  Every October since then I’ve come, and lately I’ve added the April trip. This is my spiritual center I am called to. I’ve shared morning prayers with the mothers who cook for the children who come to the center.  I’ve organized time and counted sandwiches, so various groups can eat in sequence with enough to go around.  Each  afternoon I check supplies and plan a replenish order.  Sometimes I even go help with the children, counting on a smile to make up for words I don’t know. The southern questions are “Where are you from?”  “Who are your people?”  To the first, even after fifty plus years in Texas, I reply, “South Louisiana.”  If a native of Collique asked me the second question, I would have to say, “You are.”

           We will all sit at the table as family, and there is a place for everyone.