For those of you who still have patches of snow lingering in shady spots, hang on to hope. Lurking around the corner are whatever flowers that herald a farewell to winter in your locale. Even if it is just a few green leaves on bare branches, they still say warmth is on the way. Across the Gulf Coast small bushes of red Christmas Cheer azaleas tickled your “maybe” bone and led the way in to banks of President Clay’s rosy glory. Washington D. C. and northern Virginia already have had rows of varied colors of tulips that were planted in the fall with great expectation. Another month or two will pass before Colorado has columbines brighting the foothills of its mountains. In Texas, family carloads are taking to the highways to park along fields of bluebonnets for a yearly picture of children in a glorious setting.

I never knew bluebonnets until I came to Texas in 1960 and had to be ignorantly in charge of the Texas Independence Day program for children and parents. I had to sort out the legend of the Cherokee girl who received them as a gift from the Great Spirit after providing a means of ending a drought while working in that bluebonnets became the state flower in 1902 through the efforts of Colonial Dames of America, a very impressive title. I helped plant a native garden at another school that involved scoring the seed with sandpaper and soaking them before planting. Germination was not any greater with this care than the amazing patch in my current back yard from seeds blown over the fence from the stand grown by my neighbor. The Texas Department of Highways scatters 30,000 lbs of seeds a year and what happens is beyond belief.

So now is the viewing time. A friend and I left on a perfect morning last Friday to head toward the Hill Country. As we got out of town, teasers began to appear. We sighted a few dark blue shadows and a scattering of red Indian Paint Brush and the accent of Snow on the Mountain. Finally, the first large field. We pulled off onto the shoulder, avoiding the ditch, to document the moment. On to Chappell Hill, one official Festival town, for lunch and then a circle to Bellville. There the town has a designated field opposite a mall to make the trip a success. By the time you read this on Thursday the past few days have probably moved this year’s blossoms from almost to full glory. While viewing, sing “Have you ever been to Texas in the spring? Where bluebonnets wave in the air.” “Tis the season!

Consider how the wild flowers grow. They neither toil or spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.

Luke 12:27

For seven years I’ve been writing mostly three paragraphs and a Bible verse of something interesting, or a shared story, or a quirky thought and sent it forth on a Wednesday night. An article caught my attention in the fall, and I have just spent an hour Googling and Yahooing and trying to bring order out of chaos. SPOILER ALERT. I have a list of one sentence information. Each tidbit could be followed by nevertheless, however, or possibly. So accept my apologies to Wikipedia and the Oxford English Dictionary and to scratching an interest and giving some thought to mycology.

A mycologist, while generally interested in life connected to fungi, can specialize in a variety of topics from slime mole to athlete’s foot to mushrooms. The later is our topic for today. Your knowledge may be the surprise of a vibrant colored mushroom complete with a dome and gills that is gathering nutrients from decomposed matter around the trunk of a tree. Some of these are safe to eat, except, unless an expert, insert , however, because some can be poisonous. I have a personal testimony that portobello burgers can be consumed as protein of the vegan world and you can live to tell about it. Then there are toadstools, mythically created by witches, which have a concave top and a band on their steam clearly proclaiming NOT SAFE! My favorite quote is “consumption can leave you with hallucinations of vivid unicorns or lying in the hospital with liver failure.” You may be a gourmet cook who chooses your fresh mushrooms in a specialty store or you may only buy canned or order as a pizza topping. A few people just like the names: Lion’s mane; oyster, morel; or porcine.

While this commentary is obviously not exhaustive, I do need to bring up the elite second cousin – the truffle. They are the edible spore of a fungi that grows only underground. It is sparse and tasty enough to be in the costly range. Harvesters in the beginning used female pigs to locate except the animals chose to find and devour rather than share, so now dogs are the replacement. A successful Oregon truffle hunter might earn $90.000 to $119,000 for December to March efforts. If you need a Biblical thought, God did give us all plants to enjoy and the same chapter told Adam on his banishment that some gathering would take more effort. I’m just remembering that the “magic button” gave Alice the change in size to have an adventure of which Robert Louis Stevenson could remind us…

The world is so full of a number of things, that we all should be as happy a kings.

A Child’s Garden of Verses

I can’t say I was the main force in a cherished pet family. I just have had a few slightly tangential moments to this point. Before age 4, my daddy had white bitch named Snow White. She littered the Seven Dwarfs which he gave away one by one without a specific name. Though there was no true bonding, i was the owner of Bill the pony. While children still lived at home, various goldfish and two cats were fed and tended. The cats stayed in the family house longer than the children, just walking through the cat door and away when their years of belonging were up. Now, I have raised caterpillars to butterflies. They require little attention and definitely no naming.

Yet, I still have a longing to have created a habitation for three creatures. One I gave a try as a step toward success. The second tantalized me with a relative’s possibility. The third will only be a never will happen dream. I could hear the owl call at night and even found a baby that had fallen from a nest. Of course, I read up and purchased an owl box. An elder son climbed up a ladder that I steadied to attach the box at a prescribed height in an enticing (I hoped) oak tree. Two years later, I realized that home was ignored, and the box rotten down of its own volition.

Trial two was the possibility of a bee hive.The buzzing of noisy production and the vision of multiple small winged creatures going in and out of plants in my garden before returning to their home was the enticement more than suiting up to gather honey. I read the catalogues and scattered botanical attractors’ seeds with no success. However, more aggressive carpenter bees attacked a beam in a breezeway. They drilled multiple holes and disappeared to make unseen tunnels in the depths. Keeping the beam intact required a vigilant program of spraying the holes.

Number 3 will remain only a wish fired by teaching My Side of the Mountain. A generation of 5th graders and I did extensive research before abandoning the project. of raising a hawk.The first three requirements cut short our idea: be approved by a licensed agency; build a large cage in your back yard where birds can fly, and document that you are spending a prescribed time per day giving attention to training. I have to be content with newspaper articles that state pereqines nest on window sills downtown in Houston.

The wildness of these mentioned animals appeals to me maybe because they keep alive a genetic memory of God creating and bringing one of their ancestor for Adam to name. When we lived on Rice Blvd, I could hear the morning rumble of lions in the zoo waking up. Out from Fort Davis, I have seen bighorn sheep scampering up sides of a mountain, and migrating elk created moving shadows beside a dark road as I drove to Estes Park.

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

Genesis 2:19

As a memory gift, I was given a dear friend’s cookie recipe burned into a wooden paddle to hang on a wall. Last Saturday I set aside the morning to make a six cup of flour batch of chocolate chip cookies. The process was interesting. One always has enough staples…maybe. I took down the flour container. Amazingly, just 6 cups with a teaspoon to spare. The same for 1 1/2 cups white sugar. Whew! Then this large recipe called for 4 cups chocolate chips. Kroger had doubled my order for some reason, so that need was solved. After creaming with a mixer, stirring in the flour with a wooden spoon, and squishing chocolate chips and nuts with fingers, I baked four pans in sequence to have 95 cookies. ” ‘Just right,’ said Amelia Bedelia.” (Hold that thought.)

Millie was the source of the recipe. She was a friend and almost sister because our husbands did projects together. From being young marrieds, to managing six children between us, to uncountable phone calls to cover various problems and solutions, we moved through life as a team. She was more adventurous in planning activities, and I was the one who kept count of the children and encouraged the stragglers. She made the cookies for family, little boys on the block who sometimes walked the dog and fed the cat, and for the elderly widow she visited.

Completing the cookies and calling up memories was just enough to make a just right morning. I packed a container for a daughter and a ziplock bag for one son. One more bag went to the children two houses down because they had brought the mis-delivered recipe package from their house to mine. A friend will share some after a lunch visit. Amelia Bedelia is a scatter -brained maid in children’s books who avoids being fired because on the last page she dashes in to pull a hot offering from the oven with the comment, “Just right.” What we prepare to give opens the way to the blessing we receive.

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Luke 6:38

Just past twilight I heard a call from the back yard. “Come,see.” I walked into an explanation and followed a pointed finger to be aware this was the great planetary alignment of 2025. Simple version is seven of the planets were visible to the naked eye. The span of viewing varied by where you were and fractions of time that passed between various looks. Earth was not visible to me because I was standing on its solid core and Pluto in far distant reaches has been disfranchised. This is our solar system : a sun star and what is bound to circling it by gravity’s pull.

This sighting wasn’t impressive even if it was unusual. What evokes breath catching gasps or demands that we drag a quilt to a open field, lying in quiet darkness to watch luminous glows fill the blackness above us are the multiple stars that seem to occupy all empty space. A comet or a shooting star at times interrupt the glow with its flash of motion. . Size may define a Nova or a Supernova. Astro scientists have a map locating a Black Hole whose gravity is so strong that not even light can escapes its clutches. Early sea migrations of humans were charted by noting the position of guiding stars.

Most of us have a star story. We can declare with delight the multisyllabic names of specific groups such as the Andromeda Galaxy and Cassiopeia Constellations. Some of our ties are about art. ” The Starry Night”could be a marketing tool to define stars’ amazing attraction. An author has a book about seven sisters with the defining connect being The Pleiades. Even I who can’t with surety find the Big Dipper and the North Star knew how to glance to the south of my sidewalk as I walked toward the morning paper in October and noted it was time for Orion’s Belt again. All drawings of stars are recognizable. A child comes running to a parent waving maybe four lines crossing on a sheet of paper and proclaims, “Look, I drew a star!” Midst such richness, a long ago Hebrew song writer summed up the dome above us and our reponse to, “Come, See!”

 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?^[c]

Psalm 8:3 – 4

And the signs are interpreted differently depending on where you are and what your gut -or nose-or eyes- or ears tell you. Seasons provide a variety for us on earth and they slip in quietly, sometimes in starts and stops util their new presence can’t be denied. For instance, though it is only sixteen days to the vernal equinox and an official welcome for spring, our son in Colorado woke up to 27 degrees and snow. That’s good for the skiers who would like to continue swooshing until the end of the month.

However, even though a rain was falling, the outdoor thermometer on a Houston back porch read 71 degrees. Around that number and higher will probably be our start the day temperature til we pass through spring, summer, and maybe late October. My bones tell me, no more snow (one time this year) or freezes and it is safe to scatter seed for summer growth. The air smells fresher. My eyes note small emergences of green where brown leaves fell off and left bare trees in January. The neighbor around the corner has a peach tree with fragrant pink blossoms. If sidewalk strollers can assume the ripening fruit does not belong to them, the tree owners may have an eatable treat in late June. I haven’t heard the doves yet calling, “Who cooks for you?” or seen a red cardinal flash to the feeder, but signs on the street denote that the night herons are building a nest on their usual branch of the oak tree.

And there are always calendar markers not to be taken lightly. Mardi Gras, a mixture of pure fun and ushering in a spiritual season, fills days with parades and tossed treats and nights with galas and fancy dresses. For some, this folds into Ash Wednesday and Lent as a preparation for Easter and a total change of wardrobe. In Houston, we’ve reworked closets and at least had a breather before the beginning of hot, dry, and our forever deep gratitude for air-conditioning. Ecclesiastes 3 covers the gamut of happenings at their specific times, but Song of Solomon can be only for this season and the welcome we offer its appearing again.

For, lo, the winter is past;
The rain is over and gone;
 The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in our land;

Song of Solomon 2: 11 – 12

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