Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

If I am being completely honest with myself…I, sometimes, think I did more with less where I was… at the busiest time in my life… than I do now with an abundance of time. Yet…I still wouldn’t go back to those crazy days for any amount of money.

When, as a single parent, I was teaching, parenting, working side jobs on weekends, and going full measure until I hit the wall each week…I was accomplishing, upon reflection, a lot of giving back services to the community…through my children’s after school activities, my involvement in several educational out-reach programs including volunteering for storytelling sessions.

I didn’t have the luxury of reflection time back then…about anything…I was in action mode accompanied by ‘survival’ mode.

And my daily life defining  ‘me just being me’ demanded endless hours of working, driving the kids from A to B and then back again, meetings, workshops, community involvement….today it is all just a blur.

The young me would have laughed at the notion of finding quiet time for myself …it was an unknown enigma…not found in my life. And if, on those rare occasions, I did have some time to myself…it was spent unconscious. Being able to take a nap was the highest pinnacle of my greatest desire. I craved sleep for many years.

And now that I can sleep in…I find myself popping up…walking in the garden early in the morning, reading, or simply sitting and thinking about life and the day evolving before me. *Though…the pandemic quarantine has added naps to my days…such a luxury…sometimes I wake up with a start and look around to see if I got “busted”..but since it is just me…I didn’t…so, instead, I SMILE!

Yet…something important deep within me, has changed. I feel comfortable in my skin now for the first time in my life. I have nothing left to prove to anyone…I really have finally gotten to the “Just as I am” stage of life…and I am loving it…no more excuses or apologies.

Sometimes I do allow a tiny twinge of guilt to enter my being ..pointing out that I could pace my energy… with doing some community volunteer work (pre-covid)…but since this is true confession time…Like Scarlett O’ Hara declaring she would never go hungry again…I swore off “meetings” when I retired from teaching.

Teachers have so many meetings on top of meetings that they soon all run together…if you aren’t teaching, you are meeting. I don’t mind helping anybody out for a good occasion ….just tell me what you want me to do and I will do it…but don’t get me involved in on-going meetings to put on something.

My meeting days are over…except, of course, meeting God and that is one meeting I don’t mind lasting a lifetime. 🙂

So until tomorrow….To me…feeling comfortable, at last, in my own skin, takes precedence over the need for anyone else’s validation. Whew! It was a long time coming. Congrats old gal! 🙂

“Today is my favorite day.” Winnie the Pooh

“The things that make me different are the things that make me.”

Slowly….the pumpkins are coming out….Actually this one fell on my head when I opened the hall closet and was jumping up and down trying to reach a flower vase. Ouch! I think it was trying to tell me it’s time to decorate for Fall.

Dear Reader:

Once we realize that the one “constant” in life we can not change is change itself…the better off we are.

As much as most of us would love to see an ending to this pandemic…we are beginning to slowly understand that the recent cultural changes around us can’t solely be blamed on a virus…no matter how powerful or potentially deadly. Instead we are becoming more aware that the virus has just exposed what’s been lying under a societal scab for a long time.

The pandemic is waking us up to the truths about racial injustice, income inequality, gross disparities to health care and basic services like cleanliness…fresh water and clean air. These problems have just been festering under  human resignation for too long.. the virus just exposed the widening chasm between ‘haves’ and have-nots.’ 

The middle class, the early backbone of our democracy, has been dwindling leaving a widening gap between the ‘elitest of the elite’ and the poorest of the poor. The foundation that supports our democratic way of life is cracking under the weight of extreme wealth and power assigned to our new “aristocracy” of monopolies gobbling up its competitors.

That leaves most of us wondering where God is while we are surrounded by so many troubles…coming from all sides.

If some days our faith seems to falter…we need not despair..it is just human nature and temporary…In fact today there is a new term coined for this spiritual lapse…”Fluid Faith.”

Rabbi Sharon Brous defines this term as:

“Faith is fluid. It’s OK to have moments of expanded and contracted spirit, when we feel more or less connected to God and to the sacred all around us. When we feel distant, we shouldn’t be ashamed, just aware. When we can’t find God, we should practice finding each other. The best way to love God is to love God’s image. That is how I find my way back to faith, again and again…through helping others.”

This is an important turning point in our country’s history…we have the opportunity to get to the root of these abscesses in our society, clean them out, and heal the wounds of the past. It’s not too late to bring each other back together again.

This is a tenuous time…if we feel some days like we are walking a tightrope and the rope is getting thinner and narrower the farther we walk out…we are. As written in Psalm 118:

Psalm 118:  — “I called to the Lord from the narrowest place, and God answered me with great expansiveness.”

In a sense, under the quarantine, haven’t we all had our lives narrowed... it has been stressful…but we must dream, hope, and pray that God will deliver us back to a more open-minded country that expands its personal liberties to allow all God’s children the same opportunity to follow their personal American dream once again…unhindered by greed from a few.

So until tomorrow….

“This is the opportunity to work “toward a shared reality that truly honors the divine image in every one of us.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Almost every afternoon now I glance out my window as I type the blog…and I see (at least) one unfurling white moon flower bloom. I never tire of it…and I always hold my breath.:) I am now calling these (almost daily) sighting…my new “Happy Hour.”

Honey sent some more goodies for me…through her niece, English…Look at these gorgeous gords and a Boo mask she got me while in the mountains! LOVE IT!

Dear Reader:

These days…everything seems different. Sometimes it is so subtle I almost overlook the clues that I am in a different place  than I was years ago…and especially these days…where I was just months or weeks ago.

Back when…I felt a sense of comforting certainty about the future and my place in it…whereas today the mirror is cloudy and the future ambiguous at best.

I thought I was the only one starting to sense that “normalcy” as I once experienced it seems like an elusive ghost of the past that I vaguely remember as a ‘constant’ in my life.

However I have been reassured by my neighbors and friends that they too feel somewhat more unsettled lately than earlier…after all we have been through with the pandemic…a new aura of uncertainty prevails as more time passes with no closure in the foreseeable future. There are still more questions than answers floating around us about this enigma called COVID19.

Until six months ago…I had my daily rituals in retirement life, was settling into the contentment of “free” time….no more early morning alarms, deadlines, mobility mornings requiring the “troops” (my children) to move out each day for school.

The family had moved past ‘growing up’ in all its stages of life…including public school, college, and post-graduate studies. The new agenda for my adult children were spouses, families, and careers now…as they continued creating, changing, and adapting their on-going lives for a future together.

I was experiencing that long-awaited and highly anticipated title of “grandmother” (Boo Boo) with the special bonding that comes with it…because of that amazing generational gap gift that reunites adults and children….with no power struggles and rebellions as challenged with first-generational parents. In other words…I could spoil my grandchildren and did and do. 🙂

Even with the anticipation of my beloved Clemson Tiger playing last evening…and watching snatches of different teams play throughout the day…something still felt “off.” Football was back…but I wasn’t feeling that same “normalcy” I usually feel on game day…especially the first game of the season. I started wondering…is it the game or is it me?

A part of me  worries about the athletes returning to football, the students returning to schools and colleges…that darn invisible virus plays as much havoc mentally as physically… on and off the gridiron.

But speaking of….a big shout-out to Colby Goodwin, Jo’s granddaughter who left yesterday for Clemson…after a few weeks delay bringing the freshmen students on campus.

Since Clemson was playing their opening game on the road in Winston-Salem against Wake Forest last evening…yesterday was the perfect day to allow students back on campus…especially the patiently (and impatiently 🙂 waiting excited freshmen!

I hope everyone got there fine and didn’t get lost…there are many signs to help one find the ‘home of the Tigers.’ 🙂 Much love and support coming your way, Colby, from all of us back home rooting for you! Go get’em little Tiger!

Worries and concerns aside, however, there is one piece of advice that can help us continue ‘dog paddling’ through these uncertain waters…on days when there is more stuff than substance threatening to take us under…

” The days are long but the years are short…are just code for “Be Still and know that I am God”… because knowing God means being OK with being unsure of what the next step is because we know He is there in the uncertainty.”  (Gloryanna Boge)

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I discovered this old vintage 1959 poster between the Wake Forest Deacons and the Clemson Tigers…this rivalry goes back a long time.

The Time: 7:30 Saturday Evening: Game Time…All my Clemson candles lit, photos and good luck paraphernalia are in place….”LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!” GO TIGERS!

P.S. By the end of the game (not only were the Tigers in their ‘groove’) but I was in mine. I am slowly starting to feel like myself again on game day….thank goodness for sports offering a much-need escape from too many continuous over-doses of reality! 🙂 Go Tigers! 🙂

Dear Reader:

It is strange but as soon as I saw and read the visual message from the “natural life chirp” yesterday (today’s title visual post)… I imagined a pair of “magical” eyeglasses that allowed the viewer to only see good in the world.

I envisioned myself actually telling the story of the ‘magic glasses’ to little children gathered around me. The story would be about a little boy named Pete and his special glasses. Everywhere he went on his travels…he saw only good when he peered through them and he celebrated happiness and joy each day.

It was so contagious…joy spread throughout the land changing people’s lives in the bargain.

I would, then, decorate an old pair of eyeglasses to be colorful, bright, kooky-looking and fun… inviting each child to look through them and tell the class what “good” thing they saw in the magical eyeglasses.

We would then cut out  pictures and make a bulletin board depicting all the “good” in the world each child saw through the “magic” lenses….scenes of parents, grandparents, siblings, favorite teddy bears, pets, hearts (love), hugs, stories, songs, flowers, gardens, sports, etc.

I was still basking in contentment (in my imaginary classroom lesson) when another thought interrupted my pleasant musings.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if the world had a superhero whose weapon against evil and destruction was a pair of magical eyeglasses with lenses that only saw good. With superpowers our hero would capture and then strap the magic glasses on his evil antithesis so his enemy, too, could only see the ‘good’ in the world …not bad. A reformed bad guy.

Slowly, however, I realized the fallacy in this concept. Evil people do ‘see’ good in their daily lives…they just choose to destroy it because ‘good’ gets in the way of ‘greed.’ And for too many people, ‘greed’ is too addictive a drug to exchange for ‘good.’

My comfort and faith remains in my Spiritual Creator Who can change the way we see life…not through magical eyeglasses but through spiritual lenses that opens our eyes to the truth and the truth is all about spreading good in this world during our lifetime. Putting others before ourselves.

An important truth  is that humans don’t just see with their eyes…they see, also, with their heart. Unfortunately there are no glasses to correct a visually and morally impaired heart… without God’s intervention.

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

With the recent afternoon thunder storm showers…my eyes are seeing beautiful moon flowers bloom from the rains… while my heart feels the beauty with each beat of happiness.

Dear Reader:

The garden stepping stone in front of some fresh flowers at the house appeared via UPS (from Jo and Colby) yesterday afternoon…early birthday present. I love it…as soon as the flowers wilt I will place it in the garden…the stepping stone will add so much color and vitality to the walk-way through my beloved sanctuary!

Thank you, beyond measure, for this gift (Jo and Colby) that will become part of one of my favorite places on earth while I still live on this planet.

Jo had also sent me a short descriptive tale from the perspective of a book talking to a reader…she found it in an old book her aunt gave her… Fairoaks …going back to 1957…it was located on the back cover. She loved it and thought I would too and oh how I do! I hope you enjoy it also!

The author of the book, Fred Yerby, is an interesting fellow! He became the first African American writer to sell more than a million copies of  one of his novels  (The Foxes of Harrow) and to have the same book adapted into a movie by a Hollywood studio. He garnered legions of loyal fans of his writing.

“A Book Speaks” really spoke to me.  It touched my heart, my memory, and my overwhelming gratitude from a lonely child for whom a book was a constant friend in a world that had turned upside down… as I went from relative to relative following my daddy’s untimely death and mother’s loss of her left arm to bone cancer.. “

A Book Speaks

“By day and night, I am at your side, waiting for you to listen to my voice.

At an instant, I am ready to amuse, entertain, and guide you. Between my covers you will find the heartaches, passions, dreams, struggles and aspirations of mankind.

I bring you laughter and tears, amusement and learning, gaiety and the wisdom of  the human race. I can make your heart of hearts throb with sympathy or leap with joy. 

Neither time nor space exist for me. 

The ancient past, the fleeting present, the marvels of the future – all are inscribed upon my leaves.

At your will, I transport you to great cities which time has destroyed or project you into the vastness of the future.

With me as guide, you can range the world at will, travel polar regions, traverse deep jungles, penetrate the depths of earth, cross burning deserts, walk lonely prairies. 

“I am both the bright lamp of knowledge for the little child” and the understanding companion of the aged.

What men prize above all else is written within me. The ideas for which wise men risk their lives, the discoveries achieved by scientists with toil and years of struggle, the splendid lines written with heart’s blood of unrecognized poets, the revelations of prophets-all are of my vast treasure. 

And I am a reflection of the moods of men. Sometimes I endure for a century; again I may fade in a single year. Yet – though I last for generations or brighten but a tiny moment of time, I add value to the lives of all men. 

To king and emperor, statesman and sage, outcast and pariah, I speak the same accents. It is all one to me…be a man of success or failure, a rich man or beggar. 

The key of hope, curiosity, and ambition unlock my vault- and all are welcome to the hoard therein.

Many have feared and hated, loved and honored me through the centuries. I have incited revolutions and shaken the foundations of society.

At times men have sought to destroy me forever – but all such essays end in failure. 

I live. I will live forever.

For it is not given to men to efface me.

I am a book-your friend, guide, entertainer, counsellor and always your servant.

I wait upon your pleasure. I am yours to command.”

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So until tomorrow…When I was little…I used to ask every book before I started reading it…”Will you be my friend forever?”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh (Reading with Friends Day)

Dear Reader:

Aren’t the greatest gifts we can give people…internal? When we give the gifts of love, friendship, loyalty, dignity, compassion, humility, joy, and courage to another…don’t these mobile qualities (now secured within another recipient) travel with them throughout their lives?

When I think back on the people in my life (including family members, friends, teachers, coaches, mentors, pastors, etc.) who most influenced and  changed me…I only now understand that their gift has never left me.

There can be no more precious gift than this…carrying a part of another’s greatest positive influence within us….a “transplanted” quality of life needed to complete ours.

There were so many caregivers (in my own life) who helped take a little insecure, thumb-sucking introverted child… turning her into an out-going, socially happy adolescent and now contented, fulfilled adult…I am, also, reminded of the number of people God sent  me … to continue molding and forming His original creation.

I, especially, remember the people who taught me courage. I was blessed to be surrounded with courageous role models in my immediate family.

Everyone needs a role model for a different attribute they are seeking in their lives… It is up to us to step up to the plate to provide another generation with our help and support through stories and personal examples.

We must all discover the beauty of open hearts, the joy of caring, the meaning of purpose, and the gift of courage.

In “Spotlight on Kindness” the most recent ‘spotlight’ was on sharing courage with others. The editor commented:

“A Buddhist friend once told me that of all the various ways you can practice giving, giving someone courage is considered to be the most significant. To lend a shoulder to lean on, encourage someone, or offer a kind word — can all serve as beacons of hope during stormy weather.”

This was one true story example cited:

After wrapping a grueling 12-hour, overnight shift helping patients fight the coronavirus, nurses at Kaiser Permanente Downey Medical Center in Downey, California, loudly cheer as they leave work

“Sometimes we have up to, like, 10 to sometimes 18 nurses walk out and we just kind of wait for each other,” said Kelly Wilson, a registered nurse who works in the neonatal intensive care unit at Kaiser Permanente Downey. “It’s like a cheering squad.”

But the “cheer squad” wouldn’t exist without its unofficial leader, the person who greets them outside every day after their shift: Security officer Robert Johnson.

For the nurses, Johnson, a 58-year-old former Marine, is the human embodiment of a pep rally, greeting them with enthusiasm and positivity after a long night of treating people in the fight for their lives against a relentless virus.

“We have a lot of things thrown at us all the time where we work on high stress levels all the time,” Wilson said, acknowledging that some days are harder than others. “Maybe some people feel defeated leaving work, and he (Johnson) just gives that extra energy to be positive.”

Johnson said he feels it’s his duty to lift the spirits of the people around him and to remind these front line workers of the difference they are making.

“These are individuals who are taking time away from their life, coming here, putting a majority of their time in to work here,” he said. “And I show a lot of appreciation for that. That’s why I try to bring out a smile. Look what you have done!”

Johnson, himself, gets little sleep between his security shifts because he stays after his shift to cheer all the front line medical staff as they leave…each and every day. Collectively they are honoring each other and celebrating the joy for each life saved from COVID19.

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So until tomorrow…

Given to all of us… is the opportunity to become a life changer, life maker, or life saver. It just takes a few minutes to share our story and then pass on the wisdom of experience to another…in order to change their story…their life.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Anne sent me a photo of her morning glories, yesterday, blooming in an abundance of beauty. I told her they were so lovely. I was envious…I always had my fence covered with these flowers each summer but not this year…thanks to COVID and not getting into nurseries to pick up my early annual spring plantings.

Then this afternoon I glanced at my pile of morning glory leaves and weeds to see if, perhaps, a wild morning glory was blooming…but nothing. Just about that time a hawk, overhead, screeched loudly….startled I looked up and there were four morning glory blooms in all their beauty smiling down at me… from the tip top of a tall shrub tree next to the fence.

Both Libby and Brooke are sharing time with family at different beaches this week. Brooke sent out an adorable photo of her two grandchildren…Caleb (Boogie Boy) and Emma Grey.

*Make lasting memories girls!

Dear Reader:

I realized one night when I was tossing and turning that my ‘play by play’ memories of things from the past…people, experiences, and especially comments (both to and from me) still have the power to unsettle me months…even years… after the original occurrence.

Even though I know this is ridiculous…I should be able to delete these memories from the past once and for all…they, somehow, still manage to reappear at the most inopportune times. Why?

I suspect because I never let them go. I  still have them because I never brought closure to the experience or event.

While watching this beautiful butterfly (title photo) in my garden yesterday I remembered a comment I once heard or read about butterflies.

“We all need hope for transformation. Just as a butterfly never returns as a chrysalis, neither should we  believers return to living in the past…in an earlier stage of our spiritual development.”

We are not now who we were then. God makes sure of this as He calls us each day to follow His example in our daily lives. The past is over…the chrysalis gone…we now must fly higher each day in our quest for spiritual fulfillment.

We aren’t  meant to wallow in the past, a lesson in futility …rather we are to turn to God for our future direction. We can’t un-do what we did or who we were in our earlier lives…but we can, each day, become closer to the person God created in His image.

We live with hope and one of the most important hopes is the ‘Hope of Transformation.’ The old has passed away…the new has come. Each day the ‘new returns’ which means everyday we have the opportunity to change our habits, attitudes and gestures to help our fellow man.

Forget the latest sleeping pill on the market….let’s formally close the door on the past and open all our windows to the light of the present and future pouring in …waiting for us to wake up, arise, and change other lives in the making.

So until tomorrow…

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Yesterday was overcast and gratefully cooler…Jeff arrived early morning and we got a few extra things done outside and around the yard… as usual the cut grass aroma lingered long after his departure….my favorite freeze-frame day….beauty in sight and scent.

Dear Reader:

CBS correspondent, Jim Axelrod, shared an important observation recently he experienced. It left him wondering ‘How do we let a person (persons) we are communicating with know we are truly smiling behind our face masks?’

(Yes…I have seen some masks made with smiles and even teeth…but they are downright creepy to me…like that hideous grin from “The Joker” )

Axelrod explained that he had run to the grocery store to pick up some bread and a few bottles of seltzer. As he watched the cashier ring up his purchases he felt a sense of overwhelming gratitude for this woman potentially putting her health on the line, daily, for consumers like him.

So he smiled his biggest smile in appreciation…but the woman just stared back at him blankly. He felt crestfallen and disappointed. It wasn’t until he started out of the store and saw the mask covering his face  in the swinging glass door that he realized the problem.

“I was leaving the store when it hit me: of course she hadn’t seen my smile! My mask had concealed my gratitude.

For the rest of the day, with every interaction I had with someone I didn’t know – the gas station attendant, the kid behind the take-out counter – I made sure to tell them how thankful I was, my words replacing the smiles they couldn’t see.”

I was nodding my head in agreement as I listened to him talk on this segment of the CBS news show. I have done the same thing…stretching my smile as big as it can go…somehow thinking they can see the smile in my eyes and understand I am grateful for their help in any endeavor.

I became more conscious of the importance of letting our eyes and even eyebrows help convey emotions over the mask at the Belks beauty counter. I usually get Mandy a Clinique cosmetic bag for her birthday each year since this is around the time they have their annual gift rewards. But I waited too long and they were sold out of the beauty bags when I arrived about a week ago.

However, Lancome was still having their rewards cosmetic bag sale. The sales girl told me that this year’s focus was on eyes and eyebrows, along with intensified moisturizer, to help prevent dry skin from mask coverage. In other words…COVID  accessories on the parts of the face still seen.

She also addressed the “smile” issue….with eyeliner demonstrated to widen the eyes into a smiling mode, along with intensified mascara and high shaped eyebrows…the part of the face still seen in public…uplifting each part to exude feelings of positivity…a new way of smiling.

Jim Axelrod continued his news segment around his quest to “smile” behind a mask…even when his words failed to convey the same feeling as a smile. The rest of his story…

…”But still, something was missing.

Smiles are the grease for our interpersonal communications, our most efficient way to signal warmth, safety, empathy, compassion, or – at the grocery store – gratitude … a non-verbal supplement to expand the limits of what words alone can express.

Studies have shown smiles are actually contagious. They lift the mood of both the source and the target of the smile. And now, COVID has robbed us of this critically-important tool we use to connect with each other.

We’ve been sad before as a country, living without smiles for a time in the aftermath of assassinations, terror attacks, school shootings. But this is different. Wearing masks is a structural change in the way we live.  COVID has literally wiped the smiles from our faces.

So, keep this in mind as you go about your business, for now our words are all we’ve got.  Not just the ones we choose, but how we deliver them. From behind a mask, tone and inflection are the new smiles. Forget the face-to-face world. In a mask-to-mask world, the golden rule is that people can’t feel what they can’t see.

Let’s all be part of the solution, and find other ways to smile at each other. “

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So until tomorrow….

Let my soul smile through my heart and my heart smile through my eyes, that I may scatter rich smiles in sad hearts.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Pooh’s advice works well with the exception of the hug…still invisible hugs social distanced are better than none at all.

For the last day before school starts back today, in all its different forms and combinations, the Dingle/Turners went out on the boat…even capturing a small shark… much to the boys’ excitement.

My sweet granddaughters: Making Memories

This morning….cute and creative way to start back! Lachlan and Rutledge….Boo Boo is wishing you a safe happy first day back!

*I think they are doing a great job of ‘conveying smiles’ with and without the masks!

Eva Cate looks all perky heading out this morning…Jake…not as much…I think this school “thing” is still up in the air for him…he will wait to reserve judgement. 🙂 * Good luck teachers! 🙂 Stay safe everyone!

Dear Reader:

If you are feeling that you have seen this title picture somewhere before …you have…you aren’t experiencing deja vu…actually Cindy Ashley (who just gave me the cardinal mask Saturday) sent it to me almost two years ago when I was stuck at home with my foot stuck up in the air…recovering from some foot surgery gone awry…leaving me with a seriously infected wound that took months to heal.

Seeing Cindy again reminded me of this artwork I fell in love with at the time she sent it. My first thought was that the accompanying message is just as timely today as it was in the fall of 2018. Reading, during this pandemic, has become a popular past-time again!

Deja vu, a sometimes eerie phenomenon,  occurs to all of us throughout our lives. The expression is derived from the French, meaning “already seen.”

When it occurs, it seems to spark our memory of a place we have already been, a person we have already seen, or an act we have already done. It is a signal to pay special attention to what is taking place, perhaps to receive a specific lesson in a certain area or complete what is not yet finished.

When this blog post title, appeared in my archives,  at the top of the list, I was curious and opened it. Suddenly memories came flooding back of that challenging time, almost two years ago, when reading became an important part of my life.

When Cindy stopped by Saturday, after us not seeing each other for quite awhile, and then this past blog post popped up out of nowhere two years after written (inspired by the title art message she sent me),the universe seemed to be telling me that I should pause and look again at the connections from past to present.

As I began re-reading the post from two years ago…shivers started running up my spine. I kept saying to myself, “Really?“…this can not be happening. The number of similar incidents occurring in my life two years ago and presently re-occurring certainly did give me ‘food for thought.’ 

The original post was dated November 24, 2018. It started off stating that my brother Ben had come for Thanksgiving…my sweet neighbor, Vickie, had shared Thanksgiving dinner with us… from her house where she was entertaining family. But now everyone had left and things were quiet again.  I was reading in my recliner nursing my painful foot.

As I read on the similarities (or as I call them God Winks) began appearing.

1. In November of  2018 I was anxiously awaiting my latest Louise Penny detective novel…due to arrive three days following Thanksgiving. Right now, as I type, I have just received my latest Louise Penny novel (three days earlier) and am completely absorbed in my own happy world reading it too.

November 2018                      September 2020

2.

After everyone left and went home following Thanksgiving 2018 I made the comment (on the post) that everything was returning to normal. But with my life restricted to a recliner and the restroom that year nothing felt “normal.”

I then made another observation that the IBRANCE daily chemo regime medicine I was on at the time…marketed its advertising slogan…by saying…”IBRANCE….the “New Normal.”

Now then….where have we heard this expression lately…the “New Normal“…everywhere! It originated with a chemo medicine for patients with metastatic breast cancer and ended up becoming the slogan for the “new normal” life style during the forced quarantine resulting from the pandemic. 🙂

3.

I also made this observation in the 2018 blog post:

“Since God has His own time-line I have no doubt He knows when the foot is ready to take me back to my path…yet, there can be no doubt, this “detour” was planned for a specific reason too…to make me pause, reflect, and give thanks for all I have.”

Haven’t we spent several blog posts discussing this very thing as we look for positive things that have come from the quarantine due to the pandemic? It gives us time to “pause, reflect, and give thanks for all we have.”

So until tomorrow… I think I will take my own advice this first Sunday in September…stop and give thanks. I will be more aware of my learning experiences from past to present and incorporate them into my daily life.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The family gathered last night for a combo Labor Day and Mandy ‘final’ birthday celebration….I feel sure Rutledge slept good last night from all his aerobatic tricks!

Walsh and Tommy…I hope y’all put on a lot of muscle relaxer ointment! 🙂 Honey I finally got Poogie’s plaque to Walsh and Mollie…they love it…can hardly wait to find a place to hang it. Thank you again for sharing your artistic talents to do such kind deeds!

Dear Reader:

Like me, do you find yourself holding your breath involuntarily at different times? It can happen if my iPhone volume is on too high and I experience a startled jump, or if I am interrupted while deeply absorbed in a book, or even when a quick glance at a phone message shows a number that could spell potential trouble.

This last example happened to me this past week…right after my monthly oncology visit…I had a great visit and was even given an extra month off before my next visit… which is such a special gift. So now why was I getting a call from them the day after my blood work…one time before when this happened it had to do with one test result  from my blood work that needed more examination and testing.

I bravely called back, with fingers crossed and discovered that Dr. Jeter’s office was taking patient testimonials. They wondered if I would be willing to write one for her and send it back. I felt my respiratory system start pumping again while I happily responded that I would be honored to do just that…

One thing I can say about these unexpected and uncertain interruptions is that they do certainly make me “stay in the moment.” My antenna is on full alert and I am solely concentrating on what this moment might hold…negative or positive.

I read an anecdote several years ago from a book called Time and Soul by Jacob Needleman.

I remember the following excerpt “haunted” my thoughts for a long time…forcing me to look in the mirror and decide if I was really living ‘now” or was I waiting for “right away.” Was I a physical part of the world or simply a ‘ghost’ of myself going through the motions?

Some years ago, I was walking downtown San Francisco with a great friend and a learned Tibetan scholar. I asked him about one of the most striking ways that the Tibetans express the uniqueness of the human condition.

Imagine, they say, that deep in the vast ocean there swims a great and ancient turtle who surfaces for air once every hundred years. Imagine further that floating somewhere in the ocean is a single ox-yoke carried here and there by random waves and currents. What are the chances that when the turtle surfaces, his head will happen to emerge precisely through the center of the ox-yoke? That is how rare it is to be born as a human being!

In the middle of our conversation, I pointed to the crowds of men and women rushing by on the street and I gestured in a way to indicate not only them, but all the thousands and millions of people rushing around in the world. “Tell me, Lobsang,” I said, “if it is so rare to be born a human being, how come there are so many people in the world?”

My friend slowed his pace and then stopped. He waited for a moment, taking in my question. I remember suddenly being able to hear, as though for the first time, the loud and frenetic traffic all around us. He looked at me and very quietly replied, “How many human beings do you see?”

In a flash, I understood the meaning of the story and the idea. Most of the people I was seeing, in the inner state they were in at that moment, were not really people at all. Most were what the Tibetans call “hungry ghosts.” They did not really exist.

They were not really *there*. They were *busy*, they were *in a hurry*. They — like all of us — were obsessed with doing things *right away*. But *right away* is the opposite of *now* — the opposite of the lived present moment in which the passing of time no longer tyrannizes us.

The hungry ghosts are starved for “more” time; but the more time we hungry ghosts get, the more time we “save”, the hungrier we become, the less we actually *live*. And I understood that it is not exactly more time, more days and years, that we are starved for, it is the present moment. “Right Away” is not “Now.”

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So until tomorrow…

“I don’t know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be.” ― Abraham Lincoln

Funny God Wink…just as I was typing away on today’s post (talking about holding my breath when I am caught off-guard while in deep thought)…the doorbell rang…I jumped involuntarily and held my breath. Then I hurried to the door (still holding my breath) and was delighted to find my friend Cindy Ashley at my door…so much so…that my breath, not only returned, it gushed out… along with my voice. 🙂

Cindy said she had to give me  my birthday present early…in fact it really would have gone well with yesterday’s post about face masks.

When I opened it up…I died laughing…see for yourself. Perfect gift at the perfect “NOW” moment! A “Sammy the Red Cardinal” face mask! The red cardinal who adds so much fun to my life.

*Thank you Cindy…and enjoyed discussing and solving all the world’s problems with you yesterday! 🙂

I kept the grandchildren Friday evening while John took Mandy out for her birthday… and then stayed over to watch the children play while they prepared for our Labor Day family holiday and extended birthday combo today!

Inner tubes make great cameo photo frames! I loved watching and photo’ing  action shots for jumping and landing on an inner tube in sitting position. *Only children can pull off that kind of stunt.

What a spectacular surprise awaited me last evening….a perfect moon flower bloom!

As I was taking its photo…I kept seeing bits of white on the back of the trellis and underneath the leaves…two more blooms were three quarters of  a way open…with another bud behind one..just beginning to start. If they all pull it off that will be four blooms in one evening…one of my best  moon flower bloom productions yet! 🙂