Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

My Uncle Herschel (one of my mother’s twin brothers) was always there for me when our family moved back to Laurens, South Carolina the year I started high school. He was not much of a talker but when he gave you his undivided attention…you best listen…because the advice was always worth remembering.

I had graduated from Erskine College and was about to start my first year teaching…Brooke and I had gotten an apartment in Charleston… knowing finances would be tight…but we were still gloriously excited about the freedom of our first year teaching… and bringing home a paycheck! (We were also innocently ignorant of just how little we would have to live off of those first couple of years.)

I remember Uncle Herschel telling me before I pulled out of the driveway heading to Charleston:  “There are two ways to be rich, Becky….earn more or want less.” 

(Uncle Herschel was a very wise man.) But at the time I remember shaking my head on the long trip to Charleston…wondering what in the world did Uncle Herschel mean by that…was it supposed to be some kind of riddle?

The reality of the difficulty of living on a first year teacher’s salary became evident quite quickly.

In fact I spent most of my working life living from paycheck to paycheck as a single mom with three children… and I always wanted (not to be rich) but to have just enough to be able to pay the bills, have some money tucked away for the “rainy days” and, most importantly, safeguard a small, secret “stash”  for spontaneous adventures that make one’s soul grow and and body/mind feel completely uplifted. *Most of my adventures were in creatively trying to figure out how to get three children through college. 🙂

That dream is closer now than it ever was previously…even with the pandemic…in fact probably because of it since I am spending less each month. Who would have “thunk it?” Living off social security and state retirement….more money comes in now than when I was teaching or working as an administrator.

Several past occurrences followed suit to bring about this gratifying phenomenon.

First…..I must thank Pat Bower and the rest of the educational staff at CSU (Charleston Southern University) for sitting me down and explaining why it was so important for me to get my Masters (which ended up as a Masters + 30 for all the renewal credits I had earned over so many years.) A real financial “leap of faith” that paid off, big time, in retirement dividends.

Second… I left the classroom the last four years of my career and took a 10 month administrative job that paid more for more time.

Third….As a retired state employee I got (and get) the best health plan in the world. Believe me…I know because the cancer medicines keeping me keeping on are in the thousands of dollars monthly. I pay only a very small fraction. I know how lucky I am and how gratified I am to have finally landed where I am today.

Fourth: “Little c” (breast cancer) came along and eventually provided me with a disability social security pension that was higher than what I would have ever gotten normally. I figured the prognosis the team of doctors wrote  to them must have looked pretty dim because I got my first check six weeks after applying….no fanfare or lawyers or anything…just a check appeared in the mail.

SS must have “assumed” from the prognosis that they wouldn’t be out much money for very long. (I think God smiles with me each month when my social security check arrives!)

In retrospect…every time it looked like a financial disaster was about to crash down on my head and I could potentially lose it all….something or Someone always happened along to prevent this from occurring. God was holding my hand back then too.  He helped me sidestep every possible, hidden explosive on the field of life’s possibilities.

And that is my prayer for all the small business owners and restaurant owners trying desperately not to lose their businesses that have taken a lifetime to build. Hold God’s Hand tightly!

So  today “less is best.”  A pink ribbon jar of flowers from my garden brings on the same smile that a bouquet of flowers used to cost me at the store or florist.

I now understand what Uncle Herschel was trying to tell me…that the best things in life, like love and hugs, are free and worth more than all the gold in the world.

Beauty  also sets us free to enjoy nature in our own back yards and gardens! Priceless!

***Happiness is priceless too and it arrived yesterday with a ‘number roll’ that made me smile on my blog post.

In case you can’t see the number of followers…the number turned over yesterday to 1,100 followers and Thursday another numeral surprise will appear! 🙂 🙂 🙂

Dear Reader:

Stop and pause a moment…try to remember how many books and movies of every genre you read and saw growing up…science fiction, fantasy, and even classics-that contained  a powerful recurring theme…the answer to the quest for our identity in the world is in us.

Each has a similar beginning…A young man, boy, girl,  child…goes on an adventure to “find themselves”…to discover what life is all about and their place in it…only to meet a Darth Vader, a Wizard of Oz, or a lion named Aslan (in Narnia) or even “Daddy” Warbucks in Annie.

No matter the name of the character…there is always the “Counselor, the Wise One” who reveals the secret to each individual’s quest for courage and understanding…that these treasures we so seek have been with us, in us, the whole time we traveled our adventure…erroneously looking outside ourselves for the answer.

Didn’t Jesus tell us this a long, long time ago when he said “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:20-21).

Could there be anything more powerful than the Kingdom of God? And if God placed it within each of us…we know there was a purpose for it. Yet don’t we always go looking for answers to our problems from others whom we think are smarter or wiser than us…just to end up disappointed by the lack of results in our own lives?

Others can certainly help guide us….still no one but God can reveal the true image of ourselves within. The Kingdom of God knows what our destiny and purpose in life should be. And once we realize that we don’t have to travel around the world in search of knowledge or go on some kind of odyssey… we can save time and miles simply turning inward.

Yesterday was Boo Boo’s turn to visit Eva Cate and Jake…we watched Disney’s Maleficient- somehow I had missed that movie (watching with the grandchildren)…and once again…what you see on the outside isn’t necessarily what is found on the inside. The good queen, in white, turns out to be evil while Maleficent, in black,  turns out to be the great heroine of the story. 

Isn’t life filled with riddles and oxymorons? Even the coronavirus has two sides…one that fills us with fear of this potentially deadly virus and puts restrictions on our life styles that we have never encountered before. Yet…for the first time families really have time to be together and learn more about each other than ever deemed possible in the fast-paced society we lived in prior to the ‘stay-at-home’ policy .

Families are enjoying cooking and sitting down together for the first time for many. Home-schooling means a lot more than reading, writing, and arithmetic….Eva Cate is now folding all the family’s clothes and doing a terrific job!

Fun in the Sun…a hot day yesterday…still with a pretty blustery wind

Dear Reader:

Have you ever considered how and when the word “usually” becomes the enemy of adventure? It does’t happen overnight but slowly… until one day we realize we are truly “stuck in a rut.” 

Unfortunately if we aren’t careful it sneaks up on us as we age…particularly when retirement sets in. Once all the work-related stress ‘dead-lines’ have disappeared and we are free at last…humans can still manage to do the strangest things…like make up new check-off-lists to do on certain days…thus creating weekly “fillers.”

When we realize we are in deep water of becoming self-imposed (boring) prisoners in our own homes… is if we hear words coming out of our mouths (in response to exciting invitations like going to a concert with our favorite singers, a play, dance, or other social events.)

We respond with…”Oh…I don’t think so…that would be fun but I or we usually clean or order out pizza or watch a particular television program on that night each week…if the concert had just been on another day of the week…maybe next time.” 

I have noticed that the people who are adjusting the best during our stay-at-home pandemic are ones whose life style hasn’t actually altered much from what it already was. Some of my neighbors have made the same comment about themselves…that they are more careful now…follow the guidelines…but they stayed mostly to themselves habitually.

In many ways…depending on personalities…there is absolutely nothing wrong with this choice of life….even though it might seem overly sedentary to outsiders..these same people are up at the crack of dawn working in the yard and will continue doing physical work throughout the day. Sedentary yes…sloth no!

The problem with “usually” is… if we decide we don’t want to make the effort, any more,  to live life as an adventure. I keep discovering more adventures the longer I live…nothing expensive or overly taxing…simply discovering new places, ideas, and people make adventures for me.

Yesterday Mollie and the children came for a Boo Boo visit. I was so glad…hadn’t seen them since Eva Cate’s birthday. We picked up Groucho’s and had a picnic lunch on the deck using my new table and chairs.

It had been so long since the kids at been at my house that they were running in every direction on both sides…trying out new toys and news ways of doing things on old toys. Kids can always make an adventure out of anything.

Eloise loved everything but particularly the garden fairies. She is into them now…she would pick one or two up and run to the fountain to clean them and then run back to the Fairy land in the garden. She wanted to get on the “tractor”….Jackson’s tractor from her childhood…1950’s style…and played the toy piano which put the biggest smile on her face.

I hid an Easter egg for each child since they didn’t get to come to Boo’s for Easter this year…and Eloise discovered, with the help of Lachlan, that “Jack pops up out of the box”…and gets a squeal from her each time.

One little boy who is never “stuck in a rut” is Rut (Rutledge)…he is always searching for new discoveries when he comes to the house…mostly memorabilia from his dad’s football days.

But he also discovered that the rope swing, which is always the Dingle boys’ favorite entertainment, could also work while standing up and then later climbing up on it while the rope was still swinging…he and Lachlan tried to outdo each other ….looking like little monkeys climbing the rope swing higher and higher…until Boo couldn’t look any more! 🙂

Lachlan, never to be out-done by his big bro…went all out!

So until tomorrow….Age is no barrier when it comes to adventure…one can venture mentally, spiritually, and physically…just pick one and stay young!

If someone tells you…”You are acting like a child”...give them two thumbs up and thank them “That’s the highest compliment you could have given me…do so appreciate it…I worked hard for that!  🙂 🙂 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

At some point in  our lives…don’t we suddenly realize, one day, that with enough living behind our belt…what was meant to be…was?

Remember how I have mentioned on numerous occasions how homesick I was as a child…not wanting to be far from mother…always afraid something would happen to her and I would be an orphan…like the stories I read as a child. So I stayed scared a large part of my early childhood.

As an adult I understand what I was feeling back then and it wasn’t just being homesick for mother…because I would feel homesick sometimes when I was home with my family surrounding me.

It has taken me a good portion of my life to realize that from the time we are born we have a homesickness to return from whence we came.

We are all strangers in a strange land, longing for home, but not quite knowing what or where home is. We glimpse it sometimes in our dreams, or as we turn a corner, and suddenly there is a strange, sweet familiarity that vanishes almost as soon as it comes… (The Rock That is Higher: Story as Truth- Madeleine L’Engle)

Haven’t we all experienced a ‘deja vu’ moment (like what Madeleine described) a split-second moment that catches a familiar scent or glimpse of someone who has gone ahead…and for just a moment we realize we got a peep hole glimpse into another parallel life?

The only time I wasn’t homesick or scared (as a child) was when I was playing…because I was in another creative zone…outside of mundane reality. These days…when I write this daily blog…I get to zone out again… I love the feeling today as much as I did as a child. In fact… I still need that feeling today as much as I did as a child.

I love observing my grandchildren playing in their “zone”… completely unconscious of being observed as they mumble parts of conversations between Barbie dolls, or Superhero figurines…they have joined the play toys in their world and left reality behind. It is exhilarating to the participant and observer alike.

Madeleine L’ Engle explains it this way….

The concentration of a  child at play is analogous to the concentration of the artist of any discipline. In real play, which is real concentration, the child is not only outside time, he is outside of himself. 

He/she has thrown himself/herself completely into whatever it is he/she is doing. A child playing a game, building a sand castle, painting a picture, playing with a doll house is completely in what he/she is doing. His/her self-consciousness is gone; his/her consciousness is wholly focused outside himself/herself.

We each need to feed our own individual creativity inside us every single day. Jean Rhys expressed it brilliantly:

Jean Rhys said to an interviewer in the Paris Review, ‘Listen to me. All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. And there are mere trickles, like myself. All that matters is feeding the lake. I don’t matter. The lake matters. You must keep feeding the lake’.”

Today I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t writing this blog or “feeding the lake.” This July will be the tenth anniversary of Chapel of Hope Stories. 

Two stars collided to provide the impetus for me to take a huge risk and start a daily blog post based on (as Jerry Seinfeld and George would say “Nothing”) my daily observations of life from my chair in a made-over bedroom office…with a huge window next to me, a red bird named Sammy who calls to me, and breezes that softly blow in the room… clearing the air for new thoughts.

The “two stars” were my breast cancer diagnosis/discovery of St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope and the birth of my first grandchild…these two events collided and produced Chapel of Hope Stories.  

More times than not…I start the blog with one thought and end up typing something completely different. The following quote sums it up.

“When the work takes over, then the writer is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the work takes over, then the writer listens.”
― Walking on Water: Reflections of faith and Art 

From my viewpoint now, at the stage of life I am in, everything that was meant to be has come to be. I pinch myself daily that I am in my happiest place ever…and even a coronavirus “contained” life is still wide open to creativity.

So until tomorrow…I agree with Madeleine when she defines God and Jesus as:

“Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.” 

P.S.  And God tells the best ones! 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Reading to Eva Cate and Jake…my favorite thing to do with grandchildren…

Watching my grandchildren grow….STOP! PLEASE! 🙂

And the garden, like my grandchildren, continues to grow too…my newly discovered Oak leaf hydrangea has two blooms almost fully revealed.

Dear Reader:

The name of  this unique sculpture in the Irish town of Midletown is named Kindred Spirits. It commemorates the never-forgotten hand of friendship donation sent to the Irish by the Choctaw people in 1847.

I accidentally fell across this fascinating story, made more so by what the Irish are now doing (in return) to help their Native-American “Brothers” across the sea during the coronavirus outbreak…which has proven so deadly to the Navajo Nation and Hopi reservation in Arizona.

***(The Navajo Nation has seen more than 2,400 confirmed Covid-19 cases and more than 70 deaths.  The Hopi reservation, which is surrounded entirely by the Navajo Nation, has reported 52 positive cases.)

But before I get to the ‘rest of the story’  I happened to look up the story behind the familiar phrase (today’s post title) “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” and found another interesting historical tidbit. It goes all the way back to the 1800’s and early 1900’s…to Scotland.

James Wells, Moderator of the United Freed Church of Scotland, tells the story of a little girl carrying a big baby boy in his 1884 book The Parables of Jesus. Seeing her struggling, someone asked if she wasn’t tired. With surprise she replied: “No, he’s not heavy; he’s my brother.”

Later in a 1918 publication by Ralph Waldo Trine titled The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit… he relates the following anecdote: “Do you know that incident in connection with the little Scottish girl? She was trudging along, carrying as best she could a boy younger, but it seemed almost as big as she herself, when one remarked to her how heavy he must be for her to carry, when instantly came the reply: ‘He’s na heavy. He’s mi brither.”

Many artists later drew their own interpretation of this famous response and used it to promote patriotism by WWI and even later during WWII.

Those two memorable anecdotes bring us to the connection of the Irish and the Choctaw Native-Americans as a beautiful hand of friendship formed between the two that still exists today. It starts with the Irish Famine of the mid-1800’s.

(An Irish priest visits an impoverished Irish family during the terrible Irish Famine)

As most of us remember from our history lessons…it was this terrible famine that sent millions of Irish immigrating to America in the mid-1800’s out of desperation. By 1845 several charities from America were sending help but it was not enough to stop the waves of starvation.

It wouldn’t be until 1847 that the Choctaws heard of this terrible disaster. The Choctaw leaders in the crowd had already experienced their own tribulations.

In the 1830s, between 12,5000 and 15,000  Choctaw were forcibly relocated from their ancestral home in Mississippi to Oklahoma, walking thousands of miles on the Trail of Tears.

As much as a quarter of the tribe’s population was lost on the journey, and the effects of the relocation were felt long after…according to Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton.

***Monument Valley-home to the Navajo Nation today.

Yet when the Choctaw heard about the plight of the Irish, they dug into their own pockets, Batton said. “Much of the $170 — the equivalent of more than $5,000 today — raised at the meeting in Oklahoma that day came from the tribal nation.” 

When the Irish heard, how hard hit the Choctaws were with the pandemic, they decided it was their turn to return the favor.

The donations from Ireland started after an Irish newspaper shared the Navajo and Hopi plight and fundraiser on Twitter, garnering thousands of likes and retweets.

“Native Americans raised a huge amount in famine relief for Ireland at a time when they had very little,” O’Leary (journalist) wrote on Saturday. “It’s time for is us to come through for them now.”

Ethel Branch, the fundraiser’s organizer, estimated on Tuesday that Irish people had donated about two million dollars to the relief efforts so far, which goes toward food, water and other necessary supplies for Navajo and Hopi communities.

“From Ireland, 170 years later, the favour is returned!” a message from one donor reads. “To our Native American brothers and sisters in your moment of hardship.”

So until tomorrow….As God’s Children we should all be there for each other in times of trouble or more aptly put….“He’s not heavy…He’s my brother.”

Jesus Loves the little children
All the children of the world
Red, brown, yellow
Black and white
They are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little  children
Of the world

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

As evening fell last night…I was so tired- a definitely “over-done” day” :)…but I went out to my swing and rested watching the sun sink….as I came back on the deck the new table lantern came on and I smiled…All was right with the world! Good night!

Dear Reader:

For many of us the truth of the pandemic is becoming clearer as time goes on. There will come a point when there is no turning back to the “way we were.”

This doesn’t have to be anything ominous…in fact just the opposite… but it will require us recognizing that a global pandemic (in an increasingly smaller world) means that this is the time we need to reach out and  “hold hands…not point fingers” with the inhabitants of our beautiful blue planet. We truly are (as the posters tell us) all in this together…not just by countries and borders but by over 7.8 billion earthly inhabitants.

Just as our children are watching and observing the reactions of the adults in their lives to this crisis… we need to understand the importance of how we interpret, react and rebound from the crises of today and how it will define how we approach and survive the crises of tomorrow.

I heard someone on a talk show who said he had to remind himself, repeatedly,that usually a crisis is a messenger. I think many of us have come to suspect this too…perhaps a way for Mother Earth to say “Enough” ….”How many times have I told you to stop and you just haven’t?” (We can all fill in our personal “stops” that we have witnessed on the daily news and been dismayed…but not enough to take action.)

Now that the crisis is upon us…we need to all turn to love, courage, and kindness collectively to find our way out of this…not fall back on isolating hate, fear, and cruelty. We have that choice to make…and my prayer each night is that we make the right one.

As  seen in the Kelly Rae Roberts note card..we need to practice saying “Yes” to growing and reaching…to healing, soulfulness, vulnerability, joy, change, and new beginnings.

So until tomorrow…If we can’t snap our fingers and change the crisis…then we need to change our mindset…..

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A “Shout-Out’ to all my children and their spouses…they all have anniversaries in May. Mandy and John are the first and their date was May 3 (12th anniversary)… followed by Tommy and Kaitlyn (calendar-wise) on May 6 (3rd anniversary) and today is Walsh and Mollie’s anniversary on May 13 (8th anniversary)

I can always remember Walsh and Mollie’s anniversary when I forget the others because the wedding took place on Mother’s Day-May 13 at Magnolia Gardens ….and it will always be special for that memory above all else! Congratulations You Two…Love you! Mom

I mentioned earlier that my lantana in the front yard and garden was just about to burst open…Over the past three days all the lantana “spreads” are off and running…they are the best fillers in a garden…for those bare spots where earlier plants bit the dust and they make a beautiful border in the front yard.

Kaitlyn strolling her “senior” dog babies! 🙂 Very creative!

Dear Reader:

In the midst of the cornavirus and our ‘upside down world’ my garden has anchored me in its most beautiful season to date. I have had plants bloom that were planted years ago and decided this year to finally make an appearance. Example:

I kept staring at this bushy plant that was starting to grow outward among the tall grasses and wondered what it could be? It wasn’t until Tommy, Kaitlyn, Susan and Butch came over last Saturday that the mystery was solved.

As Kaitlyn was walking through the garden…I asked her what she thought it was and she immediately replied…”I can smell the answer”…she picked one stem up and immediately confirmed “Lavender!”

The reason I was so shocked was that I have been given pots of lavender and gifts of lavender, in the past, and never had any luck growing it. They all just dried up and died …no matter how carefully I tended them. I figured the lowcountry just wasn’t their “niche” and decided never to mess with them again.

But obviously one of the earlier plants from years back decided this season to makes its grand appearance. The reason I couldn’t smell the evidence is chemo…have had so much over 12 years that my “sniffer” doesn’t work very well any more…occasionally minimum results at best. But I am now a proud lavender gardener!

In fact lots of plants are popping up where nothing was planted there this season…day lilies that didn’t come up last year, morning glories that are growing on the grass and starting to climb the fence on their own…life never gives up…I should know this by now.

As I was sitting in my new luxurious swing gazing out at the fountain something caught my eye. Remember how I was oohing and aahing over Anne’s Oakleaf hanging hydrangeas…well Anne reminded me that my neighbor Julie (who is also her accountant) gave both of us one of these plants. And there it is…finally about to bloom this year for me!

I ordered two new garden flags so I would always remember the garden of 2020…the pandemic coronvirus…garden and the most beautiful one to date that helped keep me home and content. One of the flags arrived yesterday. I love it! A good reminder to me!

Not only is my garden thriving more beautifully than ever but the residents of the lowcountry are all talking about this most unusually cool and magnificent spring…one for the memory books…even without coronavirus around.

The bluest blue skies, chilly nights, cool mornings, pleasant afternoons in the low seventies….usually by April summer has arrived here…so we are having an extended spring and loving it…because we all know when summer arrives it will stick around way into fall.

The only thing I have initially considered a little “troublesome” has been the blustery winds that seem to appear out of nowhere…usually in the afternoons.

The problem is…especially with the garden…these winds tend to dry up the morning waterings quickly and the flowers look droopier than usual by late afternoon.

However, yesterday, while sitting in my comfortable “queen for a day” swing…I closed my eyes and imagined that these strange winds that daily appear this spring might be sent from Someone bigger than us….

What if these blustery winds are keeping the virus swept away from us? We really are experiencing a ‘slice of heaven’ as Anne described it this spring.

So until tomorrow…Just the thought of healing winds delights me and from now on that will be my story…every time someone comments on the strange daily blustery winds that suddenly pick up and appear….I will tell them to say “Thank you”…the strong breezes are helping us stay safe through these ambiguous times.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh (because as we all know Winnie and Blustery Days go together- Pooh is loving our spring too! :))

As I was staring up at the old oak in the corner of the back yard from the new swing…I marveled once again at God’s creation.

How lucky we all are to be alive in this world of wonders created just for us!

Dear Reader:

As a child I remember that the term ” dweller” referred back usually to the times of the cave man ….they “dwelled” rather than “lived” in caves. Life was a daily struggle for survival only. And there is a difference I have come to recognize between the two terms still today…we can’t live our fullest if we are simply dwelling in our past.

In the story I am reading now one of the main female characters finds herself brooding over some of the terrible conditions so many people dwell in that she has witnessed time and again…while dropping off and picking up books from the cabins and lean-to’s in rural, impoverished Kentucky Mountains…

Yet…every now and then she finds a family, that despite the hardships and lack of  conveniences most people take for granted…laugh and welcome her with open arms and sometimes music and shared food. In spite of the frugal conditions they find themselves in…they are actually living life…not just dwelling in it.

The rider remembers her favorite aunt once telling her “The best way to get through life is not to dwell on things…past or present.”

As I reflect back on my own life…I realize that one of myown worst faults (I continuously repeat  over and over) is dwelling and over-thinking an incident that continues bothering me…instead of letting it go. When we “dwell” on negative thoughts we unconsciously separate ourselves from the universe and all its beauty.

I love this quote by Marianne Williamson…

We are all in this thing called life together (“a vast sea of love”)…and all of us need “motherly” advice now and then from friends, colleagues and even strangers to remind us that we are all one….sunbeams and waves…we all come from one incredible universal ANCHOR..We are children of God.

So until tomorrow….I pray that everyone had a lovely Mother’s Day…I did…I had brunch with John and Mandy and children… got to see their new deck..we all took a long walk and then I came home and slept most of the afternoon away…waking refreshed and filled with gratitude for all my children. Love you!

Brunch out…a new swing for the children…another massive lego set completed by our lego girl, Tiggy likes to be carried to the end of the street now and then he will walk back…(he is 13 now)…I asked if someone wanted to carry me back too. 🙂

Love watching the grandchildren ride their bikes…

Look at that yummy brunch…and these are the flowers I received…so pretty!

Right before I got in the car to go over to Mt. P yesterday morning…the most adorable little rabbit hopped over…he was not the least bit skittish…he watched me put a few things in the car…I got in and he was still standing there watching me curiously…so I took his picture through the front windshield…it looked like he was posing for it…

I don’t know if it was a glare from the sun on the windshield that gave the photo a strange abstract  look…the grand kids thought I had painted the bunny…what a wonderful gift on Mother’s Day from Mother Nature. (Maybe he wanted the sunflower seeds that scattered on the driveway while I was filling up one bird feeder.)

Dear Reader:

Mother’s Day came early yesterday and with surprises galore! Tommy had texted me and said he and Kailtyn were going to stop by for a little visit and were bringing lunch.

Around 10:30 Tommy showed up with a truckload of gorgeous out- door furniture for the deck and garden. It originally belonged to Susan and Butch, Kaitlyn’s parents who moved to Charleston over the Christmas holidays last year.

They have been downsizing and trying to clean out their storage compartments. I think John and Mandy’s new deck gave Kaitlyn the idea that Tommy could power-wash my deck for now to put her parents out-door patio furniture (which they have no place for) on.

There was a swing (love seat) and a table for two. Unbelievable! Tommy worked on the deck for  a couple of hours until Kaitlyn, Butch, and Susan arrived…with the most delicious meal…fried chicken, beans and rice, cold pasta salad, greens, Italian subs…it just went on and on with delicious homemade cookies for dessert.

*Later in the afternoon, after everyone was gone…I was able to capture this picture of the sun’s shadows falling on the steps and deck…amazing what water pressure can do to clean wooden planks…with a lot of help from a wonderful son!

And if that wasn’t enough…Susan had asked me earlier if I could use some bed sheets and quilts she wanted to get rid of since the move….So while Butch and I were still talking outside after lunch…Susan and Kailtyn changed my whole bed into a beautiful princess bed. Though I actually felt like Queen for a Day!

It was so overwhelming that I could hardly take it all in! “Thank you” sounds far too inadequate… but just know that all of you (Tommy, Kaitlyn, Butch, Susan) made me  feel truly special and loved beyond reason.

Another gift from Tommy and Kaitlyn was an historical quote poster…one of my favorites.

Abraham Lincoln often spoke of his “angel mother” and later people assumed he was talking about his biological mother who died when he was only nine. This quote and salutation, however, is directed at his stepmother.

‘She proved to be a good and kind mother’ to him. By all reports their relationship was excellent, and Mrs. Lincoln considered her stepson a model child who was always honest, witty, and ‘diligent for knowledge.’ He never needed a ‘cross word.’ In all the vast literature of controversy over Lincoln’s early years, there is  never an unkind word about Sarah Bush Johnston Lincoln.

*Funny incident showing Sarah’s witty accepting sense of humor…a big influence on Lincoln in later years.

Lincoln’s legendary sense of humor was probably influenced by his stepmother. He recalled that she was a firm but kind-hearted woman who loved to laugh. When he was 18 years old, Lincoln, at 6′ 4″, was so tall that his head nearly touched the ceiling of the family’s farmhouse kitchen. His stepmother repeatedly joked that Lincoln was so tall that he needed to keep his hair washed or he’d leave prints on her ceiling.

Lincoln decided to have some fun with this idea. One day, when his stepmother was not home, Lincoln got together a group of younger boys and had them dip their bare feet in the mud outside the farmhouse kitchen. Then Lincoln took each of the boys inside, held them upside-down, and had them walk their feet across the ceiling, leaving muddy footprints. When Sarah Lincoln saw the muddy footprints on her ceiling, Lincoln recalled, she chuckled as she threatened to spank him playfully while tears of merriment ran down from her cheeks!

So until tomorrow…A personal shout-out to my mother who raised three children with no husband and one hand…the strongest woman I ever knew, loved, and revered! Happy Mother’s Day mother!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

I think the best thing I love about reading is discovering insights into different things in life that I never considered or gave much thought to as my life has clipped along. The Giver of Stars is an historical fiction set in the Kentucky mountains during the Great Depression. Every few pages I find myself jotting down a thought I want to come back to and reflect on.

The story is based around a true event…a literacy program Eleanor Roosevelt created as part of the New Deal. It was a rather early, crude book-mobile idea or as Eleanor called it “ a traveling library“…with the transportation to isolated cabins (dotted throughout the mountains) accomplished with horses and mules carrying female riders.

Initially some men or heads of the household were against the idea of books being dropped off and a week later picked up…for different reasons. Many residents were illiterate and some men didn’t want their wives taking time off from their chores to learn to read or read for pleasure. (especially if they didn’t know how to read)

But other families understood the importance of literacy for their children to free them from the poverty they lived in.

This caused tension and some scary situations for the young women delivering the books. The team leader explained that the most important reading for them had nothing to do with books…but people. The young women were going to have to learn to ‘read’ people and situations in order to avoid conflict or danger to themselves or others in households.

As an example to the other young riders…the team leader Margery, explains how animals have this innate ability to read other animals…it is an important key to their survival. The most successful people in life  learn how to read people the same way. She gives this example”

“There is a watering hold in Africa where all the animals go to drink…especially in dry times. You got the elephant drinking next to the lion, and he’s drinking next to a hippo, and the hippo’s drinking next to gazelle. And none of them is bothering each other right? You know why?

“No.”

“Because they’re reading each other… and that old gazelle sees that the lion is all relaxed, and that he just wants to take a drink. And the hippo is all easy, and so they all live and let live.” 

“But…you put them on a plain at dusk and that same old lion is prowling around with a glint in his eye-well, those gazelles know to git, and git fast.”

The traveling book women had to learn when the safe times to stop by a cabin was and introduce themselves and the literacy program … and when not to go near…especially when there was the smell of moonshine all around the trails or cabins in the mountains.

As much as I (as a teacher) am a huge proponent of literacy…needed more so now than ever before in all walks of life to earn a living…still it is true that the most successful people are the ones who intuitively know how to “read” other people.

God knows how to read us perfectly…there is nothing that He doesn’t know about us. Like Adam and Eve (cast from the Garden of Eden) there is no hiding place from God. The difficulty lies within us trying to ‘read’ or figure out God and His actions some times. Of course that is when faith comes into play.

So until tomorrow….I decided with Mother’s Day arriving quite quickly …I would end with a funny anecdote from one of my favorite authors Archibald Rutledge of Hampton Plantation…once Poet Laureate of South Carolina. Some of you have seen it on the blog a few years back and read it before…but it is definitely worth a re-read and a chuckle. A gift for mom.

***As we can tell from the following Hampton Plantation legend… even before that apple/snake problem in the garden…things weren’t going that well between Adam and Eve…so God stepped into help and a whole new crop of problems were ‘created.’ Have yourself a good deep chuckle…

“The Legend of the Walk Off People”

It appears that on one occasion Adam, deeply troubled, sought out God in the Garden of Eden.

“God,” he said, “you know how I love to catch fish in the river and to hunt rabbits. But Eve, she’s always complaining. She says that she gets lonesome because I fish and hunt so much. She’s talking of leaving me.”

“That’s easy,” said God, “come down to the creek with me, and we will make a few more people. They will keep Eve company while you are away from her hunting and fishing.”

Arriving at the water’s edge, God shaped some new people out of mud, and then leaned them against a rail fence to dry.

“Adam,” he said, “I will come back before sundown and put some brains in them.”

But God, forgetting that He had some other prior engagements that afternoon, did not return to finish His work until the next morning.

And it was then… to His surprise and dismay, that He discovered the people with no brains had walked off! And (do you know) they have been increasing and multiplying ever since!

You might even have met one!

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I decided to give myself a gift for Mother’s Day…for  nature.. birds that is.. I ordered a bird bath and it came in yesterday…two weeks ahead of time and I put it together myself…a first.

• Believe me…a toddler could have managed it…but am still proud! 🙂

John and Mandy’s deck got finished just in time for Mother’s Day! Nice gift!

I love watching flowers right after a rain or a sprinkler…life sparkles. Have a sparkling good day today!