Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

Today is the last day of November. The month has flown so fast…it has become a blur. When Walsh and Mollie and the children stopped by Wednesday evening…they brought me this live miniature fir tree as an early decoration for the holidays. It came with ornaments and miniature lights. I decorated it yesterday and last evening added the lights…and just that quickly… I am in the Christmas spirit…with pumpkins and turkeys fading quickly away from my memory.

When I turned on the little lights last night…it was just as exciting as the big tree…what is it about the magic in lights…big and plentiful or miniature and few…the aura changes everything in the room. Serenity and peace flows in.

My small epiphany arrived with the delight of the lights. We all clap and smile when we attend lighting Christmas Tree ceremonies in our communities at Christmas. I did the same thing when the little tree came on. It dawned on me that Christmas lights has an amazing effect on everything living.

Light is the most universal symbol. It encompasses so many ideas in life….hope, purity, goodness, ultimate reality, the sun, avenger of darkness and evil, cosmic energy, creativity, and always optimism. It makes us happy!

So this holiday season I plan to stop and soak in as much light as possible, street lights, town decorative lights, home Christmas trees, store lights….and always, always the stars leading us home one day.

So until tomorrow…”We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
― Plato

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I hope the Dingle “men” have a wonderful trip to the Palmetto Bowl today in Columbia and I feel sure Rutledge’s eyes will be as big as saucers…my prayer and hope is that each player finishes without injury and feels like he gave it his best…regardless of the final outcome.

BUT YET… that said….Go Tigers! 🙂 I Love you! I have Honey’s Lucky Clemson Palmetto Tree polished and ready to shine.

Walsh has waited a long time to take Rutledge to a Palmetto Bowl game…a vision I am sure he has dreamed about since Rutledge was born…now he, Rutledge, Tommy and dad are all attending….an historical family moment!

Dear Reader:

After a bustling Pre-holiday gathering… Thanksgiving was sedately satisfying. I pieced together some items from a home-cooked ‘ma and pa’ restaurant and added my Thanksgiving string bean casserole… bingo! The two plates were ready. Ben and I had a quiet Thanksgiving lunch.

Bekah and Ady  stopped by earlier yesterday morning for a short visit….and we had fun catching up before they left for Susan’s family Thanksgiving dinner. *Just saw this picture on Facebook…I suspect grandmother Susan is ahead of the game with her grandchildren’s next holiday attire- Santa pj’s! Too cute….Rhodes and Ady!

No doubt this morning…I won’t get up enough nerve to do my daily weigh-in! I have to ‘way out’ to get some exercise first before attempting the scales again! 🙂

The next few days will consist  of taking down pumpkin and turkey related items to make room for Christmas decorations. No rest this year to linger too long in the old pumpkin patch….Christmas tree farms are waiting.

Waiting…aren’t there several different types of it? Quinn Caldwell  explains his ‘take’ on waiting this time of the year.

“There’s waiting, and then there’s waiting. Sometimes it’s the oh-God-when-will this pain-end kind of waiting. Sometimes it’s just annoying, like waiting your turn for the restroom. Sometimes its worse, like waiting out the period of a heart- broken relationship.

But there’s another kind of waiting, too, a delicious, shivery kind: There’s smelling the almost-done pie in the oven. There’s sitting in the theater listening to the opening theme of a movie you’re been waiting a year to see. There’s the feeling when the baby kicks you a week before its due. There’s lying in bed and listening to soft snowflakes falling on the window ledges.” 

These upcoming weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas present us with both types of waiting. We can either choose to see God’s  seeming absence (wars, politics, scandals, climate changes) or choosing “to see God’s almost presence..”struggling teachers and rich philanthropists both doing the right thing, babies being born and the love being made and the ancient stars shining bright as hope in the cold night sky.”

So until tomorrow…Waiting is about looking around at the good and really really bad and realizing one day this all will change… and then taking time to welcome God in our lives. ..the Only catalyst for permanent  change.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

***A sad story hit the news yesterday….Coach McKissick, my neighbor and friend passed away yesterday morning. I had been to see him and Joan just a few weeks ago and Coach seemed to be doing extraordinarily well…great visit…so it made the news even sadder….but I think the following quote sums up Coach McKissick’s life.

”The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”

*Rutledge still has his picture of himself with Mrs. McKissick in his bedroom….I had taken him over to meet Coach but he was still at the Presbyterian Village getting treatments at that time last summer… Joan spotted us, however, came over, and graciously met Mollie and family…and an excited Rutledge posed with her.

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

Dear Reader:

The pumpkin lucks up with longevity in fall since it can be displayed for autumn in general, Halloween, and Thanksgiving…but after today (lots of pumpkin pies, lattes, breads disappear from the stores)…Mr. Pumpkin (decor) is put away in a dark closet until next fall.

Friday will be this day….not “black” for shopping for me…(gave that up a long time ago)…but putting up the Thanksgiving decorations…especially all my many pumpkins. The hearth and happy room will look strangely devoid of happiness until the Christmas decorations start next week. An empty interval of a  few days.

What got me thinking about the old expression “a lick and a promise’ was when I accidentally glanced down at the family photos on top of the chest and saw the dust bunnies flying around. If anyone picked up a photo frame they would have to blow off the dust to see the face beneath it.

Big Sigh!…Been cleaning , cooking, and now the old dust bunnies are mocking me…guess  what you forgot Boo? My least favorite job! (It might or might not get cleaned…hopefully I can turn down the lights! 🙂

I remember Grandmother using the expression a ‘lick and a prayer’ whenever the country pastor from her church would come unexpectedly visiting on Sunday afternoons…Grandmother would be running around the parlor….dusting as fast as she could.

Now I am a grandmother and doing the same thing. Some things never change! I did like the history behind the expression….

A lick and a promise means to do something with a minimum amount of effort.. The term a lick and a promise plays on a secondary meaning of the word lick popular several hundred years ago, meaning to clean something quickly. The promise portion of this idiom most probably refers to a promise one makes to oneself to do a more thorough job when more time is available.

(Interestingly, the idiom a lick and a promise is most probably derived from an older idiom, a lick and a prayer, which means a quick, haphazard cleaning dating back to mid 1800’s. Today, a lick and a promise may refer to any situation where something is done quickly and not very well. (Amen!)

Hopefully no one will be searching for dust bunnies but be more interested in eating and laughing…fingers crossed! Hallmark Thanksgivings and Christmases are never real….with everything polished and sparkling and everyone beautifully dressed…reality is quite different but much better.

Nostalgia is great…but the reality is people will always be people…meaning some happy moments, sad moments, angry moments….human moments at family gatherings.

So until tomorrow….Have a happy, crazy, loud Thanksgiving with spills, children’s laughing and screaming…and memorable moments after the fact! 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Had several lucky sightings yesterday….it started with finding a shiny penny face right side up! Loving it!

Then Sammy stopped by to eat and wish me Happy Thanksgiving…love my red cardinal.!He pecks at the suet cage until he knocks the food on the ground and then eats it.  Happy Thanksgiving Sammy!

Yesterday the fates intervened and sent the family cousins over for delightful pre-holiday visits …it was like old times. So glad the cousins were all getting together in different places ….at my house Carrie, Catherine, and Doodle came for a visit and I was able to give my birthday gifts to my nieces….then Lee, Vikki, and Rhodes came to visit and stayed to see Walsh. Mollie, and the grandchildren arrive. All impromptu, crazy, and fun…..

Dear Reader:

When I checked on my plants and trees yesterday morning for the second time…there was stunning beauty and sadness intermingled. At 8:30 a.m. the title photo is how the basket hanging off Eva Cate’s Japanese Maple looked. A precious little fall basket of colorful leaves.

When I returned  around 11:30 a.m. I literally stopped in my tracks…all the leaves had turned brown and withered… in just that short amount of time. *(I was so glad I had taken a picture earlier…hard to believe how quickly the end came when it did.)

As I looked at Eva Cate’s Japanese Maple, the tallest, practically all the leaves were gone…and two days ago…it was at its most beautiful. Ah…the sadness of fall is in its brevity. Like Susan said…the two seasons in the south must people love best are fall…and waiting for fall.

At this stage of fall (titter-tottering on the down slope) …it is wisteria leaves that suddenly imitate fall colors and climb up trees…and they, too,  are experiencing their personal  fall moment of grandeur. It is now their time to shine.

Nature never ceases to astonish and amaze me…leaving me gasping with wonder. Every spot on earth, no matter how “un-livable” it initially appears… can not stop life from popping through. I always think back to the Irish Burren for a good example of endurance and tolerance.

If you want to go to the moon….save your money and instead visit the Burren in Ireland…at first glance all you can see are rocks and boulders. Gray on top of gray for as far as the eye can stray.

But then if you pause and stop to look in the tiny crevices between the rocks…life, in the form of wildflowers, is growing.

If you want to see life conquer barren rock….go to the Burren in “Miraculous May”….it is like the moon became a garden from a Disney animated movie…it just lasts a few days in May but once again it is the brevity of this transformation that makes it so memorable and gives humans such hope!

So until tomorrow….Change will come with the seasons…ending one for another…another chance at hope and stunning sightings beyond the imagination.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

While some foliage is falling with its last leaf fallen… others still prevail…my morning glories and my cut- back mums produced a new bloom.

While sitting in the recliner catching up on some reading…I looked out the front window and the Bradford Pear looked almost abstract in the late afternoon sun’s rays

*Yesterday Brooke had to return for another surgical procedure on her arm/shoulder…which is officially “frozen.” Hopefully this latest procedure will get Brooke back on track with more months of physical therapy facing her…but she says she is ready to resume whatever it takes to get full use of her arm and shoulder again at any cost. Please keep Brooke in your prayers as she drops back to punt to score a final touchdown. We all want to see Brooke back at her usual peak of happiness countenance!

Dear Reader:

Yesterday we touched on the subject of why Thanksgiving is so late without a good explanation  so I did my homework ….Why is it so late?

We have to go all the way back to 1939 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was President. Because we were slowly just starting to pull out of the Depression FDR decided that he would change the date Abraham Lincoln had originally decided upon…the national day of thanks… as being the last Thursday in November to the third Thursday in November.

Basically his reasoning was based on building the economy back up. He figured by having the holiday the third Thursday of the month…it would free up an extra week or so between Thanksgiving and Christmas that retailers could sure use to boost their Christmas sales.

*(Retailers loved the idea- in fact today FDR is credited with providing the impetus for Black Friday-but most Americans did not “cotton” to the change.)

So finally in 1941, the year we joined in WWII, President Roosevelt decided to change it (not back to the last Thursday of the month like Lincoln) but the fourth Thursday of the month…(no matter whether it was the last or not) – since occasionally we have five Thursdays in a month)

This year the problem was the first day of the month started on a Friday which meant the first Thursday in this November 2019 month didn’t begin until the 7th. A little math here…7 x 4=28! Check it out on the calendar! 🙂

So now you know….Lincoln set the last Thursday in November, FDR first tried the third Thursday in November but the people didn’t like it much so he finally changed it to the fourth Thursday (no matter how it falls…early or late (earliest possibility now is the 22- latest- 28)

See how confusingly simply it really is! 🙂 It’s just simple arithmetic complicated by politics! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Nice rhyme there! (What else is new?)

So until tomorrow…For most school children…today is their last day before the holidays…it is always hard to tell who is the happiest…the students or the teachers! Well done everyone…Thanksgiving is almost here!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Boo’s Daily Fall Photos….Fall just keeps getting better and better…peaking for Thanksgiving Day I think!

Fall leaves mixed in Spanish Moss…a lowcountry “delicacy” ..beautiful old homes and new….and each shrub and tree trying to get  attention with the sunlight dappling through it.

Pulling into my driveway I could see the sassafras bushes all the way from the front driveway and my Bradford Pear has undergone an amazing transformation in two days…from dark red to……bright oranges and golden yellows.

Dear Reader:

Mr. Turkey must feel (this year) like his fifteen minutes of fame is turning into 15 seconds! It is like people are trying to figure out when to serve Thanksgiving dinner….early, middle, or late in the day so they can go get a Christmas tree or go shopping.

Admittedly….Thanksgiving is very late this year so holiday “regulators” who like certain Christmas items on display (inside and outside their homes) so many days before Christmas are sticking to their schedules. *(I wonder how many houses will be having Thanks giving dinner amid Christmas music and Christmas decorations, trees, and holiday china?) 🙂

This past Saturday was a busy day….I took Tommy and Kaitlyn out for lunch for Kaitlyn’s belated birthday (the last warm day before the latest cold front)…perfect for sitting outside on the docks at Salt Water Cowboys restaurant. It felt like an early summer day eating beside the water. Delicious…we had a great time!

I left there to hop over to John and Mandy’s to go to the James Island Festival of Lights Saturday evening…*our first attempt to go had been rained out. It also gave me a chance to catch up with Eva Cate’s (Girls on the Run) final race update…the whole Turner family participated and finished…way to go!

The Festival of Lights was packed and we were afraid we wouldn’t get a seat on the train that runs around the park…but we lucked up and only had to wait about ten minutes and then we were off…it is our favorite activity…getting to see all the Christmas lights from the little train.

While waiting to see if we were going to be able to get tickets…I took the ‘title photo’ of Eva Cate outside the train depot under a big Christmas wreath…my iPhone flash caught all the wreath’s lights that immersed Eva Cate in white…but upon development it looked quite magical. Mandy, Jake, and John sat behind Eva Cate and myself on the train…lots of fun!

Then onto the carousel….always a special event for the kids

By the time we stopped and ate barbecue on the return trip…and then got back home…the wind and rain bringing (the cold front) arrived. We bundled up in our pj’s but none of us lasted very long…it had been a busy, active day for everyone.

On the way home yesterday I made a few stops picking up a few things here and there…and cutting through the back way on Sumter and Marion Avenues. I know some of you must be tired of my over-the-top fall obsession…but when you see beauty that only comes  a few weeks each year and it is over the top too…I just have to stop and soak it all in.

Downtown Summerville has decorated the street lights already!

Love cutting through Sumter Avenue…one of the oldest and most charming streets in Summerville.

Memorable Marion Avenue….

So until tomorrow…I think God understands this year that so many people are yearning to experience something spiritual at Christmas…something holy, something beautiful….Something like God. This Thanksgiving let us thank Him ahead of time for patiently waiting for us to seek Him out.

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

A BIG Shout-Out to all the Turkey Trotter Gals in the family who arrived around the Thanksgiving holidays… giving all of us so much to be thankful for…

Susan Cadwell             Carrie Simpson     Catherine Simpson

Whitney, Ismir, and baby Finn    Happy Special Birthday Whitney….Your birthday and another little ‘Turkey” baby in the family! So much to be thankful for….:)

Dear Reader:

I think the importance of the holiday season each year….Thanksgiving and Christmas… is to make us pause from all our daily busyness and reflect on all the blessings we have received in our life time. Mankind almost needs a huge annual Road Sign that says

“Slow down and pause…Take time to Remember Your Blessings and then Honk if You are Grateful.” 

If not for the holidays…taking time to stop and celebrate the season of blessings with family and friends would not happen…We would just keep going round and round in our human hamster cage...moving fast through life but just going in circles.

The title artwork comes from a card Chris Frazier sent me with the sweetest thank you note for the blog post. Chris and I taught some courses together and our circles re-circled several times in our teaching careers. It made my day finding her card in my box. Thank you Chris for pausing to send such a sweet message.

Than to add a cherry on top of this friendship dessert…came Laurie’s annual newsletter/card at the same time.

I look forward to it each year. Laurie David and my teaching paths also coincided on a few occasions and I always admired Laurie for her inner strength and determination to keep teachers informed of educational proposals …all of which was made more difficult by a personal chronic health problem which never slowed her down but would have stopped others cold in their tracks..

These days she is a gal ‘right up my alley’ …retired and loves working and being in her garden. She always sends the most helpful tips on growing a diversity of plants, along with an interesting history behind one or two… accompanied by touching quotes and ideas on how to send and remember service men/women in unique, creative ways, educational updates, anecdotes, quilt histories…with lots of “Peace in the Garden” photos.

Thank you Laurie for all the hard work it takes sending this newsletter out each Thanksgiving. Now I want to pause and take time to thank and honor you for this wonderful gift I (and many others) received annually.

Some years a package of seeds have been included in her envelope and this year it was a 2020 pocket calendar with this ‘thoughtful quote.’

“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” – John Muir

Your cards/newsletters remind me that none of us are ever really alone…we are blessed by present neighbors, friends, and family while harboring amazing memories from the past…waiting to be ignited with a note of correspondence. Thank you all.

So until tomorrow (another quote from Laurie’s newsletter by President Franklin Roosevelt)

 “A nation that destroys its soil, destroys itself. Forests are the lungs of our land, purifying the air and giving fresh oxygen to our people.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Update on the ‘Terrific Turner Team’.…Eva Cate and dad were partners, her teacher/coach was there to cheer them on…and Mandy said that Jake wanted in too…so it ended up being a family affair….everyone finished…lots of fun to end Girls on the Run!

My Bradford Pear is out-doing itself this year…by another week it will be at its peak…beautiful red and orange leaves are changing hourly it appears…you can see it all the way down the street…the neighborhood has declared that this is our prettiest fall street in a long time…we love Rainbow Road!

Dear Reader:

I think all of us have struggled within some kind of mental conflict -between divine pre-destination and free will. Like Madeleine L’Engle stated…

“I can not believe that terrible afflictions are purposefully handed out to each of us personally. Everything is me rebels against that concept. I cannot live in a world where everything is supposedly predetermined, an ant world in which there is no element of choice. I do believe that we all have a share in the writing of our own story. We do get to make choices and decisions at our life’s crossroads.”

What got me started thinking along these difficult ‘big questions in life’ was a Thanksgiving greeting to breast cancer thrivers that popped up on my email.

Underneath the picture was a quote that read:

“I am thankful for my struggle because without it I wouldn’t have stumbled across my strength.”

I think this is what Madeleine L’Engle meant when she said… we do have a choice to make at the crosssroads in life as how we handle what befalls us. Here are some examples she gave.

Milton could have retreated into passive blindness and self-pity instead of trying the patience of his three dutiful daughters and any visiting friend by insisting that they write down what he dictated.

Beethoven could have remained in the gloom of silence instead of forging the glorious sounds which he could never hear except in his artist’s imagination.

Sometimes the very impetus of overcoming obstacles results in a surge of creativity. It is in our responses that we are given the gift of helping God write our story.  (Walking on Water– L’Engle)

I started writing this blog post August 7, 2010…less than two weeks after I first visited St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in Trust, North Carolina in late July. (Can you believe it Honey that this July will mark the 10th anniversary since my epiphany at the little chapel in the woods?)

Many a day as I start a post with one idea in mind I find my fingers  typing something completely different than what I initially planned. I realize now that it isn’t always something that I personally needed to address but that there was someone out there who was waiting to hear what was written in the blog. God helps me each and every day with my blog…He is, undeniably, my permanent co-author.

*Ambika was such an example…she was living in Dubai at the time she inadvertently discovered my blog. She was at a crossroads in her life (professionally and personally)…She googled the term HOPE and my Chapelofhopestories.com popped up.

It just so happened that this particular post that day addressed her conflicting feelings she was undergoing at the time. Isn’t God amazing as He “works in mysterious ways?” (Love you Ambika!!!)

If you would like read more about Ambika’s story- you can pull it on…(***The Chapel’s Gift of Hope- Ambika’s Story-March 24, 2016)

So until tomorrow…”The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things you do for others remain as your legacy.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I woke up to the morning sun turning Vickie’s Maple tree a fiery golden color…I texted her to say I thought it was the ‘burning bush’ for a moment. 🙂

 ***A hope and a prayer for Eva Cate and John this morning for a successful finish…Eva Cate has participated in a Girls on the Run after school program –

It is a great program as each child runs with a different ‘buddy’ throughout the practice semester…getting to know students they would not have otherwise. (And certainly a great form of exercise after school)

For the finale this morning Eva Cate will be running with dad in the 5K (3 mile run)…John I hope you have your magic running shoes on…Eva Cate is fast! Good luck Terrific Turner Team!

Dear Reader:

Yesterday as I walked by this particular camellia bush I noticed this exquisite bud just ‘waiting to exhale.’ As I stared down at it intently…I half-expected to hear a “Whoosh” sound as its blossom unfurled in front of me. Instead I made a self-discovery…it was me who was holding her breath in anticipation.

Waiting to exhale….I started thinking about the number of times and diverse occasions throughout my life where I found myself consciously or unconsciously holding my breath…waiting to exhale. My memories are full of personal examples.

Childhood, youth, and adult competitions….from trying out for a role in the elementary talent show to waiting to hear if I made cheerleader to teacher of the year. (I didn’t make the talent show, did make cheerleader and on my second attempt…did make district teacher of the year. 🙂

But then came motherhood where upon reflection, we mothers hold our breaths a lot for our children’s competition…I held my breath each time the football was thrown to Walsh since he was a wide receiver in high school, I held it when Tommy was putting in high school division golf or when Mandy was running for (and elected) secretary of her senior class….the competitions were many and varied…some ending successfully, some not so much… but all part of growing up.

I recently read an article from a doctor who has discovered that inhaling deeply is still important but exhaling completely…getting all the carbon dioxide out of our systems prevents shallow breathing and lung distress. The article concludes:

“The optimal breath brings fresh new oxygen to fill your whole torso and spread throughout your body to enhance life force. Then you can be present and able to engage in your next activity with full body, mind, spirit… and breath!” (Source: Breath in Motion: Why Exhaling Matters Most – Betsy Polatin, Contributing writer)

Not dismissing the medical concerns of incomplete exhaling…don’t we also associate holding our breaths…with pure childlike excitement…like waiting to see what Santa brought us or an engagement proposal…our first-born child….those memorable scenes from our lives?

When Mandy was just a little thing…(a few months up through about two)…she would stop breathing if Dee Dee and I were pushing the stroller too fast through a mall or even holding her and walking too fast, if we pushed her too hard on the swing she would simply let go in fright…or would go stiff and turn purple.

Dee Dee and I spent the first few months of her life waiting on baby Mandy to exhale…followed by a blood-curling scream! Didn’t know then babies could have anxiety attacks…to this day Mandy still doesn’t handle big crowds well or tight places…and ends up leaving more times than not.

So until tomorrow…Breathing…the most important thing we do each day… with little thought or concern… until the day we can’t catch our breath and then it becomes the most important thing we wish to resume…immediately. We would give away everything we owned for just one more breath.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Yesterday I got a “snow day” and it made me so happy. I had my monthly oncology exam scheduled but I got an office call saying they were completely backed-up and my oncologist had looked at my latest tests and said that unless I was having problems…she could wait and see me after Thanksgiving…some time in December if that suited me.

I was beyond happy…a “free” day with sun in the sixties! So I planted pansies in my “Dutch iron shoe planters” Pam gave me…Luke helped me plant the newest grandchild Japanese Maple…a productive day to create new life and appreciate the autumn colors in the garden.

The orange colored Japanese maples look good against the Clemson bottle tree and the sassafras leaves are gorgeous in the fall.

Jakie’s CD class had its Thanksgiving feast and invited parents…Mandy was teaching but John was able to go and it was too cute. It was easy to spot just how much work Jake’s teachers put in this special event…let’s hear it for the hardworking teachers in our classrooms.

Dear Reader:

I have never heard of a “piggy-back” epiphany but suddenly these days I am feeling it with all my senses….sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. *An”oneness” with everything in life…animate and inanimate.

This new perspective  started when I read an article from a reporter who interviewed Edgar Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell was the lunar module pilot on Apollo 14 in 1971. On the return trip back to earth he experienced an epiphany that changed how he saw himself, other people and creatures…even objects in a new interrelationship he never knew existed.

In an interview with Ascent Magazine, he recalled:

“The spacecraft was rotating to maintain the thermal balance of the Sun…. Every two minutes, with every rotation, we saw the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun as they passed by the window. The 360-degree panorama of the heavens was awesome and the stars are ten times as bright and, therefore, ten times as numerous than you could ever see on a high mountaintop on a clear night.

“It was overwhelmingly magnificent…. I realized that the molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft had been manufactured in an ancient generation of stars. It wasn’t just intellectual knowledge — it was a subjective visceral experience accompanied by ecstasy — a transformational experience- we really are made of star dust.”

Growing up Southern Baptist he tried to find a source to explain what he had undergone…Christian doctrines didn’t broach the subject or endless science research…He kept searching desperately for something to explain how he felt those few minutes he underwent molecular transformation and finally found it in sanskrit….two words (savikalpa samadhi) an experience in which objects lose their separateness and are perceived ecstatically as being elements in a vast and borderless oneness. 

We are in the universe and the universe is in us.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson

For a long time I have realized that we are all connected in this universe….animal, plant life…even inanimate objects. As I walk each day and am drawn to autumn’s glory… peaking in my home town…some visuals literally make me stop and gasp for just a second…as if that flower, or tree, or bush entered my space, myself, and enriched it.

Each experience we have in our lives adds substance to our own personal being…we are like magnets taking in molecules of life without even realizing we are being transformed by them…the more beauty we acquire the more beautiful our lives.

Example….On any ordinary day (like yesterday) I take a handful of pictures of nature at its best.  Now I realize I will always carry these images within me…they have become a part of me…who I am…their beauty absorbed through me. I no longer need the photograph…their essence lingers forever.

So until tomorrow…The greatest lesson from this higher understanding of my place in the world in relationship to the universe is the important concept that everything is made up of the same universal matter…our building blocks from God’s creation.

We are all of the same kind yet humans on earth spend so much precious time from our lives looking for minute differences instead of seeing the common thread we all share. What if we focused on our sameness instead…staying open to acceptance, tolerance, kindness and love of all our fellow man? Conflicts would cease and oh, what a beautiful world this would be. (Editor of Spotlight on Kindness)

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

*John Lennon understood this oneness when he wrote:

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace

You may say that I’m a dreamer…But I’m not the only one

I hope someday you’ll join us

And the world will be as one