Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

If I ever walked past a portal like this….there is no way I wouldn’t be trying to peek inside to see what this whimsical gate opened upon… beyond that enticing entrance. Just seeing it as a writer has my imagination on fire. Oh…the possibilities!

As adults too many of us might think we have “outgrown” our imagination but I would have to argue that my imagination has only increased with the years…not diminished. Imagination is the forerunner of reality. Think about it….every thing we use in our daily lives was once just a figment of someone’s imagination…someone’s dream. From the invention of the wheel to NASA space technology…some person and/or groups of people had to share the same imagination and then bring it into the realm of reality. Mind-blowing!

As we are writing our own story each and every day it is our imagination that tells the story….as we describe all the roles in life we are playing…and the roles never cease changing and coming. Shakespeare is right…”All the world is a stage.”

The first time I was ever asked to list as many roles that I play out in my life I was shocked. We take all these roles for granted don’t we and don’t give them much thought as we go about the busyness of our lives…but when we do take time to list them we see patterns emerging.

For me…my roles include daughter, grand-daughter, sister, sibling, cousin, aunt, mother, grandmother, great-aunt…*student, teacher, student, administrator,  writer, reader, friend, acquaintance and stranger…just to name a few off the top of my head.

*The thing about labels or roles in our lives is that roles can intertwine several times…I started out a student, then became a teacher, then became a student again to earn my Masters degree, then became a coordinator, and then became a student again…a lifetime learner.

I went from being a grand-daughter to a grandmother…in the blink of an eye….re-living my own childhood through the eyes and wonder of my own grandchildren. BUT the most important thing is to never be remembered for any role we play but for the essence of who we are in the eyes of everyone.

I think my book cover for my life story should be in the shape of a gate or entrance into an imaginary garden…because it is here where I have found such happiness. (title photo)

In my imagination…like a secret garden…each page would have pop-ups with orange being the central color among all the three-dimensional  flowers of the garden. Butterflies, bumblebees, dragonflies, and hummingbirds would pop up also with scented pages of confederate jasmine, moon flowers, honeysuckle, gardenia, and sassafras. *And I can’t forget that the fairies would be hidden among the paintings and with lights as clues to find them in the darkness.

So until tomorrow…”We’re all born into a role, but the person we become is up to us.!”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Pam Stewart sent me a photo of a t-shirt and said it reminded her of me…then the t-shirt design reminded me of a poster I keep on my door closet in my “office.”

I love creeping jenny…have three pots with nothing but just that in it…though I love it with mixed hanging baskets too.

A Grandmother’s Pride: Today at Rutledge’s school the kindergarten students had a half-mile “derby” race (mascot is the “Iron Horses”) and Rutledge came in first competing with 40 other boys. What I was so proud about is that he was neck to neck with another little fella but Rutledge fell down coming around the last bend…yet he didn’t give up…but just bounced back up and passed the competitor at the last second to win!

Dear Reader:

Eva Cate’s birthday party was in a room (in the Charleston Museum) that housed left-over exhibits (probably items that didn’t warrant viewing in the main tourist rooms… due to lack of space.) When I sat down at one decorated birthday table I happened to glance up and at first view..thought the creature hanging above my head was some kind of flying dinosaur replica or something.

When I pointed and asked…our wonderful museum coordinator smiled and said “No it is an albatross.”

“Immediately all I could think of was…“Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink .” (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) And the only other association that popped up from this poem learned in college was an idiom I used and still do…actually a lot- “Whew, it feels so good to have that “albatross off my neck.”

In college I would say it at the end of semester exams or term papers or a lengthy project…the sheer relief of having finally completed something I dreaded.

Today another word is associated with the idiom….guilt… based on the poem by Samuel Coleridge.

The poem tells the tale of an old seaman who, while on a sea voyage, kills an albatross with his crossbow. In nautical lore, albatrosses are a sign of good fortune, and killing one is meant to bring bad luck.

The crew of the ship forces the old seaman to wear the albatross’s carcass around his neck, which is meant to serve as a reminder of his misdeed. The seaman is then cursed and is forced to watch all his fellow crew members die from hunger and thirst. (“Water, water, everywhere but not a drop to drink.”)

The curse is finally lifted and the process of his absolution and atonement commences when he fully understands the sacrilege of  killing one of God’s innocent creatures and opens himself up to total acceptance of all living creatures…asking forgiveness for the life he took.

I think in most cases today…this idiom is applied to the feeling one has when he or she reveals a secret or lie that has burdened them for a long period of time…and the sense of absolution once the lie is admitted…how wonderful it feels “to have the albatross off one’s neck.” (*We wouldn’t have soap operas today if they weren’t filled with secrets of all the characters and how these secrets/and or/ lies affect so many people’s lives. Soap operas in a nutshell.)

*The museum coordinator also told me some things about albatrosses I didn’t know…they could sleep while flying and rarely landed…mostly just to lay eggs. They glide instead of flying using air currents over seas and ocean… and spend 80% of their life (60 years average lifespan) over the water. They are one of the few birds who can drink salt water because of a special mechanism that have for ridding themselves of the salt.

*Interesting Fact:

While sleeping mid-flight, albatrosses don’t go completely on autopilot; the birds often sleep with only one side of their brain, leaving the other side awake. Most animals that sleep half-brained do so to stay alert for predators, but frigatebirds have no natural predators in the sky. Rattenborg suspects that they remain half-awake to prevent mid-air collisions, though none were observed during the study.

Could humans also benefit from many short naps over long periods of time? Leonardo Da Vinci is alleged to have slept only 90 minutes a day, in short fifteen-minute bursts every four hours. Maybe he was onto something that albatrosses already knew.

Source: Audubon Findings

So until tomorrow….Isn’t it unbelievable how each of God’s creatures is given all the unique tools it needs to live on this earth….each creature specialized for life and special in God’s eyes.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

When I went to the Tractor and Supply Store yesterday….four metallic chicken decorations were sitting on a table and I couldn’t help but think of Luke, Chelsey and their four “girls”… those funny little chickens with such diversified personalities.

Stopped by Anne’s yesterday…and her beautiful shade of yellow day lilies were all in bloom!

Besides being May Day…the first day of May will remind me this year that I finally planted my Moon flower seeds…they will be so beautiful when they bloom in late summer and early autumn.

Dear Reader:

I being in the way, the Lord led me. —Genesis 24:27 (kjv)

Have you ever been in a place of confusion only to encounter a startling touch of God’s reality? Maybe it came from an insight from God’s Word or through a prompting of the Spirit in prayer. Or perhaps it was an unexpected “coincidence” that gave you direction just when you needed it.

In Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, C. S. Lewis refers to this kind of phenomenon as “patches of Godlight.” “Any patch of sunlight in a wood will show you something about the sun which you could never get from reading books on astronomy. These pure and spontaneous pleasures are ‘patches of Godlight’ in the woods of our experience.”

Abram’s servant was sent to find an appropriate bride for Isaac the son of promise. If anyone was in need of a “patch of Godlight,” it was this conscientious servant. After a long journey and with fears of making a mistake, the servant asked for God’s leading. Later he joyously reported to his master:  “I being in the way, the Lord led me” (Genesis 24:27). Do you need God’s touch and leading? 

In your faith journey today, watch for “patches of Godlight.”

*(Resource: A Day with C.S. Lewis…”Patches of Godlight” ( Posted by drfishercsl)

For Further Reading: Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer by C. S. Lewis

*Because there was so much interest in the quotes Father Tim used in the fictitious Mitford Series….Jan Karon created a book to look like Father Tim’s handwriting/doodling…a journal where he copied quotes from the writings of such writers as….Mark Twain and C.S. Lewis to Aristophanes and St. Paul.

One of these caught my attention…”Patches of Godlight” because I love finding these patches early in the morning and late in the evening in the garden.

And I can certainly relate to being in the way for God to accomplish what he wants me to do. Sometimes I feel clueless…like the early morning and late evening shadows, but other times I see the light falling and reflecting around me….like it did on Bliss, the statue, the other day…and then I sense that knowingly or unknowingly “I will be a blessing to someone today” or even a receiver from another.”

My yellow jessamine vine has fallen off the side of the pottery shed…it got too heavy and fell. It has been lying on the ground in a large bundle. This just would not do….here I am the retired SC HIstory teacher and my state flower had fallen. I felt like the symbolism in getting one’s flag back up…the yellow jessamine must be restored.  Michael was cutting the grass yesterday (so while I had help)  I decided to find something at Home Depot we could prop up against brick wall and then let the weight of the vine secure it.

The “ladder looking trellis” was deceivingly light and while I was carrying it to my car in the Home Depot parking lot I must have had four people asking me if they could help…I just shook my head and smiled…it felt great to feel like I could hold something that looked impressively heavy but wasn’t…for the first time in a long time…I felt really “strong” again!

I was almost at my car when another gentleman asked if he could at least help me get the “trellis”  inside the car…I grinned and said certainly. I then handed the trellis ladder over to him and he grinned back… surprised at its lightness too…“It did look impressive he said and winked…I will never tell the secret.”

Getting the yellow jessamine vine up and looped over the ladder was the hardest part (I was glad that Michael was there for that)…the vine was heavier than the trellis by far.

So now I have a special “Patch of Godlight” on the corner of the potting shed….helped there by God’s plan and kindness shown.

Here are some other favorite ‘patches of Godlight’ in the garden….

*Remember I showed you what I thought was a long-leaf hydrangea and I thought it had a “baby” behind it….well guess what…both of them are sassafras plants….they are growing over and under my neighbor’s fence and the citrusy smell is divine. Sassafras and confederate jasmine….my goodness…I love living in the South!

I planted the last of the Gazanias in two long planters by the fence…fingers crossed they will acclimate and do well. Vickie and my co-op rose bush is bigger and more breath-taking than ever!

I honestly can’t tell “Big Red, Jr.” from dad now….tall, strong, and happily blooming away on the beloved white bench on the front porch.

So until tomorrow…May we all take time to find our “patches of Godlight”….living our lives with God’s assistance and compass.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*I know you didn’t forget ….May Day….the first of May…you can now go barefooting to your heart’s content. “Little Tink and “Little Bunny” have become fast friends and pose in front of a ‘Lily of the Valley” (flower of May) card in the making. Shout “RABBIT first thing today!” And have a beautiful, wonderful month!

Dear Reader:

Yesterday morning I woke up to more surprises in the garden than ever before…all I could think of was the old expression “Great Day in the Morning!”

It, literally, was a great start to the morning…a great way to begin the day. In the title photo is a beautiful bloom from one of several different strands of grasses I planted last year. I have no idea what the name of the bloom is…but I wanted more height along the garden path and decided that grasses would help in that department. I didn’t even know they would bloom until yesterday morning and there it sat in all its glory!  “Glory be!”

So let me use some different colloquial expressions of awe and joy as I take you through the garden to see the different beauties that I saw.

 The “Swamp Maple” I got from Hollow Tree Nursery (several years ago) is growing this year (for the first time) by leaps and bounds. It is located behind the garage and easy to forget about when it comes time to water….still, left only to mother nature, it is thriving and absolutely beautiful with its orange and red-tipped leaves.

“Hoo-Wee!”

The first bloom from the Mexican Petunias (maybe it was my Mexican cuisine Sunday night that brought it on) was pretty in purple as I glanced at the potting shed and noticed the bloom from afar…soon it will be covered in purple petunias! “Sweet Petunia!”

The red scarlet color grabbed my attention first thing yesterday morning…the scarlet bottlebrush’s first bloom. Hummingbirds and bees really like this unique-looking bush.

“Bingo!”

These two pretty succulents came from Flowertown Nursery and are perfect for decks…can take the heat and don’t need much water. “Sumptious Succulents!”

I made another basket from the gazania….gave one basket to Mandy and another one for the garden… I am just loving these primary colored flowers…getting ready to add some to my low planters by the fence this week. “Good Golly!”

I love this new addition to the garden…it is Scaevola…basically called Fairy Pink…and you know how I love my fairies!  “For Goodness Sake!”

The lights and shadows fell so pretty outside and inside this morning…Lachlan’s Japanese Maple is growing faster already this year than ever before….and the shadows in my happy room started the day off in wonder and awe.

So until tomorrow….“The more grateful I am, the more beauty I see.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Today truly is my favorite day because my longest, dearest friend and “sister,”Brooke, is having a birthday…an extraordinary benchmark birthday which the rest of the Ya’s will follow throughout this year. Brooke has always been the ‘leader of the band’ and will pioneer us all into another golden decade of life, love, and fun together. Have a fantastic day our Ya friend of past, present, and future! We all are as close as our own shadows to each other….never forget that! HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROOKE! WE LOVE YOU!

Dear Reader:

Haven’t we all witnessed a scene where we thought we might be of help to someone who could use a helping hand or a friend… but held back because we were afraid to take the initiative or concerned about how it might appear or be misinterpreted.

A young man, named Jamario Howard found himself in this dilemma when he and two buddies went to Brad’s Barbecue restaurant in Oxford, Alabama last weekend. As they were waiting to be served he noticed an elderly woman sitting by herself and thought to himself that he sure would hate to have to eat alone.

Without second-guessing this initial instinct he walked over, introduced himself, and asked the woman if she would like some company. She said that would be nice and the two struck up a conversation ….she telling Howard that her husband had recently died and that their 60th anniversary was coming up…he had always like barbecue so she decided to come in and celebrate it in his memory.

They soon joined Howard’s two buddies and had a wonderful evening…agreeing to meet again whenever she returned alone…if she wanted the company…she said she did.

After this photo was taken…Jamario Howard wrote this on his facebook page.

So tonight JaMychol Baker, Tae, and myself went out to eat at this place called Brads in Oxford, and after us sitting there a while waiting on our food i noticed an elderly woman sitting alone. My exact thoughts was “dang I’d hate to have to eat alone”. So after thinking about it a minute i walked over to her and asked if i could sit with her. She said yes and we talked for a minute and after a while of talking she told me she lost her husband and that tomorrow would have been their 60th anniversary. I instantly gave my condolences and asked her to come eat with us, which she was excited to do. The point in this is always be kind and be nice to people. You never know what they are going through. This woman changed my outlook on life and how i look at other people. Everyone has a story so do not judge! And people i can’t stress this enough. GO SEE YOUR MOM AND YOUR GRANDPARENTS. They miss you!

Widow who was invited to eat with strangers: “I think God sent me … (Click on two minute video of the whole story)

Over and over it becomes more obvious to us…we might not be able to do a lot of things in this life… but everybody, no matter the circumstance, can be kind. Our worse enemy is ourselves when we overthink a situation where we could be of help but worry about what others might think instead of just doing what we know is right.

Until tomorrow…. Two greatest attributes…kindness and  the courage to carry it out.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Yesterday was Part B of Eva Cate’s birthday weekend….several little girls from her class joined Eva Cate at the Charleston Museum to re-visit the fifties by learning  fun facts about this decade, listening to 50’s music, and doing art projects… decorating cat eye sunglasses and old coke glasses. Then the whole group got a special tour of the Charleston Museum…the oldest museum in the country…even getting to dress in period pieces. I love that Eva Cate loves history! *I learned a lot!

After I left Mandy and John’s I went to Tommy and Kaitlyn’s house…they are leaving for Dingle, Ireland in about a week and it seems like I haven’t had a chance to hardly see them since Christmas except for small moments of time. So we went out to eat at a Mexican restaurant on Sullivan’s Island and had the most delicious meal I can remember…haven’t had real Mexican food in quite awhile and it was outstanding.

Tommy and Kaitlyn will be celebrating their second anniversary while in Ireland….such a joyous occasion!

Remember to dress warmly, bundle up and live by the weather creed of Ireland…“There’s no such thing as bad weather in Ireland…only the wrong clothes.” 

Dear Reader:

When Jan Karon’s Mitford series became such a hit ( New York best sellers) lots of attention was thrust on this author….to the point where she finally had to leave Blowing Rock, North Carolina (her own Mitford) to escape unwanted visitors tracking her down on her property all hours of the day and night.

Karon did have a sign outside her cottage in Blowing Rock that read “Peter Rabbit Slept Here.” It is the relationship between Father Tim and God that brings readers back for the next book and the next and the next. As Father Tim struggles to find the right balance in his own personal relationship he helps so many Mitford friends in their relationships too…as well as all us readers.

Have you ever thought that Jan Karon’s sign outside her cottage might be a clue as to another rabbit most children have heard about… the classic…The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown? Have you ever considered God to greatly resemble the “run-away bunny’s” mother? Is Father Tim showing us how to find God since He is as close as our next heart beat?

Don’t you remember the story of the runaway bunny…The mother bunny starts out  the book reassuring her little bunny that no matter where he runs or hides she will find him.

Source: Transpositions – Stephen  Schueler

The first transformation is especially telling: the little bunny states that he will become a fish, and the mother replies, “I will become a fisherman and I will fish for you.”  The statement recalls Jesus’s words to the disciples: “I will make you fishers of men,” but it also parallels the descent of God into the world to seek fallen humanity, and while the mother bunny does not intend to become a fish as her child does, her entrance into the trout stream in pursuit of her little bunny suggests the entrance of God into the human body of Mary.

 In a later episode, the little bunny says that he will become a bird, whereas the mother says that she will become “a tree that you come home to,” recalling both Jesus’s statement that “birds of the air have nests” and the death of Jesus on a cross, which is sometimes referred to as a tree. 

At another point in the story, the little bunny decides that he will become a flower hidden in a garden, so the mother bunny decides that she will become a gardener.  There is a double significance of the garden, for it evokes both the garden of Eden and the garden in which Jesus is buried.  After the Resurrection, Jesus is mistaken for a gardener by one of the women who has come to tend his body, and the episode further solidifies the identification of the mother bunny with Christ…”

In the very first book, when we meet Father Tim…he describes Mitford to us. Since I had only read a few paragraphs when he used a metaphor comparing Mitford to the “Land of Counterpane” I had no reference for this analogy…so I simply read on.

Mitford, North Carolina (pop. 1,000), nestled in a lush valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains, is a turn-of-the-century creekside town where the air sparkles and flowers abound. Its residents are mostly decent, neighborly types whose lives are framed by the beauty and weather of the changing seasons and the recurrence of annual events. They care for one another, have little to do with the outside world, and resist change.

Looking down from a hill on the town he loves, Father Timothy Kavanagh, the rector of Mitford’s Episcopal Church, sees “a wide panorama of rich Flemish colors under a perfectly blue and cloudless sky,” with ploughed farmland “like velveteen scraps on a quilt, feather-stitched with hedgerows.” He calls it the Land of Counterpane.” 

*Now that I am finished with the entire series…I do have time to go back and research quotes and parts of poems that I didn’t “get” (the analogy) the first time time around or I was too lazy to stop and look the reference up. I found the “Land of CounterPane” – it is a poem from Robert Louis Stevenson’s “A Child’s Garden of Verses.”

When I was sick and lay a-bed,
I had two pillows at my head,
And all my toys beside me lay,
To keep me happy all the day.

And sometimes for an hour or so
I watched my leaden soldiers go,
With different uniforms and drills,
Among the bed-clothes, through the hills;

And sometimes sent my ships in fleets
All up and down among the sheets;
Or brought my trees and houses out,
And planted cities all about.

I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane

Yesterday I could have been in the pleasant “Land of Counterpane” at Eva Cate’s family birthday party…along with the run-away bunny because someone was continuously calling out...”Have you seen “Jakie or Lachlan or Rutledge, Eloise, or Eva Cate?”  The responses varied but reassurances came back…the child was in the bathroom or wanting something to drink or playing in one of the rooms….all accounted for…everyone out of the pool.

(Walsh had to work and Tommy was playing in a golf fund-raiser for Parkinsons’s disease …but the rest of the immediate family was there.)

It was a typical family gathering…swimming, shivering, cook-out, laughter, giggles, squeals, and a few tears…it was a birthday party! In my mind, however, I was remembering every detail of Eva Cate’s entrance into the world nine years before….thinking that I probably wouldn’t see her grow up and memorizing every detail of her little baby face…yet here I am….in the “Land of Counterpane.”

So until tomorrow…”You can’t depend on your eyes, when your imagination is out of focus.”  Mark Twain

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

What a spectacularly beautiful day Eva Cate’s birthday was…not a cloud in the sky and little if any humidity. Gorgeous!

Dear Reader:

Yesterday we were supposed to get some rain but instead we got wind…lots and lots of wind. Since we really needed the rain…I had to get out and water the garden… thus the “wet” look on the title photo. In reality the wind was so gusty all day, especially in the afternoon, that it dried everything up almost immediately.

Still…when I took the photos of the garden soon after watering…I found myself thinking and silently whispering “Glory Be…Glory Be!” (Give thanks to God who can create the exquisite beauty of all kinds of flowers for us mere mortals to enjoy while on our short stay here on earth.)

It was Dora, our housekeeper when growing up (another “mama” to me) who implanted the phrase “Glory Be” forever in my memory. Of course when she said it ….the phrase normally followed “Heaven Help” and then “Glory Be.”

Poor Dora…she had her hands filled with us…except David who was always the sweetest child but Ben and I definitely had our moments.

On the side of the duplex we lived on (while renting out the other side) at some point there had been a garage enclosed to make our den. It was where we watched our black and white television and was basically the comfortable family room…* I remember watching the Hardy Boys on Disney each Sunday night and Ed Sullivan.

Some time along the way we kids realized we could crawl through a second story bedroom window to get out on the flat roof over the enclosed garage/den and that was thrilling to us! Dora was getting on up in age and couldn’t hear too well…so we were safe running across the top. David was too scared to go on the roof but mainly he was smart enough to obey mother’s command that she had better never find us up there.

One day, unfortunately, mother wasn’t feeling well and came home early from work. Busted! She saw Ben and me running across the top of the garage. And even with one hand trying to steer…she still managed to press loudly on the horn! I panicked and ran back inside the bedroom window but Ben decided to make the great escape and jumped off the roof thinking he would “run away.”

David was hiding in a bush (as our look-out) and pointing to mother’s car but… too little too late. I was running down the steps as Dora was shouting “What ya young’uns up to now?” I shook my head innocently and followed Dora out the door.

Dora got to Ben first…he was sprawled on the ground holding his ankle yelping in pain. “Heaven help, heaven help” she yelled as mama came ’round the house…Ben  just might have ‘broke’ his foot Miz Lucille!” 

Mother was furious and grabbed Ben’s foot…immediately announcing that it was not broken…probably just sprained. You could tell from her voice that he was lucky it wasn’t his neck. Dora, upon hearing the verdict, sighed and called out in supplication… “Glory Be”  “Glory Be”…’Thank ya Lord.”

Loudly Dora started singing the Gloria Patri….“Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost…As it was in the beginning, is now and every shall be, world without end. Amen, Amen.”

Mother was helping Ben limp back in the house while announcing that ‘his world was about to end’ because he couldn’t watch television or play after school for two weeks. (And to my dashed hopes…she added…”And that goes for you too young lady.”) Mom didn’t even include David…*She knew her children well.

Isn’t it funny how a phrase that isn’t used much any more can take us back in time so quickly and vividly? As I finished watering my garden and walked past each new bloom or pretty spot I heard myself calling out” Glory Be” to you and to you and to you. (And to you dear Dora! 🙂

So until tomorrow…Take time and look for all the “Glory Be” gifts we have been given in this world each and every day.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

“Glory Be!“…Has it really been nine years ago to the day when I became a grandmother…a “Boo Boo?”  Almost a decade ago with four more “adorables” added to the bunch. A few “Heaven Help” moments but seriously many more “Glory Be” sentiments. Thank you God for allowing me to live to see all of this…and who knows what the future still might bring?

Dear Reader:

I walked over to the side fence by the garden yesterday to check on the newly planted morning glories and the luscious smell of honeysuckle enveloped me. Puzzled…I walked around the little fence and sure enough, on the other side, there it was. Honeysuckle! Where it came from I have no idea…but I paused and gathered there… while, I, also, gathered a few blossoms to sniff and enjoy in the early morning hours.

Finding a delightful surprise, at an overlooked gathering spot, brings such delight. It is spontaneous and turns an ordinary day into something special. It happens every time I turn on my fountain…suddenly the melodic sound of water falling changes the whole “feel” of the garden and turns it into something magical.

Every time we pray the Lord’s Prayer in church I remember the lesson I once heard about the implication and symbolism of “daily bread.” It has remained in my consciousness every time I read or hear those two words “Daily Bread.”

We live in a society who loves to plan ahead…a lot! Even as a classroom teacher, I remember growing weary of always having to spend afternoons and staff development on planning events a whole semester ahead… before we even got to the end of our first nine weeks grading period in early fall.

It was so confusing to concentrate on daily lesson planning when the school calendar already had dates marked to discuss curriculum planning for the spring…while still in the fall.

Pastor Cameron Lashbrook in his article “About That Crowded Schedule…Practice Daily Bread” reminds us what we lose when we try to live life ahead of the present.

“The more we try to pack into a day than is necessary to live well, the more good things start to smell and taste spoiled.  Have you ever had so many great things planned that you rushed through them all, feeling like you couldn’t wait until they were all done?  Quality of life does suffer under the pressurized obsessions for unmet needs to be fulfilled and under crushing cravings for more than is needed.” (We like the idea of saving up to have lots of extras in life about everything…just in case.)

Daily acknowledgment of our dependence on God is not only an act of faith, it also sets us right mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.  Trusting God to provide what is needed for God’s will to be done in our lives today, every day, sets us free from the fears and obsessions that ruin our appreciation of God’s blessings and sets us free to gather up the good gifts of God that we need today not tomorrow!”

These thoughts remind me of funny little Jakie last Easter Sunday…he was so sweet and appreciative of all the little goodies and little car surprises in the eggs…so he came over and hugged me and as he started own the steps from my kitchen into the den…he said, “Boo Boo, I want to stay here forever.” Of course my heart was all aflutter and I said he could come stay with his Boo Boo any time he wanted.

He then looked around the den and noticed that the Easter baskets were missing… with all the treats and toys. John told him he had taken everything to the car so Jakie wouldn’t forget something later and be sad when he got home. Immediately Jakie started up the other set of stairs heading outside and grinned at me, “Bye Bye Boo Boo we got to go now.” (Forever is a very short time apparently in a four-year-old.)

So until tomorrow….”Dear God, help us learn the lessons of daily bread!  By frantically gathering more than we need today, what we gather begins to spoil.  Worse yet, we grow further from God, the source of all good life!

Give us the grace to gather Your daily gifts and let that be enough.  Give us the grace to trust You to know what we need and to love us enough to provide it.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The “Swamp” maple behind the garage has just taken off…with little or no attention and the red bud is sprouting leaves all over…lesson learned in gardening…leave most of nature  alone…put it in God’s care for its “daily bread.”

Dear Reader:

Cynthia’s favorite saying to her husband, Father Tim, when he got restless was always “Go and Be like the Butterfly.” (and/or moth :))

After Father Tim officially retired from being the rector at the small Episcopal chapel (The Lord’s Chapel) in Mitford…he struggled for several years trying to find a balance between contributing to the community, continuing to help others, filling interim churches/chapels preaching positions, and guiding his small family through life’s trials of ups and downs.

He felt like he wasn’t using his time perhaps the way he was meant…he was floundering. It took him awhile to find this new balance in his later years but he finally understood one day what his wife kept telling and encouraging him to do and be. “Go and be like the butterfly.”

Butterflies have only a short life span but yet as we watch them in our gardens flickering back and forth between flowers, the beauty of the surroundings are heightened just by their sheer appearance. They brighten up the day by their presence. Unknowingly, to only Father Tim, this is what he does daily in every situation…whether it is a casual social encounter or a purposeful mission to help people in trouble…the light follows him. He can’t see himself as others do…a beacon in the darkness.

After the lost of one good friend in Mitford, he realizes that man’s stay here on earth is extremely short also…so time should be spent in fostering loving relationships, friendships, and maintaining an openness and acceptance of all God’s creatures in all their diversity…human and animals.

As a rector he is always looking for more stories to tell in his sermons and finds them in the quaint mountain people he calls his friends…”the beauty of ordinary people living ordinary lives“…in Uncle Billy’s jokes, and the delightful folklore of  the Blue Ridge mountain families he has come to love.

Father Tim begins to live his daily life by Goethe’s advice:

One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good

poem, see a fine picture, and, if  possible,  speak a few 

reasonable words.”

-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Father Tim encourages everyone to tell his/her own life story…* and I think he probably could have used the following true story I accidentally came cross in any sermon he preached….on why man can’t live without stories.

Award-winning author, Neil Gaiman, tells this true account from his own family tree ancestry….part of the reason, he later said, he became an author.

How many of us have used books as escapism too? Everything from a traumatic period in our lives to a “stuck in a rut” routine…either at work or home? We long for adventure, peace or joy, fulfillment, and find it in a book. Haven’t we all used expressions like “I am dying to get my hands on the next book in the series?”

So until tomorrow…”With apologies to Einstein, the universe is not just made up of atoms, it is made up of stories.” (I vividly recall remembering  a dream one time, as a child, that I was floating  in space and could hear mothers or fathers reading bedtime stories, children reading aloud, youth, and adults…and it was like the Tower of Babel…so many phrases from books I recognized and many I didn’t….millions, billions, trillions of stories floating in space from each us who once lived on earth…each telling our story.)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Two dahlias and two morning glory plants from Ace Hardware finally were planted yesterday morning. I was getting concerned that I wouldn’t have any morning glories this year. Let the garden begin!

As I was digging up the dirt to plant…look what I discovered…new life coming up from the ground…left over from last year….now a new morning glory.

(HannahsHand- Summerville Gift/Etsy)

Dear Reader:

Today was the day that the sense of smell came alive in the garden…the gardenias are just about to bloom, the honeysuckle out front is so olfactorily scrumptious you want to eat it, the magnolia is almost in bloom and what an aroma it will produce, and the confederate jasmine knocks me over when I sit on the bench in the evenings.

I, also, realized, however that all my “Confederate” plants were getting ready to make a “Pickett’s Charge”… especially the confederate jasmine on the two white “picket” fences! 🙂 The jasmine has climbed off this one picket fence onto a hanging basket stand and resembles a camel or llama to me????

All the historical plants one associates with the deep south are pacing themselves for May Day I think…just days away from blooms. Here are some of the traditional state and low country plants in my garden.

The Confederate Rose has taken off again…growing like kudzu.

The long leaf hydrangea had a “baby” this year…too cute!

The day lilies are poised and ready…several buds will probably pop tomorrow but the pretty yellow one won the race by arriving yesterday…*I found one that I want to order called “Charleston Charmer” …a must for the garden. (picture on the right)

Picking up sticks and limbs is made more do-able because my honeysuckle bush is right by the end of my driveway where I plop the branches, sticks, and pine cones for pick-up each week. (I broke a southern honeysuckle bloom off and brought inside by my computer…it smells SO good as I type!)

So until tomorrow…Isn’t it wonderful that no matter where we live in this beautiful world we all enjoy the flora and foliage indigenous to our habitats and proudly watch them grow year after year becoming a tradition in our family…and even a member of it! 🙂

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Anne and I met for lunch yesterday and reminisced about Notre Dame and the tragedy of the recent fire…remembering our climb up to the Bell Tower and all the interesting rooms and gargoyles along the way…hoping that none of them were ruined…especially the little elephant.