Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

When I read this passage (“It takes as long as it takes”) from Kelly Rae Roberts’ latest electronic newsletter it struck me right in the heart at just the right time. Actually Kelly was referring back to a difficult time in her life when she was still trying to do it all… while still  mourning the loss of a miscarriage, decorating a new home, acclimating to new surroundings, hiring new employees and adding more business ventures to her (already) full plate….her body finally broke… morphing her fragile  emotional state into a real physical disease that put her to bed for weeks.

When asked how long it would take to get back on her feet…she was told “It takes as long as it takes” with added words of wisdom…” Be gentle on yourself.” 

I doubt there is not a single person reading this post today that hasn’t experienced something similar…at some point in their life. In our minds we can overcome whatever disappointment has befallen us with hard work…pushing the unfortunate incident out of our minds by pushing even harder to achieve in other areas. It never works.

At some point something slows us down…(usually that “something’ comes crashing down) because we have wrongly been trying to bury the problem deep within us instead of reconciling it with God. We learn we can’t do it alone.

Some Fridays I feel like a broken record…Here I go again to the Wound Care Center in Mt. P…still filled with hope that this foot will be healed when the bandages come off during one appointment… though that scenario  isn’t as bright as it once was…it has cautiously dimmed. Sometimes I think I am almost afraid to be too optimistic because the disappointment increases accordingly.

Still…Someone else won’t let me concede or give in to sadness or self-pity…God assures me it will heal…but like Kelly’s doctors told her  “ It will take as long as it takes.” This is my lesson in patience and letting God speak to me instead of telling Him what I want Him to do and when.

God hasn’t steered me wrong yet…and even though I might feel somewhat “adrift” at times…I can see the lantern on shore beckoning and welcoming me back on solid ground with two strong feet.

So until tomorrow...”Fear not…Jesus is already there.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Luke and Chelsey are camping out in the Utah mountains…Youth, Adventure…so happy for them! So while we are having a heat wave…(upper seventies yesterday) …Luke told me they have had two feet of snow since yesterday and its not even close to stopping. “Absolutely incredible!” for this southern born and raised couple.

We also had an adventure right here in Summerville…as we entered into the art world with Anne and Helen’s Exhibition yesterday afternoon and evening. Good crowd…lots of fun! Talented Anne played and entertained us with her fiddle, along with a fellow band instrumentalist-Cindy Rossi.  Delicious hors d’œuvres….just a lot of fun! The paintings just looked like they belonged to the house…so pretty!

Lots of wonderful church supporters…and Don even showed us his magical trick…carrying two glasses of wine with his eyes closed…a hit at every party. 🙂

One of the crowd’s favorites!

*And look what I get to have for breakfast this morning…well perhaps half for breakfast today and the other half Saturday…Gin-g stopped by and brought me a BIG blueberry muffin. Thanks Gin-g!!!

Dear Reader:

Much needed God winks continue to blink, especially during these late winter dreary gray days with intermittent rain forthcoming. Compared to the weather around the rest of the nation ( snow blizzards, floods, droughts)  I know I should be down on my knees remembering Paul’s second letter to the church at Thessalonica…”In everything give thanks.” (And I do believe everything covers dreary gray days!)

I remember hearing or reading once that the most life-altering/forming  times are usually found during the ‘dull in-between times.’ How true…we actually function better during busy times, expectant times, or even in crisis times. It truly is the “dull in-between” periods that bring on bad cases of the “blahs” and test our faith more than ever.

But these trying times have a flip side…we are more open to signs and winks… than at other self-satisfied occasions. Our loyal post reader, Beverly Parkinson, shared with me her latest self-created note card called “Geranium Power.”

Of course I fell in love with it and bought it off Etsy under her “Lateblooming Designs”  home logo. (*Do go and check out these beautiful creative cards)

*You might remember Beverly sent me another special homemade note card in memory of “Big Red” the geranium soon after he passed away. I treasure it so much.

I am definitely a believer in “Geranium Power.” Since the first red geranium plant appeared mysteriously on my front porch the day I returned home from my first mastectomy at the end of May, 2008…life has changed drastically…for the better…and I have two red geraniums to thank for that…

The red geranium from the anonymous benefactor back in May, 2008 lived for over a decade bringing me, neighbors, friends, and even you readers hours of pleasure at its beauty. It survived heat, drought, bitter cold on the front porch on the white bench where it reigned supreme for a decade. In the end it was “Big Red’s” over-abundance of giving that killed it…when the gorgeous giant blooms became too top heavy and pulled the roots out before the damage (too late) was discovered.

• Here are some pictures of “Big Red” in his glory days….on the porch and his sub-freezing temperatures indoor home on the dining room table on the B&B side.

“Big Red’s” fame grew with each passing year to the point that cars would stop going up or down the street and point towards the porch telling a visitor the story behind the beautiful geranium that bloomed year-round  (24/7) for a decade without stopping.

Today I still have memoirs from “Big Red” that I keep…a box with a breast cancer card letting the plant know that it kept “hope” going for me during some tough times…if “Big Red” could keep going…then so could I. Today in a special box I decorated I placed the remains of its leaves that I dried out and have kept inside the box.

I now need to correct an earlier mistake….”Big Red” did cease to live…but not before my amazing young neighbor, Chelsey, (Luke’s wife) took 9 cuttings and spread them out all over (inside and out) of her home. Only one cutting survived…but that is all it takes…it is the direct clone of “Big Red” …in a very real sense…resurrected again.

He looks more and more like his “father” as he has shot up to amazing heights in the few short months since we all witnessed his “miracle birth.” Chelsey placed the “fledgling geranium” in a beautiful bowl and then we placed him on top of the original “Big Red”s planter pot. (For good luck) It worked!

Only a few short months later… the results are amazing. I took a photo of “Little Big Red” yesterday after I placed the geranium back on the bench after cleaning the white bench with peroxide while “Little Big Red” got some natural rain water to drink…the best kind of nourishment.

Chelsey and I are already talking about the big, big pot we are going to get him for his final home…he has already outgrown the beautiful blue bowl of Chelsey’s and is in the intermediate orange bowl…and will soon to be transferred to his final home.

Then watch out world…”Here comes “Little Big Red”…not just a ‘chip off the old block” but actually a “clone” off the original “Big Red.” He is filled, not only with “geranium power” but God’s power…faith and hope!

So until tomorrow, with “Little Big Red” around, I will always be able to follow Pascal’s advice:

“You should always keep something beautiful on your mind.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

On President’s Day (Monday) Mollie took Eloise and Lachlan  to the SC Aquarium….the fish fascinated Eloise and Lachlan was drawn to the “Great White Shark”  (most popular) LEGO exhibit.

Today is Anne and Helen’s Art Exhibit right here in Summerville.

All the information is below…Hope to see many of you there this afternoon/evening.

Dear Reader:

Last Saturday Mandy, Eva Cate, Jake, and I played CandyLand. I must admit  it was the first board game I ever remember playing as a child. What I didn’t remember was the amount of drama  contained in the actual playing of it.

Both Eva Cate and Jake were so competitive that it wasn’t long before smiles turned into sobs and whichever of the children “lost” was bemoaning the fact that they “never won” (even though they had just won three times before that…)

The cards that seemed to unravel the children (emotionally) in their quest to the winning candy treasure box were the cards like the “peanut” one that sent you all the way back to the beginning of the candy road…like starting over.

All Mandy and I heard were pouts of “That’s not fair” “No way”…”I hate this dumb game.” (Yet somehow the tears dried up in time to scream out that they wanted to play it again.) Drama, drama, drama. ( *Mandy and I could only take so much 🙂

I could only chuckle to myself…’Oh my little grandchildren…get ready for life darlings…because you are going to see a lot of “peanuts” popping up along your path and many times you will feel like your life is starting over again…but guess what…you will all find your own riches in the unknown if you keep the faith.

“Unknowns are what make life so unspeakably rich, iridescent, and engaging.” Dominic Done

As much as we all admit to hating change, changing the status quo, or even slightly shaking up our daily routines in life…when it happens and change comes …somehow we grow accustomed to it…and many times stop and reflect back on how it was the best thing that ever happened in our lives…we just couldn’t see it at the time.

Our God is a mobile one and is ever-changing. There is nothing “stationary” about God except in the sense of His constancy. So if we truly want a relationship with Him we are going to have get on board and be prepared to accept change as a part of our on-going special relationship.

Dominic Done, author of When Faith Fails, writes in one article titled “Why Does God Allow Me to Doubt?” that God is not only the Answer but, more importantly,  the Question. Through Jesus’s teaching tactics God shows us that He likes to shake things up.

Jesus told stories, asked more questions to answer questions, was intentionally shocking, crafted memorable statements, used objects for his lessons, and always repeated, repeated, and repeated the most important ideas we needed to follow after He was gone.

Done tells this thought-provoking anecdote.

“Because God is always on the move, then it follows that our faith will be too. The story is told of Augustine, the brilliant fourth-century theologian, who was once walking along the beach lost in thought. He was attempting to wrap his mind around a theological question. He then saw a boy scurrying back and forth, carrying a seashell of water, emptying it into a hole he had dug in the sand. Augustine asked what he was doing. The boy told him: he was transporting the entire sea into the hole. Augustine laughed. That’s impossible! But then he realized that’s what he had been trying to do with God.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

Just when we think we’ve got God figured out, pigeon-holed, He vanishes. The more of Him we let into our lives, the faster He soaks through the limits of our understanding. And that’s why faith isn’t about getting God to fit into our holes in the sand; it’s about running to Him. He calls us not to the shore, but the ocean.”

Done reminds us that we should know that “God does not like to be “boxed” in…In fact the last time someone tried it…He rose from that box three days later.” 

So until tomorrow…”Faith isn’t about containment…it is about possibility.” It is through our doubts, questions, tears, and anger that the relationship we seek with Our Friend emerges and only then do we realize it was so worth the journey.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Jo Dufford sent me a note card (in which two small objects fell out) yesterday…both having to do with Sammy the Cardinal. I see him more and more each day as he appears to love coming to the bird feeder and pecking away underneath it.

Isn’t it amazing how a red cardinal and a red geranium have touched so many readers…So many of you have felt a connection to each as if they are a family member…and since we are all connected in the universe…that is exactly what we are. Thanks Jo…these days it is wonderful to get a card in the mail…it is becoming more and more a rarity.

Dear Reader:

I always got tickled on President’s Day that the only two Presidents ever shown in the hallways at schools were Washington and Lincoln…and sadly for far too many public school students they were the only two they could remember at a moment’s notice after graduation.

We have had Presidents of all faiths and denominations….but when it comes to Lincoln I think he has sometimes been unfairly labeled as “lifelong religious skeptic” especially when it comes to ignoring the more dramatic moments in his administration when evidence of Lincoln’s ever-deepening faith would eventually shape the course of the nation.

Source: Lincoln’s Battle with God – Stephen Mansfield

It was the prolonged agonies of this civil war that finally broke and remolded his faith. Lincoln began to see that God apparently wasn’t for one side over the other…after all the soldiers on both sides were His children…and that there had to be another, more important reason for this war that just couldn’t seem to come to closure easily. It was while he was in this new frame of thinking that his discovery of the most important issue of the war was revealed.

If God wasn’t necessary pulling for one side over the other…especially at the high cost of the union being permanently separated then there had to be another issue at hand more important to God. “Lincoln was beginning to conclude that God was about something else. But what was it?”

The answer came at the Battle of Antietam. Lincoln made a promise to God if the union could win one decisive victory he would use it as the signal from God that he was been waiting for…”the sign that it was time to begin.”

At the next cabinet meeting following the union victory he revealed his new plan. Salmon Chase, secretary of the Treasury, recorded the moment in his diary.

“Gentlemen, I have, as you are aware, thought a great deal about the relation of this war to Slavery; and you all remember that, several weeks ago, I read to you an Order I had prepared on this subject, which, on account of objections made by some of you, was not issued.

Ever since then, my mind has been much occupied with this subject, and I have thought all along that the time for acting on it might very probably come. I think the time has come now. I wish it were a better time. I wish that we were in a better condition. The action of the army against the rebels has not been quite what I should have liked. But they have been driven out of Maryland, and Pennsylvania is no longer in danger of invasion.

When the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined, as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland, to issue a Proclamation of Emancipation such as I thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing to any one; but I made the promise to myself, and (hesitating a little) — to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out, and I am going to fulfill that promise.”

The cabinet was stunned…silence followed. In fact as President Lincoln had been speaking his voice had dropped at one important place and he was asked to repeat the comment…here we see the struggling Lincoln finally professing the change in him and his covenant with God publicly for the first time.

“According to F. B. Carpenter, the artist commissioned to paint Lincoln deliberating with his cabinet over the proclamation, Chase told him that the president had dropped his voice just at the moment he mentioned his promise to God. Chase asked if he had heard correctly. Lincoln replied, “I made a solemn vow before God, that if General Lee was driven back from Pennsylvania, I would crown the result by the declaration of freedom to the slaves.”

Once Lincoln realized what the war was truly about…the freedom of slavery for all God’s children and not merely territorial gains or losses…Then from the ensuing Battle of Gettysburg on… the war began to play out according to the covenant established between Lincoln and God.

It wouldn’t get easier for the beleaguered President. (More losses, death, dying, casualties, personal loss of his young son Willie, Mary’s mental health tittering on the brink of insanity…etc.)

*In fact just mere months before the end of the war he wrote:

“‘I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had no where else to go.”

The different between Lincoln’s faith at the beginning and the end of the war was that he now understood that he did have some place to go when ‘over troubled waters.’

So until tomorrow…If we are honest with ourselves…aren’t we, too, all “lifelong religious skeptics?” Don’t we spend our whole lives searching for that faith that will take us home? And just when we think we have found it and feel it securely locked inside…something arises in our lives to shake us and once again we falter in our faith.

But I think God is like the teacher who knows that as long as the student keeps asking questions he will always remain a life-long learner. By continuously asking more questions of God each and every day…we remain life-time faith seekers…

“Today is our favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*This is the latest snapshot from Hutchinson Square as the final brick mortars for the sign by the train depot gets ready to be added…the last lamp posts erected and the final landscaping completed.

***Don’t forget…Anne and Helen’s art exhibit is growing nigh….come stroll the walls and make a buy! 🙂  This Thursday!!!

Dear Reader:

I am sure most of us grew up hearing this expression and immediately recognize the meaning behind it. In the mid-20th century it was a popular joke to say “every time I open my mouth I put my foot in it.” This became so commonplace that people took to speaking of “putting one’s foot in one’s mouth” and a tactless person as “having foot-in-mouth disease“.

We see this so much today…it has become the norm watching the news- the exception being…perpetrators don’t seem that embarrassed by it much any more…conveniently “amnesia” sets in immediately following whatever the verbal mistake.

But haven’t the rest of us all been embarrassed by a mistake like this, more times than we would like to remember and wish we could rewind the words back into our mouths? When I read this funny anecdote on some college students who got “busted” for “putting their foot in their mouths” I had to laugh and then I figured on a dreary Monday morning…we could all use a few laughs.

The story goes like this: “What the Dean Caught When he Threw the Line Out”…

One night four college kids stayed out late, partying and having a good time. They paid no mind to the test they had scheduled for the next day and didn’t study. In the morning, they hatched a plan to get out of taking their test.

They covered themselves with grease and dirt and went to the Dean’s office. Once there, they said they had been to a wedding the previous night and on the way back they got a flat tire and had to push the car back to campus.

The Dean listened to their tale of woe and thought for a few minutes. Finally he offered them a retest three days later. They thanked him and accepted his offer. (Grinning and laughing smugly about how they had ‘pulled one over on the Dean’.)

When the test day arrived, they initially met the Dean in his office. He then took them down the hall and  put them all in separate rooms for the test…which they did think a little odd.

Still…they were fine with this since they had actually studied for the test with all the extra time. But then they saw the test. It had 2 questions.

1) Your Name __________ (1 Points)

2) Which tire burst? __________ (99 Points)
Options – (a) Front Left (b) Front Right (c) Back Left (d) Back Right

B U S T E D ! ! ! ! ! Have a good day! Your “Insightful”  Dean”

………………………………………………………………………………………………

The whole time I was re-typing this funny little “life lesson learned” anecdote…my neurons were lighting up… as I remembered one of the funniest “Busted” stories from our Ya friend, Libby. (But believe me..we all had our “busted” stories over the four years we spent at Erskine.)

Libby called me yesterday afternoon to re-tell me the story. She said she has never forgotten it or the humiliation of her “foot in the mouth“experience. *And she learned an important fact about South Carolina that she never knew until the “moment of shame” and never forgot!

Back in the days when we started Erskine…underclassmen, freshmen and sophomores, got stuck at the very bottom of the “food chain of class schedules.” We got all the 8:00 a.m. classes, especially the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday (yes Saturday) early morning classes. It was torture.

On one occasion during Libby’s sophomore year (while still a studious student before meeting all the rest of us) she overslept an 8:00 a.m. chemistry class which was having a major test that morning. The professor was a “take no prisoners” kind of instructor so her heart was pounding as she threw on a trench coat and took off running across campus…because underclassmen couldn’t have cars.

On test days when the final bell rang the classroom doors were closed and locked. Libby could feel her heart pounding out of her chest as she tried to come up with some kind of a feasible excuse that the professor might accept. She knocked on the classroom door while her own knees knocked together loudly.

Calmly the professor opened the door and after a moment’s hesitation motioned her towards his desk. The rest of the class didn’t even look up…they were already deep into figuring out formulas by her arrival.

The professor sat down and just stared at her…waiting to hear her explanation. Libby thought her heart was going to jump out of her chest and run out of the room. Then she remembered her alibi…something about a family emergency back in her hometown and that her family had, then, driven her back all five hundred miles during the night just so she wouldn’t miss her test.

Calmly, too calmly, the professor glanced down at the class roster with some information written beside it…pushed his glasses down on his nose and peered up into Libby’s eyes. “Miss Bennett,  it says here you are from our own state of South Carolina, correct?”

“Yessir, that’s right” Libby replied hopefully.

 “And your home town..the one you you went home to on this  ‘family emergency’ is in South Carolina…did I get that right?”

Libby nodded again…slightly puzzled.

“Miss Bennett, did you know that there is not a single point in our small triangular shaped state (vertically or laterally) that runs more than 375 miles tops…so that means there is no way your family brought you back 500 miles from anywhere in South Carolina.”

Dead silence. Libby prayed for the floor to open up and swallow her whole…but no such luck. She thought she heard a guffaw coming from the back row of the class but she was beyond humiliation…”Busted” in front of the whole class. Now what did she do…slink out or keep standing there frozen in front of the class?

After an interminable time the professor told her to have a seat…she could take the test but she had to finish it at the regular time as all the other students…anything incomplete was wrong.

Libby said she never looked up for a second and actually finished the test before the bell rang…surprisingly doing well on it! (Libby was and is one smart gal!)

Libby said that she has never forgotten that it doesn’t take any longer than four hours to go from the southern coast, literally, to the mountains and state line into northern North Carolina or from the east Atlantic Ocean coast-line to western Georgia or Tennessee. (Her mistake was listening to too many Peter, Paul, and Mary ballads…especially the one titled “500 Miles.”) *It only works well as an excuse in a big state!

So until tomorrow… We all deserve a second chance…

Luke 6:31

“And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

***Smile today, remember your youth and be glad you don’t have to repeat it! Be content at the age you are now!

Dear Reader:

Every time Carol and I taught a Social Studies workshop we reminded the teachers that there are four components of history: Place, Time, People, and Stories.….in that chronological order.

Life, as we know it on earth, began with ‘Place.” It was the first thing God created…a landscape so diverse and dramatic, that it dominated even the wild, raw, bleak, but overwhelmingly beautiful, landscape of Western Ireland. God created a place for all living organisms on earth…plant and animal. Nothing and no one was left out.

…Until man arrived in this perfect place of beauty….a planet he would call home. And over time it would be the people who would tell the stories of their lives on this home planet and find creative ways to pass them down to us today. History is simply a story…the story of us, mankind, and our temporary stay here on earth.

John O’Donohue spoke of ‘landscape’ often…defining and weaving its valued place in the tapestry of life under the domains of both the physical and spiritual “inner landscapes of beauty.” 

Don’t we, too often, take the familiar landscape of our daily lives for granted instead of seeing it for the important role it plays in our perception of life…as we are surrounded by it.

John O’Donohue, the gifted Irish poet and theologian, grew up in “The Burren” landscape of Ireland… often described as bleak, wild, raw and rocky…but not  to O’Donohue. (* or Anne Peterson 🙂

This limestone area of the world with wild rocky cliffs stirred his imagination as a child…for him it was “Where the Wild Things Are” and he was thrilled to be one of those happy wild things living there. He realized that who he was and who he became was due largely to this impressive landscape that cocooned his childhood, youth, and adulthood.

*(John O’Donohue’s response to the question of the role of landscape in our lives.)

…“I think it makes a huge difference, when you wake in the morning and come out of your house, whether you believe you are walking into dead geographical location, which is used to get to a destination, or whether you are emerging out into a landscape that is just as much, if not more, alive as you, but in a totally different form, and if you go towards it with an open heart and a real, watchful reverence, then you will be absolutely amazed at what it will reveal to you.”

We talk a lot on this blog about taking time to pause or stop or simply look around us as we go through the day. There is a parallel life going on in plain sight…that we (hurriedly) never give thought to…as we rush from one item on our “to do” list to the next. We, humans, think we are not only first on the food chain but also first in every other area of life because of out ability to think, reason, remember, create and every other intellectual gift bestowed upon us.

It never crosses our mind that nature, as part of landscape, has endured a lot longer than any of us…without any help from us…until late in the story…and that “help” has proven detrimental from the time we entered it.

O’Donohue also talks about the inner spiritual landscape within us…our soul. He loves Pascal’s quote that advises:

” One should always keep something beautiful on his mind.”

What sage advice….if we are having a really tough day…isn’t it wonderful that we have the capability to take ourselves to a place that can heal and restore our soul in life…a place we perhaps visited once before and felt at home in. We all have special places we can go to in times of trouble…a little chapel in the woods, an old fishing hole…it doesn’t have to be elaborate…just soothing.

It we can’t whisk away in a physical moment’s notice…we can pull the image from our sacred memory box and replay all the five senses surrounding our time at this favorite place we visited. What a gift God gave us.

So until tomorrow…Changing our perception of the landscape we live in as something viable and breathing…changes the way we look at our world and especially our personal lives. The Celtics believed landscape wasn’t just matter but it was actually alive.

O’Donohue says that the great gift received from letting landscape take us into a reverie of stillness, solitude, and silence…is that this type of experience can result in finding a place where one can “truly receive time.” 

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Update:

Overall things went well at the Wound Center this past Friday…Lyn, one of the many terrific nurses there, really did some housekeeping (cleaning) on my poor foot/lower leg that haven’t seen the light of day except for a few minutes every Friday while a procedure is under way…(it has been covered up with the “boot” since the middle of October)…it is pathetically white, and shriveled with lots of dry skin…she washed and soothed the poor area before getting down to help put the different netting on to hopefully and prayerfully bring closure to this on-going saga…the “Story of the Deep Wound That Went Astray and Won’t Go Away.”

*I stayed over at John and Mandy’s Friday night…we had tentatively planned an outing to surprise the children Saturday…but woke up Saturday morning to rain and unsettled weather conditions so we scratched that idea…the girls did do a little shopping..it is what we do best but mainly we just had fun being together.

*Now that John works his business out of his home…Tigger loves to sit on his lap and sleep while he works. Except… when the children are at home…then Tigger moves to the sofa. It’s a hard life.

Busted! Mom and Dad kissing…Jake is quite a kisser himself but still he waves a warning finger at them for good measure.  🙂

My place of beauty is inside my happy room and outside in my yard and garden. The landscape is definitely alive as the flowers talk to me each time I go visit….”Little Big Red’s” first bloom had popped open when I returned from Mt. Pleasant along with the bottle glass azalea bush on the front side of the yard.

*** And speaking of finding BEAUTY…Come one, come all to an art exhibit featuring two of our favorite artists…Anne Peterson and Helen K. Beachum! Treat yourself to a “landscape of talent and inner beauty!!!”

Dear Reader:

I remember, some times in the past, longing to live in a world in which my plans could be made and carried out without a hitch or a detour on the first bat out…just knock that ball over the fence and be done with it.  But now, upon further reflection, the most joys and surprises, in my life, have evolved from being forced to fall back on Plan B.

Sometimes I think Plan A’s are the man-made plans….it is us pouring all our early dreams and hopes on one path we individually design. Plan B is God’s plan…the one He knows will work best and knew it all of the time…but He patiently waits for us to discover this for ourselves…as we travel all the detours in life.

I am writing this blog before I head out to the Wound Care Center ( early Friday morning) for the next stage of my foot wound care…here, too, we have fallen back to Plan B but the plan, Dr. Stroud assures me, was normally their Plan A to start with…

You might remember I was the recipient of the newest procedure (Affinity) to help heal deep wounds…we used seven of the ten designated procedures to close the wound and it came close. The wound is measured each week and it did fill in but the problem has been in the covering. My wound seems to be struggling to produce enough skin to finish the “lid.”

So a week ago Friday the medical team decided to drop back and use the more standard “recycled” skin procedure that Dr Stroud assures me should literally “seal the deal.” (* For me…if a doctor tells you… if he were me…this is what he would do…the okay to go ahead is a “sealed deal” too. It all comes down to faith in God’s instruments of healing…the doctors.)

As we go through life…we all, consciously and unconsciously, make many decisions on a daily basis that ultimately steer our life’s pathway….we have to be open to more possibilities than just one way to do something or anything, for that matter, in life.

When God gave us “free will” He gave it freely…we get to pick and choose which paths we go down and what we learn from each adventure (success or disaster) to help us make better choices the next go-around. Those who learn and apply the knowledge of experience do well…those who try to keep repeating the same old worn-out original plan…Plan A…do not. These people spend their lives going round and round in a circle…getting no where.

So until tomorrow…Taking leaps of faith are good for us…like most things in life shaking the drink and stirring the pot makes life taste more delicious for the effort.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Spending the night at John and Mandy’s Friday night…so will update you on how Medical Plan B went when I return. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Another bright new season to talk to my plants (they are the best listeners around) and  with my garden fairies to spread pixie dust for a great growing season with beauty abound!

Dear Reader:

The middle of February and spring is not just peeking out…it is bursting out! I have to give it to old Phil…the groundhog…he might just be right this year.

As I sat on the front porch steps Tuesday afternoon recouping from my stomach bug and enjoying the feel of the late afternoon’s sun’s rays on my face I looked up and saw something white on the stark branches of the Bradford Pear. I jumped up and sure enough I was able to capture the first bloom of the season! It is something very special about that first bloom because it opens the door to an amazing beautiful tree filled with white blossoms.

Since I felt better Wednesday I walked around the house and searched for other signs of spring…I didn’t have to look as hard or as deep as I thought…the buds were lined up ready to show off their arrival. The azaleas especially were popping out practically in front of my eyes…last year I counted five different shades I have now.

Some of the early flowering trees are already at their full peak of beauty. Vickie’s Japanese tulip and my wild pear blossom tree.

While sitting on my deck watering some table planters…I caught the smell of  tea olives. I had planted two tea olives by the deck and now they are as tall as the top of the deck banister and the smell exceeds anything you have ever smelled before…you just want to bottle it up.

“Little Big Red” came real close to producing his first full bloom by Valentines…probably by this weekend…but he is definitely taking after his father’s ‘build and height.” (Patty I added the plant decor given me today by you and Kirsten to the planter…he likes it!)

*And this is too funny…remember “Sammy’s Valentine Card” from the title photo yesterday…Vickie took one look at it and said that Sammy was wearing Ginger Shell leaves on his head. So I got “Fat Sammy” (the cardinal Vickie gave me at Christmas) and stuck it in my ginger shell plant…she was right! (She always is!)

I was so happy to hear all the grandchildren got their “Boo Boo” Valentines cards on time yesterday. They called to thank me and I told them to send me any pictures of any Valentine or school activity to share with me.

John went to Jake’s school for a Valentines Breakfast Brunch at his pre-school early yesterday morning and then both Mandy and John raced over to Eva Cate’s school to hear each student read their first biography on a famous person. Eva Cate chose Helen Keller. Mandy said she was nervous but did a great job…John videoed her.

Mollie’s first two pictures to me were of Eloise eating her pink cupcake…completely oblivious to it being Valentines…just thankful for the pink cupcake and Lachlan deciding to eat his hearts off his picture frame he made at school…why let good hearts go to waste on an old frame..and what’s a little paste added?

Rutledge’s school went all-pink for the occasion and in kindergarten celebrating any holiday with your best friend is the best.

And Valentines is always a time to celebrate family.

My Valentines was special because my former teaching buddy, Patty Knight from Alston Middle School days (and her husband Robert) were back in the lowcountry from the Greenville area and we got to spend time eating a delicious meal and an even more delicious dessert we shared together (banana caramel with ice cream)….but best of all we got to share time, memories, and old friendships!

*Patty’s sister, Eileen, is having cancer surgery tomorrow and our prayers are with her and all the family!

So until tomorrow….”Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher.” (Wordsworth) (* How true…nature has taught me more in the last few years than I ever knew before.)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

…More “African” daisies

Dear Reader:

I promised you that I had found the perfect Valentines card for Sammy the Cardinal, my once nemesis and now friend, to give his “wife.” This is it. Isn’t it pretty and I am sure Sammy would love to see his mate adorned just like this…himself included.

In case you don’t know the story-here it is….(About two-or was it three years ago-time flies when you are shooing a determined wayward cardinal from pecking your rear view car mirrors into complete oblivion) a red cardinal decided my car was his enemy…and made my poor old Saturn Vue’s life miserable.

The cardinal left ‘calling cards’ of a quite evident (pre-determined) origin that meant getting the car washed regularly. I even surrendered and moved the poor car to the other driveway… but to no avail. He just flew across the yard and resumed his belligerent activities.

Everyone had a theory of why cardinals do this occasionally and then more ideas of what to do about it…which all sounded like good advice…until none of them worked. Long after nesting season was over the poor car was still looking much ‘worn for wear.’

*(But there is a bright spot here…remember this car was the same one that was stolen…returned and stolen again? *The only thing left of it now is probably a few parts that someone could salvage.)

*I have conjured up a wonderful mystery scenario concerning the bird-battered rear-view mirrors …What if the thief backed into a tree (there were scratch marks on the back) because he couldn’t see out the front rear view mirrors…thanks to Sammy’s steady pecking at one time…so the thief furiously threw the car in drive hitting a poor deer in the mix and tearing up the radiator. Who knows? Perhaps Sammy is, indirectly, the true hero in the recovery of the car.

Actually we made a truce the following spring when Sammy started coming around again , along with his wife, to eat from the suet bird feeder… right outside my window. I started noticing that his mate had an injured leg and couldn’t hold onto the suet cage. Then to my surprise one day…Sammy rocked the cage and threw down food to the ground below so his wife could eat from the cage droppings.

My once “hardened heart” completely softened when I saw Sammy literally go over and put birdseed/food into his mate’s mouth. She would fly off (I presume to feed the new brood) and return minutes later when the practice repeated itself. ( So I started shaking bird seed on the ground under the feeder just before the  two times in the day Sammy would usually appear.)

My hilarious church friend, Dee, was/is always a strong supporter of Sammy and never gave up that he would become the bird he was destined to be. (We are Presbyterians after all…we get caught up in that predestined thought.) 🙂

*I am completely  “bird-walking” right now but this one joke in the Mitford series that “Uncle Billy,” the town jester, tells Father Tim, the Episcopal priest, one day (that makes him, literally, fall over laughing) goes….( It was a sign Uncle Billy had seen, on a billboard, outside a country church farther up in the mountains)

“Don’t let worry kill you; Let the church help.”

Many of you readers wanted a reconciliation between me and ‘Sammy the Stalker’ (a name I dubbed him) too since cardinals are supposed to be messengers from heaven and aviary “prophets” of extraordinary encounters.

As if on cue… Kaitlyn sent me a story she saw on Facebook that touched her …actually not as much from just the story, as interesting as it is….but because of the accompanying video that witnessed a moving and unusual reunion.

“There’s an old saying that says ‘if a cardinal appears an angel is near.’ In the following story it appears that the angel was a beloved grandmother who said she would send back a cardinal as a promise to loved ones she was in heaven. The grandmother’s name was Dorothy Booth and she was 97 years old.

The story begins with this explanation”

For the past few years my mother-in-law Debbie and her sister Jeanne had talked to Grandma and on several occasions asked her (when it was her time to leave this world) if she would send them a sign once she was in heaven.

They specifically asked that a cardinal be involved. Aunt Jeanne also prayed that the Lord would do it in such a way that they would never foresee and would leave no doubt of the truth of its occurrence. Well, God answered … (the day after grandmas memorial service, and hours after they had been talking about that very prayer) while they were playing grandmas favorite card game, “Canasta”!!!

They heard something at the kitchen window and my father-in-law Brian went out to check. A cardinal was there and he was able to bring it inside. For 10 min they held and pet it, then they decided to go outside to release it.

Following is a short video clip of this amazing experience and what happens next! (The bird flew away 10 min later)

https://www.southernliving.com/news/miracle-cardinal-visits-family

*Resource (Southern Living News.com)

So until tomorrow….On this Valentines Day…Let us remember that God loved us first so that is why we love him back. Today think about the other special people in your life who loved you first, as a child, adolescent, young adult, and now…unconditional love that has built the foundation of who you are today. Then send them some love of gratitude today.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

We had a beautiful sunset last evening…(as if planned for upcoming Valentines Day )… When I saw Kaitlyn’s photos she sent…what she, Tommy, and four little dogs saw, while walking the dogs after work at Alhambra Hall, it was breathtaking.

Wishing everyone a day of love…you are breathing…rejoice and fall in love all over again with life!

Dear Reader:

Sometimes we get so caught up in football…particularly when it extends over into the next year (literally) that  basketball season is over in a blink and suddenly it’s “Take me out to the Ball Game” time!

I have to admit that after football, baseball is my favorite sport. I think it all goes back to being a  mother with two sons on the same team one season (Walsh as a 10-year-old player and Tommy as their 5-year-old ball boy and mascot- Tommy is on the front row extreme left and Walsh is on the second row…second to the right.) This was the miraculous year when their team won the whole “enchilada” in their age division in the lowcountry!

*Confidentially I liked baseball because I could go settle in the bleachers for their practices…stick my white winter legs out in the sun on another bleacher, roll up my sleeves, and get a jump on a summer tan. (How little did we know?) Half the time I would find myself nodding off…after teaching school all day …sitting on the bleachers in the warm early spring afternoons made my eyes start fluttering a few minutes after I sat down.

But that particular year I have to admit I had mixed feelings (like most of the team parents watching if they were really truthful) about how far we really wanted the season to go. From the time sports started in elementary school…summer vacation time got smaller and smaller until by high school it had disappeared. Baseball went into football and good-bye summer.

However the joy that night as the team won the grand prize for their division actually did make up for a vacation…watching both Walsh and Tommy getting their trophies with wonderful coaches who were the best male mentors a mother could hope for…they made the season even more special.

Walsh would go on to love baseball and play it in high school…Tommy decided he liked another type of ball that came with a golf club….both boys excelled in their different sports passions.

*You know me by now…I am the connector…give me a name and I can find some way to connect it to something else…it is my only somewhat dubious ‘gift.’ Golf reminded me of Bob “Goff” who truly simplifies life with funny and insightful thoughts and one of them dealt abstractly with baseball. Ping! This is it:

“Failure is just part of the process of life, and it’s not just okay; it’s better than okay. God doesn’t want failure to shut us down. God didn’t make it a three-strikes-and-you’re-out sort of thing. It’s more about how God helps us dust ourselves off so we can swing for the fences again. And all of this without keeping a meticulous record of our screw-ups.”

How true! Don’t we humans take the fun out of sports games too often with young children… by getting caught up in our man-made “rules” and meticulous record-keeping? Aren’t we glad God doesn’t do the same to us as we learn more about this game called life with experience after experience?

We don’t have to worry about a ‘Three strikes and you’re out!”situation.  (I don’t know about you but I would be in some serious trouble right now…if that was the case.)

Not only are we not out after striking out three times…God doesn’t even “keep a meticulous record of our screw-ups.” (Not being irreverent  but “Thank God for that!“)

So until tomorrow….As we round the first, second, and third bases of “dangers, toils, and snares” throughout our lives we know we have God waving us in when it time to go home…because “Grace will lead us home.” 

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh (Thanks Jo for the reminder this morning that I forgot to add this…how could I have a favorite day if I forgot to add Winnie to it…you are what friends are for…reminders to keep the day a favorite!)

*As I walked by one of my tables today I noticed just how pretty it was with a new beautiful bowl set Lee and Vikki gave me at Christmas and an original oil painting of my bottle tree (that Joan did from a photo taken from an earlier blog post.) You are so talented my friend Joan…and I love, love, love the painting!