Dear Reader:

When I came across this hilarious truth the other day…I immediately thought of “Carrie” in the popular television series...Sex and the City. I remember she always kept her sweaters in her oven because she said it was the cleanest place in the whole apartment… since it was never used.

I, then discovered this next funny ‘confession’…same thought with a different twist.

*I decided this was too much fun to read without adding some of my own personal experiences. So the next three are my “confessions of craziness.” But, then, I would love to read some of your crazy antics too…Laughter loves company! (Remember we did decide that laughter would help get us through this hot, hot summer!) Here we go!

*Some Days I amaze myself…“Other days, I spend long periods of time looking for my sunglasses… which are on top of my head!”

*Some Days I amaze myself…“Other days, I find the remote control on the bathroom counter where I  carried it unconsciously and aimlessly with me throughout the house.” 

*Some Days I amaze myself…“Other days, I water me instead of my garden by simple inattention to “details.” (It’s all in the wrist!)”

I then emailed the Ya’s and asked each of them to share an “amazing” unconscious crazy antic.

Libby:

*Some Days I amaze myself…“Other days I pay for my drive-through food and then drive off without the food!”

Jackson:

*Some Days I amaze myself…“Other days I use my Belk card at the ATM.” ( They are the same color!)

Brookie:

*Some Days I amaze myself… “Other days I go into a room with a specific purpose and cannot remember why Or what  I AM DOING THERE!”

Okay readers…now it’s your turn! It is actually quite fun to reveal our own unique crazy moments. I wish we had a video clip of each of us during these hilarious times. (*These are the times when we stop and look around to make sure no one saw us do what we did!)

Substitute my face for this precious little girl’s and you get the vivid image of what happened to me last week in my garden! I was more humiliated than drenched….and I was so happy none of back yard neighbors were out to witness this personal debacle!

Last night I was at the Aldersgate United Methodist Church doing a skit with my friend Carol and a story for the children and adults. The food, as usual, was beyond delicious, and the laughter and friendship rang forth all night. Carol’s beautiful little granddaughter, Abigail, decided to join us for the skit.  The more the merrier.

We had line dancing, poetry, another skit, and piano playing…a great time of fellowship.

So until tomorrow…As Archibald Rutledge said so eloquently:

” I am absolutely unshaken in my faith that God created us, loves us, and wants us not only to be good to ourselves and others, but to be happy.” (I absolutely agree… happiness abound last evening.)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

“Estival” is one of my new (friend) words for this summer. It basically means “summery.” And I can’t remember a past summer when we got so summery so fast and then stayed in the fast lane. Perhaps the root word (latin) aestus explains it best….it means “HEAT!” (And Oh Boy!… have we been in the heat!)

Sunday as I left to go to Mt. Pleasant to spend the night and take Rutledge to Vacation Bible School Monday morning I was afraid my tires were going to melt on the interstate asphalt…it was 97 degrees and 104 heat index. This had basically been the trend all last week and weekend.

…Which leads us to the most popular word for summer 2018…oversummer. It originally was used more in a scientific dialect to discuss spores that could survive extremely hot summers by living in higher altitudes. It means to be able to “survive summer” for certain organisms.

However, with the extreme heat waves that just seem to keep coming so far this summer over most of the United States…this “urban” term now , literally, means being sick and tired of the horrible heat and humidity to the point that people are “so oversummer.”

We are ready for it to leave but unfortunately summer, officially, has just begun and long-term weather predictions don’t hold out much hope that these conditions are going to improve radically for the next several months.

So since there isn’t anything we can do immediately about our ‘hotter than hot’ summers…we will just have to find a way to live with them. One way I am doing it is by looking up the 10 happiest words in the English dictionary.

1. LAUGHTER! We are just going to need to find a way to laugh through the hot months and enjoy each other’s company
2. HAPPINESS! Comes from the Old Norse root word ‘happ’ meaning “chance” and “good luck.”
3. MIRTH! Laughter and mirth…use it up for all its worth!
4. JOY: Happiness that stays and doesn’t depend on “chance.”
5. BLISS: A state of contentment…not to be missed!
6. ELATION: A nod and wink or high spirits without even a drink!
7. GLEE: Gladness felt from you and me!
8. EXULTATION: A joyful feeling of being with pal -ELATION!
9. EUPHORIA: Not being uptight…but filled with DELIGHT!
10. JUBILATION: A place for “Woo-hoo’s”….not “Boo-hoo’s!”

So until tomorrow….Hot or not…Let’s all get happy! We are alive and waking up to a new day with a new slate to discover all new possibilities.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Sunday night I ‘hung’ out with the boys…Walsh and Rutledge, in their “bachelor pad.” (While Mollie, Lachlan, and Eloise are in New Hampshire with Mollie’s mom and dad, Marcia and Bruce.) Walsh had to go into work early (I mean early) Monday morning so my job was to get Rutledge up, fed, and delivered to Vacation Bible School.

All Rutledge could talk about, when I got to Mt. Pleasant Sunday afternoon,  was the movie we were going to watch Sunday night (Coco.) He had even asked me to bring pictures of my family…his great-great ancestors because he wants to make a table with their photos on it and place candles on it (like in the movie) so we won’t ever forget anyone’s names.

But before we could start the movie…there was a type of pep rally to kick off Vacation Bible School at the church which ran longer than expected since the children had to register and pick up their t-shirts and surprise bags. We then met Tommy and Kaitlyn for pizza for supper…so by the time we got home it was starting to get dark.

Rutledge was so excited…he tried on his VBS t-shirt to make sure it fit over his pj’s. Thank goodness we got the shirt back off almost immediately because I was the only one that made it to the end of the movie. Let’s hear it for the girls! (I got to sniffle all by myself) Sweet movie…loved it!

Thank goodness, as we looked for the red balloons indicating the rising kindergarteners’s assembly area, a little friend was holding him a seat and then Rutledge began recognizing other children and friends he knew. It was time for mothers and grandmothers to leave…reluctantly. Hope you had a great day Rutledge!

Dear Reader:

Time. What an enigma! Space. What an enigma! Put them together and I can get a ‘brain-freeze’ without even the enjoyment of eating ice cream!

I was watching NOVA the other night and it was talking about our galaxy as compared to  the vastness of infinity surrounding it…  I could feel my poor little neurons hiding under the bed in my brain….too much to comprehend.

In fact infinity is not a number at all. It is a mathematical concept of utmost importance in math and physics but not an actual number. I was happy to read that I am not alone in my confusion of the vastness of the world(s) around me. I could concur with this statement:

“You may think you understand infinity, but you really don’t. No human does. Its like picturing the fourth spatial dimensions.  It can’t be done by human beings.”

I  feel that infinity is right up there with eternity and we chronologically-timed humans simply don’t have the ability to wrap our minds around concepts so extraordinary yet foreign to our understanding of the world around us.

I think that is why God put limitations on our ability to process time. He gave us a 24 hour day to handle and then took all the yesterdays and tomorrows from us, His children, to handle Himself like a caring parent.

God’s Days

There are two days in the week upon which and about which I never worry — two carefree days kept sacredly free from fear and apprehension. One of these days is Yesterday. Yesterday, with its cares and fret and pains and aches, all its faults, its mistakes and blunders, has passed forever beyond my recall. It was mine; it is God’s.

The other day that I do not worry about is Tomorrow. Tomorrow, with all its possible adversities, its burdens, its perils, its large promise and performance, its failures and mistakes, is as far beyond my mastery as its dead sister, Yesterday. Tomorrow is God’s day; it will be mine.

There is left, then, for myself but one day in the week – Today. Any man can fight the battles of today. Any woman can carry the burdens of just one day; any man can resist the temptation of today. It is only when we willfully add the burden of these two awful eternities – Yesterday and Tomorrow – such burdens as only the Mighty God can sustain – that we break down.

It isn’t the experience of Today that drives men mad. It is the remorse of what happened Yesterday and fear of what Tomorrow might bring. These are God’s Days. Leave them to Him.

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

No matter how many times I hear this…I need to be reminded of it over and over and over. I am getting better at living in the present moment… but I am not there yet. What helps me most is changing the scientific concepts of the universe into something I can handle…stories.

“The universe is not made up of atoms…it is made up of tiny stories.” 

As long as I can tell my tiny story …I can handle my time on earth, my life, with a ‘little help from my friends’ and most importantly, my Creator.

So until tomorrow…“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey.”

-John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Story Bites are defined as:

Story bites are a tiny but important piece of a story—a starting point, a detail, an action, or a character—written as short and fun pieces of writing.

Teaching history through story bites was my favorite source of instruction. It took cold, boring facts and turned them into tiny individual stories of interest.

I remember when I taught South Carolina’s favorite son in the American Revolution- Francis Marion (“Swamp Fox”) I would take ten items in a bag and display them on a table in front of me. These ten items were also written on the board with a -(dash) beside them so the students could write in the connection between the object and the person we were studying.

By spreading out the connective artifacts over the entire chronological life of the historical person…by the time the lesson was over the students had ten wonderful stories to remember about Francis Marion /Swamp Fox!

The students never knew when they might be asked to come to the board and fill in the connection so everyone had to be listening to the story bites. (Teachers are sly that way!)

One item I always brought for the study of Swamp Fox was a sweet potato.  I would tell the story of the connection between it, Swamp Fox, guerrilla fighting, and the revolution.

Francis Marion was one of the first Americans to use guerrilla fighting (hit and run) tactics… since his men were always outnumbered by the British troops. Marion and his rag-tag band of militia would use sneak attacks fleeing in and out of the swamps in the lowcounty of South Carolina. Usually the only food they had to eat were sweet potatoes so it became the mainstay of their diet during the war.

(Then I would zone in on this famous painting (title painting) about a remarkable incident involving General Marion, a British officer he invited to dinner, and sweet potatoes.) The story goes like this:

In early 1781, Revolutionary War militia leader Francis Marion and his men were camping on Snow’s Island, South Carolina, when a British officer arrived to discuss a prisoner exchange. As one militiaman recalled years later, a breakfast of sweet potatoes was roasting in the fire, and after the negotiations Marion, known as the “Swamp Fox,” invited the British soldier to share breakfast.

According to a legend that grew out of the much-repeated anecdote, the British officer was so inspired by the Americans’ resourcefulness and dedication to the cause—despite their lack of adequate provisions, supplies or proper uniforms—that he promptly switched sides and supported American independence.

Around 1820, John Blake White depicted the scene in an oil painting that now hangs in the United States Capitol. In his version, the primly attired Redcoat seems uncomfortable with Marion’s ragtag band, who glare at him suspiciously from the shadows of a South Carolina swamp.  (Source: Smithsonian Magazine)

Today I would add another artifact to the list….a proclamation by President George Bush recognizing Oscar Marion, a slave and fellow soldier/aide to General Marion, for his outstanding patriotism and courage throughout the American Revolution in 2006.

*(Oscar Marion is depicted in the painting crouched down roasting the sweet potatoes for all the men and their special British guest for breakfast.) Oscar Marion is, also shown in many famous paintings of the American Revolution…fighting alongside Francis Marion.

Today in Summerton, SC there are two murals painted (one of Francis Marion and the other Oscar Marion) on the Detwiler and Gaters Buildings.

Today these lessons propel me to reflect back on my own personal story bites…the benchmarks in my life that forced me to change paths and re-direct my strengths in other directions… with the assistance of so many guardian angels sent to help me… find me.

Take a few minutes today and think of objects around your home that contain a good story about yourself. It is a great place to start sharing  stories with family and friends before the stories are lost in time and forgotten forever. Don’t wait too late…it took a health crisis to wake me up to this fact.

So until tomorrow “A day will come when the story inside you will want to breathe on it’s own. That’s when you’ll start writing.”
(Sarah Noffke)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

More Garden “Show-offs” (My swamp maple is growing new additional leaves in pink and an example of life depicting art and vice versa with my morning glories.)

Dear Reader:

I realize for most of you looking at this picture,  it doesn’t hold any special interest…the dappling light is pretty but it is simply a driveway.

To me…it is a complete renovation to this side of my property and house. Before I started clearing it (with lots of help from my firemen/ lawn maintenance ‘guardian angels’ last year) Hollywood could have come in and shot a scene for a Vietnam documentary right here… and the audience wouldn’t have known the difference!

You couldn’t even hardly find the asphalt driveway for the tons of leaves and natural debris falling (from my neighbors’ trees) obliterating any vision of what was underfoot… finally piling up and settling in… beside the brick wall of my house.

Lots and lots and lots of bamboo came down…but it is a constant fight all spring and  summer. I cleared out planting spots on each side of the driveway which now contains moon flower vines, a ginger shell, baskets of flowers and two small hydrangea bushes. It is my favorite spot to walk in the cool early morning hours or late in the evening before the sun finally gives up its domain for another day.

As I am typing away on this blog post it is nice and cool in the house but that has only been the case for the last 24 hours. I, voluntarily, challenged myself to see if I could make it to the Summer Solstice (last Thursday) before turning on the air conditioner. I did it! 🙂

For any of you that live in the lowcountry…your mouth might be agape in disbelief right now…but quite honestly it was pretty much a “breeze” …because of my sunken den, two powerful ceiling fans, door size front windows and french doors coming off the bedroom. Up until just a day or two before I left for the mountains it was easily do-able. The mountain trip came just in the nick of time…because I would have caved!

But as soon as I got back I was thankful the summer solstice had arrived. I woke up early Thursday morning  and bought a new air filter. I, then, turned on the air conditioning unit and everything worked like clock work. Whew!

*Guidepost put this 2 minute video out on the mysterious origins and traditions behind the Summer Solstice- quite interesting!

• Mystical Traditions of the Summer Solstice – YouTube

The last two months I have had the lowest electric bills since I can ever remember. It is amazing how economical it would be for everyone if we all lived in a climate that needed no heat or cool air pumped into our homes. Still… we must pay close attention to the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for…it might come true.”I would miss the change of seasons even though, quite honestly, I am starting to miss them already. These days they seem to all blur together. It is pretty much like the poster (below) says:

I have noticed recently with this on-going heat wave that everyone is trying to come up with some kind of witty response (about the weather) to use when we bump into each other at the grocery store, church, or wherever.

So I thought I would help everyone out by sharing these suggestions I saw in a Southern Living magazine.

It’s not the heat—it’s the humidity.

It’s hotter’n blue blazes.

Is it hot enough for ya?

Man, it’s hot as all get-out!

It must be 90 in the shade.

This one’s gonna be a scorcher.

You could fry an egg on the sidewalk.

You could fry an egg on the hood of that car.

……………………………..

*If you have some more ideas…send them on in….I have a bad feeling we are going to need a lot of “Hot” come-back responses this summer!

With all my extra savings…I plan to start making some subtle home improvements (which really just mean replacing parts of the house that need new parts…soft planks, new tile, replacing old carpet etc. etc.) I have enough home improvement jobs to last me a lifetime…so I will just take on one at a time… for as long as I can.

“Inch by inch, row by row…Gonna make this garden grow.”

And speaking of gardens…here are the latest “show-offs!”

So until tomorrow…Heat wave or not….thank you God for this day, for every day we breathe in and breathe out Your praise.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

The Turners are in Huntsville visiting BB and W.T.! I think Eva Cate and Jakie have been trying on someone else’s shoes. I know everyone is having fun!

Mollie, Lachlan, and Eloise are with family in NH…a lot going on with wedding preparations and lots of family activities. Rutledge stayed behind for his camps he is involved in this summer. Yesterday he finished up Soccer Camp with his buddy Myer and Great Aunt Sharon gets to hold sweet Eloise.

As we were leaving Mike and Honey’s last Wednesday I stopped and took a photo of Honey’s pretty barrel on the deck. It was the cute plaque that drew me to it…which read:

The only change the Ya’s would make is:

” A LOVEABLE TEDDY BEAR lives here with his HONEY”

Dear Reader:

This beautifully whimsical painting of St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope by New Zealand artist, Gerda Smit, always makes me smile. She actually saw a picture of the chapel on-line and then drew her creative interpretation of it. Later another New Zealander, Matt Oliver, saw the painting on Face Book, called the artist and bought a reproduction for his room. He then let me know about it significance to him in his life-(He thought I was the owner.)

He said the painting (now on his bedroom wall) gave him “hope for a better life when we pass from this world into the future. I guess I could say hope is why I have faith. In a world where I am bombarded by the requirement for absolute proof every day, having faith can be challenging, yet I know the moment God shows himself and provides the absolute proof…then there will no longer be a need for faith. 

So there you have it, a tiny chapel seemingly in the middle of nowhere, now hangs on the wall of a house literally half way around the world, in the North Island of New Zealand.“

St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope is my personal “thin place.” I think it is for Matt also…even  never having seen it in person.

Author Karen White, in her latest book ‘Dreams of Falling’ describes thin places.

Caol Ait: Thin Places.

“Gaelic for where this world and the next are said to be too close. According to legend, heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places, that distance is even closer.

…Thin places are places where time stands still and the secular world brushes against the sacred.”

From the first time I entered St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope in July 2010 I felt a warm, hospitable Presence there…it was as if Beverly Barutio (creator and owner) was welcoming me to her special place. That sense of homecoming and total acceptance has never left me…visit after visit. Time does stand still each time I go… I feel like the clock stops ticking for those precious minutes I spend there.

Kelly Rae Roberts wrote down her thoughts on ‘thin places’ taking another perspective which I like too…thin places in our daily lives and experiences.

“I think life’s intimacy meet us in those thin places where things are both messy and beautiful, where perhaps our hearts feel like train wrecks but we still work to see the delicate beauty that lives in those spaces. Transitions are where the ground is fertile for this kind of intimacy: grief work, new parenthood, any experience where we are forced to transform into a new way of being in the world.

“…These are the moments. They force us to trust our own hearts, stay a little longer in what feels hard, and come through with a clearer sense of not just ourselves, but also how joy and hard often live together, and how that is a beautiful, messy truth.” 

I like the idea that there are sacred places, thin places that speak to us spiritually while we are ‘trusting the truth’ and discovering who we really are inside. A winning combination…tough but worth achieving.

You can imagine while my thoughts were headed in that direction, I was temporarily detoured by another article that talked about “Thin Layers.” Thin layers? The more I read the more I realized the importance of both in my life.

Source: Author: Elizabeth Minkel

There’s a quote from the author Paul Bogard in the first episode of our new podcast, “The Thin Layer,” that has haunted me ever since I heard it:

…in the States and in Europe people spend between 90 and 95 percent of their time inside now…I started to think that for most of us, even when we walk outside, we walk on pavements and it really spoke to me of how we become so separated from the ground at our feet. We just never touch our feet to soil, we never touch our feet to natural ground.

Life depends on a thin layer of soil, wrapped around the planet like the skin of an apple. A quarter of all life itself actually lives in soil. We grow our food in it; it is a source of medicines and illness; it filters our water; it provides nutrition for our food. Its importance is incalculable—but it’s easy to miss.

After reading this article…I realized that so much of the lure of the mountains is the outside nature part…the views from different elevations, the forests, the rocks, the streams and rivers….and yes…the soil…the ground. Without it as the foundation to support the mountains…there would be none. Isn’t it sad that people can live and die in the world today without ever having touched their “feet to soil, or natural ground?”

So until tomorrow…Look upward, keep climbing…but always keep your feet on the ground.

“Today is my favorite day.”

* Several of you were interested in getting more information about Juice Plus so I called my friend Janet and here is her contact information. She said she would love to talk to you or email/text…whatever you prefer and answer all your questions.

*I love it…and it makes me feel better about getting enough veggies and fruits in me daily.

Janet Bender

We went shopping while at Honey’s pottery “stash”  and I brought back a wonderful assortment of more small vases to put a pretty little flower or blossom in… to bring a smile to someone needing a smile. I love them.

Dear Reader:

After we got to Mike and Honey’s around 4:00 Monday afternoon (lots of roadwork on I-26) I went to one of their bathrooms to freshen up from the trip and on the side wall was this cute hanging and message:

That pretty much sums up our feelings for this special adventure…we knew how lucky we were every moment we were there.

One does wonder why the highway department waits until summer, with vacationers packing the interstate, to go to one-lane situations causing parking lots for miles and lots of idling with air conditioners struggling to keep running with all the delays. But we made it and oh how worth the trip it was. Brooke’s expression says it all!

We had talked, all the way up, about the one image we kept in our thoughts while packing to come…Mike and Honey’s wrap-around deck with the water falls and chimes bringing tranquility and amazingly cool, cool breezes to our rocking chairs! We saw lots of beautiful scenery on the back roads but Pinnacle Mountain held everything we needed right there. Sunsets were drop-dead gorgeous!

Here are some of the scenes we saw from the deck and yard.

…And one recent mystery was solved! As we were taking our luggage in the house we commented on the new screen-like doors on the front porch and leading out to the back deck. We thought it was to keep out mosquitoes and no-see-ums which dominate  lowcountry summers. To our surprise…Honey told me it was to keep out the ‘HUMMINGBIRDS!’

They have so many hummingbirds at that elevated level that they started flying into the house when there were no screen back in early spring. Honey said they would then panic and fly from room to room trying to get out…sometimes hurting themselves, temporarily, in the process. The situation got so bad that she ordered magnetic screens and the problem was solved!

So why haven’t we been seeing as many hummingbirds this spring/summer? It is just too darn hot I think! They apparently have all moved to the mountains…and since we enjoyed 70’s in the evenings and 60’s for temps in the morning…we don’t blame them one bit! 🙂

Tuesday was the day for our pilgrimage to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope. I packed up prayer lists and photos from friends who wanted pictures left at the chapel…I said  a prayer that it would be a special encounter…and the little chapel did not disappoint!

Honey made a huge breakfast, Tuesday morning, after a fabulous homemade supper Monday night…5 Star cuisine! And we were off. It used to be we were completely lost in our directional memories each time Honey took us…but this time we sensed when we were getting close and started remembering all the landmarks we pass right before turning in. My heart was pounding. There it was…looking better than ever! Three years had passed and the chapel was aging well.

Someone had stained/painted the outside of the chapel…the entrance stain glass window over the door had been cracked and now was fixed…the chapel was smiling proudly down on us. It had undergone a “fixer upper.”

The name of Mike and Honey’s water falls are “Hope Falls” and “Spring Creek” runs behind the chapel…On this visit it was almost the last day of spring (before the first official day of summer) and hope was still “springing” eternal behind the chapel. Just beautiful!

I couldn’t believe when I looked at the crowded table top at the front of the little chapel. The first picture I ever left at the chapel was one of me, Mandy, and newborn Eva Cate. It was miraculously still there…a little battered with time but still visible. I could still see the quote I had written on the back of it…

“Love is the child that breathes our breath. Love is the child that scatters death.” William Blake

I added the latest picture of me with the four oldest grandchildren at Easter with Eloise’s photo in the back along with a message….that these five grandchildren have kept me breathing for the last decade by showing me a new, deeper kind of love.

*Kathy…I placed your adorning photo/message in a very special place…will send you a copy of the pictorial placement later today with the story behind it.

There was an instantaneous moment when all four of us shared a remarkable moment…one that will never be forgotten. A circle of love and friendship. Sealed in each of our memories.

I left my prayer list in an envelope in the front drawer and told St. Jude’s good-bye until we meet again…whenever that is to be.

Before heading to Hot Springs for lunch…we stopped by two other familiar landmarks in Trust…The covered bridge over “Madison County” and the next little community four miles away…simply called “Luck.”

I suppose the idea is when you leave “trust” behind a little “luck” always helps. (*With a little luck someone will fix the community sign before it falls down.) There is only one building (which has seen better days) in Luck…but still it is quaint! I love it. One second you are in Luck and the next second you are “out of Luck.”

But one is never out of luck with a friend like Honey

If laughter is the best medicine…I think all five of us should be cured of everything we have ever had or will possibly catch. We laughed both nights out on the deck until my stomach muscles hurt. Mike and Honey are too cute! Suddenly everyone was remembering their favorite jokes and stories. Was it just luck or something else…like the legend of the hummingbirds. 

Legend says that the hummingbird floats free of time, carrying hope for love,joy, and celebration. The hummingbird is  delicate grace reminding us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and THAT LAUGHTER IS LIFE’S SWEETEST CREATION.

So until tomorrow…”Peculiar travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God. (*Kurt Vonnegut)  Never be afraid to follow the path less traveled because at the end of the trail one might find St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope.

 “Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Tomorrow I will be home and there is no doubt that the collection of ‘moments’ will have far exceeded the collection of ‘things!‘

I can hardly wait to sort through this fast excursion of happy adventures into memory compartments, so I can tell the story with a beginning, middle, and ending.

When we focus on moments...we don’t let ‘things’ become a deterrent to our goals in life. Living a fulfilling life doesn’t have anything to do with ‘things’… instead, it is all about feelings. When I get down…thinking that I am letting others down by not striving harder to do this or that…I just have to stop and focus instead on my own personal “why?”

“Why” is this goal so important to me? If the gut-wanting feeling is still deep inside…then we need to start climbing those moments again and walking around the obstacles of “things” that deter us from our goal.

Sometimes we have to be our own best coach…cheering ourselves on when negative voices inside try to make us quit….stop short of the life’s works we want to be remembered by…accompanied by the feelings people will remember about us while we kept ‘keeping on…keeping on’ along our journey.

So until tomorrow…Do something different today…it doesn’t have to be big…just a small daily decision that breaks the ‘same-old, same-old ‘ patterns of our daily lives. “Instead of ‘same-old’ let’s try “brand new!” Then smile!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Last of the “pretties” before I left. I feel sure I will be returning to some dried up thirsty plants (neighbors/friends are all out of town too)…but ‘mama’ is coming…ready to fight off mosquitoes and ‘no-see-ums” to let her garden ‘children’ drink the water and be restored.

Dear Reader:

Haven’t we all experienced those middle of the projects blues when we can’t decide whether to go forward or turn back?

I remember the first time going to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope thinking that this chapel had magically disappeared or we were completely lost! We were going to have to turn around and go back to Honey’s home on Pinnacle Mountain. (I should have known if Honey is driving…you will get to any location anywhere…she is amazing!)  There is no “straight” path to the little ‘chapel in the woods’ from any direction.

The reason so many people, including me, visually miss it the first time…is that the road takes a right curve where it is located. Drivers are concentrating on this approaching curve around the right of the road and the little chapel is up on the left (at the same time) probably laughing at all of us. It is in plain sight…yet simultaneously, unless you turn your head to the left going around the curve to the right…it is easily missed.

By the time you turn around and head back…there it is in plain sight…like it just magically appeared out of nowhere! I do believe the little chapel keeps a twinkle in its eye welcoming all us “lost souls.”

It will be almost eight years to the day when I first laid eyes on the Chapel of Hope. It was a hot July day (2010) and the little chapel, itself, was really hot (no electricity) too. Despite this…I felt a presence the moment I stepped in…an affinity was created before I ever saw the first picture of Beverly Barutio or read her story.

I felt a sense of homecoming. It is a place where the weary of mind, heart, soul, and body feel relief from physical problems… medications,treatments, and over-thinking situations. It is a special spot where one can solely focus on spiritual healing.

Today I think of this little chapel as a center of wonder in my life…a catalyst for change. It has connected me to family members of Bill and Beverly Barutio. It has connected friends and strangers to it through the blog…even if someone has never seen it. It has connected me to all of you readers…What an amazing mystical little chapel!

I love the connection now to all the painters of this chapel….Carolyn Serrano, New Zealand painter Gerda Smit, Joan Turner, and even “Chicken Man.”

Each time I return to the chapel I do question if I am doing enough with the time I have been given…“I don’t want to stop short of my life’s goals…to have come this far to only come this far.”

This is the question I will be leaving behind, along with a list of prayers for special people in my life and mementos from friends to leave for other friends. The chapel is on sacred ground, a “thin place,” and everyone feels open enough to leave behind their written thoughts, concerns, and hopes within its special walls.

So until tomorrow…Let us strive to go as far as our wandering takes us…never doubting the destination but fully living the journey.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

A “pretty” hibiscus taken from a neighbor’s yard before I left!

Dear Reader:

God does work in mysterious ways. I am leaving today, along with Brooke and Jackson, to go see our our favorite mountain couple, Honey and Mike, to make our (long-awaited) pilgrimage return to St. Jude’s Chapel of Hope.

There is no doubt that this experience will feel like seeing it again “for the first time.” Every time I return the encounter takes a new twist and turn for me spiritually. I have been away too long and I am anxious to re-visit the place that “birthed” the creation of the on-going eight-year old blog...Chapel of Hope Stories.

I can always remember the year the blog began – it was Eva Cate’s birth year (2010.)

I left my first 3-month old grandchild to go see a “special place” that the Burrells insisted would spark a story for me. We just didn’t know then…it was a spark that would light a fire. It would be a “first time” experience that would last a “lifetime.”

Eight years…and five grandchildren! I am so blessed and I know it.

As I listened to Rutledge talk about the sports camps he is attending this summer Saturday….I asked the same question (I am sure all the other adults around him had already asked)…“Which sport is your favorite so far?” Rutledge looked at me and said he didn’t have a favorite…he liked this about tennis….that about basketball…and was excited to find out more about the other sports this summer.

It was then I realized that everything was fresh and new to him…he didn’t attend any of the week long camps with pre-conceived ideas or biases… about liking or not liking any of them. He was just having fun learning how each sport worked.

Oh where do we lose that openness to new opportunities..is it based on bad experiences we have confronted with certain choices? Especially if we have walked away from them in disappointment? When do we stop leaving our comfort zones to try something or experience something new and different? When do we stop living… in the very essence of the word?

My prayer for this mountain trip is that my eyes will be open to discovering new things along the way and see familiar things with different lens.

*When I started this blog off saying “God Works in Mysterious Ways” I meant it. Getting ready for a trip is always the hardest part as we all know. For me…creating and writing blogs ahead of time for the number of days I will be gone…can take a sizable bite out of packing time and other preparations.

But then a God Wink! My sweet friend, Janet Bender- retired educator, who sells Juice Plus products (which I do give credit for keeping my metabolism working hard to fight cancer cells) had recently re-ordered some more products for me since I was getting low.

I was so glad they came in…just in time to take to the mountains.

Inside the box with the pouches I found a card that opened up…with three different pictures and messages. As I read these life lessons…I thought to myself…thank you God…you just gave me my three blog posts for the three days I will be gone.

(If anyone is interested in learning more about these products…let me know and I will connect you with Janet!)

So until tomorrow…the next time we hear the nay-sayer voice within us telling us not to try something new….just tell it to ‘take a hike’ (and while we are at it…get up off the sofa and take a hike around our own neighborhood)…it is amazing what new things we see that we pass everyday without noticing. Remember those gates?

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Today Sir Paul McCartney is honored to share his birthday with Master Rutledge Dingle…June 18. Paul is turning 76 and Rutledge 5. No matter the age …it is a very good day! Paul McCartney’s financial net worth is estimated at 1.2 billion dollars…whereas Rutledge’s net worth is priceless!!! (Especially to his Boo!)

…and especially to his dad since Rutledge was born on Father’s Day five years ago. No doubt it was Walsh’s best present ever! I hope everyone had a wonderful Father’s Day yesterday!