Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

I had a God Wink over the weekend that has guided me into the new week. It all started with a comment from Michele Jones who graciously agreed to do the sermon while our pastor was gone yesterday.

Like anyone of us would have been in her shoes …she was concerned about finding the right words to help the worshipers in  the congregation. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to convey the real message God wanted her to say. But then she read Saturday’s blog that featured the quote by author Joyce Carol Oates: “I’m the garden hose water flows through.” Bingo! A sense of sheer relief flooded her…it was not her words but God’s that would be spoken…she was simply “the hose through which the words would flow.”

*As I was reading Michele’s sweet email to me about how the post relieved her from the inner turmoil and stress she was feeling due to too many life’s problems hitting at the same time while working on the sermon….the doorbell rang.

It was a box of cards I had ordered earlier being delivered by UPS. As soon as I opened the box…here lay the top card. A God’s Wink at its best.

There was a little girl with a water hose…letting love flow through the hose. I knew then who this card was intended for…and I gave it to Michele before the service started yesterday morning.

And “Boy” did the words flow yesterday! Michele’s message made a lot of people in the congregation (including myself) sit up and pay close attention. Using the scripture in Numbers as her background…Michele re-told us the story of Joshua taking over the leadership of his people (after Moses’ death) who had wandered for forty years amid turmoil and strife.

God was now giving him and them the Promised Land with no red tape, no hidden fees, no HOA’s, no time-sharing gimmicks…the land was theirs...free and clear. No down-payments, equity requirements, closing costs, title fees….the land was theirs free and clear. God had promised this land and God kept His promise…free and clear. 

Michele’s message was that God still does that for each and everyone of us as we, too, sometimes wander lost and troubled in our own personal “wildernesses.” Each of us is guaranteed our own”promised land”….our goals and dreams fulfilled…if we trust in life and God’s ability to deliver us out of the wilderness… like Joshua did. Without a doubt, Joshua’s greatest accomplishment in life was his unwavering loyalty and faith in God. *And the final “Promised Land” is, of course, eternity.

Out of every problem and obstacle that confronts us in this life…good can be found at the end of the process if we have faith.

It is said that Joshua died at the age of 110 and was buried at Timnath Serah in the hill country of Ephraim. 110….and scripture says he was still of sound mind and body. Now that makes me feel like a spring chicken.

…And leads me to my next/last favorite card I would like to share with you today.

So until tomorrow…Let us keep our dreams and “promised lands” alive and well through faith and determination in God’s power to overcome any obstacle in our way. As Michele says “God Can” when we can’t …let us never forget that.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*On this last day of July…let us appreciate the extraordinarily beautiful day we had yesterday…Sunday…and another today. Cool temps with with cool breezes…what a gift to the lowcountry in July. (Usually by this time…whatever plants I planted in the barrel in the early spring are long gone with just a few pitiful stragglers left…but just look at the coleus and lantana…the flowers are still thriving and growing. Good-bye July…you were a good month this year!)

Dear Reader:

Yesterday Honey sent me some articles from their Sunday paper (last week) in the mountains…one was about a beautiful garden a man started upon retirement and how it has been a healing sanctuary for him throughout several serious health challenges that have come his way.

I could really relate…since I always go to the garden first when I need solace or just quiet time to digest information or gear up for more medical challenges. I was at Ace Hardware yesterday before I met Gin-g for brunch at Toast. They had a new sign over the door entrance leading to the garden…I loved the texture and the words.

As soon as I saw this sign…I immediately thought…my garden IS my gift…a gift of unconditional love. How many of you readers I need to thank, continuously,  for making this “gift” come true! You showed me a vision and then shared it, along with work, ideas, and plants of every kind. It has continued to grow because so many of you continue to add on to my garden through your own gifts and talents.

*True confession: While in ACE Hardware I picked up two more plants…a purple Mexican Petunia flower plant and a beautiful burnt orange (sun-loving) plant called Celosia Flame. (Together we have the Clemson colors…perfect timing with the new season starting shortly.) Roar!

It was the second article (in the newspaper Honey sent) that really sent me  down memory lane. *Once again it was a remembrance from a woman growing up in the south (with all the expressions that came with it) she remembered as a child.

The one expression I had almost forgotten was a simple one…but one not heard as much any more. “Hush.” (“Just a Southern Sayin'” Kalynn Brazeal)

…”My favorite one was “Hush.” You didn’t tell people to shut up. It wasn’t kindly and no one is that rude.” 

Immediately I thought of my favorite little Mother Goose lullaby that I have sung to all my grand babies (when they get older they realize I can’t carry a tune and won’t stay still long enough for me to sing it…so have to sing while they are still in the ‘infant captive audience’ stage.) “Hush Little Baby, Don’t You Cry.”

I only know the first two verses…If I think about it…it is kind of a strange little song…best not to analyze it…just sing it…I like the tune! At least, no matter how many things Papa gets for baby…nice and/or silly (billy goat)…it does prove that Papa (and Mama) will be there for baby through thick and thin…(if you just get QUIET!)

Hush little baby, don’t say a word

Papa’s gonna buy you a mockingbird

And if that mockingbird won’t sing

Papa’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

………………………

 

It was my adorable Aunt Eva who used “hush” a lot…to reprimand us to be quiet but also in…(upon hearing surprising news or some good gossip) …

 “Sho nuff?…Well, hush my mouth!” 

Another word(s) that is used in a different context in the south is…UGLY and PRETTY. Down South these terms don’t  necessary describe someone or something’s physical appearance…it refers more to their behavior. How many of you remember hearing your mama tell you (as you headed out the door)

 …”Now don’t act ugly…be sweet and act pretty.”

 …And speaking of PRETTY…Honey found this old post card of Pretty Place in the mountains above Greenville (Camp Greenville)…it has got to be one of the most spiritual places here on earth…and oh so pretty!

Honey went to Blowing Rock this past weekend and was going to try to find our old camp… Camp Yonahlossee….we figured out one day that we were both there at the same time one summer (12 years old)  but never got to meet each other. What a shame…our friendship could have lasted even longer. Instead of a camp…Yonahlossee is now a high end housing community. This is happening too frequently in the mountains now.

And here’s another “pretty”…Vickie called me over to see her hoya bloom…it doesn’t bloom often but when it does…it is spectacular!

So until tomorrow…Beauty is just a blink away…let’s don’t forget to look around us and not always just straight ahead. Beauty is both lateral and vertical.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Joyce Carol Oates, famous author, once commented that she never gave her writing much thought, especially her part in it…she was simply doing what came naturally to her….“I’m the garden hose water flows through.”

Isn’t that true of all of us? No matter what passions, talents, or expertise we are given…we are simply God’s vessel through which our unique gifts are allowed to flow out to others, just as their vessels flow back to us.

As you can see from the title photo…I was out watering last evening the yellow mandevilla and admiring my new wooden “frame” fence decor. I ordered it months ago and it must have gotten lost in transit…suddenly the door bell rang yesterday and the UPS man handed me the package.

It had been so long I had forgotten I even ordered it. It was just a plain little wooden frame with no picture. But there was something in its simplicity that spoke to me. I grabbed my hammer and a nail and attached it to the fence.

The simple little empty frame can contain any picture or pictures I wish to imagine…flower pictures or garden or sky pictures…the only limit to what it can depict is my own imagination. If the yellow mandevilla takes off climbing one day…it is quite possible a true-life picture will develop with yellow flowers falling through the frame slots…a 3-D taste of nature. I can hardly wait!

Besides saying “rabbit” on the first day of July I really haven’t appreciated July perhaps like I should have. It has actually been a little more bearable this year than some summers I can remember…with rain showers to cool the temperatures off and surprisingly cool fronts getting the temps back in the 80’s …which is cool weather for the lowcountry in July.

Gin-g sent me a sweet daily devotion on the significance of daily greetings that we never think about as we go into automatic pilot with automated responses… like “Hello”… “How are you”… or “Good-bye.” There is always a story behind every word and expression we use…which I find fascinating.

Let’s look at “Hello.”

.It turns out that “hello” is a contraction of the old English greeting “whole be thou.” The original greeting conveys two important messages. On the one hand is the wish that the other person be whole in body, mind and spirit. On another level, “whole be thou” acknowledges a spiritual truth. It reminds us that the other person, and every person, is already whole.

When we initiate a greeting saying “Hello” or commenting that we are fine to another’s “How are you”… have you ever wondered if you really are fine….not physically but spiritually?

Scripture tells us what the criteria is for assessing this comment and our response. It is so short…I think we can all remember it.

When Jesus  was asked, “How do I know I am doing well spiritually?”  He answered:   ³⁷ …‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.” 40 The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”  Matt 22:37-40

Thank you Jesus for giving us such a simple and complete list.

1. Love God
2. Love people.

Like my simple little open wooden frame…we can fill our lives with happiness and joy or sadness and despair…our own picture is painted each day by our own actions and choices.

So until tomorrow…before we respond to these daily ritual greetings (“Hello” or “How are you?”) this morning or any morning…let’s ask ourselves…Am I showing God’s love this morning by loving people… as God asked us to do? We are all God’s children and loved by Him.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Every time I visit the grandchildren or they come to see me I say a little prayer…“Dear Lord, please let them stay little…just a little longer.” 

But as hard as I try and as earnestly as I pray…I know it is all in vain. Life just doesn’t work that way. The two-year-olds are the most vocally ardent about their chronological status now…if I call either one my “baby boy” they are quick to correct me…”I’m a BIG BOY” now Boo Boo.” (The smallest in a clan always wants to be older than their youngest position in the family.)

Rutledge always giggles when I tell him that he can’t grow up any more or get any older….”But, Boo Boo, I have to get older and be a big, big boy…sorry!”

Eva Cate takes her birthdays in stride…she isn’t as interested in the numbers as she is in her status…maintaining her reign as the “Matriarch of the Dingle Tribe.” (Soon she will have a new princess in the kingdom to help keep all those Dingle/Turner boys in tow.)

There are so many “freeze-frame” moments when the children are small…I save these photos for rainy days…always brings sunshine back into the room.

I remember that there were so many days, when as a mother, I felt like screaming at Mandy, Walsh, and/or Tommy (and sometimes did) “Oh just grow up.” Even as a teacher, with all the “he said, she said, you said” drama from teaching eighth graders…I would find myself saying “This is all so silly…please make up and then grow up…okay?”

Well, guess what…they did…not because my children or my students necessarily listened to me…Mother Nature waved her magic wand and one day…Poof! they were grown. It all happened so fast…too fast…so lesson learned in round one…Don’t ever wish for children to grow up faster than they already are…or as the “Monkey Paw” saying goes…”Be careful what you wish for…it might come true.”

Some of those students I remember telling to “grow up” did so wonderfully and now help me re-finance, or carry my groceries, or fix my computer…lovely lovely grown “children”…just like my own who are now married and parents…my children and students did grow up…just right!

Erma Bombeck reached the same conclusion as myself when she re-told her similar story in the only way Erma knew how to tell it …with humor.

“No More Oatmeal Kisses”

January 29, 1969

A young mother writes: “I know you’ve written before about the empty-nest syndrome, that lonely period after the children are grown and gone. Right now I’m up to my eyeballs in laundry and muddy boots. The baby is teething; the boys are fighting. My husband just called and said to eat without him, and I fell off my diet. Lay it on me again, will you?”

OK. One of these days, you’ll shout, “Why don’t you kids grow up and act your age!” And they will. Or, “You guys get outside and find yourselves something to do . . . and don’t slam the door!” And they won’t.

You’ll straighten up the boys’ bedroom neat and tidy: bumper stickers discarded, bedspread tucked and smooth, toys displayed on the shelves. Hangers in the closet. Animals caged. And you’ll say out loud, “Now I want it to stay this way.” And it will.

You’ll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn’t been picked to death and a cake with no finger traces in the icing, and you’ll say, “Now, there’s a meal for company.” And you’ll eat it alone.

You’ll say, “I want complete privacy on the phone. No dancing around. No demolition crews. Silence! Do you hear?” And you’ll have it.

No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti. No more bedspreads to protect the sofa from damp bottoms. No more gates to stumble over at the top of the basement steps. No more clothespins under the sofa. No more playpens to arrange a room around.

No more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent. No more sand on the sheets or Popeye movies in the bathroom. No more iron-on patches, rubber bands for ponytails, tight boots or wet knotted shoestrings.

Imagine. A lipstick with a point on it. No baby-sitter for New Year’s Eve. Washing only once a week. Seeing a steak that isn’t ground. Having your teeth cleaned without a baby on your lap.

No PTA meetings. No car pools. No blaring radios. No one washing her hair at 11 o’clock at night. Having your own roll of Scotch tape.

Think about it. No more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste. No more sloppy oatmeal kisses. No more tooth fairy. No giggles in the dark. No knees to heal, no responsibility.

Only a voice crying, “Why don’t you grow up?” and the silence echoing, “I did.”

……………………………….

So until tomorrow…the secret to growing up is doing just that.. while never becoming a “grown-up”….but a child inside a “grown-up”… filled with curiosity and adventure until the last breath is drawn. Our last remark: “But why?”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

 * Speaking of keeping the child in us no matter the age…I got tickled watching “Fixer-Upper” yesterday on HGTV with Joanne and Chip. He was cutting up as usual and Jo had just about had it…she finally said in exasperation “Chip, will you PLEASE grow up for about, ummm, one second!” “That’s all and then you can go back to being you..the you I love.”

Dear Reader:

I read an article the other day about the number of times in our lives we have a yearning to go home again. For me, a homesick child, that meant any time I wasn’t home, while growing up…but for most there are certain stages of development in life that lend themselves to “homesickness.”

The article went on to explain that sometimes it happened soon after high school graduation…whether one went on to college or had some other outside life experiences…when things went badly and not as anticipated ..one’s  first instinct was to return home…to a place of acceptance and security.

For others, it was often after a serious broken relationship that the yearning to return home raised its head, or then after children came…the desire to be around family support, and particularly at retirement age the longing to return back to where we grew up urges us homeward one last time.

Eva Cate had planned to spend Tuesday night with me and do all kinds of fun things Wednesday here in Summerville… while Mandy took care of annual medical appointments and visits before school re-opens again. But Mandy called Monday afternoon and Eva Cate was hesitating…she wanted to come but she was scared she would get homesick Tuesday night and not be able to go back home.

So I called Eva Cate and told her that plans had changed and it didn’t suit me for her to come but asked her if I could spent the night with her so we could go do some fun things in Mt. Pleasant while Mandy got all her medical visits in. (Eva Cate was so relieved and happy at the change of plans.) As a former child product of intense homesickness that is one “ailment” I don’t push…she will grow out of it in her own good time.

(And we did have fun…shopping, eating lunch out, always topped off with ice cream…well frozen yogurt.)

Actually, however, it was little Jakie, that prompted the idea behind this post. Soon after arriving Tuesday Jakie came up to me and in his sweet little voice asked….“I wanna go home Boo Boo…I wanna go home.”

Do you want to go to Boo Boo’s house?” I inquired. Jakie looked puzzled and repeated the question. The second time I replied “Well Jakie…you are already home…right here.” Jakie slowly nodded but still didn’t seem satisfied with the answer.

I probably never would have given it a second thought…but this line of questioning continued throughout the next two days with Jakie asking both John, Mandy, and myself the same question repeatedly with all of us smiling and replying…”But you ARE home Jakie.”

(Mandy and John said that this repetitive question had started about a week earlier and neither knew the origin behind it …perhaps a teacher told Jakie it wasn’t time to go home while he was playing at pre-school. With no sense of time small children can interpret adult responses differently than intended.)

Then my thoughts took another turn…Were all of our own personal yearnings simply the desire to return back to our spirit…our inner light calling us home. (The same front porch light that has been left on since we departed in the darkness and will stay lit until we return again.)

Like the following message explains…maybe we have to go through all the stages of trying on “different people” who make us up or made us up for size…  to find our one true self…our forever homeward bound self.

So until tomorrow…It takes us a complete cycle of life to grow into the person we always were, the person God intended us to be.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

There is something about living in a world of uncertainty that forces us stop long enough to look around. Then one day, for no particular reason, the wonderful realization dawns upon us that we have been given a gift…”When nothing is certain, anything is possible.”

My favorite Irish poet, John O’Donohue, explains it better in his introduction to his book of blessings…To Bless the Space Between Us. (excerpt)

“There is a quiet light that shines in every heart. It draws no attention to itself, though it is always secretly there. It is what illuminates our minds to see beauty, our desire to seek possibility, and our hearts to love life. Without this subtle quickening our days would be empty and wearisome, and no horizon would ever awaken our longing. 

Our passion for life is quietly sustained from somewhere in us that is wedded to the energy and excitement of life. This shy inner light is what enables us to recognize and receive our very presence here as blessing. We enter the world as strangers who all at once become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit, and dream that has long preceded us and will now enfold, nourish, and sustain us. The gift of the world is our first blessing.”

When I hear the word blessing…it evokes in me a sense of belonging…that I am not alone in this journey called life and that there is nothing that can take away my soul, “my inner light of providence.”

In my personal cancer (“little c” detour) journey I have long ago come to the realization that cancer can “never touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart, and it, certainly, cannot touch my soul.” In fact, if anything, my inner light glows stronger with each passing day.

Another “aha” moment has come along (like the Clinque Bonus package I just signed up for) with the realization that it has only been since I found my voice and started the blog, back in 2010, and lay claim to it, that I have been able to the hear “the true song of another.”

To become a part of the universe, we must be able to connect with all the other voices that surround us…because we are never alone…together we are all one mighty voice that seeks harmony and healing in this old world.

Some of you might remember this book by Elizabeth Lesser who addresses the issues of change and transition during difficult times….asking “Will we be broken down and defeated, or broken open and transformed.”

Life is how we respond to the challenges that confront us…not the challenges themselves. Lesser sees new opportunities and possibilities ( to see the world through different lenses) as the Clinque Bonus Promotion we get for walking the line while still staying open to the loving support of those around us.

So until tomorrow:

“How strange that the nature of life is change, yet the nature of human beings is to resist change. And how ironic that the difficult times we fear might ruin us are the very ones that can break us open and help us blossom into who we were meant to be.” (Elizabeth Lesser)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Happy “Official” Birthday to Ben and Vikki today! It was a good day for all of us when you each appeared in to our lives!

*I am hanging with Eva Cate today while Mandy takes care of some medical appointments before school starts back. Eva Cate drew the state symbols- the palmetto tree and a crescent. 

Dear Reader:

Most of us who have ever taken a basic art class in school or college or perhaps gone to a painting/wine class where everyone emerges (at the end of the evening) with the same painting (made better in appearance by the amount of wine consumed) most likely painted a “still life.”

Still Life is paintings of inanimate objects (no animals or people) using common, everyday “subjects” like plates, cups, saucers,chairs, tables, food, flowers,  fruit, etc. Even though the “subject” is inanimate great artists are able to convey strong emotion to observers of the painting.

I chose this Van Gogh Still Life (for the title painting) because of the strong colors, but mostly because of the use and contrast of light, darkness, and reflection. When I looked at it, I immediately liked it…it spoke to me on different levels…some more explainable than others.

I just finished the first detective 

novel in the series and I spent as

much time looking for clues for

the title and its connection to the

murderer as I did searching for

clues to the “whodunnit” fictional

character in the book.

The clues were there…very subtle hints throughout the dialogue (being brilliantly observed by Chief Inspector Armande Gamache)…such as:

“Life is change. If you aren’t growing and evolving, you’re standing still, and the rest of the world is surging ahead. Most of these people are very immature. They lead “still” lives, waiting.”

“Life is choice. All day, everyday. Who we talk to, where we sit, what we say, how we say it. And our lives become defined by our choices. It’s as simple and as complex as that. And as powerful. So when I’m observing that’s what I’m watching for… the choices people make.”

“I think many people love their problems. Gives them all sorts of excuses for not growing up and getting on with life.”

“They waited for life to happen to them. They waited for someone to save them. Or heal them. They did nothing for themselves.”

Haven’t we all met people or we, ourselves, experienced a time in our lives when we stopped growing and did little or nothing to help ourselves out of the fix. In a sense we became an object in a Still Life…not bad or good…just there…just existing…inanimate… but no longer really living.

In the Still Life detective novel…Chief Inspector Gamache begins to look for someone whose status in life depicts a man or woman who is no longer growing in his/her life…but more importantly someone who has stopped growing UP. Someone who wants everything for nothing. Someone who has become a “still life.”

Life is hard to define but one thing we can all agree on is the basic understanding that life, itself, is definitely NOT a Still Life. Wrong metaphor there.  Life is never still. Life is constant…like a waterfall flowing over a mountain.

And..for better or worse, at the age we all are now…we are the products of the choices we have made in the past leading to where we are at present. This doesn’t mean that we still can’t change and become the person we want to be or God expects us to be…but it does require making better choices to detour onto the right path.

So until tomorrow…Let us take advantage of the choices we can still make to reach the goal we know will define us as the person by whom we want to be remembered. Let it be an “Active Life” painting of ourselves and not a “Still Life.”

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

I can definitely tell you someone who is not a “Still Life” and that is Honey Burrell. I texted Honey over the weekend and asked her if she remembered the name of the company that makes these wonderful “tomato” knives (we always got ours together at the St. Andrews Tea Room in the spring)…perfect for cutting a tomato as thin as you want.

I forgot and put mine in the dishwasher and the end got bent and out of whack…it also lost its sharpness. So I just wanted to order another one. I didn’t get the name of the company back from Honey, instead she sent me another brand new tomato knife, along with other fun goodies.

Honey will never be a “Still Life”…but a Miss “Amazing Life.” 

Dear Reader:

Family birthdays become more significant and more special as time goes by. We realize as we pose for pictures each year that the gift of gathering…the gift of life…is the most precious thing in the world. We also realize the importance of family…they will always be there for us when sometimes the world turns away.

…And this was a bench mark birthday for Ben and Vikki…Ben turned seventy and this was Vikki’s first birthday where she had an extra present…Rhodes…truly the gift that keeps on giving.

“This is the power of gathering: it inspires us, delightfully, to be more hopeful, more joyful, more thoughtful: in a word, more alive.” Alice Waters

Some of the family gathered for brunch at the Old Village Post House and then carried the party over to John and Mandy’s house. *The area around the restaurant in the “Old Village” section of Mt. Pleasant is so cute…you just want to put a bow around it.

Family gatherings make us realize that our most valuable possessions are our shared experiences. Tradition can bind a certain magic, spirit, or texture to our everyday lives.

A Quick Collage of sights to remember:

So until tomorrow:  (“For Celebration”: John O’Donohue) To Bless the Space Between Us.

” Now is the time to free the heart, Let all intentions and worries stop, Free the joy inside the self, Awaken to the wonder of your life.” 

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

As I was finishing the mystery novel I told you about yesterday a phrase (that I had not heard in a long time) inadvertently came rushing back with childhood memories and loving feelings  intact.

The expression was “There, there.”

A fictional character in the novel loses a close friend and elderly neighbor, who had seen her through some rough times. So now when she gets the news of her passing…she immediately feels homesick, lost, and needs her neighbor to come back and pat her hand… and tell her “There, there.”

After reading these lines…suddenly I was five or six years old again and I was sitting in my grandmother’s lap. She had been shelling peas on the front porch, but she put the bowl down and pulled me over to her, patted my hand and said “It’s all right, shhhh now, it’s all right.” And to the rhythm of the old rocker she whispered in my ear over and over “There, there…it’s all right…there, there…it’s all right.”

It was the summer we lived with grandmother following daddy’s unexpected death at 31 and mother’s left hand amputation (bone cancer) only months later. I have no recollection of what specific event had caused me to be upset and crying…(small children sense when things aren’t right ) …all I remember is how wonderful it felt to rock with grandmother while she patted my hand and kept repeating “There, there.” I needed security and she gave it to me with a whisper and a rocking chair. No further words were needed.

So now when I see pictures from that sad time in my family’s history…I don’t see a depressed child, a little shy and insecure perhaps, but overall the frame has already been built to house a happy personality. This “miracle” was performed by my family and extended family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins) who made sure my brothers and I still felt an integral part of the whole family unit and understood its strength in unity. They taught me how to fly!

Honey knows how much I love learning new words so she sent me a post from some friends of hers in the mountains and what a wonderful word they discovered and shared. We need to all learn it .

(Here is  an excerpt from their blog on the word EUDAIMONIA!)

“Eudaimonia! Huh?”

Eudaimonia is a new word stemming from Greek philosophy. It refers to a special state of contentment felt by taking the right action.

“It means achieving the best conditions possible for yourself in every sense, not only happiness, but also virtue, morality, and a meaningful life.”

Bob and Fran go on to explain how our inner spirit rises when we perform good deeds and/or helping someone else. This feeling of inner happiness strengthens our health, vitality, and prosperity. It is easy to achieve, regardless of age or station in life…we just have to start.

One suggestion they gave was to write the word on a sticky note and put it on the bathroom mirror. So I did just that!

After all…”Who wouldn’t want to live with a consistent ‘feel good’ spirit?

Today our family will definitely have the feel good spirit going in high gear. We are celebrating Ben and Vikki’s birthdays (July 26) with a Sunday brunch at the Old Village Post House in Mt. Pleasant. We will have an additional member to join us this year for this special occasion…little Rhodes…Lee and Vikki’s 10 month old son.

I love it when the family keeps growing and growing…and soon we will have even another addition…a granddaughter…life is so good!

After the brunch John and Mandy are having everyone over for a pool party and to eat some birthday cake…a fun day in the making!

So until tomorrow:

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

What a wonderful surprise last night! I looked out my window and on the tip top of the trellis was the first moon flower bloom of the summer season. I was so thrilled!  I just kept jumping up and down and then ran outside and gave it some extra water for the outstanding performance!

Dear Reader:

As I was watering all the flowers by the fence early yesterday morning…I felt like a proud parent…without even any lessons the morning glories knew how to intuitively start to climb the fence and when they had reached the top…to begin, then, exploring other possibilities for growth around them.

The mandevilla, on the other hand, seemed to have the intuition right but just couldn’t quite grasp the fence on their own tendrils without a little help. (So I bought a small trellis to help them achieve their goals and now they are on their way.)

I couldn’t help but compare the two flowering plants and think how similar their plights are to real life. Haven’t we all, at different stages in our lives, felt like both plants? Sometimes life just seems to come easier…for awhile everything falls into place and we have a clear vision for our future and our expansion.

Then, suddenly, things change…sometimes slowly without our awareness, or quickly leaving us puzzled, bewildered, and lost in the process.

I don’t know who invented the roller coaster, but I sure am glad they did…because it is the best metaphor for life. Every time we get secure (perhaps even a little smug) about the direction our life is taking… the roller coaster begins its sharp descent into sheer, white-knuckle holding terror. We can always count on this part of the ride. (Or put another way…the proverbial rug gets pulled out from under us.)

Like the mandevilla, we find ourselves, not as self-sufficient as we imagined; we need help. This thought connects me to a mystery book I am currently reading:

Still Life is the first book in a series of detective mystery novels by Louise Penny. They are all set in the fictional town of Three Pines in the Quebec province of Canada. (She was interviewed on the CBS Sunday Morning Show recently and I immediately ordered the first book. I am completely absorbed in the story.

  Penny is a gifted character writer and her favorite character, in the series,  is the fictional Chief Inspector Armande Gamache. He is a natural mentor to his young agents and teaches them the four rules to wisdom in their professional and personal lives. (Obviously they apply to all of us readers too) They come in the form of four sentences or simple statements.

*“I’m sorry.”

*“I don’t know.”

*“I need help.”

*“I was wrong.

The more I thought about these statements…the more powerful they became. As a race we are connected together and there is a reason for that…we are to help each other along our individual journey through life.

When we are able to “come clean” and admit to another, or others, that we don’t know everything, we aren’t always right,  we do know we messed up, we are sorry, and now we need help…the universe responds gladly and openly to our needs.

My grandmother taught us grandchildren this lesson with ‘talkings to’ like “I think it’s time for you (pointing to the grandchild in question) to come down a notch, cause you’re getting a little too big for yer britches. Now go tell (so and so) you’re sorry and you were wrong… then I just bet they might help you out of this fix you have gotten yourself into… “

So until tomorrow:

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Look what was blooming in a neighbor’s yard in our neighborhood as I was going past yesterday afternoon..I had to do a double-take. I found out it is a Texas Star Hisbiscus and the bloom is as big as Texas. I had to order one to plant this fall…it is just too gorgeous.