Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

In one of the last interviews Irish poet and philosopher, John O’Donohue, participated in… called ” “The Inner Landscape  of Beauty” (before his untimely death) he made the challenging statement and personal revelation that “beauty is a human calling and a defining aspect of God.”

(Source: Scripted Interview/ “The Inner Landscape of Beauty“- John O’Donohue and Krista Tippet.)

The Greek root for the word ‘beauty’ is related to the word for “calling.” (Kalon, Kalein)

O’Donohue, explained to the interviewer, Krista Tippet, that beauty is an active word…not a passive word to be admired from afar. He went on to say:

“ Beauty is not a neutral thing, but is a force that is actually calling you. You are being called, through it, to be yourself, and to transfigure what has hardened or been wounded within you.”

“In order to do this…our hearts must be open to creativity every single day because our calling…our beauty takes us to a new place of inner growth, each time we listen to it… If we follow the call of beauty…to the landscape it is intended for….we discover  that it is us.”

……………………………

Definitely this is initially pretty deep…but after I re-read it a couple of times I got it. Ever since I removed all the planters off the porch with the “emergency” porch sinking episode….everything quickly appeared to go into shock.

Slowly the morning glory vines and moon flower vines (that Anne and I flung over the back fence) began to acclimate and bloom again…amazingly. The planters, containing, the gerber daisies, however, appeared to be in a “comatose” state.

The leaves, eventually, got their old healthy green color back…but no buds, for weeks on end, appeared. Then last week…there was this one folded gerber daisy (as if in prayer) waiting to open.

And when it did…the beautiful orange/red daisy seemed to be shouting to the world that life goes on…in spite of abrupt changes in our lives…and life is filled with beauty.

When I stopped and looked deeply into the center of the daisy I felt like Alice in Wonderland…seconds before she fell down the hole….I wonder what it would be like to be able to climb into that beautiful flower and become a part of its living, breathing organism.

Haven’t we all been moved to tears by something so beautiful it literally touches our soul…. ( a piece of art or a beautiful dance or a composition of music.) I believe that is what O’Donohue was conveying with the idea that beauty is a calling….an extension of God letting us know that there is a whole another world around us where true beauty manifests itself from everyone’s heart and soul. Beauty lies within each of us waiting to be released to the world.

So until tomorrow…It is up to us to heed our God-given talents and  become the “voice” of the person we are intended to be.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*John O’Donohue believed that both the visible and invisible world existed along side each other…but were also interwoven into the human experience.

He placed the human experience, in this world, the visible world, as the first shoreline to the invisible world.

This thought brought back memories of my childhood running along the shoreline staring out at the vast ocean and seeing it in my imagination as a world where sea creatures ruled in their kingdom under the sea….maybe I was actually closer to reality then as an imaginative child than I am as an adult today.

Speaking of beaches…Ben had this photo of mother and him (as a baby) on the beach together at his home this past weekend…I had never seen it…and once again, was amazed at my mother’s beauty and calling to show others just what a human being is capable of accomplishing under God’s guidance.

Dear Reader:

Haven’t we all, throughout periods in our lives, looked around and felt that we were somehow “stunted” in our growth…whether personally, chronologically, or professionally? Everyone else seems to have a purpose and goal and we are still trying to figure out who we are and where our place on earth really is?

Last year my magic moon flower gate was literally covered with moon flower blooms…overflowing. It was my first time planting them in the back on the gate and I was thrilled….all summer… into late fall… the blooms continued to multiply.

This year…I have only one thin moon flower vine on the gate and it has produced only two moon flower blooms this entire season. So when I spotted a bud a few days ago…I was beyond excited! I was so scared it would come and go before I got back from Conway.

It must have decided to wait on my return….because yesterday morning I woke up and remembered it…I scurried outside (in my robe before the sun hit it and it wilted)…At first I saw nothing…the bloom had decided to just plop on the top ledge behind the front gate….but still I was thrilled…at last a moon flower bloom on the moon gate…Hallelujah!

This incident got me thinking….about late-bloomers.

Professionally I stayed pretty much on target going through my career time-line…. I graduated high school, college in four years, taught middle school social studies for 28 years before going to the district office for four more years in administration….During that time I got my Masters so I could teach graduate courses at the colleges which I did and work at the state level which I did also. Professionally I stayed pretty much in sync with my career time-line.

Personally and spiritually, however, I have definitely been a late-bloomer. It took a cancer wake-up call to make me stop and see the world (and my role in it) through different eyes.

I think there is a thin line between procrastination….(usually based on fear of change) and blooming late. We hear and read constantly about the pitfalls of wasting our time and life by putting off goals and dreams for too long. We are told to jump in the game of life and hold on for the ride. There is a certain amount of truth in that attitude… quite obviously.

For me, however, I believe God is guiding us along a spiritual time-line that only He can see and several factors, unknown to us, must be in place before we are open to the new direction we are to follow.

Life is such a joy and blessing to me now…on a daily basis. Whereas before my “little c” diagnosis… I took my life for granted. I had good days and bad days and didn’t see the true beauty of life that surrounded me….I literally never stopped to smell the roses.

When I tell people I would not like to return to the pre-cancer Becky… I usually get a startled look. But life has become so much bigger, deeper, fresher, richer for me… with blessings falling like rain… the intensity of life has gone from an old black and white movie to 3-D and I don’t want to return to the loss of communication with God that kept me seeing the world in only dull routine colors.

Just like my one late-bloomer from my moon flower this season…(because it wasn’t overflowing with blooms)…the event made it more special than ever before. Last year…I began taking the blooms for granted and several weeks into the blooming season…I would sometimes even forget to go look and inhale the scent and magnificence of its beauty.

So until tomorrow…let us remember that sometimes when we “bloom” late…while other flowers fade…our beauty surpasses its original potential if it had bloomed “on time” and been just one flowering bloom…lost among many.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

When I took pictures of these two morning glories yesterday morning I thought of this quote which has become a favorite of mine.

President Theodore Roosevelt, also expressed it quite well when he said: “Comparison is the thief of joy”

*Please continue keeping Libby in your prayers…blood problems and now a broken wrist…not what one’s vision or plans were  for this time in life …

Walsh, Mollie, and the boys stopped by for a few minutes on their way home….and I just loved it! They are just gone for a few days and the boys have grown like weeds overnight…unbelievable.

*Mollie turned around to check on the baby boys and then  sent me this shot of them holding hands in the backseat.

Dear Reader:

It had been awhile…at least a couple of years…since I had gone to Conway and suddenly (Saturday afternoon) I found myself noticing different things along the same route I always took.

I almost missed the turn to Jamestown (instead of Pinopolis) and had to veer at the last second…something threw me off…perhaps a new building…or maybe I was just in a fog like the drizzle coming down.

Then I started second-guessing myself if I were still on the right road…because new houses had gone up and some old landmarks before Jamestown were gone. Even the four-way stop at Jamestown (to turn left) looked differently.

By Georgetown…coming in on Hightower Street…road construction signs and detours were everywhere…Thank goodness I was able to turn onto 701 to Conway just before hitting the detours.

Then, when I was almost at the end of 701…a terrible accident appeared around a corner… the highway patrolmen were detouring us back a different way. I could only see a motorcycle that looked like a big accordion in an open field a few hundred yards away and a body under a blanket… with two other cars in a ditch.

What was unnerving was the “deadly” silence…the ambulances had not arrived yet and all the highway patrolmen and policemen were ashen-faced. We were detoured back to Brown’s Chapel…a beautiful little chapel in the woods and I couldn’t help but pause and say a prayer for the families involved… who had just lost loved ones but didn’t know it yet. How tragically sad!

Ben treated Reverend (Randy) Riddle, his wife, Judy, and myself out for dinner. We went to the Sea Captain’s House restaurant and had a wonderful time getting to know each other….Judy is an Erskine grad too…Go Due West!.

*(See title photo)

It is one of my all-time favorite restaurants in Myrtle Beach and brings back warm memories of family outings from the 60’s on….At first everything looked as I remembered it…especially the scent of the hard-wood floors and panels. Smell is one of the most poignant memory catalysts, isn’t it?

It was still bustling with people waiting in different lounges for their buzzer to go off…its on-going popularity made me happy to see. But it was also this same attribute that had necessitated extra dining rooms to be added… which once again….gave me the deja vu feeling of things being the same but different; different but the same. *The food was definitely a constant…delicious!

It is Randy, Ben’s friend and pastor, who has encouraged Ben to tell his story about his experiences in Vietnam and (subsequently) how the results of these experiences placed him in another fight back home…one for compassion and help for veterans with PTSD.

Ben was telling us on the way home from the restaurant that he read an expression, concerning PTSD, that felt like it defined his own mental and emotional struggles, since the war, far better for his own personal analysis and understanding.  Spiritual Depression.

Ben had an “aha” moment, not long ago, while looking over a list of characteristics, used by the Veterans Administration, to identify PTSD. He suddenly realized that the very things young combat soldiers were taught to stay alive in life/death battle conditions… morphed into similar PTSD traits… during “normal” life back home.

Here are a few examples: Don’t bunch up or stay close together (one grenade could take everyone out.) Don’t get too close to other soldiers emotionally in friendship…because many of your friends won’t make it out alive. Keep a distance from others and stay a loner. Always look for the corners in a room (hut) and sit/stand with something solid behind your back. Only trust your top commander…no one else.

You can see how “helpful hints” to stay alive in a war condition breeds problems in everyday life with close intimacy, large crowds, physical separation in social events, and trust factors in relationships.

…And then remember that most of these young men were still teenage boys…19 being the median age…and they have to live the rest of their lives with memories of themselves killing and wounding to stay alive. They pay a high emotional price…we call it the price of freedom…for many who fought they live with the price of  “spiritual depression.”

I will certainly let you, the blog readers, know when Ben’s book will be published and available for purchase. I have been honored to read a couple of chapters and I do think that veterans of any and every war…will be able to identify with Ben’s journey of grace under fire.

Everyone, regardless of gender or civilian life over military, will still relate to the God Winks that saved Ben’s life over and over…he hopes it is this book for which his life was saved…to help others who endured the same hell he did.

*Here are some family photos of us gathered to see Ben join Westminister church…before and during the service. *A special “thank you” to Nancy Hendricks for joining us yesterday…it meant a lot to the family!

*After I took Ady’s picture…she took the camera and promptly took mine and Ben’s (Papa) photo…not bad at all!

It was only after I got home last night that I started thinking that the vague sense of things being different but the same and vice versa on this weekend trip…was only a small taste of what Ben has felt for the past forty years.

He returned to a country that he thought was the same but it wasn’t…it was different…and he has fought to find his “home” ever since.

So until tomorrow…Let us always remember that God is right beside us with one hand outstretched and the other holding the lantern to show us the path home again.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*You will all be happy to know that everything went uphill after Rutledge’s boo boo-owie on his forehead (ER and 5 stitches)….Great fun for the entire family at the Clemson game and Tweetsie Railroad!! (Notice the jackets worn yesterday in Blowing Rock)

Mollie said that they found “solitude” from the crowds at Boo’s!

Then on to Blowing Rock and Tweetsie!!!

• Please say a little prayer for Libby…she slipped and broke her right wrist in two different places while attending her grandsons’ birthday party at an ice rink Sunday afternoon. What a trooper!
• Libby…Now you are definitely up for Grandmother “Warrior” of the Year !! (So so sorry!)

Dear Reader:

When Robert Frost wrote, his now immortal words, “Before I built a wall I’d ask to know…What I was walling in or walling out” …he acknowledged a very personal dilemma we all face in our lives…setting boundaries for our dreams and goals.

In one of Sarah Ban Breathnach’s  daily devotionals from her bestseller Simple Abundance…she addresses boundaries and the problem, especially women, have with setting them.

She explains: “We want our lives to feel limitless, so we must learn the art of creating boundaries that protect, nurture, and sustain all we cherish. For most women, creating boundaries is excruciating, so we put it off as long as possible. To create boundaries we must learn to say, thus far, and no further.”

She gives an example of a talented friend of hers whose writings were stunted by an overly critical husband. Because he was more educated, his wife assumed his opinion of her writings was more accurate than her own “gut” instincts. Sometimes he ignored her writings for days before glancing at it…which told her he wasn’t even interested enough to bother to read it.

So she drew a boundary (“an unspoken boundary to protect her dreams“)…. she decided not to put herself in that situation any more…she stopped bothering to show him her works….and then it happened. She created a break-through novel and her husband was caught off guard at all the attention his wife’s novel brought her.

Humbled he read the book and responded, rather meekly, “This is very good.”  Then he asked her why she didn’t ask him to read it first and she replied with much courage and dignity…“because you had no idea I was capable of this.”

Three of my grandchildren….Rutledge, two, Jakie, one, and Lachlan, six months are in…or soon will be…the famous “NO“ stage. I try to turn some statements around, backwards, to trick Rutledge, occasionally, to get him to say “Yes” but it can be tough going. “No” is the language of two-year-olds.

Now  I realize they are doing exactly what we all need to be doing…setting  boundaries. Breathnach says:

“Speaking the language of “NO” is a good place to start creating boundaries for ourselves.”

Robbins and Mortifee, in their book, In Search of Balance: Discovering Harmony in a Changing World, tell us:

“It is not only our right at certain times to say ‘no’; it is our deepest responsibility. For it is a gift to ourselves when we say ‘no’… when our expectations do not ring true for us… for in so doing we free ourselves to discover more fully the truth of our own path.”

Reflecting back on my own life as a deep-seated “people-pleaser” I realize how long it has taken me to finally be able to say “no” and not feel guilty doing so. As we all know…most of us spend our entire lives trying to straddle that “yes-no” fence… rather than make a decision to jump down and move on to new territories and adventures on the other side.

As a recent more humorous example…I managed to get my photo made for the church directory, this year, without buying the whole package ‘deal’ of photos of me, myself, and I… which I certainly didn’t need or want.

While I was talking to the young photographer I could hear another session going on…about how they could whiten teeth in the pictures, fade wrinkles, and do lots of other photo tricks to make one look as “impossibly” good as we could.

I looked at the young girl and told her I appreciated all the nice offers and options, but, quite honestly, all I needed was a photo to go in the church directory…period. I didn’t need any touch-ups…like the old song says “Just As I Am” will be just fine.

She gave me their address and information in case I changed my mind and I thanked her for her time….she was a sweet little thing and probably relieved she had a few minutes to come up for air…as it was an evening photo with lots of people left to go.

As I left the church I felt pretty proud of myself…I had done it…it had taken me many years…but I had finally said “no” to something I knew I didn’t need or want. This old ‘baby boomer’ is finally starting to bloom…while creating new boundaries. It is quite similar to my moon flower bud…

I have waited on all summer for one little bud to bloom on my “magic” moon gate…and finally I think tonight is the night. There are a lot of us “late-bloomers” around…but that’s okay too! We’re worth the wait…aren’t we!

So until tomorrow…Let us learn how to set the boundaries we need to become a stronger, more confident person who protects dreams, goals, and self-discoveries in order to find the talents we need to render while on our stay in this world.

“Today in my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*As I am writing this blog (Saturday morning) I am also packing to go to Conway and meet Ben’s new church pastor and wife…he is joining the church tomorrow. Can hardly wait to see some of the family there today.

*Walsh, Mollie, Rutledge, and Lachlan all headed up Friday to Greenville to spend the night, let the boys see their first Clemson game at the stadium, and then head on to Blowing Rock and have a Tweetsie Railroad Ride.

All went well until they left the hotel yesterday morning…Rutledge tripped and smashed his face against a wall….several hours and five stitches later, they left the Greenville Hospital Emergency Room …proceeding on to Clemson in now bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Rutledge and his ‘boo-boo owie.’  Rutledge…your good Boo Boo (no ‘owie’) loves you and is so sorry…but it will get all better and you will have so much fun!

*Eva Cate had her second dancing lesson today…and loved it. Our teeny tiny little dancer! Always keep your boundaries open and wide little girl.

Just squeezed this picture in before heading out the door to Conway…the Dingle are there…hallelujah…no more accidents and dad and Rutledge appear to be having a good time in the photo! Mollie said they were all having fun!!! That makes Boo Boo happy!

Dear Reader:

This quote from Madeleine L’Engle made me pause and reflect on all the stages of my life, but especially my childhood, yesterday.

As I studied photos of my childhood, from old, dusty albums, I realized that some of my pre-conceived remembrances of certain parts of it were actually mis-conceived.

The picture above is of myself and my siblings, Ben and David…and my Grandmother Wilson in the background…mother’s mother. The cotton farmer’s wife and early graduate of Erskine Women’s College…the keeper of stories.

It seems like so many of my earliest childhood memories deal with the death of my father, Grandfather Wilson, and the loss of my mother’s left hand to cancer…all arriving within the same year… weeks and months apart.

Yet when I look at the picture now of the three of us with Grandmother Wilson… taken about a year and a half following the sudden and unexpected tragedies…everything looks normal. Grandmother Wilson has a little proud smile on her face and we all seem quite secure and cared for…

All my aunts and uncles, on both sides of the family, stepped up to the plate following so much loss in one family in such a short period of time.

My Aunt Eva, mother’s sister, took us under her wings and I remember spending time with them on their farm house outside Simpsonville…with my cousins, her two sons, Bobby and Don. Again…we appear well-adjusted and happy.

It was these (following) two pictures, however, that provided an “aha” moment for me in my recollections of the most turbulent time in my family’s history. (1954)

Even though this first picture is somewhat “fuzzy”…you can see that mother has a sling on her arm…it had just been amputated due to bone cancer. (Like me, before my second chemo treatment when I got my hairdresser to go ahead and shave my head, mother had her beautiful long hair cut before her surgery so she could handle it better with just one hand. In one year her hair turned completely gray…definitely prematurely…but it was a beautiful gray as she got older.)

The one thing I remember about mother…is that she always dressed “to the hilt.” She never, ever (in my entire life) looked slouchy or sloppy. And she dressed us all the same way. Amazing woman.

And now for the photo that showed me where I got my faith  from…By the date on the picture…it has been three months since the amputation…mother was wearing a fitted “sock” on her arm where the hand was removed (she had not even been fitted for a prosthesis yet.)

It is the expression on her face that stunned me and my memory of this period. She is smiling…not a forced smile…but a very natural confident one..with me in one of my many pretty dresses that I wore on a daily basis. (As a little girl I was rarely “shot” in a photo with pants on. Interesting?)

Now, as an adult, looking back on this time….I finally see mother as she was…a woman of quiet faith and strong courage...the same woman who gave me life and her strong sense of faith and courage to take with me through my own journey. What better gifts can we receive?

So until tomorrow…Let us never forget the people around us who made us who we are today and thank them each day in thought and prayer for helping define the person we are becoming.

” Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Brooke sent this photo of her young adoring neighbors….love it! And they all love “Miss B”!

*God’s Wink came to me yesterday on the anniversary of September 11 in a most beautiful way. A “renegade”  moon flower vine decided to climb a flag pole rather than a bench leg and this was what I saw last evening.

Dear Reader:

What is it about certain items that have the power to draw us to them, like a magnet, both separately and together?

If I could re-create the world for one day and night…I would add lanterns to everyone’s paths along their life journey…so at night no one would ever get lost along the way.

On this imaginary path through life… mums of every color and size would line the trail ahead and pumpkins and jack o’lanterns would pop out from the dark woods encircling the path we are on.

Tuesday evening, leaving Eva Cate’s home….the sky was so beautiful…red, blue, and orange streaks that I could hardly contain myself…all I wanted to do was get home and arrange the same scene I did in today’s title photo.

I was so impatient…while getting stuck behind “slow poke” cars on Highway 78 and Lincolnville Road with no way to pass …my frustration grew more intense as I kept glancing at my Iphone and seeing that “Good-Bye Sun Hour” had arrived and I only had a few minutes to take a photo.

Sure enough….the second I pulled into my driveway…about 10 minutes past 8….a cloud covered the beautiful colors of the tired sun and darkness settled in. That is why Wednesday’s photo was taken on the porch with the porch lantern.

So last night I waited on the same beautiful skies to appear and it didn’t happen…they were a pale yellow….nothing to compare with Tuesday’s sunset. I arranged the scene and took the photo but all I could think of…was how more beautiful it would have been with  Tuesday’s magnificent sunset…just not comparable.

Later when I came in the house…I began to recognize a metaphor of life in this recent experience….we are not promised a beautiful sunset each and every night…there will be rainy, cloudy sunsets in our lives and just plain, unspectacular pale sunsets on other evenings.

But, then again, if we did have a spectacular sunset each evening of our life…don’t you think we would come to take it for granted and never it give it a second glance….God’s magnificent fireworks!

I emailed Doodle, after our family gathering Sunday, to thank her for all she had done for the party and she emailed back how wonderful it was to have the opportunity for the family to gather again…it was a rare treasure these days with the families growing and changing in different directions.

Then, she added, “But I think that is what makes our gatherings so special… the fact that it is so difficult to find a time that suits everyone…so when, miraculously, it happens…it makes the event even more extraordinary and meaningful. The family acknowledges and  appreciates each other’s presence in their lives even more.”

Like moths, we are always attracted to the light…finding such joy in it. When I came across this excerpt from a passage the other day….I thought about it and then planned last night to experiment with the thought…it is true.

“Looking from outside into an open window one never sees as much as when one looks through a closed window. There is nothing more profound, more mysterious, more pregnant, more insidious, more dazzling than a window lighted by a single candle. What one can see out in the sunlight is always less interesting than what goes on behind a windowpane. In that black or luminous square life lives, life dreams, life loves.”
― Charles Baudelaire

So until tomorrow…Let us thank our Creator for light to lead us along our personal path through life…to enable us to find our way back home.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*At nine o’clock yesterday morning I sat down to write today’s blog.The light (the sun’s rays) was filtering in on my chair…it almost looked alive and seemed to be inviting me to sit down and together we would write down thoughts about life and light.

…And that is just what we did!

My garden continues to amaze and delight me….even my bushes are creatively making another arch for my garden…much to my delight.

…And my newly planted zinnias (on sale this late in the season) have acclimated so well to the garden over the past three weeks…their beauty is awe-inspiring.

*I need my garden, with all its beauty and hidden delights to offset the tragedies of life on a  Sept 11 anniversary….May we never forget but also never give up on the potential glory of this world.

Wonderful company came to Boo Boo’s yesterday….first Susan Cadwell (who came for an appointment)  stopped by ….we had a little lunch and a little bit of time to tour the “new and improved” house and garden. (Susan brought me some Harvest orange/spice hand soap and bracelets to carry on our journeys.)

Then when I got home from my photo appointment last evening for the church directory…Walsh and Rutledge were waiting on me. Two wonderful visits in one day. The Dingles are all heading up for the Clemson/Appalachian State game this weekend and taking the boys to their first “Tiger” game. A benchmark in life, for sure!

*Starting today…every Friday until Race Day I will add donation information so you will have a quick reference to fall back on for your convenience if you choose to donate this year.

…So from now on…if you need the information just check any Friday blog at the bottom.

1. Electronically:
2. http://lowcountry.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/CHS_LowcountryAffiliate?px=13398752&pg=personal&fr_id=5355

*Make the check out to Komen Lowcountry Race for the Cure

(On the bottom left of your check you can either write the name of our team (Legally Pink) or an individual on the team or both if you can squeeze it all in!) Either way we will receive it…) Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!

Mail to:

Susan G. Komen Lowcountry – 50 Folly Road Charleston, SC 29407

Dear Reader:

I have come to realize that the beauty of flowers lies in their “hereness.” From the moment their bud opens revealing their own special individualized beauty…everything stops and we pay homage to that beauty….knowing it is only fleeting but still exquisite in the essence of its “hereness.”

As our spiritual maturity expands, we do begin to understand how (Falling Upward– Father Richard Rohr) ” the heartbreaks, disappointments, and first loves of life are actually stepping stones to the spiritual joys that the second half of life has in store for us.”

Rohr, in his award-winning book, discovers that our second half of spiritual life can best be described as ” bright sadness,” “sober happiness’ and a ” much deeper lightness.”   (some great oxymorons!)

1. The “bright sadness” and “sober happiness” discoveries don’t come from us being sad…but being so happily content that we want all our loved ones to be at the stage we are…  in our understanding of a happiness that has nothing to do with circumstance or situation. It makes us sad to see those we care about struggle, as we once did, to find this precious treasure.

2.  Life is much more spacious now…enlarged by our lifetime of experiences and relationships…we are like an expandable suitcase. We finally realize that just “being“… just being “here” “holds more than enough.”

3. If we know anything at this stage it is that we are all in this together…we are all connected. (what a great reaffirmation for me reading this…this statement is the one thing I am sure of in this world.)

4. We no longer have to be the center of attention, we are content just to be part of the dance.

5. Life is more participatory than assertive and there is no need for further self-definition. God knows and accepts us for who we are…our “hereness.” Our growing sense of infinity and spaciousness is no longer found just “out there” but we know it is “in here”…in each of us. (The inner and the outer have become one.)

………………………..

So until tomorrow…Let us strive to reach the wonderful stage of understanding that our relationship with God is where our happiness and “hereness” lies.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*We ask for prayers today for Anne’s sister, Nancy, who just completed her second chemo treatment (Anne just returned home, again, from Maine Tuesday…she and Nancy had a wonderful visit.)

We also ask for prayers for two young friends of Patty Knight who have both been diagnosed recently with breast cancer…Brandi Riggins and Nancy Hudson.

These are just some of the fantastic people we will be walking for on the 17th… and then there are the others, who no longer have a voice…so we must become their voice for them. Eliminate cancer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Reader:

Every summer, it seems as temperatures break new heat records around the country, we start lamenting the excessive heat and begging for autumn to arrive earlier and earlier.

Autumn, in the South, however,  is pretty sneaky. We know it is here because football season has started…but otherwise, the summer sun fights back fall with a tenacious grip of humidifying rays of sunshine. Guaranteed to keep us breathless and perspiring far longer into September that needed or wanted.

We only get quick glimpses of turning leaves and falling pine needles and branches to know fall is lurking close by. If we are really lucky a cool breeze blows in on us… sitting on the front porch or back deck that reminds us that fall will come…it will defeat summer in the end.

In another two weeks summer will really start to crumble and we will experience lengthening shadows and longer evenings…with cooler winds afloat. Fall will arrive quietly, Fall will arrive silently…but, you have my word, it will come.

I am not just an admirer of fall but also of our wonderful town magazine Azalea…

I learn something new about Summerville every time I read it….in fact a lot of somethings... 

And I love the name of the magazine because Summerville and the lowcountry are all about azaleas….when I was leaving Mandy’s last evening she has fall azaleas blooming perfectly beautifully right now.

In this latest edition of Azalea Magazine… my favorite story was, actually, a poem…reserved for the last page of the publication from The Village Poet  (Ellen E. Hyatt) with the wonderful title Autumn People.

Certain lines touched the flow and rhythm of the season perfectly for me….so I won’t copy the poem in its entirety… but just give you a few lines here and there….to tempt you to go pick up this magazine if you haven’t already.

Autumn People

(Excerpts)

When the loud, brazen sun is put in her place-

low on the horizon-so she’s not coming at them,

Autumn People know life is breathable again...

Autumn People circle the fire, a beacon

tender with light and warmth

Later indoors, Autumn People sit un-

fussed around a table with an apple pie hub.

One empty chair reminds of winter’s approach. 

But for now, on the stove top, is the making,

perfect caramel sauce…..

Autumn People know to keep things

simple, smooth, easy as pie. 

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Anne helped me look for a good color for the workers to paint the doors on the house… now that the theme color of the house is different shades of brown.

We finally decided on a color that was advertised for having a “bronze” hue to it….when it arrived, even the painters looked doubtful….but I bravely told them to put it on…I was sure it would turn darker with time and it did.

The color, I suppose, does sorta have a “bronze” effect…but for me…it looks like a deep, rich, creamy caramel sauce…the kind described in the poem…perfect for fall caramel apples.

And the most wonderful apple pie I ever had…was made by Mollie who left it for the participants in the Race for the Cure from our team…she and Walsh were out of town. I still remember it…because of the special ribbon for the occasion!

So until tomorrow…I used to think pink and orange clashed…but life has taught me now that October wouldn’t be October without some pink ribbons in it to remind me how precious each autumn, each season, is.

Pink and orange is who I am now and that is fine with me.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* One important announcement…if you would like to donate but would rather send a check than go the electronic route….here is the new address….the headquarters moved this year. 

*Make the check out to Komen Lowcountry Race for the Cure

(on the bottom left of your check you can either write the name of our team (Legally Pink) or an individual on the team or both if you can squeeze it all in!) Either way we will receive it…) Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!

Mail to:

Susan G. Komen Lowcountry – 50 Folly Road Charleston, SC 29407

Electronic donation:

http://lowcountry.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/CHS_LowcountryAffiliate?team_id=335432&pg=team&fr_id=5355

*Yesterday I made a last minute trip over to John and Mandy’s to keep Eva Cate…one of the ‘going back to school bug blues’ got her…fever and lethargy…were the main culprits. (I got lucky…it could have been the stomach bug.)

She was pretty lethargic most of the morning and slept most of the afternoon…but think the fever broke when she got up…we finally got a little food in her and by the time I left… Eva Cate was back to being Eva Cate.

Now it was John’s time to be sick…unfortunately… his stomach was involved…so Mandy and I put both children in strollers and took a walk to give John some solitude and quiet. Eva Cate and I looked for twigs and leaves to make fairy dwellings.

Jakie is fit as a fiddle….happy and squealing…he is getting so close to standing alone…but he still prefers the GI JOE military crawl over getting on his knees.

Dear Reader:

With the Labor Day Weekend over (hope everyone enjoyed it!) our eyes now turn to the next family/friend event….The Race for the Cure! Seven years…and we are still going strong…in health, loyalty, and love!

I really grow emotional thinking about it…there is always one moment during the walk when I pause and ‘ come up for air’…I look around at all the family and friend supporters out there walking and running  for this cause…so near and dear to my heart (literally so near and dear to my heart) and thank God for placing me in this amazing family and circle of friends. Truly Boo’s Blessing!

I wonder if Lachlan will be a “Boob Man” this year…following in his big brother, Rutledge’s footsteps from the 2013 Race for the Cure. This will be Jakie’s first walk…well, first stroll, since he was only three weeks old last year and he got an “official pardon.” (Lachlan got a “free” ride from mom last year)

Eva Cate has already gotten some breast cancer pink walking shoes for the race and she insisted on wearing them the first day of school this year. She is our walking poster child for breast cancer and the race….go Eva Cate!

Lachlan’s and Jakie’s first race is coming up….they are beginning to work out to get ready:

1. Jakie is practicing ‘stretching’ for home plate across the finish line…

2) Lachlan is doing his warm-up leg exercises in preparation and “tiger on the prowl” motions:

There were signs everywhere yesterday morning that it was time to gear up for the race-even the garden was giving me a gentle reminder…the rains had sent much wanted nourishment to the flowers and suddenly “pink”  was all around!

This year we are sticking with “Legally Pink” for our team name because we realized that changing our name each year caused some confusion at the local headquarters… they just recently realized that  ‘chapelofhopestories,’ the ‘boo-boo owies,’ the ‘dingle-jingles, “dawdling dingles” etc. were all one and the same team.

When I stopped by headquarters last year to make a donation deposit…we  started talking about how long our team (with the different names) has walked….they were excited and proud of the level of fundraising we had been able to do for a team our size.

Tommy has graciously agreed to be our captain again this year and head it up for “Legally Pink.” Since he is now ‘gainfully’ employed as a lawyer (thank Brooks Styles!!!) we thought we would stick with this name for awhile.

So we basically have about six weeks until starting time and once again we are asking for your support…come walk/run with us or make a donation …either way it takes us farther along the path to getting rid of this insidious disease that robs families of loved ones…way too soon.

*This year I am going to make a big banner for us to hold before the race with the names of loved ones you are walking for and/or donating to….we will take a photo for the blog publication and I will also be glad to email the photo directly to you ! We will start collecting names a couple of weeks before the race…which is October 17!!!

We walk for those, also, who have not  been born yet…our dream is that one day a whole generation will simply read about this disease in history books…a disease that once was….much like other obscure diseases now from ages past.

And speaking of the past: Our first grandchild’s (Eva Cate) stroll for Grandmother Boo-Boo –  2010.

Here is the link that should take you to our team site….and more information will be on-going as we get our act in gear this week. If you have trouble getting in on this link….let me know and we can help you.

http://lowcountry.info-komen.org/site/TR/RacefortheCure/CHS_LowcountryAffiliate?team_id=335432&pg=team&fr_id=5355

Thank you, in advance, for your continued support and love…I can not imagine this portion of my life journey without you in it!

So until tomorrow…. BOO! May we all unite in love and compassion for those whose lives have been detoured because of breast cancer…any cancer…and help eliminate this obstacle- to- life for others.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

• Honey saw this teeny tiny little orange morning glory and thought it was saying “Boo!” to me!

(Pinterest: Pinned from Soulcysters.com)

Dear Reader:

While I was working on Mandy’s birthday card message yesterday I came across this poster on Pinterest and the more I thought about it…the more I liked it. Perfect for a benchmark 40 birthday!

“This journey is yours: Enjoy each and every step”

Yesterday seemed like a deja vu moment preparing for the birthday party (I have actually been preparing for two weeks) as it brought back so many memories.

As I mentioned in an earlier post… the Dingles were throwing me a big 40th birthday with all the food and trimmings…They, too, had prepared for weeks ahead…only to have Hurricane Hugo blow all those plans  and celebration away.

The storm hit on the 22nd and by my birthday on the 24th…the post-misery of the storm had hit…no electricity, it was hot and sticky…the food was rapidly deteriorating in the hot refrigerators…the potties didn’t flush….it was not exactly what I thought my 40th birthday would look like.

Yet, today, that is the most memorable birthday of all…crises do make for great stories (later.) Even if we don’t enjoy each “step along our journey” at the moment we are climbing…we can always look back on that step as a teaching lesson in life…if nothing else.

*We only had one minor crisis with Eva Cate waking up not feeling good yesterday morning…but Tylenol kept things at bay long enough to party on.

Here are the “calm before the storm” pictures ….the good pictures with food smeared on faces, dropped plates, bumped up knee children…will come later in the blog…

I found this saying on Jackson’s refrigerator and took a photo of it… how true.

It is nice to have a clean house (though it won’t last that long) but it is just a clean house with no breath, no life…if there is no one in it to mess it all up again. So Part I of the blog is finished and I now await the party crowd…our wonderful, messy party crowd…Let the Party Begin!

……………………………………………………………………………………………….

And the gang’s all here….Rudy and his brothers joined us in the celebration too…we all loved seeing Rudy!

Everyone had just gathered when I was told there was a policeman at the front door who wanted to see me. A big gulp but the nice policeman, along with others, was canvassing the neighborhood to meet the people and introduce themselves….isn’t that nice?

Rutledge and Eva Cate thought it was more than nice…Rutledge kept hugging his leg…a real policeman….Wow! Right up there with trucks…quite an honor!

Everything turned out just perfect! Even the weather cooperated….we didn’t get a little shower until we were all back inside getting ready to cut the cake.

The highlight of the party for me, however, was when Eva Cate and Rutledge went running to the front porch to announce that it was raining to everyone eating cake inside. They kept announcing the rain as if it was the greatest thing to happen and couldn’t understand why everyone didn’t put their dessert down and rush out to watch it.

In the end…it was God’s gift of rain that bestowed the most wonder and awe in his smallest children.

So until tomorrow…Thank you Father for benchmarks in our lives that bring family and friends together to recognize the distance we have journeyed along our paths. Happy Birthday Mandy…you have traveled well!

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

* I think Lassie’ s housewarming card expressed the double celebration perfectly last night…you don’t fix up a house to stay a house…you fix it up to make it a home for everyone to enter and enjoy!

Besides beautiful mums…I got some more adorable Boo’s….THANK YOU’S!

* I want to take a moment and thank all the “elves” for making left-over food, plates, and trays disappear like magic. The side dishes yesterday were spectacular!

*Honey…did you recognize the green outfit Rutledge was wearing? It came from you! Mollie said that you sent quite awhile back…it was a 3-T and Rutledge has just grown into it…so cute!