New Little Free Library

Last year Chuck built three Little Free Libraries for three different locations in Corpus Christi. Today he posted the newly completed library for kids' books.
Both are at our church, All Saints Episcopal Church. The blue and yellow box is the original LFL.

I am the steward for both.





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"60 Minutes" in Heaven

Mother's Day!

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Going to San Diego, CA!

http://www.sdiworld.org/educational-event/2016-emerging-wisdom-educational-events/online-streaming

I am going to this Spiritual Directors International Conference in San Diego this weekend with a good friend from Corpus Christi, Mary Tom. We are going to be visiting with our friend Mary Jane, who used to live in Corpus Christi before moving to CA. Father Gregory Boyle will be one of the main speakers.

We leave on Thursday and return on Sunday night. I am getting excited!

"Science of Character"

This is really profound. 8 minutes long and worth that amount of time!

Running Out of Time?

In the Middle

of a life that’s as complicated as everyone else’s,

struggling for balance, juggling time.

The mantle clock that was my grandfather’s

has stopped at 9:20; we haven’t had the time

to get it repaired. The brass pendulum is still,

the chimes don’t ring. One day you look out the window,

green summer, the next, and the leaves have already fallen,

our parents gone, it happened so fast. Each day, we must learn

again how to love, between morning’s quick coffee

and evening’s slow return. Steam from a pot of soup rises,

mixing with the yeasty smell of baking bread. Our bodies

twine, and the big black dog pushes his great head between,

his tail is a metronome, ¾ time. We’ll never get there,

Time is always ahead of us, running down the beach, urging

us on faster, faster, but sometimes we take off our watches,

sometimes we lie in the hammock, caught between the mesh

of rope and the net of stars, suspended, tangled up

in love, running out of time.

~Barbara Crooker

Crooker, Barbara. “In the Middle.” Good Poems for Hard Times. Ed. Garrison Keillor. NY: Penguin Books, 2005. 265.

Happy Easter!

If this happened today?

  
 

Pie-Baking and Me

it’s 3:23 in the morning
and I’m awake
because my great great grandchildren
won’t let me sleep
my great great grandchildren
ask me in dreams
what did you do while the planet was plundered?

what did you do when the earth was unraveling?

surely you did something
when the seasons started failing?

as the mammals, reptiles, birds were all dying?

did you fill the streets with protest
when democracy was stolen?

what did you do
once
you
knew?...

---by Drew Dellinger (spoken poet)

Listen!

Some of Our Family

Our Austin family came to visit us in Corpus Christi this past weekend.

Chuck, David, Emma, Annie, Avery, Jan at Cole Park

It has been too long!!

I have not blogged since August 2015, even with several friends urging me to write again. As I re-read Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande, I feel immersed in thoughts and reflections of members in the Wisdom Class book group concerning the end of our days. My father-in-law and a dear friend, both in WA State, are in those times, not going gently   Lots of memories, emotions, and fears circulate in my mind and heart.

Since my parents died in 1992 and 2002, I remember living far away and traveling to be with them in their last days. That is very important, and I want that time for my husband, too. However, he is teaching chemistry classes in a community college and awaits spring vacation in another week. Does he need to go? Will there be enough time left?

I am lucky that I have been in a group of friends who meet monthly to discuss books on death. We even call it the "Death Group." It has made us more comfortable to discuss death and dying over several years so that we are willing to discuss physical, spiritual, and emotional issues of dying. One member has ALS and wanted us to pursue this topic. She has helped the rest of us continue thinking about our final days.

Over this time, I have found various articles that help me. One of the best is by David Steindl-Rast, author of Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer. It is long, but very worthwhile:

Learning to Die by Brother David Steindl-Rast 

I hope I will blog again soon with love to all.

Is "Make Way for Ducklings" Outdated?

Being a grandmother and a woman with white hair, I am feeling like I am in the "older generation," especially when my granddaughter doesn't like one of my favorite picture books Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. Granted, it was published in 1944--six years even before I was born, but I have always loved Roert McCloskey's books and pen-and-ink drawings.

I have saved a new hardback edition of Make Way for Ducklings for my grandchildren for some years. The last time we visited in Austin, I showed it to my 4 year old granddaughter Avery and asked if she was "old" enough for it, and she told me, "NO." Then a few nights ago, while they were staying at a beach house nearby, I brought it again and asked if she would like me to read it to her. Avery said she was "supposed to be 5," which may have been the obstacle, and I did not realize it. 

But I insisted upon reading it, because I am an excellent reader of children's books, (falsely) thinking that I could prompt Avery to like the book with me reading it to her. She sat with me for the entire reading of this long book, but did not seem to like the book. That disappointed me.

Unfortunately, I plunged myself into black-and-white thinking: she won't ever like McCloskey's books, and there are so many more: Blueberries for Sal and One Morning in Maine. Pen and Ink drawings are not as inviting as contemporary book illustrators? (What about FERDINAND??)

But it is time for honesty. That was too much about me and not Avery. I want to share the books I love, but maybe they are not for her. . . .or maybe some other time. I want my grandchildren to enjoy books and Avery and Emma do. That is the most important thing of all.

Farewell Friday Five: Hello/Good-bye

 

This is the last Friday Five that I will host after some years of presenting the third Friday Five of each month. I was honored to be asked and am grateful for the times of inspiration and laughter from you RevGals who played!

Our lives entail many beginnings and endings of periods or chapters. We can look back and see where we said “Hello” and “Goodbye.”  Today please look at those times in your life. Be original or play along with these five suggestions:
I am saying “Hello” and/or “Goodbye” to:
 

1. book: I just finished Broken For You by Stephanie Kallos, a book I purchased on my Seattle trip at the Elliott Bay Bookstore from the rack that was labeled "Seattle authors." It is a sweet, good book that brought me to tears in some places. I highly recommend this book published way back in 2004

 

2. habit or practice: Of late I have said "good-bye" to regular centering prayer/meditation. I regret that and keep feeling nudged to begin again. 

 

What I have begun in earnest are leg exercises as recommended by my physical therapist to relieve the hip bursitis pain that has afflicted me off and on since January.

 

And I am saying good-bye to hosting Friday Fives for RevGalBlogPals.

 

3. idea: After reading The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, I have had to leave behind my belief that racism does not affect me. This book opened me up to many avenues of social justice that I am just beginning to learn about.

4. food: I used to eat peanut butter much more frequently than I do now.

 

5. person: It takes me years to give up on a person that no longer tries to contact me (or me them), and it seems like that is happening a little more frequently now that I do not write letters (and even postcards) as much as I did formerly.
 

One More Day

It is hard sometimes to drag ourselves

back to the love of morning

after we’ve lain in the dark crying out

O God, save us from the horror. . . .

God has saved the world one more day

even with its leaden burden of human evil;

we wake to birdsong.

And if sunlight’s gossamer lifts in its net

the weight of all that is solid,

our hearts, too, are lifted,

swung like laughing infants;

but on gray mornings,

all incident—our own hunger,

the dear tasks of continuance,

the footsteps before us in the earth’s

belovéd dust, leading the way—all,

is hard to love again

for we resent a summons

that disregards our sloth, and this

calls us, calls us.

"The Love of Morning" by Denise Levertov. Text as published in Selected Poems, edited by Paul Lacey (New Directions, 2002).

Which way?

I don't even know what day it is! Today for the second time in several months, I posted the THIRD Friday Five for RevGalBlogPals. . . . .and this was the last time I would do it. Instead, my "farewell" was too early. I know that's because I haven't been looking at the calendar and don't even know what the date is! Befuddled. . . . I am grateful that someone could delete that posting for August 21, because that date has not arrived yet.

My Grand-Dog

My youngest daughter has a Great Dane "puppy" (who has not yet reached full growth). She took a peaceful picture of Maverick at her home, looking out the window. I love this image so much that I asked her permission to put it on my blog, and she agreed.

Picture Taken By M. J. Hilton

I hope I will meet Maverick soon!

My Ride in a Convertible

While in Bellingham, Chuck's brother Tom gave me a whizzing ride in his Lexus convertible. That was my first ride ever in a convertible!

Jan and Tom

A Few Pics of Mount Rainier

Here are a few pictures I took of Mount Rainier while we were on the first part of our trip in Seattle:




There are 46 cranes in Seattle now--lots of building of high-rise structures.