A Tight Spot

Today I had lunch with a friend at the restaurant in the Art Museum of South Texas. After our leisurely lunch and long chat, we came out to the parking lot to find my car wedged into this truck. However, when I parked there at noon, I had empty parking spaces on both sides of my car!

I went back in to the museum, where the security guard found the cars on his security camera. He came out to look at it, as he thought he might be able to move my car. Instead, he went back in the building to find the owner/driver of the truck.

I was expecting a good ole Texas boy to come out as the driver of this big truck--but a little, old lady came out to say she hadn't heard anything when she'd parked there! (She left almost two feet clearance to the parking spot line on the right.) I really do not know how she could get that close to my car! She kept asking me what time I'd arrived, somehow indicating that I'd done the parking job.

The whole incident turned out well, because the security guard moved the truck back, clearing my car completely. Whew!

There are only some scratches on the side mirror, while the truck had about a six inch scrape (from the protruding mirror). I am surprised the mirror wasn't pushed to break off from the car. (I'm also wondering how my old sliding cell phone could take such a reasonably clear picture.)

The Love of Morning

The Love of Morning

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
beloved 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.

~ Denise Levertov ~

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Gay Marriage

By Chan Lowe

MJ's Graduation Pictures

MJ after graduating from Trinity University May 12, 2012

CB and MJ

Jan and MJ

Trinity U's Graduation!

Bury Me in the Library

Please bury me in the library

In the clean, well-lighted stacks

Of Novels, History, Poetry,

Right next to the Paperbacks.

Where the Kids' Books dance

With True Romance

And the Dictionary dozes.

Please bury me in the library

With a dozen long-stemmed proses.

Way back by a rack of Magazines,

I won't be sad too often

If they bury me in the library

With Book worms in my coffin.

J. Patrick Lewis

Friday Five: Randomness

Revjarla brings today's Friday Five to RevGalBlogPals:

Today's Friday Five has no theme, other than randomness:

1. What is the first thing that comes to your mind (right now) that you want to share about yourself.
I had my last physical therapy appointment on Wednesday. I'll miss Pam, my physical therapist. I've seen her for the past five months since my shoulder surgery on January 4. she has guided me to better health and better posture!!

2. What is your favorite piece of jewelry or accessory? Why?
Most used accessory is probably my purse, but favorites are stud earrings. I especially like the bright green glass ones my youngest daughter gave me a few years ago, because they glimmer and match many of my shirts.

3. If you could have a starring role in a TV show, movie, series, which one would it be, and what would your character be like?
 I would love to be in "Downton Abbey." When I took the quiz about which character I would be, I turned out to be Violet, the dowager countess. That was discouraging at first, but the more I think about it, I would like to be her, because she expresses her mind as she pleases and also is more understanding than her demeanor suggests. Perhaps next year, I would want to be Lady Cora's mother who will be played by Shirley MacLaine.

4. What is one thing you will eat this weekend?
Tonight we are meeting our youngest daughter's boy friend's parents. We're going to have dinner at our favorite restaurant in San Antonio, Cappy's. I am sure to have salmon or halibut there.

And this is just the beginning of lots of eating this weekend. Tomorrow morning our youngest daughter MJ will graduate from Trinity University. Her oldest brother, his wife and Avery will also join us for this weekend, with lots of celebratory meals, concluding with a Mother's Day brunch!

5. How do you waste time?
As I recently posted, I spend too much time playing "Words with Friends" and "Draw Something" on my Ipod or Kindle Fire. Of course, this is limited to where I find free wifi, which is assured of at home. My children play these with me, too, which I like.

fear + ignorance = hate

Keep Moving

Keep walking, though there is no place to get to.

Don't try to see through the distances. That's not for human beings.

Move within, but don't move the way fear makes you move.

~~Rumi

College Graduation!

Our youngest daughter MJ is graduating from Trinity University on Saturday, May 12. We are proud and excited, just as we were with each of our other three children. Here is a picture of MJ moving into her dorm at Trinity, something that will not happen to her again.

National Postcard Week!

I just learned that this is National Postcard Week! It started on Sunday, May 6 and goes on until Saturday, May 12.

Although I had never heard about this special week until I saw it tonight on the Letter Writers' Alliance blog, I then found more information about this week at a blog that is dedicated to Edward Gorey entitled Goreyana:

"National Post Card Week began in 1984 with the idea that the International Federation of Postcard Dealers and different clubs would create and send cards to celebrate the postcard and promote postcard collecting as a hobby. From 1984 to 1995, Edward Gorey created a series of postcards celebrating NPW for Gotham Book Mart. The cards announced an annual exhibition of postcards at the gallery and invited recipients to a cocktail party to mark the opening."

On vacations, I love to send postcards to friends and family. Sometimes I buy too many to send, and I end up storing them in a basket in a cupboard. I guess I will go and retrieve some to send out this week. I will have to buy some new postcard stamps, which now cost  32 cents so I'll have to buy some new stamps.

Don't miss the boat!

Believe in hunches

not opinion polls
You are not your name
or your telephone number
At boarding time
don't miss the boat
that has your name on it
It sails only once
Head for the deep
Hold to your course
even if your vision
shipwrecks you

~~James Broughton

"Little Sermons of the Big Joy"

Quotes from Thich Nhat Hanh

The man Martin Luther King Jr. called "an apostle of peace and nonviolence" has been a teacher, writer and vocal opponent of war. Here, Thich Nhat Hanh shares a few words of wisdom.

~ "Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice... No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out." ~

~ "People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar." ~

~ "Enlightenment is always there. Small enlightenment will bring great enlightenment. If you breathe in and are aware that you are alive—that you can touch the miracle of being alive—then that is a kind of enlightenment." ~

~ "Many people are alive but don't touch the miracle of being alive." ~

~ "It is possible to live happily in the here and now. So many conditions of happiness are available—more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don't have to run into the future in order to get more." ~

~ "People suffer because they are caught in their views. As soon as we release those views, we are free and we don't suffer anymore." ~

~ "Mindfulness helps you go home to the present. And every time you go there and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes." ~

~ "Life is available only in the present. That is why we should walk in such a way that every step can bring us to the here and the now." ~

~ "When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?" ~

~ "To be loved means to be recognized as existing." ~

~ "Every thought you produce, anything you say, any action you do, it bears your signature." ~

~ "We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality." ~

Read Oprah's full interview with Thich Nhat Hanh

Couch (or Ipod?) Potato

Though I am lately feeling like a couch potato (who reads rather than watches tv), I am wondering instead if there is an "Ipod potato" or "Words with Friends potato"? That's what I have been doing too much of lately. Choices, choices!

We had a fun day (24 hours) away for a friend's  daughter's beautiful wedding outside. Oldest son DC and his wife AA were there, also, along with long-time friends from Corpus Christi, which is where the bride is from. The setting in the Texas hill country was lovely, but HOT (91 degrees at 9 pm!).

The wedding reception had sumptuous feasts with different serving stations featuring Southern food, including cheese grits with a shrimp sauce and fried green tomatoes;  Chinese food; Mexican food and much more! And then the tall, elegant wedding cake was a carrot cake with multiple layers of cream cheese frosting. At least, I drank many glasses of water and only one Margarita! However, I was not discerning in how much I ate and still feel full, though that is caused more by the wedding brunch today.

There were several heavy thunderstorms as we slept last night, so today's temperatures in the hill country were much more temperate. It was cooler and less humid, so we really enjoyed the brunch, which featured cheese grits again, fried chicken, grilled huge shrimp, and fruit kabobs. The dessert was pecan pie with ice cream.

It is a good thing that I walk every Sunday night with my good friend Katherine, so that will get me moving this evening. That is a good choice!

Living Buddha, Living Christ"

Bonnie of Bonnie's Books motivated me to buy (yet) another book: Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh. I finally had time to start reading it today, being captivated by Brother David Steindl-Rast's "Foreword" and Elaine Pagels' "Introduction."

In fact, I am so entranced with the first paragraph on the first page of the book that I am going to quote it below. This is by David Steindl-Rast:

Come alive! Bloom!

"Twice in this book Thich Nhat Hanh puts before us a powerful image of Christian legend: In midwinter, St. Francis is calling out to an almond tree, 'Speak to me of God!' and the almond tree breaks into bloom. It comes alive. There is no other way of witnessing to God but by aliveness. With a fine instinct, Thich Nhat Hanh traces genuine aliveness to its source. He recognizes that this is what the biblical tradition calls the Holy Spirit. After all, the very word 'spirit' means 'breath,' and to breathe means to live. The Holy Spirit is the breath of divine life." (xiii)

Nh'at Hanh, Thich. Living Buddha, Living Christ. NY: Riverhead Books, 2007.

Power of Words

Someone who is brave enough to use her words wisely is Sister Joan Chittister:

"Silence About the Global Treatment of Women is Disquieting."

The Nest in the Mesquite Tree

I was surprised that I could get such a good picture of the mother bird sitting on her nest in the mesquite tree that is on the side of our house. It is hard to see her and the nest, with all the leafy branches obstructing the view of her well-hidden abode.The nest is 10-12 feet high. We think she may be a kind of dove, though not one with the plumage of the doves I saw at Lebh Shomea.

Monday Minutiae

What a silly image--a kitty on some teeth. So smile!

I haven't blogged for a few days and so am just going to put bullets below to tell you what is going on:

• Speaking of teeth, a 30-year-old crown fell of my last bottom molar on Saturday night. Somehow it popped off when I was flossing my teeth. Since then my tongue keeps groping for that jagged hole. Luckily, my dentist will see me in an hour. Because we don't have dental insurance anymore, I have not been seeing him as regularly as I should, which I will regret when he retires in the next few years.

• Husband CB's cold lingers on, with much coughing still. Two weeks of that, and hypochondriac me started feeling like I was catching it. However, I think (and hope) my allergies have acted up with the recent high winds blowing here in south TX.

• All Saints Episcopal Church has a new rector! Fr. Jonathan Wickham will begin at All Saints on July 1! God continues to bless our little parish. We love our interim priest Rick Dunham and look forward to having a permanent rector this summer.

• Being social introverts, my husband and I have two busy weekends coming up. This coming Saturday we are going to a friend's daughter's wedding in the hill country of TX. It will be fun to see children's friends and their parents among the throngs of others. Oldest son DC and his wife AA will be there, too!
• The second weekend in May is our youngest daughter MJ's graduation from Trinity University in San Antonio! It's a gala weekend, with dinners with her boy friend's family, a celebratory dinner/party, and a Mother's Day brunch for AA and me!  

• Now all four of our children have college degrees! Only our first and last children went through the graduation ceremonies. DC's was very long at the huge A&;M University in College Station; we were proud to see him dressed in his senior Corps uniform with the handsome high boots. Trinity is a much smaller school, and so it will be a different atmosphere, plus we are ten years older and MJ is our last child, which will cause us to feel more sentimental.

God Connecting

By Jean Denton

My Poem for My Pocket

let it go - the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise - let it go it
was sworn to
go

let them go - the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers - you must let them go they
were born
to go

let all go - the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things - let all go
dear

so comes love

~ e. e. cummings ~

(Complete Poems 1904-1962)

Poem In Your Pocket Day!!

\
The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you on Poem In Your Pocket Day, sharing it with co-workers, family, and friends. Celebrate on April 26, 2012. Poem In Your Pocket Day has been celebrated each April in New York City since 2002, and nationwide since 2008. Each year, parks, bookstores, workplaces, and other venues burst with open readings of poems from pockets. Click a pocket below to download and print poems to share with others, or browse other poems for your pocket.

Memories

Today, April 24, is a day that holds many memories for me. Since it was my mother's birthday, I always remember her; in fact, this day causes me to recall more events than for just this day, because she died in 1992 when she was 73.

With my mother's wise, curious and creative personality, I had a wonderful parent and more of a friend as I became an adult. We were very close, partly because I was her only child. My love of learning, love for books and baking are from her.

When my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer in the summer of 1992, we celebrated our oldest son DC's 13th birthday up in Bellingham. DC acted disappointed with his birthday, which is perfectly understandable for an adolescent boy to feel with no friends around and far away from his home. I have felt sad for his disappointment for these past 20 years, and then today I described that birthday to him over the phone--AND DC does not remember that birthday at all! I am relieved that he hasn't harbored regret or resentment over the years.

This makes me notice how we remember events with higher emotional content than ordinary, everyday occurrences. I just read that either great joy or grief cause impressions on our memories.

• Emotionally charged events are remembered better
• Pleasant emotions are usually remembered better than unpleasant ones
• Positive memories contain more contextual details (which in turn, helps memory)
• Strong emotion can impair memory for less emotional events and information experienced at the same time
• It's the emotional arousal, not the importance of the information, that helps memory
• Found at Mempowered: Powering Your Memory and Mind.

I am glad that DC did not carry emotionally charged memories for his 13th birthday. I obviously did, but they helped me to remember that day more clearly. That is a benefit now, so many years later. Plus, now the memory will also be colored with gratitude.

I have always liked to remember birthdays. Just today I was wishing I knew someone else with my mother's birthday, but I didn't until I looked at Facebook! FB "reminded" me of a young woman's birthday today, which I will treasure from now on. She is the wife of DC's best friend growing up. His best friend knew my mother, too, so this is a dear connection.

April 24 is a good and special day for me, for which I am glad.

Earth Day!

Acceptance and Gratitude

With thanks to Naked Pastor, David Hayward.

Friday Five: Internet Connections

From Studio North blog

I have vaguely been hearing about the coming trend of people using mobile internet devices rather than desktop computers. Having four adult children, I see them using cell phones, laptops, tablets, ipods/iphones/ipads instead of the desktop computer, which I am using right now.

So I am asking you to answer the following questions about whatever device you most often use these days, first by telling us what you have:

I have a desktop computer, an ipod, an old-fashioned (non-internet connected), and a Kindle Fire. I use the ipod and the desktop computer the most.

1. Do you use social connections, like Facebook, Twitter, Pininterest, Linked-in or whatever else there is? Describe how you use it/these.
 I go on Facebook, originally because I wanted to be connected to my children, especially to see their pictures (and my granddaughter's). I look several times each day, especially with my ipod. I like to see what friends, especially RevGals, post about. 

I recently got onto Pininterest and enjoy the ideas and connections I find there.

2. Do you text on your cell phone? Work, friends, family?
I do not text. The only time I tried to text on my phone was when my daughter-in-law was in labor with Avery almost 1 1/2 years ago. It took me over 30 minutes to write a couple sentences! I am ridiculous.

3. Do you play any games? Which ones?
I do not play games on the desktop, but I like two apps on the ipod--Words with Friends and lately Draw Something. I can also play Words with Friends on the Kindle Fire, but find that the Kindle Store does not stock Draw Something.

4. How do you predominantly use the various electronic devices you possess?
I feel most comfortable with the desktop computer, especially for writing comments for FB and blogs. It's also easier for me to write blogs and Word documents on the big computer. It's also easier to eamil on the desktop computer, just because I like the bigger keyboard. The ipod is fun to multi-task with when I am sitting around with my husband watching tv. I mainly play those two games on the ipod and check FB.  I use the Kindle Fire for some of those activities, but like it most of all for reading.

5. How do you feel about blogging? Are you as involved in blogging as when you first started? What facilitates your blogging?
I go through spurts where I want to blog more and less. Many of my original blogging (RevGal) friends have radically diminished their blogging, which causes me to lose interest, too. I am grateful for those subscribing to my blog and regular readers of it, so that sometimes I feel like I am writing a letter to them.


I am helped in visiting blogs by people leaving comments and by links put on FB about new posts. Also, favorites are listed in my blogroll so I see new posts on my dashboard.

Give Us Faith To Go

O Lord God
who has called us Your servants
to ventures of which we cannot see the ending,
by paths as yet untrodden
and through perils unknown:
Give us faith to go out with good courage,
not knowing where we go,
but only that Your hand is leading us
and Your love supporting us. Amen.

Lutheran Book of Worship, p. 153

Found in:
Soul Weavings: A Gathering of Women's Prayers. Ed. Lyn Klug. Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1996. 94.

Also posted today at A Place for Prayer, a ministry of RevGalBlogPals. 

Mind the Gap!

Today in our lectio divina group, someone talked of the advice her swami gave her awhile back--When obsessing about bad events, memories, or whatever, visualize them as different cars of a train. Then notice the GAPS between the cars--those are the spaces that were NOT bad. So there is happiness (or at least not unhappiness) amidst crises.

This reminds me of what I have been reading about Teilhard in Towards a New Mysticism: Teilhard de Chardin and Eastern Religions by Ursula King. (This is an out-of-print book, but reasonably priced used copies are available.):

Teilhard's time as a stretcher-bearer in the front-lines of WWI was his choice so as not to "enjoy the relative privileges of an army chaplain" (27) . "The immensity of the war, the daily life at the Front, and face to face encounters with death provided a catalysing influence through which the mystical seer turned writer" (27-8).

"It was here, amidst blood, death and terror, that his tremendous vision of mankind belonging together first began to take shape" (28).

In fact, "when Teilhard's war letters were eventually published in 1961, Francois Mauriac commented: ' The most optimistic view a Christian thinker has ever held of this criminal world was conceived at Verdun; this frantic cry of hope has been uttered from an abyss. . . The same sort of courage which was necessary to hold out in the trenches of Verdun, was also necessary for conceiving thoughts as joyful as these, so permeated with hope'"(28).

Somehow Teilhard became aware of the Divine interconnecting the people, living and dying. The gaps showed him that surrounding each dark moment was Love.

So in our own visualizations of the difficult things we've endured or are worrying about, imagine each a railway car--So mind the gaps!

Remember that God is in the gaps.

Pray anyway/ any way

"Let your eyes look straight ahead, fix your gaze directly before you. 

Make level paths for your feet and take only ways that are firm. 

Do not swerve to the right or the left, keep your foot from evil."

Proverbs 4:25-27

Our lives are full of challenges...obstacles which God has already seen. Touching the heart of God through prayer on a regular basis will equip us to once again find the path when we have lost our way.

Please don't despair.

From Brother John, John Gaudraeu at Perfect Peace and Joy.

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