Politics

After a long and wearisome election season, most of us are thankful for
relative peace and quiet . Frayed and worn, we long for a perspective of clarity and truth in our daily lives.

Sociologists say that each of us belongs to a variety of “tribes”: political parties, religious or ethnic groups, regional cultures, families, and age cohorts to name a few. But we are rarely defined by just one tribal outlook these days. The bitter election climate has served to separate us into factions according to opinion polls, stereotypes, strong feelings about current issues and the pain of personal problems, to name a few.

The reality is that each of us is infinitesimally complex, full of positives and negatives far too intricate to ever be described in media shorthand.

As John Stewart said in his closing remarks at his October 30 Rally to Restore Sanity at the Washington Monument Mall. . .
“Most Americans don’t live their lives as Republicans or Democrats, but as people who are just a little bit late for something they have to do, often something they do not want to do. But they do it. Some may paint the nation as fragile and torn by hate, but the truth is . . .we work together to get things done every damn day. . .There will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it is just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.”

Personally, I will try to overcome my tribal biases and accept each individual person or public figure I encounter as being something more than the narrow presentation the media portrays. I long for the restoration of sanity, the achievement of genuine working together in government for the benefit of civilization.. . just a few baby steps toward peace on earth.

Reminiscing

On a recent visit to my aunt in Tennessee, we were reminiscing about family stories from the past. My father, her brother, used to tell about participating in a WPA project to build a lake for water supply to the Missouri State School for the mentally retarded near Marshall. He took his team of red mules, "Woodrow" and "Kate", to join others in dredging the area for the lake. At night he boarded them in a barn nearby. One night Woodrow and Kate were able to open the barn door and they went back to the farm where they lived. . .10 miles away.

The Great Depression created a hardy breed of people. "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without" was a motto for my ancestors and many others.

Caution. . .

The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that you never know if they are genuine. Abraham Lincoln

(KC Star 11/8/10)

Applebutter Day 2010

It still comes to me occasionally on a fine day in autumn with a nostalgia that is not so much regional homesickness as it is a wish to find some fixed and constant thing in a world whose order is changed. I comfort myself that, even now, in some parts of Missouri there is a sound of applebutter kettles being dragged from lofts, of apple peelers whirring. . . A smell of woodsmoke, mingled with cider and cinnamon, fills the air while over it all hangs the haze of Indian summer. And someway, I feel that so long as Missourians are still making applebutter, the world can't be in too bad a shape. "Life Was Simpler Then" Loula Grace Erdman



Richard and I have dragged the family applebutter kettle out to the fire ring for the last time this fall. Friends and family have gathered together on our back hillside for thirty-five years this October; it has seemed to us to be a natural ending time. I reflect on the joys of roasting wieners at noon under the kettle and feasting on contributions from everyone who comes, followed by toasting marshmallows by the young.



Family and friends have checked in from all points: Kansas, Texas, Arkansas, Arizona, California, New York, Iowa, Colorado, England, Australia.

Children spend the day out of doors, riding on hay bales in the trailer behind the tractor, painting or carving soap, playing in the woods or in the tree house.

The kids have loved helping to make cider in the antique press, and we quickly drank every last drop as it was squeezed.



The satisfaction of the work of peeling, stirring constantly, and canning dozens of quarts of applebutter is impossible to describe. Friends and family have labored as a team to produce "summer's sweetness stored away." Certainly, nostalgia hangs about the event like smoke from the fire. I join with the author quoted above in hoping that Missourians will continue making applebutter, perhaps in a few copper kettles, but primarily now, I know,slow cookers and roasting pans in the oven will be the vessels. Thirty-five years is quite enough for our personal contribution. . .we are on to other projects.



I am presently pondering how to crack a small quantity of home-grown Missouri walnuts for a few jars of apple-walnut relish, a much simpler venture.

In a world whose order has changed, connecting with earth and harvest is intensely satisfying.

On facts. . .

To treat your facts with imagination is one thing,
to imagine your facts is another.
John Borroughs

Home Sweet Home

Thoughts

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius

Hot Summer Evening. . .

Loose Leaf Lives

When your options are either to revise your beliefs or to reject a person, look again. Any formula for living that is too cramped for the human situation cries for rethinking. Hardcover catechisms are a contradiction to our loose-leaf lives. Gerhard Frost

Adult growth and development?

"Between the ages of twenty and forty, we are engaged in the process of discovering who we are, which involves learning the difference between accidental limitations which it is our duty to outgrow and the necessary limitations of our nature beyond which we cannot trespass with impunity."
A.H. Auden

Iowa Wedding

Order of Ceremony:
(Cliff Note Version)

People Show Up

People Sit Down

A Bit of Music

Walking Down the Aisle

The Preacher Speaks

Yada, Yadda, Yadda. . .

A KISS!

People Applaud and Blow Bubbles

Let's Eat!!

(oh wait, pictures first, see you at 5 p.m.)

Secrets of Adulthood

Excerpts from a list by Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

People don't notice your mistakes as much as you think.
It is okay to ask for help.
Do good, feel good.
It is important to be nice to everyone.
By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished.
Turning the computer off and on a few times often fixes a glitch.
If you can't find something, clean up your living space.
You can choose what you do; you can't choose what you like to do.
What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.
You don't have to be good at everything.
Don't let the perfect be an enemy of the good.

Inspiration for tough times

These words from dailyword.com (July 24, 2010) have been an inspiration to me lately:

Protection. . .

The presence and power of God are my protection.
In my prayers and anytime I notice doubt or fear creeping into mind, I remind myself that I am always in God's care.
Perhaps a situation is troubling me and my imagination is running rampant. Instead of giving into it, I redirect my focus to the protective Presence within and around me. Silently or aloud I affirm: The presence and power of God are my protection. As I repeat these words and take them to heart, any anxious thoughts are calmed. I relax into the clear knowing that God is always with me.
I know this truth for others as well. I visualize divine light surrounding my dear ones near and far. With peace and assurance, I say, "All is well."

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.--Psalm 46:1

Grace

My daughter's problems were due to a severe tonsil infection, not lymphoma. We are most humbly thankful!

Family Crises

My daughter in London has had a tonsillectomy and lymph node biopsy to see if her lymphoma has returned. Another daughter and her 13 year old are going to London tomorrow to help with the 3 and 6 year old boys. We stand together as a family and pray.

God within me, God without,
How shall I ever be in doubt?
There is no place where I may go
and not there see God's face, not know
I am God's vision and God's ears
So through the harvest of my years
I am the Sower and the Sown
God's self unfolding and God's own.

From a tenth-century gravestone,
St. Lars Church, Linkoping, Sweden

Arkansas Celebration

A charming simple wedding in a historic church in Petit Jean State Park near Conway, Arkansas!

"Oh, come, come, come to the church in the wildwood
Oh, come to the church in the vale
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale. . ."
"The Church in the Wildwood" hymn

From the National Coalition for the Homeless. . .

I have no idea how to help millions of homeless Americans.
I have no idea how to help millions of homeless.
I have no idea how to help millions.
I have no idea how to help.
I have no idea how.
I have no idea.
I have.

Annual United Methodist Conference - Springfield, Missouri

The Sunday worship service was held this year in the Juanita G. Hammonds Center for Performing Arts near the Missouri State University campus for the first time. Inspirational music and an outstanding sermon concluded with a communion service. The Performing Arts Hall has no center aisle and 80 seat rows stretch across the auditorium. Instructions to the 1800 attendees were to turn left down the row of seats in front of you, receive communion at the far wall, and turn right down your row to return to your seat.

After reverently receiving communion, we found other people in the next row! Complete chaos ensued as no one could get back to their seats. I have never seen such joyous confusion. People smiled, shook hands, laughed and kept milling about trying to get back to where they had started.
Special needs people in walkers and wheelchairs just gave up and headed to the outside foyer. The music was provided by two impressive church choirs and a flute ensemble of 12 who kept repeating their selections over and over until finally, people were able to sit down again.

The bishop stood up and said, “By the grace of God, it worked.”

I think this is a metaphor for how United Methodists get things done. Perhaps for life itself. By the grace of God, it works.

Celebrations

Fifty years of friendships. . .fifty years of bonds between people working and having fun together, raising their children and living in neighborhoods together, engaging in community projects and organizations together.
People who share values and concerns and who make good things happen for each other. . .

Friends recently hosted an anniversary celebration: a celebration for all of us who have exuberantly participated in the continuity of small town life, who have watched ties between our own children and their friends, between people whom we have seen grow up before our eyes and whom have become personal friends as adults.

Joys and sorrows crisscross as we have lost some whom we love. Troubles have been there. But gossamer threads have encircled us as we have grown and changed over the years.

Nowhere today do I see a public account of the richness of life which many of us have experienced together in decades of living in rural Mid-America.
Do people know what they are missing?

A Native American story

A grandfather tells his grandchild about spiritual struggle and growth in this way: "Inside me there are two wolves who fight each other all the time. One is motivated by peace, gentleness, honesty, justice, and love. The other lives by resentment, bitterness, hate, anger, and violence."
"Which one wins?" asks the child.
"The one I feed." answers the elder. (From Five Practices of Fruitful Living
by Robert Schnase)

The Age of Misinformation

David and Barbara Mikkelson who operate snopes.com in Southern California
receive eight million inquiries a day about the truth of internet messages. They strive to remain apolitical and their income comes from advertisers on the site.
"Rumors are a great source of comfort to people," they say, "When you are looking at truth versus gossip, truth doesn't stand a chance."

Still it is very nice to have a place to check out outrageous claims and get the facts.

Wordsworth Revisited

On a country drive north of London earlier this month, I spotted this scene and was reminded of a Wordsworth poem. Could only remember one line which I looked up on my daughter's iPhone and instantly the verses were at my fingertips!

I wondered lonely as a cloud
That floats high oer vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze

. . .(verses omitted)

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

I reflected on "the bliss of solitude". . .does the youngest generation recognize it? Has the "inward eye" been developed?

Probably. I believe the inward eye is an integral part of the human brain; exercise is important to its development, however. Who knows? Perhaps constant music from an Ipod exercises the development of the inner eye. Music is powerful.

Because I could immediately access the words of William Wordworth in the rental car in rural England, my life was enhanced. The electronic tech-savvy
generation have wonderful new levels in the pleasures of the mind.

Sooner or later, every human is faced with solitude-sometimes blissful, sometimes as a cold black wall. Life should always include a search for inspiration for the inward eye.

Return to Unites States!

Just for the record. . .we left the UK twenty four hours before the volcanic ash
problem grounded all flights! Extremely good fortune.

Another election

The United Kingdom prepares for a national election between Gordon Brown, Labor party, and David Cameron, Tory. (Also the Liberal Democrats who are a minority, however.) Ordinarily I pay little attention to British politics, but there is something refreshing to me to hear about another nation's problems instead of our own. Liberal versus conservative, a sluggish economy versus funding for social justice: does it sound familiar?

Probably just as mean-spirited, too, but I am simply an observer. Both parties have hired the Washington, D.C., agencies that worked in the Obama campaign. British humor, as organized by The Guardian, has invented a tee-shirt slogan, "Step Outside, Posh Boy" which refers to Gordon Brown's legendary bad temper and David Cameron as heir to a baronetcy.

Let someone else suffer through the rumors and the opinion polls. I will just watch.

London

I know I am in London when. . .

- the Easter church service is followed by a "fizz reception" in the back of the sanctuary
(St. John's, Hyde Park, Church of England)

-my grandson asks me which is my favorite football team? I pause, searching deep into my mind, and say, "Manchester United". Is that David Beckham? What do I know? But it was a satisfactory answer, apparently.

-hot cross buns are for sale at every bakery.

-according to the television news, the hibernation is over.

A dividend from taxes. . .

While we were at our annual tax preparation session this month, our accountant, Ron T. from Sedalia, said that he has had a stressful tax season this year. His father died quite recently.

"I learned from him my entire life," he said, "and I especially learned from him the last few weeks of his life when his health was failing. . .the way he faced everything."


I have never heard a more moving tribute to a parent. Food for thought.

Health Care Reform

Our family rejoices at the passage of Health Care Reform! We feel it is as important as the civil rights legislation. Hallelujah!

Aging Productively

No one can avoid aging, but aging productively is something else.

Katharine Graham



Thoughts on aging productively of which I often need reminding: Rarely is anyone interested in more than a brief overview of personal health problems. I maintain that everyone has the right to complain once a day; after that, please enter the "ministry of the shut mouth." (John Ortberg)


Negative talk about your health or about politics or about the weather for more than a few minutes drags down everyone. People do not like to be around the aging whiner. I am aware that when you feel bad, it is hard to think of anything else. But personal experience with older people who live with grace has demonstrated to me that positive talk is very attractive.


For me, a cardinal rule is avoiding the standard lines such as "I am having a senior moment" or the jokes about old men and old women. Such conversation is equal to going around saying "I am so dumb" which everyone acknowledges is self defeating. "Ageism" goes un-noticed, unlike sexism and racism.



Listening, thinking of others and being interested in contemporary society can help us age productively.

Spring in the Mid-West

Spring in the Middle West. . .does not come all of a sudden as if it had been waiting all the time around the corner. No. It takes a long time to get ready. First, it has to clean up after Winter.

“You got any snow left, old man,” Spring says to Winter, “You get rid of it now because it won’t keep until next year. And make it snappy! I want to move in now.”

Then it snows like it never snowed before. Old-timers sit around the stove and say it’s Winter’s last howl. Winter is getting pretty tired by then – getting rid of all that snow-and he limps up north to join the other Winters waiting there.

Then Spring hollers: “Hey, Sun! Let’s go.”

Sun leans down and breathes hard on Snow and makes it change into water. First, Water fills peoples’ basements, then the street gutters. Then it fills up the River.

“Take it easy, Spring, will you?” Says River. “I’m getting high on water. I can take just so much and no more.” The old-timers say, “worst flood in years! Its in all the papers.”

Spring says, Okay, Sun. That’s it! Get lost for a few days.”

And Spring calls in the Four Winds. They all blow in at once. “Hey, fellers, clean up that mess down there, will you? And make it quick. I am running late this year.”

So Winds blow every which way. They get rid of all the water all right, but they get excited and knock off chimneys and pull up trees and lift up houses and set them down on River. Old-timers say, “I’ll take a blizzard any day. They can keep their tornadoes.”

Spring says, “Hold it, Winds. Don’t overdo it. You can beat it now. But you, South Wind, stick around, I need you.”

“Anything I can do for you, Spring, just ask,” says South Wind.

“Okay! Blow me in, boy. Blow me in gently and blow around me when I’m in.”

And then it is Spring. (Joy in the Morning Betty Smith)

"Three Cups of Tea"

In his book, "Three Cups of Tea", Greg Mortenson speaks of his efforts to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan. "...slowly, we can encourage modern education, encourage the people to send boys and girls to school. If we invest, it will come back to us. We have to deal with problems of tradition and culture. But we can stop extremism. If people are educated, we can fight against poverty, cruelty and injustice," said Shaukat Ali, a former Kashmiri freedom fighter and Taliban member who now teaches at the Gundi Piran school. In particular, educating girls is the ticket to fighting terrorism. Greg's organization, the Central Asia Institute, has built over 50 schools in remote areas. Ignorance is the enemy.

Blessings

In a winter when the weather reporter says, “Chance of sunshine” instead of
“Chance of rain or snow”, I pause to think of blessings:

For strong coffee
Cinnamon toast
Cheerful friends with a zest for life
Stimulating conversations
Projects and goals
Health
Miracle recoveries of the very sick
For strong families focused on values
Laughter
Big sisters
Legos
Unique and interesting grandchildren
First grade basketball games
Good books
Hardworking, creative sons-in-law
For my husband
Caring daughters
Newspapers
New things to learn
Inspiring older people who live with grace

Breakfast Menu

From a highly original breakfast menu in a cafe in Southern New Mexico:

"Things You Eat With Syrup"
. . .

"All Egg Orders Served with Fruit - Except for Exceptions"

In Memory: Margaret Hackler Hill 1907 -2010

Look for the beautiful, look for the true;
Look for the beautiful, life's journey thro',
Seeking true loveliness, joy you will know,
As to the home above onward you go.

Think of the beautiful, think of the pure;
Only the beautiful long can endure.
God to His lowly ones"giveth more grace";
None but the pure in heart look on his face.

Speak of the beautiful, speak of the pure;
These to eternity fadeless endure.
Error shall vanish soon, evil decay;
God and the beautiful pass not away.

Refrain: Look for the beautiful, seek to find the true,
God and the beautiful will dwell with you;
Look for the beautiful, seek to find the true,
You shall be beautiful, beautiful within.

Hymn words and music: Thoro Harris, 1911

Paranoia? No. . .

Of course, I knew that this blog goes out into the cybersphere. But I was startled when within seconds of my last entry, an advertisement for fresh begonias appeared in the sidebar of my server page. We are being watched. . .

My Calendar

Martha Stewart's published January calendar listed for Thursday this week:
"Bathe the cats." I pass on this suggestion. Also listed this week: "Decorate the house with fresh begonias." Likewise, I pass.

Lessons learned

Snowbound here in Missouri. . .I am reflecting on things I have learned in life.
After an emotional trauma in my life, -- sadness, anger, or embarrassment -- due to actions of myself or others, I have found that weeks, months, or maybe even years later, a great learning has taken place. At first, one is consumed with feelings of regret and blame, but very slowly the human mind assimilates new thinking. Sometimes new rules for the way to live come into being. I learned to avoid openly discussing what I regarded as my shortcomings in a work situation; unscrupulous co-workers will happily use those words to excuse their own failings. Friends who have been divorced for decades have disclosed that now they understand why the break-up occurred, while at the time, they only felt grief and wrath.

An older friend, raised comfortably in a city home, married into a farm family in the thirties. She had to learn to do laundry without indoor plumbing, how to raise chickens for eggs and meat, garden and preserve huge quantities of food for winter use. I asked her how she adjusted to such radical change. "It was a lesson to be learned," she said.

Sounds trite, but it is true. Preserve us from bitterness when life does not go our way.