Adult children are a miracle

We all gaze with wonder at the miracle of  a newborn.    I pause to reflect on the miracle of adult children.    One can recognize the threads of hereditary family traits, shadows of

the growing-up years, and shared values, yet the whole is ever so much more than the sum of the familiar parts.    The remarkable  people with whom they have chosen to share their lives, their varied life experiences, what they have learned from the inevitable crises of things that go wrong. . .who are these people who grace my household?     They manage the chaos and cares of raising the next generation, replete with problems  of which we could never have dreamed.   They carry out careers with dimensions we find hard to understand.    They make surprising decisions which their father and mother would never have made - and the results seem to work out quite well.  Adult children are truly a miracle.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.     Kahlil Gibran

A Christmas thought

When God wants an important thing done in this world or a wrong righted, God goes about it in a very singular way.   God doesn't release thunderbolts or stir up earthquakes.   God simply has a tiny baby born, perhaps of a very humble home, perhaps of a very humble mother.    And God puts the idea or purpose into the mother's heart.   And she puts it in the baby's mind, and then God waits.

The great events of this world are not battles and elections and earthquakes and thunderbolts.   The great events are babies.  For each child comes with the message that God is not yet discouraged with humanity, but is still expecting goodwill to become incarnate in each human life.
                                                                 Edmond McDonald   Presbyterian Outlook

This I Believe

I believe that the smallest molecule of construction in the cause for peace is our personal speech.   What we say creates a ripple effect in interpersonal relationships and the world of our listeners is changed for good or for bad.

When we speak appreciation and gratitude, worry and whining take second place.   My Aunt Pauline, who suffered from dementia in her last years, repeated over and over. . ."We all have so much to be thankful for."  If one has to be stuck in perpetual repetition, here is a mantra.

Studies show that our immune systems responds to positive emotions.   Speak health and your body functions better.

We cannot abandon critical thinking to become Pollyanna, feeling sure that  "everything will be just fine."  Evil and injustice require honesty and problem-solving.   However, if we always look for what is right and magnify the good, we create an aura of happiness wherever we are.

When we speak peace, we create good will.   This I believe . . .

Health problems while travelling

At a recent reunion of college friends, two women recounted having gall bladder problems while traveling abroad.    My friend Sue had to have surgery in Moscow.    Fortunately, her daughter was traveling with her as their tour had to go on without them.    No one spoke English in the hospital; as they wheeled her to the operating room, the surgeon patted her arm and said, "No worry."     Sue said she was way past Worry and almost into Hysteria!     Fortunately all went well.

My friend Ronnie had a similar experience in Scotland.   Even though their vacations ended abruptly, they both said they came to appreciate the countries and their people because they were treated quite well as patients.     Not a convenient way to learn about other cultures!

Kermit the Frog

In an interview, Kermit, the famous frog puppet, was asked, "How do you feel about Jim Henson?"
(Henson was the creator of many of the Sesame Street puppets for television.)

Kermit, slowly and  thoughtfully answered:    "Well, it is kind of like religion. . . it is something deep inside. . .quite moving, really."
                                                                         - from Being Elmo, a documentary movie

The order of the universe

About 7 a.m. today, I stepped outside my door and looked up at the dark sky, bright with sparkling stars.
An immense feeling of awe overcame me.    The universe is ever so vast and orderly.    Within each human body a perfect order regulates our cells. . .fluids and electrolytes, pumping blood, oxygen exchanges with each breath.     Creation is so miraculous.    I feel humble and overcome with gratitude for existence.

California!

     Last week we were in Sacramento for a visit with Richard's brother Ray and his wife, Rosemary.   I was aware of many changes in the twenty years since our last California visit; medical marijuana is now in widespread use for not only pain in chronic disease, but also for acid reflux, insomnia, headaches, etc. One of the neighbors seems to be using it in his backyard.   The Feds are investigating profiteering and insist it is against national laws.   We read of shoot-outs in the foothills over marijuana patches - prescriptions seem to be readily available and providers are supposed to be non-profit.  
       Less smog in the air than when we visited decades ago due to  new car changes and smog checks on old cars, regulations on wood burning and other causes of pollution.    
       Bicycles are everywhere with lanes marked in most streets.   Some electric bicycles speed along.   In San Francisco, we were told that nude bicycle rides are the rage.    The city council is trying to prohibit nudity on public transportation; an ordinance has been introduced to require the nude to bring a towel with them if they are eating out in a restaurant!
         Farmers markets have sprung up all over the city; lush, beautiful fruits and vegetables, locally
grown, are in demand with crowds of shoppers.   Actually, everywhere we visited as tourists was full
of consumers who were buying products.
        Cell phone towers are cleverly and realistically disguised as tall pine trees - they actually look like
native trees.   California is always entertaining to a Midwesterner!

"The Second Arrow"

In my midnight perusing on the Internet, I found this intriguing statement:   "the second arrow" - Buddhists use this term to indicate  the pain of self-judgment compounding the pain of the actual experience.    So very human to wound oneself with the second arrow.    

Drug culture

Did you see "Winter's Bone"?    Did you hope it was fiction?    Eighteen miles from my central Missouri home last week, a kindergartner brought a crack pipe and three bags of methamphetamine to school for
show and tell.     Poor little child is now living with relatives.

From another blog. . .

"The ability of the rich to see the non-rich as the Other is unabated. . ."
                                      Review of the movie The Help by Susica on OpenSalon.com

A Breath of Fresh Air

  At the post office today, I met an old friend.   We visited about our children and agreed that if everything is going well with our kids, it is a day to praise the Lord.   Also agreed that complaining about life is a useless activity.   Then Eva said, "If one more person complains to me about the bad economy. . .      My whole life has been 'bad economy'.    I was born poor, I have never had anything and I am never going to have anything.   But I am O.K.    I am all right.    So let's just stop complaining."    
   Our conversation improved the quality of my day!

Togetherness

  David Brooks in his August 31 column refers to a scholarly review of happiness research by Elizabeth W. Dunn, Daniel T. Gilbert and Timothy D. Wilson.      They suggest  "buy experiences instead of things. . ."
Our recent family trip to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary was an example, for me, of an investment in an experience leading to happiness!    More money, more things, bigger and better  objects. . .nothing like
quality time together.    
      One night we played a game, "Life Stories",  in a crowded cabin living area with people answering questions such as "Describe a time when you felt proud of something you have done" or
"Tell a story you were once told about one of your relatives."     We laughed and laughed, sorry to have to quit at bedtime.
       In the same editorial, Brooks speaks of a Yiddish word, haimish  "which suggests warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality".     Memories of the very best of fifty years!

Hiking on the Red River ski area

Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration

Four families in four cabins  (we shared with Susanne and Jens and boys) - 24 of us altogether.   The kids fished from 6 a.m. until after dark using a flashlight.   Visited the Taos pueblo, white water rafting. . great fun for four days.

Family celebration!

Red River, New Mexico      The Raynor clan all together!

About foul language. . .

"Lack of civility in words bleeds into a lack of decency in behavior, and so it goes. . .

manners aren't just gray-haired pretensions practiced by smug elites on special occasions.

. . .They are the daily tithes we willingly surrender to civilization. . .

(Foul language) is a tiny act of violence against kindness, of which we surely could use more.

                                      Kathleen Parker    Kansas City Star    August 22, 2011

New Sport Invented in Kansas in June

Skateboard soccer was invented earlier this summer in Berryton, Kansas.   Originators of the game
are pictured above.

An old hymn for current times. . .

Written by S. Ralph Harlow eighty years ago, the lyrics of this hymn seem to speak to us today.
Especially the fourth verse. . .

O young and fearless Prophet of ancient Galilee,
Thy life is still a summons to serve humanity;
To make our thoughts and actions less prone to please the crowd,
To stand with humble courage for truth with hearts uncowed.

We marvel at the purpose that held Thee to Thy course
While ever on the hilltop before Thee loomed the cross;
Thy steadfast face set forward where love and duty shone,
While we betray so quickly and leave Thee there alone.

O help us stand unswerving against war’s bloody way,
Where hate and lust and falsehood hold back Christ’s holy sway;
Forbid false love of country that blinds us to His call,
Who lifts above the nations the unity of all.

Stir up in us a protest against our greed for wealth,
While others starve and hunger and plead for work and health;
Where homes with little children cry out for lack of bread,
Who live their years sore burdened beneath a gloomy dread.

Create in us the splendor that dawns when hearts are kind,
That knows not race nor station as boundaries of the mind;
That learns to value beauty, in heart, or brain, or soul,
And longs to bind God’s children into one perfect whole.

O young and fearless Prophet, we need Thy presence here,
Amid our pride and glory to see Thy face appear;
Once more to hear Thy challenge above our noisy day,
Again to lead us forward along God’s holy way.

Technology and the world

A Kansas City author, Rev. Robert Brumet, Birthing the Greater Reality, had this to say about technology and spirituality:
      "The paleontologist and Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (who was born in 1881 and died in 1955) developed a theory of the evolution of consciousness.     An invisible sphere of human thought-energy increasingly surrounds the earth, like the biosphere.   Although he did not specify a technology, his theory seems to point to what we now call cyberspace.
       "He called this sphere of information the 'noosphere' (from the Greek, nous, mind).   Technology strengthens the noosphere.   Indeed, technology and spiritual evolution are intrinsically woven together."

    ( from a July 13, 2011 article, "Technology Shapes Religion" by Vern Barnet in the  Kansas City Star)

A favorite Bible verse

A merry heart doeth good like a medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.   Proverbs   17:22

City Kitty Rescue Mission

Earlier this spring, my Kansas City grandchildren discovered baby kittens in distress.   Mother cat had put them in an old milk can in the barn.    Overnight rain had drenched them; the babies were covered with rust and filth and were not long for this world.    The rescuers sprang into action, bathing them, drying with a hair dryer and wrapping in towels on a heating pad!      Their mother found them, clean and fresh, in a box with old towels near their original location.   She sniffed them disdainfully and moved them to a better spot in the hay.

The Three Goals

The first goal is to see the thing itself
in and for itself, to see it simply and clearly
for what it is.
             No symbolism, please.

The second goal is to see each individual thing
as unified, as one, with all the other
ten thousand things.
              In this regard, a little wine helps a lot.

The third goal is to grasp the first and the second goals,
to see the universal and the particular,
simultaneously.
              Regarding this one, call me when you get it.
                                        David Budbill in "Good Poems"
                                           by Garrison Keillor

Faith

When you are young, faith is often a matter of rules.   What you should do and shouldn't do.   But as you get older, you realize that faith is really a matter of relationship with God, with the people around you, with members of your community.    (Quote from author's mother)
                            "Mennonite in a Little Black Dress"        Rhoda Janzsen

The Fence is Completed!

One-half mile of barbed wire fence keeps the cattle out of the 16 acres of woods in the back forty of the
Home Place.    The Missouri Conservation Department encourages fencing of woods for promotion of quail and other wildlife.   Cows eat down the undergrowth that serve as food and cover for wildlife.  Then, too,    maintaining the fence will be easier for Richard.   Trees fall over the fence that runs through the woods and over wet weather creeks, making it hard to repair.      A tremendous work project which was only completed with the cooperation of family members.

Vultures are Our Friends

Near the lake in the very nice housing area in which my daughter and her family live, many turkey vultures roost in a group of trees.     It is the hang-out for a "venue" of vultures as  my resources tell me is the name for a group.     The ugly creatures have bald heads to spare their feathers from getting messed up when they eat carrion.   As nature's garbage disposals, they clean up dead animal carcasses quickly and efficiently.    Vultures prefer to eat dead herbivores not dogs or cats or humans.     Their bodies are developed to protect them from bacteria;   waste excretions, a kind of white-wash, run down their legs and kill harmful bacteria.   They often can be seen perched with spread wings to cool their bodies.

There is a recorded instance of a vulture becoming attached to a boy and waiting for him at the school bus stop every day and hanging around his home at night.    We find these birds revolting because of their diet of death, but they are an important part of existence.

Housing development streets have "Bluebird Lanes" and "Redwing Drives", but I have never heard of an
address such as "999 East Vulture Roost"!

Old Sayings of my Youth

I grew up with the following gymnastic moral advice:  

keep your ear to the ground, your shoulder to the wheel, and your nose to the 

grindstone.   My parents, grandparents with whom I lived, and my teacher at the 

one room school I attended  peppered their daily words with adages.

Children truly were supposed to be seen and not heard.    One could hardly argue

with such sage words as “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched” or 

“Don’t cry over spilled milk.”   “A wise man never makes the same mistake twice.”

 Conversation ended right there with a statement of ultimate truth.   Self esteem

issues were not a consideration.

If you wanted to talk about an incident at school, there was little

probing to explore the situation.    “Not likely to happen again.   You know, lightening

never strikes twice in the same place.”    What seemed unfair to a child was completely  

disregarded.  “So what did you do  first that started all this?”

I believe it was Garrison Keillor who said that no real conversations ever took place 

when he was a kid.  Adults just tossed adages back and forth to each other as they 

related the community gossip of the day.   Hard and fast rules for living were 

reinforced among themselves and passed on to the youngest.

   

Perhaps the youth of today could use a little of this wisdom.    Based primarily on 

experiences of farm life or daily encounters with nature, aphorisms are hard for 

kids to understand in terms of their present indoor lives.   My grandson says,  “The early 

bird gets the what?”    Perhaps there are no “idle minds” in which  the devil can set up  

workshop with everyone plugged in to television,  video games, iPods, and cellphones.   

But  terse explanations of common sense simply are not around anymore.    “Don’t 

butter your bread too thick”    reined in my stories of great exaggeration quickly.

People rarely bragged on their children (“If you brag before a pup, it never barks as 

well afterward.”)     Still grandparents could express pride and say smugly,    “Cream 

will rise.”    Now there is a statement to bewilder my grandchildren!

Every culture has old sayings; metaphors succinctly capture meanings which would

take hours to convey.   We need a balance between  verbal capsules of morality 

and the emptiness of everyone plugged in to their separate electronic devices.     

There is no substitute for listening,  giving examples of life learning from personal 

experiences,    cherishing  questions and contributions from a child’s point of view.      

The mind is developed through the exchange of ideas.

Today’s gems of wisdom come from laugh lines in situation comedies or from 

celebrity sound bites.    Maybe from commercials on television.     Is this the 

wisdom of generations we will pass on?

Family Work Day on the Woods Fence

A Slow Spring

Easter is late.    The daffodils put on a lengthy show; the redbuds lingered and now the
dogwoods star!    We have muttered about 40 degree temperatures late into April.   But
Spring has prolonged her visit beautifully this year.

Putting up a new fence. . .

"The Grace of Silence"

In her memoir, Michelle Norris of NPR, says her racial identity was forged, among other things, by the
"constant expectation captured by one word:   rise.    Rise and shine.   Rise to the occasion.   Rise above it all.   No matter what, move forward, never backward, always onward and upward.   And if you ever feel like you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on until you can start climbing again. . .
stay strong.  keep committed.  Focus on the fight for justice and equality.   Set your sights on excellence and opportunity.  Don't let up.    Don't look back.   Don't slow down.   Ignore the slights and the slurs - and the laws - that try to keep you from achieving your goals . . . Our parents armed us with what they thought we needed:   strength, courage, and a touch of indignation.    But just a touch."  

The Happynomics of Life

Roger Cohen in The New York Times, 2/12/2011, reported that the British government  beginning immediately will regularly  ask the following questions of people asking them to respond on a scale of 0 to 10:   How happy did you feel yesterday?    How anxious did you feel yesterday?   How satisfied are you with your life nowadays?   To what extent do you feel the things in your life are worthwhile?  

The idea is to shift from the idea of financial prosperity to the idea of  emotional prosperity.    The G.E.P. - gross emotional prosperity rating.    To put value on things that don't have a price tag - nature, relationships,
the transcendent power of the human spirit.

Early spring in Texas

New green leaves on trees and blooms on the ornamental fruit trees and red buds surely look good to winter-weary eyes.    In February, El Paso suffered from the cold snap that much of the rest of the country endured and temperatures dropped to single digits.  Consequently, every palm tree in the city is dead.    A massive trimming action is underway in hopes that many of the trees will come back.  Cactus and dessert plantings took a beating as well.   A beautiful city looks kind of be-draggled.

Bill boards at strategic intervals here say:   Pray for Juarez during Lent            The situation there is lawless.         El Paso remains safe, however.     We will pray.      

Texas. . .Part II

We are in a different country. . .Part II:    In contrast to the impressions described in my last post, El Paso can be an example of a global workshop for peace at times.      Tonight we went to a Gospel  Concert at Montwood High School put on by the school choir and accompanied by the St. Mark United Methodist Church Praise Band in which  our son-in-law, Robert,  plays guitar.    Montwood H.S. is on the east side of the city; concentrations of black and Korean communities are in this area.     Americans of many ethnic backgrounds gathered together to sing, dance, and play contemporary gospel music in a concert to raise money for a Hispanic student with cancer.

"Music is healing,"  said Joe Estala, director of the St. Mark Praise Band and choir director at the high school.    The school commons rocked with loud music, singing and clapping; the crowd stood,  swayed to the rhythm and sang along.     And the Spirit fell. . .

Texas!

In Texas visiting grandchildren who are on spring break:

We are in a different country! Editorials in the El Paso Times speak of an incompetent Obama who should authorize military force in Libya. . .warn of the hidden welfare state in the U.S. - work retirement plans and employer funded health insurance, and suggest that democracy is impossible in the Middle East. A news article reports that certain companies here sometimes knowingly hire illegal immigrants and just before payday, they turn them in to the government.

A different slant on life than what we are accustomed.

Home again!

Home again to the fields and pastures and woods of rural Missouri! Cold weather still, but I saw a flock of robins and even heard spring peepers for a couple of hours this afternoon when the sun was shining. In London the crocus and daffodils were blooming; it was very early spring in spite of the damp chill and misting rain. I have felt wistful for Springtime.

Exciting here today. . .two ornithologists came to band birds at our feeders on the deck. They strung up filmy nets with pockets and caught almost 30 birds, weighing, measuring, and putting metal and color bands on their legs. I got to hold a downy woodpecker in my hand and release him again!

These little creatures are simply exquisite when you see them up close with every feather and detail of color completely perfect. God's world is a miracle.

Wikileaks. . .

Julian Assange, creator of Wikileaks which has revealed contents of diplomatic communications over the Internet, is accused of sexual assault in Sweden. He has been hiding out in London, but the UK recently decided to extradite him for his trial there.

Hilary Clinton, U.S. secretary of state, said she had to make an "apology tour", mostly embarrassing, gossipy revelations. It is the right of confidentiality in diplomatic conversations versus freedom of information.

At any rate, Assange has been hiding out in a flat above Frontline Restaurant, two blocks from the Hardvendel flat. We have eaten at the restaurant. . .it is run by former journalists. I understand that some or all of Wikileaks generated from here.

Interesting to be in the middle of a huge city where so much is going on. However, I am getting homesick for rural America and I will be glad to be back in Saline County.

On the way to Lundy. . .

The Isle of Lundy

From London to Lundy

Took a three day trip to the Isle of Lundy, a nature preserve in the Bristol Channel
run by Landmark Trust. The island is 3 and 1/2 miles long and 1/2 mile wide and is only reached in the winter by helicopter twice a week and a boat once a month. Bjorn and Thor loved the helicopter ride! We stayed in a renovated barn, cooked our meals as there is a small grocery on the island and a pub that serves 3 miles a day.
I kept my walks to the level plateau in the center, but the rest walked down steep steps to the quiet coast on the channel one day and on a narrow winding path on the Atlantic side the next day, seeing 30 foot waves. Seals, wild goats, deer, wild ponies and many black Lundy rabbits were sited.

Lundy was famous for pirates and smugglers and many shipwrecks on its rocky coasts.
Cold windy weather with misty rain and fog! We almost got stranded there on our exit day because the helicopters could not get in to get us. But there was a two hour window and they sent two helicopters instead of one to remove us to the mainland. A great adventure!

News Update

This is your 'man in London' reporting! Getting off the bus this afternoon at Hyde Park Corner, about 200 demonstrators were chanting outside the Libyan Embassy. London police were guarding the doors and BBC cameras and news vans were present. One large sign in English said, "China and Russia! Tell Ghaddafi to quit!"

This morning I was alone at the Starbucks on Susanne's block, writing in my journal. I overheard Americans talking- -I haven't heard an American drawl in 10 days. So presently I went over to their table and said, "Hi, where are you from?" And they replied, "Tripoli". I was quite taken back. The wives had gotten out last week and the two men came here yesterday. They were field engineers for oil companies. I asked them if they left everything, and they said, yes. . . even their pets. They are staying at the Marriott Hilton near here and do not know what is next.

"We are worried about our Libyan friends," they said, "The Libyan people are some of the nicest people in the world and they do not deserve this. Their ruler is a nutcase."

They asked when I was going back to the States. "Tell people that the Muslim people are not terrorists. They hate terrorists as much as Americans do." The two couples consider Houston their home, but they were Midwesterners, from Indiana.

Light and Inspiration

At 4:30 a.m. when I awoke to the nightly sounds of police and ambulance sirens, heavy traffic, and conversations in other languages drifting into my bedroom from the street outside, I thought about the Justin Bieber comments. How desperately we need to be able to see light and inspiration as reflected by Jesus in all kinds of people in order to persevere in our crazy world.

Justin Bieber . . .British Humor

Justin Bieber, 16 year old pop singer, is in London for BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Theatre Awards). According to The Guardian 2/25/11, Alexis Petridis, "Bieber's mom is apparently convinced she and her son were personally selected by God 'to bring light and inspiration to the world'." With the heavy cynicism of British humor, the editorialist continues. . . "This may amount to a certain scaling-down of ambition on the part of God, who previously opted to bring light and inspiration to the world by sending His only son to minister among us, heal lepers, walk on water, raise the dead, etc."

I say: "Give Justin and his mom a break. He is just a kid. Let them aim for the high road in living as celebrities."

Hello from London's Arab district. . .

Susanne has lived in Europe for 18 years and their flat is in Central London near Edgeware Road, the Arab district. We arrived here one week ago. One block away are Egyptian bookstores, halal restaurants (like Kosher for the Jewish), Lebanese food, etc., etc. The Friday that Mubarak fell in Egypt, this extremely busy thoroughfare closed with people of many nations celebrating in the street for Democracy! My daughter's family experiences here in the heart of British Muslim culture and my experiences in reading the London Times and |Guardian demonstrate that the vast majority of Muslims here are peace loving and want to live in a freedom type of society. My son-in-law travels on business to Abu Dhabi and Qatar and he also finds the Muslim people overwhelmingly oppose terrorism.

Terrorists in the Muslim religion are the Timothy McVeighs of Christianity. McVeigh was a practicing Catholic as I understand. Which means absolutely nothing about Catholicism, does it?

PEACE . . . SHALOM. . .SALAAM

"Amish Grace"

In a book about the forgiveness of the school shooting in Nickle Mines, Pennsylvania, two Amish
fathers are quoted as follows:

"The acid of hate destroys the container."

"We believe in letting our faith shine, but not shining it in the eyes of others."

Grandchildren in action:

More about poetry. . .

The poet Billy Collins theorized that babies and children respond quickly to poetry because in utero they are conditioned to the beat of their mother's heart in iambic meter. Nursery rhymes and children's songs capitalize on love of rhythmn. Collins said, "life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us." (Washington Post "Pearls before Breakfast" April 8 2007)

Aung San Suu Kyi spent 23 years as a political prisoner under house arrest in Burma. She says she developed her inner resources by "listening to BBC radio, practicing the piano, learning Japanese and . . .reading Tennyson. I became fonder of poetry than prose". (London Financial Times January 29/30 2011)

Birdwatching in the snow. . .

Poetry

Poetry has been on my mind lately because a group of my friends recently had a poetry night. For more than twenty years we have met regularly to talk about books, art, other subjects of interest. We call ourselves the "Inspiritice Society" because we inspire each other.

Every one brought a poem to read. . .ranging from classics to children's poems to contemporary strangeness. I brought my favorite collection, "Good Poems Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor"; others had tattered old editions from grade school or belonging to their parents. We kept thinking of fragments of this and that from the past, looking up snippets on our smart phones and finding the sum total and reading it aloud. Our hostess dressed all in black with a beret on her head - - a true beatnik!

Poetry connects with a different level of consciousness. Last summer I read about a man who always takes a book of poetry on his vacation and reads one a day in the late afternoon. He calls it his "cocktail hour."

The Snow Storm

The Snow-Storm

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hill and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden's end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Winter snowstorm

Walnut trees

About twenty five years ago, my father and I planted twenty small walnut twigs from the Missouri Conservation Department.
Two of these twigs developed into tall walnut trees in the old orchard at the farm. This year they were loaded with walnuts.
At $11 per hundred pounds of hulled nuts, I ascertained that our crop was probably valued at less than $5 total. But I picked up a couple of buckets full, spread them in our driveway to be hulled by frequent hits by the car and truck, then we carefully shelled them with a special heavy duty nutcracker. Enough to make the Apple Walnut Relish in the above mentioned recipe.

A connection to the earth and to harvest - be it ever so small!

Alexander McCall Smith

Thinking about her home in Africa, Precious Ramotswe says in the book, "In the Company of Cheerful Ladies": ". . . there is no point in throwing up one's hands in despair. People have always done that - the throwing up of hands, the shrug - but one got nowhere doing so. The world might have changed for the worse in some respects, but in others it is a much better place and it is important to remember this."

A recipe found!

Apple Relish

6 pounds peeled and chopped apples
2 oranges (juice)
1 1/2 pounds raisins
6 cups sugar
3/4 cup vinegar
2/3 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups walnuts
1/4 teaspoon cloves

Cook until thick, stirring occasionally. Put into hot sterilized jars and seal. Makes about 6 cups.
Serve with beef and pork.

A snowy day in Missouri. . .

Eight to ten inches of snow here. . .only four wheel drive vehicles out, which includes us. Six male cardinals lay aside their gender differences to share at my bird feeder today!

I am recalling holiday fun. Every year for the past three, I have created a family history story to tell. With grandchildren ages six to sixteen here, it is a challenge to hold their interest. This year I told the story of "Betsy, Hold on Tight!" : Richard's great=great grandmother, Elizabeth Wood Clark, was 14 when they moved from Virginia to Kentucky on foot and by covered wagon in 1814, taking the southern route to visit relatives and avoid the Appalachian mountains. Three related families (and their slaves) travelled and camped from fall until spring that year. Crossing the Pearl River in Mississippi (near the present town of Philadelphia, I think) waters were higher than they anticipated. Betsy was riding side saddle with a three year old brother in front and a five year old brother behind, when the current began to sweep her downstream. Her father, Caldwell Wood, rode into the swift current beside her and grabbed her saddle and the two horses side by side could make it to the other side.

Hard to imagine this episode in light of how overly protective we are of children these days! I had an old side saddle and had the kids act out the story with 13 year old Olivia Haug playing the part of Betsy. Caldwell Wood was a private in the American army at the Battle of Yorktown in the American Revolution. Several generations of American history became graphically alive in this family story. Thanks to an aunt, Grace Dixon, who wrote it all down as she remembered it being told by her great grandmother, the original Betsy, when Grace was a little girl.

Apologies

To explain the hiatus from blog entries: I was sick for 10 days over Christmas - flu, etc. My daughters and families took over cooking and everything household while I recuperated! Then my computer became completely overcome with Evil. So many viruses that it was impossible to straighten out. Richard went to Kansas City and bought me a Mac. Different operating system, so I am involved with learning new things which has slowed me down somewhat.

I pledge to keep up my blog better in 2011. In the ensuing tumult of rearranging my computer desk, I have misplaced my apple walnut relish recipe that I mentioned in my Christmas letter! Thank you for kind inquiries about where I have been. . .