Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Bought With a Price on "HallelluiaWiin"

It was a beautiful full moon outside this morning. Awesome Glory of God shining in the sky on this remembrance day of all who have gone before us. We remember the dear and the darling who have gone on,as well as those whose memories are not so dear. Many days of the year my memories of the forfathers and mothers are intense, but I am grateful for a day that brings all of the memories into focus. Learning the lessons of the past and growing in the light of the lessons learned. We had the intensity of a week in CCU to cement this years memories into our hearts and minds. This October would have been Rev. Charles Walker's 100th birthday and we felt and discussed his memory in the hospital with spiritual benefit. Lessons learned this "heart attack" providence were numerable. We needn't fear the past and the souls that have taught us and brought us. I use many of the cliche's that are in my repertoir to sew the seeds of truth into the souls of my children. I love the stories that I received. I love the memories of my elders and I love how they come out in interaction in my busy and bustling household. I love this video that Carman put out years and years ago. It is one of Ethan's favorite. We needn't compete with the devil on Halloween or any other day. God is greater and has far more for those who are His own than any demon or witch could show. I love how Carman shows that the salvation of Christ is of more value than any curses a witch can pull up.

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

I didn't see the pictures of the tree fallen, but I can just imagine.

I am not unsympathetic to the horrible devastation that happened in the NY Metro area, but the tree in front of Grandma's house is saddening to me, inspite of other things that have happened. I guess, I wanted Stoney to grow up with the same tree that I grew up with. It reminds me of Aunt Gloria who came to Dad's wake with a story of the past that carried me back through time and helped me to see the loss in the light of eternity. She didn't cry at the look on his face and neither did uncle, she remembered. Right in front of me she went back to before he was born. She said, he looks like his great and large father. Look what a big man he became? She said when I met his father, I was a little girl and I used to swing from his arms like you swing from a tree. He was huge and fun to play with. I knew the big man who swung us around like that and I was able to rejoice in the memory that God allowed my father to get as big, or bigger than his father and just like a tree to swing us all from his arms. I thought that tree would shade Stoney "boy" and give him the sense of the past that I can't get to him to tell. I thought that it would tell him the stories of the arguments and fights we fought underneath it and the hopes for great and wonderful welcoming that we expected when we saw it on the way to Grandma Delapena's house. He is in the house and I guess he doesn't need me to tell him of the welcome in the house. My big boy is well on the way to becoming the tree that his grandpa and great grandpa was and it makes me think of the pipsqueaks who are coming up behind us. I am glad that no one was hurt at the loss of the tree, but I like to imagine that Aunt Glo told God to loosen that tree to help us appreciate and reminisce of the significance in these days when we have little ones to tell the stories to.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

CCU was such great care.

It was like halftime in the huddle. We had a Pastor come and give Ben a peptalk. You are not down, You are going to get up and do better than ever... The Body of Christ working together to enable each part to work fitly in their assigned positions. Man of God, this is a blip on the screen of life and eternity. This heart attack is designed by God for your good. With offense like that the quarterback can run for the touchdown, with confidence that he's on the right team. We are more than conquerors, even in trouble, through Christ. Thank God.

Saturday, October 20, 2012

UUUUUUGGGGGGH! The Hospital is taking good care of my sweetie pie.

Aunt Gwen captured the difficulty of recuperating in the hospital!

Thursday, October 11, 2012

My Baby Girl is 17

Oh what memories a birthday invokes. A baby girl, a delightful little girl and now a woman at 17, is my Evelyn. The tiny baby that never cried, until teething time has now come into a full bloom woman. I would sit her on my shoulder and do things around and about, now she puts me on her shoulder, so to speak. I was so scared she would choke on something or other, throughout the infancy. We came home from the hospital with a tiny ladybug on her shirt. I argued, no choking hazzards on my baby! She still totes her ladylike persona. She's come from Hello Kitty to nail polish and tassles. I am so grateful to God for 17 years of knowing her. The loss of Abby was so deep that I felt that the birth would never be over. We went on and on, loss after loss, blessing after blessing. God alone is worthy of praise in suffering and in delight. Sometimes, he dots our lives with both suffering and delight, simultaneously. He is the author of our life stories. He has given us much to praise Him for.

Monday, October 1, 2012

100 Years of Charles Walker's Family Legacy

100 years ago today was the birth of my father-in-law. He's gone on to glory and I remember the day with fondness. His son, was my treasure, so it behoved me to get to know this, influential man in his life. In the beginning, I never dreamed that the son was the clone of the father. Years have proven that to be the case. The first introduction rings in my memory forever. The service was exciting and powerful, but my dear heart was sleeping during the sermon. This should have appalled me, but it was really cute to me, as conservative and devout as I was, there was something unique that this junior deacon could sleep in the cacaphony that was the church around him. Maybe, I fell in love, right then. Maybe, that brought the pesky maternal instinct out in me. The icing on the cake was that, after the service he would introduce me to his father. There were so many culturally unique portions of the service and I had no interpreter, in those days. I remember that I didn't understand much, except that I had heard from a dear one that the Holy Ghost was among those people and I believed his testimony. I knew that Christ was preached and that I was too ignorant to understand the language. My heart was in my throat as they called, the man who I had met as Benjamin, Deacon Benji for the offering. He walked with a little strut and couldn't keep his head straight for anything. I had the great desire to grab his head and straighten it for him, but even that carefreeness, only endeared his person to me more. He took me by the hand after the amen and brought me out to meet his father, in person. I nearly fainted. Did I have to meet him today? Maybe we could wait for another day. This was the man who changed my life immensely. Ben said, Jayne, I would like you to meet the Reverend Charles Walker. What a formal way to introduce me to your father? I was struck by the intensity of the formality. We shook hands, "God bless you heaven smile upon you!" I felt welcomed and accepted. Was spirituality supposed to include welcomed and accepted? An interesting irony to my preconceived notions of Baptists this was. They were definitely Baptists and I wasn't sure if Baptists could be saved, except that my, very respected friend had already assured me that these people were the saved kind of Baptists. I know that I loved the Reverend instantly, though it took me quite a while to learn to love his sleeping in Church son. My first real conversation with Pastor Walker was in the kitchen of the family home. We sat at the table and I don't know where everybody else was, there was always a commotion. Maybe, everybody was there and I was just enamored with the Reverend. It is very possible for a gullible and Jesus loving young lady to become totally engulfed by the discussion of religion with such a dignified and elder preacher. This was perhaps the only conversation that I talked in. He asked question after question about the Bible. He listened and said very little. Who wrote the book of Proverbs? Who wrote the book of Leviticus? I answered, definitively and he said very little and then he left me. I would find out that this would never happen to me again. I was the learner in the relationship and he would establish that after awhile. But, at first, it served his purpose to make me think that I knew something and that he wanted to know that I knew something. The lesson over this 30 something years of knowing the man of my heart is submission and the importance of the spiritual above the intellectual. I would never, ever learned that lesson any other way. It was a wrestling match through life. You are looking at that through the microscope of the intellectual, he beckoned, very little can really be discerned that way. If it doesn't please God, what matters intellect? True, dear Father-in-law. I certainly wouldn't have missed that wrestling match for the world. From the heart of the one who gave me my name and my identity, as a wife and daughter-in-law, I am sure that I never thanked him enough.

Title- The Studious One!

Title-  The Studious One!
artwork by Elyse

Of biscuits and syrup

Of biscuits and syrup
tasty treats

Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday!
a day at the Raptor Center.

Widdle Emmie in outer space school

Emmie jumped on the bus and off it flew out into the atmosphere. There was a set of clouds with turbulence right above the house and it took a few minutes for my Emmie to buckle her seatbelt. They hit the bump hard and it knocked my Emmie out of her seat and she bumped her head. The video camera came on and the monitor looked through and stated, Ms. Emmie, where are you? You are not in your seat. Where are you? I am alright I fell because I hadn’t buckled correctly. Well jump up Emmie we have a long way to go and you have to be buckled there is entirely too much turbulence in the stratosphere for you to unbuckle now. As soon as we are through this weather system there will be straight sailing but right now you must buckle. Emmie scrambled into the seat with intensity and purpose now. She watched every cloud pass her window and her nose was pressed to the window trying to see the top of the house as it drifted slowly out of sight. Soon they were not only out of sight of the house, the sun came out brightly and just as quickly they were putting on the atmospherical breathing apparatus and the outerspherical lights. The ABA and the OL. These precautions were to make them appear to be satellites to the radar as they were out in the ionosphere. Emmie knew all about this now. She had gone to the orientation and had a good breakfast and it took them 20 minutes for her to get out past the atmospherical pull and to feel the zero gravity. It would be 15 minutes before the gravity simulators would take effect, a glitch in the system which was being worked on. Until then, they enjoyed the couple of minutes of floatation, while being connected to the seats by belt. The first thing they saw everyday was the strataflotsam. The items which had been dumped into the atmosphere by earlier generations. What would their generation do about this ecological waste area that remained floating above their heads? This was a question for the generations. For now it was the area that they had to guide through on the way to school.

Midnight at the OASIS

Midnight at the OASIS
Sunset in Huntersville

My little Emmie

ran to the bus on the first day of the last year of school. 2 buns on the side of her head. She kissed me and ran at dawn to the bus. She was starting the adventure of a lifetime. I would never see that little girl again, she was going to woman school!

My Father and I 1989

My Father and I 1989

to the tune of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

A VISIT TO PAPA











Are you going to Mary Immaculate?

Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Remember me to the one who lived there,



He once was a true love of mine,



Tell him to buy me an acre of land,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Between the muddy Hudson in Jamaica Bay,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,

Tell him to sow in it seeds of pure cream,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And build Ice cream mountains and buildings of whipped cream,

Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,



Tell him to reap them with sickles of M&M’s,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And chew bubble gum and eat till we’re done,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine.



Tell him to run it off down the motor parkway,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



After your done 50 pushups



and jog down the West Side Highway,



Then he’ll be a true love of mine…

(Don’t wait for me today dad, The kids are sick again, My tummy’s bulging again, My heart is aching again, And now there’s no love there…)





He once was, a true love of mine….So, Girls, I do beg you don't miss your Daddy,Apricots, Chocolate cherries and Pie,You have one short chance to see him on this side, Go visit him and let your light shine.