Bathing Decisions in Prayer!

Take it to Jesus.

Often my mind and yours are filled with concerns about what to do and how to accomplish the things we visualize. We know that God has the world in his hands. We know that God is in control, still we fume about how this or that thing will get accomplished. You know what I am talking about.

I have met some prayer warriors in my life, who have kept me focused on the reality of the warfare of our prayers and our consistency to the truth of God's purposes in our lives. So many people and principalities try to prove their reality through our compromises. We live in confession and repentance and the devil holds these inconsistencies over our heads. I told you God is not true, he whispers in our ears.

Let God be true and every man a liar!

Get some energy, by having gone to 6am prayer. Get up and don't give up on God's purposes in your life. Hold on to the promises of Christ for your life and don't let little things make you let go of a great thing!

Love looks good on you!

I have seen you in a lot of beautiful clothes and seasons. I remember the first grade graduation dress from Aunt Dottie. But, I declare that I haven't seen you look more beautiful, than when you are in love. I had to put it as my screen saver on my tablet. You have that wonderful glow of real and true love. Whether or not this pans out to become the calling on your life, this season will be remembered in my life as the most beautiful that I've seen on you. I had to play Olivia Newton John's song, after I got off the phone with you."I, Honestly Love You" You know that it doesn't matter if this is a lifelong love or just a season that God is using to season you for the real thing. Enjoy the process of making a life long lover out of a pragmatic and principled Theologian and woman of God! I love you for letting me into your growth in principles and conviction. I title this chapter "The Conviction to Love!"

All Men Are Created Equal: George HW Bush helped that truth along in his life and in his term as President-God Bless America as we mourn.

Defense of the Gospel

Defense of the family

Defense of the Church

Defense of the Peace

Letters from a Kinder, Gentler Republic:

In Honor of the Legacy of George HW Bush:

We hold these truths to be self evident…

I honor the respect that George HW Bush paid to that extreme truth, He seemed to really embrace the reality that his personal bias that he had embraced from his youth was his to restore. I hold this to be self evident in his short and single term. He, at first seemed a political patsy and a figurehead. I, personally couldn’t get my head around the term “kinder, gentler”. we are at war, man! was my continual argument. Where is the bite? Where is the outrage that these dear little ones are destroyed every day?

That was my perspective and I was reared in a militant household and had embraced the violent tactics of that upbringing. He had as well and I love him for teaching me that coming to center isn’t enough, even in violent times. He was a child and an adult in the days of Martin Luther King and had been touched by that faith system intensely, but he seemed to know that his embracing of these tactics had to be expressed in the language of the “GOBC”. He did just that! He didn’t talk about it much, but Kinder and Gentler were a war cry for the group who couldn’t articulate their newfound repentance and faith in peace and peaceful unification of the country.

I don’t agree with taking the issue of abortion captive to that ideal, but I understand his sentiments, in retrospect. I love him all the more for the embrace of the peaceful tactics of the civil rights movement. Still, I think his sentiments were true, yet misguided when it comes to the issue of abortion. God doesn’t call us to draw unity at the death of the unborn. We can’t be gentle about the violent ripping of the children from the wombs. And moreover, we cannot use the Church to barter for the unity of the nation. That is wrong! whatever your political persuasion.

Kinder and Gentler Nation refers to race relations in America. I see that now. At the time, I said, "what are you talking about, man! Where is the kindness in what you are doing to the church? where is the gentleness in what you are doing to the people of God in America?" That was a deception of the enemy. We are called to defend the faith. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, not breeding death and not something that we can see. I am learning in my old age that they are not even in debate and discussion. Those techniques are just as carnal and physical as guns and knives, sometimes.

This is about the Legacy of George HW Bush,

who I voted for, inspite of his ambiguity of speech concerning the things that I regard as important in our current political climate, “the life of the unborn”. If we are Christians we are not fighting the civil rights movement for any other group but the unborn, until they aren’t hunted anymore.

I sometimes forget that the earlier generation had an axe to grind about Black and White issues and that is what George HW made clear he was dealing with. He planted another African American on the Bench instead of Thurgood Marshall. He used his term to make a statement about the fact that there are conservative African Americans in this country who have a right to be represented on the bench as well as the liberal ones. Why? that was quite a battle for the 1960’s and 70’s hippified Americans. Liberality in those days meant Blacks opened the door for the other "everybody’s", except the unborn, ie. Homosexuals, etc. If we don’t take it that way, we are missing what the “Revolution” was supposed to be about. NO! Other people groups need representation, But that wasn't what George HW Bush was sent to the Presidency to rectify. He took his task in hand and did that one thing and got accomplished what he was sent to do. We will always have disagreements on policy about things of policy and cooperation, but we can't get tangled in the muck of putting everything in one pot and pulling out whatever comes as the most important topic. We have to address what is before us. I think He showed me that.

Sin is not being a Liberal. Liberal doesn’t mean accepting sinful behaviors and creating a "kinder, gentler" world doesn’t include a blanket statement on who we will reconcile with next. Killing babies and the elderly is still a violence that we must stand against.

The whites who called in the cavalry at every insurrection of the Black man in the 50’s and 60’s had to give some on those issues and Bush was the tool in the shed to make that issue clear to the world. It is a new day for conservatism. Perhaps he went too far and opened the door to compromise on the issues of life and faith. If so, it is our job to close that door, here and now. Read my lips, the Church is not for sale at any price! The Unity of God's church is more important than what people think I am. {my reputation} He really showed us that.

George HW Bush was faithful to the task that was given to him. He didn't compromise his racial bias and embraced a man who was not the same color as he was for Supreme Court. People ridiculed his choice and his Texan style, but he represented the silent and true faith in a God who is growing us all from Faith to faith.

100 years since the clouds of war started clearing?

We lost so very much in WWI and we know that our preservation of life was worth it. It was certain that the protection of peace and safety was worth the cost of war 100 years ago. Now the sense of safety and peace are not so simply expressed or determined. Can the world around us tell us not to be nationalistic? Can another country tell us when we feel invaded and unsafe?

I'm afraid they cannot. The polls and the people tell us that we need to regroup and find equilibrium. We need a sense of internal balance that comes from our country being and knowing nationalism. Why don't we defend our president's right to express our independence from globalism to the rest of the world. Is it against the creeds of universalism that they have forged and were going to make us drink as they did Roe v. Wade? I think it was.

Dear Lord, help us find peace and safety in the love of our country learning and being what it is and was supposed to represent: One Nation, Under God...

May those who oppose our nationalism also deny their own nationalisms, as well.

We must care for the weak and frail country that is left this few 100 years after the armistice! God give us grace to do so. Amen.

The God We serve will make His presence known!

While everlasting love displays The choicest of her stores.

How Sweet and Awful Is the Place ST. COLUMBA Author: Isaac Watts, 1674-1748 Musician: Ancient Irish Melody

How sweet and awful is the place With Christ within the doors, While everlasting love displays The choicest of her stores.

While all our hearts and all our songs Join to admire the feast, Each of us cries, with thankful tongues, "Lord, why was I a guest?"

"Why was I made to hear Thy voice, And enter while there's room, When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?"

'Twas the same love that spread the feast That sweetly forced us in; Else we had still refused to taste, And perished in our sin.

Pity the nations, O our God, Constrain the earth to come; Send Thy victorious word abroad, And bring the strangers home.

We long to see Thy churches full, That all the chosen race May, with one voice and heart and soul, Sing Thy redeeming grace.

Indeed it is sweet and Awesome, when Christ displays "Heaven's Choicest Stores" to us.

Working among children gives you a perspective of both the beauty of Heaven's Stores and Hell's Fury. The beauty of their little faces and their little ambitions, unfettered by the stumbling blocks that we have accumulated to ourselves. The surety that they can do things that are clearly above them. The wonder of their unsquashed dreams is amazing. Soon into caring for them we see the ambitions of selfishness and hellish habits beginning to form. But, while they are asleep and while they are young, they show some of the most beautiful of the "Choicest of Heaven's Stores".

When thousands make a wretched choice, And rather starve than come?"

I do love the choice of the word choice that ancient Mr. Watts used to describe, both the beauty of heaven and the reality of Hell in our souls.

Are we in the Heavens Choicest Stores or the "Wretchedness of the Starving Choice"?

We know if we are!

Heal Our Land!

This Trip Back into the City, God restored parts of myself...

I never expect a trip to NY to give me anything. I anticipate the horrible sense of withdrawal that I get when I have to let go. I never expect to get any spiritual gifts from the visit. I really don't want to hang on to a lamp post and embarrass myself in my children's eyes as I cry for them not to take me from the city. I keep my mind away from what a visit to NY will do to me.

How can somebody love a city? How can you love such a city? I can't help it. I miss the Cross Island to the Cross Bronx and the LIE to the deepest subway station. I start my rant in my heart, from the moment we say let's go. I imagine myself moving into the subway station at Parsons and living inside the columns that hold up the ceiling. "Listen, lady", the cop would say. "You cannot move in here!"

God knows my heart. He absolutely shows me that he understands my pain. He took on cloud duty on this trip and was making funny faces all the way from the beginning to the end of the trip. That made me more scared. Why would God enter into this little trip to visit family and escape from the storm? God moves in a mysterious way lyrics came to mind:

Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face...

I saw the smiling and jokey faces in the clouds and couldn't help but laugh that He is that humorous and interactive. Now I was really scared. Is there a special sin for thinking about God as a humorist? That is not a sober thought, perhaps not a sane thought. Anyway, that was my thought.

As we crossed the GWB 3 chilling cool senses touched the right side of my head. They were truly cool and sensed. Just as strong as a person touching me on my head, these feelings were on my head for just a moment and then they were gone. Immediately the knowledge of directions flooded in and the memories of prayerful motivations flooded in. The many days of sitting in traffic facing the opposite way and hoping to carry some of the burdens of prayer to a meeting of the saints, seemed like a solid thing, not an impulse.

I don't believe that my city is the city of destruction anymore. I love this city and I want to see it in heaven with me. How imbecilic of a thought to think that God can save this inanimate object that you love?

That is me. I love this inanimate object that represents millions and millions of people's hearts and minds and ambitions and commitments. Shame on me. Concern yourself about your own ambitions and family and stop making the city your own. God let me know that He loves them more than I do. God let me know that my heart is not big enough to hold a city, but His is. I am certainly glad of that! I can leave the city in His magnificent hands and know that He's got this!

I didn't cry one tear on the way home and I didn't move into the subway. I was able to let go again and know He can hold me through this detachment again.

Temper Tantrums and Post Partum?

I do dearly hope that your every dream comes true. My imagination that the US Open would have Black Women in the finals came true yesterday. I felt like my soul was hanging in the balance as these amazing swashbuckling women hit harder and harder than I ever dreamed that the ball could go. I could see the confidence and the determination that makes winners and the strength of mind and heart that can be overcome to become a loser. She didn't imagine that a ball could come at her as hard as she has hit at other people. She didn't imagine that a person could challenge her every resolve to get up from the floor.

Serena was bettered! I thought I would never see that day. I thought those girls would just retire and leave the game bereft of any following in their footsteps of hard and fast and powerful matches. I like the feminine game. I like to see long rallies and finesse, but I love what the Williams' have done to the game as well. I thought that perhaps there were a way to create two different games out of what they had done.

I drooled this past year to see the longer matches and dramatic athletacism that the younger players were enjoying while the most recent Queen of the Courts took her sabbatical. I loved reminiscing about what women's tennis used to be. It all came together, when those women bashed the mess out of those cans of balls, yesterday.

I remembered the day that Martina, said "why can't we go to the net, like the men?" I remembered how my father was trying to drill that kind of venomous determination into my game. What is woman's tennis and what is neutral? How could followers of "Chrissy style" of game ever become aggressive hard-hitting bashers of the ball? My dad thought you could just put a new piece into my game, like a vacuum cleaner and create "more power".

Like going to the store for a personality and a play style was yesterday's game. That is what I wanted you to do and be. Keep your feminine demeanor and smash that ball, like I know you can. That is going to take 2 more generations of play, Dad. I wanna be Chrissy! I wanna be a ball move and spinner. I wanna run around the court and hit my two handed backhand from the baseline until the cows come home. I loved feminine Tennis. He saw the future and the masculine side of the game. Don't even think, just bash it! He indeed did beat that reflex into my game, but a part of me died, trying to get to that game.

I saw the mantle passed. I saw whaat Dad was saying and we all genuflect to an amazing new generation who loved gramps enough to see that there is no dichotomy between femininity and power! I love you Serena!

I am amazed by Naomi!

It is YOUR TURN! don't you ever stop crying!

Glad you are feeling better!

I would try a little fried okra for any residual congestion, there might be. I know you might not like it, but it never fails to do the trick for my persistent coughs and colds. I am going to be taking some today, just for the symptoms that I am having from hearing about your house's creeping cruds.

NY is full of germs, as you are quite aware. That many people sharing seats and handles of things can't help but breed the worst of sicknesses. Don't be deceived, like Pocahontas. Delicate bodies, like ours, reared in the seclusion of the burbs, are always hotbeds for the worst of sicknesses. What makes city bodies stronger, can truly take us under. Don't you forget it and if you dare try to catch small pox, there in the city, I will come there even into your grave! Don't think you are getting away from me that easy!

the Queens Aviary

While in New York, please don't forget to take my baby to the zoo!

Fear is Crippling, Fear of God is Empowering

Everyday, I face the fears that my father impressed into my soul. There are rational fears and there are irrational ones. When I look at my Zayden, I understand the depth of some of the fears that my father expressed, regularly. Because we loved him, we embraced his fears and some of them came to rest in our own souls to be brought to the cross, in the sanctification process. When I see the things that bring my Zayden to a fluster, because he can't move the large pieces of his body at his own will. "Someone has to move me. What if they don't come to me?" He cries so pitifully. I am trying to help him learn to move those parts of his body to get around, but until then, we can't just let the other children climb on him. When I went to the beach, I remember the enormous fear that was my father's that one of the children would drown. He couldn't save us. He never went in, He just stayed on the sidelines in that ocean "discotec". The dance floor was his freedom. He couldn't move any better, in any other arena than that. Someone had taught him to move his body at his own will to melody and He could feel the freedom that noone had to help him. I see that his injuries had made him feel like an invalid, all the more than he was. He was fanatical not to have a sissy handshake. He practiced making sure that those huge non-feeling hands didn't crush another person's hand or sit limply in theirs, for fear. This was awesomely important to him. I always wondered why is he so scared? He can fight anybody. What is he afraid of? I always wondered, what could make a big man pretend to disappear in a car when he sees someone that he knows here or there. ,p>There were some guilty feelings that were attached to his fears. He despised being carried and couldn't imagine the strength of a person or machine that could have lifted him. I think of his fears when I hear that song that I posted here. I think about how God is subduing the multiple fears that my father implanted into my heart {some for safety, some for convenience and even the ones implanted for fun}.

I know that God is greater than any fear that I have. I sat face to face with my fears at the beach. I love the beach, but it takes time for my maternal, fearful mind catches up to everyone being a grown up. There are no babies here, mommy. All the seagulls comfort me with that reminder. The fledgeling are flying, now. You don't need to be afraid, mommy. I am grateful that Jesus understands my heart and soul and doesn't despise a mother's complicated heart.

Today is my Daddy's 79th Birthday and I am Celebrating the Heavenly Father! Aunt Delores used to sing this song and I found it on Youtube!

We had such a good time at Aunt Lee's house in SC. I had to add this song to my blog.

Thirty five years ago today, we spent the night at Aunt Jackie's house...A Sleepover, I will never forget!

Strawberries and cream for breakfast, My sister Julia, My friends Paulette and Brenda and a hope that my dearest friend Pam would make it, though nine months into her first pregnancy would prove to keep her from it. Darling girl Karla Gail stepped in at the last moment and played a beautiful junior bridesmaid for my great day. We took pictures and laughed like no other day that I could remember. There was a bubble around us, that seemed unlikely for the grief cloud that was hanging.

Grandma told us to go on, without her. Grandma wanted this for me, more than I did. If he is a faithful man, that is what I want for you. She was the boss of the hour. She had bought the dress, since she couldn't have made it, etc. We sat and planned the photo shoot moments, she and Aunt Lorraine and me. I had forgotten until I saw Aunt Lorraine fulfilling everything that Grandma told her to do. Then the tears started. She missed it! Or did she? She was certainly there for every moment of it! Her spirit was keeping the levity in a moment that I would never forget. Auntie and Gram and me had known why it had to go on! She made me know that she was in on the heavenly occasion in a way that couldn't be repeated or erased.

Pastor Tom May stood between the bickering factions of Protestants and Catholics in grief, excellently. He represented truth and Doctrine, which was our common marital desire. Children who might grow up to know what they believe and live in the light of their faith. We thought that was what we wanted and we talked about it all the time. They will not be deceived, we hoped. They will know what God's Word says and not be ignorant Christians, we committed.

Grandma's hope was love and fidelity, something that had eluded her for her life. God comforted her through the preparation of this wedding of another eldest child, as she had been. Ma was eldest and she was eldest and she taught me that I should speak up for myself. Not my strong suit. Not a habit of mine. Whatever, Gram, I usually took her words for granted as the complainings of not having gotten her way. I hope that she was able to attain unto the heavenly home through the miracle of repentance, which is available, even when the church casts you out because of your lifestyle. Heaven is the ultimate reparation of damages that men can do to the soul of a woman. Jesus welcomes us, when men have their way and cast us aside. He was the God of Hagar. He was the God of Sarah.

Repentance is available to all for the cleansing of our sins. I was able to forget, because Aunt Jackie had given us a respite. A happy journey had begun! I did! He did, and here we are 35 years and many children later!

Don't Forget to Cover Your Children!

The moment of graduation from college has reminded me of the importance of the teamwork of family. When you are brooding over the condition of your children, don't just wander in concern, cast your cares onto the only one who can do anything about them. Cover them with prayer and loving intentional direction. No matter how far they go or how close they may be, keep them in your truest concerns before the throne of God. This will give you the peace to go on and the comfort that God has it.

As we celebrate the graduation of Evie, I am washing the blanket that I made for her and remembering all of the prayers that went into that crocheted cloth. I know she felt it. I know that she knew that I was still missing her and loving her, though out of sight. It wasn't colorful and it wasn't the most intricate stitches that I could follow. It was just a simple square of crocheting that gave me strength and not even big enough to cover her whole body, but the warmth was strong and deliberate. I was loving her from afar and my fears were turned into burdens which were lifted at Calvary. I had many questions and God gave me a peace. The Lord covers them, ultimately, far better than any prayer of ours or blanket. But, the blanket is a symbol of that covering that God has given. Halleluia, What a Savior! God bless all of our graduates!

It would spoil your supper, Not quite heavy enough to be called desert, but in a chocolate crunch...It'll do!

My blended mixture of nondairy pudding lasted in the freezer for the week and it still tastes good. I love it and I am a chocoholic. Maybe it is a breakfast alternative for me to "Cocopuffs". I don't know, right now I just know it is my new favorite creation.

April showers of blessings the arrival of another baby prince!

Don't you just love how Lady Katherine recouperates so quickly from childbirth. She is adorable and I simply loved the collar of the pretty red dress with little "Peter" in her arms.{I say he is the prince who guards the pearly gates} that is why I call him Peter. He is born a month before my Enoch. The 23rd of April is Pi of the month of showers. It rained like cats and dogs and all of my babies were horribly behaved, seeming that all of their angels had to go see the young prince. I would have gone also. I love him and I haven't even seen him yet. God bless the Royal Family, all! What a blessed woman is Queen Elizabeth to see so many Great Grands and so nice of the boy, not to outshine the wedding to come.

Cauliflower and Oatmeal lend their textures to create my nonfat "chocolate pudding".

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cauliflower cooked soft and 1 cup of the water from it's boiling

1/2 cup oats

1/2 cup sugar

2 chocolate baking squares melted

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp blackstrap molassas

1 package knox added {whisked heavily in} to half of the mixture after blending in the blender cooled

Mix the rest of the ingredients to the knox mixture and refrigerate in plastic containers.

I really like it!

Aunt Helen gone to Glory!

I did notice the absence of some of the protective and comforting influences. They always leave me, when there is a more pressing family need. I thought, I must be out of the woods, for them to have left so suddenly, without so much as a given reason.The children were out of sorts and calling for accidents by playing precariously close to the strollers and when the stroller fell, as it never really has, I knew. Something is definitely up.

I have seen Mu on cloud duty, many times, but not recently and so Aunt Helen wasn't even in my concern directly. She is always in my heart, in my wonderment that she grew up so well with such sisters? The real Cinderella sister was her beautiful story in my heart. She had a wonderful sweet spirit and I think of her each time I think of my own heartwrenching relationship with Ruth. I decided many times that she must have been protected from them by Mu. She was delightful and an example of submission and consistent beauty. She did come to me with small complaints about her back breaking down and such, but always as a prayer request. She seemed to know that she was in my heart in years past. She got me my first or second job. She gave me wifely advice from time to time and I missed her intently. We can't get to everyone, but I thought she was okay. In her 90's? and she must have been well cared for? I loved her and I planted my hoarded lavender today in honor of her and I hope that they come up well!

That is a story in itself.

Why do I love you?

Don't brand my babies!

Branding is okay for you old fogies, but don't brand my babies, by reading only the branding books to them!

You Hobbitologists, just get me irked! I am up to Chapter 5 and I am in agreement with Al Stewart---"Time Passages"

Buy me a ticket on the last train home tonight!

In other words the working out of these riddles with Gollum has got me down, since I first met him! He makes me quiver and want to give up, when I saw his eery huge eyes depicted in the movie or when I am introduced to him in chapter 5. He makes me say, like Al just let me not have to think about the riddles and be the last one on the train to die. I just want to live long and prosper. Why are there bills of thought to pay? Why are there so many riddles to try to snatch your soul from your body? Everybody meets Gollum. Everybody has a burning question that lives in the darkest night of their soul; The answer to which is life or death to your faith and life. Once you have met him, you can't get away from him. Whether he is responsibility or thinking, I simply don't know.

He is everywhere, maybe because the dark nights of my soul have been long and frequent. Maybe he stands beside the grave and that is the darkness that in view in the chapter.

I know that he is the reason why I put that book down so many times, as a child. I know that he was almost the reason that I didn't finish watching the movie, except that I had my dear Ethan the Hobbit interpreter with me in the darkness of the viewing. I know that I am stopped in the mid-chapter 5 and counting the very moments until I can get away from him and his "Time Passages". I stopped at 30 minutes of the reading and TIME was the very word that I stopped at and I had no idea that that was the riddle's answer, when I stopped there. I am intrigued by his relevance to my experience, but I hate him, just the same. I always have to ask my Hobbitologist friends, does he win in the end? Is there a time after Gollum? Don't worry mother, they always comfort me. I shan't worry and I will perservere in the reading of this essential exercise in perserverance in these...

Time Passages!

The ecstatic joy of soup making!

Veggies and broth and there is something akin to a medicine that is created. It is a dominance over sickness that God has granted to mothers as we pray for healing to the horrors of mucus and sick children.

I had a bag of hot peppers in the freezer, since my eye dilemma. There was a day that I was processing the peppers for storage, when I touched my eye in the middle of a sermon about Joseph and his brothers to my Ezzy, to occupy him in the chore of saving the seeds. I had a view to storing all of the pepper seeds for a crop this year. I only succeeding in nearly blinding myself, not realizing that most of the peppers were of the hot sort. I froze them and dreamed of taking them out to put in a soup one by one. Each time I did, it was sad at the excuses that I gave to myself about how hard it would be to take one frozen pepper off of the bunch. A year or so past and I was determined in this pre-Easter purging to make something of them. I blended them into a soup and made an onion soup out of a little of it.

O drank about 2 bowls swiftly and the heat of the mixture of peppers and onions with just a pinch of ginger,was certainly refreshing to my pallet. I liked it. I drank and then I felt the heat from the inside of my body and it scared me. I stopped. I drank 2 cups of water to try to dilute, what I had put in my body. Every pore in my skin seemed to open up and I wasn't sweating, but I felt like I had sweat out something. It was good tasting, but probably too concentrated.

I think it kept me from catching the sickness that was going around the house. Your dad was sick and Em was sick and I felt this congestion come together in one huge cough and clearing of the throat and that was it.All better, once I had gone to the bathroom and emptied my entire colon.

I gave one teaspoonful to Ezzy and he didn't get any sicker because he complained of aches. I put it in the freezer for medicinal uses.

The Cantada at Grace seemed like the musical form of my soup. It was concentrated and heated and a mixture of genre and spiritually completed a task in my soul that was so similar to what happened in my body from the soup. I was lifted and encouraged on the darkest day of my year. Halleluia, What a Savior!

May the road rise to meet you and may the heat of your relationship always be greater than a microwave and an oven!

A Prayer of thankful anticipation of great things in life, for the good help my dear eldest son afforded me by cleaning under the microwave!

I was initially annoyed. I was expected to come in and cook with my kitchen discombobulated and my microwave and toasteroven on the same side of the stove! The morning after it wrought a delightful conversation between myself and my son, with observations of his generation the general topic. I chimed in with my observations of wrangling in prayer like Jacob for his children. All of them had a blessing from him and I have committed that all of mine should have the same. I have often meditated and sat at the feet in thought about this great patriarch about how he could have negotiated such humongous favor for his progenitors from God. Tell me the secret, I begged him. He is still telling me about it, every day! I speak in jest, but I use the things that they do and the things that we talk about as the fuel for those prayers, deep within my heart. I hardly have time for anything else. I know that God has the right timing for the future generation to come out and I trust that timing. My heat instruments and my cooking surfaces serve as begging blocks for God to hear me and complete the wonderful recipe that He has started in our family. I trust His mighty and intricate process! Amen.

UUUUGGGGGHHHH! too much lemon juice!

Yesterday, I was making my afternoon tea. I had gotten some wonderful Earl Grey tea and was relishing the moment when I could enjoy a cup and make some sweet cold tea for later. My water had whistled and I was preoccupied as usual, with cleaning dirty things in the kitchen and making someother snack for later on for everybody. I had poured my concentrate into the cup and was about to squirt a "little" lemon juice into the brew for a flavor enhancement. I unscrewed the top, instead of flipping the top of it. I turned it upside down and immediately realized what I had done. Half of the bottle had been dumped into my Earl Grey, making it a lemonade brew, instead of tea. I don't mind making lemonade, but I wanted tea.

I paced the floor to think of what to do. I decided to make some lemon jello. I had a package of the Knox gelatin and it worked perfectly and the amount that I used made me able to keep the teabag for my cup of tea. I enjoyed my cup of tea and my iced tea, later on and the lemon jello is enough for a couple of days. C'est la vie.

for a one cup brew, I included 1/2 cup of sugar to my brew...{don't forget the sugar}

It was yummy!

Now, I am working on a chocolate jello, that might be a delicious and fat free alternative to pudding. MMMMMMM! It's in the fridge right now, hardening.

I finally completed a log for my birdfeeder

Elusive to me, was this task. My birds were nagging and wondering how I could sit on this bag of seed for months, without having even thought about their cold and hunger.

My excuse in February was that it was in the 70s for weeks and I thought that the insects and sprouts that came out were enough for the birds. I also had found this recipe for a log, using gelatin and I was planning to use it.

I had compiled the ingredients, some of which took some thinking. I nearly always have gelatin of somesort. I thought about using an expired box of banana gelatin, that I didn't care for. How would that look to my friends? Now think about it. I may still use that in a later project for them. I am not that fastidious with my friends as you might have thought. I imagined myself using a pringles container or one of the sundry coffee containers for the log. The time and the container were the most illusive of the ingredients of the project. Yesterday was the day and your fathers old coffee cup from our trip to Evie was the container. {He keeps coffee for days and sips it and I was determined that 3 days of old coffee was more than enough tolerance, on my part.}Here it is. My first attempt and just after Purim a gift for my little friends in the neighborhood, what do you think?

Democracy has the effect of taming even the most aggressive of lions in the jungle!

The America that we have seen recently has become so feminine and antiaggressive that every masculine and competitive expression of our president is scrutinized as outlandish. He jokes masculine. "Maybe, I will be king forever?" Our forfathers were men like that. That is why they crafted a constitution and government to tame such behaviors. I cannot find the quote from Teddy Roosevelt that he said that the sedentary nature of England made his aggressive passions rise. He wanted to kill the monarch was the thought he expressed. Sad, perhaps, but masculine. Controls and stops are in place for such a concern.

Lets not kill masculinity, just because a woman hasn't had a chance at the helm of our country, yet. Nobody is truly qualified. Life of the innocents is more important than pedigree, for sure. Our President is unabashedly masculine and we are recuperating from the femininization of our leadership. Let's go back to the center of the court, or when the men rebel we won't like what happens.

You think?

Letters from Teddy this is the link to the online book.

Recognizing the beauty and bounty of small mercies!

There is very little, more beautiful than watching the important discoveries that little ones are making. Watching the light of knowledge and understanding turn on in the minds of our dear little ones is becoming diminished under the scrutiny of data. Isn't that the most important data there is? Documenting those first little steps of mind and feet and hands in our own hearts and prayers are a treasure chest of jewels shut up for us in earth and in heaven. Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal, we know. But, Earth has no greater treasure than the beauty of the children's growth.

I am so glad you have taught me that!

Keep filling your hope chest with the most important things first.

How do we speak to those we respect, but have not the responsibility of submission?

Women and men on the tennis court have different ways of evoking intimidation from an opponent. In law and in the workplace there are rules of interaction. If sexual harassment is a man's sensitivity, provocation and deliberate instigation, may be a woman's. Yet, on this situation there are few accusers of the women. Men suck it up and chalk it up to their own sensitivities. Men fire women for temperamental reasons sometimes. Men may change locations because of a quote, unquote Personality conflict, that may be the emotional tendency of a woman to cut him down to size on a regular basis. Some women do this to everyone, male and female and some take a peculiar delight, it seems to find the jugular of males that are their counterparts.

If we find ourselves in the cultural bent of the extremity of feministic expression, we must find a way to come back to the center of the court and become more civil in our verbal expressions to all in the work place. We mustn't let our intimidation or our cultural habits take authority. We must learn to utilize our femininity in other ways than to manipulate and subjugate our masculine counterparts. Perhaps, a pair of gloves could remind me to put on my femininity, were I in the situations of playing male tennis on a regular basis. Were I equal to them in ability, I would still wish to retain the femininity that God had blessed me with. I would not want to be the monster of a masculine expression of strength and ability. It would not give me any sense of accomplishment to win the match, should I lose my feminine identity.

I needn't apologize for needing to correct a peer. I needn't cowtow and genuflect to their masculinity. I need only use the correct inflections and cadence to accomplish the goal. My anger and my desire to fiercely defend my point and uncover the truth of an investigation must never ever forget the position and age and respectability of the target of that investigation. I have a different responsibility to my President in my tenor and tone than to my newsboy. We must never speak to an elder in the same tone as our babies. Sometimes the feminism of our age has erased the importance of polite society. The use of feminine intonations is not an expression of weakness, but an expression of the distinction of our point of view which is different from our masculine counterparts. If we want them to respect that difference and that vantage point, we must respect it and their vantage point, as well.

Time to put your head down and time to pick your head up?

Isn't "there a time for everything" and haven't you found that to be so?

Yesterday, your father and I walked around Bailey Rd. Park about a mile and I was happy that I could accomplish it. There was a short span of the walk that my eyes saw from a distance as being beyond me. It seemed straight up. I had said to myself, the old knees are not going to like that hill. I convinced myself that if I didn't look at it, the knees wouldn't know what hit them. That turned out to be the case. I put my head down and trudged on, just one step at a time. The knees ached, but I didn't give them any creedance. Your father's talk was at its height and so I didn't have time to say, owwwww.

I lived with my head down for years and years. Feelings of lesser than and humiliation from situations and grief. Perhaps those were also times of walking up a steep hill to "find the worth of my own soul". {A meditation from the Christmas Cantada- Oh Holy Night} "The soul found it's worth" When you find that Christ's birth and sacrifice was a loving gift there is awe and humility, but when you own His sacrifice you may grow to see that Christ's sacrifice is for the lifting of the head.

It took me a couple of weeks to meditate on this personal perception of a people group.

In the opinion of Pickering, the Siamese are undoubtedly Malay; but a majority of the intelligent Europeans who have lived long among them regard the native population as mainly Mongolian. They are generally of medium stature, the face broad, the forehead low, the eyes black, the cheekbones prominent, the chin retreating, the mouth large, the lips thick, and the beard scanty. In common with most of the Asiatic races, they are apt to be indolent, improvident, greedy, intemperate, servile, cruel, vain, inquisitive, superstitious, and cowardly; but individual variations from the more repulsive types are happily not rare. In public they are scrupulously polite and decorous according to their own notions of good manners, respectful to the aged, affectionate to their kindred, and bountiful to their priests, of whom more than twenty thousand are supported by voluntary contributions in Bangkok alone. Marriage is contracted at sixteen for males, and fourteen for females, and polygamy is the common practice, without limit to the number of wives except such as may be imposed by the humble estate or poverty of the husband; the women are generally treated with consideration. from Anna's Book that Elyse and I are reading

This is Pickering's perception, but the fact that she felt obliged to give the reader this generalization is curious to me. She had the emotional crushing experiencing of having been taken advantage and used in her service, with no real protection over her. I cannot imagine the vulnerability that she experienced, but I am very sensitive to the European need to categorize people groups in terms of their standards, especially in those days. This is not a Gospel aimed observation, but it did become an evangelical purpose eventually. Can we evangelize minus our ethnic sensitivities? Maybe we can now, but the 1800's were another time and circumstance.

When I got to these observations in BB Warfield's writings, it turned me off to doctrine altogether for a time. How could someone of such high mental acumen in doctrinal terms have such a negative view of the service of another human race? How could he not have seen the dehumanization of his practice and perspective? Well, it didn't daunt my pursuit of truth, altogether; though it did make me despise a certain time period of readings. Now Anna became BB to me and I had to change my perception of her reason for writing and for going to Siam. I overcame my antipathy and read on to find the real woman that everyone else saw and reasoned to myself that I am just like that when I am angry at my circumstance. My anger then turned to myself for my prejudices and misperceptions of peoples because I don't know them individually yet. Praise God that He overlooks such prejudices in our hearts and answers our prayers on peoples behalf anyway.

This is Day 2 after Emma's passing!

The pungent and sour odor that was our consistent experience these past few weeks, is just starting to dissipate. Her sad whines and cries are becoming a faint memory for the sound of silent sighs of each of us as we pass the bathroom that had become her ICU room. Her male nurses have gone back to being my sons and husband. She really had their hearts for those weeks. I couldn't really sympathize, myself. I thought that we should have ended it awhile ago. I said, she is a dog. I loved her, but she is not my child or a human.

Emily and I were in agreement about this. Day after day, I looked in on her, but I didn't go in and I didn't do much, except bring her water from time to time on a flat plate so she didn't have to lift her head too high.

She was on a plastic pallet, with pillows and blanket comforting her, in the end. She had to be cleaned a couple of times a day, for the stench of her excrement. That dulled the odor a bit, but it was putrid. We will be doing the cleaning regularly to completely clear it out.

On the last day, I felt it, but I wanted to feel that feeling each day of the ordeal. I looked in and we looked eye to eye, but I didn't say anything and neither did she. I felt bad about that later in the day, when I heard that she had been completely alone, when it happened. I felt angry that my boy had to be the one to find her. Is that his preparation for adulthood, Lord? What does that mean about this poor boy's experience to be 14 and seeing the dog die in our bathroom? I would have spared him that. This thought quickly faded into the guilt of not even saying goodbye to her and the thought that I couldn't have been there to direct the final process. That faded into relief that they were grown enough to complete that task without my intervention, even in the least. I have become the final clean up person. After they do their best to clean up the mess, I am the sterilizer. I pour the last bottle of bleach on the situation and hope that there is nothing else to pick up from there. Oh, what a beautiful teamwork to observe of my men, doing their thing. That made me glad.

Emily and I did our usual grousing and grumping on the way home. That has become our female bonding and commiserating that our female sensitivities had been taken to their limit on this situation. We were ready to take her to the vet weeks ago and we were no longer sympathetic to the loss as we would have been, had the whole house not wreaked.

I thought I was going to get to say goodbye. And I was nearly crying about that, but I didn't let on. That disappointment hit me, as we pulled into the driveway. I couldn't let on, the depth of my disappointment because the boys and Ben had had the brunt of the responsibility. My eyes looked to the sky, as it often does as I agonize my knees out of the vehicle and I saw a cloud that looked like a dog's head, right above me. There is her goodbye, I said to myself relieved that God didn't leave me to feel so incomplete in this part of the relationship. I offered a little prayer to be able to keep my composure and at least show my strong side, in this funeral like moment.

I wasn't ready for my room to become the wake for the dog. But it did. We shared our good memories of her. Ethan shed his very well hidden tears in a moment of reminiscing, but very maturely. Hand over the face and not even a whimper. They are learning that our griefs have gradations. Our dog touched us deeply, but nothing like the sympathy that we feel for humans in their suffering. That is a wonderful lesson for children and I am sorry that I didn't know that as a lesson for my children earlier.

My Heart is in my mouth as I imagine the fear and lonely anticipation of this self-indulged situation. from 1/17/18

"The situation was as Oriental as the scene,—heartless arbitrary insolence on the part of my employers; homelessness, forlornness, helplessness, mortification, indignation, on mine. Fears and misgivings crowded and stunned me. My tears fell thick and fast, and, weary and despairing, I closed my eyes, and tried to shut out heaven and earth; but the reflection would return to mock and goad me, that by my own act, and against the advice of my friends, I had placed myself in this position."

Anna

Isn't this how we feel, when hopes are dashed on the rocks of reality? She didn't question God's direction, but her emotional questioning was enormous. The high hopes of living as an instructor in a royal court and as uncivilized as her heart and mind may have imagined, her heart hadn't imagined the helplessness of not having a place to lay her head?

Was she not experiencing the griefs of her Savior in this situation? Was she not learning how God's mercy bestowed upon her was being shared, even this far from her home?

I hope that you are learning, as I am from her testimony to temper expectations and to cast all my cares, hopeful ones and disappointing ones, upon God who alone can carry our souls to their true and happy end in heaven.

Why entitled the chapter, On the Threshold? my interpretation{How God acted as husband in my farthest extremity}

"If I make my bed in hell, thou art there" says scripture

I was appalled at the treatment of this dear and devoted academic in her chosen field of care and instruction of these people. Any man would have gone right back to India or England after such an initial snub, to sleep the first night in the open air of the boat. Her heart was intended to their care, in spite of their care of her!

I say Anna, who carried you over the threshold of this God-honoring calling and challenge? I hear her answer, you know it wasn't Supreme King of Siam. Only God undertakes to His own in their dire distresses. Her trust wasn't and could never have been in her position or her gifts. It had to be in God's heart of winning these people's souls for His Kingdom and winning their minds into growth. She would grow to love them intensely, but now was the time where she had imaginations of anything but what her situation had played out.

The movie has her singing "Getting to Know You" and "whistling a happy tune", singing a song in her fearfulness. The truth is more convicting.

Cast your care on the Lord and He will sustain you!

Did she not find this to be her experience? Or we wouldn't be talking about her this 155 years later.

Her heart of prayer is far more evident than whistling a happy tune in her distress. I recall the overwhelming feeling of motherhood and wifing. I sang to you, getting to know you songs and I imagine that this is something that you have taken to heart in that this woman's story has stuck in your soul all these 31 years.

I love you for making me see her parallel with wifing and mothering.

Was this the story of her marriage to the children of Siam or to the God whose heart was pleasantly entreated on their behalf? I see her testimony of parallel to her own marriage, which she was grieving. Here she was on the threshold and her body and soul was given and her heart had been disappointed and her only hope was that there would be a representation from the hand of God that would fulfill her soul at this blind hope. This is the realization of every woman after her commitment in marriage, whether it be to a man or to a calling. There is fruition and disappointment. The longer you wait, as you have, or traveled as she did, the more room for higher expectations of fulfillment in the expected end. If your hope is in anything but the God of all grace, you are setting yourself up for a tremendous downfall. "Some trust in chariots..." You know the rest. If your hope is not fully in the God of all grace to use your commitment in marriage and motherhood to His Glory, your sleeping on the boat for the night will be the rest of your life. There are tremendous glimmers of fulfillment in marriage, but they are no greater than the fulfillment glimmers in singlehood. The reality is that God is using you in each circumstance to shine for him. I hope that your expectations are fulfilled, for my own selfish desires also.

And if not?

we will not bow!

Letter Number 2 from the Sovereign Commander of Siam! the letter from 7 years later

Dear Madam, I have great pleasure in condescending to answer your sympathising letter of 25th November last wherein the sorrowful expressions of your heart in relation to my most beloved Sovereign Father in demise which is a venerated burden and I have left to this day and ever more shall bear this most unexpressable loss in mind, with the deepest respect and lamentation, and resignation to the will of divine Providence;—are very loyal to you too to ful, and share your grief in behalf the affection you have for your royal pupils, and the kind remembrances you have made of them in your letter, loves you too with that respect and love your are held in ther esteem, for such disinterestioness in imparting knowledge to them during your stay here with us. I have the pleasure also, to mention you that our Government in counsel has elected me to assume the reins of Government notwithstanding my juvenility; and I am pleased to see the love the people have for me, most undoubtedly arising from the respect and veneration they have had for my beloved royal Father and I hope to render them prosperity and peace, and equal measure, they have enjoyed since the last reign in return. May you and your beloved children be in the peace of the divine Providence. I beg to remain, Yours sincerely Somdetch Phra Chulalonkorn Klou Chow-yu Hua Supreme King of Siam on 114th day of reign

Here he seems to show unprecedented sympathy for her losses. I never thought him in sympathy of her. I say that he seems to want to comfort her sorrow with the children and tasks of his household. I didn't see that before. Sometimes common grief is a tool in God's hand into the souls of even the most hardened monarch and heathen. He actually showed emotion that he felt at the loss of his own father, but the hope that common mental ascents should act as a comfort. God had set the stage for the gospel message to come home into the souls that she was sent to. Amazing!

It is also a wonderful testimony that, even with all of this obvious blessing of God on her ambitions; she took the time to bathe such a spiritual expedition in prayer and resorted often to the "counsel of the EVER PRESENT FRIEND". Her expression of faith and who she had found God to be in her griefs. Doubly Amazing!

Amarinde Winschley Palace Bangkok March 6th 1869

this was the date of the letter. So perhaps this is the fruit of how God had blessed their relationship to have a fruit of transparency between them. She had obviously become a confidant.

Are we not the King of Siam in our request of our youthful scholars?

"ENGLISH ERA, 1862, 26th February. GRAND ROYAL PALACE, BANGKOK.

"To MRS. A. H. LEONOWENS:— "MADAM: We are in good pleasure, and satisfaction in heart, that you are in willingness to undertake the education of our beloved royal children. And we hope that in doing your education on us and on our children (whom English, call inhabitants of benighted land) you will do your best endeavor for knowledge of English language, science, and literature, and not for conversion to Christianity; as the followers of Buddha are mostly aware of the powerfulness of truth and virtue, as well as the followers of Christ, and are desirous to have facility of English language and literature, more than new religions. "We beg to invite you to our royal palace to do your best endeavorment upon us and our children. We shall expect to see you here on return of Siamese steamer Chow Phya. "We have written to Mr. William Adamson, and to our consul at Singapore, to authorize to do best arrangement for you and ourselves. "Believe me "Your faithfully, (Signed) "S. S. P. P. MAHA MONGKUT."

Do we not write such a letter to our children's teachers? You think us a benighted race and we want your knowledges bestowed upon us, but not your Jesus. We hope you find comfort and help to ignite our minds and not our spirits.

I know that I have thought myself the King of Siam in the rearing days of my children. Most unnegotiable about their behaviors, at least by them. I am in awe at how our written and oral language has deteriorated so much in the 155 years that we are observing. A commander and a man with the hearts of his children in his own heart. He wanted to see their minds and stations improved, but not their souls.

Is this not so of our generation?

After Our delightful little chat...

I attached a tweety bird link to the book. I have a million questions about chapter one for you. You are my "go to" person about such things Asian. I love that she doesn't spend alot of time introducing the characters. She just jumps into the experience for you. Isn't that how life happens. All of a sudden we are in the experience and here we are, like Daniel in a heathen court. God is everywhere!

If I make my bed in hell, scripture reminds us "Thou art there!"

The Church's One foundation! and mystic sweet communion with those whose rest is won,

May you continue to enjoy that sweet communion that happens when we respect our elders by reading their testimonies! Thank you for sharing.

Question Number One...

Elyse, in the letter from the King of Siam to Anna, was he saying he was sympathetic of her great loss and wished to replace her love for her husband and children with his own family? He was writing in much flowery language and it seems that he was trying to respect the providence that she was submissive to. He clearly wanted to show his acquaintance with her spiritual struggle of grief. It seems that he was saying that he wanted her to see how they engaged in family love and loss, as well as experience the beauty of her teaching. Let me know what you think?

Do You Want To Go---to the Greatest Show? "Wait up for me!"

My every thought of North Carolina was small and hickish! "Come and visit." No thank you, would be my polite reply. What on earth could anyone from NC think that they have for me to see in North Carolina? Do they have A skyscraper there? Oh really? Do they have much of the ocean views? Do they have a Broadway? etc., etc.

That is okay, I will find other things to do with my time than visit a "somewhat backward"{to my vain thinking} state like North Carolina. To be humble, I was sure that there could be some wonderful backwoodsy beauty that I could find some enjoyment in. But, certainly not before I visited every other state and country, could I think that there could be a place like that.

circumstances proved a great motivator:

There were certainly walls of pride and comfort that needed to be placed aside to get us here.

It happened and as swiftly as New Yorkers sometimes can move; we flew down the highway to the "Cackalackies" as our family affectionately refers to the Carolinas.

The training of New York thought is always to jump and challenge and reach! If there is something to attain, we are reaching for it. I was such a one at one time. I can't stop to ride down the highway. That one trip down the highway was significant in one thing. When we crossed the line into NC, I felt a wall of slowness hit me. I wasn't sure that I was going to like this slowness that hit me like a wall.

Nobody sat me down and told me that time runs slower here and there... North Carolina people stop and talk about little things like weather and flowers, etc. New Yorkers march to a rhythm and have agendas and stick to them or run from them. Little time for the minutia of small talk, unless a few drinks have preceded it and I don't drink. Get it done, or you didn't get that done, etc. Drivenness rules and false and unrealistic expectations are par for the course. We are on the mountain or in the valley of "Didn't make it there!" The two conditions of the New Yorker. I didn't have time to lament my loss of my beloved city. We had to go and we had to start a new course in a new place with a load of children. But, this is not about them.

How could we be leaving the best city on earth? I was born there and I loved it from corner to corner. Now, I couldn't live there anymore. I wasn't crying and I was hopeful that we could forge new relationships and memories. I wasn't ready for the sky hitting me in my face, like it did!

"And the walls can't stop us now?" Or the buildings{From seeing the GREATEST SHOW}

What walls stop you from experiencing the greatest show on earth, in the sky?

The Wall of busyness?

So many times, when the children were little, I recall them calling me to watch this or that beauty in the sky. The sun is setting, they would call. It sets beautifully everyday, sweetheart. Mommy has to change another diaper and put another load on and see another dinner on the table, etc. It never ended. It never let up and I could never quite understand their constant pestering of me on that subject.

As a New Yorker, I grew up on the rat-race itself. Running to be the best and learn the most and read the fastest and get into here and there. Beating this person and winning that accomplishment, being the most important pursuit.

One man grabbed my shirt collar with his music and made me imagine the sky. John Denver was a strange naturalist whose lyrics carried me to a place in the world that I might never have seen, even in my imagination. Rocky Mountain High? What does that mean?

I poured over his lyrics, some in my earphones and some not. My mother was concerned about this strange engagement with naturalism, but she didn't ridicule my peculiarity. I was keeping my grades up, for the most part and staying in the rat race for impressions' sake. But, I started to dream of seeing the sky.

Each day I rose with the sun and trapsed into the mines of subway existence and my experience with the sky was for a brief moment when the F train crossed the Brooklyn Bridge or whatever Bridge it crossed. The sun was always right there to meet me, rarely it was fog or clouds, but at 8 o'clock am it was the sun coming over the buildings and a clock which let me know if I would be okay or have detention that day. The sky was behind the clock, in my mind and I enjoyed it, only if the clock said 7:50 something. Otherwise, I was trying to figure how I was going to run with my huge book bag to get to where I had to go. SCHOOL. Missed the sky there THAT WAS THE GREATEST SHOW!

Mine was the best education ever. The best teachers taught engaging subjects with tremendous enthusiasm. No masculine distractions, except for the runners outside and we had to stop class when the track team would run in front of our school. There was no corralling our minds with all that. The teachers accommodated our hormones for the moment and then we went back to learning how to think and communicate and compete at the highest level our minds would allow. They stayed in constant communication with our parents via progress reports and they stayed in touch with our commitment to think and be taught. Slacking was not an option. The sky stayed outside my realm of interest in those days.

Who is the Greatest Showman?

There have been many a day since we've come to NC that I have stopped my hustle and bustle to partake in the wonder and the beauty of the showmanship of God in the sky. Charlotte and Huntersville seem to own the sky itself. They have wonders daily that I had never seen in the NY sky or skyline. {We had other things! Never to diminish the greatest city on earth!}But, how can you advertise that we have the most beautiful and bounteous part of the sky? You just have to come here to experience it!

No joke, the sky talks down here. It says "the father's meeting is in this part of the sky and the mother's meet in that part of the sky. God lets us dance here." etc., etc. I was taken aback by the intensity of the sky's interplay with the people and the beauty of life here. And yet, there are people who are missing it for it's aggressiveness and regularity.

I could never completely tell the wonder of the daily occurrences of the sky that we have been blessed with in NC. I have sat by my window and seen the lightning shows in this corner or that. I have been warned by the birds to get inside, because the show was coming down to the earth and you mustn't be outside when that happens, but the cloud shows are amazing. The hailstorms and the slight bit of snow that comes to overwhelm us, have nearly toppled my NY pride and self-reliance. The breathtaking views of the earth and sky that I admired and was addicted to at Jones Beach and Sunken Meadow have dimpled into fading with one teaparty in the sky with Mrs. Day and her cloud sewing circle.

The sky kept saying to me, don't be afraid, that's how we talk down here. This is what "Y'all Come" is all about in the South. When you embrace the Bible as part of your identity, Heaven takes note of that! Really? was all I could say.

My very favorite skyline, since coming here came when Ethan had a concert at a foreign school. There were actual clowns making faces in the sky. I was so angry that day and I had to laugh at the sky, telling me jokes. You are late, but you won't miss it. I declare that Baby Ben, must have had cloud duty that day. Nobody else could have touched my maternal funnybone, from and earthly perspective. I was late for the concert and afraid that I would miss his part in it. It was splendid, the sky!

Well,I go on and on because the movie that I saw yesterday paid a wonderful tribute to a great man who brought us all a sense of splendor and wonder in the creation that was around us. Memories of breathtaking spectacles that earth could devote. People's attention was diverted from their troubles and enjoying life for a moment. I thought that movie was an honorable tribute to an obviously great man.

Hugh Jackman's performance of the role had me enthralled, from the very first silhouette of his lips perfectly articulating the words to the song, to the final scene, where the darkness enveloped all but his image in tophat and tails. I felt that it was a motivating tribute to the power and effectiveness of creativity and consistency. I saw a blending of the tales of Hans Christian Anderson and Pip, from Great Expectations, with a prod for the next generation to think outside the boxes of their own limitations. I call that "Positive Adrenaline!" It was used effectively in this movie.

The Musical Genre was taking a chance. The use of new music with redundant words and old thoughts could have crashed like a thud. I am very particular about those kinds of things. I was not disappointed or bored with the redundancy. The riveting performance far outweighed my noticing that they were saying the same thing over and over again. I loved it and would watch it again and again.

THANK YOU entire cast for immortalizing this beautiful memory in American History!

Becoming Serene in 2018!