January 4th - Fill In the Blank

Rom. 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

January 4th, 2019

Today arrived which meant more physical therapy: step up, step down, up/down 20 times right foot, 20 times left foot. Then the Cane Walk, 4 laps around the fitness area with my CANE, and then more exercises. I remember my doctor asking me once if I thought this ‘physical therapy’ stuff is working and with my mouth almost to the floor I said YES! I could not have gotten this far alone!

I can almost taste taking my walks again. I look out the window and visualize the event. The weather being in the upper forties for over a week now, melting snow with puddles that mimic swimming pools, and next week being a repeat with a couple of fifties in there make me wonder if this is the calm before the storm. If it's not, then I’m thinking that stupid groundhog got his months mixed up. 

My physical therapy is moving right along and the weather is being generous in that I don’t need to wear numerous layers of clothing. The new year snuck up on me and caught me preoccupied with things other than writing and finishing my story. So I begin the New Year filling in the blanks. 

This month also marked the arrival of chickens. CHICKENS, can you believe it? They might have arrived in December but again, my brain and a timeline are not in sync yet. I’ve lived out here on this closed down former Turkey Ranch for ten years now and have seen some of the strangest things!

I’ve had a fox walk past my window, I’ve had baby raccoons curl up in the corner of my steps (my son has video proof!), I’ve had what looked very much like a groundhog just mosey on up the path outside my window, I have had close encounters with the voles tearing up my lawn, I have eight pigeons that currently live in the Old Mill tanks, and a stray labrador appeared just after my father’s passing and is still here, and the list goes on and on. Did I mention my cardinal reappearing who hasn't been seen since last spring?!?!

Wild Turkey’s have wandered these cornfields for years but disappeared when the Turkey Ranch was active a few years ago, they knew slaughter when they smelled it and stayed away! They’ve returned in full force, I have about ten huge birds that visit my bird feeder as well as chickens! My son tells me I have to watch what I wish for. He remembers me for years saying I wanted chickens, then since my illness began I wanted free roaming ones. Then here they come, beautiful as ever, appearing out my window on a warm day, pecking at the birdseed meant for the birds that the squirrels have taken a liking to; I don’t mind at all. These are the highlights of my Days of Healing! 

They disappeared when we had a freeze, high wind, and snow, but hubby says he still hears the rooster crowing somewhere down the road. Now I want them back! I grow attached to my animals. I’m a nature lover at heart, animals are my friends, plants, trees, rocks, and butterflies are my meditative love. God is the internal Spirit that bestows these things upon me and I LOVE them as He’s asked me to do, what can I say.

Zech. 4:6 “Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”

Zech. 4:8  “Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,” 

Rejoice and be happy, write and tell your story, rest for a season, share for a reason, and know, I am the Lord your God, with me NOTHING is impossible! I go in peace!

All praise and Glory to God!

Rom 8:6 “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”

Poetry Sunday ~ Autumn's Gate

Matt. 6:22 "The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

Autumn's Gate

The pumpkins sit

nestled in the cold

surrounded by dry

leaves gone old.

The empty feeder

lonely and bare

swings to and fro

in autumns air.

The wind lifts death

skyward bound

places it gently on 

the frost-kissed ground.

The season seen

as ill-spent time

the leaf now burrowed

in mud and grime.

The secret's hidden

in the sleeping season

with eyes on the sparrow

gives Spirit new reason.

Matt. 25-26 "Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

Poetry Sunday~ Illusion

Ecc. 5:8 “If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for he that is higher than the highest regardeth; and there be higher than they.”

I tried so hard to simply take
A picture that’s real or is it fake?

Cheap camera in hand, I took a shot
The sunshine is real, the horse is not

Here they stand stellar in pose
Like riddles amid well-worded prose

Life sometimes is simply abstract
When digging among lie or fact

A political year wrought with lies
Manifested with a camera’s eyes.

The Way We Were

Deut. 29:4 “Yet the LORD hath not given you an heart to perceive, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.”

The Way We Were

Do you remember the days where playgrounds were full of rambunctious kids playing? When new colorful equipment was being put into the park because the old stuff had gone the way of rust, wear and tear?

Nowadays the new heavy-duty plastic equipment sits there looking untouched and the parks are no longer filled with noisy children laughing and playing. The silence stills the beautiful surroundings of trees and benches.

The days of communicating with humans via mouth is now gone, we are now a world of cyber addicted beings. I see mothers in the park with strollers and only the toddlers know the excitement of the world spinning around them. Placing sand in their mouth or worse cat feces goes unnoticed because the mom’s are sitting on facebook with their I-phones texting, playing games or sharing pictures.

No the child doesn’t die, just like us, because he’s playing in dirt and mud, but he is being blatantly ignored and this is the generation we’re raising and facing. We no longer pass people on the street, exchange eye contact and smile. We no longer look up at the sky and drink in our beautiful surroundings.

Communication has gone cyber and with it we lose something along the way. When I eat in a restaurant, my first thought isn’t to take a picture and share it with the world; I’m there to eat. When I go swimming, my instinct tells me to swim, not take a selfie for all the world to see. When I’m driving and enjoying the scenery, my first thought isn’t oh let me share this with the cyber world, I more on the lines think, this is my private moment with God.

I’m waiting for the day that not even the church services are private. Click, hey look at me, I’m here praising God. Wait, how did you think of the cyber world while you were praising God? Were you really into the moment of God’s presence so much that you stop and connect virtually? Before and after church we feel the need to connect virtually so as to inform friends, family or total strangers of our whereabouts and goings on.

Even the marriage institution is taking a hit. The kids today don’t understand what a sacred vow is but they jump into marriage in a technological burst expecting the relationship to thrive via text messages, Pinterest, YouTube, and any other form of social connection. We have disconnected from verbal communication.

People have now invited the social world to breakfast, dinner, vacation, and the movies and even to their church. Nothing is sacred anymore. We crave attention, popularity, and being in the know and one day without the connection causes the world to come to a stop, or so it seems. Are we that gullible of a species? Are we so into other people’s business that ours falters and sheds like flaky skin? You do know that once we shed our skin, we can never get it back, right?

Marriages crumble; friendships are shattered, lives are peeled away in layers and we have turned into an era of the cyborg generation. I myself am guilty of only peeking into the social world to see what everyone else is sharing. I sit quietly scanning the pages of how everyone has a really drama-filled exciting life and compare it to my boring mundane life. I have never texted while driving, shoot I’m hard pressed to even learn how to text. I don’t drive and click pictures and surely I don’t click pictures of moments that should be private to share with the world that is more than likely peeking in on me.

Then again, I’m so uninteresting and not part of the cyborg family that they pass me over like a pebble in the road. A pebble is not very interesting when you have mountains surrounding you, now is it?

Me, I like to go outside and dig in the soil. I like to tend my garden, pull weeds and nurture the flowers to full bloom. I’m different from the people in the cyber world. I’m a naked mannequin standing in the window of the fancy dressed ones, people pass and giggle at the exposure of my bold nudity while they hurry up and snap a picture of the more fancy dressed (or undressed) and dolled up mannequins and share it with their cyborg family.

I remember running barefoot down the city streets, playing in the playground and getting dirty, holding a book in my hand and enjoying the simple things in life that propelled me to where I am now, amid the cyborg’s of society blind to the more natural things in life.

I love to feel the wet grass between my toes, I love to smell a sweet scented rose, I love to love human beings but I have to remember, the way we were is the way we are no more.

Ezek. 12:2 “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house.”

Beauty of the Sandhill Crane

Song of Sol. 2:12 The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

~ The Sandhill Crane ~

The majestic beauty of Crane descending

Black lines mount the sky

Like rows and rows of soldiers pending

Their song-filled woes draw nigh.

Their movement off in the distance

Seeking a haven to rest.

Being met with no resistance

To the wandering river they nest.

Right on cue each year they meet

The melody fills the air.

Gather together new friends to greet

A sanctuary they share.

Flocking northward like a band of thieves

To the winding river they roam.

A blanket of clouds each one weaves

Finding a shelter to call home.

Briefly at the Sandhills they stay

The morning’s call will incite you.

You’ll rise and shine to greet each day

Until the moment the Crane bid adieu!

Isa. 60: 8 Who are these that fly as a cloud, and as the doves to their windows

Quotation Saturday

SPRING

Everything is blooming most recklessly; if it were voices instead of colors, there would be an unbelievable shrieking into the heart of the night.
~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke

Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.
~W. Earl Hall

I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring. Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature's rebirth?
~Edward Giobbi

The day the Lord created hope was probably the same day he created Spring.
~Bern Williams

GARDENS

The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
~Dorothy Frances Gurney, "Garden Thoughts"

I cultivate my garden, and my garden cultivates me.
~Robert Brault
 
Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. ~Karel Čapek, The Gardener's Year
 
I sit in my garden, gazing upon a beauty that cannot gaze upon itself. And I find sufficient purpose for my day.
~Robert Brault

BUTTERFLIES

Butterflies are self propelled flowers.
~R.H. Heinlein
 
The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.
~Attributed to George Carlin
 
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
~Robert Frost, "Blue-Butterfly Day"

Just like the butterfly, I too will awaken in my own time.
~Deborah Chaskin
 
We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. We adults, on the other hand, have outgrown them and have to lower ourselves to stoop down to them. It seems to me that the grass hates us when we confess our love for it. Whoever would partake of all good things must understand how to be small at times.
~Friedrich Nietzsche

BIRDS

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
~Henry David Thoreau
 
Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.
~W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions

There are joys which long to be ours. God sends ten thousands truths, which come about us like birds seeking inlet; but we are shut up to them, and so they bring us nothing, but sit and sing awhile upon the roof, and then fly away.
~Henry Ward Beecher
 
A bird does not sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song.
~Chinese Proverb

Mansions in the sky, tethered to the wind they cry. Man cannot see eye to eye, in the beauty of the butterfly!
~Joni Zipp

Quotation Saturday

PEACE

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.
~Attributed to both Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi

Five great enemies to peace inhabit with us: avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride. If those enemies were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace.
~Francesco Petrarch

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. 
~Dwight Eisenhower

We shall never be able to effect physical disarmament until we have succeeded in effecting moral disarmament.
~J. Ramsay MacDonald

BEAUTY

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.
~John Muir

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.
~Kahlil Gibran
 
Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces into their hearts. ~Martin Buxbaum
 
“Some people will never know the treasure of beauty because their heart is wrought with ugliness!”
~ Joni Zipp

BIRDS

I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance that I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.
~Henry David Thoreau

Have you ever observed a humming-bird moving about in an aerial dance among the flowers - a living prismatic gem.... it is a creature of such fairy-like loveliness as to mock all description.
~W.H. Hudson, Green Mansions
 
Use the talents you possess - for the woods would be a very silent place if no birds sang except for the best.
~Henry Van Dyke

My favorite weather is bird-chirping weather.
~Terri Guillemets

SPRING

Springtime is the land awakening. The March winds are the morning yawn.
~ Lewis Grizzard
 
Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments, not the composer. ~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
~Charles Dickens

The year's at the spring
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hillside's dew-pearled;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven -
All's right with the world!
~Robert Browning

Poetry Sunday ~ Layers

Jer. 4:25 I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled.
***
~ Layers ~
Blankets of snow peeled away
uncovering the grass beneath;
wherefore moss and worms cavort
under the last seasons leaf.

Robins bounce back into life
the cardinal’s song is heard.
Blue jays gather twigs and things
our days no longer blurred.

Cranes are flying overhead
heron gather together.
Geese are moving to and fro
to announce this glorious weather.

The sky it quivers full of sound
birds are making their way;
abundance of life hovers over me
as song sings out this day.

The sun stretches out its arms
a baby calf is born.
Spring has sprung back into life
this late February morn.

Moody Monday

2 Sam. 22:3 The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence.
***

Ever have one of those days where you just roll over in bed and don’t feel like waking up and facing the day? Have you ever had a Moody Monday? Well some might say that every day is a moody Monday for me, but I do digress.

I wake up in the still of the morning when the birds are all tucked away. As I sit here and await the sunrise, I drink my morning coffee and relish the quiet time I have. The birds begin stirring, chirping can be heard, then it happens, the orb in the sky peeks over the trees blanketing the farm with orange light.

Today ghostly shadows stood erect as the sun began its ascent. Fog covered the entire farm and out of the shadows came soldiers marching to war in silence. Ok, they were just barns, but when you’re only half awake, I’m telling you, they sure look like ominous men of war.

I’ve been feeling pretty good lately. No fears with driving. I made it into church yesterday with nary a tremble. It was raining and although at first I thought, “I don’t want to drive in the rain, I’m scared of the slippery roads.”  I was God slapped! He said, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Well, yes I do!” And all fears drifted off somewhere, I imagine to his shoulder so he could carry the fear for me, then off to church we went! :) There was no Pastor Mike this time and we had to settle for the youth minister because apparently, this weekend was graduation weekend. So the service was dedicated to the youth of society. Remind me to tell you about this wonderful church, someday.

My dad is feeling pretty good, and he is back to being his ol ornery self. Things should be feeling pretty good to me but something is missing. I have God in my life, a roof over my head, food to eat, a healthy son, a man whom I think loves me, what more could anyone want?

Oh, I know, passion. I’ve been writing, reading, critting, all good things right? But I feel passionless towards things. Today I woke up and just felt ‘blech’. I think I know what I need to do, June’s words are always reverberating in my head. “Prioritize,” she whispers, “Organize,” she rants, “Set goals,” she hails; a bombardment of voices I tell ya!

June might say, “That’s a good thing if I have that kind of impact.” Well June, you do dagnammit! lol So now today I need focus. If only the sun would stop looking so beautiful, the trees would just sit still and allow me to gaze at their beauty, if the birds, the glorious birds, new and old alike, would stop for a minute and let me get a picture of them at play.

If the weather, the mean, unknown weather would comply, I might just have a Marvelous Monday!