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Posted in Believe it or not!, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom

The Gift of Peace

Posted on by Katharine

Serenity

Tranquility, calmness, peacefulness, quietude, stillness, composure, coolness, poise, contentment, repose, mellowness . . .

WHAT on earth is peace on earth?

We write poems about it, take classes to learn it, build our houses to achieve it, take vacations to find it elsewhere, and even try screaming to see if we can’t get a little of it . . .

. . . “and QUIET!”

Peace in the sky and on earth...It’s more than the opposite of war. It cannot be bought for any price. In fact, some of the poorest people possess it. Some of the richest also possess it, along with some of the saddest and the happiest. It also knows no color, no rank, no age, and no gender.

It sounds indefinable, but it is not. It just passes all understanding.

The definition? Peace is a fruit of intimate communion with Jesus Christ.

Anything else that masquerades as peace is false, will fall, will fail, will fly away.

Facts are, constantly working hard to capture all the runaway part of your own self-manufactured peace and keep them somehow glued together is not a very peaceful existence.

Getting the Prince of Peace to do it for you is—umm—peaceful. He just gives us peace, His peace.

Of course, such a great gift would be wrapped and need to be unwrapped before we could use it, right?

The wrapping is Jesus, Himself, and the unwrapping is as easy as letting go—and as difficult.

Actually, this gift is a trade.

We give up our own peace and trade it to Him for His peace, as when we trade in a bent, sweaty token for a train ride–trade it for the ride, itself. And He paid for the ticket.

And our hands were what bent and soiled it.

So simple, some people let it insult them. Some people are so accustomed to a difficult peace that they disdain something so simple.

How sad.

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Homemaking, Inspiring, Photos, Wisdom, Womanhood

It Was a Gift

Posted on by Katharine
one of Joi's doilies
One of Joi’s Doilies

I used to live near a sweet and cheery lady named Joi. She and her husband were quite poor, he being a sacker in a grocery and both of them trying hard to earn college degrees, with four children in a two-bedroom house.Joi and I were friends and she was a constant amazement to me. She made every meal from scratch and did home canning. She crocheted doilies, sewed quilts, even ran soy beans through her blender to make soy milk. And then turned it into ice cream.

Somehow she had an abundance of cheer to compensate for all she did not have. Somehow, before the age of computers, she knew all about the health truth about oleo and butter. Before the age of herbal renaissance, she knew all about herbs. She played piano beautifully, taught piano lessons, and played for her church. I always felt somehow behind when I would visit her house.

Eventually she and her husband completed their degrees and moved to where the jobs were. I regret having lost touch with her, but in a way, I still feel the touch of Joi’s cheer in my life.

When it was my birthday, she visited me with a huge surprise. Humble and sweet, just like Joi, no gift could have made me happier that day. Wrapped in a towel was a huge loaf of warm, homemade bread. I had never seen any bread so big, and later learned she actually used the dough for two loaves and placed them into one bread pan. What a gift! Along with it, she brought a large bag of her own spinach, perfectly washed and grit-free.

We loved that sweet gift to pieces, literally. Every slice of the bread was a marvel of deliciousness and the spinach made a great addition to our supper that night. You may think it was an odd gift, but she knew what it means to think before you give something, and we recognized the rarity of it and the loving care that went into it. Imagine washing and washing all that spinach and then giving it away! Imagine the aromas of homemade bread floating through your house, but the bread going to someone else’s house.

It was a gift.

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Health, Inspiring, Photos, Rain, Wives

Weekly Photo Challenge: Waiting

Posted on by Katharine
waiting
Waiting

These men are waiting. They may look like they are quite active, but I know them. One is 80 years old, and the other is not far behind him. They devote their days to making improvements they will never enjoy, such as planting trees on Arbor Day.

They do enjoy much of it, though. The ability to move about and act like men, still, free of huge medical problems, they enjoy. The camaraderie with other men who care about the future of our grandkids and great-grandkids, they enjoy. Rising early and dressing for work, like the good old days, they enjoy. They are real men, more so than some of their self-professed more virile co-males on this planet, who still lie abed at 10:30 a.m.

They gave up waiting for them.

The tree around which they just finished firming the soil is also waiting. The soil, the men discovered, was moist only down to about 8 inches.  On this overcast morning, everyone is hoping for rain. It does fall, 1/2 inch that night and 4 inches the next couple of days. In tree-years, it did not have to wait long.

The tree also is waiting for spring, to show off its promised beauty and to grow into the new soil around its roots. It is waiting to increase enough in size to shade the walking trail just beyond it. And someday, it will have waited until, like the men who planted it, the end will be very near and it will be ready for a position on a truck similar to the one parked in the background.

That truck also is waiting for someone who lives nearby to get going on this mid-morning. Is he lazy? Does he have the day off? Is he bound by a schedule that will not allow him to deliver his load until later?

Or is the driver also waiting? Did his wife sleep in and forget to make breakfast? Is he waiting for an important phone call before he begins his day? Is he waiting for the dryer to stop tumbling so he can finish dressing?

How inter-connected we all are! How much one slow one can affect it all!

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Good ol' days, Homemaking, Inspiring, Who's the mom here?, Wisdom

I Have Slept . . .

Posted on by Katharine

 . . . but I did not dream.

Dreaming about getting the laundry done.I love dreams, except for nightmares. I love recalling those crazy twisted dreams and trying to figure what was going on in my head that I could have thought such things when my mind was disengaged.

They say “house” dreams are about yourself, so the one I dreamed with the flooded basement probably was not a good sign. But what about the one where the staircase just went on forever with thousands of rooms on hundreds of floors, all furnished like a ritzy bed-and-breakfast? Hmm.

My other dreams, my wide-awake dreams where I plan how wonderful I will be next year, are another story. These dreams haunt me. I put them off, thinking I need some other thing to be just perfect before I can get started. You know the type: losing weight, writing a book, finishing crocheting that afghan, unpacking the last box from moving several years ago, etc. I know I should make some headway on at least some or at the very least one of these dreams, but the facts stand on the sidelines laughing at me.  The facts are that I don’t do what I could and I don’t know why.

I used to keep ironing up to date. Really. I used to keep my flower beds weeded. I used to weigh less.

I think partly I was living before my children and insisted on setting a good example at all times. Now they are grown and mostly gone and no one is watching me.

Except the Lord. He sees. He knows.

What I used to do because I believed I must do it, I now must learn to do only because it is right. My mind allows me choices these days, and I am surprised at who I see living underneath all the exterior rules I had made for myself.

I distinctly remember thinking, when the last child was off to college, “Whew! Now I can rest and do whatever I please. Finally! I am my own puppy!”

I think I need to rethink.

I have slept. It’s time to wake up.

Posted in Blessings of Habit, Health, Husbands, Inspiring, Photos

Down Days

Posted on by Katharine
tools of patience
Tools of Patience

The illness my husband and I have shared has hit him much lighter than me. He is nearly well. I have coughed until it hurts my sides and I get a headache.

I guess it is just as well he is progressing so quickly, as he is making a trip to visit his dad today. He has wanted to do this for some time and has waited until just the right moment. The time is now. I will not be going along, due to the probability that I am still contagious. And still tired.

Although I managed to do laundry yesterday, I had to rest between each task. More strength does not always equal more energy. At least I’m not dizzy anymore. I am so glad of that!

I have thought lots about how I feel I’m under attack from the enemy and how my being sick just gives him such pleasure. I have wished for a miraculous healing. That would be just superb, in my opinion, to shake this disease in a moment. I would love that. But it’s not manifesting, here.

So all I know to do is be patient, let my body and the meds do their work. Then I think: The enemy also hates patience, so if I practice patience then I am defeating him, again. The body is miraculous in its ability to fight off disease, absolutely without parallel in this world of many wonders.

So I will keep plugging along, keep trying for patience, keep boosting my God-given immunities with antibiotics, antihistamines, and antitussives; hot teas and lemonades; cough drops and cough drops and cough drops. The day will come. It will.