I have waited and waited. And I’m not a good waiter. So I said to myself, “The next photo challenge will be winter, if I can possibly make it fit the theme.” I did it. These shots will show between, if I have to rewrite the dictionary.
Daffs Between Winter and Spring
This first one shows daffs waiting to bloom, between winter and spring.
In case you wondered, winter is my favorite season. They say I would change my mind if I lived more northerly, where winter is more constant, but I think some of the people who live with snow all the time still love winter, and I think I would be one of them, if it ever came to that.
We have not dwelt in this “neck of the woods” very long. However, when we first arrived, we learned of The Blue Mail Box.
Decorated with Love
The Blue Mail Box is an actual place, marked on some maps. People in many surrounding towns could drive you straight to it because they know exactly what you mean when you say, “The Blue Mail Box,” and they know exactly where it is.
Yes, The Blue Mail Box is an actual place you can drive to, but it is also a place in history, a place in the hearts of many local people. You see, it stands for so much more than mail, although it does include mail. It stands for trust, cooperation, and grit. It stands for love-thy-neighbor. It stands for “. . . the howdy and the handshake, the laughter and the tears, the dream that’s been . . . ”
Yes. The Blue Mail Box is a has-been. It still exists, but the lovely things it represents exist only in history, only in hearts, only in memories.
I am sure the first time The Blue Mail Box was vandalized, it brought shock or pain to its extended family of devotees.
Now days, it enjoys protection–it’s been vandalized that much–as a memento of an innocent age we wish we could resume.
But no mail.
Who would try, these days, what was common occurrence back then?
Who would allow all the mail from one community to be deposited in one box with no lock, to be sorted through by anyone who lived there? Who would trust a neighbor to bring him his mail, since he was going that way, anyway? Who would kindly take old Widow Smith her mail, then open and read it for her?
No one in his right mind, that’s who. Not now days. But The Blue Mail Box was all that and more, once upon a time. Friends who chanced to meet at The Blue Mail Box would linger and visit. Surely a few surreptitious meetings between lovers occurred there, too, under the guise of “collecting Mama’s mail”? Probably notes, without postage, sometimes waited inside The Blue Mail Box, for folks who did not have phones to communicate with their neighbors.
But those days are over.
Half of it is illegal, these days, anyway.
Now days, when someone hears of The Blue Mail Box for the first time, they greet it with laughter, as I did. But as we grow to know these people, we realize the love that stood behind all that trust with each other’s mail. Elderly ladies smile as they tell of hi-jinks from school days. They boast of good preachers from back then. They dream, starry-eyed, of past Christmas plays, spelling bees, weddings . . .
The Blue Mail Box is the stuff of real life, and we all should have something similar stuffed somewhere in the backs of our memories, for it once was the American way.
But we have allowed “them” to steal it from us and it is gone, isn’t it.
Except for the box.
We’ve thrown aside the gift and we’re playing with the box . . .
. . . the father said to his servants,”Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. –Luke 15:22-24
We recently went to the Garvin Gardens light display in Hot Springs, AR. It was beautiful, but outside of a brief nod to the Santa stuff, it was mostly not even about Christmas, let alone about the Nativity.
Shown here is a water feature that includes a tree transformed by night in to a blue “willow” with only light strings. Beautiful, but no cigar.
There also was a pagoda that was terribly fun to stand inside and gaze upward. It looked like being inside an explosion, I suppose, but what actual significance did it have?
Lastly, I captured a peacock made of lights. A peacock.
Adoration of the Magi by Fra Angelico and Filippo Lippi
The first recorded baby shower in the world, perhaps, was when the Magi brought to Joseph and Mary, and their new baby, Jesus, three amazing gifts from their traveling treasure chests.
Gold
What? No gift card for Baby Gap? No.
Gold.
Gold cannot be canceled and is the standard for all worth. Just as Jesus is.
Gold never tarnishes, never rusts, never becomes corrupt in any way. Again, like Jesus.
Gold is the decoration of kings, the drapery of kings, a symbol of kings. Which is what Jesus is: King of Kings.
Frankincense
No Lysol Spray? No.
Something much nicer and much more meaningful.
The aged sap of the boswelia bush, obtained by beating and cutting it, frankincense was considered as precious as gold. Okay, so Jesus is more precious.
Frankincense was both appealing and purifying. As is Jesus.
Priests burned frankincense to mingle with prayer. Jesus is our High Priest and ever lives to pray for us.
A girl I’ll call Sharon lived down the country road from our house, in a piece of rental property meant to be a hunters’ cabin. Drafty, leaky, and termite-infested, it at least provided some privacy for Sharon’s family: her unemployed parents and her 10-year-old baby sister.
When the church brought us meals after one of my children was born, and it was too much food for us, we shared it with Sharon and her family. I worried that they might not enjoy all those types of foods, but they assured us they loved all foods. Then they returned all those empty Cool-Whip cartons, carefully washed and dried. Only once did her mother ask for $25 for food, and when she had finished shopping, she brought me the change she had not needed.
Sharon was trying to finish high school and keep out of trouble, bless her. I enjoyed her calm and sure personality a lot. Although she was a teenager and I was near 30, she seemed bonded to me and would call me to chat, sometimes. Towards the end of each conversation she would mention some trouble she or a family member was having and we would discuss it for a few minutes. Only if I promised I would pray for her, would she end the conversation. That always touched me so.
Before long, she married and the young couple had their first child. She called me and asked me to come visit and see the house her teen husband had built for her. I was amazed at this building made of plywood, inside and outside, floors and ceilings, with the interior walls painted a pale blue. Sharon had actually used a feather duster dipped in paint to make fancy designs on the paint in the front room. A cast-iron wood stove in the center of the house cranked out more heat than I needed, but it was to keep the baby warm.
One day Sharon rang my doorbell and said she had a gift for me. She and her husband and baby were moving far away and it was her way of saying good-bye. There, on my porch stood a small table her husband had made. It was primitive, about on the order of a house made only of plywood, but it was sturdy and painted pale blue with feathery designs on it.
I could hardly believe that Sharon, in her poverty, would think to give anyone anything. It was so touching to me. I have cherished that little table for a long time, using it for a fern stand on the porch in summer and indoors in winter. It didn’t match a thing I had, but I wouldn’t think of parting with that incredible gift.
She was incredibly poor.
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