I am not sure what this phenomenon is called, but it is winter weather and it is beautiful.
The nearest I can describe it is that a heavy frost was forming on a breezy morning and the results were that the frost formed only on the sides of slender things, such as twigs and wires.
Frosted Bush, sorry the file is huge. I took this long ago when I knew not what I was doing.
Except that actually, it was a sort of foggy morning, so perhaps the fog was freezing on the sides of things, in gorgeous crystals that extended like pennants from twigs. I don’t know.
Some of you northerners help me out, here.
Anyway, I have a photo; it happened.
Then when the breeze picked up enough to sway branches, the frost began falling off, tinkling like the tiniest bells, falling over the ground in glittery shards in the sunlight.
People can be confused about life if they ignore the Owner’s manual. That’s okay as long as in our mistakes, we seek the Bible, where we find every necessary explanation.
Regarding joy, we find it is a gift from the Spirit of the Living God. (Galatians 5:22)
This gift, the angels tell us, seems to have come simultaneously with the birth of His Son. (Luke 2:10) Amazing, going far beyond the usual joy at a successful birth of a son, this joy seems to know no bounds, and is the soul’s antidote to the worst of evil. (Matthew 5:11-12)
Limitless, unrestrainable joy can be ours. Like a deep current under the surface waters of the streams of our lives, we can have this hidden, mysterious constant: joy.
But only if we have the Spirit that is Holy. Our having joy depends on nothing less.
For this reason, we find all sorts of encouragement to contentment in God’s Word.
Paul showed us that he had arrived at being able to possess himself with contentment, no matter what the circumstances. (Philippians 4:11-12) Lots of incredibly hard things happened to Paul, (2 Corinthians 4:8-9) so we should consider him a reliable instructor in contentment, and he encouraged us to be content, no matter what.
Contentment is a choice, and depends on our obedience, and nothing less.
Ah, but happiness—where does it fit? Jesus was not always happy, (Luke 13:34) and neither was Paul. (Acts 23:1-3) Happiness is a normal, natural response to our happenings. It is a feeling, an honest reaction, to life, and nothing more.
When we lose something, be it possessions, reputation, or loved ones, we are not happy. No.
We can draw, though, upon that miraculous joy, ever residing in the core of our beings (if we actually have it, have that gift of Jehovah God’s Spirit.) We can rise above happiness to contentment, on the strength of that joy.
Not all things bring happiness, but we can learn to walk in contentment, if only we receive the gift He stands ready to give us—true joy.
Did a bit of pioneering work today, and it was a fun challenge.
Basically, I had to haul water in a bucket to do laundry.
Oh, it’s not like it sounds. We have city water piped into our house and a faucet near the washing machine. But the hot water tank that feeds the washer goes out, now and then, and we find ourselves without hot water, back there, at inopportune times.
If we want to shower—our bath being connected to the laundry—we can use the guest bath, which has its own hot water. In fact, that bathroom is the only hot water source in the house during down times like this.
If I want to wash dishes, since the kitchen also is connected to the laundry, and I cannot use the dishwasher, I must haul hot water, from that other bathroom, to fill the sink and do dishes by hand. I was using a one-gallon pitcher. It takes about 2 ½ gallons to fill the sink nicely. It’s okay to rinse in cold.
However, I wanted to do laundry, so I found an old plastic scrub bucket that holds 2 gallons. That cut the trips in half. At first I thought of skipping laundry until tomorrow, but later, I asked myself, “How hard can it be? Millions of women have hauled water to do laundry, and that was uphill wearing long skirts.” I could do this.
The first trip across the house with a full bucket of hot water taught me balance. Heh heh.
When I dumped it into the washer, it all trickled to the space under the perforated drum that holds the clothing. What little bit that rose above that level quickly soaked into the clothes in the washer. It would take a lot more water.
I made about 8 trips with that bucket, across tiled and laminated floors. It was hard to feel patient and joyful, until I would remember those pioneer women and their long skirts, meandering trails, rocky paths strewn with slick leaves. Most of them were hauling cold water, too, that would need heating, next.
At least mine was already hot. At least mine was across a level surface. At least I did not have to wear all those billows of clothing.
After hauling the water I was in no hurry to drain it away. So I left the lid up and soaked that clothing for a while. I’m glad I did, for I got to thinking: That water was still hot and not dirty. If I could wring out the clothes in it, I could reuse it for the next load.
A familiar-looking basket of wrung-out clothing soon stood by my feet, and the next load was chugging along before I realized I was doing laundry the way my grandmother did before she got her wringer. I watched her when I was tiny, but I’d almost lost the memory.
Eventually I washed three small loads of clothing in one small load of hot water. What would have been sixty gallons of soapy water became only 20 or so.
I saw something, during this trial, namely, why my grandmother reused the water during laundry times. Even after all her laundry was done, there were still flower beds to water, and a porch to scrub.
She remembered hauling it up hill.
Read a great story that complements this idea, here.
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 . . .
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.
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!”
Today is the second story, the one that makes yesterday’s post complete in expression of the beauty of blessings. If you didn’t read yesterday’s, you kind of have to read it now. Today’s won’t make as much sense without it.
Fast forward one year. It is Thanksgiving Day, again. We are planning the 500 mile trek home again. Our arm is better. We are playing more carefully, now. We are so totally ready, again.
But a lot has happened in another family we know. The family that opened its home to us last year, when we were sort of stranded, in a medical way of speaking, had lost its only source of income. The dad–we’ll call him Clarence–had been jobless for weeks, had found new employment several hours away and had moved his entire family there to be with him. Things were looking rather good for them and we rejoiced that after such a long trial, these kind people had found some relief from their troubles.
Clarence also had medical insurance at this new job and needed elective surgery. He chose the weekend of Thanksgiving for it because he had days off and so did his parents; they could all be together.
We visited with them over the phone a time or two before the surgery. He felt a bit uneasy, as anyone would before surgery, and Clarence and my husband were pretty good friends. Clarence would call my husband his best friend, but my husband is shy of being called by superlatives.
I think it was the Wednesday. You know–THE Wednesday before Thanksgiving. We were readying to go, I know that for sure. Then the call came. Clarence’s wife wanted prayer for his surgery. I told her of course we were praying. She said that no, she meant really, really pray, that something was not going right. She began to cry. I listened. My horror grew as I realized the medical terms she was quoting from the doctors were the warm-up words they use to prepare the family for death of the patient. I think she wanted me to help her accept this might be happening. I don’t remember what I said, but I did not want to commit myself to anything quotable until I had spoken with my husband.
I called my husband and told him what I thought. It did not register with him. He came home as early as he thought appropriate, and by then I had spoken several more times with Clarence’s wife and when my husband walked in the door I told him, “I think Clarence is dead.”
The grief that washed over him made me sorry I had to tell him.
He called the wife and spoke with her a bit. When he hung up, he said he was going immediately. He took our older son, Clarence’s older son’s best friend. The two of them stayed up all night waiting for the doctors to admit the truth: Clarence had suffered from a fatal reaction to the anesthesia. He had gone out of this life saying to his wife, “Something’s not right. Something’s not right. Tell them! Something’s not right.” She heard these, his last words, I am sure, forever, although that was maybe 12 or 15 years ago and she is happily remarried now.
But my husband and my son were there. They were able to help Clarence’s family assimilate the truth and deal with the aftermath. This kind family who had opened their home to us during the previous Thanksgiving, now missing one member, were the needy ones. And although our plans were again foiled by the events around us, by troubles and tragedies around us, there was the blessing: We could be there for them.
And we realized: That Thanksgiving Dinner we had shared the year before was the last event, ever, that we shared with him before he moved his family and then died. If we had not had reason to stay home, we so would have missed that one last dinner.
And that was the 8th blessing.
And we know that in all things, God works for good with those who love Him . . . Romans 8:28
She was incredibly poor.
But my husband and my son were there. They were able to help Clarence’s family assimilate the truth and deal with the aftermath. This kind family who had opened their home to us during the previous Thanksgiving, now missing one member, were the needy ones. And although our plans were again foiled by the events around us, by troubles and tragedies around us, there was the blessing: We could be there for them.
Home's Cool! 