Welcome to the November edition of SJT : Spiritual Journey Thursday. This group generally posts on the first Thursday of the month. Thanks to Linda Mitchell for hosting this month and for providing the prompt: Your World, My world, Our World. You can find her post and the posts of others here.
For those of you who have been following me, I have a new computer now, but I'm still figuring out all the ins and outs. It's a good thing, I'm just not at a comfort level yet. Nonetheless, thanks to my husband who has provided technical support.
In commemoration of the upcoming 250th anniversary of our nation, I've been in a little discussion group based on James Michener's Centennial. I finished the book today, all 909 pages, and I am rightfully awed as Michener's ability to present such an amazing scope of history and such momentous insights and questions. Michener's stories suggest that we face the same questions over and over again:
How do we respect our history and still honestly face our failures?
How do we heal our divisions?
How do we embrace progress while giving due respect to our land?
I come away from this book with a renewed sense of respect and love for the history and beauty of our land. And tonight, as we reveal the votes... how will we go forward?
I pray for peace, truth, and respect. I pray that we will respond with grace.
My One Little Word this year is song. Here are a couple of songs of encouragement:
Give Me Oil in My Lamp
Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning
May we all know God's peace, and may we share it with those around us.
Welcome to another Spiritual Journey post. This month is hosted by Carol Varsalona, who challenged us to Pause to Reflect and consider the worth and meaning of Pausing in our lives. Find Carol's entry and links to others in the group HERE> Thank you, Carol!
This is a quiet time for me. I have a month's pause from several of my usual activities, and I have been resting, reading, gardening and visiting family and friends. I'm grateful for this time. Pausing allows me to take in more of the wonder and beauty that the world offers. So often our eyes are blinded by our own thoughts, plans, and expectations. We forget to pause and really take it all in.
The other day my husband went out to start sprinklers on our lawn. When he came in we exchanged a few words and I barely glanced at him. When I looked more carefully, I noticed he had water splotched all over his shirt. I had completely missed it at first and I realized I had not paused to focus. We had a little laugh over his "shower," a bit of fun I would have missed had I not paused.
How often do we pause to look a person in the eye, read their expressions, appreciate their beauty? How often do we pause to allow the world to surprise us?
I was reminded of Snow Geese by Mary Oliver, which seems an excellent example of pausing and reflecting. Here are some quotes from it:
Snow Geese
by Mary Oliver
...
One fall day I heard above me, and above the sting of the wind, a sound I did not know, and my look shot upward; it was a flock of snow geese, winging it faster than the ones we usually see, and, being the color of snow, catching the sun so they were, in part at least, golden. I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us
...
The geese flew on, I have never seen them again. Maybe I will, someday, somewhere. Maybe I won't. It doesn't matter. What matters is that, when I saw them, I saw them as through the veil, secretly, joyfully, clearly.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we had the inclination and opportunity to pause and to reflect, to enjoy, to wonder and to be dazzled? How much more renewed and delighted we might be. How much more joyfully and clearly we might see the world. I hope you will be so blessed.
A notice: Between software updates and my old computer, I can't add pictures to my blog today. I'm disappointed and I apologize for the lack of color and interest. I hope to solve this issue!
Welcome to a belated post in the Thursday Spiritual Journey Group. Ruth Hersey is hosting, and has provided the prompt "I don't know." Where will it lead?
I've had a most remarkable week.
I have been leading the craft section of our church's Vacation Bible School. We had about 60 children, ages 4yrs to 6th grade. Each day they came through our craft room in age groupings, and we provided craft activities for 25 minutes. Five groups each morning. Move, move, move!
Early in the week we painted with forks to make puffer fish, folded origami angel fish, made whales and decorated whale flukes. We provided a verse or message with most crafts, affirming that each is a "child of God." Midweek we made craft stick anchors and talked about the cross at the top. "We have this hope as an anchor."
my sample... we learned that one big fish was challenge enough!
We cut pool noodles and set up an assembly line to make a little floating boat, crewed by a craft stick person and bearing a flag with the fisherman's prayer. Who doesn't love a floating craft? Friday we shared contagious giggles over our sharks... creative license led to baby vampire sharks, girl sharks with hair and hair bows, cross-eyed sharks, etc. We loved the number of legs on our metallic orange cupcake- liner crabs. Our message read "God is a friend you can trust" and we quietly added "even when you're crabby."
I've had an amazing, large and dedicated group of helpers. It has turned out to be such a wonderful week. Hectic? Yes. Energy draining? Yes. Rewarding? Yes.
I went into this week with excitement and trepidation. I knew I would love the kids, and I love providing crafts, but could we put it all together and make it work? We worked hard, and we did. And we've all been astounded at the blessings of faith and creativity in these children.
my puffer fish sample
I lost sleep trying to stay ahead of our needs. It has been a challenge to keep my thoughts straight with the schedule, the number of kids in each group, the change of craft as we cycle from younger to older. It's been a mad rush of activity for this grandma.
I don't know how to measure my love and appreciation for my helpers. I've made new friends and deepened relationships over the craziness and the creativity and the earnestness of each child. I feel so blessed to be part of this team.
We made it through Friday, but only by God's grace. I feel that we gave our best, and I'm pleased. It seems somehow miraculous that through our simple work with markers and glue sticks, God stepped in and fed our hearts.
I can't leave without a song to reflect my mood, so... here you go... I love these things...
I don't know if I'll have the energy to do this again, and I don't know how I can fully express my feelings about it. I only know I have been blessed beyond measure.
I wish you an uplifting and praiseworthy time this summer also. Feel free to share in the comments. You can find more thoughts on this theme at Ruth's blog... click HERE. Thanks for hosting and for this interesting prompt, Ruth!
Yes, it is Poetry Friday. Thanks to Denise Krebs for hosting. You can find her post, in which she shares a most interesting poetry form, at https://mrsdkrebs.edublogs.org/ Others in the Poetry Friday community will be linked there also. You are cordially invited!
Welcome to Spiritual Journey Thursday. Here you will find a group of authors and poets who write monthly about spiritual matters. You are welcome to write your own response and join in. I'm hosting today so you will find links to other posts in today's comments. Our prompt is about looking into the past for something that has shaped or inspired our current spiritual practice or outlook.
When I was a child, my family attended a lovely little church. Every Sunday we sang a call-and-response liturgy which became very natural to me and which included these words from Psalm 51:
Create in me a clean heart, O God
and renew a right spirit within me
cast me not away from thy presence
and take not thy Holy Spirit from me.
Restore unto me
the joy of thy salvation
and uphold me with thy free spirit.
These words are inscribed on my heart and in my head. They come to me unbidden, and have become some of my favorite verses. My current church does not practice a musical liturgy, and I sometimes miss it. For me, there is value in the repetition of these words. Over time they have grown in meaning as they were repeated and reconsidered. I find that now, in my grandmother years, the music and words come to me as both a comfort and a strength.
Words and music hold immense power. They move us to action or bring us to tears. I've put some of my favorite prayers, scripture and quotes on my walls and over my desk. I like being surrounded with words that lift me up and orient me spiritually.
I hope you have found, or will find, words/songs/psalms that take on deep meaning, that you can fall back on as touchstones. I hope they bring you strength, joy, courage and peace.
Greetings everyone! It is Poetry Friday and I have some poems to share.
Today I'm sharing my delight with Carol Labuzzetta's anthology: Picture Perfect Poetry. I have three poems in this beautiful book, and I'm proud to share two of them today. Carol's anthology is such a beauty! It is an anthology of Ekphrastic Nature Poetry for Students. (Ekphrastic refers to writing that describes a visual art, in this case nature photography.) So, this is a thanks to Carol for including my poems, and a sharing of both poems and photographs.
Autumn's Hold
Pumpkins squat and bright and round Gathered now in autumn's hold Your droll expressions so renowned Pumpkins squat and bright and round. What lessons in this fall playground? Leave a seed! Shine your light! Be BOLD! Pumpkins squat and bright and round Gathered now in autumn's hold.
A note about this one: I just now had the idea to BOLD the bold! Also, this is a form called triolet: the first line is repeated three times. I love that Carol made the entire page orange for this one.
The next poem was inspired not only by the sunset, but by a prompt from an online workshop I took with Georgia Heard. She suggested we write a poem beginning with "Things to do if you are a ..."
Things to Do if You are a Sunset
Blush Sneak in Put on neon Delight in feathered flight Hopscotch from cloud to cloud Inspect your reflection on water Flash on last surprise Dazzle Fade
Thanks ever so much for reading and thanks to Patricia Franz for hosting today. Be sure to check in on her blog to read a wonderful poem about planting sugar pines in a national forest. Also, she has a great quote about being part of something larger. Poetry Friday is that kind of gathering, and you can be part of it also. Find Patricia and learn more HERE.
Greetings! My garden has called me and I've already planted lettuce, salad turnips and sugar snap pea pods. All have germinated, but not at well as I would like, so yesterday I put in a few more seeds.
Growing a garden is a new experience every year. Some plants flourish, some are eaten by rabbits. Some perennials thrive, some are flooded out. It's always a challenge, and always carries some reward.
Two plants I'm pleased with just now are below. The pulmonaria at top, also called lungwort, pleases me every spring with its beautiful spotted leaves and purple flowers. This year I wrote a praise poem about it.
This poem is a form called kwansaba. It is a praise poem with 7 lines, 7 words per line, and 7 or fewer letters per word. The 7 letters per word was tricky and I had to adopt new words, or split words, as I did the word "lungwort."
The photo below is of my peperomia, which originally was given to me by my future husband a few months before we were married. It has had ups and downs over these 52 years, but this year it is glorious and I love it!
Gardening teaches patience and perseverance. It reminds me that life can be messy, and it forces me to get down on my knees. As I pull weeds and water my plants, I witness many blessings of the earth, and I marvel at the power of nature and the webs of interconnection. Gardening promotes respect for the earth, the importance of work and gratitude for each edible morsel. It helps me to appreciate beauty and accept its ephemerality. Each plant has its own family, habit of growth, weaknesses, and needs for flourishing. Keeping track of the names of plants both challenges and fascinates me. Gardens are full of surprises. Two years ago a tiny deep blue liatris showed up under my peony! I have put liatris in pots in the past, but hadn't seen one in some years. What a joy! Gardens and growing things are continual blessings, and upon consideration, I believe lessons from the garden are endless.
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.
These words are from the poem "God's Garden" by Dorothy Frances Gurney, born in 1858.
I can't leave without a song or two, since SONG is my OLW for 2024. Here's a cute one I just found, perfect for a little one.
And here's one I learned years ago. There are many videos of this song, but I chose Pete Seeger's because his words are a little different, like a personal prayer.
Thanks to Jone Rush MacCulloch for the prompt this month, and for hosting the Spiritual Journey Thursday group. Find Jone and links to others in the group HERE.
