Confession

 

I was taken in – the television commercial about the wonderfully light, transportable, retractable hose got me. This might be the answer to recurring wrestling match I have with the garden hoses, I thought! Tugging and hauling and then tripping over them is not as much fun as it used to be – especially since I learned a friend lost her round with her backyard hose and fell, breaking a hip and her wrist! So, I ordered two hoses and bought several for my kids and friends.  The hose seemed so sensible and inexpensive I simply had to share it – but those hoses had a design flaw – one that had been pointed out by other buyers on Amazon, but one I ignored. 

Instead of brass fittings, the lightweight hose had plastic connectors, unable to withstand the “pressures” of watering a few flow beds. Therefore, when watering the plants, I got watered, as water gushed from the connectors.  Then I pictured our kids and friends being similarly drenched – and winced. Some gift!

What I hoped would be helpful turned out to be a hassle. The amazing hose I thought could minimize the risk of falling, and make watering easier for others just showed me: don’t give cheap solutions to real problems – especially when a multitude of people before me, said This is doesn’t work!  But, so enamored was I with the hose’s possibilities, I ignored the warnings: save your money!

Wrestling again with my cumbersome old hose this morning, I wondered what the little lessons were in this little debacle. I saw three – clichés, maybe – but good goads, nonetheless:

1.     Some things that look so good may be too good to be true. 

2.     Learn from other people’s experiences instead of repeating them.  And,

3.     Gardening, including its choice of tools – like life -- may convey risks among its many rewards.* 

And maybe I see a subsequent lesson: beware of giving cheap gifts assuming they might solve other gardeners’ problems. 

*Rewards of gardening that others describe well:

·      Gardening is not a rational act. ~Margaret Atwood

·      Hope never dies within a true gardener’s heart. ~author unknown - 

·      You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt. ~Author Unknown

Lunching in Triple Digits

Still Standing @ 100 degrees!

Here we are in Texas for the month of August, an unexpected opportunity to live through triple digit temperatures, because our trip to Maryland was postponed.  Of course, the humidity here is quite low, so it is a dry heat.   I actually felt cooler until a friend reminded that an oven puts out dry heat too, and it can get plenty hot!

This afternoon I met a friend for lunch; she is a native of west Texas – Amarillo. Texas women are tough – no  wilting under any magnolia branches for them!  And she was waiting for me on the patio of a favorite spot, Celebration, where we ate lunch in all that wonderful dry heat. But two or three icy glasses of tea, consumed in the deep shade of the patio, and under a fan, made it a remarkable adventure.

I was just proud of myself for not passing out!

I have forgotten what it felt like to eat in hot weather, sans air-conditioning. For the heat, albeit dry, reminded me how summer felt in Baltimore in the 1950’s.  And what I discovered was I ate more slowly, and listened more closely to my friend – and chose my own words carefully – who wants to waste breath on unnecessary words?   

The change in travel plans has meant I have time to consider how our garden is growing – We’ re reaching the scraggily stage. The long hot days and dry nights can wilt even the hardy Pentas  I put in the front of the house. But in the back of the house, the black-eyed Susans seem determined to keep growing. I see them out my kitchen window, waving bravely in the sun and heat.  At lunch today, I believe I channeled my inner state flower, and put up a good show.

Maybe one day, I can treat my friend to a crab feast on an August afternoon in Maryland?

Cantler's Riverside Inn*

The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone.

~Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

 *PHOTO Source

Limitations on Choice

So, in preparation for the motor trip that wasn’t, I collected eleven audio books from the local library: mysteries, histories and biographies – and J. K. Rowling’s The Casual Vacancy. Three days driving each way: well, we would have a variety from which to choose, even if we didn’t go through all of them.

Choice is a valuable exercise – enjoying what we would prefer exercises our minds, and refreshes us. And it is often as rare as it is delightful.  Therefore, on last Friday afternoon at the doctor’s office, we were startled how suddenly we lost the choice to travel by car – airplane, or any other conveyance. We were not simply delaying our departure, when we learned that the antibiotics we hoped would clear up Doug’s cough would be administered by trained medical personnel, as into the hospital he was quickly admitted.

Now I know a more precise connotation of blindsided.

But, the blessing of having lost our choice about how and where we would be spending our weekend, is we were given the gift of doctors, nurses, aides – in clean and comfortable surroundings, and care that has been good. Most of the world does not enjoy this limitation.  (See Sodo Hospital. )   

The window in Doug’s room has been similarly a sharp reminder not to whine about what we “lost” this weekend, for it looks out on the helicopter pad at Baylor hospital’s expanding campus. He and I can see the folks who may have been as surprised as we were to be in a hospital, and some with more complicated problems than ours.   

One good thing is that we have many good books to engage our imaginations during Doug’s recovery.

Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first or last time.  ~Betty Smith, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

A Delayed Departure

By this time, we should have arrived in Memphis TN and settled in for a rest before heading for Virginia. Indeed, we could have been there. For by 8:00 AM this morning we were packed, organized and ready to depart.  This is not our S.O.P.! Our kids may have memories (aka nightmares) of planning an early departure, only to finally get off to Maine by four in the afternoon, and driving well into the night.

However, this time, it wasn’t our poor planning that stopped us; an ever so tiny virus – a cold one to be precise – has delayed our plans. Doug is down with the sniffles, aches coughs, and pains – just as the temperature in Dallas is breaking the 100-degree mark daily.

So, facing the reality of an empty refridge, I gathered myself together for a run to the grocery store to secure chicken soup and saltines.  How is it I can see the sunlight shimmering when no breeze moves in the leaves?And this question prompted more:

How did anyone cross Texas one hundred years ago – in a long dress, corset, etc, and in a Conestoga wagon? With no sunscreen for their windshield, no Whole Foods, iced and filtered water, or smart phones, how was the west won?  And what happened if their hubbies got sick?

We are praying for a speedy recovery, and patience in the interim.   

• Those that say you can't take it with you never saw [our] car packed for a vacation trip.  ~Author Unknown

Remembering

Blog has moved to https://autumns-garden.com/kindness-stays-perch-even-time-flies/ -- please come by!

The Sabbath

 

How Christians keep the Sabbath holy is a continuing debate in some circles, albeit fewer and fewer.  We are many and varied in our obedience to it – the keeping of the Sabbath. .  When our states no longer enforced the outward rules protecting the Sabbath – giving citizens one day in seven to recover from life -- many of us relaxed a few of our habits too.  Keeping the Sabbath holy is a commandment I keep imperfectly. Sadly, it is an indicator of how well I obey the other nine.  

Christ said the Sabbath is a gift – Mark 2:27. How I use these 24 hours shows me how trusting I am of God to be sufficient. So, an article on the Huffington Post by Alison Cayne drew me [again] into a reflection on how I spend this one day of the week – although the point of the piece was not worship. The author was describing the value of there are in acknowledging and promoting limits in life and childrearing:  

Rabbi Sacks said Sabbaths, "are to time what parks are to space: something precious that we share on equal terms and that none of us could create or possess on our own."

Resting in an ancient agrarian society was a limitation with consequences; it was an act of faith that’s hard to appreciate for one accustomed to leisure and convenience. Setting one day aside so that I may enjoy God, and do nothing that will distract others from thinking about God, and all the great things HE did – and does, is hard work – especially for when others with whom we live look forward to eating.

Growing up when the Blue Laws limited activities, I thought Sundays were a drag – more evidence that a divine despot who despised pleasure ruled the universe.  Isaiah and other prophets helped me see the divinely appointed day of rest differently: Keeping the Sabbath is a heart matter – not a rule matter.

^13-14 “If you watch your step on the Sabbath
    and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage,
If you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy,
    God’s holy day as a celebration,
If you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’
    making money, running here and there—
Then you’ll be free to enjoy God! . . . (Isaiah 58:13-14 The Message)

Six days of the week, I can do all my work; one day of the week, God invites me to spend in His company. It’s a limitation for sure – but it is the theme verse of my life; it is a reminder that all I enjoy – LIFE - is a gift, something precious that we share on equal terms and that none of us could create or possess on our own."

 

Returning to a Favorite Campsite

The recent trial that just ended in Florida show how tragic an ending can be for two men, one older, and one younger who did not guard their steps – and for a nation whose media permitted uninhibited words to color our consciences.  George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin made choices – that cost each dearly. Trayvon literally lost his life – and George lost one reputation, and gained another -- one no one would want.   Those who love them will bear the consequences for the rest of their lives.  

One quote seems apt: If things go wrong, don't go with them.  ~ Roger Babson 

I’ve heard some commentaries that hurt to hear, some that goad me to examine my conscience – Juan Williams expressed some thoughts I had – it goes for whites too: Cry for Help. So did Cal Thomas : “You have white trash, we have black trash.”

All remind me that Solomon’s counsel and commentaries remain a good campsite this summer too. His words make more sense than any self-help book I’ve ever read:

Guard your steps, guard your words – for neither you nor I are in control of much. (Ecclesiastes 5:2)

See The Message’s rendering of Proverbs 1 which captures what I hope God’s people can offer our confused and hurting hearts, (emphases added):  

^1-6 These are the wise sayings of Solomon,
    David’s son, Israel’s king—
Written down so we’ll know how to live well and right,
    to understand what life means and where it’s going;
A manual for living,
    for learning what’s right and just and fair;
To teach the inexperienced the ropes
    and give our young people a grasp on reality.
There’s something here also for seasoned men and women,
    still a thing or two for the experienced to learn—
Fresh wisdom to probe and penetrate,
    the rhymes and reasons of wise men and women.

Start with God

⁷ Start with God—the first step in learning is bowing down to God;
    only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

^8-19 Pay close attention, friend, to what your father tells you;
    never forget what you learned at your mother’s knee.
Wear their counsel like flowers in your hair,
    like rings on your fingers.
Dear friend, if bad companions tempt you,
    don’t go along with them.
If they say—“Let’s go out and raise some hell.
    Let’s beat up some old man, mug some old woman.
Let’s pick them clean
    and get them ready for their funerals.
We’ll load up on top-quality loot.
    We’ll haul it home by the truckload.
Join us for the time of your life!
    With us, it’s share and share alike!”—
Oh, friend, don’t give them a second look;
    don’t listen to them for a minute.
They’re racing to a very bad end,
    hurrying to ruin everything they lay hands on.
Nobody robs a bank
    with everyone watching,
Yet that’s what these people are doing—
    they’re doing themselves in.
When you grab all you can get, that’s what happens:
    the more you get, the less you are.

Lady Wisdom

^20-21 Lady Wisdom goes out in the street and shouts.
    At the town center she makes her speech.
In the middle of the traffic she takes her stand.
    At the busiest corner she calls out:

^22-24 “Simpletons! How long will you wallow in ignorance?
    Cynics! How long will you feed your cynicism?
Idiots! How long will you refuse to learn?
    About face! I can revise your life.
Look, I’m ready to pour out my spirit on you;
    I’m ready to tell you all I know.
As it is, I’ve called, but you’ve turned a deaf ear;
    I’ve reached out to you, but you’ve ignored me.

^25-28 “Since you laugh at my counsel
    and make a joke of my advice,
How can I take you seriously?
    I’ll turn the tables and joke about your troubles!
What if the roof falls in,
    and your whole life goes to pieces?
What if catastrophe strikes and there’s nothing
    to show for your life but rubble and ashes?
You’ll need me then. You’ll call for me, but don’t expect
        an answer.
    No matter how hard you look, you won’t find me.

^29-33 “Because you hated Knowledge
    and had nothing to do with the Fear-of-God,
Because you wouldn’t take my advice
    and brushed aside all my offers to train you,
Well, you’ve made your bed—now lie in it;
    you wanted your own way—now, how do you like it?
Don’t you see what happens, you simpletons, you idiots?
    Carelessness kills; complacency is murder.
First pay attention to me, and then relax.
    Now you can take it easy—you’re in good hands.”

Seeing Myself in Another’s Suffering

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Doug showed me an image of 115,000 Syrians who are living refugee camps.

Seven thousand children, under the age of 15, are estimated to have lost their lives in the Syrian conflict – many thousands more have been injured and orphaned. (UN Report-AP story) Enjoying my coffee and calm, listening to John Rutter’s splendid music, especially, “Look at the World,” what stirs in me?

Can I see myself living in a box – in the summer – in Jordan, without water or facilities, or loved ones? Can I see the images and say, “That could have been me?”

No.

But, only because of where I mercifully am in time and space: America.

I am not enjoying this wide place because I was smart enough to arrange it. I live in peace because God permits it.  

Alas, I see the images of Detroit. Can I imagine myself living in a city without many of the services I take for granted?

And, I see the images and hear the cacophony of voices following the Martin/Zimmerman trial.   Can I imagine myself as the mother of George or Trayvon? Or, can I imagine how the mothers in Chicago feel when they hear gunfire outside their homes?

The President of the United States saw himself as one who could have been Trayvon Martin decades ago. He and Mrs. Obama sent their prayers and thoughts to the Martins – Listening to his thoughts on this I hoped to hear him mention the Zimmermans – for they too need prayers. But for God’s providence, any one of us could have been the Zimmermans’ shoes, or the Martin’s.

I took risks – take risks – that could have ended badly. And I live in times where strangers can and do have the power to harm Americans in ways we can’t imagine.

Empathy is really the opposite of spiritual meanness. It's the capacity to understand that every war is both won and lost. And that someone else's pain is as meaningful as your own. Barbara Kingsolver

The late George McGovern said, “Empathy is born out of the old biblical injunction 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.”

Before we can though, we might want to consider the whole of the biblical command, and its context:

And he answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” (Luke 10:27 – the Parable of the Good Samaritan)    

I don’t understand how so much pain and so much suffering – worldwide and personal can continue even with the hope of an infinite and personal God who is love. But I believe and trust in the Lord Jesus who warned of trouble and promised His help. Seeing and recognizing another’s suffering– let’s also DO something – if only offering a cup of cold water. 

World Vision- Jordan 

Stumbling in Faith

Disappointment, sadness and fear gnaw at my faith in God. Therefore, focusing – obsessing on –what isn’t working, hurting, or scaring me is not a wise use of time or emotion. But it is an impulse that seems as powerful as what drives lemmings to the sea.  That impulse can also be aptly described as “emotional flu,” according to Heather Koop:

Nothing’s wrong. Really. But nothing’s right, either. You think of numerous things you could do to lift your spirits. But some small, hard ball of rebellion in your chest resists the idea of trying to feel better . . . [It’s] having a pity party without a real problem. (When it Feels Good to Feel Bad)

Or, as is often the case, throwing myself a pity party because I can’t fix all the problems I see,  many of which I started.  

Mary Englebreit

Instead of owning my part in creating a mess, I can perseverate on what the mess is, to the point I couldn’t recognize a solution if I saw one.  Instead of cleaning up what I can and trusting God and others to do what He will enable them to do, I waste time worrying.

Then I wonder why nothing ever changes.

I get very clever about how I worry . . . repackaging it so it looks different. But the worry is always that little rebellious ball that resists turning things over to God today, including people. Worry won’t do just the next thing, and worry will not let go of what I cannot cure or control. Worry is a stupid habit – but there it is.

Habits are at first cobwebs, then cables.  ~Spanish Proverb

Letting worry go into God’s hands is how things change. (Zechariah 4:6) It’s the only remedy for the kind emotional flu that debilitates and defeats my faith in a power greater than myself, who is infinite and personal. It may seem like a small start – again – but so is taking the first step away from a pity party. (Zechariah 4, esp. verse 10)

Waiting on a Summer's Day

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Yesterday was that summer day that artists see and composers hear. It would have inspired Monet or Van Goh or Vivaldi!

We are on a waiting mission with our daughter as she and her family prepare to welcome a new baby who is not ready to join her siblings.  Whenever she arrives, she will be a welcomed new dynamic in her family – whether as daughter, sister, grandchild, cousin or niece.

We go about the daily duties – but there is in my heart a hushed anticipation – similar to how the prospect of Christmas morning still thrills me – a gift is being given to me, wholly one of grace. (Psalm 113)

·      It's such a grand thing to be a mother of a mother - that's why the world calls her grandmother.  ~Author Unknown

·      One of the most powerful handclasps is that of a new grandbaby around the finger of a grandfather.  ~Joy Hargrove

Risky Walks

AP PHOTO RICK BOWMER

Nik Wallenda walked across the Grand Canyon – well, not really. He walked across the Colorado River. But that in itself was an amazing feat.  As was his explanation for taking such a risk:  

“No, I don’t believe that God’s invisible hand is holding me up on the wire,” he wrote. “But yes, I do believe that I am strengthened by the steadiness of my faith. I do believe in a God whose steady love is unshakeable and eternal. That belief allows me to get beyond my apprehensions and ignore what otherwise might feel like my limitations.” (Article)

This got me thinking about better and worse ways to magnify God. I did not watch this event -- I am having enough trouble trying to live out my faith with both feet planted firmly on the ground – in a world cold to Christ Jesus and His word. I wanted him to stop this stunt because human life is a terrible thing to waste, especially when he is a father with children. To see a Christian deliberately risk his life in such an endeavor boggles my mind, when so many people lose theirs just going about their daily lives. Christians in hotspots around the world are getting beyond their apprehensions and ignoring what otherwise might feel like limitations just by walking out their front door!  

I am glad Mr. Wallenda did not harm himself. However, walking in Christ’s footsteps is not like walking across a two-inch wire with no tether – although living in this world may feel like it.   

I am currently reading about the effects of another man’s walk that will never get the coverage that Mr. Wallenda did. Pastor Ken Smith, from the Syracuse Reformed Church, wrote a kind and inquiring letter to an English professor, whose criticism of Promise Keepers in a local newspaper garnered all kinds of feedback.  He took a risk, gently and quietly, and he engaged a woman’s mind and heart with courageous diplomacy.

Pastor Smith and his wife offered friendship to a self-proclaimed radical feminist lesbian and so opened a window so that she might see God’s steady and unshakable love.  They took quite a risk! But, Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, in The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert describes the reward. She showed me a better way to walk in uncertain times – and I commend this book to those who wonder how relevant the Gospel is in today’s world, and how personal and persistent God is.   Her book reminds me that kindness, respect, and offering a cup of cold water are not beyond my capability.  Practicing them is a good way to stay steady in uncertain times. (Isaiah 33:6)