A Better Perspective

I challenge you to mute the football game this afternoon and set aside your disbelief, on principal, of evolution, while you read The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth's Past Mass Extinctions by Peter Brannen.

You will come away partially educated. You will realize that the truly knowledgeable walk shoulder to shoulder with the ignorant on every sidewalk. You will begin to respect the world in which we live. You will come away humbled and in awe of every living creature both flora and fauna.

You will come away with the beginnings of an understanding that, although humanity is speeding the process of mass extinction through a man-made greenhouse effect, the warming and cooling of the earth is a natural phenomena over which civilization holds but little control.

We've looked into the heavens this week at the sun and the moon. We follow the International Space Station, orbiting the earth, as it crosses over our patios. We are becoming somewhat amazed and uneasy at the size of the universe even though the facts still seem unreal to us. Like watching a movie.

I believe that we (scientists and laymen) are beginning to realize one fundamental fact. Our God is a mighty God who doesn't think like we expected Him to think and doesn't operate within our human ideas of time, space, distance, or reality. He has let us know that He made us in His Image through the words of the Bible. Something we can understand.

I believe that the spark of Himself that God has implanted in each of us is Love, just as Jesus tried to tell us when he walked among us. God is Love. If you read this book, The Ends of the World, which has nothing about religious beliefs in it, I think you will see that life in all its manifestations is on a journey of change and discovery.

And then, there is our faith in an Almighty Creator. If we believe we know His plan, we are delusional. But we do know some of it

through His Son, Jesus, who told us that He will Come again and receive us unto Himself.

I believe those words, although I know not how or when. The scientific knowledge doesn't tell me otherwise. Neither does it explain the other important religions of the world and the things that those believers understand about God.

Humanity has to learn to incorporate scientific knowledge with the faith that understanding the Mystery is not important. A book like The Ends of the World and many other things always end up in my mind in the form of a mantra. "Be still and know that I am God."

Fireworks, Hot Dog Chili, and Patriotism

It was my first question arriving in Tallahassee.

"Where is the river?"

Corey chuckled. "Ma, there is no river!"

"What? No Beach? No River? Where in the world do we have fireworks?"

Of course, I learned. Parks. Two in my own neighborhood. And lots and lots of street shows on the block. Not the size of the action on the St. Johns River or at Jacksonville Beach! Fun anyway!

I discovered early on that I could sit comfortably on my own garden wall and take in all the nearby fireworks at once! Consequently, I've never gone anywhere, here in Tallahassee, to find "bigger and better." Mine are homegrown and with plenty of parking, bathroom facilities, and beverages (adult or otherwise).

My cats are odd creatures. They take fireworks in stride. Last night, we played on the porch through a nice light show. BUT they got annoyed at Yippy Dog, Woofer Dog, and BowWowser who live on the other side of the woods and who cannot stand noise and lights. Also the new dog, two doors down, whom I've dubbed SuperYipper!

More than celebratory noise, it's loud trucks that bother the Fab Five. Go figure.

The family is scattered as of this morning, summer in full swing, everyone happily satisfied by last night's ribs, potato salad, and beans. Corey and Billie Mathews can cook! The rest of us had eaten joyously. That being said, something was missing for me. Hot dogs!

I had talked myself out of that particular feast on my Facebook page by reviewing a couple of taste tests and looking up the ingredients of several of the winners.

"I won't eat another hot dog unless I'm at the stadium in Jacksonville, at the Super Bowl Game, Jaguars vs. Steelers," I promised, knowing THAT would be NEVER.

Ha! This morning, I was at Publix so early that there were still good parking places. I bought two of the winners in the taste test – the ones with the least unhealthy ingredients – Nathan's and Boar's Head . I also bought bakery buns and hot dog chili ingredients.

For me, the chili is the thing. The kids and I make simple dogs with catsup, mustard, onion, and relish on Merita buns. Me? I like homemade hot dog chili. It's nothing like the chili we eat in bowls on Halloween night. It's way thicker, spicy, and with fine grind instead of chunky. Not a bean in sight!

So the day was loads of fun. Making a small chili batch, watching yesterday's Le Tour de France, bringing out a toy that cats didn't know we had, serving myself a late State Fair caliber lunch out on the coffee table.

It was a calm and perfect day, all around. Flag flying. Occasional pops and zings from the houses on the block; practicing for tonight, I think. Lush and heart-stopping (Should I say literally?) food and drink (a rare coca-cola). Independence Day!

As a descendent of three of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, I was interested in the  holiday TV commercial by Ancestry that featured a group of other descendants of other signers. It was a diverse and very American crowd. Made my heart sing. Gave me hope for the future.

I don't know whether or not the Republic itself is in jeopardy in these surreal times. But I'll bet you a dollar that, in 1776, there were hundreds of grandmotherly types like me (brave firecrackers in their youths), wringing their hands, afraid, and moaning, "Dear God. What is the world coming to?"

Or as my own Grandmother used to announce loudly, after the war was over, about the politics of the post-war era, "Caroline, we are going to Hell in a hand basket!" I was just a little girl. I believed her.

Validation

The dream itself was a nightmare. Terrifying! I was my blonde self, and the bathing suit I was wearing dated me at about 1975. Thirty-five years old and lugging box after box up a pair of time-worn wooden stairs to a second-story room with windows overlooking the inland waterway. Not walking the beach before the storm, as the picture indicates.

"It was a dark and stormy night," comes to mind. Wind, howling. Rain, blowing cold needles deep into the skin. The water running down my cheeks might have been tears instead of raindrops. The only light anywhere was the neon sign blinking on and off, sputtering in the storm, of the storefront below me.

I was scared and I was exhausted. There was a bed and a chair on which I dropped the boxes. Mostly books. (Hundreds left behind.) Some clothes. A dry pair of shoes.

There was a telephone on the wall and I picked up the receiver, dialed a number, and waited. Someone must have answered it because I screamed into the mouthpiece. It was the only spoken line in the whole dream. A question. As loud as I could ask it. Frantic!

And then I woke.

My grey-haired self sat up in bed. The sleep outfit I was wearing dated me at 2017, seventy-six years old with the brain, the heart, and the spirit of that blonde girl of so many years ago. It was 3:30 in the morning. Soft rain on the windows. Two cats at my feet. (Where are the others?)

I sat up and remembered the dream. Thought about it. Dissected it. Turned the question over and over in my mind, wondered who I had been calling and why. Fretted a little at my unconscious mind's intention.

Suddenly I realized that the dream had unexpectedly validated my whole life from beginning to end according to the answer (knowing from experience who would answer and in what way) of whichever person I was asking. My lifelong relationships with people, with my work, with myself, and with spiritual reality would be made clear according to the replies.

My reasoning, throughout the decades? Explained. My decisions? Okayed. Understood. My professional accomplishments? Good job! My complex though steadfast spiritual life? Inspired and guided by One greater than myself, my Shepherd.

My future? Carry on with my personal mission, continue to keep my promises (and stick to my decisions) from long ago, face any naysayers (about anything at all) with a sly smile.

What was the question? Does it matter whether or not I tell you? I myself will never forget it.

The gist of the dreaming was in the answers that I only "heard" after I awoke – coming at me like bullets from every direction – giving me a clear understanding of the past, hinting at an amazing future for the final quarter, calling me to carry on with it.

It was the answers that gave, and continue to give, my whole life validation, including and in spite of the mistakes, those consequential blunders, and my own propensity for never explaining myself or my actions to others. You thought I explained? The joke is on you, then, for INFJ tells you only as much as she believes you need or unconsciously want to know.

I almost never dream or, if I do, I almost never remember my dreams. Then, there are the other ones.

This, which seemed to be one of those, I won't forget. Thanks be to God.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. My cup runneth over on the beautiful June morning.

The Book Purge

It seemed easy when I read it – a Good Housekeeping magazine article about decluttering the house with 50 points of action.

Purging useless books was item #5. I had completed items #1-4 inadvertently. They had to do with clearing the fridge of packets of condiments, sharpening knives or pitching them out, ridding oneself of unused items such as hair bands, and donating baby's and children's clothes.

After all, I was busy minimizing and optimizing the house this spring, wasn't I? Everything you want to know can be found on the internet, can't it? I could use less dust and an easier-on-the-eye ambiance couldn't I?

I began with the "desk." It isn't really a desk but is a teak cabinet that has cubbies, and shelves, and sleeves for files.  I use the piece of furniture with a short foldable stool; I'm never comfortable since I cannot get my feet and legs under it.

But I left two large and genuine desks in Jacksonville when I moved, along with two adjustable desk  chairs. What do I have to complain about? What retired person with a lap top, two iPads, and an iPhone (who only writes two or three checks a month that are nearly illegible due to a crushed and repaired wrist) need with a real desk, anyway?

As I sat to jot these notes down, I was proud that the "desk" was cleaned, reorganized, and looking businesslike. I found a whole box of #1 pencils and 100 erasers for the drawing pencils. A great afternoon accomplishment!

Yet, no books were eliminated. What a surprise to realize that I had no heart to donate any them. Not one! Neither the high school yearbooks nor the cookbooks that are separated from the ones on the bookshelves because Wayne bought them. All back in the usual cubby holes.

My collection of Bibles; some mine, and others of my mother and mother-in-law; gifts from old friends, inscribed; my cousin Fred's old teaching Bible (he has a new one) and his Methodist hymnbook; Bibles bought for studies and classes that were particular as to translations; my original King James as well as my adored 1611 King James, my new paperback King James Oxford edition; my Prayer Books.

And so it goes. Next up is the tall, skinny, corner shelf. That one will be easy, too. Everything will get a good dusting. That's it! Then on to the big, new shelf where I might have to fight with myself to at least reorganize the books and consider giving up the paperback novels at the very least. Ha!

I've done this dozens of times over the years. I've given away hundreds of books in my lifetime. I've traded them, I've left them untouched during divorce and thereby given up custody. Maybe, I don't have but one or two books that need to leave the room. Maybe I've worked, unbeknownst to myself, the books down to books that I love and want to keep for the rest of my life. Let someone else execute the book purge!

Thinking Out Loud at Eastertide

If you have read my blog, you know that I love church buildings, the people who worship in them, and the different ways in which they worship. 

Even though I have my own church membership, I often wander away in order to experience the Spirit in different settings. It's nothing new for me. I am compelled for various reasons that even I don't fully understand. It is not as if I am searching as much as accidentally finding my own private spiritual places. 

Before I joined a congregation, I often photographed Tallahassee area churches. Sometimes I toured them empty, yet alive and breathing; sometimes I visited them and worshiped among strangers. 

Afterwards, I would develop my photos, if I had any. I wrote, not the histories of the buildings, but about the feelings the actual structures invoked in me. Sometimes a poem (or a sketch, or both) can be seen wandering down the clear areas of those photographs; like Chinese art – show and tell.

Some of the churches I photographed revealed themselves to me as my own special thin places, those spots where heaven and earth seem to merge like a spiritual wormhole. Like visiting a cloister. Like chanting.  Churches aren't always thin places just as thin places are not always churches.

There are several churches in Wilmington that I discovered as a young girl. There are even more here in Tallahassee. All speak to me in various ways.  One church near my house has a picnic table on the grounds where I often take my sandwich and enjoy nature. Another is antebellum, and religious history shoves itself into my face there for better or for worse. Several older and larger churches are representative of the establishment, traditional. One is Coptic.

This morning, my Facebook page looks like an advertisement for Easter services of several kinds in several places. I put the reposts there because time flies for the elders. They are only reminders to me that, this year, I want to spend Easter in several of my thin places. I want to worship without chatter and conversation, without membership (so to speak), and without the feeling that the edges are thickening around my spiritual wormholes.

I belong to a universal church; not a building, although I often hold private services in my garden with only birds and squirrels and cats (sitting on the porch railings) to observe my presence I'm a member of a world-wide community of believers, worshipers, listeners, and doers. I know my purpose and it is my calling. Yet, I love and appreciate the various church buildings because they are symbols of the church of which Jesus was speaking in the scriptures. They are homes to the Holy Spirit who also resides in all of us. 

My thin places have much to tell me. The message is usually not the one I came to hear. That's why I love to visit them (as well as several cemeteries, parks, beaches and woodlands) and listen for clarity and for a moment of closeness to my next home – after this life is done.

The Thin Places

Once a Powerhouse, Always a Powerhouse?

On the road to 80 at 80 MPH?

The weakness and tiredness I had been feeling was, in fact, a long time coming. I had taken that one medicine for HBP since 1987. Someone along the way had doubled the dosage. Someone else had added another medicine failing to notice that I was taking twice the diuretic as nearly everyone else.  In Tallahassee, the second med became a double whammy as it was two different blood pressure remedies in one capsule. Add to that an aversion to drinking water from morning to night. I became so dizzy that I was referred to both a cardiologist and a surgeon. The Doc and his nurse found the problem at once, but it took a little time to get weened off of the one and increase the dosage a tad on the other. 

I read this short article on Facebook this morning. Got me thinking. This sounds like the 40 year old Caroline. I did all these things, even though exercise has always been boring and water has never been enjoyed for what it is.

All I have to do now, is relearn how to follow these simple suggestions. Wayne and I used to listen to calming blues or jazz for a little while at bedtime after some guided relaxation meditation. Or at least I did. He always fell asleep during the introduction to the first tape: "Soon and very soon, indeed...." was his cue to begin with the snoring.

How to Boost Your Body's Energy All Day – Consumer Reports 

Hosanna in the Highest

This clip still (after all these years) fills my mind...heart...memory.

https://youtu.be/57ZvXhrqfTY