Well, dear souls, I think I am back.

Last week started rather crazy with the incident and recovering from it, as you know, whch happened just as this site stopped sending me notifcations for reasons known only to the invisible technology gremlins. That meant I did not know you all had responded until well after when I again came in!

That was when I got in briefly, just as our internet provider started having issues. We had very sporadic connection the mid to end of last week until it finally quit entirely over the weekend, coming back last night.

So now we shall see! ????

First off, allow me to thank you for your caring and kindness, as always. The messages of sharing and support touched my heart, and I was quite chagrined that I was unable to reply to them as I normally would due to the net issues. It meant so much to me, and while I could not reply directly, please know that they helped me through a time of many emotions. THANK YOU, ALL. ????????????

I have since learned that apparently this firing of flare guns into people’s homes is a current “thing” or fad! A friend of mine related our story to her friend in Wisconsin, and she heard that they have had this going on for six months around Milwaukee.

So now as I sit here quietly surrounded by sleeping dogs and cat, I am again conscious of gratitude for such a peace filled mundane moment.

I awakened this morning to early morning light growing in the east, a lovely sunrise, the sound of birds. We have had Canada Geese on our pond lately, and their honking blending with the crowing of the roosters has made for an interesting choir! (Hmmmm…I guess the little songbirds are the sopranos, the soft lower clucking of the hebs is the alto, the roosters are the tenor section, and the Canada Geese are the bass section… Anna– can you imagine conducting such a choir?? ????)

I am also grateful for the painful spot on my right thumb webbing where I managed to rip off a blister before I knew it had formed. To help burn off some of the anxious energy after the incident, I was raking up mulch and scooping scattered dirt, courtesy of the chickens, and the grateful part is because I could do this. I coukd not have done it a year ago. And the only thing that has hurt much after is the blister! I am not all the way well, but I am seeing improvement, which is encouraging.

How is everyone??

Now I shall go scroll and try to catch up!

Blessings, all!

Thank you, THenry. Your words on your cabin and love of it have been encouraging me more than you might realize.

When I look out at the things here that are beautiful, even more so than when we came here, part of me struggles with giving that up, even though I know it is a good change on multiple fronts, and much needed.

I stop and remind myself that although I am losing this beauty, the world is FULL of beauties. The area we are going to is hillier than this bit, more like the rolling foothills that have always stirred my soul. I think of your cabin and descriptions of the simple joys of dogs, front porches, and sunsets and pray for a place of similar peace.

I have my screensaver set to a folder of images I took a few years ago –such peaceful loveliness. As I was enjoying it recently, I realized those shots were taken on a trip down to that area, on our way back.

The truth is that there may well be even more beauty awaiting me there than I have here! There is nothing to fear.

Thank you for your gift of words.

Oh, thank you! I showed my husband the sloth, and he grinned really big! I told him seeing it was only about thirty years late. ????

My blister is better, thank you. I had not thought I had done anything near enough to cause a blister! I was taking it very gently and gloves did not seem warranted. Oops.

I am also appalled at such a fad. In my teen years, it was “egging” cars or “rolling” them with toilet paper. It was stupid, but we were teens. The idea of doing something that could cause harm or death to another never entered our heads!

So glad you had a wonderful “slothfull” experience! He is adorable!

Dear Eva, what a wonderful blessing for you to reconnect! It is quite hard to feel cut off from those you cared for due to splits in relationships and even the choosing of “sides.” That is one of the costs of choosing to end a bad situation, sadly.

With me, I lost a number of family members and friends of the family who dropped me after the relationship with my parents blew up one more time, and we had to insist they leave our home. (I refer to that as “a messy divorce,” too.) The lies that have trickled back to me have shown me that the truth is NOT being spoken, but there is nothing I can do about that. People choose what they believe, and doing “damage control” only ever makes a bigger mess. Better to let it be what it is, and keep an open heart.

The absence of biological family makes me even more grateful for my Family of Choice folks! A pastoral counselor friend suggested that to me. She has a son who is gay, and although his whole family has been very accepting and supportive, her son has many friends whose families are not supportive at all. She said they often form “Families of Choice” instead to help fill the gaps.

After all, love comes in many forms and faces! ????????????????

Dear Ose,

I have often marveled on the thought that Jesus actually knew all that would happen from the start and yet still chose to come live the incarnation here. We so often seek to avoid pain and struggle mightily when it is part of our lives. We spend enormous amounts of money, energy, and time simply trying to avoid pain in myriad forms. Yet he embraced it because of love!

This “Not Plan B” thought adds a whole new dimension, though. It seems a different level of understanding somehow.

At a local store here I can get a very nice lotion base with no junk in it. I use it as a base for the blends of essential oils I use for various things. One I make for pain relief that my husband uses on his shoulder. It also works on headaches, muscle pain, and more. My most recent is a “sunshine cream” using Pink Grapefruit, Sweet Orange, Mandarin, Bergamot, and Coriander. Mmmmmm…delicious!

What a treat to be able to have the lotion base so readily available and lovely to the skin! You are right — such a blessing!

Ohhhhhhhh, YUM! My husband and I love mango lassi! That is what first got him to like yogurt.

We also love GARLIC! We raise our own, some heirloom varieties we like the best.

I learned some years ago of something called “garlic wine” that is drunk in the Republic of Georgia for longevity and health. It is goat yogurt mixed with fresh squeezed garlic. I duplicated as close as possible with the yogurt we had available, our garlic, a little mayonnaise to subsititue the tanginess of goat yogurt, as American yogurt is often sweeter, I think, and a little sea salt and fresh pepper. Mmmmmmmmmmm! It was so good we would probably have eaten it on a shoe!

I am sorry you were hurting, Ursula, but glad the walk and caring helped. I have been finding how much the pain for me in intertwined with anxiety and shame (not feelng “enough” and old tapes playing in my head!), and even sometimes being experienced as terror in my body. When I can calm the parts that trigger the pain, the pain comes less and what there is becomes less intense. I am not all the way with this yet, but it has been a helpful discovery for me.

I mention it in case it might resonate with you due to what you have related of your recent and current stresses at home. I noticed that I had managed to get through the incident last week with much less pain than I expected, but a rerun of a frustration with my husband at end of week gave me more tension and pain than the other. It is food for thought for me!

Like Psalm 139 says, we are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” which I take to mean beautifully intertwined and complex, and very deeply loved!

You got to see a sloth AWAKE?!? Before my husband was my husband, we had visited the Baltimore aquarium together, where they have a rainforest in one section…and a sloth. He insisted he was going to stay right there waiting until that sloth moved. It was asleep! This man, however, is stubborn, and he was determined to see that sloth move. On and on we waited…

Thankfully, his hunger eventually won out over his tenacious determination, and after what seemed like a month and a half, we went off to lunch. I think he is still miffed at that sloth for not moving. ????

Oh, no! You got the stomach flu AFTER the respiratory flu? I had that happen once. I think it was the H1N1 year, and they warned that the particular flu that year presented with respiratory first, then clobbered you with the stomach part 2-3 weeks later, seemingly out of the blue. That was NOT my favorite flu, I will say. ???? I hope you are on the mend for good now!

Mmmmm…smoked salmon shared with a friend…❤️❤️❤️????

We discovered this weekend that our Anatolian has an absolute passion for pistachios. He got…one. (They are not great for dogs, though not poisonous.)

I have only ever seen him have this reaction with one other food — when I cook lamb. He is a food motivated dog, that’s for sure, but he was a positive PEST Saturday night!

He usually does not beg if we are eating in the living room, as we have been all winter to be nearest the pellet stove. But Saturday night? Sheesh! He was super intense — ears up, very forward, trying to look his most endearing and hungry. When that did not work, he tried putting his whole head in my lap and looking up at me like he was a SPCA poster child dog, a starving dog, barely hanging on, weakening…weakening…fading fast… ????????

It makes sense — he is an Anatolian, and both lamb and pistachios are pretty staple there. Must be in his DNA! ????

I understand, Anna. There is a razor edge sometimes when we are aware of the duality of suffering and blessing. Perhaps the awareness our blessing functions to make our hearts more grateful and therefore more apt to reach out to alleviate suffering where we are?

I have been thinking of this recently since reading a post from the Fr Richard Rohr site that spoke of how “Jesus was not Plan B.” All that suffering! Not Plan B? Not the remedy to something ideal that humans had screwed up but an active choice made from love? That is a staggering thought.

I find, too, that when I start to feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the suffering in this world, my surest remedy is to find something to do right where I am, then do it. I cannot stop the pain for all, but if I can ease it for one who is in my path, then I have affected the whole in ways I cannot begin to comprehend.

It is not in my province to reach my arms out to encompass Syria or any other hurting spot and people, except by prayer.

But there is much I CAN do. I can write a handwritten letter to a friend losing her hearing…listen with full attention to another’s story…encourage a friend experiencing struggle…celebrate from my heart with another’s good fortune…smile at a stranger…show appreciation…be present with those I encounter…BE where I am.

What we do where we are MATTERS. It does not solve, because that is not our job, but it does very much matter.

Perhaps there is an orphanage on your holiday route? Or another place of service? Maybe you could spend the intervening months collecting items that might bring them joy or meet needs? Then you could have the fun of dropping the items off as part of your blessing on holiday?

I mention orphanage as one if my dear friends who I saw last night spent much time in an orphanage as a child. Her mentally ill mother would just dump her off indefinitely at a place now revealed as an abusive prison like institution. She is now around seventy, but she still has a passion for cookies because they never got them in the orphanage. Something so simple can mean a tremendous amount!

Perhaps when our worldview is one of caring, the Where of it matters less than we might think. My missions trips to Haiti as a teen forever and profoundly changed my life, but the biggest part of their gift in showing me how connected we all are, even to those we do not know.

Thus, you in a silly wig surrounded by children in need of love somehow is connected to, and affects, the whole web. It is a great mystery. Maybe that is a small glimpse of omnipresence as we participate in the acting out of the love of God? I cannot fathom it, but I am humbled to be a part of it.

Oh, dear. I am sorry. I think the biggest help is probably that ongoing presence of caring. Once all the busyness and people surrounding the initial loss and funeral fade away, there is often a yawning chasm of silence and loneliness that grows. Having someone care enough to Be with the one left is an immeasurable grace.

There was a dear couple who lived down from my grandmother, who was far away from us. For many years, they dropped in, did her lawn, helped in her garden, picked up the odd thing at the store for her as she did not drive, and were just THERE.

The things they did helped, but it was the gift of Them that was the truest assistance. Their loving presence enabled her to stay independent until shortly before her death. Their deepest gift was simply to give and receive love, faithfully. Such beautiful blessings, those two! ????