Month: March 2021

Monday of Holy Week is a gentle look at the final days of Jesus when he entered Jerusalem, knowing he would be killed there that week, and still he entered, preached, and healed. Isaiah describes the coming of God’s son in Isaiah 42: "Here is my Servant upon whom I put my spirit." He will not cry out; he will not break bruised reeds. He will teach love. He will make the blind see. He will heal the sick, and he will bring out prisoners from confinement to the light.

When Isaiah wrote these words, the Jewish people were in confinement in Babylon. Exile. Lost. But God promised a gentle servant, not a fighter. Not a king. Not a rich man. Gently, quietly he will unmask us. He eats with sinners. He raises the dead to glory. He is beloved of the Father. He does point to the Law. He teaches the Absolutes of Love, Faith, Truth. He is pure heart. We are invited this week to get close to his gentle heart and listen. He sings and prays for us. God bless us! Angels with us.

Many Christians celebrated Lent from Ash Wednesday (5 weeks ago) to today… Palm Sunday! Actually Lent won’t end until Wednesday so we have 3 more days to "repent." During Lent Christians think about the role Jesus had and has in our lives. We are like the Jewish people wandering in the desert. Hungry and thirsty. Cursing our "lot" in the hot sands. We are asking God to make things better or get away and give us "the good old days." We are looking back and condeming the present. We are verbalizing out our frustrations and our hatreds. I wonder how the people in the Ark felt with all that stink and noise. "Lord, let me out; I can do better out side of this place you put me in. I can do better on my own." Yesterday I raised my voice at a friend who was saying stuff I call conspiracy. Instead of accepting our current world, she and her friend were complaining and wishing we had old leadership or just not this leadership. Get over it!!! Make today better! This is a time of taking responsibility. A time to love and listen to the Lord. What does he want? He wanted Mary to totally give herself up, maybe to face stoning for carrying a child when she wasn’t yet living with her bethrothed husband. She was an adulteress in the eyes of her people. But she "got on with it." An unwed pregnant woman was stoned back then. Nobody wanted to hear her story. Nobody wanted to accept that maybe she could do good things for us…. It’s a far comparison I make but the reason I raised my voice at my friend was "get over it." It (politics, the election) happened, now just live this life and do what good you can. Then get out and vote. Go to God and ask what we should do… Climb into the arms of an unwed mother who carries a child. Stay in this Ark, near Mary’s heart. Ask Mary to lift us up, even to the Cross where we will see her standing on Friday. Ask Mary to lift us up to the true harbor, God’s arms. Ask God: "Be merciful O Lord, for we have sinned." (Ps 51) Be quiet. Quit complaining. Quit gossipping with "Conservatives or liberals". Just be quiet and listen to the heartbeat of God. Take the steps this week to be quiet in front of the Cross this coming Friday.

Thank God I’m not sick! I had 2nd Covid vaccine on Friday morning. I took Aleve after shot and that night before bed. I feel fine. Maybe a little tired, but it’s hard to separate that from being out of shape! I’m beginning to paint that closet that Chuck and I cleared out and he built 2 shelves that need painting. That wore me out! Ick it’s hot here already! Chuck and I visited the Market yesterday and listened to music and watched butterflies. All seems to be well! God bless us! Angels with us!

Good morning dear readers! Two topics this morning, but both wrapped up under the name of working with love…. We have a great big hallway closet that could be a baby bedroom or a third bathroom. Instead it is filled to the brim with stuff that I literally stuffed into it when we moved to Lake Placid… Everyone has a closet, room or at least a drawer full of stuff that you would like to dump into the trash…. It’s been there so long that you aren’t sure who or what might also be living in there under it all… OH! But we have to go through it because there are photos that we used to have on our walls (when we had more wall space), and things we bought as gifts, 5 or more years ago. That stuff is meticulously being taken out of the closet as we speak by my dear Chuck, and he is stacking it in the dining room. In the old days, this activity would have had a short shelf life as we entertained on that table, a lot. But now, I can walk by the pile and avert my eyes. Pretend it isn’t there…. Ah! Pretending it isn’t there is as easy as pretending what is happening at our southern border isn’t affecting me.

In the old days when the Jewish people were sitting in Babylon, they only had memory. They used to tell stories of God who has compassion and loves us. One of the stories is the Book of Daniel. This is a great story. As children I am sure we read about Daniel helping the lion who later on didn’t eat Daniel. We read about Daniel’s 3 friends with those wildly different names Shadrach, Meshac, and Abednego; names we loved to repeat! They were put into a burning furnace because they wouldn’t bow to false gods. They persisted in their faith in the One God of Israel. Please read Daniel! In the story of Susanna (chapter 13) who was falsely accused of committing adultery by 2 lusty old bad guys, Daniel saved Susanna with cogent argument. He was willing to stand up before Jews who were willing to condemn Susanna because "elders" accused her. Daniel stood up because he was filled by the Holy Spirit with courage and strength. Much later on in time, Jesus will stand up also and have enough compassion for a condemned woman to face the crowd who already have stones in their hands. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone." (John 8:1). The people wanted to condemn Jesus for breaking the Law. An adulteress must be stoned. But compassion rules. The men guiltily shrink back and slink home. The message in this is when we love, when we have compassion, we are stronger. Someone commented about the crisis at the border that Congresspeople come to the border and see the crowds and feel sorry, but then go back to Washington and continue to fight and call names. Divided by politics, we fight bitterly and the condemned languish on concrete floors at the border. What are we afraid of? Attack the problem with love!!! Work together in Love as God wants us to do. Do we not believe in God? If we don’t then we are finished. Is it love when we criticize and call names? Is it love when we hate each other in the name of politics? Is it love when we refuse to work on the problem that drove the people lying on the concrete ground at our border from their homes in the south? Let us work together in love. Dredge that love up from the bottoms of our hearts to solve problems. Let us read the "stories" in Daniel and let us grasp the incredible faith the men in the oven had in a very strong God. Grasp God’s offered hand and get up. Get to work in Love. God bless us! Angels with us.

YEP! Except for the snow storms raging in the NW, it’s spring. So, quite to my dismay, spring cleaning has begun. It all started with me squeeling, at a relaxing Chuck, "Can’t you SEE the dirt on your bathroom rugs?" (He owns the guest room bath and I do my best to own the master bath!) Well no, he couldn’t see it…. He’s been complaining about the looks of the storage closet off the living room/bath area that, if you open the door, you better step back. So, I made a list… Either clean the guest bath, floor and toilet, or start emptying the storage closet. So, what does he do? He goes into the dresser drawers in the guest room where I’ve stuffed all the jeans and sweatshirts that don’t fit. I’ll go ahead and blame my bigger belly on a year of Covid depression. I have friends who lost weight, so what’s my excuse besides wine and ice cream?

So there he was in the drawers in the guest room and I was scrubbing the toilet and floor of a really small bathroom (about 4×8 in size). That’s all done and I look at that closet. He is removing blankets that I have thrown into big black garbage bags and stuffed into the closet. He is taking the blankets to a secure place. Do you remember the year when everybody got or gave 3 of those snuggy blankets that you can put your arms through? I’m saying got or gave 3 because I have 3 of them. I have beautiful hand made quilts displayed in the living room (my sister made them) and 1 on our sleeping bed. We have afgans, and about a million "throws." Pillows, millions. sheets, towels. Here we are paying the price of downsizing to a smaller house. What I "should have done" is throw everything away in Miami and buy 2 of everything in Lake Placid. New. Never mind how many bottles of mouth wash, alcohol, body and bath wash, baby powder and hydrogen peroxide are stacked on the dining room table from that giant closet… (I have a story about hydrogen peroxide) let me digress to the day Chuck and Mike were working on our roof in the back of the lake house and I was digging in a garden in the front yard. Mike came running to find me yelling, "You get towels and I’ll get the hydrogen peroxide!!!." I hurried out back and there was Chuck bleeding mightily from an ear wound. Mike and he lost control of a very long board (a 10×12) and it dropped, taking a part of Chuck’s ear with it. Chuck was bending over so the blood would go in the grass and not on his shirt. Some of you know, "a job isn’t done until Chuck bleeds." (50 years of this people…. Chuck and I had our 50th wedding anniversary during the Covid year.) We got fun!

So anyhow that accounts for the 5 (yes, count them) bottles of hydrogen peroxide I have. Where was I? I finished about 2 shelves before I threw myself in a chair and grabbed the computer to write to my spring cleaning friends. In Lake Placid, spring comes with wind. We get the "tail ends" of the storms that sweep through Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and up and out on the upper east coast. Well darlings… time to get back to work. Wait until he gets to all the art work and photos stacked in that closet. I didn’t do myself a favor when I stacked it all in the closet. Keep safe. Get your shots (I get second shot at end of March then Chuck goes.) God bless you. Angels with you.

Hi my dears. Today the church celebrates Saint Joseph, the earthly father and protector of Jesus. He married Mary even though she was pregnant even though Jewish law said to put her out into the streets and even to Stone her for adultery. No! He accepted fatherhood of the child of God. Thank God.

Speaking of children of God, I want to speak to the dead Asians in Georgia. I just heard a congressman said it isn’t a hate crime, that Words used against Asians do not matter. What Trump said about Kung flu and Aisian virus and other Trump rhetoric was not affecting us, and I say it has. He opened up our mouths with his hateful rhetoric and allowed us to speak as he does. Thank God the news agencies are not reshowing him speaking to "prove" what he said. He criticized and taunted and "teased". Maybe I am sensitive because my father was a "teaser." I was quick to tell my husband and some friends early on that teasing hurts. I am hurt when teased because I believe what comes out of our mouths is our truth. Please this day pledge to "police" your tongue. God bless us. Angels with us.

There are many types of spouting. It means to expel or gush. I often refer to God’s Grace as pouring out, but there is also the negative spouting out of our mouths that hurts. So there’s good spouting and not so good spouting! I get crazy sometimes when I get into arguments with friends, and I spout my "Stop criticizing, and wait for 3 1/2 years and then VOTE!" Spouting… It’s pouring out our anger and our desires!!!! You have heard a small child screaming "I want," so: Let’s all spout, to God. In prayer. I recently took a lump just below my eyebrow to my opthalomologist and he said it needed to come off. We must take our lumps and bumps to doctors. If we want them off we have a right to get them off! So he numbed it with two shots and started "snipping" I could hear the snipping…. snip snip… clip clip… I was supposed to hold on to two balls, but instead I held onto the sides of my thighs. and I prayed. … I spouted to God and Mary…. "Hail Mary… Help me and help my friends." I prayed for friends and family. Just over and over. Even mentioning their names is good. 45 minutes worth of praying kept me sane! I did not think about what is happening now. I think that’s the best way. So let’s take this to the streets: My friend and I go back and forth … she is extreme right and I hope that I am mid moderate. I just ask for black and white to both be discussed and maybe a gray area be found. The news agencies cover the news, but if we look closely we will see Steve Bannon and Trump right behind the scenes in some cases and we need then to be careful if we are spouting because we are with our president for 3 1/2 years and it doesn’t do any good to shout negatives. Enough! Get along! Find solutions. God bless us. Angels with us!!!!!

Trust is Belief in the reliability, truth, strength or ability of someone, in what they say…. So can I trust? The President has given 2 speeches today and yesterday about government helping Americans recover from Covid problems…. He carries the number of Americans who have died, (527,726) from Covid, in his pocket. He says he carries the American people close to his heart. He does not name call. He doesn’t call it China virus, he doesn’t criticize those who don’t support him. He seems to care. So. Do I trust him? That is what each of us has to ask. I’ve heard some say the 527,726 number of dead is skewed for greed and miscount reasons. Maybe it is skewed. Maybe it’s only 500,000. That is 1/2 million and rising until we get vaccinated enough that the virus doesn’t have anywhere to land and grow… Biden wants us to get vaccinated and wear masks. Many call that ridiculous and they don’t want their freedoms stamped on. I wish there were a way to get over this but wishing won’t do it will it?

In his 2 speeches today and yesterday, the President did not call for prayer. Not prayer that we will heal, not prayer that we will live. He said, "the way we will get our lives back is to beat the virus…" and i said to the TV image, "No, it’s to pray." To thank God for the miracle of the vaccine. To thank God the numbers are going down.

Let us all contribute to the joy of each other. God wants to heal us. He said so in Scripture. He whispers it in our hearts. "Come to me… I will fill you with gifts of finest wheat and with honey from the rock." (Psalm 81) Stop and let the honied love of God pour out on you. God loves us without measure. He just pours it out. God bless us.

My friends and I have had some good debates. We seem to be able to talk better now that the election and inauguration are over, but we are still not on the same page. Maybe some of us are not even in the same book… i am still professing "Get safe (Vaccination); stay safe (mask)". I don’t tell anyone to get vaccinated, I just say that I got online and sent an email and waited for the emailed appointment. I did not go torture myself by attempting to access a computer registration system, or worse yet, stand in line for a shot. I prayed a lot for help because I seemed to be doing nothing!!! "I’m waiting… I’m on a list," I told my friends. And indeed, now I’m on another list, for the 2nd vaccine. Today I got into a debate about staying safe and how we act moving forward. I agree with my friend who says it’s OK to go to church. I tell her that I am glad the church is open and opening more. I’m very glad about that. As soon as I am fully vaccinated and my dear Chuck is fully vaccinated, I will return. Wearing a mask. To people who sneer and ask, "Is Fauci any good?" "Yes," I reply. I’m following Fauci and the CDC and im not calling any of them stupid. Fauci survived helping us to survive AIDS, Ebola and SARs. He has spent his life trying to protect us and we (many of us) have just done what we darned well pleased. Even casting aspersions on Fauci. He is the media picture that stands in front of a big team… 1500 Americans are dying per day from Covid, and many doctors are asking that we get vaccinated and wear masks. Many doctors have contributed to what we should we do.

We are a free country and therefore many Governors and Mayors have stepped into the mix too. Texas, South Dakota, and Florida (among others) refuse to (enforce) mask wearing. My answer: "I pray that our leaders can do good things." The world has changed so fast that we are being asked to embrace issues we never would have when we were younger. People tell me they are conservative and I’m liberal. I say…. "Don’t label me!" So the "fight goes on!!!!" We refuse to agree on much and I pray to God we don’t remain split to the detriment of our civilization here in the United States. (UH… emphasis on United…)

Take care dear gentle reader. Pray for others and ask others to pray for you. I pray to Jesus and our Holy Mother of God, Mary for blessings and their prayer. In Luke 22: 31-32, Jesus prays a gentle prayer for us…. Jesus says he prays for us… Thank you Jesus!!!!