We are Home

My new office

Overseeing the sink

God made it to the new house. As if I didn’t think he would come. Bobble-head Jesus has a new sink to oversee. I am reminded that God blesses this place and these people (us) who dwell here. It is June 20^th almost a month since my last post. 

Today I am sitting in my new office looking out this window. I’m watching a little fly-catcher hop down a limb looking for insects. The sun is sending rays down through the canopy to the ravine below us. It lights leafy corridors with many hues of green. 

Looking at the canopy

We are 85 % moved in. Denis says it is 85%. I don’t know why 85. But I do know there are many fewer boxes. The ones that remain will be okay taking their time finding new spaces to hide or to show.

Unpacking the kitchen

This house will be called “The House Between.” Our new home. I’ll explain why the name some day soon.

One of the first projects we did was paint the basement “Bonfire.” Although it's a walkout, it is a little dim and that color warms it up. Then we spent the next two days prepping and painting the floor. It is now a lovely clean slate to work with. It is going to be Honeysuckle’s new home (too many local predators to be outside) and Anita’s Studio. Very exciting.

Bonfire!!

Last night I had a new experience. One I’ve never had or owned in life. I walked into our roomy, walk-in closet, (which is still unpacked because the shelves need to be painted and lined) turned on the light and changed into my pajamas. Totally pleasant experience. Do you think it is weird to thank God for a walk-in closet? I suppose.

In this quiet neighborhood we have already seen wild turkeys, fox, coyote and raccoons though technically we haven’t seen the latter, just experienced the damage they wrecked on our bird feeders. In the morning the cacophony of bird song wakens me. I do not object.

One final note. Our area has received so much rain the rivers and lakes are flooding in many places. A friend once told us, if you live in Minnesota and have a basement, it will flood at some point. Count on it. You would think we would have reached that point. It is a shocking wonder that ours remains dry as a bone. We are sure the previous owner who built the house had some engineer/architect smart person design the location of the foundation, the tiles and the drains because I have heard that even if you build on a slope you can do it in such a way that water flows through it rather than under or around. I lay in bed and think, God, how wonderful you are. I am allergic to molds. How good to give us a dry basement.

We are home.

We do not lose heart

Last year at this time when our board was together for the annual meeting, we skyped with Ed Hague who lives in Tallahassee, FL. He has been on our ministry’s (RansomFellowship) Board of Directors for … I can’t remember how many years. Early 2,000s? We were saying good-bye to him, amid tears and laughter, as he was dying from stage IV prostate cancer. It had invaded his bones with a vengeance and he was too sick to join us. He had tendered his resignation. We felt heartbroken.

The amazing, the unpredicted, the strange thing is that after treatment with a powerful new drug he regained enough energy and health to join us this year (2014) in Chicago. He was only the 11^th person world-wide to receive this treatment and because of his spectacular recovery he has become their poster-boy. No one knows how much longer he'll live, but we'll rejoice for whatever time he has left. So we thank God every day that he is still here and as impudent as ever. He continued to pastor us, even through his failing health, but with a new mantra, "I'm dying and can say whatever I want to you." He will attend this year as an honorary member and the request that all his power be reinstated minus the responsibilities. (We'll see about THAT, old man.) Today, he and his wife, Betsy will join us in Chicago for our board meeting!

I’d like to recommend his blog where he recounts his remarkable medical journey, the terrifying disappointments, the unexpected mercy of facing death and the amazing provisions of God for his family and business. I suggest you begin at the beginning and read through the whole thing. You won’t be sorry.

We do not lose heart: http://wedonotloseheart.com/ .

Ed Hague, 2007,  Rosemary Beach, Florida. That is not a coke.

Come away with me

Henri Nouwen once said in a sermon:

When you are able to create a lonely place in the middle of your actions and concerns, your successes and failures slowly can lose some of their power over you. For then your love for this world can merge with a compassionate understanding of its illusions. Then your serious engagement can merge with an unmasking smile. Then your concern for others can be motivated more by their needs than your own. In short: then you can care. Let us therefore live our lives to the fullest but let us not forget to once in a while get up long before dawn to leave the house and go to a lonely place.      (Sermon text: Mark 1:32-39)

The past 48 hours I have been alone in a “Monk’s Quarters.” With comforts, I add. It belongs to friends who loan it to friends who need a come-away-spot. It is a gift I love – not only for the place itself, but because Denis encourages and supports my being in a place here where I find renewal. Even when I’m not even sure I’m doing the right things to make renewal happen. Like HOW early do I need to rise? Is sleeping in allowed? How much time in prayer? How many pages of serious reading before I can pick up that NYT Best Seller? Can I just stare over the balcony listening to bird song for as long as I want?

Tracking spiritual growth is difficult. Maybe we’re not meant to “track” it as though it were the Prime Interest Rate. Becoming more holy seems to happen when we’re not looking. Like the tiny wood anemone I saw yesterday as I sat on a bench in the woods. It is so diminutive it is barely noticeable. Suddenly your eyes focus and there it was all along.

Despite my shotgun approach to time away, God meets me with kindness; my successes and failures do lose some of their power and I can smile at them, letting them go. Then, for a while at least, I am ready to crack back into everyday life.

I wish I could give the same experience to so many of you who have little choice, being where you are with your obligations. But if the chance arises. Don’t hesitate! Grab it. Thanks for stopping by and for thinking along with me. Hoping/praying you have strength for days ahead.

Wood Anemone, Root River. Among first forest flowers to bloom in spring.

Wood Anemone. About 1/2" in diameter.

Life is like this:

 

Our six-year-old granddaughter, Paige-y, came home from school the other day and told her mom she had the worst day of her life. When asked why, she replied that on the school bus on the way to school she had eaten her snack. She said, “It looked so good, I ATE it.” So when snack time came around she had nothing. Thus: “The worst day EVER!”

At the end of the day, with no one to blame but ourselves, when we find our snacks are gone,  we are often mysteriously blessed with mothers who replace them overnight.

Faithful in All he does

 One of Honeysuckle's boys falls asleep in the stable.

 

Today didn’t seem like Sunday, January 1, 2012. I’m without a car – holed up in Toad Hall.  Feeding Honeysuckle and the last two boys left in her litter, drinking red wine and eating chocolate by myself. Denis is in St. Louis and Anita is visiting Marsena in Chicago. I stayed home from church. I could have called a friend to pick me up, but I was not feeling my best, so just as well. No!  ONE glass of wine does nothing except be “good for the stomach.”

I suppose a lot of us have fleeting urges to review and reflect. I do. But I learned long ago that making New Year’s resolutions is plain stupid. It’s not that I don’t try. Anyway, since there was no one around to blame for my adult attention deficits, I settled down with coffee to reflect and write.

One of the important things to came out of this is a Psalm I’ve probably read dozens of times, but today it sounded all new and like I should read it everyday this year so I can remember what it says. Here is part of Psalm 33: 

     For the word of the LORD is right and true; he is faithful in all [All!] he does.

The LORD loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full [Full!] of his unfailing love.

The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.

From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth – he who forms the hearts of all, who considers everything they do.

     No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.

                We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield.             In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.”

I  think the death and famine David writes of could be both literal and not. That in life, things, dreams, hopes, not just bodies, die. Jobs vanish. Friends move away. Families disappear or never were. We are often famished for people and things we can’t reach, or don’t have. Death and famine can make me everything from desperate to numb to hungry to resigned. God knows this about us. That’s why he is so careful and caring to give us words like these that reorient our hearts and reflect realities we often forget. I’m hungry for words such as these – for help. It is God who keeps us alive, who is unfailing in his love for us.

This past year I reckon there were many ways in which God met us unexpectedly both in famine and in death. I was given things I don’t deserve. I was loved by people who I think, if only they knew me better… well, some do know and still. I’ve found things I thought were lost forever. I’ve heard music that made my stunted little Presbyterian heart rock ‘n’ roll. It seems a little ridiculous to keep on listing. But I’ve made my private account of the times. I’m keeping a record and I’m trying to be thankful for once. It’s scary to wait for God, to be patient, but it’s what I want to do.

A lot of friends read this blog, and I think of you, and of others I may not know. What I wish for you and pray is that you would find that this year – in ways you can’t imagine now – that God is with you in all your days and that he will save you not in the way you expect, perhaps, but in ways that will cause you to know that he is the one who loves you most and can make you live. 

The Nutmeg of Consolation

In my kitchen there is a whole nutmeg that’s been hanging around for a long time. I move it from the chopping board to the window sill to a little pottery dish. I am loathe to throw it away even though it may be too old to grate and get any spice out of it at all. I pick it up and roll it between my thumb and fingers. It it a beautiful, hard little nut about two thirds the size of a truffle. (I can compare anything to chocolate in some form.) Pebble smooth. Half butter-brown, half burnt sienna. It has a design, as if the author was beginning to spin a symbol or paint a scene upon it. Fascinating. It reminds me of … good things.

Today, in a piece I wrote for The Washington Institute of Faith, Culture,and Vocation, where good friend, Steven Garber writes and works and has his being, I reflected on something called “The Nutmeg of Consolation” and related it to Simeon in the book of Luke – of whom it is written that he was “waiting for The Consolation of Israel.” This has always intrigued me. It seems to me that in life we need consolation from or in so many things. Even if unspoken, we look around in the corners of our life, in the rooms where we live, in the people we know, hoping for comfort. Here was a man who lived in waiting for many, many years, looking for The One, peering into the faces and arms of those who crowded through the courts of the temple.

At the end of the piece, I quote from a book by Patrick O’Brian, who wrote a series of sea-faring novels set in the early 1800s. I love them and their characters. The Nutmeg of Consolation  is both the name of a ship and a piece of music. In rare moments of peace, Captain Aubrey and Stephen Maturin, the ship’s surgeon, played duets on the violin and cello. On one such occasion Aubrey asks Maturin, “I dare say, what was that last piece?”

Maturin’s reply: “Nutmeg of Consolation.”

            Aubrey thinks about this and says, “That’s it. Those were the very words hanging there in the back of my mind. What a glorious name for a tight, sweet, newly-coppered broad-buttock little ship – a solace to any man’s heart... Dear Nutmeg. What joy.”

            Yes. What joy to know it is coming. The Consolation of Israel will hove into sight, his sails sheeted to the wind, and you cast-away on an island without hope of rescue. That, my friends, is Divine.  To read the entire piece – go here.

I don't know what they're saying

This week, for one thing, Honeysuckle did not have babies. After all that fussing around. We’re disappointed. I know her followers will be, too. We don’t know what to think. Someone suggested fertility treatment. But couldn’t that result in multi-multiple birth and rather than the normal dozen or so, we’d end up with 25 babies?

For another thing, the ceiling in my office leaked onto my bookshelves. So why was it we got a NEW roof at huge expense this summer? It’s fixed now, we hope, but the ceiling remains discolored and cracked. Not that I look up much.

There were other things, like there not being enough money in Ransom’s account to pay our salary this month.

In spite of the everyday nuttiness of life and other more serious matters, we are leaving it behind for the weekend. The drive to Chicago will be a little space apart and seeing the golden colors of fields and forests rolling past will have a soothing effect. As we pass over the Mississippi River we’ll imagine what it would be like to live at the top of a bluff overlooking The River, watching seasons and barges float past without a  care in the world. The time in Chicago spent with our dear, oldest daughter, and visiting The Aunt, and seeing the Avett Brothers in concert (tickets bought long ago when times were fatter) … all this should give us time to regain touch with the source of our strength:

       Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior,

and my hope is in you all day long. (Psalms 25:4, 5)

  

 Whatever the pigs are saying, it, of course, can’t compete with the baby bunnies we were hoping to post. Perhaps the piggy grab-all-you-can-eat attitude is also a reminder that God feeds his children all the time despite our manners and always when we need it.

Not your average farm dinner

Friends, John & Leslie, treated us to dinner at Blue Hill Café at the Stone Barns in New York where an earlier generation of Rockefellers grew up. Now whoever owns the barns and acres around, whether it’s a public trust or private ownership, I don’t know. All the land in sight of this hill raises livestock, gardens and orchards specifically for the menus. The barn is magnificent with stone and timbers and arches and copulas and heavy doors built to last for centuries. They make you think being a dairy maid might have made you very happy (brilliant Margie). It’s now an event center and restaurant co-owned by Dan Barber, one of the first garden-to-table chefs. You might say his calling is about being conscious of food choices and the effort required to eat healthy, nourishing food, and how our options should include natural, organic, local and all those important, over-done, oft exploited words.

     John and Leslie choose a multi-course meal built around what was overwintered or harvested in April. You don’t get a menu – you get what the chef wants to give you, although we were all a little relieved when the staff asked whether we had reservations about eating organ meats, and we all got shifty-eyed and gently said, may we pass, s’il vous plait. It began with amuse bouche – foofy French word used in restaurants I can’t afford, (thankfully the staff interpreted for me: snacks), and herbal infused elixirs (I grinned at “elixir” which I freely associate with fairy stories or poison – can go either way). Each was a wonderfully complex flavor of this flower or that herb. I hadn’t thought of drinking beets. Most of the bites were small tastes, appropriately brilliant or just sweetly, softly themselves. Loved them. Some were so simple, I fancied I could DO them myself if I got away from the peasant mentality of more is better. However, the square inch of congealed vichyssoise wrapped in a leek leaf would challenge my patience.

 Smoked kale and a sweet potato chip

 Mini Beet Sliders.

 L to R: Elixirs oatmeal/honey, yellow beet, berry

 Leek-wrapped vichyssoise.

      At the end this came out and we can’t remember what that little square was called. Chocolate, obviously, and something pistachio. The round things were chocolate covered hazelnuts. The white frothy drink - icy vanilla shake aka time to go home.  

     I kept wanting to stay in the moment, okay, the three hours. Trying to keep things real. Wanting to keep on talking about really important things like luh-ove and how to solve the world’s problems. I reminded myself this kind of celebration every day would not be possible nor wanted. But once, maybe in a lifetime? Mine, anyway? Eating at a 3 Star Michelin as a guest? You’d at least hope your conversation measured up. I doubt mine did. I know. Some things you can’t give back. This was a gift. A celebration. And like most graces you don’t get to deserve them, you should accept them gratefully, thankfully, and hope God will bless the giver(s), because you sure can’t. 

   Although we've been coddled and treated for a whole week, going home to rice and stir fry is way okay, too.

Beer Bread for the weary

Lots of folks don’t have the option of getting into the kitchen and leisurely prepping an evening meal. I understand this. So let’s not use words like puree, truss, stuff, or – God forbid – French.  I remember Little Miss Sunshine and feeling tender toward the mother, who came home from a whacked-out stressful day with a bucket of chicken and two liters of soda and tried to get dinner (a strained use of the word) on the table and the family together. The grandfather went off on her with a swearing tirade about chicken. #$%!! AGAIN?!!  Made you want to put a little strychnine in his drink.

I’ve noticed that the scent of something baking in the oven can work like freebasing Zoloft. It’s that powerful. A kind of calm sweetness diffuses through the house; traffic tickets, tyrants, terrorists, and skinned knees are forgotten. For a moment you are forgiven and soothed. The anticipation that announces something good is coming, is a gift I love to give because I know it’s more than food, it’s spiritual. There’s something sacred in this simple act. Since I can’t do it for that many, being finite and all, I share this instead.

There aren’t many recipes for a yeasty-tasting homemade bread this easy. It’s great company for nearly any meal. A few left-over slices make good toast the next morning. Putting it together and throwing it in the oven last night took me six minutes. Seriously. I timed it. And all the ingredients were put away, too. However, you must give enough time to bake (50 minutes) and cool (about 5 minutes). So, yes, it does require a little forethought.

Beer Bread

1 c. whole wheat or ¾ c ww and ¼ c. cornmeal (optional, can use all white)

2 c. white flour

1 t. baking powder

½ t. baking soda

1 ½  t. salt

2 T honey

12 oz beer

3 T melted butter

Mix dry ingredients in bowl. Add honey and beer. Stir together just until mixed. It will be sticky and moist. Transfer to a buttered loaf pan or a shallow baking dish. Bake 25 minutes at 325 degrees. Melt 3 T. butter and spread on top. Return to oven for another 20-25 minutes. Makes one loaf.

Margie tips:

* Wet your hand with cold water and pat the batter to smooth it down. Then it won’t stick to your fingers.

* Don’t use a whisk. It gets completely gunked up. Use a wooden spoon.

* An ale or dark beer gives a more beery taste. I like a lighter beer. Okay. A girly beer like Honey Weiss.

Sauteed Polenta for Breakfast

New Year’s eve day. The skies are gray and heavy. The last day of the year does not inspire me much, but I did decide after morning prayers and readings to make a late breakfast – one to cheer and comfort us.

At Toad Hall, we are each scheduled to accomplish a bit before the evening celebration at Kosmo’s (a friend) begins. Anita, our assistant and housemate, is researching fibers for a L’Abri workshop she and Denis are doing in February. Denis is putting the finishing touches on a piece for ArtHouse America and I am reviewing the past year and preparing for our annual board meeting which will be in Phoenix next week. As I told Denis, I’m thinking of highly inflating the amount and importance of all we’ve done, spinning it to look brilliant and whopping great. It’s a little tempting to make myself look better than I am. I mean, what, after all, are clothes about? For eg. (Okay. Right. Rephrase that to apply to those about my age.) However, when people know you as well as our board knows us they won’t be fooled.

There’s a verse in the Psalms that says “My heart is not proud, O LORD … I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me.”  (Ps. 131:1)

That’s my cue, today I’m sticking with breakfast. I can do that. So could any of you, whether you’re a nobody or a big somebody who wouldn’t want to be seen with me.

 If you cook up some polenta (and, hey, I know there are folks, especially south of here who know all about this) and put it in a small loaf pan and let it firm up while you go take a shower, when you come back it will be set up enough that you can thump it onto the counter, slice it in ½ inch pieces, dredge them in a bit of corn meal and saute in a cast iron skillet so that they get a little crisp and browned on each side. Then if you pop them on a plate, pour pure maple syrup on top, accompanied by a fried, free-range egg with a bright sunny yolk, a clementine and a cup of French press coffee - you are going to spread some serious good spirit. And really, that’s not a small matter, is it?

Happy New Year.

Sleeping in the litter

Saturday: in which I gather neglected thoughts and projects, and wonder if I should find the surface of my desk one of these days. Nawwww. Everyone has departed – Sandy returned to New Zealand yesterday morning having been here since the 4^th of July. Anna Dahl has gone home to Iowa for the weekend – she’ll be back Sunday night to do her shifts as a nurse at St. Mary’s. Anita went to Madison to meet Marsena and see an outdoor Shakespeare play in the evening and hang out for the weekend. We are bunny-sitting and eating Farmer’s Market Golden Baby Tomatoes by the handful.

Honeysuckle is Anita’s angora rabbit who shares, nay, rules our screened-in back porch. She personifies the moniker “Dumb Bunny” but we appreciate her dumbness as after all, God’s made her that way. Unlike many of us, she is comfortable in her creaturely-ness. She sleeps in her litter box with no apology, nibbles Denis’ slippers, (he lets her for heaven’s sake), hops up on the shelf to eat a bowl of chips, gnaws the siding off the house (we put a stop to that!) and steadfastly refuses to acknowledge my presence unless I have a blueberry or a grape.

I never quite get it. At the same time I don’t mind the reminder – it’s the small parts of life, the insignificant, the common that become the holy parts – the places where God waters and feeds us.

Sorry, God

We can live with it. But we miss it. Storms took down the huge tree across the street. As it fell our way, it flattened a car sitting on the street right outside the kitchen window and damaged the trees on our side of the boulevard. The top brushed the side of our house. Our largest tree probably saved us but now it looks sort of like a palm tree with all its branches stripped to the trunk. It’s been “condemned,” and soon the city will remove it. The other two were damaged and may also be cut down.

The sun now bakes the west side of Toad Hall and the light reveals peeling paint, dirty windows and a missing screen. Birds visiting my feeder on the second floor just outside my office left poop on the siding. I never noticed. Not charming. The inside feels hot, dark and gloomy in the afternoon. No more filtered green light. I often thank God for things I don’t want to take for granted just because I’m American and drive a Ford. Clean sheets, fresh vegetables, warm socks. Jesus.

Now add the trees that filled our gutters with seeds, dropped sticks and leaves on the lawn, pushed feeder roots into the sewer and swarmed with insects and birds. I never knew how much I preferred them to our neighbor’s crumbling foundation.

Winter Day at Toad Hall

It was almost achingly beautiful today. The sky in winter can be brilliant blue - only in New Mexico did we see skies so turquoise. There they were so common we complained. Longing for clouds and rainy days. Why are we never quite altogether happy with the weather? (no response, please, friends from Hawaii.) Is it just me? When it's this cold with temps way below zero we are exhilarated. Although I feel sorry for rabbits, I don't spare feelings for squirrels. The snow glints and dazzles. Each step is a crunchy squeak. Even the car tires squeak over the snow. Thought I'd share the photos Anita took around Toad Hall today. (I don't think I've quite figured out how to properly embed a slideshow. Sorry.)

You're my water, you're my wine...

Am home. Last night. Yesterday about five caught Marvin Window’s small corporate plane (our son works for them) down to Minneapolis. Stared out the window at the frozen lakes, hundreds, thousands of them as we flew low through the waning day. Post funeral. Post family. Post so many people and cups of Folgers. Post helping write thankyous for memorial gifts. Post staring out Mom’s living room windows across empty fields and pastures.

We drove home. Me talking nonstop. Like I was drugged, flying high. Telling everything that happened from the time he left on Friday morning. Couldn’t stop. Couldn’t edit.

How good is it to have someone who tolerates rough drafts? Or who brings you what you crave when you’re too tired to get it yourself?

Gone for awhile

This past weekend during the L’Abri conference where both Denis and I participated as speakers, I received news of my dad’s death early Saturday morning. He suffered much during the last few months of his life and so his departure was that mixed blessing people speak of. He was my mother’s second husband, so my step-father…my father was someone I never knew - he was killed in a plane crash a few months before I was born. After me came five more children. It’s been a comfort to me that some of my siblings who live near Mom have been helping, loving, keeping vigil with her and Dad these many weeks. Years, actually, as it was eight years ago when he had a stroke that disabled him and took away his ability to speak, though not his thinking.

Today, Denis and I are preparing to leave on the 8 hour drive that will take us north almost to Canada where much of my family still lives.

Unaware of what it might mean to me, Denis threw me a heart line during his plenary session when he reminded us of Samwise Gamgee from Lord of the Rings who, when he saw Gandalf after the last battle, asks in utter surprise and joy: “I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself! Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

Then, Denis quoted Tim Keller (I think.) who said: “The answer of Christianity to that question is – yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue and it will somehow be greater for having once been broken and lost.”

For my family who mourns this particular death, but for all who grieve, I pray God will give comfort. I look forward to that glorious time when Christ returns to regenerate and renew all things. Then perhaps, both my fathers will stand to bless me, my husband, my children, and grandchildren in a way they could not in this life.

Farmers of Granby, CO

Last Friday Denis and I wandered into Granby to see if the farmer’s market had fresh vegetables for our supper. It was rainy – unusual for Colorado. The market was small, but there were some vendors with some good-looking produce, a pie maker, an organic baker, and a booth selling homemade tamales and bbq beef brisket. Tucked among them, I was astonished to find a couple of earthy-looking guys selling fresh, roasted green chile. Poblanos. Anaheims. Mild, medium, hot. I reached in the cooler and they weren’t cool at all. They were still warm from having been roasted to a fine charred condition! Unable to believe our good luck. Reminding me of our New Mexico days, I bought a half bushel for twenty dollars. Half a bushel isn’t so much, you know. We took them back to the condo where we are staying and divided them up into zip-lock bags, froze them, and we’ll take them back to Minnesota with us where all you can ever, ever get are little cans of tastless, chopped green chile from Bueno.

All we had for supper each was a huge poblano chile stuffed with farmer’s cheese, laid between two corn tortillas and lightly grilled in olive oil. Oh, and a beer and a fresh pear.

Report on things lost to the TSA

Sunday evening after Denis’ final session in Birmingham, (You know. Speaking about being faithful in our postmodern culture, as Ransom Fellowship has a habit of doing) a little boy ran up and handed him a bag. Denis had a second to peek in and see a pound of Starbucks coffee and what looked like a card. This little guy was too young to drink coffee, so it had to be from his parents, right? Before Denis could follow up, we got in a shute and were spit out at our hotel room late that night. Who gave this? Where’d they go? Did we thank them? The bag spent the night in the car. Next morning as we headed to Chattanooga, I opened it to find not a card tucked in next to the coffee, but a Swiss army knife! With every cool little thing I like about them. And a little bonus: a 1 (ONE) ounce tube of hand cream.

Yesterday I made it safely through airport security in Nashville and home to Toad Hall. They didn’t find my lovely new knife hidden under my skirt (in the suitcase, for heavens sake). When we got home I was only a little bitter that whoever did inspect the luggage dumped all my vitamins. Purposely. (Does calcium look like anything illegal?)

Thank you, Faith Pres, Birmingham. It was an honor be among you, and I owe someone for touching my heart so unexpectedly with this gift.

The delight of hair

Manessah, our granddaughter, arrived for her annual summer visit with hair down the middle of her back. She wants it cut off. All of it. “Too hot,” she says. At the salon she decides to donate her heavy mane to Locks of Love – an organization that makes wigs for kids with cancer. Her hair is so thick and heavy the stylist said it was enough for three wigs.

For "that" or "which"

On the eve of the writing conference I’m attending. Staying alone in a hotel room, I made a decision. Because, you see, being here is both a blessing and a curse. The blessing will be to sit with my jaw dropped, listening to so many talented writers, Carlos Eire, Edward P. Jones, Mary Karr, Yann Martel. The wonder of their gift, their determination to write no matter if no one cooks and you eat boiled eggs five days in a row. The curse is that when you meet the writers of the writing who make it hard to breathe, you start to wonder what the -- were you thinking YOU can write? You can’t even remember when to use “that” or “which.” So I made the decision: re-read something you’ve written. Sometimes it comforts. I can see, okay, no Pulitzer Prize here, but not too bad, it flows. And yes, I’ll keep doing this. I give God a lot of credit, you know. He’s helped me delete a lot of adverbs and other things. So I pulled up a chapter I revised just two weeks ago with some of my best, newest insights, written with just the right twist. We even went away for five days so I could fully concentrate. I worked until my eyes ached. The old one was there, but I can’t find the revised work. It’s gone. I don’t know where it went or what I did. It’s just gone. All that work. I suspect I had too many open documents, mis-named one, deleted it later, who knows? And Denis is at a concert tonight so I can’t call him.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to meet with an agent. We’ll pitch each other and try to figure out if either of us are worth it and will we be able to work together and make good business. Or not.

Maybe this post is cathartic and a Starbucks will cheer me in the morning? No. That’s deluded.

So many have passed this way before us.

Evening Prayers on the Sixteenth Day.
O Thou whose eternal love for our weak and struggling race was most perfectly shown forth in the blessed life and death of Jesus Christ our Lord, enable me now so to meditate upon my Lord’s passion that, having fellowship with Him in His sorrow, I may also learn the secret of His strength and peace. - John Baillie