My husband and I continue to take walks, more or less daily, and I was planning today to share some winter photos accompanied by vaguely poetic thoughts. If that’s something you’d just as soon skip, you have been spared.

I’ve always been fascinated by my dreams and often spend the first part of waking up trying to remember them, going over the details in my mind. Many times, this is like trying to grasp a wisp of smoke as it dissipates. On good days, I remember fragments of them; on the best days, whole stories emerge from the dream ether.

My kind and patient husband is usually the recipient of my dream tellings, but out of the generosity of my heart, I’m going to share the strange doings in my mind from last night.

There was a man that I knew who was sad and it seemed important that I find out the cause of his sadness. Suddenly, his sadness turned to anger and he got hold of a steamroller so he could steamroll over the red Ferrari of someone whom he blamed for his troubles. This caused quite a kerfuffle in my dream, since the poor fellow was actually in the Ferrari. You’ll be glad to know that the Ferrari owner escaped the awful fate of being flattened.

So that was weird enough, but it gets weirder.

I found out that the sad man was taking care of a baby girl named “Rhombadot.” And he was pronouncing it “RAHM-ba-DOT.” I became fixated with the idea that it was might be a French word and should therefore be pronounced “Rhom-ba-doh,” (long ‘o’). “Are you sure, it’s not pronounced Rhombadoh?” I asked him helpfully. “It’s Rhombadot,” he insisted. So I found the woman who’d actually given birth to the child. She confirmed that the name was “Rhombadot.” “Are you sure it’s not “Rhombadoh?” She got irritated with me and said, “I don’t know!”

I told my husband this dream while we were out walking and I was laughing so hard I almost couldn’t talk. Where does my mind come up with this stuff? Rhombadot? Steamrollers? Red Ferraris?

The world of dreams is a topsy-turvy one, indeed.

I wrote about dreams on my previous blog years ago, so if you’re interested in more on that topic, here’s the link: http://fari-blog.blogspot.com/2012/04/wishful-dreaming.html.

I’ll probably – oh, I’m still laughing so hard about the Rhomadot/Rhomadoh controversy I can’t even finish that sentence. 😂

The watercolor lessons continue (ha ha – originally mistyped that as watercolor lesions, which is an appalling gathering of words). I started with leaves, went boldly on to jellyfish (with a pit stop for some speed poetry) and then climbed out of the water to paint some smiling turtles.

I could fill a paragraph with the things I did wrong on that assignment, but why ruin it for you? It’s a happy turtle and in the end, that’s the most important part.

After that, the ocean called to me and I dove in to paint some seahorses.

I should mention that this is a watercolor course on Udemy taught by Broderick Wong. I’m really enjoying the class. I like the projects, the pacing and the (trying desperately to think of another ‘p’ word so I can have a nice bit of alliteration)…prowess of the teacher. Proficiency of the teacher?

The Seahorse
Unsaddled, unbridled, untamable beast
The sea monster Hippocampus has been released
It’s a knight in sea armor with a prehensile tail
It’s an underwater ship with a curvy sail
It’s a camouflaging critter just waiting for prey
Unsuspecting crustaceans are the menu today.
They keep a dark secret – I really shouldn’t tell,
But these water-dwelling beasties don’t swim very well.
When it’s time for babies, the mare is no slouch,
She puts all the eggs in Dad’s handy brood pouch.
It’s a wonder, a marvel, an ingenious design –
The Creator is pleased with his Seahorse Line.

That’s a wrap!

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, pursuing the elusive Horse O’ the Sea.

Elisabeth Elliot has often commented on how formative it was for her spiritually to be in contact with missionaries while she was growing up. If you listen to her podcast like I do (speeches and talks delivered while she was still living), various themes emerge on a regular basis, one of which is her recommendation that Christians read biographies of missionaries. I heard her say it again today and decided that it’s time for me to re-visit some of the biographies we have in our home that I read many years ago.

It’s been so long since I’ve read these that I have only the barest glimmers of specific memories of them. The one about C.T. Studd looked like it would be a yawner, but I remember enjoying it quite a lot. I haven’t read most of the set in white on the right – just the one about George Muller. I think we bought that set to read to the kids – might be a little too late, now.

We also have on our shelf a biography of Dawson Trotman, the man who started The Navigators, which became a campus Christian group. I might read it again, but recall the section in his book in which he felt he couldn’t start his day without three hours of prayer (starting at some hour of the morning before the sun had even thought about rising). It’s hard not to feel a little deflated upon reading that sort of example. And then there’s our book about Martin Luther by Roland Bainton. Teeny tiny print in a very old, dilapidated paperback. Probably not going to tackle that one again either, since I’m at an age when the size of the letters has become very important.

Please give me your recommendations for biographies to read – either of missionaries or of any great men and women of the faith.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,
let us also lay aside every encumbrance
and the sin which so easily entangles us,
and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.
Hebrews 12:1

I’ll probably delete this in the morning if I’m not too busy reading.

What is it that causes one to become a hermit? I’m talking about those who choose to avoid society, not those who choose hermitage as a religious pursuit.

I’ve continued to read through Emily Dickinson’s poems and bought an accompanying book about Emily Dickinson as a gardener. It was in the latter book I learned that in her late 20’s/early 30’s she withdrew from society, associating only with close family. She was an odd duck, to be sure – perhaps it was her recognition of being so different from everyone else that drew her inward. Or maybe it was her poetry-inflamed soul that could not cope with small talk and meeting new people. The gardening book has some excerpts from her letters – she seemed unable to write in plain prose. Every thought she had was made up of poetic connections.

The older I get, the more I am a homebody. I like being home. When we go traveling, as much as I enjoy seeing other places and meeting up with friends and family, I am drawn back home as if attached to an invisible tether. But love of home doesn’t equate to a desire to give up on the society of others. I wonder if Emily’s self-imposed isolation was a refuge or a prison? Maybe a little of both.

Just some musings for today.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning as long as I can stay home to do it.

Here’s a little survey for you jigsaw puzzlers. Others of you can weigh in on this important topic as well. The question before us is this: How long after completing a puzzle do you dismantle it?

A. Immediately. As soon as the last piece is in, the puzzle goes back into the box.
B. Never. Get some of that puzzle glue and make it into a permanent “poster” for display.
C. Leave it on the table until you start the next one, no matter how long or short a time period that is.
D. Leave it out until you have guests coming over with young children.
E. Leave it assembled for just as long a time as it took you to put it together.
F. Other (specify, please)

Of course, most of you are probably as sick as surveys as I am. Every time you do anything, you get a survey by mail, email or text afterward with people wanting you to tell them how they did. Ugh. I always ignore those. How about you?

I’ll probably delete this in the morning and then send you a survey asking you a lot of questions about it.

I’m reading a book of letters between John and Abigail Adams called My Dearest Friend.

John Adams had to be gone a lot during the Revolutionary War for the Constitutional Convention and Abigail had to hold down the fort at home in the Boston area. He was up to his eyeballs with long, tedious meetings and she was dealing with lying awake at night because of the sound of cannons firing nearby. He wrote the following about his experience with Congress and I wonder how much different it is now:

“I am wearied to Death with the Life I lead. The Business of the Congress is tedious, beyond Expression. …Business is drawn and spun out to immeasurable Length. I believe that if it was moved and seconded that we should come to a Resolution that three and two make five, we should be entertained with Logick and Rhetorick Law, History, Politicks, and Mathematicks, concerning the Subject for two whole Days, and then We should pass the Resolution unanimously in the Affirmative.”

He offered up advice on educating their children and gave his thoughts on the management of the property, while she kept him up to date on her thoughts about the war, what was happening locally, and the toll that illness was taking on their family and friends. Her mother died while he was out of town and she wrote meaningfully and eloquently about her grief, pouring out words of great loss, while at the same time being able to say, “Still I have many blessings left, many comforts to be thankful for and rejoice in. I am not left to mourn as one without hope. My dear parent knew in whom she had Believed…and departed the world with an easy tranquility, trusting in the merits of a Redeemer.”

She worried that perhaps all this writing about her grief was giving relief to her wounded heart at the cost of adding pain to his: “My pen is always freer than my tongue. I have wrote many things to you that I suppose I never could have talk’d.”

That’s when I knew that I was reading the words of a friend. It has ever been the way with me that things that are difficult to express out loud are easier to write on paper (or type on a screen).

C.S. Lewis said, “Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.”

Abigail Adams, friendship was born when I read your words. I look forward to meeting you in eternity.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, my keyboard being freer than my tongue.

When my grandfather was honorably discharged from the Army on December 14, 1918, he was permitted to take with him various items of clothing that he was wearing: belt, breeches, coat, hat, leggings, overcoat, shoes and a flannel shirt. These were to be returned within four months on Uncle Sam’s dime. I guess they let him keep the underwear. This makes me wonder what he was wearing when he entered service and why he didn’t just get those clothes back? Do they still discharge people in army-issued clothing that has to be returned?

Grandpa Harry was returning to his wife and a newborn daughter whom he hadn’t met yet. He signed some of his letters before arriving back home, “Daddy Boy,” and my Grandma signed hers “Mother Girl.” These people were OLD when I met them (ha ha – not much older than I am now) so I am charmed by this glimpse into their days as a young married couple.

My grandpa used to enjoy telling a story to his daughters about their mother, my Grandma Lois. Apparently when Harry and Lois were in high school, there was a rival for Lois’s affections, a football player that went by the nickname “Dad.” This fellow bragged to Lois about his fitness and encouraged her to punch him in the stomach. She didn’t want to, but he insisted, so she did, and knocked him out cold!

I may have told that story on my blog before, but it bears repeating, doesn’t it? I’m trying to think of any colorful stories my grandchildren might learn about me someday that would bear repeating. There must be something…

I’ll probably delete this in the morning (which isn’t a very colorful story, but it can’t be helped).

For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
and through him to reconcile to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven,
making peace by the blood of his cross.
Colossians 1:19-20

The Lord bless you and keep you.

There comes a time in everyone’s life when they confront three deep theological realities: evil in themselves, evil in the world, and death. Of course, as a child, the words “deep theological realities” don’t mean anything. But looking back, I remember certain incidents in elementary school that fit the bill and have stayed with me all these years.

I’d seen small acts of bullying before and my usual thought was that I didn’t want to be a victim of it myself. We called it “being picked on,” and it was usually done by kids who wanted to display power over others, most often in the form of verbal harassment. I didn’t like bullies – who does? Yet all these years later, I cannot explain why one day I decided it was my turn to pick on someone. I suppose I wanted a taste of that power myself. My victim was a girl in my class named Marsha who had the misfortune to develop early and also wore braces on her teeth. We had a nickname for her that was especially cruel. I started following her home one day, calling her names and throwing spitballs at her. Suddenly she turned on me with tears in her eyes and pleaded, “Leave me alone! Why can’t you just leave me alone?” I was stricken and ashamed. I turned around and went home, newly acquainted with a darkness in my soul that I could not scrub out.

As I was leaving school another day, I came upon a scene that I did not comprehend at first. Two older brothers of a friend of mine were confronting a classmate of Chinese origins named Henry. They called him “Chink” (a word I’d never heard before but understood immediately as a racial taunt), and were trying to kick him in the face. His face, as I recall, was already bloodied. It was clear from the context that their hatred of Henry had nothing to do with any action on his part, but solely because he was Chinese. I was profoundly disturbed and unsettled. There was an ugliness and a brutality to this that went far beyond the usual mischief making and petty pecking order posturing of the schoolyard and classroom. It was a glimpse into a wider world that I’d rather not have seen, but couldn’t forget.

In that same year, one evening we had policemen turn up at our house. They wanted to talk to me, to see if I’d seen Grace P. lately. Grace and her family had been our next-door neighbors until I was about 7 years old. She and I had been good buddies, but I hadn’t seen her since her family moved away. She’d gone missing and her parents were desperately trying to pursue any possible leads as to her whereabouts. The next morning, the picture was in the paper: Grace’s grandmother grieving and in shock. Grace had drowned at one of our local lakes while out swimming with friends. Death was no longer a theoretical idea – it could happen to friends. It could happen to me.

But for all of this, I was still not very attuned to spiritual things. One night the neighbor kids were all abuzz with the rumor that Rodney, a boy who lived a couple houses down from me, had gone to church and had spoken in tongues. I’d never heard of this before and once someone explained it to me, I had a hard time reconciling the idea that Rodney was not only a churchgoing boy, but also had received some special gift of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit must not be very discerning, I thought. Rodney was not a nice boy. All in all, I thought churches were strange places and this was just further confirmation.

Off I went to junior high school (a lesson in survival) and then high school, going through different friend groups, trying cigarettes and then rejecting them, getting a job, wishing I had a boyfriend – ha ha – all the typical things of an average girl who occupied a very small territory in the bigger world of these bigger schools. I can’t say that God wasn’t working on me in those days, as I am sure He must have been. Certainly as I look back, I can be thankful for the things from which He spared me, like that boyfriend that I wanted so much. It wasn’t until my college years that I began to form definite ideas about Christianity – not the warm and fuzzy kinds of ideas either.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning, but hey, check out the slug bug in that photo!

My Story Part 1
My Story Part 3
My Story Part 4
My Story Part 5
My Story Part 6
My Story Part 7
My Story Part 8
My Story Part 9
My Story Part 10

When my mother moved to a small apartment 10 years ago, I inherited all her collected ancestral photos and genealogical documents. Five years ago, I decided to start organizing them into notebooks but after a good start, I got sidetracked. This is the year that I finish that project. That’s the story I’m telling myself anyway.

Part of me wonders what value these will be to anyone in years to come. Will it be worth my spending hours of time sorting, assembling, identifying and labeling? Will the next generation care for and keep these things?

The farther away you get from the people in the photos, the less real they are to you. I’ve studied photos of my great grandparents and the people in their generation, but never met them. My mother has very negative impressions of her dad’s dad. I look at his photos and can see a kind of severity there, but maybe my impressions are colored by the things she told me.

It doesn’t really matter if those who come after me will value these old photos – I could never throw them away. These are my people. They may not have been directly responsible for shaping me, but in raising my grandparents, who raised my parents who raised me, they certainly had an upstream affect on my life.

That’s my Grandma Lois as a young girl. I see myself in her. I see my daughter in her. She looks full of fun with just a hint of mischief. Sometimes photos tell a story, even if there are no words. I am often entranced by the unspoken stories I see as I pore over the photos.

I cannot throw them away.

I usually talk about deleting my posts in the morning, but I’m hoping one of you will say to me “You cannot throw them away.”

I wonder when the concept of exercise as a regular way of staying in shape came about? Is it a product of our modern times in which we have labor saving devices that give us more leisure time? It’s hard to picture Ma and Pa Ingalls having to set aside time for regular walks, weightlifting or jogging. Nevertheless, here we are. Most of us have some sort of exercise equipment in the house that only occasionally gets used.

We have an exercise bike that we’ve had for probably over 25 years. I’ve used it regularly in the past at various seasons of my life. Right now its primary purpose in life is to silently accuse me as I continually ignore it. I bet at least once a week I say to myself, “I’m going to use the exercise bike. It’s not that hard. I can even read or watch something while I do it.” But I’m just not that motivated. I need an exercise buddy, someone to fill in the gap and do it for me. Enter Cuddles.

Cuddles has been a part of our family for about 20 years. He came along quite by accident and never left. He takes up valuable space and has never really pulled his weight…until now. I’ve got him on the exercise bike where I benefit vicariously from his hard work. Of course, I never actually see him move. He always waits until nobody is around. It’s part of the famous Raggedy Ann Protocol For Dolls and Stuffed Animals. I don’t care, as long as he gets the job done.

If you need an exercise buddy, I’d consider renting Cuddles out.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning. Wait a minute – why should I expend any of my energy doing that? It’s another job for Cuddles.