Lent 2016 – Day Nine – Love

Yesterday’s 2016 Lenten theme was Love. The Rev. Evelyn Foreman writes, “Like the sun, love’s joy is pure, nourishing, and continually giving.”

Susannah Conway challenged me to find heart-shaped objects or just hearts.  Love is a theme for the month of February.  Hearts, flowers, Valentine cards, and chocolate candy all have a common thread – love.

Finding the hearts has not been easy.  I have a beautiful book by Connie Smith, a cancer survivor, entitled “Never Lose Heart; hope for the journey.”  It is filled with photographs of hearts and inspiring poetry.  Slightly intimidated, I have begun my search.

 

I found: a cut paper lamp shade that has been a bedside table lamp for years, a Pennsylvania Dutch print wedding announcement, a gift from my parents;  a Pirkenhammer tea cup, originally from Czechoslovakia in the 1800’s that belonged to Mark’s grandmother;  a drawing by my granddaughter Lexi; a signed and dated poster of the Canton (MS) annual Flea Market showing hearts on the clown’s face; and a heart-shaped frame of my precious dog, Speck who shared 16 years of his life with our family.  All these heart shapes are symbols of the love that lives in my heart. (Excerpt taken from my Facebook Musing.)

 

“Love in Divine Mind, is the idea of Universal unity.  In expression, it is the power that joins and binds together the universe and everything in it.  Love is a harmonizing, constructive power.  When it is made active in consciousness, it conserves substance and reconstructs, rebuilds, and restores mankind and its world.” – Charles Fillmore

When we know the Truth we know that we are all one, that there is no separation whatsoever.  We learn by experience that love must be directed by wisdom.  God is kindness; God is love.  Loving-kindness is a word of rare compound.  Our greatest good comes in the welfare of all.  Divine love sees no distinction among persons.  When we even faintly realize the love of God, we begin to love our fellow man.

Love is more than gifts one time a year, it has no boundaries and knows no limits—it soars beyond strife or struggle.  And remember through love all things are possible.

“I am blessed by the overcoming power of love.”

~ Rev. Toni Stephens Coleman, Unity

The Letter P

“In order to be able to really SEE we must train ourselves to look beyond the grey familiarity of our every-day world.”  Thank you to Susannah Conway, again, for challenging me to explore my senses.   After meandering through my house, I found things that were red, purple, and yellow.

I got a bit side-tracked in my search for my initials and heart shapes.  It’s not that I didn’t look, but I think I just didn’t look hard enough.  This is because Girl Scout cookie season and a trip to beautiful South Carolina to celebrate my granddaughter Emery Kate’s birthday have taken precedence over my exploration of my senses.

Cookie season is a two-and-a-half month season of training, pre-order sales, delivering cookies and collecting money, booth sales, and believe it or not reorders which can be huge.  This year I will have over 2,500 boxes of cookies in my garage before all the girls pick them up.  That’s about 200 boxes more than last year.  The troop makes .65 cents on a $4 box of cookies which we use to send girls to camp, go on day trips, and buy supplies including all their books, badges, patches and awards.  We always donate cookies to places such as the Ronald McDonald House, the Salvation Army Café, and the Chambliss Children’s Home, to name a few.  Cookie sales are a business, an experience unlike any other, and it teaches the girls valuable lessons in life.  But for the leaders/cookie chairmen it is all-consuming those weeks.

 

My husband and I traveled to Beaufort to visit our granddaughters and celebrate Emery Kate turning five years old.  We had planned to stay longer but cookie sales interrupted it, but we squeezed in a lot of hugs and kisses and birthday wishes while there.

 

She had her party at a local Christian based bowling alley.  The couple who bought the bowling alley a few years ago converted it, cleaned it up, and since this is the third party my daughter has held here, I can see that it is a huge success.  Classes were going on for a group of children; families were bowling together and two other party tables were set up for later that day.  Emery Kate invited seven little girls and one boy who happens to be a family friend, not a school mate.  Two of the little girls and the boy showed up.  None of the others RSVP'd; so my daughter had to assume everyone would come.  That meant buying enough pizza, cake, ice-cream and favors.  That seems to be the norm these days.  Sadly, parents don't respond to invitations anymore. The good news is the smaller group meant the parents got to enjoy the delicious pizza, Bluebell Ice cream cups,  and cupcake cake.  It was a "My Little Pony" party.  Her big sister Lexi painted a ceramic My Little Pony for her little sister and kept it a secret for a long time.  Both were very proud.

Later that day, I sat on their front porch.  The wind was brisk and I could have sworn that I could hear the waves two blocks away splashing on the beach at Port Royal.  Warm temperatures were not enough to withstand the wind, but I found a few minutes to sit in the sun and quietly think.  When I opened my eyes I saw a recent painting by my granddaughter, Lexi, a blooming artist as seen from the eyes of one with Autism.

Here was my first P:

 

 

 

 

With my first P tackled, I’m ready to find others.  Today, I will open my eyes and see with my heart and remember to sit quietly and be grateful for all my senses.

Exploring the Senses - Yellow

Today while exploring my senses, I traveled throughout my home in search of things either yellow or shades of yellow.  By far yellow is my favorite color with green a close second.  I tend to decorate and collect things in blue, however, and use my favorite colors as accents.  On my journey seeking out the color yellow, I came across many different objects, all of which tickled my fancy and called me to look deeper into their presence.

 

From left to right the first box pictures a piece of my husband’s grandmother’s “good” china, Havilland & Co. Limoges from France.  At one time I had almost eight place settings; unfortunately most of the pieces were chipped.  I saved a few to decorate with to remind me of the generous gift from his mother of her mother’s china.  Sitting on the plate is an antique china vase, a gift from long ago from my brother, which is signed by the maker but unreadable.  I have always been drawn to light, graceful paintings especially those with shades of yellow.  A tiny ceramic dish with legs and removable top holds my P.E.O. pin.  The top is adorned with a marguerite, the organization’s flower.  This was a gift from one of my chapters after serving as president for two years.  I served as president of a chapter seven times; so I’m not sure when or where I got the box.

Helen Halverson
 

In front of the box is another oval-shaped china box, also yellow.  On top is a petit point original needlework designed and made by Helen Halverson who was a founding member of P.E.O. Chapter AB in Winston-Salem, NC.  She gave me two china compotes, this one and another much larger one upon my leaving North Carolina and moving to Tennessee in 1996.  Helen published eighteen books of her needlepoint creations as well as left all the beautiful creations she herself made when she passed away in 2013. Next to the plate is a yellow luggage tag I used when I traveled for P.E.O. while serving on the State Board in the early 90’s.

 

The yellow bar on the insignia tab with my Girl Scout pin, First Class Award, World Association Pin, and membership pin – 25 years and counting signifies that I am a current volunteer leader.  It reminds me that being a leader now to my granddaughter’s troop is more important than earning my first class pin, which at the time was the highest award a girl could earn.  The yellow lemons in this picture and the dinner plate in the bottom right picture were part of a collection my mother-in-law had and which I received when she passed away in 1997.  Under all these pictures is a yellow flower printed cotton napkin which I handstitched along with 49 others in assorted colors for my son’s wedding rehearsal dinner.

The next picture is one of a water color painting made by Elaine Bryan a friend and artist when I lived in Houston, TX. She had painted a picture of a Brownie Girl Scout which was gift to me from the local GS neighborhood in Kingwood - (999 – girls, yikes) - and I loved it so that when I saw this magnolia at an outdoor arts festival, I bought it.

The top right-hand picture of the three pears is a painting I did with my daughter-in-law Laura and her dear sweet mother Carol Crouch.  Laura treated us to wine and art at a studio in Roswell, GA on one of her mother’s visits in 2013.

Underneath the pears is an unfinished patchwork quilt that was made by my husband’s great-grandmother, Annie Ardis Richardson.  We were visiting the home of my husband’s grandmother, Rachel Richardson Metcalf in the ‘80’s.  She and her twin sister, Leah Richardson Duvall had passed on but Leah’s son Bobby Duvall still lived in their home.  His only claim to fame was father of actress Shelly Duvall.  On this trip, he invited me and my sisters-in-law and my mother-in-law to go outside to the garage and look in some old trunks.  Here we found some old quilts and popcorn squares already finished but not connected.  We each came home with three of the popcorn squares and I came home with two huge quilts.  I had every intention of quilting them one day.  That never happened but still they hang in every home I’ve lived in since that weekend.  They remind me of times gone by and the love it took for my husband’s great-grandmother to stitch the pieces together.

Ralph Shartle, far right, sitting in his green chair

The picture on the bottom top is a botanical print I bought in Winston-Salem to hang in my blue living room.  A friend who was an interior decorator came to my house and helped me pick out the colors of my drapes and upholstery of the chair pictured in the next picture.  The chair was originally green Naugahyde and was my father-in-law, Ralph Shartle’s favorite chair.  I had it covered in a heavy yellow silk flowered pattern which has endured without stain or problem these past twenty-two years.  But I still see him sitting in the chair when I walk by it, remembering he was gone before we knew it.

The last picture is one of ceramic yellow roses in a milk glass vase which was given to me the day my second son, Daniel was born, from my parents.  My mother wanted me to have something permanent to remember that day.  It was a crazy funny day and very quick delivery with almost no problems.  Delicate and hard to clean, I’ve never let them be put away and today they stand next to a picture taken by my brother-in-law, Kenny White at that same son’s wedding in April 2001.

Now I’ve opened my eyes to my senses and experienced feelings of contentment, joy, sadness, beauty and especially love.  Thank you, Susannah Conway for giving me the push to explore.  Now one with the next step – looking for my initials and heart shapes!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My Word for 2016

Having discovered Susannah Conway and her web site: http://www.susannahconway.com/, I am happy to say my journey for this next year looks very promising.

After five emails from Susannah, meditating, visioning, reading and studying I was prompted to come up with five words that inspired me.  They were shine, family, beautiful, radiant, and happy.  I narrowed those down to shine and radiant.  On the third day, I woke up to find the creek a half a mile from my house had overflowed into the cow pasture behind my house.  And for a brief few minutes the sun was shining.  The reflection of the sun was amazing and so I snapped a quick picture.  The first word that came to mind was radiant.  The next day my cell phone broke and I lost all my pictures.  I will get them back one day but in the meantime  I have to start all over signing in and learning to use the phone; gone with the old and in with the new.  Then I opened my morning devotional from Daily Word and read these words: “Each day I release old ways of being and give life to a renewed radiant self.”

I have found my word for 2016!  It is RADIANT.  Supporting words include– glowing, love, confident, happiness, luminous, brilliant, and bright.  This is my opportunity to grow spiritually, to become enlightened, and to use the wisdom gained to be the light of the world as I am called to be. I plan to make myself a RADIANT Light.

I know it’s not 2016 yet, but the radiant light that shines in my life is calling me.  Today, when I thought of what it meant to make myself a Light, I thought of the laughter and joy of sharing a game of Uno with my granddaughter laughing as the machine spitted out card after card until we used up the whole deck before one of us won the game.  Or the radiant reflection of sunlight in my friend’s tears as she shared her concern for her grandson’s health. Being present to brighten someone’s day; that’s what I felt this day.