So It's Monday

Thanks Mitzi Smith & Jen Mann
& Fran Lebowitz

Additional Advice for Monday,
if not for the whole year, at least for this week:

Thanks to my sister Peggy!

Meaning of Christmas

See also "Season's Cheatings"
by Duo Dickinson at Saved By Design

Last month, my brother Bruce posted an insightful explanation of not only the meaning of Christmas but also the meaning of the so - called War on Christmas.

I had to agree with our friend Mitzi who replied to Bruce, who usually has the last word on everything: "This was so good, you could have written it."

In this case, however, I also want to add my own "two cents worth":

I think the message of Christmas is "Be nice to pregnant women no matter who the father of the baby is and regardless of their legal marital status; and to babies no matter who their parents are. Remember: ". . . When you kiss your little baby, you've kissed the face of God . . . "

And this from The Reverend Nancy Rockwell in her article "No More Lying About Mary":

The Greek word Luke uses for virgin is an unusual one, a very specific word that means she has not yet born a child. Its precise meaning does not indicate sexual innocence. So let’s be clear: the focus is on her uterus. The state of her hymen is not at issue here. . . .

Mary is unmarried when the angel comes. The angel’s invitation and her independent decision tell us Mary does not need permission of clergy – or her parents – to become pregnant. God knows Mary owns her own body. And there is no shame in her decision. Mary is good news for unwed mothers everywhere.

Mary, wanted by God, according to the angel, for her bold, independent, adventuresome spirit, decides to bear a holy child – for a bold agenda: to bring the mighty down from their thrones; to scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts, to fill the hungry with good things and send the rich empty away. This is Mary: well-spoken, wise, gritty.

I am a little church

i am a little church(no great cathedral) – i do not worry if
briefer days grow briefest,
i am not sorry when sun and rain make april

my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;
my prayers are prayers of earth’s own clumsily striving (finding and losing and laughing and crying)children whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness

around me surges a miracle of unceasing
birth and glory and death and resurrection:
over my sleeping self float flaming symbols
of hope, and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains

i am a little church(far from the frantic
world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature – i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;
i am not sorry when silence becomes singing

winter by spring, i lift my diminutive spire to
merciful Him Whose only now is forever:
standing erect in the deathless truth of His presence (welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness)

E. E. Cummings

May Day Birthday

Happy May Day to All!

Peonies, 1887
Charles Edward Perugini, 1839 - 1918
[Previous Peony Post]

&

Happy Birthday to Etta!

For my Christmas present this past December, my dear,
life - long friend Marietta gave me a big shopping bag
full of my old letters to her, thinking that I could use
them for my memoirs, and even better -- for blogging!
Thanks Et!

************

Thanks to my friend Mitzi
for sharing this photo from the Woodland Trust

Ah listen, for silence is not lonely!
Imitate the magnificent trees
That speak no word of their rapture, but only
Breathe largely the luminous breeze.

from the poem -- about the painter -- "Corot"
by D. H. Lawrence
Burnetta writes: "Oh what scene, from my childhood in west Kentucky! I have to share this. I just makes me long for the "olden days" at least in landscape.

Indeed! My friend Vickie Amador and I often reminisce about wandering down a lovely path such as this, gathering wildflowers in a basket as a May Day surprise for our elders!

Angels: Incredible, Comitted Volunteers

Joplin, Missouri: Before and After
[Click here and slide cursor across photograph]

Reflections One Year Later
by my friend, Mitzi Smith
It would take hours and hours to write about the tornado that hit us one year ago today and the events since. Still can't believe it's been a year. Can't tell you how many times I've heard people say things like..."What happened to Joplin was really bad, but people are sick of hearing about it!" or "Why has Joplin gotten so much media coverage when other cities have had similar destruction without near as much attention?"

A Shocking Day

I don't know how to respond to statements like these. I don't have the answers. I went to Texas after Katrina/Rita and it was bad. People have died in all of these catastrophic weather events. The only explanation I can come up with can be summed up in one word...Volunteers.

Joplin High School

I live here. I've been deeply affected by the storm and it's changed me forever, yet I didn't lose a single loved one or experience any property damage. Within minutes after the tornado passed through, we headed to St. John's hospital. That was my first glimpse of the power of the human spirit and the word "volunteer" took on a whole new definition for me. To me, "volunteer" is synonymous with "angel." I became a volunteer that night, and for days, weeks and months after. It began with our own citizens, frantically digging through rubble, guided by the screams for help, loading up the dying and injured into their own vehicles to get them to the only hospital still standing and functioning. Then came the police, firefighters, paramedics, medical professionals from surrounding towns. From there, it grew, like nothing I've ever seen in my life. They, the "angels," came from Kansas City, St. Louis, and other Missouri cities. They came from bordering states. They came by car, RV, airplane, every mode of transportation you can imagine. Some even hitchhiked, but they came. And they kept coming. We've had volunteers come from virtually every state in this country and beyond. Africa, South America, Europe, just to name a few. Some of the angels have never left. They are still working to rebuild homes and shattered lives. New angels arrive every day, a whole year after the storm.

I believe it is the massive influx of volunteers that has produced the attention that Joplin has received. How can that be a bad thing? For those of us who reside here, we will forever refer to time as "before the tornado" and "after the tornado". We won't get sick of hearing about it or talking about it, because we are still living with the effects. We see it every single time we drive our city's streets. It will FOREVER be there, in some way. But if it weren't for the angels, those incredible, wonderful, committed volunteers, we couldn't have gotten this far. No way. Thank you will never, ever be enough, but each of you has our undying gratitude.