Can I have a slice of Life!!!

Walking up to the pizza shop.
To the pie store.

My oh my. Life does have its many choices
of which toppings to put onto the pie
and which pie to buy.

Life seems like such a big pie right now.
I am faced with the decision of where to work and how to allocate the time between searching for elusive work or trying to find the time to learn and understand the meaning and method of how to understand the Holy Scriptures. But I really do enjoy this aspect of studying the Scriptures. For I had the opportunity to open up and review the first chapter of Nehemiah at the gym while I was waiting for a new friend to finish her workout.

As I have been examining this concept of interpretation , I have finally realized that God is definitely a genius in how He put together and inspired the Scriptures to be placed in the language of our time which has survived through many centuries of war, persecutions, weather, political upheavals. His word is a constant in our world and life. And to open up the puzzle box and move around the pieces to make the whole.

I only wish that I could easily divide all the tasks that I have to do in 24 hours a day in a way that I can get it all done.
Inefficiency drains some of my time but I am slowly working on that. Trying to find the space to fit the stuff into my life and the time to write down the thoughts that go racing through my mind , "quiet at rest.."

But God seems to know how to stuff the pies into the boxes and to make them as well. For the making of the boxes proved quite a challenge to me at thanksgiving as I tried to staple the edges of the pie boxes to keep them from falling apart. And to somehow stack them up so that they don't fall over.

So at least I know not to work in a pie shop or pizzeria. Or in the circus where I would have to juggle many things at once.

Even though I probably will end up there, at least I know the final destination will be orderly and beautiful. For now I just have to keep stapling and keeping up the best I can.

And please hold the anchovies and load the pie with lots of onion and green peppers. Steaming hot and not to go!!!
Pass the cheese and pour plenty of iced tea. And a side salad with croutons of opportunity as well.

The model T. got a ding to it !!!!

Twenty five years ago today, I received the chicken pox and got to be excused from school for the weekend to confinement at home .

Brightly lit distant memory!

Lighthouses fascinate me. Growing up during summers on Pratt's Isle, we were nestled up in the trees and sitting upon rocky crags. To our right we saw Hendrick's Head Light House which guarded Cozy Harbor of West Southport Island.

Several miles out to sea was Sequin Island light which peeped its light on and off every few seconds with a briefly pulsing light.'


I had a dream this past evening of a brightly lit amusement park next to a lighthouse and I was impressed by the brightly lit colors that were present in the background.l

Thorns in our lives.

Wandering through the woods, my hands and face become tangled with the thick branches of the rose and the thorns that are hanging off the branches. I want to push them away and they are ever present. They stab at me and resist being moved away.

I smell the sweet aroma of the roses that are on the vine and see the bees buzzing overhead. I see that the thorn is seated below the beautiful rose bud which is getting the attention of the bees and man that passes by. Either to drop off and deliver the beautiful pollen from the feet of the bees or to be grasped by man as he cuts off the stem of the rose plant to place in a vase for a beloved.

As I reflect on the roses, they are often sold in the dozen at a very valued price. The plant is delivered with rose, leaves, buds and the thorns attached. We focus on the beauty of the red petals. But often we forget to look at the thorn and neglect to see its beauty as well.


For we all have thorns and sticky situations in our lives. Things to dash off from ourselves. But often God deposits those very things in our lives. Things that must be nurtured and absorbed into our very fabric of our lives. For how can we appreciate a beautiful petal until we see the thorns. I don't know the value of the thorn on the rose plant but it must have some value since God placed it there. So I must see the value in my suffering and in my trials of unemployment. Somewhere there must be a garden that God is tending. I need to invite some bees to pollinate it and to allow it to grow fuller and wider. And to be able to give an offering back to Him as well just as the bees have done.

de clomping!!

Tomorrow, we get to continue to break the record for the snow falling in the Northeast. We already got 31.5 inches , approximately four times the average snowfall through this point in January.

I love the opportunity for the optional outings that I get to stay inside. Rather nifty.
For I don't have to clomp in foot deep snowdrifts that are to my knees.
I can actually de-clomp!!!!
It is great to have that freedom, not one of those found in Norman Rockwell's paintings of the Four freedoms or of the freedoms that are guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States of America.
But still good to have a freedom of choice.
The opportunity to look out the window at dry ground and smile at life!!!

Lord give me an opportunity again to have to clomp and be joyful about it. I like being in my nest
nestled six stories up in the sky.
Not affected by the howling winds
but only by hearing the wind itself and being inspired by it.

I did clomp some this week and enjoyed it but will probably hibernate until Saturday when I go to the diner and to NEST to learn more of you, Lord, and your self-appointed authors of the Scriptures who have portrayed you in a very loving way
of your being a mighty conqueror and also a very loving person
kneeling before children
asking them to follow you.

Let me be like that , Lord, as I watch your ticket tape parade pass by my bedroom window tomorrow.

Trading places

Car wheels are spinning today and the plows are beeping as they move backwards. The reports call for real bad conditions outside for driving and walking.
I chatted with a friend out in Arizona where the temps are going up to 76 degrees. I asked for a swap of the weather for just one day. The response I got was "No Way!"
I say back, "oh, only for one day and then you will have it back,"
My friend says, "No!"
I say "unfair"


This little interchange reflects the journey also of the Christian faith. I so much can relate to not wanting to leave a comfort zone. It is extremely hard to move from an area of familiarity and into an area that is going to be much different and not the same.
I have enjoyed the cocoon that I have built around myself as it has crystalized and taken shape around me. I can move around in it and poke around in the world with it.

I am trying to slowly break out of it but have not totally become totally free. I do chat with my friends of what my dreams are for my future. I do want to do something great and make an impact on the world. Lord, is that done by working with accounts and files and transactions. And making small impacts as I deal with the clients and customers along the way? Or is it by making a splash in something totally new. Letting the water go over the sides of the pool as other children laugh as the get in and out of the pool. I wish I had a clear answer like an advertisement from a bulletin board on a highway saying "destination for Scott two minutes down the road."

Yet, Lord I am going to trust in you. For as I explored on Martin Luther King day with some friends, Jeremiah 29:11 which states, "For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." There is a lot of power packed into that one simple sentence.
In that one sentence the Lord repeats the use of the word, plans, three times. He also repeats the pronoun, you, four separate times. God is directly involved with me helping me to see that He is directly involved in my life. He already has the end in sight and the means to accomplish it. The verse reflects the confidence that the Lord has in me and I have to develop that same self-confidence in knowing the gifts and talents that I have been given will help me to prosper and help others in the future as well.
Not in a health and wealth manner that some preachers speak on but in overall shalom well being.
Lord, thank you for the few moments thinking over that verse again in a new way by looking at its structure. May others be blessed as we continually mine for your truth as well.

Warm Wishes

The phrase, warm hands, warm hearts keep ringing through my mind.
I read a piece from Richard Foster's book which talked about the discipline of meditation. He mentioned how we receive from the Lord when our hands are open palm facing up to Him and we are in act of submission to Him. When we place our hands down, we are surrendering our lives to Him.

At an inspirational workshop for the unemployed this morning, the presenter gave us each a stone. The stone had beautiful flaws on it. We were to take the stone and hold it in our hands and breathe in and out 10 times while we looked at the stone. This stone reflects how we are to be in the moment and not let the cares and worries of the world to take over us.

This stone remembered on which I received as a neighboring church was planning their expansion with the theme that now we are going to do even greater things than which Jesus had done.

I love stones. When I was a teenager and my cousins, Bruce and Carol, accompanied me to one of the beaches on Pratt's Island in Maine, we skipped stones across the water's edge. As the stones flotsammed through the water, ripples echoed out from each skip. Sometimes the stone sank right to the bottom but we kept flicking our wrists and some made a merry journey across the surface and made moments of magic and music before us.

Plunk, plunk, plunk.

So, let the warmth of our hearts be developed. Let us focus. Let us draw from the Lord. For He is the hearth of our very lives.

the ebb and flow of our lives

When I think to today being Martin Luther King's Birthday, there is so much that the world has missed without him being in the world. Yet, the world has been inspired to receive so much from the contributions and challenges that he has given the world.

I look at his life as within a poem.
May grace flow and ebb deeply in your pores.
May that never ending flow..
not stop with your love of life
of connection
a love that carried on beyond April 4, 1968 when man tried to silence your voice.
It lives on in the lives of other gentle giants,
The Maya Angelou of the world
taking on the bravery to open her soul to the world.
to echo great and deafening words to a dark night of our land,
an ebbing land

To shine forth a bright light
to redeem
to a land flowing
with potential
a depth to be imagined and redeemed

through a deep and sustaining love of country.

Martin Luther King,
Thank you for your dream.
You delivered it well
It was received
not returned to sender.
Carried forth and marched on
In the ebb and flow of our lives.

Happy Birthday MLK!!!!!
Let us remember one man or woman can make a difference.
I have a dream....

Mother Nature needs a time out

Mother nature badly needs a time out!!!
We have been dumped with an awful lot of snow. I could not go out into public today for the buses were not running on a normal schedule and the streets were still being plowed.
Only problem is where do we put Mother Nature for her time out. She is everywhere. She only does what she has been programmed to do=release the clouds of moisture and the temperature determines what is going to fall out of the sacs of white that are above us.

Almost like the confetti at the end of the circus that lands on the circus floor.

In the Snowy Tower!!!

Today is a true snow day. It is hard to get out since the buses are erratic and the street is full of snow. We got almost a foot of it over the evening. I won't be walking down the hill to the career center for my job club today.

Yet, it is beautiful outside. The snow is resting on the air conditioner in a round mound, crystalized and the snow is sitting at my other bedroom window. Flakes piled upon each other. Awaiting some kind of show to begin. What can i offer this awaiting audience. My life is in many acts. But as the saying goes, I don;t have it fully together yet. I am still in dress rehearsal. I need to have it well oiled. I don't want to make too many mistakes.

Yet, God, the best parts in life are when mistakes get made and we can indeed laugh at them. Even at our own expense.
Lord, I have no clue of where to proceed when I do get released from the snowy tower. The gates seem to be closed of the evident opportunities that I have scratched for the past 28 weeks. It seems like an itch that won't get much relief. Yet, Lord, I do feel the soothing balm of your grace.

And just as the citizens and government will be digging us out so we can stand on some solid ground, I made a commitment with cold hard cash to study your Word this year by enrolling in the New England School of Theology. I have the books and the assignment. Lord, help me to crack open the Word and dig into it. So I too can be on solid ground once I shovel some of the dross that has built up around my life. I do want to be one of the finishers of your great race of life.

The world is indeed quiet with the exception of the howl of the wind or some barking dog. The snow seems to have stopped. Now the clean up by others will begin.

The Paradisal paradoxes of life.

Some further thoughts on getting through tough times in life.

Live through our loves.
Losses can be deep.
Pillars can be shaken.
Restructurings and passings.
God sustains.
He can heal.
Pour out aching hearts
Fill up our creative hearts
so we may fill up the aching hearts made empty.
Satisfied yet broken
unsure of where we go
but a nudging confidence awaits.

Hope for the World.

The world is a balloon. Balloons start out as flat and are stuffed in a bag. Many in multiple colors. As the bag is opened up, the balloons are just lying there motionless. Flaccid. But then they get placed within the fingers and stretched. Then puffs of fresh air get propelled into them. A puff at a time. The balloon begins to give shape.

Into beautiful colors. Reds, whites, Oranges and Blues.
They go into parades and into inaugurations. Into birthdays and graduations.
They bring joy.

OVer time, they deflate and lose their stately shape.
They become loose and worn out. Unable to be used again in their vigor.

Replaced by another bag and another breath.
But still when hanging by threads
held up with hope.

To be brought to those hurting in hospital beds.
To march again into the world with gradual joy
muffling the impending sadness and gradual joy.

This is how I feel about the events from this past Saturday
in a part of the world that I used to pass by.
May His love touch those in Tucson and other parts of the world that are
indeed smarting with pain unbearable.

Get something Done!!

As I was being dropped off by my friend, I was charged with the words, "Get Something Done". For I sure have many things to do. A long list that I keep pushing to the back of my mind. I looked around and said, yes, there are some things that I can definitely take care of.

Out came the broom and vacuum cleaner and the sponge as i went to work. Nothing radical but I did move things around and did get going for 90 minutes accomplishing Something!!! Now on to more things!!! Then eventually I will get everything done.
Just as Mary Poppins said in The Sound of Music in the song , Do Re Me Fa SO La Ti Do and then back to Do again.
Or I could sing, "Something, something, something, Everything!!!!!!"

This reminds me of the scripture stated in Philipians 1:6 ,"being confident in this that He who began a good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."

Now I better get back to the cleaning competition after I take a very brief nap.

I am the Man in the moon!!!!

A friend of mine was kind enough to say these words about me. She said that I am God's perfect light. She said that I have remained positive and forgiving. And that I overcame and endured so many things.
When I look at the words, "I am God's perfect light" , at first I think no way. But then as I reflect on those words further, I see that I reflect Jesus in the way I live.
Even back then when I did not have the spirit of Him residing in me I still had his qualities evident in my life.

When I think of the moon in the sky, it does many things. It helps the flow of the waters on the earth. I also see the moon as a way to take the light beaming from the sun and shine up the moon's dark surface. When looking at the moon through a telescope, a lot of dings exist on its surface.
My life is the same way. I have a lot of crevices in the english muffin that just potch up the surface of the muffin, but it provides many places for the butter to ooze in and well up and create just the right taste when I bite into one of them.

I thank you Jesus that you are in me and you shine through me. Potholes and all. You shine through my flaws and make it evident that I am your disciple. Even when I run far in the other direction.
Thanks for letting my friends show to me that I reflect your perfect light. For you never fail to shine upon me.

Thanks Carlene for pointing that out in me!!!!
World, be blessed always!!!

The first of the year!!!

Finally, we are at the first day of 2011 . and the markings of 1-1-11. Let's hope all of us make the first downs so we can keep advancing down the field.