Nature Note

Forty-seven turkeys marched through our backyard early this morning, heading east. The wild turkey is non-migratory, although it does make seasonal shifts, changing its range according to availability of food and snow depth. These ladies were on the move. No tom in sight. No sexual harassment.

Love Your Neighbor

Many people conclude (and I have been guilty of this) that people are poor through some fault of their own. This faulty reasoning makes it easy to shut our hearts and hands against them. Even in the best of times under the most enlightened laws, the uncertainties of life and the variations among people can result in poverty. This Advent season I'm asking myself: Who are the poor in my community? How can they be helped? How can they experience our community's compassionate love, gain hope for their future, and receive God's grace?

Advent 2017

Let us pursue the things [and Christmas gifts] which make for peace and the building up of one another. - Romans 14:19 (NASB)

The Fifth Commandment

Honor your father and your mother. 

Deuteronomy 5:16 NIV

"Pretty Things"

My mother liked red roses,

red lipstick, and red towels,

anything red, actually.

Her pleasure fanned the air with warmth.

Sparkly brooches and scented soaps

cluttered her dresser drawers,

unworn and unused.

Ownership was enough.

Back in the day, she steered a red

farm tractor around mown fields,

tedding hay and singing to the sun:

A-maz-ing grace – how sweet the sound. 

Any pretty thing distracted my mother

from her chapped hands, sunburned skin, 

and aching back:

a hummingbird fluttering around the bee balm.

Now my mother sleeps on white sheets,

lifting her chin like a child

while a nurse bathes her body.

She wanders in a thicket of memories.

See the red geranium

spreading its leafy arms

toward her hospital bed.

Watch my mother close her eyes

while blood fills the needle.

Footnote: My mother passed away on August 22, 2012. I wrote this poem to honor her.

An Honest Answer

An honest answer is like a kiss on the lips. - Proverbs 24:26

A Summer's Blessing

This summer we have hundreds of milkweed plants gracing our gardens. Butterflies and insects of all sorts enjoy the feast. The milkweeds' sweet scent drifts through the open windows, filling the house with lush perfume.

Brown-eyed Susan

Hmmm . . .interesting. Independent streak? Political statement? Environmental? Genetics? God's grace? What do you think?