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RABBIT! RABBIT!

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Welcome to September 2019

Elwood Palmer Cooper, Age 7 (1910)

My childhood memories of endless summers overlap with those of my first days at school, while I try to repress my more recent adult memories of an early September Monday when all I wanted to do was drink copious amounts of coffee and deal with the simple problem of a church van’s dead battery. It wasn’t to be so, for 18 years ago, airplanes were crashing into skyscrapers and people were dying on our soil. That was 2001, and all the September 11th memorials afterwards have been dedicated to first responders everywhere.

We as a nation have been “at war” for so long, we’ve begun to see any person who disagrees with us as an “enemy,” even if they’re our neighbor. It is time for us to learn to “make peace” again. To make peace is not to change someone else, but to allow change to happen within us. First we admit we’re not always right about everything. I personally have trouble with this hurdle. I study a lot and I’ve had a bunch of experiences, but there’s things I still don’t know. I sure didn’t sleep in a Holiday Inn last night.

Labor Day, September 2, is the unofficial end of meteorological summer. The Autumnal Equinox is when the Sun crosses the celestial equator, moving from north to south. This date, September 23, is considered to be the first day of astronomical Fall. Rather than argue when fall begins, I’m going to celebrate Fall often and early because I think we can’t party enough.

Labor Day weekend is the last big picnic weekend to get away from home. The lakes and mountains will be full of people, so drive carefully on the way home. Some folks like to do home repairs on this weekend—GIT ER DUN!

Back when my folks were young, children worked long hours, rather than going to school. Elwood Palmer Cooper, 7, had already worked for a year on this miller’s wagon in Wilmington, Delaware. He carried 25-pound bags of flour from the wagon to stores to earn 25 cents a week in spending money. (1910).

It took the Great Depression of the 1930’s to move the many unemployed adults into the children’s jobs before Americans became “ashamed of exploiting child labor.” Today we seem to prefer low prices, just as long as we don’t see the children overseas who make our clothes and shoes. The United Nations estimates 170 million children are engaged in child labor, out of the 260 million employed children around the world, the rest of whom do their work on family farms and in family enterprises. Cheap clothing, also known as “fast fashion,” is primarily responsible for the use of children in overseas factories, along with styles that change from year to year.

We can decide if we want to contribute to this cycle of perpetual poverty in these developing countries, or break the chains of ignorance and set the children free to get an education. It wasn’t but a century ago, only about 30% of American students graduated from high school, whereas now over a third of the population has a college degree. If we want to have a world with people who are more free and open, we would might do better to encourage them to grow, rather than to use them as servants or workers with no prospects for advancement.

Or we could go hang at Starbucks, where the friendly baristas have rolled out the pumpkins already. I tried the Pumpkin Cream Cold Brew, which is half the calories and carbs of the Pumpkin Spice Frappuccino. If we’re going to drink coffee, at least it’s responsibly sourced. We can’t do all things, but we can do some things. At least we can use the time to think about our money and our values. Also, now’s the time to begin planning your Halloween costume, but wait on the candy buying until it goes on sale.

Constitution Day, September 17, marks the signing of this unique American document in 1787, which established our current form of government and replaced the original Articles of Confederation. “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” If we’ve not lived up to this perfection yet, let’s go onto perfection in the days and years to come.

Get yerrr Pirate on!

One way we can all become one tribe again, and celebrate the joy of life is Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19. Aye, matey, ye don’t have to wear a tricornered hat, or even an eye patch, but bonus points if ye do. Just speak pirate all day long, especially to your parrot. Take off early to look for buried treasure. Tell your boss, Captain Cornie said you could. And the boss should leave early also. Happy September, my bunny friends. See you in October.

Love, Joy, and Peace,

Cornie

Blackberry Eating

By Galway Kinnell – 1927-2014

I love to go out in late September

among the fat, overripe, icy, black blackberries

to eat blackberries for breakfast,

the stalks very prickly, a penalty

they earn for knowing the black art

of blackberry-making; and as I stand among them

lifting the stalks to my mouth, the ripest berries

fall almost unbidden to my tongue,

as words sometimes do, certain peculiar words

like strengths or squinched,

many-lettered, one-syllabled lumps,

which I squeeze, squinch open, and splurge well

in the silent, startled, icy, black language

of blackberry-eating in late September.

Porch Swing in September

By Ted Kooser – 1939-

The porch swing hangs fixed in a morning sun

that bleaches its gray slats, its flowered cushion

whose flowers have faded, like those of summer,

and a small brown spider has hung out her web

on a line between porch post and chain

so that no one may swing without breaking it.

She is saying it’s time that the swinging were done with,

time that the creaking and pinging and popping

that sang through the ceiling were past,

time now for the soft vibrations of moths,

the wasp tapping each board for an entrance,

the cool dewdrops to brush from her work

every morning, one world at a time.

From Flying at Night: Poems 1965-1985, by Ted Kooser, © 2005. Reprinted with permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press.

Edward Palmer Cooper, Age 7: Photo by Lewis Wickes Hine for the National Child Labor Committee/Library of Congress.

Child labour in the fashion supply chain:

https://labs.theguardian.com/unicef-child-labour/

Statistics: Education in America, 1860-1950 | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History:

https://www.gilderlehrman.org/content/statistics-education-america-1860-1950

Americans with a college degree 1940-2018, by gender | Statista:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/

Work in Progress

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This is a Landscape from Garvan Woodland Gardens, a work in progress, on a recycled woven canvas. I didn’t like the other two paintings I destroyed to make this canvas, and the work I put on the intermediate stage also didn’t satisfy me long term.

Work in Progress

The great joy about art is we can destroy our lower quality efforts and the world is the better for it. In real life, our words and deeds have ramifications which reverberate and intensify from the moment we speak or do them. We may have the freedom to say or do what we wish, but we always need to ask, “Is this the best choice? Will I do harm or good? Will I lift up or tear down?”

Garvan Woodland Gardens

Some folks seem to ask only, “Can I get away with it?” as they push the boundaries of the law, morals, and common decency. Once they were found only underground or in the shadow worlds, but now they feel comfortable walking boldly out in the light of day. Those of us who still believe in beauty and a divine hand in creation, no matter how long the universe has existed, must raise our voices and lend our hands to care for the earth and the oppressed peoples who live upon it

If we speak in one voice, “Care for the only home we all have,” and “Protect the weak of our world from the cruelty visited upon them,” then we truly are the inheritors of the divine image, the ones with whom God once walked in the garden.

Our Best Life Possible

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When I was young, I thought I had to be Wonder Woman in order to please my parents. You know, the perfect daughter, the smartest child, the best artist, and the best behaved of all their progeny. After all, I was the first born and the only girl, so I’d had my parents’ undivided attention for those crucial early years. I thought if I worked hard, I could overcome any obstacle, and make any situation better, just by my force of will.

This is magical thinking, however. It works for comic book heroes who live in hard edge black and white moral worlds, but we live in the real world of fuzzy grays and complex moral choices. My family history of long marriages wasn’t going to extend to my generation, for I could no longer live with my alcoholic husband. I felt less like Wonder Woman and more like a failure. I told my mother I thought she and daddy always wanted me to be “perfect to earn their love.”

She looked dumbfounded at me, paused a moment and spoke, “Honey, we only wanted you to do your very best at all times. We knew you had more in you that you hadn’t tapped yet!”

This is the moment I forgave my parents for my Wonder Woman complex and learned to live with her. Not every person has had my parents. Some parents have no dreams for their children, so we must dream for them and encourage them to be superheroes in our classrooms, in our neighborhoods and wherever we meet them.

Other parents lack imagination. They see their children repeating their own lives as good enough. Yet, they too only want the best for their children so if they can only imagine their life repeated for them, we shouldn’t fault these parents for their lack of imagination. They never lived in our age or times, nor in our bodies or minds! We children can become the best we can be, for our world is far grander than theirs ever was! We won’t always live up to the expectations of our parents or the plans they imagined for us, but we will be superheroes anyway.

My daddy once told me I was learning in high school chemistry what he studied in college chemistry classes. This is why your six year old nephew or niece can work your smart phone faster than you can! The world’s knowledge explodes now, doubling every year, but with the internet it will soon double every 12 HOURS!

We won’t need to learn all this information, or keep it stored in our minds, but we will need to know how to access it. Asking the best questions, knowing what is necessary, and the sense of discernment to winnow the good from the chaff will be what separates the best answers from the better, the good, and the ordinary ones.

My latest painting is a self portrait as “Wonder Woman during the Great American Eclipse.” I traveled to Kentucky to see this wonderful event at Land Between the Lakes. We can all be superheroes at every age and in every body shape. Just as the eclipse united all of America in the joy of celebrating a coast to coast mass experience provided by nature, we each have a divine image within us that unifies all of humanity as one, for we’re each made in the image of God. As the Jewish queen in scripture was reminded, “Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14)

How we become the best persons is a matter of becoming a superhero or “coming to royal dignity for such a time as this!” We’ll always be fine tuning our spiritual lives, our education, and our professional achievements. Even when we retire, we’ll find engaging opportunities for service to others and self improvement both. Most likely our spiritual lives will deepen and our family and friendships will take on more importance. I hope you all seek your best life possible, beginning today.

Join me in being a Superhero! You can be a hero for someone who needs you today.

Joy and Peace, Cornelia

NOTES ON A FAMILY TREE

Ancestry, art, Children, Creativity, Family, Forgiveness, home, Love, New Year, Racism, trees, Uncategorized

DeLee: In This Place, acrylic on canvas, 30 x40, $350

I’m finishing up my grandchildren’s family history scrapbooks. I got to thinking about our family tree. The high holy days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, and the year end festivities bring families together. This often results in a few fireworks or flamethrowers at some of these gatherings. I suspect alcohol may be involved in some of this, but old grudges and scores, which haven’t been settled in decades, won’t get settled on this holiday either. 

My mother’s sister claimed our family goes back to the Baronial Order of the Magna Charter. These are a distinct group of the descendants of the signers of the 1215 document, in which King John of England granted the principles of constitutional law. The most important was each person, even the king, was subject to the law. 

For my family, the real importance was our Anglo Saxon ancestry was ancient and noble, as well as white. Our linage also qualifies us for membership in the DAR, Daughters of the American Revolution, and DOC, Daughters of the Confederacy, two more all white groups. Both of these are institutions of a bye gone age and a bifurcated society. I have folks in my family tree who liked to put on “airs,” as folks in the country like to say. All the old ones in my family tree went to their graves holding these beliefs firmly. I loved them anyway. 

Trees are meant to live by breathing fresh air and growing new leaves and branches. Even if trees only propagate by pollinating with their own kind, each tree is part of a giant forest of many species of trees. If a forest were a monoculture, a single disease or pest could wipe out the entire growth. If the forest consists of many different plants and trees, the destructive organism has to work very hard to destroy the whole, for the different and unlike species provide protection for one another. The variety of a diverse culture is its strength. 

If we human creatures took note of our surroundings more, we would not fear the Others, but would embrace them. We would make them our friends, and we’d defend one another from harm. 

The next generation of my family tree, I hope, is learning to love the other families of this diverse and wonderful world. I hope the branches of your family tree are open, growing, and renewing. Perhaps your branches can provide a shelter and make America friends again. 

CULTURAL CHRISTIANITY & THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD

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Some folks say Merica, like they can’t stand to say the whole of our country’s name or bear the taste of it in their mouth. Others bleed red, white and blue, but they only see the America they know and love. Once they have their piece of the pie, they are afraid to let others come to the table. 
First we maligned the Irish, then we found other newcomers to scapegoat. We kept a whole race enslaved, and then found ways to keep them second class citizens. Women didn’t get the right to vote until 1920! Yet none of these oppressed groups ever gave up their dream of the America we can become if we all work together for the best of the lofty goals our forefathers desired. 
The providence of God is a faith belief and a trust that the pie is always large enough for all to share. God will provide for us our needs every day. Our human need to control our own destiny and define our own life is marked by our fear of God not being there for us. While humans may abandon us in our hour of need, God’s steadfast love endures forever. This is a promise repeated over and over again in scripture. 

Human love tends to be conditional, or a quid pro quo type of love. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” is how we explain this. God’s love is unconditional because God loves God’s creation and provides for what he created. The pie for people of faith is limitless, for God keeps increasing it. How does this happen? God opens our hearts to the needs of others and we share God’s blessings with them. 

This is why Americans are the most generous people of the whole world. We know the source of our strength and our power is magnified when we share it with others who are weak and under attack. If Christianity is going to be co-opted by our culture, let it be the best parts of our faith! The care for the poor, the weak, the hungry, the sick, the ones who need a miracle in their lives. Let’s not have Christ be used as a one armed bandit to deliver riches, health and wealth to individuals for the rice of prayers or deeds. 

Look at the photo again: a true patriot…

“This woman explained to me that the flagpole over her door was broken but ‘on such a day as this, one keeps one’s flag on one’s heart.'” I felt in her a touch of the strength and robustness of the early American pioneers’.

Photo by the great photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson USA. Massachusetts. Cape Cod. July 4th, 1947. Independence Day.

YOU CAN’T DO THIS WITHOUT PRAYER

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  You haven’t got a prayer. Not a chance. No way, Jose. At my age, I should know better. At least, that’s what the gray hairs on my head  remind me. “With age comes wisdom, or at least, experience. Leave these great deeds for the young and strong who yearn to make their mark on the world!”

Why would I listen to such sage advice from my sensible self? Creative artists appreciate a good challenge, a technical problem to solve, or a medium to master. If you tell us it can’t be done, we say, “Why not? It’s a boundary to be pushed, a line to be crossed, or a limit to be stretched.”  For us, the rule is made to be broken. Traditions are useful only to guide us into new arenas of unexplored territory. 

This scenario usually means Plan Alpha doesn’t pan out. At least I didn’t make it into Plan Zebra, but only because the good Lord hears the prayers of those in need.

 “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!” ~~ Psalms 30:10

I had a written plan, a sketch, which is more than most folks have when they head to Lowes. I also had a materials’ list, as well as a to do list. I thought I could execute these four 48″ x 72″ pegboard panels with three hinges on each side to make a four sided standing display stand in one cool morning. 

First I underestimated the length of time to wait for the cuts on these four boards at Lowes. Only one young man was doing his harried best to cut every piece of wood for all the customers lined up to take advantage of the $1 per cut fee. Asking for help never brought another worker, for that would have cost the company more in benefits and wages than it brought in sales. Checking facebook passed the time. Then another customer let me go first. His lot was bigger and more complex than mine. Besides, down South, most older gentleman will let a lady go first. Not the younger men, however; just the older ones. It’s a passing tradition. 

Getting these pegboards into my SUV are a trick. I can put a 48” wide canvas inside easily because it’s on stretcher strips. Pegboard is flexible and doesn’t stay in one place. It also gets caught on the seat belt straps. To carry these one by one is a trick itself, so I can always count on the helpers appearing out of nowhere to give me a hand. God has been known to provide mana in the wilderness and willing backs in the loading zones. I lacked an inch of space to close the back door, so I pulled my two front seats granny close. That and a push did it for us. Another fellow made sure I didn’t hit the cars behind me. I’m always thankful for help, even when I think I can handle it myself. 

Arriving at my condo, I pulled the pegboards out onto the carport floor. Gravity is a great help. We can thank God for this too, as well as for curious neighbors who can’t resist getting involved. Bill helped me drill, place and screw the door hinges onto the first two boards before another errand called him away. When I stood this pair upright, I realized my afternoon would be devoted to Plan B. 

All the designs and lists are for naught if one forgets that steel trumps composite wood. Yes, the hinges were stronger than the boards. Back to Lowes for more materials. Cedar fence shakes for $2.55 each were a better choice than finely finished pine for $3.25 each, plus I wouldn’t have another interminable wait at the cutting line. The cedar was already six feet long, but the pine was eight feet in length. Carrying Plan B to my vehicle was a piece of cake, maybe even a muffin top, for I needed no miraculous mana of help to materialize upon that asphalt. 

At home again, Bill brought Sue ought to check on my progress, along with a tall glass of iced lemonade. I’m not sure what I appreciated more, the cool drink, the encouragement, or the extra hands to get Plan B underway. I was fading quickly with each passing hour of the late afternoon. Together we slammed that structure into a whole. As we say, many hands make the work light. As long as it’s predrilled, I can put it back together again. I even labeled the sections by number to get then in order the next day. 

“How will you get it inside? How will you put it together?” My neighbors asked me. “Oh, there’s always someone who will help. It’s the way we are!” Stepping out in faith is what we do for a living. It’s our way of life. Asking for help isn’t necessary. We need only get out over our head and others will help us. God sends these folks to us. I’ve been the one sent to those in need, and I’ve been on the receiving end also. 

When I drove up to our local convention center, the arena staff saw my laboring over the dolly and these boards, looked at each other, and picked up the four pieces to hand tote them to my display site. Friends helped bring in the paintings and the college students from the Wesley Foundation at the University of Arkansas at Monticello helped me build the display. I was up and ready by noon!  

I may have begun this project by myself, but I had help the whole way. I had the tradition of the old masters who drew plans for grand buildings in their sketchbooks to guide me. Experts at Lowes gave me tips on hanging my works and  my condo neighbors stopped by to encourage me as I worked. (They also checked on the unusual activity over at my carport, I’m sure.) I brought some young people into the trade of carpenter’s apprentice for a short term. I imagine it was different from their school books and computers. I so appreciated their energy and willingness to serve. 

I met the face of God in each of my helpers, for they were each one an answer to prayer. We don’t have to speak this prayer out loud, for God can hear the silent cries from our hearts. God can answer the unspoken prayers, the deep sighs of our spirits. For our companion’s sakes, the sooner we’re in touch with our deep emotional needs so that we can voice our pain and needs, the better our intimacy and personal lives will be. Try this simple prayer: 

 “Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord, be my helper!” ~~ Psalms 30:10

THOUGHTS ON ACEDIA

Creativity, Family, Food, generosity, Healing, Health, home, Mental Illness, Ministry, ministry, New Year, poverty, Prayer, purpose, purpose, renewal, Retirement, Spirituality, stewardship, Strength, Stress, Travel, Uncategorized, vision, Work

  
I’m in this mode or mood today. I have a form of malaise, the kind that comes after pouring out all you have until you are drained. Now my listless is my form of recovery. I have hit the wall and I’m not going on. Did I mention that my community has received 25 inches of rain since the first of the year? Our annual average is a whopping 56 inches! We can get rain in any month, so I have a giant umbrella in case I decide to get off the couch. Other cities thirst for our gift, I know, as the good Lord only spits some 37 annual inches their way. Y’all do get more than our paltry 3 inches of snow, however. Please don’t offer to share it. 

 I’ve been chunking away at my various projects, some of which are pure tedium (bookkeeping) and others which are fulfilling (the creative writing & painting). Then I thought about possibly listing my 1 bedroom condo and moving up to a 2 bedroom unit.  The sympathetic illness of moving day is pretty well Ingrained after all these years of itinerant ministry. This disease was quickly cured when I remembered my vow of voluntary simplicity. 
Living under one’s means frees us to give to the poor as well as lessening our need to worry about how our needs are going to be met. Living under our means gives us the opportunity to explore the world, rather than be house bound. We can eat better food and share our time with others rather than being on call for someone’s else’s time and having to eat some fast meal on the fly. 

If we are fortunate, our lives in “retirement” will be more like those of the Benedictine sisters and brothers. We will have an ordered life of work, worship, prayer, quiet, community, and study. We can enjoy a foretaste of that life to come in brief doses, either in 5 day or 2 year commitments at the Upper Room’s Academy for Spiritual Formation.

This mood, like all feelings, will no doubt pass in a day or two. Rest is good for the body. Taking the time to care for our precious selves is a gift we can give to God and to those who need us most. We will be better able to fulfill God’s call on our lives if we serve from a full heart, rather than an empty spirit. 

http://academy.upperroom.org/

More Power: Thoughts on the Spiritually of A Found Object Icon

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I should never begin working with power tools without caffeine. Having said this, I’m glad to report that I still have all the fingers on each hand and no body parts remain glued to a flat surface, unlike Tim “The Tool Man” Allen. My only error was to put my battery pack backwards into the charging unit. This meant I needed an extra hand to help me pull it loose. God provides, for my young neighbor was handy to pull the charger away while I held the battery’s release mechanism. Two minds are better than one, and two efforts double the power.

My friends at the Canvas Community Church in downtown Little Rock, Arkansas, work with the homeless folks there. Street people are made in the image of God, just as you and I are. They have broken lives, just as you and I do. Their brokenness is out on view for all to see, whereas ours is often hidden behind elegant facades or ordinary tract homes. Canvas will host a Good Friday Stations of the Cross worship service for their community. Their art outreach program with the homeless produces some of the art, but other artists offer their works for exhibition and sale also. A portion of the proceeds befits the church’s outreach ministry.

Icons are such sacred objects that they have acquired a sense of holiness all their own. This attribution of holiness to the icon itself, rather than to the person or subject represented, led to the Iconoclast Controversy. Some destroyed many precious works of art because they thought the image was being worshiped, rather than God or Jesus. We do this today, of course, when we worship our “litmus test issues,” such as which Bible translation is the only sacred cow, what age the earth is (a cover for the Creation science or evidential science debate), or picking a Christian candidate to support (by virtue of the proof texting quotes with which we agree, of course).

My thought is that we still worship the image, but fail to worship God or Jesus. If we were to go beyond the icon/image, we might see more of us meeting the Christ who lives on the streets, in the prisons, and in the sickbeds of our nation:

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ (Matthew 25:34-36)

In the ten hours I was in my studio assembling this icon, I had time to remember where I found all these items that make up this altarpiece. The two red supporting decorative brackets are from a home decorating project that never got off the ground because I decided to tear out the old counter space rather than to make a mosaic there. I hauled the wood shelf back from a walk. It was once a scrap piece of a fence that kept someone out or in. I pick up sticks that feel right, and scraps of wood or crushed soda cans that call out my name. The debris of this world has a beauty of its own kind, just as the acknowledged fine materials of our convention have value. If one day we found a way to manufacture gold, the metal would become base in a heartbeat.

That Chrysler hubcap was a real find! I may have found that on vacation when I stopped along a quiet roadside to snap a photo. The old crosses are from my days of living in large homes, rather than a small condo. The green glass cross broke in a move, but I couldn’t give it up. Most of us can’t give up our brokenness to the Christ who said, “This is my body, broken for you.” This is why we share our broken lives with all who are broken by sorrow, illness, pain, or hurts. We may wind up rusted on the side of the road, like the windshield wiper or we may end up painted over and stashed away in a garage like the board on which this icon exists. I also used beads and old pieces of jewelry that needed to be recycled and repurposed, in the great icon making tradition.

The power of the icon isn’t in the materials. I’ve made icons of macaroni and plastic jewels that read “holiness” as much as any ancient icon. I’ve had people make icons from their grandmother’s jewelry boxes. These too read as holy icons, even if they are nonrepresentational. The power comes through the Holy Spirit into the artist and then into the work. When I make a work such as this, my hands are steady, my pace is slow, and I lose all track of time. I enter into another realm, so to speak, that of the icon itself. The ancients believed that the icons were a window into heaven. I believe this is true, for the power of such an object is to take us out of our ordinary experiences and into a world where there is no more hunger, pain, or grief.

The icon’s great mystery and power is to remind us that ordinary materials can open us up to the truth and beauty of the holy. When our eyes are jaded by the ugliness of the world about us: wars, beheadings, poverty, injustice, economic destabilization, and human insensitivity, look upon the icons and enter into the power of the one who makes all things holy:

“He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself.” (Philippians 3:21)

2015/01/img_8837.jpg

THE HUNGER GAMES: Thank You for your consideration.

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For some reason facebook decided that my 7 pages of art, cooking & spiritual formation seemed unconnected. They thought that my Page Manager App perhaps wasn’t really run by one person. How indeed, could one person have so many varied interests? How could they find all the ordinary aspects of this life relating to faith? Oh, I guess, only those who grew up reading that one good book and hearing the stories of everyday life spoken in the ancient parables and metaphors of a distant age and land would understand how to translate this way of speaking into a modern language.

I guess our world today is too one dimensional and too targeted, or perhaps facebook has fallen victim to its own splicing & dicing. We too often only share that part of ourselves that we think others want to see, or we hide that part that we think is not approved by others.

We forget that our weakness is often the key to opening the pain of others so that can begin to heal, or that our struggles are what help others to have the courage to try one more time when the going gets tough. Our world is so sold on the outward appearance of success that the inner self can be falling apart at the seams.

This is why we go through the motions of life, but the fire no longer burns inside. This is why we acquire many things, but have no satisfaction in their holding. This is why we yearn sometimes to have only a small garden, or just a backpack, or to be in a deer stand alone to see the sun come up through the pines. We may make a living, but we may not be making a life.

Once we lived under one umbrella and sought to find one large tent or tree to shelter as many as we could, but now we each seek a tiny pup tent for each person’s own comfort and solace. How many of us have progressively cleaned our facebook friends until we find just those who vote like us, eat like us, think like us, and are like us?

Soon we will no longer feel the fire, no longer want to burn up in the flames of power, and we will be content to watch the Hunger Games on our TV sets. The young will burn and catch on fire and we will be content to pass commentary upon it.

I hope I never get that old. I plan to always be hungry at CORNIE’S KITCHEN, making art at ARTANDICON & CORNELIA DELEE & celebrating faith at ART AND SOUL FUMC HS, ARKANSAS SPIRITUAL FORMATION ACADEMY, & TRIBE OF DAN.

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WALKING INTO LIFE

Creativity, epilepsy, Health, home, photography, Physical Training, purpose, renewal, sleep, Strength, Stress, Travel, Uncategorized, vision

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I went walking Thursday night with the Spa City Pacers in our downtown area. The humidity was high and the evening breezes of a few weeks ago were’t stirring any longer. My ice melted in my carry cup before we left the old train depot.

I’ve signed up for the HOT SPRINGS 5K FUN WALK. It’s held in conjunction with the SPA 5K/10K RUN, both of which are timed qualifying events for larger races. As a walker with some health challenges, I sometimes think I need an Instant Gratification Fun Run–I sign up, show up and get my tshirt .

Then again, how would I become healthier or stronger? If I don’t challenge my body bit by bit, I won’t take it to a new level. I’m realistic enough to accept that my progress won’t be quick or great. If I’m able to walk a hill today when last year I had difficulty making a level mile, I can say I’ve improved. The more years I can stay in my own home, the better off I will be. For any of us as we grow older, the challenges of using our body “as we used to” begin to come closer together. Just changing a light bulb is a challenge if your balance isn’t just right. Use it or lose it is a slogan the silver haired need to repeat often!

It doesn’t matter what level you are at now. This is your baseline. You aren’t running the race against anyone else or against a certain standard. All you need to do is to persevere and not be discouraged. Some days the heat and humidity sap my strength. I do less but I do something. I’ve had three emotionally trying weeks. Early this morning I had a visual seizure while I was still in bed. I went back to sleep for four more hours. Even this can’t stop me from making my appointed workout, but I did make it lighter.

There are folks at my local YMCA that are in far worse shape than me. They are my heroes: they give their all with great passion even though some have twisted bodies, disabled bodies, artificial limbs, disease or venerable years. We also have some pretty bodies who also work out there, but most of us are just ordinary people who want to make the most extraordinary use of this vessel the good Lord has given us so that we can do all the good we are able, as long as we can, to all we can, by any means we can.

When I go back Tuesday night, I’ll walk with a renewed delight that I’m out in the midst of a beautiful city, that I have companion walkers who desire a healthier life just as I do, and we can share that camaraderie of meeting the challenge of one more day on the journey. I can see the reflection of the old buildings in the new mirrored glass building. I can see the same sky in the mirror and above me. I can breathe in the molecules of air the ancient citizens who walked these steps once breathed, as well as the molecules breathed by the quicker runners and faster walkers who breezed through here this evening.

I may not be in the same group, but I am on the same streets and I am alive.