A New Chapter of Life

 

A Most Unusual Memorial Day

            “To every thing there is a season.”  I was so excited in 1973 when we moved into our new home. We had it built to our specifications and were ready for our new chapter of life, living in Country Village.  We had only one child, age three, at that time.  Life was good and new neighbors were friendly. The years brought another baby boy and twenty years of Young Life meetings in our new home.  Church friends and prayer meetings filled our living area.  I loved cooking and they loved eating here and praying. 

            Teens hung out in our garage and played pool and stayed all night.  Those same teens appeared at Delta High School in my English classes.  Hours of planning and grading papers took up many evenings.  Weekends were filled with soccer, wrestling, football and tennis games as we watched our sons compete.  Holiday meals and celebrations filled every corner of our home and remodeling projects continued through 2010. 

            We love our house, and the endless borders of gardens around our lawn.  But, the season is over.  With a beginning prayer, meditation, discussions for a week, and a continued confirmation that God wanted us to move, I biked over to a stranger’s home around the corner.  A friend at lunch told me this family was renting and looking for a house in Country Village. I appeared at their door , introduced myself, and said, “ I  think you need to see our house.”  They had three real estate visits that evening , but said they could come to our house on Friday.  They loved our house, confirmed on Sat. they wanted it , and bought it on Memorial Day.   

            Now, I am rejoicing that I can live in the same town with my granddaughters, and stay longer in Englewood, Fla. during the winter. My sister sold her house the same week and for the first time in over sixty years, we can live near each other and paint together.
      It is bittersweet rejoicing because I am leaving my neighbors of forty years.  We have shared joys and losses together.  We helped raise each other’s children.  My best friend and I have walked the Country Village circle hundreds and hundreds of times discussing our lives and our children’s lives.   We know every tree, house, and crack in the streets.  However, everything has a season and my time in Muncie is over.  I am sad to leave good friends, Commonway, my church, my writer’s groups, my art friends, and the countless number of students I have taught and watched grow and have families of their own. 

            Denny and I begin a new chapter in our retirement.  I am sorting, purging and selling household items.  I want to travel light in these next years.  I have so many things for sale: arts and crafts, dishes, furniture, linens, and antiques.  I will be posting soon about sale opportunities. 

            However, my facebook friends come with me wherever I roam.  For that I am grateful. By blog will help me stay in touch with my friends and followers.  My heart will always remain in Muncie because this town has given me many close friends and opportunities.  At the end of July we will move.  I suspect my blog may be a little neglected these next couple of months,  but I will continue it when we get settled in Fort Wayne. Thank you, Muncie for all your love.

Finding Silence

Finding Silence

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."  Thoreau

                  We all must feel this urge at sometime in our life.  We want to be alone with the water, the mountains, the land, and God.  We don’t want to be interrupted
with phone calls, responsibilities of cleaning, working, cooking, or other daily demands.  We want silence. No phones, no “mom” can you help me, no pleas to cook for a church dinner or fold bulletins.  We are weary of work and our coworkers. We want to be alone.

            We have illusions of living in a cabin in the woods and discovering what life really is.  Just as Thoreau sought his answer to what life really is, we all search for it.  Yet, our years come to an end, and we have lived life without this “aloneness”. We are too busy living.  It is a catch 22 conundrum.  No time to be still.

            Perhaps we could bottle up the early hours of quiet .  We could seal them tightly so the silence would not escape and open it only when our mind felt like it was exploding.  We could carry the bottle and open it when the grandkids are screaming in the car.  Better yet, we could pop the silence cork when friends are negative or hurtful or the world news is too depressing to digest. 

            We must drink life out of our own glass and guzzle or sip.   We live on this earth on a need to know basis.  Amidst the crises, we need immediate answers and to know how to find silence, peace, or divine direction right in our own backyard or back room. This silence and searching must be discovered by our own design.  It is essential to our quality of living.  We must ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, to show us His path for our lives. In this silence, His leading will be evident.  But, as we leave the quietness, will we follow His directions, His recommendations?  With silence come answers and responsibilities.  

       Are we ready to go into the woods, the backyard, or the porch and seek silence? Perhaps we are too busy walking, running, worrying.  We must learn there is no set path for us to study; instead, as we walk we make our own path of discovering who we are and what is our purpose.

A Gardener's Heart

Unprotected plants.

A Gardener’s Heart 

“Oh, no, not again.” I said out loud as I listened to the weather woman remind her audience to cover tender plants tonight. She explained that temperatures would fall below 32 degrees, and we would have a hard frost.

In the last month, I have dragged out my old sheets several times to cover newly budding perennials.  Since March brought such warm temperatures, many plants bloomed prematurely, and I worried that the frosts of April would burn or destroy them. 

I went outside and fought the winds like a warrior.  I tried to cover my rose bush with a  sheet that was flying in the wind .  First,  I tried embracing the bush to cover it. I pulled down one corner of the sheet and put a rock on it. Suddenly, a burst of wind came under the sheet and  pulled it off before I could tie down the other corners.  The sheet flew into the yard. I again tried to place the covering over the rose bush. I repeated the process and the rose bush stuck and stabbed me several times.  It and the sheet had become my enemy.  I was trying to help protect the bush, but it seemed to be fighting me back.  Finally, with the help of bungee cords and rocks, and several tries, I was successful. Then, I went on to the next bush or plant that needed covered.  The process was tedious and repetitive but necessary to protect my plants from damage.

I complained about the process to neighbors and face book readers.  Many felt my pain and shared their battles with the wind and thorns and their sheets. 

Then, Sunday, in our Commonway Church service, the Lord nudged me.  Within my soul, I heard, “What lessons are you learning from your sheets?” 

When I heard this soft voice, I got out my small, portable notebook, and I wrote what I sensed was being shared.  I heard, “ The sheets are your covering by me.” 

The light bulbs went on. Suddenly, I realized that just as I covered my plants, He had protected me.  Often, I had run ahead of Him, ignored His frost warning, or done nothing.  I was out in the open field vulnerable to the elements of life.

Without His protection, I could have been stunted, burned, or even withered on the vine.  Christ has been my anchored covering many times when I was not patient enough to wait for His timing.  He loved me so much that He protected and guarded me even when I did not heed His warning.

Protected plants.

 It is only in abiding in Him that any of my life purposes are completed.  Without Him, I am not fruitful or productive. Without His words of encouragement and guidance, I am struggling against winds and cold all alone.  I hear Him only when I cling closely to Him, my vine of life.  I sometimes struggle to hold on, but amidst my struggles, He has always tenderly covered me with a sheet of protection, a grace not earned, a provision from my own tender Gardner.

Winter Respite

Stump Pass on Manasota Key

  

Trail into the mangrove forest 

    Today is the last Friday I can write my blog looking at the Gulf waters. My respite time with the ocean is ending. I have grown accustomed to hearing waves slapping the sand, the rustle of the palm branches around my patio, and the high squeals of the ospreys in early morning. The rhythm of the waves has lulled me into deep sleep. I have been renewed by the salty waters and found countless seashell treasures. My walks through the mangroves have enriched my soul. I never tire of seeing tortoises feeding, osprey sitting on their eggs, and small crawly creatures darting out of my walking path. The smell of the salty sea and sweet mock orange bushes remind me of my childhood in Florida. Playful dolphins entertain me each day as they pass by the beach. Manatees move slowly through the waters and remind me how wonderfully God has created these mammals.  


    This winter respite awakens my creative energies and restores my soul. I am so grateful for this opportunity to live simply with so much less than I have at home. The “less is more” lesson reminds me how when there is not clutter, no crystal and pottery to dust, no stacks of magazines, extra chairs, or too many knick knacks, life holds “more” understanding. I have time to ponder, to reflect, and to understand God’s magnificent gifts. “Things” do not get in my way. Living with less enriches my daily life.

     This is a time where Denny and I become each other’s best friend again. We learn to live together and rely on each other in much the same way we did our first year of marriage. We play cards, take walks, sit on the beach, and read together. We look forward to $5 movie night and quaint cafes. This is our marital renewal time.

      However, it is time to return to others, to my gardens, to my neighbors of forty years, who need my support and meals. It is time to begin reaching out to others and sharing my refreshing. It is time to babysit the little girls, help older relatives, visit shut-ins, and give hospitality to others. It is time. 

     Morning memories of long walks and talks with God are stored in my heart. My soul is refreshed. Yoga on the beach has strengthened my body. Magnificent art teachers have helped me look more carefully, see more details, and understand perspective and motion in my drawings. Their teaching and mentoring have released new life in my creative endeavors. For all these things, I am so grateful. I thank God daily for this renewal, this opportunity, and this cleansing. Now, I ask I can retain these lessons and return home and use them.

Envelope Lesson #3 Risk Taking

copyrighted art by Sandi Baron

Envelope Lesson #3 Risk Taking

      Palm trees are such beautiful creations. Each simplistic frond creates a flowing elegant branch. The movement in the branches produces gentle breezes giving comfort on the hottest day. Each part works for the good of the whole universe. The coconut palm produces sweet milk and wonderful tasting fruit. This tree has beauty and fruitfulness. Now, why am I belaboring the description and purpose of palm trees? Because I am trying to paint them, I study them intently. While I am painting the branches , I take some risk. I include colors that my husband doesn’t see. I risk taking God made beauty and interpreting the orange of the sun’s reflections .

     Each painting flows and suddenly gets stuck. It is a collection of smears, misplaced brush strokes, and even colors that do not enhance each other if I jump the color wheel too quickly. Isn’t that like our lives? We begin with a vision, a goal, a hope, or an idea. We take the risk to paint the living room four colors of green, make a rug into a wall hanging, or throw whatever is in the refrigerator together and call it dinner. We start a diet, an exercise program, a spiritual study. We sometimes don’t tell anyone because we know there is a risk , and we don’t want to come up looking incomplete or worse yet, unsuccessful. We sometimes take life-long risks like choosing a marriage partner, starting a family, rescuing a pet, or beginning a career. Each of these are chances we take in life.

      I think these choices give me assurance that I can take the most awkward stage of my painting and turn it into something appealing. I enjoy learning how painting mimics life. The creation process is bittersweet sometimes because I must endure frustration to reach success . Isn’t that just like this life journey? Go ahead, take a risk and move forward today

Envelope Lesson Two-Greed

Greed

            An old, grumpy woman lives on the beach.  She bellows out at beach goers,       

“This is my property.  Get off.”  We have to pass her each day because the beach easement is beside her house.

            She is an example to me.  She has lived her life holding so tightly to her privilege of living on the beach, that she has destroyed its beauty and her own peace.  Juanita is staunchly protective of her beachfront and has cluttered it with several “no trespassing” signs, ten or fifteen rusty beach chairs, and rotting umbrellas.  The natural beauty is sorely diminished. She has frequently called police to remove unwitting beachcombers from lounging on" her" stretch of the sand.  Juanita has been taken to court for her unruly behavior toward others and told repeatedly that her property line begins above the high tide line.

            Now, she has been arrested because a loggerhead turtle made a nest on her beach and she destroyed the nest.  Loggerheads are considered at risk for extinction and are protected by  the Endangered Species Act.   Witnesses saw Juanita removing the stakes placed by authorities around the turtle nest.  She removed the stakes, threw sand on top of the nest, and covered it with one of her rusty chairs.  

            At 75 she has been convicted of this third degree felony that carries a penalty of up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.  Wouldn’t you hate that to be the ending of your life chapters?  She will probably get off with fines and community service, but I am sad for the turtle and her. This is how she will be remembered.

            She had a wonderful house on the Gulf, which to many of us would be a completion of our lifelong dream. Yet, she didn’t want to share it with man or loggerheads.  She clutched the beauty so tightly that she destroyed it as well as herself.  The greed ate her.  Ironically, it is God’s creations she was trying to possess.  Juanita is a constant reminder to me ,  not to clutch my blessings so tightly that I lose them.  They are given to me to be shared.

            While hiking yesterday, I passed a pair of loggerheads returning to the sea from the mangrove forest.  I talked to them and told them how cute they were.  They went on their way as did I.  I appreciated their slow and steady movements and their decorative shell.  Why would anyone want to harm them?

            I shall seal into my envelope this memory of Juanita’s greed and how it destroyed her life as well as the loggerhead’s future.  She allowed that demon to lure her into a life of darkness.  Please Lord, let me always remember to share my blessings.

           

Envelope Lessons

Envelope Lessons

            Daily I face my computer and try to remember how I learned to teach.  Sounds exciting, right?   When I am writing my memoir, I am humbled how my first year classes must have suffered.  The  teaching learning curve is straight up.

            I recall how there was a stealing issue in my first school in New Orleans.  My purse couldn’t be secured because my desk drawers didn’t lock.  I noticed that a large, furry spider abided in my purse drawer.  She returned no matter how many times I removed her.  I named her Susie.  So, I decided to use her, not abuse her.

            After my class was seated, but still loud and visiting with each other, I asked,

            “Please, get quiet.”

            Conversations continued and their laughter grew louder.

            I reached into my desk, picked up Susie and held her on my hand for all to see.  Bombshell.  Instant silence. 

            "This is Susie."

            “Put that spider away!" shouted Alex.

            “Kill it.”

            “ I’m leavin',"screeched Joanne.

            “I just wanted to introduce you to Susie.  She lives in my purse drawer.  So, if any of you decide to visit my purse, know that you must ask Susie’s permission. " I put her back in the drawer, closed it, and began teaching the lesson of the day.

            My envelope lesson was use nature to help clear the chatter from the air.  The unexpected is a strong educational tool.  However, I now realize that was quite risky.  What if a child had severe acrophobia?  I’d be called on the carpet or even fired for abuse in this day.  I guess I’d better keep Susie and this technique in a hidden place.