Darkness Into Light

“Are you in pain, Frodo?”

“Well, yes I am,” said Frodo. “It is my shoulder. The wound aches, and the memory of darkness is heavy on me. It was a year ago today.”

“Alas! There are some wounds that cannot be wholly cured,” said Gandalf.

Wednesday marked 25 years since the death of my first husband (KSS).  There have been years when the day comes and goes with nary a thought until several days later I would realize, “Oh!  It has come and gone!”  When those rare times occurred, I was glad because the day was normal and contained no grief.  Not so Wednesday. 

I felt it was a day of purposeful remembrance so dressed in black and lavender.  I felt KSS deserved the mourning attire.  It was also a work day.  Sadly I received some extended family news which brought a great deal of sadness; to the extent that I could not remain functional at work so spent the remainder of the day quietly at home.

The quiet and solitude was comforting.  The time was spent in prayer, not only for myself, for the family member mentioned above.  The time was also spent reading more of Blessed Fr. Sophrony’s book St. Silouan.  There was comfort to be found in this deep and rich book.  A reminder that… 

God is Light inaccessible.  His being is far superior to any image – not only natural image but mental, too – … 

When the created human mind, the created human persona, stand before the Supreme Mind, before the Personal God, it attains to genuinely pure and perfect prayer, but only when from love of God every created thing is set aside is the world forgotten… 

I asked Father T. to hold a memorial service for KSS.  Two of KSS’ best high school chums came; one brought his wife.  Also DS came (KSS is his bio-dad).  Hubster was there, of course.  And several members of the church choir came to help sing the prayers.  The memorial service was a balm to a hurting heart.  To hear the hubster’s and DS’s baritone voices join with mine and the choir’s was angelic and peaceful.  It was a time to forget the world and its cares in order to enter into the healing that only prayer can bring. 

Afterwards, we returned to the house to share a meal and memories.  DS hadn’t heard any stories of his bio-Dad’s high school exploits with the two best friends.  There was much roaring in laughter and exclamations of “I had forgotten that!  We were insane then!”  There were moments of complete silence of remembering. 

It was one of those days when malediction turned to blessing.  Often blessings come that way, you know.  They come seemingly as a curse, as a hurt, grief so deep one wonders if a breath will ever be taken without pain.  Yet, as it is written in the Book of the Prophet Jeremiah, “Go up to Gilead and take balm.” (Jeremiah 46:11). 

That is what prayer and the memorial service offered.  Balm to sore hearts.  Hearts that were torn in two a long time ago.  Hearts that have a deep scar which one constantly rubs their thumb over in remembrance.  Applying the balm to the scar eases the pain.

 Yes, God is Light.  He is far superior to anything.  Glory to Him for the blessed day!

There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin sick soul.

The Weekend…

…was a busy one.

Friday I picked up DS to stay for an overnight visit.  Since he is a strong and able-bodied 27 year old, I put the boy to work with the hedge trimmers.  He trimmed 5 bushes and 1 weeping cherry blossom tree.  We have a Bradford Pear whose roots were too near the surface without sufficient dirt and mulch covering so the roots sprouted little off-shoots.  I sent the boy off to attack that too.  He hacked off all the shoots, covered the exposed roots with top soil and then mulched the whole thing.  He also added some mulch to another flower bed in the back of the house and pulled out all the thistles that have taken over the front flower bed.  (Last year we got a bad batch of mulch which must have been sprinkled with grass and thistle seeds!  How many ways can you say UGH?!)

The boy did a fantastic job and saved the hubster and I weeks of work.  Of course, I fed him handsomely with some of his favorite treats.

Chatted with DD who has a new classroom of tots.  One of the tots is the “first child” of a young couple who are micro-managing the child’s life.  To the extent that both parents “visit” said tot every day to play with her for an hour each afternoon.  Unfortunately, the parents do not understand the “hands off on the rest of the kids” liability issue and have taken a dislike to DD.  The mother commented proudly to DD, “My whole paycheck goes towards this child care.”  DD told me quite cynically, “Perhaps she should quit working and raise her own daughter since the whole paycheck is going to childcare.  She wouldn’t be out anything!”

Our church’s Basket Social has been scheduled for October.  Unfortunately, the woman who is supposed to head it up hasn’t been to church since Pascha and doesn’t return telephone calls left on her voice mail.  Thus last year’s “leader”  has gotten the job again. Since the Social has a green light, I’ve started crocheting with the intention of donating completed items to be raffled off or sold.

As a “Thank you for your dedication and love to our children by teaching Sunday school”  gift, the Parish Council presented me with a very, very generous $100 gift card to Barnes & Noble.   So now I am compiling my list of “must buys.”  I’m open to suggestions.

Am feeling much better now that I am managing the food allergies better.  So much so that I’ve gained back a few of the pounds I had lost 6 months ago.  I’m quite pleased.  And the hubster is really enjoying the home-baked bread. Does anyone have a nice wheat or grain bread recipe that I can make in a bread machine?

How was your weekend dear Reader?

Punctuation Mark

My score on The Which Punctuation Mark Are You Test:

Semicolon
(You scored 30% Sociability and 64% Sophistication!)

Congratulations! You are the semicolon! You are the highest expression of punctuation; no one has more of a right to be proud. In the hands of a master, you will purr, sneering at commas, dismissing periods as beneath your contempt. You separate and connect at the same time, and no one does it better. The novice will find you difficult to come to terms with, but you need no one. You are secure in your elegance, knowing that you, and only you, have the power to mark the skill or incompetence of the craftsman.

You have no natural enemies; all fear you.

And never, NEVER let anyone tell you that you cannot appear in dialogue!

Link: The Which Punctuation Mark Are You Test
(OkCupid Free Online Dating)

The Virtue of Bravery Defined

Photo Caption:  Firefighters and other emergency workers salute as comrades’ bodies are recovered from the warehouse.

 CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) — Fire swept through a furniture warehouse, collapsing the building’s roof and claiming the lives of nine firefighters in a disaster the mayor described Tuesday as “difficult to fathom or quantify.”

“Nine brave, heroic, courageous firefighters of the city of Charleston have perished fighting fire in a most courageous and fearless manner, carrying out their duties,” Charleston Mayor Joseph P. Riley said at a morning news conference. “To all of their loved ones, our heart goes out to them.”

Two employees in the building were rescued from the blaze, which broke out at about 7 p.m. Monday in the Sofa Super Store and warehouse, Riley said. Firefighters punched a hole through a wall of the warehouse to reach them.

Firefighters, police officers and other rescue workers saluted as the bodies were carried from the warehouse during the night.

“To lose nine is just a tragedy of immense proportions,” Riley said. “To lose nine is just unbelievable.”

Riley said the county coroner planned to disclose the names of the dead.

The cause of the fire was under investigation, but Riley said arson was not suspected. He said the blaze apparently started in a storage area. He was unsure whether there were sprinklers in the building.

Witnesses said the store’s roof collapsed, throwing debris over about two-dozen rescue workers. Onlookers were hit with flying ash.

“It was like a 30-foot tornado of flames,” said Mark Hilton, who was struck in his eye.

Firefighter Eric Glover told CNN that he was at a golf tournament to benefit the family of a firefighter who had recently died when he heard the call on the radio. By the time he arrived, he said, the roof had already collapsed.

“It all happened pretty fast. They didn’t have a chance,” Glover said.

Daniel Shahid, a salesman at a nearby car dealership, said firefighters came in asking for towels.

“The next thing you know, we were carrying hoses, directing traffic, everybody from the dealership,” he said.

Shahid said he saw firefighters rescue four people from the building. “They were struggling. They were covered in black soot. They looked scared out of their minds,” Shahid said.

He later told CNN the roof collapsed too quickly for anyone to escape. “It came from nowhere,” he said. “It was a standing structure and five seconds later it was on the ground.”

Riley called the missing firefighters heroes.

“This is a profession that we must never take for granted,” the mayor said. “There’s a fire raging and they go toward it.”

On Tuesday morning, flowers were left on the sidewalk in front of the wreckage of the one-story furniture store and its adjacent, slightly taller warehouse, both of which continued to smolder.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Article can be found here. 

Kyrie Eleision! 

UPDATE:  For those who may be interested, this website gives further details and provides an opportunity to submit a comment to firefighters in general.  I emailed a comment offering prayers and thanks for all firefighters’ service to our communities.

Clarence & LuLu

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the marriage of the hubster’s grandparent’s on his mother’s side.  His Mom is one of their seven children, the only girl!  CL and LuLu’s son sent out the following message to commemorate this auspicious day.

As you can see this  is the 100th year since Clarence and Lulu were married.  They survive in the memories of those of us who are still alive and who knew them well.  CL and Lulu were both dedicated Christian folk who instilled the Christian tradition in each of their children.  They were founding members of the Highlawn Baptist Church in Huntington, WV and he served as Sunday School Supt. and she was active in the church choir.

The photo from either 1942 or 1943 is one of the last ones I remember of them together and was taken at the A.B. and Ora residence.   A.B. of course was already dead.  

I think that they did a great job rearing seven children so that they have all succeeded as adults.  May we all give thanks for their gifts to us by their example.

The hubster sent out the following reply to Uncle:

Uncle,

Thanks so much for sending this reminder.  It is amazing what the two of them wrought!  The world is certainly better for all [their progeny]!!!  Since both of them had died well before I was born I never had the chance to know them, but I wish I had.

I was telling DD a couple of years ago how remarkable her great-grandparents must have been and cited as an example that my Mom went to Chicago to Baptist Missionary Training School at a time when, I imagine, it was unlikely for West Virginia women to go to school at all, much less in the big city of Chicago.  I went on to tell DD a story Mom told me of being in Chicago and having the chance to hear a preacher by the name of Fosdick (I’m drawing a blank on the guy’s full name, I’m stuck on Henry Emerson Fosdick but am not sure that is right).  You may recall that Fosdick was seen by the conservative church as quite a radical.  Mom recalls hearing quite a fuss made from more than a few West Virginia preachers who were quick to warn their congregants that this Fosdick character was not preaching the true faith.

Anyway, Mom was curious to see what all the fuss was about so she went to hear Fosdick (guess that is why you don’t send your daughters to the big city… you never know what trouble they might get into).  She was surprised because she didn’t hear the guy spewing evil at all, and in fact found much of what he said to be thoughtful and faithful.  She wrote to your father (Clarence Lee) and expressed confusion over what she had her from the West Virginia preachers about this man and what she had heard from the man himself.  Your father, founding member of Highlawn Baptist Church, wrote back and while his exact words are lost, Mom remembers him saying something to the effect of, “There is a lot in this world we don’t understand and the West Virginia preachers don’t have all the answers.”

I continue to find this story quite remarkable and very informative of my Mom, her parents, and subsequently me.  DD’s response, “I come from a line of strong women.”  I can’t tell the story without getting teary and even when typing, I have a lump in my throat.

Well done Clarence Lee and Lu Lu!

DD, her first cousin, and her Aunt, as well as several other extended cousins all carry the name of “Lee.” 

8 Random Things

 Tagged again, this time by David.  Here are the “rules.”

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.

2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

a)     When I was 6 years old, I fell off the top of a sliding board onto macadam giving myself a nasty concussion.  This, of course, explains a lot!

b)     I attended St. Donato Roman Catholic Elementary School till grade 4.

c)      Letting your little brother coax you into tying a string around a loose tooth then to a doorknob of an open door then slamming said door does not, I repeat does not, pull the tooth out.  Trust me on this.  It does however, cause great consternation amongst the grown-ups who upon hearing the scream came running!

d)     One of my cousins wrote a book about his military experience in Viet Nam.  But he did so only after his grandson asked him about Viet Nam.  Prior to that, my cousin would never speak about his tour of duty.

e)     I’ve decided to let my hair grow long.  When I say long, I mean loooooong.  Check back in about 3 years!

f)        I’ve been cutting my husband’s and my son’s hair for nearly 10 years!

g)     I’d rather be the passenger than the driver.

h)      I paint my toenails in the summer but not in the winter.  Today they are bright red and have a tiny white flower on them.

Tag:  S-P, Meg, Raphael, Magdalini, Laura, Mimi, Uncle Curmudge, Thormonger

Vending Machines

In honor of Father’s Day, my priest spoke about our Heavenly Father and His love for us.

   For his “other” job, Father T is a hospice chaplain.  Recently he had to attend a conference on chaplaincy.  There are many women hospice chaplains.  In a recent conversation with one woman he inquired why those female chaplains and ministers whom he encountered seemed so angry.  The woman responded, “We’re angry because when we prayed to the ‘heavenly Father’ He never gave us what we asked for!  Never!  Not any time!  And many of our earthly father’s were no better!”  She went on to explain to Father T that she removes any reference to the male gender in all of her prayers and scripture readings. 

Today Father emphatically reminded us that our Heavenly Father is NOT a holy vending machine that we plug in our dollar and get our Cherry Coke or chocolate bar of choice.  I have to admit that I missed what he said immediately following that comment because I was chuckling with great mirth in agreement with him.  I can’t say I’ve ever heard anyone use ‘vending machine’ and God in the same sentence. 

Anyway, he went on to tell us that no matter our circumstances with regard to our earthly father, there is no comparison to our Heavenly Father who is Good and Loving.  He can not NOT be Good and Loving.  His will for us is perfect and we can trust Him for that. 

So dear Readers, keep your dollar in your pocket and save it for a rainy day.  The holy vending machine doesn’t work, never did work, and never will work.   

Thanks be to God!

What The World Eats

Saw this photo article .  Hat tip to: Zippy. Me thinks I ought to reassess the food cabinet.  I’m glad they didn’t ask for photos from our house.

Japan: Food expenditure for one week – 37,699 Yen or $317.25

Chad: Food expenditure for one week -685 CFA Francs or $1.23

Great Britain: Food expenditure for one week – 155.54 British Pounds or $253.15

Bhutan: Food expenditure for one week – 224.93 ngultrum or $5.03

Still Missing

This little poppet, Madelaine, is still missing.  Kyrie Elesion!  Read more here.

Ruth Graham

Ruth Graham, wife of Billy Graham, has gone on to receive her heavenly reward.  Read about it here.

How very curious…I was unaware that she was of a different religious tradition than her husband.  She was a “life-long loyal” Presbyterian.  He is Baptist. 

Memory Eternal!