ISO: Renewal

I haven't blogged in a week. That reflects my state of the being.

Songbird of the RevGalBlogPals offers this Friday Five:

In this week that looks unlikely to hold a complete day off, I am pondering renewal. List four ways you like to relax or give yourself a break. Then name a fifth, something you've never been able to do, a self-care dream.

1. Taking a really long walk. Without a time limit.

2. Knitting, without Little Sprout. Otherwise it just adds more stress to my life.

3. Silence, once I get beyond the initial discomfort.

4. Laughter with some of my favorite people. That can be snuggling & giggling with Little Sprout and Usually Darling Hubby while watching a silly movie. Or chuckling with friends at the church women's group as we share funnies from our lives. Or joyfully running through the house barking and laughing with the doggie boy. (to clarify, I bark and laugh; he merely barks)

5. My self care dream is to actually go on retreat. Maybe a hermitage retreat. Or more realistically, I've considered going to the Midwest Emerging Women Gathering. That would offer less silence but certainly lots of renewing joy and laughter.

Keepin' It Simple Friday Five

Here's the RevGalBlogPals F5, short and sweet.
The questions are simple, the answers unlimited. Go!

Who: Ex-boyfriend

What: A blind date and almost a year.

When: 1993

Where: West Lafayette, IN

Why: Because...after bad, good is easy to recognize.

Bonus: How: I'm not sure how, sometimes these things just happen.

Amazing Change

Amazing Grace. Probably my favorite hymn. But it is also the name of a movie opening in theaters February 23, 2007.

William Wilberforce. I am ashamed to admit I didn't know who this man was but I plan to learn more.

And then what?

A More Perfect Union?

Little Sprout has been sick and I haven't felt much like blogging. But I have been catching up on a few blogs I read. I just read Threads from Henry's Web and it got me thinking and remembering.

I remember being a teen (many years ago) and being involved in a, ummm, discussion. A debate? An argument?

My brother and I were in the typical rebel phase and telling our dad that within our lifetime Russia would no longer be a communist state and what he thought of as a democracy of the people and for the people with rights and protections would look very different in the future.
He didn't buy it. It wasn't going to happen. Looking back I can envision him sticking his fingers in his ears and singing "La, La, La, I can't hear you". But actually he just got very angry. Even today, he still chooses not to see it happening.

The future has arrived, because too many have been standing around with eyes tightly closed and with fingers in ears, singing "La, La, La, I can't hear you, everything looks fine". And those who are proclaiming that the emperor has no clothes are often silenced by whatever means necessary.

Please Watch Your Step as you exit...there are shards of the Constitution and over 3,000 dead Americian bodies to step over.

Happy Birthday

to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday reverendmother. Happy Birthday to you.

It's RevGalBlogPals Friday Five time again and reverendmother had a birthday this week, inspiring the following questions:

1. "It's my party and I'll [blank] if I want to..."
Favorite way to celebrate your birthday (dinner with family? party with friends? a day in solitude?)

It's my party and I'll LUNCH if I want to...usually Chinese buffet and only with Little Sprout and Usually Darling Hubby (and he usually is on my birthday).

2. "You say it's your birthday... it's my birthday too, yeah..."
Do you share your birthday with someone famous? (Click here to find out!)

Tracy Nelson, Helen Reddy, Bobby Knight, Billy Barty, Minnie Pearl, Pablo Picasso, Georges Bizet all share my birthday. I share more with Minnie Pearl and Bobby Knight.

3. "Lordy Lordy look who's forty..."
Milestone birthdays:
a) just like any other birthday--they're just numbers, people.
b) a good opportunity to look back/take stock
c) enjoy the black balloons--I'll be hiding under a pile of coats until the day is over
d) some combination of the above, or something else entirely.

Forty was divine, but 25 was tough when I realized I was a quarter of a century old and hadn't done "anything" with my life. Not sure how I'll feel about a half century.

4. "Happy birthday, dear... Customer..."
Have you ever been sung to in a restaurant? Fun or cringe-worthy?

No, never that I remember, but it would have been traumatic so I may just have blocked the memory. I guess I do need to be prepared for this at some point, but Little Sprout is still too shy to instigate something like this.

5. "Take my birthday--please"
Tell me one advantage and one disadvantage about your particular birthday (e.g. birthday in the summer--never had to go to school; birthday near Christmas--the dreaded joint presents)
EDITED TO ADD: This could also simply be something you like/dislike about your birthday (e.g. I like sharing a birthday with my best friend, etc.).

The best thing about it is that I remember it. Seriously. Even after celebrating 14 of Usually Darling Hubby's birthdays, I have been known to say it was 2 days later or the correct day, but 2 months earlier. Even as I write this, there is a battle going on in my brain. 12th? 14th? I think it's the 12th. I'm sure it is the 12th. His college buddy's is the 13th ( I remember that?), it must be the 12th. Or was it after, so the 14th? My aunt...oh yeah that's right it's the same as my aunt's. It's the 12th. I'm sure it's the 12th.

But I always remember mine, even if I have to think really hard when asked my age.

On a related note, we are celebrating Mickey Mouse Day in our house today. According to Little Sprout he gets lots of presents (and she has wrapped many surprises in colorful Sunday comics) but unlike birthdays he doesn't get any older. What a concept! I'm thinking of skipping my next birthday and celebrating Chartreuseova Day instead.

Finding Hidden Treasure

I've been having a bad start to the new year. Not much to tell, no precipitating event, no specific trauma. Just lots of little things and an emotional roller coaster.

I was looking for a book today and came across my brother's Bible. I brought it home on my last visit with my Dad.

I could have just placed it aside and continued my book search, but I didn't.

I sat on the bed and unzipped the cover. Out of the front fell an invitation to my high school graduation and several remembrance tree lighting programs my mother had placed there in the years between my brother's death (1996) and hers (2004).

I just sat there flipping through the pages remembering when my brother got this Bible in the late 70's as a 15-year old student at a tiny Christian school. I was admiring the large print and thinking perhaps it would honor his memory to use the Bible rather than store it away. Then I saw it.

It was an old yellow newspaper clipping. It was not something my mother tucked away. But it looked older than the age of the Bible. I checked online for the writer's name, Rev. E. W. Rimpo, and found a link to a newspaper archive. It is a paid site so I wasn't able to find out much. The essay was probably from 1955 or there about. E.W. Rimpo was a pastor at First Baptist Church in Fruitland, Maryland. My brother was born in 1966 and lived his entire life in Delaware. So I don't know how he ended up with this clipping in his Bible. Perhaps he found it in our Grandmother's boxes of clippings and mementos and decided to save it. By most standards the article is rather simple and mundane. Why would he save it?

Here is the article:

Have a Good Day
By Rev. E. W. Rimpe


Do you expect to have a good day or do you feel that is out of your hands? If you have felt helpless to do anything about the quality of your day just give it another thought. You have so much to do that you do not know how to crowd it into a day and spend much of your time in needless worry instead of doing some of the things which should be done. The life that began at Bethlehem ended at Calvary thirty-three years afterward. How little time that was in which to do what had to be done yet the world has never been quite the same again.

As we again take a good look at that great life we cannot quite duplicate it but we can continue to learn from Him. In all His busy life He never seemed too hurried to take necessary time. Plan your day so that some time will be given to the things that need to be done and when you do them give yourself wholeheartedly to what you are doing. After you have completed your task move on to the next. If you will follow each task with the next you will find the day's work done before you know it.

Keep in mind the important fact that every hour is made up of precious minutes. Sometimes a task will only take a few minutes and part of the day's work will be done. While what takes only moments to do may not be as important as what takes longer there are times when the moments can count for more so put all of yourself into what you are doing whatever time it takes. Plan your day so that every moment of your day will be made to count.

As you prepare your day's program include a good word or deed for someone else. A good word doesn't cost any more than the exercise of a few facial muscles and that does not cost much but it can do so much good, It can also do good both coming and going. Learn how from the greatest of Teachers and have a good day.

Fifty years ago Rev. Rimpo dedicated a few moments to writing an essay for the local newspaper. While almost all those newspapers ended up at the city dump, someone spent a few moments finding the scissors, cutting out this article and saving it. One day, my brother came across it. Something about it caught his interest, and in a few seconds he tucked it into his Bible. Today I stopped for just a moment to sit and look through a Bible. And just as God knew 50 years ago...the words were there.

Have a Good Day!