I gave these flowers to my Mom as and early Mother’s Day present.  We have been enjoying them all week.  She will be going home on Mother’s Day, so I thought it would be nice to have the flowers to enjoy while she is here visiting me.

Today is my mother’s 81st birthday.  Here she is last year on her 80th birthday.  Doesn’t she look great?

My sisters and I surprised her last year by showing up on her doorstep unexpectedly.  We had a weekend of fun activities planned for her, including singing for her at her church service.  (Music is something that runs deep in our family, and is very meaningful.)  My brother, who has ALS, could not join us for the weekend, but he wrote a beautiful tribute to Mom that I made into a photo book for her.  I have posted a link to this before, but will do so again, in honor of her birthday.  The book is here.  (It is easiest to read if you chose the “zoom” option).

Here is another book I made after we spent the weekend together, with pictures from the celebration.

Another family celebration was planned for Mom & Dad last summer for their 60th wedding anniversary.  Here are some pictures from that occasion, which (of course) included more singing (the girls again, calling ourselves the “Lemon Sisters”).  I think some of my regular readers might be too young to remember the “Lennon” sisters — we were playing off their name with ours, but we chose “Lemon” because of our matching yellow dresses, and possibly the quality of our singing?  We were also joined by our cousins Dale & Dean, who are members of a REAL bluegrass band, so the quality of their music was never in doubt.

Mom and Dad arrived at my house yesterday, and will be staying with me throughout the week next week.  They came to attend Isaac’s choirboy concert tomorrow, and also to attend one of my chorale concerts (scheduled for next weekend).  As a bonus, they also get to attend Grant’s high school band/choir concert on Monday, and will maybe even take in one of Mark’s track meets (weather permitting).  My Dad was a track and cross country coach, back in the day, so he is excited to see Mark run, and pole vault!

Pictures of Mark from his last track meet:

I probably won’t be posting or commenting as much in the next week, as I will be busy with my folks here.  I know how much you will all miss me (oh, absolutely, Leah, what will we do without you!), but try to carry on, and I’ll be back soon!

Well, if you spend any time on Xanga at all you know that recently one of the Xanga-lebrities  (Amandasbiggestfan, if you must know, but how could you not?) was giving away a lifetime membership to celebrate being the first (?) to accumulate 100,000 Xanga credits.  Said Xanga-lebrity even posted about HOW to accomplish this unbelievable feat in less than a lifetime, which is about how long it would take me to do it.  I applaud people who put the time and effort into their blogs and earn tons of credit, I just don’t happen to be one of those folks.  I put effort into this blog, but it’s just a corner of my life.  A tiny one, really.  I don’t ever hope to (or care to) achieve celebrity status on Xanga — or anywhere for that matter.  Now, all that being said, I have to admit a teensy amount of pleasure at having FINALLY passed the 1000 mark (that’s right, 10 to the power of 3) in terms of Xanga credits.  I didn’t take any shortcuts to get there.  I just posted to my blog and made real, genuine comments on other people’s blogs (after a thorough reading of the post, of course!).  I even “spend” credits to give minis on a regular basis.  I spend almost as much as I earn — some days I go backwards in my credit total because of this (hmmm, that sounds an awful lot like real life).  Okay — I did welcome a few newbies using the welcome wagon feature, which earned me a few extra credits, but only those people who took the time to make a REAL first post — and again, it was a REAL comment that I left — not something generic that I copied and pasted into the comment box.  Call me an elitist, if you will, but I am feeling like I have earned the right to feel a little bit pleased with myself. 

It’s not the “bigtime” – I’m small potatos and I know it.  But that’s okay. Potatos aren’t my favorite vegetable anyway.

(Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read my posts and comment on them.  I really appreciate you!)

Psalm 8

A David Psalm

 God, brilliant Lord, yours is a household name.

 Nursing infants gurgle choruses about you;
      toddlers shout the songs
 That drown out enemy talk,
      and silence atheist babble.

 I look up at your macro-skies, dark and enormous,
      your handmade sky-jewelry,
 Moon and stars mounted in their settings.
      Then I look at my micro-self and wonder,
 Why do you bother with us?
      Why take a second look our way?

 Yet we’ve so narrowly missed being gods,
      bright with Eden’s dawn light.
 You put us in charge of your handcrafted world,
      repeated to us your Genesis-charge,
 Made us lords of sheep and cattle,
      even animals out in the wild,
 Birds flying and fish swimming,
      whales singing in the ocean deeps.

 God, brilliant Lord,
      your name echoes around the world.

(The Message)

Sometimes people dismiss the Bible because they say it isn’t relevant anymore.  They say they don’t enjoy reading it, it’s too dry, it’s hard to understand.   For me, the Bible is more than great literature.  It is God speaking directly to me.  It holds answers for a world that is crying for meaning, where people everywhere wonder “What is the purpose of my life?”

I used to struggle with Bible reading.  Then I found “The Message” translation of the Bible.   In it, I found myself connecting to the beauty of the scriptures like never before.  I particularly love some of the Psalms – you cannot deny that the passage I quoted above is beautiful and lyrical poetry.  Even a non-believer can recognize and appreciate the rhythm and powerful imagery used.  Psalm 8 happens to be a favorite of mine.  It accurately speaks of my own wonder at the world around me, and the awesome responsibility I feel for it, knowing how insignificant I am, and yet, knowing that I have been entrusted with the care of our beautiful creation.  How can this not be relevant, especially in light of the recently observed Earth Day, and the popularity of the “green” movement?  It’s not new, people.  It is a mandate that goes back to the beginning of time. When God made the earth and gave the job of caring for it to humanity, it came with the responsibility of managing and preserving the earth’s resources, not exploiting and abusing these marvelous gifts.  

If you would like to check out The Message for yourself, there is an online version that you can read here.  Maybe you will find in it words to live by. Maybe you will simply appreciate it for its historical and literary value, much the way you can appreciate Plato or Shakespeare.  Or maybe you will encounter the Living God. 

Give it a try.  I dare you. 

Three highlights for you.

Number one:  the robin’s nest has eggs in it!  I can see three from my vantage point (but I can’t get them all in a picture).

Number two:  Book club Friday night.  We discussed this book:

Number three:  I heard this author speak.  She was engaging, compelling, funny, earnest.  Several months ago I read her first book (also for my book club).  I own her second book, but have not yet had the opportunity to read it.

                   Janis Amatuzio, M.D.

To read an excerpt from one of her books click here.

She spoke at a beautiful country church.  I wish I had taken my camera along to get pictures of it.  The inside was recently remodeled to bring it back to it’s origins (it was built in 1875) and Swedish heritage.  Here is a picture of the exterior that I found on the church website:

A weekend lowlight:  it snowed again on Saturday.  I didn’t take pictures.  I have enough pictures of snow.  I want to take pictures of FLOWERS!

        (my creeping phlox in bloom last spring)

TTFN!  ~Leah~

Last night was the big “Character Fair” night at Isaac’s school.  I have posted in the past about how Isaac is fascinated with all thing “Titanic”, so for his project he chose to create a power point presentation about the Titanic.  Earlier this year he wrote a report for school on the subject, so we used that as a starting point for the presentation.  We read lots of books, did research on the internet, scanned in pictures and decided which important points we wanted to include.  Then he and I sat at the computer and put together the show.  He told me what he wanted in it, and we tried out different “effects” until he was satisfied.  Below is the finished product.  It looks a little different here than in real life.  The web-hosting site doesn’t “translate” everything exactly the way we had it set up, and it seems to play a little longer here than it does on our home computer.  The original show also had music that played automatically, but I couldn’t upload that with the presentation on the site that is hosting the video either, so if you want the full effect you will have to play the audio track here at the same time as the video, since I had to include them separately.   Click on the power point video first, then on the audio.  Additionally, for some reason slide #13 doesn’t want to advance, so you will have to advance it manually when you get to that point. Further down the post I have also included pictures from last night, of Isaac proudly explaining his work.  He and my husband built the Titanic model kit I got for him about a month ago and that was also included as part of the display.

Isaac standing by his Titanic model.

Closeup of the model.

The power point playing on the laptop.  

They had the laptop connected to the “Smart Board”, but because of the lighting is was a little hard to see.  Most people who came by chose to watch it on the smaller laptop screen.

(People are looking at the laptop)

Lots of people came!  You can see the smart board with Isaac’s presentation on the back wall of this room.

Participation in the Character Fair is voluntary.  Even so, many students chose to enter some sort of exhibit.  There were lots of categories that students could choose from, including computer (Isaac’s category), sculpture, drawing, painting, science, photography, history, performance (instrumental, vocal, dance, reading, memorization), collections .. there were more, but I can’t think of them all!

Some “admirers” of Isaac’s model ship.

_____________________________________________________

I really enjoyed helping Isaac with this project.  I had never worked with the power point program before, so it was as much a learning experience for me as it was for Isaac!  Now that I know how it works, I’m sure I’ll find other ways to use my newfound skills.

We are already thinking of possibilities for next year’s Character Fair!

Little Miss is what I am calling the little girl my next-door-neighbor and best friend, Heidi, has been doing child care for all year.  She is a charming child, one that captured my heart from the moment I met her.  I don’t know what it was about her that so drew me to her, but I just loved heading over to Heidi’s house for a cup of morning coffee and a chance to see what Little Miss was up to.  Sometimes they would come over to my house.  Little Miss especially loved playing with my dogs, and all of Isaac’s toys.  On days when Heidi needed to take time off for a doctor’s appointment, or to take one of her kids to the orthodontist or other similar activity, I was sometimes called upon to be the “back-up” babysitter.  I so looked forward to those opportunities to spend some one-on-one time with sweet Little Miss.  I would put everything else on my agenda on the back burner just to play and have fun with her.

Friday was Little Miss’s last day with Heidi.  Her Mama is anticipating the birth of Little Miss’s brother any day now, and work was just getting to be too difficult.  (Mama is a teacher at a local parochial school.)  Soon after baby brother is born, the family will be moving out of the community.  Mama has decided to become a full-time, stay-at-home mom to Little Miss and her new brother, so the family is moving to be closer to Daddy’s job.  Friday morning Little Miss and Heidi came over for one last visit.  A few tears escaped after they left, because I don’t know when or if I will see Little Miss again.

Some pictures to remember her by:

Little Miss and me on the swing in my front yard.  Swinging on this swing was one of her favorite things to do with me.

Playing with my big dog, Gabby.  Gabby is a patient old dog.  She never minded when Little Miss used her as a pillow!

Here she is with one of my little dogs, Bowser.  She had the cutest way of saying his name!  Her little lips would pucker up and stick way out when she got to the “ow” part of “b-OW-ser” 

Here she is planting the seeds I bought.  Pumpkin and sunflower seeds.  So much fun to watch them grow!

My very favorite picture of Little Miss.  I took this one morning when we were having “coffee” together.

Oh precious Little Miss, I will miss you!

 My computer sits on a desk surrounded by a bay window. 

It’s perfect — I can watch the world.outside.my.window as I surf the world.wide.web.  Yesterday I noticed a plucky robin redbreast building her nest right outside my window, (the one farthest to the right) in the honeysuckle vine that clings to the side of the house.  I was mesmerized as I watched her swoop to the ground and carefully chose materials for building her new home.  It was fascinating to see her pick up bits and pieces of debris from the ground, selecting some while disgarding others.  How does she know exactly what she wants?  Slowly the nest took shape, like an intricate puzzle comes together — with patience and perseverance.  Today the nest looks complete, but she is still making occasional forays into the yard and returning with bits of this and that to add the perfect finishing touches.  She snuggles down into the nest and wiggles her feathery little behind back and forth, sometimes turning in circles just like my dogs do when they are trying to get comfortable.

I am so lucky to have a front row seat for watching this architectural genius!  Just beyond the new nest, in the same vine, I can see an older, abandoned nest. 

I recall a balmy day last summer when I had my windows open and heard the noise of a raucous birdfight going on.  I went to the window to look and see what was causing all of the commotion.  I saw a pair of fearless robins fending off a bigger, meaner blue jay.  Now that last summer’s leaves on the vine are dead, I can see what I could not see then — the old nest.  I’m sure those robins were defending it from the invading bluejays.  I wonder, is this the same robin, back again this year to nest in familiar surroundings?  It’s a good neighborhood for birds, my backyard.  We keep our birdfeeders filled, we have a backyard pond which provides a source of water, and this particular vine, climbing two stories off the ground and spreading out under the protective eaves of our roof, provides shelter from both the elements (it is well shielded from both wind and rain) and climbing, predatory animals.  Right now the sheltering honeysuckle is just beginning to produce new green leaves.  

In a few weeks the leaves of the vine will make it difficult to see into the nest, but I am hoping I will still be able to catch a glimpse of my little friend’s family when they arrive. 

Something else I saw through the window to my backyard world today was a pair of wood ducks!  It is very unusual for me to see these water birds right in my back yard.  There are several large ponds, a few lakes, and a river all nearby, so the ducks don’t often chose our yard as a resting place. 

Here is the male:

And the female:

In this picture you can see them both in the big oak tree, the male is on the large upper branch while the female is on a branch in the lower left:

A window within a window, that’s what I am sharing here.  It kind of reminds me of those pictures where two mirrors are reflecting each other — a reflection of a reflection, repeating into what seems like infinity.  Here is my weak little attempt to illustrate that concept (look closely):

Go out into your world this weekend, and enjoy!

(I thought you might enjoy listening to the sound of an early morning robin singing it’s heart out!)

Lately I’ve been thinking about forgiveness.  I spent a lot of years in my early life not really understanding the concept.  I grew up in a pretty strict household, with high standards for behavior.  For the most part, I was what you might call a “good kid”.  Some people are born with a defiant streak a mile wide while others, like me, are apparently gentle and compliant.  Not that I was a perfect child, far from it!  There was the time I decided to play pyromaniac and set my mattress on fire, or the time I thought I could improve my little sister’s appearance by cutting her eyelashes off with a pair of my mother’s very sharp and very pointy sewing scissors (luckily I didn’t poke her eye out), or the time I blithely ignored the rule about not playing by the river and went out on the ice with my friends in the winter and fell through.  Come to think of it, maybe I wasn’t such a good kid after all….. 

My greatest fear as a child was that I would somehow do something so bad and let my parents down so much that they would never forgive me.  I don’t know why I had such a deep fear of this.  My parents were great parents.  They were strict, but fair.  They showed equal measures of approval, love, and discipline.  They lived their love more than spoke of it.  My Dad was more demonstrative than my Mom.  She is a stoic scandinavian, and she herself was raised by very strict, stoic and emotionally reserved parents.  I have inherited some of that scandinavian restraint.  Combine that with being introverted, and sometimes I come across as aloof.  My family often tells me about what a “sober” or “serious” little girl I was. (I’m the shy looking little girl sitting next to Daddy in the picture above.)  Mom says as a child, even as an infant, I preferred to watch, observe, and passively absorb my surroundings, rather than immerse myself in them.  I didn’t like being cuddled, at least according to her.  I still don’t like to cuddle, according to my husband.  I love a good, warm hug, but give me my space when I am reading, watching TV, sleeping, or otherwise engaged in an activity that might present the opportunity for cuddling.               However, I digress.

Deeply ingrained in my childhood mind was the concept that “the wages of sin is death”.  For some reason, the second part of that verse “but the gift of God is eternal life” didn’t sink in quite as firmly.  Now, I knew that if I did something wrong at home, I wasn’t going to be struck down dead, but somehow in my mind that eternal punishment promised to sinners translated to me as “don’t  screw up or you’ll pay big-time – and if you DO screw up, don’t let Mom and Dad find out!”  Consequently I became very good at hiding things –  actions, activities, even emotions.  Being so secretive almost came — and I hate to admit this –  naturally to me.  In keeping my secrets, I didn’t have to face letting anyone down, especially my parents.  No – especially myself.  But I couldn’t’t escape the fact that even if I could keep my secrets from everyone else, God knew.  Even so, I kept hiding things, kept ignoring my conscience, and the guilt began to build.

Guilt is an insidious demon.  Guilt is what happens when you hide from the truth.  Guilt can build a wall around you so strong that you think you can never break through, so why even try?  Just keep living the lie.  Just keep up appearances.  Don’t risk letting the truth come out, because what if the people you love won’t forgive you? What if they stop loving you? Guilt has a treacherous partner whose name is fear.  Live with the two of them for companions long enough and you begin to understand what Thoreau meant when he said “most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”  My song was stifled.  And then a miracle happened.  I learned about forgiveness.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t known about it before, but I had never understood it, or maybe I just didn’t trust that it really existed. 

I won’t go into details about this miracle, but I will say this.  The lie I was living with at the time was too big to contain.  I had to make a choice.  Make up an even bigger lie and stay trapped in guilt and fear for the rest of my life, or admit the truth and lose everything I held most dear.  I chose the truth, and the amazing thing was, I didn’t lose anything but a little unholy pride.  The person I was lying to chose to forgive me – truly and unconditionally forgive me.  That forgiveness broke through my walls of guilt and fear, shattered them as if they were nothing more than a pile of twigs.  It was then I finally and deeply understood the meaning of forgiveness.  God made Himself known to me in the form of a flesh and blood human being who chose to love and forgive rather than to hate and condemn.  This experience with forgiveness was so powerful that at first it was painful, but as I learned to trust and accept that it was real, I even learned to forgive myself.  From that moment on I have been free to sing my song.

Recently a college professor from an obscure (to me, anyway) college in Pennsylvania has been causing a sensation with what is called “The Last Lecture”.  His name is Randy Pausch, and if you have not heard of him, you almost certainly will.  In September, 2007, he participated in a lecture series his college calls “The Final Lecture”.  In it, the professors are charged with an exercise to give a lecture in which they share their most profound life lessons.  The catch is, Randy Pausch is dying, and this was more than an exercise for him; it is his real life.  In a recent interview with Diane Sawyer he said if he only had three words to leave, they would be “Tell the truth”.  Then he added, if he could have three more, they would be “All the time.”  While I wholeheartedly agree with him that it is essential to live in the truth, I would also have to add my 3 cents worth and say “Learn to forgive”.  When you are forgiven, and practice forgiveness, you can learn to live with the truth, even when the truth is painful.   When you are forgiven, and practice forgiveness, you can truly give and receive love.

This is my song — Truth…..Forgiveness….Love. 

Praise God!   

As the Pauper Waits for Plenty

Making music connects me to others in so many ways.  It connects me to the others I sing with, to the director of my group, to my accompanist, to those listening to the music I make, to the music’s composers and, in many cases, to God.

In addition to the chorale I sing with, I also sing with my church choir.  Church choir is open to everyone, regardless of ability.  Most of our choir members are decent singers.  We have a great director.  He also directs the choir at the local high school, so as we practice and learn the music that we will sing each Sunday for worship service, he also manages to teach us to be better singers.  In his role as a school teacher, he himself is always learning and stretching his abilities.  He is constantly being exposed to new music, new composers, new ideas.  Last year he bought a new piece of music for the church choir that we all found rather, ah….challenging.  My initial reaction to it was “this is too weird!”  I don’t think I was the only one who felt that way about it.  After several disastrous attempts during rehearsal, our director had us turn in the music.  Never one to give up, he brought the music out again this year.  It’s been in our folders nearly since the beginning of the season (our church choir season runs Sept.-May, in keeping with the school calendar), and every so often he has us pull it out to work on it.  Each time we get a little bit better.  Each time I like it a little more.  We actually have a date to finally sing it in church for the first time on May 4th! (Although he has a backup song in mind — just in case). 

Even before I began to enjoy this song for it’s musicality, I fell in love with the text.  The song is set to a poem by Sister Delores Dufner, a member of the Order of Benedictine Sisters.  She grew up in North Dakota and currently is in ministry at St. Benedict’s Monastery in St. Joseph, MN.  I feel a connection to her because of our geographical proximity (I grew up in NW Minnesota, less than 50 miles from her hometown, and we now live within 100 miles of each other!)  Our church choir has sung one other song set to another of her expressive poems, “Oh Wheat, Whose Crushing is for Bread”.  I think the music composer (Rosalie Bonighton) is the same for both pieces as well, they both have a rather mournful sound to them, modern and ancient at the same time, if that makes sense.  The title above is linked to an audio file of the song, if you care to listen.

Below are the lyrics.  To me they are an eloquent rendering of how our human souls long for connection — with each other, of course, but especially with God.  And just as importantly, God longs for us as well.

As  the  pauper waits  for plenty,

As  the  weeping  wait  for mirth,

As  a  farmer waits  for harvest,

And  a woman  waits  for birth,

So  do I wait  for you.

As  the  blossom longs  for springtime,

And  the seed a  fertile place,

As  an  orphan  longs  for family,

And  a child  his  mother’s  face,

So  do I long  for you.

As  a songbird waits  for morning,

And  an  eaglet  waits  for flight,

As  a  flutist  waits  for music,

And  an artist waits  for light,

So  do I wait  for you.

As  the  homeless  long  for shelter,

And  the  weary for a bed,

As  the  thirsty long  for water,

And  the  hungry long  for bread,

So  do I long  for you.

So  do You long  for me.

Thanks for listening,

                                    ~Leah~