I seem to wax eloquent that noone on Facebook might appreciate, yet I have the need to write.  Today is a beautiful Tuesday morning.  I am getting ready for the day.  The tub is full of nicely scented water thanks to my friend Cathy sharing some bath salts she was given but won't use, since she is a shower person.  Coffee is at my side.  Cup two to be enjoyed.  Coffee pot is off.  Cat is fed. 

List of to-do's is mental.  Buy new Styrofoam dishes to feed the cat with.  Such a good system.  His dinner today is in a disposable plastic dish.  Finicky eater that he is, I hope he will eat his breakfast.  So far all he has asked for is attention, and perhaps a lift to a higher closet shelf as I work to get clothes ready for the days activities of attending a funeral and perhaps a ceremony for Chippewa Junior High School.  Twas a tough choice to make, but figured honoring the dead was more important than remembering my own childhood.  I think I made the right choice.  

I awoke early today, partly because it was cold in my room....  Unusual for almost July, but it felt good.  Closed some windows.  Made the coffee.  Was a little nauseated, so the coffee and protein bar have helped considerably.  Did some research on an old song  Old Buddha by the Imperials.  

That song would be very politically incorrect in this decade, but not so in the 80's when my Charismatic friends and I first enjoyed it, as a protest for all of the Eastern religious cults that were invading our culture at that time.  I did some research on the Moonies, finding that the term itself is not PC.  Not anymore anyway.  Discovered that the Unification Church has a lot of political clout and has been quietly working its way into many organizations and media outlets in our society.  Finally found a statement of doctrine and find that Moon's claim to be the second Messiah is something I cannot embrace.  Some other doctrines seem a little off to me as well.  The state of my own church and churches like it, is quite distressing as well.  The idea of a theocracy is scary to me.  That concept seems to be lurking on the horizon of my life. 

 I decided to search Itunes radio for a good Christian radio station, that has teaching as well as music.  I don't mind contemporary music in small doses, as long as there is good teaching and sounds that draw me in rather than repel.  Found a station in Texas.  A-1 91.3fm KDKR Your Station for Life    128 kbps    Texas's Christian Teaching, Talk, and Praise Station.  So far so good.  Lots of teaching.  A little music.  

I actually found some clothes summery enough yet dressy enough for today.  I really must go over my closet clothes and weed out the bad and keep the good.  I seem to be getting a lot done in my house in preparation for next month when Yvonne comes to visit.  A new chair has provided a place where I can sit and read and sort and watch without hurting my back.  It may also provide a place for Yvonne to sleep comfortably the few days she is here.  The new shower spray makes it easier to wash hair and the drain being fixed in the sink is so wonderful to have.  Grab bars are being installed on Thursday.  Things are fitting together.  I smile. 

Its the Little things

It is the little things of life that put together become the big events.  

Today:  Finally had the drains in my bathroom fixed, and the shower head taken off 

and a new spray installed.   I am not as excited about the spray as I though I would be.  Aesthetically, it is not a pretty sight, hoping that functionally it will be.  There were more expensive sprays, all designed for those who like to take showers and want to improve the head.  I had not thought that the hose hanging from the top would look so much like some medical equipment hanging in the bath.  

Oh well, It will work well, I hope, for later in life when I may need one of those benches spread across the tub for sitting and bathing.  I can always get a different set up in the meantime.  I may try the spray on the tub in the morning, although I shall still take baths.  Perhaps once the grab bars are in place I will give it a try and see if I can stand without getting dizzy in a shower, and like it.  I do enjoy a bath so much though, this shower may just be for company. 

My stages in growing old.  The concussion in May of 2005 was the first step downward.  It has affected so much.  Also the growing pain in my knees and back.  Artificial menopause from the surgery in 1992, although it wasn't until the removal of the estrogen patch that I began to feel the effects, contributed to my demise.  Well as long as I am listing negative things, the demise of the church as I have known it, beginning with the loss of congregational hymn singing that was so supportive to me but not to those in charge.  That hurt.  Others seem to be adjusting better than me, and are able to continue with body life in the church.  My lack of social life is not even noticeable to them, and when I consider it and look at my huge busy calendar, it seems that my life has changed but its commitments have not.  Its my own battle and I wage it every day.  How can I be depressed and not feel it?  Others my age probably do not suffer as much down time, as I do, but it is my own battle and I alone, with the help of God do wage it day by day.  I know that my depression is not medical, and that is a relief.  I have so many in my life who claim to suffer from this type of depression and who am I to judge?  Their complaints seem to be so tedious and boring to me.  There are times when I need to be alone.  

That visit last Sunday with family the to Henry Ford was so enjoyable, and so revealing.  My niece Lucy, and nephew, Benny have gained an awareness of the needs of the next generation upward.  This is something more than what I had at their age.  Or many other people I know have had either.  I am grateful for this.  I also discovered my physical limitations.  Walking that 12 acre place was exhausting, but enjoyable.  Using one of those carts is not something I want to do, unless they engineer them a little better.  I would need a driver training course to learn to use one.   I wish the dizziness that lurks at the back of my head from time to time would leave, but I think it is related to sugar levels, and the solution being food, does not help the weight problem.  A vicious circle.  

Others have a more remarkable old age experience than I do.  I don't think it is a reflection on how I have lived my life as much as the result of varying physical limitations.  Getting the plumber here is a major victory for me.  I am so reluctant to make changes.  Yet I have my list of things I want to get done.  A little done every day and it feels so good to have them accomplished.  A career that made it possible for me to retire with some money, and some health to enjoy it in have helped.

Getting the new chair was a major accomplishment.  These things to "normal" people are just a part of life.  For me they are sources of things accomplished and joys to enjoy.  

And horrors if anyone realizes what a mess the office is in.  I am sure there are those who have worse scenarios.  I wish my church was more enjoyable to me, but it is not, at least not now.  Who to blame?  Why blame at all?  Just learn to live with life, wrapping myself in the warmth of my memories, and enjoying the accomplishment of short term goals, and all the while keeping a positive outlook, seeing the good and not dwelling on what I have not had.    

After all, Corrie Ten Boom locked in the prison in WWII enjoyed watching the ants crawling in her cell.  Its a matter of perspective.  If your prison is small, you can still find small things in which to delight. 

Well I have managed to work at the computer for an hour pouring out all of these little thoughts.  Glad I don't have much of an audience.  This is much too personal and rambling and may send me to the home for the bewildered sooner than planned.  I mean after all, I need to clean up this office some more first.  The 80 year old for whose funeral I must go Tuesday, told his wife that he was tired and wanted to go home.  The Lord took him that very night.  Peacefully, quietly.  Leaving his wife with her family to support her.  I still think of them as sixty somethings as they were when I met them.  Only now I am the sixty something and they are the late seventy, 80 somethings.  Sometimes heaven looks better than earth.  I guess that is true and when you realize it, you are ready to go there.  

Song of this morning

Song of the morning.  

A chorus I learned in Sunday School.  

Christ in me, yes it's Christ in me.  

He's my Savior, my Lord and King, 

I'm so happy I shout and sing.  

Christ in me.  Yes it's Christ in me. 

 Every Day as I go my way, It is Christ In  Me!   

This song fits into the theology taught in the book I just finished on Kindle.  As I ponder the rightness of what was taught about letting the Spirit of Christ dwell in us richly, I keep finding more from my past knowledge of Scripture flooding in to confirm the message.

Link to Audio You Tube of the first chapter of David Gregory's A Night with a Perfect Stranger


Link to Christianbook review of A Night with a Perfect Stranger

The book is reminiscent of The Shack, an earlier book by William P. Young of Windblown Media, that became a best seller, despite some controversy about its theology, and Scriptural authenticity.  The Shack leaves one with a profound feeling of having encountered something of the character of God the Father and how He views our lives.  But it raises some questions since one who knows Scripture tends to wonder if the character displayed is entirely Scriptural, although it bears out the concept of a loving Father portrayed by a kindly African American woman, who reminded me of the character portrayed by Della Reese in the TV series, Touched by an Angel.

So back to the song of the morning.   The book by David Gregory, A Night with a Perfect Stranger, talks about how we can live the Christian life by letting the Spirit of Christ live through us.  After the concept is presented to Nick, the main character, he ponders whether it is correct or not.  As he goes along after his second encounter with Christ in human form, he picks up a friend of his wife who is in trouble on the road.  This woman further demonstrates what this concept means, and many Scriptures, verses I have known for most of my own Christian life are quoted and applied to the concept.

This morning when the simple Sunday School chorus came to mind, I realized how this concept from Scripture has been taught to generations through the hymns and choruses of the American, and perhaps through churches throughout the rest of the world.  Being a person driven by music, these memorized songs have been with me as I read Scripture.

With the abandonment of the hymnbook, and the confusion that many newer translations of the Bible has brought, I do not find myself exploring these truths as I once did.  I wonder if anyone is doing so.  As a person who has lived through many forms of the expression of Christianity over the past fifty years, I find the last twenty years to have been progressively barren of what has brought me joy and growth.  As I look to other churches in my area, I find nothing better than my own for me, for the church is after all a gathering of believers in community, and I have much invested in my own community.

The dilemma still persists, yet as I find books like this one by David Gregory, I can be drawn back.  I don't know where this journey is going, but as the not so old hymn goes...  I don't know about tomorrow, but I know who holds my hand.

I don't know about tomorrow
I just live from day to day
And I don't borrow from its sunshine
For its skies may turn to gray.

I don't worry o'er the future
For I know what Jesus said
And today He walks beside me
For He knows what lies ahead

Many things about tomorrow
I don't seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand

Thoughts of my Dad.  My Dad loved TV Westerns, and the theme song from Rawhide was running through my head this morning as I got ready for church.  "Rollin, rollin, rollin,  though the streams are swollen,
Keep them Doggies rollin' Rawhide. Through storm and wind and weather, ...... Wishin my gal was by my side...Good vittles love and kissin, are waiting at the end of my ride.  "

Dad loved the westerns, but it never occurred to me why.  He lived the westerns.  That is right.  My Dad spent his "batchin" years in the old west.  I don't know if he ever rode a horse or herded cattle, but he did tell of driving a wagon with twenty mules in front of it.  He told how they would have to go through an intersection then back into the cross road to make the turn.

I only knew the Dad who fathered me.  The one who knew a lot about farming with hand tools.  The one who worked for the Railroad, and ran our little general store.  But the one who actually lived the old west.... He was so lucky to be able to watch it portrayed in his favorite TV Westerns,  Rawhide,  Wagon Train, Bonanza, Gunsmoke and others.  I always think of him when I watch a western, but I never realized that he actually lived during the last part of that exciting part of our nation's history.   I had quite a Dad.  BTW  that is my Mom sitting beside him in the picture in the house I grew up in.  It was taken a short time before he passed away at 80 years of age.