I saw on the news that Britain has a new minister.  A loneliness minister.  They line up volunteers to call and visit on the phone, or write letters, with people who have no family close by--or who are shut ins.  Just to talk. I understand the value of contact with people.  When you are in the last quarter of your life, all of your children are gone with families and children of their own.  And sometimes your health isn't good so you don't get out much.  Thus, time sometimes drags.

And if you don't have hobbies or outside interests where you come in contact with other people, it does get lonely.  I try to stay involved and busy, but many older folk can't for one reason or another.  And they end up isolated in their homes.

When I was growing up, people sat on their front porches, or walked around the neighborhood stopping to visit.  Everyone knew all of their neighbors.  There weren't any TVs, iPads, laptops, cell phones, or other distractions--so people interacted with other people.

Now, however, people stay glued to their phones.  Texting.  Last week, when I was going through boxes looking for a story I had written, I came across all the letters Ken had written me.  The next generation won't have letters.  That makes me sad.

Letters are a wonderful thing.  They capture a moment in time when a person just wanted to stay in touch and describe their circumstances.  The weather, who married who, and on and on.

Ken and I had many,  times to communicate by letter.  He was gone twice in twelve years for over 13 months each time.  And numerous times for two or three months.  Deployed.  We wrote.  Very seldom missing a day.  I kept his letters.  He didn't keep very many of mine--I wish he would have because I wrote stories about our children.  But I can understand why he didn't.  Hard to keep things like that when you live in a tent.

I'm glad someone kept Paul, Peter, James, etc. letters.  We can read them and know how difficult it was to be a Christian.  And how they encouraged each other.  I love letters.  There is nothing quite like going to the mail box and finding a letter addressed by hand. (Thank you Amy Smith.)

My daughter Becky and sister Lisa formed a company a year or so ago:  Swan Estate Sales.  (Swan was Lisa's maiden name.  Mine, too.)   They have had a bunch of them, but the one coming up is going to be a doozie.  I went over to the place where they are setting it up and have never seen the likes of this one.  The oil paintings alone are fabulous.  This sale is the real deal.  It will have to be advertised nationally.  Some of the items have only been seen in places like the British, and French museums.

I can't tell you how much work it is to set one of these sales up and organize it.  I spent an hour going through paper the other day, just to find provenance for the paintings.  And still didn't get through all of the paper.  I sometimes work a room for them on the day of the sale.  My price is right for my time.  Free.  I just like to meet the people who come through.  And I like to help out.  It's nice to be needed.

Pam called me to work at the store today--Edmond's Antiques.  I took Squig.  He greeted everyone who came in.  He thought they had come just to see him.  Of course I keep him on a leash, but everyone comes over to where he is to pet him.  He loves it.  He thinks he's special.  And he is.

I think God did some of his best work when he made dogs.

I'm sure you have seen those puzzles on Facebook that have three steps--and you have to figure out the answer using hamburger buns, ice cream cones, boxes, bluebirds, etc.  They always have an obvious visual catch.  They are observation oriented.

And then there are the math problems, which have proved to me (by at all the different answers people get) that nobody learned anything in their math classes.  The most fundamental rule of mathematical procedure, is to always multiply before you add.  The problems will look somewhat like the following:  4+2x3+1 = ?  The most common wrong answer being 19.  (Answer is 11)

It makes me wonder how anybody passed their classes in math.  If you don't know what to do first, you will never get where you are going.  And the same thing is true in life.

If you don't learn your ABC's in kindergarten or first grade, you won't be able to read when you learn how to put the letters together.    But even if you can read, unless you know what the words mean, you won't understand.  Learn must learn vocabulary.  And vocabulary is a lifelong accumulation.

They say that the Eskimos have over seventy different words for frozen water.  They depend on those descriptions because they are a constant force of nature in their lives.  But here in the lower US, we only need a few: ice, snow, sleet, slush, and hail are about all words we need.

Reading the Bible takes vocabulary--some that is not in use today--if you are using the King James translation.  Thee, thou, thine, etc. from the old King's English.  I like to read it, but I certainly don't recommend it for a new Christian.  And I would never start someone off in the Old Testament.

I would say the first step, if you are not in the habit of reading the Bible, would be to get an overview of Jesus' life.  Four books tell about that: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.  Pick one.  Then "Acts" tells what happens next.  For the second step, I would read the book of Acts.  The rest of the New Testament consists of letters that were written to people and churches.  They are short.  I would pick Romans.  If you read those three small books (if you can call eight or nine pages a book) you have the basics of the Christian religion.  Who, what, when, where, why and how.  It will change your life.

I am going to have another great-grandchild.  And this one will be the first boy.  "Gunner."  Probably going to be a Marine with a name like that.  I have three great granddaughters, so this will add  some variety.

There are so many people in my family that I have a hard time remembering who told me what.  And we are all close.  Everybody pretty much keeps up with everybody else.  I love them all.  And I like some of them as well!!

We have falling off the cliff left-wingers, and falling off the other side of the cliff right-wingers as well.  You can't talk politics at our family gatherings.   I just wonder how in the world Ken and I produced such a diverse group.  I've learned to say, "Well, that's an interesting thought."  No commitment one way or another.  Keeps me out of trouble.

One of them asked me who I was going to vote for in the last election.  I jokingly said,  "I'm taking a quarter into the booth when I vote, and I'm going to flip it.  Heads, it's Hillary.  Tails, it's Trump.  And whichever one I end up voting for, I'm going to apologize to God when I walk out."  That made both sides upset with me--and I was just trying to be clever.

Everyone on both sides seems unable to talk to each other about anything.  Ken used to say, "If you have a Republican president, vote Democrat.  If you have a Democratic president, vote Republican.   That way they won't get anything done.  Because every time they do get something done, it seems to make things worse."  Of course he was saying that "tongue in cheek."  But there is some truth in it.

I just want some peace.  I would like to turn on the news and hear something relevant instead of meanness and arguments.  Was it Shakespeare who said, "...a poor player.  That struts and frets his hour upon the stage.  And then is heard no more: it is a tale...full or sound an fury, signifying nothing.

I think I'm getting old.

Transcribing what I wrote thirty years ago onto my Mac is difficult.  A lot of typing.  I threw my IBM out years ago, but even though I kept the hard drive, there is no way to transfer what I wrote in WORD to PAGES on an Apple.  I'm sure someone could do it,  but it is beyond my capabilities.

So yesterday, I hooked up and began typing.  I said I was going to do it, and I started doing it.  Now the problem is perseverance.  Which I find myself praying for: "God, please keep me motivated.  Don't let me become discouraged.  Keep me moving in the right direction."  Those are the kind of things I pray for because I know myself so well.

I am probably ADHD.  I work in spurts, change tasks and do something else for awhile.  I never finish what I start all at once.  I do a little bit of this and a little bit of that--going in circles.  I get bored very quickly.  However; I do finish what I start, eventually.  I set deadlines for myself.  I will have seven or eight projects going all at once, and finish one of them on a regular basis.  I'm always in the process of finishing something.  And starting something else.

Cleaning that box of papers out yesterday was a new project I started.  I'll sort out things from the box for a while, type for twenty minutes, read a chapter in a book I am half through, start (or finish) a sudoku puzzle, watch the news--circling back to the box and  typing.  At the end of the day I will have accomplished a lot of things, and finished one or two.

I've said before that I have perfected the art of procrastination to procrastin-action.  It works for me.  I don't recommend it.

I am excited about working on this book that I am writing.  There it was.  In a box.  Waiting on me to finish it.

"Whatsoever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might."  Colossians 3:23  Luckily for me, the scripture doesn't say, "...don't get distracted."

Now when people ask me what I do, I say, "I am a writer."  I didn't used to be a writer.  I considered myself a seamstress.  Then I went to college, got a master's degree and became a college math professor for twenty years.  In between--and continuing up until today--I was a pianist, a marimba entertainer, and a Bible teacher.  And for fifty-seven years, I was Ken's wife and the mother of our five children.  Wife and mother are  the best things I ever was.

But a frenzy of organizing overtook me last week, and I went through some papers in a box that had been moved--as I moved a zillion times.  And found notes from classes I had taken back in the 70's.  One set of notes was from a creative writing class.  There were poems, haiku, short stories, graded papers, among essays on different subjects.

I was awarded a full scholarship to Oklahoma Military Academy in the summer of '66--or maybe it was 67.  I don't remember.  They paid for everything, so I took whatever was offered from nine till two.  That let me get my kids to school and be there when they got home.  I didn't care what I took; I had never been to college before and found it fascinating.  Eventually, however, there weren't any classes left to take at those times.  I had way more hours than I needed to graduate.

Understand, this was before computers, and I could avoid graduating by changing majors.  I had no desire to graduate, I just liked going to different disciplines and learning.  And as long as the college was willing to indulge me, that's what I did.  But eventually, I had to transfer--I got a scholarship at a four year university, and kept taking classes, and switching majors to avoid graduating.  And somewhere in there, I took a class in creative writing.  And loved it.  And then, I forgot about it.

But now, I am so interested in writing.  It was really fun to go through all the things I had written for that class.  I am sorting through it all and those papers cover my dining room table at the moment.  Except for one thing which is sitting on an end table by my chair.  It is a story about my grandmother.  Probably 20-30 pages.  Never finished.

I am going to finish it now.  Starting today.  Because I am a writer.  (I like the way that sounds.)

 

The weather in Oklahoma is nuts.  It has been going from 65-70 degrees on one day to below freezing on the next--on a regular basis since early December.  One day I need gloves and a wind-breaker, the next I don't even need a sweater.  I'm not complaining.  The warm days are wonderful.

But of course, when it gets warm outside I get itchy to plant something.  Two more months and I'll start digging in the ground.  I made a big, big mistake in October when I had my gardener pull up the dead tomatoes and okra stalks and put them in the trash.  I forgot to tell him to save the okra pods.  I always leave five or six big pods to use as seed for the next year.

The seed comes from my dad's garden.  I've kept it going by collecting it at the end of the season for years.  It just adds something special when I pick okra from my dads "okra heritage."  I think that maybe I have some seed left over from last year.  I'll pull out my seed box and find out come March.  If I don't have any, maybe Scott does.  He is the only other gardner in the family.

I love the scripture from Psalms1:1-3 that says, "Blessed is the person...whose delight is in the law of the Lord...he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth his fruit in his season; his leaf shall not wither and whatsoever he does shall prosper."  He's planted.  Firm.

If you are planted in the right place, your roots will automatically have water--you will be fed--and you won't have to grunt and groan to produce fruit.  It will just happen as a result of being where God wants you.  And as the fruit ripens and falls to the ground, some of the seeds inside the fruit will fall on good ground.  Some of it will take root and produce new trees in like kind.

What is this fruit that the tree produces--which of course is the fruit of a Christian life.  Paul tells us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance.  Nine characteristics we should possess.  And exhibit to others.

You don't have to grunt and groan to produce Christian fruit.  They are the automatic result of drawing from the water of God's words.  We grow, we mature, the fruit in our lives ripens and we become useful in His kingdom to those around us.  It is a continual cycle.  Get planted.