Some Psalm 55 Action

This sweet little mama mourning dove decided to put her nest in the geranium plant hanging on my porch.  She's a little hard to see, but her tail is under the geranium blossom on the far right.

Here are her two babies:

Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then I would fly away, and be at rest.  Psalm 55:6

I Have Come That You May Have Life in Abundance

So there are lots of mallard ducks here in my neighborhood.  This time of year, they are starting their little duck families, choosing their 'hood. This is where one mallard couple could live in high style.  Scotts Creek is a tidal estuary of the Elizabeth River.  The Elizabeth River ends up in the even more expansive Chesapeake Bay.  The possibilities for a beautiful life are limitless.

Is this where they live?  No, they live here right now, in a deep puddle near my front yard.

I shook my head when I saw this, but then they got me to thinking. What an amazing metaphor of the cautious, drab Christian life! "I'm afraid to to this, this makes me nervous.  I can't go there because it is too hard.  I don't feel comfortable talking about my faith.  I can't.  I won't.  I'm afraid.  I'm nervous.  Blah, blah, blah."

John 10:10 says that Jesus came to bring the abundant life.  God showers his unmerited favor, his grace upon our shoulders.  He has big plans for us.  Jabez prayed that God would enlarge his borders.  We should pray for the same thing.  Otherwise, we are like these ducks, sitting near a big puddle,

Which picture looks better?

I’m Gonna Lay my Burden Down, Down by the Riverside

Scripture relates that the Lord visits the sins of the “father” on the next generations.  Since we now are able to enjoy the grace that Jesus brings, my understanding of the Hebrew Scripture is a little different in regard to what the “sins of the father” actually means.  I am not responsible for the sins of other generations, but it is possible that I can be affected by them when I do not make the choice to walk in grace.

In my formative past, I was deeply affected by an unreliable family member who let me down because s/he had not accessed Jesus’ grace in his/her own life.  Due to that behavior, I have struggled in my own adulthood with phone calls which are not made or returned, feeling ignored, and feeling unimportant.  Both being late and having others keep me waiting unduly or failing to meet deadlines and commitments frustrates and upsets me.

Today I was stressed and anxious because of a particular friend who often brings memories of this past hurtful behavior into my current life. I have tried for years to help this friend understand how this affects me to no avail.

I went outside to bring the recyclables to the trash and it occurred to me that I had exhausted myself fretting about it during the day.  My thought was “that stupid so and so…%$*& him/her.” My friend is oblivious, but I’ve chosen to internalize the issue personally and bring the sins of one generation into my life which is under grace.  The result is hurt, anger, and fatigue.  Why?  Because I have forgotten God’s grace.

I stood there on the sidewalk, holding a bag of empty Fresca cans, flattened cardboard, and toilet paper tubes, frozen in place.  Frozen because of the temperature and by my thoughts.  First, my friend is clearly not stupid.  S/he has advanced degrees and many talents. 

I realized that I had denied God’s grace in my life and tried to mask my hurt by mentally calling him/her names and thinking about that family member from the past.  For me, anger has often been useful in hiding what is actually hurt underneath.  I have been mentally “cursing” myself by how I’ve been handling this situation.

In mentoring underprivileged children, I’ve taught them about mindfulness by teaching them to use all of their five senses in the present moment.  Often, if they were fussing amongst each other, I would say “Ssssssh…listen.  Tell me everything you can hear.”  We would identify all the sounds and their combativeness would turn to competitiveness as they struggled to hear and describe the most sounds.  We would go on to colors, smells, and things that they could feel such as the breeze on their skin.  Soon, all I would have to say during the next fussing was, “Sssssh…” and they would start the game independently.

This evening, I played the game by myself.  I set the recyclables down and stood there…listening, observing. I looked at the sculptural beauty of leafless trees set against the amazing colors of the sky at that moment just after sundown and just before the dusk.  I heard the crunch of the snow underfoot as others passed by.  I smelled wood smoke and felt the pain in my shoulder from hunching them all day. I considered the sins of the previous generations which I chose to bring into my life today and my resulting blindness to the beauty all around me.  Just like I set down the recyclables, I decide to lay my burden down…that burden that I have carried from elementary school.

My friend isn’t stupid and isn’t purposely hurting me.  His/her personal chaos spills over into my life. His/her life is not under grace yet, but through prayer, I know it can be. S/he isn’t here to make up for my past hurts.

However, for now, I need to back off from the friendship.  While I take ownership over the deep level of hurt I chose to have, I have communicated that I found this behavior disrespectful.  I hope that there comes a time when s/he is able to hear me and include my boundaries in our relationship.  Right now, I understand that s/he is not in a place in his/her journey where this is currently possible. 

However it IS possible for me to walk in the kind of grace in which I can acknowledge the hurt without anger and move forward in Jesus’s healing.

Did I ever mention that I live along a tributary of the Elizabeth River?

I'm gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside,

Down by the riverside, down by the riverside

I'm gonna lay down my burden, down by the riverside

New Year's Breakfast

I used to struggle with finding healthy, yet tasty breakfast foods.  The traditional cereal, toast, muffins, etc. are too high of a carb load for me. Hard-boiled eggs and an apple used to work, but this wasn't a particularly delicious breakfast.  On Mondays, especially rainy ones, hard boiled eggs felt especially grim.  In fact, this breakfast made me think of the kid in Oliver Twist who dared to ask for more porridge in the dining hall. However, in my case it would have been  (insert British accent here), "Please Suh, may I have something else?"

A few months back, I read this interesting blog entry from Pioneer Woman about a low-carb breakfast she ordered from room service in a New York City hotel. I was inspired!

http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2013/10/carb-buster-breakfast/comment-page-2/

Her dish started with a base of mixed roasted vegetables with two poached eggs on top. I saute vegetables instead.  Sometimes I use fresh stir fry vegetables. Or I might use leftover vegetables from dinner the night before.

The base for this morning's eggs was an odd, yet entirely delicious combination of leftover carrots and parsnips from last night's dinner and leftover quinoa (a very healthy low-glycemic grain) sauteed with onions and tomatoes and a tiny lump of goat cheese.

Bruce sauteed the perfect eggs you see above.  My eggs would not look like that, trust me. He can break the eggs and put them in the pan with one hand.  Show off.  The combination of a just barely liquid, almost solid egg yolk broken over the stir fry makes me want to swoon as yellow goodness combines with the veggies.  If you want to try this, make sure to grind some peppercorns over the eggs.

We rang in the New Year with some dear friends last night.  Rebecca brought the salad.  Instead of throwing in whatever she prepared into one bowl, she very thoughtfully brought a salad bar with a base of lettuce and all the trimmings in little bowls...avocado, crunchy onions, raw onions, goat cheese, cucumbers, shredded carrots, nuts, cherry tomatoes....sublime.

Knowing my mania for vintage china, she brought all the salad fixings in saucers in the Colonial Homestead pattern by Royal China.  I had never seen this pattern from the 1950's before.

Here's a link to the Eleventy blog which discusses this unusual pattern:
http://www.eleventytheblog.com/2011/01/colonial-homestead-vintage-dinnerware.html

After dinner,we listed all the things we wished to leave behind in 2013. We talked about some of them together and kept the ones too close to our hearts private.  Then we crumpled all our papers, put them in an old enameled bucket, and burned them to ashes.  As we prayed over 2014, I thought of the burnt offerings made to God in the Old Testament.

Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:13 and 14.

Have a blessed new year filled with joy!

Burlap et Francais

Living on Grace Street

I finally, after many years of following Christ, have understood the nature of grace.  I've learned, at long last, that I don't have to pummel my day into submission, making sure that every single thing goes just exactly my way and every person does just what I want.  No, that notion serves only to totally frustrate me and annoy everyone else.  I have to constantly remind myself of my state of grace.  When I am living in that, I don't have to get perturbed by minor annoyances and the perpetually snarled travel in my area.

This morning the gray skies came back!  However, I reminded myself that I lived in the grace of God and the gray was okay.  I started doing paperwork at home, a privilege if there ever was one, and then was called into the office.  Rain + Downtown Tunnel = frustration and delays, but after grumbling a little, I returned to calm.

I called the office to advise that I hadn't moved in 20 minutes and was turning around to take an alternate route down Military Highway and over the Gilmerton Bridge.  When I arrived there, traffic on the Gilmerton didn't move at all for, you guessed it, 20 minutes.

This time someone called me.  Thinking that it was someone questioning how long it was taking for me to come in, I tensed up.  Grace again, this time in the guise of a colleague who said, "Don't worry, I've got you covered,"

I went back to my original plan for the day, which was to see how Mr. B. was doing and verify that he was in compliance with his legal requirements.  I listened to Bible teaching on the way over.  I prayed that I would be a blessing.

Mr. B. was pretty despondent and it seemed that I had arrived at exactly the correct time.  If I had gotten in to the office, I would have been bogged down with taking care of issues there.  I wouldn't have made it to Mr. B's house for several hours later.

When I tell folks what I do, they think that I have a very difficult, dangerous job.  I have to admit that about 10% of the people I deal with are both difficult and dangerous.  Mr. B's not one of them.  He is someone who has a mental illness.  He has had a very hard life and was grief stricken over personal  losses  as well as his past mistakes.

I think I might have felt overwhelmed by his deep pain a year ago.  However, now that I live on Grace Street, I know (really know deep down) that God's grace is sufficient for me.  Grace is further with me in that I can share Christ on the job in so many ways without breaking any rules.

The folks I am privileged to work with are the lepers of 2013.  Society covers them with a label, decides that they are beyond redemption, and basically considers them throw-away people.  They are not.  And I know that if Jesus walked the earth today, he would be among them with love and not condemnation.

I left Mr. B. after a half hour.  We dug out the large print Bible a pastor had given him.  He looked up at me, using my title, and said "Please recommend where I should start reading today."  I answer a lot of questions all day, but this was the best question EVER.

Last Friday, I met with a man who had been in prison for many years.  He was developmentally delayed and had schizophrenia.  While in prison he somehow fell (in circumstances which are probably best not thought about), broke his neck, and severed his spinal cord.

The Department of Corrections released him to a nursing home.   He still has to fulfill statutory requirements, I explained everything I was doing for him in the simplest way possible, as I took fingerprints and a picture.. When I was leaving his room, he smiled a big toothless grin at me and managed to say, "Thanks."  He doesn't talk a lot, but showed me grace in the effort it took for him to say that.

Grace Street...it is where I want to live all the time.

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
Matthew 25:35 -40

Here in VA we are seeing our first glimpse of sun in about a week.  Talk about 50 shades of gray...that's all we've been seeing for days:  pearly gray, slate gray, charcoal gray, gray skies, grey -looking water in all the creeks and rivers all around just, um, gray.

If Hampton Roads (or Tidewater depending on what you call it) Virginia was a color card at Benjamin Moore last week, it would look like this:

All week long.  Alllllll weeeeeeeeeek looooooooooooooooong.

Today, partly cloudy is lookin' pretty good!

No Matter What, Trust God

Oh my gosh, did I fall down laughing when I received this emailed pic. The "Karate Kid" you see here on the railroad tracks is my sweet Lauren from next door.  She's away serving her county right now, but sent this to me.

Lauren and Liz moved in next door after Genesis and her family were evicted.  I mourned over that, but then God firmly let me know that the time for crying was over.  What a delight "the girls" as we call them have been to us.

Lauren is one of the most joyful and spontaneous people I have ever met.  She had told me that she was looking for a rocking chair for the front porch of her Craftsman bungalow which used to be the mother-in-law's house for my house.

Somehow she found a rocker.  I don't know about your area, but here in mine, folks put handmade religious signs along the side of the road.  Sometimes they even paint the side of a barn with "God loves you" or something like that.  I guess Lauren temporarily pulled one up and set the rocker on the railroad tracks.  This is typical of her fey and impish sense of humor,

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding
Proverbs 3:5

Leading Me Beside the Still Waters

Today I drove the back way from Portsmouth Police Department, detoured by road construction,  Things have been so harried for the past 48 hours, with a number of folks whom I work with having emergent issues needing my attention.  As my mind raced through what must be accomplished next, I looked quickly to my left and a creek so calm that the trees and buildings were mirrored in the water.

He leadeth me beside the still waters.  He restoreth my soul...

This is life today on Owens Creek, life as it has been for hundreds of years.  Egrets and sea birds feed in this tidal estuary  The tide is going out, out to the Elizabeth River, to the Chesapeake Bay, to the Atlantic Ocean.  

There's no need to be harried when I can refresh myself beside these waters, click some cell phone pics, and restore my soul.

We'll Have a Nice Cup of Tea

My grandmother, Helen, got me started on drinking tea when I was very young.  Her next door neighbor, Bride (an Irish nickname for Bridget) Tierney, would always have a cup of tea for us and some cookies, while Pinkie the cat delicately washed her face with her paw under the table.  

The light would stream in from the two windows that the table was pushed up against.  Helen and Bride would chatter away as I kicked red Keds against the chair legs.  Bride's kitchen clock was loud and that tick tocking punctuates my memories of that time and place.  Her husband, Phil, was a very kind man.  He cut my grandparent's lawn.  Bride always called him "Philtierney," as if that was his first name.

Bride was from Ireland and what with my grandmother's Irish heritage, they were fast friends.  Helen was a junk store shopper before it was cool.  She bought me a vintage china tea pot with roses on it and two matching cups when I was ten.  Somewhere along the line, maybe in move from CT to NY, that little set was lost.  But my affinity for rose teapots remains, as you can see above.

Ghost Sign: Uneeda Biscuit

I adore these old signs on the sides of buildings. City planners refer to them as "ghost signs."

This Uneeda Biscuit sign is in Richmond, across the street from St. John's Church in which Patrick Henry famously said, "Give me liberty or give me death!"  In some really enlightened areas, preservationists restore these old advertising remnants found in inner cities.

Uneeda Biscuit was a Nabisco product first produced in 1898,  Uneeda seems to be associated with health or considered soothing to eat during an illness. Graham crackers were thought of in the same way years ago. i don't need to be sick to have an excuse to eat graham crackers dipped in milk.  Nabisco stopped making Uneeda Biscuits in 2008. At least Twinkies are coming back...

These are vanishing bits of Americana.  Sometimes I wonder if we will be just like the ancient Egyptians. Long into the future, some archaeologist will attempt to decipher our old hieroglyphs.  There are so many of these kinds of ads for treats that they'll surmise we worshiped food.

 

Dairy Delivery

I am pleased by little things.  Whether it is the first time Pumpkin Lattes are available at Starbucks each year or looking Richmond's row houses while on a walk or the sound of the mourning dove, certain little things that others may disregard or not even notice, make me happy.

Anything that reminds me of growing up makes me happy.  Honeysuckle bushes at the beach that put me back at Black Point, maple sugar candy, red Keds...and home milk delivery.  We used to get home milk delivery on Knollwood Road in a box just like the one pictured above.

So imagine my total nostalgic happiness when I found that Oberweis Dairy now makes home delivery in my area.  And can I just say, that's some of the best yogurt and cottage cheese in the cooler EVER.

I do wish this wasn't a gray Coleman's cooler and a cool metal milk box, but I think I can fix this by visiting Ebay.

Mountain Dairy in Storrs, CT stopped delivering milk in 2012...they started in 1851.  According the milk industry analysts, as of 2005, less than half of one percent of all Americans purchased milk via home delivery.  When I was a kid it was about 30%.  

So while one can't get home milk delivery back where I started out, I can here. The milk box and the milk man (with the dread locks) don't look exactly the same, but I can revive an old tradition.  And that makes me really happy.  The glass milk bottles are amazingly nostalgic and I LOVE pouring the milk into my coffee.

Learn more here:

http://articles.courant.com/2012-10-26/business/hc-mountain-dairy-home-delivery-20121025_1_milk-truck-marcus-dairy-dairy-moves

The Scoop - Ten Random Thoughts in Ten Minutes

One of the highlights of my morning is when Bruce brings me a large coffee with milk and Splenda.  The other is that Lulu is the snuggling queen of the morning.  My life would be much less spectacular without her.

Sometimes I get the blues on Sunday night.  I think it is a leftover from when I didn’t want to go back to school.

My niece is a remarkable young woman…just saying.

My mother has done an amazing job since my Papa’s death.  I am really proud of her.

In the past few weeks I have been in the ER twice with a pinched nerve in my neck and a foreign object in my eye.  I’ve also had a cold.  And I’m done now.

My cottage garden is at its best just now.  I have to get a pic.

The other day we went to the Naval Hospital so I could go to a follow up appointment with the eye doctor.  We could not find our car in the very large parking garage afterwards.  Instead of freaking out and frantically searching for the car in the heat and humidity, this time I did something different.  We went back in and had scrumptious breakfast croissant sandwiches with bacon and eggs inside which nearly made me swoon at the Dancing Goat Café.  The goat is the Naval Academy Football Team mascot.  An “old goat” is also a term for a Chief Petty Officer, quite apropos in this case.  We read magazines from the NEX convenience store.  Bruce read about the surface of Mars.  I learned how to make Vietnamese steamed spring rolls.  Then we  called a cab.  Best eight bucks spent EVER.  We waited until the evening , drove back, and picked up the car when the garage was nearly empty.

I am no longer a rookie officer.  I finished my first year with very good evals.  I am proud of myself.

The other day was such a lovely day on the Eastern Shore with my family.  I am blessed, blessed, blessed to have them.  We went to Scoops, an adorable ice cream shop pictured.

Trip to Virginia's Eastern Shore

Virginia's Eastern Shore isn't too far, just a ride over the Chesapeake Bay-Bridge Tunnel, one of the wonders of the modern world

We started out at Starbucks for breakfast...Bruce, Mom, Piper (niece), and me.  Mom is a Dunkin' girl, so now I have proof positive that she has gone over the the dark side.  

Then we headed for the Bay Bridge Tunnel.  The traffic was a little dicey for a few minutes.  However, one can hardly complain about traffic when you have this view out the car window:

We drove through all sorts of quaint little country towns, past cornfields as high as an elephant's eye, and combines harvesting wheat.  

We stopped for lunch at 

This restaurant is in Nassawadox, VA, a very special family-run eatery with excellent service and Italian food.

http://francolittleitaly.com/

Mom, Piper, and me out front.

Then on we went, further up the Eastern Shore

This is the Inn and Garden Cafe in Onancock, VA.  Isn't it lovely?

http://www.theinnandgardencafe.com/

An Early Summer's Night Dinner

Looking at this idyllic shot, you might think that we were in some National Park or out in the western part of Virginia where people, cars, and buildings are more scarce than my Tidewater region.

Instead, we were at one of our very favorite spots, Kelly's at Great Bridge.  I should tell you that I don't get any freebies or rewards from mentioning businesses like Kelly's or Fresh Market.  I love to record my days and the special things that make my life grand, not provide product or restaurant reviews.

We were really right here, in what has to be one of the most beautifully-located restaurants in my area.  Something about it reminds me of the Podunk Mill Club, a restaurant on the Connecticut River which no longer exists.  Once when I was perhaps 7, I asked for ketchup and the chef came out and had a cow.

I had a pasta dish with crab and shrimp.  Bruce had a burger piled high with roasted red peppers and an aioli sauce. Fab.

You can almost see how humid it was.  This is the view from the porch along the Intercoastal Waterway, the 3,000 mile waterway which flows down the Atlantic Coast to the Gulf of Mexico.  We chose an inside table along the Chesapeake and Albermarle Canal here below:

The Canal was completed just before the Civil War and linked VA waterways with North Carolina and the Currituck Sound.

A boat on the Canal...

Condos on the Intercoastal...

Fresh Market

The Fresh Market is a wonderful chain of smaller grocery stores that sell baked goods, prime meat and seafood, prepared foods to take home for dinner, and organic produce.

I don't shop Fresh Market as a routine practice, but stop in at the one nearby Mom's when she is in town. We meander around commenting on the giant artichokes, or the lovely little organic cucumbers, or whatever catches our fancy at the time.  

Yesterday, I was in with Mom to pick up some Revolution Earl Grey Lavender tea which is perhaps the best tea EVER.  So many gourmet and unusual foods abound that it is hard to take everything in at one time.

Yesterday Mom and I saw cucumber soda, blood orange soda, and lavender soda!  We picked up the lavender soda to give it a try. Both of us delight int that sort of thing, so I guess I came by it naturally.

One of Fresh Market's unique features are little "rooms" that they have up high near the ceiling.  Conventional markets often display lawn chairs and coolers or other seasonal items in such spaces.

Here is Fresh Market's take on it:

The produce is amazing...

Happy Independence Day

Pics taken during a recent drive to Richmond.

Our National Anthem - Second Verse

And thus be it ever

Where free men may stand

Between their loved homes

And the war's desolation

Blessed with victory and peace

May the heaven's-rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made  

And preserved us a nation 

Then triumph we must

For our cause it is just

And this be our motto

In God is our trust

And the star spangled banner

In triumph will wave

O'er the land of the free

And the home of the brave

LET FREEDOM RING

Leave Things Better Than When You Came In

Okay...full disclosure.  This pic I took has nothing to do with the post whatsoever.  However, it is a very gray day as I type this, so I added this as a little pick-me-up. I took this shot on a weekend drive.  I'm not positive, but I think these flowers were in Smithfield, VA.

My grandmother used to say that you should leave a room better than you found it.  What she meant was that you should do a quick visual sweep of the room to see if you could throw out the Hartford Courant that everyone had already read or pick up your sneakers and leave them on the landing to go upstairs.  My father would sarcastically remark about this idea, "And some people make the room better just by leaving it."

Anyway, I always remember that and her admonition to keep the sink clear of dishes because this was a key  to keeping the whole house clean.  To this day, I cannot leave the house or go to sleep with dishes in the sink.  As New Yorkers say, "It skeeves me out."

The other day, I was making a visual sweep of the dining room on my way upstairs. I had left my Bible on the dining room table. I felt the Lord speak to my spirit quietly saying, "Take your Bible upstairs with you and it will leave you better than if you left it here."  Which reminds me of the old saying that if your Bible looks spiffy on the outside, you don't look so good on the inside.  Conversely, those with the underlined, booked marked, highlighted pages and the spine taped with duct tape (a la my Papa) looked pretty good on the inside.

I will delight in the law of the Lord, I will meditate day and night.  Then like a tree, firmly planted I'll be - grounded it Your word.