Fairly Blossoming

How can you not relish an event that welcomes you with a two-story inflatable vanilla soft-serve cone? County fair and carnival all rolled into one, this midway featured not tilt-a-whirls, home-grown sows or berry pies, but flowers, plants, tropicals and still more hanging flowers. Get a bunch of plant lovers together; add gorgeous flowers, good prices and kettle corn to the mix and you get a frenzy of excitement!

Friends drove me fifty miles away to Florence where the Southern Plant and Flower Festival was being held at the Pee Dee State Farmers Market. Just makes you smile, doesn’t it? We arrived not long after the opening hour, but the parking lots were already full and we were directed to the last row in a field. We got out of the van and started walking as fast as three “mature” women can walk without actually running. People were already loading up their cars and we were afraid they would sell out before we could even get started.

When we arrived at the ice cream cone, I realized I had nothing to worry about. I have never seen so many plants and flowers in one place. We slowed down to a reasonable walking pace and I began to chat with people on either side of me. Can I just make a personal observation here? That is not my normal inclination, but folks here are just so friendly, you can’t resist the urge to pass a little time with them as you walk along.

Beautiful hanging baskets swung in a warm breeze and palm trees nodded at a lazy pace. Ferns waiting to be hung on front porches stood in potted rows. Flowering bedding plants of every kind lined up and begged for attention. They were all there – tropicals, orchids, begonias, vincas, geraniums, banana trees, bamboo, petunias, Shasta daisies, impatiens and more kinds of ferns than I realized exist.

I stood for just a moment and savored the sheer gentle, nostalgic quality of the scene. Everyone pulled red wagons full of favorites and sweet southern voices good-naturedly complained about the early heat. An occasional squeal of excitement over a discovery was balanced by the rise and fall of quiet laughter as plant-loving friends met by surprise.

We pulled our three red wagons full of ferns and flowers back to the van and then made two more return trips. When the van could hold not even one more bedding plant, we made our way through the craft and food booths in the center of the farmers’ market. We talked ourselves out of handmade bird houses and sampled dip made with Willie’s Hog Dust. (Good stuff, by the way. I bought a bottle.)

Tired and dusty, we decided to grab lunch and head for home. We staked out a place at a picnic table and feasted on hot dogs, hamburgers, French fries and funnel cake. It was one of my favorite days in my new home state.

And I left with my head held high! I sailed right past the fried Snickers and Milky Way candy bars without stopping.

The Sewing Cabinet

It sat for weeks in my garage, collecting dust. I couldn't let it go but I wasn't sure where to put it. My mother’s sewing cabinet. When someone dear dies, those possessions they leave behind become precious. My mom was a person of very few belongings. She lived on very little income. This was her choice and I respected her for it.

What money and things she received usually passed straight through her hands into someone else’s. She put Matthew 6:19-21, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”, into daily practice.

One of the things I most treasure of hers is the old sewing cabinet. It’s not a priceless antique and it’s a fairly simple looking piece of furniture. And some of you will think my memories that are associated with it are morbid. You see, it’s where she kept all her last instructions for me – life insurance, memorial service details, paperwork. And each time I went home, we would go to the little desk and she would pull out the drawers and show me where everything was.

My mom and I had viewed her death as just one more long trip. We believe this life on earth is the journey and at the end we are returning home. She was excited about it and I was able to be as well because I knew it represented complete freedom from pain, peace and joy and reunion for her.

Also, my dad died when I was twenty and I am an only child. So all those details she worked out were her way of protecting me as much as she could. She didn’t want me to have to deal with them after she was gone and I was grateful for that.

But there was something else. Last night I was sitting on the porch trying to figure out why the little chest meant so much. Then I remembered the year it came.

We were not wealthy by any means but we always had enough and Christmas was always an exciting time at my house because my Daddy would spring little surprises on us. I would climb into the back seat of the car to go to Sunday School and there would be a box of Christmas chocolates. One year he bought little iced cakes decorated with sugar holly and candles from the bakery just for fun. We would drive to the country and fill the car with holly and mistletoe.

I was about five years old the year the truck pulled up in front of the house and delivered the package. It seemed huge to me and, thinking back, it must have been at least six or seven feet tall. I was beside myself to know what was in it. I knew it was for Mother and it sat in our kitchen, the only room that would hold it. For days we stared at it, trying to guess.

I pleaded with Daddy to tell me what was in it. And guess what – he did! He impressed upon me the need to keep the secret, but he told me it was a sewing machine in a refrigerator box. I felt so important, sharing this confidence.

Thinking back now, I am so humbled by that trust. It had to have been a very dear and expensive gift for him to give. And the surprise must have been so important to him. And yet he trusted me with it. And I kept it. And it further cemented the degree of love and trust between the two of us.

So now, the little cabinet sits on my porch, a reminder of the love, the Christmas memories and the trust.

The Kindness of Time

Sometimes the past jumps up and bites you – it’s surprising, painful and regrettable. But sometimes it washes over you with a kindness that comes with the passing of time. It covers your vision with a nostalgic patina viewed through experience and the hard-earned wisdom, finally, of what’s really important after all.

Anyone who has had a close family member or friend die will tell you that the first few weeks of grief are raw and invasive. You feel the need to remember as a measure of respect, but the memories are just too painful. As time grinds down the tender, hard edges, the softer memories come creeping in one-by-one. And after enough time, you are left with sweetness – those few select memories that you are willing to hold close and examine.

My young friends have for some time been urging me to open a Facebook account. I refused to give in for so long. But, to steal an appropriate line from my friend Donna, resistance is futile. Part of the reason I held off for so long is that I know my personality and I knew (and I was right) that it would become a major time sponge. But the flip side is that I can be online with my friends from Northern Virginia that I so miss and I can pretend that I will once again see them in church on Sunday morning. The other great pleasure has been in rediscovering friends from my past. I made just such a connection today and I am carrying that glow of nostalgia – my past looked at through eyes that know what’s really important.

Because in truth, we simply cannot deny the importance of the details of our growing up. They are in us, deep, and we can ignore them or pretend they never happened but they have helped to shape who we became.

Take hounds for instance. I was raised with beagles, lots of them. My daddy was a hunter and he kept a pack of beagles. I didn’t see much of them because they stayed in a pen down in the back, but I did have a beagle that was my pet in the house. When she died, I got a bassett hound. Hounds were always there for me to wrap my arms around and exult with or cry to.

My fondest memory of my daddy is of one Sunday morning when he got me out of Sunday School and we sneaked back home during church. Understand, we never missed church and this added to the spirit of adventure. One of the beagles had puppies and they were being weened. He needed to feed them and we gave them several saucers of milk. They knocked them over, lapped up the milk and began to lick the extra off each other’s faces. We laughed until we cried.

I grew up and moved on to cats and cocker spaniels. Over the last few years, though, I found myself yearning for a hound. When Chloe, my coonhound, came up on the rescue website, I was lost. I fell instantly in love with her because she so reconnected me with my past.

I guess the beauty of rediscovered past for me is that I see family and friends through different eyes. We’ve all grown older, some chubbier, some thinner, some balder; but I see them through gentler eyes. I see fewer defects, idiosyncrasies and flaws because I see the good things I remember and I know the other stuff just doesn’t matter. Time mellows.

Cookies for Me

School started this week here in South Carolina. The beginning of the routine, the mad dash for school supplies, the busses running again, it always makes me remember...

First day of kindergarten. In Hawaii. My son walked away from me and onto the bus and I stood there struggling with all the emotions I was hoping I’d escaped – the sense that he was on the path to adulthood, the quiet lonely kitchen I was returning to, middle school, high school graduation, college, marriage – it all came crashing into my tear-filled eyes.

I walked home with my baby girl in the stroller and took the first of countless glances I would take at the clock that day. I paced. I told myself that I needed the extra time to spend with only my daughter. Then the answer occurred to me! He loved chocolate chip cookies. I would pull a batch out of the oven just in time for his bus. We could come home and talk about his day over cookies and cold milk! And, true enough, our time together that day was sweet.

The next year as he was entering first grade, we were a world away from that beautiful place. Steve was in the Army and we found ourselves on the east coast in New Jersey. I felt a small twinge of worry as I dropped him off at school – new school, new state, new friends. How would he adjust? However, my mind quickly eased because I already had my bag of chocolate chips in the pantry.

As each school year approached, my emotions changed. I was again torn when my daughter started kindergarten. But as my kids got older, I didn’t mind those first days of school. Can we be honest here? I’ll confess I began to look forward to those days and the peace and quiet in my house before the after-school piano lessons started.

And there were always the cookies. Every year. My own gift to my kids. My way of welcoming them home from their first day of school.

As they began to get older, I noticed that sometimes they would grab a handful and head out the kitchen door. Gone were the days of family circles around the table with cookies and milk and talk about teachers and new friends. Soon they forgot to thank me for the cookies. Then one day, they were out with friends after that first day of school and the cookies sat untouched until after dinner.

Here’s the funny thing – this story is not nearly as depressing as it sounds. We still shared our lives but in different ways. I realized during those last few years that the cookies were for me – my way of marking time, of setting tradition, of providing a stabilizing influence. Who knew the tradition, the encouragement was for me?

How many times do we take issues, worries about someone to God? We try to “fix them”. We pray for them – surely if I pray enough, he’ll change, she’s got to know she’s wrong in this. And we go to God’s Word to prove our point, to be able to show that we are right. And the more we read, the more God says, “Are you listening? This is about you and I’ve been teaching you.”

So now my kids are grown and gone. But do you know what’s amazing? I never approach the Tuesday after Labor Day without a moment of wistful remembering. And I’ve been known to bake a cookie or two.

Full Circle with a Samaritan

I could have fallen in love with Steve’s dark eyes and hair. Or his big burgundy Mercury Marquis with the 8-track player. He was the only boy I had ever known that wore jeans and a corduroy blazer to class…in the 70’s – just wasn’t done but it was very sexy. I was attracted to all those things about him.

But the deal clincher happened the night of our first date. We were going out for a coke and a movie. We drove to the Tastee Freeze and sat for a bit and then started the short drive back to the little town movie theater to see Funny Girl. Along the way we passed a man with car trouble on the side of the road by Henderson College. Henderson was across the street from Ouachita where we both attended classes.

We pulled into a parking place downtown and walked to the theater. When we were almost at the ticket booth, he turned to me and said, “It may make us late, but would you mind too much if we drove back to help that man out with his car?” I told him that would be fine and we drove back. Thirty-nine years have passed and I can’t remember whether we were in fact late or even whether the man was still there and we helped him. But Steve’s concern so struck me that I called my mom that night and told her I had met the man I was going to marry.

Tonight we drove the golf cart to the community center to attend a benefit dinner. The skies were darkening the way they do so many early evenings here, but we didn’t care. We just figured we’d stay through the storm that would no doubt blow through quickly. Or we’d try to outrun it. Or, what fun, just drive home in it.

Sure enough the storm hit hard and fast as we were finishing our peach cobbler. We sat and visited for a bit; then Steve got antsy to get home and I was ready to sit on the back porch for the duration.

We went out to the front porch and I started laughing. Usually when we go to some affair or other at the center, there are at least 30 or so golf carts lined up in a row and a few cars scattered around. Tonight every parking space was filled with a car and there sat our soggy little cart alone on the grass – a testament to our being community newcomers.

The rain was pouring, the lightning was flashing, the seats were wet and the water was already standing in several-inch-deep puddles. Steve told me to stay put and he bolted across the sloppy lawn to get the cart for me. They are wonderfully adaptable little machines and he made a big circle around the lot and across the grass and pulled up onto the front porch to get me. There were several amused looks as Steve and I flew off into the rain, wet and laughing.

However we only got as far as the end of the community center street when he stopped and turned to me and said, “There’s a man back there whose wife is disabled and I think he’s struggling in this rain. Would you mind if we went back and gave him a hand?” I said of course not and we went back and Steve used the cart to transport her to the front porch. And I held back nostalgic tears of pride and gratitude that God had given me this good Samaritan of a man whose heart is so very tender.

Certainly we have had years of anger and frustration. There have been years when we have been strangers to one another. But we have endured. And tonight I felt like we came full circle at this most happy time of our lives together. I praise God for giving me this good and perfect gift of a man who cares about people.

Real Heat

No devotional today. And no, this is not my opinion on gun control. These July days remind me of my growing up years in Arkansas. Hot, wet, pray-for-rain-to-cool-things-off days. As a quick aside, I have to be honest and give my Arkansas cousins their due. They're enduring heat right now that puts ours in South Carolina in the shade. (I know. It's my mother in me. ) I'm talking about heat that rises on squiggly lines off the road in front of you, leaving a water oasis that disappears as you near.

I remember sleeping on an old iron bed in the front room at my grandma's house when I was growing up. Big attic fan roaring. A slight breeze from the open window would blow the curtains inward. Life was safer then and we had nothing to fear.

Here in South Carolina, our blinds stay closed on days like this, leaving a dark house that reminds me of the big old southern houses in the movies that were always dark in the heat of the day. Old bloodhounds or coonhounds passed out from the heat on the front porch. Tall glasses filled with ice and something exotic to drink topped with a mint leaf or two.

Late afternoon the clouds seem thicker and we go out into the yard and stare up. Are they getting darker or is that just wishful thinking? Sometimes the storms start with no warning, simply huge raindrops that appear. Usually though, it's the wind that we hear first. I run for my rocker on the back porch and settle in - excitement comes easily in South Carolina.

Our porch is screened across the back and the left sides which leaves easy access for the wind to moan through. The wind chimes hide in the corner; so even a hard wind brings only a low tone or two. A post shows me how quickly the clouds are racing. I watch the darkest part of the sky for the lightening.

Flashes satisfy me but I get up and pace for streaks. My mother willed me an interesting attitude about lightening. She loved the stuff. Before I was born, my dad would take her to our little hometown airport that had a hill and they would sit and watch lightening storms. On the other hand she raised me with respect and fear - the whole package - stay away from the windows, don't use the phone, don't take a shower. Basically what she left me was a desire to experience something that I awe and respect. (Yes, I'm resisting the urge to turn this into a devotional after all. But isn't that the way faith is?)

So I pace and rock and watch the show for as long as I can stand it, until the fear kicks in and I race for the inside. By this point the rain is usually coming in sheets and the porch is half-wet anyway.

Once the storm blows over, we head out in the golf cart to enjoy the cleanness of it all, until the heat and humidity take over and start the whole process again. I love South Carolina.

Southern Turtles

I’ve come full circle in so many ways since moving back to the South. Take turtles, for instance. I grew up in Arkansas where turtles always ambled across the streets and highways. I had forgotten them until I took a trip home to visit my relatives. I was following Steve’s folks home from dinner when I lagged behind because I stopped to pick up a turtle and move him across the street.

You don’t see many turtles in northern Virginia. They’re either very smart or very dead. One look at a road there will tell them it isn’t safe. The dangers are obvious and many. The swamps and woods offer the best protection.

In South Carolina turtles generally approach the edge of the road and see a clear way, though I’m fairly sure they don’t check both directions. They step out, slowly…always…and begin the long journey to the other side.

Dangers approach without warning on rural Carolina roads. Cars that are coming are coming fast. And yet the turtle has rarely calculated his odds before stepping out. Either I help him across, the next driver swerves or the turtle is airborne. (I prefer not to address the other scenario.)

We often sidestep sin rather easily by avoiding the road with the vehicles flying by. The signs flash a warning. To go that way is obviously dangerous; it’s easy to bypass. It’s when the highway seems most clear, when we are drifting along without any concern or thought of wrong – considering ourselves relatively flawless and feeling smug about the fact – that we are most likely to get hit.

It’s when I’m feeling pious and holy that I’m most likely to lash out in impatience or say something snippy. When my guard is down, my pride is usually up. Doors to gossip, judging, and hypocrisy slide open. And wham! My mouth gets me in trouble. Oops, did I say that out loud? I look at someone in the store and form a wayward opinion. I treat someone in a shabby way. Bottom line…I find that I’m not at all that person I thought I was. My mom was right when she told me to look both ways.

Romans 7:15, 17-20, 24; 8:1-2
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do…As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it…What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

The Music of Sound

Is silence golden? You bet. It can be, anyway. When I need to get quiet in my spirit, I need quiet in my ears. When I want to feel the full brunt of anger or self-pity, I'm better off in silence. If there is no noise, no music to encourage my downward spiral, God will quickly draw me out and up.

Most of the time, music has filled my life. From "Glow Little Glow-Worm" and "Mr. Sandman" when I was a small child to Elvis, the Beatles, Otis Redding and Carla Thomas, Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane, on and on. Rock fueled my teen-aged rebellion. It was an embarrassingly mild one - music's being the only form it took. I didn't even have a driver's license! But while my peers were driving fast, testing alcohol, breaking curfew, I turned up the volume behind my bedroom door.

With the piano lessons came a love of classical music and an appreciation for the precision and analytical mind of J.S. Bach. His was truly inspired creation. 60's soul warred with the Beatles for my time. As a young adult, I moved to CSN&Y, Fleetwood Mac, Cat Stevens. Disco came and eventually gave way to another rebellion at forty. I discovered Pink Floyd, the Cure, and Van Halen. Over the years my kids introduced me to Pearl Jam, Squirrel Nut Zippers, Jane's Addiction and Fiona Apple.

And through it all, every October through December Christmas rang throughout the house. Traditional, pop, country - it didn't matter. For me the message was the same.

Then I lost my Mom. Sounds strange that it should so affect my life, but I became someone else. The music stopped. But the faith set in.

On a trip South with my friend, Michelle, I tentatively pulled out my Cure and Pure Funk CDs. Out came her collection of contemporary Christian and I was hooked. It dominates my listening time now.

But in the morning and at sunset, when I rock on the porch, it's the sounds that make my music. Away from the white noise of suburban life and sirens and trash trucks, it starts as silence. My ears begin to notice new music - the short chirp of a cardinal, the whistling, whirring noise of the wings of startled mourning doves as they take flight, the plaintive honks of geese overhead. A wind bringing rain sounds wild; the breeze after the storm signals peace. I've heard the roar of an alligator and the springing sound of tree toads - like children jumping on old mattresses. South Carolina music.