Dear Reader:

One of my students gave me this eyeglass holder years ago. It sits by my computer to ‘supposedly’ hold one of umpteen pairs of reading glasses that I own…or it is supposed to…but each morning when I reach for a pair of reading glasses…it is empty.

I honestly drive myself ‘nutty’ over things like finding one pair of reading glasses everyday before I start work on the blog.

Here I have this nice eyeglass holder completely empty…some days I feel like it actually taunts me …mocking me with its emptiness.  My ‘lame-brained’ mind appears to amuse the eye- glass-holder endlessly…since I am ‘endlessly’ searching for one pair of glasses when I own at least half a dozen at any one time.

My problem? I am a “take it with you” walking disaster. For some unknown reason I never leave a pair of reading glasses in the holder or even  somewhere else…like in close proximity to the computer….’Oh No’ …that would be way too easy and  too logical for me. I can’t make my life easier with something as simple as putting down my reading glasses before departing.

For example…if I have to stop and use the restroom…instead of leaving my glasses on the computer desk…I will find them, much later, by the side of the tub or by the sink where I dropped them. Or let’s say I get hungry…off go my eyeglasses to the kitchen to appear minutes, hours, or days later on the dining room table under bills or on the dishwasher cabinet shelf.

If I could retrieve my eyeglasses through memory recall (which I can never do) it would be like solving a maze. I would watch myself take off with one pair of reading glasses, locate another pair, while losing another and so on and so on and so on. I am mental mush when it comes to keeping up with… and then retrieving… daily articles and objects in life.

So on my self-analysis evaluation PRO and CON list….I would have to put “Losing Things” under Con. But to be kind to myself I would have to put “Connecting Things” under Pro.

If given enough time I feel fairly certain that I can connect anything to anything or anyone to anything. I love connections!

My number one personal conviction (that I will take with me when I pass on)….my strongest belief is that everything and everyone are connected. It is only when we pass through the next world’s portal that I believe it will all unveil itself in grand majesty before us. The world’s connection, between all life forms, and then, especially, between us and God.

While reading through a PBS email showing dates and times for upcoming programs  (I am too excited that season 5 of Downtown Abby starts tonight at 9:00!) I came across a program title that intrigued me. It contained a short video clip by the author of the book (upon which the program exists) and some information on the author.

I was immediately intrigued…. I had to order the book! (Now do you see why my bookshelves refuse to stay void and empty…even diminished?)

 Steven Johnson has a six-episode documentary airing on Wednesday evenings on PBS which addresses the history of the creations which got us to “Now.” They are episodes on 1) clean 2) cold 3) glass 4) light 5) sound and 6) time.

Steven Johnson narrates this documentary and is such a wonderful storyteller that he makes us all realize that we, unknowingly, by sharing a thought or idea with another…could have started a chain reaction to the development of an “invention” that could change the world.

The vast majority of gigantic change-makers over the past several centuries have been invented by ordinary people, that most of us have never heard of…who had extraordinary and diversified interests that allowed them to see connections where other did not.

They didn’t have to be geniuses to do it…the people who started and/or continued chain reactions from one idea to another were people with lots of different interests or hobbies that provided the innovative opportunities to see connections and how they could be used to improve the world!

If you are wondering where all of this is leading….well, the “connection” leads us right back to my reading glasses…but through an indirect route…the invention of the printing press. Gotcha!

The history of ideas and innovation unfolds the same way. Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press created a surge in demand for spectacles, as the new practice of reading made Europeans across the continent suddenly realize that they were farsighted; the market demand for spectacles encouraged a growing number of people to produce and experiment with lenses, which led to the invention of the microscope, which shortly thereafter enabled us to perceive that our bodies were made up of microscopic cells.

You wouldn’t think that printing technology would have anything to do with the expansion of our vision down to the cellular scale, just as you wouldn’t have thought that the evolution of pollen would alter the design of a hummingbird’s wing. But that is the way change happens.

(Excerpt from Steven Johnson’s How We Got to Now)

When we “connect the dots in life”…two differing ideas that come together, don’t we all get goose bumps…It is like we just got a “hint of something bigger” than us floating around in the universe and we got a sense or even perhaps a glimpse of it for a microsecond.

Personally I think this is what our God’s Winks are….God is showing us a “hint of something bigger” for just a moment in our lives. A “hint” to encourage us to think bigger and be more accepting of ideas beyond our imagination.

So until tomorrow….Let us be open to these spiritual “hints”, these God’s Winks of a world outside our own that will one day show us how we are all one and all connected.

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

* As sad as it has been taking down Christmas decorations…I must admit that it has given me a chance to switch around some decor and even bring something new to the mix.

  As you start down the steps to my “Happy Room” I have a painting of a bottle tree that Mollie gave me several Christmases ago. (love it!) There is a vacant spot by it so I added one of the extra Ernest Lee (a.k.a.) “Chicken Man’s” painting…this one of our palmetto tree. It makes me smile….. I love my Chicken Man.

 And then because we saw a few glimmers of sun yesterday afternoon…my overloaded four- blossom amaryllis got the strength to start looking up…maybe tomorrow all four blooms will have a “pretty in pink smile” !

I got these beautiful green hydrangeas for Christmas…there is something so peaceful about their color…the blooms seem to set the tone for the new year.

Finally…a bush that sits right on the property line between me and my neighbor is filling up with camellia sasanquas….since I can reach the blooms from my side…I made up a new ordinance yesterday…”If it is on the line…it’s mine.”

I cut three beautiful blooms and put them is Kaitlyn’s “magical vase” that can tilt every which way without spilling any water.

All this beauty and change assure me the new year brings much joy from God’s garden. A “hint of something bigger” that is to come!