Dear Reader:

Isn’t it nice to know that in this life we get second chances to understand things… perhaps we never understood the first time around?

It is similar to returning to a childhood home or your grandparents’ home that you remembered so clearly being huge, exciting, and filled with all kinds of trinkets to mystify small children. Only decades later, while looking at it through the eyes of an adult…the house has shrunk, the roof and exterior walls have seen hard times, and the ambiance that once enveloped each room of the home is void and the house feels lifeless and cold.

That is when we all learn a very important lesson in life… that our most favorite places on earth aren’t about the scenery or even a structure…it is about our favorite people who once lived there. That is what we are trying to recapture-the association with people we loved…and what we never can accomplish on this side of life…because those loved ones have passed on.

A “surcie” (southern term) is a little surprise that comes out of nowhere but adds a smile to our day. (Like Stephanie bringing me the Devil’s Trumpet plant last Saturday.)

 Archibald Rutledge called God’s surprises or God Winks….“Life’s Extras.”

I never let this little book get far from my side. It has a special place on top of the built-in book shelf on my computer desk.

An introduction to the book exclaims:

*Archibald Rutledge, author, Poet Laureate of S.C. and one-time owner of Hampton Plantation!

A wonderful little book of meditations which illustrates Rutledge’s love of nature, his deep faith and his spiritual vision. This is a sweet little book of reveries on the blessings that lie in the little unnecessary things of life.

Creation supplies us with just two kinds of things: necessities and extras. This book is one of the extras for which the reader will resolve to be a better person. *Great for gift giving and personal inspiration, this book was once given by Henry Ford to all twenty-five thousand of his employees.

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One day Rutledge had an epiphany and the more he thought about it, the “more it appeared that Creation supplies us with only two kinds of things; necessities and extras. Sunlight, air, water, food, shelter-these are among the bare necessities. With them we can exist. But moonlight and starlight are distinctly extras; so are music, the perfumes, flowers. The wind is perhaps a necessity; but the song it croons through the morning pines is a different thing.”

In one of Rutledge’s stories he relates an incident when he was visiting a friend who lived in a lonely cabin in the North Carolina mountains…he had gotten into some legal trouble and Rutledge wanted to check on his family and make sure everyone was okay. He describes the journey up to his home:

“As I went up the old gullied mountain road, I noticed in the wild glen…that the rhododendrons were in blossom. There may be a more beautiful flower, but I have not seen it…To look at this wondrous flower and not feel that God exquisitely designed it, is to me incredible.”

When he entered the cabin he introduced himself to his friend’s sister. Over the humble mantle he saw a little photograph of his friend in uniform, and then beside it, in a small bottle that served as a vase, Rutledge saw a sprig of a rhododenron blosson.

Rutledge casually mentioned how much he liked rhododenrons. His hostess watched him staring at the flower and  replied, “I don’t know why, but just to have it there helps me. It ‘minds me of God.’

(Rutledge never saw another rhododenron without remembering those words.)

Rutledge concludes the story by saying he has always loved the eloquence of simple people. A sophisticated person might think Rutledge’s philosophy too child-like and simple. “The real trouble with a sophisticated person is not that he knows too much, but that he knows too little.”

Here are some of my new “surcies” God has given me during the past few days of wonderful rain showers…everything is popping with new blooms bursting open with excitement! Lots of free “extra” smiles!

So until tomorrow:

“It takes solitude under the stars, for us to be reminded of our eternal origin and our far destiny. “Archibald Rutledge