Dear Reader:

Yesterday the shutters were thrown back, the windows were raised, and the sunshine warmed up my usually chilly sunken den. To hit 80 degrees in February is really pushing it…but after the cold, cold, weather of January…I felt like singing for joy. (Thank goodness I didn’t succumb to this aspiration since my windows were up and any unfortunate walker, passing by, would reap the dismal “benefits” of my monotone voice.)

What is it about opening up our space to light that instills such a sense of freedom and beauty…a true example of the gift of a “Life Extra.”

I came across one passage from Archibald Rutledge’s book (Life’s Extras) and I found it so charming…the perfect passage for the perfect day of opened windows, warmth within, and God’s extra gifts to us.

(Excerpt from Life’s Extras.…Archibald Rutledge…Poet Laureate)

…”I remember walking early one July morning down a thickety path. Trees completely overarched it; but far ahead light gleamed. The path and long and straight, and terminated in a wide meadow. 

As I glanced upward, my eye caught sight of what I supposed to be a knot on the end of a dead limb that hung directly over the pathway; it was clearly silhouetted against the sky line ahead. In a moment something had darted over my head and had alighted on the knot. 

It was a hummingbird on its nest, which hung like a fairy bassinet in the lonely woodland. I looked at the nest and at the bird, with its elfin grace, its delicate sheen of brilliance, its jeweled throat. And I thought: This whole matter of grace, of elegance, of delicacy and felicity of beauty is a life extra. It is not necessary to have it so. But God has willed it so, because He loves us and knows our hungry hearts need this kind of beauty.

For many years, I had an idea that nature had for man an active sympathy; but now I have changed my opinion. There really seems a superb indifference about nature. It is what lies behind nature that really has sympathy. For example…the rose does not of itself bloom for us; but God has made it to bloom for us. 

Surely this beauty is not  a random affair; it is too authentically a sign and symbol of love. All we know about the highest form of affection we have learned directly from God’s affection for us. We not only “love Him because He first loved us” but we love one another because He teaches us how. We originate with Him; and our sublimist art is nothing but attempts to imitate the thing in nature that He has created.”

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When I put thoughts “out there” in cyberspace…I just hope for the best and that perhaps (at least) one person can relate to something in the blog. Who knew that the “Scandinavian crossroads” of South Carolina would make one of our well-known readers stop, pause, affectionately remember, and finally wipe a tear from her eyes.

Jo who married a Joe (Dufford) sent me this God Wink yesterday and it was just too sweet not to share. Thanks Jo!

As I read your blog and saw the name of a town in SC named Norway, my eyes lit up, my heart skipped several beats and a tear came to my eye. About 84 years ago on Oct. 15th, a young lady who was expecting a baby in late Dec. was making her last visit for a while with her parents in Norway,SC. Of course, babies don’t read calendars and often follow their own whims, so a small 2 and half pound baby boy made his debut into this world in that small farm community. They didn’t have a lot of hope for him, but they named him after his father and called him Joe. Needless to say, he did make it and later married a girl called Jo, so even though your blog today is about ancestry, it woke other feelings in me. But I guess when you get down to it, since he would now have 2 children, 5 grand children and 2 great grands, it is about ancestry in a way. I, too. would love to visit the Danish towns in Iowa. There is so much history to be found in small towns scattered across America.

So until tomorrow…Thank you Father for Life’s Extras and special God Wink connections…reaffirming one more time that we and the universe are all connected  during our lifetime stay here in this beautiful world of light, sunshine, remembered loves, and hummingbird nests.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

John sent me this photo of the family at Epcot…At first I just thought they were jiving and clicking their fingers…and then suddenly I spotted the flying dragon with a paintbrush…the magic of Disney! (It is in the 80’s and feels like a summer day there.)

And lastly…I glimpsed the very last rays of light (last evening) before darkness descended…I sat on my front porch steps…scared to even blink or I would open my eyes to darkness…such is the beauty and gift of God’s light on our lives.