Dear Reader:

Late each afternoon when I walk around the garden to see how the plants are holding up, especially new arrivals, I notice how location is so important in their ability to thrive. Some prefer morning or afternoon light, others want to stay in the shadows for as long as they can…and still others need me to cut back some branches from a nearby towering tree or a larger shrub to allow more slanted light to hit them during the day.

Many times the same thought have crossed my mind …Aren’t we just like the plants…sometimes we just need someone to shine a little light on us? Isn’t nature showing us everything we need to know about God and faith?

Kent Nerburn quotes a learned Jesuit priest and friend, who spent years studying books but turned to gardening in his later life. When asked why he replied…(one of my favorite responses) ” If I can not see the face of God in a flower or a shaft of light, why should I expect to see it in ideas and books?”

The older I get the more I ‘feel’ God around me…I have quit searching because why would someone search for another…when they are right with them day in and day out.

I think about the fact that, like plants and trees, we, too, always lean towards the light. My Bradford Pear leans completely to the right…(oak branches from a neighboring tree blocks the sun from the left.) If this continues long enough I suspect one day it will uproot itself and topple over…yet somehow I suspect that even if the tree realized this it would still continue to lean towards the light until the day it dies. Because like the Jesuit priest observes: “Everything lives, everything dies, everything leans to the light.”

I sing (sing…might be a stretch actually) to Eloise before I put her down…and one of my old reliables is “Rock-a Bye Baby.” Am I the only one or do some of you, too, wonder why a baby falling from a “broken bough” (when the wind stops blowing) is a particularly lulling or comforting last thought before the baby goes to bed?

Kent Nerburn comments: ” A Sioux mother would place her infant beneath the branches of a tree while she worked so the child could have as its constant companion and teacher the whispers of the wind in the branches.”

I have thought (in my imagination) how interesting it would be to spend a whole day in a tree…to feel the breezes at night and the sounds of nocturnal animals, see the first rays of dawn, feel the subtle changes in time from the freshness of the morning to the early afternoon of contemplation and rest throughout the evening.

So until tomorrow….“Our day is but a path we tread, a gentle walk among possibilities.”

*And yesterday was wonderful too….Libby and I had such a great time spending time together Sunday afternoon and evening…joined by the rest of the Ya’s Monday morning. There was no boa to be found but Libby was a sport and tried on a scarf of mine, Race for the Cure beads and a pink hat…it set the tone without a boa.

We loved the movie…a little different than the first but still touching and moving and ending on a high note of happiness and fun.

Just to have such a fabulous excuse for everyone to stop in their busy lives and make this event happen…was the real reward! Movies and Oscars for lunch…memories, a few tears, and lots of laughter…a day doesn’t get much better than that!

And look what is coming soon….Christopher Robin… (This “Pooh lover” must go see it.)

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Ghostly Update:

Remember the ghost stories and legends I wrote about after the Ya’s stayed at Pawleys Beach back in early March? Here is an update on the famous Gray Man ghost who walks the beaches of Pawleys and surrounding inlets warning of severe storms and hurricanes. On a local Myrtle beach station…the news told of a couple, in the last few days, staying at Cherry Grove, who took a picture of ‘something or someone’ walking down the pier adjacent to their hotel.

Obviously the Grand Strand meteorologists are having fun …speculating if the presence of the famous Gray Man Ghost is implying a hurricane is coming. *Thanks Stephanie for sending the picture and article….that was too sweet!