Dear Reader:

I need a break from technology….even at my quite basic level. I am ready to let my iPhone  disappear a few days and my email  go with it. I even need a break from the television and all the “what if” scenarios with Hurricane Dorian. We live in a world of too much information…overkill at its worse. And I think it is beginning to clog up my system.

It reminds me of one of the stories of Donald Davis when he had a little boy raising his hand in class, asking to be excused…his head was flowing over with too much stuff in it…too many rivers, countries, parts of speech, addition and multiplication numbers, too many names of rocks and fossils…just plain too much ‘stuff!’

I can sympathize with that little boy…that student with the overflowing information problem. Even when I try to avoid the news I get it anyway when I start typing my blog post…all these latest up-to-the-minute pictures and headlines pop up and I find myself getting drawn in and digressing from my original thoughts. Go away…I didn’t ask to see any of that!

It did make me remember however a lovely little poem I posted about four years ago…and I think it is obviously time for me to post it again.

“Slow Me Down Lord”

(Alfred Peterson)

“Slow me down Lord”

Ease the pounding of my heart

By the quieting of my mind
Steady my hurried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.

Give me amidst the confusion of my day
The calmness of the everlasting hills
Break the tensions of my nerves and muscles
With the soothing music of the singing streams
That live in my memory.

Help me to know
The magical restoring power of sleep
Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations
Of slowing down to look at a flower
To chat with a friend
To pat a dog
To read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day of the fable
Of the hare and the tortoise
That I may know that the race
Is not always to be swift
That there is more to life
Than measuring speed.

Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew great and strong
Because it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down Lord
And inspire me to send my roots
Deep into the soil
Of life’s enduring values
That I may grow towards the stars
Of my enduring destiny.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Just before darkness fell (as I ran to the pharmacy to pick up some medicine that had just come in and I needed to start this morning)…the first solar light in the garden came on….I dropped all my bags…grabbed my iPhone and took the picture of Rutledge’s Japanese Maple’s lantern light coming on….then I watched as all the other lights infused the darkening garden with twinkling lights…..I felt a collective sigh escape from me…at least I was able to see and capture this beautiful ending to the day.

So until tomorrow…when it is time to unplug…unplug!

Now I have both hibiscus planted along the fence…so happy!

*If you are lucky enough to live in the nine northern states that will be able to see the Northern Lights this weekend….for Pete’s Sake…stop and watch God’s Handiworks!