Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

Anne invited several friends, including me, to attend our church’s early service … held in our beautiful wooded area behind the sanctuary-an alternative worship site since COVID-19 hit. Weather permitting this service is held outdoors with worshippers bringing their own lawn chairs.

It was and is exactly the kind of worship service I am drawn to these days-simple but powerful-with nature providing the natural rhythms of music with the wind, the leaves, the birds and trees talking among themselves.

It was if our bodies and spirits found holiness in simply breathing, in simply being. This type of service reminds us just how precious the act of breathing is… until we can no longer draw another…

After my initial breast cancer prognosis was given to me… I remember that my memories took me back to the most ordinary days of my life-made memorable by a conversation, a tear, communicating with another through laughter, a hug or kiss, a loved one or friend … these became the moments of holy hallowed ordinariness!

It wasn’t all my adventures though I was profusely thankful I took each opportunity to travel and see more of this beautiful planet we all call home. Instead it was the ordinary incidents of life that surpassed the extraordinary! As long as our lives are enriched and personally fulfilling… we have lead a ” extraordinary ” life… no matter the circumstances or surroundings!

So until tomorrow… ” May we always trust the journey… knowing we are right on time, exactly where we are supposed to be.” (Kelly Rae Roberts)

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

🤞Don’t forget! Today is the first day of June! Remember to say ” Rabbit, Rabbit” and have a jubilant June!

Dear Reader:

A few weeks ago my brother Ben called and said he had an epiphany. He was very excited about it.

In Ben’s story he describes what can only be deemed as Divine Intervention episodes that took place throughout his 1968 tour of duty in Vietnam. Yet he, himself, personally questioned why he seemed chosen to receive these life-altering warnings that saved his life numerous times in the jungle terrain.

“Why me Lord?” he questioned God repeatedly with no concrete response. And then recently he realized that God knew in the all-too immediate future David, his younger brother would be taken from our family… if he died in Vietnam followed by David’s sudden death four years later… poor mother, who had lost her husband at 31, her hand to cancer soon after …would be faced with the loss of two sons?

Ben said he thought he was saved, not just for himself but also for mother and our family. It got me thinking…

Don’t we all see and hear public service announcements that remind us to wear masks or buckle up when we drive… if not for us… for our loved ones?

And isn’t a mother’s prayer one of the strongest prayer links in humanity-the most unselfish-praying for their children’s lives-gladly willing to substitute their life for their child’s?

Shortly after arriving in Vietnam Ben’s unit was almost completely wiped out and mother received notification her son was missing in action. It was Mother’s Day.

It was the saddest Mother’s Day ever… no matter how hard David and I tried… mother was inconsolable. I just remember David and I hugging her as she wept and prayed.

But then three weeks later on Memorial Day 1968 word came that Ben had been picked up by a patrol boat along with a handful of other survivors and he was being treated for wounds deemed non life threatening!

That Memorial Day was filled with prayers of relief and thankfulness! Mother even found a tablecloth that said ” Blessings” on it where we gathered to eat, laugh and rejoice in life that special holiday!

Ben would return home with two Purple Hearts-one was buried with David and the other with mother.

So until tomorrow… ” If not for us… for others” … God’s loving directive for us to make good decisions that enhance not only our own lives… but others!

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Let’s all begin today considering the consequences of our decisions and choices on the feelings and lives of those we care about…

Ashley had to return to the hospital with more medical complications including infection! Please Please keep the prayers coming!!!

Dear Reader:

As I was watering yesterday the card tag fell off the planter-written on the yellow petunias card was Proven Winner-” Lickety-Split.”

I started smiling to myself … I hadn’t heard that expression in a long time-though it was a favorite of mother’s trying to get all three of us children ready for school each day.

The expression dates back to the mid-1800’s… the origin includes a popular item of the time known as a ” licket rag.” Before the invention of paper towels … licket rags would clean up a spill with one ” lick” in a ” split ” second… as fast as ” Lickety-split. ”

I feel sure I used the same expression on my own children growing up-but these days I am free to do more ” moseying” than ” Lickety-splitting!” Deadlines are at a precious minimum, meetings pretty much non-existent which leaves me in the loveliest period of my life to date-my Just Being stage of life!

And right now my being is heading to John and Mandy’s with Doodle and Harvey for a Memorial Day barbecue! Life is fun again!

So until tomorrow… May we all find that special time in our lives when ” dead-ends” turn into ” life-ends.”

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Happy news-Ashley got home a couple of days ago in time for the holiday weekend! Thank all of you for the prayers!

Dear Reader:

Every morning when I rise to water the garden… I start looking for a blouse or shirt or pair of pants with at least one pocket big enough for my mobile iPhone. ( …And I still have one of the oldie goldie smaller phones)

But to no avail… and the option to wear a gardening jacket or apron is not realistic in a Lowcountry climate where we have been in the mid-90’s all week already!

Lately I have looked for blouses and tunics on-line with large pockets … and I believe I would have better luck finding a dinosaur than a pocket on a woman’s shirt or pair of pants!

I realized I was not alone in my quest when I came across an articles titled ” What do women want? Pockets!”

Some study was done on the reason people, especially women, walk around holding their phones? Two obvious reasons jump out-no pockets and women don’t want to scramble through their bags ( where the phone is lost in a forest of parafernalia hunting for it! )

Author, Jen Doll, did her own research and discovered, what she already suspected, there is an universal cry from women for POCKETS!

More and better pockets… good pockets, big pockets, man size pockets! So Julie Sygiel, an entrepreneur, has started The Pockets Project. It aims to bring attention to pocket inequality-she has a new line of dresses with deep pockets that can hold everything from our most prized possessions to a gal’s must have -lip gloss!

One new discovery was that the largest women’s pockets were still smaller than the smallest pockets in men’s garments. Women’s pants , dresses and jackets can easily contain deeper pockets that securely protect a mobile phone from falling out!

It would be so nice not to have to wear the only two shirts I have with pockets and my now faded jeans every morning to water so if a new sparkling flower begs me to take a photo I am ready and then I don’t have to change clothes after each watering each morning!

So until tomorrow… We should all create pockets of joy to sustain ourselves and others and my garden still accomplishes that!

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

As I was listening to the local news yesterday morning one reporter announced that Charleston mayor, John Tecklenburg, was attending Decoration Day at Hampton Park in downtown Charleston.

Few people know that Memorial Day started out being called Decoration Day from the idea of decorating graves of the fallen dead from the Civil War.

This remembrance has its roots in the South Carolina Lowcountry and Gullah heritage. In fact the first Decoration Day was May 1 1865… held in Charleston, South Carolina… dubbed as the memorial for the dead in the ” City of the Dead.”

Charleston was in ruins with dead carcasses of animals strewn in alleys and yards while the populace tried to bury the human dead.

On May 1, 1865, thousands of former slaves, Union soldiers, and missionaries honored Union soldiers who had died in a Confederate Charleston prison and were buried in a makeshift mass grave.

They were all reinterred in new graves with flowers and colorful ribbons on each burial site.

Decoration, now Memorial Day, became an official federal holiday in 1971-it marks the unofficial beginning of the summer season.

Today each year on Memorial Day a National moment of remembrance takes place at 3 p.m. local time.

Famous Lowcountry artists Dianne Britton and Jonathan Green have several pieces of Gullah artworks dedicated to this historical day in Charleston.

So until tomorrow…Gratitude for those who came before us-the high price of freedom and democracy

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Didn’t we all hear this phrase ” We’re in this together” during the thick of the pandemic-even though it felt like we were alone and isolated during this scary time with no end in sight?

Now the days are brighter and lighter for most Americans…yet I still feel what my brother tried to explain to me- survivors guilt syndrome – (after he returned from Vietnam)-when I look at the horrors that second and third waves of the Covid-virus are doing to other countries, like India. Heartbreaking!

As a global community it is hard to see parts of the world’s ” neighborhoods “in such despair!

Since I am acutely a visual learner I remember picturing this huge life raft with all of the world’s people clinging to it in desperation as the pandemic ocean kept washing waves over it as people were swept away.

When I can pull back,give myself some thinking and breathing room… I realize that I have only met a handful of people in my life that share my approximate times-line… whose life span will roughly imitate mine in years and days. We are time travelers sharing the same planet in an allotted space of time yet we will never meet in this lifetime. Barriers like oceans, continents, countries, and cultures keep us apart. We all have different experiences and stories to share… and perhaps that is the secret to our planet time-share… we are united when we share the collective stories of our lives on earth.

So until tomorrow…Perhaps if each human can give their individualized quantum of kindness, compassion, and joy to each other-our stories will live on long after we are gone!

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Poih

Boats have become popular headstone symbols -of pandemic victims-the victims are heading home finally safe from the chaos of life.

” Peace! Peace! To be rocked by the infinite!

Stanley Kunitz -The Long Boat

Dear Reader:

As a middle school teacher I was always looking for books on different historical topics told from the perspective of a young adolescent. I could teach the facts but facts without emotion don’t stick. Years later it was the stories told around the event that stayed in my students’ memories.

I remember one book we read at Bible School one year dealt with the theme of the miracle of making room for love. (Title Picture)

Mushroom in the Rain was adapted in 1997 from a Russian folktale. It tells the story of a lone ant seeking shelter from a sudden rainstorm. The ant just fits nicely under a little mushroom . But minutes later a wet butterfly pleads to share the space with the ant who initially claims there is not enough room and is surprised when the butterfly fits-other animals appear…a drenched mouse, a dripping sparrow and even a rain-soaked rabbit… and somehow they all continue to fit together. After the sun comes out… they realize the miracle was a natural phenomenon-mushrooms grow in the rain.

I immediately thought of my five grandchildren to date… I felt so much love for my first grandchild Eva Cate that I wondered how I would feel when Rutledge arrived … until he did…with merry laughing eyes and an infectious personality! I was over the moon!

Then little Jake surprised me…arriving exactly on my birthday followed by our Irish lad Lachlan on St. Patrick’s Day!

Not to be outdone… Eloise arrived bringing in a New Year and spreading the love again. Each child bringing their own unique personality to the mix!

There is always room for love-we never run out of room for loving any of God’s creatures-our lives are only enriched by each addition!

So until tomorrow

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

And here are some of my favorite plants blooming-love reaping what I sowed!

Dear Reader:

Have you ever had one of those days when the domino effect theory is alive and well. You experience one set-back and suddenly something else has gone array which sets off another set of unfortunate episodes. By the end of the day you are ready to crawl in bed and hide beneath the covers?

This might seem a strange solution to a Freaky Friday but the catalyst that will stop the tumbling dominoes is to step outside the game and do something kind for someone else. Get outside of yourself!

The secret is to take one’s attention away from a self hedonistic life style. Jefferson might have given us the right to pursue happiness but self-gratification often backfires.

In the Greater Good Magazine-a new study proved that doing kind things for others is an essential part of the path to happiness.

In this study college students were divided into three teams -one to make themselves happy, team two-to make another happy and team three to use socialization for happiness.

Upon reporting back they filled out their happiness and needs questionnaires. The group who did something kind for another person had the highest happiness ratings. And the interesting part was that the happiness came from establishing a relationship, no matter how brief…that had not been there before. Establishing successful human relationships are the most essential ingredients in defining a happy life… after all is said and done.

Now I understand what one famous philanthropist meant when he pulled back from all the accolades of praise for living a life of giving all he had to others.

He earnestly admitted that giving to others is the greatest “high” in the world that can never be equaled through new gadgets of self-indulgence. He had an addiction to helping others because of the happiness it brought him. In a sense he felt almost selfish for doing it.

Yesterday I crossed a grocery store parking lot as the sun’s rays bounced off a shiny new penny. My lucky Penny! I had eight one dollar bills on me to pick up just a couple of staple items. But when I got to the cashier the total was $8.15. Normally that would not have been a problem but earlier that morning I had dumped all my change in my change jar.

It wasn’t a big deal-I had my bank card with me… sometimes I just play these silly games with myself-setting a certain amount not to go over by the end of the month.

I had already handed the cashier the 8 one’s… and was scrounging for my card when I heard her say ” No matter… I’ve got the change right here.”

My face turned red… and I tried to hand her my card but she just smiled again and said “You’re covered. “

As my fingers had been scrounging for change I found my lucky Penny. Now I told the cashier she should keep it! The lucky Penny guided me to her check-out station and now it should be paid forward to her for her kindness!

The study was right-only this time both the giver and receiver found happiness together!

So until tomorrow… a

feather, robin, butterfly or Lucky Penny assures us happiness is just waiting to be discovered!

” Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

I talked with Honey yesterday and things are still troubling with Ashley’s slow recovery as different procedural options continue to be discussed and it looks like she will have to remain in the hospital for two more weeks! Prayers and more prayers please!

Big Red lost a stem but look how it brightens my kitchen! Love my Big Red!

Dear Reader:

One has to go back to the early sixties to remember Dionne Warwick singing Wishin’ and Hopin.’

I loved it as a young adolescent. Some of you might remember the lyrics were about a young woman sharing her knowledge with other girls that no one ever got a boyfriend ” Wishin’ and Hopin’ and Prayin’ or Plannin’ and Dreamin’ … instead action was required-show him that you care.

The other day I caught the tail end of an conversation between a proactive scientist and an interviewer. He was saying that Hope is something that must be earned. Powerful comment.

If you want to leave the world healthier for your grandchildren, a world with less racial and gender inequities, a law enforcement system that treats everyone equally, an education system that provides quality education for all children … no matter where they live or their socio-economic status… in other words put our planet and human lives first… then we must do more than just wait for others to solve our problems-proactive people make things happen…reactive people just keep digging themselves out of their own self-imposed problems.

Even when we turn to God in prayer to help us with an overwhelming human problem-we still need to be proactive-asking God to show us the way and then follow His response-not pray and do nothing telling everyone it is in God’s Hands. God is not only our Creator but also our Teacher and Counselor so we must be willing to follow His directions for the best solution and then keep the faith. God is as proactive as any light of Hope showing us the way… the path.

So until tomorrow…Remember back at the beginning of the pandemic… it was the children around the world who showed us their Hope during the early dark days by drawing rainbows. We must remember that we should never limit a child to our learning… because they were born in another time.

” Today is my favorite day.” Winnie the Pooh

I went out and watered and watered and watered my plants in preparation for the hottest week of the year-mid to upper nineties! Ouch… hot!

After doing so I sat on my bench and just enjoyed their beauty! Happiness is!

Dear Reader:

Aren’t the days getting better? We can almost feel some of the earlier worries and stress oozing from our beings… everywhere around us new hope is dawning!

Everyone can be vaccinated-no more long lines or computer glitches. We can do this easy thing to ensure-not only our own health but the health of our fellow man. What a fabulous opportunity to help each other pull out of the pandemic united in the well-being of mankind! Opportunities of this magnitude don’t come along very often. And each of us has this power to change lives and longevity of life. Mind-boggling!

An interesting tidbit took place while on Edisto Island… it was National Bee Day last Thursday…and Brooke’s grandmother nickname is ” Bee.” She has a Bee shirt and Bee purse! The bee represents harmony though teamwork and staying busy and focused on working to keep balance in the universe.

Haven’t we all said something similar to Lee Lacocca’s quote? Something like… ” The only thing that got me through a personal tragedy, loss of career, death of a loved one, etc. was throwing myself into my work or staying busy? ”

Bees know this intuitively.

So until tomorrow… look for signs or God Winks in each day because believe me… they are there if we just look at the world with new ” lenses” intact.

“Today is my favorite day” Winnie the Pooh

Friday afternoon I left Edisto Island for Mt. Pleasant to keep Eva Cate and Jake while John and Mandy went out on their 13th anniversary dinner date…where John originally proposed-very romantic.

Tommy and Kaitlyn are ‘ holding down the fort’ keeping Lachlan and Eloise while Walsh and Mollie take Rutledge to Winston-Salem for a final season finale for all the regional successful Lacrosse teams-his team is called The Loggerheads! Quite appropriate for the Lowcountry! We wish the team good luck and love you Rutledge!!!

Please continue prayers for Ashley -Honey’s daughter-she had surgery earlier this week for her Crohn’s Disease but she has not been able to keep anything down including water or ice chips. Very distressing for everyone-prayers are more than welcome-and lots of them! Thank you as usual blog readers for your belief in the power of prayer!