Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

Yesterday was a day of polar light and darkness, sunshine and thunder, cool breezes and humid wind gusts. It was like too many weather patterns were converging simultaneously.

Jeff came early, thank goodness, before the rains descended to cut the grass ( which will help if the rainy forecast for this week in the Lowcountry is accurate.) ***We might need to call on Noah and his ” big boat” before the week is out.

I spent the morning helping my nonagenarian neighbor pick up medicine. go to the grocery store, and pick up lunch for her to take home. She barely got back inside and I got home when the bottom fell out of the dark rumbling skies.

I jumped up to close my windows … it was so torrential I could barely get the windows closed. I took my mobile phone to capture a picture of the storm. When later I pulled it… to my surprise … where there was darkness in front of me… strangely there was light behind me.

It took me a few minutes staring at the picture to finally realize the window pane reflected the colorful table lamp beside my recliner. I felt chills go down me… a sure sign of a ” Godwink.”

My second “Aha” moment came when I searched for scripture on darkness and light… and felt God’s Presence in both.

Psalm: 139:12

” Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from you, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike in you.”

Immediately I reflected on the moment I spotted the light in the picture and I immediately understood the symbolism… God was in the scary darkness in front of me looking out… while simultaneously being the light behind me. I was protected on all sides.

Think about the first three verses of Genesis.

Key point: God was present when there was no planet shape ( without form/void) no life… just darkness but because God existed He could bring the light of life to us. And He still does!

***Another important observation scripture writers want to impress upon us is the fact that we can’t hide from God in the darkness because He dwells there also.

So until tomorrow… We should never feel like the dark days of life are endless and hopeless because as God has shown us His light is guiding us when we can’t see. He can!

Unfortunately the Lowcountry rains are just not in the Lowcountry but the North Carolina mountains too… as a tired Rutledge was dropped off yesterday .. think he needs a good night sleep to get back in the groove again after already being gone so long… hopefully he got it last night. But he put on a brave face as family left.

Yesterday I had a surprise visit from my favorite ” lost boy” who I took in a couple of weeks ago when he appeared on my street… lost and disoriented… he knew his mom’s telephone number and where his dad worked… it took awhile to find the golf cart, babysitter, and other neighborhood kids who were all on the golf cart and jumped off to run around ( get rid of some energy) and hop back home but my little friend went a different way and suddenly no golf cart.

But mom called just as we spotted the golf cart and all was well… Sunday evening the doorbell rang and there was my cutie and his mom dropping off goodies for me for coming to the rescue! Not necessary but a reminder of the goodness of the human spirit!

Dear Reader:

As students in school, didn’t we pretty much accept everything the teacher told us about historical information … and took it as “gospel?”… after all they were the teacher. In those days, terms like being a ” critical analyst ” and not accepting information without further examination… were not part of the core of learning… it was more … open up and swallow.

One of the few historical facts that most American students remember after graduation, is the Emancipation Proclamation… when Lincoln freed the slaves… but unfortunately it usually stops there. It was a great thing… and Lincoln the greatest President. End of story.

Today we know that the there was nothing ” simple” about the Emancipation Proclamation… from start to finish. Freedom would not appear magically by the stroke of a pen at the start of a new year… midnight-January 1 1863 to be exact.

Nobody ( certainly not southern slave holders ) were anxious to spread the ” good news” to their plantations and farm enslaved workers… no internet to help out…so pretty much ” mum” was the word about this now famous document.

The Emancipation Proclamation could not be enforced until the war was over and the Union had won. In a famous 1941 interview… one of the few remaining slaves from the Civil War period, Laura Snalley, remembered as a child from Belleville, Texas, that the ” old master” never spoke of the Emancipation Proclamation so nothing changed for months and they were finally turned loose on June 19. They called it initially ” Celebrate Day.”

Juneteenth started as a state holiday in Texas in 1980 and spread to several other states as a state holiday remembering the freeing of the slaves.

Finally President Biden in 2021 signed a bill passed by Congress that set aside June 19th ( Juneteenth) as a federal holiday. It was the date that news of the war’s end and the slaves’ freedom reached Galveston, Texas under the command of Union General Gordon Granger-two months after Lee surrendered to Grant. *** It took the 13th Amendment to permanently abolish slavery.

So until tomorrow… at the reception held for Lee… she said: ” If people have been taught to hate, they can be taught to love and it is up to all of us to do it.”

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Mollie and Eloise got Lachlan all checked into camp yesterday -he is in the Loggerback Tribe!

Dear Reader:

Happy Father’s Day! And in our family today… a special alignment of the stars celebrating Happy Father’s Day and Happy Birthday to Rutledge! Walsh and Rutledge Day!

Ten years ago today ” ” Baby Rutledge” entered our lives to the delight of everyone, but especially Walsh… arriving officially on Father’s Day!!! Walsh has always repeated it was his best Father’s Day present ever! And now ten years later the happy phenomenon is re-occurring!

Rutledge will be in transit today on his birthday… ( with Walsh) after playing a Delaware lacrosse team and then flying to Asheville to join Lachlan at Camp Ridgecrest for Boys for the next two weeks! My head is spinning just trying to keep up!

I, also want to give a shoutout to all the men -uncles, friends, grandfathers, coaches, teachers, dual role single parents who step up to the bat filling in as caregiver and father figures! I salute you!

Happy Birthday Rutledge! A dual number -10-Happy Benchmark Birthday!

I love you Rutledge… my oldest grandson! I am so proud of your accomplishments but am just especially proud of you for being you and filling my life with light! P. S. Look under your camp bunk bed pillow… Boo might have left something! 😘

So until tomorrow…

Today is my favorite day -Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

The term ” heartseed” refers to the seed of wisdom and compassion that resides in each of us… displaying itself in our individual ” gifts” ( talents) bestowed on us by our Creator and developed by the selected human mentors who appear ( throughout our lives) to show us the path… our memory angels and ancestors

Yesterday a phrase I had read (earlier) by Victoria Frank Benton became a life-lifting human experience. In thanking her late beloved author mother …Victoria stated” Thank you for planting the seed in my heart to be a storyteller.”

Thursday afternoon I went to spend the night with the Turners to keep Jake while John and Mandy took Eva Cate to her first outdoor ” pop” concert at Daniel Island. As it turned out Jake decided to ” keep me” … armed and ready to ” secure the premises” with his ” Nerf” guns. ( I felt so protected that Winnie the dog and I snuggled on the sofa and watched television while Jake patrolled! )

Yesterday started out with a fabulous breakfast and slow walks around the gardens but as the morning went on we noticed Eva Cate was getting nervous about her first golf summer lesson and some other new experiences on the agenda.

Eva Cate has an adorable vivacious personality when she has come to know you… but she is timid and self-doubting initially… worried about appearance and first impressions … she is an adolescent coming of age… a very difficult stage when one can easily become ( unknowingly) his/her own worse enemy or at least critic. ( Aren’t we so glad we don’t have repeat that stage of development again? )

Mandy and I knew we had to turn the mood around… and fast…then I heard ” Boo Boo… tell me a funny story!” Please! ” Now the pressure was on!

I started telling her a true ( but greatly ) embellished story of a student from my early teaching years who had been held back so many years he ended up driving to school and he was somewhat of a legend to incoming students who both feared and idolized him at the same time.

I had forgotten Mandy had started 8th grade his last round at middle school and she knew the girlfriend and helped add some funny incidences too. Eva Cate was laughing so hard her drink bubbled out of her nose! A sure sign the story is funny! The whole worried aura around her lifted and disappeared.

*** I realized yesterday that if Eva Cate can say one day… ” Boo Boo could make me smile when I was sad by telling a funny story… that is enough… my gift… my ” heartseed.”

So until tomorrow… No matter our age we still need to remind ourselves…

Today is my favorite day – Winnie the Pooh

…And thank you Honey for my sunshine card! We always need the reminder!!!💗

Dear Reader:

I don’t know how many of you remember this episode from the Jerry Seinfeld Show but it was truly funny since everyone watching could relate.

It all begins when George is driving his parents home and his dad, Frank, wants his wife to move her car seat up to give him more leg room. She refuses saying it is up. Frank starts coming unglued and screaming while George is trying to just get them home in one piece.

Suddenly he hears his father start yelling ” Serenity Now” Serenity Now!” It is so loud it is deafening … George asks his father why he is yelling that and apparently Frank had heard some self-calming guru giving this advice on some show. George asks if he was screaming the phrase as loud as he was in the car… Frank admits the guru was a little vague on how you said it.

George tells Jerry and Kramer about what his crazy father had been screaming in his ear driving them home… Jerry just laughs but Kramer loves the notion and keeps repeating it.

Then the next day Kramer has a really bad day ( everything goes wrong) and he loses it screaming ” Serenity Now” and proceeds to bash and destroy the twenty five computers he and George had just bought to re-sell at a higher price for another yet, unsuccessful get-rich quick scheme.

George returns home to discover the destruction as Kramer yells ” Serenity Now.” The scene ends with George sitting down completely devastated muttering softly , shaking his head ” to himself…”Serenity Now.”

We all have our own ” Serenity Now” days don’t we… when we mutter to ourselves ” If one more thing goes wrong”… and then it does and the flood gates suddenly pour out more than we can ever handle. Instead of ” Serenity Now!” we might mutter ” REALLY God… REALLY?!”

And that’s when we know God is real, REALLY!

When you look throughout the Psalms and scriptures the cry for serenity is probably at the top of the list for humans pleading with God to bring them calmness, peace of mind and inner serenity.

So until tomorrow…

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

“Thankful, blessed, and kind of a mess” just seemed to sum me up today. I am so thankful to be back on the road to recovery, blessed to feel God’s presence through this and blessed to have such amazing neighbors and friends… especially when we find ourselves in a mess like I found myself in this week.

I rarely get sick… sounds strange, I know coming from a metastatic breast cancer patient but truly I got through the coronavirus epidemic without getting it, strange other viruses people were falling by the wayside with this past year …nothing … so it really throws me off-kilter when I get ” something”?

Yesterday was my ” I am over all the symptoms-eating again, no fever, but just depleted” day. Got to build my strength back up. But I felt well enough to read and finished up My Magnolia Summer by Victoria Benton Frank. Two thumbs up!

For a first novel Victoria (and for me my first beach read) … it was exactly what a good beach read should be!!!Compelling enough to keep you involved and interested in the main characters without delving too deeply into their psyches, light hearted with humorous comments, southern expressions, history, legends and quotes…all the components of a good southern beach read. I hated to finish it last night… it has been my companion during these ” off” days.

I even read the Acknowledgments at the end of the book which reiterated to me that this novel involved more people than you could imagine… not just agents or editors but other authors, her mother’s beach read novelist friends, the list went on and on. It does take a ” village” to write a novel… especially a first one. And determination and grit… lots of time alone… which is hard when you have just married and two little ones running around.

But it was the tough times and other business ventures’ failures that became the plot line for her novel. As I was reading the different acknowledgments of gratitude to many varied people in her life… one made me stop right in my tracks.

It was to her husband and two precious little children-Victoria wrote : ” Thank you for being my WHY.” As I re-read it several times … it grew more powerful in meaning.

We rarely place WHY in a noun category ( it is usually known as an interrogative adverb when it begins a question.) But Victoria wasn’t asking a question, she was making a powerful statement of love and gratitude.

Why as in my existence, my world, my feeling loved and cherished… my life! Such a powerful observation! Best quote of all!

So until tomorrow….

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Don’t we all remember this upbeat tune by Jimmy Cliff that started out with…”I can see clearly now the rain is gone-I can see all the obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind… it’s gonna be a bright bright sunshiny day.”

When that tune came on the radio yesterday it really picked up my spirits. It was so weird… I immediately thought of that drive home Sunday night… sick, cold, pouring rain and scary lightning flashes. Then Monday I woke nauseated with fever… and the rains kept coming but yesterday… the sun came out… no fever and got a few bites down to ward off nausea. Some of the ” obstacles” were disappearing and the sun was out bright and shiny. Hope is an amazing thing… best medicine!

And having a wonderful neighbor ( Vickie) who knows my ” medicine” of choice is Diet Coke… have to have it almost frozen to drink with food but it keeps the nausea away and the food inside me.

An article by the late Wayne Dryer…” I Can See Clearly Now” -a memoir of his life, concluded that there are no accidents… life has a purpose and each step has something to teach us… even ” sick steps.”

Now that I am feeling better today …like the ” dark sick ” clouds are slowly lifting… I think sometimes dark clouds just remind us that we need to slow down and they make us more appreciative of the abundant sunny days ahead!

So until tomorrow…

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Today’s Post is just going to need a little extra ” Push from God.” Halfway though the dance recital Sunday afternoon… I started shaking. It felt like the air conditioner had been turned up… and I was freezing!

I had worn my straw hat since it was raining in order to keep the rain from running down my neck…the rain pouring back out to the parking lot afterwards helped also.

The hat did help the cold air from settling directly on my neck and head… but it was still frigid. I was scrunched up in a ball.

By the time I left to head back to Summerville it was already past 7 and the rainy dark clouds were opening up…and lightning was putting on a show…

As soon as I got home… I fixed some soup and fell asleep … only to wake up in the wee hours burning up and sick to my stomach…

Yesterday was a roller coaster ride… I had gotten a new lap tray and was excited about eating on my new lap tray but then I fell asleep again and slept most of the day!

I spent yesterday gulping big glasses of water and attempting some toast and fruit on my new laptop tray.

As of this writing ( 6:30) evening… I feel a little better and praying the nausea is over. I am not a good nausea patient!

So until tomorrow… I would appreciate some prayers coming my way… it is a busy week and praying I don’t have to cancel anything! Grandmother has many obligations… please pray for God to help me…

Today is my favorite day… Winnie the Pooh

All my prayers went out Sunday night as Walsh and Rutledge were returning from Charlotte… I was so relieved they got home safe and sound. Now I want to wake up today feeling like Boo again!

And she wanted so badly to get a trophy since her brothers’ rooms have them… to date she has never gotten one for the dance recital… but when all the performers came out to take their last bow… they all had trophies… Eloise was beaming!

Happiness is… !!!!!!

Dear Reader:

In every historical event… there comes one moment when somebody steps up to the plate to do what is morally right over political consequences… in 1839 a slave ship, the Amistad, sails from Cuba to America and an unprecedented slave revolt ( lead by Sengbe Pieh-later named Joseph Cinque) changes history and forces Americans to live the words in the Declaration of Independence.

At 72 ex-President John Quincy Adams, now a Congressman, took up the ” gavel” to help defend Cinque… who he explains to the Supreme Court would be a hero, laden, with honors… in any other culture… a man who risked his life to save others.

The most powerful climax of the trial came to a head when Adams explained to the court that Cinque was a member of the Mende tribe who believed in calling on their ancestors ( who came before them) for guidance and instruction.

Adams then asked if the court was remembering their ancestors, the Founding Fathers, who created the Declaration of Independence… were they living up to their ideals… a country dedicated to the ” inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?” Were they listening to George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry… Joseph Cinque was everyone of them.

( President Van Buren was running for re-election and he feared he would lose John C Calhoun’s support and other southern slave-holding states so he sided with them against freeing the slaves… fearing it would set a negative precedent for slave holding states. It backfired when the slaves were freed and sent home-Van Buren lost his re -election bid to William Henry Harrison. )

So until tomorrow… Haven’t we all ” called on our own ancestors” when times are tough? What would a grandparent or other deceased loved one do in the same situation facing us?

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

What better place to kick off the summer season than in a town whose name has ” Summer” in it -the village of Summer-or simply Summerville.

… So when I came across a list of the Top Ten Things To Do in Summerville… I decided this was the summer to cross them off… ( confession time) yesterday I didn’t get past number 1! But oh the fun I had!

Before I got ready to start with number 1 … I needed first to go to the Summerville Farmers Market … where I found myself immersed in ” Flowertown” for sure! ” My idea of heaven!

Then I headed over to Azalea Park to check off the number one item on my to do list. ( To pet Toby!) I have decided to adopt Toby… whenever I feel the need to pet and talk to a dog… he will always be there for me!

Just as I was wondering who I could get to take a picture… a Summerville resident appeared around the pond and was more than happy to assist. She walks the park everyday and told me where to look for turtles and insisted I play ” Follow the Leader” with the children’s famous sculpture!

I then followed my new friend’s advice on which paths to follow to see nature and bronze statues ” living” side by side.

By the time I finished the path… it was warming up … and my stomach was growling! But then I noticed a sign that ” Mason” our largest record-breaking sweet tea mason jar was celebrating a birthday! Happy Birthday Mason. !!!

So until tomorrow…

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

George, Tommy’s and Kaitlyn’ newest adopted dog had an accident and broke his leg… tough weekend but he came through surgery like a champ and so happy returning home to love! Always the best medicine! 💗