Chapel of Hope Stories

Dear Reader:

I am home and another Winnie the Pooh blustery day. It just hit me that March came in like a lion and hasn’t stopped roaring yet… the windiest March in a long time. ( And you readers know now I do not like strong winds.) But these days it just isn’t my left over Hurricane Hugo phobia… but as a gardener-strong winds dry out all the blooming flowers and bushes – which means I have to set up the bucket brigade again. Hard work!

Still… since my garden is my sanctuary… it is well worth all the work. Look at what popped out while I was gone all last week!

After Mandy dropped the kids off at school each morning …we would watch the news and see what had happened overnight… I found myself holding my breath listening to the war in Ukraine and usually tearing up.

Next month Eva Cate turns twelve… I was twelve and in the 7th grade at Horace Sisk Junior High when the world was on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Instead of practicing fire drills, we practiced civil defense drills weekly and during the Cuban Missile Crisis daily. It was terrifying. We all took canned foods to stock in the basement and practiced scooting under our desks. We had seen enough simulated nuclear attacks and radiation fall-out government films for public schools…to cause on-going nightmares.

As a post WWII baby boomer and Cold War youth I remember praying to God to give me time to simply grow up… and that He did… and more.

Now I am a grandmother of five ( having beaten many odds) to be where I am today. And as worried and concerned about the world my children and grandchildren might live in…I think about that twelve year old ” me” and my prayer being answered ten-fold.

So until tomorrow…Somehow someway… the world is still turning, the sun still rises and the moon still shines… in spite of the terrible stewardship its inhabitants have thrown at their home planet. My prayer is not just for life for the generations to come but a more caring and giving world community… one filled with love ❤️ and peace. A world that doesn’t tolerate hate, greed, bias and inequalities.

Bernice sent me this prayer quote that encompasses a petition of prayer with just a sprinkle of grit and ” in your face Satan” attitude! 🤣 I love it!!!

… ” And Satan trembles, when he sees

… ” the weakest saint upon his knees.”

–William Cower, English poet and hymn writer in the 1700’s

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Yesterday was the ending of a full circle of days spent together as a family. It has been so nice cuddling with Eva Cate each afternoon as we watched the Hallmark mystery movies together-I realize our shared love for these type movies won’t last long as Eva Cate grows and changes so I know this time is precious.

It is the same with everyday rituals-Kent Nerburn discusses this when reflecting meals together at the end of the day.

One evening while eating supper together Nerburn observes: ” It dawned on me that the table itself is prayer enough. It draws us into a circle, the most mythic and powerful of all human shapes. We pass the food from hand to hand, the most sacramental of all common human acts. Though it remains unspoken , even unrealized, our shared meal creates a bond among us and for a moment,makes us one.

There is no mystery in why Jesus chose a meal to reveal his death to those he loved, why he chose a meal to commemorate his truth. It is the time of common celebration when the taking of nourishment fills us with simple joy.

The Dakotah Sioux would often take the choicest piece of meat and cast it into the fire before beginning to eat. The Tibetans place the first food of a meal outside the door as an offering to the hungry spirits.

Today food comes too easily to us thus we have lost the sense of the meal as holy gift. We care less about sustenance, more about choice. Still… as I watch the family laugh, argue, share stories of the day-we are filled with the elemental joy that comes with nourishment. It is a small moment… but it is ours.

Leaving yesterday…. I agree with Kent Nerburn! Missing shared meals with family will be one of the hardest rituals to lose… eating by oneself is very different.

So until tomorrow… Thank you Father for opportunities to still feel needed and be part of Your Family within our families.

*** The Ukraine Fundraiser Honey is participating in are ” Bowls for Hope.” To raise funds for humanitarian efforts. Every year St John’s in the Wilderness conducts an ” empty bowl” project for the community. Honey took this idea she has contributed her talents to… for years and applied it to Ukraine-sorry I confused you calling it a plate-they are bowls made personally by hand by our Honey. Good deeds are still alive and well with good people!

One funny last note: Jake, my first grader, told me yesterday morning… before leaving for school, he was going to ask his teacher if he was good enough to earn the ” coveted” 5 Star for being really really good-after all he has been living with four ” girls” all week since his dad left. ” Four?” I asked. ” Yes! You and mommy and Eva Cate and Winnie.” I kept a straight face and told him I hoped he got his ” 5.” Time will tell.

Dear Reader:

If lucky… we grow up feeling loved … and for many of us it takes time to realize just how blessed we were and still are to experience it.

Scripture says… ” Love never fails…and now these three remain- faith, hope, love. But the greatest of these is love.”

A few weeks ago… one of the numbers Luke attached to my front steps ( years ago) fell off… the middle zero in 100 fell on the step below it. The last time Jeff came to cut grass he said he had some glue at his house that should work ( and it did) but during the intervening weeks while waiting… my address looked like 1 (blank spot) 0. A little confusing to UPS and FedEx drivers.

One day as I was walking around to the front of the house with a wheel barrel filled with pine cones I saw a UPS driver carrying a package halfway down the walkway… shaking his head.

When he saw me he yelled out ” I’m trying to figure this out-there are two different driveways and two front doors-is this a duplex? And if so… is one address 1 and the other side 0 ( zero) ? He had a cute sense of humor and a big grin … so I replied. ..

” No… it is just one home with two sides so when family and friends come… we can just spread out. The middle zero fell and I am waiting on it to be replaced-in the meantime I reckon I am resident ” zero.” I made an imaginary circle with a ” L” Loser sign!

He started laughing … ” Well after meeting you I think the ” zero” is really an ” O” as in ” O” you are the fun owner of a crazy house that just lightened my load.”

I like to associate fun and love together but consider this remembrance… Jesus ” commanded” us to love. so we know love is not just a feeling since we can not command feelings. Love is mostly a decision.

Richard Rohr reminds us that Jesus did not say: When you get healed, love. When you grow up, love. When you feel loving, love. When you get it together and have dealt with your mother/father/ husband/ wife/ children issues, then you must love.

No… the commandment for all of us is to love now… and thus fill the tragic gaps of every moment.

So until tomorrow…Let the ” Living Water” keep flowing through us.

Today is my favorite day

When we can still love people and circumstances that are not lovable… ” do love” … we are only getting a taste of what God’s unconditional love for us is all about… it can only be an unexplainable power from beyond ourselves.

Dear Readers;

To really see… we must be present. Charleston schools were out yesterday. Eva Cate had a play date so Mandy and I decided to take Jake to the seafood restaurant Vickery’s on Shem Creek for lunch and then hit the SC Aquarium. Fun day-especially since the predicted winds and rain held off.

As I sat watching the hundreds of fish swim by the giant aquarium I realized how they had to live in the present constantly-darting in and out of each other’s way. We humans, however, struggle to stay present-instead we hide in the past or worry about the future, as we mentally rehearse resentments and make our case for why we are right and someone else is wrong. What a waste of precious time.

At one tank I was drawn to the beauty of one fish-the colors made me think of Ukraine so I named him Zelensky. As I started calling his name each time he swam by another woman laughed and started calling him too… it turned into a chant with everyone excitedly watching him keep swimming back around… never leaving. The symbolism became more powerful as spectators started commenting on him out swimming this large fish. The ” Go Zelensky ” chant drew more and more spectators… a magical moment!

” The lamp of the body is the eye, if your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light. ”

So until tomorrow…” How we see is what we see… to see rightly we must stay present-without fear, without bias, and without judgment.

Kaitlyn found this Irish message she loved and I concur.

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Honey is making plates to sell-fundraiser for Ukraine! Love it!!!

Dear Reader:

A paradox is a seemingly contradictory statement that ends up possessing truthful revelations.

Case in point; ” God is the only One to whom we can surrender without losing ourselves. ”

After re-reading this statement several times… I , not only saw the truth in this paradox, but realized it’s unique eternal truth …that lives on.

It immediately made me think about the on-going tragic attack by Russia on Ukraine …for no apparent reason except geography and democracy… coupled with greed, power, and paranoia . Freedom is at stake-not only in Ukraine but everywhere free men, women, and children live.

I ordered Support Ukraine Fundraiser stickers-one of which I placed on my hand bag. Then I gave one to each of the older grandchildren ( 5th and 3rd grades) since they have discussed the war in their current events ” moment” of the day. They were excited about putting them on their social studies notebooks … cheering on freedom and learning about its high price!

In our world, amid the horrific scenes out of Ukraine, surrendering to tyranny is not paradoxical but fraught with the truth that Ukrainian lives will never be the same again if this happens. Which leads us back to the first true paradox-God is the only One to whom we can surrender without losing ourselves.

So until tomorrow… We live in a world of paradoxes-good and evil-passing and eternal -life and death-all at the same time. And the truth always lies in God-He is our way through the maze of life’s contradictory obstacles.

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Mandy took a chance and bought half a watermelon at the grocery store and you would have thought it was the Fourth of July! Sweet as could be! Yummy!

Dear Reader:

Don’t we all have a window that is our favorite to look out on to see our small piece of the world.

One of my favorite Nerburn stories is one he shared from a nursing home many years ago. He was visiting a friend at a nursing home who was no longer aware of his existence , much less visitation, and was deeply depressed and disturbed by the sadness of the patients all around him.

One nurse picked up on this and told him he must meet ” Alice” before he left… he was so glad he did….

He was writing about life in nursing homes also and felt he needed a bright spot-he found it in Alice.

When he introduced himself and asked if he could ask her a few questions about life in this place …she quietly nodded.

Her eyes never left one window. ” Look,” she said finally, pointing out the window. Far in the distance was the cupola of a cathedral.

” Isn’t it beautiful”? ” I come here every day to watch the sun rise. I have been all over Europe-seen Notre Dame, St Peter’s and the Duomo in Florence. But none was more beautiful than this and I get to see it every day for free!”

As we shared the cathedral, the dawn, and the radiant morning light… she reached over and grabbed my hand.

” Isn’t this a gift?”

Nerburn concludes…” I had approached Alice with sadness…on the shrinking horizons of her life that framed the boundaries of her day… but those were my tears, not hers. Her tears were for the beauty. From her window she received the spirit of dawn.”

So until tomorrow… Where some see limitations … we should all see possibilities.

Staying here with the grandchildren… my possibilities are endlessly delicious!

We all met up for pizza outside for supper last night…fun for the kids running around outside-freezing for the adults as the temps dropped quickly! Burr!!!!

… and my cow dogs / grand dogs for a going away party Tommy and Kaitlyn threw for friends moving to Texas!

Today is has favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Don’t we all, consciously or even unconsciously, take a moment before we fall asleep each night to think about the day we just lived?

Human nature , being what it is, rarely thinks that the day was ” enough.” Kent Nerburn( Small Graces) in his last chapter questions where ” this strange unquenchable human urge for more comes from-that is both our blessing and curse. “In our eternal quest to discover more of everything about the universe, somehow we have lost “the mystery of a cloud, the beauty of a garden, the joy of a single step. We must learn to value the small as well as the great.”

In the book of Micah the prophet says” And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Confucius told his followers, ” Bring peace to the old, have trust in your friends, and cherish the young.”

Nerburn asks ” Do we really need much more than this? To honor the dawn. To visit a garden. To talk to a friend. To contemplate a cloud. To cherish a meal. To bow our heads before the mystery of the day. Are these not enough? The world we shape is the world we touch – with our words, our actions, our dreams.

” If we should be so lucky as to touch the lives of many, so be it. But if our lot is no more than the setting of a table, or the tending of a garden, or showing a child a path in the woods, our lives are no less worthy.”

Kent Nerburn ends his book with this last comment: ” Sometimes, it seems, we ask too much. Sometimes we forget that the small graces are enough. ”

So until tomorrow…Our heart is known by the path we walk.

Dear Reader:

The other day, one of the ministers who contributed a story to the compilation published book –Finding Joy in the Journey-Reverend Angela, spoke about a belief she has maintained and felt …since a small child.

A hidden place inside her… a place that has never felt hurt, harm, humiliation or ridicule. It is here that God is patiently waiting on her. The safe place that one day will be her eternal home. Angela says that every time she sings ” Nearer my God to Thee” she smiles to herself because she is as close as any and every human can be if they believe in God’s Presence within them.

She believes if we want Someone to protect us -then let it be God. ” He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High.” ( Psalm 91)

There’s no doubt; God’s secret place is the safest place in the universe.

Haven’t we all been asked at what time or another what we would like Heaven to look like?

I would love to see a big rocking chair in a meadow of flowers of every color… seemingly rocking by itself-until our eyes are unveiled and there is God waving at me from this huge rocking chair to come listen to a story… lots of stories-billions of them in fact!

So until tomorrow-let us enjoy the first day of spring today with beauty and hope galore!

An update going into spring! It looks like Libby might be breaking out of rehab this coming Wednesday …though the healing process will continue with home caregivers.

Prayers for Mike and Honey Burrell and Mike’s mother-Winnie who is facing some serious health challenges that will require changes and adaptations for everyone caring for and loving Winnie. 💗❤️

***I am heading over to Mount Pleasant today for Lachlan’s family birthday party and then will be staying on this week to help Mandy with the kids while John is out of town at his annual company planning sessions.

And Happy Birthday to my bona fide thirteen ( going on 30?) niece Ady! 🎈 Happy Happy Birthday! Hope this is the best year-ever!!!!

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

” We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – TS Eliot

Dear Reader:

Some days … my mind starts grabbing all kinds of information circling around me… snippets of conversation, television segments, passages from a reading and blow them around my mind … as it in a wind storm… but other days … one lone thought pervades my consciousness and just stays there. Yesterday was one of those days.

Do you know when you spot one lone cloud in the sky ( at least the length of perimeters of human eyesight) what a strange phenomenon it truly is? Normally cloud formations are seen in clusters because vaporization, temperature patterns, winds,etc. affect large areas at the same time . For all the necessary ingredients to produce one lone cloud drifting by itself is, in itself, quite spectacular

My lone thought centered around another thought by someone named Stacie and the delivery of an Easter Resurrection scene I ordered on Amazon.

The quote: The amazing thing about life is that there are so many versions of yourself you get to experience.

I immediately embraced this observation! Even though I recognize the voice in me that identifies the person I have inhabited for a long time… still I can reflect back on several versions of me growing up-physically, mentally, and spiritually and see how the me I am now had a lot experiences designed to complete me.

Case in point: I ordered this Easter Resurrection Scene on Amazon-it arrived yesterday. Made of plywood with notches to put it together. I was not hopeful-I am a terrible puzzle participant. But to my surprise… even I could figure it out.

As I stared at the final design picture…everything looked right… except… the two Mary’s were supposed to be standing together looking at the moved rock and partial opening with the angel appearing from the right.

But there was a flaw… someone in the production line forgot to paint one Mary on the right side-( the angel and other Mary were painted on both sides. ) So instead of the two Mary’s arriving together-one behind the other-I had to get creative and have them facing each other on each side of the rock-one could see the angel but the one-sided Mary couldn’t.

An earlier ” version” of me…would have sighed loudly and been quite provoked by some underpaid assembly painter trying to keep up with her quota. But no longer. I thought it made more sense to have the two Mary’s on either side of the boulder… one seeing only darkness-the other glimpsing the angel and too frozen in disbelief to get any words out to the distraught Mary swept up in grief!

Today I realize that potential set-backs can turn out better than original designs …thought up by someone else.

So until tomorrow… the more experiences we have, the more insight we see… especially when we realize that there is so much we can let go of—without losing a thing.

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh

Dear Reader:

Have you ever experienced an almost split-second car accident, or stumble off a high ridge or deep ravine-and in that amazingly ” elongated ” moment of time-wonder… is this it? And if so… how does this ending leave our personal story- just hanging or did we get enough “plot” in to make our life somehow justifiable with exchanges of kindness and benevolence or were we still waiting for a happy ending to come when the ending came anyway?

Let me share an old Hindu tale that Mark Nepo used to demonstrate how important it is to let our story unfold …until the very end.

” In it, there is a boy who wants a drum, but his mother can’t afford a drum , so sadly she gives him a stick. Though he doesn’t know what to do with it, he shuffles home and begins to play with the stick. Just then, he encounters an old woman trying to light her wood-stove. The boy freely gives her the stick. She lights her fire, makes some bread and gives the boy half a loaf. Walking on, the boy comes upon a potter’s wife whose child is crying from hunger. The boy freely gives her the bread. In gratitude, she gives him a pot. Though he doesn’t know what to do with it, he carries it along the river, where he sees a washerman and his wife quarreling because the wife broke their one pot. The boy gives them the pot. In return they give him a coat. Since the boy isn’t cold, he carries the coat until he comes to a bridge, where a man is shivering. Riding to town on a horse, the man was attacked and robbed of everything …but his horse. The boy freely gives him the coat. Humbled, the man gives him his horse. Not learning how to ride, the boy walks the horse into town, where he meets a wedding party with musicians . The bridegroom and his family are all sitting under a tree with long faces. According to custom, the bridegroom is to enter the procession on a horse, which hasn’t shown up. The boy freely gives him the horse. Relieved, the bridegroom asks what he can do for the boy. Seeing the drummer surrounded by all his drums, the boy asks for the smallest drum, which the musician gladly gives him.”

” The Boy and the Drum” ( Facing the Lion, Being the Lion) Mark Nepo

Think about this… if the story had ended at any point prior to when it did -we would not have seen the true nature of generosity. After all -the key word in the story that kept popping up was …” freely” -the boy gave everything away ” freely” -not hesitantly or begrudgingly… but ” freely.”

If the story ended after the mother gave her little son a stick instead of the drum he wanted -the message behind the story would be one of gratitude and appreciatively accepting what we are given.

If the story ended when the boy gave his stick to the old woman (to start her wood-stove) we experience a moment of true altruism.

If we end the story when the woman gives the boy half a loaf of bread-we have an economic lesson in barter and trade principles.

But by letting the story completely unfold… we finally see how everything fits together … the circle of giving comes full circle. By allowing the fabric of the Universe to fully reveal itself… we are given a second unexpected gift-and that is …the gift might not be for us. It might be but one exchange along the way… ” and one exchange from realizing how we are all connected.”

So until tomorrow…” Faith is the bird that feels the light… and sings when the dawn is still dark.”

Mandy and John were busy leprechauns yesterday rising before the kids and turning the ” john” waters to the color green … dropping off toy gold coins leading to sprinkled green donuts and donuts filled with green jelly and having Jake ‘s ” leprechaun ” trap” or ” snare” ready to take to school to try and catch those little green men! And color while you eat place mats! Mandy said it was the best breakfast in awhile-everyone happy!

Today is my favorite day-Winnie the Pooh