Admirable

Admire

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I admire:

People with a great sense of humor

People of honor

People of God

People who love and treasure their children and each other

Men who respect women

Women who respect men

Men who respect other men

Women who respect other women

Law enforcement officers who keep on going back to work, even though they know there’s a target on their backs.

Military people who continue to serve even though they get no support from their President, and when they come home they’re quickly forgotten

Pastors who labor daily, unrecognized and unknown, because they love God and they love their people.

Pastors’ wives.

Teachers who love their students as well as their subject matter

I do NOT admire:

Selfishness

Self-righteousness

Unkindness

Deceit

Flattery for the sake of gaining a goal

Horror perpetrated in the name of religion

Ignorance that doesn’t have to exist. There is no excuse for ignorance in America today.

Ungodliness

Profane, vulgar, hateful language

On the lighter side, I really admire:

The proper use of apostrophes (notice I didn’t use one on apostrophes, but I did on didn’t)

People who will not take personal offense at the above statement. Just having a little fun, ok?

People who can leave the bathroom with toilet paper trailing from their shoes or a skirt tucked  up into a waistband and then laugh about it.

People who maintain a cool head when everyone else is losing his mind.

People who don’t get all sniffy because I often have to use one of those electric carts at the grocery store, and it makes them have to slow down if they’re behind me. (You’ll be old, too, someday, and maybe you’ll be more generous if you live with chronic pain)

People who are willing to reach things that are stocked on shelves  that are ten feet above the ground and over five feet above my head.  People who do that with a smile.

People who don’t use the exit door for an entrance.  And vice versa.

People who don’t use “per se” very often, if at all, and people who don’t spell it per say.

People who know what per se means, and who use it correctly.  Here’s an example:  “The stones don’t have much value  per se, but they’re pretty to look at.”  Per se  means in or of itself, intrinsically. 

People who won’t get all sniffy over the previous statements.  Again, just having a little fun.

People who just don’t tend to get all sniffy over much of anything.

I’m done.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/admire/

Beauty of Character

Unstoppable

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First thought:  Time and the onset of old age.  So let’s go with that one.

There are lots of things that are more beautiful with age. We don’t often consider a woman’s face in that light, but the older I grow, the  more my opinion changes on that issue.

Look at this lovely lady. What makes her beautiful?  And I really think she is!

Is it her skin?  Well, not if you are influenced by the ads that tell you that facial lines and wrinkles are the knell of doom.  We MUST delay them!  We MUST erase them if we can.

However, what I see here is a life lived with lots of smiles.  Nothing else puts lines just where this lady’s lines are. That’s beauty.

Look at her eyes. She probably had very beautiful eyes when she was young. Maybe they’re a bit faded now, but what I see is  contentment and light. That’s beauty.

Now pay attention to her smile. Pleasant, and I’m guessing it’s her  usual expression. Sure, there are lines and creases, but the smile itself expresses a beauty of the soul and spirit that is far more important than having smooth skin.

“You’re just saying this because you’re old, and you have lines and wrinkles!”

Maybe.  I don’t think that’s my motivation here, but maybe. Truth?  I’ve known many women through the years who have beautiful faces, but ugly spirits. Selfishness, vanity, negative complaining spirits.  Dissatisfied, unpleasant, unlovely spirits.  It doesn’t take long for that to show on their faces.

Another truth?  I don’t want to be remembered for being physically attractive. It doesn’t take any character at all to be physically attractive.  I’d much rather be remembered as a woman who loved God, loved her husband and family, and cared about other people.

That’s beauty, and that kind of beauty is unstoppable.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/unstoppable/

A Crisis of Faith

Crisis

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This one could go a lot of different ways.  America is in financial crisis, as well as political and moral crisis. We are threatened as we have never been threatened before.  In case you haven’t been paying attention, our enemies have brought the conflict to our own shores, successfully, for the first time in our history. And we’re not fighting back.

Or we could talk about the crisis of the pandemic of pornography in our country and across the world; the horror of sex traffic, of the drug cartels, and of violence against law and order. We could talk about epidemic unemployment, the devaluation of the dollar, the collapse of cities like Detroit. We could discuss the dangers of losing our First and Second Amendment freedoms in the name of “safety.”

Or we could talk about the incredible ignorance of some of our so-called Millenials, those ranging in age from about 18 to 35.  They’ve never been taught the true history of our country.  They don’t know what war George Washington fought, or who won the Civil War, or why it was fought. They have no idea who some of the founding fathers were, and if you ask them about present-day politics, they’re pretty blank there, too. Yes, yes.  I know that not all of them are so uninformed, but way too many of them are.  They are the future of our nation, and they know very little about our past.

We could talk about the crisis of the moral decline that I deal with every day that I work. Don’t ever try to tell me “It’s just sex, it doesn’t really matter.” That’s lie. It’s not “just sex.”  A girl has to deal with the aftermath in a different way than a guy does, but there are consequences for both.  I know someone who was promiscuous some years ago, falling for the lie that sex is just a normal human behavior, and shouldn’t be thought of as wrong or immoral outside of marriage.  She has HPV now, and her greatest fear is that she may have passed it to any of her sexual partners before she realized she had it.  And that’s just scratching the surface of the deep problems I try to help with that are the result of sexual promiscuity.  When I was a kid, there were two STD’s that we knew about. Today, there are over 145 strains of STD’s.  That should make all of us stop and think.

Some of that promiscuity  is connected with pornography, which is also not “just a thing, not important, a victimless crime.” Please.  Do some research, and you’ll find that  those women who perform in such videos don’t usually live to a ripe old age.  Some of them die of murder because they don’t want to perform any more. A lot of them die of drug overdoses.  It’s not exactly a glam life.

The crisis that underlies all the rest of them is one of godlessness.  God is no longer cool. He doesn’t even really exist, you know?  I mean, He’s like, just a myth, you know, like all those other dudes like Jupiter and those ones in the Greek or whatever.  There’s no such thing as sin, dude, it’s just that sometimes we make poor choices, mistakes, you know? Heaven and hell?  Fairy tales.  Satan?  Cool, man.  There are some great horror movies about him, you know?

We’ve lost our minds in this country. We’ve certainly lost our moral compass, and our sense of the holiness of God.

And that is indeed a crisis.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/crisis/

I Forget

Elusive

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Yup.  It’s that time of life when I forget words that used to come tripping off my tongue with no effort on my part.  Words that are elusive,  just beyond the reach of my searching brain, words that flit in and out of the particular crevices of the brain that control such things.

I’d like to think the problem is really that I just know so many  words.  I took one of those silly Facebook quizzes the other day because it caught my interest:  What was the size of my vocabulary?  Well, according to the quiz, it’s XXXL.  They told me I’m Shakespeare, and that I could coin words!  Well, the truth is, I’m going to have to coin words because I can’t remember the old ones any more.

Then there are names.  Terry and I spend a lot of time saying things to each other like, “I saw–um–you know, the one who married —uh–that kid who had the wart on his nose, you know the one?  Yeah, that’s him.  Anyway, I saw his wife the other day.  I’ll think of her name in a minute.”

You continue the conversation, drifting away from the person whose name you’re trying to remember, when suddenly it pops into your brain and you blurt it out right in the middle of your husband offering to take you on a world cruise, because if you don’t say it right away you may never get it back.  Trouble with that is, it derails hubby from his proposed gift, and he can’t remember what he was saying before you hollered Jezziablah! and then you’re really bummed because you know he was saying something amazing but you can’t remember either. . . .

Yeah. Elusive.  I used to connect that word with romantic things like perfume. Not any more. Can’t remember the name of the perfume.  It will come back to me.  Eventually.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/elusive/

A Safe Place, a Holy Place

Sanctuary

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I am fully aware that a church building is, after all, just a building. Bricks, mortar, stone, wood, glass, steel–all these things can be used to make many other kinds of buildings as well.

I remember when the main meeting room of a church was referred to as the sanctuary. The objection to doing so was that until the Lord is there, it’s just another room in any building. There is nothing sacred about the room itself, we were told, and I suppose that’s true. Still, it was the place where we met to sing, pray, and hear the preaching of God’s Word.

The Bible says in Matthew 18:20 that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” In that sense, any place believers gather in Jesus’ Name, that place is a sanctuary, a sacred place, a place where God is. There was a time in long-ago days when a person could claim sanctuary  in a church, and be safe from harm. That only worked, however, if the “harm” that was coming was another believer.

When I was a little girl, we were taught not to run in the auditorium.  We were not to go up on the platform, nor were we to touch the piano or the organ. There was a deep respect ingrained into us  for this sacred place, and it makes me sad to see it treated as no more than another playground. It is not that the place itself is holy or sacred, but that what happens there IS holy and sacred. It was a solemn thing to go into the auditorium for a church service.  Not that there was no laughter. There was.  I remember a lot of joy, a lot of laughter, involved in church services. The music was often solemn, but it was also beautiful and full of joy.

Last night we went to an old-fashioned hymn sing. It was not held in a church building, but rather in a public facility.  There was no preaching, just a lot of music and a time of prayer. During that hour or so, the place was a sanctuary.

As we sang the final hymn, I struggled with the tears that clogged my throat.  I’m not one of those fortunate people who can sing while they cry.  The voice just can’t get past the lump in my throat. Several things were going on.  I was with people I’ve known and loved for years.  I love to sing, and last night my voice lasted pretty well.  It doesn’t always, these days.  It creaks and croaks and disappears on me. Aging vocal cords and too many sinus infections and allergies have taken their toll. So it made me emotional to actually be able to sing. And finally, it was a song I love, a song that always makes me look forward to heaven.

So at the end of this rather disorganized ramble, take a few minutes to enjoy the sanctuary of the music right where you are:

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/sanctuary/

Fast and Slow

Slowly

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Of course, the story of the tortoise and the hare is the first thing I thought of, so here it is, just for fun.

When I was a kid, time crawled.  Vacations from school seemed very long, especially summer. Of course, back then we didn’t start until the Tuesday after Labor Day, and we were done before Memorial Day. Clear boundaries are a good thing.  I remember when the “lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer”  really were actually all of that. Delightful, long, fun summer days. 

Then I went to college, and the days began to move faster. It was okay, because I looked forward to graduation and whatever would follow.

Then I fell in love, and the days dragged again–notice I didn’t say “moved slowly,” which is a whole different thing than “dragged.”  I wanted to be done with school.  I wanted to get married and get started in that life.

Finally the day came, and time picked up speed.  Before I knew it, our first baby came along. And sudden the days flew, but the nights crawled along slowly.  Feeding every 3-4 hours, fussing, demanding attention. All part of adjusting when a baby comes along. But we figured it out, and we got better at it with each one of our four.

And the years flew, and now my babies are all grown up, three in their forties and one almost there. Wham!  Time hits you like a ton of bricks, and before you can turn around you’re having old people’s health issues. Each day is like a minute, and I’m having a hard time keeping up. Good grief, July is winding down already and it just started yesterday!

The only instances of time moving slowly are when I can’t stay asleep at night.  It doesn’t happen often, thank God! If only I could take those minutes and hours from a slowly- moving night and put them into my day.

There are some things I still want to accomplish before I turn up my toes, and I think I’d better get a move on.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/slowly/

The Ocean, Always

Carefree

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THIS is carefree.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/carefree/

My Ten Per Cent

Depth

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You’ve all heard that most of us use only 10% of our brain’s capacity. What that means to me is that, after 69 years, 90% of my brain is full of information I don’t know I know.

So where is my useful ten per cent?  I know it’s not in my olfactory cortex, since I’ve pretty much lost my sense of smell. Boy, is that a bummer.

Look, the brain doesn’t have much depth compared to other pars of the body, so it shouldn’t be too hard to figure where my active 10% lies.  Right?  Right.

My auditory cortex and my visual cortex are definitely not functioning at 100%, so it must be something else.  I find myself losing my balance a little bit now and then, so it must not be the motor cortex. The central sulcus is really a fissure that defines the lobes of the brain, but I don’t think it has much to do with intelligence or learning.  It acts as a good roadmap for neurosurgery, though, so I hope those doctors are paying close attention to the map.

The temporal lobes?  They’re responsible for hearing, memory, meaning, and language. They also play a role in emotion and learning. The temporal lobes are concerned with interpreting and processing auditory stimuli.Those seem to be in pretty good shape except for the auditory part, so maybe they contribute to the ten per cent.

Wait. I think I found it!  The gustatory cortex, of course!  It helps detect flavor!  Food!  Chocolate!  Coffee!  Bacon!  Yay, gustatorycortex!  I’m sure it’s an important part of my 10 per cent, and it’s buried in the depths of my brain, so I’m hoping it will never die off until I do 🙂

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/depth/

Food and People

Feast

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The first thing that popped into my mind was, of course, Thanksgiving, quickly followed by Christmas. The meals were almost identical when I was growing up, if we were at home. If we were in Fairmont with our adopted family, that broadened the field of choices.

Then comes the old-fashioned Sunday dinner that was part of my childhood. I especially loved it when we had company, and Mom had fixed one of her mouthwatering rump roasts. Do they still cut rump roasts?  It’s been a long time since I’ve bought much beef.  Can’t believe how expensive it is. In any case, the meals were wonderful, and filled the house with the seductive aroma of roasting meat seasoned with chunks of garlic pushed way down into the cuts Mom made with her paring knife.

I gave my own family the same kind of Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts, and for quite some time we also did the big Sunday dinner. Finally, though, my husband said, “You don’t have to go to all this work, Linda. None of us needs to eat this much any more, and you don’t need to work so hard.”  And so our Sunday meal got scaled way back to an ordinary meal, and I have to admit I enjoy the more relaxed day.  And he was right. We don’t need to eat so much these days.

The food was always delicious, always enticing. The smells were almost better than the actual flavors. However, as I think back, what I believe really made those feasts so special was the family, the friends, the people that enriched our lives and  made the occasions so special. Long after the food was cleared away and the stacks of dishes and pots and pans washed, dried, and put away, the fellowship continued into the evenings until it was time to put out the pies and other desserts.

My daughter is the main provider of the holiday/birthday feasts now, and she’s an incredible cook. She’s gone far beyond the things she learned from me, and her meals are always a delight. It’s especially good when she has the house full of friends as well as family. Sometimes we just enjoy visiting.  Sometimes we gather around the piano and sing, especially at Christmas. Everyone enjoys it, even the older kids.

So that makes the feast.  The people, the love, the fellowship, the hospitality.  Food, without all that, is really just food.  The spice is the people.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/feast/

Handle with Care

Frail

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Things of great beauty are often frail:

 

Sometimes things that aren’t so beautiful are also quite fragile:

What I’m learning, as I grow older, is that life itself is fragile, not matter what life-stage one may be experiencing. Someone once loved that old lady, when she was young and beautiful and full of energy.  Someone loved that shlumping old house, building it with  anticipation of  perhaps bringing home a new bride, of rearing a family there. Maybe at one time it was a lovely yard, graced with shade trees and colorful flowers.

We need to treasure life.  It is fragile.  Handle it with care.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/frail/