Strength & Resilience

Strength defined: the quality of being strong. the power to resist force; strain; toughness and solidity. To resist attack and Moral courage.

I would like to add Resilience, defined: Capable of returning to an original shape after being bent, stretched,, or compressed.

I question my strength the most out of all character traits I have. This of course is a insercurity issue I have that constanly needs comfort and repairing on a daily basis. Did I say that out loud?
Well, so I did.

Again the growth thing is on going. Even at the age of 43. I look forward to 86. Life will always throw you something to grow on. Who wouldn't question themselves when something new and exciting or maybe even scary comes along? What do we do? We reach out to one another, to talk about it, justifly it and eventually come to terms with it.
Whats next? Bring it on.

No reason for these simple definitions other than an observation.

Thirty cubic yards of mulch to pitch in to old gardens and the start of new. I look forward to the laborous time in the yard. Nature has been so good to us this season. Last night a good book and some crickets outside my open windows making their music while I read. The perfect combinations to this season so far is:
~ The windows wide open to recieve the cool nights air and my down comforter.
~ A good book and pistachio nuts.
~Storm stories with my daughters in bed with me watching it.

*Confront the dark parts of yourself, and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness. Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing. Use the pain as fuel, as a reminder of your strength.--August Wilson

Growth

An Indian Chief once said, " The spirit said to lead the 'child' and show him/her the way, even if he/she doesn't want to go."

This quote followed a generous offering of food to the white man from a local Indian tribe. The people were grateful and asked them to join in a meal. One man spoke out against sitting next to an "ingen"..spoke out! Just said it! We know who the child was.

This gets me thinking...... 'The spirit' Mother earth. The flow of life and death. Total respect for Nature and it strength. Listening to the inner self and trusting it. Lessons abound! Does the one who is connected to his or her spirituality the wiser? And maybe seem righteous? Or is it simply the right way to create harmony and growth among men?

The child: In many way I am still the child in need of leading. But I don't follow those who try to lead me. I follow my heart. It's the heart that is the rightious. I don't mind being the child, as long as I am learning and becoming a better human being.

~And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.--Anais Nin

Revelers gather for summer solstice
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
 
  A reveller faces the sunrise during the Summer Solstice ceremonies at Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England, Monday June 21, 2004. The stone circle at Stonehenge is believed to be at least 4,500 years old. (AP Photo/John D McHugh)

STONEHENGE, England -- More than 20,000 New Age followers, self-styled druids and other revelers celebrated the summer solstice at this ancient stone circle Monday, dancing to drums and holding aloft flaming torches.

After a cool, wet night, the crowd cheered as the sun broke through cloudy skies more than a hour after dawn on the northern hemisphere's longest day.

"The fire symbolically welcomes the sun for the longest day of the year, part of the seasonal wheel which we as druids and pagans celebrate," said a man calling himself King Arthur Pendragon. "It's not a day in church for us, it's a celebration."

English Heritage, which runs Stonehenge, estimated the crowd at 21,000. Police said they arrested a few participants for public order offenses.

Stonehenge - the remnants of the last in a sequence of circular monuments built between 3000 B.C. and 1600 B.C. - is one of Britain's most popular tourist attractions and a spiritual home for thousands of self-styled druids and mystics.

The stones, 80 miles southwest of London, reopened to the public for the summer solstice in 2000, after being closed following violence between police and revelers in 1985.

~"I question not if thrushes sing, If roses load the air; Beyond my heart I need not reach When all is summer there."
Author: John Vance Cheney

All in the name of Fathers Day

Here it comes. The day that Dad doesn't want any big Ta-Do and all we can think about is how great to make it for him!
Here's my story:

Tom's mom need a ride from LaPorte to South Bend in order to get a screw taken out of her ankle. I needed to borrow the riding tractor in order to mow our spit shy of an acre yard. A deal was made. I pick up Mom (45min drive) and take her to the hospital. I come home (since I have three hours to wait before I pick her up again and take her back home (another 45 minutes). I'm home and trying to unload the tractor from the trailer..impossible for be to do because it keeps getting hooked up on the ramps. Tom helps me. I mow the yard ( 1 hour and 45 mins) then head back to pick up mom and take her to dinner beacuse she had to fast in for the surgury and needed to eat. "Is a regular dinner Okay" she asks. I didn't know I was buying , but okay. 1 hour and 15 minutes later dinner and seriously no tip! On the road again ( you know how long) and back to pick up my girls at a friends house. Day gone. Next day I get up early and start trimming the bushes and break the bush trimmerrs (not mine, borrowed) because the bushes haven't been trimmed in two years. YEOW! That's it! I'm buying good lawn equipment and doing this right! $400.00 later I have a bush trimmer and weed wacker all Stihl products...the best. Off I go trimming all the bushes (9 large yews) weed wack the entire yard ( 25 trees and around house) Five hours later I am dead. I can't move a muscle. Today I am sore but proud of the work I've done.

Happy Fathers Day My Dear Husband. I love you.

Next week 25 cubic yards of woodchips to pitch! I love this!

Our time together as a family is priceless

Went camping on a whim Sunday. It's amazing how much time we really have as a family when we don't go to church. See, our situation is a little different than the average working stiff. My husband work evenings, which puts our weekends in a different place than the norm. Tom comes home saturday morning and needs to sleep till at least 3:00. So there goes Saturday especially if there is some function going on that night which is very common anymore. Then there is Sunday which is up early for chime practice for the gilrs ( a neat way for them to suck in the parents to being there every sunday) and sunday school. Next thing you know it's noon and half the day is gone. Now, that's if there are no after church activities like potluck or Deacon groups or tri-annual meetings. So this summer we are taking off and not going at all. I mean at all! When we got home from our campout I noticed that our overnight stay felt like a much longer and relaxing stay. Why is that? Why did it feel like we were actually gone for two or so days? Tom thinks it's because we have a whole day together as a family with no other obligations. It's true! So where does that put us when it comes to church? Do we go anymore? we do cherish our precious one day together. What are we getting out of church? What are the kids getting? Tom says "nothing I'm sure". I think he is mistaken. Personally, I feel that I would not have found several callings if it wasn't for church life. As for the kids, they have been exposed to a great religious heritage that have peace as it's backbone. And as for Tom, I believe he gets adult social time with the intellect he craves and appreciation he is humbled by. ( I don't think he knows this). So, Yes, we will go back, for how long I'm not sure. I think it depends on how selfish we want to be. Our Pastor has resigned this week. His last day is August 31st. Maybe this will open up things a bit.

God is infinite.

Reading another good book by Madeleiene L'Engle "The Moon by Night". Vicki , a soon to be fifteen year old, is questioning her world, God and fairness. She is stuck between not quite a child but not quite a young adult. Her Uncle Douglas who is she is very close to, had this to say about God. It couldn't be more the way I have been experiencing myself. I just never saw in words before. Let me share:

On Fairness:
"The rain is raining all around"
"It rains on both the just and the unjust fellow
But more, it seems on the just than on the unjust,
For the unjust hath the just's umbrella.
~Author unknown

"As long a man has freedom of choice, then we have to assume the responsiblity for our own actions."


On God:
"One of the biggest facts you have to face Vicky, is that there is a God and he's infinite, and we're finite, and therefore we can't ever understand him. The minute anybody starts telling you what God thinks, or exactly why he does such and such, beware. People should never try to make God in man's imagie, and that's what they're constanly doing. "When I wasn't much older than you, I decided that God, a kind and loving God, could never be proved. In fact there are, as you've seen latley, alot of arguments against him. But there isn't any point to life without him. Without him we're just a skin disease on the face of the earth, and I feel too strongly about the human spirit to bebale to settle for that. So what I did for a long time was to live life 'as though' I believed in God. And eventually I found out that the 'as though' had turned into a reality."

The 'as though' is still in process for me. I felt for years that I was playing a role that didn't fit, but come to find out, my spirtual growth just was what it is then and it contines to grow now.

Pond Life

Going to bed last night felt great after a lack of sleep the night before. (thunderstorms, kids, dog baking at thunder till 2:00am ) . Keifer Dam is now filled with water for the first time in three years. The pond next door was overflowing with a choir of frogs singing in waves that lulled me to sleep.

Went to New Paris yesterday, driving through flooded streets and Amish contry, I love that, to meet up with folks interested in developing skills or improving their skills in Conflict Resolution and transformation. To me it was honing in on my skills again and refreshing forgotten ones. My Stevens Ministries training covered many areas of CR, but not so much the transformation part. I felt a little out of my element at times. I felt like I was back in the board room tring to make sense of what all these ( more educated and verse in church life then me) people were saying. I would like to see my self in a facilitators role, but I'm not feeling my gift is there. My very good friend, who was co-teaching this class, felt I had leadership qualities. Do you know your the only one of my friends who says what they see in me? My husband doesn't even do that.... But then again what husband does that? Those few kind words put me on the next shelf of the self confidence ladder!

thank you,
I love you.

guilty of gum

Two sets of Indigo Buntings have graced our feders again this year. What a song they have to share for their seed. Two hummingbirds duel over the two feeders we put out fresh every three days. Mother Nature is most awesome. There's a gift at every turn. How we take care of her is up to each and everyone of us. Driving behind a business man the other day who turn down his window and threw out trash! It must have been cluttering up his car. I couldn't believe it. I was appalled, People still throw trash around like it will just disappear like magic. I'm guilty of it. I thought gum was biodegradable, but it isn't!

Stuck on you: a gum-covered tree.Every commercial gum has a gum base, just like every trophy has a trophy base, and in some cases the two are disturbingly similar. The base makes up a percentage of the gum; the remaining ingredients are flavor and sugar. Gum bases are the part that we chew and chew and chew long after the flavor is just a memory. They are grouped in categories: elastomers (including natural and synthetic rubbers), resins, plasticizers (such as waxes, vegetable oils, and glycerides), adjuvants (including calcium carbonate, talc, or other charging agents), and antioxidants. In other words, the gum is, at base, plastic or rubber or wax.
~Grist Magazine

My girls are across the street at Ruth's house. She came by this morning to see if my girls would like to meet her best friends granddaughter who is 12. Kelsey was all for it. That surpirsed me, but I think it was more for the pool than the social thing. This lovely girl named Ashley looks 16! Okay, maybe 14 but man! My poor flat chested girls who look their age, looked way to young for her. I wonder how they are doing? Tom and I are leaving here soon to get cholesterol and blood pressure checked. My husband is 51 and very concerened about his health these days. Very normal I hear. I think listening to all those late night talk shows have gotten to him. No Art Bell here!!!

Camped-out last night with the girls. Of course I didn't get any sleep. Mackinaw, my dog, kept hearing raccoons and other creatures and getting all ralwed up. So in the house he goes at 2:00am. So of course the next hour I'm worried about Raccoons. Next thing I know it morning and the sun was straight into my eyes (4:45am). Tonight the girls want a repeat. Looks like the weather is perfect for it. a bit warm, but I'll survive. This is the first year that both of the girls want their own tent. Tom and I bought a 9x7. that's good enough. We are getting our girls ready for some future backpack camping with some canoeing and or white water rafting.

I saw a nice new fresh Bush/Cheny sign in a neighbors yard today. I thought " how brave they are to have that sigh in their yard". I wonder what kind of response I would get if I out a Nader sign in my yard. We could have yard sign wars!

~"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs."
PJ O'Rourke

want to see (hear) the Cicadas?

What a beautiful day. three in a row now. This is the coolest june I can remember. Tom came home with a USA today paper and it had a huge article in it about the cicadas. It looks as though Bloomington is Cicada Meca! Tom is very excited about this and wants to go down next weekend and check it out. I guess I'm going (smaller tent) hunting! We need more spur of the moments..... moments in our lives. The kids are at a great age for this type of life style. The question is, can we keep it going at a pace that will keep the interest up? Maybe by not over scheduling the summer will help. We try to do that at all cost anyway but things tend to creep up. These mellow days and cool night are the ultimate in camping weather. No hot humid nights for me. I get too grumpy. Plus my hair is flat!

Graduations to attend this weekend. I have no graduation edicate so I guess we'll just show up. Tom wants to make a pen and pen case for their gifts. Sounds good. Maybe I'll pick up a card that says something profound, I don't know. In our little tight group of freinds this is the first child to graduate from high school. Blazing the trail with the Airforce. So much like his father in many repects. Two years later the other son graduates. It's all starting and will go for many many years until we are all childless and retiring in Canada in communal living. Sounds dreamy.

~The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mood of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; for happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.--Charles Langbridge Morgan

I question you God

We had a last minute mothers night out for the HS group. We needed to communicate our differences because this group is important enough to do so. I thought it was just a night where we all would say our peace and look to find ways to make ammends. It was so much more than that.

It started out as a "this is why I am they way I am " ( family structure growing up, my role in this group and am I comfortable with it, what I need to change and adjust to bring us all into the 'mead' of personalities). WOW. There is trust and courage going on here. So around the table we go. I'm sorry's, I can see that now's, This is the role I see myself in this group.

Then we came upon the one person I thought was one of the forces behind all the anxieties, the one who kept wanting to add things, but tried to keep just to her sewing. Several pieces of paper was passed out to each of us and she left the room so we could read her "why I am the way I am." I was irritated. Reading, reading, reading.
what the hell am I reading! Why am I reading this? Is this true? Did this really happen? It's too much. I just wanted to build a rock! I didn't want all this emotional baggage, what am I suppose to do? what can I say to her?

Corrine saw that I needed a break and left to go out and have a cigarette. I cried, I felt sick to my stomach. "what do I do now?" " What do I say?"....... "I can't answer that for you".

God:
I question you God, How can you let monsters like this among children? Where were you that night? Where are you! Are you really there? This has no reasoning....none.

I am going to try and shove this into the back somewhere, where the rest of the crap I don't want to churn up remaines. The dynamics of "friendship" is stained now because I couldn't talk to her about it. I was blind sided. She keeps appolgizing to me for upsetting me. How can she say that? The night ended several hours later and I drove her home. We said nothing more about the writtings, but the elephant was there.

~You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.--Eleanor Roosevelt

I didn't do that.........I am very sorry.
*