All Creatures Great and Small

Yesterday I killed a wasp. Today I wake and find my heart is heavy with sadness for the life of one of God’s creatures. We do it all the time; step on an ant, swat a fly, spray insecticide on our garden plants – they are after all “pests” aren’t’ they?

It was late in the afternoon, the sun behind dark clouds that were avoiding us and so the heat was almost bearable on the back porch. Suddenly my husband said from across the porch, “There is a wasp by your head.” For some odd reason I did not run or even move, but sat motionless with my hand resting on my glass of wine.

The wasp flew to the lip of my wine glass and I tried to blow him off. After all, I was able to gently blow a billiards ball into the pocket of the pool table impressing my two-year-old grandson. Surely, I could blow away a wasp.

He flew to the plant on the table next to me and back to my glass. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be long before he dived into the wine for a swim.

My husband went to get some newspaper. As he did, the wasp landed on my hand. I looked at him and for a fraction of a second there was a connection between one of God’s creatures and myself. He tiptoed along my finger and hopped back onto my glass. About that time my husband returned. I lifted my glass and turned away as he swatted the wasp, killing him. It had to be done; after all he had entered our world. Had he stayed outside with all the other creatures, he would have been safe. Seeing my sadness my husband reminded me of my garden spider who lives just outside my kitchen window and although appears frightening, is in fact a friend, not a pest.

Yeah. I can keep coming up with excuses and I know people will make fun of me for being sad over killing an insect. But there is a lesson in this experience for me and everyone who reads this. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us.”

I recognize and bless the Divine life in all creatures I encounter (whether they are human or insect). I also forgive myself any instances wherein I don’t live up to those intentions. And doing so, the grief of my heart is relieved and I once again am filled with joy and love for my own life and the lives of all who touch my life.

“Countless are the things you have made, LORD; by your wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” ~ Psalm 104:24

http://youtu.be/eLeq2vj9kcA

Something to Write About

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting some of the most talented authors in the area. Over twenty were at the Chattanooga Writers’ Guild meeting laden with books, computers, magazines, journals, postcards, posters, and pen in hand to sign a sold book.

I had hoped to prepare them in the event the turnout was not what they expected. And to remember that no matter how many people came to this event, it did not diminish the work they have accomplished as writers. Most of them have other careers including professors at several colleges and universities, business men and women, counselors, and scientists to name a few.

It was a perfect opportunity for them to network as well. But from one writer to another, it was all of our hopes to have a huge crowd buying books. I will look at the evaluation sheets I had the writers fill out and see what I can suggest to the CWG board next year. For this is my last year on the CWG board as it is in our bylaws that one can serve a maximum of three years, and since the first meeting of the year is in September, it was my last time to plan a program as well.

It has been a good three years. I have met some great people and served on the board with a wonderful group of men and women dedicated to making the CWG a great organization meeting the needs of writers in and around the Chattanooga area. I still plan to remain active in the CWG because who would not want to get opportunities like last night?

I met a young woman who wrote her first book and got to see her smile and eyes shine with pride. I met a professor at Dalton State College who told me about some writing classes coming up. I saw a friend who gave me a tip on a story for Catoosa Life Magazine’s September/October issue. I made a new friend in a writer who invited me to help start a new writing group and who told me that another writer, Nancy Williams, who I had not seen in a year or so had died recently. And that made me sad. And then I met a woman from Cleveland who was friends with Marcia Brantley, the missing Cleveland woman who is presumed dead. The last time I saw Marcia was at the CWG board meeting when she was going off the board and and I was coming on. She disappeared right after that, hopefully by choice and not by ill fate. I don’t plan to disappear.

My thoughts are with Nancy’s and Marcia’s family and friends and with all the talented and successful writers that I had the honor of sharing a celebration of publication last night. It was something to write about!

A Magical Moment of Consciousness

When I was a little girl I was never afraid of thunder storms. It was normal to wake and find the sky dark knowing that before long the lighting and thunder and heavy rains would follow. There was a comfort in the knowledge that one action would result in the next action.

I’m not sure it meant the same to my mother who was forced to take me and my siblings to school. I still tried to persuade her to let me walk or ride my bike to school, however, because I loved the feel of the rain pouring down on me washing away my troubles.

I usually found myself laughing out loud as I flew down the hill on my bike. If it had been a particularly difficult week, the rain was a very nice cover for tears to be shed and then I would cry my heart out running home soaking wet.

To my grandmother, who lived only a few blocks away from me, a sudden rain storm was always a nuisance. This is because her daily chore of hanging out the wash got interrupted. I remember often spending the night at her house and hear her cry for me to help her get the laundry off the line. Running out the screen door slamming it behind her, my grandmother’s beautiful white hair, always perfect from her weekly visit to the beauty parlor, would be flying in the wind. I did what I was told and followed her out the house only to see blue skies and sunshine.

She hurried along unpinning the clothes pins, dropping them into the cotton bag hanging on the line and tossing the still damp sheets and towels into her whicker laundry basket. Before I could ask what the hurry was, the rain came in torrents and yet the sun still shone. I asked my grandmother how she knew it was going to rain and she said she smelled it. And then she said, “The devil is beating his wife with a frying pan.” This was because the sun was shining and the rain was falling. It was a truly magical moment.

I always thought that was a funny saying and pretty much forgot about it until the other day when my granddaughter and I were sitting on the back porch and it suddenly began to rain. The sun was shining brightly. For a split second, just before it rained I smelled the rain. And I said, “The devil’s beating his wife with a frying pan.”

I looked over at my granddaughter and I saw in her face the same look I had given my grandmother all those many years ago. And then the most amazing thing happened. Time stood still and I saw in my granddaughter’s eyes, my grandmother’s eyes and then even more amazingly my own eyes reflecting back. To be one with my granddaughter, my grandmother and God, now that was a truly magical moment.

The Secret of Immortality

“Like mother, like daughter – the nicest compliment there is.”

This tiny little verse is printed on a vinyl plaque that my daughter Jennifer gave me one day years ago. She was not a mother yet and still I can say that as she is like me so too is she like her own daughters. The littlest, Emery Kate, only months old, is sweet, calm, happy, and smiles all the time. She makes everyone around her feel loved because she is so generous with her own love.

But it is when her mother picks her up and holds her close to her heart that she is most content and although we all attempted, on our recent trip, to use the technique to get her to sleep, it was my daughter, her mother that was able to get her to sleep the fastest.

I can remember holding Jennifer in my arms when she was about a year old. We were sitting in the living room of our home in Denver, CO in the wooden rocker my parents gave us when our first born, Brian was born. Jennifer and I rocked and talked and hugged and laughed and I said to no one in particular, “My head says you need to grow up, but my heart wants you to stay just like you are right now, my sweet daughter.”

And then there is Alexandra Anne, also known as Lexi or the Lou Lou as she sometimes calls herself. Tiny, smart, funny, a tornado circling a room, a force to be reckoned with and yes like her mother as well; because she is also kind, sweet, and filled with love for everyone she meets. She meets no stranger and is surrounded by a light of happiness that is very contagious just like her mother.

Like mother, like daughters, my daughter has been given the gift of caring for two precious daughters and with the help of a loving husband she can do all things for her daughters. Honoring this gift she has been given comes easy to my daughter, but then she is like me. I thank God every day for having Jennifer in my life as I know she does the same with Emery Kate and Lexi.

And the lessons of love that I learned as a young mother, my own daughter is learning and one day she will pass them down to her two daughters and so on and so on through eternity for that is the secret of immortality.

A Summer Garden and the Simple Life

I’d like to think I’m capable of enjoying a summer garden and the simple life at the same time, but tending a garden is not a simple act. It takes time, endurance, and a certain amount of skill and it does help to not be afraid of worms, insects, and getting dirty ----all of which give me the creeps.

Moving to our new house in April, we found the backyard to be a blank slate. Thinking that when we sold our house on Signal Mountain and moved to north Georgia, we would most likely not have a yard, we gave away the majority of our outdoor tools---even the lawn mower. The good news is that we can share the lawn mower with our son Daniel, who lives eight houses away and who takes turns with his dad cutting the grass in both yards at the same time. Or Mark cuts and Daniel edges; still it is nice to have green grass and a lawn, something I have not had in the sixteen years we lived on Signal Mountain. Of course on SM I had trees and the largest tree I have now is three inches tall….yes, you read right—a sapling growing in my garden….will it or will it not survive? That is the question.

I digress….and therein lies the reason I want a garden to grow my own vegetables, to see the product of my (and I use the word loosely because it is my husband’s green thumb that is the true gardener) efforts from beginning to end; and, to have a place where I can step outside in my nightgown (like my dear friend Debby confesses doing in her morning ritual through her garden) and see for myself the product of our toils. I am the one who sets the plan in motion, with his blessing, I might add, deciding what vegetable to plant; what herb to buy; what flower will enhance that corner of the lot. I even picked out the hedge of Leland Cypresses for the back yard.

But alas, our garden is just a dream right now.

“It is a work in progress,” he says. I decide that is good. Moving forward in any direction is better than standing still.


Two beds were already built around the shed. In one, we planted crowder peas that the granddaughter, Paige planted from seed. When the “bush” peas turned out to be climbers my husband built a trellis out of wood and twine and now the beans are not only climbing reaching for the sun, but flowering and producing a bounty of beans; thank you Paige.

On the other side of the potting shed we planted two tomato plants and later some mint because we plan to plant tomatoes in the big bed next year. In the meantime, we have gotten three tomatoes which is a miracle. It was usually late August before it got warm enough for tomatoes on Signal Mountain. These tomatoes are good, but not like some of the heritage plants from previous years. We will have to experiment in the new bed next year with a variety of tomato plants. But I couldn't help but admire the dew drops on our tomato plants this morning as I walked around the back yard just after the sun rose.

Looking off into the distance I was spell-bound by the fog and mist rolling across the field behind our home. Fodder to the goats and cows that roam the field, it pleases me to be reminded of a simpler time in life when families lived off the land they held so dear. My back yard may be a blank slate but the beautiful raised bed my husband built will be filled with “black gold” dirt and “stuff” from our compost pile. And like the beautiful crowder peas, the larger beds will one day be filled with a bounty of produce that we can not only put on our dinner table, but share with our friends and family not unlike a simpler time in life.

A Sacramental Vision of Being

Sitting in the corner of the porch under the ceiling fan, I could smell the grass being cut next door. The hum of the lawn mower was unusually low and therefore allowed me to hear the birds in the trees on the farm behind my house. Even the silly rooster that crows at all hours of the day seemed unaware that he had competition in the lawn mower.

What I was supposed to be listening to was my granddaughter Paige. Ever since she heard the story of the guinea fowl feather, she has been telling me stories. We sat beside each other rocking in over-sized rockers circling an open pit fire at the Animal Kingdom Lodge while a woman from Africa told us the story. Her African accent thick, at times, so thick I could barely understand her, but the beauty of words, her hands as they moved, and the rapture in Paige’s eyes as she watched was all that I needed to stay alert to the teller.

Today’s story from Paige was one of her with her three cousins, Lexi, Hayden and Emery Kate. Together the four of them danced and played games, rode horses, had a sleep-over, and swam at the beach. Every once in a while a red car would drive down the road behind my house. It would go far down the road and turn south and disappear into the woods on the other side of the farmer’s pasture. It is a mystery to us where he goes and so Paige suggested we follow it one day. And before I knew it, Paige was elaborating on her story adding a mystery or two as the story was told.

It would have been easy to focus on the everyday issues of my life, but I made a conscious decision not to do so. Instead I saw the spiritual in the moment. I looked at the farm, the animals roaming through the fields, the lamb crying out for its mother, the lawn mower humming next door, and my precious granddaughter entertaining her Mimi with her charming stories. Everywhere I looked I saw God.

Hot Tamale Pie for Dinner

Historically speaking, my roots are not from the American Southwest, but my daughter-in-law’s are and it pleases me to cook for my friends and family. So I decided to try a recipe from a tiny little cookbook I found when I unpacked a box marked “Good Cookbooks.” Entitled, A Little Southwest Cookbook by Barbara Karoff, from Chronicle Books, I decided to try the Tamale Pie.

Although authentic tamale pie calls for cooked chicken, I chose to use ground meet (because I had it in the refrigerator.) For me, cooking is way to express myself. I love the smell of onions sautéing in the skillet; add some garlic and the aroma is delightful. This particular recipe did not call for garlic but it did call for black olives which I omitted because some in the family cannot tolerate them. After frying the onions and bell pepper, I added the cooked ground meet, creamed corn, green chilies, and tomatoes.

I also took pleasure in chopping and seeding fresh tomatoes as well as grating fresh cheese. But the most rewarding effort called for was making my own cornmeal mush. This required soaking the cornmeal in water then cooking it in boiling water with chili powder for five minutes stirring constantly.

According to the Arizona Highways Heritage Cookbook, published in 1988 by the Arizona Highways magazine, tamale pie came to the southwest with wagon trains in the late 1800’s. Left-over food mixed with the cornmeal mush and served with salsa made this an easy recipe for travelers. Another recipe I found was in a column “From the Kitchen of Sister Mary,” by Sister Mary on the Society page of a 1931 issue of The Meriden Daily Journal, Meriden, Connecticut. Ingredients are similar but it called for 2 cups of potatoes, but then said the potatoes could be omitted. Key to this recipe and the others I found is that the tamale pie is an adaption of the southwest’s hot tamales and although a little bit time-consuming in prepping, once the cooking starts, it’s a breeze and so delicious in the end.

I have a little plaque my daughter gave me that says, “Like mother, like daughter – the nicest compliment there is.” My daughter does not cook (yet.) My mother was a great cook, however. And like me she used cookbooks and followed the recipe to the T. And like me she always forgot something. In this case, I forgot to serve the Salsa with my tamale pie. I don’t think it mattered. It was the thought that counted.

My joy in preparing the meal; my family’s pleasure in eating it; and another opportunity for me to use God’s power to do good in my life made this hot tamale pie delicioso!