Blog Archives

Happy Thanksgiving! One more song...

11/23/2017

One of the (many?!) things I love about getting older that I've been talking about recently is the opportunity to look back and see the hand of God and His unfailing faithfulness in my life.

God has such a good track record. Ever present, always faithful,unfailing. I never -ever- walk alone.

I think the truth of this song is what I am most grateful for this Thanksgiving...

Never Once have I ever walked alone.

If I could give you one gift, it would be this- the certainty of a faithful, loving God always at work in your life.

Is He safe? Not exactly.

Is He good? Always.

"Every step, we are breathing in Your grace,
Evermore, we'll be breathing out Your praise,
You are faithful, God You are faithful."

And that is what Thanksgiving means to me.

HumminB

0 Comments

A Song for Thanksgiving...even in your storm.

11/19/2017

2 Comments

Thanksgiving. Sometimes giving thanks seems like the hardest part of the day. Harder than stuffing the turkey and figuring out the family stuff. Harder than ignoring the political discussions that probably shouldn't have been broached because there's so much ugly from both directions. Harder than missing the ones who belong in the empty seats.

The journey to gratitude can seem uphill all the way, and stormy too.

At some point we all end up on this path at least for a season. (It just seems like forever...maybe. Hmm.)

It's just how life is.
You know, real.

Hard.

If this is your season, this song is for you. I couldn't find a video that I liked, so I'm linking this audio with a couple of pictures.

Keep moving toward gratitude, even in the storms. Especially then.

I'm humming with you...and it's still raining...
HumminB

2 Comments

A song of thanksgiving....it's not what you think.

11/18/2017

0 Comments

The world is broken, shot through with pain which you probably already knew-
before Sutherland Springs,
before the Harvest Music festival,
before #metoo,
before an opiod epidemic killed roughly 64,000 people in the US last year...

Our national collective misery meters can’t stop sounding alarms, and it’s five days until Thanksgiving.

In a more personal way, I know plenty of people first hand who are knee deep in their own difficult stories, right now, right here.

My young friend slogging her way through her first year as a single mom,

a friend of a friend figuring out what it means to have been a mom for, oh, say...6 hours, from birth to death,

another family reeling from a suicide they didn’t see coming or even if they did, couldn’t stop it,

children who were fatherless now fending for themselves because they’re motherless,

families being torn apart by (pick one, or maybe pick them all) drug abuse, infidelity, mental health issues...

friends facing overwhelming health battles and financial headaches,

grandparents raising grandchildren because somebody’s got to do it...

on and on, a chain of pain wrapping itself around those we love.

The chain snags me too; we’re all carrying stuff that in a perfect world we wouldn’t choose. So much disappointment, regret, loss...the world is broken. My world is broken. Yours too?

And now, Thanksgiving.

I’ve been realizing that if I’m going to make it to/through this day without numbing the pain or faking it, I’m going to have to dig a little deeper to find my way to gratitude. So I’ve been digging around in the Book that always calls me to look closer and find more of what I need.

In the Bible, thanks/thanksgiving is mentioned for the first time in (of all places) Leviticus, a book that is probably in “flyover country” for most of us most of the time. (It’s the book where the wheels usually fall off the New Year’s bandwagon goal of “reading through the Bible.”) But here too is “good stuff,” which I discovered as I read about bringing a peace offering for thanksgiving. (Leviticus 7:12-15 and 22:30)

Notes:
Sacrifice of thanksgiving (12, 14, 15, 29)
Loaves mixed with oil, wafers smeared with oil, fine flour well mixed with oil (12)
Eaten on the day it is offered, leave none of it until the next morning (15)
It shall be eaten on the same day, leave none of it until morning. I am the LORD. (22:30)
The word used is “towdah,” meaning an extension of the hand, an offering of thanks or a sacrifice of thanksgiving; worship by the presentation of songs of thanksgiving and praise that extolled the mighty wonders of the Lord; shouts of jubilation and thanksgiving. (from Strong’s concordance.)

Lots to ponder here, and this day, my ponderings turned into prayer...

Oh God, some days, giving thanks is my joyful offering, and I just give it, the overflow of a full heart;
it’s Your grace pouring in, sloshing out,
my heart and hands upraised,
tossing thanks to You (ta-da!) like a child with a bag of confetti.

Other days, other seasons, my thanksgiving is a sacrifice.

The storehouse seems undersupplied, and I must search with diligence for thanks to give. I mindfully embrace the truth that You give good gifts, and I look until I find them, find You,
and Spirit mixes well the flour dust of my days with Himself,
smears small wafer windows of time with the shine of Presence,
and I know – it’s You,
this gift is from You.

Today it looks like this:

Glint of frost sparkles across the meadow, ethereal beauty bound to disappear completely in sun warmth, shining like diamond dust tossed heedlessly across bent grass and fence post and horse manure,
and it’s all grace.

Great blue heron floats in silently, slender wings bearing an impossibly large body,
and I know I’m carried too.

Flock of geese honks by somewhere in the early mist, maybe they’re lost but they’re still honking (is that their song? that’s the best they can do?!) and I know I’ll sing too, though I’m still not sure where I’m headed and my voice breaks when my throat tightens and tears pour down.

Still, I will bring my sacrifice of thanks...for this very day,
leaving none of it until tomorrow, offering it all up here, now.
(I’ll start again tomorrow, new, like You start with me, new day, new mercies, new gifts.)
For You are the LORD.

HumminB

0 Comments

Watching for the wonder...in my world and yours. Yes, yours.

11/15/2017

0 Comments

Sometimes when I’m rambling (no other word will do), my heart feels so full of the wonder of it all that it seems a bit unfair, like I’m paused before an extravagant banquet for one that I ought to share. I find myself thinking about what it would be like to bring you along, yes, you. And you too, and also you.

And then the road in my head gets a bit congested and I realize it wouldn’t work, wouldn’t be the same with a chattering little crowd of folks scraping their feet beside me, crunching through the leaves. I probably wouldn’t find my “belt-it-out-loud” singing voice like I did today when I kept seeing those wing clouds, and heard in my mind that wonderful old hymn from my childhood, “Under His Wings.” My humming was innocuous enough, but when I supported those welcome words with diaphragmatic strength, I spooked a small flock of wild geese grazing in a nearby cornfield into a frenzy of flight and honking.

The wing clouds hovering over our neighborhood school...

Under His Wings
(W. O. Cushing)
Under His wings I am safely abiding;
  Though the night deepens and tempests are wild,
Still I can trust Him, I know He will keep me;
  He has redeemed me, and I am His child.
Under His wings, under His wings,
  Who from His love can sever?
Under His wings my soul shall abide,
    Safely abide forever.
Under His wings—what a refuge in sorrow!
  How the heart yearningly turns to His rest!
Often when earth has no balm for my healing,
  There I find comfort, and there I am blest.
Under His wings—oh, what precious enjoyment!
  There will I hide till life’s trials are o’er;
Sheltered, protected, no evil can harm me;
  Resting in Jesus I’m safe evermore.

Having all of you along, I’d be too shy for the concert, and our stimulating conversation would silence that little voice in my head, and I do need to talk to myself sometimes.

Plus, I’d miss the quiet. And so would you. Such amazing things can happen in the quiet.

So, I think about ways I could share this wonder-filled, ordinary Hickory Lane walk with my friends in far places, or even the ones close by who might have missed it because of...football. Or racing. Or a nap. Or God knows what else. (Oh, yes He does.)

If I could paint a picture...it wouldn’t be enough.

(And it would take me forever. Thus my love of digital photography...but I digress.)

I could sketch the intricate pattern in that patch of puddle ice (yes, ice!)

but how could I share with you the catch in my throat when I see the bent heads of the plucky, frozen buttercups?

I’ve cheered them on all. summer. long. Their sweet sunny faces whispered “Hope!” to me on some dark days as they bloomed far beyond their usual growing season through a wet, mild summer and a long, warm autumn. Usually they’re gone in early June, mowed off when the farmers tidy up pastures against thistle advances. Now they are truly finished. And I feel a little melancholy about that.

End of October buttercups...two weeks before the killing freeze.

Maybe I could take some pictures. (Because I always do.) But I couldn’t capture the sound of hooves and carriage wheels rumbling home in the deepening dusk, couldn’t/wouldn’t sneak a picture of the smiling eyes in the ruddy face encircled in gray hair, gray beard, the gnarled hand raised in greeting. And without the sound track running, you’d miss the rumbling in your chest when the work horses start to run...because Sunday is their day off too, and it seems like they know it, thundering in circles along the creek.

My thoughts are spinning into creative crazy now...

Perhaps you could wear some sort of VR headset or gaming suit, and we could be linked by iPhone, thus enabling you to see long fingers of light reaching for clouds above the setting sun, giving you a glimpse of that stand of willows, misty against the darkening mountains.

a stand of misty willows

But would you be able to smell rich damp earth, waiting, bare, for spring or to hear the raucous honking before you spot the line of noisy geese winging across the valley?

In your funny suit, could you feel the chill evening breeze on your cheek? When I meander off-road, could you feel the black walnuts underfoot like a bad foot massage?

I know I’m thinking nonsense. Technology can buck and kick like a half-broken horse, and all that setting and resetting, turning off and turning on would be a deterrent to the goal of simply being present in this place, in this space.

Instead of all those options, what if I just try to describe to you, using my words and a few photos, the smudge of sunset color fading along the mountain, the squirrel nests that dotting the oaks along the creek, crazy chaos like a teenager’s room where they claim to know where everything is.

Could I make you smile when I mention the noisy lambs...yes, lambs, there is always that one farmer who keeps the ram with the flock at the wrong time...scampering toward the barn with the ewe trailing behind them. (Is it my imagination, or does she have that glazed over, mother-of-toddlers aura of weariness in her eyes at the end of this day?)

An acquaintance once commented to me something like this: “You make every ordinary experience seem like it’s an exotic vacation.” I don't think she meant it to be a compliment, but I decided to take it as one anyway, because while it’s not exactly an “exotic vacation,” certainly every ordinary day does have these moments of wonder waiting to be discovered. And that is exactly what I'm trying to see!

It doesn’t matter where you are, there they are.

Because I think the wonder is everywhere.

If we take time to listen.
To really see.

To pause.

(Yes, I really am talking about pause again. Because we all need it so much.
Especially me. )

It doesn’t matter where you are... but you do need to be all there,

fully, quietly present, for a bit of time,

to breathe deep the kitchen scents drifting over from the apartment next door,
to see the rugged outline of tree branch against the sky or across the uniformity of the brick wall,
to hear the murmur of "your" birds,
to wonder about the garish color of pigeon feet,
to see the dilapidated trunk from which grows that lovely tree...

“I don’t have an hour to go trekking around the neighborhood.” Okay. Fair enough.

But how about ten minutes?

To simply stand still somewhere if you can’t “take a walk;”

to breathe in the reality of God’s Presence...
to breathe out some of the heaviness of your day,

to breathe in grace,
to breathe out thanks for whatever is before you, around you.

To hear the whisper, to see the wonder, the beauty
in the ordinary-in. your. world.

That’s what I want you to see most of all.

Not Hickory Lane wonder, although I love it here and I would gladly take you along on a ramble, (one at a time, very quietly), but I want you to see whatever it is that is wonder-full where you are.

Just for a few minutes, wherever you are, be all there.

Present.
In the Presence.
Pause.

Go ahead, try it. Today. (Maybe...right now?)

Wing clouds bringing the sunset

0 Comments

They said. God said. More thoughts on gratitude.

11/7/2017

0 Comments

They said the leaves probably wouldn’t be as pretty this year...the colors would be muted because the weather has been...(pick one.)
Too warm.
Too wet.
Too hot.
Too dry.
Too cold.

Every year, strident voices speak into the discussion surrounding the beauty of autumn in the east. They say...they say...they say.

Opinions abound, based on what? Part economic tourism concerns, part science, part Old Farmer’s Almanac, part the “need-to-grouse-about-something” perspective that seems to pervade our culture. I guess you could even spin this blog post as a grumble about the gripers. (Or a gripe about the grumblers??) But stay with me, we're going somewhere.

What would happen if someone would just say –

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The leaves will be lovely again this year, in their own time, in their own way. They’ll be brilliant, vivid, muted, stunning, picturesque, pleasing, mellow, glowing...they’ll be something amazing, sooner or later, don’t miss the show!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I guess it wouldn’t make the headlines,

but it might ratchet back the stress levels just a little bit in one tiny area of our lives,
give us a different set of "perspecticals" for viewing the world, our world.

And that would have to be good.

And maybe it would point us toward gratitude.

They said, “The leaves won’t be pretty this year, it’s been too ... something.”

And then this happened.

I can't help but put on those gratitude perspecticals; I'm choosing the yes of thankfulness-

For the wonder of it all, whenever it happens.

For the way it all does happen - without my needing to do anything except notice. (Control is overrated, exhausting, and for the most part non-existent.)

For the extravagance of whole hillsides splashed with exuberant hues, the colors of the dying leaves. (And that’s another rabbit trail for another day...the beauty in the dying. Do not bury me in black.)

For a Creator who said, “Let the earth bring forth vegetation...” (Genesis 1:11, 12)

And when God said...it was so.

 And it was good.

They said...blah.blah.blah.

God said...and it was so.
And it was good.

I want to be listening for "God said..."

and if I'm talking, and you quote me, I hope you can say,

"She said, "Thanks.'"

HumminB

0 Comments

November - let's talk about "giving thanks."

11/1/2017

0 Comments

I'm hearing a lot of talk about gratitude lately.

People are blogging about gratitude; whole books are being written about the topic, and gratitude journals abound…a quick google search yielded 80 options available for purchase and then I stopped counting because I noticed I was on page 4 of 18 pages of journals.

Even Wikipedia has a gratitude journal entry:

"A gratitude journal is a diary of things for which one is grateful. Gratitude journals are used by individuals who wish to focus their attention on the positive things in their lives."

This definition is followed by a lengthy summary of current research citing the benefits of keeping some sort of written record (a place to document one’s reasons for gratitude) as well as studies examining the most effective methods:
– How often to write it down – daily? weekly?
-How many examples to include – (Most studies investigating gratitude journals have found that including 3-10 items in each gratitude journal entry yields the most beneficial results.)

The word gratitude seems to be a more trendy term for the old fashioned word we will be celebrating later this month:
Thanksgiving.

And as I read and reread the above article and others, I noticed a glaring omission regarding the second half of the word, the “giving” part of thanksgiving. As I read social media lists of "thanks for my family and my friends and all this food…” it seems as if most of us are grateful in an inch deep “hooray for my stuff” kind of way. We're blithely using the word “thanksgiving,” saying what it is for which we are giving thanks without acknowledging to whom we are giving thanks.

In normal daily living this would be unacceptable or at least awkward: Consider these comments:

This Christmas I am giving a basketball...

I am going to give a piece of my mind...

I will be giving $1000...

The question begging to be answered is “to whom?” Am I giving the basketball to you? Who is the unfortunate one on the receiving end of a piece of my mind?...(a piece which I'm sure I'll miss and which will likely cost me my own peace of mind…but that’s a different post.) Who will be the lucky recipient of $1000?

In quite listening moments, as we enter this season of the year focused on thanksgiving, I'm pondering these questions:

To whom are we giving thanks?

Is our focus mostly on the gifts, or are we looking toward on the Giver?

When we're giving thanks and the list is "my family, my food, my houseful of stuff,"

– are we just feeling smug that we've got all this, are we glad that our kids are so amazing, are we proud of ourselves and pleased that we've managed to accumulate all this stuff? Is that it??

And furthermore, when it all goes bad, or some portion of our ship is sinking - which, one way or another, seems to happen to all of us along the way, then what? Are we off the hook? No need to be thankful, and nothing for which to be thankful?

Oh, ouch.

This is not what I want, this is not who I want to be.

I do want to live a life of gratitude. I want to move forward, to embrace deep thanksgiving, every day. So, this month, I'm taking a closer look at...

Gratitude. I do want to be a person of deep gratitude! I don’t want to throw in the towel and give up; I want to wash the grime from my face, from my soul, and feel the soft warmth of the towel for the gift that it is.

A gratitude journal. I’ve been keeping one for years, and I won’t stop now. I am living out the benefits every day – reduced anxiety and depression, increased resilience, a perspective that helps me see what is good in every (hard) day! But I don't want to lose track of the Source of these amazing gifts.

Thanksgiving Day celebration? I want to say “Yes!”
- yes to gathering with those I love,
-yes to remembering and being grateful for loved ones who aren’t here,
-yes to enjoying family traditions (My part will probably be hickory nut cake and baked corn as usual) and
-yes to laughter and camaraderie around the table.

But underlying all this,
I want to restore and strengthen my foundation of gratitude,

of thanks giving,
giving
thanks
TO
the One
from whom all blessings flow.

I want to be grateful not just for the gifts, but even more,
for the Giver of every good and perfect gift. (James 1:17)

And for the other gifts, the ones I can’t see as perfect or even good?
For those gifts I will also trust the Giver, and give thanks, for He makes all things beautiful in His time. (Ecclesiastes 3:11)

So what will go on my list today, first day of the month of November, beginning a season of gratitude?

The promised Presence.
All day, every day. No. Matter.What.

On days when turkey smell wanders like a good memory through every room -
gratitude for The Presence.

And on days when I wander, room to room, grieving for reasons I cannot explain -
gratitude for The Presence.

For God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5)

God chooses to be present,
and I choose to be grateful.

Not only for the gifts, but even more, for the Giver.

O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His steadfast love endures forever.
Psalm 136:1 RSV

November 1 Gratitudes
1. The promised Presence.
2. Glory shining through imperfect leaves.
3. Hearing good words spoken regarding a hard situation, and knowing God is in it.

What's on your list?

HumminB

0 Comments

Happy Thanksgiving! One more song...

A Song for Thanksgiving...even in your storm.

A song of thanksgiving....it's not what you think.

Watching for the wonder...in my world and yours. Yes, yours.

They said. God said. More thoughts on gratitude.

November - let's talk about "giving thanks."

Author

Stay Connected!

Categories

Archives