Thoughts from Tapestry Album! Thank you Carol King for putting some "Joy Inside My Tears"

You make me feel like a natural woman?

"Her desire will be for her husband and he will rule over her?

" The road into motherhood is easy and hard. You see this wonderful specimen with whom your mind and emotions start to plan for a long-term life in unity. We grow into a covenant agreement to belong to eachother and there are children after a while. What's next? "Will you still love me tomorrow?" That is his domination point, isn't it? I have invested life and pain and my body will never return to it's former self and I still must wonder, does he still love me? Will he still love me? Isn't that often the question? Although He, too, is vulnerable, not so much as a woman.

Carol King invested in the passing along of her experiences and lessons learned to us in the Tapestry Album. Somehow, I feel like that should be a class for women, in life to take Tapestry and write their insights from it, before marriage and children and intentions for their lives as a result of having listened to it.

Christ does make a difference and the agreement to live under His authority is a real preservative of heart and mind, for the most part. But we are all humans and fallible and stumble and fall all over one another. Braun, in How Green was the most vulnerable female character, that I think that I have read about in literature. She is invisible in the movie, because her story could not be told in those days. In the book, she is tragic! She,{those kinds of stories} I think, is the reason that the woman's movement was born. The vulnerability of women in a Christian society must be seen and anticipated and defended. She gave life and body to the effort of wifing and mothering. She lost mind and life and perhaps her soul to the effort. That is the ultimate tragedy and that is the goal of Carol King's Tapestry, to prevent.

Does Jesus care, when you are crying over spilled milk? Life that has passed and opportunities untaken? Does Jesus care when family starts to minimize your role and influence, when you had been their closest confidant at one time? Does Jesus care when you are seeing the vulnerability of your condition and aging? I know He cares. I know Jesus cares about those things. He paid it all to save us from these things and we must know that he is truly touched with the feelings of even these infirmities. They are not beyond His gaze.

He wants us to be proactive about life and health. He wants us to be proactive about covenant keeping and self care. He wants us to count the cost of wherever we are in the battle, physical and spiritual. Ultimately, He wants to teach us to care for ourselves and our families.

no more germs! the significance of wimbledon to me

To everything there is a season,isn’t there? Tis the season for vanquishing germs! They are everywhere! IS YOUR SERVICE LINE WIMBLEDON READY? In lew of spring cleaning, Wimbledon cleaning is a worthy goal for me, I think. Your carpets, the grass and your bathrooms the lines. Are they ready I say? The Queen is coming with her white gloves and are they ready for her. I say they aren’t. No excuses at all are tolerated. Your part of the spiritual warfare is that against streptococci and Pneumococci. They are yours to tolerate or eliminate. What will you/

Learning to do your "Pray Do's"

Sometimes, I wake up so late that I can't really spend the time with the Lord, that I would like to. I think there was a Dutch "Godmother" somewhere who showed me that when you can't get really the time with the Lord that you would like that is when you have to do your "Pray Dos". That is not at all to replace real prayer and it is real prayer. But, it is prayer while doing the necessities that you must. I did use it much more when all of the children were little. I had little prayer lists for the laundry and for the dishes. I must've bumped my head a hundred times looking at my prayer list when I should've been looking what I was doing in the kitchen. Those are some of the pitfalls of "pray doing" but it sure beats "Not pray-doing"! eh?

Easter Sunday

Sugarduck vs. Ethan round 1

Some mornings I am Mrs. Day and some mornings I am Mr. Day. Today the discussion with Ethan was about the sugarduck and I was Mr. Day.

You know how we lost the coffeemaker. May I have a dollar? Was the question Mrs. Day was asking her husband and she used the fact that he had broken the special coffeemaker to ask for a little extra money to buy another one. At that moment he would argue her over a dollar and then a few weeks later, he would let her charge anything she wished, because she had nearly died. What a difference the familiarity of perspective causes. The hand that clenches those two pennies in it and will not spare it to the dearest wife, when faced with the brevity of life realizes the measurement rod.

Clarence Day Jr. carefully retained such dear remembrances to pass those measurement standards to us. He watched father Day, nearly lose his soul to covetousness. The children were so concerned for him it was truly made real in the catechism. Hasn’t father got a name in heaven? This was their concern as a family. It was more than folderol to them. They were all praying and interceding in their own way.

Then, after God had gotten it through their thick heads that heaven was even more important than mother’s well being{having nearly lost her}. Everybody realized that there is no amount of money to replace his soul. Church is not just a tradition. Catechism is not just a mental exercise it is a frame for correct decision making and priority. This is my covenant partner and she is asking me for a dollar, I should have much higher regard for her position than I do. Clarence Jr. couldn’t say this to Dad, but he said it to us.

I loved my sugar duck and now have replaced it with a sugarsheep which we were joking over, this morning. You know what happened to my dear sugarduck, which represented my dearly loved Long Island. Now it is gone and I have replaced it with a sugar sheep which reminds me of just a very small part of Long Island and only one dear shepherd. Until I get my sugarsheep found in some sale or other somewhere.

Thank you Louisa May Alcott for envisioning a "More Perfect Union".

Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott

I do think that Louisa May Alcott was trying to show the aptitude for forgiveness that is honed in a close knit sisterly expression. From the small things like lying and picking on oneanother to the big things like throwing away a cherished manuscript the courage to enlighten people with the riches of love that are expressed daily in such a setting was her goal and I think that she expressed it very well and I have seen the same in my sisterly experience for better and for worse.

These disciplines of soul that are a blessing to us are a treasure to be preserved. Originally the publishers rejected Louisa for having a preachy style and I couldn’t quite understand how her style would have been seen as preachy. I see this now, after having had some griefs under my belt and cleaving to the delights of the “Little Women” for comfort and help, I can truly see how God used her to preserve the reality that life is short, handle loves with care. Grief will surely come and do as much as you can not to be the source of it to the ones that you love. That cannot be too often said.

It is uncommonly a sisterly treat. Not that brothers can’t enjoy it. I have some of this with my brothers across many miles and even from here into eternity with one. But, Sisters for their catty nature press the bounds with oneanother on the right and on the left in such a way as can give a glimps of the sufferings of hell and the glories of heaven, sometimes in the same situation. We love and hate oneanother with some of the same passions.

The light in the living room that shined unusually last night from the mirror, took me back to “when the moon” days. We carried the reflection to form a spotlight for oneanother, what a delightful nighttime scene of sisterly romping and gregarity. We fought just as passionately, not as much against eachother physically, to harm too harshly, but against others on our behalf, truly we had a comradery and a love.

Loyalties were certainly forged between us. Some, have no sense of loyalty and that is a loss and that is what Louisa was trying to knead into the “American, imagination of a more perfect union”. Could we have a union where there is brotherly love that was akin to the Little Women and Men that Louisa held up the spotlight to for us?

A look at the Alcott house

In Christ, we are thankful for no more condemnation!

Dear Lord!

Sin is upon me like the color of my skin, sometimes. What do I do? I didn't expect temptation to affect me and accuse me and assault me everyday.

Others have made it look easy. They don't seem to struggle. I feel like I'm the only one coming with the same thing to you everyday.

Yet, Your Word has promised deliverance from sin and shame and though I don't feel it yet in my experience. I am aware that You never lie.

I am trying to keep myself from clinging to my sin and regularly taking it to You, until You deliver me from it's presence, I am confessing it. Because I know that when You are done with sin and death You will wrap it all up and throw it away from Your good presence. In that day, I want to be clinging to Christ and not to the sin which has a payday coming.

Now, there is no condemnation. I believe that. I feel condemnation and I feel shame and I feel accused, sometimes. Fear is the tool of Christ to help me to flee to You, from my sin. Please, Lord, help me remember to flee to You, even when I don't want to.

I want to let it go. I don't know how, but I am asking and requesting Your help to be clinging to Christ today and especially in that day. Deliver me, for the sake of the shed blood of Jesus. I trust and desire to walk in obedience, Help, Lord,

Amen.

I hear the Saviour say, "Thy strength indeed is small; Child of weakness, watch and pray, Find in in Me thine all in all." Refrain: Jesus paid it all, All to Him I owe; Sin had left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow. Lord, now indeed I find Thy pow'r, and Thine alone, Can change the leper's spots, And melt the heart of stone. For nothing good have I Whereby Thy grace to claim; I'll wash my garments white In the the blood of Calv'ry's Lamb. And when, before the throne, I stand in Him complete, "Jesus died my soul to save," My lips shall still repeat.

Uncle Barry looked me right in my face to have a talk one day.

I loved him very much. Uncle introduced me to the concept of love portrayed on screen. I guess, I had never really thought about it like that. But now, at 50 it is something I look for. Probably because of his making me aware of it. He never called Jeanette MacDonald's name, but he said, you poor young people will never really see love on the screen like we have seen in our day. I really wondered what he was talking about. How can you not say that "Love Story" had expressions of love on the screen? I was defensive about the love that I was exposed to on screen in my day. Uncle, what are you talking about? He said when great lovers looked into eachother's eyes and the screen turned black and the rest was left to the imagination. When the communication was real, he went on. I tucked these criticisms in my subconscious and then when I saw Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy, I knew what he meant. Their communication on screen was the best I've seen and we young people would do well to take this glimpse of reality or height of human expression on screen into our experience. Like taking in a great sunset, there will be others, but never that beautiful one again.

Where are the Angels?

Where were the angels? Great Expectations. Pip, Abused children. Beaten, Scorned, Where are the angels?

"You are in trouble! She is out with a vengeance against you."

The words that terrorize! "She is crazy with anger. There is no recourse. No one can save you from the wrath." is the sense of confusion that comes when overwhelming fear is used to motivate children. Not all fear, but overintense use of authority...

Children see only the wall. {I have most certainly been there.}

The Plate on the wall when the brother in law got up had cherubs in a circle around, as if to say, someone did see. Seemed no one saw. Seemed no one intervened. But, someone did see. The angels carried news to God and God was most certainly involved in the need of that poor child who would greater take a chance with a strange savage than to trust his sister. Burdens notwithstanding. With what measure you meet is most certainly seen by the angels. Who saw this happened, you might ask? God did see and the angels were on that plate looking at the injustice of the severity that this lone child experienced.

In Great Expectations, it is as though the cinematographer knew that the angels were watching the whipping of that boy and placed that plate right there to signify the interaction of heaven with children's cries.

There was a crooked woman, it seems the movie cinematographer started the movie with. There was a woman whose heart could not be touched by the orphaned-ness of her brother. There was a woman who thought that her work of caring for her brother would be seen in heaven. Granted, that she didn’t send him into a work camp, somewhere and live her life in ignorance of his state. But, her condition of soul could not see the sad estate of this orphan. No maternal comforts to soften the life blows. No, she adds to his sore estate by severe punitive actions. Doesn’t the Bible say spare the rod? Oh dear. He was out in a grave yard. He took the spanking as though it was a usual situation.

Is it wrong to spank a youngun? Maybe not. But, this was unusual severity and the plate on the side with angels, said to me, that someone saw.

Fear that hardens your heart to life... Fear that discourages the soul from endurance is often inflicted by a loving intention of fear.

If you have ever seen your life flash before your eyes at the thought of facing the wrath of an elder person, you will see the flashes of God’s presence in Great Expectations. God nurtured hope out of hopelessness. God used a convict, escapee to raise the condition of a poor misfortunate soul. Who saw? Who could see the eyes of hopelessness? Only an escapee from the hellish condition of the prison could see the futility of the life of this poor child. He probably went to church every Sunday and people looked into this child’s eyes and no one saw the condition except this inmate. What a judgment. What is godliness. Visiting the fatherless and widows and keeping oneself unspotted by the world. Where was God when beatings and hopelessness abound? His eye is everywhere, but I love that picture of the angels on the plate as though they were the only spectators of this family’s abusive parent. What else can we do? Where else can we go? God made a way for this poor child.

Proverbs 9 Wisdom has hewn out pillars. The Foolish woman has her reasoning and hewing,also. The foolish woman and the crooked woman is very busy, as well. She is busy crushing the dreams of those who are around her/him. God sees and He has made a way for PIP. For His own glory.

timeliness vs. respect Take 1

What a curfluffle, you and your dad engaged in over the getting to church! Why can't you just keep quiet and not cause a curfluffle? Because you are my Emmy. Words and words and write vs. right, vs might vs. mites. We have to be so specific. Did you mean to be on time or not? Did you mean to be respectful or not? There are ways and times and expressions appropriate for the moment. I will leave you to work out the details of how you speak to your father about rightness or slightedness. I say don't slight and you don't always have to be right. My advice is always, shut up and say the thing at a more appropriate moment, which is after you are on time for church. Or, just shut up!