What Do Ya Want?

What do ya want, girlfriend?


I want the air to smell like a cool, mountain afternoon after a light rain.


I want my anger to be absorbed by the love that is in my heart and sent back out as acceptance and forgiveness.


I want to keep commitments I make to myself that are the "who" of who I am.


I want to lose myself when I am talking about Christ's love to someone else.


I want the perfect crème brulee and to be able to have just one drink when I am eating a terrific steak and to have those things at an old wooden table in a stone house with open windows letting in a chilly breeze smelling of earth and grasses. I want to eat my meal with a large and slightly heavy steak knife, one sturdy fork and a delicate, silver spoon for dessert. I want to share this meal with someone who enjoys a wide range of topics, loves a loud and hearty laugh and suffers, like myself, from a touch of melancholy when moments are so perfect as the one we are experiencing together. I want that person to be a friend with no expectations of romantic love or commitment. Warmth, friendship, delight in our time together and separation as the evening sun fades. I want all of that to disappear into a mist as I walk away. I want never to recreate that exact moment again. I want to remember it until I die with joy and satisfaction.


I want to serve God with an open heart and  honest motivation.


My one frivolous and decadent want is for a full-time cook/housekeeper who has the confidence to decorate and maintain my home without asking me questions and to prepare a menu that I love without opinion.


I want to die falling into the arms of my Lord Jesus!

Collapsing Bridges!

A story was told to me today of a town that had contentious groups of people. Apparently they fussed and treated each other in loathesome ways. As the story would have it, the bridge was a connection between the groups. It provided the opportunity for people to cross from one side to the other creating hate and discontent among each other. No one was forced to cross the bridge to participate in this ritual nor did many of them remember why they felt compelled to make the trip to the other side and participate in the stress and chaos. At one time or the other someone would raise the topic of staying on their side of the bridge and letting the other side alone. The effort was made but each time it ended with someone from one side or the other losing control and crossing back over the bridge and into the fray. One day the bridge collapsed. After the initial shock of the distance between them the two groups of people began to smile and wave at each other over the short distance between them. They were no longer minding each other's business nor could they cross over to create problems for each other. Faced with the distancing each group began to experience relief and a new sense of friendship for the other group. They began to enjoy the occasional visit with each other made less rather than more frequent because of the distance in travel imposed on them when the bridge collapsed.


Bridges in my life are collapsing. I am depending on the distancing to prepare the way for relief and friendly waves over the imposed distancing.

I Don't Know This Child

I don't know this child. A conversation with a friend brought to mind that I did not know myself as a child. When I look at photos of myself from a early age I know as much about myself as I know about this photograph pulled off the internet.

SIGH!!

I tried to align to the left margin.

I tried to embed a song. I tried to embed a video.

This will have to do for now!


and this

Because he is wonderful! AND, he has obviously forgotten he is in a public place!

Moments

Moments holding memories of fireflies slowly filling a mountain evening twilight with points of twinkles growing in number by the minute. Moments evoking the heady smell of the thick green grasses growing between our house and the creek that separated our home from the rural road running past us. Each school day we crossed a small, wooden bridge that spanned the width of the creek. The road climbed a small hill disappearing from view as it wound its way deep into the valley we shared with our neighbors. At some point the paved road gave way to a rugged, dirt road which forked out in different directions leading to homes set back deep in the valley. These homes were often surrounded by the beauty of God's artistry.
 Poverty was a given. Yet it  gave way to pastures bordered by old wooden fences  held together  by notches cut deep into the end of the  horizontal railings.   The fences bordered pastures ripe with the scents of sweet, thick grasses peppered with the colors and scents of mountain flowers. The occasional old gnarled apple tree grew along the side of the dirt road with a stream of cold, delicious mountain water flowing nearby. Farther back down the valley the stream would be polluted by outhouses straddling it at its' narrow points. Bits of tissue paper and the occasional page from a Sears catalog clung to the detritus of broken limbs and the jagged rocks strewn  along the banks and the  bottom of the creek.  Mountain folk chose practicality over pristine water.