Grandpa

For a while before the holidays I was dedicating Tuesdays on my blog for sharing writings of my former students. Most of what I shared was their thoughts on the children of the Holocaust.

Today I want to share a poem that a student wrote about his grandfather. Jasper was a 7th grader I taught several years ago. I thought he evoked several emotions in this poignant poem.


Grandpa

Grandpa was really funny.
Last time I saw Grandpa,
He was in the house in the country,
In Minnesota.
It was in the summer,
With a million mosquitoes.
He had a milk mustache,
And he said the funniest word I ever heard.
Skunkabalunka.

He said when he was my age,
He started working on a little farm,
Loving cows and selling milk.
He worked a lot, and he worked hard,
And he worked all the time,
Until he got a job
Selling machines that milked cows.
He got real good at selling,
So that he moved up in his life,
All the way to the top of his company.

I didn't know him well enough,
Because I was only nine when he died.
All I remember was my cousin Hugo,
Standing at the door to the funeral.
And I remember this old gray box of ashes.
When they buried it in this hole in the ground,
I felt sad.
And I remember they planted one Swedish tree,
They call it a Linden tree.

Someday I would like to go back and see that tree,
And see how big it has grown.

Even though Grandpa died,
He was like the roots of my family.
He got planted in the ground,
And now a tree is growing up to stand for all he left behind.

by Jasper


Dianne
2010-the Year of Longings

PHOTOGRAPH: A picture I took of my husband and our only grandson, Kendall, several years ago.

fit: dying to live and the resurrection fern

One of my longings for 2010 is to become FIT. I am sorry to say that I have not exercised as I should nor eaten as good as I should for several years. I am paying a high price now with different health problems.

Our pastor is preaching a series of sermons entitled FIT: DYING TO LIVE. He will be concentrating on these areas of fitness the next few weeks: spiritual, physical, emotional, relational, moral, and financial.

Today he focused on the physical aspect of being fit overall. His scripture was taken from 1 Corinthians 9. The following is just one of the many scriptures he used.

25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.

26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.

27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Although Paul in this scripture is preparing for spiritual battle, we know that our enemy comes at us from all directions, especially the ones listed above that we will be studying the next few weeks.

I wrote a post recently entitled, "Weapons of Mass Distraction." As our pastor said today, sometimes Satan doesn't have to destroy us to ruin our witness and our testimony--he just has to distract us. The more fit we are in all these areas, the more likely we are to lay hold of the prize that Paul speaks of.

As a follow-up to this sermon, our church (yes, it is large) divided into two teams--the pastor's team against the youth pastor's team) for a six-week weigh-in and exercise challenge. For many of us, it probably will take at least six months to reach our goal.

An example of my ineffectiveness was evident in 2003 while on a mission trip to Brazil. The weather was quite warm and humid and we were pretty high up in altitude and on foot to get to the hillside residences when I started feeling poorly. My blood pressure shot up pretty high and I had to go to the pastor's home and rest that afternoon while the rest of the group got to go about the business of winning souls to Christ.



This was the afternoon that I started feeling bad. Oh, what a great time I missed because of that abbreviated afternoon. May I also just interject that the Brazilian people are some of the most fun, loving, and beautiful people (inside and out) in the whole world. I fell totally in love with them.



I wish I had prepared as much physically for that trip as I did spiritually. Our pastor reminded us that our motive to become physically fit should mainly be that of being prepared to serve our Lord and Savior.

I won't belabor the topic but I will say that my motive here is to try to inspire you to become more physically fit than you are today.

I know that all of us are at very different levels of age, fitness, certain limitations that we may have been born with BUT most of us can at least do something today that we didn't do yesterday.

I remember, after back surgery many years ago, driving by a local park in our neighborhood that had a 3 mile running track around the outer edges. I would look with longing at those people running and think that was something I never would be able to do. Subsequently, I did walk and run that track and lift weights for several years.

So the challenge today is this:

1. Put on your tennis shoes and tie them.--that's all--well, you might walk to the end of your driveway and back. How's that for an easy opener? This may seem crazy to some but in those early days after back surgery, I thought I might never be able to tie my own shoes again. Thank God for the ability to do even that!

2. I would like to encourage you to eat better today also. I won't tell you what to eat. There are many healthy suggestions online from reputable sources or your doctor would be a good source for information. I am on a specific eating plan. I started two weeks ago and have lost almost seven pounds. It will be much slower after this--maybe 1 or 2 lbs. a week. I am going to stick to it. I will report my results each Monday.

About the photo above: This is a picture of a resurrection fern growing on a tree in our yard. I took the photo this morning.

Wikipedia has this to say about the Resurrection Fern:

This fern is an epiphyte, or air plant, which means it attaches itself to other plants and gets its nutrients from the air and from water and nutrients that collect on the outer surface of bark. The Resurrection fern lives on the branches of large trees such as cypresses and can often be seen carpeting the shady areas on limbs of large oak trees. However, it is known to grow on the surfaces of rocks and dead logs as well. It is often found in the company of other epiphytic plants such as Spanish moss.

The Resurrection fern gets its name because it can survive long periods of drought by curling up its fronds and appearing desiccated, grey-brown and dead. However, when just a little water is present, the fern will uncurl and reopen, appearing to "resurrect" and restoring itself to a vivid green color. It has been estimated that these plants could go 100 years without water and still revive after a single soaking.

We are much like the resurrection fern in that with just a little tender loving care, a little exercise, a little pushing back from the table, a few good decisions, our soul and our body will thrive once again.

We may have to die to some of our desires to be able to truly live and become FIT but it will be worth it.

Weekend Worship at Shiloh Baptist Church

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

It is written: "I believed; therefore I have spoken." With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
2 Corinthians 4:5-2 Cor. 5

Dianne
2010-the Year of Longings

ten thousand years .................but who's counting?

Isn't it interesting how sometimes we want time to slow down, to halt, to beckon us back and forth to the same moment--and other times we want time to fly, to say sayonara to this moment and hello to the next as fast as we can--the Sunday morning sermon that God surely meant for someone else--the waiting room while appointment is pending--the college class with the oh so boring lecturer for an instructor--

As I sit here and ponder this, I wonder, "Lord, how do I wait upon you?--what do I do to ensure that I am conserving time for you to show yourself to me, time for me to commune with you, time for us to be together?"

Yes, there is always the morning time--time that I need, time that is heavy with desire for your validation upon my day, time that has become a lifeline for me. "But more than that, Lord, I want more than that. How do I wait upon you? Show me Lord. Please show me Lord. How do I wait for you?"

I think about the years that have passed so swiftly and my mind is pregnant with the weight of wanting to make every moment that I have left count--count, counting?

-----Anxious thoughts go to an old classic hymn, Amazing Grace, and to last stanza--"When we've been there 10,000 years, we've no less days to sing Your praise than when the 10,000 years first begun." How long would I have to carry that thought before the full significance is birthed in my being?

For now I will relax and live this life you have given me. Will start my day with you--preparing old jar of clay to pour out mixture of divine love and mercy whenever and wherever you lead.

In the meantime, I will stay my mind upon you. Yes, I think that is what it means--slow down and wait for you. Not that I change my activities so much, but change my thinking.

I remember one of my favorite scriptures--Isaiah 56:3--Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee.

I will go about my daily chores, routines, hobbies, and volunteering with my mind stayed upon You--KNOWING that one day I will never have to be concerned about running out of time. One day when hello and goodbye, now and then, yesterday, today, and tomorrow will have no distinction--





photograph: a picture I changed to watercolor filter of some of my calligraphy