The Lemonade Award

I opened my laptop to a very pleasant surprise this morning. I have received the Lemonade Award from the superheroes over at the Green Phone Booth. Thank you, ladies!

Apparently this award is to be given to those who are positive, or show gratitude; in other words, they know how to make lemonade out of lemons. This cracks me up, because I don't think of myself as terribly positive (though I am grateful), so I think it's more a reflection of the old adage "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all". Thus the occasional silence.

The rules for this award are that you post the graphic for it, write a post that links back to the giver, and then pass it on to up to ten others. Leave a comment on the blogs that get the award, so they know what's happened. I will award it to:

Jena, at Married To The Farm, one of the Great Lakes APLS. She and her husband are farming a heritage farm in Michigan, and they just had their barn burn down Nov. 23. So far, no self-pity on her blog, just the acknowledgement that their neighbors were very helpful, their livestock survived, and she is busy trying to research what sort of barn they should have when they rebuild.

Mel, at The Good Life, also a Great Lakes APLS. Blogging about thankfulness while dealing with two preschool aged boys and a family passing the flu around couldn't have been easy. She is an interesting read as she and her husband have recently become foster parents.

Abbie, at Farmer's Daughter, a New England APLS blogger. Abbie knows her stuff about the environment, since she teaches AP Environmental Science courses at a high school. What I like is that she doesn't run around yelling "The sky is falling!", but instead gives very factual background for her decisions to live the way she does. She surely knows about some very scary stuff, but her approach is to teach the next generation of citizen leaders how to tackle the problems. It's also interesting to read about her family's heritage farm and farm stand selling their produce.

These three bloggers all have great, positive attitudes. I'm pleased to have a chance to pass the award on to them!

On Generosity

C. S. Lewis: “I do not believe one can settle how much we ought to give. I am afraid the only safe rule is to give more than we can spare. In other words, if our expenditure on comforts, luxuries, amusement, etc., is up to the standard common among those with the same income as our own, we are probably giving away too little. If our giving does not at all pinch or hamper us, I should say it is too small. There ought to be things we should like to do and cannot because our commitment to giving excludes them.”

Road Work Ahead

One of my favorite Advent verses is Isaiah 40:3-5:

A voice of one calling:
"In the desert prepare
the way for the Lord;
make straight in the wilderness
a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
every mountain and hill made low;
the rough ground shall become level,
the rugged places a plain."

It's a picture from real life, when every ancient Middle Eastern king would send his royal road crew ahead of him to fix a smooth road for his royal retinue in that rocky, hilly, rugged landscape. I think that's what this reading plan below will help me do with the rough spots in my spiritual landscape, as I prepare to celebrate the coming of the King of Kings.

"And the glory of the Lord will be revealed,
and all mankind together will see it.
For the mouth of the Lord has spoken."

I'm planning to start a year long reading plan on January 1 that will take me through the whole Bible, but I was looking for a "warm-up" plan for the Advent season, and I found the one below. I'm excited about it; Isaiah is my favorite Old Testament book, with some of the most uplifting and poetic literature found anywhere. The plan is only 22 days long (to suit the shortest possible Advent season), so it's good for the hectic holiday times, when you might have a couple of days where it's hard to squeeze it in. Although, as I always remind myself, if you have time to read the front page of a newspaper, you have time to do a daily Bible reading.

Anyway, if anyone would like to join me, here it is:

December 1- Isaiah 1-5
December 2- Isaiah 6-8
December 3- Isaiah 9-12
December 4- Isaiah 13-17
December 5- Isaiah 18-21
December 6- Isaiah 22-23
December 7- Isaiah 24-25
December 8- Isaiah 26-27
December 9- Isaiah 28-29
December 10- Isaiah 30-33
December 11- Isaiah 34-35
December 12- Isaiah 36-39
December 13- Isaiah 40-42
December 14- Isaiah 43-45
December 15- Isaiah 46-48
December 16- Isaiah 49-51
December 17- Isaiah 52-53
December 18- Isaiah 54-55
December 19- Isaiah 56-57
December 20- Isaiah 58-60
December 21- Isaiah 61-64
December 22- Isaiah 65-66

Sunday Stroll-November 30, 2008

First snow! It was so beautiful to see, when I got up a little before dawn this morning. I love the way it hushes everything.

The last red leaves clinging to the burning bush became tree ornaments.

It was the type of still, quiet snowfall that leaves a cake-frosting layer on each branch.

The seed heads of the black-eyed susans became cotton balls.

I drove to the church, and chose a parking spot overlooking the park.

The bald cypress was flocked with white.

The holly by the door provided a foretaste of the Advent decor inside.

Both worship spaces reflected the hard work of the Visual Inspiration Committee's labors the day before.

The first snow, and the first Sunday of Advent!

To see where others strolled today, visit The Quiet Country House.

This post has also been entered in Nancy Bond's First Snowfall meme. There are many other beautiful entries there from all over North America and Britain.

Thankful To Have Made It Through A Month Of Thankfulness

It's always interesting, when I set a goal for myself, to see how I do. I'm a bit of an all-or-nothing type (not necessarily a good thing), and once I latch on to a discipline challenge I can get very bull-headed about finishing what I vowed to do, so I need to choose carefully among the array of challenges that are available. With The November 30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge, as I have admitted before, I plunged in on a whim. What kept me going?

1. I know myself well enough to realize that if I missed a day I would give it up completely (because, as I say, I am an all-or-nothing kind of gal), and then I would have publicly embarrassed myself, since I was doing this on my blog, in front of God and everyone else.

2. I truly benefited from being thankful. I began to really focus all the ways I was blessed, and I began to catch myself becoming a kind of Pollyanna-ish positive thinker, finding silver linings to every single cloud that floated across my little piece of the sky. It was weird! Example: we were driving back from spending Thanksgiving Day at my sister's, barrelling down the Tri-State, and we hit one of those sections of pavement that for some reason have a rhythmic wave in them. My daughter and I were feeling like the back seat of the Honda was not unlike a mechanical bull ride. We both made a comment of complaint to each other. And then, I actually found myself saying "But this certainly isn't as bad as it was for the pioneers when they had to ride in wagons over rough ground!" All because I saw that comedy clip about how we should appreciate the benefits of modern life!

When I challenged myself to the month of daily posts, I had no idea there was such a thing as NaBloPoMo (National Blog Posting Month). Shannon mentioned that she was participating in that over on her blog, so I decided to throw my hat in the ring for that.

Then, in various places, I saw that there were other bloggers trying to make their November more thankful. That's pretty exciting, don't you think? It's as though a strange but wonderful cultural phenomenon is underway, perhaps a reaction to the economic crisis, perhaps a reaction to the exhausting ugliness we had to witness in the media during the election run-up, or maybe just something else nudging us to return to a pleasanter, more civilized, more spiritual approach to life. Whatever it is, bring it on! Keep it going! If I can think of a way to encourage it in myself, my family, or beyond, I certainly will do it.

I'd like to thank the fellow bloggers who signed on to share in the challenge. I know that for some of you life intervened, and you weren't able to keep up with it quite like you may have wanted. Nevertheless, I enjoyed going to your blogs and seeing what you were thankful for, and your presence kept me accountable as well. Maybe I'll do this again next November.

Keep on being thankful, everybody!!

Thankful For Battle Scars That Tell Of A Battle Won

Thursday, as we drove to my sister's house, we used the time in the car to make some holiday phone calls. My husband talked to his mother, who lives in Florida. One son was with his in-laws across the state. Another lives too far away to make it back very often. It was good to check in with everyone, catch up on each other, and wish them a happy Thanksgiving. So, one thing I'm thankful for is cell phones! Between that and e-mail, we have been able to stay connected so much more easily than families could years ago.

When I called Paul, who lives pretty far away, I joked, "I'm calling to wish you a Happy Thanksgiving and see if you're thankful for anything." Without a moment's hesitation, he started listing things off: his wife, his baby, the baby on the way, his job, his church, that his car was running well currently. "I have a lot to be thankful for," he said. " I'm thankful that I can pray, and I know God hears me!" As we talked, I asked him if I could write a little about him on this blog. He assured me that would be fine.

Paul is such a kind, easy going person. His bosses have told him that they think he will eventually make a good foreman, because he handles people so well. He was like that as a little boy, too.

Then, for a few years, he wasn't like that at all. For what ever reason, whether it was to individuate from family members, or to self-medicate the school stress he felt as a person with ADD, or just the rebellion against authority that some children carry so much further than others, Paul made some pretty bad choices for a while as a teen. What others dabbled with, he made his full time job. When I say that we are glad he lived to be grown, it's not a joke. We really didn't know for a while if he would live to be grown. No amount of treatment, counseling, discipline, whatever, seemed to make a difference with him. Finally, on the New Year's Eve when others were celebrating the turn of the millennium, I found myself standing by a gurney in the emergency room, watching him being treated for an overdose. He was sixteen.

I know what it's like to battle a teen who can't listen to you. I know what it's like to go toe-to-toe with the Devil as you wrestle in prayer for your child's life. I know what it's like to look Evil in the eye and say "YOU CAN'T HAVE HIM!" I knew that, in the end, it was between Paul and God as to whether he would come out on the other side. I just wanted him to live long enough to get to that point.

When Paul told me the thing he is most thankful for is that he has the Holy Spirit living inside of him, changing him into a new man day by day, I knew I couldn't write a month of posts about thankfulness without saying that, looking back over my life, that is one of the things I am absolutely the most thankful for.

I'm also thankful that, when I get a hunch that there is a parent who is struggling with their child the way we did with our child, I can listen to them, and, not really advise them, so much as offer understanding. And, I can offer them hope. Paul's story is proof of the power of God to change a person from the inside out.

It's all in the past now, and gradually the ripples from that rock that was thrown into the waters of our lives are dissipating. It's nearly ten years since Paul decided to quit running from God, and turned to run just as hard toward Him. His teen aged behavior is not at all what defines him any more. Those who meet him now would never have an inkling of what he suffered through in his youth. He is a mature man, a great husband and dad, a hard working, responsible contributor to society. As far as Christian life witness goes, he's the real deal.

And me? I'm just thankful.

Thankful That I'm Puritanical

Today, I am thankful for the much-maligned Puritans, from whom I am partly descended:

"There's little less fashionable today than thanking the Puritans, especially for our egalitarian political idealism, our love of genuinely humane and liberating learning, and our human enjoyment and happiness. Praising the Puritans is especially difficult, of course, because even our Protestants — even our Calvinists — have abandoned them. When some European calls us Puritanical, we don't say "Yes, thanks a lot, you're right." We either deny it, saying we've progressed far beyond those dark days. Or we admit it, saying, "Yes, we should be less capitalistic, less repressed, and more free thinking, just like you."

"Still, we can remember that the best book ever written on America and the best book ever written on democracy — Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America — almost begins by showing us how much our democracy owes our pilgrim Puritans. They, Tocqueville tells us, established colonies without lords — without, in fact, even economic classes. Those founders differed from those of Virginia by not being solitary, mercenary adventurers. They weren't out to get rich or even improve their economic condition. Their lives were structured by morality; they came to our continent as family men — bringing their wives and children. They were also extremely educated men — on the cutting edge, in many ways, of European enlightenment. They were, Tocqueville observes, animated by a "purely intellectual need." Their goal was "to make an idea triumph" in this world."

Great essay! Read the whole thing:
Thanking the Puritans by Peter Lawler

Thankful For Family Traditions

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today as my family gathers, we will share a story that I have related once before on this blog. As a reminder of how we can build values into the lives of our families, I will publish it here again:

One Swiss-German branch of my family settled near Springfield, IL in the 18oos, and there is a story about them that has been told in my dad's family for generations around the Thanksgiving table. In the story, the father (who was also a minister in their little church) and the boys were out working about the farm place, and the mother, daughters (among them my great-great grandmother), and smaller children were in and around the house. There had been rumors floating about for several days that there were Indians in the area, and every one was nervous about safety. It was early spring and the father was doing early field work, when his son ran to him and said that there was an Indian standing at the edge of the woods, watching them. The father told his son to run back to the house and have the family gather in the house and shut the door. The son asked the father if he should load the gun they had in the house. The father said no. He was going to talk to the Indian, if he could, and God would protect him.

The family shut themselves in the house and were very worried. The father was gone a long time. When he finally returned, his first words on entering the house were, "Children, go down in the cellar and bring up everything that's left of the food." Then he turned to his wife and said, "They don't want to hurt anyone. They're starving, and we are going to feed them." With his family's help, he loaded their wagon with everything they had left in the cellar, and drove it down to where the Indians were camped by the river, and gave it all to them.

As best I can tell, this is a Trail of Tears story. At least my ancestors were able to mitigate that evil to some degree.

My great-great grandmother was just a little girl when she witnessed this, but it was one of her strongest memories. She would recount it at Thanksgiving dinner, and always ended by saying something like, "You never know who might need your help, so keep watch. Never be selfish. You should always share with anyone who is in need. Even though we gave all the food away, we some how had enough to eat until the garden came in. That's how we learned to be thankful for what we had."

Isn't that a great story? I've never been asked to give everything I have for sustenance away to some one in need, and then rely on God to fill in the gaps. But at least I have that story as an example to me that it can, and should, be done.

The 30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge

Thankful For An (Almost!) Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving

I'm looking forward to tomorrow! We are driving for a couple of hours to the home of one of my sisters, where she is hosting Thanksgiving. Her two young adult children will be there, as will another sister and her husband and daughter, my parents, and my husband and I with two of our children. There will be lots of great food, good catching-up conversation, probably some game-playing, and a joint kitchen clean-up after dinner. Though the location rotates around, the routine and traditions remain pretty much the same from year to year. I've been asked to bring my famous Philly Corn again. Yes, even the menu stays consistent.

Nan had a post up earlier this week that reminded me that not everyone looks forward to family gatherings and overeating. Some of her commenters agreed; they preferred finding congenial friends to visit with over family that was critical or dysfunctional. Others use this time to travel, or find a restaurant meal more inviting than marathon cooking sessions. Even those of us who choose a more Norman Rockwell-style Thanksgiving will often be spending time with folks we see only a couple of times a year, which can lead to potential relational stress.

How to approach that? I'm choosing engagement over avoidance. In our family, we do have a few topics we steer clear of (politics and religion!- though we've broken that rule a few times).
We try to adjust to the home that is hosting. We all offer to bring food. Nobody drinks too much.
We help with clean-up. We don't stay too long! It's been rare that we didn't leave feeling that we had a good time.

I saw a good piece of advice today, that was reminder that family is where we learn to deal with people:

"Envision your family situation as an inspiring growth challenge. If one of your spiritual goals in life is to learn patience, compassion, forgiveness, or serenity, your difficult family members can give you some wonderful “feel the burn” workouts! It’s no sweat to be patient, compassionate, forgiving, or serene with people who aren't in your family, but if you can learn to do it with your most irritating blood relatives, then in looking back at your life you will definitely be able to say you’ve done some crucial inner work on your spiritual journey."
Make Peace With Your Family

Fortunately, this is the approach my family has always taken (not that anyone is too terribly hard to deal with). So, today I'm thankful for the chance to engage with, and enjoy, our family at holiday time!

The November 30 Day Thanksgiving Challenge