The Packing is Over....

Helen has moved!

I am grateful to blogger for hosting this free site for blogging.  But I have come to realize how much these posts and your comments have meant to me, and after some technical difficulties, have decided that moving  is in my best interest.

So I guess you can say that Blogger and I are separating for a while, though the  cooking blog I share with Annie and my Lenten blog will still remain with him.   It's not Blogger, it's me.  I have grown past our relationship, but grateful knowing that I would not be the blogger I am today without him.  (That's right.  For that you can blame blogger!  Mwahahahahaha!

I am now at www.randommusings-helen.com

Time Traveling Video..

I just wanted to share something funny this week, so I thought I'd travel back in time....

to April 1st, when Google first put out this laugh out loud video!

A Letter to My Aunt

I mentioned earlier this week that Saturday is my Aunt's birthday.  I figured that if I can write a blog, I should be able to write a birthday letter to her.  The thing is, I don't want to make her sad.  I couldn't possibly write a letter that doesn't include something about my mom (her dead sister).  She is my aunt because I had the mom I did and she had the sister she did.  Leaving Momma out would be artificial.  If you were me, would you include the letter in her birthday card, give it to her separately and tell her to read it later, or mail it and let her read it on her own a week after her birthday?  I just don't know.  I'm past the point where all mentions of my mom make me said.  Should I assume she is, too?

I'm sharing here the contents of the letter.  I don't think there is anything so personal here that the world couldn't know it.  (Names of Aunts are changed just in case they'd feel weird about having their names broadcasted on the interwebs.)

July 16, 2011

Dear Auntie Li,

It’s your birthday and I’ve been thinking about all sorts of memories from my childhood which include you. 

I remember being a little girl looking through the photograph album and always stopping at your picture, because you were the prettiest lady in it.

I remember you inviting me to go downtown with you and my cousins to see the air show.

I remember the day we cousins were sitting on the porch where grandma lived on Bernard and we heard my Momma yell out “LYDIA!”  “LYDIA!” several times.   I could tell she was annoyed, so I chose to hide out on the porch, glad I wasn’t you.  “She hears me!  Why isn’t that girl coming?”  I heard my Momma say while you and Aunt Josie laughed and laughed.   I envied you all having sisters, because you could dare laugh at your sister right in front of her while she mad.   Now that’s what I call a good relationship!  It turned out, my Momma was distractedly calling the wrong name!  She meant to call my name, but said yours instead, I presume because she was busy and distracted.  (I wonder just a little if it was because she was bossy to you sometimes, too.) You and Aunt Josephine laughed and laughed, then told her she was calling your name not mine, and she laughed, too!  (And she was still mad at me for not coming, because  I should have known she meant me!)

Now Momma is in heaven, and I know you still bring her joy and laughter.  I don’t think Momma could enjoy heaven near so much if there wasn’t someone she could count on here to tell me to carry a sweater, wear sunscreen, and just overall care what happens to me.

Thank you for being my Aunt.  I love you.  Happy Birthday.  I hope this year brings you many happy memories!

Love Your Favorite Niece,

 Helen

By the way, if you read this blog, chances are you want to go wish Happy Birthday to Candice Jean, July 16. No, she's not my Aunt "Lydia", but she is a dear and caring lady.

Forgiveness

When you start Mathematics, you do not begin with Calculus; you begin with simple addition.  In the same way, if we really want..to learn to forgive, we had better start with something easier than the Gestapo.  One might start with forgiving one's husband, or wife, or parents, or children, or the nearest N.C. O., for something they had done or said last week.   That will probably keep us busy for the moment. (Lewis p.104)

One might start with the colleague who carelessly said something cruel.
One might start with one's doctor, who no longer makes one feel like a person being treated, but like chattel  being herded.
One might start with the clerk who was rude.
One might start with the driver who cuts people off.

“When
there is peace in the self, there is peace in the home. When there is peace in
the homes, there is peace in the community. When there is peace in the
communities there is peace in the nations. When there is peace in the nations,
there is peace in the world."  I don't know who said this.  Google won't divulge that information to me.


Lewis points out to me that what is true for peace is also true for forgiveness.  Maybe that's because you can't have one without the other.

More posts on Lewis's chapter on Forgiveness can be found on my friend Sarah's blog.

An Out of the Way Place

A bit larger and fancier than Grandma's back porch, but you get the idea

I don't think I ever lived in a home with a front porch (though the home I live in now has a wee bit of space next to the front door where I keep a chair and sit out sometimes) but growing up, I loved the back porch!  In our home, we had an enclosed porch where I kept my toys when I was little, and played loud music as I grew up.   I think the porch was my spot because it was a bit out of the way.  My toys weren't under foot when I was small, and my music wasn't blaring near the living room or dining room when I got older.  I remember cold winters when Momma and I would argue about whether or not it was too cold for me to be on the porch.   I had a bedroom I could listen to a small radio in after all.   But I loved being off by myself for a little while during the day.  (My mom was very protective, and it seemed my time away from home was rationed.  If I was ten minutes late from school I was read the riot act about Momma being afraid I'd been beaten and left in a ditch somewhere, while my mind wandered off wondering just where this ditch between my house and school was.  When I dared ask, I was told not to be a smart aleck.)

My grandmother's porch was also a good spot for being out of the way, though not alone.  My mother had two sisters and three brothers, so when we all went to my Grandma's two bedroom apartment for holidays and parties, it was a bit cramped.  We cousins used to like to visit on the porch when we'd first arrive.  It's not exactly like we were banished there, but we liked to share secrets and silliness away from adult ears.  After supper when everything was put away, we might sit at the dining room table and play cards, with some of the uncles joining us, but before eating we'd have just been in the way and made to shuffle around, so us being on the porch at first was perfect for everyone.

It couldn't have been a big porch, but in my head I remember the five youngest amongst us singing, playing charades, and telling stories right underneath the window.  And we laughed.  Man oh manischewitch what I wouldn't give to sit on the floor of that porch and laugh like that with them again.

Poor Bob.   I'm now contemplating asking him to move my desk away from the window, and build an enclosed space for my cousins and I to sit in and laugh.  Okay.  Maybe not.

You can read more about people's love for their porch by clicking this link and checking out Peter Pollock's One Word Blog Carnival. Yes. Todays word is "porch".

Dreams Coming True Slowly...

This is THE dress, but mine is a bigger size!

While I'm only up to number 39 writing my dream list, I am almost at the point where dream number four is coming true.   I tried on my sun dress yesterday, and it fit!  So why do I use the word "almost" in the first sentence?  Because I still think I'd feel more confident if the fit was a little looser.  It went on and it looked good, but I'm afraid to make any sudden movements.
This coming Saturday is my aunt's birthday and she is having a barbecue.  (My aunt's birthday is the same as Candy Steele's, so you can consider yourself reminded that it is Candy's birthday on July 16.)   I am hoping dream number four will come true by Saturday!   I think it will!
God loves us and cares about are dreams both big and small!  I know fitting into a particular dress is a small dream compared with dream #1 (becoming a mother) and dream #3 (becoming a healthy weight),  but it is because He helps me with the small things that I feel encouraged to hope for the big things!
I'm also doing better with number 26 "to have lots of energy".   I can't claim to have "lots" of energy yet, but I feel less tired than I used to, which is very encouraging to me.   Sometimes our dreams coming true unfold like a flower instead of coming true out of the blue.

Marriage

Today we are discussing the chapter Christian Marriage from C. S. Lewis's book Mere Christianity.


 Lewis  said a lot of things I agree with whole heartedly, such as the importance of the promise made in marriage, and the explosion of being "in love" being replaced by the kind of love that is more like an engine keeping everything running ( I don't know much about engines, but I do know that the "in love" feelings return when they aren't desperately grasped at like the most important thing in the world, which is not something Lewis mentions, but then since he wasn't married when he wrote this, he can't be expected to get every aspect right.)  But he also left me something to ponder.

....I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused.  The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is a quite different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws.  A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for everyone.   I do not think that.  At least I know I should be very angry if the Mohammedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine.  My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives.  There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage:  one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens , the other governed by Church with rules enforced by her own members.  The distinction ought to be sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.


Now, substitute the words American for British,  legislators for Members of Parliament, and Gay Marriage for divorce laws, and you see my dilemma.     Should Gay Marriage be allowed in America?  Should a Christian (one who believes homosexual behavior is both a choice and a sin) attend such a ceremony / celebration?  Isn't a boycott unloving?  Aren't we supposed to love the sinner?  Can we say "best wishes" and give a gift, hoping for their happiness even if we ultimately don't believe they'll be happy with their choice?

I'm thinking Clive would say if they aren't Christian, to go and try to wish them well.  I don't know what I think, except in my heart, I truly want to show love, and wish people well, even when the picture I see ahead isn't rosy.

Thoughts?   Feel free to disagree with me.  I'm between many people in my corporal life who feel differently from me and each other on this issue.

Please join the discussion over at Connecting to Impact, where the discussion in the various links will be marriage in general, and not necessarily the paragraph I chose to ponder.