Amelia Margaret

She stuck the landing!

End of the year insight

The Pilgrims stuck their toe in the waters of communal living.  What these idealistic experiments all had in common was that they failed.

They learned the hard way that people would not do as much for the common good as they would do for their own good.  The pilgrims nearly starved learning that lesson.  But they learned it.  Land that had been common property was turned into private property, which produced a lot more food.

Thank you, Thomas Sowell, for your sage wisdom.  May we listen and learn.  Again.

New Year's quote

Our only hope, if we have any hope in the world today, is to forget about goodies and to embrace first goodness.

Is this simplistic?  Yes, and it says much that we view simplicity with jaded eyes -- even when it's profoundly true.  Bruce Walker

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/our_world_is_full_of_cliffs.html#ixzz2GgVJrKvA

The case for playfulness

Children, experts say, are resilient.  When processing trauma, young children often role play or create playful dramas with their stuffed animals or action toys.  Dreams, also, are the playground for traversing the murky waters of fear or suffocating sorrow.  I guess a person could make the case for playfulness.  

Lauran Neergaard, an AP Medical Writer quotes Dr. Matthew Biel: "(Play) is the way children gain mastery over a situation that's overwhelming."

The fascinating point is that Scripture says that those who know that under God's watch care ALL IS WELL, are exhorted to be childlike.  Playful; almost cavalier in their comings and goings.  Why?  Because the Everlasting Arms hold securely all who trust the LORD.  And the Word - which is Jesus - has the last word.  All is well.

Let us play.

Redemption without end

Let the children come

Thankfully the harm one maniac can do is limited.
It finishes!
And then the LORD takes over with limitless redemption.

Leave the harvest alone

Cause-then-effect is God's way of instructing the instructable. Those who would be taught learn much from the chaff of bad decisions. 

Many, however, want to sanitize the effects of foolishness. 

Bail-outs are given to companies that should reap their own wildfire harvest of greed and thanklessness. 
Hand-outs are offered to those who do not work. Perks flow to unmarried women who repeatedly bear children without the commitment of an intact family.  

Policies that unnaturally interrupt the natural course of cause/effect are not charitable. These policies cause great harm. A wise man chokes only once on a bad crop. But a fool repeats his wild sowing again and again. 

It is prudent to let the good fruit be savored, and the rotten fruit gagged. It is how we humans learn. The real-life principle of reaping what one sows is God's natural way of changing behavior; away from foolishness to prudence. A 180- turn from stupidity to understanding.  

Let us gladly embrace natural consequences. Repent and go forward. 
Proverbs 12:1

Quote of the weekend

Democracy shines brightly when men are good, when in vigilance they educate themselves and their children of unalienable duties and the pursuit of honor, when they shun coveteousness and by self-restraint obey the laws of nature and of nature's God.

When the majority cannot protect themselves from their own depravities, democracy is no longer viable.
Jeremy Egerer 

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/12/the_failures_of_democracy_an_ode_to_aristides.html#ixzz2F8bXIVOT

The Adventure begins

Divine design

No wonder the angelic hosts were filled with delight
at the dawn of creation.
Who wouldn't be.

Watertown sunrise

God's mercies are new every morning.
Shannon Arnold captured the display
over Lake Kampeska.  
Thanx Sis

Celtic Woman - O Holy Night (lyrics)

Favorite Christmas Hymn.  Let us fall on our knees.  
Christ is born.  

Ode to a 7-year FriendShip

Seven is a sacred number.  The holy scriptures use seven to signify completion or perfection.  My friend, Cheri O, created this iconic poster celebrating our friendship.  We have been friends for seven years.  Perhaps this graphic surprise is a celebration of seven.

It started with a phone call.  Cheri was cub reporter, Danielle's, editor at the Tracy Press in Tracy, California.  The Midborn had spoken glowingly of Cheri so I trusted her to fix an escalating concern I had with one of Danielle's coworkers.  This grave worry left me feeling hopelessly helpless with our four state distance.  So I called Cheri.  My trust in her was well founded.  Danielle was immediately moved to the Tracy bureau away from the threatening colleague.  I was never so relieved and grateful.

Later, Danielle told me that Cheri was traversing the lumpy path of her mother's illness and death.  Having just lost my own mother within the year, I emailed Cheri.  Her favorable response was the launching point for a missile of words.  One day, out of a clear blue, Cheri called.  We exchanged more words.  We were becoming friends.

We discovered that we both loved words.  My words were about God.  God and His Son in the midst, where we live and move and have our being.  Cheri's words told stories and related facts and data.  My words painted the Big Picture of why and who and where we are headed.  Cheri wrote about her activities and family and what was coming up.  Concrete calendar happenings.  I wrote about ideas.  She, of the concrete persuasion, and me, the idyllic troubadour scouring every nook and cranny for meaning and purpose.  When Amanda pronounced us Kindred Spirits, the deal was done.  We were.

We learned about each other.  We wondered and pondered and wandered the countless footsteps that had brought us to 2005.  Cheri's first steps began in Kalispell, Montana, with her Lutheran family rooted in hard work.  Work that bears fruit.  Work that is building something of family legacy and value.  My stumbling steps began in southern California with my devoted mother and father applauding my every move and word.  I was loved and I shared that with Cheri.  She was too.  I told the story of Robert.  She told the story of her Robert.  She called him Bob.

One fine March morning - 2006 - I landed in SanFrancisco.  Danielle introduced me to Cheri, although we knew each other.  Santa Cruz was our destination for my spring break from McKinley School.  Amanda was the last daughter to join the reunion.  It was a first gathering of friends, but it felt like a reunion because we knew each other.  I think Chelsey was there too.

The cottages were lovely by a streaming, screaming, singing brook which was too wide to cross although I considered it.  When everyone was out and about, I cherished some solitary time at the edge of the water.  I cried there.  My friend did not know my Savior and it made me weep.  There was a mostly empty toilet roll that accompanied me to the water's edge.  It was for the weeping.  I brought the roll home and still have it.

One night, after Danielle had returned to work in Tracy, I stayed with Cheri and Amanda at the lovely cottages by the singing stream in Santa Cruz.  Cheri asked me why I sighed?  I sigh because you do not know the Savior.  It made my heart heavy.

There was another reunion that summer, 2006.  I stayed with Cheri while Danielle happily dwelled with Chelsey and Shikira in Dublin.   California, not Ireland.  Of course, I spent many happy hours wine-ing/dining, biking and liking D's fun roommates.

Bob and Cheri grew 40 wild olive trees suited for EVO harvesting.  They called their 40 acres, Lost Dogs Farm.  The centerpiece was a lovely yellow home.  There were many entrances and a surrounding porch suitable for visiting, laughing, eating, reading, lap-topping and listening to long nights of opera.  Beautiful voices called us heavenward.  While the dogs played and barked at imaginary noises and shadows, we lifted our hearts in our mutual love of words.  We talked.  If you didn't believe there was more than met the eye when you plopped onto the porch, by the time Pavarotti had his way, you had your doubts.  Or your doubts were silent.  There is decidedly, Something more.  And He is here among us.  I knew it on that porch and I think Cheri did as well.  Maybe even Bob knew.  And Amanda and Joey knew too.

Time passed and was commemorated with 4-foot long emails spanning 4 states separating my friend and me.  But the miles and to-'n-fro flow of our lives never waylaid the words.  We spoke.  Often and deeply.  For at least two years, the highlight of my days was receiving communication from cm, Cheri Matthews.  My friendship with Cheri was a source of great comfort and joy for me in the first years Robert was gone.

Cheri had proclaimed me her best friend.  Furthermore, I was perched among the top ten of her lifetime friendships.  I knew this by stealth.  My first summer at the Farm, Cheri forwarded me an email from a friend of hers from South Dakota.  She wanted me to read what the gentleman wrote to her, as I recall.  But her reply to him was what startled me.  She called me her best friend.  I was happy.  Of the quiver full of intentional friendships throughout my life, I was never more convinced that my 'chance meeting' of Cheri O Matthews was a Divine Appointment.  There was nothing happenstance about it.  It was deliberately ordained.  For a purpose.

That purpose took shape on June 27th, 2010.  The place was Flathead Lake, Montana.  The Good Shepherd found my friend.  He extended His staff, and she reached.  It was one of the happiest days of my life.

Cheri in SD

Silly times in FarGo.
Time of our lives!

the state of Art

When the Messiah was first performed, a nobleman hailed the work as "a noble entertainment." 

Handel replied: "My lord, I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wished to make them better."
from Saving Leonardo

Grab your women, children and hat

When Mama Elissa was snapping Baby Amelia
in her orange headband,
Isaiah took the opportunity to grab his hat.
Apparently he wanted to be in the photo shoot as well.

Baby love, my baby love

Mimi: Pillow anyone?
Isaiah: Don't mind if I do.

Little Man MacMurchy
rockin' 'n rollin'
with his baby sister

Mimi thinks it's a lark.  

Quote of the weekend

Drawing wisely from the past is the Art of Life ~ john stringer

The Tap heard round the world

When I despaired of food for me,
I heard you forage food for thee.

What is that sound, so crisp and clear,
that's reached and grabbed my deafened ear?

I searched and looked upon the tree,
But could not find the sight of thee.

Alas a tiny bird, tap tap,
I spied thee on the barren tree.

He knows to tap and find his food
within the bark of yonder wood.

But will he die before its found?
Or will increase to him rebound?

God does provide for this small bird,
woodpecker pecks, how thor'ly absurd.

He knows to forage in the bark,
God taught him, what a happy lark.

And speaking of the happy lark,
the woodpecker and the crimson stark,

They all know how to find their food.
God taught them.  Why my dark mood?

The great Creator of fowl and beast
has surely given my increase.

Why worry, fret and toss and turn,
The good dear LORD will soon return.

Until You come, please teach me LORD
to trust thy hand, in one accord.

For Thou art near!  Hold fast this Truth.
The God of feathered friends, is proof.

Amelia Margaret's birth month

You have been with us for 5 months.
So glad to have you, Sweet Baby Mimi.

Is America exceptional?

Hillsdale College - Imprimis