Feast of what?!

Shirleyjdietz1 Comment
My nephew Evan, outside Harbor Landing
My nephew Evan, outside Harbor Landing

I am in Destin, Florida which is a beautiful resort island on the Gulf of Mexico. I am staying in a gorgeous four bedroom condo on the 9th floor with a view of the waterway and the city on one side, and a view of the ocean on the other. I am roommate to my Mom, who is visiting from Wisconsin and together we are staying with my brother’s family. I am surrounded by those I love. We are here because it is the Feast of Tabernacles.

It is always a bit complicated to explain to others about Christians who keep the holidays given in the Bible. In the past I have spent many years keeping Passover, Day of Atonement, Feast of Tabernacles and the weekly sabbath (which, by the way, means seventh day). I respect, which is the best word I can think of right now, these practices even though I do not celebrate them currently in the same way. I think there are rich things to learn by observing them. And perhaps the most influential thing to me is found in the Bible in the book of Zechariah, chapter 14, verse 16, where it says, prophetically, that every survivor of whatever is ahead will go to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, year after year.

If it’s going to be important then, why should it not be important now? I believe Biblical prophecies have an amazing track record of coming to pass, so I want to stay in touch with these days that clearly originated with God and seem to be significant.

Today we went to church and the message was about grace. People who keep anything associated with the Old Testament are always being accused of trying to earn God’s favor by the things they do or don’t do. There are probably some who are doing this. But many people I know from my years in “the cult”, so called, are simply wanting to become more like the Jesus that they know and love. I’m all for that. I also know many people in the Christian circles that I’m part of today that feel the same way even though it does not lead them to keep days like the Feast of Tabernacles. We are all in different places, having differing perspectives. That is God’s problem and he knows what idiots we all are when it comes to faith and spiritual things. I’m thinking he will find a way to get us all together when he wants to.

But for those who are curious and want to know how “average Joe’s” like our family come to stay in a million dollar condo – it is because God set up a system called “saving your money”. People who follow these holidays save up roughly a tenth of their yearly income to be spent in one week. It is also biblically based and represents a future time of abundance of everything good that is also prophesied to come. You might think that this is hard, maybe impossible in the present economy, but people do it. Actually it is not nearly as ridiculous as spending the whole month of December shopping and being in debt for months after paying for what you made Christmas to be about.

As I said, I am here spending some precious time with my mom, and my brother’s family. We are all away from home and our every day responsibilities. We are talking, having meals together, thinking about our faith lives, and being grateful to God who provides these opportunities. I’m just saying that it’s beautiful here and I’m having a really great time.

For travel enthusiasts, this is a really great destination if you love the beach and ocean!  Here are some scenes…

There are hundreds of places to stay within sight of beautiful white sand beaches.
There are hundreds of places to stay within sight of beautiful white sand beaches.
My nephew, Buck, brought his boat for family time on the water.
My nephew, Buck, brought his boat for family time on the water.
An evening ride out to the breakwater.
An evening ride out to the breakwater.
Lots and lots of dolphins swim with the boat...
Lots and lots of dolphins swim with the boat…
Evening sunsets that are amazing.
Evening sunsets that are amazing.
The peaceful view from a balcony. Love it here...
The peaceful view from a balcony. Love it here…

Ode to Zoe

Shirleyjdietz4 Comments

wpid-wp-1443801946646.jpeg

 

Zoe, I always thought your name was a little unusual

but that it was suitable for a cat who was not the usual kind.

I could not determine if you were strange to me because

of your breed or because of your life experience.

Long of leg, large of body, small in head – your were not

the cat we photographed often. Your stare was unsettling.

 

 

I knew you when you belonged to your previous owners,

a beast barely tolerated by some, and you busied yourself

staying out of the way of dogs and scratching leather furniture.

When your claws were removed, and you could not defend yourself

they were afraid to let you outdoors. You were famous for

filling the litter box all too quickly, and making loud noises in the night.

 

 

You came to us when others became allergic. We took you

in for love of them and not out of love for you. I don’t

think you loved us. I knew you when you were overweight,

and your hair came out in great clumps. I knew you when

you chewed yourself bloody where the fleas congregated.

You didn’t look at us very often, you didn’t look happy.

 

 

But for all your mess, things we had to wash up, scrape off

and deodorize, for all the times when you fought the other

cat and left fur all over the room (you both were gray and we

could not tell who had won), we began to love you. You stopped

eating desperately and became slim. Your fur became soft

and easy to pet. And you watched us differently.

 

 

You learned to go through the cat door, to love the outside

and to run to the sound of your automatic feeder. Your favorite

place was on the man where he was soft and warm and you purred.

The man gave you special food and doted on you. You made loud

noises looking for him, often in the night when you were lonely.

I loved that you went outside and no longer used the litter box.

 

 

You no longer needed to look out for the other cat (she died)

and you relaxed and all the space became yours. You only ran from

the vacuum cleaner and small children. You and the man became

very much alike, with your routines and the places you camped

out as you watched television and napped. You were all the animal

we had and I guardedly say that we enjoyed you most of the time.

 

 

Today, you are gone. I am sad, but especially the man is missing you.

Feeling that you may have had a terrible fright at the end and violence.

We would not have chosen that for you but neither would have had you

be ill and lingering and miserable. As I said, you were never impressive

for your looks and not much photographed. But you were loved and

part of our family, even though your stare was still a bit unsettling.

Zoe
Zoe

Fashionable Me

Shirleyjdietz2 Comments
the lucky ones that get to go to a new home (where someone will wear them)
the lucky ones that get to go to a new home (where someone will wear them)

Home improvements have temporarily deprived me of a closet. All my clothes are stacked on chairs in the room that’s become my bedroom. It’s the perfect time to implement the “tidying up” principle and get rid of clothing that doesn’t make me happy (read about that here). Today I am picking up each piece and asking myself if it goes or stays. There’s something very revealing about the process. As I listen to my self talk, I hear this person who has trouble letting go…

  • this one fits, I wonder if I can get that stain out, keep
  • that one was just what I needed (that one time three years ago), keep
  • hate this color, but wow, no stains, have to keep it.
  • where has this been? how come I’m not wearing this! Wear tomorrow, keep
  • this always makes me so hot, but what if I move north, better keep
  • this one never shrinks or shows dirt, keeper for sure (never wear it)
  • I paid for this one new, can’t give it away yet (never wear it)
  • my daughter gave me this (sob), fits her so nice (not me) keep
  • nice blouse (not for me) maybe mom would wear it, keep
  • cute but what was I thinking, I’m not 20 anymore, maybe daughter would wear, keep
  • this might go under something (couldn’t ever wear by itself), keep
  • love this one (nearly broke arm getting out of it 😦 ) keep
  • I look so good in this one, can stitch up the hole, maybe, keep
  • I love the way this one feels (one day a year in Florida…), keep
  • my favorite color, except for the stain, keep and wear for dirty work
  • this seemed like a great idea when I was in Cambodia, might go again, keep
  • I know there must have been a reason I bought this, keep

Funny thing, the happiness factor hardly ever enters my mind when it comes to clothing. It’s so much more about serviceability and protection and staying on comfortably. Not that I don’t appreciate a little color and style on occasion, just sayin’…

So what does your closet look like? Have you tidied up lately?

Know how I feel about my mom?

Shirleyjdietz5 Comments

Dear Mom,

Good morning and I’m thinking about you as I sit in a quiet house having the morning’s first cup of coffee in “your mug”, the one you didn’t want to send off to Good Will when you moved.   I’m saving it for you.  I like it too.

I just want to tell you that I feel so blessed, at my age, to be able to write a letter to my mom and have her be able to read it.  A lot of people don’t get the chance.  That you are still here is partly because you are not that much older than I am, only 18 years, and partly because you navigated the storms of life pretty well.  You probably don’t feel like you did it all intentionally but you did make many simple decisions to be patient, to be faithful, to not worry, to work, to ask for help, to trust others, to love and to be flexible.  They all add up.

And now we are in a different season.  For the first time since you were a teenager, you are exploring who you are by yourself.  Once again, I am so amazed at your ability to try things and come to conclusions about them.  While many who lose a spouse would retreat and let themselves be forgotten, instead you are reaching out to your family and friends and being a part of their lives.  You’ve concluded that you don’t like to be living alone – a good thing to know.  I am so looking forward to spending time with you again, not just to visit, but to have those longer shared experiences.

Now that my own children are out of the house and working on their lives and careers, it is a comfort to me to know that you have been through that part of motherhood.  You’ve seen us kids make bad decisions, go through tough times, lose people we love, wrestle with faith, take risks.  You lived through it, and because of that I know I can too.

I’ve always wanted to spend more time with you – you were a fun mom – but even more so as I became aware of you as an interesting person, not just a mom.  I loved interviewing you a couple years ago and finding out details of your early years with your own parents and siblings.  As someone who reads and recognizes a good story, I realized I was hearing one.  There is a tendency as a child to think you know your parents, after all you grew up with them.  What it really means is that they know you much better than you know them.  I look forward to learning more about you.

I will see you in less than a week.  We will talk, share our morning coffee times, read together, do a jigsaw puzzle or two, take some pictures of us together, sort through life, laugh, remember…. I look forward to it.  So grateful for the time.  Love you Mom.

The Future Starts Now (Scary): A Windows 10 Review

Shirleyjdietz3 Comments
At this point, I think you are very brave talking about the future....
At this point, I think you are very brave talking about the future….

And who better to write a internet technology review than me?  After all, I was one of the lucky few (smirk, smirk) to be offered a free Windows 10 upgrade, not only once, but EVERY time I opened my computer for the last couple of months.  Smarter, faster, more secure… what’s not to like about that?

Evidently Windows 10 is new enough that not many reviews have been written about it.  I couldn’t find any as I was toying with the idea of trying it.  I asked around among my tech savvy friends and no one had any advice to offer.  I didn’t find any help online either.  Finally, just to get rid of the annoying pop-up I agreed to try it.  The marketing lesson here is that if you  badger people long enough they will agree just to get rid of you. But we knew that…

The upgrade was pretty easy since it required nothing of me except for checking boxes that gave permission for me to turn my life over to Microsoft for pretty much anything they wanted to do with it.  I can see that it’s true – they have to know all those details about me in order to know what ads I would appreciate seeing (never) and what movies and news programs I want to watch (not).  Advertising specifically tailored to my needs is very important.  I don’t even remember what I did with my needs before the internet came along.

The initial appearance of my start screen was, well, smaller? Instead of charms spread across the whole screen they were all lined up in a small box on the left of my screen.  I later learned that was desktop mode.  I learned it when I accidentally got in tablet mode and couldn’t find a way back.  You’re thinking “why didn’t she watch the tutorial?”  I watched the little movie.  I watched it every time I encountered a new question.  They were always clicking buttons and tabs that I didn’t have on my screen.  I gave them virtual punches in the face.

After not being able to open my Open Office program for several days I finally adjusted by stopping production of documents.  I was pretty proud of myself for that fix. After a couple weeks of learning my way around and thinking “I can do this” I noticed a weirdness of slow motion taking over my usual online activities.  Not wanting to blame Windows 10 for every interminable black screen, or frozen loss of control episode, I called my computer’s doctor and got a prescription to clean up and check for viruses.  It was about time anyway.

All was well, as I recall, and I was thinking things were moving along a little faster. Truthfully, I don’t remember everything that transpired in proper sequence.  Did I close down and restart before the next problem occurred? Don’t know, but suddenly I’m going nowhere on the internet.  I’m getting a simple message that there are no internet connections available.  That’s happened before.   I turned of the power to the router and rebooted, twice I think.  My cell phone was connecting with wifi, my internet home phone was connecting with wifi, but my computer kept saying there was nothing to connect to.  Liar, liar, circuits on fire.

I spent the rest of yesterday looking for a wifi switch on my computer, looking for Windows 10 help on my cell phone, and having real angst about being so reliant on the elusive cyber world. During my search for Windows 10 connection problems I ran across a note from Microsoft that offered a return to my previous Windows 8.1, which at that point felt kind of like a lost child finally finding mother.  It didn’t occur to me that I would need the internet to bring my mother back.  I clicked.  The screen was black for hours.

I finally decided the computer had turned itself off and was not just working silently in the dark.  I powered up and Windows 8.1 magically loaded itself and all my familiar friends were there and in good health.  Thank you Windows 10 for the experience with smarter, faster and more secure… just sayin’.

A Dark and Rainy Day

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It’s one of those days when even though nothing specific is terribly wrong, everything in general seems terribly wrong and overwhelming.  Had one like that? It doesn’t help that our house, which has poor lighting and is usually dark inside, is even darker today with the cloud cover and rain outside.

Even as I try to get in touch with the joy I know is somewhere inside me, I can’t stop looking at the disorder, mess, and accumulation of things in my house that put me into a near catatonic state. Who would think that remodeling one small space in the house could affect the whole?  I wander from room to room looking for something that I can make a decision about.  Do I need it?  Can I part with it? Where will I put it if I keep it?  How do I get ride of it? Should I sell it or just put it out by the road to be picked up? How can an innocent jar of paper clips that I don’t need immobilize me? (Paper clips are good and these are the cute colored ones! I was given a donation of office items and I know someone needs them, but who?)

Please, please forgive me for cutting you down just when you had gotten beautiful.
Please, please forgive me for cutting you down just when you had gotten beautiful.

I went outside this morning thinking it would clear my mind and give me a better perspective.  I ended up pruning a beautiful bush that had finally gotten full size and was bearing beautiful yellow flowers.  Unfortunately it is planted right next to our AC unit and is a constant frustration to the men who service it.  A beautiful plant in the wrong place, along with countless others in the overgrown acre I call home.  That didn’t help my perspective much.

And even as the husband and I prayed over our day, I let him do most of the talking.  Today I am just not in touch with the part of my brain that houses joy.  It keeps me from being relational with God and with others.  I kind of shut down. I’m not proud of it.  I’m just tired and ruined and feeling my humanness, if that’s a word. My own superficial problems, the problems of those I love, the disease and fighting in the world, the homeless children, the anger, the injustice – I can’t keep up with it all.

Time is moving fast, and it really is a gift from God that things change.  I know I will feel different if I wait long enough, especially if I ask God for help in understanding where I fit in.  There is a reason, a purpose for my being here in this place, at this time.  Even as uncomfortable as it is to be revealing my gloomy self in a post, there is probably something behind the urge I felt to write this way. Even in this state of mind I know these things.

There is a God, there is a Jesus and nothing anyone says or thinks adequately explains them away.

There is real evidence that what I need to know about him is given to me in scripture.

Scripture tells me and my experience bears it out, that he is good and powerful and loves me.

I am safer with him, no matter what circumstances look like, than anywhere else.

And for now, on this dark, rainy day, I will keep those things in mind as I search for some meaningful activity to dispel the gloom.  My precious daughter in Seattle turns to housecleaning when she feels oppressed, so I will too and there’s no shortage of things to clean around here… just sayin’.

Love this creative reproduction…

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Pottery of a different sort...
Pottery of a different sort…

I’ve often wanted to work in clay, but the closest I’ve gotten to that is to collect interesting pieces of pottery.  This is one that I love from an artist I encountered at a bluegrass festival in north Georgia.  I put it on my table every fall.

Warning: I’m Thinking

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This post was prompted by a cartoon I saw on a T shirt. Three horses, wide eyed. The first one “What if that stick moved?!” The second one, “What if it didn’t move?!”   The third one, “Let’s spook!”  I am a bit spooky at times. 

A long time ago, back in Wisconsin when I was a young mother, I got a pastoral visit from my minister.  He listened patiently to my angst about hearing from God.  I didn’t have a handle on how an invisible God who says He is always with me could give me directions.  When all those people in the Bible heard voices telling them what to do (think “go to a mountain and sacrifice your son” type of message…) were they really hearing a spoken voice, or the voice in their head? And if it was that voice in their head, was it more than just a feeling or a conviction? How did they know it was God and not just themselves remembering a nightmare (think “go against this vast army with 100 of your best men” type of message…)? I had children to raise.  I needed to know.

This is what he told me.  “You think too much.”

Well, just like a person who thinks too much, I’ve been thinking about this for years.  It was a very observant assessment.

I read a story about a person who was about to board a flight with their family. As they were lining up to traverse the jetway they got the message to not go, from God.  They were Christians and evidently in very close communication with their heavenly Father so they didn’t board the plane.  The plane crashed and all on it were killed.  I think about this frequently, actually every time I get on a plane, and wonder if I would have the guts to waste a ticket that I’ve paid dearly for based on a gut feeling that I shouldn’t get on the plane.  How weird would that be?  Then I wonder if the fact that I’m thinking about it, is God telling me to do it.  Then I get on the plane and fly to where ever it is I’m going.

The good thing that I’ve learned about God is that he knows me better than I know myself.  I’ve seen the things he’s made and figured out so my confidence in his genius leadership has developed.  After all, if he’s taken on responsibility for all these people who sign up to be on his team, he must be one awesome, amazing leader.  Does he know I think too much?  Yes. Does he know how to get me to do something? Probably.  When I’m willing to follow orders will he leave me wondering? I don’t think so. If I’m not supposed to be on the plane, he will send someone to drag me off.  He made me. He knows me. He loves me even when I think too much.

I”m just sayin’, if he weren’t that awesome, he wouldn’t be God.

How to Feed Horses

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wpid-20150911_081915.jpgI often visit Dr. Julia in Jacksonville and have adventures as Vet Ma, helping with horse chores and riding truck with her as she does her rounds.  The area has had more rain this season than it has in 40 years according to the older generation. The pasture where she keeps her four horses is a sea of mud.

 !. Arrive at pasture.  Try not to get truck stuck in the mud.

2. Squeeze size 9.5 feet into daughter’s size 8 boots.

3. Wade to feed room. Fill two buckets with grain.

4. Wade to pasture.  Approach small herd of excited, rowdy horses eagerly waiting to be fed. Try not to be anxious.

5. Put halter on old lady horse so she can be fed by herself outside the pasture.  Try not to let her drag you through gate. Try to stay clean. Try not to be anxious.  Try to shut gate.

6. Don’t let old lady horse knock over pail and eat grain meant for other horses. Scoop up spilled grain. Grab her and get her to her own pail.

7. Catch other three horses who have gone through open gate while you were catching old lady horse. Try not to panic.  Try to keep them from eating grain meant for old horse.

8. Make a big deal about grain you still have left in pail. Wade out in pasture to feeding trough and hope horses follow.  Dump grain in trough, make lots of noise doing it.  Try to keep clean.  Try to remain calm.

9. Get out of way when horses stampede to feeding trough. Try to remain upright in mud.  Forget about clean.

10. Forget about feeding old lady horse by herself.  She’s eatiing. Take halter off.  Get back to gate, shut it.

11. Return pails to feed room. Remove muddy boots. Breathe sigh of relief.

Take off muddy boots
Take off muddy boots
Try not to get stuck
Try not to get stuck