Christmas Acrostic

C - carols
H - hot chocolate
R - reading Christmas stories
I - interesting looking packages
S - smells of food and candy
T - tinsel
M - music
A - angels, aardvarks (Christmas aardvarks, that is)
S - singing


(do you have anything to add?)

'Tis the season

**

****

-to laugh
-to sing carols

-to hunt for mistletoe
-to yell "Merry Christmas"
-to recieve Christmas pictures
-to send Christmas pictures out

-to feel the warmth of the woodstove
-to wrap presents in the dead of night
-to bounce up and down in excitement

-to watch a family traditional Christmas movie

-to enjoy the whole family being together at once

-to whip things into hiding if a certain person comes in
-to spend all day in the kitchen cooking delicious goodies
-to snuggle in the warm blankets with a cold nose poking out

-to gather around the fire and play a word game, enjoying each other

-to sit with a cup of hot tea (or hot chocolate, whichever you prefer) and think

****

****

'Tis the season to be jolly!

(what does this season mean for you?)

Poem Sunday - Stevenson

Prayer

I ask good things that I detest,
With speeches fair;
Heed not, I pray Thee, Lord, my breast,
But hear my prayer.

I say ill things I would not say-
Things unaware:
Regard my breast, Lord, in Thy day,
And not my prayer.

My heart is evil in Thy sight:
My good thoughts flee:
O Lord, I cannot wish aright -
Wish Thou for me.

O bend my words and acts to Thee,
However ill,
That I, whate'er I say or be,
May serve Thee still.

O let my thoughts abide in Thee
Lest I should fall:
Show me Thyself in all I see,
Thou Lord of all.

--Robert Louis Stevenson

Poem Sunday: Herbert

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee.

A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye,
Or, if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav'n espy.

All may of Thee partake:
Nothing can be so mean
Which with this motive, "For Thy sake,"
Will not grow bright and clean.

This is the famous stone
That turneth all to gold;
For that which God doth touch and own
Cannot for less be told.

George Herbert (1593-1633)


(Anybody recognize the sunset?)

There's no such thing as too many...

1. books

2. black shoes

3. teapots

4. love letters

5. years with my sweetheart

6.


Okay, I'll leave some for the rest of you.

Hmmm... Blogger's nightmare: Has someone done this already and I've forgotten about it and will appear to be pretending to be original?

Poem Sunday: Longfellow

Loss and Gain

When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure gain and loss in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Not original with me. The idea of Poem Sunday came from a friend. (Thanks, A.W.) But it's a good thing. Hope it will help me revisit some favorites.

I can explain

blogger's ennui

A.B. Simpson, quoted by Andree Seu in World:

God is represented as treasuring the prayers of his saints in vials.... They are placed like fragrant flowers in the chambers of the king.... And later they are represented as poured out upon the earth; and lo, there are voices, and thunderings, and great providential movements, fulfulling God's purposes for His kingdom. We are called 'The Lord's Remembrances.' And we are commanded to give Him no rest, day or night, but to crowd the heavens with our petitions.

And in due time the answer will come with its accumulated blessings. No breath of prayer is lost. The longer it waits, the larger it becomes.

(Hat tip to our friends at Wittingshire)

Don't Miss This!

rachel tsunami

I stumbled onto this quite unexpectedly last night, and I'm really excited about it:

The History Channel will air, this Sunday night at 8pm (probably Central), a 3 hour dramatized documentary called Dangerous Crossing: The Untold Story of the Mayflower.

Go to www.mayflowerhistory.com and follow the link to read Caleb Johnson's lengthy and thorough review of the full documentary. Caleb Johnson is apparently the foremost authority on all things Mayflower, and he is very impressed with the accuracy of the production.

This site will offer a link to the History Channel website, where you can play an interactive game about the Mayflower to earn the privilege of seeing the first 10 minutes of the show. Pretty cool. I had to do it twice to pass the test!

Sounds like it would really be worth recording. We don't get network or cable tv, just have the screen, so we can't do it, but somebody really should.

Also, would somebody tell me how to hide a link in plain ol' words you can click on without typing all the www.stuff?

ouch!

I cut my finger

Fill in the blank -

~e


it's raining...




and i'm feeling _______








blue.

Pied Beauty

rachel tsunami

Warming fires are in the woodstoves daily as well as nightly now, and our small, annual harvest of chestnuts is in. Kathryn has already made her first round of Chestnut Bisque. The view from my kitchen window is a gloriously textured carpet of leaves under the huge, old pecan tree. Puts me in mind of this poem. We've had the most colorful autumn in north Miss'sippi that we can remember. The pied beauty of the season just seems to go on and on. Must share this loved poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which marvels at the incomparable variety and diversity in God's creative palette. Hopkin's injunction to us is well-taken. "Praise Him."


GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

Gerard Manley Hopkins 1844-89


pied: having patches of two or more colors
brinded: streaked, or patchy coloring
stippled: dotted, flecked, speckled

More than self

O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife.

Who more than self their country loved

And mercy more than life!

America! America! May God thy gold refine

Till all success be nobleness And every gain divine!

verse 3, America the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates

Lest We Forget

rachel tsunami

November 11 is Veteran's Day. It is duly noted, along with all the other holidays of the year, in pale grey letters on my calendar---it's easy to miss, and even easier since there are no presents involved. No traditional meal to prepare. No greeting cards to mail with the sheepish inscription, "Hey! I know this is late, but..."

But I never rest well when I sail past Veteran's Day without proper regard for it. It just doesn't set well. There's something that niggles at my brain, my emotions. And I have my brother, Keifor, to thank for that.

Several years ago he decided to make a difference in the lives of his 4 sons (pre-Davis, as I recall) with regard to Veteran's Day. I saw a picture later that my mother took of them all standing near the flag on their front porch that day, with Keifor reading something to the boys. It was the text of a verse from America, The Beautiful , and he had prepared a graphic of those words superimposed against an image of the flag. Several days before, he had mailed copies of that, bearing a personal note, to each name on a list of men, family members and friends, who are counted in that (more-often-than-not) forgotten group---our Veterans. I could only imagine what it must have meant to them.

I resolved then that if we do not teach our children to remember, no one else will. Keifor was, and still is, a busy man. He could have done even less to commemorate that day and still have made a lasting impression on the men. On the boys. The important thing was that he didn't let the day go by without remembering---and teaching his sons to remember.

In the years following his good example, I have tried to "go thou and do likewise." One year I wrote a letter expressing our gratefulness, and sent a copy to every veteran we personally know, from WW2 through Vietnam, on behalf of our family. Another year, our whole family assembled and sang verses one and three of America, the Beautiful to every veteran we could reach by phone.

Last year, I was teaching at our homeschool co-op on Veteran's Day. I couldn't do something big last year, but I rehearsed my class of 3rd-6th graders, and we placed a cell phone call to my Uncle Harry, veteran of World War 2, a naval hero who served on the submarine USS Haddo. After a spritely, but slightly comical solo of Anchors Aweigh by yours truly, the class sang America, the Beautiful to Uncle Harry. I told him, in front of the children, that I had spent Geography class telling them his story. I told him that I want them to know, and I want them not to forget. I told him of the impact his life has had on my thinking, and on my choices, all my life, and that I would be forever grateful that he never ran; that he was willing to put himself on the line for us. I told him that he was one of my main heroes. It was one of the too few times in my life I have followed through on a good intention. It was a very special moment for both of us.

Exactly two weeks later, unexpectedly, Uncle Harry's earthly warfare ended. He gave a final salute to his family who had gathered around a hospital bed, and closed his eyes in death. When I got the news, I realized I'd been given a special and final opportunity to say thank you, and this time I hadn't dropped the ball.

I know this is a long post, and someone else's personal remembrances aren't always high on the list of interesting reading, but if anyone has stuck with me this far, please understand two things: I don't credit myself with these performances of gratitude. I credit my brother, Keifor.

Is there someone you know who has served? Something you can do to bless someone else who has made sacrifices in the past for you? Our children aren't born knowing or caring about this heritage, but they will be richer human beings if we will teach them to honor and show appreciation for what others have contributed to their lives. Consider this challenge: Do something. Even something that may seem small to you. If it is from your heart, I promise you it will swell the heart of a veteran.

And secondly, the real point of my message is this: May God have mercy on us if we do not remember to show gratitude. Yes, our lives should be permeated with it. But on Veteran's Day, please remember especially the courage and the sacrifice of those who have done---and are even now doing---their duty. On our behalf. To forget is to gradually be eaten alive with selfishness.

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget --- lest we forget!

~ Rudyard Kipling

he's on a roll...

by rachel tsunami

Because of our family's strong ties to Harmony Hill Singing School, the question has come up through the years with almost predictable regularity. As our children and their cousins, the Beauch Boys, have grown from toddlerhood into their cognitive years, there have been the inevitable questions about those ties. And the conversations have often include the dawning of the idea of geneology in their fertile minds.

Just how is it that we are so connected with that place and the events that take place there? Who owns it? Where does the buck stop? Just who was Roy T. Denman? Today it was time for another round of all that, and I joined mr. incredulous just as ham 'n cheese was struggling to explain:

ham 'n cheese: Mama, can you explain to Shafer about Harmony Hill?

me: Sure. It's like this: Many years ago, your Granny, and your great-grandaddy Roy were in a Real Estate business together (which I explained), and they saw this piece of land that was on the top of a hill, and it had room for some buildings and tents, and you could watch the sun come up over the lake, and they believed it would be a great place to have a camp singing school for young people and their families. So they bought it to have a place for what became Harmony Hill.

mr. incredulous: Wow. So then he owned it?

me: Well, no one person owned it, you see. He founded it.

mr. incredulous: (...incredulously) Wow! Really?...Where did he find it?