Where will you be going next?

This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live. Deuteronomy 30:19 New International Version (NIV)

I don’t know why I am so fascinated with cemeteries. I suppose part of it is because I can envision an entire life around each headstone, making up stories in my head as to how this person died or how that person lived. Also, the headstones are sometimes works of art, as well as the other adornments throughout the older cemeteries.

Vacationing in the Michigan’s UP last week, we visited a few of these old cemeteries. The old graveyards seem to have a lot of fences around each family plot. I’ve been researching on line all week to discover the history of these fences, or borders as they are called. I thought that I read once somewhere that they were meant to keep bad spirits out or good spirits in. Pretty much all I found in my internet search is that one purpose the borders served was to discourage grave robbers.

(I also read that grave robbing was a popular crime at the start of the last century. Not the life of crime I would ever resort to.)

I think we are all curious about what happens after we die. As a Christian, I believe I will go to heaven, and don’t much care what happens to my body or where or how it is disposed of (I just don’t want grave robbers digging me up). The thought of my body lying in a casket buried under six feet of dirt really doesn’t do it for me. Yet I’d still like a headstone in a cemetery somewhere, a reminder to generations to come that this person lived from this date to this date and that she had a sometimes boring, occasionally interesting life in between.

Lord, thank you for giving me this life. I know that I complain about all sorts of things, but in general I am content with where I am. Guide me through the remaining years of my life and let whatever I leave behind be good. Amen  

Win just one - for who?

“Some time, Rock, when the team is up against it, when things are wrong and the breaks are beating the boys, ask them to go in there with all they've got and win just one for the Gipper.”

As most men and women, my husband and I have different views on how to enjoy vacation. We agree on quite a few things, but one of my favorite vacation activities is looking at old buildings. This is a pastime which I think the hubby could take or leave, so I hate to overwhelm him with it and try to rein myself in.

On vacation in Michigan’s UP last week, I found a map of historic Laurium. I thought it would be awesome to walk those residential streets and identify all the old houses and businesses. The hubby, I could tell, saw little entertainment value in that idea. Until I asked him who George Gipp was.

“Look, it’s the Gipp Memorial,” I said, pointing to the city map. The hubby is a huge trivia buff and especially delights in sports trivia. I suspected who George Gipp might be, but thought the hubby would relish biting this one off. He didn’t let me down.

As it turns out, George Gipp was a football player for Notre Dame from 1917 through 1920. He played several positions under the famous coach Knute Rockne. The movie “Knute Rockne: All American” featured a young Ronald Reagan playing George Gipp, who recited the now immortal words above.

There is a lot more to the story. Hmm? Too bad it has already been done, but I bet I could find something there to use some day. 

Dino the wonder dog goes on vacation.

Two years ago was the first and only time that we took Dino camping. He did very well and had a great time. Obviously. Coz as we were packing to go camping this time, he didn't want to get left behind. 

 His favorite thing is swimming in Lake Superior. He will fetch a stick thrown in the water forever. We worry that the stupid dog is going to have a heart attack though, coz he doesn't know when to quit. 

 It does take him a little while to settle down in the truck, though. Most of the way up to Michigan he drove us nuts, bouncing around. By the second day he had figured it out though. Time in the vehicle is just time to go from one fun thing to another. 

In an attempt to settle Dino down on the long drive to the State Park, Himey bought him a rawhide bone. Dino had no intentions of chewing it until it softened up a bit. So as soon as we got settled into our campsite, he buried it under some leaves at the each of the woods. Every day he would bring it out and nudge it around, seeing if it was soft yet. 

As we were packing up the camper and the campsite on Thursday morning, getting ready for the sad trip home, he dragged out the rawhide bone. He set it at my feet, as if to say, "Don't forget to pack my stuff too."

The day after we got home, he finally started chewing on the bone. He's such a goof. 

Get Focused

Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. Mark 8:25 New International Version (NIV)

In 1980 I bought a bulky 35 mm SLR camera. Everything on it was totally manual, which meant I could let in as much or as little light as I wanted, I could set the exposure however I wanted (coz sometimes pictures look cool when they are slightly blurry) and I could focus on whatever I wanted.

In 2005 I got an inexpensive but workable digital camera, and then last year I got a little bit better digital. It has taken me a while to figure it out, but I am happy with most of my results. I still sometimes miss the old heavy SLR.

Sometimes, it takes a little work to get things in focus. It doesn’t always just happen. I was so excited to see this iron ore freighter on Lake Superior last week, and even more excited that my new camera was able to zoom out that far. But I forgot to pay attention to where the camera was focused.

Ah, I got it right on the second try.

  

When things seem blurry in our lives, when things are out of focus, we need to turn to God. Sometimes it doesn’t come naturally and sometimes we have to make adjustments, but once we focus on God, our troubles don’t seem so troubling. We know we can get through another day. 

"Go Fly a Kite"

Sunday morning, my husband, the dog and I piled into the Blazer, towing the pop-up camper, and drove to Mclain State Park in Michigan’s UP. I just love it up there, and I know I have blogged about it before so I will try to stay focused on the story at hand.

Every morning when we are up there, we drive to a little township park a few miles up the road from where we are camped so that Dino can frolic in Lake Superior and I can hunt for pretty rocks. The hubby usually is along for the ride or the walk as it turns out.

Our first morning there this year, as Dino and I were on a mission on the beach – one of us to find rocks and the other to just plain play in the water – the hubby found a discarded kite in the sand. By the time I had walked far enough up the beach to have filled my pockets so full of rocks that my thighs looked like chipmunk cheeks, he had the kite aloft and was having a great time.

This is a talent I do not possess; I cannot get a kite airborne. Hubby, though, has never had a problem flying a kite. And I will never win an argument with him by ending it with “go fly a kite” because he would gladly go outside and do it.  

Even Dino the wonder dog thinks that Daddy is talented. 

How does your garden grow?

“Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are.” Luke 12:27

New Living Translation

Every spring I purchase too many potted flowers from the greenhouse. I plant these tender buds in various flower gardens about my house and then pretty much ignore them. My philosophy, with both flowers and vegetables, is that if they are not tough enough to overcome the weeds, then – oh, well. Most of the time, the weeds take over.

This spring I started yet another flowerbed, this time in a huge old copper kettle which had been sitting empty on my front stoop for many years. My husband dutifully drilled holes in the bottom of it and filled it with a mix of top soil and potting soil. I purchased four Gerber daises and five pansies to fill the space. And then, as usual, ignored them.

Perhaps it was the fresh dirt and fresh spot, but these little flowers have done quite well. I look off of my deck each evening and eye the splash of color which they grace me with. On days when it seems as if God is so far away, all I have to do is look at these little flowers and know that He is right beside me as always. 

May 

June

July

If you want to read and see more of my gardening adventures, click here and you will be directed to my other blog.

Works of Chalk

I probably don't do it as much as I should, but every week or so, I try to save everything I've written onto a jump drive. I know that there are other fancier ways to back up your work, but this is the system that works for me. On occasion, just to be sure, I've e-mailed things to myself as another way of saving them. I rarely resort to printing anything out anymore – seems a waste of paper - but sometimes things need to be printed for posterity. 

Imagine spending hours on a project, pouring your heart and soul and back into it, knowing full well that it was only a matter of time - perhaps only hours -before your work would be erased, destroyed forever. 

Last Sunday, I went to Chalkfest just down the road from where I live. What masterpieces of art these people have drawn on the sidewalk. What talent. And patience. And all it's going to take is a little shower, or a hundred footsteps, and that work of art will be gone. Amazing. 

And because of stupid Blogger and whatever the world it does with my writing with the white spaces, I was going to scrap this entire post. See, I could be a chalk-drawer after all.