Posts from the ‘Front Porch Musings’ category

Heavenly skies

Sunrise

Psalm 19:1-4 **

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day, they pour forth speech, night after night they display knowledge.

There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.

Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

Clouds

**Thank you to a faithful reader for pointing me to the 19th Psalm – inspired by the Blue Holes post.

Photos are from Spearfish, SD – April 2008

My thoughts and prayers with the people and animals who call the Gulf Coast home as the skies there look to bring difficult circumstances in the next days.

Blue holes

Yesterday morning was heavily overcast. I have learned to take the camera no matter what. As we left the property and entered the adjacent land which opens to the full sky and mountain view, a vivid blue hole in the overcast appeared. In my head, I said “a blue hole” and it reminded me of “The Blue Hole” – an anomaly in Castalia, Ohio.

“The Blue Hole” was one of those things like “House of Mystery” or “the largest” whatever. In my memory, it was the only venue of that nature that we ever stopped to see when I was a child. “The Blue Hole” was a deep water thing – supposedly of some nature that made it impossible to determine the depth. Also, it apparently lacked oxygen in the water. My memory is of a very blue water hole, surrounded by a fence and about 50 feet in diameter. I remember leaning against the fence and peering into the depths.

The thing is, I think I remember stopping at “The Blue Hole” more than once…and I think we had to pay to see it. And now I wonder why, as we never stopped at any of the other oddity tourist things.

The clouds brought up the memories of “The Blue Hole” and I was forming the blog post in my head…thinking to get any current information and web site links that had more information than I could dredge up from memory. When I googled “The Blue Hole Ohio”, I had a small shock. A number of entries referred to the scam that was “The Blue Hole”. Other sites had explanations. Some links were blog entries as this will be – childhood memories from people my age. “The Blue Hole” as an “attraction” no longer exists…and, of course, it had oxygen in it!

So, “The Blue Hole” of my childhood is a bit of a mystery. But the experience remains and the memory of the vivid blue..the memories surfacing today as I looked at the “blue holes” in the overcast sky of northwest Montana.

Blue holes…a bit of a mystery.

Joy in the Journey

One of the advantages of blogging (online diary) is the ability to look back and see what happened on some date. Before this blog, which began on June 13, 2007, – and still – I keep notebooks of mostly quotes from whatever I happen to be reading, but sometimes I write down random thoughts. I date everything. Writing the quote or thought down helps me remember something I think I might want to remember.

This morning, I happened to look back in my notebook and there was an entry for August 21, 2006 – 2 years ago – not a quote but a note about buying my current house and property. I wrote a short snippet about the obstacles that became possibilities relating to my deciding to make an offer on this place. That entry later became a blog post – the link is over to the left in Favorite Posts – titled “Obstacles to Possibilities”.

I also wrote a bit about my fear of “biting off more than I could chew” with this place. I could see such possibilities – all of which take a bit of money and it seemed like just buying and maintaining would take everything I had.

Some days, I look at this little house and I despair ever getting it the way I think it should be. Some days all I can see – again – are the obstacles.

Another advantage of blogging and additionally being addicted to taking photos of EVERYTHING!!! – is that I can look back and see what I HAVE been able to do to this place. And THAT is a good thing.

Today the garage door opener was installed. The garden, which was an albatross to me, is now a beautiful grassy, meadow area – full of light. The 2 ruts which made up the drive are now a smooth and solid road. The woods, which was selectively logged, is healthy and more fire safe. The herb garden is under way. All of the projects have been fun and interesting.

The thing I wish to always remember – whether it is in the metamorphosis of this place or in the days of my life – is to take Joy in the Journey. There will always – I hope!! – be things I want to do. But, I hope to never get so caught up in the things I want to do that I forget to enjoy the things I have done.

Why on my doorstep?

Almost two weeks ago I wrote about my enjoyment of the blog Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton. Shreve’s blog is a photo and essay chronology of “life with the coyote and beyond”. The coyote is Charlie, who was “dumped on her doorstep” when he was 10 days old.

I was walking up my driveway early one morning while Karl was doing his perimeter walk – our daily habit. Cup of coffee in hand, I was watching his neon blue lighted collar bob through the woods and my mind just wandering – looking forward to whatever Shreve would choose to share on her blog, thinking about my own, questions floating through my head… I got to wondering, “How did Charlie come to be left on her doorstep? – as in why her, by whom? Was it intentional to leave the pup with her or was her cabin just convenient to whoever found the pup or ??? These questions were just drifting lightly in my head along with wondering what she would disclose in her forthcoming book.

I kept coming back to “why on her doorstep”? And that led me to “Why do things get left on any of our doorsteps?” – as in – metaphorically, “Why do certain things happen?”. But that is not really the intriquing question – nor the intriguing answer… in my mind. The really interesting thing, the life-shaping “answer” is the answer to: “What do we do with what is left on our doorstep?”

What do we do with the crossroads-opportunity-decision required events that occur in our lives? For me, it is the “What do we do with it?” that makes the difference between existing and living and further, potentially shapes our lives in ways we cannot imagine at the time of the decision.

In a post titled “This needs to be said”, Shreve writes:

Charlie has changed my life in incredible ways; he has brought me joy and wonder and wisdom and has provided me with lessons I probably would not have learned any other way. However, it is not all peaches and roses.
….

Charlie was – and is – a divine gift to me and he is a gift to the world. Would I make the same decision if I had it to do over again? Absolutely. Will I ever raise another coyote? No way.

Obviously, a lot more to that post and there are other posts that provide a bit more insight, but what I saw in the writing (and I have no way of knowing if I’m accurate – please read this as my perception) was that at the time of needing to make a decision there was a certain amount of understanding of the potential difficulty, heartbreak and challenge of taking care of a wild animal, while at the same time an unwillingness to let the creature die. Further it seems that she was open to the idea that despite incredible difficulty, the experience “could” be of unknown blessing and beauty. And maybe all of those thoughts did not consciously pass through Shreve’s mind, but I don’t think you get to a point of “he has brought me joy and wonder and wisdom” without being open to that when accepting the responsibility of the decision.

The more life experience I have (read the older I get!), the more easily I recognize the potential joy, wonder and wisdom there may be to gain in what I do with what gets left on my doorstep. Whether it is the attitude, perspective, or actual decision that needs to be made – it is in making the choice of how to see, perceive or what to do that is, in reality, the only “control” I may have. Being open to the ensuing direction that my life takes – listening, watching and learning from the consequences – that, to me, is living.

The topic of this post has been rolling around in my head for a week or so and I have had a draft with the title and enough of a blip about the topic sitting in a file, waiting to be written. Yesterday, something landed on my doorstep that was initially disappointing, discouraging and a bit challenging. The thing has happened – “why” is of no real consequence. The adventure, the potential wisdom, joy and opportunity – those lie on the path of what I choose to do with what landed on my doorstep.

And this morning, I opened a devotional that I reread from time to time: “Mighty is Your Hand” – 40 day’s writings by Andrew Murray, a South African missionary/minister in the mid 1800’s. My reading for this day is titled “God Goes with Us”… just in case I had any doubt, that surely set the tone for my attitude and perspective.

Why on my doorstep? – I don’t know. What will I do with it? What wisdom, joy and wonder might come down the path I choose to take?

***And for additional inspiration, Shreve noted on Daily Coyote that her nearly 90 year old grandmother was blogging and provided the link: Svensto. It is magical story telling – and like granddaughter – making the choice about what to do with what landed on her doorstep.