Bye Bye Emma Jane....and thank you....

Emma Jane left today. Uncle Eli came from Ohio a couple of days ago to take his sweet niece home to her family. We had her for six weeks. She left looking beautifully healthy and nourished and happy and safe and full of fun experiences and memories. Her aunt, Emily (Aunt Sis) was on the errand of angels the entire time. Emma left with two bags of new clothes, but she also took home something more important. She learned how to pray, ask blessings over her food, and over the heads of her loved ones in the evening. She learned that it's possible to not ever have to worry about "bad people" and that strangers can be friendly for no reason whatsoever. These are things she learned from her Aunt Sis and her cousins, Mae and Clarkie. She felt appreciated for her patience...a trait she inherited from her mother who was also the child without guile...who never saw the "cover of the book" but only the truth of the pages and treated everyone with value. Bravo Mom. And a big thank you to Stephanie Jette for all that she did and sacrificed to make this trip possible for Emma Jane. Well done again honey.

I didn't think it would be this empty when she left. I have my life to fill up again with grown up things; meetings, dates and appointments. They all came rushing back when Emma left town. But I already miss that little high voice and that pretty porcelain skin and her pretty green eyes and her good attitude and willingness to help. I miss you Emma Jane and look forward to seeing you next summer with your Mom....and remember, you get all of my shooting star wishes forever more....I'll let you know when I see one so you can make your wish....I know a nice wish....moving to California.....ooooooo.....low blow....

A POOR WAYFARING MAN OF GRIEF...

A poor wayfaring Man of grief hath often crossed me on my way.
Who sued so humbly for relief that I could never answer nay.
I had not power to ask his name, where to he went, or whence he came.
Yet there was something in his eye that won my love I knew not why.

Once, when my scanty meal was spread, He entered, not a word he spake.
Just perishing for want of bread, I gave him all, he blessed it, brake.
And ate, but gave me part again, mine was an angel's portion then.
For while I fed with eager haste, the crust was manna to my taste.

I spied him where a fountain burst clear from the rock, his strength was gone.
The heedless water mocked his thirst, He heard it, saw it hurrying on.
I ran and raised the sufferer up, thrice from the stream he drained my cup.
Dipped and returned it running o'er, I drank and never thirsted more.

In prison I saw him next, condemned to meet a traitor's doom at noon.
The tide of lying tongues I stemmed, and honored him 'mid shame and scorn.
My friendship's utmost zeal to try, He asked if I for him would die.
The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill, but my free spirit cried, "I will".

Then in a moment to my view the stranger started from disguise.
The tokens in his hands I knew, the Savior stood before mine eyes,
He spake and my poor name he named.
"Of me thou hast not been ashamed. These deeds shall thy memorial be, Fear not, thou didst them unto me."



Favorite LDS hymn
Text: James Montgomer

NEUROTHEOLOGY-I'M A WALKING ARGUMENT

I joined an on-line community entitled "Neurotheology". I was curious. It is basically a community that discusses/debates the God "experience". I put the word "experience" in quotation marks because there is one side, the "neuro" side that claims that those who experience God have brains that are more hard-wired for it, particulary in the temporal lobes, particularly the LEFT temporal lobe, and those MOST prone to God experiences are those with temporal lobe epilepsy of the left side (TLE), of which I was recently diagnosed. So, this is the dilemma, once again, that I get to face. I keep discovering these sacred little episodes that I have had since childhood were, in fact, "numinous" episodes-if I listen to the scientists....episodes such as breaking into tears when I looked up into the night sky and stared at the stars. I was only a very young child and this would happen to me. And good luck explaining this to anyone in virtually any house in suburban 1960s America. There was no dialogue for such things. So! Here's the rub. Granted, some of my experiences could be chemically related....sitting in a mall where every single person looks excrutiatingly beautiful, granted, that may be a chemical cocktail blasting through the left-side of my brain...but my faith, in general?...the thing that carries me through my day?...that helped me raise my children?...that continues to renew me?...and more importantly, appears to be the same experience for countless others that I share my faith with each week and who REPORT on their faith experiences without the benefit (?) of a diagnosis of TLE...I refuse to believe that THOSE experiences can be coldly dismissed as random neural firings or chemically induced mental experiences. I do not know what the future holds for me and my brain. It has become a separate entity at this point. We are roommates, sharing a body. I need it, for multiple reasons, but frankly, it annoys the snot out of me. I am a walking argument...science versus faith...should make that Master of Science degree a walk in the park....not...I'm relative certain there will be further postings on this delicate subject, and possibly they will not be pretty. I've only recently discovered that my brain and I don't actually get on well. It's just after 52 years, I'm relatively tired of messing with it, or it messing with me. I can't figure it out. I can be hot AND cold. Hungry AND full. Angry AND mellow. And, this is an entirely different post....me out.

FLYING JESUS BABY...IS HE COMING OR GOING...

This is Clark...I posted this somewhere else and a friend of mine said, "One day I want a flying Jesus baby of my own" so it kind of stuck....it's a great pic....he's a great kid....so expressive and kind, even at his young age. He connects with me at a very deep level and he's barely a year. He shares little secret smiles...I've never seen a child do that....he's just a fun, engaging, expressive baby....and he's becoming even more so....hmmmmm.....maybe he is our little....oh...stop it granny.....

Worshipping at the altar of my father...(his bedroom dresser)

Ever since I was a young girl, I was fascinated with each of my parent's bedroom dressers. It seemed to define each of them so distinctly. On long afternoons when I was escaping the sun, or taking shelter from rain, I would often find myself in their bedroom, standing in front of each of the dressers....worshipping at the altar of daddy or mommy...

I lost Dad in 1973, but my father's dresser was an altar, temple, church. His dresser, chest of drawers really, was very high and I had to stand on my tip toes for many years to get into the top drawer, adding to its mystery...initiates often had to "work" for their enlightenment and blessings and I was willing to do this. In the top drawer were various coins, old, and smoothed by years of being held. These were fascinating to me and always triggered thoughts of who had held them over the years and how they came to end up in my dad's possession and here, in our house, in his care...like me. There were also the candy mints, Certs. Lots of Certs. In the later years, I would leave Dad a package of sugar wafer cookies and take a package of Certs. The next day, the sugar wafers were gone, he had taken them to work with him, my gift accepted at the altar at Dad, and I would replace it with another, extracting another package of Certs. Also in the drawer were coupons from the backs of the cigarette packages he smoked. The joke was that if you saved enough coupons, you could afford the iron lung you would one day require from all of the smoking. He also had some pipe tobacco in there. The pipe I'm "smoking" in the pic is my dad's actual pipe, saved by my Mom all these years later and given to me on my last visit there. The combined smell of cigarettes, pipe tobacco, Certs and his lime deodorant was nothing short of the incense that must of filled the ancient temples mentioned in the old testament, which I read about quite a bit in the big family bible.. In the bottom drawer, the very very bottom drawer, was his yarmulke and silk, tassled prayer shawl. I asked him about these things once. Just. Once. He said it was for his death. He explained that he was a Levite. He was a direct descendant of the High Priests that worked in the temples of ancient Israel. I cannot even describe the effect this had on a little girl with dad-adoration and an overactive imagination, just beginning her own spiritual journey. I only opened that drawer a few times, but when I did, I was very respectful of the silk shawl....letting the tassels fall over and between my fingers...knowing that it would be with my father after me...This week my Dad would have been 96 years old. Solomon Katz, 96 years later and your influence and memory is alive and well sir...and that is SOMETHING. I called his brother this week, who is 90 years old, and asked him to sing "My Yiddishe Mama" to me, which he did beautifully, even hitting the high note. That song made him and Dad a little weepy, because it so accurately described their mother. I wish I had a song for my Dad. I don't. But I have this entry, and my memories, and his pipe.

Just missing my sister's backyard in Ohio...sigh.....

Palm Springs Tram...cool (fun) and cool (temperatures)

Here is a series of photos Peter and I took while on the tram in Palm Springs. It is a rotating, glass enclosed tram that rotates 360 degrees while it travels up a cable going up the side of the San Jacinto mountains. It let us off at 8,000 feet and we walked up a bit more. It was beautiful and cool and we enjoyed the beauty and wild life. At the bottom is a picture of a tree with creepy branches. Is it just me or does this tree look like it's sneaking up on the tree next to it?