From the archives….

You are on a beautiful beach. The sea is turquoise, the sky is filled with giant, slow-moving clouds, and the rhythmic sound of the gentle surf is like a balm to your harried soul. The sun warms your shoulders as you walk, and you breathe in the brisk, salty air. For as far as your eyes can see, you are the only person on this slab of earth, and you revel in the peace. No phone calls or text messages interrupt the solitude, no paperwork calls your name, and you do not have to dash madly to any appointments. For a brief period of time you have no obligations, and you relax.

After you walk alone for over a mile, you come across this note written in the sand:  I LOVE YOU.

What would be your first thought upon seeing those words? Oh! I’m not alone after all. Someone was here before me. And you might hold your hand up over your eyes to scan the beach in all directions, to see if the person who wrote the words is very nearby. Whether or not you ever spot the person who wrote the message in the sand, you walk on, knowing someone was there first, and had something to say.

Not once would you ever surmise that the waves and the wind formed the letters I LOVE YOU in the sand. Never would you come to the conclusion that the message appeared there as a random, fluky occurrence. Those three words are too complex to just materialize as the result of a happy accident. You would naturally (and rightly) assume that the letters in the sand were formed by design, by a being with enough intelligence to scrape them into the wet sand, perhaps with a finger or a piece of driftwood.

When I consider the world around me, when I see people and animals and plant life, and the unfathomable hugeness of the cosmic spheres and the smallness and intricacy of DNA, I can’t bring myself to believe that something so complex just happened, as a result of a lucky chemical event millions of years ago. Just as those letters on the sand (simple as they are) betray their intelligent design, so does the rest of creation, which in comparison is so much more complex than I LOVE YOU written on the beach.

I am not smart enough to debate anyone on this. I just know that when I see the magnitude and detail of every single thing that exists, it speaks to me of a very powerful and a very intelligent and purposeful creator.

I’m a Christian, and someday on the blog I will share why I think Jesus is who He says He is, and why He is worth living and dying for.

But even if I weren’t a Christian, I think I would look at the universe and say, “Someone made all this.” It’s too vast, too involved, too detailed, too specialized, too miraculous, to not have been created. Even if I didn’t name the name of Jesus, I would still believe in some kind of a God. Just like the letters in the sand, it seems very reasonable to deduce that this isn’t all an accident.

And I might just remark to myself, “I’m not as alone as I thought I was…”

Many years ago a good friend shared with a group of us that she would give anything to be a fly on the wall at her own funeral. So, a zany bunch of us planned Joanne’s funeral while she was still alive, and we graciously invited her to attend. It was held in the evening at a friend’s house.

My husband Michael built Joanne a makeshift coffin, which was laid out on the dining room table. There were chairs set up in the living room as in a funeral parlor, candles lit, flowers placed, somber music playing in the background. All of us wore black, even our friend (who was approaching sixty at the time). One by one, everyone came up to share personal eulogies and memories about our friend, while she laid there motionless in the coffin, listening. Some comments were more serious and truly heartfelt, most were a little on the goofy and melodramatic side, and I remember seeing Joanne trying to keep a straight face as she laid there and listened to all of the weeping and wailing and reminiscing. We dabbed at our eyes with hankies and some even threw themselves across the body in practice grief. Then a couple of us performed a song, an oldie with words we rewrote for the occasion: “It’s my funeral and I’ll cry if I want to, cry if I want to, cry if I want to…you would cry too if it happened to you!”

Then we had a funeral lunch. And Joanne climbed out of the coffin and joined us for that.  It was agreed that a good time was had by all. 🙂

Some of you are thinking this is pretty funny. Others are reading with a raised eyebrow and thinking it’s kind of sick. This sort of humor is not for everyone. I think since our friend Joanne (a wise and dignified woman we all love so much) wanted this and could laugh at herself, it was okay. It certainly created an unforgettable memory for all of us.

I don’t plan on asking my friends and family to stage a funeral for me before I die, although I do relate a little to the curiosity of wanting to know what will be said after I’m gone. I’ve left my wishes and instructions in a file on my computer and my family knows all about it. They won’t have to guess what I want, who should sing, what I should be dressed in, what verses should be read, etc. I don’t want them to have to wonder about any of that at the time of my passing.

But I do have one special request for that day that only God can fill.

This is what I would like to happen outside our window on the day that I die, and I would want it to occur so that all my family members were in one place at the same time to witness it.

I don’t know if it will happen, of course. Only God could orchestrate something this lovely and miraculous. But it certainly doesn’t hurt to ask.

I can dream, can’t I?

Almost two weeks ago I took my foster resident Carrie on a four day trip to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, to see all things Little House on the Prairie. We decided to invite a former foster care resident, Betsy, since she loves the Little House series too. Carrie has lived with me for thirteen years; Betsy was here for seventeen before I began the glacial process of semi-retiring, and decided to help place her in a wonderful family foster home not far from here.

Even though it was a working vacation for me, Lloyd wanted to come with us, and we rented a new Voyager at the last minute when I went down to the garage to load suitcases and found my Outback battery so dead not even a click would sound. (I didn’t know then that the wayback dome light had probably been nudged on when I put two big boxes there, but at the time I didn’t want to chance jumping the battery and having the source of the problem be something more serious that would plague us on the trip.)

The gals were excited for our adventure and we had a great time with them. They each had enough of their own money to get hotel rooms for themselves, and we had three, right in a row so I could check on them and help them as they needed. One of them is severely diabetic and her continuous glucose monitor helped me keep her blood sugars safe while we were gone.

We stayed in New Ulm, Minnesota, a beautiful little German town with an interesting history. We took the gals to see the town Glockenspiel play, had takeout Mexican food in a lovely park, drove to Minneopa State Park to see a herd of buffalo. Walnut Grove was about a forty-five minute drive from New Ulm, and we went to the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum and toured all they had to offer. Carrie and Betsy love to shop for soobeneers, so a lot of time was spent in the quaint gift shop, filling up their bags with books, DVDs, key chains, hoodies and doodads. Carrie was happy to swim in the hotel pool, and we had plenty of time to rest too.

I had never spent time in Southern Minnesota, and it was so beautiful. I’m accustomed to the rugged, rocky, densely treed and river-cut North Shore area of Minnesota, where all things lead to Lake Superior. We drove through miles and miles of Brown and Blue Earth counties, and I was entranced. Mostly flat but sometimes mildly hilly, the terrain was dotted with neatly kept farmhouses set back from the highways, grain silos, barns and cows. Lloyd told me that Blue Earth County was named so because the earth was so rich and black it almost looked blackish blue, and we saw this clearly. Blue- black soil as far as the eye could see, ready to be planted, and I wondered if anything that had ever passed my lips had been grown in this fertile area we were passing through.

My foster gal Carrie always says, “It’s good to get away, Julie, but it’s always good to come home!” And so it was with this trip as well. We recounted aloud together the things we’d done and seen while we were gone, but there’s something wonderful about sleeping in your own bed after being gone a while. One of the highlights was when we drove through Minneopa State Park, hoping to see buffalo. We were warned to take binoculars since the herd might be far off, and we did. But as we passed one fenced area I caught sight of a few beasts within a long stone’s throw and Lloyd slowed to a stop so we could see them through the scrubby trees. If they had been cows I could have stuck my head out of the window and mooed to get their attention, but I wasn’t sure how buffalo sounded. I quickly found something on my iPhone, bluetoothed it through the van stereo system, rolled down the windows and hit play. Oh my goodness. If you’ve never heard the American Bison, you can click here.  We were so tickled to see one of the shaggy and hunchbacked bulls slowly swing his head toward us when he heard the calls. He fixed his little eyes on us as if thinking, “Who do you think you are?” and promptly lifted his tail. This delighted Carrie and Betsy to no end, and might just have trumped the entire trip over all the Laura Ingalls Wilder details.

Like Carrie says, I love to come home. My house is a gift from God, a haven and quiet place where I can hope, heal, rest, renew. Introverts need a lot of those things. And even though Michael has been gone for over six years and I’m remarried, Lloyd and I technically live apart. If you had told me when I was young that I’d someday be married and yet not live full-time with my husband, I would not have thought that appealing. But lots of things change when you’re old. Lloyd lost his Rosemarie two months before I lost Michael. They raised their family in St. Paul and then they retired on eighty acres of north woods after the kids grew up and had families of their own. He built a log cabin in the middle of those woods and dug two ponds. It’s his piece of heaven on earth, and we both love it. I have my own piece of heaven fifty miles north of him, with ever-changing and sapphire Lake Superior always in view. Lloyd has two seventeen year-old cats who are crazy about him, and when his neighbor can care for them, he comes to stay with me for a few days at a time. When I can get respite care for my foster gal, I drive down to stay with him on the occasional weekend. We talk to each other at least twice a day, but ten days or two weeks might go by before we see each other. He loves his little house in the big woods, I love my white house by the big lake.

Here is an aerial picture of Lloyd’s cabin. See it, down at the bottom of the photo?

When I’m at Lloyd’s, I love the immediate feeling of everything slowing, breathing more deeply, and observation intensifying. We’ve seen a huge black bear swim around in the pond closest to his cabin, lumber out and shake off, then stand up on hind legs to scratch his back against a tall pine tree for a at least thirty seconds. We’ve seen a good-sized porcupine with light-tipped quills amble toward the cabin, close enough for it to hear me whisper in the window and decide to go back into the woods from whence it came. We’ve seen glossy fishers, three feet long and so fluid in their movements, dart through the moonlit snow in one direction, disappear from view, then run back with some unfortunate rodent hanging from its mouth. Wild turkeys fan their tails and strut hopefully to attract potential (yet mostly indifferent) mates, cautious deer with twin spotted fawns step into the yard, redheaded pileated woodpeckers cling to the sides of dying trees, listen for insects, then soar low and slow through the woods. Red squirrels run-hop nonstop from tree to tree, from brush pile to picnic table, squabbling with each other, dashing under the cabin. Lloyd goes outside and tells them in the most reasonable manner that they need to stay away from the cabin or else. He thinks they listen to him sometimes.

At Lloyd’s little house in the big woods, I read. I write in my journal. I pray. We make a big salad each time I visit. He grills a chicken breast outside, and I finish chopping romaine, red cabbage, vine-ripe tomatoes, yellow bell peppers, carrots, celery. If I remember to bring mushrooms, I saute them in a little olive oil and butter, and when they’re reduced I add garlic and sherry, a pinch of salt and a generous couple of twists of fresh ground pepper. I might add a few dried cranberries to the salad bowl, a handful of pecans or walnuts, and some roasted asparagus. We slice the chicken and toss everything together for an early dinner. I like blue cheese dressing (first tasted when I was a little girl at the Lyon’s Den restaurant in downtown Covina, California), Lloyd prefers French. If we have any Great Harvest sourdough bread, I thinly slice that and warm a couple of slices in a skillet with all the mushroom/sherry/garlic juices, and I know Lloyd will roll his eyes when he takes a bite.

If the bugs aren’t too bad, we walk the half mile of his winding driveway to the mailbox. In the fall when the bugs are gone, we traipse through the woods and he chuckles when I interrupt our walks every seventeen feet to oooh and aaah over some treasure I find. We read devotions to each other while we sit on the screen porch and listen to the birds.

At night we sleep in his loft, which barely fits the king-sized bed. I like a softer mattress and he likes one that disguises itself as a quilted board, so he kindly and ingeniously solved that problem by purchasing two twins, one hard, one “plush,” and putting them together on a king frame. We use king sheets and blankets, and you can’t even tell there are two different kinds of mattresses. Sleeping in Lloyd’s cabin loft is like being in a treehouse. The view from the windows is nothing but trees and sky, and waking up to the green quiet is sublime.

Lloyd and I freely talk about Michael and Rosemarie. We honor them and our previous marriages and families. We love each other, but he was married for fifty-one years and I for thirty-three, so we know how much of our lives were filled up with another.

This is probably why we both feel comfortable with the way things are, living apart for now. We talk about the day when my house might be more than I want to care for, and when the never-ending maintenance a log cabin in the encroaching woods requires might be too much for him. We know we might live together full time someday, perhaps in a place new to us both. And we know too, that it might not happen at all.

Experiencing deep grief helps us live in the moment more than we did before. We know how quickly someone we love can just up and depart from this earth. He likes being here in the white house by the big lake, and is often reluctant to go home. I like being in his little house in the big woods and wish I could stay longer, but I feel the pull of my responsibilities here call me back. For now, for two old people already established in their homes and ways of life, it’s working well.

I’m off now to make myself a late breakfast. One half of an Ezekiel sprouted wheat English muffin with butter, a couple of chicken and sage sausages, and a sliced Honeycrisp apple. I might take a bike ride later, and then this evening I’ll be going to hear my beloved granddaughter Audrey sing in her choir’s recital at The College of St. Scholastica. She’s almost fourteen and I call her Beauty, because she is.

A very blessed and peaceful Sunday to you all,

1 + 1 = 2

2 + 2 = 4

4 + 4 = 8

5 + 7 = 12

23 + 86 = 109

44 + 101 = 145

256 + 814 = 1070

1298 + 8330 = 9628

219,011 + 637,226 = 856,237

Godliness + contentment = Great gain    (1 Timothy 6:6)

*         *         *         *         *         *         *         *         *

I find that regularly going over the basic tables of addition is really helpful.

What kinds of things do you need to be reminded about?

“Always the essence of the listener is one of deep reverence, infinite respect, and deep gratitude to God for having selected us for that listening. One cannot intrude oneself while listening to another.”

~~ Catherine DeHueck Doherty, from Poustinia

*         *         *         *         *         *         *

She wakes after a decent sleep, and thinks it must be close to 5:00 a.m., which would be just fine. She gets up and looks at the digital clock in the closet with the flashlight. Three thirty-eight in the morning. She moves around quietly, lights candles, pulls back the curtains so she can welcome the sunrise. She steps out onto the screen porch to get what she needs to make her cold brew concoction, and feels the thirty degree temps. Closing the door quickly, she throws a pashmina scarf around her head and neck until the hermitage warms. She throws caution to the wind and sets the thermostat at 72 degrees. Her feet are chilly so she pulls on SmartWool socks before slipping her feet into her moosey Acorns. Rocking, sipping, waiting, giving thanks.

As the sun rises she can hear their cries and puts on her glasses to peer in the distance. Sandhill cranes, flying, landing, gliding across the water of Tamarack Lake, just visible through the trees. She tries to think of how their calls could be described in words, and settles on corrugated bicycle horns, knowing the adjectives and the noun don’t really fit. But that’s how the cranes sound to her. She can see the white wakes they leave in the water if she squints her eyes.

She reads and rocks, writes and prays, turns down the thermostat, dresses for the day in jeans and a warm navy turtleneck. No one is there to care, so she doesn’t use the knife in the cupboard to slice her bread and cheese and apple. She breaks the bread, tears off a corner of the cheese, and blesses good teeth as she bites into the juicy apple and murmurs mmmm. Thank you Lord. Such a feast you’ve provided. Give us this day our daily bread. Why do I ever take more than my daily bread? Why did my whole family take more than their share? What is the problem, Lord?

She turns to the sixteenth Psalm and reads it aloud, letting it soak.

“I bless the LORD who gives me counsel;
in the night also my heart instructs me.”

She reads the footnote and sees for the first time ever that the original Hebrew really says, “in the night also my kidneys instruct me.” How do kidneys instruct, and what do they say? That will be one to study when she gets home. Kidneys have certainly taken center stage in her family these days.

As the morning passes she reads every instance in the Gospels of Jesus taking a small amount of bread, giving thanks for it, breaking it, and distributing it to thousands of hungry people. And how each time baskets full of leftovers are collected. Such familiar scripture. She notes the details of each account, wondering, praying, asking for a word from that very same Jesus. The word that seems to slowly and eventually float to the surface of her murky mind is offer.

Offer. Offer? She writes it down and knows she will go home and look up the places in the Bible, especially in the Greek, where the word offer or offering is used. Offer. What can I offer you Lord? I offer myself. I offer my praise. My family. My thoughts. My money, which of course is really yours. I offer my home. I offer my sorrow. My past. My time. Will you help me not take any of it back, Lord?

Offerings. There were so many kinds in the Old Testament. All of them placed before God, on the altar. She remembers years ago when she drove up the north shore of Lake Superior, staying in a place overlooking the water, to get direction about two matters. The Lord had impressed on her then that whatever was placed on His altar was safe.

The next words that seem to blink over and over in her mind are from the places where Jesus simply says, “Bring them here to me.” What resplendent, glorious, hopeful words are those!

“Bring them here to me.”

What or who is brought to Jesus? she asks. Sick people. Outcasts. A few loaves of bread and a couple of fish to feed thousands of people. Unclean people. Children…Jesus wanted children brought to Him. A paralytic. Whatever was brought to Jesus was changed. He multiplied. He cleansed. He made whole. He nourished. He did what needed to be done. And He had/has the power to do it all, because He is the Creator of the whole universe, fills it up with Himself.

“Bring them here to me.”

That is prayer, bringing all and everyone to Him, humbly placing them at His feet and asking. Looking into His eyes. Trying to trust in His timing and will. Once again she writes every name of those she loves, tearfully and slowly bringing each one to Jesus. Here he is, Lord. Here she is, Lord. You alone, Lord Jesus.

The sun is high and she gets up to open the windows. Canada geese fly and honk overhead. The fresh air swirls in. It’s time for a walk. She laces up her boots and sets off through the trails. Every step is a crunch of fallen oak leaves, and she looks for a perfect acorn to pick up, recalling the saying about how an entire forest is found in one acorn. She loves that about God. Abundance and growth and shade and life from one seed. And He’s not in any hurry, she thinks. Lord, teach me your rhythms and routines. Help me breathe deeply, trust you fully and commune with you more than I do.

Five minutes from her St. John the Beloved hermitage, she gasps and is startled by a snake on the path, right in front of her feet. She slams on the brakes and her recently broken toe jams against the hard end of her boot. A lightning bolt of pain. It’s then she can see that the three-foot garter snake is already dead, its head presumably crushed by the staff car yesterday, after delivering her bags.

The body of the snake is curved as in movement and only its head is flattened, its mouth open, revealing its red tongue. She looks for meaning everywhere. Is this a message for me? That on the first full day of my silent retreat, I see that the serpent is dead, head crushed? She knows the verse in Genesis regarding the serpent/devil reads, “…He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel.” Do I need a reminder, Lord? She takes a good look at the striped green and black snake before walking on, stores the thoughts in her heart, and begins to limp as she goes. The toe is worse; re-injured perhaps. No matter.

She takes her time and walks through the woods to the prairie, too early to be filled with the wildflowers she’s seen in the photos. She approaches the huge wooden cross, closes her eyes and puts her hands on it, trying to picture what the Marys and John must have felt when they saw their Master there. She knows she can’t even come close in her imagination. She slowly winds her way to the lake and walks out on the floating dock to sit on the wrought iron chair at the end. The cranes are gone for the day, but she can see the pale green, twisting lily pad plants beginning to grow under the water, two feet from the surface. She knows this shallow lake will be covered with lily pads come full summer. She watches water bugs skim and occasional bubbles come from under the water, and thinks about how God has His eyes on it all. After an hour she makes her way back to her temporary home in the woods and takes off her boots. Yes, the toe next to the little toe is badly swollen and is a darker purple. The top of her foot below the toe is bruised. It will heal.

She washes her hands over the metal bowl on the table, then unwraps the bran muffin with the gooey dates and toasted nuts. She pulls pieces off and savors them, thinking she should ask for the recipe. Not usually one who thinks twice about muffins, these she would make, especially for Lloyd, who has a cup of coffee and eats a muffin of some kind in his Chevy Silverado every time he drives the hour to her house. When all that’s left of the muffin are a few crumbs on a paper towel, she gets up and finds the small pad of paper in the closet. The Pacem folks have told her to leave a note in the mailbox to the left of the door if she needs anything. They drive to all the hermitages at noon to check on hermit requests. She asks for one delicious muffin, writes her thank you, and folds the paper before placing it under the stone in the mailbox. At 12:05 she hears the footsteps on her porch and then the car driving on to St. Dominic.

At 1:30 she looks outside and finds a canvas bag hanging from the mailbox, with a saran-wrapped muffin inside. The note says, “Please enjoy this treat from your Pacem friends. Know that we are praying for you.” She puts the muffin in the basket and decides to save it for the next day.

She closes the windows of the little dwelling and decides to try to nap. Many hermits sleep when they come to this place of silence and rest, not being fully aware of how exhausted they are. She doesn’t feel physically exhausted, but she has always wanted to be a napper, so lies down on the bed and closes her eyes. Just like at home, sleep doesn’t come, but she’s aware of her breath and thanks God for the gift of all the things that make up this moment. Fresh air. Comfort. Warmth. Family at home caring for her foster resident. The sounds of nature all around and ears to hear. New mercies every morning, sorely needed and gratefully received. Quiet. Beauty. Hope.

Dinner is a banana, some cheese and half of one of the whole wheat boules. A steaming cup of Lipton tea. She wishes some big creatures would pass through the woods. Squirrels and birds are lovely, but wouldn’t a moose be the ultimate? They don’t live this far south, she remembers. A deer, perhaps. They’re practically on every block back home. She has heard coyotes howling out here before, wouldn’t that be amazing to see one trotting by? Or a fox. Or what about one bright cardinal?

She feels a tiredness settle over her, remembering how early she was up this morning. Maybe tonight she’ll sleep longer. Teeth, hair, face, flannel nightgown, candles blown out. All is silent. She hears the clicking of the wall heater as it goes on. She pulls the covers up to just under her nose as she does at home, prays to the God who made her and sustains her, and sleeps.

When her bladder announces itself, she gets up and shines the flashlight on the digital clock in the closet — 5:30 a.m. How wonderful it feels to have slept so late. She will be going home today.

She lights a candle, makes her cold brew concoction, and settles in the rocker to watch the woods wake up. She peels an orange and eats it slowly, listening to the Sandhill cranes on the lake. After a long time in silence and with elevated yet slightly sober thoughts, she gets dressed for one more walk. She washes her face and brushes her teeth before setting out, and breathes in the cool, fresh air.

She thinks she should have been a dendrologist, with the way trees delight and fascinate her, the way she can’t take a single walk without pausing to look a dozen times at swirls in bark, or at trunk and branch silhouettes and patterns against the sky. Every tree is a miracle, has influence, accomplishes much that is vital, yet mostly unseen. She knows birch trees especially clap their hands in praise, and they always ask her to join them if she’s nearby. She doesn’t clap her hands much anymore, but praise is always there inside. A remnant from Michael.

She doesn’t know the poem by heart, but so much of Wendell Berry reaches deep, and she finds it later:

“I part the out-thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me.”

Once back in St. John the Beloved, she begins preparing the hermitage for its next guest. She changes the sheets and towels, makes up the bed, fluffs and places the pillow. She boils water to wash the dishware she’s used, sweeps the floor, wipes everything down. She packs up all her things and places the two bags on the front porch, then returns to rock for a while before walking up to The Big House. She prays for the next hermit, asking God to bring His peace and healing to her or his life and family. That they would have His joy and rest.

She turns on her iPhone and texts her husband to let him know what time she’ll be out of the woods, waiting on the bench by the Big House, ready to return home.

She opens all the curtains, closes and locks the windows and the porch door. Turns to look one final time at this little piece of Heaven, and wishes she could come and stay more often.

This autumn perhaps. When the nights fall early and cold, and the leaves blaze.

It has been 109 months since she has been here. Nine years. She thought it had been seven, but no.

When she returned home she checked the dates in the back of her Bible and frowned slightly, thinking of all that had transpired since her last visit to Pacem in Terris, the Franciscan silent retreat center in the east-central Minnesota woods. The sale of a big house. The move into a smaller one closer to Lake Superior. The rapid decline of her beloved’s health. The hallucinations and delusional thinking that broke everyone’s heart who loved him. The hopelessness. The joyous birth of three more grandbabies. The utter despair in which she’d been engulfed, as she moved her husband to a skilled nursing facility an hour north, near the shore of the Inland Sea. The sense of failure. And Michael’s last week on earth, his last smile at her, the funeral, the burial. The new house with few memories that seemed to mourn silently with her because he would never walk there, lie there, sing there, laugh there, hug there, again. The transformation of her bedroom into a cocoon, where she retreated each day in hope that the stillness and nothingness would one day break open and lightness and color might emerge. The death of a precious granddaughter. The love and kindness and beauty of her grown daughters. The reluctantly attended grief support group for seniors. The surprise, the camaraderie. The edge of pain’s knife becoming duller. Nearly five years later, a new marriage. A kidney donation. Cataracts, crooked fingers, cpaps, creakiness, calm, yes, and contentment.

So much has happened these nine years.

She last came with her sister-in-law Christy in March of 2012, when there was still snow in the oak woods surrounding the sixteen little hermitages. They were a few hundred yards apart; each stayed silently in their own cozy cottage, asking God to show them how to walk the coming years out.

She arrives at 11:00 a.m. on a Friday, checks in at The Big House, gets the key and hands over her two bags to the staff who drives them back to her hermitage porch. He asks if there’s any prayer intention she has for her stay and she answers instantly, “Yes, for the well-being of my family.” That’s always it, anyway. Three daughters, two sons-in-law, ten grands. And Michael’s two daughters who have shown her such love, who bring tears to her eyes… their husbands, their children, their concerns. The whole family’s spiritual, familial, physical, emotional, marital, vocational and mental well-being are there in every prayer of every day. They bow their heads and pray in the parking lot, asking for what always lays on her heart. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

She knows the way to the hermitage even though it’s been nine years and she’s never been here in the spring. She walks up the dirt paths winding through the winter-bare woods, past the grass prairie with the huge wooden cross at the far edge, past the first hermitage named after St. Michael the Archangel. Her eyes gravitate to the evergreens in among the tall oaks, and she reaches out to grab a few long needles of a white pine so she can smell what she thinks is the most heavenly of all scents.

The woods are just budding and there aren’t visible leaves yet; she can see part of the wooden siding of St. Peter and St. Paul, then St. Anthony the Hermit and St. Mary Magdalene. She stayed in St. Mary Magdalene in November of 2011, aware of her sin and her inability to put it to death herself. She wanted to be in a place named for a woman who knew the delivering power of Jesus, and was the first one He spoke to after He rose from the grave.

She can see her brightly colored Vera Bradley bag on the porch of St. John the Beloved, and feels a flutter in her chest about the two days and two nights ahead, where she believes Jesus has called her to be alone with Him, in a tiny cabin named for the disciple known for how loved he was, and how much he learned to love because of his Savior.

She unlocks the door and steps in, carrying her bags with her. There is the twin bed to the right, against the wall, with a window above and a small crucifix hung above the pillow. The bed has a warm green bedspread, and folded at the foot is a cream colored crocheted afghan. Toward the end of the bed sits an empty book shelf with a gas ring burner on top, along with a shiny tea kettle, where she will make tea a few times a day and hold the mug to warm her hands. She stows her bags on the shelves below. To the left of the shelves is a gas heater on the wall, which she knows will keep the hermitage toasty. There is no electricity.

The grain of the wood floors glow in the morning light. On the opposite wall from the front door is a huge window, almost the entire width of the hermitage, with two crank-out windows on either side. Placed in front of the window is the familiar large wooden rocking chair on a plain rug, with a brown leather foot stool. Next to the rocking chair is a small side table with a votive candle in dark green glass, set in a carrier with a wooden handle.

Under the table is a woven basket with several items in it. The book Poustinia By Catherine D. Doherty, a couple of suggested prayers, a small zippered pouch with a rosary, a pen, a pencil, a tablet with blank sheets of paper, and the latest newsletter from Pacem, with two testimonies she reads and finds fascinating and inspiring. One is about a high school hockey coach who has stayed at Pacem in Terris eighty times, and considers his silent times there some of the most instrumental in his Christian life. Another is about a Special Education teacher who felt the Lord asked her to commit coming to retreat there every quarter, and she has done that, joyfully, for decades. She says the Lord spoke like a thunderbolt to her, “A different life is possible for you,” and indeed that was the beginning that made the difference.

To the left of the chair against the wall is another small table, with a good-sized open Bible placed upon it, a votive candle in amber-colored glass set in an intricate gold stand, two photo icons hung above, and a large wooden cross on the wall.

On the opposite wall from the bed and the shelving with the gas ring, is a tall cabinet with two doors and many well-stocked shelves inside. They think of everything. She surveys the things she’s seen before… a rain poncho and umbrella hanging on a horizontal pole. A broom, dustpan, dry mop. A beautiful carved walking stick. A knife, fork, spoon, metal plate, cup and bowl, and a dark green ceramic mug with the Pacem logo. A diminutive sewing kit, a first aid kit, dish soap, disinfectant spray. An extra long handled lighter for the candles and gas ring. Writing materials. A laminated map of the trails and locations of the hermitages and outhouses. A flashlight, extra batteries, and a bottle of holy water to put into the tiny ceramic font that hangs on the wall to the right of the door. An extra pillow and blanket. An extra set of sheets, towel and washcloth. A slotted wooden box with single-serve coffee bags, Lipton tea bags, powdered creamer, sugar and stevia. A checklist hangs on the inside of the closet door to help each hermit know how to make the hermitage ready for its next occupant.

Next to the tall closet is a wash table, wooden and waist high. A bottle of liquid hand soap sits next to the same sized gel disinfectant. There’s a framed mirror hanging on the wall above the shelved table, and a towel rack with a forest green towel and washcloth are affixed to the left on the side of the closet. A roll of paper towels hangs under the table, and three gallons of delicious spring water sit on the floor.

She knows what will be in the basket on top of this wash table because she has savored the feast before. Two loaves of home-baked whole wheat and oat bread, small boules slightly bigger than softballs. Three navel oranges. Two apples, two bananas. A block of parotid-activating mild cheddar cheese, and one good-sized whole wheat bran muffin with a little valley of gooey date mixture splitting the top, and three toasted walnuts filling that valley.

She unpacks her Bible and journal and places them on the table next to the rocking chair. She moves the box of Kleenex from the closet to the table too, knowing she will probably need to open the second box before she leaves for home on Sunday.

She takes off her hiking boots and puts her Acorn slippers with the quirky embroidered moose on her feet, wincing as the swollen, broken toe is brushed. She takes off her long black cardigan and opens two windows to let the breeze blow through. The woodland scene outside is calming. The forest floor is thickly carpeted in a layer of dried, golden oak leaves. The glint of the shallow lake a few hundred yards away shows through the bare trees. The drumming of a woodpecker, then its echoing call. Squirrels keeping busy, putting their whole faces beneath the leaf cover to look for a stash, then running off to do the same at another seemingly random spot.

She pours a cup of water, then opens the side door of the hermitage to step out to the screened porch with the wooden Adirondack and matching footstool. She sets her bottle of Stok cold brew, the Organic Valley half and half, and the Torani hazelnut coffee syrup on the porch, knowing it’s the coolest place for them. Remembering her one lone and struggling kidney christened Verna, she drinks the metal cup of water down as she stands on the porch and feels the chill that helps her decide to go back inside.

She has brought her Community Bible Study lesson with her, and settles down in the rocker with it open on her lap. John, chapter 21. Jesus appears to some of His disciples and makes a simple breakfast for them over a charcoal fire. She wonders if Peter remembered when he last spent time near a charcoal fire. One scene was of his denial and shame, the other of restoration and fellowship, and Christ’s sober prophecy about where Peter would ultimately end up.

There are scenes of denial and shame in her memory as well. Lord Jesus, will you come and sup with me too? Will you prepare me for what is to come, and help me live out my days in joy and obedience to you? Will you strengthen, heal, and protect my family? Will you do the same for me? Here I am, Lord.

She reads, turning pages and pages. She writes, praying over what might begin to shimmer there. As the day wanes and the sun goes down, she gets up to close the windows and turn up the wall heater’s thermostat. Its comforting clicking commences, and in minutes the hermitage is delightfully warm. It’s supposed to be 35 degrees tonight. Perfect for sleeping. She pours water into the kettle for tea and sets it on the gas burner, turns the knob and hears the whuff as she holds the lighter underneath and the blue ring of flame spreads. She peels an orange and marvels at how miraculous it tastes, having come from a simple basket delivered to a tiny hermitage in the woods where she is being prayed for by the dedicated staff. She lights the candles. She writes in her journal all the names she always does, plus more. Chris. Sharon. Cullen. Eleanor. Margaret. Louisa. Jeremy. Carolyn. Clara. Elijah. Vivienne. Audrey. Miriam. Hannah. Levi. Sara. Bob. Buffy. Emma. Bryce. Joe. Daphne. Jordan and AJ. Josie and Robbie. Friends near and far.

She puts down her journal on the side table. Brushes her teeth at the mirror, rinses her toothbrush with occasional splashes from the jug. Washes her face with the leftover warm water in the kettle, and gets ready for sleep. The little digital clock in the closet says it’s 8:30 p.m. but she thinks with the dark and the circumstances she’ll doze off quickly.

She does not. She is awake for hours, thinking of each loved one, all the needs, her own drifting days. She thinks of the baby eaglets being tended in their nest in Decorah, Iowa, and how blissfully unaware they must be of all things COVID. How their parents care for them and feed them and warm them, and how they grow and sprout new spiky feathers every day, fantastically visible via a live webcam. How one day they’ll grow featherpants too.

She pictures how they’ll look when they finally sit on the edge of that massive, intricate nest and take their first flights. She wonders what that would feel like and wishes she would have another flying dream. She has had only one in her life, and it was wonderful. She remembers that her old friend Leslie has flying dreams regularly, how in her sleep she can just tell herself to have a flying dream, and then she runs and takes a little leap, and off she goes up into the sky, at will.

From the archives….

The year I turned seven was a momentous year in my life. In good ways and in bad, 1964-5 shaped my youth in ways that still affect me today.

This is my second grade school picture from Workman Avenue Elementary School in Southern California. I was in Mrs. Lokken’s class. Several really important things happened there.

First, I learned that contrary to what my parents had been told by Mrs. Weber, my first grade teacher, I did indeed have some academic potential after all. Who knew? Apparently not Mrs. Weber. I still have all my report cards from elementary school. I keep them in a file that’s labeled “report cards” in my filing cabinet. In first grade I got straight C’s. In second grade I got mostly A’s and a few B’s.

Secondly, I learned from Mrs. Lokken how crucial it is to enthusiastically blurt out “Rabbit!” to random people on the first day of every month (before they say it to you first), so you’ll have good luck the rest of the month, and presumably the random people won’t. I’m in my fifties now and our family still works hard at this undertaking. My husband Michael has been known to lay awake until the stroke of midnight on the first of the month, then gently nudge me and put his lips next to my ear and whisper wickedly, “Rabbit!” before he chuckles and then rolls over and goes to sleep. I am not making this up. My daughters try to rabbit me before I rabbit them, and I of course I try diligently to get them first. Texting has come in very handy with rabbiting. I sometimes text RABBIT! to Sharon, Carolyn and Sara very early in the morning on the first day of the month. My sons-in-law halfheartedly participate in this activity, all because I learned this life skill when I was seven years old, in Mrs. Lokken’s second grade class, in the momentous year of 1964.

Thirdly, I lost my two front teeth in the second grade, and actually let the insensitive nice man photographer influence me to smile with my mouth closed. I had never smiled like that before. For a long time after that I was self-conscious about my teeth and hated my smile. Then a few years later my parents spent thousands of dollars on 1) head gear, 2) braces, 3) a retainer, and 4) myriad orthodontist appointments, and after I heard “we’ve spent thousands of dollars on your teeth!” more than a few times, I decided to start liking my smile better.

Fourth, in the second grade I met my friend Denel. She was in Mrs. Lokken’s class too. She and I were the best of friends for years. I wrote about some of our childhood antics here. Denel still lives in Southern California and in 1981 I moved to Northern Minnesota, but we still keep in touch, pray for each other, and call each other “my dearest oldest friend.”  We still try to rabbit each other too. When I was seven years old in 1964, only God knew that I would gain a treasured friend whose love and faithfulness would span my entire lifetime. Forty-five years is a long time to have a friend.

Also when I was seven years old, I had not yet eaten an egg, a bite of cheese, a green vegetable other than iceberg lettuce, or even a sip of any kind of soup.

While 1964 was an eggless, cheeseless, fiberless, soupless year in my life, thankfully it did not turn out to be completely brainless, smileless or friendless.

Or rabbitless.

Reach back into your memory and share something that happened to you in 1964!

When I was twenty-three years old (many, many moon ago), I moved from The Golden State to The North Star State. From the ever-sunny, densely populated, smoggy, southern part of California, to the mostly wintry, wide open, lake-strewn northern part of Minnesota. There are almost twice as many people in Los Angeles County, where I was born and raised, as there are in the entire state of Minnesota, where I’ve been lovingly tended and have now grown old.

In California we had fresh strawberry stands on the sides of the roads and my mom bought “flats” of them often. In Northern Minnesota the growing season is so short we all believe berries are like ruby-colored treasure, and we get excited if we have any kind of berry pie or shortcake. In California if we ever ate anything just thrown together and baked (basically almost never), it was called a casserole; here in Minnesota we call it hotdish. Not a hotdish. Just hotdish.

When I moved here, I wanted enchiladas in no time, but my native Minnesotan husband hadn’t heard of such things. He suggested we drive through Taco John’s, which was not the authentic Mexican food I was accustomed to growing up so close to the border. Early in our marriage I invited my in-laws over for homemade tacos, and neither had ever eaten a corn tortilla, much less one perfectly folded and fried in hot oil to serve as the heavenly and moan-worthy vessel for meat, salsa, sour cream, onions, lettuce and cheese.

Of course my first winter in Duluth was record-breaking, with weather that made the front page of The Duluth News-Tribune and Herald, and had me calling my mom in temperate Morro Bay, California to urgently tell her, “It’s 27 degrees below zero.” And two nights later, “It’s 34 degrees below zero.” And the next night, “The wind chill is 65 degrees below zero.”

“How does your house stay warm?” Mom wondered, slightly alarmed. “Are you keeping blankets wrapped around you at all times?” Our furnace in SoCal was the size of a Christmas tree box and it fit in our hall closet; no one ever gave it a second thought. I learned quickly that furnaces in NoMin are metal octopus-like behemoths that lurk and roar and blast in dark basements, and actually keep houses quite warm when it’s 34 degrees below zero outside. Or colder. We didn’t actually have to wear blankets in the house. But we did have to dress “in layers.” Instead of my usual cut-off Levis, halter tops and sandals, my husband Michael instructed me in wise and warm dressing for the Northwoods. Turtlenecks, wool socks, lined Sorel boots (and later Steger moosehide Mukluks which I still wear — see here), Thinsulate mittens (never gloves!), scarves, down-filled jackets or parkas, but I drew the line at long underwear. Michael wore them since he worked outside a lot, but I never did.

That first winter tested me. I had married a man I’d only met once, left behind family, friends and balmy weather and moved to what I still call American Siberia. It took me a while to make friends and learn to live in a part of the country that had snow on the ground from October until May, but it only took me two weeks to get pregnant with my third child. I made my own enchiladas and got a good recipe for a hamburger and wild rice hotdish which tasted pretty good.

After a couple of years, the rhythms of Minnesota, her seasons and people, became my rhythms, seasons and people. I loved the changing colors of the leaves in the fall and made pumpkin bars and harvest soup. I stopped feeling that mild dread when winter blew in, and learned to love the comforting fires in our hearth, the piles of books from our little neighborhood library, and the smell of my homemade whole wheat bulgur rolls wafting through the house almost weekly.

I never took up gardening like so many Minnesotans do, but spring always felt like we were emerging from a dark cave, and I learned Michael wasn’t exaggerating when he assured me my blood would “thicken” as time passed. My thick blood became apparent to me as I walked down the streets of downtown Duluth in sandals and a sleeveless denim shift one early spring morning before I noticed the temperature on the marquee of the bank said 26 degrees. I drove home immediately and sat and pondered what had just happened. No wonder people passing me on the sidewalk gave me second looks.

I grew up in Covina, California, and we used to have to drive two hours to the mountains to see snow, to spend a day sliding down a slope on red metal disks with white canvas handles. Seeing mountains is probably the only thing I really miss, living here. After a Southern California rain which cleared the smoggy air, Mt. San Antonio, or Mt. Baldy as everyone really knows it, was always visible from wherever we were. When it was covered with fresh snow, I always took time to stare at its beauty, even as a child. Here’s what a view of Mt. Baldy looks like from Los Angeles.

Now that I’m close to retirement age, I think about ways to get out of the cold in the winter time. Lloyd and I have talked about visiting different places in January, maybe northern Arizona, maybe North Carolina. I don’t ever want to move away from Northern Minnesota, because it’s too beautiful. Life is too lovely here to move away completely. But getting away for a couple of weeks in the darkest, coldest month is a strategy many Minnesotans use that enables them to stay in the state they love.

Last Sunday after our Easter time was over, two precious granddaughters stayed to spend the night with me. Louisa got a tubby in Grandma’s deep, fancy tub. They got in their jammies, had snacks, did cartwheels, giggled together, drew pictures of dogs, and wanted to sleep next to each other on pallets made of blankets in front of the bedroom fireplace. I read two delightful books to them, and Audrey in particular listened so attentively to each word, eyes never straying from the illustrations. Here’s one book, and here’s the other.

After they finally settled down and fell asleep, I set my phone alarm and tried to snooze myself, but struggled to sleep well. Maybe it’s because I knew we’d have to be up early to get ready for school.

I woke them up earlier than they are used to, in steps. First I turned up the heat, and clicked on the fireplace, so a cheerful little glow would be the first thing they’d see. Then I opened the curtains of one window to let in a bit of the dawn. Then I put some soft music on from my phone. I took their toothbrushes out and set them on the bathroom counter with toothpaste. I said “Good morning girls,” but no one stirred. I bent down to rub their backs under the thick down comforter, and finally saw signs of life. I asked them to get dressed and told them what time breakfast would be ready, and went to the kitchen to get things started. I turned on the gas fireplace in the dining room so they’d have warmth at their backs as they ate, while the house was warming up. I made scrambled eggs (sloooowwww is the way to go on these), toast, and chicken and sage sausages, and the girls were ready and calmly at the table in time. They both thanked me for the food, and went off to brush their teeth and hair before grabbing their things and heading down to the basement and to the car (christened Hubble) in the attached garage.

We drove Louisa to school first, and as she got out of the car I reminded her how much I love her, asked her to do her best in school, and told her that even though she can’t see Jesus with her eyes yet, He is right there with her, all throughout her day. On the way to Audrey’s house (she goes to Catholic school so the day after Easter was a holiday for her), we drove up on Hawk’s Ridge, overlooking Lake Superior in all its glory as the morning sun assured me that, yes, I could trust God again on this day. The photo was almost our exact view, except it was taken in the fall and later in the day.

I told Audrey how when I met Grandpa Michael for the first time in 1981, I flew from Los Angeles to Minneapolis, and he drove me north to meet his family for a few days. His mom Bernie came out of the house as we drove up the driveway and parked, and held out her hands toward me and said reverently and in a hushed voice, “You look just like the Blessed Virgin!” That memory is funny and dear to me, now that Michael’s parents are gone too soon from a terrible car accident.

The second day I was in Duluth, Michael drove me up on Hawk’s Ridge to see Lake Superior and I gasped, asking, “What is that?!” I’d had no idea it would be so vast, so sweeping and spectacular. It looked like an ocean. Now, forty years later with Michael gone on ahead of us to heaven, I know this Lake is our treasure. We drink the exquisitely delicious water every day, we give thanks for its cooling power in the middle of summer, and we watch the 1000-foot ore boats coming and going all during the shipping season. Because of God’s provision and kindness, I get to see this Great Lake from the windows of my home every day.

We watched the sun rise a little higher and then I drove Audrey home, called her Beauty as I always do, and watched her run in her back door to join her five siblings and parents.

When I return to Southern California now, it seems like a foreign country to me. So many trees are gone. People have removed the green grass and paved their front yards to park numerous cars. Windows on normal residential houses have iron bars on them. Schools are gated and locked. And the traffic….

If you’ve visited my blog much, you know I love to look back at my formative years in Southern California. It was a splendid place to grow up, surrounded by orange tree groves that made the gentle breezes smell like paradise, bordered by the mighty Pacific Ocean on one side and the San Gabriel Mountains on the other, where nearly constant sunshine gave me freedom and opportunities to run and play and swim.

But now I am a Minnesotan. My people are Minnesotans. I’ve embraced Minnesota culture with everything in me. I love how people here say, “Oh fer cute!” and “Do you want to go with?” and “Nice day, ay?” and “Uff-da!” There are few swimming pools here, no roadside strawberry stands that I’ve ever seen, and my furnace would never fit into a hall closet. I no longer have to drive two hours to see the snow, or 45 minutes to see a huge body of water.

Here in the North I’m never far from a stealthy wolf, a massive moose with nostrils you could fit your fist into, an undulating fisher pursuing a mouse, a gliding muskrat, or a flashy cardinal perching low on a lilac bush. I like hotdish, walleye, keep my Kahtoola nanospikes near my shoes six months of the year, store a blanket and a first aid kit in the back of my Outback, and am one of the few people in the state who doesn’t, alas, own a cabin.

I love to travel, and hope to do more of that before I die. There are so many places I’d love to experience. Switzerland. Israel. England and Scotland again. Ireland. Norway.

But I feel so very blessed to live here in this grand northern state full of water and wildlife and trees.

I am alone in the house. That almost never happens. I love it. My dear foster resident is at her parents’ house overnight for Easter. My youngest daughter Sara is at a wedding. Lloyd is at his north woods cabin and will be joining his daughter and her family at their lake cabin tomorrow for Easter.

It’s sixty-nine degrees out and I think when I finish this post I’ll take a walk down by Lake Superior.

I spent the day in the most exquisite state of not rushing around, not meeting anyone else’s needs, moving quietly and slowly. Not like in slow-motion, in case you were picturing me doing that, haha. I scrubbed and baked a pile of huge russet potatoes, took them out of the oven one by one and held them in my mitted hand while I scooped out the soft steaming innards. I mixed the hot potatoes with grated colby and jack cheese, parmesan, chopped green onion, blue cheese dressing. Then I took my bare, clean hands once everything had cooled sufficiently and pressed that cheesy goodness back into the skins. I sprinkled a mixture of sesame seeds, smoked paprika and garlic powder on top. Would you like to see some photos of the whole process? Click here — my daughter Sharon took these pics of me making them since many had asked for the recipe. I make them every Easter.

We’ll be having an Easter meal with typical offerings, I think. Ham from Chris and Sharon, along with a lemony dessert. Homemade bread, deviled eggs and French silk pie from Jeremy and Carolyn. I’m doing the aforementioned stuffed baked potatoes, a chopped salad with a ton of colorful vegetables, and an old family favorite I’ve never made at Easter before — Green Macaroni and Cheese.

There will be sixteen people crowded around our two tables lined end to end. One table has a blue and white runner, one has a blue and white table cloth. Tulips from Sara’s floral studio are already put out in blue and white mugs all along the tables.

After I flash-froze and then stacked and refrigerated the potatoes, I went out on the front deck where the sun bakes the front of the house from morning until evening, rolled my jeans up and put my feet up on the patio table. I read some of Les Miserables as I sat and exposed my vanilla legs to the sun for the first time in many moons. I saw our across-the-street neighbors were taking advantage of the warm weather as they sat under the awning on their front porch. As I read and reclined I wished him the best well-wishing I could from my heart, even though he recently made fun of the way I call our Schnauzer Millie in from going potty. Millie just turned fifteen and is almost completely deaf, and the only thing she can hear are exceedingly high pitched, fairly loud voices. So if she’s dallying too much on the side of the house, especially in the winter, I go out on the deck and call her name in my highest pitched warble. She usually hears me and comes running. My neighbor (who is a very nice guy although we’re not well-acquainted with him) was watching TV and mimicked me inside his house and  said, “MILLLLiiieee!” He called in a high and feminine yodel, probably not realizing he could be heard across the street and down some.

I worked on my Community Bible Study lesson, did devotions with Lloyd over the phone, paid a few bills. I opened windows all over the house and let the fresh air blow through. Such a wonderful and invigorating smell! I’m grateful to live in a place where water and air are clean, traffic is non-existent and muskrats swim in nearby ponds and their wakes look like two perfect and diagonal water braids.

My dear childhood friend Denel and I talked for an hour today too. She and her husband have retired to Solana Beach, California, and I was at her home a year ago just as things started to get chaotic with COVID. We talked of our children, our blessings and struggles, the way the Lord reminds us He’s there and attentive to our lives and loves, and how His timing isn’t the thing we love the most about Him.

Another blessing was a phone call with my dearest adulthood friend Su. We had tentatively planned to meet for a quick cup of coffee or tea, either in the cemetery or at Mt. Royal grocery, but it didn’t work out today. Now that she and I have had both of our vaccinations, I hope we can take advantage of it and get together more often. I heard Anne Lamott being interviewed recently on Bob Goff’s podcast, and she talked about how friendships have been so sacred in her life, getting her through the hellish times and reminding her of God’s love. I’m generally not an impulsive person (except when I married a man I’d only met one time and had only known three months through letter writing and phone calls – except for that one little time) but Anne Lamott’s words about picking up a friend in pain and making a Target run together, eating Hershey’s kisses and just being together for a short time, really appealed to me. Let’s just get together for an hour, have some tea and chocolate, and then go back home. Nothing has changed at home, but something has changed in us, because we were together. I think that’s one of the best things about friends.

I’ve had a hard time reading this past year. I read every day, but it has been a long time since I’ve picked up a book to read for hours like I used to do. I hate it. I want that feeling, whatever it is, to go away. I want to sense the inexpressible comfort of settling down into a beautiful read like I used to all the time, all my life. I am slightly encouraged (but only slightly) by hearing that this seems to be a common phenomenon of lock-down. I keep plugging away, reading a chapter here, two pages there, listening to 30 minutes of my latest book on Audible. I guess I should be thankful that I do read 2-3 books a month. My dad used to read five books a week in his retirement.

I’ve been working my way through Call the Midwife on Netflix and I love it. Maybe I’ll make myself a cup of Irish tea (Barry’s) tonight and watch the next episode. I’ll get up early tomorrow to make the salad and get the Green Macaroni and Cheese ready for the oven. Everyone will be here at 1:00 p.m. Grandsons will carry extra chairs up from the basement, granddaughters will pour ice water, trays and pans and covered plates will be carried in the parade that comes through my door.

I’ll get to see Cullen the Tall, Eleanor the Deep, Margaret the Cheerful, Louisa the Lover, Clara the Kind, Elijah the Mind, Vivienne the Treasure, Audrey the Beautiful, Miriam the Dear, and Levi the Organizer.

The ones who we miss at our table are Michael the Builder and Hannah the Strong, but our separation is only for a little while.

And to have my three beloved daughters all together with me under the same roof will seem like riches beyond measure. Sharon, Carolyn and Sara. I like to just say their names.

And because Jesus lived on this earth, willingly took on every sin I’ve ever committed as He died on the Cross, then rose again and ascended to the Father, I have hope. I have love. I have His grace, mercy, and help.

May the life of Jesus fill us all,