Tug - of - Peace

Nearly every single day

I hear from friends who care,

Uplifting words and promises

To remember me in prayer.

What they pray for I don’t know:

 Healing? Joy when I’m blue?

Whatever it ts they pray for

I’m so very grateful. Thank you.

However, the Holy One has a plan

Of when to call me home,

So when that invitation is given

I want to be ready to come.

So,  

When my friends’ prayers for health

Meet God’s call for release,

Who will prevail in that

Tug - of - peace?

ALARM - ING

Bruce does a wonderful job of keeping my spirits up!    Part of his strategy is to take me out for a short walk in the parking lot in front of our house when the weather is fit.  But even when it is raining or chilly we can take a driving tour out in the countryside around our city, or tour one  of its many lovely Metro Parks.  The country girl in me still delights to see the harvested bean fields, livestock feeding at pasture, trees full of fall color and winding woodland paths.

Sometimes when we  get a late start or take a long drive, our return home always seems to go by way of a restaurant or fast food fount of temptation.  Last week it happened to be Wendy’s.  The drive through line was so long that Bruce decided to skip it and go inside to order our meals.

He got out, leaving me in the car tucked securely into my seat belt and squeezed into the corner around my oxygen tank. As is his custom, he locked the car behind him.

Trying to be efficient in the use of my waiting time, I squeezed a little hand lotion out of a small bottle I keep in the car to try to soften my cold weather hands.  It slipped out of my juicy hands, bounced off the seat and fell down into the crack between my seat and the door, just out of my reach!

Without thinking, I quickly opened my door and retrieved it.

At once, a loud and unfamiliar sound began splitting my ears.  “Somebody’s car alarm,” I thought.  Then I realized it was mine!  By opening the passenger’s door of our locked car, I had set off the alarm.

Snugly  belted into my own seat, I frantically began pushing all the buttons on the dashboard that I could reach hoping to turn off the noise before the police arrived.  Nothing worked, and of course my keys were at home!

Nearly in a panic, I unclicked my seat belt so I could lean over closer to the driver’s side and punch more buttons.  I thought perhaps Bruce would hear the alarm and come and rescue me.  But no, he was apparently intent on his task of getting our supper.

Finally, by stretching across the gear shift and console between our seats, I was able to reach the lock button on the driver’s door and unlock it!  Sweet silence descended.

When Bruce came out to the car carrying our supper he saw both front doors of our car standing open.  “Did you have a problem?” he asked.

“Yes,” I admitted, “I discovered that our car alarm works!”

“That’s interesting,” he remarked,”`A man in the restaurant asked me if I had a blue truck out in the parking lot because the alarm was sounding. I didn’t hear anything myself and I told him I didn’t have a blue truck. (It’s a dark blue Honda SUV.) So I didn’t pay any attention to him.”

“So,” I retorted, “the whole community may have been alarmed by your car - but not you!”

EAR TENSION

Lord, please give me two more ears. The two I have aren’t enough

To hold up my glasses, my oxygen tube, and earrings and other such stuff.

They still hear everything quite well but they get shaken by my cough.

I’d like to give them a little help before they both fall off!

So, Lord, another pair would help my worn out ears to bless.

I really would be grateful if you could just say “Yes.”

You say that You could do that if I just tell You where

I want those new ears planted?  Is this some kind of dare?

Not on top of my head, please cause my hat would never fit.

Not anywhere on my backside. I need that space  to sit!

My feet and knees would not be good. They’re much too far away.

On my hands those ears would suffer each and every day!

If you put them on my shoulders, Lord, they’d look like angel wings

And that would look quite funny for my voice no longer sings!

Forgive me. Lord, I now understand Your body design is best!

    And I’m so thankful that I can hear that with two I’ll be fully blest!

Marital Discord

Fifty years of happy wedded bliss,

Never arguments nor fights.

Happy days of work and parenting,

Lots of happy cuddling nights.

Then our marriage faced a crisis

That stressed us toward a break,

The night my precious husband 

Used my toothbrush by mistake!

4 Oct 2019 - mshr

Failing Eyesight

Old age has finally caught up with my eyes

And is covering them with a layer

Of cloudy crud!

Nothing looks clear anymore.

- Nature’s like a painting with colors running.

- People like rag dolls.

 - Words are just rows of riddles on a page.

- Flagpoles have curves in the middle.

- The ground is not level anymore,

  and it’s farther below my feet than it used to be!

      My view of the outer world is 

                   blurred  distorted  unreliable.

Yet my view of my inner world has never been so clear!

Three-quarters of a century have polished my image

- Of who I am and my contentment with what I see.

                     - Nature’s glories are there untarnished 

in my memory bank.

          -  I see a beauty within, sprung from 

                             grins, giggles, guffaws,

and an occasional tear.

- Inside, I see growing acceptance of difference,

          -  and wisdom gained from life experiences.            

            And love is blooming there, nurtured 

- not by my goodness -

   But by God’s gift of the Holy Spirit!

 So my vision is still 20/20 --  if I only look In or up! 

2 Oct 2019 - mshr      

Cocoon?

Creator of Caterpillars,

Is this how that long, writhing worm feels
        As the silk threads from her body begin to bind her
                To a branch or a leaf into a cocoon?
                - she is now alone as her world begins to shrink
                - she does not know that these bonds come from inside her 
                - or that they will soon isolate her from all of life
                - as the silk bonds grow upward, she can no longer move
                - or see through clouded eyes
                - her breathing is slowly cut off until she dies.

        Like me, she doesn’t understand what has happened,
                Or what lies ahead for her.
        Is she as frustrated and discouraged as I am?

But, Designer of Butterflies,
        you know she is not dead,
                but being changed into something new:
                        A beautiful, brightly colored creature with wings!
The caterpillar’s losses cleared the way
                for the butterfly to emerge.

Controller of Chaos and Lover of the World,
        Can You do that with human worms, too?


29 Sept 2019 - mshr

"I've Lost It"

Last week we almost had a crisis!  Wednesday morning I got up and reached for my bathrobe to wear to breakfast. But the belt was missing!  I had sent it to the laundry the day before as my hired helper was gathering together a mound of dirty clothes and bed linens. 

I knew that the belt was tucked into the belt loops where it belonged when I sent that bathrobe to the laundry.  But now those belt loops were empty and looking quite lonely.

It wasn’t that it was such a valuable loss; the belt might have been worth a dollar or two.  Monetary value wasn’t the issue.  The crisis was that the belt was gone.  It was missing from its proper place.  And, of course, I couldn’t wear the bathrobe without the belt.  I’d have to find something else to wear to breakfast!

That started my day off badly and it went downhill from there.  Where could that belt be?  Surely it was in the house somewhere, but where?

I could not get my mind off that belt.  Bruce looked everywhere while I sat in my recliner chair and called out suggestions of places for him to search.  He checked in the washer, in the drier, in the empty laundry hamper, in the closet, all around the house, under the bed, and even in our underwear drawers.  No belt.

He kept reassuring me that the belt would surely show up sometime soon but I could not get it off my mind.  The longer he searched, the more upset I got.

First I felt angry: “I have enough problems in my life  I don’t need another one.”  Then some sadness sneaked in: “What if we can’t find it.  I’ll have to throw away a perfectly good bathrobe.”  There was also some sense of helplessness.  “I don’t even have the energy to walk around the house,  How can I possibly turn the house upside down searching?”  And, of course, self-pity.  “Why do I have to deal with all these problems when other people don’t?”

A few tears of frustration dribbled down my cheeks when I remembered my mother’s emotional struggles after a stroke in her 90th year.  She was never able to believe the losses the stroke had caused her.  She was intent on walking without help even though her leg could no longer bear her weight.  For a long time she refused to try to learn to eat with her left hand, stubbornly struggling with her unresponsive right hand.

Suddenly I realized that the bathrobe belt was not the problem that was really upsetting me.  It was simply a symbol of the many invisible losses I have been experiencing.  There’s been loss of strength and energy, ability to do simple household tasks, ease of breathing and talking, independence, freedom from continuous oxygen, the self image of well-being, certainty about the future, ease of getting around, and other losses even I have not yet identified.  But it is hard to grieve invisible and unrecognized losses.

It took me some time to sort through a lot of ignored emotional stresses but it was time well spent.  It was very important for me to free up that bathrobe belt from all the blame I had been laying on it and to deal with the real issues.

The next day, my hired helper rescued the lost bathrobe belt.  It had been “hidden in plain sight” hanging on the quilt rack at the foot of our bed!  Will my deeper issues of emotional losses get solved that easily?  Definitely not if I keep hiding them from myself!

12 Sept 2019 - mshr