Grace

Lately, I've been extra aware of the need for grace.

I need grace, and you need grace.

I need to give you grace, but I cannot

until I have received some grace.

Fallen and dark, this world beats us down.

Miserable all, we huddle, scrunch, self-protect.

Among rainclouds, cold wind, damp feet,

we try to breathe but the air is putrid.

Unable to suck air for ourselves

we are utterly unable to oxygenate others.

Selfishness, pride, dishonesty, fear and competition

drive us away from one another and into our own personal suffering.

Where does it end?

Where can we find the bright, shining freedom to love and give grace?

How can we learn that joy is multiplied when shared,

that kindness breeds kindness.

Beauty from ashes, that's what we crave.

I want someone to love me until I am beautiful,

and when I am beautiful, I want my beauty

to give me courage to give grace,

confident that my grace, given, will be powerful,

powerful enough to transform someone else's ashes into beauty --

and then to do it again, and again, and again

until the world has been changed.


We love because He first loved us.

1 John 4:19 NIV84

Things that live in my yard

Awhile back I posted about our hummingbird.

Actually, there are two of them, and they are such fun to watch!  One is very territorial, and he chases the other one away, over and over.  But the other one keeps coming back, over and over, just the same!

They love to hover amongst the zinnias and sip nectar from all the flowers, but they also enjoy the hummingbird feeder.  I've been on my toes making sugar water to keep it filled.

The territorial little fellow likes to perch in these red canna lilies and keep watch over his property.

His lookout post.

Here he is at his lookout. . . 

And here he is again.  He was just hilarious, hanging out in these flowers all day.

Unfortunately, when he buzzed over into the flowers near where I was sitting, I could never get the light levels and focus adjusted quickly enough to get a shot of him.  It kind of stinks when the auto-features on your camera are broken.  Hummingbirds move really, really fast.

Well, I did get this shot.  It was pitch black because I had no time to set the light.  This is a testament to what one can accomplish with photo-editing.

Actually, that may be the guardian bird, or it may be the the one who comes in to "steal" nectar and get the other little guy's goat.  Bird #2 comes in for a sip, and Bird #1 dive-bombs him out of there in a mad chase.

They swoop around the yard, and somebody ends up tucked away in the maple tree:

In the meantime, there are also butterflies who enjoy my flowers.

And one day, we had the distinct privilege of meeting this fine fellow!

Feels like fall

The weather took a sudden turn this week, feels like fall.  I think it's 57 degrees today, and tonight is supposed to get down into the 40's.

I'm wearing socks and a fleece.  When I walked the dogs, a definite scent of woodsmoke mingled in the air.  The boulevard is strewn with small brown leaves, crispy ones, and fragrant fallen crab apples.

There's a roaring in my ears.  I hope it goes away soon.  After my recent bout with my illness, I am more tired than usual, less hungry, puffier throughout my body, stiff of finger, slow of mind.

I feel the press of limited time.  I want to write a book before I leave this earth.  Nakedly I say it, words I usually shelter close inside my shirt collar.  Because I don't write books.  Men write better than women (just saying; as a preteen I had discovered this at the public library and often refused even to lift a book by a female author off the shelf), and the British write far better than Americans.  As an American woman, what hope could I possibly have?

Anyway, I have to wait until the roaring stops, and the finger dexterity improves.

So instead of a book, I just wrote another blog post over on the other blog.

If you're interested you can click here to read it.

I have fewer words to spew in a day at present, probably a great mercy.

A few sick days

Well, I was writing like a house-of-fire for awhile there, but it came to an abrupt halt last week.

Lupus.

Lupus is not much fun, and I try to contain it to one of my other blogs.

I think I am actually going to commit to keeping this blog a lupus-free zone.  We'll all be happier that way.  And anyway, that other blog has become the lupus zone.

If you do want to know the gory details, I wrote about them on that other blog, and you can link over by clicking your mouse here.

Wedding Pictures

The photographer put "our" pictures on her own blog, and then they were posted on Facebook, but I thought I'd include a link to them here.

In case anybody was interested in more pictures of Laura's wedding...

Click here to view.

Hope you enjoy!