Friday, August 25, 2017

Roots, Home,The Village, The Globe


Thistles In Every Bouquet
Lisl and I have been having discussions about home/roots/parenting and village influence. I hope to derive grace from some of these ideas and observations for both of us. And hope for those we love. Ideas and memories that are my own roots here for you.
I had wonderful parents who gave to me a happy childhood and young adult life, even while the world wrestled with things like The Cold War and inflation and civil rights skirmishes. Yes, we were "sheltered", but Mom and Dad made sure that we were not entirely ignorant of the bigger world outside our own.
    Mom and Dad frowned upon narrow thinking by providing a wide scope of literature and by sharing a keen interest in what scientists and politicians were learning and doing. Current events in our own community and the greater global community mattered and we knew it. We were taught that we were going to be expected to be part of how it all turned out in the end, by prayer and influence, and by participation when it would not take us into the places non-resistant Christians do not go.
    We grew roots, first of all, in having a relationship with Jesus. Dad convinced us that Jesus lived with us right here at home. He loved Mom intensely with romance and hard work and happiness. Dad and Mom had a way of living life like it was their own special party and we kids were expected to get our own as soon as we were grown up enough for it. It was Dad's farm, and Mom's house and gardens and lawn. We kids could definitely join in and help make it all good, but the whole point was to show us how to do a good job of that when we got our own party going someday. As long as we were part of their party here at home we would be expected to participate in the work and play of everything: family devotions, three sit-down meals a day, milking and hay making, shelling peas, peeling potatoes, cleaning, and, of course, school and church with all of the functions accordingly. Cheerfully and cooperatively. They showed us how to know what was right and wrong in this arena.
    But, we didn't get to keep to ourselves in this "safe" place. That would have been confining and unreal. We children were expected to get jobs, go for adventures, even out-of-state adventures like driving my uncle and his family up to Northern Minnesota to see family when I was sixteen and green as grass. We were expected run new errands, and generally learn to function in the community as young as possible.
    Mom and Dad often said that we children would go further and beyond them and their capabilities in the big world of opportunity. We grew up believing that and then naturally doing that. What a gift they gave to us. And now we get to see our children going beyond us, too. From the little, unknown Rusk County kids we were with only high school educations come our children with varied skill sets, passports and a few with degrees and global adventures.
    Mom and Dad were never so proud and independent to not allow us to be influenced and taught by others. Instead they shoved us toward people who could fill in where they were lacking. This a gift we parents must give to our children. The best parents admit they don't know when they don't. 


    Dad wasn't born Mennonite so he taught us that we were part of the greater church, the bride of Jesus Christ, primarily, and that we were richly privileged to be a functional part of a local body of believers. He taught by action that we were the church and not just going to a church. So we learned the importance of loyalty to others, grace for their foibles and to expect the same in return for our own. We were taught that to be honest we had to expect human nature to be apparent and to live humbly with it, not against it. Some of our farmer folks fought sleep in church, but that didn't strike them out. Those same folks cared about our church community and the turn out of their children. They showed it their best way by turning their pockets out for the church and the school. Money is a part too, of real church life, and not to be sniffed at.
     Mom taught us to not be gullible and defenseless in our little church community.  When they taught us shaped notes in music class at school and Bible school she tartly let us know that shaped notes are a crutch and that we would be deprived of being able to read "real" music if we didn't watch it. She was right, of course, I still have to work on reading "real" music notation.
 


We were given roots by owning our humanity within the realm of our community and heritage. We weren't allowed to think we were different or better or worse. We were where God wanted us to be, who God had planned us to be, and free to plan our own destiny both earthly and for eternity depending on what we did with Him.
     The "identity crises" we were expected to deal with was that we were sinners saved by Jesus' shed blood, and our primary citizenship was in Heaven. And that we kept our home and farm tidy and to not be like the messy neighbors, who didn't. We were proud in our own way, I admit, and could have been less critical. We weren't perfect ourselves, you see. Even in this we were given roots.
    Finally, roots are now possibly not so geographical as they are cultural, because our world has gotten so much smaller. Things have changed a lot from that safe, small world where I grew up. But I maintain that we can learn the art of growing roots for our young families with the same God and saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. And many of the same rules apply about loyalty and love right where we live. Until He Comes.
     I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. -Jesus John 17:15

  


Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Blogging Logging

This is the second evening in a row I'm spending with Elv in the woods. He's working late tonight to beat the rain because then it will be too muddy. A lot of too muddy already in our year.
   Last night I brought the Jeep and canoe and supper out so that we could fish the little lake here in this woods. It is a deep, dark pool of water with no grasses or lily pads in it. At dusk the quiet surface is broken again and again all around our silent canoe by fish. We see the silvery flash of their tails many times.  They're feeding but not on worms on a hook.
   We were entranced by the lovely quiet, the two of us in our canoe suspended in the middle, hung in glass between two worlds: the sky and trees mirrored perfectly all around, the tangible up, the reflection down. I always think I should be able to describe this place in words. Stepping into a mirror sort of says it. But this is real.
    We heard a deer coming down to the water toward us. It must have sensed us last minute. We didn't get to see it, but it snorted noisily and left silently.
   After we proved that the fish in our lake were of a species impervious to worm and hook we spent a couple of hours logging and then smoothing the muddy logging road. Home by eleven.
   Tonight we are just logging. I'm sitting on the  dash watching him load logs. Its "blow-down" stumpage, the logs huge, both eight footers and "randoms" red pine and white pine, their sap bleeding from the raw cut ends of them.

He has a computerized machine. AC and glass all around keeps my logger comfortable and safe.
   On this job he has seventeen sorts: bass wood pulp, bass wood logs, maple pulp, maple logs, white birch pulp, white birch logs, ash pulp, ash logs, oak pulp, bolts, and logs, red pine random logs, bolts, and pulp, white pine logs, bolts, and pulp. He knows them all by their bark, woodcolor, saw dust color, how the shredded bark acts and looks, every species distinctive to his experienced eye.
   Its dark now with the late hour and the heavily overcast sky, the storm moving in. The bright lights of the machine create a big golden pool of light around us. We are safe and big and invincible here in our ponderous tracking over stumps and knolls and brush, the golden pool ever over us showing the way. Dust and bugs roil just on the other side of the glass, but the air we breathe here is clean and cool.
    At the edges of our light the trees stand tall, inky darkness just behind them. We'll go home as soon as the rain starts.

 

Tuesday, August 8, 2017

Living Intentionally

 Having always secretly smiled at the "live intentionally" saying; it must be time to "eat crow". I must have missed my quiet time several days last week. There are not enough days in a week now to get done everything I want to do. Oh, they're all good things and mostly happy things, too. There just isn't time for all of them.
    "You'll just have to prioritize", is the sagacious and not unkindly wisdom offered to me from my husby and friends and children. Prioritizing is another one of those nice, glibly offered solutions. What if my whole list is precisely ordered and alphabetized and prioritized already so that if even one interruption occurs the whole thing falls into a completely different order like tetras blocks? Then what?
    Actually, I don't want to hear tried and true methods of having more time or less stuff or fewer obligations or even about learning how to say "no" more often. I am good at all of those tricks. Ask any of my friends or children; they'll vouch for my heartless ability to pull in the latch string.
     I just need to feel okay with the level of crazy for which I did, in fact, sign up.  It is my own fault that I leapt at the chance to sing in a new choir this fall. I knew full well that I would have to sit me down for a designated amount of time, daily, to listen and learn sixty-seven pages of music when I signed up. But, I have always wanted to do something like this. This is a dream fulfilled. I've changed my mind back and forth about the wisdom of doing it. Yet I can't not stay in.
  


 I am the one who also signed up to be part of a writers group. I've said all of this before about writing.
  It's my own fault that I  started this job that I love working in a gift and furniture store. It is extra income, of course, but just as important, it is full of interest and charm for me and my love of home decor. So I've prioritized, yes.
   And keeping our own home beautiful is a given. It can hardly be named as chores. I enjoy it so much. Keeping our house clean and the laundry done is all part of the dance of life that just is. And it's good.
   The garden is not about saving money, because I don't really can vegetables for our winter supply. The green beans are adding up and it appears that we will harvest a few tomatoes and squash, but you can hardly consider zinnia and mallow a "crop" in any sense of the word.
    What I didn't know I signed up for was being a mom to seven children who have, to date, made us grandparents fourteen times over already. It nearly takes my breath away some days to think of all the time I could spend just enjoying them had I the freedom and money and time to do that all I wanted for them and with them. Speaking of being overwhelmingly blessed abundantly above!

 So I conclude that if I wait until a quieter time of life to have a calm brain and deep sleep and an orderly mind, I'll never get there. It ain't gonna happen. Life is full and rich. Maybe I'll just go read that book Mom Graber gave to me last week when I was there.
   Elv told me to throw away the worms and leeches that have been living in the refrigerator for a week because there won't be any fishing this week. But so far, I haven't done it. I really want to paddle across Windigo and nestle in under the lee of the island and fetch up another bass or two. The phone is quiet out there. The only sounds are the vehicles far away on the highway, the train whistling through the woods toward Stone Lake even farther away, the loons calling, the grumping of bullfrogs, and the laughter of swimmers on the shorelines. 
   On the other hand, I'm looking forward to the married family showing up this evening for supper outside under the lights strung between trees. I'm planning to make an oven supper but we'll eat it gathered outside around the fire.  I'm looking forward to visiting with the girls while the men work on car and boat repairs.
   I'll admit it right here. I'm getting my cake and eating it, too. So richly blessed am I!
Jube and Benny

Sawyer eating constantly and growing like a weed.

Morning Coffee with Amy

Summer Scenes

 The garden is finally producing a few flowers at this late date in August for our table bouquets. Wet, cool spring results. But I've learned a thing or two about this garden.
  A thing or two about using regular feedings of Miracle Gro and plenty of mulch and now even some sprays. It's a funny thing. I forgot about dusting for black spots and bugs and rust until out of desperation, watching the rust take over the hollyhocks, again, I bought and applied spray accordingly.
While I was spraying the affected foliage I caught a whiff of it and remembered what Mom used to do for this. That white powder and the spray can that worked on a pumps system all came flooding back from some corner of my memory, triggered by a certain odor. Interesting.
   And a thing or two about the importance of compost and mulch and the miracle of dead, organic materials. Even oak leaves become dark, moist soil with the help of a few worms, years of rotting, and turnings. We have a large pile of this gold at our disposal with which the squash and tomatoes are growing richly green and fruitful.
   We're even figuring out that a twenty dollar bottle of animal repellent granules can go a long way toward getting a crop of green beans. It's most amazing how many green beans come from unmolested plants.
Rian, Our Redheaded JoyBoy


Grace Bible Church
 Not everyone is here. Another time next summer we'll do this again, and the next, and over time we'll all be on one or the other of these photos.
This little congregation knows how to cooperate and make a photo shoot work. We might have had ten minutes into this shot. Yes, we had a couple people doing some brain work on arranging us, and planning ahead work on the right camera. We kept it to one camera on a tripod and Clark is huffing on this picture from running to his place and getting grins for his drama on the way. He's a fun photographer. Everybody gets the files emailed to them and as many copies as they wish.

This blog has moved!

Please click here to see the latest from Stone House Scribblings.