Welcome 2013

“Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”   ~Albert Einstein

“The ordinary acts we practice every day at home are of more importance to the soul than their simplicity might suggest.”   ~Thomas Moore

There is no greatness where there is no simplicity.”   ~Leo Tolstoy

“Nothing is true, but that which is simple.””   ~Johann von Goethe

“Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplify, simplify.”   ~Henry David Thoreau

“Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus.”   ~Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are

Proverbs 13:7

The Message (MSG)

⁷ A pretentious, showy life is an empty life;
    a plain and simple life is a full life.

Zechariah 8:14

The Message (MSG)

Keep Your Lives Simple and Honest

^14-17 A Message from God-of-the-Angel-Armies:

“In the same way that I decided to punish you when your ancestors made me angry, and didn’t pull my punches, at this time I’ve decided to bless Jerusalem and the country of Judah. Don’t be afraid. And now here’s what I want you to do: Tell the truth, the whole truth, when you speak. Do the right thing by one another, both personally and in your courts. Don’t cook up plans to take unfair advantage of others. Don’t do or say what isn’t so. I hate all that stuff. Keep your lives simple and honest.”

Simplicity is the theme the Lord has placed upon my heart for this coming year. It has been uncanny how this word, this philosophy has turned up so very many times this past month or so. I am sure it is a "God-Thing".

Sometimes I will watch one of those "Hoarder" programs on television. I can feel myself becoming uncomfortable and then I am consumed with wanting to purge and sort and eliminate things from my life. Things that require care and time and space. Do I own them or do they own me?  In fact, I'm looking at my desk at this very moment and beginning to hyperventilate!

Husband will be at an annual conference this coming week. To keep myself busy I will attempt to purge items for an upcoming G.R.O.J. Sale this spring. G.R.O.J. = Get Rid of Junque! 

I've been reading Simplify by Joshua Becker and he makes sound arguments for a more minimalist life style. Among them is the fact that at some point someone will need to go through all our possessions once we've passed on. Who will it be? What do I want them to find? Will my house be in order? Not that it matters in the scope of eternity, but I think I prefer to either give items to those who may want them or to have the aforementioned sale. I want to be a good steward of those possessions I have and frankly, I need to pare it down.

We will be leaving for Phoenix in a bit so Husband can catch his flight to Atlanta on Wednesday. We will be hotel living for a bit, then I will return tomorrow and work on Wednesday. Hotels are often wonderful examples of simplicity, so I will be taking notes!

May your New Year be warm, blessed and safe.

Simply yours,
Tamara

Silent Sunday 12.30.2012

My prayer for the New Year

Blessings,

Tamara

XOXO

Letter to Prison... Vol. 1, No. 2

The holidays are upon us.

Zachary will be visiting with us until Christmas Eve. I’m not sure if you and his mother are in contact, but at the end of November, Zachary had the two rods in his right leg removed. His orthopedic surgeon put a leg brace on his leg to keep him from too much activity. He will be wearing it until after the first of the year. It causes him to walk like a little tin soldier. It slows him down. That was the intent.

I became rather melancholy last evening thinking about where and what we were all doing last year at this time. Do you remember? Things can and do change in the blink of an eye. Just look at the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut. Those poor parents are now burying their children, rather than watching them in a school Christmas pageant. I cannot begin to imagine their grief and their loss.

It makes me want to scream and shout and rail against God about injustice.

But I will not. I will instead find ways to do 26 acts of random kindness to remember and celebrate the life of each of the victims. I did my first one just the other day. I purchased Simalac formula and two boxes of cereal and gave it to the local food pantry. I also gave six packs of baby wipes that we’ve had since your son had need of them. I cannot help but think of families with infants who might not be able to afford such simple items.

I believe that Christmas is about forgiveness.

It is about a God who became incarnate to walk among us, to reach out to us as we walk our individual pilgrimage of humanity. As we walk our individual paths, our feet become dirty, filthy. That is when this God-Man girds himself with a towel and lovingly begins to wash our feet. Like his follower Peter, we can say, “No, I will have no part of this!” It’s always about choice, isn’t it? In the end, Peter asked for an entire bath! He just didn’t “get it”. When we are “his” we are clean, but we walk in this world and our feet get dirty. It was the lowliest servant’s job to clean the feet of the visitors to the home. This was so the filth of the world didn’t contaminate the house.

Not only was he born in a stable with stinking, smelly animals, he reduced himself to a servant status to show us the way. A better way. When Jesus washed their feet, he was performing an act of forgiveness. If you were here this Christmas, I would wash your feet… then I would set the table with bread and wine and ask you to share communion with me… with us… to come to the table to which the Christ child has lovingly prepared.

I believe that Christmas is also about love.

Love isn’t always about getting “what we want”. Sometimes, often times it is about getting what we need. Love came down to us at Christmas.

This coming year I will be striving, endeavoring to minimize my life in preparation for retirement and better living. It isn’t about how many possessions we have; it is more about how the possessions have us! It is about how much care they require, how that keeps us from fully and completely living. It is my goal to live with less and to give more. I desire to give more of myself, more of my time and more of my talents and pour them out as an offering to the community at large.

I pray for the blessing of anger; anger at injustice, oppression and the exploitation of people. I pray that I may be a vessel that can be used to work for injustice, freedom and peace. I find I can no longer say I am a Christian and quietly live in a home, locked away with possessions and be content without looking and working to eliminate the above conditions.

Love, from your Mother

Psalm 77:11

The Message (MSG)

^11-12 Once again I’ll go over what God has done,
    lay out on the table the ancient wonders;
I’ll ponder all the things you've accomplished,
    and give a long, loving look at your acts.

Prayer for Newtown, Ct.

I have always loved this song of advent. Sung in a minor key it has the haunting familiarity of loss and of pain. The words of the hymn state that God comes for everyone – the joyous and the grieving, those who celebrate and those who mourn.

The song addresses our need of a Savior. It addresses our various stages of life. In the haunting minor key, it tells us that Emmanuel — God-with-Us — comes to comfort the grieving, the mourning, the sad, and the lonely.

This promise awaits us and all those who mourn — and we rejoice. “Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.”

My heart and soul mourns for the community of Newtown, Connecticut. A senseless act of violence has destroyed a community’s sense of peace. We will probably never have an adequate answer to our resounding “WHY?” as to how an act of this nature can happen. I only know and feel deeply in my soul that it is time to take action. Enough is enough.

So I begin with prayer –

Abba, Father! Comfort the community of Newtown, Connecticut. Comfort those who mourn. Comfort our nation as we seek answers. May we seek reconciliation and peace. Allow us to open our hearts to those who mourn. Then I pray the liturgy of the Franciscan Benediction that reads:

May God bless you with discomfort. Discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. 

~Amen.

May God bless you with anger. Anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

~Amen.

May God bless you with tears. Tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

~Amen.

May God bless you with foolishness. Enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. 

~Amen.

And the blessing of God, who creates, redeems and sanctifies, be upon you and all you love and pray for this day, and forever more. 

~Amen.

Even so, come into our hearts Emmanuel!

Tamara

Silent Sunday 12.09.2012

~Silent Sunday

Tamara

The Ghosts of Christmas Past

The line of children extended around the block of the Fire Station in West Salem, Ohio

They were waiting for their chance to sit on Santa’s lap and ensure convince him they had been good, at least for this year. It was cold and snowy, the children and their parents were dressed in heavy coats, gloves or mittens, scarves or mufflers around their necks and the black galoshes of the era. As they entered the Fire Station where Santa’s chair of honor had been set up, the snow melted into puddles of slush. The heat was stifling from the overhead gas heated blower, yet the cement floor was cold.

As my two younger brothers and I waited our turns, we cautiously looked at each other wondering if one or the other would tattle some indiscretion to Santa, thus ensuring a lump of coal would be delivered to the errant child rather than the coveted toy of request. Somehow we didn’t relate tattling as serious as, oh say, pinching, hair pulling and even hitting one another (loving children that we were).

It was our turn and after each of us (and all the other children) had spent time with Santa, we were ushered off his lap by a volunteer fire fighter and given a bag of candy with an orange inside. I always loved those oranges. I patiently picked off every piece of candy that stuck to its surface and then presented it to my grandmother, Nanny, to wash and then slice up into orange ‘smiles’. The remaining candy smelled just like the orange.  I let my brothers have the candy, even though I acted as if were a real imposition.  I really only wanted the orange. Oh, and maybe just a few pieces of their hard tack cinnamon candies if I chose to use the remaining candy as bargaining leverage.

As I got older and outgrew that routine, my local Girl Scout Troup made orange decorations for Christmas ornaments thanks to the diligence and patience of our Girl Scout Leaders.  Oh, how the scent of those still takes me back to another place… to another time. Mind you, I still love the scent of a live Christmas Tree, but my memories are linked to oranges!

To this day, the scent of oranges brings me back to childhood Christmas

The internet and Google are a vast source of information and I found the instructions for making the Clove Oranges. Easy-peasy:

How to Make Clove Oranges

Gather your materials...
To make a clove orange decoration you will need: 

• an orange 

• thin colored ribbon (enough to wrap around your orange twice and a bit more) 

• whole cloves 

Clove Orange Instructions 

• Wrap the ribbon around the orange, twisting at the base, to divide the orange into quarters.

• Feed the ends under the piece of ribbon at the top of the orange. 

• Tie a simple overhand knot to secure the ribbon in place. 

• Now start pressing cloves into your orange. I like to outline the ribbon with cloves first, and then fill in the gaps. 

• You can also make pretty patterns on your orange with cloves. Try making stars, hearts and more! 

Once you are finished, hang the clove orange on your tree by tying it on with the extra ribbon, and enjoy the spicy Christmas aroma!

It was an opportunity to dream of Olympic skaters and gold medals…

The Fire Station flooded a cement area that had a curb all around it each winter. It became the community skating rink. Christmas was an opportunity for this growing girl to receive a new pair of ice skates. I didn't tire of this this until somewhere in high school when priorities shifted. Even my brothers got into the spirit and would go skating with me. They believed I was a veritable Peggy Fleming since I could skate backwards.

The air was crisp and clear, the type of cold that almost hurt when you breathed it in. When we got home from skating, Nanny would have hot chocolate waiting for us and ready to pour into mugs, topped of course with a marshmallow.  I always wanted toast with butter to dip into my mug of cocoa.

“animal crackers and cocoa to drink, that is the finest of suppers I think and when I’m grown up and can have what I please, I think I shall always insist upon these”

During the years of awkward adolescence, a highly favored aunt who taught high school English gave me a book of limericks for Christmas. As our families gathered together for the holiday, after dinner I went to my room and read the tiny little red book. It was full of randy rhymes! I immediately committed a number of them to memory and went downstairs to recite them to the family. During moments of uncomfortable silence and extreme giggling, my aunt commented, “that will teach me not to review the book first!” (I still know a number of those limericks!)

My mother recently reminded me of another Christmas that also happened during the time of awkward adolescence.

I kept pestering her asking, “What did you get me for Christmas?” over and over so many times, that she finally told me. On Christmas morning when I opened the gifts – there they were, exactly as she had described them. I’d open one, look at it, and then silently look at her. I never asked again what I was getting for Christmas!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe I’m going to make a Christmas project and recapture the fragrance of Christmas this year! I might even make some hot cocoa and toast! None of the packet stuff, homemade from real powdered cocoa like Nanny’s!

So, what are some of your favorite Christmas memories? (Perhaps it's time to write them down for your children and grandchildren.)

2 Corinthians 2:14-16

The Message (MSG)

In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.

Tamara

Silent Sunday 12.02.12