Flowers and Feathers: Happy New Year - December 30

Friday - time to get back to "real life" - groceries, cleaning, etc. We even found time for an afternoon walk. It has been many weeks since we've gone walking across the river. It was the first time in 2 months that I exceeded my step goal of 7500 by logging 9800 steps. All day we were anticipating the big game - the Orange Bowl, UT vs Clemson. We planned to go to the Brocks around 7:30 for the 8 pm start. Kathy shared her Christmas prime rib for sandwiches. Because of the late start, we went home at half-time. Our Vols did not disappoint, coming away with a decisive win. It was midnight by the time we turned the lights out.

Before the game started, I had to retell Mother's Orange Bowl story. When she was still a teenagers, 16 or 17, she and her best friend Martha Sue travelled alone from Mississippi to Miami to visit a friend and go to the orange bowl. That would have been post WWII, 1946 or 1947. If it was 1947, Tennessee would have been playing. I don't know if they left from Indianola or Jackson. They had to change buses in the middle of the night in Birmingham, which also involved changing bus stations. Fortunately they found a nice cab driver! I don't know how long the trip took, but at least 24 hours. Even with today's interstate highways, the trip is 13-14 hours from Jackson to Miami. Imagine what it must have been like in 1946!

My grandfather Clark had taken a war-time job at the air-base in Sebring, Fl and took my grandmother and mother with him to Florida. They lived there until the war was over, about a year. The Orange Bowl trip was to visit a dear friend mother had made during that year.

Saturday - the last day of 2022, started off gloomy, wet and foggy but not cold. I had not planned to bake, but decided it would be a good day to use up bananas that the kids didn't eat. I made 2 loaves. I found time for my yoga routine for the 2nd day in a row. It occurred to me that I did not have to wait for the new year to actually begin to begin new practices. I didn't practiced yoga much in 2022 because of a shoulder issue and just getting out of the habit. I have noticed an increasing stiffness in my joints as a result of not stretching enough. I also spent part of the gloomy afternoon prepping for Sunday School and then decided to call off our class because of the New Year holiday.

I'm reading a novel that Laura gifted me, "The Book of Longings," by Sue Monk Kidd. She imagines Jesus marrying at age 18 and living as husband and wife until he takes up his ministry full time at age 30. It is really her story, Ana, and is told with skill and imagination. I'm delighted.

As I was in my favorite chair reading late in the afternoon, I noticed that the clouds had broken and a few rays of sun were streaming through the blinds. I got up to refresh my tea and noticed a lovely red sky as the sun was setting. I rushed to find my phone/camera and shoes to catch the image but I just missed it. Sunset this time of year does not linger.

The last day of the year has been representative of the whole year. 2022 began gloomily, with Covid still dominating so much of life. But the year has ended on a bright note of hope.

Out with the old!

In with the new - Happy New Year!

New Year's Day - Instead of making resolutions about things I will do, I would like to meditate on what I can let go to make room for the new. Pastor Linda titled her sermon today "Searching, Searching." The text was for Epiphany, the "wise men" searching for and finding Jesus.

Searching

I have long liked to think of myself as a Seeker, on searching for deeper meaning in the ordinary encounters of daily living. In my search I have found peace, joy, hope and love. Those words are so often repeated during the Christmas season that they almost lose their depth of meaning. But they are the universal elements that make life meaningful. The ancient greeks identified the four basic elements as earth, wind, fire and water. That may seem simplistic to our scientific minds, but there is truth in their idea. These ingredients are essential to our existence - the earth that nurtures us and forms our material existence; the wind that is air we breathe; fire that is the energy that drives change; and water, about 70% of the earth's mass and of our body's mass, without which life as we know it would not be. So too, the elements of peace, joy, hope and love are essential to our soul, to our spiritual self, to our sense of meaning and well-being. What am I willing to let go of to make room for such as these - to make room for an afternoon walk with Bill, to make room for a visit with Laura, to make room for preparing a meal that nourishes instead of merely filling, to make room for being a friend, and most of all, to make room for nourishing my soul.

We welcomed the New Year with black-eyed peas and collard-green soup, cooked with the Christmas ham bone. Corn bread completed a nourishing start to a prosperous New Year.