Post 125 Light Show
Welcome back!
I was away at my son and now daughter-in-law's wedding last weekend in New Jersey where the roadsides were turning slightly yellow with goldenrod and the morning temperatures were cool to my Flori-dated system at 65 degrees.
Lovely outdoor fall wedding, I got to hold the hand of my 89-year-old mother, my oldest sister and brother-in-law, and, a special treat- the hands of my daughter and my son, at the same time. What a day of rejoicing!
Locals have told me that signs of fall here are very subtle, one of them being the colors within a sunset become more 'fall-ish'. To test it out, my friend and I went to Bradenton Beach which is close to the more well-known Amelia Island Beach but it is all in the same strand of sand, South of Tampa Bay and about 10 miles toward the water from Bradenton.
We took low-to-the-ground beach chairs (which double as my living room furniture), picnic food that I had cooked in the afternoon, and had wine from water bottles as we simply talked and ooohed and ahhhed, much like being at fireworks. "Oh, look at that!" we said to each other.
I won't make this a public open book but we decided we got on so well as roommates that one of the reasons I moved out was so that we could court. It is the old-fashioned way, holding hands, doing simple things, lingering in the moment and building those, visit by visit.
As usual, I found shells that I had to bring home with me. I never tire of that. I never tire of seeing the goodness of God in infinite detail. Just look at these rays and hues. Amazing!
The temperatures are a bit less humid and scorching. One wakes to mid-seventies and the high point gets to mid-eighties, not close to a hundred, so more temperate. They tell me that these magnificent clouds are unusual for this time of year. Once the rainy season stops, the clouds go away and sorry, but you have to look at pure blue skies for months on end. I will work at renewing my mind to it!
I am on my little lanai, screened in, with a few pots of plants. One geranium I drug with me from Tennessee, which came from Kentucky. "Be happy" I tell it, "You have a home now".
So do I. Here is my little lanai, lizard included. This is where I will write my blog, watch the sunsets, admire the Spanish Moss draped like feathery boas from the trees. That monster half piece of a shell came from the expedition last night. I imagine it as a forensic-shell-ologist would, seeing it in its entire beauty.
I have a home, a bed on which to lay my head (on the floor like college-days) but it is mine. I now have 3 bowls and two skillets and a cook pot. The lid slides into it because it is the wrong size, but it is a pot.
Here is something I am being refreshed by. It is SO exciting to see what God brings my way to supply my need. It has been many years since I have had these challenges but it really is fun.
Do something for me, will you? Next time you open that kitchen drawer that has a thousand pieces of kitchen detritus, think about what it would be like to be thankful to find a set of 3 cooking spoons for $1.16. This exercise is reminder of simple joys that all too easily, get set aside in the way we live.
I chose this move and all its inherent problems. I could not know that this would happen but I accepted that I might have to move from the friend's home sooner than I was ready for, financially. I was hopeful it would not, but I did know that the possibility existed that I could not wait for the luxury that my Kentucky house would rent or sell before I needed the money for a rental of my own here. I had to take that leap, the one people generally call "A leap of faith", a decision based on real risk, that exists for which you have no clue how to make it all come out right because you cannot, but you do the thing, anyway. It is more than just a spur of the moment decision; you have planned all that you can plan, so it is not made in haste, but made to go forward in the risk, anyway.
I cannot make the house sell or rent or the rent not to be paid here. I chose not to live in my car but to take that LEAP and go for it. Go for the power that lights the sky, made the grains of sand and who knows the number of hairs of my head, to make things in the universe shift for me, personally.
"Hairs being numbered" is an orientalism in the Bible that reads one way but means something else. It means that God knows every intimate item about us and yet chooses to love us in spite of ourselves, for the very reason that we are imperfect and, cannot earn his goodness. Daily, he gives us his compassion, it fails not. New mercies he gives us every day. He searches to and fro in the world seeing on whom he can load benefits so here's a clue from the clue bag: we must need these things because God makes them available to us, daily.
When you stand and say "Ok, pour it on" then new doors open up for the compassions, the mercies and the benefits to flow. Now, I am the first to admit, it is not always on my time table, but the guarantees are in writing and are absolute because they are marked by the word "Shall", not "maybe". Ah, now this is really good, because it has nothing to do with what I do or do not do, except accepting them.
In the least common denominator, joy is joy. It is from the inside out, an emotion that is not conditioned upon circumstance but rather, just present. You can be joyful in the least of circumstances. Happiness is more fleeting I think, joy is a deep reserve that builds over time.
I encourage you to dig deep, put pen to paper and write the things that bring you joy and cause you thankfulness in great depths. These are the things with which makes three spoons and a sunset, wonderful things to possess.
Until next time, enjoy the light show of Bradenton Beach, Florida, September 28, 2013.
