I only have a few minutes to post today. So I wanted to share a few quick pics of The grounds of The Vicarage after the recent snowfall.
The Vicarage In the Snow
reality blog
Still Life Broken and Repaired
The season has changed again. We are right back to winter overnight. This is one of the warmest winters I remember. I have only worn a coat one or two days this year. Maybe it’s just my thick northern blood, but something is changing. All season we have been going back and forth between freeze and melt. Today the ground is covered with snow. Tomorrow we could be back to the mud. It’s a change.
I am currently taking part as a reader in a book launch for a friend. Poet and story teller Tracy Rittmueller has written a book of poetry entitled, Still Life, Broken and Repaired. The book is about life changes, especially those changes between life partners as aging happens. The effects of dementia on relationships is a key theme in her poetry. Right now this book is speaking to me about the plethora of changes I am walking through with my own Mom and with my life long friend Grace.
In her poem, “Healing Is a Never Ending Departure”, Tracy writes
“Life calls us
to our never ending story.
All is still well.
Take heart, dear heart.
Release, that you may heal.”
Excerpt From: Tracy Rittmueller. “Still Life, Broken and Repaired.” Apple Books.
Right now life is requiring a constant releasing. My mom’s life, Grace’s life are like this winter. Some days you get warm sunshine and all is well. Other days are filled with mud and confusion. And then there are the days where the cold chill of the future just sort of sweeps over you. Each day requires a releasing of what was and an acceptance of what is now. My world is busy and grand in its smallness. On that note I leave you with these thoughts from Tracy’s poem, “In A Cove In The Yorks, Maine, I Dare To Hope Again.”
“And so I sit here for hours intent to hear the healing
beginning of another pilgrimage, any conscious progress
to inspire our next, necessary transformation.”
Excerpt From: Tracy Rittmueller. “Still Life, Broken and Repaired final.” Apple Books.
I am embracing the change whatever it may be. I know God has us in the midst of it.
If you would like to read more of Tracy’s work you can find it at TracyRitmueller.com
Birds and Such
One of the loves may grandmother passed on to me was bird-watching. I can remember that on Saturdays, especially in the winter when it was too cold to play outside, Gramma would set me at the kitchen window with her favorite bird book and she would tell me to identify as many of the birds that came to her feeders as I could. She had chickadees and sparrows, goldfinches (she bought special food for them), purple finches, woodpeckers, bluejays, titmice, mourning doves and in those days evening grosbeaks.
My feeders today have most of the same birds with a few extra. I have two nesting pairs of cardinals on The Vicarage property. They really love the Japanese knotweed for their nesting place. I also have cowbirds in the spring and redwings blackbirds.
In addition I have God’s own quantity of gray and red squirrels and a new addition within the last year (besides the rats which I am dealing with) …..rabbits.
This morning as I took the dogs for their morning walk their were two rabbits playing on the side lawn.
Of course what I call the side lawn is actually a giant patch of frozen mud right now.
The work at The Vicarage is not done. As we move to the end of this season of fasting and into February the landscape planning is beginning. That pile of rocks…..it’s my new stone wall.
A STORYTELLING FAMILY
It’s 7 A.M. I have spent time: in the presence of God, walked played with and fed the dogs, finished my Bible reading, made myself a tea and now I am catching up on writing both blogs and Storyworth.
For those who might not be familiar with STORYWORTH here’s a link. I purchased the program as a Christmas gift for my mother. As many of you know she is walking the pathway of vascular dementia. As the disease slowly takes pieces of her mind and body from us, her world becomes smaller and smaller.
One of the things she still has is her past and so Storyworth is helping me to preserve that for her in a story book we are creating together through the weekly question/ conversation starters the website offers. The questions open discussions which lead to other questions the answers to which sometimes take a day or two to ferret out, but I am learning a lot about my mother and her family which I never knew. One of the chief things I have learned is that stories were not often told in her house and so this experience is new for her.
I guess as I think about it even I did not grow up in a house that told many stories. But my father did. It is through his parents that I know a lot about the history of the Lillie side of my family. Growing up I spen Saturdays at my grandparents house. Each Saturday I spent was well scheduled. I was allowed to watch a cartoon in the morning with breakfast, Then I was sent out to play for a bit. At ten A.M. or so we went grocery shopping. After that we would take a ride in which my grandparents would use the journey to share a story about the history of their family or the town they grew up in. Then we would go back to the camp where they lived, on Packard’s Pond, and have lunch. While my grandfather watched bowling, Gramma and I would play a game and she would share with me more of the stories of their life.
It was from here I drew my love for writing and creating stories. As I think on this, I am fascinated by the idea of how people become storytellers.
WAS YOUR FAMILY A STORYTELLING FAMILY?
EARLY MORNING AND ACCOMPLISHED
I was up well before sunrise this morning.
I am many mornings but particularly on Sundays. I NEED to get at least two hours of prayer in before I preach at church. I find that Sunday mornings are one of the most productive periods of my week. This morning I:
prayed
read thirty pages in one of the books I have assigned myself ( I actually finished HEY KIDDO, by Jarret J. Krosczka which I am reading along with many citizens of out town in the ONE BOOK ONE COMMUNITY PROJECT sponsored by our local library)
read the Bible
Made my bed (if you want to be a success start by making your bed)
washed the dishes (I should not have left them in the sink last night
Did about 40 minutes of filing and cleaning
Fed the birds
Emptied the dehumidifier
Filled the furnace with water for the day
Had breakfast with Amanda
set up Mom’s pills and gave her her morning pills
Got myself ready for church
And now I am getting the writing done in “NOTES”!
Maybe I didn’t scale Everest, but I feel accomplished.
I was with a friend at breakfast yesterday and we were talking back to the ATOMIC HABITS class we took last year. We were talking about how making small changes really had revolutionized our lives. I am not yet at the point where every morning is like this, but at least four or five mornings a week are. That is a huge change for me and it has upped my feeling of well-being. I was going to say my productivity but as I think about this, this whole atomic habits thing has not been about productivity though I think it is definitely affecting it. It is about helping men change how I view myself and the potential God has put in me.
As I finish up this morning Mom is sitting on the couch with the cat. Mom is really frustrated with her life and what she cannot do anymore. She often gets upset about the fact that she can no longer walk much farther than the front hall. She feels less than because she sometimes needs help changing her clothes. I have praying about her quality of life and God has shown me that I might try some small things for her that can restore some of her confidence and some of her joy. I think that is why I felt so strongly about STORYWORTH this year. The weekly questions have been good to open up conversations about more than the weather. I have been jogging her memory daily and taking her back through the life she has lived. I am wondering what other small things we can do to give her more of a sense of life and hope.
WHAT MAKES YOU FEEL ACCOMPLISHED?
FIRST DAY OUT OF QUARANTINE, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND LEG PAIN
Today was day one out of quarantine. I still have to wear the mask for a few days in public, but I am feeling almost 100%.
Truth be told I am feeling better than before I got COVID.
I have been struggling with significant joint and muscle pain in my left hip and knee for about six months. The week before I got COVID I had begun preparing for our church’s 21 Days of Fasting and prayer. This prep called for a draw back on caffeine and processed sugar. This week as I got COVID I launched fully into the Daniel fast which is a vegan fast which I will be on until the end of January as our church seeks God for spiritual breakthrough.
I have noticed each day my muscle and joint pain has been decreasing! I have less pain and less swelling leading to greater mobility. Greater mobility has not meant much since I have been stuck in my house for the last week, but today when I had to start taking appointments again it meant the world to me.
I started with a breakfast meeting, which consisted of fried potatoes and gluten free toast and herbal tea. Then at 11 A.M. I attended a seminar being sponsored by our town library on the subject of domestic violence. The seminar was soooo…. informative and the feedback I have gotten from congregants who attended with me is showing me that God is about to open up some powerful doors in the area of community involvement. That said, the stools we were given to sit on at the event I think were originally some kind of torture device. Some of our church members actually didn’t make it through the event in those stools. They had to move to other chairs at the back of the room or to a standing position. Honestly, I was a little worried at the end that I may struggle unfolding myself from the child size pizza pies. A week ago I would have probably needed help getting up from that stool after two hours of sitting in it. But today not only did I get up under my own power, but the pain in my knees didn’t last more than five minutes as my muscles readjusted to being straightened out!
It was a great day of learning and of discovering that my injury may not be an injury as much as it is a food sensitivity!
THE ARRIVAL OF RATS
2020 COVID brought more than disease and quarantine to our house. It brought rats. My family has lived in The Vicarage for something like 45 years and up until pandemic I never saw a rat in the neighborhood. Then in 2020 they were everywhere. I started seeing them on the side property. I would meet them on walks at dusk or dawn with the dogs over by the Catholic Church. Then I started noticing their leavings in our cellar. I put out poison in the cellar. Bought sonic deterrents. Filled in holes where I thought their dens might be. Cleaned out the cellar and sprayed strong fragrances.
The rats went away and I have not seen them again ….until. Today.
You may remember we had the old stone porch taken off the house this past summer. It was falling down and had become a hazard.
We also had to dig up all the pipes in the side yard and have them replaced. Some of the rock that was in the stone porch got buried in the refilling afterwards. Also a couple of larger stones (boulders really) got left in the front by the flower garden. I thought they Made a great lawn ornament. That is until this morning when I noticed that something has taken up residence under the boulders.
I waited to see what would come out of the hole and wouldn’t you know the rats are back. Or at least rat is back. But with Spring coming on I don’t want to have rat babies so…..it’s time to prepare for rat battle again!
BASKING IN THE SON
Here I am convalescing through COVID.
I had two days of real sickness where I didn’t get out of bed. The rest of the week the sickness has been pushed back to a stuffy nose and a sometimes tickle in the throat that makes me cough.
My energy level feels good today and for that I am very happy.
However, Mom tested positive for COVID this morning . She is asymptomatic so I am praying that she stays that way.
I am still in quarantine for two more days; So Amanda has been holding down the church and doing all the errands and housework. I so appreciate this daughter of mine who is such a talented pastor and who can run things in my absence. Most of the staff also has COVID so she has been the only one in office a few days this week.
This week has also been the beginning of our church-wide 21 Days of Fasting and Prayer…. 30 hours a week of church prayer scheduled and I haven’t been able to make one session in person.
I am so grateful to Jon Bauver and his team for running these sessions with their ministry, The Worship Room.
Jon’s ministry is a missionary prayer movement dedicated to bringing twenty-four-seven prayer to our region. They opened about two years ago and they are up to twenty hours of regular prayer every week. For the next twenty-one days they have really stretched themselves towards thirty hours a week to partner with us and I so appreciate it.
Of course when the plan was laid to let The Worship Room take the lead on this year’s 21 days I had no idea I was going to be out of commission for the first whole week of the fast. BUT GOD DID!
So here I stand or sit as the case were and instead of leading prayer meetings I get to bask in the radiance of the Son of God as a long distance participant rather than a leader. I am taking these moments to listen deeply and breathe in the grace of God for all the ministry that lies ahead. I am intensely aware that these moments of quarantine without strong sickness are a gift from God to help me prepare. Sometimes God needs to force us to our necessary rest.
COVID POSITIVE
I got home from church and deacon board meeting on Sunday and started feeling sick. By Sunday night I had full on COVID symptoms. I tested, but the test came back negative. By Monday morning I was pretty much relegated to bed. I slept away most of that day. On Tuesday after my second COVID test , which came back positive I slept most of that day too.
By Tuesday I had gotten word that three more of my staff had come down sick and today a fourth member messaged to say she had tested positive. That leaves my daughter (who has just come out of quarantine) and my personal assistant who had COVID in November running the church.
We have just begun 21 days of fasting and prayer with 30 weekly prayer meetings and the church staff is pretty much in quarantine. My daughter was asking God about this and the answer she got was, “This movement is about the church not about the leadership. The church must rise up and the staff must be put in a position to let them.”
apparently that position is COVID POSITIVE.
So I am joining the prayer meetings remotely and am watching as my parishioners rise up to lead this prayer movement for breakthrough! It is POSITIVE indeed.
MORNING LIGHT
Morning’s are my best time. I find the hours between 5 A.M. and Noon to be my most productive. Something about the first rays of morning light (even when the sky is gray) just fills me with energy to get up and get going.
Don’t get me wrong a good cup of coffee helps too.
But since we are at the beginning of our church’s yearly 21 days of fasting and prayer coffee is off the table. So the morning sun will be enough along with my herbal tea to get me going in the morning’s.
This morning I have done morning devotions walked the dogs, played with dogs, fed the dogs, made breakfast, read the first ten pages of my daily reading regimen and finished up the second chapter in Storyworth. This week my mother and I conversed about her father. Busyness is coming forward as the chief theme of my mother’s early life. I get the sense she understood the busyness but resented it as a dynamic in her family’s household.
I am finding for myself, busyness is a cautionary theme. I also think that there is a pendulum in my life that swings between busyness and lassitude.
I think I am looking for a happy medium somewhere between hyperactivity and complete indolence.
Maybe the morning light is my answer. Perhaps the balance is a morning of great productivity and afternoon of slower more concentrated work and the evening of recovery.
I am not sure exactly how that works with my schedule but it surely is something I am going to be praying into in the next 21 days as I seek greater breakthrough.
HERE’S A SONG TO LAUNCH YOU ON YOUR WAY INTO THIS MORNING’S LIGHT.
Notes From the Vicarage 