Last month, I started writing posts from prompts in the Writing Down the Bones Card Deck by Natalie Goldberg, shared with me by my friend Barb Edler of Iowa in our Stafford Challenge small group. I’m continuing so that I can experience the entire deck of prompts. One thing I appreciate as a writer is that during times when I’ve barely got my head above water with all the energy and demands from life and work, there are prompts to get me started – – which, of course, is the most important spark. Today, the prompt hits home in tender spots, asking us to write about what we feel when we see a homeless person holding a sign on the corner or to tell about a specific person that perhaps we didn’t pay attention to.
At the end of each month, (or beginning), I review my yearly goals and spend some time reflecting on how I’m doing in living the life I want to live ~ a way of becoming my own accountability partner and having frequent check-ins to evaluate my progress. I’m still in the process of revising some of my goals as I encounter successes…..and setbacks. New goals have asterisks for the month of November, when I will report on them in a few weeks. For the month of October, here’s my goal reflection:
Category
Goals
My Progress
Literature
Read for Sarah Donovan’s Book Group
Send out Postcards
Blog Daily
I participated in the October book discussion with Sarah’s reading group for Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World. I’ll participate in the book discussion for Assessment 3.0 this month. Time for reading has been scarce lately, but Audible is a good way to try to keep up the pace when all I can do is multi-task.
I sent no postcards this month.
I continue to blog daily, and the daily writing and reflecting is a wonderful habit for me. I don’t feel complete without some form of daily writing, and the blog is a way of continuing the habit.
I had a Zoom meeting with Ruth Ayers of Choice Literacy about writing for her website. I look forward to spending some time writing about local literacy events.
Creativity
*Decorate for fall
*Create Shutterfly Route 66
I created a surprise ducking of our office. I used tiny ducks left over from my brother in law’s birthday ducking and put them to use in the office, even adding Halloween ducks to the lineup.
I have been trying to get to Shutterfly since July, so if I haven’t accomplished this goal by the end of October, I may give up on this one. Update: I’m giving up on this goal.
Spirituality
Tune in to church
Pray!
Keep OLW priority
We have been tuning in to church. With Dad preaching every Sunday in October and a few Sundays ahead of that, it makes the church home hunt take a back seat until my childhood church gets a new preacher, since I have the opportunity to hear Dad.
My car is still my prayer chamber for daily prayer, and there’s so much to give thanks for. I continue my conversations with the good Lord each morning and afternoon.
I’m still keeping my OLW my priority: pray!
Reflection
Spend time tracking goals each month
I’m tracking goals, revising, and considering some new categories as I look at my goal table.
Self-Improvement
*Reach top of weight range
This is a setback for me this month. I’ve hit major stress and gained weight, despite joining WW. I need to set a firm date and get the mental mindset that it takes to stay on track. I have work to do. Update: every day, the diet is starting “tomorrow.” I seriously need a good mindset to start back. I’m keeping this goal. I need to get on track. Tomorrow.
Gratitude
Devote blog days to counting blessings
I begin the days this way and end them giving thanks as well.
Experience
Embrace Slow Travel
Focus on the Outdoors
I’ve taken a trip in October to F D R State Park for a Little Guy Southern States Meet Up. We met people who have the same kind of camper we have, and we even signed up for next year’s meet up in Tennessee at Roan Mountain State Park. My brother and his fiancee came for a visit during Fall Break, and it was wonderful having some time together with them.
I’m still focusing on the outdoors with birdwatching adventures and camping. We also built our own fire pit foundation for the fire pit my son gave us for Christmas last year.
We arrived on site 29 at Hamburg State Park in Mitchell, Georgia in time for an all-beef hotdog on the electric grill last night, both looking forward to a long weekend of camping and spending time reflecting on those who made our freedom possible at the ultimate cost. As we drove here to this beautiful place to enjoy the peace, I couldn’t help wondering if those we are pausing to remember would be pleased if they were granted a visitor’s pass to come back and see how we’ve managed what they gave their own lives protecting.
I write this on the heels of a letter our district received from a concerned citizen about having school-related events in religious buildings. Because our auditorium is under construction, our small rural school district has had to reach out to churches for space this year; otherwise, students would not have had opportunities to celebrate their accomplishments with families there to share meals with them. The parent was upset because a Christian prayer was offered by a parent before a meal in a fellowship hall for a banquet that was not mandatory for students to attend.
Earlier this year, we had a county commissioner who wanted to go through every book on our library shelves because a child had checked out a book that had a character with two mothers – – our PUBLIC library shelves – – to remove a book not in keeping with his own opinions and values, for a book that was not mandatory for any child to read.
As I thought about choice and freedom as I grilled these wieners, I heard the familiar sound that told me my mother was nearby – – and sending a message, as she still does in relation to my thoughts.
A woodpecker.
Beating its head against a tree.
I looked up to see a Red-Bellied Woodpecker, thinking almost aloud, Thanks, Mom. Are you sure you didn’t mean to send a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker instead?
And then these wieners began sizzling on the grill.
And somewhere in all of this head-banging and sizzling, it caused me to stop and wonder whether we can even handle the precious freedoms we have been given when we can’t all respect the freedoms of others. Some folks think that their freedoms include limiting the choices and freedoms that we all should have, and yet even hundreds of thousands of graves with American flags whipping in the breeze can’t even get our attention long enough to stop and consider the state of our nation.
So the woodpecker will forever chip away, and the wieners will continue sizzling, as Mom still prompts thinking from the other side, where all things in her world are now perfect.
I thought I’d share a few photos of wildlife on the Funny Farm I’ve seen throughout the week. This week has been stressful, finishing testing and analyzing data, along with the other general parts of wrapping up a school year. It’s nice to come home and walk the dogs and breathe fresh air and forget about the demands and deadlines, if only for a few minutes.
Carolina Wren on the front porch, gathering nesting materials
Carolina Wren, singing, singing, singing
Mourning Dove
Funny Farm Bunny – there is a colony of them that lives down at the end of the driveway.
Funny Farm Finch
Carolina Wren singing a morning song
Deer (picture taken through a screen)
Northern Cardinal
May 18 – Hawk in a tree, Johnson Funny Farm
Hawk in a tree (just left of center) – funniest thing: I said a quick prayer, “Lord, I would love to see a hawk today.” I always feel my mother’s presence when I see one. I did what I always do: I pulled into the driveway, turned off the air, put the windows down so I could drive slowly, hearing the gritty crunch of gravel under my tires, and began inching up the driveway. I first saw a tufted titmouse, then a robin. As I approached the top of the hill, I caught a glimpse of a large upward wingspan swooping up off to the left. I grabbed my camera, and for one moment the hawk took it all in and the next swooped off back into the deeper woods. I caught one photo, here, and one of just his tail as he flew away. What a beautiful moment – a prayer for a hawk sighting, a hawk, and the feeling of the presence of my mother. No prayer is ever too big – or ever too small!
So I did. I’d purchased a shirt in November 2022 while in Anaheim for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Convention – royal blue in color, with a red heart and white lettering that says Your Story Matters. I took a picture of it and wrote a simple index card poem, 3×5, three lines with five syllables each:
Your Story Matters
you're a child in God's
great universe so
your story matters
Last week, I shared a post about the serendipitous steering currents of spirituality – those moments of confirmation along the way when we realize fully, without a fraction of a percent of doubt, that He is on the path ahead of us, beside us, and behind us, directing our footsteps and assuring us that He is at work in our lives and all around us, holding the pen, guiding His children.
In my travels this week, I was given the unique opportunity to visit one of my daughters and her friends who attend a devotional and women’s Bible study each morning as part of the continuing recovery and restoration of their lives. They rise early, get coffee, and come together for a time of meditation and devotion. After about 20 minutes of quiet time, one opens in prayer, and then shares insights from the devotion and quiet time, along with an I AM statement.
My daughter opened the devotions on this particular day. She had read a devotion about being a child of God, and how being born into a family of Christians didn’t buy her salvation any more than someone born in a garage made that person an automobile. Her place in the family of God comes only through her belief in him, confession of her sins, and desire to follow Him. She shared her focus verses for the morning – John 1: 12-13.
We went around the table, each sharing our thoughts, and when the last woman shared, she talked about the power of our stories in shaping others and encouraging them.
After the closing prayer, I opened my blog post and showed my daughter the poem. “Did you write that today?” she asked.
“No, I wrote this earlier in the week, ” I explained.
I wish I had a picture of her expression – a perfect photo of the serendipitous steering currents of spirituality.
Today’s guest blogger is my father, Rev. Dr. Wilson Felix Haynes, Jr. Pray is my One Little Word for 2023, so I asked him to share several of his favorite volumes on prayer.
The oldest biblical book in our canon contains key questions about life. From Job, we hear this question: “What profit shall we have if we pray unto him?” (Job 21:15). The topic of prayer has been explored by almost every great saint, theologian, and author of the great Christian books. I have procured many of these books, read, and reflected on them. They have left a deep imprint upon my life and thinking. Four of these volumes are particularly noteworthy.
First, I think the single best is The Meaning of Prayer (Association Press, 1916) by Harry Emerson Fosdick, the well-known “liberal” preacher whose pulpit was the Riverside Church of New York City (built by John D. Rockefeller). I read this volume during my Seminary years after the reading of his autobiography The Living of These Days. The book followed a period of depression in Fosdick’s life. Beyond those days, the impact of his life was incredible. This well-arranged book is the best purchase anyone can make to enhance biblical knowledge and provide the very best instruction about prayer. Harry Emerson Fosdick, I am proud am proud to say, has been a vital mentor in my life of continuing education.
The second is The Prayers and Meditations of Samuel Johnson. The first edition was in 1785, and it has been published subsequently in many other editions. The striking thing about this volume is that this testy old doctor was so honest and self-revealing in his “diary” parts of the book. These written prayers may become guiding forces for us in our own journeys. Incidentally, Fosdick quotes Samuel Johnson in the first sentence of his book on the meaning of prayer.
The third volume is The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence (Nicholas Hermon). Brother Lawrence was born in poverty, served as a soldier, and thereafter joined a community of Carmelites in Paris in 1666. He died at age 80, and his letters were published in 1692. The primary essence of Lawrence’s thinking was continued awareness of God. I offer a couple of quotes to whet the appetite to read his letters:
“The most Holy and impactful practice in the spiritual life is the presence of God-that is, every moment to take pleasure that God is with you.”
And this:
“I have abandoned all particular forms of devotion, all prayer techniques. My only prayer practice is attention. I carry on a habitual, silent and secret conversation with God that fills me with overwhelming joy."
Lawrence’s main job in the monastery was in the kitchen, where the lyrical sounds of pots and pans only elevated his communion with God. He said. “I turn my omelet in the pan for the love of God.” Whenever I’m in the kitchen, I try to model what Brother Lawrence did.
A forth book is Thomas a Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ. Matthew Arnold said, “Next to the Bible, this is the most eloquent expression of the Christian life ever written.” A classic. Mark Twain once said, “A classic is a book everybody talks about, but nobody reads.” Change your mind on this thought. You can find an audio version of The Imitation of Christ, which greatly enhances the reading process. This is not a book to read from cover to cover, but more of a daily vitamin. Read a portion, percolate on the thoughts, and perhaps journal your impressions. The Imitation of Christ is a compelling meditations journey which prompts prayer – a searching call to imitate the way of Christ, to learn to embrace His virtues, and to stir reflection.
“Prayer is hunger and thirst. Prayer is our demand on life, elevated, purified, and aware of a Divine Alliance.” ― Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer
On this day set aside to remember the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I reflect on his prayers for a better world.
May the prayers of Dr. King also be our prayers for our world and all its people. To be used for God’s purposes – purposes greater than ourselves -is the greatest hope of all.
On this day, we are all among King’s children, and we are all children of The King.
Today’s guest writer is my father, Rev. Dr. Felix Haynes, Jr. , who shares his thoughts on the power of books to shape lives.
THE POWER OF BOOKS
In Little Letters to God, Margaret E. Sangster includes the following letter:
Dear God: Three books came to me in this morning’s mail. They were messages from friends who wanted to share with me the pleasure of the printed word. One book was a love story, one was sparkling with inspiration, and one was a travel book that would transport me into far, forgotten places of the earth. As I unwrapped these books, I felt a sudden sense of reverence – reverence for you, God, who has given the authors a great expression. Through their eyes—and your wisdom—I shall be permitted to widen my vision.
Reading good books becomes a tool to widen our horizons and expand the depth of human experience. The poet Frances Thompson said books became to him “trumpet sounds from the hidden battlements of eternity.”
Books are forces to deepen our lives through spiritual and human development. Well-selected books can push us towards a greater grasp of human maturity. Robert Browning wrote, “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Christian growth is a process, an alluring quest – exciting and fulfilling. Delving into the spirit of reading and study prevents stagnation. Life is an adventure, when we dare to climb, with compelling vistas that beckon us to new heights of understanding. Books are rungs on the ladder.
I have frequently used the metaphor of Oliver Wendell Holmes’s poem The Chambered Nautilus as an example of an ever-maturing growth pattern. This beautiful seashell is gradually enlarging compartments in which the mollusk lives as it grows larger and larger. The snail-like creature that lives inside grows and moves into the next compartment, where further growth and development occurs. This process continues in ever-increasing sized chambers, until finally, in the largest compartment, it moves out. The shell it leaves is a thing of great beauty – a fascinating analogy of the human spirit, continually growing and expanding, building ever more stately mansions.
In life, we travel various avenues in the quest of expanding our fulfillment on the journey. The power of the printed page is one such avenue, and when you combine this tool with dialogue and discussion about a book, it becomes a significant life-shaping kind of experience.
Dr. E. Glenn Hinson was one of the most probing professors of my seminary experience. His book Seekers After a Mature Faith states in the Preface:
“I have written this book with a firm conviction that private devotion is essential to the life of the {Christian} and that devotional classics have much to contribute to that devotion. The Bible holds many expressions about the power of the printed page. In the oldest of all biblical documents, the Book of Job, Job says:
'Oh, that my words were now written! Oh, that they were printed in a book! That they were graven with an iron pen and lead in the rock forever. For I know that my redeemer lived, and He shall stand in the latter day upon the earth.” (Job 19:23-25).'
Job’s passion was to remind those who would suffer of the greatness of God. The best of books that convey life-messages are prompted by a deep desire to help others along their journey.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson commented in one of his essays that reading books molds an individual. Any casual reading of biography will confirm this truth of the value of books on one’s life. For example, Charles Colson in his biography Born Again attributes much of his conversion to Christianity to reading C. S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity.
Samuel Miller of Harvard Divinity School has cited three things that a book may do to nurture faith. First, he says that a book can help “name” an experience. A book can help one see the reality of some experience in a manner that helps in some way to better deal with a situation. The “word is made flesh” and we weave the insight into character. A second benefit in the book’s nurturing of faith is that it can “resurrect certain levels or dimensions of our consciousness from a dormant condition.” In other words, self- understanding ~ in this respect, a book becomes the stimulus to an honest appraisal of one’s life. Authenticity emerges in a healthier manner. We can see ourselves in the pilgrimage of others. Another’s experience can bring about an awareness of some repressed areas which we many have neglected. The book leads to an understanding necessary to the revelation of a new vision. A third benefit is that a well selected book encourages productive reflection. We stretch and improve our spiritual posture.
A book that provides a good reading experience baffles and embraces us, inspires and challenges; and it can startle and unsettle. The values are inestimable intellectually and fuels the imagination causing one to reach for new heights. We should expect occasions in the reading of good books which cause us to rethink opinions and face new truths that change our path on the journey.
Charles Kingsley, a revered English writer says, “Except a living man, there is nothing more wonderful than a book.” I would be quick to add this observation, based on my Doctor of Ministry work: The two things that most affect a person’s life are the people we meet and the books we read. I think Thomas a Kempis said the most appropriate word about the power of Books:
"If he should not lose his reward who gives a cup of cold water to his thirsty neighbor, what will not be the reward of those who by putting good books into the hands of those neighbors, open to them the fountains of eternal life?"
And Mark Twain, who always has a bold word, appropriately reminds us that “the man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read.“
My husband spent his 50th birthday sleeping in the cab of a truck in an unheated warehouse a couple of miles from the Atlanta Airport after being stuck there during Snowmageddon of 2011. The entire city was paralyzed. Children spent the night in schools, and motorists trying to get home were stranded on interstates. He ate a survival dinner from the vending machine, grateful for the coins in his pockets when exact change was required for a package of miniature donuts and a can of Coca Cola.
Even in challenging times, blessings of gratitude abound. Warmth. Food. Shelter from the storm. Caring people who restore our faith in humanity. Life.
We celebrate his 62nd birthday today. I’ll celebrate with him tonight in the warmth of our home with our 3 Schnoodles, dinner, and cake. We’ll celebrate again with other family members during our regular gathering night later this week.
Most every Thursday night, we have dinner with his father, his brother and sister-in-law, and one son who lives nearby. Sometimes we eat at Barnstormer’s, an airport restaurant near our home in Williamson, Georgia, where I recently ordered coffee to stave off the shivers – and smiled when the steaming cup arrived. Here’s the cup:
I’m grateful today and every day for my husband, who shares life and adventures with me. He loves the simple things – the beauty of nature, sitting around the campfire, chatting over spiced orange tea, listening to the rain, walking the dogs, taking spontaneous drives down country roads listening to John Denver sing about them. He is rarely angry over anything but is a gentle peacemaker and a solution-finder to problems – – especially wonderful dispositions not only as a husband but also as the Chairman of County Commissioners for our rural county where few people ever agree on anything.
In The Power of a Praying Wife, Stormie O’Martian writes beautiful prayers that wives can offer for their husbands. Here is one for today, for Briar, for whom I am eternally grateful:
Lord, teach me how to pray for my husband and make my prayers a true language of love...help us to pursue the things which make for peace....I pray that our commitment to You and to one another will continue to grow stronger and more passionate every day.
- excerpts from The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie O'Martian
Happy Birthday, Briar Johnson! Thank you for being you.
Briar, June 2022, in Tracy Arm Fjord near Juneau, Alaska
When I took listen as my OLW of 2022, I ordered a bracelet with my word on it to remind me to listen when I was tempted to forget. I also ordered a wooden word cutout to go in my kitchen windowsill to keep listen at the forefront of my mind.
I ordered a bracelet for 2023 also, but I got one with a whole verse instead of a lone word. Pray without ceasing it says on the outside, and on the inside it has the scripture: 1 Thessalonians 5:17. It’s one of those verses that could stand in line with the shortest verse in the Bible: Jesus wept (John 11:35).Pray ceaselessly, it might have been written, if Paul and John had been in a two-word verse challenge like on Name That Tune….”Lord, I can write that verse in two words….”. As it stands, John won the shortest verse challenge. Even though it’s not ONE little word on the bracelet, those two extra words make all the difference.
My One Little Word holds within it divine power to achieve (or not) every goal I set for myself this year, especially in the area of spirituality and inspiration. My spirituality goals for 2023 include continuing to tune in to my childhood church service on Sunday mornings (First Baptist Church, St. Simons Island, Georgia) and any churches where Dad may be preaching. I also like to “attend” where my children go to church sometimes so that I can hear the same messages that they are hearing. No matter where I “attend” in the wide world, I continue to grow spiritually from Sunday services – – the only way I am able to start each week ready to face the world.
My guidebook for this area of prayer and spirituality will be The Meaning of Prayer by Harry Emerson Fosdick. I’ll read this book from cover to cover this year and reference the quotes as I apply them to my own prayer life. I’m a fan of the Women of Faith, so I’ll also be rereading their daily devotional book as well. It’s a well-worn favorite! Today’s devotional, in fact, is by Patsy Clairmont, titled “Slathered in the Spirit,” and based on Proverbs 31:30. That’s how I want to be: Slathered in the Spirit. The devotional for January 7 ends with this prayer:
Lord, I want to be beautiful in your sight.
Slather me in your Spirit, soften my heart, and firm up my faith.
May I be taut in my resolve to please you alone.
Amen.
-Patsy Clairmont
Common Threads 