Confessions of a Flower Stalker

Blog #12

        Flowers make me happy! I will go out of my way to get a view of flowers. Seeing them makes me marvel at the Creator! They are truly inspiring to me!

        I walk around a lake as a form of exercise. The other walkers are usually focused and often walk right past me, especially when I am by myself. They must think I am slow.

        Perhaps, I am not as fast as others, but, maybe, that is not the whole story.  This is the confession that I will make only to you, my readers or reader (Who knows how many people would bother to read this?).  I actually stop to look at flowers (and trees, too).  Yes, quirky as it may seem, I do just that! 

        I will move in close to a flower, my face being less than a foot away, and I gaze at it intently.  Then, holding the stem between my index and middle finger, so that the flower is sitting in my open palm, I bring it to my nose and smell taking a deep breath of the scent. With some flowers I touch the petals, too. I use as many senses as I can to enjoy its beauty. I would really be a mess if the flowers made sounds and tasted good, too. Sometimes the memory of the scent and vision of the radiance will be with me for days.

         How about you?  Are you a flower stalker, too?

I Love Words!

Blog #11

     

        I love words!  They are a powerful tool that can be used to educate, inspire, chasten, encourage and counsel.  Words help us clearly express thoughts and emotions. The Proverbs tell us that “Words fitly spoken are like apples of gold in pictures of silver”. I love words: the feelings and ideas behind them, the craft of choosing them and the good fruit that they can bear.  I want to share words with others.  I want to learn to create “apples of gold in pictures of silver”.     

      I love words!  I love their beauty, their power and their potential!  Words truly are powerful! Emily Dickinson wrote, “A word is dead when it is said, some say.  I say it just begins to live that day.”  (This must include written as well as spoken words!)  I want my words to bring joy and hope when they are spoken or written: when they begin to live.

      Besides being a sometimes soupy and sentimental person, I am a logophile!

All I Can Do Is Pray

     Blog #10

      Having faith when times are difficult is a choice. On a daily basis, I want to choose faith; just like I choose love, joy, kindness and mercy. Some aspects of my own life can be hard and depressing at times and I need faith.  Do I choose faith? Do I pray a prayer of faith? Does prayer have any power?

       I have a dear friend who is very sick. I pray that God will heal her.  I feel incredibly sad and helpless when I think of her situation. I want to give her lots of love and support.  It seems that all I can do is pray! 

       The way I am thinking and speaking sounds like prayer is a last ditch effort, a futile ritual that means little.  How wrong this approach is!  Prayer can be a bold, powerful, joyful choice: the choice of coming to the God of the Universe with a request.  It is a choice to believe and have hope.  It is a choice to trust in God and His written word! It is a choice to remember that He has the power to grant our requests immediately, if He so chooses.  He also has the power to refuse us or ask us to wait.  This He does for our own good.  Prayer is a choice to believe that our Creator will actually listen to us and consider what we ask.  He can even change His mind or be stirred to action, because we ask. 

       Saying “all I can do is pray” sounds like I will “put in” a few minutes of time on my knees, because I said I would or think I should , not really knowing what, if anything, will happen. These words almost imply a lack of faith. 

       I should be saying, “I can ask and I can pray.”  This is not a lame, impotent gesture.  Prayer is the most powerful thing that anyone in the universe can do.  It is going to the Top, the Father, the King, and the Emperor of the world.  It is asking Him humbly, because I am nothing, but confidently and boldly, because He is so powerful.  It is understanding that He rewards those who make the time and the effort to find Him. It is an honor to come to God and know that He hears me! 

      If I had an urgent problem of extreme national importance to discuss with the President of the United States and he was coming to my house today to listen to me, I would not be saying with futility, “I guess, I will ask. He will probably say, ‘No’, but at least I can ask. All I can do is ask!”  Instead, I would choose to act confidently and competently, knowing that the President came out of his way to hear me and that he had the power to do what I asked.

      When I pray confidently, the Creator of the Universe has, in fact, come to my home and I have his attention.  He has the power to do what I ask and He will do what I ask (if it is according to His will). He is not dubious or wishy-washy, like I can be.  Besides having the greatest title, the greatest wealth and the greatest power, he has given me a special relationship with Him that makes Him want to grant my requests.  He is my Father!  I can ask, I can pray and He will hear me! “All I can do is pray” is no small thing!

I Am a Word Person!

  

 Blog #9

   Words mean everything to me!  If you say something to me, I remember the words and hold to them literally. If you do not remember what you said, just ask me, because I will remember. I believe that words come from the heart and show what is in the heart.  Words are an art, a science and a way of life. 

     If your body language says something different to me than your words, I go with your words!  (This can, of course, create problems in relationships and life.) I have trouble understanding that you may not mean what you say. My dad warned me that holding on to words could be a problem for me in my life. He was right!  It is hard for me to comprehend that “actions speak louder than words”, because to me actions and words are almost one in the same.

     If you want to give me directions to get somewhere, do not say it is by the school, the bridge, the overpass or the gas station.  Do not give me landmarks!  Tell me the names of words on the street signs that I need to look for.  Give me the words!

     If I ask you a question, I love to have the answer in detail.  Then I am not compelled to ask a lot of other questions, which you may not like.  I like to know the who, what, where, when, why and how about everything.

     If you say that something is “okay”, then that is not the same as “good” or “great” to me. If you do not say anything about what I did for you, I assume that what I did was mediocre at best. If you give me a gift and say something wonderful or beautiful either in oral or written form, it heightens the gift.  If you give me a compliment, I will remember it forever.   If I give you a compliment, I will remember it forever. 

     If I read a book, experience joy, have a concern, find humor, go somewhere or do something; the thought or action is intensified and enriched by speaking about it or writing about it.  Sometimes, the ideas or emotions that I have are changed by your response and further reflection.

     I use words to encourage, to teach, to comfort and to love.   You may express yourself in a different way and that is fine. I will love you even if you are not wired like I am and I am learning to appreciate you for our differences. (You have many strengths that I do not have!)  There are a lot of things in life that are more important than words: faith, hope, joy and love, for example. I know that!

     Some research says that the average woman speaks 7000 words a day and other researchers say she speaks up to 20,000 words a day.  Most research says that men speak far fewer words.  Women speak three or four times more words in a day than men do.  This is no surprise! 

     Once I observed my, then, teenaged son at a skateboard park.  There were all guys in line taking turns politely and showing their athletic skill on the concrete hills of the park. The only sounds I heard while I was there was the sound of the wheels on the concrete and the sound of the occasional wipe-out.  Not an expression of encouragement for someone else; not a cheer from the sidelines; not a bit of friendly advice; no, there was not a word spoken!  How different that would have been if there had been all girls doing the same activity!

     I love words: all kinds of words!  I like to listen to words, to choose words, to speak words, to think about words and to write words! I am a word person!  I am a woman!

Art for Health and Happiness Club

Blog #8

       I was about eight that summer when I decided that our neighborhood needed a club.  That was a way we could get together for a positive purpose and have fun.  Since I was the oldest girl, I decided to organize the others.  I called it the Art for Health and Happiness Club. 

       We would get together several times a week to make crafts (cards and gifts) for others and sometimes for ourselves. We had no money, so we were supposed to find envelopes and other items from our parents’ trash that we could use for our crafts.  It was so exciting to me.  It was thrilling to think of creative new ways to use old or unneeded things. 

       In June, I remember we collected rose petals from the ground in jars filled with water and sealed the lids to make perfume.  Delicate rose petals would certainly make the most fragrant perfume, I thought.  Of course, the murky water had a scent that was anything but fragrant.

       Digging through old envelopes, paper and other trash, though an adventure for me, was a concern to my mother who did not want our family business distributed through out the neighborhood.  She decided that she needed to check what I pulled from the trash, before I could use the items for crafts.  This limited our supplies a little, but we still managed to find what we needed. (One side benefit of this was that I did start collecting stamps, because of all the interesting stamps I saw on the envelopes in the trash.)

      The other neighborhood children soon lost interest in the club, but I stuck with it.  I loved the creative process of making something from nothing and sharing arts and crafts with others. Most of my life, I have been involved with children and even adults, at school, church, home and camp using arts and crafts for "health and happiness". I have never lost my interest.

      When you see me at garage sales, thrift stores, and store clearance aisles, look at the items I purchase.  Chenille strips, foam, stickers, small flowers, feathers, colored paper, envelopes, ribbon and crafts sticks are some of the treasures I might swoop up.  Even if I have no idea what to do with a given item at the time of purchase, it will eventually be used by someone for something. That is the nature of the creativity game! 

      Children of all ages enjoy being creative and expressing themselves with arts and crafts. There are no wrong answers in art. Every project is always beautiful as is the one creating it.   From my experience, even adolescent boys enjoy arts and crafts as much as six year old girls do. They just like different projects.

       As the school year, of my thirtieth year of public school teaching, begins in two weeks, I look forward to getting a whole new group of kids.  All of my students are automatically in the Art for Health and Happiness Club, even though they never hear the name of the club or know that they are in it.. In my class every gesture of creativity is appreciated and nurtured.  The supplies  we use are better and brighter than when I was eight. The homemade cards, gifts and projects are still a great source of joy to the one who makes them and the one who views them or receives them.  Yes, I am still the oldest girl and I am still in the club.

      

What We Always Did

Blog #7

      “I thank you, God, for the great day we had today and ask that Mommy and I have a fun day tomorrow just like we always do,” my son said.

       My husband, my then five year-old son, and I were kneeling at my son’s bed in prayer one evening, like we always did, when he spoke these words.  No matter what we were doing at his bedtime, we all stopped to pray, like we always did. We took turns talking to God, like we always did.  I loved having our family time with God and the chance to make requests and express gratitude for every aspect of those wonderful days.

       I was a stay-at-home mom and I was thrilled that I was able to spend everyday with my son and enjoy the evenings as a family with a loving, supportive husband who made it financially possible. Everyday was an adventure and an exciting educational experience. It was FUN! 

       The words my son said have been tucked in my heart for over seventeen years now. I will never forget them. I remember fondly how much we loved: what we always did.

 

Gardenias

Blog #6 

      Last weekend some dear friends went to a restaurant in the Short North area of Columbus called "Haiku: Poetic Food and Art". This was an amazing Japanese/Asian Restaurant. The dishes were well-seasoned, tasty and creative. They had squares of paper for the writing of a 17 syllable haiku poem by any patron who wished to participate and a melodic jazz trio with a sultry singer that performed throughout the evening.  The inside of this restaurant was great, but the outside was better. 

      They had a beautiful fountain and numerous trellises filled with colorful flowers. (At least half of the seating was outdoors, but the website of the restaurant did not even mention that.)  Then, the surprise of the evening occurred on our way out.  We discovered a trellis with pristine, delicate, live gardenias. Their color is the richest, porcelain color of white, which stands out against their deep green shiny leaves. They are the world’s most beautiful smelling flower, in my very biased opinion. 

      Gardenias are native to China and Japan.  In the United States (especially in Ohio), they have a reputation of being hard to grow indoors and outdoors.  They do not stand neglect like some other flowers do. Of course, something so exquisite would be temperamental!

      I remember my father used to give my mother a gardenia corsage when they were going to a dinner/dance.   I remember how radiant she looked in her beautiful black cocktail dress or rich-colored formal gown and the sparkle in her eyes when she wore the gardenia.  When the corsage was brought home, it was returned to the clear plastic bag and the pin was put on the bottom end of the bag.  I used to go to the refrigerator often to see and smell the gardenia.  

      Then, in a few days, my mother’s gardenia would die.  Part of the beauty and charm of such an exquisite gift is that it is temporary.  This temporariness makes it something romantic and extravagant; because of. and in spite of. the fact that its beauty will quickly fade.

      Only a few times in my life in Columbus have I seen a pot or planter of live gardenias. This was my favorite part of the Haiku Restaurant, finding and cherishing the gardenias.  I have been thinking about gardenias all week!