Angel wings

We have been collecting Angel Wings again this year!

Anyone who goes out to walk the beach looks for these delicate and beautiful little shells in the sand.

Connected by just a thin little piece of tissue, these shells show up on the beach left by the waves.  Sometimes the waves are too strong and you will find them broken apart, but mostly they are "Angel wings".  Strange, because the harder and bigger shells are always broken, but these tiny and delicate little shells come through the pounding of the surf.

They come in purple most often...the royalty color; or streaked with yellow, or rarely, solid yellow like the one in the photo above.   Rarely you will find pink....  Some are almost solid royal, some are streaked with purple and mostly white.  And some are White!

In 2012 I found solace each day in finding pairs of Angel Wings, and it was funny that I always found white ones....REAL angel wings.  I was very sick in 2012;  an 8 inch tumor was found in my retro-peritoneal space. My doctor told me I could not go to the beach because we were preparing for surgery, and then he changed his mind and let me go.  Just like this year, dear friends came with us and suffered with me during each day's telephone calls with doctors and floods of tears at the diagnosis....cancer.  But then it wasn't cancer, and then it was.  They were going to do immediate surgery and I needed to be prepared to go back to Atlanta at any time; and then they finally put off the surgery for 6 months.  The medical "tissue board" at Winship Cancer Center at Emory University could not go forward with the surgery at that time.  The tumor was so large and was pressing on my aortic artery, my right kidney, the nerve and arterial structure on my right side, and on and on. They needed time to study it and watch the growth of the mass.

The Angel Wings, for me, were signs from the Lord that all would be well. Through the tears and concern, God was with me.  I felt very alone sometimes, but I was not alone at all.  Every day I found a pair of white Angel Wings in the sand, and every day found hope in them  Others found Angel wings too and brought them back to add to the collection, just like we are doing again this year. I was so sick, and yet I knew that God would heal me.  Six months later, I had emergency surgery to remove the tumor.  It had become to oppressive to body structure, and my organs were not working properly.  It was time to finally make me well.

This year we are collecting Angel Wings for Bill+ and Sheila's grandchildren...not for a sad reason, or a bad reason but for happy times, for the children to have shells of their own of all kinds.
and Angel Wings..............

Jim's birthday

Jim's birthday today!  Hooray!

The day began with physical therapy, and one of my very favorite things.  Jim accompanied me to physical therapy to learn how to do this for me before we left for Wyoming.  If I could have afforded to ship my physical therapist out here, I would have.  She was way too expensive, and couldn't take the time off.

So after stretching myself out and applying warmth to my knee, Jim began the "range of motion" stretches.  This involves my lying on my back with my ankle propped on a rolled up towel, my foot flexed so as to straighten out my knee as much as possible, NATURALLY.  I still have a little bend to my knee after the procedure, and we are working to straighten it out.  It must be straightened out!!

Standing over me, he massages the knee area, back and front for a time, and then clasps his hands together over my knee cap and slowly and firmly applies his bodyweight to my knee, pressing down until my knee is perfectly straight.  Let me just describe how this feels as the knee structure stretches under the weight of someone who is PRESSING DOWN, HARD!  No, nevermind.....I can't describe in words the pain as my knee is forced and held into the correct position.  This is done three to four times. Lord have mercy!

Jim made lunches while I cried for a little while, and hurt, and hated him for a few minutes.  He  made me PB&J....extra PB so that it kind of oozes out like my grandmother once made for me.  He felt really bad that he hurt me...but it has to be done! And we headed out for our hike today.

I have to say that last night, while we were waiting at the trailhead that is usually used for climbers climbing the Grand Teton and other peaks here, we met a group coming down from a climb.  Carrying their ropes, carabiners, and all of their equipment, filthy dirty and scraped and cut in places, tousled and sunburned and energized, I remembered the days that I, too, would come back from a climb in this condition, but so pumped up with adrenaline from achieving a goal....the summit.  NO matter how many times I took a group up, or made the climb with friends, it was always the same:  A Rush.  It was a RUSH to see these folks come down after a successful climb as the sun set and the day came to a close.

I have been walking a great deal since we arrived, on the flats of the valley; a paved trail that winds along the roads out in the sagebrush flats. Each day I have walked a little farther, picked up my pace, walking alongside the traffic on the road.  I have made progress, but it leaves much to be desired.  I am able to look up and see the mountain range, but something is missing.

There are two trails that wind along the lakes that I know I can walk, but my pride...my foolish pride....has kept me from leaving the paved bike trail and accessing these trails.  I ditched my pride today and walked in the forest, following along the lakesides, no traffic to hear or see.  These two trails are meant for those who cannot walk or hike the bigger trails to go high up into the mountains, as I have always done.  These two trails I once scoffed at and would never even consider practice on them because of their ease.  Now these are the trails I use because I can't do the climbs and hikes I once did right now!  Jim points out every other sentence how this is now, but not forever.

We talked today about how, for the last three years, my health has made it impossible to live like I once did in these mountains and this valley.  After the tumor was discovered in 2012, I came home that fall and was very very sick.  No one wanted to remove that tumor; no surgeon would take the case.  When I came here, we were waiting to see how the tumor would grow and change to even afford me the chance of surgery to remove it, or not.  Everything I did that September of 2012 was the last time I would do it.  Everyone I saw while here wept with me at the thought that that trip might be the last time I would come back to this valley alive.  It was miserable and sad.

The tumor was successfully removed by a surgeon, the only one who stepped out.  But in 2013 I was still too weak and in too much pain to do much of anything when I came back to this valley.  I did very little, but I came back here and I loved every minute, and everyone so much. There was so much joy! I was so grateful to God for bringing one surgeon who was willing to take that tumor away.

This summer, the knee surgery that we knew was coming has taken my ability to do much of anything once again.  Once we came into the valley, I felt the energy, but it is not real energy. It  is energy in my head.  It takes all of my energy and all of my strength to walk, to work out at the gym, to stand up for very long.  I am amazed at how weak I am after the procedure in July.  But we knew this...I just conveniently forgot how UNABLE I am.  I never NAP.....I have to NAP....I never go to bed before 2 or 3 am....I can almost make it to midnight....I never sleep in until noon.....it is all I can do to get going.

We drove to the lake and hiked through the forest:

The last flowers and seedheads of fall along this simple trail of so much beauty...I didn't really know, but I did know!

We sat by the lake and had lunch.  The breeze over the mountains blew in a little harder and with a little extra chill with the cold front coming in.  The sun came and went

and we watched as kayakers went by....String Lake, a lake long and narrow and mostly calm and smooth and a place we love to kayak too....was slightly riffled by the wind today but cool, icy green and lovely

and Jim knew what I was thinking....another "thing" I cannot do right now, not because I can't paddle, but simply because I can't get in and out of the kayak....and he said:

Next year, you know it will be next year.....

We packed up lunch as the trail got crowded and noisy....Jim likes my monastic style of quiet and listening...and "Hiked" back to the car....  I like to use that word instead of "walked".  And as we drove back to the cabin after this elegant day in the forest by the lake, God showed me that indeed, I have come a long way in three long years of health challenges.  I'm not hiking paved surface alongside the road, I'm hiking on gently rolling forest trails, and eating peanut butter and jelly while sitting by a beautiful lake. SIMPLE!  I  might be watching kayakers in 2014, but I pray God will have me in a kayak in 2015 paddling the different sections of String Lake.  God has healed me and brought me a long way. He always does, and always has been there for me.  Jim is in charge of reminding me daily when I get discouraged at all of these issues how far we have come from that first phone call telling me of an 8 inch tumor that was crushing me,

We turned up the road to the cabin, and began the drive along the way that has been closed due to a grizzly bear for 2 weeks.  The road is open again, and we are encouraged until we come upon a large group of people running, cameras in hand and on shoulders, leaving their cars in place.  What we fear is true...it is a bear, but not the grizzly, a black bear high in a tree, feeding on berries.  Life is what it is, people can be so incredibly ridiculous, getting out of their cars and placing themselves at the foot of a hill where a very large black bear is feeding.  You know that bear will not come down from the tree and maybe be a little bit upset at the huge crowd gathering below?!  We drive on and stop at the ranger station at the top of the road just beyond our cabin.   The ranger reports, and we go on, and the road is closed AGAIN!!!

Jim had a great birthday, encouraging and loving ME!

My Physical therapist smacked me!!!

And what, I know you will ask yourself, does this subject have to do with Pathways....the title of my blog?

My Physical Therapist Smacked me!!

The answer is, absolutely nothing....this blog post has nothing to do with Pathways...the title of my blog!

Or maybe it does have something to do with it, I don't know.  But suffice it to say that My physical therapist smacked me today, and I deserved it.

I am Two weeks out of surgery to repair a badly damaged knee that I had been ignoring for about 15 years;  thus allowing so much damage that it got to the point that my leg was collapsing on a regular basis. I have flown face forward and down onto such floors as the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth, The Basilica of St. Vincent's Abbey, and Hartsfield International Airport, among others.  And so it was time to go and meet with my orthopaedic surgeon and pray not to be yelled at too much.  Need I say that my surgeon had given up on me, and since my father passed on years ago, could not call him to let him know that I was doing extreme damage to myself.

Back when Andrew was much younger, he broke his arm, and Dr. Moeller was the MAN we saw because my father, also an orthopaedic surgeon, had told me this was who to see in Atlanta.  Specifically, we knew that I would need to have knee replacements because of my fondness of jumping off of high places and landing like a cat on targets far below, bashing my body into rocks, and jumping horses, riding rodeo, and doing any number of any kind of sports that were just a wee bit out of the ordinary.  At a very young age, I had some of the most extensive knee injury that anyone had ever seen, and my father wanted to make sure I knew where to go when I got around to it.

Well, I didn't really get around to it until I could actually predict that my knee was going to give way, and then I waited another 5 years before calling the MAN!

When I went into meet with him, it was as though he was waiting for me. He strode into the room and slapped the xrays up onto the machine without even glancing at me, and began speaking as though we had ended a conversation 15 minutes earlier about this very subject.  When he finally turned around with a glare in his eye he said  "So, do you think you waited long enough to do this?  This is massive damage.  How do you walk?"

I was embarassed....but cool....

My surgeon is my friend still, and when we talk with each other about this he casually pats my arm and gives me a hug because he knows what a slug I am when it comes to doing things that interrupt my personal routine.

And that brings me back around to the subject of the post  "My physical therapist smacked me today!"

Why, you ask, would my physical therapist smack me???  Well, Greg also has gotten a load of my "WAYS" over the last two weeks.  Intimately familiar with the knee replacement procedure, there were some things that I did not actually know about it, and so today, when he asked me how I was and I mentioned that the aching I was experiencing was coming from deep within bone and was unrelenting, he did not miss a beat.  His gaze riveted on my husband, Jim, sitting across from him, Greg asked me if I, perchance, had been walking on my leg without using my walker to support myself.  Inside, I gasped.  I could not lie to him and so I admitted that yes, I have been walking short distances, making the bed, doing laundry and other and various chores without using my walker for support.  I have also taken my shower without using the shower chair, standing freely in the shower and enjoying the warmth and comfort.

It was then that Greg, my physical therapist whom I adore, asked for my hand.  I placed my hand in his and he smacked it hard enough so that it stung....SMACK!  Almost as hard as my Bishop smacked me on the cheek at confirmation...but that sting back then stung a whole lot longer than this one did.  I remember flushing a deep red that day in the cathedral in Chicago.  This was almost as bad.

So I won't be doing anything anymore without using my walker for support.  Greg got a kick out of being able to smack a Benedictine sister, considering the fact that as a boy he was smacked plenty on the hand with a ruler in the Catholic school he attended.  His delight was that he could smack me hand to hand...without benefit of the ruler.

I know that y'all will wonder why I am confessing this today here in my blog.  Perhaps that is why this blog is entitled Pathways....Pray about it!

"Show us the Father" St. Augustine of Hippo

Don't go looking for any end beside God, in case by looking for an end beside God, you find yourself being consumed, not completed.  What is an end, after all, but the point we wish to reach, to stop at, and not to look for anything beyond it?  Because if you get there, but are still looking for something, you haven't yet reached the end.  So to reach the end is to reach the spot where you say,

"That's enough."

Philip thought that the Father alone was such an end, and so he said, 
Lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us (john 14:8);
 but the Lord showed him that God is the end, God the Trinity.  Accordingly, when you say "Christ is the end," you should not be excluding God the Father; and when you say, "God the Father is the end," you should not be excluding Christ.  Philip apparently wished to exclude him, supposing that Christ was only what he could see with his eyes, so he cheerfully said, Show us the Father, and it is enough for us.

What do you mean It is enough for us?

That's where our desire ends; we won't be seeking any further; that's where we shall find total satisfaction, where we shall say, "It's enough, I don't want anymore."
Why's that?

Because we already know you.  Please show us the Father.  Since we can see you, after all, and cannot see him, we aren't satisfied.  We are overjoyed because we can see you; but show us him, and we'll be satisfied; we won't require anything more.

And the Lord said to him, because he is himself the end, himself the one who totally satisfies, so in order to relieve him of what he was assuming--he was assuming, you see, that he wasn't seeing the Son of God, when he was seeing the form of a servant--so he said to Philip, Have I been with you all this time, and you have not recognized me?

When you are looking for the end, and do not see what you see, well that of course is why you are looking for the end, because you can't see the end standing in front of you. 

Do you not believe, he said, that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  (John 14:9-10)

Drawn to a Great Truth

......if He should call you, 
Let yourself be drawn to Him.
He may lead you to a great truth.
Do not dwell on yourself, nor should you--
A creature subject to multiplicity and change--
   seek Him.
Rest in tranquility, loftier than action or feeling.
And you will find that as you lose yourself
He will give you strength.

Be pleased to remain where it pleases Him to place
     you.
Straining to find Him is of no avail;
Be at Peace with yourself.  He embraces you.
Return His embrace, but do not feel wronged
When He absents Himself.  Give no thought to yourself;
If you love as you should, you will be filled with joy!
Because that love in itself
Glows with a light that does not fail.

You know that you can only possess
To the extent that He will give;
What He withholds you cannot acquire;
Nor can you hold on to what you have
Unless He grants you that grace.
Your Path from beginning to end
Lies beyond your power;
The choice is not yours but the Lord's.

Hence, if you have found Him know in truth
That it was through no power of yours.
The good that is given you
Comes out of charity; it is a gift,
Not the fruit of your own efforts. 
Let all your desire; then,
Be directed toward Him.
The Infinite One, Giver of all good.

Brother Jacopone da Todi (+1306) OFM

Litany of Spiritual Confidence~In preparation for a Holy Lent

~Lord, keep me close to you~

Lord, I can do all that you ask of me because it is you who strengthens me.

Lord, whenever I fall, you delight in my confidence to trust you all the more

Lord, let me look to you and not to myself to find what is needed to please you

Lord, when I am overcome by fear it is because my peace depends on some thing instead of on your will

Lord, free me from my hidden attachments to self-righteousness

Lord, let me always remember that it is you who move me to ask for your love

Lord, help me to see that the meaning of my faults is to learn to depend on you more and more

Lord, give me the strength to cry out for your love when all that I see is nothingness in myself

Lord, save me from the impulse to look for my peace and security in my own strength

Lord, the more you let me see what I am left to myself the more you give me the grace to cling to you

Lord, to be happy, I need nothing but what you provide for me at every moment

Lord, the more I live in the love you give me in this moment, the more perfectly I am able to suffer whatever comes my way

Lord, when I come to you at those times when I am overwhelmed by my own misery I glorify you the most

Lord, it is in being receptive to you in the knowledge of my own weakness that I derive all my strength

Lord, let me always remember that you want me to let you make me perfect by your love

Lord, the measure of my union with you is my faith in the power of your love to purify me and make me worthy of you.

Heavenly Dream

Several times in my life, I have experienced a Heavenly Dream which always contains a message from God.

Once, the dream was so real and so intense that I did not want it to end, and it included an audience with God,

The dream usually comes at a time of challenge in my life, or at a time of illness or trouble. The dream always begins the same way:

 Ahead of me is a long boulevard bordered with very tall trees, leafless with broad straight trunks until the very top, like Redwood trees. The trees are perfectly spaced, and at the top the tree canopy is sparse; there are no branches at the bottom...the pruning marks remain all the way up the trunk of each tree.  Where the canopy of each tree spreads at the top, a straight line of bright light is formed. The boulevard ahead of me is straight and inclines gently upward, becoming a steep hill to climb. The scene is very beautiful and serene.

As I walk down the boulevard, passing each tree, rooftops come into view.  Walking forward I begin to see glimpses of buildings, not just the rooftops, and then more and more of each building appears.  In each dream, I have been led into a different structure, to discover what is taking place there. Traveling up this beautiful hill, I have been led to discover so much about my life, and ultimately learned God's plan for my life.

This dream began for me at a time in my life when we thought that my life was coming to an end.  I first had this dream in the hospital, and I was very ill.  I learned then that God was with me, and that he would be with me always. My life would continue, and I remember waking to a feeling of serenity and security in knowing what was revealed to me in the dream; and while I wanted to share it, I was almost afraid to tell someone else what I had seen and heard and experienced.

I have returned to this boulevard again and again, and I have come away from each experience with knowledge and serenity; never fear.  

This morning I woke much earlier than planned but fell back into sleep, and returned to this same boulevard again.  It was  identical:  the hill sloping gently in front of me, tree after tree as I passed each one, the bright golden light at the top extending in front of me.  I was led into a garden, and a wide blue lake encompassed the scene in front of me.  The message for me this morning was of peace, and life; a warm and gentle love exchanged with all who were there.  There was a celebratory atmosphere and so much happiness.  I didn't want to leave.  But I remember being escorted back out to the boulevard, of goodbyes and good wishes...And then the dream ended, this time.

"Where the Pictures Came From"

Angels are seldom overheard.  But try.  Go listen.

They might be remembering.
They might be whispering about the night
they seeded the sky with embers
and it caught.

All over the place, the sky took fire.
Astronomers, on various corners of the earth,
reported a shower of burning embers.

This was the night --the angels will tell you--
when they clambered over the poles
and raced each other through the tundra,
and swam a hundred mountain lakes,
shaking the water off like seals, 
and kept on going.

They knew they were wanted.

It had to be night, they'll tell you,
because the night is so simple, so all one thing,
even when burnt with embers.

And God had poured himself so flawlessly
into a human heart
that nothing less simple than night
could venture an explanation.

The angels got there, they will tell you.
They ran up the hill, singing a song the color of darkness,
chanting like sea bells
in places of no horizon.

They stood in a circle on the floor of a cave,
and drew pictures on its walls
to entertain the visitors.

And rocked in their song
an infant of one hour's age,
who was as old as God.

--Sister Miriam Pollard, Cistercian Santa Rita Abbey, Sonoita, Arizona

A Light Unto my Path ~ Meditation

John the Baptist uses an image that is puzzling to us but that would have been powerful indeed to his original audience.  Speaking of the coming Messiah, he says, "His winnowing fan is in his hand.  He will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn" ....

  A threshing floor was a flat piece of ground on which stalks of harvested grain would be laid and subsequently pressed or crushed, so as to separate the edible wheat from the inedible chaff.  A winnowing fan was a kind of pitch-fork that a farmer would use to throw the mixture of wheat and chaff into the air, so that the wind would carry off the lighter material and leave the heavier substance behind.  This act of separation was indispensable to the preparation of good bread.

The Messiah, John the Baptist, is telling us, will perform a similar work on our minds and hearts.  He will separate the good from the bad, the loving from the wicked, the godly from the self-absorbed.  Most of us allow the better angels of our nature to exist alongside our inner demons, and the result is a spiritual hodge-podge.  When Christ approaches us, he comes with his winnnowing fan, which means he will toss things around a bit! This helps to explain why the Lord says he has come with a sword and why the author of the Letter to Hebrews insists, "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

~Very Rev. Robert Barron

How can we offer comfort to others who are suffering?

Some people think that to be strong and manly you must be tough...perhaps "to toughen someone else up who is struggling with a trial that they don't know how to handle themselves." 

 They cannot possibly offer a kind and loving, empathetic word to someone who just needs to hear a comfortable word of encouragement. That's too bad ...because they are missing a chance to help someone else to see what they can't see on their own, and through their own pain: 

 
...Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.....

Oh!  and YES, of course we should turn to our Lord in times of trial, trouble, and grieving because, YES!!---He is the only one to help in times like this.  But those who we love, and love us, or those who just know us can offer comfort and encouragement and loving kindness instead of more heartache and sadness.


 

Meditation--Not Our Talents

Let us ever bear in mind...that we in this place are only then really strong when we are more than we seem to be.  It is not our attainments or our talents, it is not philosophy or science, letters or arts which will make us dear to God.  It is not secular favor, or civil position, which can make us worthy of the attention and the interest of the true Christian.  A great university is a great power, and can do great things; but unless it be something more than human, it is but foolishness and vanity in the sight and in comparison of the little ones of Christ.  It is really dead, though it seems to live, unless it be grafted upon the True Vine, and is partaker of the secret supernatural life which circulates through the undecaying branches.

"Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." Psalm 127:1

Idle is our labor, worthless is our toil, ashes is our fruit, corruption is our reward, unless we begin the foundation of this great undertaking in faith and in prayer, and sanctify it by purity of life.

John Henry Newman

Meditation~Carrying Our Cross

Christ intends no man ever to carry the cross alone.  We cannot remind ourselves too often that our life in the Risen Christ is an interchange between us of his love.  In the power of his love in ourselves, we give to him in our neighbor.

There is nothing Christ asked for more urgently in his earthly life than sympathy, nothing he asks for more often and receives less often in those in whom his Passion is lived today in its deepest humiliations and derelictions.

There are too many "commonsense Christians" afraid to spend themselves on anyone from whom they do not get visible results.  They are ready with hard work for reform, they pour out good advice, they are proud to be realists who repudiate everything that seems to them to be impractical, including the poetry of Christ, but they have no use for those baffling human creatures who won't--or can't--play the game by their rules.  These "realists" refuse to see that there are problems which cannot be solved, griefs which cannot be healed, conditions which cannot be cured.  They are impatient with the suffering they cannot end; unable to accept its reality, they wash their hands of it, because they cannot, so they think, do anything about it.

But we cannot make an end of Christ's suffering, for as long as the world goes on, the Passion of Christ will go on in his members; and he will ask, not for his suffering to be mitigated, but for sympathy.  In Gethsemane Christ tried to awaken his Apostles, not because they could take away his agony, but because they could give him their compassion.

Meditation~Poverty

Poverty is born from the discovery that I belong to Another; I exist because I am loved in an individual way by Another:  My being is from first to last totally relative to Him, though not without the mystery of my freedom.

If I am the work of Another, nothing is mine, because everything is given to me by Him.  At the same time, however--here is the paradox--everything is mine because I have been given to know the purpose for which it exists, a purpose which Jesus revealed at the end of his life:

....That they might know you, Oh Father, and him whom you have sent (John 17:3)

It has been given to me, then, to know the great reason why God made the world.  But I have been also asked to live out every relationship and use everything while keeping this reason in mind.  This apparent paradox is the locus of the thrilling and fascinating secret of poverty.

Everything has been put into my hands for a positive purpose.  To live in the awareness of this fact means to live poverty.  Poverty, then, is not something that grinds man down, but something that lifts him up.  His relations with things acquire a lightness and a freedom that are otherwise unimaginable.  Poverty is the beginning of those "new heavens and new earth" of which Saint Peter speaks ( 2 Peter 3:13), the beginning of a truly human world.

Poverty cannot exist unless it is fed by hope, that is to say, by the certainty that we have been given what really counts in life and that no one can take it away from us.  Everything else is accessory and functional: whether you have a hundred books or one book, a hundred pieces of furniture or one, is not what is important.  The decisive thing is what we need in order to participate in the kingdom of God and to spread it in the world.  The point is not that everything else is no longer valuable.  It is just that its usefulness is measured in function of this goal.

So you see that poverty is freedom from things, the awareness that it is God who fulfills our desires. If I place the hope of my fulfillment in possessing a certain thing, I am no longer hoping in Christ, but in that thing.  If however, I hope in Christ who gives me that thing, then I am free of it.
~Bishop Massimo Camisasca, Diocese of Reggio Emilia-Guastalla, Italy.  Fra. Saint Charles Borromeo.

Western Wildflowers, late summer, early fall

I arrived and began acclimating to this altitude, and decided to pay close attention to valley wildflowers left over from a summer of bloom and drought-- classic in this valley.

Alpine wildflowers are so different, but each day I noticed more and more examples...some in full bloom and some with seed pods, past their prime and waiting for the first snow to come...

Beautiful blue-gray sagebrush that, after a rain, perfumes the valley with the aroma of wild sage; heady and pungent and distinctive.  not blooming but the fine seed heads are wispy and blow in the breeze.....

past its prime, but seed heads are beautiful...

 the seedheads are the beauty of what is left!...

tiny white starflowers...so delicate...in more ways than one way!

the remains after a cold night, just as delicate and beautiful as when it was in bloom.

on the West Bank of the Snake River, closer to our cabin and away from the arid valley we found more lush flowers, but still the same in many ways...tiny, delicate,

the classic nodding heads of the thistle plant....tough yet beautiful!  All of the plants in this high arid plains, with vast extremes in climate, struggle and succeed in their own beauty!

On another day we entered the lake area forest, another story,

Here we were warned of a recent attack on people in this beautiful forest by a calm and quiet lake

armed with bear spray and wearing our "bear bells" we walked through the deep forest in quiet and peace....

it was stormy and moody this day, but beautiful....

and the threatening grey skies gave way to blue skies and quickly moving, heavy white clouds.
The change of seasons has begun!

but the treasure lay deep in the woods on this day....luxurious and green, moist and rich.....

tiny jewels deep in the forest...

this is where my heart resides,  richly blessed and filled with the presence of God.

Living and Learning, Past Present and Future...

Living here...

I once had the greatest impatience for folks who came to this valley and didn't understand what this was all about here, on MY terms. I was filled with my own busy-ness and impatient with what I viewed as laziness and ignorance.  After all, I understood! So many people get off the plane, and play a match of tennis and wind up with a splitting headache that doesn't go away for the entire stay...

The climate here is tough, and the "air is thin" which is shorthand for the altitude makes for a dearth of oxygen for those who aren't acclimated.  Breathing is a basic need...here you have to try harder!  Seasonal activities are cold-weather-- October though May. It can snow in August in the high country.  My worst case of frostbite came at the end of August in Box Canyon; both of my feet were severely frostbitten...so badly injured that I could barely walk. My uncle Louis demanded to know why I was hobbling around the cabin after a  summer season on trips up high in the mountains.  I took my boots and socks  off so he could see my feet, and revealed the grayish white of the frostbite that had occurred weeks earlier. He nearly fell over in shock; incredulous that I would have waited so long!!  My feet recovered, thanks be to God!,  but I am left with a particular sensitivity to cold and a vulnerability to frostbite in the future.

I love it here.  There is no other place in the world I would rather be.  My heart and my very soul are here.  The best times are here, the most Love is here, the best memories from the past and present are here.  I can still go to the location of the cabins at the base of the Teton Range, directly at the base the Grand Teton mountain.  The property was sold to the government years ago and is a part of the National park now.  It was painful back then to see it sold, but now it is a good thing it was.  It isn't private property today, and I can go back and find the remnants of the driveway laid of river rock... back to the cabin foundations, which still stand among the cottonwood trees alongside Cottonwood Creek.  I can sit and listen to the soft flowing murmur of the creek and remember my father and grandfather and uncles stepping off the front porch to fish the waters ....coming back to the cabin with supper to be prepared and cooked over a log fire.  Everything was so simple then.

Last year, Jim brought me back to this valley and we knew that I was very seriously ill.  As we drove into the valley I wept at the thought that this might be the last time I would come back.  The tumor that had been found was taking all of my strength, my kidney function was impaired, and the pain was overwhelming, My right side was deadened and weakened from the effect of the tumor on my nerves and muscles.  Now I was humbled, and I learned some very tough lessons.  Last year, I experienced a dearth of oxygen.  I was unable to hike any of the trails I normally hike without effort, and so Jim took me out to the valley to walk the valley bike paths.  The bike paths are paved and flat with just a little bit of rise and fall.  I could not walk 100 yards on the bike paths without experiencing excruciating pain and low oxygen levels. I tried to fish the Firehole River, as we always do each year, up in Yellowstone.  I pulled on my waders and insisted on wading out into the river, only to find that because I couldn't feel my right side or lift my right leg, I was unable to get back to the riverbank on my own! 

God has always taught me lessons that I have needed to learn and He hasn't always taken the easy road to teach me.  But one thing is sure....The Lord has always been there for me, no matter how difficult, no matter how painful, no matter how frightening or impossible. When I have found myself at the most hopeless point, I can see how He has been there for me, how He has released me, how He has healed me, how He has provided the solutions and the way, the Path, to follow. He has humbled me again and again; and on occasion He has held up a great big mirror for me to look into, to see the answer that was there all along!

Jim brought me back here to this valley this year.  I am healing still, and almost whole again.  Surgery and rehabilitation have put me back together. The Lord has provided his healing hand through prayers from so many wonderful people who helped me through this ordeal. But there are lessons that I must remember. We have been here a week, and for the first 4 days oxygen levels were lower than average.  I had to take the time....the time that I criticized for others...to build my oxygen levels over time.  The first day we walked the flats 2 miles.  The second day 2.5 miles. The third day 4.5 miles on a trail up the mountain I had not been able to hike for 2 years!  The next accomplishment was a 10 mile bike hike....and I am gaining speed and endurance.  I have gained much of what I lost, and learned the lessons I needed to learn at the same time. Still,  I have a long way to go!

What about the future?  For Jim and for me, a five-year plan to relocate, ... is not a done deal. I found job opportunities here and was tempted, but now is not the time. Jim loves it here... but not as much as I do and not enough to throw everything away. There is a church family here, and a place to live, and so much work to do. How will we accomplish all that we need to make the dream reality?  Only God knows the way, and we leave it in His hands. It's one of the things I have learned, kneeling at His feet where I belong.

Sunday~Worship, and "Home"

In my childhood, with my grandmother, we often worshiped in this little chapel in the town of Moose, Wyo.  while my grandfather, my father and uncles would go to fish or hunt on Sunday mornings.  The men would also hunt and fish on almost every other morning too, leaving before it was light and returning in time for supper.  This little chapel, the Chapel of the Transfiguration, holds many blessed memories of the times in this valley.

Inside it is tiny, with handhewn pews of carved pine and a simple cross in front of the window over the altar, framing the mountains beyond.  The chapel is part of the Episcopal Church, and always has been a mission of St. John's Episcopal Church in the town of Jackson. It was built in 1925 and is the same today as I remember it as a little girl.  I can recall the times with my grandmother as we would prepare for service and drive from the cabin to the chapel, always sitting in the second pew  on the left, together. 
Simple wonderful times of worship in this place.

Things change, and we have become involved in another chapel South of the town of Jackson.  When we come back to the valley, I look forward to returning to worship in this church with these
wonderful folks.  The Chapel at River Crossing...

It is not part of the Episcopal Church, and it also not an Anglican Church.  In the beginning, Anglican liturgy was used for the early service and the second service was very contemporary, with Worship and Praise.  But that has changed once again, and their services are non-liturgical in style.  We begin with Worship and Praise, we greet one another at the Peace.  The sermon follows with scriptural teaching, and ends with the breaking of the bread and communion together.  What I have noticed is this:

the church is more modern and so much larger. But  beyond the altar which sits at the base of the  stairs made of huge pine logs, the cross is imposed on the lectern. Simple candles are lit, and huge pine logs frame the window. Outside is the scene of the mountain range and the beauty of the surrounding valley, just like at the Chapel in Moose.

We arrived late on Saturday night and were up and out very late that night.  But I could barely sleep anticipating our return to this church family.  Service was to begin at 8:45, and we were up at 6:30 to be there on time.  Walking in, I felt like I was coming home; it felt like we had not been away long at all.  It was so familiar and so good to be there.  The service started at nine, and I thought maybe the Pastor of our church would not be there.  Last year, his son-in-law Jason led the service.  After a long summer of worship, our Pastor Mike Atkins and his wife Patty were taking some time away.  This summer, the church had it's first theatre production, designed to draw visitors as outreach to the community.  I knew it was a busy season.  And I was prepared to miss our Pastor again this year.  He was nowhere in sight, and as we began to worship, Jason was leading worship and praise with the band.  And then I noticed that somehow Pastor Mike had slipped into his seat in the front row. Both Jim and I felt a Peace about this time in our church.  We truly had come "home" on this Sunday.

This is the church where I accepted God's will in my life, the Chapel at River Crossing.  Pastor Mike led deliverance that first year, and he called all of those members up to the altar who were prepared to surrender their own will to God.  I will never forget it, because I had been so opposed to the altar call.
I was looking for something back then, and Mike knew how to reach me.  And as I sat in my seat and listened to Mike Atkins speak about surrendering your own will, and calling God into your life, to be the all in all...I could not stop myself from approaching the altar, and kneeling before God, and accepting God's will as my own. What a great night that was.
And What a change that night has made in my life!

It was a great Sunday this past Sunday.  It was a blessing to see everyone again, to hear Mike's teaching, to worship with this wonderful congregation.  It felt like home.  It felt right.

As you leave the church, this message is carved above the entryway:  it means alot to see this!

HOME, where I DO belong. We will have several more Sundays with this church family.
We went off to town for breakfast after service, and met some folks in the parking lot who were also looking for Mike Atkins.  They said they were "Lost" and could we help them?"
We sure could.....they weren't lost at all.  They had found The Chapel at River Crossing, Pastor Mike Atkins, and his congregation.  Home at Last...Amen!

Denver to Jackson

Preparing to leave Denver on Saturday,  we weren't sure which route we could take.
We talked about backtracking east, turning north and catching I80 east of Cheyenne.  This route would add several hours to the trip to Jackson Hole Saturday morning.  We were trying to have more
hours with family in Denver, and we didn't want to get into Jackson Hole very late.

 Mother nature was having her way with the Denver environment north of the city all the way to the Wyoming state line.  Interstate 25 was closed at Longmont,  Secondary roads were under water.  We listened to terrible Stories of folks stranded, missing, dead; vehicles driving on seemingly solid roadways, and falling through into washed-out holes.

This was a hundred-year flood.  Storms passing over the mountains on the front range dump massive inches of rain on the dry river beds, creeks, rivers, reservoirs and streams high in the mountains.  The water begins to fill these dry river beds, creeks, rivers, reservoirs and streams and begins running down the slopes of the mountains, through the towns where folks have settled in large and small communities.  Everyone wants to live by a beautiful rushing river!!  The beauty and the calm are soothing.

The reservoirs serving the town's water needs fill and the dams burst, sending the water fast downstream-- flooding the towns along the route.  It can be a terrible disaster, and it has been an awful time in Denver.

Jim's brother Tom tells us  there is no problem 30 miles to the west over the mountains..  The storms are passing over the front range.  I70West is the best route to take.  Once past the front range, the way is clear.  He is going to his cabin in Frasier Colorado on Saturday to deal with the damage from a porcupine chewing through the side of his cabin, and the mess left by this visitor!

In the morning we decide to try heading North to see if the roads are open but we quickly learn that even more roads are closed, Route 76 East is closed, and so we head West on I70 and drive through the beautiful mountains and ski areas of the Colorado mountains.  At Silverthorne Colorado, we turn into the mountains and begin the route that takes us up toward the Wyoming state line.

From Silverthorne we wind up through the mountains, headed toward Steamboat Springs and the famed ski resort, memories from my days of skiing run through my mind.  I remember Steamboat from many years ago. We descend Rabbit Ears Pass into the town of Steamboat Springs

  The area is just as beautiful, but built up to be a place that is much larger than it once was.  Yet still, Steamboat remains a Western town with some of the best skiing in the Western United States and some pretty great nightlife in the winter, as I recall...SMILE...

From Steamboat Springs we continue through the towns of Milner and Hayden, to Craig Colorado... passing through small towns with huge power plants, quaint western towns with one church for the entire community and one gas station, one grocery, one doctor's office for miles.

At Craig, we turn North to head toward Rawlins, Wyoming and Interstate 80.

All along the route, we have had sunshine, but as we enter the desert areas of Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming we begin to see the storms build, all the time staying just behind or aside us.  Rain shafts appear to the West of the route, but we pass through with only a few drops on the windshield.

We enter an increasingly desolate area of haunting beauty and quiet, mile after mile of no sign of community, the occasional hawk or common crow flying overhead, oil rigs dotting the landscape

As a little girl, I remember driving through the desolation of the southern portion of the state of Wyoming with my father and thinking how ugly and awful it was; I remember feeling almost a sense of shame of this being the state that I loved so much.  I was always so anxious to just get through it and head North to the beauty of the mountains...

But this trip, I had new eyes and new appreciation for the hauntingly beautiful quiet and openness of this wide open place that almost no one calls home

I felt a new sense of appreciation and love for this landscape.  Shortly we began to notice herds of antelope, small herds of cattle, and solitary antelope off to the side of the highway

 their white markings caught our attention as we drove and we began to see more and more of them, lying down in the deep grasses and  sagebrush prairies

And we came out onto I 80 at an exit that had nothing but a fireworks stand, and headed West.  We Stopped for lunch at a Subway in a truck stop in the middle of nowhere, and then got back on the road

 we had skirted storms all the way up from Denver, but now more thunderheads and swirling clouds were laid out in front of us as we neared our exit at Rock Springs Wyoming. As a young girl, I always measured my distance and my time... and the build up of my excitement for reaching Jackson came, when I exited  Interstate 80 at Rock Springs. I could settle back into my driver's seat after passing Rock Springs and anticipate the beauty and the peace of Jackson Hole....
Out ahead of us was what looked like a tremendous and dangerous storm.  But once again, we steered around it, God moved this storm just to the North of the Interstate and we exited in sunshine at Rock Springs and began our northern route. We drove through the little towns of Eden, Farson, and Boulder ... arriving in Pinedale and then finally passing into the increasing beauty of the drive into Hoback Junction just South of Jackson, where my heart resides. The river ran beside the road for miles; rushing water, and calm stretches.

The sun was setting quickly, the sky turning an intense golden over the southern portion of the mountain range.  We drove past our church, The Chapel at River Crossing, and then entered town.  Jim decided that I needed to go immediately to the valley.  The sun was setting quickly, but we drove through town and began our ascent into the valley, past the elk refuge.  Here the road ascends gradually at the base of the butte on the left side of the road.....  Past the refuge and the ponds of the trumpeter swan haven in winter.  Slowly slowly... and suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, rises the Teton mountain range;  from the valley floor the mountains rise into view.  But today, above 8000 feet, the mountains were obscured by clouds this night.  Still, they were in front of us and I was there in the valley  I love so much once again.

As dusk began to increase we drove into the little town of Moose WY, populated only by the Ranger headquarters, Ranger living area, the tiny Chapel of the Transfiguration from my childhood days here. We turned left onto the Moose-Wilson Road to head to the cabin.  The road rises again suddenly from the valley floor to the next level high into the mountains.

Almost immediately we came into what is affectionately referred to here as an "ani-jam"  An ani-jam refers to any congregation of vehicles and their people which are stopped to view wild animals along any road in the area.  Vehicles were stopped...one with it's Cadillac back-end jutting into the roadway, forcing all others to veer onto the sagebrush to get around.  Folks with huge cameras on tripods lined the roadway, and I scanned the hillside to see what...in this area usually moose or bear...was attracting all this attention.  Morning hours and dusk are the most active times for wild animals.  Bear are in  hyperphagia to prepare for hibernation.....

Soon, as we traveled high along the narrow mountain road to the cabin, we learned what all the excitement was about....

We came upon another group of 30 or more people along the left side of the road at the location of the Beaver ponds.  Across the narrow road are stands of tall Aspen trees at the base of a high sagebrush-covered hill. The Aspens are just beginning to turn gold with the coming of fall.

In front of the people stood a young, tall, blond, pony-tailed female ranger, arms outstretched; standing tall and silently in a protective stance of these people and their cameras. Across the narrow road and in the aspens, no more than five feet from the car....I could have reached out and touched...a beautiful, amazingly large Bear.  He was agitated by all of these people out of their cars with their cameras, no more than 30 feet away from him.  The rule here is 100 yards from bears and moose, and here these people were...out of their vehicles and standing protected only by this poor ranger who, as Jim said, was doing the best job she could do until help could arrive in the form of more rangers and equipment to deal with this increasingly dangerous situation.

As I said, the bear was clearly upset with his predicament.  The beaver ponds contain berries and nourishment for the bears who consume more than 20,000 calories per day to prepare for winter.  This was the bear's suppertime, dusk in the mountains at the beaver pond.  His upset was being demonstrated by his circling in place, around and around and around where he stood.... Classic frustation stance for a bear.  Ranger vehicles were in sight, descending from the Wilson station, and ascending from the Moose station to give aid to the ranger who was risking her life for the STUPID people who were out of their cars, 30 feet across the road from this huge bear, at the height of hyperphagia!  We placed our Tahoe vehicle between the crowd, the ranger and the bear as the other rangers began to pull up.  If I had put my window down, I could have patted the bear on the head, ALMOST. ... Not quite.  He was absolutely the most beautiful bear...in his own habitat, facing stupid humans who just want a pic of the bear! .... At the risk of their lives, especially in this situation.

We drove on, finally, and left the rangers to deal with the danger and frustration.  We unloaded at the cabin and headed into town for supper and groceries.  Darkness was complete....no lights except headlights make it very dark.  Lightning flashed over the mountains.  A steady stream of headlights was coming up the road from what was the ani-jam.  The rangers had succeeded in convincing the people of what was the right-minded thing to do.  And darkness took away the opportunity for pictures!  Amen!  Thank you, Lord.  "Home" at last.