A Meandering Mind

Morning comes, a new day dawns

My spirit awakes and yet still yawns

Slowly my mind tries to kick in

But, instead,  it goes off meandering. (hal)

This blog was first published on December 26, 2017.  Another very similar one, "My Meandering Mind," was written two years later.  And still my mind meanders (following a winding course, like a stream).  Life is like a stream winding its course from mountain top to valley and eventually life, like every stream, flows into some ocean.  

Merry Christmas on this Second Day of Christmas to all who should happen to read this blog and a very Happy Birthday to our youngest son, Luke.  So many say Luke was born “the day after Christmas” which sounds so anti-climatic and piddling.  And it just isn’t so!  There is nothing anti-climactic or piddling about Luke in his birth or in the journey he has traveled since.  Luke was born on the Second Day of Christmas!  Doesn’t that sound a whole lot better?  I think so.

My aging mind wanders back and forth, from here to there, from there to here,  from then to now, and from now to then, giving me great enjoyment in these morning hours.  I do not see this as a deficit as some of you may think it might be.  To the contrary, this wandering mind is a tremendous bonus.  The gift of a meandering mind takes me everywhere—from childhood memories, to teenage rebellions, to educational pursuits, to the birth of our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and even imagines the unknown  future.  I wouldn’t trade it in for anything!  For example, I am thinking right now of a LP album purchased many years ago called “Love Is A Season,”  by Edye Gorme, one of my favorite singers back then.  In the album she sings, “Love is a season within the heart, we never know when it will come and go.  Love is no season on some calendar chart, there is no place for it, you simply wait for it…”  Now I’m trying to figure out why this album came to my mind—and it is simply this—Christmas is a season within the heart, it is no season on some calendar chart, you simply wait for it…” So, our son Luke was born on the Second Day of Christmas, not some day “after” a date on some calendar chart, for Christmas (like love) is a season within the heart.

Oh, this meandering mind of mine. Now it seems to insist on checking out Edye Gorme.  I discover she was born in 1928 as Edith Garmezano in New York City to Jewish immigrants.  Her father was from Sicily and her mother from Turkey.  Thank goodness there were no bans or walls preventing her parents from coming to this land, for then I would have missed, and the world would have missed the lovely voice of Edye Gorme, singing “Love is a season within the heart…Love is no season on some calendar chart…”

Merry Christmas on this Second Day of Christmas and to our son, Luke, a very Happy Birthday!

Luke, Kim, Ethan and Eleni at Christmastime.
They came in spirit to our house on Christmas Eve,
all the way from Flagstaff, and sang carols to us.
What a gift that was for us!

A Christmas Card for You

 

Dear Facebook Family and Friends at Christmastime,

Where can we find, in this moment of time, a message that will give us hope and encouragement in the midst of a pandemic?Can the Christmas message breakthrough in spite of our fears, our struggles, and yes, even our despair? Cherie and I find such a message  in the third stanza of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear.”  The words give us hope and encouragement in the midst of the Coronavirus, Cherie’s diagnosis of cancer, and all the fears, struggles, and despair that we experience along our way.

“And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose

forms are bending low, Who toil along the

climbing way with painful steps and slow,

look now!  For glad and golden hours come

swiftly on the wing.  O rest beside the weary

road, and hear the angels sing.”

Howard Thurman wrote, “Despite all of the crassness of life, despite all of the hardness of life, despite all of the harsh discords of life, life is saved by the singing of angels.” Look now! Stop now! Listen now! Can you hear the singing?  “O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!”

The angel song is somewhat muted in the midst of life’s crushing load, our toil along the climbing way, and our slow and painful steps, but ....

    “Still through the cloven skies they come with peaceful wings unfurled, 

      and still their heavenly music floats o’er all the weary world; 

      above its sad and lowly plains, they bend on hovering wing, 

      and ever over its Babel sounds the blessed angels sing.”

The angels are singing now.  Their message:  Love is at the heart of things—all things—at all times.

Merry Christmas