Momentarily

With stops and flow the morning goes
A swirl of movement and of time

I grasp and slipping it declines
To stay and give me anything
Except the feeling I should have done
Much more and listened to the time
Which leaving momentarily
Renews itself, brief clarity

Right now I have; no second more
I sweat to wonder in its glare
Still moving day creeps through to night
Removing any chance of light

With stops and flow the evening goes
Slowing movement, never time

Silver and Gold

I spent the other weekend with an old friend. We talked about memories we'd had together and exchanged stories about how our kids were doing. We shared a meal and one of our favorite pastimes, going to a live play. We discussed everything from the weather to the afterlife. We encouraged each others creative interests and learned a few new things from each other. We discovered that our friendship was the kind that could pick up right where it had left off, and feel as good as new. It was a timeless memory. We promised, and planned to meet again! Even though this friend no longer lives close, I know we will!

I was invited to a library fundraiser the other day. The mayor hosted it, and my hubby played the  piano for the evening. I did the usual search for familiar faces, and not wanting to dog the mayor and his wife, I sat down by myself since I didn't recognize anyone. (Ever the introvert!)
A few minutes later a couple bounced over to my table and asked, "Are you alone? May we join you?" Two more lovely people could not have joined me! They were an educator and a nurse, knew more than five languages between them, and had been to every continent in the world. And the stories! I feel as if I took a trip around the world with them! The husband had been in the service, and they had met while he was in New York, and she was on her way to Hong Kong.Their community service work for Modesto with the Sister cities organization was impressive, and I found we even had a mutual friend or two in the arts.

Over one hundred bottles of wine were parceled out, a speech was made, delicious food was served, but I had a feast at my table that is timeless. Two new friends!

Make new friends, but keep the old. These are silver, those are gold.
I treasure both!

Front Seat in the Circus

I remember when the word mortgage meant I had achieved a certain level in a really good monopoly game; a coveted and revered card was “turned over”. Then I bought my first real house, and it achieved a weight all its own. The cards indeed have turned.

When my family and I moved to Modesto in 1999, we were warned by a family member who had lived in Modesto through the nineties that there had been a housing bubble that had burst and it could happen again. Given the frenzy of new construction, and the excitement of watching Village 1 go up before our very eyes, it seemed impossible. My daughter, a budding writer, wrote in to our local paper that she was disappointed by the new construction because it disturbed so much animal life and nature. We could hear a pack of coyotes regularly at night, as they made their rounds.  Just the same, when the building began, we loved touring the model homes, and watching the houses and landscaping transform a brown, dry lot into a green suburb teeming with new people. It seemed everyone wanted to live here!

Even more fascinating was watching the value of our home skyrocket, while we did nothing. Well, nothing that is, except take out a couple loans to fix it up. It seemed the right thing to do. In fact, it seemed almost stingy not to. Recently, I read an banking institution’s ad spread from 2006 that promised a low interest rate (which now would be considered highway robbery) and suggested all the things you could do with all that money! Times have changed.

Now, several years later, “underwater” in the dry valley is a household word and empty homes and businesses seem to mock our previous optimism.

Enter, with $18 billion dollars of stimulus money: THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT! (Trumpets sound, drums roll) and $368 million of it is laid aside for our fair county, part of ‘the red zone’, or so I’m told. I just can’t see it for the twin elephants in the room, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. These are government backed entities who hold over half of all mortgages that are locked in what feels like impending doom. I don’t have statistics on how many of these have already been foreclosed on, but I know that if your loan is held by Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae it is exempt from some programs available to others, most notably principle reduction. Why? I keep asking, but can’t get an answer.

All the good news about the extra help for homeowners seems to have sidestepped the obvious recipients, and at least for now, no one seems to notice. Maybe we could learn from the circus. They usually kept the elephants tied up, unless they were performing.

If you’re wondering whether your loan is a Freddie Mac or a Fannie Mae you can go to these sites to find out. http://www.fanniemae.com/loanlookup/ or www.freddiemac.com/mymortgage

(Stats on the amount of stimulus by Amiel L. Wade of Wade Law Group on February 17, 2012)

Politics

We should just start over. From the beginning. Did I hear anyone say "Declaration of Sickofwhatwe'vebecome?"

Review for The Future Door

The Future Door

By Jason Lethcoe

In volume 2 of this Sherlock Holmes knockoff series for kids, Griffin Sharpe is deemed “the world’s most secret detective” and he and his uncle Rupert Snodgrass find themselves traveling through time through the use of a time machine in the form of a teapot invented by the uncle to battle the ever evil and sneaky Professor Moriarty. 

While I enjoyed the definite “Holmes’ flavor of this juvenile literature’s setting, I found myself putting off finishing it after I had gotten into the first few chapters. One problem was that the character’s names seemed misapplied. Rupert, the name of the uncle, seemed more fitting for the younger detective, and Griffin seemed an older name. The passing of twenty-five years in one descriptive chapter dragged my attention down  as well. Despite these obstacles, The Future Door is a nice read for youngsters. Especially Holmes aficionados who may have difficulty trudging through the verbiage of the creator of Sherlock Holmes,  Sir Conan Doyle, who wrote two centuries back, which may present a time travel problem of a different kind.

I received a complimentary copy of The Future Door from Thomas Nelson publishers in return for my honest opinion about the book.

Rolling in the Deep

Adelle is seemingly at the top of her world, mainly due to the success of,  among other hits, "Rolling in the Deep", a song ironically lucky for her, about  failed love.

While I have listened to, and enjoyed my quota of  'Adelle-bytes', the deep that I am currently rolling in has nothing to do with failed love and everything to do with another kind.

In Cowman's  Streams in the Desert  a devotional book first published in 1925, she describes an immersion 'into the deep of God's purposes...until He becomes a bright, dazzling, sweet, fathomless summer sea, in which we bathe and bask and breathe, losing ourselves and our sorrows in the calmness and peace of His everlasting presence."

Frankly, this kind of thing is hardly possible, ironically once again,  without falling into deep waters of one kind or another.

The truth of God's great love and His deep purpose for me has been illuminated by difficult times. May it be true for you if you happen to find yourself 'rolling in the deep'.

Thanks, Adelle. Glory to God.

The Education of Life

I never understood kindness, until I saw it in the presence of ill will.

I never saw generosity, until it replaced selfishness.

I never knew mercy, until I beheld it beside cruelty.

I never felt contentment, until I experienced want.

I never received love, until I became completely unworthy of it. 

It took the opposite of light to illuminate the truth of it.

The education I received came at great cost. It took from me my naivety, my blind faith in humanity, and my youthful ignorance, but gave me much more in return.

There is no light without shadow, without contrast, no dimension. Though we decry a darker side, it enables our soul to open up to the possibility, and the hope of good.