Days gone by......

I remember as a student at a Christian boarding school waking up on leisurely Saturday mornings to the newly birthed, clean fresh morning with the birds starting to and proceeding to welcome the new day flittering about and greeting the beginning of a new day with their musical chirps and singing. As I headed out from my dorm, the crisp, cool morning air did it's job in waking me up from a warm slumber, but in a welcoming, let me just give you a gentle jolt way. How I miss those mornings, How I miss being a high school student and only having to worry about that day's events, which were usually getting some breakfast, usually pancakes with sorghum, getting back to the dorm and getting to work on time. Funny how those responsibilities seemed big enough for me at the time, And now those tasks seem so small, trivial, and trite compared to the life that I have now with a mortgage, two rescues ( my "kids" ) who constantly need me, working daily on my 21+ relationship with my husband and the ever present "What the hell am I going to do with my life"? question (tongue in cheek, of course) ;-p

I remember my best friend, Chuck, who loved working at the sorghum mill proudly enjoying dispensing the light "maple syrup of the Deep South" to the groggy, half asleep students in the chow line. He, wearing his usual dark denim overalls. You could tell he was half asleep himself because during the breakfast ritual of serving others some of his beloved "craft", only one strap of his overalls was attached to the rest of his country jumpsuit. I remember as the morning continued, and folks were finishing up their last swallows of food, and the serving was done, the silver worn sorghum syrup pot had completed it's use for day and was taken away from the serving line to be washed and put away, that Chuck would then attach the 2nd and final dark blue strap of his denim overalls. He had completed his job at the dining hall and had now finished getting dressed and was now ready to head out to work at the sorghum mill on that day.

I remember that Nature must have been at it's finest there because the sounds of Nature were so prevalent there, a place where I don't ever
recall a helicopter of plane ever flying overhead. I remember that Nature was the dominant sound source there, heck, I think that the sounds and beauty of Nature were the dominant everything there EXCEPT for the unmistakable fact that GOD was everywhere there.... I
learned so much about Him there, and the greatest and best thing that I gleaned from being a student there to finish my schooling was the planting of eternal scriptures into my heart and soul. Scripture that I still hold unto, sometimes with the gentleness of holding a child's hand to the intense GRIP of a rock climber that is holding onto his rope like the safety of his whole body depended on it.

What this blogger is grateful for is that we can always take a mini-vacation. We can take some time to "check-out" of our current day to day frazzles long enough to go back in time, go back to a peaceful or fun memory in our mind and enjoy it again, kind of like being there again. I savor that ability, and I cherish those moments.

Thank you, God, for that unspeakable gift. Thanks, Chuck for being such an awesome presence in my life back then, and Thank you, Linda Spencer, for teaching me Scripture and simple music being put to Scripture to teach me to create my own " handle on life"