The Graden of Saint-Paul Hospital

The painting above is a Van Gogh.I have found a great website with all his works and I print the ones that I like and put them in a binder;looking at them always lifts my spirits.My daughter says,"That's what art is supposed to do,Mom." Well, I guess so.

I wasn't exposed to much art growing up and it is a pleasure to have the time now to see what I missed.I like to sit with a painting from the website and let it tell me a story.While I write the story,it usually moves me in some way.And it reveals things that are just below the surface of my mind that need to be released.It's a mysterious process.

I just love the one above,it is telling a story that I just need to write.The title of the painting is "The Garden of St-Paul Hospital".This is where Van Gogh was to spend time at the end of his life when his mind was breaking.How could someone whose colors are so alive, have been so unhinged?

A consensus has formed that Van Goh was proably bi-polar and that a certain medicine he took to control seizures also caused yellow spots to appear before his eyes.Perhaps the wonderful yellow that he recreated in his paintings.

It is tragic that he left us by his own hand.What other wonders did he have drifting around inside his soul that he could have shared? Maybe the colors and forms of his work,the beauty of it, was passed to another artist, and the wonder found its way into the world at a table in a small hut in Peru.

I like to imagine Vincent on this bench, under those crooked, strange trees.Perhaps a warm June breeze touches his face and for a moment he is at peace.

The hospital and ,I assume ,the garden are still there and I want very much to go and sit in the quiet and write.

who awaits our rain ?

Every other month, I meet with five friends and we pray and seek His leadings.We met last week and this word was given to me to speak aloud;"Encourage someone;it is a small thing, but it matters."

This has been buzzing around in my head for days now."Encouragement".'My mind drifts back to my childhood and how bereft it was of anything like that.My sister and I were expected to get good grades,be home on time, do the dishes etc.The "atta boys" and the "warm fuzzies" were padlocked in a steel trunk in the basement.Interest in my self esteem was neither high nor low but non-existent.Maybe it was the Depression or the trip in steerage from Scotland or the poverty that made it so hard for anyone in my family to praise or express positive feelings.But, there was a day that I remember.

A girl had moved in down the street when I was around ten or eleven.I can neither see her face nor remember her name.She must have been only visiting because she was gone after a short while.We got to know each other and one warm summer evening , we were chatting on the sidewalk on Bedford Avenue,when she said, "You know what,I like you".What?

I was wearing brown penny loafers and crew socks that day.I know because I was staring at them after she spoke.I had neither the facility nor the words to answer her.This was rain falling on a parched desert.As I walked home at dusk ,I believe that her words slowly seeped into my psyche on the plus side of the ledger.I wish I knew her name.

For Lent, I am going to work on this leading .Between now and then, I am going to pray that I will recognize opportunties to encourage.And now ,I would like to ask
you to tell me when you have received encouragement and what the result has been?

Rosemary

Spinning,twirling ,what great fun for the girls of my youth.Riding our English Racers with the chains that always fell off and singing with the joy of summer and the breeze in our hair.We knew how to squander and plumb the depths of warm weather.We were sexless and thus willing to try anything; baseball,kick ball and daring jumps across open spaces in houses under construction.We'd pick up snails with none of the phony squealing of girls.We wanted to look and to know and we did.

Later, we would learn to be coy and tamp down our intelligence and fore swear things that weren't feminine.But for now, we swirl and get dizzy and laugh and fall down.I recall competing in baseball and running.We wanted to be the best and be strong and show off.The best compliments came from the boys ,"Good hit". And we would beam.We traded baseball cards and marbles and had treasures we hung onto well after we would grow up.

My best pal in all of this was Rosemary.We loved the same things, especially the outdoors.When the snow and cold finally left,we would burst outside in the first shorts of summer and hail each other like ecstatic escapees.

She was also my companion for the first weeks of Lent when, in short uniforms,and bundled to the teeth, we would meet on the corner before school and walk the bone chilling blocks to church for morning Mass.It was dark and very early in the morning.We never made the whole six weeks but I like to think that those days we did get up early to make this sacrifice did not go unnoticed and that our souls were stretched by this.

Rosemary forgave me last summer when I confessed that the time we went swimming in our early twenties and she was struggling to get to shore at the beach,I couldn't have saved her.I had fought to get in myself and feared I was drowning and even though I was scared silly for her,I was paralyzed at the thought of going out to get her.

And she stood with me at my sister's gravesite and prayed and comforted me with her hand and her heart.

What a pleasure it was to see Rosemary walking up the mountain road last summer ,enjoying again the outdoors,and knowing that this precious friend of youth is here ,in my life,still.

more of the Light

Last night, while I was reading in bed,two friends came to the door.I have known Greg and Karen for at least 30 years.They came holding a beautiful rose and a note from our church .They came because they are part of the ministry of our church that brings a rose at Christmas to those who have lost a family member during the year.

Karen brought a rose in 1996, at this time of year,the year my Mother died.That gesture was so comforting.It said," You are not alone in this sadness.Your church family loves you."That is what I felt.And so Karen has been doing this for at least 14 years.

Last night, I could see the fatigue in her eyes as she had just come home from a family funeral in Wisconsin and has yet to finish her Christmas chores and still she came.Again.This is the Body of Christ.This is the Light that came that the darkness shall never overcome.

I wish that my sister, who loved beauty ,could see this rose and know that she is remembered by me, her family and strangers she never knew.

the light of Christ

During Advent, we await the light that will break through the deep darkness, which is where we live.This must be why we put lights on our houses.The dark of winter is too much for us.We,by our baptism, are the people of light.And we wait.

The Advent readings from Isaiah are just so beautiful;"Rise up in splendor!Your light has come,the glory of the Lord shines upon you."

I have felt that light shining on me this Advent.A very dear friend ,who I met in Charleston in 2006, sent a Christmas card and in it, Sylvia wrote that on December 13,she dedicated her meditation time to my sister who passed away last year on that date.I felt the warmth of her light and her remembering.

On December 5th, I received an unexpected gift from a dear former neighbor who has moved to Florida.She had a cuckoo clock sent to me from Germany.She is originally from there.She also enclosed a beautiful story of her life after the war that brought me to tears.We share our lives and faith.I am blessed by our friendship.When the bird sings and the music plays,I smile.

After church today, I ran into a woman who was in the confirmation class that I taught 22 years ago.We had such a good visit and she said,"Let's do lunch".How nice after all these years.I believe that if we look for the Light, we will find it.It's all around us just waiting to be seen and savored.I don't have to wait for December 25th, It's here in our midst.

Prayer

Prayer

The longest night,the deep despair,
The hopeless eyes,dried of tears.
Sin never seen or examined.
All wrought of "me", "mine" and "now".

Sparkle it,cleanse it,lift it high.
It is this moment that matters,this moment,
When only Your Name is here.
Over and over,"Jesus"; save, cleanse, heal and use
this bone and skin to Your glory.
S.G.

windows

The red brick house where I lived as a child was built in 1940.The winters in New York are as cold as the ones in Michigan and the windows in our house were small and ill placed.Small, to contain the heat in the bitter cold and God knows why there was no cross ventilation in the steamy summer.There was no such thing as bay windows or sliding glass doors or french doors.No one had them.So this was a tight,gloomy ship that we sailed on.

I could not live in that house now.The house we have here in Georgia has windows everywhere and what was missing when we moved in has been added.A large window over the tub, another by the bathroom door and a third in this room which looks over the back yard.Everywhere that I turn, I can see trees.

I have always had this thing for windows.Perhaps it is from the Irish gene pool.Until 1880, the Irish were taxed by the number and size of the windows in the houses they owned.There was also a tax on the size ,height and number of doors.Of course, the poorer peasants had to limit the number and size of their windows and doors or they couldn't pay their taxes.Most of the cabins where they lived were smoky and dark.The poor called this policy "daylight robbery".My ancestors who arrived in the U.S.in
1848 ,were listed on the ship's log as farmers so I am sure that they fit the category described.

One politician in 1819, in an attempt to abolish it, described the health issues that were injurious to the poor such as the spread of typhus.Sadly, the ancestor that left Cork in 1848,died in New York City in 1853 of that disease.

Anyway, windows draw me and I found a beautiful,inspiring one while in N.C.It is a photo of an old chapel window found in Iona,Scotland.I would like to sit by this window and feel the peace of it.