I took some time last night to write in my journal about the first anniversary of our move to our retirement condo and the fifth anniversary of my husband’s retirement. I didn’t really finish reflecting because a neighbor called and invited us over for some fresh-baked peach cobbler. Of course we couldn’t turn that down.
Today while reading Gretchen Rubin’s blog, I followed a link to an excerpt from her upcoming book Happiness at Home. Here is a quote from that excerpt: As poet Robert Southey explained: “Live as long as you may, the first twenty years are the longest half of your life. They appear so while they are passing; they seem to have been so when we look back on them; and they take up more room in our memory than all the years that succeed them.” You can read more about this concept here.
I started thinking about that. Are the memories of my first decades the strongest? It does seem that after 40, things go by in a big blur. But I only have impressions from my pre-school years, not discrete incidents like I did once in school. Perhaps the regularity yet ascent of learning thru the grades plays a part. Each year presented new challenges. When you are a child, you also feel like you have all the time in the world; when you are 60, you see how precious the minutes are because there are fewer left to experience. You have friends that have left this world with its ticking off of time for eternity.
Another idea Gretchen mentioned is that if she got thru the next 3 or 4 months things would slow down. She calls this a delusion. I sure know that feeling, but I actually have had times slow down, though usually with some intentional planning. Without paid employment and children, one can control the flow of time better in retirement.
Several years ago I read The Not So Big Life by Sarah Susanka. She says, “When you transcend the boundaries you constructed from your past and set for your future and live in the NOW, you grow.” Ann Voskamp also wrote a post on her blog once about the only way to slow down time is to live in the now, noticing and giving thanksgiving for the details of the present moment.
I am a planner and like Gretchen, I have to-do lists in my head. I need to just “be” more, to go with the flow of time and be fully in the moment. That is the way to slow down the clock. Not easy to do when you have people expecting meals at certain times, etc. Is that why the first decades seem to have gone by more slowly? Children have few urgent responsibilities. They get caught up in the joy of the moment. A worthy goal for all of us.
Daily lifting life's empty bowl to see what God provides to sustain, nourish, and strengthen His child.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
The God of Redemption
When a horrific event like the massacre in the Aurora theater occurs, the age-old question arises about a loving God allowing such an evil act to take place. I do not know if the perpetrator is psychotic and out of touch with reality or demon-possessed, but Satan delights in the mayhem that took place.
The curtain is drawn back a few feet, and we are reminded of the great battle between the Prince of Darkness and the Eternal God. Some will curse God and lose hope, but some will see the glory of God manifested in lives open to Him. The survivors had a wake-up call about the shortness of life on this planet and that they are not as in control as they thought. God wants people that freely choose to love and worship Him, but to have choice means that poor choices, yes even evil choices, can be made. Satan has sway over this existing world. Not total control, but great influence. Some will carry out his practices of darkness.
Mankind made a mess of things in the Garden of Eden. God did not take away all of the consequences of sin, but He did provide a way to restore and to heal the broken relationship. He gave hope to those willing to accept His provision. God can redeem the evil James Holmes did by healing the broken-hearted and turning lives toward Him. Like Job, we ask why. The response to our question is not an explanation but a reminder of the greatness and goodness of a God who can pick up the pieces and give hope. We can choose whether despair or hope rims our bowls so suddenly full of horror. Which do you choose?
Friday, July 20, 2012
A Place Dear to My Heart
Around 1910 cars were just making their way into Big Bear Valley, California, first coming from the north thru the desert, then east to cross near the dry bed of alkaline Baldwin Lake to the Big Bear Lake south-shore town of Pine Knot. From the south, it was an arduous trip up steep mountain roads such as Clark’s Grade, but people slowly started buying land to build cabins as summer retreats. In 1912, Jim and Fannie Barlow of Rivera had Bill Knickerbocker, keeper of the dam recently completed in 1911, and another man build them a log cabin on their new property south of Metcalf Bay of Big Bear Lake. It was named Home Cottage.
July 2012 my mother and extended family celebrated the 100th anniversary of this event. Fannie Barlow was my grandmother’s aunt. She had taken her namesake niece Fannie into her childless home as a companion and as a way to provide more opportunities for the young woman such as education at Pasadena Polytechnic College. I did not attend this celebration so far from my home in Indiana, but I have wonderful memories of summers spent in Big Bear from toddlerhood thru early teen years.
In 1914, the Barlows added across the way and facing their log cabin a rock and timber ediface which they called Owl’s Nest. This was meant to be a reading room/social room with a stone fireplace. People came to the mountains for the fresh air, and thus slept in canvas tents that sat on a wooden platform between the two buildings. This platform did not exist during my years at least not that I can remember. My grandparents lived in the Home Cottage for the summer, and my family lived in the Owl’s Nest which had been converted to a one-room abode with a stove and an icebox, a double bed, and bunk beds for sleeping. No plumbing. Outhouses and a hand pump on the flat meadowland below the cabins served those needs.
I always just accepted things as they were, never questioning the history of these buildings. I don’t think I had a clue as to their age until a decade ago. I always thought it was “special” that they sat part-way up the mountainside rather than on the meadow like the neighborhood cabins. Now I realize that to clear space for the Owl’s Nest meant blowing up rocks. We had huge slabs of sloping granite that came right down to the back edge of the cabin.
When my grandmother married and started bringing her children to Big Bear, the Barlows had a large two-story cabin built further up the mountain for her. It sat 60 feet up from the flatland. It was completed in 1922, more than a year before the baby of the family (my mother) was born. By 1925, the Rim of the World Highway that went thru Arrowhead and Running Springs was tied into a new road across the dam to the south shore of Big Bear Lake. One could make the trip up the San Bernardino Mountains in less time.
The first two cabins actually left the possession of my family in the late 1920s as the widowed Mrs. Barlow decided to give them to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles for use by missionaries on furlough, etc. With the Depression, my grandfather was able to buy them back from BIOLA as it no longer had the funds to maintain them and pay the property taxes. My mother sold her interest in the property in 1971 though our relatives have always generously allowed us to use them when available.
The 1950s and 1960s were times of summer stays. My aunt and cousins lived in the two-story. We had great Pit card games, popping corn in a metal basket in the fireplace, hiking to bamboo slide, mummy’s throne, crow’s nest, and places left unnamed but that grew familiar thru the years. My mom bought us a coloring book and a paper doll set at the beginning of our stay to entertain us. My dad who only came up on the weekends was the library book shuttle service. We sat on the porch of Owl’s Nest doing jigsaw puzzles gazing out to Big Bear Lake in the distance. It was a simpler way of life that gave appreciation for pioneers and homesteaders with outhouses, carrying pails of water, doing sitz baths in metal tubs filled with water heated on the stove, buying a block of ice periodically for the ice box. We walked to Boulder Bay store most evenings to buy an ice cream bar since we had no freezer.
This place, Big Bear, is tied to my fondest memories of childhood. A child should be so lucky.
This site greeted us shortly after crossing the dam.
July 2012 my mother and extended family celebrated the 100th anniversary of this event. Fannie Barlow was my grandmother’s aunt. She had taken her namesake niece Fannie into her childless home as a companion and as a way to provide more opportunities for the young woman such as education at Pasadena Polytechnic College. I did not attend this celebration so far from my home in Indiana, but I have wonderful memories of summers spent in Big Bear from toddlerhood thru early teen years.
In 1914, the Barlows added across the way and facing their log cabin a rock and timber ediface which they called Owl’s Nest. This was meant to be a reading room/social room with a stone fireplace. People came to the mountains for the fresh air, and thus slept in canvas tents that sat on a wooden platform between the two buildings. This platform did not exist during my years at least not that I can remember. My grandparents lived in the Home Cottage for the summer, and my family lived in the Owl’s Nest which had been converted to a one-room abode with a stove and an icebox, a double bed, and bunk beds for sleeping. No plumbing. Outhouses and a hand pump on the flat meadowland below the cabins served those needs.
I always just accepted things as they were, never questioning the history of these buildings. I don’t think I had a clue as to their age until a decade ago. I always thought it was “special” that they sat part-way up the mountainside rather than on the meadow like the neighborhood cabins. Now I realize that to clear space for the Owl’s Nest meant blowing up rocks. We had huge slabs of sloping granite that came right down to the back edge of the cabin.
When my grandmother married and started bringing her children to Big Bear, the Barlows had a large two-story cabin built further up the mountain for her. It sat 60 feet up from the flatland. It was completed in 1922, more than a year before the baby of the family (my mother) was born. By 1925, the Rim of the World Highway that went thru Arrowhead and Running Springs was tied into a new road across the dam to the south shore of Big Bear Lake. One could make the trip up the San Bernardino Mountains in less time.
The first two cabins actually left the possession of my family in the late 1920s as the widowed Mrs. Barlow decided to give them to the Bible Institute of Los Angeles for use by missionaries on furlough, etc. With the Depression, my grandfather was able to buy them back from BIOLA as it no longer had the funds to maintain them and pay the property taxes. My mother sold her interest in the property in 1971 though our relatives have always generously allowed us to use them when available.
The 1950s and 1960s were times of summer stays. My aunt and cousins lived in the two-story. We had great Pit card games, popping corn in a metal basket in the fireplace, hiking to bamboo slide, mummy’s throne, crow’s nest, and places left unnamed but that grew familiar thru the years. My mom bought us a coloring book and a paper doll set at the beginning of our stay to entertain us. My dad who only came up on the weekends was the library book shuttle service. We sat on the porch of Owl’s Nest doing jigsaw puzzles gazing out to Big Bear Lake in the distance. It was a simpler way of life that gave appreciation for pioneers and homesteaders with outhouses, carrying pails of water, doing sitz baths in metal tubs filled with water heated on the stove, buying a block of ice periodically for the ice box. We walked to Boulder Bay store most evenings to buy an ice cream bar since we had no freezer.
This place, Big Bear, is tied to my fondest memories of childhood. A child should be so lucky.
This site greeted us shortly after crossing the dam.Sunday, July 15, 2012
The Beautiful and the Odd in Michigan
We returned last night from a trip to Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, two days in Charlevoix, and a day in transit with stops in Manistee, Ludington, and Pentwater.
We splurged on an overnight stay at Hexagon House B & B in Pentwater last night. Wish we had been able to stay longer.
We were served breakfast of melon, sausages, and yummy sticky bun French toast while sitting on the porch which is surrounded by heavenly hydrangeas.
In Charlevoix, we stayed at the Edgewater Inn overlooking Round Lake. From our deck we could watch the boat traffic from Lake Charlevoix enter Round Lake, then head down the channel of Pine River to Lake Michigan. Our second morning we woke to find a passenger ship had docked during the night. As you can see from the photos, there is a reason the bridge has to come up every half hour to let certain boats thru.
Charlevoix, Petoskey, and Harbor Springs are all picturesque towns on the Lake Michigan coast. Earl Young, an architect, designed whimsical “mushroom houses” or “fairy houses” as people call them. These are in two clusters in Charlevoix, including one right next to our condo hotel. They look a bit odd next to the conventional buildings.
We took a two-hour ride on a catamaran, but mostly enjoyed relaxing by the water.
Our first day of the trip we stopped at Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids. The conservatory with its desert rooms and separate tropical forest was interesting. It is, however, the monumental sculpture pieces that stand out.
We were a little disappointed that the usual Michigan summer produce of blueberries, sweet cherries, and peaches were either not available or scanty. The weird early warm spring followed by the freezes in April destroyed or damaged most of the crops. We did buy a frozen unbaked cherry pie at Crane's in Fennville to bring home and bake someday when our weather moderates. The tart pie cherries seemed to be not as badly affected. A most enjoyable trip enjoying man’s and God’s creations.
We splurged on an overnight stay at Hexagon House B & B in Pentwater last night. Wish we had been able to stay longer.
We were served breakfast of melon, sausages, and yummy sticky bun French toast while sitting on the porch which is surrounded by heavenly hydrangeas.
In Charlevoix, we stayed at the Edgewater Inn overlooking Round Lake. From our deck we could watch the boat traffic from Lake Charlevoix enter Round Lake, then head down the channel of Pine River to Lake Michigan. Our second morning we woke to find a passenger ship had docked during the night. As you can see from the photos, there is a reason the bridge has to come up every half hour to let certain boats thru.
Charlevoix, Petoskey, and Harbor Springs are all picturesque towns on the Lake Michigan coast. Earl Young, an architect, designed whimsical “mushroom houses” or “fairy houses” as people call them. These are in two clusters in Charlevoix, including one right next to our condo hotel. They look a bit odd next to the conventional buildings.
We took a two-hour ride on a catamaran, but mostly enjoyed relaxing by the water.
Our first day of the trip we stopped at Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids. The conservatory with its desert rooms and separate tropical forest was interesting. It is, however, the monumental sculpture pieces that stand out.
We were a little disappointed that the usual Michigan summer produce of blueberries, sweet cherries, and peaches were either not available or scanty. The weird early warm spring followed by the freezes in April destroyed or damaged most of the crops. We did buy a frozen unbaked cherry pie at Crane's in Fennville to bring home and bake someday when our weather moderates. The tart pie cherries seemed to be not as badly affected. A most enjoyable trip enjoying man’s and God’s creations.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Happy Birthday USA
Today is my oldest sister’s birthday and a nephew’s birthday so I will add them to the celebration of the birth of the United States. Had family over for grilled chicken this afternoon, potato salad, sliced tomatoes, lemonade. Ended with fresh strawberries and blueberries with whipped cream.
With the hot temperatures today, I decided to bring my knock-out roses inside to enjoy. Winona Lake had fireworks last Saturday. I was pleased that I could enjoy them (well at least the high ones) sitting on my front porch.
Happy Independence Day Everybody.
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