I am thankful to be alive and relatively healthy, still here, wanting to do many many more things in my life! Being single at this stage of life is the best! And the worst.....Sometimes I think I'd enjoy the company of a man on a regular basis, then I remember cooking obligatory dinners (when I'd much rather cook together), checking with someone else before I make a decision (like I would), coordinating family plans and events with extended families...nd a million other small add-on stressors that you gloss over when you live with someone else.
But if I fall in love
I shall reconsider
(wink)
After being happily alone for more than twenty years, I've realized how blessed I am in the Late Fall of my life. I retired from teaching six years ago. I love a life without alarm clocks, bells and cafeteria food.
I enjoy my own company, but I do get lonely from time to time.
I love spending time with my kids and grandchildren, ages 20, 13 and 5 - college, middle school and kindergarten. Never a dull moment at the dinner table.
Baby Boy is majoring in Computer Science, Beans is majoring in girls and BabyBree is majoring in Barbie. Perfect! They teach me about video games and I sneak in a peace globe conversation from time to time. I want them on that rain ya see......
Which season are you in?
Which season have you enjoyed the most?
I've noticed, also, that people from my past keeping showing up. I'm stumbling over them in the grocery store and thrift store. Long lost relatives with news to tell, high school friends, friends of friends and acquaintances that should have been more than that; maybe we'll get a do-over. Who knows? Is it truly a coincidence? Or does the Universe have a rhyme and reason?
when learning to decorate a blog with colored fonts and photos from PhotoBucket and ImageChef was as high-tech as we could go. But we helped each other through it and some of us even learned to code from scratch. Technorati was everything and memes rocked our world. ReMEMEber?
I wish you the best of health and true happiness in our twentieth year of friendship. I think I know most of you well. I've met several of you in the real world. A pleasure!
Please enter your blog link below so that we may visit you.
Dona Nobis Pacem ~
Hold The Light
The year was 1968. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy had been slain. Our country was in turmoil. The controversial war in Vietnam polarized our politics and our hearts. Richard Milhous Nixon was about to become the 37th President of the United States.
I was about to begin my education.
It started at the back door.
A knock.
"Come on in, Joe!" Papa exclaimed with a laugh. "And Joe, come around to the front door. I'll let you in." In some areas of the south in the sixties, visiting black men in small town USA, still did not approach the front door of a white man's residence. Fifty-six years later, we've made progress...but there is much work to do.
I do not know the direction my Grandfather's politics would have taken had he lived to see this election, but I can promise you one thing: the candidate's social status, the color of his skin, his religious affiliation, political slant, or the cost of his shoes would not have mattered. Papa's welcomes were equally sincere and easily given.
The man needed a job. He couldn't feed his family. I heard low whispers from the living room and shuffling of money. My grandmother brought coffee and cake; then the front door shut.
Lesson one duly noted.
At my grandfather's wake, literally half the town showed up. There was a "colored" funeral home and "white" funeral home. It was out of the ordinary for blacks to visit the dead on the other side of the tracks.
But visit they did.
I heard stories I'd never heard.
"One day at work, your Papa noticed my feet were almost bare.
He gave me his shoes."
" He helped me and my family keep our home."
"He brought groceries to our house and in the winter he kept our furnace lit."
"He paid my telephone bill and brought toys for Christmas."
"He bought school clothes for my kids."
Apparently, he'd been sneaking around with blessing baskets for years. Then I started to remember those strange quiet back door whispers, "coincidental" meetings on the sidewalk, times when my grandmother had to suddenly whip up a chocolate cake, and rides in his station wagon to places he never talked about. "Stay here, Sis. I'll be right back," he'd say. I always wondered what those porch conversations were about. Now I know.
He was the bridge builder. And the door opener.
And the example of moral courage in my life.
He was my light holder
Today, when I visit his double-hearted spirit in the cemetery, I'm reminded of this photo. When I developed the picture long ago, my shadow had fallen across the stone. It looks as though we are perfectly in sync - still. Now, I choose to let my shadow fall upon his and allow his to fall upon mine. With whom do you align? Choose carefully.
It started me thinking how my time has eerily overlapped his time - a slice of American history that was shameful in so many respects - the abundance of ignorance, the quest for power, were just background noise to the voices that truly mattered...those that marched and voted and wrote policy.
What it boils down to is the right of all persons to be treated with dignity and respect.
Those voices still speak in us.
Collectively, we are more than a stump speech and a soundbite.
The voices of our time matter too.
Unrest and violence prevailed in 1968.
Unrest and violence still thunder in 2024.
Please hold the light for those in darkness
Please hold the light for those in need
Set your foot rightly,
for the downtrodden
might come to your door
Let it deliver and emancipate like Peter's shadow in the Book of Acts.
Let it heal people. Let it love people.
That's what light does.
***************
Peace Bloggers,
Please leave your links here and in the comment section. Tag me on FB.
PROMO: The annual Blog4Peace event will take place on Monday, November 4, 2024. This special event is held worldwide with bloggers, social media posters and individuals from over 200 countries and nations taking part. Below is a direct link to the Blog4Peace website with details, art images and more. Please visit and remember to post your art in support of Hold The Light for peace. Nov 4, 2024
Many thanks to graphic designer, Ann Adamus! Original image Pixabay
When was the last time you held the Light for someone?
These days it seems that the whole world is stumbling around in darkness. If we listen to the loudest and most critical voices, we can easily come to that conclusion.
But it's not so.
We don't have to watch people stumble or be confused. We don't have to respond. We don't have to add to the momentum of suffering and deceit in this world by default.
Do you know that there are people who need you to hold the light for them?
Hold space. Hold the line. Hold the Light.
We're all having a hard time right now.
I'm not talking about judging them or trying to convince them to go your way - there's too much of that happening already.
We can love people without agreeing with them.
Can't we?
When I was a little girl, my Dad worked on cars and faucets and mechanical issues around the house. He could fix anything. I was his "light holder." I wasn't very good at it and sometimes he'd fuss if the caged light I was holding swerved to the left or the right. Why was he frustrated with me?
Because I had one job. ONE JOB.
And that job was to hold the light for him.
His task was daunting. It was dark and he was weary. He needed to SEE.
I couldn't see what he was seeing and I certainly couldn't help him; but I could stand steady and still, listening to his voice and directions, offering illumination and support.
He didn't need a play-by-play of why I couldn't hold the light still or what my opinion was about how he was fixing things. My opinion, my argument, my sass...didn't matter.
I had one job.
He couldn't do the job without me and that light.
(template to use)
You don't have to speak to hold it - just hold it.
You don't have to expose or uncover or guide or judge the path they have chosen.
You just have to be there and let them find their way.
AND SOMETIMES....holding a Light means railing against injustices and CHANGE that needs to happen!
Your words won't help them see
but the unconditional silent steady light and TRUTH flowing from you to them
held without judgment
without opinion
without directions
means that the one needing light has a clear path to make decisions
one that isn't muddied with your opinion, your "rightness" or the loudest voice
whether they're fixing a carburetor or mapping out a plan for world peace
or choosing the leader of the free world
The most powerful words of all are the ones we deliver in deed.
Sometimes that means standing still
and holding a Light
We can do that, right?
How will you do that?
That is the question I want us, as peace bloggers, to answer
************
Nov 4, 2024 Bloggers and social media posters from all over the world will
Blog for Peace
We will speak with one voice
one subject
one day
You may use the logo/text below on your blogs.
Many thanks to graphic designer Ann Adamus!
The annual Blog4Peace event will take place on Monday, November 4, 2024. This special event is held worldwide with bloggers, social media posters and individuals from over 200 countries and nations taking part. Below is a direct link to the Blog4Peace website with details, art images and more. Please visit and remember to post your art in support of Hold The Light for peace. November 4, 2024.
Don't you hate it when you're discussing something of importance to you that is causing some angst and the person sitting across from you says, "Oh, let it go. You've got to let that go. Just let it go." REALLY ????
POOF. GONE like Girl Gone??
Hardly
Walk a mile in my snowshoes, Buster! I don't know what the magic bullet is in these matters, but I DO know (and have recently discovered) that when I'm ready to let something go, I'mready. REALLY ready. Not one minute sooner. Not at the moment of glibness, right on time!
As I opined on Facebook's mass platform of memes....
I'm getting better at letting go. I noticed today as I threw out bag after soggy box in the basement (Did you know there was a GREAT FLOOD in Bloggingham yesterday??) that hardly any of it bothered me. Nothing I couldn't part with was damaged and it game me an excuse to deeply purge. That roll top desk I've been staring at for 40 years? I used it in the piano room of my first house. Donated.
My son's infant chest of drawers. Donated.
Twelve notebooks of meticulously created Music Theory and Sight-Reading lessons, complete with originally composed vocalize for my classroom back in the day?
That was a hard one.....ummmm...it took weeks to gather all the resources (stop it, Mimi!) You're not teaching anymore and you're so old those resources are out of print)! GONE
But it was nice to sing them again before I trashed them.
A few lamps were ruined but I realized they weren't my style anymore. Now I can buy newer ones that suit me better. Silver lining!
I threw away five Christmas trees. FIVE! Who wants a soggy tree?
Twenty-five bags later and I'm still far from finished.
I'm exhausted and exhilarated at the same time.
Rinse. Repeat. Tomorrow.
I touched a lot of memories today. Stories! Stories I'd forgotten.
You will most undoubtedly hear them.
There are some sad AND marvelous tales in that basement...
Welcome to 2024 in the year of the blog. Thanks to the WayBack Machine (keep of old blogs!) blogs are infinite and eternal, omnipotent and omnipresent. I wish people have one of those machines. We could crank up our young, newer, healthier bodies and go from there.
Back in the day when I used to hide behind trees all day long and try to conjure a word or two, blogging was much more intimate. Our communities were a tight-knit group. We looked out for each other. When the occasional naysayer or troublemaker showed up, we (usually) shoooed them away and blogged on. With the exception of the peace globe bloggers (AMAZING you are!) most of my blogging friends are posting on Facebook or Instagram. I enjoy interacting with you on social media platforms, but sometimes it takes me years to put two and two together..."Oh! Cindy is really Blogging Catalina from Amsterdam! Who knew?" And then we have a small reunion. There are those who do not want blog and real life Facebook to meet. Totally understandable. I try to honor those requests. I won't out you!
But seriously, I'm amazed that the majority of my friends on Facebook are peace bloggers. We've gotten to know each other over the years in more personal ways (thanks, Facebook) but as many of us have discussed, it's just not the same as regular blogging. "Blogging is dead," we say....MAYBE....but that's not going to stop me from re-entering the arena. Blogging makes me happy. Journaling makes me happy. Writing feeds my soul. And I PROMISE...this year I will publish a book off-blog...I PROMISE!!
2023 was a loooooong year for me and so many of my friends. I've had perpetual health challenges and a car accident mid-year that I'm just now starting to recuperate from, realizing that blogging and living in my 60s is a different universe. Retirement is wonderful!! Aches and pains are not. It takes a little longer to recover from trauma than it used to.
Still, I'm determined to fully regain my health in 2024.
I had a fantastic healing beautiful Christmas visit with my kids and grandchildren in their home (as it should be). I have room for a little more hope these days. Let's stay on this path, shall we?
***wait a minute....I thought I wouldn't have anything to say this morning when I decided to crank up the blog; instead, I'm a regular bloggermouth (that's blog + blabbermouth for all your non-blog speakers)....**
I truly hope that if you are still blogging or have a new platform, that you will leave a link below so that we can stay connected and supportive.
This morning, after meditation/prayer, washing dishes, making bed, starting laundry, feeding Snickers, organizing a drawer...I stopped mid-chore and asked myself, "What creative thing have your done in three hours? Exactly how are you spending your time, Mimi? Priorities seem to be askew!"
And while all those things must be done and I am content to do them, the only thing remotely creative was my silent time (essential to my day) but then I jumped right back on the To-Do Train. This must stop!!!! And it must stop now.
THIS was dangerous and exciting...
While I don't think meme--stealing is exactly my vibe anymore, I sure am thankful for the fun times right here on Mimi Writes. But that book has been writing itself for awhile in my pencil head, many chapters here in the Blogosphere with you. So much more to tell. I think the crux of the matter is that with age comes wisdom. How much to blab? What to camouflage...But I think I have the perfect balance between privacy and authenticity in mind now. The latter always wins. Always.
Not to fear, the "old" (vintage!) Mimi will show up soon enough with new pencil skirt tales of craziness.
It's already happened.
I just posted on Facebook, "New year, new routine. Before I sat down to write the first blog post of the year (new routine) I reached for the bottle of Vitamin C serum (on the right below) and smeared it all over my face...except...ummm....what's that smell??!
It was CBD oil.
I'll be happy all the day long.
This is going to be one doozy of a post.
They look alike, right? In case you're wondering, No, I did not wash it off."
Ananda Full spectrum hemp extract 300. Ten mg cannabinoids oil for nerve pain. Works for me! Let's see what it does for my wrinkles.
Some things never change.
Welcome to my vintage blog and all the memories it holds.
Welcome to the 18th annual Blog4Peace aka Dona Nobis Pacem in the Blogosphere. We will post Saturday and Sunday, Nov 4-5th wherever you are online.
Please leave your blog or post link in the MR. LINKY below or in the comments section or tag me on social media. Your peace globe will be added to the Official Gallery of Peace Globes
With what? asked the tired peace blogger on the eve of Dona Nobis Pacem.
My peace boxes
For weeks I've known that the box marked "Early Writings" in the back of the closet would provide the backbone of my peace post. And is my usual custom, I waited until nigh the hour to investigate.
"Fill up the peace angel boxes with words you will choose from your fairly ancient writings.
I will show you the pattern..."
Ha Ha, Lord. That's a funny comment you made. Ancient, eh? But You know best. Let's begin.
And just like I've picked up Papa's hammer or his earth marble in years past, I listened.
I am nothing if not obedient.
Inside the closet box I found love poems....lots of silly love poems. Anguished teenage diaries, college essays, journals, quotes, love letters written and received, peace signs and flower power patches, concert tickets....all in the box. It was the seventies and I was young and overly sensitive about most things; and yet...when I read my teenage epiphanies today, I realize not much in the way of what I really care about has changed.
Peace. Relationships. Music. God. Rinse Repeat.
Life happened. I became a very young bride back in the days before electricity (ahem). We made our first home in a little mobile house in the middle of the woods.
It was clean and efficient, secluded and perfect for two. And because I grew up with a grandfather whose favorite pastime was folding his hands in prayer, the first thing I did was make a prayer and meditation room. A floor cushion, a cross, a Bible, a picture of Jesus, and a candle traveled with me to our first real house in the suburbs.
That was denominational "meditation" back in the day. I've learned and adjusted much since, adding A Course in Miracles later; nonetheless, it was a fine foundation when I didn't even realize I was building a spiritual practice.
Wherever we lived, I needed a room. A place to be quiet. A place to pray. A sanctuary of my own away from noise and life's chaos. That has not changed in my ancient times (thanks Lord) though sometimes the "room" is under the wide canopy of an oak tree in the stillness of woods and rocks on my little mountain.
And that's what I did in that little flat-roof suburban house while I waited for our baby to arrive.
Every day. Every day. Every day.
at precisely 4:10 pm
It was my favorite part of the day. I couldn't wait to shut the door, kneel on the floor and spend some time alone with God and my writing journal. Going IN the room was like being siphoned into a vortex.
I was drawn into it.
I knew the "meeting" had been called to order as soon as I shut the door behind me. Palpable presence and peace. The atmosphere was climate controlled by a Presence I can only describe as perfect peace and joy. He never failed to meet me there. When I gave Him my time and attention, He gave me strong weapons: patience, love, clarity, compassion, a softer heart, inspiration, mindfulness, solace
peace
When I was a little girl, I watched my Papa change atmospheres all the time. It was as effortless as changing his hat. People acted differently when he was around. What he carried was palpable.
But the question is...where did he get it?
Papa's marbles
That's easy. Listen carefully. I'll tell you a secret.
He' s the one who taught me about the room.
His "room" is scorched in my mind.
His room was the Bible on the nightstand in a cold back bedroom, the first thing he touched in the morning.
His room meant devotions at dawn and scribbled scripture notes in the margins of books you weren't supposed to write in
His room gave thanks at mealtime.
His room was a recliner that welcomed silent sunrise prayers..
a place none of us disturbed (except the occasional kiss I planted on his forehead as I passed by on the way to breakfast, quietly, quietly you see....)
Hisroommeant gentle hands on my shoulder and a tug on my sleeve
There was a Lamp in his room
It showed us who he was, no need for preachy words.
It was fueled by The Book sprawled open on his lap - The Book from which he gathered his strength.
Copyright 1941 The Upper Room
His room was a well-worn pocket prayer book that he carried with him. Buried under a lifetime of rhymes in the box of many ancient words, I unearthed the small stained power book and its leaves of gold.
Tonight when I opened the tiny pages, it fell open, right on cue, as if it were still open on his lap as I walked past him to the kitchen
Tears fell on page 40 as I read
"In Time of War" and "Prayer For
Peace"
Can you imagine anything more timely in this hour?
He has shown me the pattern.
I will place the prayer book in the peace box
where it surely belongs
Marrying prayer and peace sounds like a mighty fine idea.
It was Papa's way. I aspire to his way.
He didn't make peace, find peace, or go looking for peace -
He carried it.
In his pocket, in his coat, in his mind, in his heart, in his actions, in his demeanor, in his attitude, in his love walk
Going into the room was easy for him. He simply yielded.
I watched.
No matter what beliefs you hold or where you find your rooms of solace, know that it matters greatly how much of it you carry out into the world with you.
In this dark and trying time in the world, I'd like to offer Papa's Prayer For Peace
He passed it to me. I pass it to you.
"O God, who hast made of one blood all nations of men, mercifully receive the prayer that we offer for our anxious and troubled world.
Send Thy Light into our darkness and guide the nations as one family into the ways of peace. Take away all prejudice and hatred and fear.
Strengthen in us day by day the will to understand.
And to those who by their counsels lead the people of the earth, grant at right judgment, that so, through them and us Thy will be done through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."
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