Sounds of Hope

I’m listening to Christmas music on Pandora today.  Just seems like a good thing to do on a quiet slow Christmas day.  Our festivities were last night.  We had a wonderful time.  The day ended with making potato candy with my youngest daughter.  She is off with friends today and wanted a treat to take with her.  It was fun. Christmas music really sets a mood, doesn’t it.  I love Silver Bells because it reminds me of Christmas in New York City.  I sure hope I get to see the tree at Rockerfeller Center at least one more time.  I used to love to go see it with my dad.  I’ve even been there when it was lit.  What joy, what excitement!  After that, a trip across the street to the magnificent St. Patrick’s Cathedral to see the crèche, followed by some steaming hot chocolate made the day complete.  Our first Christmas in Tennessee I was so homesick for New York and the East coast one of our daughters gave me some silver bell...

Heavy snow is coming down today.  It is reminding me of a Christmas in Brooklyn. One of my favorite people when I was a child was my “Tante Bitta.”  She was actually not my Aunt or Tante, she was my cousin.  However, like all of my first cousins on my father’s side, she was an adult when I was born and had children my age.  Out of respect, I called her Tante.  When I was little I couldn’t say her name Birgit; in my childish pronunciation she became Bitta.  We saw her and her family only occasionally until they moved within walking distance.  What a happy day that was!  Her eldest daughter and I became best friends. So many things I could write about her daughter and I.  After putting 75 cents in the cigarette machine, we’d puff away for a few hours.   Believing we’d rather “fight that switch” after a brief usage of Marlboros we became Tareyton smokers.  Doused in perfume, with gum in our mouths we'd try to cover ...

The smell of Norwegian baking just reminds me of Christmas and home.   At Christmas, my mother would bake for weeks filling the little railroad flat at 434-53 rd Street with smells of cardamom, almond, and butter.   In that small kitchen in an old gas oven she worked her magic.  My mother had a well-worn stained Norwegian cookbook.  She was an American girl from Waynesboro PA who was transformed into a Norwegian speaking, acting and cooking woman when she said "I do" to a former Norwegian sailor from Arendal. By the second grade I was allowed to cross streets by myself.   I would walk home  from school with Barbara.   Once in the vestibule I’d ring the bell.   The buzzer would sound to unlock the inner door.   Like going into the inner sanctuary of a holy place, an aroma better than the finest incense would greet my little nose.   Sniffing as I walked the hall to the kitchen, I would try to guess what had been baked ...

As I look back on that day, it was a real coming of age type of day.  I remember clearly standing by the front window of the subway as we rode back to our home in Brooklyn.  We lived for two years on Fort Hamilton Parkway.  I didn’t like living there.  I missed PS 94 and 53 rd Street.  It was the world I had always known.  I knew each house and at least a little something about the people who lived there.  I knew to walk fast when I passed the tenements and to walk near the curb if I walked past the bar on the odd side of the street near 5 th Avenue.  I suppose it was because we never had alcohol in the house and because of how my parents felt about it that I was always nervous walking past a bar.  I think I thought someone might reach out and grab me and I’d never be seen again.  It was a lonely trip back to Brooklyn.  I don’t remember why my father wasn’t with us.  I was at an age where I was beginning to have those inevi...

I’ve seen a lot of snow in my life.   As a child, the wonder of snow was real.   It seemed magical as the flakes of white would fall from the sky.   I remember making paper snowflakes in kindergarten.   How magical it was as Mrs. Pellegrino, one of the first pregnant people I ever saw on a daily basis, showed us how to cut with those blunt stubby scissors and make the designs of a snow flake.   She told us that in nature every snowflake was unique.    She might have even uttered the forbidden word God as she told us this scientific fact.   In those days, we still prayed in school.   Yes, even in NYC we bowed our head and said a generic prayer at the beginning of the school day.   During weekly assembly we would also recite a Psalm from the Holy Bible.   The Psalms were common to all Judeo-Christian faiths. There was something ethereal about the snow of my childhood.   Full of life and vitality, Brooklyn was noisy.   The ...

The Christmas season has begun.  I knew nothing of the first Sunday in Advent as a child.  We had no Advent wreath or theme in the Norwegian Pentecostal church I attended.  The first Sunday of Advent meant the distribution of our Christmas “pieces” in preparation for the Christmas program.  As I’ve mentioned before, I always seemed to be expect to have the longest piece, or be a narrator.  To this day, I attribute my lack of fear of public speaking to those days.  I don’t ever remember being nervous about getting up in front of people to talk.  I’ve been doing it since before I can remember. It was officially Christmas, I had seen Santa at the Parade on Thanksgiving Day.  Lights were twinkling from the houses in my neighborhood.  As you went toward 5 th Avenue, the smell of pine mixed with a small coal fire filled the air.  Miraculously Christmas trees were lining the path to the wonders of 5 th Avenue. No I am not talking about the...

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO SOUNDS OF HOPE.  IT’S BEEN A YEAR SINCE I STARTED BLOGGING HERE.  IF THIS BLOG HAS BLESSED YOU, MADE YOU THINK, TOUCHED YOUR SOUL, I’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU.  JOIN ME IN WISHING SOUNDS OF HOPE BLOG HAPPY ANNIVERSARY – HERE’S PRAYING FOR ANOTHER GREAT YEAR OF BLOGGING. 

Memories of my father seem to be on my mind so much of late.  I miss him.  That seems odd in some ways.  I was a mere 19 years old when he died.  Old enough to have some very solid memories of him.  Old enough to have known him as a child knows a father.  But not old enough to know him as a person. On those very rare occasions when my family of origin would gather for an hour or two.  That was all we ever did.  We were never close.  My brother's estranged themselves from my mother and I over thirty years ago.  At first it seemed just the way life was, family, moving and such.  But now I know it was deliberate.  They had no use for their mother and they never took the time to know or care for their sister. When we would meet together, the bond between my brothers was solid.  They would laugh and joke and reminisce about a father I didn't know.  Often I thought them cruel and disrespectful, a strong characteristic o...

When I was a little girl it seemed my mother had been up all night.  As soon as my eyes opened, and my nose awoke, the smell of turkey would fill my senses.  My mother was not a great cook, but she could do Thanksgiving very well.  As soon as I had a bowl of oatmeal to stick to my ribs and keep me warm, my father would tell my mother to dress me warmly.  I would don a hat and scarf and leggings.  No they were not the footless tights we now call leggings.  These heavy wool leggings matched my coat.  They were held up by suspenders.  I routinely wore suspenders as a little girl.  Now that I think about that, it seems odd.  At the time, it didn’t.  They must have weight 10 pounds but they were necessary to keep my legs warm.  If there was snow on the ground, I would also put on my galoshes with the buckles on the side. With my hand in my dad’s, I’d walk down 53 rd street to 4 th avenue.  In front of Johnny’s candy store,...

I’ve been thinking about my strange life.   I wrote a blog last summer reflecting on all the “famous” and “notable” people I’ve met throughout my life.   I was sitting next to the guy that inspired that blog by saying he’d met Ronald Reagan.   You can read about all these people here . Yesterday in class our professor mentioned The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan .   It was interesting to watch the clueless look come across most of the faces of my class mates.   Made me realize how old I am.   He mentioned it because one of the women in the class is looking at gender bias in higher education.   I had just talked with her about it during the “mixer” exercise that started the class.   I mentioned how I thought it was so odd that when we as a cohort had our chance to elect class leaders there was not one female name nominated with enough support to be on the first ballot. Interestingly, two men are now arranging lunches for us and in charge of...

If you were ever in Girl Scouts or a similar type of group, you may know this song. Make new friends but keep the old One is silver and the other gold I wasn’t in Girl Scouts but I learned this song in Sunbeams at my local Salvation Army Corp.   I thought it was a cute song.   I wondered which one was silver and which one was gold.   It seemed the new friend was silver and the old gold but I’d still wonder about it.   I was sort of a weird kid like that. I’ve been thinking about friends a lot lately.   People talk about Facebook friends and how many people have.   They say these folks aren’t really friends.   I’ve gotten so caught up in this discussion I’m working on a dissertation on Facebook, community and Christian development.   I do think about this stuff a lot. Last week in preparation for a two day journey south, I thought about who I should visit with in Columbia Missouri.   Columbia Missouri is home.   It’s not home in the s...

I was asked interesting questions today. Actually it was more of a comment than a question. It was the question that rose up in me that was more where the question part from. I have a friend. She is not religious. She is a good person. That is not to be read “she is not religious but a good person.” It is just what it says. She is a good person. She is not religious. Being a good person and being religious are no synonymous with each other. I know a lot of religious people that I don’t care to be around. My friend was telling me about her friend; a friend who lost nearly everything in the Nashville flood of May 2010. Since then the friend’s disabled spouse has had a heart attack, had adult child with spouse and four small children move in with her and yesterday, the father of those small children was killed because he tried to check a tire on her car. The jack didn’t hold and the car crushed him. She blames herself. Four children are orphaned. How much more can this woman bear? The s...