Sounds of Hope

Maybe I am just noticing it more, but it seems that snow is on the increase everywhere.   One is tempted to joke about global warming.   The other day someone asked where Al Gore was with all these frigid temperatures and snow.   I replied maybe he was hiding in a pile of snow.   Truth is, I don’t understand the whole global warming thing and take a very simple approach to these things.   As the song says Que Sera Sera, whatever will be, will be.   I do my part to reduce, reuse, and recycle.   That’s about all any one individual can do.   I have at least two “hometowns.”   One, of course, is my beloved Brooklyn.   The other is Columbia, Missouri.   I love them both but in different ways.   Both have some wonderful memories as well as some pretty sad and awful ones.   I have snow memories from both hometowns as well.   I’ve written about Brooklyn snow and you can find it here . I am thinking about Columbia snow today...

What does it take to make some one’s day?  I guess it depends on whom that someone is.  Usually it doesn’t take as much as you think it might to brighten a day.  I wrote yesterday about finding old friends.  That always makes my day.  Actually, I’ve been excited about finding these folk after all these years for three days now.  Depending on how much it made their day, it might even go on a bit longer. I’m now in the mood to think about people from the past.  I get like this a lot.  And cold snowy days in South Dakota seem to make it worse.  I do wonder if ten years from now I’ll be wondering what ever happened to people I have met here in this land of snow.  I imagine I will.  Some people here in South Dakota are worth remembering and finding if we ever lose touch. Today I wondered about the doctor who delivered my daughter Bethany.  His quick action medically saved her life.  Equally important, his kindness was excepti...

I’ve cooked a lot of rice in my life, probably 100s if not 1000s of pounds of it.  That’s a lot of rice.  My mother rarely cooked rice.  She relied heavily on Minute Rice when I was kid.  I’ve used the stuff but it just doesn’t compare to good cooked rice.  It wasn't my mother who taught me to cook rice.  It was a friend I met by chance many years ago. Last weekend our son called me and asked how to fix rice.  He bought a five pound bag of Basmati rice after obtaining instructions on rice cooking and recommendations on kinds of rice from me.  I understand he has cooked six or seven batches since I told him how to cook it.  I love it when my kids call me and when they seek my knowledge, that’s even better.   But this blog isn’t about my kids, it’s about rice.  Well, sort of… My older children, who lived through the days of poverty, food stamps, and trailer living, will tell you that they loved it when I fixed a rice dish...

My mother loved children.  Perhaps because of her own lack of self confidence and self-esteem she found it safe to be with children.  She blossomed with the care of children.  She cared deeply for their souls.  Her life can be told through countless Sunday School lessons, Released Time sessions and Vacation Bible School.  At 80 she was back in a nursery serving the “cradle roll” as she had so many years before in the basement of our beloved church, Salem Gospel Tabernacle. There are photos in my memory of her with Sunday School classes of young girls holding their Bibles.  There were other photos of these same girls smiling in our backyard as she hosted them for a picnic.  Later, came leading the “downstairs” Sunday School, Released Time, serving at Camp and helping on the Lower East Side of Manhattan with the mission work of her friend Sister Jacobsen.  Curriculum and music had to pass the Elsie theological tests.  She wasn’t a particularl...

It is a new year.   I am more hopeful about this year than I’ve been in a long time.   There are so many reasons why, some I can share, some I can’t.   Most I can’t.   The last time I felt this hopeful about a new year it didn’t turn out so good. It was the year that we closed the coffee shop.   I had a feeling even before we opened the coffee and deli shop that it wasn’t a good idea.   I had talked about this for years.   Finally, too late, my husband thought he’d give me a dream.   His heart was in the right place but he hadn’t noticed that I’d moved on.   He hadn’t noticed that I didn’t talk about this dream the way I once had.   I was more excited to be in school and be learning Hebrew.   I discovered that I had a near unquenchable thirst for knowledge.   I was an excellent student.   I had come alive. Instead, we opened the shop in spite of the nagging in my gut.   I determined the year we decided to close that...