Sounds of Hope

My research project has become my baby.   I am not sure that the baby has been delivered or if it is in the need of a skilled obstetrician with forceps.   Nevertheless, it is my baby.   As a mother, I know that your baby is your baby from the moment it is conceived.   It is yours – you love it, you dream and hope for it… It’s that way with my research project.   I have agonized over this project.   Like Sarah in Genesis, I have watched surrogates get their degrees and launch.   I have waited - barren.   When my Abraham produced his research project, it was I who for countless days sat at a kitchen table pregnant, entertaining other children, cooking, cleaning, laundry – typing on an IBMSelectric typewriter – delivering page after page of charts and data.   It was I who labored over that research project as if it was my own.   And it has… it was the surrogate that produced jobs, income, and success for our family.   It has borne mu...

My name is Andrea York and I want to be a trophy wife. Every Wednesday, I join Joyce and the other Kingdom Bloggers on Wednesday for a weekly commentary of various topics and I write regularly about kingdom living on my own blog, Write Down the Revelation .  ******* More than January, September has been the truer ‘fresh start’ for me. Whether or not, you are governed by the school year September promises new things. New school supplies (for my Boy), new clothes (also for my Boy), new classes & programs through the Parks & Recreation board and new ministries at church. I see friends that I haven’t seen during the summer because our kids are busy in 10 different directions. Churches are full once again (or not) after people have returned back from their cabins/cottages and RV trips. After 10 months of routine, I look forward to summer for less structure but being a fairly structured and organized person, two months is about all I can take without yearning for order a...

Fall is my favorite time of the year.   I love Fall.   Here in the south, it comes late.   But it does come…   I look forward to the temperature dropping a bit.   I love the crinkle of crisp leaves under my feet.    If I weren’t so old I’d find a pile of leaves and dive in. All this week you are in for a special treat - Kingdom Bloggers are visiting and we are talking about Fall.  In Brooklyn, like everywhere, Fall meant back to school.   We always started a week or so after Labor Day.   It was time to buy new black and white composition notebooks.   I still love to hold a new composition notebook in my hands.   All those crisp lined white pages to fill with new ideas and assignments, it’s exciting!   How handy, the back of the book had a ruler, all sorts of cheats for math, and the multiplication tables.   I need those!   Soon there would be books to cover with paper bags.   Or perhaps I could convince m...

White Mountains, NH  Every year I make a trek to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and another to Cape Cod, MA some time during the fall. As a life-long New Englander, although the season of "colors" brings and end to summer; to the hazy, hot and humid days with temperatures approaching 100, there is something wonderful about the crisp morning air of an October morning. The week the roaming Kingdom Bloggers are writing about fall. As residents of the northern hemisphere, the warm days of summer are coming to a close; air conditioners switched off, fans packed in the attic, and days beckoning a walk among the hardwoods - yes, fall is nearly upon us. I have traveled quite extensively over the years. I have racked up 42 US states along with about 40 national and state parks, as well as 13 countries - with more on my radar. For nearly 4 months in 1989 I drove across the US (and a bit in Canada and Mexico). It was...

When my kids were little they used to read the Chose Your Own Adventure books, also know as Gamebook .  After reading a few pages, they'd have to make a choice.  The choice involved picking which page to go to next.  Once that choice was made, the story was altered. I've often thought life was like that.  Every so often you have to chose something.  Once you make the choice, it changes your life forever.  In life, unlike the book, you can't go back and alter your choice. I can think of so many pivotal moments of choice, as well as, minor ones.  The minor ones sometimes turned out to be pivotal.  With all the talk of Brooklyn Norwegians and my childhood, it has made me wonder about a lot of the choices. This morning my husband and I were talking about why I didn't go with my father to Norway when I was in the 9th grade.  I've regretted that decision a million times.  It was primarily their decision, I was only 14.  However, I did...

Probably like many of you, you are thinking and praying for the people in the path of Irene.  I have family in her path.  I have friends, new and old, in her path.  I’m praying too.  I’ve been through a few hurricanes in my life; in relative terms, nothing too serious or intense.  Just lots of wind and rain – I’ve been through worse storms with impending tornadoes – although fortunately, never been in the full path of a tornado either. I remember Gloria .  She came up the East Coast slamming Connecticut in 1985.  We’d move to CT the year before.  We had our first little house.  The cracker box two bedroom cape I’ve written about here . We boarded windows.  We waited.  A neighbor came over to keep us company.  I never understood why.  My husband was not happy about this intruder.  I took it in my stride.  I remember we played board games.  Another thing my husband doesn’t care for – he’s not a fun and games s...

                   I'm still thinking about the evils of social dancing .  I had heard on the radio the other day about a teacher in the Philadelphia area who is fighting for her job.  She made the following comments on her blog: They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying.   My students are out of control d isengaged, lazy whiners.  And quoting from Bye Bye Birdie -  Kids! They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs. Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy LOAFERS. I am sure this teacher would find it interesting that in rural Tennessee they are worried about their kids and adults social dancing.  But don't kid yourselves - drugs are rampant and often Meth is the drug du jour here in these hills. I remember the sheriff in this county, with tears in his eyes, tal...

As I parked the car, I thought of all the hundreds of times I had pulled into that parking lot.  I got out of the car, took a deep breath and said “Joyce, you can do this!  It’s only a church service.”  My daughter had texted me earlier in the day saying she wanted to try out a program this church had for girls on Wednesday night.  We spoke of Daisies.  I remember my daughter in her yellow dress.  In those days, they gave you clothe and a pattern and told you to make the dress yourself.  I did.  The yellow with her golden hair made her look like a ray of sunshine. You know, for your kids, you’ll do just about anything.  Certainly, a visit to a church, a church that had once been so much a part of your life, was a small thing.  For me, it wasn’t that small though.  I had worked at that church for several years.  I had pulled into that parking lot daily.  In addition to the job, I taught adults.  I preached in the pul...