I Heard the Bells...

Bells are frequently incorporated into our Christmas decorating. 

During the Christmas season we hear the high jangle of the Salvation Army ringers, carols about bells (click on the link to hear a jazzy Carol of the Bells),  and musical arrangements that use bells. Some churches include hand bells during services. 

Our bells are more symbolic than essential. In Europe bells marked time, called people to hear news, bear arms, or come to worship.   

The few opportunities I've had to hear huge bronze bells have been thrilling. 

One hot summer day I climbed the steps of a large German church. I climbed out of the tower door onto the roof just as the bells rang out the hour  (motorized, no ringers necessary). The force of the sound was palpable.  I clapped cupped hands over my ears to muffle it and staggered in its path. The sound waves pulsed right through my body. 

Denver Catholic Register photo by R. Linn

 In 1993 the Pope visited Denver for a World Youth Day rally.  Blackhawk helicopters had been flying overhead for the week ferrying His Holiness from our local high school lawn to his appearances.  I was lucky enough to be in my backyard when he performed the mass at The Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, about a mile away. The bells had been repaired for the occasion and pealed for over a minute. I only heard their magnificent call that once. 

What a thrill it would be to hear some like them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Sometime I hope to make a trip to one of the several churches with bells in the southeast US (two in NC), or during visit to Denver.

I can't imagine another instrument with such a grand sound, worthy of announcing Emmanuel's birth. 

Advent: Decorating the Mailbox

Is your mailbox ready for Christmas? 


















 I can only speculate on the purpose for decking the box along with the halls. 


1) It's to cheer up the postal worker who has to deliver the abundant wish books (and earlier-than-usual seed catalogs.) 

My father in-law, a USPS rural carrier, groused about circulars and any holiday that generated more mail. The bright red bow wouldn't have turned his "Humbug" into "Ho-Ho-Ho." 

2) The homeowner hopes the gussied-up mailbox will make Christmas cards feel right at home. 

3)  It's a gimmick to make the neighbors think the inside of the house must be Pinterest perfect too.

4) All that greenery will take the sting out of the credit card bills that pour in after the shopping sprees. 

What's your theory? Why do you decorate your mailbox?

Mouse in the house

zoom in to see it more clearly

My grandson Sam can now text me and he introduced me to emoticons. They are one of the "languages" on my keyboard.

Can you decipher the emoticon story above? 

The recent mouse encounter had a happy ending--for me.  

When the weather turned wintery we had a rodent refugee. We discovered its presence when some insulation from the sides of the dishwasher spilled onto the floor beneath it. We didn't even have to guess at the cause.

We first encountered mice in a very similar situation thirty years ago.

We were living in a rural area outside of Denver, Colorado. There, like here, our house was isolated and surrounded by open fields. When temperatures dropped the vermin squeezed their way into the warm house. We saw evidences of the unwelcome visitors and set traps, put out poison, and stuffed steel wool around the pipes coming up from under the house. We caught some, then caught some more, and then they got cheeky. I actually had one grey head pop up through the shallow metal pan under the stove burners!

One very cold night we turned on the seldom-used oven to prepare dinner. As it warmed emitted a nasty smell. We checked the diaper pail. (Back then we had to wash the cloth diapers). We checked the garbage. The oven neared the desired cooking temperature and the stench forced us to turn off the stove. But the odor had filled the small rooms and we opened the front door even though it was 20 degrees outside, to let in fresh air.

When the landlord came to check out the problem, he discovered numerous nests in the insulated side panels of the stove!

So this winter's sifting insulation tipped us off. A greedy little bugger, the mouse quickly followed his nose to the peanut butter baited trap.  As my story describes, the old man (my husband) caught the mouse. I ( the little old woman of emoticon language) was very happy.  We haven't seen any other mice since.


I hope you have a winter, with 

Share your skirmishes against the rodents.

Advent: the Tree

cut in Colorado

The day after Thanksgiving we join millions of others cutting their own Christmas tree. Last year we were with our kids in Colorado, and helped them cut their trees. 

a very locally grown tree

When we got home, I wanted my own tree. It was so late in the season I just sent Bill out because he had told me he'd seen " a hundred good ones". He was back in ten minutes. 10 minutes! 

locally grown, but sparse

This year, I had my heart set on something splendid, full, tall. We liked the idea of cutting something local and free. With our friend's permission we cut from his land, not quite a quarter of a mile from home. Most of the better trees were tall, and we'd have to cut off 4-5 feet of trunk. Bill rejected my first choice in favor of this.  

Five minutes of drilling holes and forcing limbs cut from other trees into the holes I gave up. 

fresh and full!

We ventured out and chose this one.

We're both pleased. 

Do you feel the same childlike excitement decorating the tree that you did fifty years ago? Why do you think that is?

Squanto welcomes the Immigrants

The 400th anniversary of the feast at the Plymouth Plantation is just around the corner, chronologically speaking. 

It's not the first thanksgiving celebrated in the colonies, that would be 1607 in Jamestown. In fact, the 1621 feast was actually a harvest celebration, not a solemn day of thanksgiving to God and prayer. That happened in 1623. Presidents Washington, J. Adams, Madison and Lincoln issued proclamations of Thanksgiving, but it didn't become a national holiday until 1942.

Despite our inaccurate idea of the holiday's origin, we've latched onto the Pilgrim's event because the colonists had so much to be thankful for. Fifty of the original one hundred were still alive after a brutal first winter for which they were underprepared. They had a good crop to celebrate, thanks to the help of Squanto who taught them the best method for planting corn. 

He's one of the people I'd like to invite to one of those imaginary dinner parties!

He was captured to sell into slavery. He may have ended up in Spain, and one version of his story says Catholic monks bought him, and gave him a home with them. I try to imagine that. He was a young teen, absconded by evil Englishmen, stuck on a ship to cross an ocean so large he couldn't fathom it.  He learned Spanish, and about the Christian faith, and convinced the monks to help him get home. 

He went through England, where he worked for a shipbuilder, and learned English. When he finally got back his village was vacant and in ruins, but he stayed in the region and met the Pilgrims. 

Despite the limited original source material about Squanto, and conflicting stories, we know he lived. He did go to Europe and learn English. He did return to the very spot that desperate English men and women needed a guide to survive in their new home. 

He was able to communicate with them, and they must have been astounded. What could have been less likely? No wonder the Pilgrims saw Squanto as a miracle from God. 






Squanto, a children's version of the events,  emphasizes God's role in Squanto's life.
Through the friars, God protected Squanto from slavery. Eventually Squanto returned home. Although he must have been gravely disappointed to discover his family and village were extinguished by disease, he didn't retaliate against the Englishmen he found in their place. He was an agent of hope for them,  teaching essential lessons. He lived with the Pilgrims until his death. 

What a wonderful part of our national heritage. Where would the immigrant Pilgrims have been without him? 

Online resources:       

http://www.history.com/topics/thanksgiving

http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/pas/kids/td.htm

Sprigs: Fall Freebie

Last week I gleaned in my own back yard.  Dried grasses and beauty berry  made colorful arrangement. 

A fall freebie! 

Thankful to Something or Someone?

Last week I asked you to "cook up" some gratitude. Let's play philosopher and dig a little deeper. 

It is my underlying belief that when we are thankful, we are thankful to Someone, not Something.

While as some folks, like Shirley MacLaine, thank the really big Something--the universe. Her Santa Fe ranch includes a stone spiral labyrinth.   It's her go-to spot when she  "had decisions to make, or I wanted to thank the universe for something." (WSJ, April 18, 2014) 

Photo by Widosu underCreative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 |Source

I tried to imagine that. Giving thanks assumes that the thanker acknowledges a benefit, a favor grated by the thank-ee.  What benefit does the universe grant to me? Dark holes? Stars? Galaxies I cannot imagine? Although a particle physicist might disagree, I don't think those things make any difference in my daily life. 

 While I concede the sun provides heat and light our planet depends upon, the sun didn't determine the placement of earth's orbit.

I can be glad that trees give shade and clean the air and produce medicines. But I can't really attribute my happiness to them.

A big tree on a hot day; I was grateful.

I won't thank the potatoes for their sacrifice on thanksgiving Day--that just seems weird. 












And thanksgiving isn't self-congratulatory. There are many blessings I haven't created for myself. I didn't create my innate intelligence (no matter its size) , or physical health. While I am responsible to develop my mind, and keep my body in some kind of useful shape,  I didn't gift myself with a brain that works pretty well, and a body that usually does what I need it to do.

I do not thank an impersonal Cause, electrical spark in primordial ooze or Big Bang, for the everyday wonders around me.

When the Pilgrims gave thanks nearly 400 years ago, and when I give thanks today, tomorrow, and November 27th, it will be to the God who made it all--me, tree, potato and universe.