Friday Tidings

A large box containing a new wooden oval dining table arrived at my daughter’s home. My son-in-law and I opened it. We laughed, because tucked in the corners were protective cardboard buffers, each labeled EMPTY BOX —only empty was spelled wrong—EMTY.  How empty must you be to not even spell out the word empty? But I can imagine there are those feeling empty enough right now to know what that feels like. Empty of joy because of pain—either physical or emotional. Empty of purpose because of lack of motivation, or worse, rejection. Empty of worthiness because it seems efforts don't make a difference. I suppose there are many more ways to feel empty.  Emptiness can be a dangerous feeling. We don’t want to feel that gnawing sense inside us.  So, it’s easy to grab something to make emptiness go away…food, drink, distractions. I’ve been there. It doesn’t help because it doesn’t last long. But there is something that can fill the empty places: Hope Hope is actuall...

I watched Mrs. Jeffery, the Home Economics teacher, fold her arms and tighten her lips into a straight line. I was sitting with my friends in an all-girls assembly at school. My mother, our city librarian, had just declared from the podium that girls shouldn’t be required to take Mrs. Jeffery’s class. It was now the age of feminism, and my mom was at the forefront of the women’s liberation movement. For her, it was open season on old ways of thinking. Girls should be free from being home-bound. Taking Home Ec wasn’t needed anymore. Get out of the kitchen and get a career.  What Mom didn’t calculate is that the Home Ec requirement wouldn’t just be dropped because she and a small group felt it should. It would take a couple years and school board approval for that. But lucky me would be taking the class next year—with an obviously disgruntled Mrs. Jeffery. Entering her classroom the following September, Mrs. Jeffery called my name during roll call, and had already made the connection...

During the awful Covid summer of 2020, I spent a lot of time in our forest, just quietly pulling the prickly invasive vines growing amongst the sword ferns. Since I was on my knees quite a bit, it was the perfect time and place to pray for my family and friends. No one seemed to be having a great summer. One afternoon, sunshine warmed the air, and a slight breeze rustled the tree branches. Two eagles perched high above me—keeping watch over the sea below. I started praying for my son, Tommy. His business had suffered greatly with all the Covid restrictions. It was hard to be hopeful. Would his business even survive? My heart ached for him, so I kept praying.  Then I heard a voice. I stopped and looked around. No one but me.  It must have been inside my own head. But it sounded different than my own voice. I’ve heard friends say they’ve had God speak to them. But that’s never happened to me.  I didn’t hear the voice again and I’d only heard one word: Sara. Did...

Even after I left home, Dad always sent me a Valentine’s Day card.  I could tell he spent time looking at all the card selections because he seemed to choose the one that made the best connection to where I was in my life right then. Around the time this photo was taken, I was seven years into my marriage, and we'd bounced around quite a bit. Dad knew that we loved each other, but I think he wondered if our love would be strong enough to carry us through life. Most of the time his Valentine’s Day cards were bright and cheery—red and pink hearts, filled with poetic words about love. This time his card was bold and different.  The front featured the words, Not Only Love. Inside was a single Bible verse: And whatever you do, do it with kindness and love. 1 Corinthians 16:14 Dad had then written the following note:  Kindness and love will keep you afloat when life’s waves wash over you. Love and kindness. What a perfect blend.  Yes, they are like lif...

While living through our time of farming poverty, we tried to add some income by combining our love of music with performing in a lounge. It didn’t last long. The biggest problem was that we didn’t play cover songs, so no one knew what we were playing, thus, we didn’t draw much of a crowd. We bowed out before we were asked to. I’m not much of a performer either. Oh, I can get through it, like I used to do for my childhood piano recitals, but I’m a bucket of sweat and anxiety.  Now, because we are trying to “save” our music for posterity’s sake, I’m heading back to our home recording studio to give that old music another chance. However, I’m trying to decipher my musical notations from the 80’s. This is not to be confused with actual music a piano player could read. No, these are embarrassing scribbles that I wrote on envelopes (I don’t know why I used envelopes, except that I had a bunch of them back then). There’s something about music, even though I haven’t played those so...