The United States Postal Service is receiving less and less of my business since the advent of Facebook and the ability to text and send photos from my phone.
What this means is that I am now the proud owner of a growing collection of return address labels, none of which I purchased. These have all been sent to me gratis, in the hopes of my returning a donation for the little gift. So far the gift givers have received no remuneration from me.
The veterans have sent address labels sporting flags, Mt. Rushmore, sailboats, eagles and multi-colored stars.
Guideposts has sent butterflies, hummingbirds, watering cans and bird feeders. Another religious organization has sent crosses and lilies.
One Alma Mater has sent labels with the school logo and St. Jude's has sent snowmen, by far the cutest of the holiday labels.
Another veteran's group has sent flowers and butterflies, also flags and book labels. More flowers from a medical group, by which I mean a disease foundation raising money. Pink flowers and ribbons from you-know-who and crosses, crowns and doves from the American Bible Society.
Because I have the time for this I have counted my stash of return address labels. They total way over 600.
So let's figure. I average about three cards a year to friends in Ohio, one bill a month, one birthday card to the son-in-law a year and quarterly support envelope, perhaps a couple of medical bills a year, a dental bill or two so all-in-all about 24 envelopes which require a return address label.
Simple math allows that I will use up my stash of labels by the year 2040. During that year I will turn....wait a minute, I'll be dead.
And this is all assuming that I receive no additional labels.
People horde a lot of things. Apparently I horde return address labels. But no more. I am about to toss out sailboats, butterflies and flowers. I'll still be good until 2020 when I will turn....well, I'll do the math on that later.
And that's what I think about it.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
"Hope springs eternal.," wrote Alexander Pope. If he only knew.
It has certainly sprung up in southern Indiana. Awakening this morning with two more inches of new white snow on the ground I am struck by the hope exhibited around me.
Trucks have lined the street in front of our house for a week or so as the neighbors add a sun porch to their home. Hope reigns.
A friend wrote that less than a mile from our house, birds are singing a happy Spring-like tune in her backyard.
Green shoots of grass are showing through the white stuff in our yard.
High Schools are advertising Spring Musicals.
Spring finery line the shelves of local retail: bunnies, crocuses, lilies and my favorite, plastic crosses with very fake flowers glued on.
Everyone is hopeful. Hopeful that spring will indeed come again as it has for every year of each of their lives. It has never not arrived. Hope is knowing that what is expected and good will show up at the right time.
I do not know who wrote the above quote but the first line says it all for me. Never let go of hope.
And that's what I think about it.
It has certainly sprung up in southern Indiana. Awakening this morning with two more inches of new white snow on the ground I am struck by the hope exhibited around me.
Trucks have lined the street in front of our house for a week or so as the neighbors add a sun porch to their home. Hope reigns.
A friend wrote that less than a mile from our house, birds are singing a happy Spring-like tune in her backyard.
Green shoots of grass are showing through the white stuff in our yard.
High Schools are advertising Spring Musicals.
Spring finery line the shelves of local retail: bunnies, crocuses, lilies and my favorite, plastic crosses with very fake flowers glued on.
Everyone is hopeful. Hopeful that spring will indeed come again as it has for every year of each of their lives. It has never not arrived. Hope is knowing that what is expected and good will show up at the right time.
“Never let go of hope. One day you will see that it all has finally come together. What you have always wished for has finally come to be. You will look back and laugh at what has passed and you will ask yourself... 'How did I get through all of that?”
I do not know who wrote the above quote but the first line says it all for me. Never let go of hope.
And that's what I think about it.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Last night we had a dinner for a friend who lives in a Middle Eastern country. She has been in the States since Thanksgiving and leaves next week for 'home.' I was a deep honor that she would drive this distance to spend a couple of days with us.
We reminisced about old times and she brought us up-to-date on her life abroad. Living there for two years but having a decades old relationship with the area she shared a unique perspective on her life and the current situation in the country.
She and a roommate share a house in the city. The long narrow yard boasts fig and pomegranate trees and, most unusual, grass. At the street side of the property a corrugated wall serves as a barrier to the street and also a framework for the guard house. Guards are posted in the gatehouse 24/7. The house is a series of rooms one right after another. One must go from room to room to room to get to the far end of the house. Two women doctors had lived there before. They gave up the house and sold all the contents to my friend in very short order and left the country quickly. My friend said it was like stepping into someones life: food in the pantry, clothes in the dryer, sheets on the beds.
With walls 2 1/2 feet thick, every window has a window seat. The walls are mud bricks and the roof made of mud. When it rains sometimes mud oozes down the walls. Once a year the roof has to be re-mudded; during a real heavy rain the house could, in theory, dissolve. During a sand storm fine particles of sand settle on every surface. The inside is western except for one room which has cushions and carpets on the floor for entertaining nationals.
It is a rugged, war-torn country and has been for decades, yet the photos of scenery and the portraits of the people are filled with beauty. People are trying to make the best of a dire situation, out daily looking for the sustenance for their families, making no eye contact in case there might be danger. Children find pleasure in simple things: a Matchbox car, new pads of paper for school, a toothbrush.
My friend does not venture out of her home by herself. Even on the one block walk to her office she is often escorted or driven. She keeps a 'go bag' in her closet, filled with essentials for travel if she were to have to evacuate the area quickly. Trips to a mall, a movie theater or the local Starbuck's happen only in her imagination and memory.
I'm writing this because I thought that in writing my thoughts down it would help me understand her DNA, what stuff she's made of that would cause her to leave the comfort of her parent's farm in Ohio and travel half-way around the world (As an aside, this is not the first time she has done this, having spent nearly a decade in a former Soviet Union country).
Her answer is fairly straight-forward when asked. The people in this city need hope, hope for today that food and medical care can be obtained and hope for tomorrow, that their children will be able to go to school, that health concerns will be a thing of the past, that the streets will be safe for all to walk. In short they hope for peace in their time.
Most do not know what peace is exactly, since four decades of war have devastated the area. But hope believes in that which is not seen, it longs for what has never been experienced. Hope dreams and sees what might be.
We all have hope. Some of us hope for a good grade on a test; others for a promotion or a happy marriage. Few of us reading this spend any energy on hoping for clean water when we turn on the tap; few hope that there will be no bombings in the neighborhood during the overnight; few have to hope for the safe return of a child or husband who has walked the two blocks to the only store that remains open because of riots and fire. In comparison what most of us hope for is very puny indeed.
My friend wings her way east again to deliver hope.
And that's what I think about it.
We reminisced about old times and she brought us up-to-date on her life abroad. Living there for two years but having a decades old relationship with the area she shared a unique perspective on her life and the current situation in the country.
She and a roommate share a house in the city. The long narrow yard boasts fig and pomegranate trees and, most unusual, grass. At the street side of the property a corrugated wall serves as a barrier to the street and also a framework for the guard house. Guards are posted in the gatehouse 24/7. The house is a series of rooms one right after another. One must go from room to room to room to get to the far end of the house. Two women doctors had lived there before. They gave up the house and sold all the contents to my friend in very short order and left the country quickly. My friend said it was like stepping into someones life: food in the pantry, clothes in the dryer, sheets on the beds.
With walls 2 1/2 feet thick, every window has a window seat. The walls are mud bricks and the roof made of mud. When it rains sometimes mud oozes down the walls. Once a year the roof has to be re-mudded; during a real heavy rain the house could, in theory, dissolve. During a sand storm fine particles of sand settle on every surface. The inside is western except for one room which has cushions and carpets on the floor for entertaining nationals.
It is a rugged, war-torn country and has been for decades, yet the photos of scenery and the portraits of the people are filled with beauty. People are trying to make the best of a dire situation, out daily looking for the sustenance for their families, making no eye contact in case there might be danger. Children find pleasure in simple things: a Matchbox car, new pads of paper for school, a toothbrush.
My friend does not venture out of her home by herself. Even on the one block walk to her office she is often escorted or driven. She keeps a 'go bag' in her closet, filled with essentials for travel if she were to have to evacuate the area quickly. Trips to a mall, a movie theater or the local Starbuck's happen only in her imagination and memory.
I'm writing this because I thought that in writing my thoughts down it would help me understand her DNA, what stuff she's made of that would cause her to leave the comfort of her parent's farm in Ohio and travel half-way around the world (As an aside, this is not the first time she has done this, having spent nearly a decade in a former Soviet Union country).
Her answer is fairly straight-forward when asked. The people in this city need hope, hope for today that food and medical care can be obtained and hope for tomorrow, that their children will be able to go to school, that health concerns will be a thing of the past, that the streets will be safe for all to walk. In short they hope for peace in their time.
Most do not know what peace is exactly, since four decades of war have devastated the area. But hope believes in that which is not seen, it longs for what has never been experienced. Hope dreams and sees what might be.
We all have hope. Some of us hope for a good grade on a test; others for a promotion or a happy marriage. Few of us reading this spend any energy on hoping for clean water when we turn on the tap; few hope that there will be no bombings in the neighborhood during the overnight; few have to hope for the safe return of a child or husband who has walked the two blocks to the only store that remains open because of riots and fire. In comparison what most of us hope for is very puny indeed.
My friend wings her way east again to deliver hope.
And that's what I think about it.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
I am spending this week at the seminary in northern Illinois where I am a student. A few times a year I am required to be on campus, interacting with other students and professors.
This week's preassignments included preparing for a debate, the side given to us to research and then present to the class. I have spent hours upon hours researching this argument. We were to contact our 'opponent' weekly for updates on what resources we were using to develop our main points. My 'opponent' lives in Manhattan, KS and we have, as required, emailed back and forth. I knew I was obsessing over this assignment. An incident with my husband convinced me that this was so.
One evening last week I fell asleep with the TV on. Jim came in and turned it off, whereas I sat up and, talking in my sleep, said, "Don't turn that off, I'm watching my debate." The program running? Wrestling.
On another note entirely, today when I left to drive to the seminary from my hotel there were five inches of snow on the car, the roads and on everything else. Used to a parking in a garage, cleaning off the snow took me back to apartment living several decades ago when I couldn't afford a garage. Now I could afford and had one but it was five hours away, yet the Rav4 started right up. I love that car...and its seat warmers.
The professor for this week is very well known within academia. He is widely published and maintains an active teaching and speaking schedule. People rely on him for wisdom and rational understanding of complex leadership problems. He is brilliant. He is also humble and very soft spoken. He is also dying. For five years he has been battling cancer and may be in the final stages of the disease process. When he was first diagnosed, he was given five years, give or take. He is weak and needs rest breaks during the day.
We may be the last class who have be honor of sitting under him. He has been an icon in the Christian church arena for decades. He will be sorely missed. Having written that, I am reminded that he is scheduled to lead an all-day seminar on church leadership this summer so speaking of him in the past tense is highly speculative.
Since non of us know when we will draw our last breath but each of knows that last breath will come, it seems wise to invest our time in passionate pursuit. In the case of our professor he feels some urgency because of his disease. Yet he felt this same urgency before diagnosis when he was healthy and active. There has been little waste in his life.
Surely, the wise among us will find something to ponder here.
And that's what I think about it.
This week's preassignments included preparing for a debate, the side given to us to research and then present to the class. I have spent hours upon hours researching this argument. We were to contact our 'opponent' weekly for updates on what resources we were using to develop our main points. My 'opponent' lives in Manhattan, KS and we have, as required, emailed back and forth. I knew I was obsessing over this assignment. An incident with my husband convinced me that this was so.
One evening last week I fell asleep with the TV on. Jim came in and turned it off, whereas I sat up and, talking in my sleep, said, "Don't turn that off, I'm watching my debate." The program running? Wrestling.
On another note entirely, today when I left to drive to the seminary from my hotel there were five inches of snow on the car, the roads and on everything else. Used to a parking in a garage, cleaning off the snow took me back to apartment living several decades ago when I couldn't afford a garage. Now I could afford and had one but it was five hours away, yet the Rav4 started right up. I love that car...and its seat warmers.
The professor for this week is very well known within academia. He is widely published and maintains an active teaching and speaking schedule. People rely on him for wisdom and rational understanding of complex leadership problems. He is brilliant. He is also humble and very soft spoken. He is also dying. For five years he has been battling cancer and may be in the final stages of the disease process. When he was first diagnosed, he was given five years, give or take. He is weak and needs rest breaks during the day.
We may be the last class who have be honor of sitting under him. He has been an icon in the Christian church arena for decades. He will be sorely missed. Having written that, I am reminded that he is scheduled to lead an all-day seminar on church leadership this summer so speaking of him in the past tense is highly speculative.
Since non of us know when we will draw our last breath but each of knows that last breath will come, it seems wise to invest our time in passionate pursuit. In the case of our professor he feels some urgency because of his disease. Yet he felt this same urgency before diagnosis when he was healthy and active. There has been little waste in his life.
Surely, the wise among us will find something to ponder here.
And that's what I think about it.
Monday, January 3, 2011
My world is getting smaller.
As I sit here watching the football game (my team is in the lead after a slow first half) I look around at how I have ordered my immediate world.
Within reach are two TV remotes, a Time magazine, a can of ginger ale, my phone, a box of tissues, two study books and one really stupid novel (a friend recommended it and I am determined to at least skim each page so I can chat with her about it - what she saw in it is beyond me - I thought she was much deeper than this). Obviously with this description I withhold its title and her name.
I am covered in a fuzzy lap robe, sitting in a rocking chair with my feet up on a stool, cat wrapped around my feet, computer on my lap. If I could get the little college fridge back I could have cold drinks within reach.
Except for the computer I embody the look of a 100-year old who has lived a long life and whose
world is now the immediate, what she can see and touch. This 100-year old may wonder, or perhaps not wonder at all, where all the stuff is that she felt so attached to, so enamored by, so protective of. It all lies outside her peripheral view and has been forgotten. Or she may not wonder at all, after all, "out of sight, out of mind."
The lesson, if there is one, would be that life essentials are so many fewer than we think they are, what is necessary is much less than what might be expected and that what is desired is often not all its cracked up to be in the long run.
My world is indeed getting smaller. What would it take to encourage me to enlarge my world? As I pondered this, the door bell rang. Turning off the TV, I put down the my Ginger Ale and computer, threw off the afghan, removed the cat from my feet, rose from the rocker and answered the door. A Girl Scout was making the rounds of houses taking orders for cookies. "Ah," I thought, "this is what it takes. Cookies!" It was such a simple revelation.
And that's what I think about it.
As I sit here watching the football game (my team is in the lead after a slow first half) I look around at how I have ordered my immediate world.
Within reach are two TV remotes, a Time magazine, a can of ginger ale, my phone, a box of tissues, two study books and one really stupid novel (a friend recommended it and I am determined to at least skim each page so I can chat with her about it - what she saw in it is beyond me - I thought she was much deeper than this). Obviously with this description I withhold its title and her name.
I am covered in a fuzzy lap robe, sitting in a rocking chair with my feet up on a stool, cat wrapped around my feet, computer on my lap. If I could get the little college fridge back I could have cold drinks within reach.
Except for the computer I embody the look of a 100-year old who has lived a long life and whose
world is now the immediate, what she can see and touch. This 100-year old may wonder, or perhaps not wonder at all, where all the stuff is that she felt so attached to, so enamored by, so protective of. It all lies outside her peripheral view and has been forgotten. Or she may not wonder at all, after all, "out of sight, out of mind."
The lesson, if there is one, would be that life essentials are so many fewer than we think they are, what is necessary is much less than what might be expected and that what is desired is often not all its cracked up to be in the long run.
My world is indeed getting smaller. What would it take to encourage me to enlarge my world? As I pondered this, the door bell rang. Turning off the TV, I put down the my Ginger Ale and computer, threw off the afghan, removed the cat from my feet, rose from the rocker and answered the door. A Girl Scout was making the rounds of houses taking orders for cookies. "Ah," I thought, "this is what it takes. Cookies!" It was such a simple revelation.
And that's what I think about it.
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