I gave the book, Demon Copperhead, to my friend, Carol, last night with almost relief to get it out of my house. This book is by Barbara Kingsolver, who wrote The Poisonwood Bible some years ago, and again the author attacks institutions who sometimes fail in their purpose to better the world, or at least not add to the problem

This is a story of how we, in America, deal with poverty and opioid addictions. This book has been touted as one of the great books of 2022, and it is. As I told Carol and my girls, sometimes I had to put it down and just not even look at it until I could wrap my mind and heart around this young boy and his story.

As he tells his story, there is enough guilt to share with social services, schools, foster care programs, and adults in general. And I believe that’s where my unease came from…. how many Demon Copperheads have I encountered in my life and not respond to their cry for help

A lot of you know that, while rearing my own girls, we participated with Social Service here in the valley with their foster care program. I found out there was a need for emergency and short term placement for children until a more permanent plan was established. Thus we took care of infants until adoptions were finalized…….Pure Joy !!!!! And also children taken from their homes and need immediate care until long term plans occurred. So we had children brought to us in the middle of the night on occasion.

I can’t begin to relate some of the heart wrenching moments that occurred when little ones were pulled from my arms screaming, No No, as a custodial child was reclaimed by that parent. I need to say emphatically that the Social Services were wonderfully trained and caring but had to act within the law, always, despite their better judgment.

I personally fostered a Demon Copperhead when teenagers were those who were in my care, and I relived some of those moments as I read his story. I am going to tell you just one incident that still haunts me. We were caring for two middle school girls who had gotten moved from a foster home they were living in and brought to me until a new place was found. One of the girls was put in a group home because she had real problems that needed attention. The other girl was a quiet, somber young girl, so I sat down beside her as we waited for Social Service to come pick them up. “I said, Penny( not her real name) are you going to be all right with this move?” She looked me with the saddest eyes and said.”Who cares about what I think about anything.”

Demon Copperhead could have been that same child that sat on my sofa and I didn’t have an answer for his future. My daughter Sarah, is listening to an audio version of the book, and it is impacting her too. When someone asks you, “Who cares about what I think?” I hope you have a better answer than I gave that young girl so long ago. I didn’t say anything!!

Familiar, soul searching, somewhat uncomfortable words that our Pastor Ann shared with us Sunday, sent us who heard them re-thinking any resolution we had for the new year.

A Time For Every Purpose Under Heaven? The words of these Ecclesiastes words rolled around in my mind often throughout the day yesterday and again this morning as I began my daily ritual. The one word, of all the poetic beauty of them, that resonated with me was the word Purpose. So, Ellen, what is your purpose for this day, for this year, for this life?

So for this year, rather than making one weak resolution that usually fails after a few days, I am going to look at all things I attempt as to its purpose. What is my purpose in doing that thing? Is it to unite rather than divide, to love rather than hate, to mend rather than tear down, to embrace new things rather than hold on to the past?

So Happy New Year, friends. Happy New Year, Ellen….even this late in life, you have purposes to fulfill. God bless you, everyone!

I’m not real sure about the latest scientific study that found that people with more church attendance and prayer life have better heart health!

I have never thought that my faith gave me an advantage of a better heart health than those who choose a different path in life. What I do think is that my faith gives the optimism or unfailing hope that whatever befalls me, I am not alone.

I believe a life lived in gratitude, benevolence, unbiased love, and faith in our creator will give you the joy we all seek in our lives. If you are failing in any of these, you might look for a prescription at your local house of worship. It just might fill your heart with so much love, it defies illness.

I think there exists in most people a desire to know who and why they are, and where they fit on that beautiful, messy, encompassing, troublesome tree called family.

After a recent newspaper article that spoke of heritage and homesteads with a name that certainly had a branch on our family tree, our daughter Mary Ellen and I set out to explore the whispered, never discussed mystery of one of those branches.

Mary Ellen and I cornered every one we could talk to at a celebration by that family, and got a few more statistics that fit the few facts we had already found.

There was talk of illegitimacy, American Indian blood lines, broken relationships, and all those things that no one dared talk about. Still that branch was on our tree!! The shame and hurts, long dismissed by succeeding generations, are today, a part of our history. Adding color to a somewhat stiff, proper lineage, we can look back with sympathy and acceptance for what they endured.

It was a rewarding time that Mary Ellen and I spent looking at our tree. We both were made more aware that we can’t just prune a branch when we look back. We just accept, with a loving heart, both the healthy and withered branches and hope our descendants will do the same.

There is a great deal of comfort in the rhythm of the seasons ….spring to summer, summer to autumn, autumn, to winter, and the white icy coat on my grass this week was confirmation of that phenomenon.

We all have our favorite seasons, and I must say, Autumn has much to offer as the winner. Trees busting in color, temperatures not too hot or too cool, harvesting the bounty of the earth, football games, and the heating and cooling bills go down!!

Personally, I got my portable electric heater out for the bathroom, put on my flannel sheets, and got out my down comforter, just in case! The Shenandoah Vally can throw us a curve in weather patterns every now and then, but traditionally, we have a very tolerable climate in all seasons. So if you are a product of this garden of Eden, or a pilgrim who navigated here, thank your forbears or your good sense in your ability to snuggle down and enjoy the crisp mornings and cool nights of a Shenandoah Valley October.

It’s warm here in the Shenandoah Valley, but 40 degree nights forecast for the week. One of the things I love about the valley is the definite changing of the seasons, but it seems somehow those changes have gotten a bit blurred with Climate Change, so the scientists tell us. Mom always said that we could have a “killing” frost anytime after September 15. Not this year!

Symbolically, more than any other reason, I changed the wreath on my front door, changed the air filter in my heating/cooling system, and picked the last two tiny tomatoes from my vines.

On the farm, Fall was Bill’s favorite season. Big green forage wagons were greased and cleaned to be ready for the bounty of crops soon to fill them in the ritual of harvest. Football and hunting filled his mind and hours with pure joy. Somehow it seemed, to all of us, it gave us the chance to celebrate by preserving and being grateful for the year before the hibernation of winter months.

So, bite into a crisp apple, make a pumpkin pie, buy a mum, and when the leaves start to change, find your nearest national Park and praise God for Autumn.

The words to the old song by Peter Lind Hayes ring true for me more and more as a realization of my wonderfully active life having limits hits me. So what I need to do is transfer that physical energy to what my body dictates. My wonderful daughters have joined me in pursuit of that actuality.

So instead of walking multiple miles outside each day, I am safely and comfortably walking in water at Sentara Wellness Center, and adding back some gentle yoga that I enjoyed in the past with a bit of balance and stretching exercise, I found a new way.

I find a certain satisfaction and a bit of chest-pounding victory in being able to transition, for at a time in life when we resist change, we are called on to make more changes than ever before in our lives! We need to, perhaps, move to more suitable living arrangements, address physical changes to health care, handle emotional losses in deaths of loved ones, so don’t call us old or weak, or passé. I have never been stronger in my life!

Listening to the Turpin foster care suits going on in the courts today just makes my stomach lurch and my mind spin with memories. I will begin by saying that the social workers that worked with me were absolutely professional and proficient in every way.

So here is my short story about my venture into foster care when I already had seven children of my own!!! I had a relative who was a case worker and hearing his story of the great need, I decided to volunteer. I already had baby and children “equipment” like cribs and baby clothes, so I told them I would take infants from the hospital for the six weeks before their adoption finalized. Pure joy!!! I never charged social services and it was a pleasure in many ways. First of all it taught seven little girls that we love everyone, never condemning, never sitting in judgment of decisions, even when they are not one you would make.

We also took children when they were taken away from birth parents until permanent care was available. I couldn’t do long term foster care….I was afraid if I kept them too long, they would be mine and I would never let them go.

So why am I telling you this?? Foster Care is in crisis stages in a lot of our country, so what will happen when children born in all kinds of unfortunate circumstantial enter the system? Besides what the Roe vs Wade decision concerning abortion did for women, remember we are most importantly cutting off birth control access for women who have no other avenue for that.

I pray that all of the passion by proponents of the Supreme Court decision is transferred to that child born into a world, unappreciated, without resources for living in that world. We must open our hearts and our lives to make sure what we have legislated is better than the alternative for those children. Watch the Turpin case if you can stand to do so.

My girls know they probably can’t call me early morning because I am walking. If I can’t get outside in some weather events, I am walking around and around my unfinished basement………not ideal, for the view never changes!!!!

I started a routine of early morning walking back in the late 80’s and it has continued to be a part of my daily routine. I like to think that I follow the sun. Right now it is at it’s northern most journey, and beginning it’s slow move southward. This morning at 6:15 it was breaking over Laird’s Knob on the Massanutten with whispy clouds just beginning to reflect it’s glow. it will continue down the Massanutten, on to the Blue Ridge, and in early Spring, come back home again. I’ll be watching!

My walking companions have changed over the years, but I have always enjoyed our shared moments of greeting the earth as it, along with us, rises with renewed hope and resolve to make a brand new day a good one. Thanks be to God.

Running through my mind on my 84th birthday yesterday were the lyrics to the old Frank Sinatra song, It Was A Very Good Year, in which he was recalling his life. It wasn’t the first few verses , which were mostly references to his romantic life, but it was the fourth verse that spoke to me.

“But now the days are short, I’m in the autumn of the year. Now I think of my life as vintage wine from fine old kegs, from the brim to the dregs, it poured sweet and clear. It was a very good year.”

Wine has absolutely no purpose but to give pleasure and comfort to life, and we seek it out in celebration and communion with one another. So such a reference to life speaks clearly to this octogenarian. With occupations and child rearing, and relationships, it was not hard to see relevance and purpose to life, but in these autumn days, that blurs in our minds.

Here’s what we do…… make our encounters with all we meet like handing them a vintage wine, smooth on their tongue and nectar to their soul. Make them feel better about themselves in having spent time with you. A very good year, indeed.