Old fashioned word!! I have heard that word bandied around for years, and hearing it the other day sent my mind spinning around to growing up days when Mom uttered it often over breaches of behavior in generally. So, I grew up with what was acceptable or not in clothes, demeanor, and a definite perception of what was decent.

I, of course, went straight to my thesaurus to see if anything had changed since my childhood! The definition I liked best was this: Honorable, following the acceptable rules of moral conduct! Wow! Mom was right even back then!

I’m a bit homesick for that old fashioned word. It’s meaning has not changed, but we have. Anything other than “honorable “ seems to be acceptable!

I like Mom’s ideas best! Anything that makes you cringe as you accept it, or make you think of its bad impact on others is not honorable. I was told the other day to just close my eyes and do this particular thing!Never!!! With eyes wide open, I’ll seek the honorable way!

That phrase doesn’t mean a lot to most people, but in the Blose household it was, in many ways, the culmination of the summer’s focus for our family. As soon as school was on summer break, our children and Bill were caught up in the activity of presenting to the public the best the farm had to show to represent our farm in show animals.

This morning, on their daily messages to each other, out came the memories of early morning chores,, loose cows trying to escape show halters, and many more, I am sure, that they don’t tell Mama.

I reminded them again that Bill’s trust in them to take this responsibility was just one more way he recognized their capabilities. So I want to promote the greatest youth movement in our country, the 4H Club and the FFA programs that our children has access to in this county.

You don’t have to be a “farm” kid to be a part of the greatest, most necessary thing in our world, Food! My girls were blessed with a visual way with show animals, and a farm atmosphere, but the things they learned went far beyond farming for a living.

Go to the fair, see those young people, tell them how much you appreciate them, and as you scarf down that fried chicken, or funnel cake, or pork barbecue, think about a way you can help in the movement of providing food for all.

I hope I don’t cause a hurtful dialogue by quoting Robert Frost, the poet, when he said, “Home is the place when you have to go there, they have to take you in!”

Note the “have to” in his quote! Because we all know, that that might not be true for everyone. But this whole week has been one of those reunions!! And everyone, either in body or in spirit who attended were taken in.

I believe these occasions are important for our psyches for the connection to our lives, with not only those who are there, but more importantly, with those who are not. Not only those separated by death, or by distance either emotionally, or physically, but for our own ability to visit the past happenings of our own life.

The very best thing that can happen at a family reunion is where love is shared, faults forgiven, differences accepted, and honor restored and thankfulness expressed for those men and women who gave us the gift of life itself. Charlie and Annie Raines were in full presence this week as we expressed all of the above to each other. Thank you God for family.

Drifting off to sleep last night, physically exhausted but emotionally grateful for a family filled evening with children and grandchildren and even 3 great-grandchildren, my last thought was, “Ellen, savor this moment,”

One great gift of aging, I think, is the realization that time is a dwindling treasure that we can’t afford to waste. Remember those days in our lives when we couldn’t wait for the time we could drive a car, or graduate school, or get married, or make money, or whatever thing that always seemed to be in the future? Well, all at once the future is now!

Betsy has been visiting for a few days, and for some of that time, we went chasing memories! Visiting her old elementary school, first ball field, where grandparents grew up, and she relived, for just a moment, time and experiences important to her.

The song, If I Could Save Time in a Bottle, by Jim Croce, is really a love ballad, but phrases like, “If I Could Make Days Last Forever” or “But There Never. Seems To Be Enough Time”, is a great reminder to me, especially, that despite all the advice of time saving tips, time can not be saved, only savored. Spend your moments well.

Sarah and I went to a service last night at our church, and came home with a better understanding and better historical facts about what is called Juneteenth Day, or Freedom Day.

Let’s all admit that, most of us, not affected by some happening that doesn’t affect us, pay little attention to its occurrence. That was me and Juneteenth!

Having heard Lincoln’s word read in its entirety, and hearing things we had never heard before, Sarah and I declared we were going home and look those facts up ! Some of those questions were about why certain counties is Virginia and Louisiana were exempted from freeing their slaves.

Since the country was still consider at war, only the

counties controlled by union troops were able to enforce this proclamation. And it took two years before Texas even got word of it until the Union General Granger arrived in Galveston on June 19 in 1865….two years after Lincoln’s proclamation. Texas has celebrated that day as Freedom Day since 1866.

So,, why is all this important in our 2024? Why do we gather to hear stories of our history? I believe now more than ever, when forces try to divide us, when schools are told by some that our children don’t need to know things that make us feel bad, when we search for ways to make this country the refuge and gateway for a better life, we need to honor all people seeking those same things.

I think the saddest thing about the legal and political climate in our country right now is that it tramples all over our dreams. Our dream that some brave people centuries ago dared to forge into reality. A dream of freedoms, a dream of equality, a dream of peacefully living, and most of all, a responsible citizenship to hold that dream safe.

We have foolishly believed it was enough. We worked on, or at least recognized,some of our gaffes with indigenous and enslaved peoples. Now, we want our children to not feel guilt, so we seek to eliminate it from our minds and teachings. When did we eliminate the dream?

That dream, that beautiful dream, has caused this nation to slap down despots like Hitler, and communistic leaders, and threats against that dream wherever we discover it. And now the battle to save it must be fought within our own boundaries.

Keep that dream alive. Division, hateful rhetoric, untruths, have no part in it. Democracy has been the “Great Experiment “ for the nations of the world. Can such a dream be doable? Can equality and personal responsibility be the bookends to our society? We have thought so! I still think so! I still have a dream.

This blog is for my aging friends, (Old leaves a bad taste on my tongue as I say it) and I regret the first text to my girls after a small fall I took. What I said was,”I just had my first Old Woman fall!!“

After living on a farm all my life, escaping snorting bulls, big Leghorn roosters bent, on a fight, lawnmowers on slick, green banks, six labor and delivery adventures, flus and Covid, and even a thunder and lightning storm or two, I have fallen! Taken down, head over heels by a treacherous, deadly deck chair and flower pot.

I did fall last Thursday with some bruises and just enough pain to remind me of something, This “aging” thing is a whole new arena of adventures! After a lifetime of hurrying, moving instinctively, to accomplish what I was doing, the call now is for cautious , thoughtful procedures that in no way involve bulls, roosters, lawnmowers, and illnesses, but to realize my greatest threats lie in those terrifying , dangerous deck chairs and flower pots.

in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating the second Sunday of May be a national holiday honoring mothers.

So across this country, minds and hearts ,this day, are reveling in memories of , or interaction with, the one who not only gave us life, but gave us the nurture and guidance that made life sustainable.

Last night, our daughter, Sarah, before a family dinner,gave us a brief homily on motherhood that was just the right touch to the impact and the inclusion into this great institution of Motherhood. She declared that anyone who cares for, or makes life better for another being, is a Mother.

So, Happy Mother’s Day to everyone whose heart overflows with a love so powerful that you just have to share it. That’s Motherhood!

This was my latest question from my daughters as we have started composing a book on line whose framing is me answering a weekly question from them. They urged me to put my latest answer on my blog, so I share it with you as requested.

My faith in God has determine my perspective on every facet of my life. As Carol Lown drove me home after choir practice last night, we affirmed that an incident last night illustrated that the Church was exactly what we wanted to be a part of.

That, and another incident in my life this week just added to that certainty. Last week, a woman who attends the movement class with me, and uses a walker for her almost bent doubled body, approached me. All I knew was her first name, but she was faithful to the class and always cheerful and upbeat. She asked me, “Ellen, where do you go to church?” I told her and invited her to come. Tuesday, she told me she came and loved it and saw me in the choir. I emailed our co-pastor Ann Pettit and told her to keep an eye out for the woman. I asked Ann, “How in the world did she know I went to church?” Ann’s reply was, “Of course she knew, Ellen, you exude Church!”

Last night, a woman rang the church doorbell, outside the choir room, A middle aged woman came in and told us she was looking for a place to pray, saw our lights and heard us singing, and rang our doorbell. Wanting nothing more than a place to pray, we gave her music and she joined us in singing. We left there last night with both her and our hearts more joyful in just being”Church” to each other.

So Carol and I, and many others, just want to be a part of that. Simply, for me, I follow as closely as I can, the teaching of Jesus. Like Thomas Jefferson, sometimes I want to take my Bible and cut out all the words except those of Jesus. I find the dogma and legalisms of many religious bodies troubling. So I embrace the idea that someone might recognize Jesus in me by my actions. And I love that someone can ring a doorbell and find acceptance. That is Church!

Sitting here this morning utterly speechless with the news story of a remarkable excavation of a room in Pompeii in southern Italy. In the autumn of 79AD , Mount Vesuvius erupted with molten rock and ash with 100,000 times the power and destructive energy of both of the two nuclear bomb attacks on the cities in Japan.

Looking at the beautiful painting, almost perfectly preserved, sent my mind swirling with images of people sitting round tables, laughing, sharing polite conversation and the finest food, when their lives were swiftly ended.

History tells us that the city of Pompeii was probably engulfed in 15 to 20 minutes. No escape for the people. This opulent room just discovered was in a part of the city where the very rich lived, and the amazing murals on the walls spoke to that wealth.

Why am I writing this? Coffee in hand, nice comfortable chair, looking forward to the plans for the day, I had, not once, thought for one second, about just how grateful I should be.

We have many occasions each day, if mindful, to feel that gratitude……don’t be like me, that it took a volcanic eruption to invoke that gratitude.