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.

I’m hungry this morning, not for food, for the bagel and coffee were more than satisfactory, but somewhere within my whole persona, there beats a cadence of disappointment or longing for something better.

I’ m hungry for civility, for respect, for truth, for love, and for hope. As hard as I look for these things, it has fled the landscape of public behavior, and rears its ugly head with a flick of my I Pad button!

All of my life, I have banked my existence as a beloved child of God on these principles , and they are under attack. Driven by ego and greed, some elements of society find them not important in the navigation of life.

But, as for me, my compass is set. My North Star is ahead, my ballot will b e given me soon, , and my rudder is the combination of these values I learned as a child. Full steam ahead

It occurred to me the other day that I needed to spend more time looking for those wow factors in my life, rather than being caught up with the self obsession of an aging body and abilities!

I have found the best way to achieve that is to spend more time with the grandchildren and now, great-grands who still find wonder in the simplest encounters of life. A few of those I savor, like the 2 year old in entering the National Aquarium for the first time, running to that first window of thousands of swirling fish, eluding all barriers, tried to climb through the window and join the pool! Looking back at us with disappointment, she just laid her little head on the glass. Wonder! Awe! And my Wow factor climbed a few points.

Then there was the first snow fall this winter, light, but satisfying! When my grandson went to wake up his boys for the morning, they weren’t in their room. He looks out the window to see them rolling around in the snow. When they came in, he finds that the older brother couldn’t find his little brothers boots, so he put his rubber clogs on him….but he told his dad, “ well, I put two pair of socks on him!” Lesson for Grandma….. Don’t let anything keep you from the Wow of that first snow fall!

Wonder, Awe, Wow, age shouldn’t diminish that. I was reminded of that with a dear nephew’s visit, when he told me he had quoted me on many occasions in his life. He said that on one occasion in a room of adults, a couple of my girls ran into the the room and entreated me with excitement to come with them to see something they had discovered. My nephew said, I got up and left immediately, saying to those in the room,”I brought them into the world, the least I can do is let them show it to me!”

I need to take my own advice and see this world as a child sees it, and grab on to the wonder that is there as real and enchanting as it has always been.

I have watched with interest and a bit of non belief as our local school board has decided that certain books should be taken from school libraries. Golly folks, isn’t this the first step of a dictatorship when they power their way into a country??

I absolutely have no problem with parents deciding what books they don’t want their child to read. Remember I said, Your Child, not mine!. And there is a simply solution for all this. Make sure your child has your list. Make sure the school librarian has your list and can prevent your child checking out such a book.

This country’s great freedom of speech will be honored, my child and I will decide what is off limits, schools will be able to not have one more “parenting obligation”added to their list of teaching self discipline, respect for authority, kindness, work ethics, and acceptance of those who differ from oneself.

Parents, this is your job, and while you’re checking out books they are reading, check their cell phones. I’ve heard there are some scary stuff on them!!!

I am a bit amused, but more fascinated by my own obsession and verbal topic of conversation with my friends and acquaintances. The Weather! My first comment to a dear friend last night, as I climbed into her car, was not “ Hello, or How are you” or even Thank you for picking me up for choir.” It was, “ I think the wind has died down some since morning!”

Hardly the conversation starter, but it soon turned into a weather dialogue that pretty much lasted all the way to church. Really, Ellen, with the troubled world, the wonderful abundances of life experiences you have enjoyed or sometimes tolerated, the wind is foremost in your mind!

With the topsy, turvy weather of the last week or so, I can cut myself a bit of slack for not being a brighter, more informed, and interesting conversationalist. We can also forgive our weather forecasters as they dealt with this unpredictable weather. We even had a very rare weather phenomenon happen from Page County to New Market called a Wake Low, which devastates every thing in it’s path. I’ll give you the opportunity to research it, lest I come across as a real nerd for having done just that!!

Today, having the forecast of a pretty normal winter day, I am going to find something else to obsess with, beginning with a new JoJo Moyes book, not once checking temperatures, humidity, pressures, or in what direction the wind blows!! Good luck, Ellen!

We had holy communion last night at church, and were more than once reminded that there is room for everyone at the table. I never hear those words without recalling our own dinner table as a child. My mother and father personified that concept in ways that brings them to mind every time I hear the words,” room at the table,”

Almost every day at noon, Mom spread out a feast of every vegetable and meat that we grew or raised , and it rivaled any buffet at a restaurant. What was so strange about that table was that usually there was someone that I didn’t know, or knew them from prior meals, that were always welcome at our table.

Several older men without family were frequently there, and any lost soul Dad encountered on the public road while working in the fields was invited home with him to eat. No questions about deserving, or if they smelled ok, or were lazy, or moonshiners, or any other qualifying behavior. They were hungry, and that’s all that mattered.

I admit, my table has never been that open. I tell myself that it’s a different time, such practice just doesn’t bode well in today’s environment.

I take comfort from the fact that our church hosts Open Doors every year where the homeless can get in from the cold and find food, a warm bed and acceptance. I’ll find my way of helping with that and hope this small effort makes me even more aware of what it means to have room at the table in every phase of my life.

Not quite mid winter, but listening to the weather forecast here in the valley, it is supposed to be our coldest day so far. Looking out my front door and north over my deck, colorful lights, and even an advent wreath in one yard, lessens the frigid forecast and warms my heart.

Hearing of my children in their holiday traveling, and watching FaceTime with pictures of grandchildren and great-grandchildren around Christmas trees with beaming faces defies me to give thought to my freezing surroundings.

I am very aware that this bucolic image I paint is not true for a lot of families this season, and for that fact, all of us must do more than give a passing thought to such. We must find a place we can have an impact and not just a fleeting thought. Open doors, Mercy House, Salvation Army, your own house of worship have opportunities for you to do just that.

The gifts, the lights, the music, the joy, the peace, must never overshadow the reason for all that. The reason , lay in a stable, born into a world as troubled as ours today. But who came out of such a birth, commands us to react to that uneasy world with love and action, as He did.

With a sense of satisfaction, but also a feeling of relief, I carried all my candy making equipment to the basement. Down went the spices, food coloring, the colorful bags, the containers, the molds, the paper liners, and a bit of smugness for my accomplishments!

As far as we can recall, about 55 years ago, my sister Nancy and I went to a candy making seminar put on by the Va Tech Extension Office. That seminar led to years of candy making with my sisters and became a tradition for each of our holiday celebrations.

For me, it became a way I could gift my grown children and grandchildren with a gift that, literally, money could not buy! Chocolates, hard candy, and peanut brittle, made with all the love this octogenarian can muster,says all I need to say in greetings for this season of celebration.

The best part of this tradition is passing in on. Little by little the daughters are learning just how peanut brittle should look in the pan to be just right, how pizza cutters make great hard candy cutters as it cools, and how the aromas in the kitchen, as you work, dwell in your mind much longer than the fatigue of a day of candy making.

What a wonderful word, isn’t it? First of all, it’s implication is that it requires some action on our part! The giving of thanks, in a time of unparalleled national self concern and preservation, takes some real self-examination .

It is almost mind boggling that in 1863, right in the middle of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln declared a national day of thanksgiving! In some of the direst days in this nation’s history, he called for the nation to remember the good in our lives, and be thankful.

We can do no less today. My wish for you, and for me, is a day filled with genuine thanksgiving for the real gifts of life, like relationships of family and friends, for opportunities to share, for life itself, all bestowed by our God from His infinite store.