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.

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.