The Joy of Reading

I made myself a promise. A promise I intend to keep. A promise, I told myself that is only a little self indungent, but good for my soul. I promised to read at least one book a month. How ever shall I keep myself at task? I know I will start a book club! I am a genius! So I gathered my beautiful girls, Jazzie and Backle, my friend Delda, Backle's friend Kate and together we read. We read Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen. All I can say is WOW! What a beautiful book. Sara Gruen mixes the true and the fiction and comes away with one of the most beautifly written books I have ever read. The most exciting part of the read wasn't just reading it was knowing that there was a group of great, strong women out there reading the same words I was reading. Feeling the same things I was feeling... I had something in common with my daughters, my friend, my daughters friend. I could hardly wait until we could come together and talk about what we had all expeirienced. Life behind the scenes in a depression era circus. We all cried, we all laughed, we all grew, we all shared in some way or another our heart, our mind, our soul. So now as we read our next pick, Running with Scissors by, Augusten Burroughs, I again find myself excited and fidgeting away on the couch because I want to discuss this book with someone. I want to talk away into the evening about Augusten and the life he led. I am honored to be in the company of the women who will soon come to my home with book in tow, a bite to share and a common need to wonder why. There are a couple new girls this month and we still have room to grow a little bit. So, if you are out there reading this and you think you might want to join us I would encourage you to hop on the train and ride along. We have only a couple rules. You must be over 21 and free on a Thursday evening. You have to give equal floor time to the incredible women of the group and even if you don't quite like this months book you have to promise to read and come along side as we dive into the world of the written word. I love to read. Why I don't allow myself the time I don't know, but I made myself a promise. A promise I am going to keep. And next month as we pot luck and talk the night away I am going to be greatful I have something in common with such an amazing group of women.

Shades of Purple

I first read The Color Purple when I was young mother. It was that one thing I could do for me while I was breast feeding my oldest daughter. I loved breast feeding it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It was a bonding that I don't think bottle feeding could ever emulate. But I digress..... Sorry. Now as a big girl all grown up with daughters married and bearing children of their own I watched The Color Purple on stage and was at times brought to tears, keeled over with laughter and filled with joy that I could witness this beautiful story with my beautiful little girl Becky, who isn't in any way aw little girl , but a woman and a mother. It's funny I still see her as my baby. I know she isn't , but my eyes still see her as a child. We had an amazing dinner before the play and I am still not quite sure what all we ate. However I think I should have been born Japanese cause that food was incredible. I just laughed and sat there as they brought us course after course of food I had never before seen or tasted and I savored every bite. I think it was the company; my little child/woman who was so excited to have a "Big girl" night out. We had drinks, we had dinner and we watched a beautiful story unfold. Sug tells Celie that God is everywhere even in The Color Purple and I think she is right. Some days the purple is washed out and it is only lavender and some days the purple is so intense it is almost red, but every day there is a shade of purple and Christ's hand has painted the day. I guess it is us who lightens and darkens the shade with our attitudes and actions. I think for this new year I will try my hardest to leave alone the perfect purple that the Lord sends down and try and live my life even and trusting the shade of grace given to me this day and the next. Because if God is truly in purple then maybe just maybe I need to rethink my view of that color. It may just be the most beautiful color in the box.

No Regrets...

Christmas, a time to reflect on the year, the love we share, not just for each other, but the love of a savior, the love of a father and the sacrifice he made for us. My husband and I hosted a Christmas party for both of our families in 1998. It was a big affair and much to my surprise everyone came. I am sure now that it was a gift from the Lord. A gift for each of us. Everyone walking away with a different gift , but a gift all the same. I didn't know then that it was the last Christmas I would spend with my dad. Nor, did I know that it would be the last holiday of any kind that I would spend with my sister. As I was standing in the back room mashing potatoes for forty five with my daddy and laughing at the use of Coleman stoves to cook for so many I was caught up in the delight of spending time in the kitchen with him. I wasn't thinking ahead to a time when he would no longer be mashing potatoes of carving turkey. I cherished that moment in time, held it close to my heart both then and now. My last Christmas with my daddy. My sister was fighting cancer and appeared to be in a winning phase and that was good. My mom, just a couple days later would end up in the ICU, bleeding from who knows where and chemo would follow. I was tired, tired from all the work of the party, tired from all of the Dr. visits, tired from all of the worry. Wondering when I would lose them. Would I have another Christmas?

Now ten years later, all of our children are grown and on their own. I am an orphan. My sister is resting in Heaven with my mom and dad. I am happy for them. I have a vision of them together looking down on all of us and smiling. Holding tight to one another and waiting for our time to come again. That is the greatness of a Savior and a life eternal; the simple thought that never again for all of eternity will I ever, or those that I love, be alone. I have friends and family who seem to take for granted their time here on this earth. Take for granted that the ones they love will be here when they feel like hanging out. They seem to think that time is irrelevant. That time some how stands still and when they deem it ready that all the ones they love will be anxiously waiting in the wings to be graced by their presence. Wouldn't it be amazing if it worked that way? Then there would be no regrets. There would be no what if's. What if I would have just gone last Christmas? What if i would have just set aside my differences and loved them with all my heart? Did they know how much I loved them? Did they know they were important to me?

So many questions and too few answers. I don't know why, but I am grateful that God allowed me no regrets. No what if's. He just made me the kind of daughter that wanted more than anything to be with her parents. The kind of sister that even though we weren't raised together she knew I loved her and I knew she loved me. This whole idea of taking for granted my loved ones has been laying so heavy on my heart these last few days I had to find a way to get rid of it. So here it is written down and tucked away so that I can move on. I pray I never have to comfort someone that I love through regrets and what if's. Someone I know just told me we all want to be Norman Rockwell family at Christmas. We all have too many expectations of what Christmas is really all about. It reminds me of Clark Griswald in Christmas Vacation. It wasn't about presents and all the other stuff that junks up what Christmas really is. It was about family, the good and the bad, the weak and the strong, about getting all together and throwing out, if only for a day or a week, all that makes us crazy about each other and coming together as one great big bunch to just let everyone know they are loved. It is the gift that Christmas is. The gift given down from Heaven above. The gift of love and salvation. And right here on this earth when times seem tough and we can't always feel the love of Christ he gives us each other to remind us that love is abundant and it comes in many forms. So for those of you who take love and loved ones for granted I hope and pray that the Lord gives you the time to make it right and that there will be no regrets and no what if's in your life. And for those of you who have no regrets I am happy for you and blessed by your ability to love.

Merry Christmas, joy, peace and much love,
Kim

Thanksgiving

I guess we had a fine Thanksgiving lots of laughter around the table and the turkey, well, it was my best, if I do say so myself. All of my kids except Sarah were home and I'm getting used to holidays without her. I wish she lived closer and maybe someday soon she will, but for now I am learning to accept those things that I cannot change. A hard lesson that one, learning to accept the things that make your heart ache. Learning that heart ache is what you make it. It either rules you, or you take charge and rule it. I am taking the lead on heart ache now and it feels pretty darn good. I still though, don't understand when families hurt each other. When mommies say and do things to hurt their children, when daddies turn away from their daughters... I ran into an old "friend" the other day and she is expecting her second grand baby. For me a new grandchild is another little piece of Heaven right here on this Earth, but she wasn't happy at all. She was mad that her son had fathered yet another child without thinking before screwing as she put it. Sad... It isn't the baby's fault that his father doesn't think first or with the correct head. I am guessing now that that sweet little baby is going to need all the love he can get. I also have a friend who is expecting her first grand child and the baby is going to be born very sick. She will need surgery within days if not hours of being born and though everyone has their hopes high I know there is fear lurking in the background and I think about her daughter. As a mom you wish only to keep fear and pain at bay for your children and in this case both of those things are impossible. So you rely on your faith to bring the much needed peace and you pray that God, the Father, reigns down all the mercy and grace he can muster.

As the holidays approach I am more thankful than ever. Thankful for my girls, for their babies, for my family, my friends and yes, even for moist turkey. I no longer will live in the past and the sadness of it. I miss my mom and my daddy so very much, but I know they are still here with me and as for the stuff that happened that has caused much sadness in my life I have forgiven those that need forgiveness and that includes forgiving myself for allowing the tragedy that happened to have taken place. Forgiveness is a much needed necessity and now that it has taken place my life is so much easier to accept. So, there is that word again, accept, hmmmmm....... I wonder why it has taken me so long to accept acceptance. I may never know. For now, I am just happy I have a loving husband, happy children and the most beautiful, smartest grandchildren on this earth. Oh yeah, I got to meet my 9th grandchild the other day. I cannot wait until he/she is born and in my arms. Yes, I have much to be thankful for.

Christianity

Just a little warning I am gonna rant a bit. It has been common knowledge that I have always been a little left of right it my values and views which usually doesn't coincide well with Christianity, but I call myself a christian and I try desperately to live a christian life. To do what the Lord would have me do. To treat others with the love that Christ commands me too. In 1 Corinthians 13:13 we are told of three gifts given to us by God; And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. So here lies the problem for me. Granted we live in a broken world, but must we in the name of Christianity break it further? The gay community wishes to be married legally, to raise their children like heterosexual couples do as married parents. What, I ask you is the problem here? Yeah, I know what the Bible says regarding homosexuality, but like I said, this world is broken and no matter what the church wants this matter is not going away things change and like so many other values that have seen crumble away in time the gay community will get what they ask for as long as they are willing to fight for it. I remember when living together without the confines of marriage was considered the most evil of sin and now it is common practice no one even thinks anything of it anymore. Who am I to stand in their way and why in the name of Christ would I protest a life style. Why in the name of Christ would I stand on a street corner and profess that the God of love, the God who gave his own precious son to die for me so I can live in the mercy and grace of a love so incomprehensible, could hate, or cast out, or despise, or any other hateful thing a group of people who want only to legitimize the union they long for. I find it almost laughable that so many of us are so afraid of commitment that we run and hide from it confines and here is a group of people who want so desperately to commit to one another and they cant. Why not stay out of it and let the Lord judge for it is he that makes the final call. We all go before him in the end. Having said that I am having a hard time with the gay community infiltrating church services and standing outside churches and temples protesting Christianity, or maybe more correctly the church. One act of hate in retaliation for another isn't right either. There is no more eye for an eye, nor tooth for a tooth. That is old testament law and we live under a new covenant. I can only stand up for myself, so I vow only to love in the Name of Christ and even though there are things I don't personally believe in I will never spout hate in the name of Christ and it is my personal mission that when I here hate spoken in the name of my Savior I will speak up loudly and remind them that we serve a God of love not hate and that he wishes all to be saved and no one to perish. I will remember the greatest of these is love and I will not judge. And I will pray that it starts with one and then another and another and soon the word Christian will again be a sweet word, a word that speaks only love and it will never again be a word of hate.

The Color Purple

I was 21 the first time I read The Color Purple. I picked up a copy at the local Safeway, started reading and didn't quit until the last page was turned. Ceilie, what a woman you are. Next came the movie which I have seen a time or two and now, in just a few short months I will see it on stage, set to music. A full circle moment. I think I may have to revisit the prose just to remind myself of the beauty of Alice Walker's words. The story she tangles up in the emotions of my mind. The relationships, good, bad, ugly, implied. I can't wait to see the rise of this woman on stage. You go Ms. Celie, you go!!!

"Aunt" Jemimah

This is Lily Kate. She is my sweet granddaughter full of life and her own very interesting take on this world. I always love to get her view on things I usually learn something. Her mom is going to have a baby. It took Lily a few days before she could grasp the idea of her mommy having a baby in her tummy after all Auntie Backle just had McKenna in her tummy and you could definitely tell that something was going on inside. It was big and round and even moved every now and again. She could touch it, feel it move, but her mommies tummy was just the same as it always was. It took her sister Iris to convince her that the whole thing wasn't a joke. Now come the questions. With much though she asked me one day if her mommy was going to have her tummy cut open like Backle. I explained that mommy would have her new baby brother or sister a different way, but it would be up to mommy to tell her how. Lily was fine with that and our conversation went on to more important things like could she have her candy that we had bought at the store for after dinner. A few days went by and my phone rang it was Jazzie, Lily's mommy, calling to tell me that she and Lily had had a little talk and she, like me, had learned a little something from having spent some time chatting with Lily. Now, as you know most families have names for certain areas of their children's anatomy. Jazz has always referred to the girls private parts as their "girl spots". This has been fine up until now. As Jazzie tried to explain that the new baby would emerge into this world via her girl spots. Lily looked very confused, so began the use of correct terminology. Mommy has a vagina, (the big V word), just like your girl spots, Jazzie explained and the baby slides through it and out the opening and into the world. Lily contemplated this new word and realized with much joy that she too had a Jemimah! Now, I ask you, my fellow sisters, isn't Jemimah a much sweeter word that the ol' "V" word? I say let us unite and together make the change. From now on we birth our children through our Jemimah, menstruate, make love... You get the picture. Historically it has been men who have come up with alternative names for that very sacred place. Now we as women can fight back and instead of some nasty and ugly name that a man has come up with we as women can stand together for change and embrace our JEMIMAH.