Valentine #1: When Did I Start To Love You?

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One Valentine’s Day in the 70s, I found myself at an arena parking garage in our tour bus without a Valentine for Bill or any way to get one. The children were little then, so I had their stash of art supplies—construction paper, scissors, glue, markers—in the bus.  I decided to make a Valentine and write him my heart.

We were in the thick of life with three children, traveling on week-ends, writing songs, and growing a publishing company.  It seemed I was wearing a different hat every day.  I was running kids to music lessons, cheering ball games, watching dance and piano recitals, listening to poetry contests, and going to play rehearsals and performances, while writing lyrics, writing books, cooking supper, packing for and unpacking from concert week-ends, and doing endless laundry.

Keeping romance fresh (or even breathing) and stealing moments for Bill and me to be alone together was demanding much more than a box of chocolates and a few long-stemmed roses. These lives we were juggling was the “fine print” of the marriage commitment. So, I wrote him this Valentine message in that construction paper card:

Does love have a beginning that a meeting’s measured by? 
Does it happen in a moment like white lightning from the sky? 
Can you tell me its dimensions—just this wide and just this high? 
When did I start to love you?

Tell me just how many dates it takes for love to really start? 
And just how many kisses will turn “love” into an art? 
When does the magic moment come to give away your heart? 
When did I start to love you?

Was the day we talked of Browning the beginning of it all? 
Or the time we walked the meadow and the fields of corn so tall
That we felt like naughty children hiding from their mother’s call? 
When did I start to love you?

I remember just how timidly your first new song you shared—
And by the way you grinned I knew that you were glad you’d dared,
Although my evaluation wasn’t worth much, still you cared.
When did I start to love you?

Was it when I went to meet you in a gown of snowy white? 
Was it when we signed the license and drove off into the night? 
Was it when I gave myself to you and felt that it was right? 
When did I start to love you?

When I feared you wouldn’t love me if you knew how I’d been wrong,
And I spent a week in mis’ry, but you’d known it all along,
And you loved me ‘cause you love me, and not because I’m strong!
When did I start to love you?

Was it when we knew for certain ‘bout the baby on the way? 
Did it start the day you told me I looked pretty—shaped that way? 
Or did something special happen as we waited that last day….
When did I start to love you?

Did it happen when we held her in our arms for the first time? 
Was it later when I nursed her, this creation—yours and mine? 
And I knew compared to what we held the world’s not worth a dime!
When did I start to love you?

There were nights we stayed and prayed by babies, fever burning hot, 
When we really didn’t know if they would make it through or not—
Then we’d face the dawn’s beginning, thanking God for what we’ve got—
When did I start to love you?

Was it rushing to the clinic with a bone in Amy’s throat? 
Was it nights you saw me shivering and wrapped me in your coat? 
Was it when I cleaned your bureau drawer and found you’d saved my note—
When did I start to love you?

Was it when I saw you showing Benjy how to be a man? 
How to sheath his strength in meekness—
How to gently take a stand—
How that only strength of character can salvage this old land?
When did I start to love you?

When you held me close in silence when there were no words for grief—
When the line of empty caskets gaped at all I called “belief”—
When the “amen” was so final.  I had you, and dared to leave—
Was it then I came to love you?

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Photo by Angela Kellogg

What is the stuff love’s made of that can cause the world to glow?
Is it that you made the segments that I brought you, well and whole?
Was it when I came to recognize the poet in your soul
That I began to love you?

It’s not of lace and chocolate that valentines are made—
All such things are lovely but disintegrate and fade.
But love—when once it grows to be—is richer far than jade—
I only know—I love you!

Gloria

      

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Collections

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I came from a long line of throw-away-ers, not collectors.  My Scottish Grandmother Boster on my mother’s side was a practical pioneering woman who actually sewed the muslin covering to stretch over the ribs of a covered wagon before she and my grandfather lit out across the prairie from Missouri to homestead in Wyoming.   There was no place for a “collection” hobby in a covered wagon or in the sod house they lived in once they got there.  When I was a child I do remember her collecting string, which she wound into a great ball for tying bundles wrapped in paper or feed sack cloth.  She also used the heavy cotton string to replace broken shoestrings, to attach to the kites she cut for us out of butcher paper, and to tie the trunk of the car down when it was full of suitcases or furniture.  She taught me to play cat’s cradle with it and to use it to make a big circle on the sidewalk or wood floor for playing marbles.

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My mother didn’t collect things either, and gave away anything she didn’t need and some things we did.  To this day I wish she had kept the service for twelve of Eva Zeisel Town and Country dishes, which by now would have been worth a fortune.  She also used what she had and was not one to “keep it for good.”  She used her Nobility quadruple plate silverware, her china, her Miracle Made cookware, and her best linens. She lit candles and used real napkins on regular days, because she didn’t believe there were any regular days.  She didn’t save things, including herself.  She often said, “If I’m half-way through, I should be half used up—and if I’m not, what in the world am I saving myself for?”

Maybe from them I inherited the deep belief that “we have this moment—today,” and that God’s will for my life is God’s will for this minute.  Mother often told me while I was growing up, “Do what you know to do today and do it with everything you’ve got.  That’s God’s will for your life.”

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If I have collected anything, it is art glass.  This may have started when I was in grade school and my Grandmother Sickal, my father’s Irish mother, gave me a set of very thin and delicate lime green sherbet glasses.  Since then I have collected some beautiful pieces of art glass, including a piece in sea colors Bill got when we visited the island of Murano in Venice, and two matching pieces (a heavy vase and huge platter) in all my favorite shades of yellow and gold that the gals in our Monday night Bible Study got me for Christmas one year.

But really, what Bill and I have collected together over the years has been people: funny quirky people, faithful friends, broken hearts, innocent children, the seasoned and wise, hopeful college kids, old farmers, dear widows who have survived enough pain to bend a weaker soul to the ground.  Our lives have been so enriched by the folks who have crossed our path, sat at our table, ridden on our bus, been in our classes when we taught high school and college, and worked with us over the years.  This collection is eternal, for only relationships will survive this life and open like a blossom into the next.

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Prayer: Just Do It!

Much has been written, taught, preached about prayer and why it does or doesn’t work.  By “work” most people mean “work to our advantage” or “get the sought-after result.”  There are prescriptions, prayer guides, and instruction manuals on prayer with tidy lists of what those who pray must do—and in what order—if they are to see results or, if not followed as prescribed, reasons why the desired result is not seen in good time.

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There are prayer requests sent out by mass mailings or social media blitzes rallying a power-prayer bombardment to sort of “gang up on God” to get Him to change his mind or to clear the way for some project or political objective.

I will readily admit that I don’t understand prayer.  I don’t know why sometimes we seem to “get what we want” and other times we don’t.  I don’t know why the God who breathed (and continues to breathe) galaxies into existence chose to penetrate our tiny planet with the seed of the Divine and make us “vessels unto honor,” promising never to leave us or forsake us and assuring us that He knows our needs before we ever ask.

I do know that if the walking-around definition of His character and being, his very flesh and blood persona—Jesus—is to be believed, God loves us and is moved to compassion by our issues, even when they are the result of our own unwise choices.

If I read the story of Jesus rightly, it’s more about our getting on God’s page than about God getting on ours.  After all, isn’t that why Jesus came? To let us know that God was on our page from the beginning, from the “foundations of the world”?  Didn’t Jesus come to let us know the true character of the Father and clear up any confusion about how "one" He wants us to be with Him and with each other?

And doesn’t every story Jesus told (parables, we call them, because they parallel life’s great truths) tell us that there are two systems in operation—the system of this world and its powers (both political and ecclesiastical) and the Kingdom of God?  And didn’t Jesus plainly teach that we will never accomplish Kingdom work with the earth’s systems?  So ganging up on God to get our candidates elected or defeated or our empires expanded doesn’t seem to be in line with what Jesus taught and exemplified.

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As I think back over my life, recalling the great people of prayer that I have known, the people I would call if I were at a hard place, they seem not to be all that visible to the masses, but instead have been those “embedded” in the fabric of regular life.  Come to think of it, the great Believers I have know have been “embedded”, too.  And that is what the media and the public seem to miss.  Doesn’t that sound a lot like metaphors Jesus used for those who would follow him, metaphors like “yeast” and  “salt” and “light”?

As I said before, I don’t really understand why this great cosmic all-powerful, all-knowing God would invite us into a co-op with Him, but He does.  I am so amazed at that and so grateful.

And about methods and systems and protocol for prayer, let me just say this:

Our three kids are as different as three can be.  One will plan your sox off and can think circles around us both, but hates being in the public eye.  One leads with her heart and absorbs everyone else’s pain, joy, and dreams.  She is amazing to watch when she works with people.  One gets everything on a visceral level and is seldom wrong about the internal character or motives of even the roughest character, though he may not always be able to tell you how he knows.  One writes, one dances and one makes music all day and all night.

When they walk into our farm kitchen, we don’t stop them at the door and keep them there at arm’s length until the thank us for our parenting  skills (or lack of them), give us due credit for all the meals, parties, cook-outs, vacations, homework help, sick-care, college tuition, deposits on first apartments, weddings and baby gifts we may have contributed to their lives.  We don’t withhold affection until they create the perfect atmosphere of praise for us to inhabit.

We are just so glad to see them that we run half-way to the drive-way to meet them and help shoulder their baggage, collect their children, kiss their sweet faces, hug their spouses, and pull them into this comfortable old place where the soup’s already on, the fire is crackling in the kitchen fireplace, the candles are lit, and the chill-down music is playing.

We’re just so glad they’ve come home again and hollowed out some time to just BE together, we can hardly stand it.  Conversations about anything and everything flow easily around our old oak table while I slice the hot cornbread and pass around the steaming bowls of soup.

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Sooner or later someone is bound to drift to the piano and someone else uncases the guitar. Songs they grew up singing start filling the house while little ones spread out their favorite puzzles and super heroes across the floor, content to bask in the noise and music and conversations so familiar.

Our kids are always our kids, and in between actual visits we keep in contact pretty much daily by phone, texts, emails and, well, prayer.  The relationship is long-standing and trusted.  But Bill and I love it when they come home and we can just be together. On purpose.

This God we love doesn’t lose track of us, either, for “in Him we live and move and have our being.” He just wants us home. He wants us present. We are always on His mind, and the minute we turn our full face in His direction, we find He’s already facing us.

So what is the secret of prayer? If this cosmic, yet personal God invites us to hang out with him and not be shy about it, as NIKE says about exercise, “Just do it!” You have to love Psalm 139, and I love it best in Living Bible:

O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. You place your hand of blessing on my head Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too great for me to understand! I can never escape from your Spirit! I can never get away from your presence! If I go up to heaven, you are there; If I go down to the grave, you are there. If I ride the wings of the morning, if I dwell by the farthest oceans, even there your hand will guide me and your strength will support me….You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book….How precious are your thoughts about me, O God. They cannot be numbered! I can’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of the sand! And when I wake up, your are still with me! …Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. (New Living Bible)

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Holy Meltdown

It breaks my heart, and it must break the heart of God, that for the last couple of decades the church has been preoccupied with what the popular press has called “The Worship Wars.”  Even that the two words “worship” and “wars” should appear together describing what is going on in the “ body of Christ” contradicts what Jesus said was the two greatest commandments:  love God with all our hearts and love each other because we have come to love the deep core of ourselves.

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On the surface this “worship battle” seems to be over musical stylist preferences.  Lines have been drawn and walls built right down the middle aisle of our churches (and thus dividing them in two—or more), lines between old and young, traditional and contemporary, hymnals and screens, choirs and worship teams, for and against the musical instruments we use.

But these arguments are only a symptom of a much deeper issue.  These are symptoms of a lack of true worship, a falling on our faces before an awesome and present God, for in His presence hearts are melted, passion for purity of motive and expression is ignited, and compassion for each other in and out of the church drives us to respond with practical action.

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How I long to be struck dumb because the “glory of the Lord fills His holy temple” and in the presence of the Almighty I find myself on my face saying, as did the prophet, “I am undone!  Nothing I say is pure!”  And how I long for coals of fire to touch my lips and to know my guilt is gone—taken away!  How I want to hear my own voice moved by something in the core of my being, volunteering to be the messenger God needs for this hour and to hear Him say, “Go. Go and tell.”

In the overwhelming presence of the Lord our petty squabbling over stylistic preferences are silenced.  We won’t be able to find enough ways to praise him!  We’ll be scrambling for instruments, pouring our revelations of His character into all kinds of songs, dancing our way into the streets, scooping up cold water to serve the thirsty, baking bread for the hungry, ripping the clothes out of our closets and off our backs if we have to warm those shivering from loneliness.

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It won’t be “our way or the highway” in our worship committee meetings, and we won’t be haggling over whether we are addressing all our songs directly heavenward or giving personal testimony to how in the world we know that He is Lord and living out our praise in how we treat each other.  It will be all of the above and more.

Worship is an ego meltdown, and rising like a phoenix from the ashes of our shriveled old selves will be an awesome pillar of light that the sick old world can see a thousand miles away and will be drawn to like a magnet.  There will be music!  There will be joy!  There will be grace and forgiveness!  There will be mercy!  There will be Life!

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Forgiveness and a Fresh Start

I wonder how many times the Lord has looked at us from the cross and said to His Father, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  As hard as it is to ask forgiveness when we know we have broken someone’s heart, violated a trust, hurt someone’s reputation, or taken our piece out of the middle at someone else’s expense, it is even harder to think we’re “in the right” and find that our attitude has destroyed a relationship.  Being right is of little value then!  Our ignorance or insensitivity has caused damage that only the grace of God can repair.

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Forgiveness is a central theme of Jesus’ principles of life.  It is the pivotal point in what we call “The Lord’s Prayer.”  Actually, Jesus intended the prayer to be our prayer, not His, and it was given by Jesus himself as a model of how direct and simple our prayers should be.  “Forgive us,” He taught us to say, “as we forgive.”  Then, making sure we got the point, Jesus reemphasized that our being forgiven was in direct proportion to our willingness to forgive others. This was not because God was unwilling or unable to forgive infinitely, but because our shrinking hearts would narrow and narrow until we could not receive or internalize such forgiveness.

Life has proven this to be true.  We desperately need to be liberated from the prison of guilt by the grace of forgiveness and, conversely, we need to let go of the bitterness that will eat us alive if we don’t find the grace to forgive others for the pain they have caused us.  

Confession is a necessary component here.  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote that “Confession before another is given us by God so that we may be assured of divine forgiveness.”  The truth is, sin will be revealed.  It will eventually come to light.  “It is better,”  Bonhoeffer writes, “that it happens today between me and another believer, rather than on the last day in the bright light of the final judgment.  It is grace that we can confess our sins to one another.  Such grace spares us the terrors of the last judgment.” (from Life Together)

But forgiveness is not an easy thing.  It takes an admission to ourselves of how much we, too, need forgiveness.  We have to be sick of the bondage in which a transgression holds us; only forgiveness can free up our souls to give and receive love, both from God and from each other.  Forgiveness unties God’s hands to work in our lives.  It removes the obstruction that robs us of our joy.  When we refuse to forgive, we build a dam in the stream of God’s liberating spirit to our lives.

There is, however, a difference between forgiveness and trust.  When a trust has been broken by betrayal and transgression, we can choose with the grace of God to forgive.  Forgiveness is our responsibility.  Trust, on the other hand is the responsibility of the one who has violated the trust.  It may take a long time before trust is restored, and things may never be quite the same again until eternity.  Forgiveness is a choice; it can be immediate.  Trust is a result of trustworthy living, and it must be restored over time.

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Often confrontation is a necessary component in the process of forgiveness and restoration in order to clear the record and achieve understanding between two people.  According to Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 18, we are to go to the one who has sinned against us and “show him his fault, just between the two of you.   If he listens to you, you have won your brother over” (Matt. 18:15) But if the person refused to listen one-on-one, then take a couple of trustworthy witnesses to talk to him/her.  If the person still will not listen, tell it to the church; if the church can’t reason with him, “treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

That, on the surface, may sound very final, until we stop to think how Jesus treated the pagan (outsider) and the tax collector.  He loved them and went after them, “to seek and to save that which was lost.”  In other words, we never give up on trying to restore a broken relationship and bring about reconciliation.

Now, in regard to our own need to ask forgiveness, we are told to “bear one another’s burden and so fulfill the law of Christ,” the law of Christ was to bear the cross for the remission of sin.  “The burden of my brother and sister which I must bear,” Bonhoeffer once wrote, “is not on their outward lot, their natural characteristics and gifts, but quite literally their sin.  And the only way to bear that sin is by forgiving it in the power of the cross of Christ in which I now share.” (from A Testament to Freedom)

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Finally, C.S. Lewis says that when we ask God to forgive us, we need to examine our hearts to see if, in fact, we are asking Him to excuse us.  “But there is all the difference in the world between forgiving and excusing.  Forgiveness says ‘Yes, you have done this thing, but I accept your apology.  I will never hold it against you and everything between us two will be exactly the same as it was before.’  But excusing says, ‘I see that you couldn’t help it or didn’t mean it; you weren’t really to blame.’  Real forgiveness means looking steadily at the sin… without any excuse… and seeing it in all its horror, dirt, meanness and malice, and nevertheless being wholly reconciled to the man who has done it.” (from The Weight of Glory)

Forgiving and being forgiven – these are the necessary principles of the sacred journey. Until all that is negative is removed from our lives by the finished work of the Savior, these are the dual avenues of grace, the life force of relationship with each other and with our God.

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Christmas: Pure and Simple

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In our complex, hype-filled, spin-ridden world, Jesus comes as a naked baby—pure and simple.  It is His first and lasting message to us:  life is good enough, beautiful enough, powerful enough.  Without embellishment the Word—the Message—is enough.

The Good News started with a resting, newborn infant full of joy and life and peace.  And the final message was the same:  “My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.  Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”

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Joy and rest have always been the marks of those who truly follow Jesus.  The great issues of life are laid to rest in Him.

This joy and rest does not require perfect surroundings or easy circumstances.  They are not at the mercy of situation or environment.  This life, pure and simple, is portable and present in the harshest of conditions.  It can make its presence known in stable or palace, hamlet or metropolis. It does not need a scepter, badge, or medallion.  It’s purity and simplicity is its own defense.

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But we must never mistake the pure and simple for the weak or ineffectual.  True courage, power and strength are only weakened by distractions and embellishments.  True greatness always seeks to sharpen its focus, pare down accumulations and strip away impediments.

From the womb to the tomb, the power of Life—pure and simple—has had one piercing focus:  to bring that Life to every person who will receive it.  Life unencumbered by all that would weigh it down or slow it down has come to set us free.  Pure and simple!

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Tasting Our Heritage

America is truly the great melting pot.  The foods of all our various heritages have marched right onto the Christmas table, bringing us back to our roots, while, at the same time, making each family’s celebration unique.

Italian families may add pastas and fabulous sauces to the Christmas menu, while Swedish families insist on including gubbröra (an egg and anchovy mixture), vörtbröd (a rye bread) and lutfisk to the traditional ham and potatoes.  For Irish descendants, potatoes are not optional, and soda bread will be a staple as well.  A breakfast favorite of the American south that has made its way to us via France is “chocolate gravy” over homemade biscuits.

Whatever our family histories might be, food is a vital part of Christmas, and kitchens are the place to gather as fruitcakes, Christmas cookies, cream pies with meringue, mince, tarts, turkeys, hams, roasts, winter vegetables and special breads are pulled from the ovens or simmer on the stove.

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Some of the best gifts of the season are those from the kitchen:  baked goods wrapped in colorful boxes; jars of homemade jellies, jams and chutneys; delicious breads and pies—all are sure to get grateful responses from neighbors, mail carriers, teachers and business associates.  

Some of my favorite tastes of Christmas are those sipped steaming hot from a mug or glass cup:  hot chocolate, wassail, rich coffees, chai, Christmas teas, warmed fruit juices and punches. At our house we have a golden yellow earthenware pitcher and a set of gigantic matching cups and saucers lettered on the sides with the French word chocolat.  This special set is saved for one purpose:  hot chocolate with a melting marshmallow for children who come in half-frozen from sledding on the hillside.

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It is the tradition in our family to have homemade biscuits (my mother’s recipe) and dried beef gravy (my version) for breakfast on Christmas morning. I serve it with a chilled bowl of fresh mixed fruit and a thin glass of sparkling grape juice.  We have this hardy breakfast after we have read the Luke 2 story of the birth of Jesus and taken turns opening our gifts to each other.  

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Later in the day, I perk a giant pot of wassail so we can sip it all through the afternoon and evening and offer a steaming cupful with a slice of lemon and a stick of cinnamon to those who come in to join the music, games, and Christmas dinner.

As I think of it, Christmas is a giant, season-long tasting party.  The tastes and aromas are avenues to the loves we have known that have become a part of who we are. The tastes and smells of Christmas are much more than traditional family foods; they put us in touch with the Love of a God who came to eat with us, sit at our table, hear our stories and tell us His.

The traditional tastes our families share remind us that God never was and will never be apart from us, but, instead, is as close as breath, as near as, well, the wonderful welcome-home smells coming from the kitchen.  He is the gift we give and receive.  He is the light that shines through the window of our souls.  He is the fire in the fireplace, the warmth to draw us in, the food that feeds much more than our bodies.

It is the Mass of Christmas.  Christmas! Taste and see!

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(Some of our favorite Christmas recipes along with lyrics and stories behind many of our Christmas songs are in He Started the Whole World Singing and Homecoming Cookbook. Both books may be ordered from Gaither Family Resources or the Gaither.com store.)

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Sensing Christmas

I like to think of the mind as the center city into which flows five major highways:  sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. It is by way of these thoroughfares that we experience life in all its complexity.  It is by the senses that we learn, gain insights, and internalize all that is true and helpful for life.

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If ever there were a truth that needed to be internalized in every way, it is the amazing story of a God who spoke all things into existence and continues to sustain creation with His breath, yet who loved His creation so much that He himself came as a helpless baby to touch us at our point of need.  When we weren’t understanding the immensity of His love for His creation, He spoke His love in terms we could comprehend:  the sound of a baby’s cry on a cold night, the smell of a lowly animal-filled stable, the rough texture of a feeding trough filled with coarse straw, the brightness of a new star in the dark night sky, and the taste of the Bread of Life to feed the souls of us all.

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Since that night more than two millennia ago that divided time itself into B.C. (before) and A.D. (after), those whose lives have been changed by this baby boy have created dozens of symbols and traditions in their efforts to express an event both human and divine.  All the senses have been called into play by the deep longing to share the very personal experiences of a cosmic and eternal change point.

Light, warmth, belonging, satisfaction of deep unnameable hungers, fresh and eternal life, spiritual pilgrimage, the divine gifts, the return of the Song of Life…all these need the ladder of symbol to even begin to approach and express the depths of redeeming Love.

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Each of us has been the recipient of a rich heritage of traditions and symbols given by others so that we can experience and in turn communicate to our children the unfathomable love of God, the God who came to walk with us, to touch us where we are broken, to feed us the true water and bread of the spirit, and to be His love made visible.

As we celebrate Christmas, let’s use all the senses, every avenue we have—to embrace this amazing Story.  As we do, let’s remember to always tell and retell the reason for every tradition, giving thanks for the reality we celebrate!  Let’s promise each other that every highway to the soul will never become a bypass.
 

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Pilgrims and Wisemen: Two Journeys-- Toward and Away From

Passion for something more: it is the strong magnet that pulls the human spirit out of the habitual and mundane into the realm of the unsafe and unknown.  It is the fuel of valor and discovery.  It is for want of passion that the world is dying.  It is the murder of this longing for the heights that strips the roots of hope from the seedlings of promise, leaving children passive or frantic, adolescents “leaden eyed” and adults accepting of the status quo of mediocrity.

But somewhere buried in the soul of us all is the deep knowing that there is more—that freedom and joy and peace and forgiveness and grace and mercy are more than platitudes of the pious.   Somewhere in our ground of being we know that these, yes, these are the rock-solid foundations of real life—not the fantasies of fiction. 

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When dissatisfaction with persecution or just pointless routine reaches the lip of our container of tolerance and breaches the limits of our endurance, the longing for raw and pure life breaks the dam, and we are driven out and empowered by the gushing currant to cut a new path.

Thus, we come at some juncture of our circumstances, to become pilgrims, leaving what once imprisoned our souls and held us back, and, at the same time, becoming wise enough to follow the star of better aspirations.  We dare to bite off eternity.  We are driven by a pioneering of the spirit to follow God himself into the frightening unknown, for, as Aslan said, this One who calls us is not safe, but he is kind.

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This is the seeker’s season, the season to trade the lesser things for more.  It is the season for turning flat-bed trailers into covered wagons and striking out for a territory yet unclaimed.  It is the season for setting sail in spite of possible rough seas for a place where prayers are released, not legislated, and where children can dance in the promise land of creative work and opportunity.

This is the season for studying the heavens and hanging our hopes on a star—not just any star but the star that announces One who came to tear down partitions between the dream and the reality, between here and there, between now and forever, between mortality and eternity. 

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Will we dare?  Will we take the risk of losing the transient to win the lasting?  Will we risk dying to be reborn? Will we cut anchors for the open sea, or set off across the desert in pursuit of the new star?  Will someone ever read about us in the journals of Pilgrims and Wise Men?

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Finishing Something

There is something about harvest time in Indiana that makes me feel that I should finish something.  Perhaps it is the threshing machines cleaning up the rows of wheat and spitting the swollen ripe kernels of grain into the waiting grain trucks to be taken off to storage bins in preparation for winter.  Maybe it is the wide plows that turn the traces of corn stalks and dry soybean plants under, leaving the fresh, black earth like a velvet carpet laid in neat squares against the kelly green sections of newly sprouted fields of winter wheat. Or could it be the squirrels skittering around the yard stuffing acorns and walnuts into their cheeks, then racing off to bury their treasure before the snow falls. Or maybe it’s the last of the apple crop being pressed into fragrant cider or baked with cinnamon and brown sugar before the frost comes.

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Whatever the reason, this is the season to finish things, to tie up loose ends, to save and store, to harvest and be sure there is enough of everything that matters to last us through the hard times.

And how does one finish a season of the heart? How may we harvest and store the bounty of the spirit and save against the elements of fruits we cannot see?

The Pilgrims knew the answer.  They said “Thanks.”. They knew there must be a taking of account, a time to stop and be aware of the beauty that fills our lives—a time to realize and verbalize and celebrate the things that have been growing all along. Yes, gratitude is the instrument of harvest. It ties the golden sheaves in bundles. It plucks the swollen kernels from the chaff and cuts the fragrant grasses to be bound in great round bales.  It picks the crimson fruit and digs the rounded roots that sometimes have made the difference between life and death.

And I am thankful!  Thankful for plenty—plenty and more—of things to eat and wear, of beauty like art and colors and textures, of means of transportation like cars, bikes, vans, busses, planes…and feet.  I am thankful for things we cannot buy like tenderness and inspiration and revelation and insight; I am thankful for ideas, words, songs, discussions, and silent messages of the heart.

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I am thankful for health, health that we take so for granted that we schedule our lives, assuming that things will be normal, that legs will walk. That eyes will see—to read, to experience, to learn. That ears will hear-- the music, the instruments, the warnings the blessings, the sounds of nature.  That bodies will function—that food will digest, energy will be generated to perform daily tasks. That minds will comprehend—the beauty, the concepts and ideas, the dangers, the failures.  That hands will work—to reach, to hug, to write, to drive, to rake leaves, to sweep floors, to fold clothes, to play instruments like pianos, flutes, violins, drums and oboes.

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I am thankful for family, family with individual personalities, gifts, needs, and dreams—for family immediate and family extended, all feeding into what I am and what I will become, even family departed who have lived out their part and left their heritage of hard work, integrity, grit, love, tenderness, faith, and humor.

I am thankful for friends, for stimulating, vivacious, provoking, disturbing, encouraging, agitating, blessing, loving, forgiving friends.

I am thankful for hope and love and a deep assurance that God is in control of our lives, an assurance that is not threatened by fear of nuclear annihilation or national economic failure.

I am thankful for children who give us new eyes to see, new ears to hear, new hands to touch new minds to understand all the old things.

I am thankful for courage to go on trusting people, risking love, daring to believe in what could be, all because of the confirming experience of daily trusting God and finding Him utterly trustworthy.

And because the seasons are built into the very fiber of our being, I am thankful for harvest time, a time for finishing what’s been started, a time to be aware, to pay attention, and to realize the life we’ve been given. Because I know that if we harvest well, there will be seeds for planting in the spring.                              

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All of It!

Our children are grown now.  They have families of their own.  They all have creative vocations and are making a difference in ways that make Bill and me proud.  If you would see these adults, you would see them as they are now, and that would be good.

But when I see them, I see more than just this present image of lovely young adults.  I see the babies I held, the children who tumbled down our hillside into the piles of fall leaves or drifts of winter snow.  I see their first piano recitals and hear the junior high rock band practicing in the basement.  I see the poetry contests, the opening nights of community theater productions, the first recording projects.  I see fireworks on the 4th of July, kids fishing in the creek or horseback riding at the 4-H fair.

I see an involved father creating a film project, a seasoned writer researching a musical she’s writing on the early circuit riders, an accomplished actress and authority on Shakespeare hosting a closing night party for the cast.  I see a graduate, a bride, a new mother, a songwriter, a kid shooting hoops in the drive-way, a teen-ager on a first date….  I see all this when one of our grown children walks down the mill-stone walk under the grape arbor and through our kitchen door.

If you ask me to describe what heaven will be, I think it will be “all of it.”  All the seasons, spring blossoms, summer fruit, fall harvest, winter rest—all going on simultaneously.  It will be the big picture, the full content, the total vision.

It will be the ultimate expression of our gifts and abilities using everything we’ve ever learned and experienced with total freedom to create, think, enjoy, comprehend, assimilate, and celebrate.  Our loved ones will be beautiful beyond anything here, so beautiful it will take our breath away.  Yet they will be uniquely themselves in ways which this life could only limit.  

All the perfect will be there—of foods, sounds, sights, tastes, insights, experiences—and none of the ugly, negative, frustrating, or limiting.  Yet all will be infused with the possibility of something more with no sadness, no pain, no disappointment in ourselves or disillusionment with others.  No lying, no deception, no violation.  Everything and everyone will have dimension.  Heaven will be “all of it.”
 

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Everything Counts

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I sipped iced tea waiting for my fried chicken salad and looked around at the families with toddlers in wooden booster seats and teenagers playing the peg game on the tables. Two scruffy ten-year-olds were playing checkers by the fireplace while they waited for their food to come. A grey-haired couple over by the barn wood wall was pointing at the vintage portrait of a serious-looking woman in a high, lace trimmed collar, as their waitress sat down a white stoneware plate of biscuits and corn muffins.

I picked up the package of soda crackers my server had brought to go with my salad and noticed that they were thicker than most crackers. I wondered to myself what company had made them for Cracker Barrel to custom label. Curious, I turned the packet over to check and noticed a small box of very small print, so small I reached for my glasses to read the tiny message.  It said:

People often ask us where we got our name. It’s simple—back in the old days, crackers were shipped in barrels to country stores. When the barrels were empty, they were used as a place to hold a checkerboard, a conversation, or both. We’d like to think some things never change.

At Cracker Barrel everything counts: every rocking chair on the porch, every package of penny candy or Clove gum, every country churn on the shelf, every rusty Barq’s Root Beer sign on the wall—everything counts to make us weary wayfarers feel like we just dropped by the ol’ home place for pot roast and mashed potatoes.

In life everything counts, too. Every part-time job we ever held, every softball season we played through the dog days of summer, every great book we ever read, every experience at youth camp, every girl or guy that broke our hearts and we survived, every term paper we ever researched and wrote, every car we worked to pay for, every sweet and thoughtful thing we ever did to help grandma—everything counts.

I have a feeling that people who “make it big” with their worth and integrity in tact, got where they got one small thing at a time, because age and money only make us more—more whatever we are. If we are kind, generous, thoughtful, honest young people, chances are we will be kinder, more generous, more thoughtful old people. If we are responsible, caring, dependable teenagers, we probably will be responsible, compassionate, dependable leaders when we’re older and have more resources.

But if we take the easiest way out, cut corners, and cheat on exams when we’re young, we will most likely spend our later years “covering our tails”, betraying our friends and spouses, and making up bigger lies to cover the last ones.

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The great news is that if our kids are discouraged because life isn’t happening fast enough, or if you are 45 and still don’t feel as if you are where you had hoped you’d be by now, everything counts. Everything matters. Every choice, every failure, every experience—all of it informs and equips the way we’ll spend the moments we have today.

Today I am switching the house around from the look of the busy summer to the warmth and colors of fall. Everything counts:  the smells, the colors, the tastes, the textures, the music…. All of it is intentional and all of it matters if I want those who come through our kitchen door to “love it here in the fall!” I am peeling apples for a cinnamon apple cobbler. I am playing a CD of dulcimer music while I wrap a garland of fall leaves around the bannister of the staircase leading up to the playroom. I am bringing in acorns and pumpkins, cattails, bittersweet, and berries. I will light the rust colored candles and change the yellow tablecloths to the brown and copper ones. I just put on a pot of Bill’s favorite black bean soup and made a pan of cornbread. I say to myself: I have this day! Everything counts.  

Isn’t it about time to set up a new fall puzzle?

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Beans and Corn

I’m a water person (Pisces), born in Michigan and surrounded there by literally thousands of fishing lakes and encapsulated by seas of fresh water we call the Great Lakes.  It would have taken a call of God on my life to make me leave these amazing waters and move to “seas” of corn, soybeans, and wheat.  But that “call of God” showed up when I met Bill Gaither, a Hoosier English teacher who was teaching at the high school near Anderson College.  I was a junior in college when I was sent to that high school to teach the French classes for a teacher who was out for a whole six-weeks period for cancer treatment.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Photo by Angela Kellogg

 

When Bill and I were married a year later, it took a while for me to deal with the withdrawal from water I felt and even longer to actually fall in love with beans and corn.  As we have since traversed this great country singing, I have discovered that every region has its own particular charm—the desert states, the mountains, the seashores, the towering forests—and the great belly of the country we call “the bread basket of the world” is no exception. 

 

I have grown to love the subtleties of shades of freshly plowed earth; I love the fields at rest, covered with the forgiving snows of winter.  I love the gradual changes from the tender green of miles of winter wheat when all else is still brown and thawing in the spring.  It takes my breath away when the soybeans are two feet tall and thick as fur on a husky, turning all of central Indiana into an expansive, green lawn as far as the eye can see—or, at least until it collides with another infinity of tasseled corn way higher than “an elephant’s eye.”

Folks here have the saying about the corn: “knee-high by the fourth of July,” but, trust me, the corn behind the barn at Grover’s Corners (Bill’s grandfather’s farm) is twice the height of our 6 ft. tall grandson Will.

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By the time the corn is that high, the beans are turning golden, so gold it dazzles the eyes to see it in the late afternoon sun.  And in a week or so, the gold leaves disappear and the stems of ripened soybeans are a brown as rich as the acorns on the oaks.

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Photo by Angela Kellogg

Our son Benjamin (who has created several fun projects for kids) used to joke with his sisters about the conversation neighboring farmers must have at the grain elevator when they get together to plan the next season. 

            “What you gonna plant next year?”

            “Oh, I put out beans this year, so I’ll pro’bly plant corn.  How ‘bout you?”

            “Ah, I think I’ll plant beans.  Had corn this year.”

 

There had to be a song about that!  But, trust me, it’s fun among friends who love this vast prairie and are thankful for it!

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We Have This Moment

In my life I have been given many wonderful gifts: lovely handmade embroidered items, expensive works of art, earthy rustic crafts, primitive water paintings on simple newsprint created by the chubby little hands of children. I have been honored and complimented. I have had the thrill of hearing the songs I’ve helped to create recorded by famous singers and sung by congregations in my own language and in foreign languages. These are all gifts I treasure.

But none of these gifts have been so valuable to me as the gift of a rich childhood and youth in a solid, loving, celebrating home. The heritage of a family who loved God and each other, who greeted every new day with anticipation and openness, shaped my values and taught me that life was good. The healthy balance of discipline and freedom, the love of simple things, the respect for all kinds of persons, a deep reverence for God – all these wrapped up in special moments and given to me in the package I call my childhood.

I truly believe that most of what I’ve been able to do with my life has been a direct result of the rich heritage I enjoyed. I am certain that my family gave me a head start on life with a realistic concept of God and His Son, a love affair with nature, and an excitement for living. My home brought me to the threshold of adulthood with a secure confidence that I was loved and a deep responsibility to myself and the world around me for developing whatever special abilities and gifts God had given me.

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My parents always pastored small Michigan churches, so we never traveled widely or were afforded the luxuries some families enjoy. Instead, we learned to celebrate life in simple ways and to create our own special moments and traditions from the raw material of common things. My mother, who was an artist and writer, taught my sister and me to see what many others missed. She gave us a deep appreciation for beauty and books and a great love for words and language. Daddy was the master of spur-of-the-moment parties on a shoestring: a Dairy Queen after church, a roadside picnic breakfast, the presentation of a special dress he’d scrimped to buy for Mother for an important event. It was Daddy who gave me my very own garden spot (even though he had to dig up the thick, green sod to do it) and gave me full rein to plant anything I wanted to. I learned from him the joy of “preferring one another,” as every summer we would take fishing trips to the far north because Mother loved to fish. I remember him digging fishing worms, cleaning bass and catfish until midnight, lugging soggy rowboats into and out of the lakes, and rowing for miles, all just because of seeing Mother get so much fun out of “hooking a big one.”

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At our house everything was an event, and it was to our house that Evelyn’s and my friends always came to “hang out”; we knew that if we needed a place for a gathering of any kind, it was okay to volunteer our place. Mother was the confidante for many a teenager, and it was not uncommon for someone in distress to knock on our door at midnight seeking comfort and advice. It never occurred to me to keep anything from her. She was my best friend. Soon our own children were running to her house whenever they needed someone to talk to or simply a place to be. She taught our son to paint with oils and to see things in a world around him that others miss. She critiqued our daughters’ poetry and boyfriends. She was their best friend too.

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When I married Bill, I found another big, loving family – an Indiana farm family, who loved the earth and celebrated harvests and holidays, Sundays and birthdays with big dinners and warm family gatherings: tables groaning with home-grown vegetables, fresh corn-fed meat, and steaming fruit desserts; children of all ages and sizes scampering around the patriarchs and assorted distant relations; the joyous noise of adult conversation, shrieking children, and spontaneous music.

Because we so appreciate our own heritages, Bill and I chose to live near both our families. We believed there was great value for our children in knowing their roots, which gave them a sense of perspective and continuity. In a society as mobile as the one we all live in, Bill and I feel very blessed that we were able to offer our children a close relationship with their extended family and close friendships with their young cousins and aging relatives. Living close to our extended family has not always been problem free, but we feel the benefits far outweigh any problems.  Good or bad, family is family and life is life. Children need a realistic view of the influences that have come together to make up the sum total of what they are.

As Bill and I welcomed Suzanne, Amy, and Benjy into the world, we drew from the rich heritage we had been given to work toward becoming the kind of caring, compassionate family we believed God wanted us to be. Now our children have homes of their own, and Bill and I find great delight in watching them and their spouses pass on to our grandchildren the principles our parents gave us. We are all still “kids under construction,” fed and nourished in the soil of our shared pasts from the seeds God has planted in us. Just as our parents contributed so much to our children’s memory banks, we are now helping to make memories for our children’s children!  

The home is the natural habitat for growing human beings and shaping eternal souls. Whether we like it or not, we are molding lives … now. Let’s make these precious moments count.  

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The Porch

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“Come sit a spell.” These old words lapsed into disuse for the decades of manufacturing and “jobs in town,” the decades after the farm. But now, thankfully, porches are reappearing on houses and the invitation to share them is back in our vocabulary.

When Bill and I first built our colonial house in the early 60’s, the “porch” was basically a façade barely wide enough to accommodate the pillars and a lawn chair. Our children grew up tumbling down our hillside and fishing in “Gaither’s Pond,” but there wasn’t much porch-sitting going on.

Just before we learned our first grandchild was on the way, however, Bill and I said to each other one day, “Why don’t we build a real porch, upstairs and down?” So we called a builder to explore the possibility of moving the pillars out about 12 or 15 feet, turning two of the upstairs windows into doors, and making porches accessible to both downstairs living and upstairs guest bedrooms.

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Now the porch is like a special summer room, with lots of rocking chairs and conversations. People who used to hurry by afraid they were “putting us out” when we invited them inside, quickly accept an invitation to have a lemonade on the porch. At night when the grandchildren are in their pajamas, we make tea and take snacks upstairs on the porch which feels like a treehouse. We listen to the frogs and cicadas and watch garden spiders crocheting lace between the white porch rails.

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I take my journal and coffee to the porch very early in the morning to talk to God and hear the world coming to life for a new day. When the kids who have spent the night awaken, we eat scrambled eggs and fruit at the little glass table and talk each other’s legs off while the tulips, geraniums and impatiens watch us from the garden that edges the porch steps and the black squirrels chase each other through the limbs of the maples and oak trees in the yard.

Oh! The joy of porches! No house should be without them. If the world is alienated and people are lonely, maybe porches can be the catalyst for bringing us together again.

Come. Sit a spell!

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Love Song To My Life

Welcome!

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At the urging of a close friend, I have decided to write a blog. Now, this is funny, because all my life as a writer I have written short observations of life. I wrote short pieces because for more than 20 years I was traveling every weekend with my husband as part of the Bill Gaither Trio while having and rearing three children very close in age, writing lyrics for the songs Bill and I wrote together, and entertaining a constant stream of friends and guests and, eventually, teen-agers and college students that came through our house.  All this while trying to help run a publishing company, pull weeds in the gardens, teach a college class in Songwriting, keep up the laundry, run kids to a variety of activities and lessons, and keep romance alive in all the ways I could think of—romance with my husband and romance with my life.

I would periodically complain to God asking, “When am I ever going to get to write a real book?" Truth is, I could hardly get alone time in the bathroom, let alone to Hawaii for two months at a time (like male authors I knew did) to write their latest book while their wives waited on them hand and foot.

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The other day I had an epiphany! I’ve been writing a blog before there were blogs and before ADHD was a national epidemic. So I guess I’ll just keep writing what I see and what life is teaching me in short snippets. I hope you will tell me what you see and learn too.

Most of all, I hope we all get better at noticing the beauty in the common things and the miracles we trip over all around us every day, 

For we have this moment to hold in our hands
And to touch as it slips through our fingers like sand;
Yesterday’s gone, and tomorrow may never come,
But we have this moment...today.

 
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