Author: bobbiemcgarey

Hello Monet 

So Cristi and Johnny and I went to the Monet immersive experience at the Museum here in Dallas. The Butler Brothers Building downtown.   It was so so engaging.   The art, the music, the moving images, the art the music, the moving images….repeat as much as you like.   It was wonderful. There was a very meditative part of it as well.  If you just focused on the movement of the images it was almost hypnotic .  You could sit in one spot and turn around all the time or you could just focus on one wall and watch the images that some times swirled under your feet.

It was an awesome experience.  I really enjoyed it with Cristi and John.  

There were some of the paintings he did of people.  Individual and in groups.  But they could pull out one of the images and let it move on its own.  The waves and water and falling apples…and the people.   The women he painted, some nude were so beautiful.  Their bodies more like real women than stick figures, they were fleshy and rounded.  I would look at their faces and wonder…when you were having this painted…did you imagine that your picture would be seen on huge walls moving and blending with others.  Their faces were memorable in the vulnerability I saw on so many of them.   

There were times when you were utterly washed in Monet blue, then the reds and oranges filled the sky.  It was so satisfying.  

I had to write…  

Did you know little girl,

Holding  your braid

That some day a hundred years later

The painting of you

Would be seen by thousands as you sat there in the BLUE

You there

Unaware it seemed that your likeness 

was being captured to be shown 

Now on massive walls

All around the world?  

Did you know?

Are you 8 years old? Are you ten years old? 

Your face so beautifully drawn not altered but natural

It was clear simple lovely

Your face three stories high

And people would wonder

Who you are/were 

I don’t suppose you did

But thank you, thank you. 

For sitting long enough 

So that I can see your face. 

And for a moment, just a  moment 

See you right in front of me,

Bobbie Giltz McGarey 

@2022. Dallas TX

“We are a wild bunch of believers, those of us who break the rules for a good cause.  We practice undisciplined smiling when others preach doom and gloom… there is more than a method to our madness of love.  We are not disrespectful of somber predictions for our shared future, but unwilling to let resignation be our best shot.  We are joyfully insistent on the alternative of hope.  We are unapologetically committed to trusting in something bigger than ourselves.”

 Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light (p. 82)

______________________________________

So I came across this quote the other day on my Facebook page.   This line stuck out in my mind 

We practice undisciplined smiling when others preach doom and gloom…

I love the idea of undisciplined smiling. I hope expel remember me smiling. it has been something I try to do. Betsy and I went to a great concert The Chicks, a week or so ago. We had great seats There were no seats in front of us but a railing where we could prop up our feet. We had a lot of people on the walkway going up to their seats. They didn’t block our view

We were enjoy the people watching.  They were answering the question what do you wear to a Chicks concert in New Jersey. Apparently the answer is cowboy boots.  There were varied applications of that rule.   One guy had on a kilt and everything that goes with it.  Mystery. 

What I did notice was how few folk were smiling.  So naturally we started smiling at them as they went by.  I mean “ Hy, you’ve got ‘Tickets to a  Chicks concert’  you will have fun!  Well you could have fun.  It was as we noticed this that we practiced Undisciplined Smiling.  we would look the folks in the eye and smile.  Many responded with a smile,   many didn’t. 

Still it was satisfying to us.  

I think the world needs more Undisciplined Smiling!,  what if we kept a smile on our faces, looked people in the eye and smiled at the grocery store.  In fact I would like everyone to follow the urging of this writing.—you can do that’

.

Try it. 

May the curiosity in the world set you on a level path to new peace. 

God Abides,

Bobbie Giltz McGAREY

Easton PA

@7/19/22

Marks of the True Christian

⁹ Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good; ¹⁰ love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹ Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. ¹² Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; persevere in prayer. ¹³ Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers.

¹⁴ Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵ Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. ¹⁶ Live in harmony with one another; do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly;^[b] do not claim to be wiser than you are. ¹⁷ Do not repay anyone evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all. ¹⁸ If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. ¹⁹ Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave room for the wrath of God,^[c] for it is written, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord.” ²⁰ Instead, “if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink, for by doing this you will heap burning coals on their heads.” ²¹ Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

To be true I have a love/don’t love feeling toward this passage. I have tried in my life to live by these suggestions. They have been to me like the Big 10 in the Old Testament. But there comes a time when a situation calls out for some very real confrontations.

One of the tricks, I think, about being a minister is that when you are confronted with a problem about you it is difficult to defend yourself. Ok, here’s an example. I was visiting my daughter’s school in elementary time and the mom of a friend of hers, a member of my church, came up beside me. I said hello and she lit into me. “Just because you work doesn’t mean that you are special or have a better way of being mom. My daughter was telling your daughter that I made her dresses and your daughter said, “Well my mom can’t she works.” My daughter was really hurt. I heard her say it.

So suddenly I shifted from Mother of your daughters friend to being really mad at her. I could have said, well that and I don’t sew. I said I’m sorry if it felt like any kind of put down of you or your daughter. I think it was an innocent response stating a fact. Her reply was a huff! And she sped on ahead of me to the meeting. We did not sit together.

All during the meeting, which was dry, I thought about this and wondered how I could have countered it. I realized that some of the well thought out replies would have most likely just made it more intense. Still I also knew that I couldn’t really be honest about my own feelings. And, if I am really truthful there were times when I envied her being able to be home and sew dresses and do things with her daughter that I really didn’t have time to do with ours. Oh we gave the kids a lot of time, it is why we worked part time, (only in theory) so we could have time with the kids.

About two months later my daughter and her friend signed up to do a project together. The mom called me up and told me she knew I was busy with the Easter season at church and she’d love to help the girls if that was ok with me. She said she’d pick them up after school on Tuesday and Thursday and they could work on the project. Great.

Our daughter came home just gushing about what they had done, they had gone to a museum and then to the library to find books about the topic and then went home and got a big piece of paper and write down their plan and what they wanted to do and…and…and… Wow, I told her, that’s great. What fun.

Thursday came and she and her friend were together again and they began to execute their plan. However, friend’s mom had great ideas too. Our daughter came home and said that her mom had really worked with them and that she had great ideas and they had done what she said and it looked good.

I was feeling guilty that I hadn’t been able to help out, to participate.

The final meeting on Tuesday came and our daughter stayed with them at dinner and they finished the project. When she came home she was really quiet. I thought she was just tired. I went into her room before she fell asleep and she said, Mom, I like the way you help more than my friend’s mom. I paused, feeling pride, and then asked why. She began to tell me how the mom had helped by doing what she wanted to do and not really listening to her or her friend and she said I was afraid to say no when she brought up ideas. It looks good but now like something I would have done. I still felt happy. My daughter was smart and creative and she could do projects her way just fine. It’s not that I wasn’t around to help if there was a problem. But I wasn’t the one doing the project,, she was.

I’ve tried to remember that with my grandchildren. Some days I am better doing that than others.

Still I remember…I like the way you help.

God abide

Bobbie Giltz McGarey

@07/19/22

a

No i am not writing to a child about Santa, i am planning a trip to my cousins house. This time I am taking my Granddaughter, the Beach is a kind of Mecca for me as we would pilgrimage there every summer when i was a child. My Mother grew up there. My cousin Gail still lives there. It is a place of peace for me. It is a place of memories.

I look forward to watching the sunrise over the ocean.

Enter deep sigh

God Abides

Bobbie giltz McGarey

Jan Nolton Carter the Transitional Pastor at FPC of Allentown preached this morning on how we have felt mentored by others and asked us to remember someone who taught us many things. I responded on the chat for the service that immediately who came to mind was the Childrens pastor, Rev. T. William Taylorand it was so much because of the way he seemed to recognize and call out in me the best I could be and that God truly loved me. Now, do not think my parents and family didn’t do this for me. I felt special and loved by Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, Grandparents. This should be a staple of people’s learnings. But Rev. Taylor, Bill, was one who was in my life at several important junctions.

He was always at Camp Akita, a thin place, and very special came run by First Community Church in the Hocking Hills in Ohio. I remember the hikes we would take over the hills of gravel roads until we got to a place called Rock Stalls a Native American site hidden off the road. You had to know where it was to get there. (Kinda like Luckenbach TX.) I remember walking with him and talking. Goodness knows what we talked about.,whatever elementary school kids talk about. I remember being heard and his gracious smile and his love for God and witness to how he knew God loved him.

When I was in college I got a call from Bill Taylor about helping him run a Saturday Morning program one winter for kids. There were about 30 kids who came and I was the helper, energy giver, kid wrangler. It was great fun. One Saturday morning it snowed. I mean really snowed and I went over to church only to find out that Bill and his wife hadn’t come yet. So we were outside and about 3 and 5 and 10 kids came. But when I realized that Bill wasn’t there I had the kids follow me and we made a huge circle, cut it into pie pieces, and played a running tag game where you had to stay on the path. It was hard with three but with 10, then 15 it was really fun because we kept running into each other. There was much laughter and I was impressed that the outline stayed with no one cutting across the lines. Sure there were places where folk had plopped in the snow but that was to be expected. Bill came, huge look of relief on his face, all was well.

The next time I heard from him we went to lunch with two folks I’d been Junior Counselor with at Camp Akita during my teen years. The three of us were surprised by the question he posed to us. He wanted us to be the core staff for a new Camp Elmhurst that was set up like Akita in Western PA. The Church was Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clare. We were excited. I would take my banjo and we got so happy thinking about it. We did indeed have a good time. More on that another time. Richard E. Yorde and Mike McNeil. There were two more counselors from their church.

But that was a real live changing experience for me. On several levels it was because I felt a sense of responsibility in starting this camp Elmhurst in Western PA. But this was all because of T. William Taylor

In a recent magazine article an interview with Lily Tomlin ended with this question. 

“Where would you like to live? 

“  Out of the box….always. 

Is that the way we are really odo we crave the walls and the protection that the confined and expected abide.  It is the known.  And the known can bring comfort to be sure.  It can give us freedom to do many things because the basics are always present and our desires, for the most part, are satisfied.  

A Christian Church on the island of Bali is one of the best examples of this.  It was a huge area, shaped like a cross of course.  The ceiling was high and seemingly thatched but high and open. There were fans that were spinning at a distance.  There were no bugs or critters. There were no walls.  No walls.  Open to the outside.  You looked all around this sanctuary and you could see the real world.  Sometimes a gentle straight falling rain would start and stop without

Involving the service.  

We were studying the differences in culture and customs on religious loaded; Inculturation. 

I made the comment in one of our cohort groups that  “the church on Bali didn’t have to figure out how to work beyond the walls—they had no walls.”

This church in its growing was mostly encumbered  because they weren’t adapting to what was they were living into what is.  Yes, they adopted a liturgy and used a statement of faith that they’d learned from the Dutch missionaries and other backbone parameters but they brought in who they were from the people up to the bishops.  The Word remained central. The preaching of the Word.  But the interacting with the world in song and movement all made the difference.  The dance, the gamalon being played, the deep investment that the people had in the community was felt deeply.   

No walls to restrain the Gospel.  The Word didn’t need to escape it was already free.  The people lived the love of God in Jesus Christ.  

Let’s get out of the boxes we are in.  The boxes that say don’t get upset about what goes on in government it ’s not us.  Don’t call out rudeness or misogynistic actions.  Bow to the Patriarchy.  

No that is staying in the box.  The Word knows no limits so you know that it will be active in the world.  Jesus said so,  “Go out to the nations…” 

God abide with you as you recycle the cardboard of your boxes.   

Break out of the boxes.  They are only cardboard.  Disposable.  Recycle ready.  

God abide

Let the Word know the World 

Bobbie Giltz McGarey 

10 Fyra Lane -Easton PA 

In a recent magazine article an interview with Lily Tomlin ended with this question. 

“Where would you like to live? 

“  Out of the box….always. 

Is that the way we are really odo we crave the walls and the protection that the confined and expected abide.  It is the known.  And the known can bring comfort to be sure.  It can give us freedom to do many things because the basics are always present and our desires, for the most part, are satisfied.  

A Christian Church on the island of Bali is one of the best examples of this.  It was a huge area, shaped like a cross of course.  The ceiling was high and seemingly thatched but high and open. There were fans that were spinning at a distance.  There were no bugs or critters. There were no walls.  No walls.  Open to the outside.  You looked all around this sanctuary and you could see the real world.  Sometimes a gentle straight falling rain would start and stop without

Involving the service.  

We were studying the differences in culture and customs on religious loaded; Inculturation. 

I made the comment in one of our cohort groups that  “the church on Bali didn’t have to figure out how to work beyond the walls—they had no walls.”

This church in its growing was mostly encumbered  because they weren’t adapting to what was they were living into what is.  Yes, they adopted a liturgy and used a statement of faith that they’d learned from the Dutch missionaries and other backbone parameters but they brought in who they were from the people up to the bishops.  The Word remained central. The preaching of the Word.  But the interacting with the world in song and movement all made the difference.  The dance, the gamalon being played, the deep investment that the people had in the community was felt deeply.   

No walls to restrain the Gospel.  The Word didn’t need to escape it was already free.  The people lived the love of God in Jesus Christ.  

Let’s get out of the boxes we are in.  The boxes that say don’t get upset about what goes on in government it ’s not us.  Don’t call out rudeness or misogynistic actions.  Bow to the Patriarchy.  

No that is staying in the box.  The Word knows no limits so you know that it will be active in the world.  Jesus said so,  “Go out to the nations…” 

God abide with you as you recycle the cardboard of your boxes.   

Break out of the boxes.  They are only cardboard.  Disposable.  Recycle ready.  

God abide

0 Fyra Lane -Easton PA 

Sometimes all you need to calm down is a reminder that you are one of the earth creatures. you have gifts and skills. You can use reason and logic. ( although there is little evidence that people are applying it).

Last evening i watched the blackbirds coming into the roost last night. I loved the way some soared around before dropping into the the bamboo and trees across the way. They looked like they were having fun. I was having fun and Maggie Mae watched with me and was amazed how many there were.

” Where have they been?”‘ ” I don’t know.”

They were home now.

Bobbie Giltz McGarey

God Abides 06.21.22 / E

aston PA 18042

I’ve watched the Movie Emma the. Version with Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller It ages well.

There are several parts where characters–. Know. They know how they feel. They have insights. They have made assumptions that have proved true. Has this ever happened to you?

Have you ever had a profound sense of knowing. Something is good/bad. Someone has bern true/or cheated. That just around the corner comes Joy/heartbreak. I have. Sometimes that knowing comes in a dream that the unconscious sorted out but the conscience cannot see. Those dreams for me usually come me with symbols. If i dream of a tornado i know my head is putting together dangers ahead. If i dream of ice skating things in my life are lining ip for freedom and progress and happiness on the horizon.

Heres to listening to the guiding lights we are sent.

God Abide , bobbie giltz mcgarey. 2022

‘

Good abide’ is both an affirmation and a plea

I got a pair of wool Birkenstocks AZ with fleece footbed. I love them. So i was trying to order another pair. These are the ones that are 59$ not the super fuzzy ones that ate over 100$. Nope These are warm w/out being sweaty.

I am hoping if the super fuzzy ever go on sale i see them before they sell out

I have a new hip. I am doing the exercising needed to strengthen the muscles that have been inactive. Time for balance in my legs.

I admit to bring surprised by the look of metal in my body. Bionic sort of… functional …

It was good for me to see Tiger Woods with massive leg mechanics after car ident playing golf again. There is much to be done post trauma. And it can be done.

So, Bobbie get going ! You have to be mountain worthy by September

God anide

Bobbie

So I thought of posting the

X-ray photo of my bionic hip joint but thought it it might be icky to some. So I’ll just say it’s pretty cool looking. Thus far recovery has gone well. I am getting stronger all the time.

Let’s just say i am working to get my whole body back In Balance after the years I limped around. Yea

I have t tried getting on the floor yet but need to go do the exercise I. Red to be doing. I’ll report how that goes.

So April lunges forward and we attempt to find out what is next. New house? Yes pleased God help! Open the opportunity and make way the path.

Let there be no wonder about settling…

Gladys is doing well and we pray that all things $$ Will be for the good. For her and the whole family.

And may I be able to daily consider the world around me contemplating the hermeneutical meanings.

God abide Bobbie Giltz McGarey