The Spirit Will Tell You

   

I love the Book listed below. It contains some of my most favorite stories. This is one of those stories. Do you know one of the Children of Happiness. How can we nurture such children. It is up to all of us to do so.

Daughters of Copper Woman – Anne Cameron 

“ Copperwoman had decided to travel the path the sun makes across the water when it sets for the night, and had gone away in her dugout and left Mowita alone.  Alone for such a long time that should could barely remember what it was like not to be alone. 

She sang all the songs she knew, danced all the dances she knew, she remembered all she had been taught, and she looked into herself for answers.  And one day she looked up, and there was her mother walking toward her , holding out her hands and smiling. 

Mowita looked at her mother and was filled with happiness of such magnitude she thought she would split open and her spirit fly free on the wind.  She ran to her mother, and embraced her, and kissed her and cried with joy.  That night the small cedar-pitched waterproof house was bright with light and laughter and ripe with the voices of two women.  And the happiness grew in Mowita until she could feel it moving under her heart.  

Some months later the happiness was born and came into the world as twin baby girls, one with green eyes like her grandmother.  And her name is so sacred only a few are allowed to know it.  She and her sister were the first of the Children of Happiness.  

Children of Happiness are not like ordinary children. They are usually little girls, but sometimes little boys are born with the signs.  You can tell one of the Children of happiness by the way it is different.  A Child of Happiness always seems like an old soul living in a new body, and her face is very serious until she smile, and then the sun lights up the world.  You look at the eyes of a Child of Happiness always look not quite the same as the other children.  They have strong straight legs and walk with purpose.  They laugh as do all children, and they play as do all children, they talk as all do all children, but they are different,  they are blessed,  they are special,  they are sacred. 

They are to be cherished and protected 

Even at the risk of your life. 

They will know alienation

For they see past and through this reality. 

They will Endure where others cannot.

They will Survive where others cannot. They know love even when it is not shown to them. 

They spend their lives trying to Communicate

The love they know. 

Michael Damish

Once when I was in college two couples went to a concert. On the way back to school the only place open to eat was a Dennys. We went in and there were only about 7 people there. When the waitress came over I jokingly said to the other guy, Oh I love you work and even though we’ve been friends for some time could I have your autograph. He said Oh sure, took a napkin and wrote Best Wishes always —and signed it with a flurry. Michael Damish. We ordered and watched the waitress tell the others that …Michael Damish was at that table. We had fun eating our dessert and left. He left a good tip and we went out. She waved and said it was good to meet you.  

What is it about people who are famous? In a world where we claim that everyone is equal in the eyes of the Creator we hold some people to be more famous than others. Really it is as if some deserve more… But it is honesty and respect that we all deserve not special service or care …  

Michael Damish…not my friend’s real name… is the name I think of when people are acting above others. As if they should get special treatment.  

Treat everyone you meet with the same respect you would treat the person you respect the most. See if it changes your world. 

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey 03.30.21, Bethlehem, PA

Can we not see that the world isn’t going to hit a reset button and go back to where it had been before…. Before the pandemic,  before we fell in love,  before the call from the doctor, before…. 

The world keeps turning.  Changing.  “Like sand through the hour glass.”  So begins a Soap TV show.  But it is true.  Even in an hourglass the sand grains don’t go through the middle in the same order, in the same way.  Yes hourglasses have one thing, a determined about of time it takes to empty from top to bottom. 

Is that what our world is really like… An hourglass?  That the time filters down one grain at a time, for the specific time we have to spend, to live here.  We can’t change the fact that time is changing.  That things move on.. That these are the good old days…Things will not go back.  

We can remember the before of our lives.  Some of those remembers are sweet and other bitter.  A mixture that brings real excitement into our daily living.  Pema Chodron said in a talk one time that the best question we can ask every morning is, “I wonder what is going to happen today?’  

So the before, or yesterday is past and tomorrow is only a dream.   We have to live into the here and now.  We have to say,  “Well, alright then.”   To be true I am not advocating resignation or stagnation.   I am noticing that we must confront the whole of it as people who grow into the days that are given us. 

Remember the opening of the movie Milagro Beanfield War?  The old gentleman gets up out of bed, walks over to his mirror and sink, looks at this reflection and says, “Thank you God for giving me another day.”  

So then two questions, two intentions, two preparations,  “I wonder what is going to happen today? And, “Thank you God for another day.” 

How will you mark each of your days?  How will you make certain that the way that you don’t miss taking your turn?  

Friends, I don’t have the answer to these questions or wonderings.  All I can offer is best wishes, and God speed.  

Remembering 

God Abides

Bobbie giltz mcgarey , 3.24.21 bethlehem, pa 

She Persisted

So I stumbled on the movie Gone with the Wind.  Besides the rather uncomfortable depictions of the works the slaves did for those who were in power, there was something that I realized.   Scarlet, for all the trouble that people have with her, Persists.   She manipulates, she plans, she schemes, and she survives.  She not only survives she succeeds.  Though it does’t look like what she expected. She survives and succeeds.   

I remember reading this book one summer and the night I finished it I went into my parents room crying.  How could Rhett leave.  How could it end in such disappointment?  

Today while watching I realized at the end, yes Rhett left. Yes, he  said he didn’t give a damn. Yes he walked out into the fog, the nightmare image of Scarlett. Yes, he turned his back and started a new life.  But Scarlet, after her feeling sorry for me tears, finds strength in her heart memory of Tara, and makes plans, certain she can persist and perhaps isn’t the tragic figure.  

But to be true I’m sure many may argue with my analysis.  But here’s the thing, friends,  for me today she succeeds in persisting. 

What does persisting look like to you?  Right now?  What is it you want and how do you plan on finding a way to get to your goal?  

Good luck

“As God is my witness! I’ll never be hungry again!” 

God abides

Bobbie giltz mcgarey, @03.18.21,  Bethlehem, PA 

My computer is downloading a podcast of Folkways album information, there are some software updates coming through, I’m reading the news knowing when the updates are through I’ll have to restart the computer so I’m waiting to finish work on the Word document I was writing… 
whaoaaaa!  
One thing at a time.  

I remember my Daddy saying that to me. Perhaps we need a sign with that on it in all of our houses.  
These days if you don’t have the wash going, the dishwasher unloaded and loaded, the computer booting up, the phone headset on and your palm pilot (I don’t have one of those) working you just aren’t functioning to your full capacity. 

When did we evolve into humans who could do all these things at once? You hunted for food, you carried water, you cooked over an open fire, one thing at a time.  
Now trust me when I say that I don’t want to begin that kind of life that so many people in our world still have. Seriously. But is there something to be learned or perhaps remembered about life being solo-tasked not multi-tasked?  

One thing at a time.  
Sit down and breathe in and out slowly. What? How can that be productive? I suppose if all the other systems around us are running we can sit down for a minute. But shouldn’t we have our plans before us. Sit down and breathe in and out slowly. How can that be appropriate behavior for someone who is engaged in the world there is so much to be don? Sit down and breathe in and out slowly. But look at the “to do list” for Saturday and Sunday there is no time for… 

There is no time –for there not to be time— to do one thing at a time… 
“Jesus went away to a quiet place.”  
Sit down breathe in and out slowly. 
Again
Again
Again 
Again
and when the time is right the rest of the world will be waiting. And for the most part it can wait.  
oopes almost time to reboot…
but ‘not yet’ 

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey 03.17.21, Bethlehem, PA

John Denver sang

 “If our lives could lie before us like a straight and narrow hughwaySo that we could see forever before we took the ride We would never look to heaven make a wish, or climb a mountain, ‘Cause we’d always know the answer what’s on the other side.”
Have you ever wondered what is ahead in your life.? Like where will I Be next month, or next birthday, or after a major event, like a graduation, Or wedding…We don’t know But we have made plans and provided for our wellbeing We have food in the fridge or in the cupboard. We have so many clothes we could never wear them all.  We have a car, or two. We have books…lots of books 
What’s ahead?  I can’t say But God has a plan for our lives..a plan for Good 
Here we Go ! 

God abidesBobbie Giltz McGarey

Plans?  Ha! 

There are times when we’ve made plans, sometimes simple, sometimes grand, and then everything changes.  I think that we want some order somehow.  Order in the day and order in the days to come.  There are times when I learn the “Be Here Now” kind of life and I do that rather well when in the presence of any of my grandchildren. 

I think this is because I recognize how quickly things change.   How a newborn moves to 6 month old clothing, or a 4 year old becomes a 5 year old seemingly so much more wise.  Then the wonderful 2’s moving to 3’s whose bodies elongate and they can reach and see things on top of the counter.  But just yesterday, or 4 years ago, they were little babes in the arms.  

Then I look at my children, our children, and recognize that they have grown up into wonderful adults and I’m the old one.  My husband is the old one.  We are the elders, perhaps not in the sense of the wisdom ones, but rather in the ones with the limits of things that can be done.

  I recognize that plans are just that…plans.  They are not orders. They are not set in granite.  But they are only guides.  Then there are ways that we can make goals.  

Perhaps we should write a set of ideals.  Perhaps we should each day make a set of intentions as we do at the beginning of the year.  We intend to accomplish certain things knowing that some, perhaps many, of them will not be fulfilled as first imagined.  

We reimagine our lives all the time.  Well, we can choose to reimagine our lives all the time.  We can be pleased with what is especially when our basic needs are met with such generosity.  We can be certain that we still have things to contribute.  That we ‘aren’t-dead-yet.’  

Hey friend, enjoy those thoughts.  Perhaps make some intentions for yourselves.   Then you can  forgive what you fail to fulfill.  You can then try again.

Let me know what you decide

God abides

Bobbie giltz mcgarey 

@ 03.14.21. Bethlehem, PA 

On the Mary Tyler Moore show there was a character Georgette who was thought to be.a ditz. She was great fun in her role as someone very loyal, genuine, naive, and always kind. Today as I was watching my grandson I started watching a show about Betty White. (Give me a second you will see the connection). In a conversation with the former stars of the Mary Tyler Moore show she said this,

“The mortal changes happen, but our love for each other remains.”

I rewound this movie to hear it again and so I could write it down. It seemed so completely wonderful. It seemed to be so completely illuminating. What does it mean to you?

For me it talks of those I’ve loved and lost. For me it talks about friends I’ve had and have lost track of where they are. What about for you? Does it resonate with your life, your loves, your losses, your knowing what is real and good.

Maybe Georgette wasn’t as much of a ditz as we thought!

God abide, let me know

bobbie giltz mcgarey , March 11, 2021, Bethlehem PA.

Music comes

What comes first

The music or the words

When a song is put together does the rhyme make it move

Or does the music make it rhyme

When Matalie played from her heart

Words often spun with the notes and there sang in my mind

Songs of God 

Songs of mercy, songs of love, songs of grace, songs of peace,

Songs that empower, enliven, encourage

Songs of justice, songs of woe, songs of laughter, songs of death,

Songs of life, spams of justice,  songs of everything we know. 

So who pulls the words out when the music is missing

When the sounds are tunes familiar not new

So who pulls the notes out on the piano played with brilliance

Music that moves us and prompts us to dance.

@Bobbie giltz mcgarey, 03.09.21, bethlehem PA

“You’ve gotta sing, all the time, find yourself a simple song and sing it all the time.” 

      Sarah Guthrie

When first it snows

Day turns to grey and white 

The sun waits its turn until after 

The inches have fallen on the ground

Layering up to over two feet. 

Each thousand on thousand on thousand of snowflakes 

Come-    created individually to earth 

Each snowflake has its own look it’s own fingerprint 

It’s own design

Until it gathers on the ground with the others from it’s storm

And becomes 

one plusone plusone plus one plus one plus one plus one plus one plus one

And returns to the many alike. 

We tramp through the snow not acknowledging the individualness of the snowflakes

Unlike grains of sand. Snowflakes become one as

 we step. 

Compacting one with one

With one every step.  

Unlike us in the snow the dog leaps from one place to another.  Each time with snow up to her belly.  Each time landing as if surprised and looking around.  The ground is no longer an anchor

Some places the ground cannot even be found and we wiggle out and scrunch out and find a way. A ball of snow thrown the dog melds Instantly into the old/new -one 

Later comes the sun

Light bright reflecting and glowing

Eyes water at is brightness

 the sky turns after snow blue like no other 

Winter color returns 

At least for a while

Until it snows again tomorrow 

Bobbie giltz mcgarey 03.03.21, bethlehem, PA