December 3, 2021 a thought for today, Worry is like a rocking chair it swings you back and forth and it takes you nowhere. African Proverb

I believe we learn something every day. Sometimes it’s things we don’t even recognize as a learning experience but it is one nonetheless. Today I learned as I should have long, long ago that it doesn’t pay to give into worrying about something that may never come about. I spent hours worrying about renewing my drivers license with all the “new” information they requested. That required hours of looking through old papers and  knickknacks searching for what I needed all the while bringing memories back again, some sad, some glad. I didn’t find the exact paper work that I felt was called for but some that I thought would work so I made the trip to the BMV. There is a new system here that you can “check in” at home on the computer (or cell phone) and then head out .....saves time on the waiting. So, another learning experience, I went through the steps that that called for. After I short wait I found that I didn’t need all of that information after all. There were two choices of driver licenses...one called standard, the other,  a “compliant license”. (The "compliant" meets new federal requirements and will work as an ID for domestic air travel.) I could have saved myself all of that worry and work had I spent more time on Google researching the differences. I opted for the standard license, at least for now. For one reason, I don’t plan to fly anytime soon, another reason, I was missing one of the important pieces of paper work. However, for the next time I need to renew I ordered the other necessary documentation that will fit the regulations for the new “REAL ID”. If I find it necessary, I can always go through the process of updating again. Now it’s time to move on to other things in motion in my journey. 

Back to yesterday for a moment, the photo theme for December 2nd was “star”. I was shopping in a drug store yesterday and found this Christmas card. It had the special star depicted on the front and seemed the perfect image for the day and the season. 

Yesterday was productive. I got the printing done without any delays. I also observed part of the continual upkeep/maintenance to our church property. It was a bit sad for me but necessary. All of the trees on the property were being cut down. Most of them were cut down for the purpose of erecting a new privacy fence to further an effort to make protection around us even more secure. I guess I am a softy. I don’t like the destruction of any living thing of natures creation. Maybe we can plant some new trees to surround God’s house with the nature of trees and their natural inhabitants. 

We are experiencing a break in cold weather. I think it will be short lived but welcome.

To let some more of the stress of the license renewal episode ease it’s way out of my system I worked on updating the church calendar that I maintain on the church web page. I unintentionally slacked off on that obligation thinking there was little outside (or “inside” for that matter) interest in our web page and my efforts seems wasted. But recently I found that apparently there are actually people visiting our page so the information should be current. 

Todays photo challenge is “I love this!”  Welll, as anyone who keeps up with this bog knows I love McDonalds and White Castle. So it seems this is the perfect image. 

The word for today is inward.  The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. Aristotle. A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him. Soren Kierkegaard. To live happily is an inward power of the soul. Marcus Aurelius. Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigor and power of the mind, displaying itself from within. Ralph Cudworth. The outward work will never be puny if the inward work is great. Meister Eckhart.  As we grow old, the beauty steals inward. Ralph Waldo Emerson.  I pray on the principle that wine knocks the cork out of a bottle. There is an inward fermentation, and there must be a vent. Henry Ward Beecher.  When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling them; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn inward and examine ourselves. Gustave Courbet. Quietude, which some men cannot abide because it reveals their inward poverty, is as a palace of cedar to the wise, for along its hallowed courts the King in his beauty deigns to walk. Charles Spurgeon.  We rarely hear the inward music, but we're all dancing to it nevertheless. Rumi. Let tears flow of their own accord; their flowing is not inconsistent with inward peace and harmony. Seneca the Younger.

Here is another of those places near us that adds to our history and places to see. This article is an experience about the Malabar Farm located in an area of our city. The story begins when an eighty eight year old lady who once lived at the farm returned for a visit. She noted that the rooster crowing in the back ground, the look of the hardwood floors and the red and white furniture matching the red carpeting on the double staircase and including the white wallpaper hasn’t seemed to change in all the year since she had left. The farm is now a park where the property has been preserved as much as possible “providing a place where visitors can explore life on a farm and the beauty of nature.”  She lived there for nine years beginning when she was nine years old with her mother who was a cook at Malabar. As a side note about the owner:  Louis Bromfield, born in Mansfield, Ohio,... would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for his novel Early Autumn and become one of America’s first proponents of sustainable agriculture and conservation”.In a bit earlier life he was an ambulance driver in the Army during World War I. He lived in Paris for a while until 1938 when he came back to Ohio with a wife and three daughters and bought the farm. He used organic methods that he had “learned in India”. He added raising livestock and used unique methods called sustainable agriculture in his farming as he continued with he writing. The writing helped with the financing of the farm. Some of his writings, because they were picked up by Hollywood led him to meet James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. Humphrey married Lauren Bacall at the Malabar Farm. The now eighty eight year old lady (from the opening sentences), remembers watching the wedding that took place at the bottom of the bottom of the double staircase as photographer were shooting pictures as they stood outside the windows. She said Mr. Bromfield was a down to earth guy and treated everyone, all people in all social circles and races, with kindness. She went on describing memories as she recalled them. The chestnut puree that her mother made for Mr. Bromfield. After Mr. Bromfield died her mother stayed at the farm and cleaned the home and cooked until 1989. Malabar Farm became a state park in 1976.This year there were over 6,000 tours this year that doesn’t include the people who hike and picnic at the farm with more visiting during the Heritage Days and Maple syrup festivals. The article related that the farm continues to follow the “farming philosophies” as well as “preserving the house... and artifacts (of the period)”. 

Pizza night!!!

Joy

Autumn leaves....and a distraction