December 26, 2022 a thought for today, A hero is someone who can keep his mouth shut when he's right. Jewish Proverb

For obvious weather and minor health reasons I had to miss the candle light service Saturday evening, I spent that time in thought as a personal celebration of that very special event with my sister and one of my sons close by. 

On Christmas day one of the uploads was “my day’. My day is pretty much described in the paragraph below. This image is one of the few I took time to capture. I was to busy enjoying the nearness of this part of the family and the love we all share. 

Yesterday, Christmas Day, was uniquely wonderful for us. The family is splintered of late, parts in different sections of the country and situations. So our gathering was small but as warm and happy as it could be, thanks to Lowell and Rebecca. Rebecca made chicken noodle soup and chili. They bought and brought all kinds of cold cuts and fixings for sub sandwiches. One of our members who couldn’t be here but was invited furnished several “Nothing Bundt Cakes” for desserts. There was an exchange of small, some homemade, gifts. There was happy “small” talk of family loved and not present for this year and talk of ancestors thought of lovingly.  All in all a heartfelt day to go in the memory book. For me a true touch of the “reason for the season” of love that was born that day over two thousand years ago. 

The second upload for Christmas Day was “Christmas lights”. I liked the “faded” feeling of the lights and the “bokeh” (the effect of a soft out-of-focus background) I was able to capture in this image of this years Christmas tree. 

Not quite a typical Monday. The usual Friday after newsletter printing was moved to Monday this month (as it turned out weather wise it was better....there is still the deep freeze in temps and ice and snow still on the ground but there is a bit of an upward direction in “back to normal” winter weather). Dorothy and I took care of the newsletter duties in good time as usual and added a couple of other small chores for the church while we were at it. Then we were both on our separate ways to other adventures of the day.

When we did the curbside pickup this week, they were out of two of the items I use most often so when I left the church I stopped by Kroger to pick those up. Then a swing by White Castle for brunch for Bob and me.  

One of the uploads for today was “delicious”. This image is of the “Nothing Bundt Cakes” we had for our Christmas dinner dessert. This bakery and the “famous” cakes have become one of our favorite and often used special occasion desserts.  

The word for today is welcome. The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience, Emily Dickinson. Beauty is everywhere a welcome guest, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival. Welcome and entertain them all! Rumi.  Get a friend to tell you your faults, or better still, welcome an enemy who will watch you keenly and sting you savagely. What a blessing such an irritating critic will be to a wise man, what an intolerable nuisance to a fool! Charles Spurgeon. The worse the passage the more welcome the port, Thomas Fuller. Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more, that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome, George Washington.  Never lose an opportunity to see anything that is beautiful. It is God's handwriting a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower, Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment, Henry David Thoreau. 

Another upload for today was titled “Christmas wishes”. I have used this image earlier in the month and felt that is was a good fit for today’s upload too. When I look at it I get the feel of hope from the light. I wish that the light that only comes from One source will overpower all of the evils in this world today. It does and it will. 

In my last blog I mentioned that I watch a PBS show on Thursday evenings and that on their last show they mentioned the history of Children’s Hospital. On the same show they mentioned the history of the Deaf School in Columbus. At the end of that short story they mentioned that the Topiary Garden grew out of the space where the original Deaf School was located. That part is what really caught my eye (ear). So I though I would share a bit of both entities in our city. Also the Deaf School has a bit of a personal connection. There was a person I worked with when I worked in a flower shop who was also a teacher at the deaf school.  In 1929 the “Ohio Institution for the Deaf and Dumb” opened in a rented house in Columbus at Broad and High Streets. At that time there was only one student. In the beginning there was a tuition of eighty dollars a year. There were nine scholarships that would allow some to attend free. Children from twelve years old and older could participate in a five year program studying subjects of English, math and vocational training. In 1934 a new building was erected for the school on East Town Street. For over seventy years there were new buildings built some included dormitories. By 1899 there had been three thousand and eighty-one children who had attended. By 1904 the name was changed to the Ohio State School for the Deaf and the Ohio Department of Education took over control. Apparently the building had not been well maintained because by 1941 it was in a “dilapidated” state. Around that time other land was purchased to relocated the school. Because of World War II construction was put on the back burner. As the new location grew, eleven buildings were constructed. By 2005 the age range of students had grown from three years to twenty-two years old. So onto the part where the Topiary Garden Park came into being at the Town Street location of the first building of the Deaf School. The Topiary Garden is the “only public park of its kind, not only in Ohio, but in the world as well”. It is a “living recreation of Georges Seurat's famous post-Impressionist painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of LaGrande Jatte”.  The garden was “conceived and sculpted in 1989" by an artist and his artist wife. There is a pond in the park that represents the River Seine, it is bordered by artificial hills. At one point in time the garden even appeared in the National Geographic magazine and the Wall Street Journal not to mention as a program on the BBC. 

I don’t feel a bit like cooking tonight so I think we will order in instead. 

Joy

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