Thoughtful Times...

So many ideas ramble around as the "holiday" season officially starts.  We've seen evidence of it since the end of August around here, what with stores displaying fall trappings for Thanksgiving and even hinting at Christmas before Labor Day.  What a rush we make of the days!

But here we are at the week of Thanksgiving, and those ties back to "ole days" raise lots of questions.  Who celebrated the first Thanksgiving on American shores?  Did they really eat turkey? I doubt there was dressing and gravy, and surely the pecan-sweet potato casserole was not even a dream at that point.  I teach American literature, so those controversies on exactly where and when that first Thanksgiving was noted continue to catch attention, especially as we examine what has been "re-envisioned" in history over the years.

But today--right now--I think it is a fortunate pairing that we celebrate Thanksgiving so closely paired with the day we celebrate the christian holiday of Christmas--another controversial date, but so goes custom.  Here we are, coming to a "count-your-blessings" time.  Some will have to search harder than others simply because life holds more a wealth of challenge than ease.  I had to think on that aspect on Sunday, as I sat in church and considered a simple cornucopia decoration.

So much plenty spills out onto the communion table...a place reminding us of great sacrifice and great grace.  Soon there will be a nativity scene in place and a chance to contemplate again that meaning of "blessing."  In fact, just that same day, in the evening, our church came together to begin the Christmas tradition of a chrismon tree in our sanctuary.  The ornaments are well over 30 years old, and yet even in their slightly worn shape, they bright light and grace.

I'm partial to several of them, most especially the lamb.  The abundance of them is surely a blessing--filling these large tree with a reminder of the many ways we see the Christ--the images that speak to that gift we still seek to understand.

In just two days, my girls and their families will be at home--here.  We will mix the holidays, too--setting together around a Thanksgiving table and talking of Christmas in the same hour.  These images are not just things we see but those we center deep in our lives, holding to them when moments may not be so good or filled with more questions than we want to acknowledge.

But, the season is upon us.  Be thankful.

Summah-time delicious......

Some folks know the difference between a tomato and a garden tomato.  It's the immediate taste of "garden" that fills the mouth and makes the wait worthwhile.  For me, there's no replacing the deliciousness of that ripe, juicy first slice or bite....and immediately, I'm back in my Granny Wade's country kitchen, not a day over ten and no care in the world except where the barn kittens may be hiding.  Now that's a powerful reason to grow my own tomatoes! 

We're having a bumper crop this season, thank goodness.  My home-canned ones are just about gone and the prospects of having plenty to put up for the winter looks really good.  They'll go nicely with all the green beans we have put up on the shelf as well.

The added blessing on those tomatoes comes from the fact that a dear, sweet neighbor gave me the plants....and he does every season.  He and his wife have a natural bend to generosity and share with so many of us here in the neighborhood.  We watch and wait for his strong tomato plants every spring.

This neighbor is also the source of another great connection.  Several years ago (as in a decade or so!), he came in late fall carrying a cardboard box full of tiny little grapes, so small that a handful would be the only way to get a good taste.  He asked if I wanted some "fox grapes" he had picked and had an abundant supply, telling me that his wife had "juiced" all she wanted.  Of course, I said yes and then proceeded to ask how to juice them!  Little did I know what a special treat the jelly I would make from the juice would be for another member of my family--my mama. 

That Christmas, I gave away little jars of the jelly in packages, but it was my mama's reaction that would be the dearest gift to me.  She lifted it out of her Christmas bag and thanked me as she held it up to look more closely, noting that it was "really dark and dense"--and then she said, "Gracious, is this fox grape jelly?!"  I couldn't believe she knew, and she couldn't believe what she had in her hand, telling me she had not had any since she was a child and her family had moved "off the mountain into town."  She's a rarity for sure in this day, having really lived in a log-cabin, played with crawdads in the creek, and romped through the woods, which was her backyard.  At the moment she eyed the jar and it dawned on her what she had, she hurried to the kitchen, got a spoon, flipped off the lid and took a bite, beaming with delight.  I'll never forget her face in those seconds as she slipped back to her younger days on Boauger Mountain for just a speck of time.  She gets her own personal jars first every year that I have grapes.  

It may be the fact that the past few weeks have been complex and demanding and a few slower moments with a garden tomato helped draw things to a different perspective, but the bite was surely amazing. We can certainly need that shift in the midst of stress and demand, but I am humbled by such a simple thing, knowing that it is my early experiences, just as it is my mama's, that enable that shift.  And those simple things are all around.  Take, for example, this beginning of an oak tree--a volunteer that popped up in the midst of my front flower bed, apparently having been tucked safely under the nearby dwarf bushes.

I didn't know that the early leaves were such a beautiful pink--so
delicate and furry!  I've never seen the very top of an oak tree before, and how gaze-stopping it is!  I'm sure there have been other oak sproutlings, but in the thiry-seven years I've lived here, this one was a first for me.

So what's a body to do but get out the camera and do some looking.  Maybe it was the light that morning or just that I had taken the time to see--I'm guessing it was a mix of both--but there were eye-treasures everywhere, like the little trailing geranium of the two-tiered bee-balm that stretched up in perfect glory.  They were delighting my being for sure.

Such surprising hues and form!  Where have I been??

So the "summah-time" moves quickly on.  My lilies have bloomed out, the garden is giving goods each day, my overload of work still waits, and my camera sits ready for the moment I need a break and a breath and a sense of the abundant simple blessings around me.  I'm thinking those blessings epitomize grace in my midst, and how thankful I am it's here.