What I Learned From Slippery Rock University or Happy Birthday Greg McAtee!

What I Learned From Slippery Rock University or Happy Birthday Greg McAtee!

 I’m taking this course now about Christian Spiritual Formation, but I have to go on record as saying that I learned a  lot about my relationship with God at Slippery Rock. I don’t think I learned a lot of English or How to Teach Reading. But I did learn how people who love God live in community. 

I learned that my Christian friends are also my brothers and sisters. I learned the basics of how to communicate, how to love them, and how to be loyal.  

I graduated from college in 1979, but a lot of my approach to the Bible has never changed. I still read it as if God is writing a love letter to me. I learned that sitting on the floor in Conrad’s living room listening to him talk at Friday night Bible studies. 

I guess college is a formative time for everybody. I’m glad God started to form my spiritual walk back then.

I laugh when I think back to parties in my apartment in the Track House where it was so cold we passed out blankest and sweaters to party goers.  I laugh when I think how we tried to teach Greg to cook. I remember us girls decorated a table top Christmas tree with our earrings.   

I really had some pretty cool friends:  Becky and Sue, and Ruth and Pete and Chuck, and Katie and Micheal, and Anita and Greg whose birthday is today.  

 I haven’t kept in contact with most of them. It didn’t seem necessary to write down their addresses, I couldn’t imagine living without them. So now, 40 or so years later, I don’t know where they are but I am grateful for all the learning that happened with them.   

And it seemed right to get all sentimental about SRSC, now on Greg’s birthday. So happy birthday to me and Anita and Becky and Greg, all of us in February.  Thanks, for everything I learned about community from you guys. I still use it today.

What I Learned From 27

What I Learned From 27

I learned to count from going to physical therapy (PT).  To be honest, I probably knew how to count in first grade. Only I never did figure out if the space the Monopoly horse sat on was one or if the space after it counted as one. 

Anyhow, at PT we count all the time. Our therapist says, “Do three sets of ten,” and then you begin to lift weights or bend and stretch or whatever she has recommended. You do this a total of thirty times—three sets of ten. 

I have had a bad shoulder and hip and back, (do I sound like a 57 year old woman or what?!) and all three times my PT has corrected the problem and made me even stronger.  

I know it works. I can count to thirty.  But, do you know, every time I get to 27 I want to quit. I hate being almost there. I don’t know why 27, 28, 29, 30 seem so hard. Sometimes I count to ten three times or backwards from thirty. I hate 27. 

I think it is like my life. I want to quit when I am almost there. If I knew how close I was to the character change God and I are working on I would keep going. If I knew how close the chapter was to being beautiful I would keep wordsmithing.  If I knew how close the woman I am counseling is to getting what I’m saying then I would keep going. I want to quit too soon.  

But I have learned in PT that if I keep going to the end I get good results. I get stronger and people think I’m losing weight! (hah!) So I try not to hate 27. It’s almost there. I usually find I can do three more.

What I Leaarned From Punxsutawney Phil.

What I Learned From Punxsutawney Phil

Today is my birthday. A grand day to be silly and make other people happy,  

I’ve been having fun all week telling people it’s my birthday.  They say, “Happy Birthday.” The happy floats around like good cold germs and makes us a little happier.   People have fun saying it and I have fun collecting birthday wishes. 

   

I dare you to be funny, silly, happy. You'll infect the people around you (and probably burns calories).  I was so proud of Margaret and Jesse when Rev. Sue Gillespie said, “Jess and Margaret want to welcome you to their wedding.  They want you to have fun.” And we did. 

I have a new dog—a story all its own—and we laugh as she tries to run on the hardwood floor. Her back feet scrabble for a while before she gets traction and takes off.  Little children are made to be laughed too. And silly signs like the one at the Chinese buffet that says, “Children should be cautious.” Definitely children should. But would they still be children? 

Face it, we will always have crying and sad. It takes a little more work to have happy and funny. So today I’m going to wear my ground hog day shirt, the one I bought while having fun in Punxsutawney visiting Phil.  . I’m going to wear my happy birthday crown and my official ground hog necklace.

I’m going to be silly. A great way to make other people happy.

poems for you

 Hi,

 I'm back to blogging. I hope you missed me a little. I have three poems about my western vacation and one about a snow day here in good old PA. Hope you like them.  I like the Silverton Colorado one the best.

Autumn in Nevada

The first breeze of fall

flows over the Sangre

de Christos down I-

15 to Mesquite.

Across mesas past

red rock or blonde or

gray, needle towers,

frozen lava or

eroded hillsides

fall arrives. Pumpkins

hay bales and scarecrows

and proves to me that

Pennsylvania has

no monopoly.

Visiting Arches

Glossy black raven

gives the beady eye

as, cameras handy

we set out to  

capture delicate

arches, stripped red

and bleached blond

in clear evening light.

Fat nosy raven

hops to side mirror

inspects the open car.

What treats have we left?

You give chase. I take

pictures. Raven flaps

to drivers side, just

stares as you scold, then

lazy, floats away.

Silverton

 I bought this ring

In Silverton,

or rather, Roger bought

it for me

both of us

captured

by the jeweler

who said, the ring was

vintage pawned Indian

jewelry

the jeweler who said

the ring was

an Indian cut, the four

stones notched in

the four directions

the jeweler who

 didn’t know

we like things

with histories

we bring home stories

and this ring tells us

Silverton was

real not just some

Rocky Mountain

Brigadoon

But a real place

where all three streets 

of weathered clapboard houses

nestle in the skirts 

  

Of the eternal mountains.

Mountains who tolerate

little towns but stare over

their heads

north to the Dakotas  

South to Taos

Mountains dreaming of the end

and remembering the

beginning of the world

In Silverton that one afternoon

 we chat with shop keepers

and Canadians on tour like us

 We ride back to Durango

on the steam train

a long, cold, breathtaking,

along a galloping river,

through mountain passes

lit by aspens turned gold.

And the jeweler didn’t know

That this all comes back

When I wear that ring

And I can smell the wood smoke

In the autumn air

And hear my own feet

Shuffling along a Silverton

Side walk made of boards.  

Snow Day

Out on the deck

the green plastic chairs

wear white cushions

of fresh snow

matching the deep white

carpet dumped there last night.

Squirrels and chickadees, nuthatches

and junkos haven’t graffitied the railing

and the wind is hushed.

Down in the ravine behind the house

Leggett’s Creek is quiet, most water

out back is dressed in white

The maple tree that reaches

the deck now is trimmed in

ermine just as showy its

all green summer wear or

the flamboyant yellow

 it flaunts for fall.

The forty foot white pine

hasn’t shaken its white wrapper.

All is as still as a stage set.

It’s a Robert Frost kind of day

but I don’t have a horse

or miles to go before I sleep

My work for today is

to turn from the sliding glass

door back to the kitchen table

resume the novel I’m reading

and drink another cup

of steamy black coffee.