Awakening a Keen Observer

Friday, April 30, 2004

May?

Remember the game...Mother may I. I remember playing it with my friends when we were young. It was for us great fun though right now I can't exactly remember all the parts to it.
I do remember my mother telling me the difference between asking Can I do something and May I. May I is permission.... Can I asks do I have the ability to...
Perhaps when we talk with God we should ask more 'may I' questions than can I. Because it seems to me if God says I may..... then God will give me the ability to do so... so I Can..

mmm.
Happy May!

God abides...
Dear God may I.....

Bobbie McGarey
@2004

Thursday, April 29, 2004

Oh Happy Day

Hello there!
Did you hear the one about..... ?

Have you read anything recently about how good laughter is for the whole body system? It seems like there are articles everywhere about how healing it is for the body when you laugh. According to one article, sorry can't cite it, five minutes of good laughing will release enough good feelings, actual physiological biochemical reactions, to last most of a whole day.
Children laugh. I heard a little child the other day in the store laughing with just PURE delight. It made everyone around her feel better. And want to laugh like that with abandon and delight not at somone's expense.
John and I watched Sesame Street the other morning since I'd been listing to PBS the night before and it came on when the TV came on. We decided after we watched these wonderful characters solve their very troubling --trouble... that it made a great start for the day. Nothing unresolved, no one was hurt, and we could still have prayer time and lift up all those concerns God already knew about...without watching all of them on the news. Not everything in our lives is meant to be so very SERIOUS...
Dr. Christine Northrup has written a lot on women's health concerns and she thinks that the News is 'toxic' for women especially just before resting. I think she's right.
But if news is toxic then laughter in the morning can be healing. No wonder many people like to start the day reading the Comics in a newspaper...It's natural to want to laugh...and to find amusement in this world of ours.
Find some way to laugh, even at yourself, and know that it is God's good wish that your laugher would heal you and the world...
God abide
Bobbie McGarey
@2004

Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Looking Up

Who do you look up to? Admire? I suppose the answer to that question tells more about us than we might realize.
Is it a 'star' (the movie kind not the celestial) or is it someone who has let the actions of their lives stand for Good against those who would bring chaos.
There are a lot of those kinds of people around just now. Nelson Mandella, Desmond Tutu, Aung San Suu Kyi, all these people stand for the good of their countries and most of all for the people of their countries. In South Africa and Burma and all around the world in big and small ways people stand for what is good. Most go un-named and without glory.
So when we stand, where we are placed by God at this particular time for a particular God given purpose how do we stand for what is good? Not self-righteous mind you...but for Good. For what God would have us do and be?
Heady questions you say... lighten up you say...

Well, these heady times are like the Easter-tide when the disciples wondered now what? What do we do with our lives now? We have this message of Gods Good great love for us... and what do we do and how do we do it?
Jesus tells us... love one another... and that will be the measure...
So.. stand up for what we all know is right...loving one another with the fierce kind of love that Jesus had... right here...right now... and spread it around...

God abide have a great day.
Bobbie McGarey
@2004

Red-winged Blackbirds

My father, Maurice Giltz, was a biology professor at Ohio State University who studied Red-winged blackbirds and their migration patterns. He and another professor, Dr. H. Burtt, banded thousands, really thousands of these birds and found out where they went in the spring and studied their nesting patterns --because they were such a nucience to the corn farmers in Ohio Indiana, Illinois and Pennsylvania and in Canada. I would help out and chase them through the trap to the section where they could reach in and grab one and put on a band and let it go. I also would record some times whether they were male/female adult or young. Thousands would roost in the woods near Ohio State during migration times and it was an amazing site to see.

I am glad my father studied such a common bird-- Not some totally exotic species. Because you see I have always seen them wherever I've lived. Their bright epilets this time of year on the males trying to woo the females always always makes me smile. Their distinctive cries can be heard all over.
O-ka-ree-AH

My Daddy really loved his work with these birds. He made movies, he found a way to keep them from roosting in cities and causing real problems, he made friends with farmers who had tried everything to keep them out of their corn crops, he was a fun man, he was a smart man.

He loved his work with these birds, but even more he loved his family. And how he loved his grandchildren. I always felt a little like Wendy in Peter Pan, you know at the end when Peter comes back and Wendy is all grown up and Peter takes her children on adventures. When our children were little Daddy/Granddaddy would take them off on adventures, Snoopers Hunts, and leave me behind. I didn't resent it---I just felt all grown up. He on the other hand had a lightness in his step like no other time and a child-like delight in the world.

And etched on my heart, and on many hearts, is his smile and is gentle way and his humor, and his sparkle in his eyes, that even time apart from him cannot take away. Thanks Daddy.

He would have been 94 this year. He would have been a cute old guy. How can it be 20 years since we said good-bye?

But don't you hope in your hearts that you'll be remembered with such love? Having touched so many lives of students and family and friends....you'll be remembered... and in the end...and after a few tears...they'll smile.

God Abides

Bobbie McGarey
@2004

Tuesday, April 27, 2004

Reading

I picked up a book that belonged to my mother. She was always reading books that she felt would help her on her spiritual journey. This one is about learning more about prayer by using the Lord's prayer in a particular way. I need to read it more carefully before I share it here but it reminded me most of my mother.
I would see her reading and thinking when I was a child. We would often sit in the back yard in Ohio in the coolness of the shade and read. I don't remember talking with her about the books I read but I remember we would always be reading.
There was one summer when I read the biggest books I could find in the library. Gone with the Wind, Hawaii, and several other long long books.
There are a couple of books I re-read. Much to the suprise of some friends of mine. I read Franny and Zooey, JD Salinger, A Gift from the Sea, Ann Morrow Lindburg, and Siddharta, by Hesse once a year. I read them like visiting with friends and they challenge me in new ways each time.
That challenge is like reading Bible Stories that seem so different each time. I think it is because our lives have placed different lenses before us with experiences so that we read them in unique ways. I remember the first time I read the line in the Gospel of John, I will not leave you orphaned.... after both my parents had died.... it meant something altogether new.
What will life's new experience teach us today about how Jesus comes to us in the scriptures. We won't know until we open our Bibles and see. Today may you find a newness of promise for you in scripture.

God abide with you
BobbieMcGarey
@2004

Monday, April 26, 2004

Cookies

Cookies have a different meaning now...it can me something mmmmmmmy to eat or it can mean something that is sent to your computer sometimes for good and sometimes for not so good.
In our house this Monday is cookie day. Our daughter is heading into Exams and so her Dad is baking cookies to send to her. mmmmmmy ones. He has always baked her cookies. When she started school he made a giant cookie, the size of a pizza, (before they did this at the stores) and she took it to school. All along in her school years he makes cookies for her. It is one of his gifts to her.

We like to have something special that links us to someone special. Even when it is something simple as cookies which in fact makes it all the more special. Because you remembered. You remembered that it is something special to someone special.

May you find something special to do for someone special that lets them know .... you remember.

Monday cookies... mmmmm

Bobbie McGarey
@2004

Sunday, April 25, 2004

Sunday

I was thinking this morning perhaps in our hearts we should change the name of this day to Son-day. Each Son-day we say thanks to God for Jesus Christ's presence with us, teaching us, loving us, leading us, healing us, and sending us out into the world.

Perhaps in fact, friends, every day should be Son-day...each day we should begin by saying thanks for Jesus who sets us into the day knowing we don't ever go alone.

Be well and may the rest of your Son-day be one filled with thanks for all you have, freedom, hope, love and with Jesus at the center.

God abides and I thank God
Bobbie

Saturday, April 24, 2004

Saturday Morning

I woke to a commentary by Mary McClure on KAMU radio in Lawton. I love her words and usually hear them on Sunday morning on my way to church at 8:35. She is a keen observer of life. The story today was about bank robbers gone wrong. Always funny to hear how people think they can always outsmart officials and then do things like leave a trail of bills falling out their pocket as they leave the bank ...only to find they've locked the keys in their get-away car.
Sometime we are like that it seems. We think that what we do in the world isn't important because, well who notices. Now I am not going to start talking about how "God-knows" everything....we hear too much of that laid on us like Santa is watching and if we aren't good we won't get reward. I AM talking about how we all to often think that what we do doesn't matter to the rest of the world but it does... because we can do things for Good...and good will be sent out into the world. Little things count. Everything counts and when our actions count for good we make ready for the Kin-dom of God to come. For that time and place where we are all kin---related to one another and to God as we always are. Where we live in a just and perfect world.
Nope -not there yet. We live in a world where there are to many "others" ... but that is a thought for another day.
Remember ..You have the power of LOVE to share with the world. Ok...have a great day.

God abides ---and I thank God
Bobbie McGarey
@2004

Friday, April 23, 2004

Spring

Friday morning
I was driving to OKC for a meeting that required my attendance and really wanted to be headed the other way. It was early morning and I had to miss my exercise class and generally I was feeling grumpy about the day.
Because of the rain and the storms that had gone through the day before there were patches of fog and low clouds. The Spring Green caught my eye in several places and the sun began to burn through the foggy morning and my spirit.
I looked over to one farm pasture and saw two big horses in the green swirled with the fog and as fog does it became more clear. Leaping up and turning around was a small colt, young, frisky, tail arched, head arched, spreading joy.
At 70 mph (yes it is the speed limit) I was passed the quick vision all to fast. I wanted to pull over and go back and just sit and watch. The image however has played in my brain like a looped movie over and over and over.
What do we miss at 70 mph in our lives beyond just the world's presentation of joy? We miss our families when we are just in the midst of usual things. We miss our friends when we are just quiet with them. We miss just being present to one another.
Easter -tide is the time to be especially alert. Aware and attuned to all that is already around us.
Hear that---- out there---- it is a cardinal chirping --- really---shhhhh can you hear it?
God abides and I thank God
Bobbie McGarey
@2004

Wednesday, April 21, 2004

What Now?

I imagine that the disciples were wondering just that? What now. I see them reviewing all they could remember when they met trying to make a whole picture out of what they had witnessed over the past years. Imagine if you will your own trying to put together the happenings of your life in the past three years? What would you remember.
Willie Nelson sings... remember the Good times...they're smaller in number and easier to recall.
This we should review not only yearly but perhaps daily. Putting the day to rest remembering the good times. Putting them in perspective with those things that were not as positive or helpful in the day.
The disciples remembered the Good Times and I see them telling stories like families do...Remember the time when....
May your life be punctuated with the Good times and may they be larger in number than anything that didn't bring you joy.
Bobbie McGarey

Bobbie McGarey

Hello
Three from me today.
I am trying to see if this makes a link on the web somehow and figure out how all can view this and then use it. Be well and happy everyone. We will figure this out for sure...
Bobbie

Weather/Whether

We look at the weather reports and we wonder whether it will rain or if the rains will come gently or with a storm.
But what can we do? We can hope that the rain will come...But can we make it rain? Not really. Not really we can only say this is the way it is and we will plan the best we can that when the rain does come we are ready.
A lot of things in our lives we choose to worry about when actually there is absolutely nothing we can do about them. So why worry. Why place on our hearts, because I'm convinced that is where worry rests, or on our shoulders, because we carry worry like an ill-fitted yoke. ... we only worry if we think we are in control.
Deal with those things you can deal with and the rest give UP to God.
Bobbie

After Easter

Hope that you are all finding a place where you can be with others who believe that to be faithful means to be in service to Jesus.

We send our greetings once again.
Be well
Bobbie