Awakening a Keen Observer

Monday, January 31, 2005

Peaches

My cousin has a beauitful little cat named Peaches. She is the color of peaches. What a sweet delicate little cat. She is most delicate and sweet and so dear.
She is different from our cat Minerva/minervo . My cat weighs 10 lbs more than peaches...and yet though you know she is so different she is still quite sweet. She will sit on your lap and then reach up and pat your chin...and then nudge your chin with her head. Minerva is younger than Peaches so she still has some of that kitten mischief in her.
They are different but they both have their dear and caring and sweet sizes.
love comes that way
different every time

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Sabbath

Hello friends,

Part of my class work this week was to take a Sabbath. A time to be in the presence of God in a conscious intentional way. i did pretty well with the assignment. I did slip a couple of times and think about 'to-do's and ought-to's and didn'ts
...but for the most part I was able to focus on prayer.
i prayed using lectio, i prayed with a labrynth, i prayed with silence, i prayed the jesus prayer. ... i sat and listened between.
bless you all for your travles and journey...and know that the travels i'm on are good for us all.

I heard from a dear friend vising her daughter a long long long way from home. It is always good to be in touch with her. It gives me encouragement and strength and joy.
One of my friends on his sabbath decided in the season of Lent he would try and write a letter to one person who has meant a great deal to him in the past on his spiritual journey. I began thinking of several folks...I think I'll take this on as well as a spiritual discipline during lent. Who would you write to thank for your spiritual growth along the way? Perhaps you would like to write them as well.? consider it as you contemplate your spiritual discipline for lent.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Monday, January 24, 2005

Eagle migration

it is the time of year for the eagle migration in my part of the world. The bald eagles live and circle around the area nw of Lawton. You know you can tell if it is an eagle..they fligh high and look like they have a 4x6 board for wings.. Distinctive.

Don't we all want to be distinctive. I remember the 60's (yes I've heard the joke ...if you remember the 60's you weren't really there.) Anyway there was a trend to break from the establishment..but oddly what that ment was conforming to another way... another uniform just a differnt kind of final look...

be different today...totally unique.... you'll be you..

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey

Sunday, January 23, 2005

My oh my

I saw a bird ..standing ON the water. It was chilly this morning in SW Oklahoma and there was enough ice on one pond for this bird to be standing on top of the water. It was a great sight.
There are times when life seems so odd for us that we feel like that bird... close to what we want but just standing there...
there are times when that happens to someone we love...we see them just close to what is good for them but then ..something happens and it isn't..
there are times when we feel like we are just 'isolated' and are standing there all alone.
but perhaps our being there has brought some interest to someone else
or we can show others that when it seems that the impossible is out of your reach...it can be there after all.

i've stood on water.. i've walked on water... .i've skated on water... and sometimes brought laughter to folk while they watched. Ah winter

let your life be lifted out of the ordinary. let your heart be filled with hope

go on....stand on that water... and walk..


God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Saturday, January 22, 2005

Survivor

I just read a story of a man who for 25 days was the single survivor of the Tsunami. He was swept up by the first wave and then brought back in by the second stronger wave only to find that everyone else was dead or missing. He survived eating coconuts...
What internal strength not to have gone crazy in that time. He waved to the plane with his cloths on a stick. They couldn't believe he was there.
Deep sigh.
The strength of the human spirit.. the sadness in the loss.
Only 25 days and 225,000 folks..and it is no longer headlines...

god abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Only Millions?

I heard a news report this afternoon about an area along the ocean where there were whole villages gone. Where homes and business and fishing boats and all their equipment was gone. Everything we take for granted. And then they said it would take a good deal to replace everything in these towns...24 million.
Million? just a million? only a million? not billion or trillion...

we've lost some perspectives I think about what is enough and what is important. Because we know that millions can be raised easily for people's plesure. Look at the millions the advertisers put into the Super Bowl. What if everyone who watcheed the superbowl send 10 or 100 or 1000 dollars to the relief effort? Surely we could match what we spend on food for the 'game' to give to our church or a charity.

The Souper Bowl sunday folks do this... that's a great idea.

What if the first thing we thought of was...that person over there... before we thought all about ourselves.
I'm not totally there yet but i'm working on it.
God abide

Bobbie Giltz McGarey
2005

Thursday, January 20, 2005

Pagentry

We watch the world and the ceremonies around them. We inagurated a President. It was interesting. Always the pagents the fancy dressing and the people who are there. It is always amazing to me. Pomp
At the same time in the world the high holy days for the Muslim faith are happeng. Hajj is a pilgrimage that every good Muslim wants to complete at least once in a lifetime at the place their Prophet was born. There are several parts to it and I do not pretend to understand or translate it. Millions go and follow through with the massive rituals surrounding these days. it is amazing.
What do we do as people to mark time and days? I have done work on rituals and how they help us mark critical moments in our lives, transitions. Graduations are such times. Birthday celebratons as well.
When we make a pilgrimage, to grandma's for thanksgiving, or create our own ways of doing things, then we come to know what it is marks time for us.

There need to be markings for beginnings and endings and for in-betweens. Find a faithful way to mark the important transitions in your life.
Beginning new times.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Pagentry

We watch the world and the ceremonies around them. We inagurated a President. It was interesting. Always the pagents the fancy dressing and the people who are there. It is always amazing to me. Pomp
At the same time in the world the high holy days for the Muslim faith are happeng. Hajj is a pilgrimage that every good Muslim wants to complete at least once in a lifetime at the place their Prophet was born. There are several parts to it and I do not pretend to understand or translate it. Millions go and follow through with the massive rituals surrounding these days. it is amazing.
What do we do as people to mark time and days? I have done work on rituals and how they help us mark critical moments in our lives, transitions. Graduations are such times. Birthday celebratons as well.
When we make a pilgrimage, to grandma's for thanksgiving, or create our own ways of doing things, then we come to know what it is marks time for us.

There need to be markings for beginnings and endings and for in-betweens. Find a faithful way to mark the important transitions in your life.
Beginning new times.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Wednesday, January 19, 2005

Dreams

We have dreams for ourselves and for our lives and what we think it will look like and be.
We have dreams of accomplishments, of ways we want to look,
of how we can contribute to the world.
We have hopes for ourselves and even more we have hopes for those we love.

And perhaps it seems our own dreams for others, for those we love, are more challenging.
We want most for someone to be all they can be...to be who we see them being....to hope for good for this someone...to avoid the pain we've had that they may learn from us...
deeeeeep sigh...
that doesn't always happen.
But having wonderful dreams for someone is a great gift of love.

Let's pause and figure out who we think those who loved us hoped WE would become....Who did they see us being? becoming? Not to judge yourself...but mainly to remember... what was that loved ones best wish for you?

There are also times I believe when we are called and need to bring someone a dream of what they can do and be. To stretch them ..to encourage them..to let them know what we see.

I think we are sent this kind of people...and we are to be this kind of people for those we meet...even perhaps a stranger.

Be be generous in your gift of dreams and live into your own to the fullest.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Like birds to roost

Last night around dusk I took Chili Pepper, our daughters dog, out for an even strole. I didn't expect it to last long so I just put on a sweater an not a coat. It was in the 30's and yet without the wind it wasn't too cold. As Chili walked around in the former pumpkin patch I wasn't really 'seeing' what was around me...
I was thinking about everything that had gone on-- and that I still have to do --- and concerns I have for some folks I know---and I was feeling overwhelmed.
Then I heard this noise.
It was familiar
but it didn't exactly register what it was, so I looked around.

And there I stood in the midst of a flock of birds who were heading for roost. The 1/2 dusky light kept me from seeing any color on the birds and yet there was a lighteness to their breast color. I also heard a chirp or two. They were robins. A flock of them heading for roost. And they kept coming and coming and coming.

When my father, Dr. Maurice Giltz, did his research on the Red-winged Blackbirds we would watch a lot of the birds coming into roost. There millions would gather... He taught me how to look at a group of birds in the sky and estimate how many were in that one place and then multiply that number by the time that they were coming in. There was a constant stream of brids, flying lower than the cedars, flying off to the trees just to the south of our property.
And they kept coming....coming...

I just stood there. You could hear their wings beating. Every once in a while one of them would flutter around like a wing was off-sides. They made me smile. They gave me a gentle peace. They were a reminder of my father and his work with birds. It changed things. The way I felt about myself and the world around me.

Friend, May you find in a day when things are quite busy for you--- some reminder of the world moving on beyond your own situation and may that sense of being part of a larger joy that fills your life to overflowing.

God Abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Tuesday, January 18, 2005

Cardinal

O watch for them. I was driving home this morning there was a winter blue/grayness to the sky and yet the sun was shinning. The brown grass, the clouds, everything was indicating winter...but there on the wire....see...a beautiful cardinal. It was perched there and even though I couldn't hear it I could see that it was singing. It was beautiful.
Somehow that beautiful cardinal sang in the winter day.
let something beauitful fill your heart today. you can find it...really

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Advertisement

I just saw an ad on tv..."this business is about relationships'. Isn't that what life should be about? About relationships that we form together and we work together. Relationships not individuality. When did the country shift that empahsis? It's not about individuality---it is about mutuality.
About working together iin the world. About caring for one another...about being interconnected... We learned that didn't we? We learned that when the earth shifts we all moved. We are all shaken. We have compassion.
Jesus had compassion. That turning in the gut that makes us feel for others. It is what makes us part of the human family. Jesus said, those who follow God's will are my brother, sister and mother...my family....our family...
So it is not a company that is about relationships...it is about being a child of God.
God abide with you
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Monday, January 17, 2005

once again Perspectives

As I read a story from a friend of mine in India, I'll add it at the end, I thought of the perspectives that we have to deal with in our world.
I read an article about the Titan probe which is on one of the Moons of Saturn. Now that's a long trip. Way way out there. The scientists are excited and interested in what they have seen and perhaps even heard. They think their might be some kind of 'water' or something flowing liquid. Very interesting.
Some think that this kind of discovery might challenge our world. But if it does, challenge our world or faith, it is only because we have too small a concept of the world. God, thanks be to God, God knows all things in all ways and nothing is to small or too big for God.
To me this kind of discovery makes God even more awesome. In no way diminshed.

So, open your eyes today to the greatness of God, to the many blessings you have and to the world that is yours to love.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
57th Birthday
@2005

I met Dr. Pauline in Chennai in 2002 with the International Rural church gathering.

Dear Rev.Bobbie G. McGarey,
Greetings and Compliments of the Season!

With great grief and immense sense of loss and sorrow, I regret to inform you about a terrible tragedy that has struck coastal Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and portions of Kerala on 26th of December 2004.

This violent catastrophe  got the entire nation unawares, took away with it innocent and unsuspecting people as victims and left behind large devastation, unprecedented and unbelievable.  The Government NGOs and faith based organizations like the CSI are gearing up to salvage and assess the situation but we really are unable to give an exact or even an approximate number of people who are dead because in places like Kanyakumari and Nagapatinam, there were thousands of people from different parts of the country as pilgrims whose names or numbers are not registered and who have been washed away by the Tsunami.

As a kind of Christmas penance and offering the Velankanni Shrine right next to Nagapatinam, the worst hit in Tamil Nadu was bursting its seams with pilgrims.  Now most of them are missing.  Likewise in Chennai, most of the people who were washed away were early morning walkers along the Merina, youth and children practicing cricket in front of the beach, fisher folk whose hutments are right along the beach front and tourist from both within the country and from overseas who were staying in many of the beach resorts along the coast line.  The official statistics which says about 200 people died is based on the actual number of bodies recovered from the sea.  But eye witnesses say that it should have been more than 1500 people who were simply carried away by these tidal waves in Chennai also. 

In Machilipatnam within the diocese of Krishna-Godavari a colossal loss of life has taken place, the victims especially being little children who were residents of orphanages run by NGOs and Church organizations close to the sea shore.  The information I received from Bishop Dyvasirvadam is that a whole lorry load of little children almost a 100 in number were picked up dead strewn on the sands of the sea shore.

This being the situation what we are now grappling with is immediate food supply to the people who have been evacuated from their homes, change of clothing, blankets to keep them warm since nights in December can be extremely chilly, clean drinking water since most of the water sources have become inundated with the sea water and thereby rendered useless for drinking purposes.  We also need medicines to prevent and contain epidemic of diarrhea or even cholera.  Once the situation is stabilized, then the Church has to consider long term rehabilitation which will include counseling to the women and children, women whose little children were simply plucked away from their arms and young children who stood helplessly watching the waves carry away their parents.

These people are in a traumatized shock and need to undergo counseling therapy and then we also have to consider providing shelters in alternate safe places for these victims of this natural calamity. 

On behalf of the Church of South India, I thank our dear brothers and sisters for your prayers and also would gratefully accept any form of support to be passed on to the victims.
The Disaster is so enormous and unbelieveable that even though we are actively involved in relief and rescue, we still feel so helpless because whole villages are  vanished, decaying bodies are strewn over such a wide expanse of land, waiting to be picked up and burried.  Lakhs of people rendered homeless, thousands of children orphaned and the impending threat of an out break of an epidemic scarcity of clean drinking water and vaccines - the list goes on.  However, in the midst of all these turmoil, we are comforted by the thought of so many people praying for us that the Lord will strengthen the hands that are involved in this rescue mission and provide the needed resources for the fulfillment of this ministry. 
I wish to express my deep sense of gratitude to you personally for your _expression of concern, solidarity and support at this time of crisis in the South East parts of India.

I am giving below the FCRA details of the Bank: 

Bank Name :              Standard Chartered Bank
Bank Address :          No.1, Haddows Road
Chennai - 600 006
South India

Account Name :                 Church of South India Synod
(Foreign Remittance)
Account Number :             SB A/c No.426-1-003371-5
Mode of Transfer :          TT –Tested
Currency for Transfer :         EURO./ US Dollars / GB POUNDS
Swift Code :                       SCBLINBBXXX

With good wishes and kind regards,

Yours in solidarity,

 (DR.MRS.PAULINE SATHIAMURTHY)

General Secretary, CSI &

Hony.Secretary, CSI TA


 

Friday, January 14, 2005

here it comes

My birthday is 'a-commin' and I'll be 57. Wow! My how time flies when you are having fun.
One year JPM let me read all day while he brought me food and music, and I finished a whole book...what a relaxing day!
One year when I was an early teenager my dad made an iceskating rink for me in our back yard in Columbus.
And there are many other years besides.
I'm grateful for this year...and for whatever years are ahead. I don't take things for granted. I don't think we are in danger of being in a tsunami but we can get washed over with a lot of other things that can be just as dangerous.
I'm usually up for writing a second batch of resolutions and have thought through them today...
Tell YOU? well i care about you all but nope...these are mine.

Let us all have a new day each day that reminds us of all we have and all we have to share with others... It's about time compassion spilled out like a mighty wind... Oh Holy Spirit, come into my heart. Draw me by your power to you, true God, grant me love in AWE of Thee, guard me from all evil thought. Holy my God and sweet my Jesus, help me now in all my labors...Christ you are love....Christ you are love.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Thursday, January 13, 2005

longer days

Have you noticed that the days seem a little longer all the time... just a little...but it helps. It is so nice when it isn't dark before dinner. At least that is how I like it... still early evening.
You can imagine the ancient folks marking this change and thinking that amazing things were changing in their world. It feels like it is changing in this world as well.
Let us take this little extra light as being a turning from chaos to peace. let's do all we can wherever we are to make peace in our world. However big or small it may be. Let's hold the love and light of hope before all who may feel that hope is slim. let's offer the world a lot of joy in everything we do.

let's celebrate the beautiful light of day and enjoy it.

What time is it? It is time to be... so get to it...
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Tuesday, January 11, 2005

Heavy Snow

A friend wrote to tell me that Utah was in for heavy snow tonight. I remember how that looked. We could sit in our office or home and watch those beautiful light and fluffy flakes as they came down...or when they really came down hard and fast that would pile up to inches or a foot or two in hours.
We have a little snow here in Oklahoma but not like Northern Utah. We get more icy snow than fluffy stuff. It can seal your car like it is wrapped in Saran wrap.
Weather is something we can't control. Have you figured it out by now? We can hope for good weather but it isn't something that we make happen. So we live with it. We ride with it. We accept it and adapt.
We change, as the weather changes. We change how we live or how we look at life. We change from moment to moment. Oddly enough we try to stay the same. To keep ourselves looking like we are young/younger. We want to stay as we are. We can't do that and no product to be purchased can be had.
We can stay true to who God created us to be. We can stay true to those who love us and whom we love. We can stay sure in the love of God and live into God's grace in its fullest measure.
Be who God created you to be. No matter your age. Find that person that you are clearly meant to be and live into it. Live it. Be true to yourself.
God abide...and God loves you just the way you are...Because YOU are God's child.

Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Saturday, January 08, 2005

Small world

One of the things I like the best about the TV link we have is that I get such channels as LINK tv and CCTV which is really china tv. It gives us a different perspective on the world. I've been watching their reports about the tsunami and all the help that is sent there. Then they talk about the news around the world and there are ADS for different cities in China trying to get people to move there.
We are all alike in so many ways and how we can live into that is wonderful. How we can see that we are not we vs They but we are all well.
God so loved the world... that's not just one person's part of the world only...but the whole world. So we've got work to share this God and God's love is the joyful task we have before us everyday..because where-ever we are....we are in that world and can make a change.
And that change it seems moves us from giving to sharing. Because Sharing is not about anything but ...here have some of what is mine...
Jesus shared...he shared what was his...God's love in fullest measure..Here he says to you and me...have some of this love from God that is mine... i give it to you with my life...
God abides with you
Be well
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Friday, January 07, 2005

Surrounded...

Some years ago my husband John and I visited Grandmother Daniels Taylor who lived in Huntingdon PA. We had such a delighful time with her. We were Seminary students at the time and she proudly shared us with her friends. She took us to see a woman who was a friend of Mother Daniels. She said she was a good friend. We went into her house and began to 'chat'. (Chat is where you talk but what is exchanged is of minimal weight or importance.)
The conversation shifted...She began to tell us about her son who had died earlier that year. He was a teenager, it was an accident if I remember correctly. There had been no time for Good-bye. She said she had moved through the service and then into the time after as if she were in a deep fog. It was as if she couldn't find her way into the next day. This kind of grief is not unusual at the loss of a child---or anyone we really loved. She said she had finally taken to walks in the afternoon. One late winter afternoon she was walking and she had an overwhelming spell of sadness. She began to cry and couldn't walk any further down the road toward her house. She said she just collapsed by the side of the road on the little hillside beside the road. She said eventually she fell asleep in her tears.
She said she woke, she didn't think she had been there long, and she looked up at the world around her. It was red all around her, like blood, all around her. She didn't know what was happening. She thought of Jesus on the cross and his blood shed for her and his presence in her life. She thought of his love for her and for her son. She thought of how God had known the pain of God's own son dying. She said she began to cry again, this time though they were tears that brought her peace. Suddenly the whole red world around her began to move, she began to hear the chirping of birds. She came to fullest consciousness and realized that she was lying in the grass with a flock of robins surrounding her. They had never had Robins in Pennsylvania that time of year.

Miracles of God's presence

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

the children

My how we watch the stories of the children who have survived the WAVE. Few of the stories are about children who survived and didn't also lose someone or everyone they kne. These stories tug your heart.
I wish all the time I could bring all of them to live here with me. But that's not going to happen. I can send financial support those who are helping them.
Remember too, and remember always there are orphans around the world from the devistation of AIDS, or WAR or other troubles that are equally not the fault of the child. These t. hings that happen them are not the children's responsibility and are as random in their attack of children as are WAVES that sweep across the land.
What does your heart say about these things? Think about it over a gormet cup of coffee or some extra you have.

We have the opportunity ---now that our hearts are open---to keep them open and continue to share with the world all we have..

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Choice

We have choices that others don't. We have opportunity to decide how warm our homes will be, not if we can be warm at all. We can decide if we want to cook dinner, not if there will be food for dinner. We choose whether we will take a certain course in school, not if we can learn to read at all.
What choices have impacted your life? So many are individual but others are given to us by others or by circumstance.
We watch with the world pictures of SE Asia as it breathes a little after the Tsunami. They talked on the news about the people who have a little food but no pot to cook it in. And on the Shopping channel they talk simultaneously about the new set of super cooking pots that are only 140$ ---what a deal. They show on the news the tragedy and now there is a whole segment about electronics we all will want and need... sunglasses with music fixed in. Do they not see the irony?
What can we do with what we have? A cup of coffee even at the gas station quick stop is a dollar other places it can be much more.? We see ourselves without anything we can give.


Perhaps what this tragedy will do for us is to awaken us to the needs of others around the world. There are more in refugee camps who have nothing else as well. Look the opportunites to give are not just 'over there'...they are right here. What if you had some money you could donate to the local Nutrition Center for Elders? That could help.

You can donate through your church knowing that they have knowedge of the needs of people all around.

Whatever you can ---do.
You have a choice.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

Nanni

Gladys Taylor McGarey came after Christmas and we had a great time, as always, with her. What a joy and what a wonderful blessing she is to us. We say thanks to God forr having her in our lives. We know how blessed we are.
Is there someone in your life who is precious to you? Have you told them? Have you said something to them that is affirming and that brings them understanding of how you care about them? Why wait? why say anything but how you treasure others? Why do we not spend time together talking about those who inspire our lives rather than those who can irritate them?
Let's spend more time saying thanks to God for the Good people in our lives than another minute complaining about those who bring us grief.

God abide
bobbie giltz mcgarey
@2005

Monday, January 03, 2005

flying in the night

I was outside tonight and I heard some geese flying overhead. It seemed odd because it was dark.
Sometimes we all have to fly in the dark. To make changes in our lives that feel like we are moving --flying in the dark. How do we have the guts to do that? How are we so brave?
We are brave when we look to those who have gone before. When we recognize how God has led so many people before us through trials and troubles--through deserts and valleys-- wherever we are and whereever we go. God's plan goes ahead of us and we follow.
What could ever hold us back from being all that God created us to be? not fear it is a four letter word... but hope and love... are four-letter words too. The kind we should all apply.
God abide with you this new year... God's plan lead you...God's love be with you. IS...

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Saturday, January 01, 2005

Another Day --Another Year.

Somehow the passing of an hour made a change in the world. It is 2005...at least most of us agree on that date. There are some people who run their religious life on another calendar. But in the world of business we all have agreed to agree that it is 2005.
There are many ways we have agreed --- about times, date, days, and about some common human kindness.

Why don't we then apply this one start of agreement with everything we do?

Perhaps there is no answer to this question. Let us focus on what it is that we have in common. People cry when someone dies. People laugh when amused. Children play and fall down and skin their knees. Adults make decisions and not all of them are the best ones. This is life. This is what brings us energy and amusement and spirit.

As the world faces this horror, we dare not turn our heads on the other hurting places and people. We need to be active on other's behalf as well. Let's not wait until the tragedy gets huge to begin praying and working for justice in the world. Let us begin now wherever we are to speak out for those who have no voice. Let us be the ones ahead of the pace of hurting and bring healing, here where we are planted, where you are planted. This you CAN do!

God Abide
Happy New Year.

Bobbie Gitz McGarey
@2004 no 2005