Awakening a Keen Observer

Sunday, February 27, 2005

Sunday3

It is the Third Sunday of Lent.
Mother Teresa suggested that every day we "do something beautiful for God'. What might that look like to you?
How might you change the world? I think you could. I think if everyone in the world practiced that each day it would be wonderful. "Something Beautiful...something that brings beauty into the world. Let that be what guides you every day.

God abide. Let it be good. let it be something that lets you live your life with joy shared.

Lent a time to do something beautiful for God.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Spring Song

Spring Song
Bobbie
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The birds have begun their migration and those who stay all year seem to be particularly excited about singing as it has been so great to hear them in the morning. Last week we had several very grey days but the birds still sang...

It seems to me that part of the work of the believer is to sing on the grey days. Because someone needs to hear the 'song'. Jesus didin't wait for the perfect place, or time, or situation, or food, he was just Always Always present for those who needed most to hear the Good News of God's love.

How do we share that with a waiting world. It is obvious that it is something the world needs ot hear, the chaos proves that. How do we find ways to be the ones who bring the Good News and the Joy that people need...even when our days are grey?

I suppose we look for signs of joy. Signs like on the faces of the children in India who find someone to love them, and care for them, and bring them hope and love. I would take every one of them in my home.

God help me to sing today to someone who needs to hear your song! Your song... YOUR song!

"My life flows on in endless song, above earth's lamentation, I hear the real though far off hym that hails a new creation, No storm can shake my inmost calm, while to that rock I'm clinging , it sounds and echo in my heart, How can I keep from singing.?"

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

hands

I've often thought it would be wonderful to take pictures of hands. hands that are young, hands that are old, hands that are limber and those that are bent with age.
How do we use our hands? do we use them to caress to embrace to talk to eat to clap to grip a golf club or tennis racket...?
Do we use them to write, to type, to play an instrument, what do we use them for?

do we use them for joy and sharing god's love with a pat or embrace
or do we use them to punish.

all of who we are can be used for God
for Good

let it be so

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Monday, February 21, 2005

Monday Wonder

It was an outstandingly beautiful day today. The sun was warm, the air was fresh, and the birds sang calling in the spring, I hope that it will keep being spring.
When I was a little girl my parents and I would go to a city park called Blendon woods in Columbus, Ohio. I used to run the path through the woods and knew each path and where it lead. You were supposed to stay on the path so that the woods stayed much more protected.
One Sunday afternoon we went walking when it was still cold. We had boots and coats on and it was great. We walked along the usual path but heard a noise that was new to us. It was a cracking sound that we couldn't figure out. the trees weren't covered with ice though that is what it sounded like, we couldn't see but we followed along and the sound got louder. We finally thought it was near the little stream, we followed it and it was answered...the mystery of the sound.

It was the coming of SPRING... It was Spring breaking over and around the ice on the stream, it was water moving over it, it was water breaking the ice melting it and making it water too. It was water that changed the whole day from Winter to Spring.

The Water that runs over the ice is like God's love that waters over us and melts our hearts of stone.
We become so completely overwhelmed with the chaos of the world, we don't see the Spring.
it's come, breaking through the winter of our life... to Spring for us all.

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Delight

Take delight in the Lord,
and God will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord;
trust in God, and God will act.”
—Psalm 37:4-5

I heard a child in the store last night just squeal with delight. I don't know what brought that to her spirit, but some times I long to ‘squeal’ with such sheer abandon.

perphaps that is what we need to do in lent as well as be penitent...we need to find such delighth in the world and all we have and all we are that we can feel ourselves filled iwth the joy of delight.
That we can squeel if only internally.

I mean really don't we want sometimes to let go and feel that kind of joy that children know.
and the beautiy of it is that we don't just feel that joy because of something huge, we feel that because of something that is amazing and unusual. something as delightlful as the singing of the birds early in the morning or a beautiful glimpse of the sunset.
And then find the desire of your heart and feel it in you in every way....it is yours.... God will act. God will act, God will act.


joy of joys all the time
pray and feel the joy coming to you in the love of God's desire for good for you in everything.
pure delight

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Jakob

Jakob



"Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7Do not be astonished that I said to you, 'You must be born from above.' 8The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."

Mr. Jakob Krusi was one of our people in Utah. We met him when he was 98 and he lived to 103. What a Gentle-man. He and his beloved Erna were so dear. On occasion when they came to church at the early time we were there he would on occasion pull himself up and ask..may i say a few words... they were always brief, pointed, and faithful witness to the Love of God alive in his life. I often felt we should just say... Ok you've heard the sermon let's go home and live it.

One time we went to visit them and Erna said you come and sit with me and visit and John will go in to Jakob. John was greeted with the same smile and firm handshake he experienced on every visit. " Oh Good John you've come. I have a question that has been on my mind for some time." "The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. " "John," he said quite seriously, "Where does the wind come from....?
He and John had a wonderful conversation and they talked about the lines before and after that verse. Oh Jakob...always asking questions.

The wonderful part of our faith is that God says..ask the questions, wrestle with the answers. I'll love you through it.

I miss the Krusi's they were truely faithful people.
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Saturday, February 12, 2005

grey afternoon

It is mildy warm this afternoon but grey...you know the kind of day where the sun comes up and it gets light and that same degree of light stays the whole day. I remember lots of days like this in Ohio when I was growing up.
But there is sun in the hearts of those who know what's on the other side of the clouds. I remember the first time I flew in an airplane. It was some time ago but I remember looking out and seeing the tops of the clouds and the shadows they cast on the ground and realized that although it was cloudy down there...up in the sky it was sunny... You just had to get UP far enough. Same for today, though I can't see it...I know it is there.
That persistent promise of the sun/Son's presence is something that keeps us going on the grey days...the rainy or snowy ones... just when you can't see the sun...It is always there....the Son is always there...here...for us.
Have a wonderful Saturday and the rest of the week.
It's Saturday now..."But Sunday's coming!"
God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Gladys is In India! She had a wonderful trip over. We'll pray her luggage will catch up with her.
B

Friday, February 11, 2005

Red River

My daughter's life long friend Susie, now both of them grown, has a Bed and Breakfast in Red River New Mexico. I can't wait to go and see her. That is one of the most beautiful areas in the world. I know Susie would be a great host. I imagine seeing it already.
Do you have a wonderful place in your heart that you remember? My grandmother's screened in porch always seemed so big and great an expanse and I remember spending many afternoons out there on the glider laughing with my cousin. We would swing that glider and talk and laugh. I wonder sometimes what two 8 and 10 year olds had to say for so long? Important, no doubt. Grandmother would come out in the mid afternoon to rest a bit and sometimes to snap peas or prepare something else for dinner. Or just to listen to these two little granddaughters chatter.
Another cousin and I got together not long ago, and we talked and talked. Perhaps bonds of love are more important than depth of issues...
You know, I think so.

Find a place to sit and talk with someone who means something to you...or make a date to do so.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Plans? Ha!

Jeremiah 29:11 For Surely you know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for your harm, to give you a future with hope.
I had plans today to finish a big project. My husband John woke with a cough and fever and so we went to the doctor. It seems to be going around. And here it is now afternoon, and I have not started the project that must be completed today.
Deep Sigh. What is that old saying...If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans...

I don't blame anyone but I am trying now to find the focus I seek for the day.
That I prayed to have when I awoke this morning. I suppose the distractions are there because I choose to see them as such and not because they have set any real block. I have allowed this to shift my focus...
It is God that has plans for me.
And I will now stop and turn the phone down and let the answering machine answer and do what needs to be done.
I believe it is God's plan for Good for all. Let what I do also be good for all...
Goodness of God....
John's Mother Gladys left this morning on her Journey to India and Afghanistan. I pray that the way would be clear and that she have a wonderful uneventful journey and she stay well.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

neck through the fence

I'm not the only one to have ever seen this but the other day there was a calf with it's head stuck way through the fence trying to get a bite of whatever it was JUST on the other side. The other members of his gang...I know is a herd...were munching away inside the fence. I can't tell you if they were happy but apparentely they were satisfied.
Is that the 'grass is always greener on the other side' image that we know about as humans? You know that car, house, pair of shoes, purse, palm pilot, cell phone, horse, ...whatever all are just a little fancier/newer and therefore they must be better? ...
neck through the fence.
Now please don't think I'm for just following the crowd, (herd) or against new things, or that I don't support thinking 'outside' the box. (fence) when it's appropriate. Because I do. "We've never done it that way before" are thought to be the last words of a dying community.
But there is that trouble we get in when we just always yearn for that which we don't already have. The satisfaction-less society we establish is one that tells us there is always something better ---right ----over-----ahhhhh- there....?

Deep sigh.
Perhaps what we need to reconsider is how we can become satisified with all that we have and seek the rewards of the spirit. Because we don't have to go after that..we have to make ready and prepare ourselves and then reach out and feel it coming to us...a true gift from God.
The Season of Lent is upon us.. just hours away at Ash Wednesday...May you keep a Holy Lent.
God abides with you...that's a promise...

Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Monday, February 07, 2005

kites

In Pakistan one of the ways people celebrate is to Fly Kites. Because they are happy, brightly colored, and they are inexpensive to make. the Kites look more like squaes of paper than anything decorated or shaped like a character or butterfly or whatever we might make. And this is not just for children, in fact it is mainly for adult men. The women do fly some but mainly the men enjoy the colors and it has become a bit of aprotest against a conservative group who wants to control what people do. They don't want too much celebration because I suppose Joy is out of control of anyone else.
Simple joys, as like flying a kite.
And that is what control is all about. Control is about keeping normal human desires to celebrate life from being fun. There has been a history of this happening in many cultures including our own where certain groups would not let people express themselves. I am always impressed while in India that though a woman may have one sari, a dress she wears, they are most always colorful. not duller colors like we are accustomed to wearing, rarely pale colors, but mostly wonderful colors. Everywhere there is a sign of the human spirit breaking out joyfully. The vegetable and fruit carts look like the most wonderful array of colors so beautifully arranged.
How will you celebrate the human spirit in you? how will you 'fly your kite' today? How will you let other's know that JOY is a God given gift? Think about it and then Go and Do it!

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Saturday, February 05, 2005

who would play you

Ok well this is random but I've been thinking about certain performers in movies and sometimes think that though my life is pretty regular --who would play 'me' in a movie? Ok not to speculate because there would have to be different folks for different times in my life, size wise, chuckle. Then I think, well it would have to be a certain actress in a certain role that I would want to play. I have a friend who is an actress and she said the when you are really into a role for a movie you have to keep that persona alive even when you are away from the work. She said it is really easy to forget yourself if you are doing a good job in the role.
Well, I don't want to forget myself. I want to be as much me as I can be...however flawed that may be. Congruent to be sure, that is to say very authentic. I'm working on it.
But back to the original musing.. who would play you?

happy saturday Sunday-is-a-coming!

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Friday, February 04, 2005

Who is your saint?

One of my class friends said he wanted to write letters to people from his past who had influenced him and had given him some good leading. i thought about that as he spoke and began to make a list of people who have influenced me and will make a plan to write them during lent which begins next wednesday.
Do you think if everyone did that .... you might get a note from someone? Have you influenced others through your life? Have you left little flowers everywhere you go in kindness you show others? Have you found a way thank those folks who you meet for all they give to your life?
Why not start today. I was in a store the other day and there was a remarkably pretty young woman and I asked her if everyone tells her how beatiful she is? She just grinned. I 'm not sure others do tell her that...but she was beautiful. I mean really beautiful. Not like a movie star-like a real woman who is so pretty.
These are gifts you have to give.
Be generous

And they may indeed come back to you when you least expect it.

God abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Lost Ticket

I heard a news report in Chicago while I was there and apparently somewhere was a lottery ticket for 14 million that hadn't been cashed in and apparently the holder of the ticket didn't know it was a winning one. They gave people a couple of days to look again....
What if today, a couple of days late, you found that ticket. What would you have...the same thing you had before you found the ticket... nothing.
Nothing that was won, but everything to be had. You would have everything you needed already. You have that already.
We spend so much time looking and seeking when all we really need to do is enjoy who we are. Oh yes, I think we need to nurture and care for those relationships that are important to us. That's not so hard really....taking care of those we love.
and...remember what we get to do is to nurture others and supprot them on their journeys as well. Even the ones who are hardest to love. perhaps especially the ones.. perhaps we should ask of those who are difficult what pain in their lives has caused them to lose their joy...and their focus and often direct their pain onto others.

Be well
Happy Groundhog's day... winter more?

God Abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2005