Author Archives: RD124

Uncertainties of Life: Part One

Posted on by — 4 Comments ↓

This post is fourth in a series of seven. To read from the beginning click here.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Part One: Sitting Without Knowing

Not very long ago we happened to discover Carrie Newcomer, a singer-songwriter, author, poet, and seeker of truth among many other things. One of her beautiful and meaningful songs begins with the lines, “Learning to sit with not knowing, When I don’t know where it’s going.” Those words aptly describe what I believe is needed when trying to deal with the uncertainties of life.

My previous posts about my changing physical appearance over the years, my wide variety of jobs throughout my working life, and the development of my religious and spiritual ideas and beliefs led me to think about all the unexpected twists and turns we face in our lives. In my post about God and prayer I quoted from a message I delivered to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship here in Boone many years ago, one of several during a period of about four years. In looking back at the words I wrote in one of those messages, I realized that the ideas centered around the theme of the unexpected. I wrote the following:

“The unexpected. The words don’t fit too well into our lives. They feel threatening and uncomfortable, something lurking in the dark to catch us when we aren’t looking. We feel the need to plan everything, to be sure that everything which happens is expected well in advance, scheduled and recorded in our Day Planner. But the unplanned and unexpected may be the most important of all the things which comes into our lives. Between the boundaries of birth and death, our lives are filled with almost nothing but the unexpected, even though we would like to believe it is otherwise. The one thing we can expect with absolute certainty is the unexpected. We don’t know what it will be or when it will happen or how we will handle it. It may be standing there in front of any one of us at any given moment. We simply have to be willing to see it and respond.”

Many unplanned and unexpected events have occurred in my life, and I’m sure in the lives of everyone else. Some of those I’ve already written about in my blog posts. A major one came when my evolving religious and spiritual ideas and beliefs culminated in my leaving the seminary and institutional religion to pursue a different path.

At that time we anticipated moving to the familiar territory of North Charleston. Some informal discussions had indicated a teaching position in the school system would be available to me. But the job possibility collapsed very unexpectedly. The 1968 photo in my recent blog post shows why. The Sixties had just ended and the school officials decided I must have been adversely affected by the culture around me. My hair was long and, even worse, I had a beard. Obviously I was a radical and a hippie and, therefore, was unsuitable, a likely bad influence on impressionable young students. I was informed I would not be considered until I cut my hair and shaved my beard; even then, there would be no assurance of a job. Since I recognized those conditions were likely to be followed by additional restrictions, I ruled out North Charleston. We accepted the uncertain future and looked for other employment options in Louisville.

Much has happened during the years since we were in Louisville. I’ve written about some of those events in this blog and anticipate I will write much more. In 1994 when I delivered the message quoted above, I was about to make some changes in my life. I was thinking a lot about the uncertain path ahead and how to deal with it. I have generally not approached uncertainties as many people have—setting goals, determining strategies, making detailed plans. I’ve sought to decide what would be the most meaningful action I could take and then I’ve stepped out into the unknown, trusting in my ability to cope with whatever I found there. Things have not always happened as I anticipated they would, but they have happened in a good way. I am not at the place I thought I would be, but I absolutely am glad I am here.

One of the things carried over from my Baptist background is the idea of ‘God’s will’ for me, redefined because of my changed understanding of God. Since I don’t accept the idea of an all-powerful God intimately involved in every aspect of our existence, I also don’t believe there is a plan for our lives made by God. Meaning and purpose for my life must come from within me and must ultimately be brought about by my own actions. Finding meaning and purpose in one’s life is not a simple task. Life frequently confronts us with uncertainty, the unexpected, the seemingly meaningless. But those unplanned and unexpected events and encounters often turn out to be the best parts of all, the most important, the most meaningful. The things which have come to matter most to me are the commonplace, the unexpected everyday entities and experiences transformed by seeing them for the wonders they really are. In every moment of our daily existence, even when we seem beset by uncertainty, there is wonder and meaning to be found.

We shouldn’t be surprised when uncertainties are a part of our lives. We probably should expect them every day. In learning to expect the unexpected we can relax into life, respond to situations as they arise, and then move on. Too often we try to live our lives in front of us, calculating and planning and dreaming, imagining we are in control. The only certainty, however, lies behind us when the decisions have been made and the events have actually occurred. Only in hindsight can we see the pattern which has been developing throughout our lives.

It occurs to me that navigating through the events of life is like tubing down a mountain river. Looking at the river from the bank, you can get a general feel for what it’s like and see how others are navigating the currents. Once in the moving stream the perspective is quite different. You can only see the part closest around you. You’re in it and it moves you along. Some sections are slow and gentle and allow some maneuvering. But most sections move swiftly, taking you where they run, whether you want to go there or not. You can paddle and attempt to steer, but mostly it’s a matter of watching out for the rocks you’re rushing toward and signs of others hidden just below the surface, the unexpected ones. Sometimes you see other people getting a good ride in a current you missed. Sometimes you see someone caught in a spot where they can’t move forward. Sometimes you experience those moments yourself. Now it’s fun and laughter, now it’s slow and almost boring, now it’s exciting, now it’s shocking as you crash against the rocks and are thrown into the deep water, now it’s wonderful. Then suddenly it’s over.

As in tubing down a river, the joy of life is in the ride, whatever it brings. If I’m busy thinking about the part that has already passed or anticipating what lies ahead, I don’t fully experience what is happening right now.

This moment—right now—is the only one I really have.

Thoughts About God and Prayer

Posted on by — 8 Comments ↓

This post is the third in a series of seven. To read from the beginning click here.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

I do not have very traditional beliefs about the existence, characteristics, and actions of God. They certainly do not coincide with the image of the God about whom I was taught in my early years. The things I’ve written in my previous posts about the development of my religious and spiritual life probably make that obvious. The ideas that make sense for me have come from many sources: philosophy, science, religion, valued and trusted teachers and other individuals, and ultimately my own personal experience of the world. Beliefs about God that are incompatible with those guides do not fit within my world view. I have no argument with beliefs held by other people; if those beliefs work for them in understanding and navigating through this world we share, that’s fine with me. But it’s not acceptable when others attempt to convince me of the correctness of their deeply-held beliefs.

People can believe what they choose. But it is important to recognize that there is a difference between a belief and a fact. It’s also important to recognize that there are differing views about the basis for knowing that something is a fact, but I won’t go into that discussion now. Some of the many definitions of ‘fact’ are: something known to have happened or to exist; a truth known by experience or observation; a thing known or proved to be true; a repeatable careful observation or measurement. I also found many definitions of ‘belief’ including: confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof; an acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists; a feeling of certainty that something exists, is true, or is good; an idea one accepts as being true or real. To complicate things further, even within these definitions, there is the idea of Truth. The definition of ‘truth’ that I found most appropriate was this: a fact or belief that is accepted as true. The act of declaring something to be Truth also involves the act of accepting it to be true. I can accept something as true for me and you can accept something as true for you. Neither of us by our acceptance can make something true for someone else. So any beliefs I express are my beliefs, my truths.

Over twenty six years ago I delivered a message to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship here in Boone, my first such presentation since I had left the seminary more than two decade earlier. My words touched on a wide variety of ideas and experiences, but, in looking back the main theme of the message was the importance of communication. By communication I didn’t mean just talking or writing. Instead I meant direct contact with someone or something on a much deeper level. I wrote about experiencing and knowing the incredible wonder of the existence of everything in this amazing world. And then I said the following about knowing and communicating with the people and other things that make up the reality of our world:

“To know something as it is right now you must be willing to be with it fully at this moment, and then again in the next and the next. Passing attention won’t do.

“This ‘knowing’, this ‘communication’ is at the heart of life’s meaning for me. Martin Buber wrote about what he called the I-Thou experience and used the term ‘meeting’ to refer to this deep level of knowing or communicating. This experience goes beyond the expression ‘a meeting of the minds’; it is a meeting of the total being of the ones involved. These times of ‘meeting’ are the times I feel most connected with the world around me. In these times I am able to look at all that is around me and experience the wonder and the interrelatedness of myself and the universe and feel that I am indeed a part of it, one with it.

“I want that feeling all the time, not just in scattered moments. It can come in the presence of other people, in moments of intense sharing with someone in an ongoing relationship, or it might even come in a brief encounter with a stranger passing in the store or a client at work. …We meet and we speak to each other, perhaps with words, perhaps with looks, perhaps with silence.”

My message included the idea of knowing and communicating with God. However, my understanding of God was not the traditional one of an all-powerful being who created and ruled over the universe from a heaven somewhere apart from this world. So I began with the following brief statement summarizing my view of God:

“I do not frequently use the word “God”; it is so subject to misuse and to different understandings. If I use the word “God”, I use it to refer to that which underlies all of reality as I perceive it, that which is. The source of existence. Existence itself. If I see God as being the source of all that exists, then I also see God as being part of all that exists and all that exists as being part of God. God is me, God is you, I am God, you are God, all things and all people are God.”

This image of God is not that of a being controlling the day-to-day operation of the universe and intervening to make adjustments and alterations moment by moment as deemed appropriate. My understanding is not that there is a supernatural being who is intimately involved in our lives and in the existence of everything within our world. My idea is that God is the totality of existence. In other words, God is the universe, since the universe is the entirety of existence insofar as humankind has been able to determine. And the universe certainly appears to operate according to a multitude of natural forces.

Science has been able to discover many of these forces and to understand the principles of their operation. Many things are still not fully understood and possibly never will be. Much within the universe often appears random, chaotic, unpredictable, and even mysterious. Over eons of time people have sought to understand and explain the world around them. As we look back at some of those explanations, we may see them as simplistic, unbelievable, amusing. And in the distant future, if humans or other beings are still around, they may well consider our own understandings in the same way.

People always appear to be trying to make sense of the world, attempting to determine the meaning or purpose of our existence. Perhaps there is no sense to it. Perhaps it is a random world which does not have meaning or purpose within itself. Perhaps the only sense to it all is that which we impose upon it, the meaning and purpose we attach to our lives and the events within them. The process of seeking meaning and purpose in life is no doubt different for each of us depending on the experiences we bring to the task. My approach is to see the apparent randomness in the world and live with it—not good, not bad, just what is. I recognize joy and beauty where I see them, but also realize the harsh and painful and ugly are part of the whole and are to be acknowledged as a part of the reality in which we exist. I do not seek to impose an explanation for events primarily for the purpose of making myself feel better about what is happening in the world. The horrible things that happen don’t have to be explained as the result of innate evil in the world and the good things don’t have to be caused by a beneficent God. Perhaps they just are, even as we just are.

My message also included thoughts about communication with God as I understand that concept. Since my view of God is non-traditional, so is my view of prayer. The word ‘prayer’ seems to be the usual term used in our culture to indicate the act of communicating with God. Having been raised in a church-going family, I was in church several times each week from the time I was an infant. Prayers were plentiful, at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of all services and classes. Family meals were usually preceded by a prayer as were many community and school events. Most prayers included a mixture of thanks for various positive things and requests for assistance from God in achieving some desired outcome in life. That approach to prayer fit with the traditional understanding of God as the hands-on power over life.

The practice of prayer which I am now exposed to most often (primarily on Facebook) is somewhat different. Many people speaking of their own prayers or requesting the prayers of others are asking for something quite specific. Much of the time they want an intervention by God to change something undesirable that has happened in their lives or to bring about something good for themselves or for people they know. It seems odd to me that the same people who are inclined to say, “not my will but thine, Lord,” often appear to believe repeating their own prayer requests over and over and asking others to join them in praying for some particular result will somehow sway their God to grant the prayers because of the sheer numbers of requests. It’s like a contest in which the person with the most friends and the most votes is expected to win. And this doesn’t appear to even recognize or care that the granting of one person’s prayer request might necessarily negate the outcome sought by the prayer of someone else.

When I was looking at some definitions of prayer, one (saying it was the “biblical” definition of prayer) referred to conversation with God and not just meditation or contemplation of God. The writer of that definition in effect excluded contemplation and meditation from the idea of prayer, but I would not. Recalling my understanding of God as being part of all that exists and all that exists as being part of God, then God is everywhere and everything. The communication I have described above and in other things I have written, the connectedness, the meeting, are all acts of prayer. Essentially all of life can be thought of as prayer, a conversation with all of reality, an openness to that which is, a meeting with all that is other than myself. Here in my place at the end of the road I frequently find myself engaged in prayer of this sort. Walking in the woods, looking at clouds or stars in the sky, gazing out over ranges of mountains, listening to the sound of water spilling over rocks in the creek, talking with the plants and animals around me, sitting and sharing with family or friends, all these things are moments of engagement with God as I understand God. There is no need to ask for more when in prayer of this sort. There is appreciation for all that is and gratitude for each moment of being part of it all.

In the act of prayer I see an effort to communicate through all of one’s life with all of existence. If I were to verbalize my communication into the more common form of ‘a prayer’, then it would be an expression of thankfulness for all that is, belief in the oneness of all that is, and my feelings of hopefulness for all that is. With this understanding I share a verbal prayer with you. I closed my message long ago by quoting the following combination of four prayers from the book The Prayer Tree by Michael Leunig. I continue to find it very meaningful.

“Dear God,

“We rejoice and give thanks for earthworms, bees, ladybirds, and broody hens; for humans tending their gardens, talking to animals, cleaning their homes and singing to themselves; for the rising of the sap, the fragrance of growth, the invention of the wheelbarrow and the existence of the teapot, we give thanks. We celebrate and give thanks.

“We give thanks for our friends.
Our dear friends.
We anger each other.
We fail each other.
We share this sad earth, this tender life, this precious time.
Such richness. Such wildness.
Together we are blown about.
Together we are dragged along.
All this delight.
All this suffering.
All this forgiving life. We hold it together.

“God help us
If our world should grow dark,
And there is no way of seeing or knowing.
Grant us courage and trust
To touch and be touched
To find our way onwards
By feeling.

“We pray for another way of being: another way of knowing. Across the difficult terrain of our existence we have attempted to build a highway and in so doing have lost our footpath. God lead us to our footpath. Lead us there where in simplicity we may move at the speed of natural creatures and feel the earth’s love beneath our feet. Lead us there where step-by-step we may feel the movement of creation in our hearts. And lead us there where side-by-side we may feel the embrace of the common soul. Nothing can be loved at speed. God lead us to the slow path; to the joyous insights of the pilgrim; another way of knowing: another way of being.”

Amen

My Spiritual Journey

Posted on by — 14 Comments ↓

This post is the second in a series of seven. To read from the beginning click here.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *

In my previous post I wrote mostly about my work history during the past fifty years. In the early part of that time I made a major change to what I had seen as my career path. Well into the process of securing my educational credentials in the field of religious education, I withdrew from seminary, ended my involvement with all religious institutions, and set off on a path of my own. This post provides some details regarding how that change came about and the path I have followed since then. Like the work history, it may not be what those who knew me all those years ago expected.

For the greater part of my life, I have been a very private person, not prone to readily express my opinions and beliefs, especially when I knew doing so would likely result in conflict. I held back from sharing many of my developing ideas because I knew they did not fit with the attitudes and beliefs of many of my friends, acquaintances, and family members. So, some people who are very important to me don’t really know me. That doesn’t feel right. One of my main reasons for writing blog posts is that I want others know who I am, the things which matter to me, and what I believe. I simply want to share these parts of myself, not attempt to persuade anyone to adopt my beliefs for themselves.

As I’ve said before, the world of ideas has always fascinated me. When I was young, Mother would drop me at the public library while she went shopping. I could happily comb the shelves for hours, finding books on every topic imaginable, paging through one which then led me to another and another. History, literature, art, religion—anything and everything was interesting to me. At home I browsed through our old set of encyclopedias, picking a random volume and flipping through until some subject caught my eye, following references to other volumes with even more information.

History, social studies, and English classes in school and Sunday evening Training Union classes at church provided more material for study and discussion and thought. I learned about cultures and religions of other times and places, but I wanted to know much more. I wanted to understand those other ideas and beliefs, compare them to my own, and use them to enable me to better understand the world and find meaning for myself within it. Universities, with the courses and libraries they offered, appeared the key to finding what I wanted. As soon as I could leave high school, I headed off to college, not to train for a job or career, but to prepare myself for the person I wanted to be.

During my years in college and later in seminary I encountered many other people, both students and professors, who were searching for answers and for meaningfulness in their lives. Religion and philosophy classes opened up a new universe of ideas for me. I came to understand that the Bible was not just a book to be read and taken at face value, but was a product of particular people at a given time and place in history and was a reflection of their culture, their world, and their understanding of it. In addition the Bible had been shaped and changed and translated by many other people over the centuries and influenced by their knowledge, beliefs, and understanding. The challenge was to interpret and understand those ideas from centuries ago and to determine how they fit within the framework of contemporary knowledge and culture. When seen in that light, new meanings and new interpretations became available if one was willing to see them.

The seminary offered even more knowledge to help understand the religious texts at the heart of Christianity. It also provided much more information about religion in general, the history of religions of the world, and historical information about the church’s development and the history and culture of the Baptist church in particular. Many leaders, scholars, and members of the wider Christian community, especially the more progressive parts of it, had long ago adopted a broader understanding of the religion they professed.

Many of my fellow students were unwilling to accept new ideas and insights. When confronted by new possibilities, they preferred to continue to espouse the same teachings that had been taught to them and generations before them. I remember one student at seminary saying something along the lines of, “It’s well and good for us to have this information and know these ideas, but I sure can’t preach this to my church at home. I’d be looking for a new job.” He would rather keep his job than attempt to help his congregation grow in their understanding. It wasn’t that the teachers in college and the seminary sought to dissuade me from sticking with the religious teachings I had grown up with. Instead they exposed me to new and different information and ideas that allowed me to examine my understanding and decide for myself what made sense for me.

In the process of my explorations I came to see that I did not agree with or accept as valid many of the teachings and practices of the religious institutions of the day and particularly those of the denomination and most of the churches I was familiar with. As that realization became ever clearer to me, I decided I was not interested in continuing my involvement with those institutions or the belief system they were promoting. That’s when I withdrew as a student at the seminary. If I was to continue in a church or some other religious institution, it would have to be much more compatible with my own ideas and spiritual interests as they had been developing. Among other characteristics it would have to be much more liberal and progressive in its teachings, more open to accepting individuals with widely differing beliefs or non-beliefs, more encouraging of searching for meaning in one’s own way, and more active in seeking greater social justice for all people.

Some options I found around me at the time showed initial promise, but they were all still part of institutional, organized religion. When I investigated the possibility of pursuing my career interests within those communities, I found they had their own institutional strictures and requirements that would make it difficult or impossible for me to pursue the religious and spiritual goals I envisioned for myself. I decided I would have to follow my own path and forget about the career possibilities I had anticipated. Fortunately Carole and I have developed and grown together along similar lines over the years, so the departure from our ‘raising’ was comfortable for both of us. We were off on our own. We left the church, left organized religion, and have never returned.

I don’t intend to deny the important influence churches have had in my life and in my spiritual development. I’m forever grateful for my experiences in various churches and for the many wonderful people with whom I shared my time in them. It was in the church that I first learned many of the values that I continue to hold dear. And the sense of community and the feeling of support I found there were significant, as I’m sure they are for many others. Even after involvement in churches ceased being a regular part of life for Carole and me, there was one period about fourteen years after coming to Boone when we participated in the services and activities of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. I even presented ten or so programs there, some which I will reference in my blog posts. I’m not opposed to churches. They just no longer are a significant part of our lives.

Did I totally abandon all my religious beliefs when I rejected the religious structure and teachings of my first twenty three years? I know some people who knew me thought that was the case. In reality, for years I had been moving away from the teachings and beliefs of my youth which most people assumed I shared with them. I didn’t abandon my religious beliefs; they simply changed and grew and matured as I did. If someone thought they knew what I believed because they thought it would, of course, be the same as what they believed, they might very well have been completely wrong.

If my experience in recent years is an accurate indicator, many people tend to think everyone around them thinks and believes exactly the same things they do. This seems especially true in churches and other groups which appear on the surface to be homogeneous and which expect all members to share an institutional doctrine. Many church members think they believe whatever their church is supposed to believe, but may not even know exactly what that is. Individuals within the group or community may think they all believe the same things, but, if those beliefs were ever openly discussed, they might learn there was no real agreement at all. And anyone not in agreement with the group might certainly feel pressure to conform.

Perhaps some people don’t even consider the possibility of developing their own belief system. They may not be interested in thinking about their own personal philosophy or religion and coming to decisions for themselves about their own truths. They may believe it is their spiritual duty to rely on the recognized experts, the chosen leaders, the institutions, or the sacred texts to tell them what they should believe. I always thought my relationship to the world and my understanding of it through philosophy, science, religion, and ultimately my personal experience was much too important for me to leave it to others to define Truth for me.

Although I rejected organized, institutional religion and churches as a means for finding the understanding I sought, I have never doubted the importance of seeking a more meaningful connection with all aspects of life. I was always very interested in the religious and spiritual aspects of my life and was always desirous of finding deeper meaning within all of reality. I have explored ideas and thoughts from an eclectic mix of individuals from throughout the world, but not in any organized fashion. Just as I said I loved browsing through encyclopedias, I browse through life, discovering a thought here, an image there, an astonishing revelation somewhere else, frequently when those insights are least expected. I find inspiration in the words and lives of religious and secular thinkers, philosophers, poets, mystics, monks, hermits, songwriters, and many others who share their observations regarding our world. I never thought ‘Truth’ was to be found only within the teachings officially considered ‘sacred’ or in the pronouncements of recognized authorities. Indeed I have felt that truth for me had to be discovered by me, either in the world around me or in the world within me. Ultimately I think it has to be that way for everyone.

I don’t question the beliefs of others which may be different from my own or declare that they are wrong. Everyone’s personal beliefs are their own. I do often wonder whether the beliefs of another are based on accurate information, knowledge, or facts. I choose not to accept beliefs which do not fit my experience and understanding of reality. My beliefs are right for me and I hope the beliefs of others are right for them. Problems arise when people disagree over whose beliefs are “correct.” The ideas I express are mine. I’m not trying to convert anyone to my way of thinking or convince anyone that I am right and they are not. I don’t write to start a debate or disagreement. I’m simply sharing my thoughts about my life to this point in time in case they might be meaningful to someone else who reads them.

These words do not really capture the essence of the matter for me. The greatest part of my spiritual life is experiential, bound closely to the events and experiences of my daily life. Over twenty six years ago I wrote the following words as part of a message I was delivering to the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Boone:

“There are moments of intensity in life which focus one’s attention fully on the present—birth, love, danger, and death to name a few. Perhaps you have had the experience of:

“Walking through the meadow in the fog as I did yesterday, with no sound around you except your own steps in the wet grass, with all the world sealed off by the fog so that you walked in a tiny, timeless world of your own;

“Touching the one you love tenderly for the first time, feeling the joyous excitement of the love you share, talking quietly together in a world for just the two of you;

“Holding your new-born child for the first time, feeling that fragile life entrusted to you, looking deeply into those trusting dark eyes and sensing the union of your lives;

“Holding in your arms one who is dying, seeing in those anxious eyes the love which cannot be spoken, feeling in the quivering flesh the pain that you both know too well, and rejoicing in the final breath with its peaceful release.

“If you’ve been there, you know that these are moments in life which last forever, both in the sense that the passage of time seems suspended and in the sense that the impact of that moment endures throughout life.

“These are moments of meaning. These are moments of meeting which call out to us with the message, ‘This is something that matters. Pay attention—Now!’”

Potential moments of meaning and meeting happen frequently if we are aware of them. Some, such as those mentioned above are obviously profound; others might be such everyday occurrences that they could easily be overlooked. As I was writing this post, a deer came into my sight in front of our house and walked around to several spots where I had spread some corn several days ago. Then it came closer, about ten feet outside the window, maybe fifteen feet away from me. For the next several minutes my attention was riveted on that beautiful creature, one of the many which share our homeplace.

My spiritual life for many years now has consisted of moment after moment of connections like this. Our homeplace here on the mountain has become a sacred place for us. I have experienced more profound spiritual moments and a greater sense of the meaningfulness of life here than I ever have in a church. I am seeking to be more fully present in the here and now, aware of all the world of which I am a part, involved in a deeper two-way communion with this world and all that is within it. I have a quote on my wall upstairs that reads, “Give me a woods to walk in and I will give to the world a person at peace with God and man.” I have the woods and I do walk there.

 

Great Expectations

Posted on by — 14 Comments ↓

Recently I wrote about transformations in my physical appearance over the years. But there have been many developments and changes other than those of a physical nature, and those are the ones that are of the greatest significance. This seems a good time to write about some of those other changes that have occurred.

One of my primary intentions in writing on this blog has been to be a bit more open about who I am and how my life has unfolded. In part I’ve wanted to do this for myself, to put many of the events, experiences, and actions of my life into a written framework so that I might look at the whole. I also have wanted to put some of my personal history and my thoughts and reflections about that history into a form that would be available to my family and anyone else who might be interested. No doubt much of what I include here will be of interest only to those people closest to me, so I won’t be distressed by anyone who chooses not to read what I write.

Some of the things I write may sound like the process of my development has been a real struggle for me, but that was not actually the case. It was more of an evolution, a process of gradual and perhaps inevitable growth, moving from one idea or action that made sense to me and seemed appropriate for the moment to the next and then the next. I’m happy with the paths I have followed and with the place to which they have led me. One of the joys and wonders of it all is that Carole (my wife and partner of more than fifty two years) and I have managed to follow along similar paths and grow together over the years; it would have been so easy for it not to have worked out that way for us.

We all change over the course of our lives. But I imagine that some people from my past, as they learn more about me from my writing, will find error in the decisions I have made and the paths I have chosen to follow. They might wonder what happened to me along the way that I changed so much from the younger me they knew or thought they knew. Why didn’t I become the person they expected me to be? Why don’t I still share the beliefs we all seemed to have back then? What a waste, a few might think; we thought he would really do great things and amount to something. But it’s OK for them to wonder. What happened is that I became the me I am now; that’s all I ever wanted.

Many of the people reading this probably knew me during our school years back in North Charleston. Some high school friends have told me they thought I would pursue a career as a scientist or college professor. Since I did well in athletics, there were also expectations that I would be active in sports in college. But I had other interests. While I had enjoyed my participation in sports since my early days in playground programs, sports were not the passion for me that they were for so many others and I had no intention to devoting my time and energy in college to athletics. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to study in college, but my eagerness to get on with my higher education was overwhelming. When I discovered that some universities would accept students prior to their completion of high school, I applied and was accepted at the end of my junior year. I knew that many family members, friends, and others in the community were dubious about my decision, but I felt sure it was the best path for me.

The world of ideas had always fascinated me. High school English classes had exposed me to writers and thinkers such as Emerson, Thoreau, Channing, and others whose thoughts interested me. Likewise, other classes in school and at church showed me the beliefs of other religions and cultures. I wanted to know more. I wanted to understand those other ideas and beliefs, compare them to my own, and use them to enable me to better understand the world and find meaning for myself within it. I majored in philosophy in college and after graduation I enrolled in the Master of Religious Education program at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. My intention was to become a campus minister or perhaps director of a retreat center. But more changes were taking place.

As my studies over the years exposed me to new and different information and ideas, I continued to develop my understanding of the world and to clarify the meaningfulness I sought for myself within it. My experiences in the seminary and in various churches led me to realize that I would not be compatible with the strictures that would be imposed on me in a ministerial setting. I eventually decided I was no longer interested in continuing my involvement with the churches and belief system of my youth or with any other religious institutions. I withdrew from seminary after two and a half years, shortly before completing my degree requirements.

Carole and I had married during the summer after our college graduation. After I withdrew from the seminary, we thought we might move to the familiar territory of North Charleston, since I had an informal offer of a position there. When that possibility collapsed (more about that in a later post), we needed to find a new place to live, secure an additional source of income, and prepare for the birth of our first child in about six months. So we decided to do what we have done throughout our lives together: we pulled together to find the solutions that would offer the greatest satisfaction and meaningfulness for our new family.

I soon found a position nearby as a Social Science Analyst at a very large US Census Bureau facility working on the 1969 Census of Agriculture, evaluating returns, writing thousands of letters, and making phone calls to get more complete data. It was interesting and I learned a lot about agriculture in the process, but it wasn’t something I wanted to continue long term, so instead of accepting a permanent career-path job that was offered, I left after about two and a half years. Carole was teaching by that time, so I took care of our daughter during the school day, worked at craft projects (weaving), worked with another teacher on his part-time painting and construction jobs, and also did other odd jobs on my own.

My next change came a couple of years later—a state position as a social worker in the tuberculosis clinic at the local health department in Louisville. There were five of us with caseloads of patients with active tuberculosis and others newly infected or at risk of infection. The work during that time was both satisfying and challenging, since many of the people we were working with had multiple problems impacting their treatment. Most were very poor with all the difficulties that brings and a large percentage were serious alcoholics to compound the situation. That job led me into many places and situations that most people can’t begin to imagine. I liked my work and my co-workers during the four years I was there and probably would have continued for a long time if we had stayed in Louisville, but that was not to be.

Carole and I were eager to make some major changes in our lives and the time seemed right. Our second child was at the age for starting school in the next school year. I had been longing to build our own house and had been gathering ideas and sketching possible plans for years. We wanted to be somewhat closer to our families who all lived in South Carolina. And most importantly we wanted to live in a place in the country and in the mountains. So we came on an exploratory trip to Boone (I had attended a six-week summer science program at Appalachian State University after ninth grade), found and bought our land here, and moved in July of 1979. Full-time work on building our house occupied us for the next eight months; then we had to get jobs.

We looked for work in Boone, but quickly discovered there were no jobs available in our small town that fit with our education and previous work experience. Our limited funds were beginning to run out, so we found whatever jobs we could. For the next two years I worked as an upholsterer in a small furniture factory in Boone. I had no previous experience of factory work, so that job gave me the opportunity to learn about a different worklife than the one I knew. My co-workers were great and the work was interesting and enjoyable. I did whatever task was needed on any given day—cutting fabric, stuffing cushions, upholstering sofas and chairs, and boxing products for shipping. Most tasks were production work which paid based on how much I got done in a day. At the end of each day I could see the finished products that resulted from my labor, always a source of satisfaction for me. All workers got laid off when sales were slow, but each summer we did get two weeks vacation—unpaid of course. Food stamps and unemployment benefits were helpful, but finances were still tough for all of us.

New opportunities came with a job at a local community action agency doing weatherization work on houses of low-income residents. That was the beginning of my construction-related employment period. I worked for eight years with that agency in various capacities. Initially I was doing weatherization work myself. Later I oversaw an agency-related business contracting for rehabilitation work on low-income housing throughout a four county region. During that time I also worked sometimes at projects aimed at increasing resources for the agency or computerizing some aspects of the agency’s operations. When those agency jobs ended, I had a business for a couple of years (mostly a one-person operation) doing various building-related jobs, including building a spec house one year with my son joining me during his summer vacation.

My work experience dealing with low-income housing prepared me for similar work in my next position, but this time with the regional council of governments as a community development specialist for our seven-county region. Again I was overseeing programs which contracted for rehabilitation of low-income housing. That lasted for four years, but by the end of that time my dissatisfaction with the agency was growing and I decided to look for something else. Seeking a complete change, I took a position working with a couple I knew in a retail map and travel store they had started. When they decided to retire in 1998, we bought the store from them. I operated that business quite happily until the poor economy finally led us to cease operation and the business officially closed in 2009. I was 63 years old and retired.

During the years of my jobs which I’ve described, Carole was busy with the various jobs that made up her career, but that’s a story she will tell in her own way. She did retire soon after I had. For the first time in many years we were on our own—together. While our regular jobs ended with our retirement, work (generally much more physically intensive work) has been plentiful up to the present. Immediately after completing the process of closing out the store operation we (just Carole and I) began completely remodeling and rebuilding our house which we had originally built when we first moved to our mountain homeplace—a task that took us a major part of the next four years. We also renovated our large fruit and vegetable garden (ninety feet by sixty feet) and have tended it to provide a large part of our year-round food supply. And when those projects weren’t keeping us occupied, there has always been plenty to do maintaining the house and the almost ten acres of field and woodland. The nice thing about these undertakings has been that they were all work of our own choosing and were able to be done on our own schedule.

So that summarizes my job history over the years. It hasn’t been what I might have anticipated when I was younger, and has not met the great expectations others might have had in mind for me. But overall my working life has been interesting and has given me lots of satisfaction along the way. I’ve found or created meaningfulness in all the things I’ve done. Each of those jobs has been what I wanted to do at a particular time of change in my life. I’ve been in lots of interesting places, met many wonderful people (and a few not so wonderful), and hopefully made life a bit better for many of the folks along the way. In terms of status and finances, I was not looking for those things because they were not what mattered most to me. I’ve had all I ever needed. It’s certainly been a good way to spend that part of my life.

Who Is That Man in the Mirror? When Did He Become a Gnome?

Posted on by — 18 Comments ↓

Can that really be my own reflection that I see each morning in the mirror? Surely that’s not the way I look now. When did I turn into a gnome? The person I see before me doesn’t match the mental image I have of myself.When we see something daily like a landscape or a town, we are less likely to be conscious of the little changes that result with the passage of time. If a few weeks or even months have passed, we might only notice fairly obvious differences. A year passes and lots of things have been transformed—the trees and plants around a house have grown dramatically, new buildings and roads have appeared in the town. But when thirty or forty or fifty years intervene, landscapes and towns can become strange and unfamiliar places. It’s the same with people. Daily contact means only big changes are apparent: a different hair style or a new outfit. Meeting an old friend after a year, we might be aware of more wrinkles and less hair. However, the passage of fifty or sixty years can make a once well-known face virtually unrecognizable, even when the person happens to be oneself.

I’m not sure what age I actually perceive myself to be. It seems to depend in part on my particular activity at the moment. I know that I am now seventy three years old, so I’m in my seventy-fourth year of life. Yet when my muscles and joints are cooperating and I’m fully engaged in an enjoyable pursuit, I may feel like I’m thirty or forty years younger. On the other hand, at the end of a particularly difficult day of hard physical labor, I probably feel more like I’m several years older than my actual age. But my picture of myself, the image of how I think I look to myself and to others, does not seem to be altered as much by my activity level. I believe that image is stuck somewhere between my thirties and my fifties.

A photo of myself from years past compared to a more current picture or my daily looks into the mirror give undeniable evidence of my present appearance. Obviously I have changed physically over time, as well as in so many other ways. It’s a real challenge for me to recognize the younger me in the present me I see in the mirror. Did I ever really look like the much younger person in those early photos? How is it possible for one’s physical features to be altered that much over the course of a lifetime? But it does seem to happen to most of us. A recent reunion of my high school class was attended by some fifty people, many of whom I had been with daily during our years of elementary and high school. A few of my former classmates were easily identifiable even though I had not seen them for fifty five years. But outside of the context of the class reunion (and without the great assistance of name tags) I would not have recognized most of those present and they would not have known me. Over the course of the evening there were various signs that stirred memories of our years together: the look of someone’s eyes, the sound of their voice, the way they acted. Some of the physical characteristics from long ago were still familiar even after all those years.

Yes, I am the man facing me in the mirror. I’m well aware of all the physical transformations that have taken place in my body. It is easy to see and feel the changes that the years have brought. But the person within has also changed throughout my life. Those inner changes are impossible to see, but I know they are there and I know they have been even more dramatic than the physical ones I view in the mirror. I’ve been shaped by the forces and environment surrounding me throughout my life. But more importantly, I’ve made choices and taken actions which have determined who I am today. Every experience has influenced my development: the events I have lived through, the things I have seen, the people I have known, the lessons I have learned, the values I have found. There have been so many differences and departures from what I expected to be the course of my life so long ago as a teenager. Many of the things I once thought were most important in my life have been replaced by different values. The goals I wanted to pursue were altered long ago. The decisions I made have led in directions I never imagined at the time. But the paths I chose to follow led me to become the person I am today. I would not change them even if I could. I am who I want to be and I’m in the place where I want to be.

Attending the high school reunion mentioned above was the impetus that started me thinking about my changing appearance over the years. I thought the title “My Transformation into a Gnome” would be appropriate, with a collection of photos showing my looks from then to now. I am including some of those pictures below so you can see the changes for yourself; most people reading this could probably assemble a similar gallery of their own transformation. But why describe myself as a gnome? I first used the term when I looked at some photos of myself taken at the time of Carole’s retirement. “I look like a gnome,” was the description I voiced at the time. Even then, now eight years ago, when we first used the term, I saw many photos of myself looking rather gnomish, an impression I think has only become stronger over time. The story is summarized in a blog post by my wife Carole entitled “The Origins of the Gnome and Crone” in which she writes about herself as the Crone (a wise and experienced older woman—an excellent description of her) and me as the Gnome.

The Gnome and Crone when we first named ourselves

Most people are likely familiar with the images of gnomes that appear frequently in garden shops, greeting cards, and many other places. Some gnomes have more appealing appearances than others. I don’t really claim to look much like the cute little garden gnome in the picture below, but when we were given this small garden sculpture a few years ago, we loved it. We’ve adopted it as representing Carole and me as the Gnome and Crone.

I made a brief search to learn more about this being whose name is now associated with me. Various dictionaries identify a gnome as “a diminutive spirit”, an “ageless dwarf” who usually guards treasure, or a “small creature with an affinity for the earth.” One source says “they are known to be cheery, if not slightly mischievous.” Many of those words seem to fit me pretty well. I’m small, love the earth and all the natural world around me, am generally cheerful, and am frequently mischievous. Each of us can decide whether the one definition of a gnome as “a small ugly person” applies to me as well.

While I have some of the characteristics of a gnome, at least one image of a troll also bore some resemblance to me. When we first came to our place here on the mountain, we chanced upon the picture postcard below which shows a painting by Rolf Lidgren. It depicted a troll family on a mountainside with the adults preparing a meal while the two children were busily picking and eating wild berries. We thought that image showed our idyllic life here pretty accurately, except we don’t have pointed ears and long tails. Maybe I’ve developed into part person, part troll, and part gnome.

Trolls by Rolf Lidgren

An article about the history of gnomes provided some additional tidbits about the origin of garden gnomes. It seems the idea may go back almost two thousand years to the Roman emperor Hadrian who had quiet hermits living and helping in his garden. And wealthy English landowners in the eighteenth century decorated their gardens with bearded “ornamental hermits” who were hired to live in rustic, unheated buildings on their land, thereby providing a certain unique character to the place. Again there are similarities with me, especially during the time since we came to this mountainside. I’m bearded, generally quiet, and something of a hermit by nature. I also love working in our garden and we certainly lived in a rustic, unheated building during our early years here at our homeplace. Whether I can be considered an “ornamental hermit” is debatable.

So who is that man in the mirror and when did he become a gnome? Well, he’s definitely me, just me with whatever qualities and characteristics and physical features have been developing over the years. Maybe I’ve always been evolving into a gnome. So if I do look like a gnome and possess some of a gnome’s other characteristics, it’s just fine with me to continue being known as The Gnome.

* * * * * * * * * *

I’m not sure about the dates of some of these photos, but my captions should be pretty close. The quality of the pictures also varies because the originals came from different sources and were gathered over many years, but they still give a good idea of the changes that have taken place.

1947?

1951?

1965?

1967

1968

1970

1971

1979

1984

1990?

2005

2008?

2010

2013

2014?

2015

2017

2019

 

An Exciting Day

Posted on by — 6 Comments ↓

We had an exciting day yesterday here in the mountains. A week or so ago I wrote about all the bird nesting activity we’ve been having around our home. While the phoebes and juncos had finished with their nests, the wrens nesting on our deck were still very active. The adults had been busy with their non-stop food delivery to the young ones we could hear cheeping in the nest. A little head or two had begun peeking over the top of the board in the roof structure which hid the nest from our view. Then during this past week one or two of the young wrens sometimes climbed up from the nest to sit briefly on the board, surveying their surroundings before diving back into the nest when their parents approached with food.

Yesterday Carole and I had to go out of town for an appointment with our departure planned for 11:00 am. We ate breakfast in our usual spot where we could enjoy watching the coming and going of the wrens. Two young wrens we had seen before seemed even more active than on most days, coming up from the nest after every visit by the parents. Sometimes one would even stay sitting on the board when the adult returned with food and fed the eager young one. Once or twice the boldest young wren hopped along the board until it was about a foot away from the nest, sat for a few seconds, and then hurried back into the nest again. On some of its ventures out this wren would grip the edge of the board with its feet and lean over to look down to the floor eight feet below, occasionally flapping its wings for a few seconds but still holding tightly to the solid wood under its feet.

We wondered whether all this activity meant the young were getting closer to the time when they had grown enough to be ready to leave the nest. Surely it must be getting crowded in their tiny home since they now appeared to be about the same size as the adults, if not slightly larger. As we continued to watch, the two little heads we had seen peeking from the nest area became three little heads for the first time. After a few more minutes all three babies decided to climb up and perch on the board. Three little wrens, all sitting side by side and looking at their larger world. What adventurers they were.

By that time we needed to be getting ready to leave, so we reluctantly took turns away from our viewing location, calling activity reports to each other. I was still upstairs when Carole excitedly yelled, “Ron, there are four of them out of the nest. Now there are five! Now there are six!!” Needless to say, I hurried downstairs in amazement and delight to see this wonder. Before I could get there the first bold little wren had flown away from their perch and a second had flown a couple of feet to a nearby beam. I did see that second wren fly down to the lower deck rail and then later fly off into a nearby tree. And I did get to see the four remaining wrens sitting together and then one by one fly away from the nest site in different directions. We could hear the adults chattering their messages to their babies and we were excitedly doing the same as we urged, “Come on. You can do it. You can fly down and get your own food now. It’s not so far. Yes! That’s the way. You did it.”

The last of the six was the smallest and the most hesitant. Its big leap was more a flutter than a flight as its tiny wings slowed its descent to the floor of the deck. But then after a brief rest it actually flew fifteen feet and disappeared into the leaves of the trumpet vine at the corner of the deck, its short little tail clearly visible as it moved away from us. Now they are all off with their parents or on their own. We haven’t seen them since yesterday, but hopefully we will see them around from time to time. Maybe they will even grace our home with a nest of their own next year.

Carole had seen all six of the baby wrens make their first flights and I had seen five of them. We both had beamed with excitement and joy, ecstatic at our good fortune. An hour later and we would have been driving down the mountain and would have missed this big moment. The rest of the day was good as well. A few minutes after leaving home we passed a few feet from a mother turkey and at least three young turkeys a foot or so tall. As we came home in late afternoon, an older fawn, still spotted but much larger than a newborn, crossed the road in front of us and disappeared into the woods. And once we were home, the two mama raccoons came to our yard and our deck to get some needed nourishment; both are no longer as skinny as when they first started visiting. It was a very good day, an exciting day, made especially great by the flight of the baby wrens.

There wasn’t much time for pictures, but here are a few.

And then there were three.

And then there were two.

Come on. You can do it too.

And then there was one. But not for long.

Bursting with New Life: An Update from the Mountain

Posted on by — 7 Comments ↓

Last month I wrote about the nesting activity of the phoebes and the wrens around our house. Since then there has been a virtual explosion of bird nurseries, so I thought it appropriate to provide an update on some of the bird and animal happenings during the interim.

After the phoebes’ first brood had flown the nest, the adults did take a brief break. Both the adults and the young phoebes stayed around our area, but they didn’t come back to the nest at all. The adults finally did start working on the nest some more, so we thought they were probably preparing for a second brood. They seemed to be doing some cleaning and repair work and even built up one side of the nest a bit higher. Occasionally one of the birds would sit in the nest for a while. However, after a few days they stopped hanging around the nest. We still see them nearby, but they have apparently decided that raising one family was enough for this year.

Meanwhile on the other side of the house the wrens have been busy for weeks, working and singing. At first we couldn’t tell for sure what they were doing since it appeared that they might have been working on nests in the hidden spaces at both ends of the deck roof. Plus they were making frequent trips into a nearby brush pile; could they possibly have been building a third nest?

We finally decided the wrens must have settled on one of the nest sites, because we observed them going in and out of that one quite a bit. After a couple of weeks we saw them carrying food into the nest area, a sure sign that eggs had hatched.Then a week or so ago we saw a couple of young wrens coming out of the nest area, being fed by the adults, and then hanging around begging to be fed more. The strange thing is that we have continued to see the adults carrying food into the nest site; obviously there are still baby wrens in the nest. Had there been two broods in quick succession? We don’t know. We can hear little cheeps now coming from the nest when the adults bring food, so I guess before long some more young ones will be emerging. We should have a sizable colony of wrens for the rest of the summer. That’s just fine, since you can’t ever have too many wrens with that lovely song of theirs.

On the side of the house opposite from all of the wren activity we had placed a hanging basket of fuchsias about five feet from the phoebe nest. After being away from home for several days the plants were quite dry. When Carole took the basket down for watering, she discovered a neat little nest had been inserted into the center of the fuchsias. In the center of the nest was a single egg. Apparently, while we had been away, a pair of birds had decided that was the perfect spot for their new home. We hadn’t seen any activity around the nest site, but I was really surprised when I got up on a step stool a day or two later to water the flowers and was greeted by an equally startled mother junco. In the nest by then were two small eggs, followed on subsequent days by a third and a fourth egg.

The next several weeks were exciting for both people and birds. We couldn’t avoid disturbing the juncos at least occasionally since the nest was located just about three feet from the door we had to use anytime we were going to town, but we used the door onto the deck whenever possible. The male junco sat in the witch hazel plant a few feet from the nest to raise an alarm anytime we came near the door or were outside in sight of the nest. If we came too close, both juncos scolded us with their constant chit, chit, chit sounds. When we looked out the screen door to check on the birds, one of the juncos would fly frantically from the nest to the door to the porch railing to the tree and back to the nest. One day as I was making more noise than usual at the sink while washing dishes (the kitchen window is only about ten feet from the nest’s location), the male junco came and sat on the window sill and fussed at me. And then suddenly one day they were gone. The nest was empty. The whole family had slipped away quietly without even letting us know.

The phoebes, the wrens, and the juncos are the birds we have been able to observe most closely during these past few weeks, but we know they are just a small part of all that’s happening. We also have seen catbirds carrying food into an area near the garden where we feel sure they have nested before and into spots closer to the house. Cedar waxwings are not common around our house except when migrating, but I did see a pair gathering nesting materials from a tree by our deck. A turkey and several very small chicks (poults) strolled down our drive and into the meadow a few days ago. A female cardinal perched in the front yard recently holding a very long stem of grass before flying off into the woods, presumably for some nest-building activities of her own. Every drive into town reveals many groups of recently-hatched birds of every variety, testing their wings and exploring their new world. If all the nesting we’ve seen is indicative of what’s going on with the rest of our mountainside bird population, we should have plenty of new residents around us by the end of the summer.

After our visit from the bear earlier this spring, we decided we should not be putting out bird feeders or otherwise feeding all the creatures who share this place with us. That was a difficult decision since we’ve been providing food for many of them for a long time. Over the years we’ve provided black-oil sunflower seed and/or corn, intended primarily for the birds, but also consumed in varying degrees (and frequently in very large amounts) by red and gray squirrels, rabbits, deer, possums, skunks, and especially raccoons. We do very much enjoy having them close around so we can observe their activities. But we also realize it’s not good for them to become overly dependent on having people supply food for them; they need to be able to forage for themselves within their natural environment.

But about a month ago one rather skinny raccoon (we believe she’s a young mother) started coming around each afternoon, seemingly thinking she might find some food on our deck. We believe she was probably one of the baby raccoons who had been brought to our deck in previous years to learn about one of the good local food sources. Seeing how thin she was and recognizing that she was probably providing sustenance to several little mouths back home, we thought she needed to be an exception to our no-food rule. We did a little research, got some nutritious dog food suggested by several sources, and began putting some out for her on a random basis to supplement her natural food gathering activities. She generally comes up to the house in mid to late afternoon. If we haven’t put any food out yet, she retreats to a nearby spot and waits for us to put something in a pan on the deck or in the yard. When she has finished eating, she usually comes up on our deck and looks in at us through the glass doors, seemingly wondering whether there might be more. Then she heads off on her own to search elsewhere.

Last week Mama Raccoon honored us by bringing her three babies to visit with us. They are still extremely skittish, spending most of their brief excursion hiding among the ferns, chirring to each other or to Mama, and running out quickly to grab a few morsels of food. Thus they have continued a long tradition of young mother raccoons introducing their young ones to our place here on the mountain and showing off the next generation to the folks who now live here. It’s a tradition we’re delighted to share with all these very special neighbors of ours.

Here are a few pictures of our newest visitors.

Mama raccoon and her three babies

Mama and two babies eating, one going to hide

Two baby raccoons exploring the deck

So adorable!

The Garden—Planted and Unplanted

Posted on by — 2 Comments ↓

I’ve described the evolution of our gardening activities in an earlier blog entitled The Garden. In its current incarnation our vegetable and fruit garden encompasses a ninety- by sixty-foot area enclosed by a seven-foot-high deer fence installed to prevent our deer, raccoon, possum, rabbit, and other animal neighbors from helping themselves to our produce. We still have provided some food to the animals, but have placed it outside the fence. Most of the planted space is now within wooden raised garden beds of various sizes. We’ve raised a wide variety of vegetables and berries over the years—over twelve hundred pounds worth in the one year we actually measured the crops produced.

The contents of the garden have changed from year to year. We decided within the past couple of years to be more selective in our plantings, limiting them to the crops we especially want to grow for ourselves and eliminating the plants that require more space or energy than we choose to devote for the returns received. We will rely on the local farmers’ markets and the generosity of neighbors for the items we do not produce ourselves. We also have begun planting more berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, honey berries, and high bush cranberries) and fruits (grapes, plums, pears, apples, apricots, Asian persimmons, figs, and hardy kiwis so far) which hopefully will produce their fruits without the same effort required by annual crops. And we do have thriving beds of asparagus and rhubarb that keep us well supplied with minimal continuing effort on our part.

The garden space last year, ready for planting

This year, however, we decided that our garden would be different, very different. We wanted to spend major amounts of our time on some other important activities we’ve had on hold for too long: more writing, planning and preparing for an addition to our house, various landscaping and building projects, some additional travels we’ve talked about, art and photography projects, and spur-of-the-moment fun time spent together. So we decided not to plant a garden this year. After clearing out the garden remnants from the growing season last year, we intended to put the garden to bed and let it rest for a year.

However, nature had other ideas. Nature never rests. Over the course of the winter when nothing appears to be happening in the garden, much is in preparation for the coming spring. Spring comes to us late here on the mountain. Our last average frost date is about May 25 and we’ve seen three inches of snow here on Memorial Day weekend. But, even though spring may be delayed, it comes finally with great enthusiasm. Seeds and roots that have been waiting patiently for warmer weather burst forth when those warm sunny days arrive. Patches of ground that had seemed empty a few days ago now are covered with the green of new growth.

The edge of the garden is no more than thirty feet from our deck, so we can see it easily from the house. We’ve been harvesting asparagus for weeks now, so we have been into the garden at least every other day. But when I made a more thorough survey of the entire garden a few days ago, I was overwhelmed. Most of the beds, which we had really intended to cover with black plastic last fall, were now covered instead with masses of chickweed, wild sorrel, dandelions, burdock, curly dock, various grasses, wild asters, daisies, and dozens of other kinds of plants. It has always been difficult to control the vegetation in the pathways and border areas because of the sloping, confined area, not to mention the problems I have keeping mowers and weed eaters functioning. The pathways now were were knee-deep in plants of every sort and much of the border area had grass that was shoulder-high. It was a depressing sight and one that called out for some immediate attention.

Several days of torrential rain in our area had finally come to an end, so Carole and I started on the task of reclaiming the garden from the profusion of growth that spring had brought. She really needed to be busy with the finishing touches of the book she has been working on for the past two years, but recognizing my distress at seeing this unexpected garden project, she put her project aside for a time. I settled down to work at clearing the weeds from the asparagus beds, since the still emerging asparagus spears were about to be overrun. Carole tackled several of the beds that supposedly held nothing but weeds, though we did discover some cilantro, dill, potato, and tomato plants that had managed to find themselves a spot here and there—volunteers or self-seeders as they are called. We probably worked for five or six hours before a late-afternoon shower ended our efforts for the day. At least we were able to get a few of the beds cleared out.

The following day I resumed the garden activity while Carole returned to the more pressing matters of the book and some other tasks, including pressure washing part of our deck and siding in preparation for painting later in the summer. The planting beds on which I was working are either three or four feet wide and about twenty-four feet long. I would work the length of each bed on hands and knees or sometimes sitting down, reaching halfway across the bed, then returning along the other side of the bed to get the other half. For most of the beds the weeds had to be pulled individually, being sure to get the roots to avoid re-sprouting. Each of the larger weeds that was pulled revealed several dozen minute pairs of leaves marking another weed seed that had sprouted, waiting for its place in the sun to start growing. The soil then had to be stirred to dislodge and bury each of these tiny plants, hopefully not to re-emerge. Occasionally there were burdock or curly dock plants to be removed; their long tap roots extended a foot or more into the ground and had to be dug out—pulling was not an option.

Six or seven hours of work found all the beds on one side of the garden cleared of weeds, probably a fourth of the overall area that needed to be dealt with, and not necessarily the most difficult part of this project. Yet it was very satisfying to see the results of our two days of labor. It wasn’t just the end result that was rewarding. The process of working in the garden, like many repetitive tasks that might be considered tedious and meaningless, is filled with opportunities. The work requires that I get up close and personal with the plants; it can’t be done at a distance. The physical acts require focus, removing tiny plants that are unwanted (at least in the spot where they are growing), re-locating garden spiders and worms to continue their activity away from my digging, replacing and smoothing the soil disturbed by my weeding. The process allows for quiet meditation as I am quite literally absorbed in being just one part of this natural world.

What a marvel is the abundance of nature, filling every available space with a profusion of plants, small animals, insects, and life forms beyond our ability to see. All around me the life of our meadow goes on. A thrush flies through the garden and stops to sit on the fence, perhaps wondering what I am doing in this place. Two fritillary butterflies sip nectar from the blossoms of red clover plants a few feet away. A catbird carefully examines the areas I have just cleared, comes close to see if I’ve uncovered anything of interest, then hurries off with a new morsel of food for the young ones in the nest nearby. The breeze sings quietly through the grasses and trees as clouds drift across the sky. Probably new clouds will bring rain again tomorrow, but not today. Mindful of all that has surrounded me, I have had another good day.

When we first came to this place, it was a beautiful misty meadow. We were amazed then at the daisies, black-eyed Susans, wild strawberries, flame azaleas, wild geraniums, mountain laurel, wild asters, tall coneflowers, and numerous other plants that filled the meadow and the woods. All those plants are still here, an unplanted garden that we enjoy throughout the year. We have simply placed our fenced fruit and vegetable garden in the midst of this natural garden that was here long before we came. Seeing how quickly the native plants have spread throughout our garden area during the brief time we have left it unplanted this year, we realize it would not take long for our garden to revert to its natural state. A few markers would remain to show our impact upon the land: a patch of rhubarb, some clusters of asparagus stalks, thornless blackberries, Concord grapes, and non-native fruit trees. But for the most part the unplanted garden would return after a bit more time and our meadow would again be a field full of daisies. A garden, planted or unplanted, will likely be here for a long time to come.

Fritillary butterfly

Tall coneflowers

An abundance of daisies

The Phoebes and the Wrens

Posted on by — 3 Comments ↓

We had an exciting day here on our mountainside a few days ago. After being with us for more than two weeks, the children have finally decided it’s time they ventured out on their own. No, I’m not writing about our own children; they made that big move many years ago. Now it’s the eastern phoebe young who have rapidly outgrown their nest, covered their fragile little bodies with feathers, exercised and strengthened their wings, and made that first (surely somewhat scary) leap into the air, thankfully coming down to a safe landing on the porch rail about ten feet away. What excitement that must have been for those little ones.

Adult phoebes first built a nest on the crossbeam close under the roof of our small entry porch five years ago. Their chosen spot is only about five feet from a good viewing place just inside our glass storm door. We happily spent many minutes each day watching their progress as they built their nest. For anyone who doesn’t already know, nest building is a time-consuming, complicated, and messy process made more difficult by the fact that the only tools involved are beaks and tiny feet. The nest was anchored to the beam with bits of mud, hard to come by during stretches of several days without rain. The bulk of the nest was an incredible mixture of small twigs, bits of dried grass, soft mosses and lichens, and other materials that caught the eye of the female nest builder. It’s not a straightforward process either. Decisions have to be made about where each piece goes. We’ve watched as the phoebe brought tiny strands of grass, studied the partially-built nest, apparently decided those particular materials were not suitable for the next spot in the project, tossed them aside, and flew off to find something better. The rejected debris scattered over the corner of the porch were clear evidence of the search for just the perfect materials. Some days we could tell the nest walls were a bit higher; the next day part of the wall had been removed as a new plan was developed.

Eventually the nest was completed to everyone’s satisfaction and the female settled in for her extended sitting spell. We’ve read that the incubation period for phoebe eggs is about sixteen days, but it seemed additional time might be needed for getting comfortable with the nest and actually producing the eggs. We all had a long wait ahead of us. Although we tried not to disturb the birds any more than absolutely necessary, we found it hard to resist taking a peek whenever we passed near our viewing spot during the day. Mama phoebe would greet our approach with any icy stare.

Mama phoebe’s icy stare

Whenever we had to exit the house by way of the entry porch door, the phoebe would fly ten or fifteen feet to one of several nearby azaleas or a witch hazel tree, where she watched closely until we had moved the appropriate safe distance away from the nest area. During the entire incubation period the male phoebe could usually be seen sitting on one of several perches from which he guarded the area, leaving only occasionally to get food for his mate or himself. When the female left the nest to take a break, he continued duty at his watch post. Watch and wait, watch and wait.

Adult eastern phoebe, always on alert

Each year the basic process has been the same for the birds and for us. This year was slightly different because a lot more nest building was needed. The original nest deteriorated a bit during the seasons it was unoccupied so each year has required repairs or remodeling. After some storms this past year the old nest was pretty much gone, so the new builders had to start from scratch after removing the debris remaining from the old nest. This beam on our porch must be a good site for a nest since this is now the fifth year it has been used. It’s well sheltered from the weather and fairly inaccessible to any intruders who might attempt to disturb the nest. We have no way to know if the same pair has returned each year to their original nesting spot or if the current phoebes are the great-great grandchildren of the original pair coming back to the old homeplace. It’s exciting to see the phoebes when they arrive after being absent for most of the year and it’s fascinating to observe the adults repeat the now-familiar patterns.

We had to be away this year for a few days at the time when we expected the hatching might occur. We were concerned when we came home and did not immediately see the female phoebe sitting on the nest. Surely the young ones had not already hatched and moved away. But we soon saw the adults busy at their new activities, constantly going back and forth finding food and bringing it back to the hungry babies. Such a demanding time for both of the adults. At first we knew the young ones were in the nest because we could see the adults carrying food, looking down into the nest, and then poking something downward before flying off again on the next mission. Eventually we saw little beaks lifting above the edge of the nest and, a few days later, two small heads rising into view. Phoebes commonly have up to four young at a time, but we were only aware of seeing two this time.

An earlier year. See the little beak on the left.

It’s amazing how quickly the babies grow. We read that the young typically remain in the nest about sixteen days after hatching, but within a few days the two were looking almost as large as the adults and their bodies were beginning to extend past the boundaries of the nest.

Two almost grown babies in an earlier year.

Then came the magical moment. I happened to be walking toward the door when I luckily saw a little one flutter—not fly, but flutter—from the nest to the porch rail. I had never seen a young bird make its first flight. It was almost as great as seeing one’s child or grandchild take those first baby steps. The young phoebe seemed as surprised as a child does when stepping out unassisted for the first time. It sat motionless on the rail for perhaps twenty minutes, glancing around as if wondering, “What do I do next?”

I’m out of the nest. Now what do I do?

When we passed by after those twenty minutes, the young phoebe was no longer on the rail, the nest was empty, and the new family was off somewhere with the adults apparently helping their young ones adapt to their new life out of the nest. We haven’t seen the babies since they left, but we did spot at least one of the adults. Hopefully they are taking a bit of a rest break before doing it all over again with a new brood, as is their custom each season. Wow! What a tough way to spend the summer.

As the phoebes have been finishing this round of their family life, there has been some activity on the deck on the other side of our house. For several years Carolina wrens have found a couple of cozy little spots for their own nesting activity. Their chosen locations are also under the protective roof in little pockets only about an inch and a half wide between two of the structural boards. A similar niche is located at each end of the deck roof and each has been used at one time or another over the years. Our first indication that something was happening this year was the discovery of twigs, grasses, and mosses scattered over the deck under the potential nest site. Someone had been clearing out the old nesting materials in preparation for something new. We soon spotted the male wren hanging around the deck, flying up to the nest area, and going down into it with bits of material. When not busy dealing with the nest, this tiny little fellow sits of the branches of the mountain ash tree adjacent to the deck. There he sings his lovely song for all he’s worth, apparently letting his mate or potential mate know that he’s working on a new home. And we do hear songs coming back from nearby as they “talk” about the possibilities. We read that the male wren starts the nest and then the female does the finishing work on the new home; seems like a good way to share in the process. One of the male’s chief activities now appears to be keeping unwanted visitors at a distance; we’ve already seen him very effectively chasing squirrels away from the deck in spite of their great difference in size. The wrens are still early in their building process, but we’re pleased to have another opportunity to share in their adventure as we watch through our living room door.

The wren was even singing for us just now as I was writing these words. What a joy to share this place here on the mountainside with such wonderful neighbors.

Maybe We Can’t Do It All; Maybe We Just Need a Change of Plans

Posted on by — 7 Comments ↓

About eighteen months ago I posted some thoughts about my lifelong love of learning to do things for myself in a post entitled We Can Do It—And We Did.

Beginning at an early age, I have spent countless happy hours randomly browsing library bookshelves, magazine articles happened upon in waiting rooms, old encyclopedias in family homes, and in more recent times the treasure trove of information (and also much misinformation) found on the internet. Sometimes I had one of my many particular interests in mind to guide my searches. At other times my quest relied on serendipitously stumbling upon books, articles, ideas, and bits of information that I had not been expecting to find, but that I knew were important to me, if not immediately, then at some unforeseen time in the future. As I wrote in that post:

That early experience of mine set the stage for a lifetime of learning and doing. I knew that information about everything was readily available. I could find details on any subject, study it, absorb it, think about it, and make it a part of me. I came to see that I could learn about anything and to believe that I could learn to do anything I really wanted to do. I didn’t necessarily think I could do everything as well as an expert or professional could do, but I did believe I could do the things I wanted adequately and satisfactorily for my purposes and needs. I also knew that doing things for myself would bring great satisfaction, the joy of seeing the finished project and knowing I had accomplished that.

That experience and the things I have learned over the years have served me well, especially since we moved to our place here on the mountainside. Except for tasks that required specialized equipment like bulldozers, dump trucks, or backhoes, we’ve pretty much done everything ourselves on our homeplace. We’ve frequently told people who ask about our home and our life here, “If there’s anything you can see here, we did it”. Many things we’ve done ourselves because we couldn’t afford to have someone else do it for us or we didn’t want to deplete our limited resources by hiring the job out. Sometimes we wanted a project completed in some unconventional manner and didn’t trust that a contractor would be willing to depart from their standard way of doing things. Much of the time I simply wanted to be sure that I knew the task was done the way I wanted it to be done. And after years of doing all this work ourselves, there is a sense of pride (some would call it stubbornness) that makes me not want to give up the ability to say, “We did it all”.

I know the time is coming when my ability to do many of the tasks around our homeplace will decline with the limitations which will result from physical changes as I move beyond my current seventy three years of age. Sometimes the inability to handle certain tasks isn’t the result of aging, as I was reminded a few days ago. While there are many things I have learned to do, I’ve never had much success in trying to deal with small gasoline engines and the tools they power (mowers, weed eaters, and chain saws), tools that are much needed with several acres of field and forest to maintain.

Various projects and trips recently had taken time away from routine mowing and related activities. One of the features we love about our home here is the fact that we are surrounded by the abundance of nature. That same abundance can very quickly result in grass in our misty meadow reaching knee-high levels, blackberry briars popping up everywhere, and locust and other tree seedlings claiming their place in the sun. When I went out to try to deal with the situation, I knew that neither of our two riding mowers would be available, one having quit functioning at the end of last summer and the other never having started since we acquired it for free, used but non-working. Several push mowers had either become unstartable or had died when I had pushed them over a hidden rock or tree stump. The remaining push mower (new a year ago) sputtered for a few seconds after pulling the starter cord several dozen times, but refused to start no matter how many times I went through that process. Deciding to resort to mowing with a weed eater, I tugged the starting cord repeatedly with no hint of the least positive response from the engine. I realized there was a second weed eater I had forgotten about and was delighted when it leaped to life on my first pull. It ran great for about fifteen minutes, but never started again after I refilled its fuel tank.

I had run out of options on my gas-engine tools, so I decided it was time to try an alternative I had used in a few other situations: an electric hedge trimmer. It’s sort of like the sickle bar hay mowers used on farm tractors, except it’s much smaller and for grass cutting requires the user to bend over, holding it parallel to the ground while moving it back and forth. After a few minutes of that uncomfortable bent-over position, I decided it was much better to sit on the ground, cut the section that was reachable from that spot, and then slide over a few feet to cut another section. A few hours later I had finished a couple of sloping banks that I had been particularly eager to get cleared. The hedge trimmer was willing to continue as long as there was electricity, but I was pretty well worn out.

When one of my plans gets overly complicated or doesn’t seem to be working out as anticipated, Carole and I have agreed that a valuable service she can perform is to say, “Isn’t there an easier or simpler or better way to do this?” Unfortunately Carole was away from home at a meeting, but as soon as she got home, we started thinking to find a better way to get the work done. Possibly we could find a way to get everything done that we wanted to do, but did we really need to? Maybe we don’t need to attempt to maintain all of the grassy area of our yard and meadow; after all, when we first saw our place, the non-wooded area was a gorgeous open meadow filled with daisies, black-eyed Susans, wild strawberries, and tall grasses waving in the breeze. Maybe we can allow our meadow to be a meadow and only clear a few pathways through the grasses to facilitate strolling through its beauty. Maybe we can rent a mower once a year to help keep out the briars and trees and not have to bother with mowing everything and keeping a functioning mower thoughout the year. Maybe we can get rid of all the non-working pieces of equipment we have kept around, feeling the necessity to try to get them working again one of these days. And if we don’t need to frequently work at maintaining the whole area, maybe a smaller electric mower would be sufficient to keep up the area closest around the house. We bought the electric mower the next day; it started with the push of a button and did a great job of cutting the grass in our prime target area.

So we made a new plan which appears to have solved our immediate problem. But this situation has raised another question for us. What are the things that are really important to us, the activities that we most want to spend our time and energies on during this latter portion of our lives. We have no intention of becoming morbid and fixating on the prospect of death as it seems many people in our age group tend to do. Instead, we want to focus on life with the intention of making full use of our time whatever it may turn out to be. We both have sufficient interests to keep us occupied for another fifty years or more, but in all likelihood we won’t be able to accomplish all those things. Even if we could, we would probably come up with another fifty years of projects to follow those. So we’re going to do some re-evaluating, see if we can figure out what we need to do and what we want to do and what can be set aside for the next lifetime.

We’ve already done many of the things in our lives that we’ve wanted to accomplish. But I can’t imagine anyone being able to do everything they might want to do in a lifetime; there are just too many interesting things out there to experience. So we’ll plan to make more time each day for those special activities that are most important to us. What better way could there be to spend all the wonderful moments we have?