Brightening the Office

I am back home from working in the assessment office, one of my favorite jobs. Kathy is a nurse who has been there . . . well . . . forever and has the mature indoor foliage to prove it. On her desk and the ledge above, African violets, philodendron, and whatever else are growing their little hearts out. Under the fluorescent lights, a big Christmas cactus is already producing these delicate white blooms. And thanks to Kathy's green thumb, the whole office is always dressed with perpetually blooming African violets. I think they are all so pretty.

Back to the drawing board

About ten years ago when the writing bug bit, I carried around pencil and paper so no new ideas, cool words or analogies would be lost. I was all about the written word. I asked at the library if there were any writing groups I could join. The Writer's Guild of Greenville met monthly on the fourth Tuesday at Barnes and Noble and I became a member. We had a large and interesting group for the years we met in the center of the store where we pulled all available seating into a circle and customers would loiter around listening to bits of our program and conversations. I was always stimulated by whatever happened there among us like-minded folk. As time does to all things, the guild has changed, though it is still kicking. Tonight we few met in the music section in the back of the store and after a bit of chitchat got into the evening's assignment. Jerry had us draw a random topic and write on it. Mine was on the most beautiful sight I ever saw, and, though I have seen many, I chose the night I saw all the stars in the Colorado sky. Generally I am too distractible to write on command, but see...I am stimulated once again. Maybe the bug will last another day or two.

Not to worry...

Even though I believe this election is perhaps the most significant in my lifetime and that the lifeblood of America is at stake, I am only one average citizen and am limited in what I can do. But I pray the candidate with a true allegiance to America, the desire to a do what is right, and the discernment to choose the most knowledgeable support people will be our next president.

Today our country is in the midst of a huge financial crisis, and again I am limited in my understanding of what to do. Shamefully the only thing I really know about money is how to earn and manage my own. Thank goodness I am not the one responsible for making decisions about someone elses! However someone somewhere who knows how the economy works and who has more vision than I is making decisions for me concerning my 403B and my state retirement, and I, as a financial dummy, must trust the system to work. I expect that when the time comes for me to need it, the money will be there to take care of me. But what if it is not?

Not knowing how either of these precipitous situations will play out feels a little disturbing, frightening, but then I remember these words of Jesus: "In this world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world."

What is worth fighting for?

I found this on line and considered it pertinent for America today:

"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill

A Fall Vegetable

Taken the day we went apple picking, I think this is a pile of turban squash. I have no idea what to do with them, but their shapes and colors are really nice.