A Great Spring Weekend

Temperatures are finally more seasonable, and the air seems just right for the many emerging ferns like this one. They all come from one or two lifted from my mother's garden 15 years ago when we sold her house.

Guest blogger: I'm pasting below an account of our weekend that Norm wrote in a note on Sunday for his FaceBook page. It covers most of the highlights:

Yesterday was a beautiful Spring Saturday. At book club, the discussion with friends of the book "3 Cups of Tea" was as lively and wide-ranging as previous monthly gatherings. In the afternoon, home to snack, nap, then waken to wonderful Spring sunlight. At 3 I [Norm] saw the beginning of the Cards/Mets game, and checked in on the game from time to time over the next couple of hours. The newly repaired lawn mower arrived from the repair shop about 5, so I drove to the gas station for mower gas, mowed ½ of the yard, then followed that by eating a wonderful Judi-prepared dinner, and followed that with mowing the remainder of the yard, still checking in on the baseball game. Finally settled down to watch the game around 7 p.m. And it went on and oooonnnn, and ooooooonnnnn. 3 hours later, close to 10pm the game ended with the Cards losing. 7 hours of baseball; 20 innings, almost as long as it takes for us to drive to Tulsa from St. Louis.

Today, Sunday, was just as beautiful, refreshingly cool. The grass and the new leaves outdo themselves in greenness. The church class discussion this morning centered on how our faith informs and changes the judgments we make about people whose judgments and life styles differ from our own. Thought-provoking and faith-provoking. Worship gave us moments to sing, celebrate the presence of our Lord, recognize the influence of people who have gone on before us--including the Rev. Arla Elston, pastor of our church back in the 1980's and before that Judi's campus minister, in the 1960's, at the University of Arkansas. [Note from Judi: we believe Arla's memorial service will be this coming Thursday in Pomona, Calif. More to come.] The sermon, preached by our seminarian student pastor forced us to recognize how the religion of consumerism in our society often betrays our Christian faith. Following worship there was time to share stories and faith with Rev. Melissa, a Mennonite pastor in Colorado who had spent time worshiping with us a few years ago. On vacation, she returned to worship at our church so that her cup of faith could be refilled. Thank God for the lively faith of Melissa. This evening Judi and I spent a long time discussing and telling stories out of our family histories, in part because she has this project to write a narrative about her four great grandmothers. I am remembering that my parents would have been married 83 years this past week! It has been a good weekend, a weekend when I have felt more energy than I have felt since my surgery more than two weeks ago. Thank God for this weekend!

I'll add that the Cardinal-Mets game tonight was much more satisfactory, and all we watched were innings 5 -9. This week we have several events coming up: Elders' Circle at our church on Wednesday, knitting circle here on Thursday, and I have a scrap quilt club workshop on Saturday. Plus I hope to move the geraniums outside. The oak pollen has ended, the oak trash is about through falling. Indeed, we are getting maple keys in the back yard now. We are also getting excited about our summer vacation trip. We now have registration and hotel reservations for Quadrennial, plus our air reservations. We are still working on the rest of the itinerary to visit Linville and McElyea sites in NC, plus finding the best deal on a rental car. As for June 16-20, we have our hotel reservation and our registration made for the Colby High School reunion as well. If you will be in Colby for that, we can't wait to see you!