Blessings on an early Monday morning walk

215. early morning chill in the air, misleading start to another 90 + degree day
216. the doe with her fawn, standing in the neighbors yard, frozen still, watching my every step
217. sunrise over the lake
218. early morning mist hanging low over the water, sun hasn't reached it yet
219. the way the rising sun colors everything in its path with an orange pink glow
220. the absolute, ordinary beauty of sunrise and sunset - since the fourth day of creation the sun has been rising and setting as we rotate 'round it, we take it for granted, hardly even consider it most days,  yet each time I witness it, it takes my breath away
221. smell of honeysuckle in the bushes
222. hum of crickets mixed with the chirp of birds, morning sounds and lingering night cadences all mixed up
223. pounding rhythm of feet on pavement
224. the way the Jesus prayer flows so easily to the pace of pounding footsteps

The Call

Last week Father asked a question at the Paraklesis service.  When you get the call saying your mother is dying, what do you do?  Does anything else matter?  Do you concern yourself with daily life and routines?  Do you explain, I am just so busy, I'll try to get there when I can, but you know how it is, so many other commitments, it's such a busy time of year?  No, you drop everything to be at her side.  You rearrange your schedule, you lay aside all earthly cares, do whatever it takes to be with her, to show her you love her.  Every August first we get that call.  Our Mother is dying.  Do we notice?  Have we changed our own lives and pace to be with her?  Will we come running to her side?  Or will we allow the world to pull us in a thousand directions?  The church gives us two whole weeks to come, to mourn, to offer our prayers, to be with her, to sing those beautiful hymns. 

Our Mother is dying, let us run to her.

"If a human being were a machine, education could do no more for him than to set him in action in prescribed ways, and the work of the educator would be simply to adopt a good working system or set of systems.  But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of the latent good in that being, the dissapation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power"  (Charlotte Mason  Volume 1, p. 9)