N/A

"It is impossible to inhale new air until you exhale the old."  Oh my, this is difficult for me. The past gets up with me every morning and stays with me throughout the day. There are days when I find myself holding my cat like a baby. I rock her back and forth. I pretend she is one of my children or grandchildren who have become reborn. Then, I shake myself. No matter how beautiful the experience it is impossible to bring back what has gone. I become humbled like a slave before his master or like a Feudal slave before a king. I must give Time  to God. I must bring this part of my pain before His throne and leave it there. His way is so simple and filled with infinite stars of love. He will enable me to pick up today and my tomorrows and allow me to start all over again. I am like the sea. I am free. I roll back and forth like a sea wave knowing my burden has been lightened by one who will love me eternally. tdjakes.org Matthew 11:30

This is an inspiring non-fiction book about the importance of having a passion. I feel the title especially the word "voice" is important. "I have a voice" means I have a reason to live now. Because it's been difficult for me to find my purpose I handle each book written about purpose carefully. My life meaning is like God's personal voice speaking to me about how I can please Him and myself. He cares. He wants me to feel happy. I am thankful Tyler Williams book "I Have A Voice" is written simply and practically. The author writes about his endeavors without leaving out the hard times. He made mistakes along the way. He says these moments of failure are really his teachers as he walks to success. He has been a NASCAR driver, he has been on stage as an entertainer, and he is a speaker and a singer. He shares many personal examples about his life choices. Before each chapter there are quotations. I would like to end with this one. "If you

I know, I know! It's only a one line quote. I couldn't resist it. Honesty, truth, it's all here. What is it saying to me and maybe to you?                                          "I didn't run away, I walked away by..."

Oh boy, what a hard time I'm having here. I would like to do more Bible study. I am no different from most of us, free time is hard to find. When I have free time, I might end up reading a novel, looking at patterns for stitching or just daydreaming. However, I am inspired by Sojourner Truth this morning . I am reading her Slave narrative. All slave narratives are poignant. The one I am presently reading always seems like the most perfect one, the one that meets my needs. Without reading the narrative, Sojourner Truth's name alone speaks loudly to me. I look at her face and think of character. Doesn't it look like honesty? Truth, is written all over her face? She's fully clothed in it just like the apron worn around her waist. In prayer, I ask Sojourner Truth to take me on a Faith journey today and tomorrow and... Make me a bit stronger in my many weak places, Lord. Like you did and continue to do in each life. pbs.org/thisfarbyfaith/people/sojourner_truth

    Reading Tyler Williams' I Have A Voice. "Story," I hear that word or read it so often from different sources. What does it mean? It's very significant. I feel it's too big, the meaning, for me to capture. It alludes me like a butterfly. I'm going to spend time resting with the word "story." It's a surreal word, like a dream. If I can imagine, boundaries become boundless.

I'm still thinking about Maggie and Dee in the short story Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Which sister, Maggie or Dee, is more complicated? Are they equally complicated or not complicated at all. This sentence from the story is hard to unravel. Here it is: " She looked at her sister with something like fear, but she wasn't mad at her. This was Maggie's portion. This was the way she knew God to work."

My thoughts are poisoned with Ivy. Tangled and dark on a forest floor In China. Hunted and searched by day and By night. Dyed ebony sewn with tears.

I know, I can't help it. I'm reading again Everyday Use by Alice Walker. I love the women in this short story. There are two sisters. I'm definitely not Dee. The world seems made just for her. It bows at her feet while Maggie is more unsure of herself. And Mom is strong and able at the hardest of times. Sometimes life is hard for women. If we're strong like the mother in the story, people tend to think we don't have feelings. Our tears are just tears. Another thought is our lives are so hard everyday, another crack in our walls won't matter. Neither of these ideas are true. Women are the same around the world. It is true that the trials in our lives are different due to geographical location and race. Still, we feel the same about the struggles we can not, at times, give voice too. Black women, women from India, women from China or Mexico and Africa are I feel like other women. When we are pushed we feel shoved and bruised like the woman who has never felt th

I like short stories. So, I look forward to arrival of Short Story Month in May. There are so many short stories written in America and around the world. It's hard to pick from so many choices. Plus, I'm still enjoying Poetry month and will continue to do so until April is long gone.  So, I have picked two stories. The stories are from anthologies: One is Black Eyed Susans Midnight Birds by Mary Helen Washington and the other anthology is Flannery O'Connor A Good Man is Hard to Find. One anthology is by a short story author I've never read. His name is Dana Crum. The title of the short story is "My Heavenly Father." It's all about a second grader in church with his grandmother. The setting is Alabama. His thoughts are so much like any second grader. He notices everything down to his shiny corduroy pants, the church ladies hallelujahs and their feathered and colorful hats. He also thinks seriously about his parents' marriage, separation and

I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it. I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln went down to New Orleans, and I’ve seen its muddy bosom turn all golden in the sunset. I’ve known rivers: Ancient, dusky rivers. My soul has grown deep like the rivers.   poets.org/poetsorg/poem/negro-speaks-rivers  

"The End of Law : A novel of Hitler's Germany, is a sad and horrible time in Germany of 1933. Families are destroyed because of Hitler's belief that his ethnic group is the master race. It is a time when the unthinkable occurs in one country. This is not the first time I've read about Hitler and The Third Reich. Since History can repeat itself, I can always learn more about this period.. Malice towards a fellow human being is a subject that no one book can cover completely. As one bit of hate is uncovered, another form appears somewhere else in the same vicinity. After reading about Ireland in  Only with Blood: A Novel of Ireland , I definitely wanted to read another novel by this author. Her blend of Christian literature with History is fascinating. The  novel includes moments of prayer and struggle and continued love and endurance in a time of  anxiety. This is not a novel of hate for one country or people. For me, it is a cautionary tale for all mankind. Wit

  Therese Down is one of my favorite International Christian authors. Aware of her power to make History come alive, I had not read her poetry. This is one of her poems that spoke to my heart. One that I will read and reread once again. John 4: 15: The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” An ordinary day. Wake late. Usual tomb-close gloom. Striped split of light, stale meat stink on my tongue. Him, still sleeping but the snoring just a goat snort now, not the camel calls of younger hours. I twist my hair into a snake and wind it round itself, stoop to grasp the pitcher, grudge into sandals, tread through dust, push the door onto more dust, swat stares like flies. Now I only burn beneath sun. A man is sitting on the well. It’s too early for the up down eyes, tongue dart through bearded lips. I smell. Haven’t washed the sweat away or him. I just wanted water. Wasn’t planning on living fore

" H edda Schroeder had no reason to doubt she was content and no idea that Berlin in 1933 was becoming a very dangerous place for thinking people. Her father was extremely wealthy. Her mother wafted about their magnificent nineteenth-century house in the salubrious Tiergarten district in a state of agitation, as though she just knew she'd left something somewhere." http://www.rosecityreader.blogspot.com It's a strange time in Germany, 1933. All hell is about to break loose. People like Hedda Schroeder have no idea what will happen. Neither have they experienced what will come. So, life goes on until....This Historical novel is definitely making me think and to remember never to take peaceful times for granted.

I have a favorite character from Everything Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave. Little Zachary is one of the many children who is sent somewhere safe during the bombing and hard times of England. Sadly, Zachary loses touch with his dad and his home and must face the ugliness of racism at such an early age. Chris Cleave puts, it seems, his whole heart into this character and the other children too. Zachary is so innocent. He is Black. His new friends, white, also face a new situation. Who is this child who looks so different from themselves? Their questions to Zachary were painful for me to read. Zachary answers their questions as best as he can without a shred of anger. Zachary's attitude might seem too goody two shoes or angelic. I don't think so. Like grown-ups all children do not face strange, new situations with anger. However, this attitude could change later as a child grows up. I don't want to give away all of my feelings or the plot in the novel. I just wanted to

The trouble is, you can never take That flower from Billie’s hair. She is always walking too fast and try as we might, there’s no talking her into slowing. Don’t go down into that basement, we’d like to scream. What will it take to bargain her blues, To retire that term when it comes to her? But the grain and the cigarettes, the narcs and the fancy-dressed boys, the sediment in her throat. That’s the soil those petals spring from, Like a fist, if a fist could sing. poets.org/poetsorg/poem/gardenia   cafleurebon.com/cafleurebon-gardenia-and-tiare-in-perfumery  

Death comes alive in "Everyone Brave Is Forgiven" by Chris Cleave." It is World War II in Britain. No one knows how long a friendship will last or not last at this time. Everything is changing. Like old people use to say, "here today and gone tomorrow."  I think of  understanding one another, the intimacy of conversation and the pure beauty of romance. During such wretched times like war, I think we must love one another with a deeper love. Simply because time is like the wind. You can't see it, but you will experience it if it disappears too quickly. It's rough, ragged like a roaring ocean.  Love past, love gone and the wonder of memories. Perhaps, this is one of the themes I would like to focus on while reading this novel.

and suddenly I saw the heavens unfastened and open, planets, palpitating plantations, the darkness perforated, riddled with arrows, fire, and flowers, the overpowering night, the universe. And I, tiny being, drunk with the great starry void, likeness, image of mystery, felt myself a pure part of the abyss. I wheeled with the stars. My heart broke loose with the wind. Pablo Neruda doctorhugo.org/synaesthesia/neruda

Mexico Egypt Rwanda Canada You are why I love diversity.

This morning a quote took my fancy. Sadly, I went some where else on the internet first. Came back for the quote, and it had disappeared. My heart fell. I wanted to name the author of the quote and give my blog readers a chance to read the quote. Have you ever had that to happen to you? One thing delights you on the web, another item or idea takes your interest, then you lose one or both or.... So, I have a photo of orange blossoms;I hope. These are so pretty. I didn't really know what orange blossoms looked like. They are very pretty. The orange color reminds me of autumn. Now, I've tried to get the photo out of my folder. For some reason, I can't retrieve it. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I feel like crying. However, I am determined to have a good day. Cross your fingers. I hope you have a good day as well.

As a cat, I am happiest. Please do not make me sour. Regular naps on my rug I take. I promise not to drool and snore. Love me or leave me, I'm here until the end.(hn)