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Dale’s blog is being held under hostage! I (Renee) am attempting to show my love for Dale and to celebrate our upcoming 20th Anniversary of marriage by writing a blog without his knowledge. It’s not been easy so far to do this…. First of all, I had to search, hunt and figure out what Dale’s password is to even get here! Then, I had to ask a friend (Thanks, Jynelle!) to do some scanning of photos that were waaay before the digital age. And, now, I am trying to figure out this foreign blogland of wordpress and wondering how the heck does Dale do this?!? Anyway, if you know me well, you know I can do email and maybe a bit of facebook… but, other than that, I am challenged in these areas of higher computer-ness. So, if you are looking here to read one of those poetic, lovely worded, thoughtful posts that come from my deep-thinking husband, you better back off right now. It may not come off as pretty, but I am doing what I can.
As I mentioned earlier, we are coming upon our 20th year of marriage…. Wow!!! Just hearing that makes me think we should be going on a cruise or something. We will be having a quiet anniversary this year, but that’s ok. I am just grateful for another year we can mark being married. We were quite young when we got married. My mom requested when picking the wedding date, that it would be when I was 19. Dale quickly asked, “When is the first Saturday after Renee’s birthday?” It happened to be the next day! So, I was 19 and one day in the year of 1989. I often look at other 19 year olds and think, “Yikes! If I knew then, what I know now, would I still get married this young?” And, I quickly have to answer, “Yes, Yes, Yes!!!!” I love being married to Dale. I am thankful we have the potential to have 60+ years together. That doesn’t even feel like enough. I want to be with him more than any other person, hands down. I like him the most! Man, I am so blessed!!!
As I have reflected back where we began 20 years ago, I looked back on our wedding album. Sadly, our picture taking skills were lacking and our wedding photos were not very good at all. If I had anything to do over, I would definitely hire my brother, David (www.epicislife.com), or friends, the Parsons (www.wearetheparsons.com) for our photography. But the problem is they were only like 10 years old at the time. (Even then they probably would still do a better job!!) Anyway, take a journey with me down memory lane…. (And bear with me with the placement of photos. I wish I could ask Dale to help me!!!)
Homecoming 1987 Back when we were “only” friends.. And Prom 1988, when we were becoming a little more friendlier….
Dale has always been very romantic. For my graduation from high school, he gave me 88 roses!!! What a guy!!!
Dale decided to move away from me and proceed with his life plans that he made before he knew me after the summer of his college graduation. He headed to CA and we didn’t know where or if God would be bringing our paths back together. Remember the Michael W. Smith song “Pray for Me”? That was “our” song. But, it wasn’t long and still debated to this day how long it actually was…when Dale wanted me out in CA with him. We had a 9 month separation and about a 6 month engagement. This was before email, cell phones, web cams, cheaper long distance, etc. We (and my Dad) paid some hefty bills for our many hours of talking. Dale and I developed a system to let one another know that we were thinking of each other without paying a dime. One of us would call the other and let the phone ring once before hanging up, then the other would call back and do the same to say they got the message. As my dad says, “Poor people have Poor ways!”
Engagement photo
February 1989
Hanging out in San Diego on a trip to see each other. I missed him so much!!! It was bliss to be together. March 1989
Rehearsal Dinner-June 30, 1989
After what seemed like an endless engagement of separation, we were finally married!!! Dale still will not watch the video to this day. He has maintained that he lived through it once, he doesn’t have to watch it again. (I think he has some pyschological issues with the fact that his butt was so sweaty and he was afraid everyone could see it. I am sure he’s scared to see if it’s actually true in the video!!!)
We took a couple of nights and headed to Boulder to a cottage behind someone’s home before packing up and moving to Beautiful Burbank, CA.
It was a hard day for my Dad to let me go. Just ask him about that. At least, we have redeemed ourselves by coming back to CO!
In our first home in Burbank. Dale is sitting on “the Throne”. This beauty of a chair was left in the apartment when we arrived along with some other “jewels”. Our furniture was mismatched and minimal, and we were happy to have it. (Btw, I think Dale made that coffee table when he was in high school. I wonder what we ever did with that???) And lastly, Dale is enjoying a tasty meal from his brand-new child bride.
So, this is where it all started. And this is where we are now…
Dale is looking cuter than ever, don’t ya think? His glasses have shrunk and he’s fit and trim. I have “filled out” over time as 11 people have taken residence in my body for periods of time. We have learned a lot and continue to learn. This journey is up and down. I appreciate being in a marriage that the commitment is above all. We can weather anything…storms, sunny days, and everything inbetween. But, I would not like to share it with anyone else. I love you, Dale. Happy Anniversary! Hey, Let’s keep watching the weather and see what happens. How ’bout it?
If you live to be a hundred,
I want to live to be a hundred minus one day,
so I never have to live without you.
Winnie the Pooh
With love, Renee
Double feature from the bus at the drive-in in the foothills of the Rockies after dark with 8 children and a pregnant wife, and a lightning storm in the background.
Pizza from Mapo’s on the way, loaded with snacks, and dessert from the concession stand.
Kids sleeping in my lap. Thermos full of Guatemalan direct-trade coffee from my friends at Coffee Ambassadors.
Two movies about love and family with happy endings and hugs galore, all for the happily ever after.
Unloading the bus at 1:45 a.m.
Sweethearted thank-you’s falling from drowsy lips. You’re welcome.
Why? Life is good.
While diving into a number two combo-plate of Wahoo’s fish tacos on Saturday afternoon with a visiting friend who is currently a graduate student at the University of Delaware, I also dove headlong into a topic that I’d never really broached before – at least not that I can recall.
She launched the conversation with a statement I can’t completely remember, but made the point that she is a very independent person.
I disagreed, “No you’re not,” then proceeded with several time-consuming bites of fish taco and black beans and rice (with that fabulous salsa and fresh lime). She questioned my counter point with “What? Why do you say that?!” I kept eating, partly because the food was extremely tasty, but mostly because I wasn’t sure how to answer.
At first, I had made my statement from a knee-jerk reaction without fully considering the source of my thoughts or the implications. Then, as I chewed and considered, I recalled reading something recently in a book – a book I haven’t even really enjoyed reading - about how the right relationship with God and mankind should be the ultimate form of codependency, in all the right ways.
I still don’t know if I agree with that idea, but I was following some gut-level, fish-taco instinct with my friend that felt right.
I followed with, “Independence is a disease. It corrupts the heart and relationships.” I went back to eating.
My friend is bright and a great debater, and I often lose the energy to debate her, on whatever topic is at hand, before she does. On this Saturday, though, I had been in constant conversation since 6 a.m., and I was on a roll.
The only problem was that I wasn’t sure where I was headed with this independence argument. It just felt right.
I finally found a path, along with an open mind from my friend, and talked as fast as I could, between mouthfuls and bathroom breaks, and pulled off a fairly compelling argument. She even agreed with me, mostly, before it was all over.
My point on the topic, now that I’ve been through it is this: God started this whole thing, or at least the good parts, saying something like: “It’s not good for man to be alone.”
This is true, and I think we all know it. In light of that, independence seems like a good attempt at making the effort to defend ourselves from the vulnerability of needing others. We’ve been scarred from the wounds caused by the risks taken in attempts to find the right forms of dependency, and the pain has taught us to run from it.
The result is a false justification and exaggeration of the noble virtues of independence for the sake of saving our butts from the risks again. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to stand on our own, just to prove we can and that we don’t need anyone else.
Independence and the ideals it inspires make great fodder for speeches and self-aggrandizement, and I’m acknowledging that the affects of such ideals have some redeeming strength-of-character, don’t-tread-on-me kinds of qualities.
We might even be able to pull it off – the independent spirit. The only problem is, I’m thinking, at some soul, purposeful-life level, we hate every minute of it.
I think nothing makes the heart expand to its ordained size faster than needing someone and being needed and being okay with all of that. It’s freedom for the heart, cure for the disease of isolation and false security.
Now that I think of it, that same book – which is turning out to be helpful, apparently – mentioned something about how our worst weaknesses are exploited and our greatest failures occur when we’re separated from beneficial support systems.
In unity with other people, and in unity with God, mutual dependence makes life abundant. We’re actually so dependent on so many things that we take for granted that we don’t even recognize them any more. We’re perfectly willing to be dependent on air, food, general health, comforts galore, as long as it doesn’t require a human face.
As we approach Independence Day for this country, I’m not sure my argument applies to nations, but maybe it does. It’s worth some more thought, I guess, but in light of my concern for my friend’s well-being and direction in life, I’m not very concerned about national consequences.
Nations are made of individuals. I’ll try to focus on simple conversations with a few of them. And maybe I’ll try to focus on how much I need those people.
In fact, I’m fairly certain I need you, Dear Reader. I’m needy. There you have it.
Since we’re all about vulnerability at this moment, and we’re not close enough to share a campfire and a kumbaya, maybe you could just leave a comment and become a little more dependent for a moment just to keep me from thinking I’m out here all alone.
Magically formed water droplets, isolated and of varying size, gather on the hidden underside of the plastic lid of my brewed cup of Komodo Dragon coffee - ”part bright, biting acidity and part earthy, loamy smoothness” - now mingled with cream, only to be exposed by the morning sunlight streaming through the window after I’ve removed the lid and turned it upside down on the table, allowing the steam to escape freely, and without a trace.
Condensation is the big word that has something to do with the magic, but even if I understood it, I’m skeptical it would adequately explain the way they shimmer there, reflecting tiny, obscure, curving images and keeping their distance one from another like little villages or the families on my block.
What goes on in those tiny translucent worlds? From whence came they, and hence shall they go?
Like raindrops on a window pane, if the universe of the lid is turned upon its side, allowing gravity to have its ever-imposing way, the droplets may gather together, joining forces under the weight of the law, until they are more united than their collective strength may bear. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
They slide and run and fall and drop, either to be unified more completely with a greater whole, or once again to divide and be left in lucid yet chaotic isolation.
Eventually, absorbed into the darkness of earth, invisible yet effectual in some other organic way, or evaporated with new magic, back from whence they came into the mystery of air or clouds, different yet the same, or continuing their ride into greater and greater masses, collecting and blending and uniting along the way.
Finally to the stream, the river, the creek, the gutter, the ocean, the gulf, the lake – the body of water through we which we wade, or by which we are carried, or which becomes our provision, or which we cross and view passively, in passing, from a bridge on our way to some other destination.
Marriage, death, birth – not necessarily in that order.
At a wedding reception in California years ago, in a room filled with wage-earners, movie stars, career successes, and maudlin failures, Renee and I had the fortune of sharing a table with an elderly couple, bright and ebullient, the distant, great-aunt and uncle, through complex relationships, of the bride, who had traveled over long days and abundant miles to arrive at the occasion.
Blessed with enough curiosity to overcome appropriate social boundaries, we inquired as to their motivation to put themselves out with such great effort to join a few hours of revelry in old Pasadena. They laughed, indicating a hope fulfilled – they had anticipated such a question and were glad to have earned again the chance to tell their tale.
This elderly couple, caught up in the zeitgeist of the event and the freedom of their earthly experiences and stature, extolled heartily their discovery:
There are merely three events in any life which could be the greatest of the great: birth, marriage, death.
Birth can come suddenly and presents an intimate event which may be inappropriate for the audience of distant relatives, including much travail and mixed consequence.
Death can also come suddenly, but is nearly always accompanied by dire consequence, and though often sprinkled with nostalgic joy, and persistent hope, can hardly afford zealous and celebratory laud.
Leaving marriage, the solitary of the greatest events, firmly built upon celebration and hope, typically planned far in advance, and intended for revelry, carrying a bit of the goodness of intimacy and the travail of things worth being done well – just enough to enhance the flavor and aroma of the beauty.
They had determined, therefore, to join as many wedding celebrations as their years would allow, never avoiding completely the other of the great events, but pointedly pursuing the marriage feast at expense of effort worthy of its return.
Here’s to weddings, funerals, and birthdays . . . and droplets of water . . . not necessarily in that order.
And here’s to my friend Megan for willingly, yet accidentally, bringing such things to the surface.
It’s been a while since I’ve referenced the movie, Cold Mountain, in one of these posts, but if you’ve been reading here for long, you know that it may be my all-time favorite movie.
The setting is the Civil War and the story centers around the relationship between Ada, the daughter of the pastor of the Cold Mountain, North Carolina country church, and Inman, a young carpenter, reluctantly caught up in the excitement of war.
Before the war’s outbreak, Inman and Ada barely have an opportunity to become acquainted, but in their few brief encounters, they experience a depth of emotional intimacy which binds their hearts together. She promises to wait for him.
During the years of war, a war expected to last only months, difficult times turn to desperate times. Ada’s father passes away, and with the slaves freed, and most of the men off to war, Ada struggles to maintain a food supply, lacking practical skills to keep a farm running.
She writes to Inman: “Wherever you are . . . come back to me. Come back to me is my request. Come back to me.”
Months later, Inman finally receives her letter while lying in a makeshift hospital bed, recovering from a bullet wound to his neck. When he’s barely well enough, he endeavors to meet Ada’s request, and begins the journey across the war-torn South, on foot. Along the way, as you can imagine, his troubles are compounded until finally he collapses in a heap, expecting death.
A rag-tag, guru of a mountain woman, collects him in that state, and drags him to her humble home, where she gradually nurses him back to health. At one point, after feeding him a prized goat sacrificed for the benefit of his recovery, and medicating him with her wild-grown, herbal concoctions, she asks him about his story – the home to which he’s headed, and the woman awaiting him there.
In the course of that conversation, as Inman succumbs to the weariness induced by relative comfort, a full belly, and the herbs, he offers words that stir my heart beyond expression:
She got me a book, Ada Monroe. A man by the name of Bartram, he wrote about his travels. Sometimes just readin’ the name of a place near home – Sorrell Cove, Bishop’s Creek . . . those places belonged to people before us; to the Cherokee. What did he call Cold Mountain?
How could a name, not even a real name, break your heart? [Sobbing] It’s her. She’s the place I’m headin’. And I hardly know her. I hardly know her! I just can’t seem to get back to her.
I’m not certain I can explain why those words resonate so strongly in me. I’m not certain I want to explain it.
Of course, if you know me, you know I’m relating that to a spiritual desire – a desire for Jesus. I’d apologize for always coming back to that, but I don’t want to.
I think the theme of my heart’s response to such poetry comes from a desire to keep my head and heart clear about what I truly desire, about where I’m headin’.
It’s Jesus. He’s the place to which I travel; a place that has belonged to generations of people, long before me. His name, a name that isn’t even real, in the sense that’s it’s just English letters strung together to convey an idea dimly visible in my mind, and barely carries a drop of him, breaks my heart.
And I hardly know him.
I believe he’s worth the journey; worth all of the risk and turmoil. He’s the place.
Perhaps another movie quote will help explain such stirring. In one of their few stolen moments together on a dark, rainy night before the war, in a moment of exasperation at broken communication, Inman and Ada have this conversation:
Inman: This doesn’t come out right. If it were enough just to stand without the words.
Ada: It is. It is.
Inman: Look. Look at the sky now. What color is it? Or the way a hawk flies. Or you wake up and your ribs are bruised, thinkin’ so hard on somebody. What do you call that?
So, I’m sitting here falling asleep in front of my computer, with the screen beckoning me to “Add New Post”, while the little electrical neuron fellas scour my brain for the right subject and words.
I can’t stand thinking of going through a Monday without having shared some of the beauty. There is a bunch of it around here.
French toast and cereal, running and biking, work and play, guitars and banjos, new songs and old, loud worship, and quiet picking; warm sunshine, strong breezes, cool rain, rattling thunder, gifts and special cakes, and turkey salad sandwiches, baseball and books: that’s the recipe for a good Sunday.
The rain cleared this afternoon for a small window of time, and it was during those moments that Madeline raised her recurring request: “Dad, can we all walk down to the park today?”
We did.
We followed a rushing river through the wild forests and over the mountain passes to its place of origin, and we had a “Wild Rumpus” along the way, as we marched like the Wild Things.
We played Toilet Tag, which is just like Freeze Tag, except you’re supposed to stand like you’re a toilet when you get tagged and wait for someone who hasn’t been tagged to come and “flush” you so you can be free to move again. (Wouldn’t it be nice if it were that easy to “flush” each other.)
Then we played “Red Rover”. It’s kind of fun that we have a family big enough, along with our friend, Paul, to make a game of Red Rover interesting.
You all remember this game right? “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Henry right over!” If you remember, it needs no explanation. If you don’t remember, you had a pathetic childhood, and have likely had a disenchanted adulthood, as well.
Somewhere in there, among the calling back and forth and the laughter (especially as Ayda danced to her own beat and ran between the lines, grinning and shrieking, whenever she was struck by the urge), thoughts of a Buechner essay from my favorite-so-far of his books, The Hungering Dark, came to my mind: The Calling of Voices.
In that essay, Buechner references the sixth chapter of Isaiah – the part where Isaiah sees the Lord on the throne, and the seraphim calling to each other: “Holy, Holy, Holy . . . “
I wonder if those angels know about Red Rover? Who knows, maybe they invented it.
Buechner also references the fourth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus quotes the Old-Testament passage that says “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.”
Buechner relates how the word “vocation” really means “calling”, as they come from the word “vocare”, which, of course, is related to the word “voice.”
Wow. I wonder whether I’m a bit hard of hearing when it comes to heavenly callings. Those voices, or that voice – that life-giving, holy voice – requires attention that I struggle to pay. Yet, if I can hear it, it never fails to edify and make alive.
If he does ever say, “send Dale right over” to whatever, I hope he says it loud . . . or maybe I should say, I hope he repeats it, if I don’t catch it, or haven’t caught it.
If you happen to hear from him on my behalf, please let him know I’ll be down at the park with my kids, pursuing what I’ve imagined has been his calling for me – Toilet Tag?
Buechner closes the essay with these words, that move me to listen carefully, and acknowledge that I have heard, at least, something:
. . . in the end every word that proceeds from the mouth of God is the same word, and the word is Christ himself. And in the end that is the vocation, the calling of all of us, the calling to be Christs. To be Christs in whatever way we are able to be. To be Christs with whatever gladness we have and in whatever place, among whatever [people] we are called to. That is the vocation, the destiny to which we were all of us called even before the foundations of the world.
[This is a continuation of a post started yesterday. Click here for the first part.]
After publishing yesterday’s post, I found the picture, below, with Renee’s help (somehow, she knew it was in the purple album on the shelf in the corner, even when I had to wake her to find it).
The photo corrects my memory in some ways – there was only one child, along with a neighbor friend – but it also confirms my memory. You can see the broom laying there across the board at the bottom of the doorway.
I’ve found myself thinking in the last few weeks of a recurring idea that I’ve developed over the years of living in our average-size home with a growing family; what I frequently convey as living with a herd of cattle.
When living with a herd of cattle, it’s nearly impossible to maintain a sense of organization and order. Things get out of shape and messes become the norm. Clean up the room and in 20 minutes it needs to be cleaned again.
Over the years, this experience has worked its benefits in me. I’ve learned to accept a certain level of chaos and disorder, finding that maintaining the levels of perceived order I thought were necessary years ago becomes an exercise in mere vanity – a wasting of time on superficial endeavors of insignificant priority, resulting in the sacrifice of energy better spent on the truly important.
In other words, I can, temporarily at least, find peace with stepping over toys and string cheese scattered across the floor, and reacting calmly to stained clothing and disheveled hair. A small towel with holes in it will make me just as dry as a giant, fluffy, five-star towel.
At some level, maintaining a superficial perception of order and cleanliness is simply and entirely vanity. On another level, I’ve found great value in resisting the disorder, in pushing back the ever-encroaching darkness of entropy and futility.
There is, somehow and in some way, eternal value in the expense of effort toward resisting the onslaught of the darkness of chaos and disorder. There is value in lighting a candle in the darkness, in stiffening your backbone and setting boundaries, in reinforcing the force field.
Hannah screams with delight and yells for Katie to come look at the cleaned shower. Later, she says, “thanks, Dad! Somehow showering in a dirty shower makes you feel like you’re still a little dirty when you’re finished.”
Katie says, “the biggest problem with this bathroom is the clogged sink. The water sitting there is gross and makes it hard to clean anything else.”
Will pesters me for months to build shelves for his room so he can organize his books.
Ethan builds his invention with Legos and carefully places the prototype just beneath the edge of his bed for overnight storage.
Renee vacuums twice a day and goes about the house constantly picking up and putting away, organizing and reorganizing, washing and scrubbing.
Jesus says to Martha that Mary has chosen the better thing, but he also says that one should comb his hair and wash his face when he fasts, and James adds that if we’ll resist the devil, he’ll flee from us, whatever all of that means.
As I pick up little pieces of paper from the lawn, gumwrappers from the driveway, pieces of broken balloon out of the flower bed, and throw the garden stones back into the garden, I think about the woman in Peru with the broom, sweeping her dirt floor.
And I say to myself, “push back the darkness, push back the darkness,” as I envision a light emanating from within our home, from within each of us, that struggles to cast off the bushel, the shade, just for the sake of shining, of resisting the dark.
Hope in the human heart demands action, it requires us to come with patience and understanding to the messes we make, while resisting the lethargy and complacency that would allow us to accept them. Hope and courage move us to take a stand in simple things and simple ways, without regard for whatever difference it might make on some grand, visionary scale.
To stand. To resist. To make a boundary, and enforce it. To rise and declare victory in the face of what seems to be resounding defeat. To sing for joy – even while locked in a prison. To live in the light of meaning and purpose and value, and a prevailing sense of right. To yell “Freedom!” in the face of doom.
As Samwise Gamji cries to Frodo Baggins in their darkest and most despairing hour under the burden of their mission, “Because there is good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for, Mr. Frodo!”
We ought to push back the darkness, in all its forms, in all of its subtly invading ways, like the lady with the broom sweeping her dirt floor. I wish I could remember her name. Maybe Michelle will know.
Pastor Jacob came back from his errand along another path and joined us to speak with her and her friend. Both of them accepted our meager, weary, skeptical, dusty offering of a savior that day. They accepted him with a joy that I can’t conceive. They were grateful, and hungry, and hopeful, and giants of truth to this small-minded old man.
I’m sure the simple light they endeavor to shine in that humble space shines brighter than I’ve seen, but it moves me to believe, and to stand.
I was reminded this evening of the trip I took with a team from our church to Peru a couple of years ago. My teammate, Michelle, and I were assigned to a small church of primarily native Quechuan-speaking people in the mountains above Abancay, along with our Peruvian interpreter, Edith.
For five brief days, we hiked the mountain trails from one mud-brick home to another sharing the gospel with anyone willing to speak with us, frequently using three distinct languages to convey our message. Surprisingly enough, lots of people were willing to speak with us, and to share their less-than-meager provisions to celebrate the opportunity.
One particular afternoon, mid-week, we were dropped off, as usual, along the side of a narrow mountain road from which we veered immediately onto a small dirt path leading down a steep incline toward yet another mud-brick home visible across the meadow in the distance.
I was particularly tired and unsure of myself on that afternoon. Though we had experienced inspired success, I could feel the gnawing weariness bringing doubt about our efforts, making me question the value of imposing ourselves into another family’s day, struggling as they would surely be beneath the weight of attempts to simply survive.
Pastor Jacob, our host-pastor for the week, stood at the trailhead and pointed down the path to the house in the distance, muttered something to Edith in Spanish, then took a right turn down a different path as Edith led us in the direction he had pointed. I was perturbed by what seemed to be his “other priorities” and that added to my internal debate.
I lagged behind, partly as an expression of my rebellion and internal debate, and partly out of the need to heed nature’s call, and made a pit-stop at the facilities behind a giant tree a few paces off the trail as the ladies marched ahead toward the tiny home.
When I reluctantly arrived there a few minutes later to join them, they had successfully coaxed the lady of the house to the front door, along with a couple of tiny faces peering out form the threshold around their mother’s legs. They stood there in the doorway, behind the horizontal board at the bottom which was common to many such homes to keep the guinea pigs from escaping – a local food source which could typically be found roaming the open range of the entire home.
She was a young woman, a bit disheveled and dressed, as all the locals were, in what were obviously second-hand, poorly-fitting, and heavily-stained clothing, as were her children. She smiled, effusively, almost embarassingly, and so did the children, shyly and with obvious, cautious excitement at these strange visitors.
What stands out to me, though, more profoundly than any of that - yet in a phantom-like memory that makes me check myself to be sure I’m not making it up – is that she held in her hands a broom.
That seems like a minor detail, I’m sure, but it is peculiarly interesting to me because she lived in a home with a dirt floor. When we interrupted her day, without advance notice, she had been caught engaged in the chore of sweeping her hard-packed dirt floor.
Obviously, that sight made an impression on me. It seems entirely preposterous, from the perch of my comfy couch here in Middleville America, that I was ever in such a place, much less witnessing such conditions. But, that woman’s simple act of home maintenance speaks volumes to me, especially in light of the beauty and hope clearly evident in the seemingly simple lives of the Peruvian people.
[Too much to share in one setting. I just can't get everything said in a manageable number of words, so . . . To Be Continued . . . ]
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