A Psalm of Thanksgiving

Shout for joy to God, all the earth;

sing the glory of his name;

give to him glorious praise!

Say to God, "How awesome are your deeds!

So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.

All the earth worships you and sings praises to your name."

Come and see what God has done:

he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.

He turned the sea into dry land; they passed through the river on foot.

There did we rejoice in him, who rules by his might forever,

whose eyes keep watch on the nations -

let not the rebellious exalt themselves.

Bless our God, O peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard,

who has kept our soul among the living and has not let our feet slip.

For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.

You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs;

you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water;

yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

I will come into your house with burnt offerings;

I will perform my vows to you, that which my lips uttered

and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals,

with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams;

I will make an offering of bulls and goats.

Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.

I cried to him with my mouth, and high praise was on my tongue.

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

But truly God has listened; he has attended to the voice of my prayer.

Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer

or removed his steadfast love from me! ~ Psalm 66

After the Waters

The Nashville flood of May 1st - 3rd was more stunning than words can say. I've heard story after story from friends who experienced far worse than we did; story after story of strangers who went through disaster and lost everything but their lives. Even with the telling of stories, words seem to fail everyone. How do you fully describe such things? In the days following the receding of the waters, we've been back out and around through our town, and are awed at the high level of mud and debris lines. In some places, they were far above our heads as we drove by. But, amazingly you can only mostly see the line where it was - so much outside has already been cleaned up.

As it's been said, "A picture is worth a thousand words". Here you will find both pictures and words of what happened in Nashville. I'm so proud of the people here - what they endured and continue to endure. The clean-up will be a long time coming, but the rushing waters have only revealed the gold that resides in hearts and minds, and all to the glory of God.

As clean-up continues and people begin to put their lives back together, keep them in your prayers and donate if you can. Thank you.

Evening in May

I can think of nothing nicer than to share this honeysuckle-scented evening with you.

The Thomas Affleck rose has just burst into bloom.

Dwarf Foxglove and Pincushion Flower.

The valley beyond.

Pretty pink Bright Eye looks down the walk.

Our newest rose, Lavender Lassie, overlooks Ladybug while she overlooks who-knows-what. Lavender Lassie will eventually grow to 20+ feet!

As they say here in Tennessee, "Come and set awhile!"

I was SO delighted to get this picture of such fun symmetry! Tweety (in the middle) looks like he's giving the game plan to the rest of the team.

Still chatting.

THE END!

Backyard Waterways

It's been a week now since Nashville and surrounding areas flooded. The waters have receded for the most part, and as they did, more unfortunate souls were found - even as of yesterday. At this point the death toll from the storm, which included a tornado, is at 31. This disaster was largely ignored by the Media, but over the weekend it leaked out here and there and today the Administration has sent 2 representatives to Nashville to take a look at things.

We Middle Tennesseans however, have not been sitting around waiting for the government to come pick us up. Volunteers of all types have sprung into action and needs are being met. Neighborhood after neighborhood has been taking care of its own. THAT'S how it's done! Kudos to Middle Tennesseans!

Our own clean-up is finished: rock (as much as could be found) put back in the driveway, debris and trash picked up, mud cleaned out from the barns. We've begun collecting things for a church in Nashville that lost everything, and the many clothes from our yard sale have made for a good start.

Continuing the photo tour, I'd like to show you what happened in the back yard while a river roared through the front.

Our back yard is at the foot of a hill, and even then it continues sloping downward to the road and valley bottom. All that rain came down in three areas from the hill - one just behind the house, the other right into the back yard, and the other through the garden and large dog run. That last one was one giant, flowing sheet of water.

Here it comes from behind the house. I tried protecting my recently planted herbs with the pine straw bales, but it was gutted anyway. At least 3" of soil washed away as did a few herbs. I found them, though, and replanted. It looks like they're going to make it.

Here the water continues on and is joined by the 2nd course of water flowing down the hill. It came down right to the base of the tree. Several inches of dirt and grass were washed away from the tree trunk base. At one point, the water came within 1 1/2 feet of our back door and we thought we might have to barricade it somehow, but that didn't happen.

The water flows on around the corner ...

... under the bridge ...

... and out the other side.

Here you can see that sheet of water as it courses through the dog run and on down into the front field.

Mind you, we don't have a creek here - usually.

It would have all been quite pretty had it not been so destructive, most of all for other people.

Franklin Floods

Last week the weather forecast predicted a stormy weekend, much like what had occurred the weekend before ... severe storms and tornadoes, and that's pretty typical for our area. But, what actually did happen surprised pretty much everyone. Franklin, Nashville, and most of Middle Tennessee experienced what the news announcers quickly began to call "an historic flood." And indeed it was!

The rain began to fall Friday during the night and continued almost non-stop until Sunday night. There were breaks in the action, and light rain, too; but for a lot of the time it was torrential, monsoon-like rain. And, oh, the lightening was incredible. These were fierce, intense storms. By mid-morning Saturday we had the first of 3 floodings here, and each time the water rose in literally minutes. I've heard of flash floods, but had never seen one and certainly never expected to see one right here at home. I mean, really, the creek is a dry creek!

In these first two photos the creek (on the left side of the picture, out of sight) has jumped the banks and quickly makes a river that runs across our front fields. It was impressive to say the least!In the third photo, the creek - which is just on the other side of the tree line, is flowing full force through the fence. It was amazing that the fence wasn't compromised considering the large debris that was carried, and caught, through it.Here we are looking across our field to our neighbors driveway entrance. The big brick entry is just visible above the water. From our driveway, and continuing down about a quarter-mile, the road was a river cascading down the embankment on the other side. We would have never imagined the road would - or could - ever flood, but it did!While we watched this happen three different times over the weekend, we also watched on TV what was happening in the rest of Middle Tennessee. On Facebook, we got reports from people throughout the area about what was happening in their neighborhoods. The stories were just unbelievable. Any place that was low or near a creek or river flooded. Downtown Franklin was almost completely surrounded by water with only one road left passable into and out of town. All three interstates which run through Nashville were closed due to flooding. One of the sections of I-65 that was closed included our own exit which was underwater. On Saturday afternoon as we watched an I -24 traffic cam on TV, a portable building came floating down the interstate, crashed into a semi-truck and disintegrated. Vehicles were abandoned everywhere because the waters rose so quickly - there was hardly any time to get out of cars or houses. That day, there were 600 water rescues in Nashville alone. The May 1st Flood was on us before anyone knew what was happening, and we still had 24 hours of rain yet to come.

One weather site I read said that Franklin had 17.63 inches of rain on Saturday and 8.76 inches on Sunday. Other sites say anywhere from 12 - 18" for the weekend. Our neighbors measured 15" in their rain gauge, but said it overflowed significantly before they were able to check it each time. Regardless, it was a heck of a lot of rain. Oh, and did I mention we had a Yard Sale on Saturday? It became a carport sale, and actually did very well. Yard Sale shoppers are an intrepid group.

I have more High Meadow flood and aftermath photos yet to blog about, as well as impressive photos I've found on-line, and you can see those in the next posting. Meanwhile, please pray for folks here who've lost so much and are still in the throes of suffering, and if you feel so moved, please donate through the Red Cross to recovery efforts that will be going on for some time to come.

Deep or Wide?

Confession time. I have become a Facebook addict.

It's just too darn fun! I've become reacquainted with old friends, the kind you wonder "What ever happened to so-and-so?" And people find me, too; and sometimes I then wonder, "Who IS this??" and have to pull out the dusty high school yearbook. I can keep up with my kids and family who are spread far and wide, see their recent photos, live their adventures vicariously with them. I can keep up with political and social issues, and post my own which I'm sure is irritating to some of my Facebook friends. It's been great! But, I've also found it has shallowed out my time and thinking.

I can quickly post something political or cultural on Facebook which I agree with, but if I don't actually write about it or think through it so well, I'm not as enabled to defend my position. On Facebook, my thinking can cover a wide range of subjects, but it only goes about an inch deep. It's a very broad, very shallow lake, and I believe my thinking and writing have suffered.

Not only has my writing suffered, but so have certain responsibilities around the house, books I could be reading, actual letters/emails I could be writing. Oh, it's just soooo distracting to plop down in front of the computer "for just a second to check."

So, I've seen the difference in deep or wide, and I've spent too much time splashing about in the shallows rather than treading deep water for good exercise. Dare I make a resolution not to spend so much time on Facebook, since resolutions are made to be broken? Well, I'll certainly begin to discipline myself more and set time limits. Besides, there are so many good things to think through and write through in a blog and I've missed that. For Pete's sake, here it is the end of April and I still have wintertime photos heading my site. And, most important, what about those beautiful grandsons that I can wax on and on about? So, I repent! More deep than wide for me. I'll see you again soon.

Old Dimes and New

A winter storm blew through Tennessee three days ago. It began it's work of snow and ice in the southern plains and basically travelled on I-40 East all the way through North Carolina, leaving a white-covered world in its wake. Though we received several inches of snow and a thorough coating of ice, we were more fortunate than some and didn't lose power, which is good for more reasons than warmth and convenience since our water well runs on electricity!

The storm began innocently enough with gentle snowflakes, but before it was finished we had horses looking more like horscicles with their icy manes and tails, and a thick crust of ice over the snow, making it necessary to punch through with every footstep in order to walk up to the barn. Good exercise, especially going uphill, but a little more treacherous going downhill!

Then last night the clouds cleared away and the incredible, unearthly beauty of a full moon shone on all that snow and ice! How to describe such a scene? I could either use a hundred words or condense it down to one ... silvery. As John and I stood on the front porch and gazed at the scene, it was like looking out on a world wrought in silver. Now I've spent the last several days cleaning coins both old and new (a story for another blog), and all I could think of while surveying the beautiful night time view, was "old silver." The charcoal grey of the sky, the soft, white shining snow, the brilliant twinkling of stars and ice-covered trees and ground showed forth that old, warm brilliance of aged and worn silver, the kind of silver you've seen in old china cabinets in the homes of old families; well-used, well-worn, and well-loved with years of service and beauty. That's what the night looked like.

The next morning was another picture altogether! Such sun-dazzling, sparkling, brilliant white! Every ice crystal on the snow leapt up in the sunlight - it was as if there were 3-D sparkles everywhere! Again, after haying and chores, I stood on the front porch surveyed the view, thinking of the difference between last night's snow and ice scene and this morning's scene, and again I thought of silver; but this time it was the silver of a bright new dime, stunningly beautiful with it's brilliant pristine polish. But as I looked and pondered, it occurred to me that perhaps I preferred the softer glow of older silver."For you, O God, have tested us;

you have tried us as silver is tried." (Psalm 66:10)

"He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord." (Malachi 3:3)

Perhaps after all these years I have become more like those old silver coins; rubbed and refined to a good, old polish. The flash and brilliance has faded, but hopefully what is true and pure has remained, to the glory and praise of the Refiner.