Mae Schlick's Third Act

                                                     No Time to Pack                                           Back to my National Parks Trip. It is now Sunday morning, a week before departure, which arrived before I was ready for it. After listening to my brother-in-law preach live stream, I finished preparations for the preschool Children's class that I teach the first two Sundays of every month. I talked with Joe about my fallen tree. He unexpectedly sounded excited at the opportunity to help cut it up. Sure enough, Monday he arrived with chain saws and other woodsman paraphernalia and worked away diligently at removing limbs and cutting the trunk into sections.  I departed for town to run those necessary but oh so time consuming errands. In t...

                           Journey to Wholeness-Start with What You Know Many moons ago now, we as missionaries in Ecuador, had just experienced the burning of one of our partially built churches by opposing forces. In the aftermath when we were trying to make sense out of a senseless act of vandalism and figure out what came next, one of the ladies was fond of saying, "In the darkness, remember what you knew or learned in the light." At the time I found her advice very unhelpful and almost meaningless. Now her words return to me and I find that they are applicable to my current situation.  Mark's sister and husband just left after a week's visit. The family gathered at my house for a pleasant day of visiting and bbq'd steak and shrimp. We had a lovely time and they got to see a lot of western Washington. They spent a day exploring the coast as far south as Seaside, Oregon. I joined them for a drive around t...

 I have never managed to be one of those people who has their suitcase packed, ready and waiting to go the day before they are leaving on some long awaited trip. This vacation to THE NATIONAL PARKS was no exception. Circumstances, an overriding sense of duty, and family conspired against me. I had said to myself, "This trip is going to be different. The start of new habits, less stress and better planning. I am going to be packed and be ready to go the day before." Accordingly I blocked out large chunks of time. I was going to be done planting my garden by Memorial Day Week-end thus leaving myself TWO WHOLE WEEKS for cleaning the house and packing. Surely that would build in enough extra days to accommodate the unexpected.  I knew that the first of April would be hard as we marked the first anniversary of Mark's death. My sister-in-law sent me a huge bouquet of gorgeous flowers. My kid's bought me some perennials for my gardens. I erroneously thought that as the days ...