The Call of the Lord and A Basket of Lilies

 

Back in the 1980s, (I feel like I should just say, “the olden days!”)  I took a “Reminiscence Writing” class in a nearby town, taught by a delightful lady who was a historian and columnist.  Several of us from Centerville drove over together, and I can truthfully say it was a couple of months of the best times of my life.  I ran across this piece while cleaning out some drawers – it’s one of the stories I wrote then, and our instructor thought the story was good enough to print in their daily newspaper. Teen age years are filled with angst, and this was probably one of the most embarrassing events of those years.  That the place where it happened remains one of my favorite places in the world is amazing – I think about it every time I go there. 

Life has its embarrassing moments, and those occasions can be particularly awkward for a teenager.  On a warm summer night in a small country church, the presence of a basket of lilies and an impassioned minister gave me an experience I will never forget.

The discovery of my violent allergy to lilies came when I began playing piano at my church on Sunday mornings, placing me in closer proximity to the flower arrangements than I had ever been before.  The flowers were huge, beautiful lilies, expertly arranged by an older lady of the congregation.  But their beauty to me was overshadowed by my reaction to them – sneezing, coughing and copious tears.  The tears were the worst; they made it difficult to see the music in front of me.

Since my talent at the keyboard was questionable to begin with, it made for some interesting moments in the musical portion of the worship service.  I never discovered a way to play and wipe my nose at the same time.  Finally, in sympathy for my predicament and because they didn’t have anyone else to play the piano, they replaced the flowers with artificial arrangements.

In the summer, my boyfriend and I made the rounds of the Methodist revivals in the county.  This was not so much from any special religious fervor on our part; it was simply one of the places we were encouraged to go on weeknights.  Since friends of ours in other congregations had the same idea, we usually sat together near the back of the church.  I enjoyed the services.  There’s nothing much more pleasant than sitting by an open window on a summer-scented night, listening alternately to the voice of the speaker or to the chorus of katydids and crickets outside.  We sang enthusiastically to music from a slightly out-of-tune piano out of battered Cokesbury hymnals and endured the uncomfortable pews with only a minimum of complaint.

For some reason, we did not get a seat at the back of the Little Lot Methodist Church on this night.  We made our way up to the third or fourth pew and took our seats.  We had been seated only a few minutes when I spotted it.  The biggest basket of the biggest lilies I had ever seen was sitting proudly in front of the altar.  I hoped at first that we might be far enough away to avoid their effect on me.  However, the brisk breeze blowing through the open windows wafted the troublesome pollen right into my face.

By the time the minister was halfway through the sermon, my nose and eyes were streaming.  I used all my tissues, as well as those of every person in my pew.  By the time I started on those from the helpful folks behind us, I felt that everyone in the building was looking at me.  Along toward the end of the sermon, I noticed that the preacher was glancing over at our side of the church with increasing frequency.  I am sure he had a profound message that night, but I confess that I never heard a word of it.  I was too busy hunting tissues and wiping my eyes.

At last, it was time for the closing hymn.  “Just As I Am” was announced as the selection and a fervent invitation was given.  Was it my imagination, or did the minister look at me as he issued his plea for lost souls to repent?

Probably more converts have walked down the aisle to “Just As I Am” than any other song, but no one answered the call that night.  The song has five verses and we sang each one, the preacher pausing at the end of each stanza to reiterate his invitation.  By now, I knew beyond doubt that he was looking at me, apparently in tears because of the great emotion evoked by his sermon.  When we reached the end of the song, he said, “Let’s repeat that last stanza.  I feel that the voice of the Lord is speaking to someone here tonight.”  I figured that everyone in the building knew who he was talking about.

Off we went again, repeating that last familiar verse.  At that moment, I would have welcomed the hand of the Almighty if it had reached down and plucked me from my pew.  I halfway expected that the preacher would walk down and address me personally to ask why I was ignoring the call of the Lord.

I never knew a song to last so long.  We reached the conclusion for the second time and the minister reluctantly pronounced the benediction.  I didn’t waste a moment getting out of the church.  I thought later that perhaps I should have explained to the minister what happened, and my mama fussed at me for not just getting up and leaving before things got so bad. But I guess it might have been a letdown for him to discover that my emotional response to his sermon was, in reality, a reaction to a basket of lilies.

A Christmas Gift from Carli

 

So, it snowed last night here in Middle Tennessee.  I saw a quote this morning that said, more or less, if you don’t find joy in snow, you will just have less joy and still the same amount of snow.  That’s a pretty good point.  There is something about snow, especially in a place where large snowfalls are a rare occurrence.   I do have to admit that I’m finding more joy in watching the snow from the windows than being out in it these days.  The only problem is, I have eleven dogs in the house with me.

That is not a misprint – I have eleven dogs keeping me company.  Four adults and a litter of seven puppies that made their appearance just before Christmas, much to my embarrassment and dismay. 

Growing up on a farm, I know how biology works with males and females.  I really do.  I try to be responsible with my dogs, and I have to admit I have been a little snarky in the past about people who let their dogs get pregnant without planning it.  “I don’t know what’s so hard about just putting them up,” I have said.  You know what they say about Karma.  Evidently, putting them up does not always work out, not when Scout is involved.

I had already had an accidental litter with Sophie this fall, when she proudly presented me with six newborns in the living room one morning.  I had not planned another litter until the next spring, but they turned out to be an outstanding bunch of puppies and almost all of them had already gone to great homes.  I certainly did not mean for Carli to have puppies with Scout, who is her own father!  In fact, I was planning to have her spayed right after Christmas.  Little did I know that it was too late. 

The saga (why is everything in my life a saga?) began on my porch, when Eames, my neighbor’s granddaughter, said to me, “I think Carli is going to have puppies.”  I gave her an incredulous look.  “That is not possible,” I said.  “For one thing, she was in the pen for the whole three weeks and for another, they would have been here a month ago if she were.”  Eames nodded but I could tell she wasn’t convinced.

Turns out Eames was right.  I had remembered the dates incorrectly and although she had been in the pen, Scout had somehow got around that barrier.  As one of my friends told me, “Your fence is not working.”  That very night, I could not find Carli to put her in the house with the other dogs.  And, in Snoopy’s words, “it was a dark and stormy night.”  Mid-morning the next day, Carli was in the yard briefly and acted about as normal as she ever does.  She came in for a while, left for a while, and came back late in the afternoon.  It was at that point I suspected that Eames was right.  Carli either had puppies or was about to have puppies.

Panic mode set in when she disappeared again.  It was going to be cold that night, and I couldn’t figure out if the puppies were already here somewhere, or where they might be.  A search ensued, involving my neighbor Clay, who seems to get sucked in to most of my misadventures.  Carli was last seen going toward his house so that’s where we started the search.  I was standing on the edge of the holler beside his yard calling when suddenly Carli was there, just behind me.  “Where did you come from?” I asked.  She wouldn’t say, and in a few minutes she was gone again.  Sophie and Bear were sniffing around an overgrown area near the head of the path that leads to the branch, but Carli was nowhere to be seen. 

After another round of fruitless calling and rising panic, we went back to my house.  It was getting dark and Clay offered to go to the barn to feed the horses.  I said, “I’m going to take Scout and go back one more time.  Maybe he will find her.”  So, back I went, with Scout accompanying me.  Once again, I stood beside the holler and called.  And sure enough, I turned and there she was.  This time when she disappeared, Scout was right behind her and I managed to get a glimpse of her disappearing under the exposed roots of a tree.  Clay returned from the barn and joined me.  We agreed that there was no way either of us could get down in that hole.  And it was evident that puppies were down there.  Eames was not here and wouldn’t be back for some time, so we decided that rescue would have to wait until morning.  Carli did not seem to think she needed rescuing but I could not let her raise puppies, even unplanned puppies, in a hole in the ground.  I have no idea why she decided a den in the woods was the place to have her puppies, even if it was a pretty nice space.

At about eleven o’clock that night, I was awakened by the phone.  It was Clay.  “Eames is down in that hole,” he said.  I sat straight up in bed.  “She’s what?”   Eames had returned home and was convinced the puppies would freeze if they stayed where they were.  So, bless her heart, she took a light and her phone and crawled into what turned out to be a very big den to retrieve mother and babies.  She said later that it was big enough for dog, puppies, her and at least one more person her size.  I cannot imagine what the original occupant might have been.  Clay was beside himself.  Her phone did not work underground. All he could hear was leaves rustling and puppies whining.  He said he was trying to figure out what to say when he called the Rescue Squad to come and get Eames out of the hole, when she appeared, carrying a tote bag filled with seven squirming puppies and an anxious Carli following closely.

It was after midnight before we had mom and babies settled in the plastic wading pool that we had just put away from Sophie’s litter. 

Scout and Sedric, the one puppy still with us from the last bunch, were fascinated.  Sophie was appalled and wanted nothing to do with the situation.  I was resigned.  They seemed healthy, certainly eating well and very loud in their demands for a meal.  Eames and Clay went home, I went back to bed, and everyone settled down.  Does anyone in this house ever get an uninterrupted night of sleep?

So, now here we are, five weeks later, and seven cute energetic balls of fur are eating on their own and about to take their first trip to the vet for what I hope is a clean bill of health and their first shots.  Carli is already giving indications that she is finished with her part of the production, and it is up to me to keep them fed.  And they can certainly eat! They have their own temporary room, their cozy crate to sleep in and they are at the perfect size to do puppy snuggles and kisses by the fire on cold nights.  Sedric went to his new home just before Christmas, Sophie still wants nothing to do with the puppies, and I’m hoping they can find good new homes in the next couple of weeks.  I’m ready for some rest, just as soon as I make some improvements on my fence!

 

Another New Year's Eve

 

Once upon a time, New Year’s Eve was a night for parties.  We never dreamed of going to bed before ringing in the new year, usually with friends.  Food and games, conversation and laughter, fireworks and plans for the new year, all shared with love.  Hundreds of games of Trivial Pursuit and Shanghai Rummy took place, stories and old jokes made us laugh or groan,  and we toasted the new year with champagne and beer.

Now I find myself just as happy to stay home with my feet up in front of the fire, resting from Christmas and the surrounding mayhem and thinking.  Last year at this time, I was not in a good mood.  I had been dealing for a couple of months with one disaster after another, which left me with a depleted bank account and a dim view of the next month or two to come.  I had just encountered truck repairs, a hot water heater to replace, and a dishwasher that fell victim to a dog trying to catch a mouse and, in the process, pulling all the wiring out of the bottom.  I had a mysterious water leak to the tune of several hundred dollars and the resulting bill to fix the leak which was finally located at a remote spot behind the barn.  Then I had an invasion of rats in the crawl space under my bathrooms, which led to replacement of all the plumbing in that area.  Who knew that a rat could, or would, gnaw through PVC pipe?  I had grown afraid to even utter the words, “What else can go wrong?”  Little did I know but that a mouse was busy working on the drain hose on the new dishwasher and I would soon be faced with another leak in the kitchen and another repair bill.  My seventieth birthday was looming. Oh, and did I mention the root canal scheduled right after the new year? Maybe 2023 wasn’t going to be something to look forward to either.

I didn’t know it last New Year’s Eve, but my luck was about to change. Just a few days into the new year, a door I had opened at least two decades ago led me down a path I had not seen before now and I got a chance to write some magazine articles about people and their horses, totally out of the blue.  At first it sounded like a one-time deal, but it turned out to be a regular thing, leading to a busy year of doing just what I always wanted to do.  Several dozen interviews and stories later, I’m starting on another year of being a paid feature writer.  I have been able to reconnect with some old friends and acquaintances and get to know some people I hadn’t known before, when I was directly involved in the horse world.  I’ve had to stretch my writing muscles, get comfortable doing interviews on the phone and figure out how to ask the questions I needed to ask. And deadlines – I haven’t worked with deadlines in a very long time!  Sometimes I felt out of my comfort zone and often out of my depth, but I think I have figured out a rhythm that works for me.

Just about the same time my first batch of articles appeared, my book arrived.  I had been working on it for a couple of months, gathering some of my earlier blog posts and putting them in book form.  Opening that first box of books with my name right there on the cover was a thrill.  It just goes to show you that you can’t give up on your dreams, even if they don’t come true when you think they will.  My name on a book cover was just one of the firsts I experienced this year.  I also made jelly for the first time in my life and the best thing about that experience was that I got a pretty good story out of it!

I was able to enjoy some of the best music events of my entire life in 2023, some alone and some with my concert buddies.  While I love music and keep it going most of the time at home and in the truck, there is nothing like live music to speak to your soul.  I’ve met some interesting people –sitting next to a stranger for three hours who doesn’t feel at all like a stranger because you share something as intimate as a love for the same music.  There was the man from Michigan, who drove all the way to Tennessee because he loved John Prine.  There was the 84-year-old couple from Louisiana who drove 9 hours to Nashville because they had never been to the Opry.  There was the young lady who had just moved to Nashville and was soaking in all the shows and learning about new venues to try.  I met my favorite band during a three-day immersion in their new music, shared a little conversation with them, and found out that, yes, they are just as nice as they seem. 

I was invited to attend a gala honoring my great aunt and celebrating the release of a film about her life and career in country music.  Other than stressing a little over finding the right clothes to wear, it was a special night, and I was reminded again of what a great woman she was as person after person talked about what they loved about her and how she had influenced their lives.  Watching the film itself brought back a flood of memories and made me remember that sometimes things don’t happen they way you expect, but that sometimes they can be even better than you planned.  And it gave me new determination to honor my talents by using them more freely.

There were new friends, losses and disappointments, great moments and darker moments, days full of sunshine and bird song, and a few days of dark clouds and darker nights.  But always there was laughter shared with friends, my dogs to lift my spirits and always my writing to keep me sane.  There were surprises, like the two litters of puppies that came into my life, allowing me to meet some new friends. On the other end of the scale, I lost the horse of my heart, saying goodbye to Bullet, who gave me 30 years of happiness and took me places I never dreamed I would go.  I will cherish those memories forever and I know he is running in pastures of lush grass and rolling on deep sandy riverbanks.  Surely someone is feeding him carrots and ice cubes and giving him hugs.

2023 taught me several things, or perhaps just reminded me of what I already knew.  It’s never too late to learn new things, or to relearn lessons you thought you had forgotten.  Sometimes you have to take a leap, having faith that you can do things you thought were in the past. Old friends will always be there to prop you up and new friends are the frosting on the cake.  Dogs will never let you down, keeping your feet and your heart warm on long dark nights.  And you never know what surprises or adventures are waiting just around the bend.  Happy New Year to all my friends and readers – I can’t wait to see what comes next!