greaterthansparrows

The year is coming to its end in a few minutes.  We are at home now, so I guess that means we are officially in the ranks of old fuddy-duddies.  It's actually not the first time that we have not been out.  Last year we were home from our Christmas trip to Utah before New Years, but we came off the plane sick and I don't think we were up to worrying about celebrating.  The year before we were enjoying a visit with close friends out of town.  Sometimes we have just not had a plan. This year has seen a lot of blessings and challenges; I don't know that there has ever been a year without plenty of both, that's the nature of life.  The question is, are you still aware of your blessings or are you only seeing your griefs?  I have done better than some years, I hope, at seeing my blessings.  I want to recognize the hand of God in my life. In January I started this blog, and because of it I was offered the opportunity to write for the new online journ...

My Grandfather Bennett used to make variations on famous songs.  He was always well behaved in a public setting, but at home, he would have a little fun.  We have a hymn, "Welcome, welcome, Sabbath morning, now we rest from every care," which would translate into, "now we rest on every chair" just to make us smile.  The chorus, "Jerusalem, Jerusalem, lift up your gates and sing.  Hosanna in the highest, hosanna to your king," he sang for us once as, "You're losing 'em, you're losing 'em, lift up your skirts and see--you're losing your hose, Anna, they're way down around your knees."  Those are the only two I remember right offhand, I'm sure there are many others lost in the recesses of my brain. When I was maybe nine (ten?), the second  joint summer trip west with my sister Carolyn, we were pressed into service for the Bennett family reunion to sing in memory of our great-grandfather, John Bennett.  My Aunt Rosemary...

  Christmas is a time of wonder, and hope.  Christmas matters so much because it is the promise of Easter, of the Redemption and the resurrection, the answer to all the earth's pain and grief and failin gs. The Christmas story is a story of faith, of simplicity; the faith to see in this child the salvation of God, the promises made through the prophets of the ages, that the Son of God would come and make a sacrifice for all of us.  Where did he come?  Not to a wealth y household, not to a prominent place, but to the simplest of homes, and honest livelihood, and the preparation of  heart and spirit and integrity. I was sitting in a stake choir pr actice one year, where we were preparing Christmas music, pondering while I waited for the soprano section to be called on.  I had a moment's vision:  I saw those baby hands reaching out, gr owing larger until they were stretched out and nailed to the cross for us all.  Just the hands. There was ...

Happy Birthday to my wonderful mother today! My parents with me, age 1 1/2 We didn't have a camera in the family most of the time, so there aren't a lot of pictures except the formal, gather everybody together occasions, and school pictures of each of us as we grew up.  I would love to have a copy of my mother's wedding portrait, but the closest I can come is this one, taken when I was a year and a half, and Mom was expecting Carolyn but no one knew yet.  I guess I was still the center of the universe, but that would come to its natural end soon.  Once we were married and living across the country, the chief times that Mom came were for babies.  These two are from when Geoff was born.  She was only able to come for a week, so he's not older than that. His hair grew in blonde, and didn't look quite as dark to start out as this seems. The second picture is of all of us, using our van as the sitting space, and I can't find the original, just this paper cop...

Christmas is coming on apace, and now that the first pumpkin bread has been made, and we have a tree, it feels real.  There's only a week left, which is a little alarming if I think about it. Carole leaves for Tennessee tomorrow, to spend Christmas with her sister Christina and her husband Chris. She helped us get a tree, and we decided that the time had come to go artificial, because we weren't up for the process of hauling and setting up a real one.  We now have a very nice, small one that doesn't look like nylon needles, and doesn't take up too much space.  It's supposed to be a Virginia pine, with just a faint frosting on the tips. Now the only problem is that the one box of Christmas stuff with the ornaments that we have made, is missing in action.  The lights we don't need now, those were right where they belonged.  The ornaments which have seen better days, those are sitting in front of me--I have picked over them and hung some, but we need the smaller ...

We do words, play with words, compare words, and craft words.  We were a very verbal family, and we liked puns, parodies, songs, poems, quotes, and multisyllables. We siblings wanted to do something fun for our folks, and it's probably no great surprise that my sister Carolyn came up with an idea which centered on words, a  Wordle .  This, if you have never had the pleasure, is a construct of words as a "cloud" which can originate as an existing text--in which case the algorythm pumps up the size and placement of those words which occur most often, or you can set up your own input.  She asked us to send in those words and phrases which evoked memories and associations for us growing up, and she would create a--drum roll, please!--Unique Wordle to present as a keepsake.  We understood that not every suggestion would make it, due to the limitations of space, and anything we wanted together had to run without spaces, as all one word, though we could capitalize wh...

It was something I pondered, getting ready to go across the country for college.  There would be student wards, and I would be one of the young adult members, a peer, and not someone’s child.  What could I possibly do to serve?  I was nervous about being in a new place, where I would not know anyone, at least at first.  I had been in the same ward since I turned nine and we moved into the “new house.” (Which my parents would leave when I was over fifty.)  I was comfortable there, but this would be a brand new environment. I decided that one thing I did already know how to do was lead music.  We had a wonderful woman who set up a class with all the young women who could play the piano and she put one of the piano, one on the organ, and the rest of us with batons in hand, and we practiced the hymns , Saturday mornings at the chapel .  Maybe I could lead the music for sacrament meeting, that might be good.  Useful, but sa fe. Well, I ...

A few days ago, Hubby said, "I had a thought...we could list the piano for sale and get a little money that way." "You promised that wherever we moved to, it would have room for the piano, that you would never take my piano away." "Oh.  I guess I did.  But you never use it." Well, it's true that since the last two injuries I haven't sat down to really practice, and that my fingers have reverted to limp spaghetti status, but that doesn't mean that I am ready, EVER, to not have a piano.  I guess it means that I need to start playing.  Even if I can only tolerate five minutes at a time. Really, the practicing was impacted by middle age, specifically the need for bifocals.  I can't see well to play--it requires a separate pair of glasses for a single-vision middle distance, and we haven't had the money.  I need new glasses now, but there's no way to do that, and my eyes haven't changed so badly that I have to.  The thought o...

My sister Carolyn, talking to Roger, the building manager who was such a peach.  My brother Bryan and Dad are in the background. The opening was great, and everyone enjoyed it--our Provo/Orem kids came up and we had a chance to visit with each of them.  Dad was happy, but exhausted, as we came to the end and cleaned up. He insisted that he was taking his children out to dinner, to his favorite Chinese restaurant.  Once upon a time, you really couldn't find a good Chinese restaurant in Salt Lake, but this one a few blocks west of Temple Square is good, and we've been there together before.  He is one of their good customers, and they know him. It was a little later than intended as we were ready to go for dinner, and we couldn't get a parking spot on the block, so we had to go way around the corner.  Salt Lake City blocks are LONG.  (Blame Brigham Young, but the street were also wide, which was a good thing when cars came along.) We were in two c...

"There and back again..." (and yes, The Hobbit is opening next weekend)--- We returned from Utah yesterday, tired, happy, and tired.  We bought fried chicken for dinner and slept hard in our own bed.  We had a wonderful time.  This was a visit with my parents with our children and grandchildren thrown in, instead of the reverse. The occasion was my parents' 60th anniversary, but the date and the party were four weeks previous; this gathering was delayed because of scheduling problems, and only four of the six of us were able to come, in the end.  But it was the opening of Dad's gallery space, long hoped for, in Salt Lake, made possible through generous friends and serendipity which was really divine help. Old 24th Ward building, now full of music and art  This church, long since passed out of ecclesiastical use, is now the new home of the Salt Lake Choral Artists, a group which started out as the Jay Welch Chorale, Jay Welch having been a fellow Frenc...