Expertise
Gray’s Lily in field on Roan Mountain
“My definition of an expert in any field is a person
who knows enough about what’s really going on to be scared.”
Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900
Irish playwright, novelist, poet
Less Traveled
“Sometimes the road less traveled
is less traveled for a reason.”
Jerry Seinfeld, b. 1954
Comedian and actor
Elastic Time
“The time which we have at our disposal every day is elastic;
the passions that we feel expand it,
those that we inspire contract it;
and habit fills up what remains.”
Marcel Proust, 1871-1922
French novelist, critic
Problem vs. Inconvenience
Hosta leaf
“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat,
if your house is on fire, then you got a problem.
Everything else is inconvenience.”
Robert Fulghum, 1939-
Author
Saints
“In his holy flirtation with the world,
God occasionally drops a handkerchief.
These handkerchiefs are called saints.”
Frederick Buechner, b. 1926
Novelist and theologian
Miracles
Hosta flower
“To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”
Walt Whitman, 1819-1892
American poet
Trail Medicine
Appalachian Trail, Roan Mountain
“A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good
for an unhappy but otherwise healthy adult
than all the medicine and psychology in the world.”
Paul Dudley White, 1886-1973
American cardiologist who treated several presidents
Character & Self Control
Pokeberry flowers, before berries
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain
but it takes character and self control
to be understanding and forgiving.”
Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790
Author, political theorist, printer, scientist
Fill It with Good
Thistle
“You know…sin is a lot like that thistle you are wrestling with.
It can look so beautiful to the eye, be so pleasing to the senses,
you hardly notice the seeds are spreading
until whole fields are taken over by them.
Then they choke out the grass. Animals won’t eat ‘em.
You can’t cut ‘em down and leave the root.
They’ll come right back. There is nothing to do but
take the time and energy required to pull them out
in one piece and fill the hole with something good.”
“Mosaic: Pieces of My Life So Far“
by Amy Grant, 1960-
Singer-songwriter
Ill-gotten Opinions
Locust-borer on goldenrod
“In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions
are in almost every case gotten at second-hand,
and without examination.”
Mark Twain, 1835-1910
American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer
Acceptable Worship
Spiderwort
“The worship most acceptable to God
comes from a thankful and cheerful heart.”
Plutarch, 46-120 A.D.
Greek historian
Contradictions
Five-lined Skink, Linville Gorge
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then, I contradict myself
(I am large, I contain multitudes).”
Walt Whitman, 1819-1892
American poet
A Moment
“I held a moment in my hand,
brilliant as a star, fragile as a flower,
a tiny sliver of one hour.
I dripped it carelessly,
Ah! I didn’t know, I held opportunity.”
Hazel Lee
Fretting
Gray’s Lily in field on Roan Mountain
“Fretting always ends in sin.
We imagine that a little anxiety and worry
are an indication of how really wise we are;
it is much more an indication of how really wicked we are.
Fretting springs from a determination to get our own way.
Our Lord never worried and He was never anxious,
because He was not out to realize His own ideas;
He was out to realize God’s ideas.”
Oswald Chambers, 1874-1917
20th Century Scottish Protestant Christian minister and teacher
“My Utmost for His Highest”
Leisure
Marguerite Falls, Greene County, TN
“Leisure is a form of silence, not noiselessness.
It is the silence of contemplation such as occurs
when we let our minds rest on a rosebud,
a child at play, a Divine mystery, or a waterfall.”
Fulton J. Sheen, 1895-1979
Bishop of Rochester, New York
REFLECTIONS
For a couple years now I’ve heard of Marguerite (or Margarette) Falls in Greene County. We finally had the opportunity to explore the falls a few weeks ago. The name is not that common, and so to hear it reminds me of my great aunt Marguerite Fierbaugh Lawson (1916-2006). She was actually my Granddad’s second cousin, but I always heard her called “Aunt Marguerite.” I didn’t know her well, but knew of her and met her once when I was in college.
She lived in Bristol, Virginia, and helped host my mom and dad’s wedding reception back in 1967. Sometime in the 1970s, the science building at Milligan College was named in her honor by a family friend (the name was later dropped when funding didn’t work out…I never heard the full story). And when I came to Milligan as a freshman in 1990, my Mom and I called Aunt Marguerite and she invited us to her home in Bristol to visit. It was an amazing afternoon filled with wonderful stories of a very adventure-filled life.
Marguerite was known to her family and close friends as “Mom Lawson.” She had eight children, 15 grandchildren, and 19 great grandchildren. She and her husband, Joe, were married 68 years and had traveled the world, helping others. That afternoon, she shared with us many stories, lots of photos, and some of her writings and journals. It was obvious she had touched the lives of many people.
In a speech she presented as part of her work with Lions International, Aunt Marguerite said, ”First, I would say, give yourself away. Be sincere. Be generous with praise, be observing to those about you, be sensitive to the feelings of others, be yourself. Like people as they are rather than who they are and what they have. Every time you talk with a son or daughter away from home, never end the conversation without saying, I love you.”
(I later worked with Marguerite’s brother, Harry, on some family genealogy work. Through his information and lots of library visits, I was able to trace the Fierbaugh lineage back to Heinrich Feuerbach, who arrived from Germany to the port of Philadelphia in 1744.)
Unfortunately I didn’t stay in touch with Aunt Marguerite. For years I thought about contacting her again — she was just 30 minutes up the road — but time always got the best of me. I now wish I had taken the time to get to know her better and to hear more of her amazing stories about life. I could have learned so much from her wisdom. Lesson learned — use your leisure wisely!
Round Our Incompleteness
“And I smiled to think God’s greatness
flowed round our incompleteness,
Round our restlessness His rest…”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1806-1861
one of the most respected poets of the Victorian era
Fellowship of Sinners
“We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified
when a real sinner is suddenly discovered among the righteous.
So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy.
The fact is that we are sinners!”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906-1945
German Lutheran pastor and theologian
Hanged for an assassination plot on Hitler
God’s Presence
“For what we need to know, of course, is not just that God exists,
not just that beyond the steely brightness of the stars there is a
cosmic intelligence of some kind that keeps the whole show going,
but that there is a God right here in the thick of our day-by-day lives
who may not be writing messages about himself in the stars
but who in one way or another is trying to get messages
through our blindness as we move around down here
knee-deep in the fragrant muck and misery and marvel of the world.
It is not objective proof of God’s existence that we want but,
whether we use religious language for it or not,
the experience of God’s presence.
That is the miracle that we are really after.
And that is also, I think, the miracle that we really get.”
Frederick Buechner, 1926-
Novelist and theologian
Freedom
Periwinkle, Vinca minor
“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men
and so it must be daily earned and refreshed –
else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots,
it will wither and die.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1890-1969
Five star general, U.S. Army
34th President of the U.S.
Change and Progress
“The world hates change,
yet it is the only thing that has brought progress.”
Charles F. Kettering, 1876-1958
Born in Loudonville, Ohio (where I graduated high school)
American inventor, head of research for General Motors
Childhood Garden
Lilac
“There is a garden in every childhood,
an enchanted place where colors are brighter,
the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”
Elizabeth Lawrence, 1904-1985
Garden designer and writer
REFLECTIONS
Growing up in Bay Village, Ohio, our colonial home on Foote Rd. backed up to the high school. On the left side was the bike path that led from our neighborhood over to the high school and directly behind our house was the football field where the Bay Rockets played every Friday night in the fall. A fence divided the yard and the field, and along this fence was a row of lilac bushes. Our swingset and sandbox were in that corner of the yard, and in my imagination I often transformed the lilac bushes into rooms and corridors where I played house with my friends. I never pass a lilac bush or smell a lilac-scented candle that I don’t think of childhood memories and that enchanted place called the backyard.
Time Away
Whorled Loosestrife (Early American colonists refused to drink commercial tea
and instead brewed “Liberty Tea,” made from the leaves of this plant)
“A person needs at intervals to separate himself
from family and companions and go to new places.
He must go without his familiars
in order to be open to influences, to change.”
Katherine Butler Hathaway, 1890-1942
Author
When Grace Strikes
“Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness…It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage.
Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ‘You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!’
. . . If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.”
Paul Tillich, 1886-1965
Theologian and author
A Way of Life
Fire Pink (pink refers not to the color but to the notched end of the petal that looks like it was cut by pinking shears)
“Life is made up of golden chances, opportunities to do good.
One lost is lost forever. If we miss doing a kindness to a friend,
we can never do that kindness again. If we might speak a pleasant word,
or offer a bit of worthwhile counsel or advice and fail to do so,
we can never have just that opportunity again. Giving is a way of life.”
A. M. Burton, 1879-1966
Great-grandfather of singer-songwriter Amy Grant
Founder, Life and Casualty Insurance Company of Tennessee
Chief inspiration, David Lipscomb University
Patient Endurance
Hiking the Appalachian Trail near Roan Mountain
“Patient endurance attends to all things.”
Teresa of Avila, 1515-1582
As I Am
Looking inside a Foxglove blossom
“I am what I am, so take me as I am.”
Johann von Goethe, 1749-1832
One of the key figures of German literature
Every Bit of Energy
Kayaks on Cape Ann, Massachusetts
“Find what it is that interests you and that you can do well,
and when you find it, put your whole soul into it –
every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.”
John D. Rockefeller III, 1906-1978
Major philanthropist
Simple
Bluets on Roan Mountain
“Nothing is as simple as we hope it will be.”
Jim Horning, Ph.D.
Computer Scientist
Summer Rain
“I don’t believe there are any people on earth who, properly sheltered,
don’t feel the peace inside a summer rain and the cleansing it brings,
the renewal of the earth in its aftermath…
For me, such moments are open invitations to closeness with God.
Nature at work isn’t itself God, but it is evidence of Him,
and by letting myself be drawn into its depths and intrigues,
I can come near to Him: see the glory of His creation,
feel the salve of His grace.”
Johnny Cash, 1932-2003, autobiography
Grammy Award-winning country singer-songwriter
Busy Bee
“If there’s a job to be done, I always ask the busiest men
in my parish to take it on and it gets done.”
Henry Ward Beecher, 1813-1887
Prominent clergyman, social reformer, abolitionist
Why?
Flaming Azalea, Roan Mountain
“Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh
and the living colors of earth and sky and sea?
Why am I afraid of love, I who love love?
Why am I afraid, I who am not afraid?
Why must I pretend to scorn in order to pity?
Why must I hide myself in self-contempt in order to understand?
Why must I be so ashamed of strength, so proud of my weakness? . . .
Why was I born without a skin, O God,
that I must wear armor in order to touch or to be touched.”
Eugene O’ Neill, 1888-1953
Nobel-prize winning American playwright
God’s Art
“Nature is the art of God.”
Thomas Browne, 1605-1682
English author
Holding On
Rockport, Massachusetts
“Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love,
the things you are, the things you never want to lose.”
From the television show The Wonder Years
REFLECTIONS
A few weeks ago I spent a week in New England attending a conference north of Boston. It was my second trip to New England and it’s an area of the country that I adore. It represents a mix of the places I have lived in my life and I find it comforting and welcoming.
Bright bushy rhododendrons in full bloom greeted me everywhere I went. They are plentiful and in every front yard — and they were at their peak when I was there in early June. What a treat. And what a reminder of East Tennessee. In fact, the somewhat rugged topography and flora and fauna of New England all made me pause and realize that I wasn’t that far away from home, really. I was simply in the Northern Appalachians, or at least on the edge of the range that extends from Canada all the way to Georgia.
The quintessential feel of New England, with its rocky coast, historic lighthouses, boats and fishing, and old colonial homes, is an instant reminder to me of my childhood home in Ohio. We lived in Bay Village, a town about 15 miles west of Cleveland along five miles of Lake Erie’s wooded southern shore. Bay has a definite New England feel and it’s probably no coincidence that Boston has a neighborhood named Bay Village. Our house, a colonial style home, was two blocks from the rocky coast of the lake, a lighthouse, and breakwaters. It was a family-oriented town and I have many fond memories (and hours of slides on video that my friends can attest to) of life in Bay.
Finally, the small towns and farmland of northeast Massachusetts reminded me of rural Ohio (what is considered the Appalachian plateau), where we moved when I was in high school and my parents lived until a few years ago. Beautiful rolling farmland and meandering country roads weave through one small town after another, each with a main street dotted with old colonial homes and farmhouses, rich in history.
How interesting to weave together memories of so many different places that are near and dear to my heart — all into one place where I’ve never lived. And all make me feel at home.
Puzzled Identity
“Who in the world am I?
Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
Lewis Carroll, 1832-1898
English author and photographer
Live Gracefully and Carefully
Flaming Azaleas blooming on Roan Mountain — a perfect birthday
“We have only one life cycle to live,
and living it is the source of our greatest joy…
although it is only a small part of
human history which we will cover,
to do this gracefully and carefully is our greatest vocation.”
Henri Nouwen, 1932-1996
Crowded to the Full
Higgins Creek Falls, Unicoi County
“One hour of life, crowded to the full with glorious action
and filled with noble risks, is worth whole years
of those mean observances of paltry decorum.”
Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832
Scottish historical novelist and poet
Self-Made Pain
Poppy Field
“In middle age we are apt to reach the horrifying conclusion
that all sorrow, all pain, all passionate regret
and loss and bitter disillusionment are self-made.”
Kathleen Norris
Best-selling author of The Cloister Walk,
Dakota, and Amazing Grace
Stop to Think
Farmhouse Gallery & Gardens, Unicoi Co., TN
“Did you ever stop to think,
and forget to start again?”
A. A. Milne, 1882-1956
English author, best known for Winnie-the-Pooh
Head and Heart
“In earlier times it did not take faith to believe that God existed–
almost everybody took that for granted.
Rather, faith had to do with one’s relationship to God–
whether one trusted in God. The difference between faith as
‘belief in something that may or may not exist’
and faith as ‘trusting in God’ is enormous.
The first is a matter of the head, the second a matter of the heart.
The first can leave us unchanged, the second intrinsically brings change.”
Brennan Manning, “The Ragamuffin Gospel”
author, priest, speaker
Elfin Beauty
Columbine, Roan Mountain
“I met a little lady, A stranger here, mayhap,
She wore a gown of green, She wore a scarlet cap.
Graceful was her figure, Her manners very fine;
A fairy airy creature, Her name was Columbine.
The pasture was her parlor, Very sweet the views;
The winds from every corner Brought the latest news.”
Mary Frances Butts, 1836-1902
Worn Out
“I am worn to a raveling.”
Beatrix Potter, 1866-1943
English author of children’s books, conservationist
Catching Days
Mountain Saxifrage, Beacon Heights, Blue Ridge Parkway
“A schedule defends from chaos and whim.
It is a net for catching days.
It is a scaffolding on which a worker can
stand and labor with both hands at sections of time.”
Annie Dillard, 1945-
Pulitzer Prize winning American author
Grace
Giant Ironweed, Erwin Linear Trail
“The grace of God means something like: Here is your life.
You might never have been, but you are because
the party wouldn’t have been complete without you.”
Frederick Buechner, 1926-
Novelist and theologian
His Reverence
Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Appalachian Trail, Unicoi County, TN
“Jack-in the pulpit preaches to-day
Under the green trees just over the way.
Squirrel and song sparrow high on their perch,
Hear the sweet lily-bells ringing to church.
Come hear what his Reverence rises to say,
In his painted pulpit, this calm Sabbath day.
Fair is the canopy over him seen,
Pencilled by nature’s hand,
black, brown, and green.”
John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807-1892
Quaker poet and advocate of abolition of slavery
Soul Invitation
Almost ready…Roan Mountain Rhododendron Festival is June 21-22
“I loafe and invite my soul…”
Walt Whitman, 1819-1892
American poet
