Wild Geranium
“God does not care…whether I am happy or not. What God cares about,
with all the power of God’s holy being, is the quality of my life…
not just the continuation of my breath and the health of my cells—
but the quality of my life, the scope of my life, the heft and zest of my life…”
Barbara Brown Taylor
Author and college professor
Snow-encased tree on Jane Bald, Roan Mountain
“Of winter’s lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer’s secret
Deep down within its heart.”
Charles G. Stater
Roan Mountain, TN/NC
“The Appalachians are the American rainforest,
rich with history, beauty and nature at its most elegant.”
Adriana Trigiani
Best selling author of The Big Stone Gap trilogy
(I loved this series and highly recommend it if you like
Southern authors and stories about small town life in Appalachia.)
Lenten Rose in my snowy front yard
“A thing long expected takes the form
of the unexpected when at last it comes.”
Mark Twain, 1835-1910
American humorist, satirist, lecturer and writer
“Cease to be a drudge,
seek to be an artist.”
Mary McLeod Bethune, 1875-1955
African American teacher from Mayesville, SC
She was a leader of women, a distinguished adviser to several
American presidents, and a powerful champion of racial equality
“If you’re alone, I’ll be your shadow.
If you want to cry, I’ll be your shoulder.
If you want a hug, I’ll be your pillow.
If you need to be happy, I’ll be your smile.
But anytime you need a friend, I’ll just be me.”
Author Unknown
REFLECTIONS
Happy Birthday to my BFF (best friend forever, as they say these days), Gina. I won’t reveal your age but am always reminded (by you) that you’re so much younger than me. So be kind to your wise old friend as I reminisce and get sentimental for a moment.
Gina and I met in college. Though I’ve had a lot of friends, she was the first one who I realized would be around for a long time. There’s nothing fair-weather about Gina. She takes her friendships pretty seriously and I love that. She also knows how to enjoy an adventure and laugh at life. Kindred spirits.
And yet we started worlds apart. She grew up in California, is an athlete and sports fanatic, and is great at numbers and logic. Those who know me know that’s not me! I grew up in the Midwest, was always chosen last for the team, and at the time I met Gina, I hardly knew the difference between a touchdown and a home-run, let alone how to keep score in tennis (which I think I finally learned by the time she led her college team to the national tournament — go, girl).
But we discovered so many other similarities in our perspectives and approaches to life. And I learned to love our differences and realize that they only enriched our friendship. (And since we both have family roots and history in East Tennessee, we’re convinced that somewhere back down the road, we’re distantly related cousins.)
Gina is a beautiful individual with a quick wit and a competitive, adventurous, and mischievous side to her. And she’s got a stubborn streak that means she’s darn well going to accomplish whatever she sets her mind to. And the beautiful thing is that she shares that drive and determination with everyone around her.
I soon discovered in our friendship that she loved and appreciated me unconditionally for who I was, with all my faults and insecurities (and there are many), but at the same time, she saw potential in me and has pushed me to reach out and actually pursue my goals — sometimes goals I didn’t know I had but she sensed them in my heart and knew I wanted more.
I never would have pursued and finished graduate school were it not for her. I never would have traveled and explored so many places if it weren’t for her encouraging me to step outside my little world and go on an adventure with her. And the many times I’ve whined that something was too hard or frustrating, she’s reminded me, “Lee, if it were easy, everyone would be doing it.” Mediocrity is not in her vocabulary.
Gina has an amazing way of always recognizing and celebrating the special moments in life — the big ones as well as the smaller victories of day-to-day life. So today I celebrate her life and her friendship.
With Gina, I can just be me. But it’s a me that’s vastly different and better because of her presence in my life. Thanks, best buddy.
Warrior’s Path State Park, I-81 overlook, Kingsport, TN
“Truth is always exciting. Speak it, then.
Life is dull without it.”
Pearl Buck, 1892-1973
Nobel & Pulitzer Prize winning writer
“No person has ever been honored for what he received.
Honor is our reward when we give.”
Calvin Coolidge, 1872-1933
30th President of the United States
“Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers,
and are famous preservers of good looks.”
Charles Dickens, 1786-1851
View of Erwin & Unicoi from Horseback Ridge
“Thank heavens, the sun has gone in,
and I don’t have to go out and enjoy it.”
L.P. Smith
Author of farming books
Fishery Park, Erwin
“God prefers bad verses recited with a pure heart
to the finest verses chanted by the wicked.”
Voltaire, 1694-1778
French enlightenment writer and philosopher
Tipton-Haynes State Historic Site, Johnson City
“In this strange patterned time of contemplation
That, in time, breaks time, breaks words, breaks me,
And then, in silence, leaves me healed and mended.
I leave returned to language, for I see
Through words, even when all words are ended,
I, who live by words, am wordless when
I turn me to the Word to pray.
Amen.”
Madeleine L’Engle, 1918-2007
“The Weather of the Heart” (1978)
Seeger Chapel, Milligan College
“There is no wilderness like a life without friends;
friendship multiplies blessings and minimizes misfortunes;
it is a unique remedy against adversity,
and it soothes the soul.”
Baltasar Gracian, 1601-1658
Spanish philosopher and Jesuit scholar
REFLECTIONS
This past weekend was my annual Girls Weekend with several of my college friends. Every year since our 10th reunion, we rent a cabin in Blowing Rock, NC, for a long weekend and sit around catching up, reminiscing, and sharing some old and new laughs. We don’t just sit — there’s plenty of shopping and eating. We often fall into old conversations and pick up where we left off — either the year before or 16 years before.
But also mixed into the weekend are the occasional, more serious conversations — the discussions where we find out how one another is really doing in life. You see, we all started our adult lives together. We were once young, naive, and ready to conquer the world. It was before any of us really knew what we wanted to do in life. We had dreams. We had ideas. We had fears. We occasionally shared them in late night chats in the dorm or when we were forced into discussions by the challenges that face 20 year olds.
Then suddenly we had graduated and were forced out into the real world to figure it out. We figured out a few things here and there. Years passed. Life happened. By our 10th reunion, life had taught us all some lessons. One of us had lost a beloved parent. A few married. We’d all found jobs and eventually careers. We had somehow all become adults. And we realized that even though we all have our own lives now, we all still need each other. Because sometimes we’re still young and naive but not-so-ready to conquer the world. We still have a few dreams and ideas left, but we’re also scared of what the world will next offer, what God next has in store for us. We may be older and in some ways wiser, but we’re still just putting one foot in front of the other each day and truly “livin’ on a prayer.”
So thanks to my dear old friends. Thanks for being there for the past 18 years (wow, we ARE old). Thanks for one weekend a year when we can all strip away our walls and layers and just be who we were before life happened. And thanks for the security of knowing that we’re there for each other as life continues to happen. Joys and sorrows. Thanks for growing old together.
“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There are no uninteresting things,
only uninterested people.”
G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936
influential English writer
“We learn from our gardens to deal
with the most urgent question of the time:
How much is enough?”
Wendell Berry, 1934-
“I don’t know whether nice people tend to grow roses,
or growing roses makes people nice.”
Roland A. Browne, 1939-
“The Rose-Lover’s Guide” (1974)
Rhododendron
“Love must be learned, and learned again; there is no end to it.”
Anne Porter, 1890-1980
Pulitzer Prize-winning American author
Sunset from Horseback Ridge, Unicoi County, TN
“Ring the bells that still can ring,
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen, 1934-
Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, novelist
Fishery Park, Erwin
“Fate cast me to play the role of an ugly duckling
with no promise of swanning. I have played my life as a comedy
rather than the tragedy many would have made of it.”
Marie Dressler, 1868-1934
Academy Award-winning Actress,
First woman on the cover of Time Magazine (1933)
Above Linville Falls, NC (click here to see falls)
“…the earth may be borrowed, but not bought. It may be used but not owned.
It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its seasonal flowering
and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers and not masters.”
Marjorie Rawlings, 1896-1953
Author of Pulitzer-Prize winning “The Yearling” (1939)
“Day by day we are given not what we want but what we need.
Sometimes it is a feast and sometimes…swept crumbs,
but by faith we believe it is enough.”
Barbara Brown Taylor
Author and college professor
Sill Branch Falls, Unicoi County
“Here and there a tawny brook prattled out from among the underwood
and lost itself again in the ferns and brambles upon the further side.
Save the dull piping of insects and the sough of the leaves,
there was silence everywhere—the sweet restful silence of nature.”
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930
“The White Company”
Old Tweetsie Railroad, Doe River Gorge
“When you find yourself facing an issue in your life,
the purpose or reason or good thing that might come out of it
being completely hidden from you—what do you do? Do you worry and fret,
become preoccupied with the problem? Do you ignore it or avoid it?
Do you complain about it, do you want to run away from it?
Or do you see it as a situation in which you might be able to experience
the power and grace of God at work? Do you watch
for the work of God that is to be done in this situation?”
Fr. John Yates
Chinese lantern
“How desperately difficult it is to be honest with oneself.
It is much easier to be honest with other people.”
Edward White Benson, 1829-1896
Archbishop of Canterbury
