An Inward Sign of an Outward Sign

Do you know what an Ichthus is?

It's that fish symbol that Christians use.  Looks like two arcs coming together with a little overlap, which becomes the tail of the fish.

I've been thinking about ichthuses (there must be a better plural for it) a lot lately.

That symbol, the ichthus used to be a pagan symbol.  Because the word in Greek which is spelled with those interesting Greek letters that my keyboard doesn't know how to do: Iota, Chi, Theta, Upsilon, Sigma, is also a word used for "womb."  So it became a symbol for Mother Earth, creator, something like that (read about it yourself, it's interesting).

Definitely not the first non-Christian idea that Christians adapted as their own.  Sometimes I have trouble thinking about that.  Please, let's not open that can of worms today.

But anyway.  The ichthus, and the symbol thereof, became a backronym, which is like the like an acronym in a weird which-came-first -chicken-or-egg kind of way.   The backronym is "Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior."  It's interesting to read about, and easy to find info online if you're interested.

One story says that during the early days of Christianity, when Christians were being persecuted, if men met each other on the road, one would draw the top arc of the fish, and if the other man finished the symbol with the other arc, they knew they were safe and among friends. Whew.  Tough to be a Christian in those days.

I think it's getting tougher to be Christian these days, too.  That being said, have I personally been persecuted...no.  But Christians ARE being persecuted.  Some in horrifically terrifying ways.  You've seen it on the news. I won't go into that.  You've seen it.

I think, and feel free to stop reading at any time if you disagree and I won't mind, that in much more subtle and insidious ways, Christians are being persecuted a great deal in our country, and elsewhere  The media is quick to stereotype Christians as uneducated, bigoted, racist, sexist, EVERY sort of "-ist" there is. We are portrayed as unaccepting, homophobic, hatred-mongering deniers of science, rights, privileges, and all the fun and free stuff in the world. And we are being forced in subtle and insidious ways to do things that go against our moral compass, things that threaten to erode goodness and truth in the world.

When all I really want to say is, "God is Love...Jesus is Love."

I want to be a good person.  I want to love well and unconditionally. I want to help people and serve others. Am I perfect?  Sooo far from it.  But does Jesus love me?  I don't doubt it for a moment. I am his favorite, and so are you.  Please please please don't be insulted by my saying that I am His favorite.  I've talked about this before on this very blog, so I won't explain again.

ANYWAY.

Like I said.  I am so far from perfect.  But I try to remember every day that I am here to be a light to others. There are so many ways to do that that sometimes I forget them ALL, if that makes any sense. So I need reminders.

It's why people read the Bible, or have a crucifix in their home, or make it a habit to pray at certain times of the day.  Because none of us are perfect, or even close to it. But we know that there IS right and wrong.  And those rights and wrongs are truth for everyone on the planet.

Still with me? Whew.

All of this thought has to do with a little thing I did for Father's Day.  I made a bracelet for my husband. I knew when I made it that it was rugged and organic looking, and reminded me in a subtle way of the Crown of Thorns and therefore, the heart of my faith.

it's the one on the right

What I didn't realize is that others would be reminded, too.

Do you see it?  It's a reminder, and now my husband wears it every day.  In fact, he wears it all day every day, whether he is showering or mowing or being an attorney.  So now, it looks like this, which to me, reminds me even more of the Crown of Thorns.

I like how how this looks

I just made a second bracelet a couple of days ago, for a woman who saw Bob wearing his and recognized something more than organic and rugged, and understood the symbolism.

Then, yesterday, I made a few more.  I made one less rugged that a lady might prefer to wear.  I don't tend to wear "rugged" well, either.

more and less delicate looks

And then I made a different one for myself.  It's more subtle in terms of the Crown of Thorns look, but I added a couple of symbols.  On the back, closer to my heart IS a heart, and a little ichthus.

more subtle, symbolically?

At least, I MEANT for it to be an ichthus.  In my excitement to include this symbol and finish the bracelet (I'm not a patient person when there is a gift--especially for me--involved), my ichthus looks more like a goldfish cracker.

symbols on back

heart on the right, ichthus(?) on the left

I'm sorry.  You can laugh and I won't be insulted. And I WILL get it better the next time I make one of these bracelets, I promise.

Anyway, since I made the bracelet (just yesterday), it has reminded me to think about my faith many, many times.  I mess with it on my wrist (and look at the goldfish cracker  :) ) and think about how I can be a better Christian.

I'm going to make a bunch of these bracelets.  And sell them.  Does that bother you?  I hope not, because I need to pay the bills and light the lights and drive the car and buy food and stuff.  If I didn't have to do those things, I'd be happy to make them for free.

Because I think, if you are Christian, or want to be, wearing something like this might help you.  It's not something that people will be offended by if they see you walking down the street.  It's not overt or pushy.  It's just a very very subtle outward sign of an inward sign.  And I like it.

And I personally think God thinks the goldfish cracker is funny, just like I do.

Happy Sunday!

The Story of My Life

As told by a House Wren

So you decide one day you want to move somewhere new.

So first, you have to find a house.

And you're excited to check out the new digs.

But you decide some nestorations are in order

So you just jump right on in.

Small at first

But as your confidence grows, you can tackle bigger jobs.

And bigger jobs.

Sometimes when you think you've got it.
SUCCESS? <<<<CLICK HERE

Oops.

BUT

Do you give up?

Nooooo!!!

Not until the very end.

The very biggest task of all.

And even though you get it done, there is always this...it never quite turns out as well as you thought.
Because after all, it was YOU doing it.

So you can either be sad about the lack of perfection.

To Dream the Impossible Dream <<<<CLICK HERE

Or just say "Whoo Hoo!"  and have a happy life.

I choose a happy life.

 Whoo Hoo. Amen.

And the wren says "Amen" too.

Amen.

You Should See the Ones That Get Away!

really terrible picture of a Common Yellowthroat

I LOVE taking pictures.
love it LOVE IT.
LOVE.
IT.

Really.

I know when it started.  On the the farm, as a kid,  Mom let me take pictures of her flowers with the Polaroid. Then, later, when Polaroids were almost a thing of the past (unlike now, when they are trendy again), Dad gave me his, and I took a couple of pictures of some woods and fall foliage near our house in town.  One semi-blurry picture of greens, reds and orange did it for me.  I kept that picture in a scrapbook and enjoyed looking at it for years. Even though I continued to really suck (sorry) at taking pictures for a really long time (half of the pictures I took from my only trip to Europe during college had my finger in them, or were blurry, or had no focal point or were mostly of someone else's back taking the same picture I wanted to be taking....you get the idea), I still WANTED so much to show others the beauties I perceived in my world.

When I got an iPhone, I took a lot of flower pictures, mostly.  I have never been great at people pictures, and because of a long story I won't go into here, for a long time, I told myself that pictures of family members weren't really all that important, especially, especially compared to spending time with those family members themselves.  Then, several years later, my wonderful husband did something that changed my world.

One Christmas, I opened a mysterious package. By mysterious I mean I am often pretty good at guessing what I might be getting for Christmas. Comes from a past of shaking, measuring, sneakily unwrapping corners (None of which I do anymore. Believe me. Really). But this present totally caught me by surprise. A shiny new Nikon Coolpix P510...probably the best point-and-shoot ever made, big attached zoom, lots of fun features...I could go on.

I started crying.  It was like a homecoming I never expected.  I just kept saying, as a way to explain my tears, "I never knew I wanted it."  But apparently, I did.

I have no idea how many pictures I have taken with this camera...a hundred thousand, maybe.  I've stored 3,312 (as of right this moment) of my favorites on Flickr, others on Facebook and Imgur (I'm not an Instagram or Snapchat type of girl). Its zoom lens makes a funny whirring sound, the result of being dropped a couple of times.  But it still serves me well.  It is my constant car buddy.  Every day that I come home with pictures to download feels little like opening that present one more time (See what you unleashed, Bob?).

But.

In spite of ALL those pictures, almost every day, there are the ones that get away.

Last week, TWO black bears on two separate roads had the nerve to run across the road in front of my car without pausing and posing for a picture to commemorate the experience for both of us.  I've had the same thing happen many times with coyotes and wolves, a fox, numerous raccoons, gray squirrels, grouse, turkeys (ESPECIALLY TURKEYS), pheasants, and those darned white crows down the road a piece. Certain birds tease me with glimpses as I drive, calling with their little siren songs (Mr. Common Yellowthroat, you KNOW who you are!), but never showing themselves long enough for me to get a shot....even when I'm driving with my window open, camera ready in one hand...talk about distracted driving!

Anyway.

I LOVE IT!

Every day and every day and every day is an all day treasure hunt for me.  Just today, there was a discussion on Facebook of the famous three white crows of the Bruce Crossing area, and I chimed in, sharing the pics (not super ones) that I have taken of them so far.  This led me to look for them as I headed toward Ewen to pick Jordan up after driver's ed this afternoon. AND I SAW ONE.  Right there between the Jousma and Gem Hill roads.  Taunting me alongside the road.  I pulled over safely, took aim, and he was (of course) GONE, deep into the trees on the south side of the road.

Story of my life.

But only most of the time.

The rest of the time, I've had time to do THIS <<<<click if you want to see some pics, since this post isn't going to contain any more added the usual way (I know that's a tease, but you know, that's the subject of this post, in a way).

Hope you don't mind.

Happy First Day of Summer!!!

(6/21/2016 Edit)  I have been feeling bad about not including my usual plethora of pictures to this post, even though it was supposed to be pictures I DIDN'T take.  Sooo....here's pics of a little one who DIDN'T get away today:

I don't know if it's a trick of the light, but his eyes are BLUE

I didn't get the shot where he turned his head a and looked at me with those big eyes before sauntering down the road to his mama

Ode to a Smell

I was going to call this post "Ode to an Odor,"  but I thought that sounded a little obvious.  What do you think?

Anyway, yesterday, I went to work on a Saturday.  >>>>GASP<<< I know.  I never do this.  But I did.  Several reasons.  It was Jordan's birthday on Friday, and he really wanted to go shooting.  I like to go shooting, too, but when Jordan and I go together with Bob, it becomes an argument with who wants to shoot which gun next, and I didn't feel it was worth it (they had a good time without me, and when I got home late in the afternoon, they had guns taken apart and were happily cleaning them together as a necessary male bonding ritual).  I love my menfolk!

Another reason I wanted to go to work is because lots of people in the area have bugged me about not being open on Saturday.  So I was.  But I guess they weren't bugging me because they wanted to actually stop in and see me, because, for the most part, I was alone.  That was okay, because of my next reason for really wanting to go to work.

Listen to me:  "really wanting to go to work."  Those words never used to appear in my vocabulary, at least not in that exact order. But being creative is so much fun!!!  I am having so much fun with copper these days.  I made Bob and Jordan each a bracelet for Father's Day and Birthday, respectively, and I think they turned out neat.

Jordan's and Bob's

I now have a big selection of pendants, brooches, rings, earrings,

some of the latest 

and my current personal favorite: Doodads!  I want to start to do something that could be, but doesn't have to be, jewelry.  My first attempt at that were to make Hummingbees.

I think they're much cuter in person

  They are a cross (nicest possible combination of the two) between, of course, a bee and a hummingbird.  What are they good for?  Smiles...that's it.  They can just sit on their perch, or perch on your hand, and make you a little happier than before you had a Hummingbee.  That's all.

Saturday, I was inspired to make Fishies.

well....I think they are cute

I had these assorted gemstone beads that didn't match up with anything or each other, but they make cute fish.  So, what are they good for?  I really don't know. I just know from personal experience that creative people are happy people, so by the time I had strung up 16 or so Fishies,

there's a song about little fishies, but I can't remember it

I was a bunch more happy.  Easily amused am I.  Never doubt it.

The third reason I wanted to go to work on Saturday was because the weather was BEEOOTEEFULL.  I rolled down my window and leaned my head out and took pics and SMELLED the smells.  I don't know if it is the buttercups,

or the daisies

or the lupines

or what that makes it smell so good around here.  It's a subtle smell, but it is lovely.  I would like it for my cologne.  Anyway, it would just have to smell good around here, with as many flowers as there are blooming like crazy everywhere.  Lately, the biggies are the ones I said, plus more, including lots of hawkweed (both nice native yellow and naughty invasive but beautiful orange stuff),

good morning, young sir

dewy, dewy, dew

not invasive

columbine

and birdsfoot trefoil,

which makes the most delicious honey I've ever tasted (thanks to our few-miles-away neighbor, Leslie McBean). There are other things blooming, too, depending on where you are, like blackberry

bushes teasing about a late summer haul of berries to come, and boggy plants like wild calla lilies and irises.

Of course, even with all this beauty, I never stop looking for BIRDS.  The bubbly bobolinks continue,

and savannah sparrows are feeding babies lots of yumminess (if you are a bird).

Bluebirds are rarer, but pop up here and there,

kingbirds survey their territory and guard it from any intruder (and they can back up that claim in a second, I've seen them fight off crows and eagles and hawks viciously).

not a kingbird...do you have a guess?

Anyway, with a drive like that to and from work, who wouldn't want to go?

I already have plans to go to work next Saturday!  It's the first annual Copperfest in Ontonagon, and just maybe there could be a few people who feel the need to leave town with some copper jewelry to commemorate their day.  Or a Hummingbee.  Who knows.  I know where they can find one.

picture by Audrey J.

Happy almost-officially-summer to you!

People, People, People

I am not a people person.  If someone says, would you rather attend a party, OR..., I will take "OR...." pretty much every time.  Which is funny, because there are lots of people in the world I like a lot.  A LOT. And several that I LOVE TO PIECES.

I think someone like me, and ESPECIALLY ME (or more grammatically speaking, I) was born to live in the UP.

Privacy is one of my favorite things (and yes, I know this is a BLOG I am writing). So the UP is perfect for me.  Because I can get lost whenever I want.  I can go to our camp and not worry about seeing anyone there except for my family (who are among those humans that I love to pieces).  I can go for a drive, or drive to work and maybe see 5 (on a busy day) other vehicles. I can do all the curves of the Military Hills area like a car commercial, hugging the curves, pretending to drive fast (although the speed limits on those curves are plenty fast for me) or straying across the yellow line into the passing lane, just a little, randomly (exciting stuff, right?) and it doesn't matter, because there are no other cars in the whole area with me.

nobody is coming

I know that in the UP, getting away from everyone is as simple as taking a few steps off the trail. It's as simple as staying in your house, because people will not stop by uninvited.  Neither would you think of showing up uninvited to someone's house.  They might have taken a few steps off the trail themselves that day, or are just staying home in their jammies and like the alone time.

Maybe that's why I like to blog.  Because then it's my choice, always, when someone stops by.  And by stopping by I mean, I can still be in my jammies on a Sunday afternoon, and it's going to be okay, since stopping by my blog means you are just reading about it, after all.

So from what or whom am I trying to escape?  Maybe it's hurt.  Maybe I am running away from the indifference of friends or relatives I have known in one of my two or three past lives who never saw my value as a person because I was not like them, or because my priorities about how I lived my life were different than theirs.

I wonder and worry sometimes that I am the intolerant one.  Because I was the one who moved away from those people, in either a big or a small way.  I was the person who knew I couldn't survive without becoming my own person.  I was the one who separated myself from the local gossip mill.  I was the one who decided that materialism wasn't a big priority in my life. I was the one who decided that it was absolutely time to leave my job of many years. I was the one who kept to myself, and to my small immediate family and extremely small circle of beloved friends instead of spending time with people who were neither of those to me. I was the one moved, ultimately, to Paynesville.

the rain stays mainly on the bluebird in Paynesville

So where does that leave me?  Actually, in an almost constantly surprised and delighted state of mind, because I have started to discover a whole new group of people I really like, and to whom I can relate.

Some are casual acquaintances, people with whom I do business in some way.  We talk about commonalities, and find that there are many. What a big gratifying surprise.  Like the guy who stopped at the shop to see Bob the other day, but since he was busy, told me the story of why he moved to the UP and how he "fell in love" with so many things here.  I'm finding more and more that I am definitely not alone in that regard.

Or some who are relatively new acquaintances but who I know are going to be lifelong friends. People with whom I can share stories of experiences that are close to my heart, and laugh and cry about them together, while cementing a bond based on mutual experiences, values, and respect.

So why am I just now, at this time in my life, having these kinds of experiences?  I've always been a late bloomer.  Maybe I just wasn't ready to relate to people on this level.  Maybe I needed to truly find myself and my own voice first.

Or maybe I was in the wrong place for these things to happen.  Maybe I needed to take a few steps off the trail....

Mrs. Bluebird, looking as thoughtful as I feel today

Don't be afraid to step off the trail.

be careful not to step on the trilliums