Back Porch Break

October Surprise?

October 24, 2022 by Nancy 21 Comments

News outlets have been speculating about the October surprise for weeks now. I suppose that traditionally politicians and parties save up their most damning information against their opponents for the weeks before an election in order to sway the vote in their favor. Releasing this too soon and people will forget. Release it too late and many will have already made up their minds or voted early. Thus, the October surprise.

So I waited. But unless it happens soon I don’t think we’ll have such an October surprise this year from any side. Candidates spending millions to create ads criticizing their opponents without regard to facts? No surprise. Billionaires pouring millions into races in states in which they have no vested interest other than pushing their personal agendas and causes? No surprise. Suppression of news by cable and social media providers? No surprise. Time-released attacks on influential individuals? No surprise.

Yet I was surprised in other ways this October. On my way home one day I decided to take a shortcut through the neighborhood just down the street from mine. I turned the corner to be overcome by sunlight illuminating the most beautiful row of red maples I’d ever seen. So spectacular was this October afternoon sight that I coerced my husband into going back with me a few days later so I could get a photo before the leaves fell. Still a wow.

Watering my small front gardens one morning, my watering pot and my gaze both pointing down, I saw a bit of pink out of the corner of my eye. Looking more closely I realized it was a rosebud. Then I saw more rosebuds. It was October, yet my rose bush was optimistically planning to bloom again—and within a week it did! What a lovely surprise.

My spirit was surprised this month too. My pastor recommended a book by author Brant Hansen titled Unoffendable. So strongly did he recommend it that he developed a whole sermon series based on it. Hmmph, I thought. What if I want to be offended? After all, there are so many things in the world right now that I find offensive! Don’t I deserve to be offended? To be hurt and angry even? Hmmph. Then I read the book. Chapter by chapter I felt a shift in my spirit. A shift from blame to forgiveness, from discouragement to hope, from anxiety to peace, from anger to love. I hope this October surprise outlives the month.

And so we trust. We pray. We vote. Will we be surprised in bad ways as well as good? No doubt. But through it all we lean on the One who is never surprised by anything. You remember singing about Him, don’t you? He has the whole world in His hands.

A Tale of Two Queens

September 21, 2022 by Nancy 14 Comments

The world paused to honor a queen whose passing leaves us all a bit bereft. After 70 years of ruling her monarchy with honor, grace, and dedication she has gone in her words to “lay my crown at the feet of Jesus Christ.” Queen Elizabeth II was a worthy queen indeed, the likes of which we are unlikely to see again. She was born into royalty, and she assumed the crown with dignity and wore it well.

But as history records her amazing reign, it long ago recorded the reign of a queen who was not born into royalty but had it thrust upon her in a most unusual way. Like Queen Elizabeth, she showed courage in the face of danger and refused to shirk her duty, realizing that with royal power came great responsibility for her people. Her name was Esther, or Hadassah in Hebrew.

Esther’s reign is recorded in the book of Esther in the Holy Bible. The author is unknown and this is the only book of the Bible that does not mention God, although as scholars note His providence and mercy are evident throughout. It details events leading up to the creation of the Jewish feast of Purim, a celebration observed to this day to remind the Jewish people of how a brave queen stepped up at risk of her own life to ask her husband, King Xerxes, not to annihilate the Jewish people.

But I’m getting ahead of the story. Unlike Elizabeth who was born with a royal silver spoon in her mouth, Esther was an orphan who was brought up by a kind uncle named Mordecai. When King Xerxes banished Queen Vashti for disobeying his request to appear before his guests, the word went out throughout the kingdom that all beautiful young virgins should present themselves to the king so he could choose a new queen. Esther is described as “lovely in form and features” so wanting the best for her, Mordecai presented her for consideration.

The “bachelorette” process was long and involved but in the end Esther got the rose. She was now Queen Esther, married to King Xerxes of Susa. Yet every good story has a villain, and this one has Haman. One of the royal officials, Haman noticed that Mordecai, a man of God, failed to bow to the king as ordered. He set about to destroy not only Mordecai but all the Jewish people throughout the kingdom.

Following Mordecai’s advice, Esther had not revealed her Jewish heritage to the king. When Mordecai asked her to now do so and to appeal to the king to save her people, she was understandably reticent at first. But Mordecai said, “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape… and who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13,14).

So what happens? I encourage you to put down whatever novel you’re reading and read the Book of Esther instead because this true account has all the elements of a fascinating novel. I will tell you that Esther plays a role in Haman getting what’s coming to him, armed with her faith, wisdom, and the feminine arts. (You’ll love the details!)

Two queens, one mission: to use the position granted them in service to their people. At the age of 21, a few years before her coronation, Elizabeth said, “I declare before you all that my whole life, whether it be long or short, shall be devoted to your service and the service of our great imperial family to which we all belong.” Before approaching the king to make her request that her people be spared, and knowing that to appear before him unsummoned could mean losing her life, Esther said, “I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish” (Esther 4:16).

We can learn so much about honor, strength of character and loyalty from these two queens. May they both rest in peace knowing they ruled their kingdoms and served their people well.

The Glory Walk

August 15, 2022 by Nancy 17 Comments

In her recent book Waymaker author Ann Voscamp calls the times she goes out to walk in nature her “glory walks,” meaning it’s when she can just bask in the natural beauty of God’s creation and absorb it into her soul. My early morning walks this summer have been just that, so I’m savoring these late summer mornings before the temperature drops and the wind howls.

I usually come home from a glory walk having developed a new perspective, sorted out a problem, or gleaned new insight into life’s mysteries. One day recently I spied two tiny baby rabbits nibbling grass beside the sidewalk. When my big, scary black shadow covered them, their mother scurried out of the brush and herded them back to safety. I wouldn’t have hurt them for the world, but she didn’t know that. That morning as I walked I prayed for all the young moms in our family and church trying to protect their offspring from the evils of our current culture. Not a prayer that would have come to mind without my walk, but a needed one.

This morning’s walk was different—a new route and an additional kind of glory. After a too-early appointment for a bone density scan, I decided to walk around the big lake in a city park in our town. The city’s done a wonderful job of maintaining the park, but still it is in a sketchier part of town than I usually navigate alone so I pulled up to the lake, locked the car, and set out with a bit of trepidation.

I didn’t walk far before my fears were forgotten. The lake was glistening in the sun, the geese were plentiful, and the mountain peaks were glorious. I passed other walkers with dogs and exchanged pleasantries. As I passed by a bench where a young man was sitting near an elderly woman in a wheelchair I heard him remark, “See grandma, all these people are walking to stay fit.” I paused and turned toward them. “That reminds me of a sign I just saw in my doctor’s office,” I said. “It read, ‘I AM in shape. ROUND is a shape!’” That gave them both a good laugh and I was glad I could brighten their morning.

As I made my way toward the far side of the lake I passed a few homeless people, including a young man trying to teach himself to jump rope with a long piece of black cable. I called out a “good for you!” as I passed.

Suddenly this was beginning to feel more like a pilgrimage than a glory walk, so I wasn’t surprised when on the far side of the lake I encountered a group of young Black men and women playing by the shore with an older dog and a passel of puppies. One young man with dreadlocks to his waist was holding two of the cutest puppies I’ve seen in a long time. I might have nodded and walked on, but then I’m reading Senator Tim Scott’s new book America, A Redemption Story. In it he says if we are ever going to heal the racial or political divides in this country, we can’t depend on the government to do it. We each have to do some small thing to make a difference each and every day.

That message speaks to my heart, so rather than nod and pass by, believing they would have no interest in talking to an old white woman, I approached the group and began fawning over and petting the puppies. After a few minutes I excused myself and said, “I can’t stay or I’ll be begging to take one of those puppies home, and neither my cat nor my husband would be happy about that!” We all laughed and waved as I walked away.

Who’s next, Lord? I didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Ahead of me I saw a large Black man standing under a canopy of oak trees to the right of the sidewalk. As I approached I heard him call out, “Come and get it, I ain’t comin’ to you!” Assuming he was calling a dog, I stopped to see if I could spot the pooch. Soon I realized he was holding an open bag of peanuts, and he was addressing six or eight squirrels who were leaping about on the grass in front of him. Another day I might not have approached him, but emboldened by Scott’s book and my experience with the puppy posse, I struck up a conversation by saying something obvious like, “Oh, you’re feeding the squirrels!”

“Yes’m,” he replied. “They know I’m comin’ every day and they wait here for me.” We chatted a bit and as I started to walk away he called out, “Mam, will you pray for me? My name’s Charles and I’m goin’ through some trials. Will you pray for me?”

“I will, Charles. I promise!” I called back to him. I don’t know why he pegged me as a woman who prayed, but for the rest of the walk to my car I asked the Lord to bless Charles, a modern-day St. Francis of Assisi. “Lord, I don’t know what trials Charles is facing, but you do. Be with him today, Lord. Protect him and give him your peace.”

As with most glory walks, at the end of this one I felt blessed and changed. Faith is greater than fear. To God be the glory!

Coupon Clipping

June 22, 2022 by Nancy 10 Comments

My name is Nancy and I’m a coupon clipper. Yes, I admit it. For most of my adult life I’ve been addicted to picking up a pair of scissors and clipping coupons I think I might be able to use from any and all sources. BOGOs are a definite trigger for me (buy one get one free!), so those never go unclipped.

Do I use these coupons? Well, sometimes! I organize them by category and keep them in a small purse in my car. On a good day I remember to sort through the food coupons before going into the grocery store and take the ones correlating to something on my list. Of course I’m also guilty of buying something I didn’t really need just because I have a coupon for it, so that may negate some of the savings I’ve accumulated over the years.

When I worked at Current, Inc., in the eighties and nineties, we even sold a product for organizing coupons. A coupon clipper’s delight, it was a pouch that fit over the edge of the shopping cart and had preprinted dividers to keep each category easy to find.

Even this handy tool couldn’t prevent the two downfalls of the coupon clipper however: letting the coupons expire before using them or forgetting to turn valid ones in to the cashier when you check out! I confess to being guilty of both and yes, I’ve been so frustrated with myself for not using a coupon I intended to use that I’ve gone back to the store with the receipt and coupon in hand and asked for a refund. It’s not the money, it’s the principle!

With food prices skyrocketing, coupons may become more of a necessity. But to all coupon clippers everywhere, may I say the times they are a changin’! When I took a friend recovering from surgery to do her grocery shopping, she was vigilant about finding the items for which she had a coupon, but I never saw her hand over the coveted clip-outs to the cashier.

“Did you forget to use your coupons?” I asked, hoping to spare her the coupon clipper’s contrition. “Oh, they’re all on my phone so they went through automatically,” she said.

What? Yes, I’d seen the grocery store ads for mobile apps that allowed you to access coupons, but I never imagined that practice would be so easy, or that it could replace having clipped-out coupons completely. I stood amazed.

So now that’s my goal. Sorry, scissors. I may not be needing you as much. Someday soon I, too, may waltz through the grocery store coupon-less, phone in hand. I know the people behind me in line will be glad I’m speeding up the check-out process. They’ll no longer have to overhear the cashier telling me, “Sorry, you had to buy three to get one free,” or “this one’s expired” as she hands the coupons back to me. My, oh my. What will they think of next?

The Smoky Hills

May 24, 2022 by Nancy 10 Comments

This week I’ll be spending a few days in the Smokies, so I revisited this column I wrote for the Gazette in Colorado Springs 26 years ago. Hope you enjoy your visit too!

Growing up in East Tennessee, my definition of mountains began and ended with the Appalachians, specifically Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

Whenever I travel back in that direction I always watch for the rounded green summits veiled in blue haze from the window of the airplane. When I see the mountains, I know I’ll soon be home.

As a Girl Scout on a day hike or a young woman on a backpacking adventure, those peaks always seemed plenty high to me, so I was a bit shocked when my Colorado husband said, “you mean the smoky hills” when I spoke to him of my native mountains.

It’s true the Smokies will never “measure up” to the Rockies. Although the national park encompasses the highest portion of the Appalachian range, Clingmans Dome is the highest of the 16 peaks over 6,000 feet, and it only measures 6,642. There are no fourteeners in the Smokies.

The Cherokee Indians named the mountain range that was their home Great Smoky because of the haze that continuously nestles in the valleys and glistens in the morning sunrise. The mist comes from the dense vegetation, and the park still boasts 150 species of trees and over 2,000 species of plant life, including the white-blossomed rhododendron, pink azalea, and myriad of ferns and wildflowers that I remember lining the moist mountain paths.

It’s impossible for me to think back to hiking the trails of the Smokies without remembering the cool smell of green, or my delight at discovering a “jack in the pulpit” nestled amongst the wildflowers.

Most summer, Sunday afternoons when I was little my family drove to the mountains to cool off. We stopped for a big lunch at the Apple Tree Inn in Pigeon Forge, a sleepy little town before Dolly Parton built Dollywood and all the other tourist attractions sprang up. Then we’d roll down the windows in the station wagon and take the windy road through Gatlinburg and all the way to the top of Clingmans Dome. My dad would drop a quarter in the long-range binoculars and my sisters and I would take turns standing on “tippytoe” to see all the way to Virginia.

A few descendants of old mountain families still live in pockets within the park, having managed to get lifetime leases from the park service when the land was claimed by the government in 1934. But most of the residents then and now are the white-tailed deer, raccoons, foxes, and black bears that call the Smokies home.

Before tourists were discouraged from interacting with wildlife, we used to get out of the car whenever we saw a bear and run to toss it stale Ritz crackers or take its photo. At school each Monday there would be a competition as to who had seen the most bears the day before. Twenty-one is a record I remember claiming.

Only in the Smokies can you rock on the front porch of a rustic cabin and listen to the Roaring Fork river dance around the boulders as you “soak in” the mountains. While I may marvel at the Rockies, I can’t say that I ever remember “soaking them in” as I always have the Smokies.

Gentle, green, smoky hills, you aren’t tall, but you are beautiful to behold.

All photos courtesy of Steve Hixon, www.stevehixonphotography.com.

The Flower Fields

May 9, 2022 by Nancy 9 Comments

One can grow very weary waiting for spring to bloom in Colorado, so imagine my delight when we visited The Flower Fields in Carlsbad, California, during peak season. We went to California the end of April to meet up with friends and celebrate my husband Jim’s 75^th birthday, but strolling through fields of flowers while there was certainly a highlight.

The 50 acres at Carlsbad Ranch are dedicated to growing 13 colors of Ranunculus flowers (in the buttercup family) both to sell and for the production of bulbs. According to the website, “The fields today are a direct result of nearly 85 years of floral cultivation that began with Luther Gage, an early settler and horticulturist that settled in the area in the early 1920’s. Mr. Gage brought Ranunculus seeds to the area and began growing them in his fields next to Frank Frazee’s small vegetable farm in South Oceanside. In 1933 Frank Frazee also started growing Ranunculus and introduced his son Edwin to the art of seeding, cultivating and irrigating the pretty but not yet popular flower.”

What today’s visitors see from March through mid-May is a legacy of beauty for sure. In addition to the Ranunculus fields, specialty and artistic gardens with a variety of flowers grace the property. A desirable event venue for weddings and other events, the property also includes a pavilion, a demonstration garden, a sweet pea maze, and fun activities for kids on school field trips. We got to listen in as a performer delighted a group of kindergartners with his catchy song, “Dirt Made My Lunch.” Such a fun way to learn about agriculture!

Of course there’s also an extensive garden center on the property and an irresistible gift shop. I guess hope truly does spring eternal, because I bought a package of Ranunculus bulbs to try in my backyard garden. The master gardener there assured me they would do just fine in Colorado. Mmmhmm.

Whether my bulbs bloom, I’m sure to be California dreamin’ about The Flower Fields for some time. So glad I can say, “Been there. Got the T-shirt!”