Looking forward to Israel's rebirth.

Kongslie Words of Encouragement

 After while you learn the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul, and you learn that love doesn't mean leaning and company, that it doesn't mean security.

And you learn that kisses aren't contracts and presents aren't promises.

And you learn to accept your defeats with your head up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build your roads today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans.

After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if you get too much, so plant your own garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure....that you really are strong...and you really do have worth

A letter my grandfather sent to my great aunt.

 

                                            Meadow, N D

                                             March 7, 1901

Johanna Kongslie

We must not hope to be mowers

And to gather the ripe golden ears

Unless we have first been the sowers

And watered the flowers with tears. 

It is not just as we take it

This wonderful world of ours

Life's field will yield as we make it

A harvest of thorns or of flowers.

                                     Yours truly

                                      Thorvald Kongslie

Heidi's babies are sick, her babies, Gabby and Anna are sick,  but there's a lot of love to spread around.  I need to make a correction there.  We don't spread around the love, loving itself is a multiplier.  

Anyway, seeing those napping babies brought back a fond memory.

Mom was in the hospital waiting for Diane to be born.  

Dad was home taking care of 5 sick kids.  Juanita, 9,  had rheumatic fever, the rest of us, 4-7 were sprawled out in the living romm with some common childhood disease.

At some point my father passes through the living room carrying the dishpan which is what my mother used to mix the bread dough.  He had flour in his hair and flour in his mustache.  He was completely dusted in flour. He had a desperate look on his face,  Yes.  The man who built mountains was in despair. 

He carried the mess to Juanita in the bedroom.  "Vat is dis?  Vat do I do now?"  

Once upon a time

 My earliest memory:

I am crying.  All alone.  No one to touch me.  No one to hear me.  Nothing to see or behold.  And then my brother Tillman picks me out of my crib and takes me into his bed.  There are many reasons why I have fond members of my brother, but it started there.  

That crying episode makes me reflect one of my early memories of my father. 

I am riding on top of the stack of hay on the hayrack my father is pulling on his tractor.  The aroma of fresh hay fills my lungs.  There are birds serenading me.  

Another day, we are in our yard surrounded by lumber and saws and such.  I am helping my father build something.  "What are we making?" I ask.  

"A new shit house," he says.  

We continue working, and soon the teacher at our little country school stops by. My father becomes a little subdued.  He was after all on the school board, the man who hired him  "What are you building?" Mr. Fursteneau asks.

"A shit house," I say.

My father glared at me, obviously disappointed.  My first lesson in the appropriate use of language.  

One day he is teaching me to drive out in the field.  I run directly into a haystack. 

 At another time my father and I go to town, I know not for what.  When we park, he gives me a full pack of gum. A full 5 sticks.  I have never had even a full stick of gum before. I patently wait in the car chewing, first one stick and then add another, and perhaps another.  When he finishes his business, we head for home.  I am still in gum hog heaven until he says, not looking my way at all, "I hope you saved some of that gum for your brothers and sisters."  

I am stunned.  I spend the rest of the way home trying to flatten out pieces of it into the little aluminum backed folders that I had saved.  Of course I saved them.  It was during the war.  We saved the gum wrappers and peeled the back off of them and added them to the wad of aluminum we were saving to support the war effort.  

My memory blanks out at that point.  I don't remember who got the fresh sticks and who got the already been chewed mess.  I know I did not get punished for it.  I had already been punished.  All my father had to do was express his disappointment in me, and I was stunned.  

Reflecting on it now and knowing better the kind of man my father was, I am pretty sure it was all a ruse.  He was inwardly smiling, knowing exactly what I was doing and enjoying the drama I was enacting.  

Now you are stunned, why would my crying episode remind me of the joys of spending time with my father?

I shared 

 Mutual frieds and acquaintances often comment on my son's activities, his competitions, his adventures, his trips.  Apparently they see his posts.  I don't know where to find them.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I asked my son for 1 thing: that he and/or Reia regularly post their activities to my Facebook page where I will see them.  

It occurs to me then that I, too, should do some regulary posting.  I know how much I treasured my mother's diaries, so I should be taking advantage of these moderen types of diaries.  

These days I am embroiled in politics, so I probably don't fill the hearts of my fellow man with much joy, but that's where my heart is, so...

Prayers for my son

Prayers for my son
         Roark and Reia surprised me this weekend, helping celebrate my 80th birthday. It was a wonderful time. We spent hours and hours in the pool. Reia does so love the water. She is an absolute of joy.
       Roark is a remarkable young man. Everything he does he does with his whole heart, mind, and soul, with full commitment and attention. I remember my sister Solveig commenting on that focus when he was a toddler, “I’ve never seen a little one who could focus so much energy playing with a few stones.”
       We entered him into a Suzuki violin program when he was three and so enjoyed watching him develop a great ear for music. In elementary school he switched to trumpet. He practiced three hours at a session. In high school he made all state band all four years. That’s the kind of kid he was. I have been so blessed.
       When Roark was five, we took him to Lompoc, California to watch my brother launch the last in a long line of his Delta Rockets. It was a glorious launch. The rocket tail streaming through the night sky was a sight to behold. The next day my brother took us back to the launching pad and Roark got to climb into the towers and tour the block house where the engineers sat controlling the launch. He made up his mind that day that he too would be an engineer.
       When Roark registered for his freshman year of high School, he realized that if he would register for both jazz and concert band every year, he would not be able to get all the math he would need to prepare him for his engineering program in college, so he decided to get a head start by taking college algebra during the summer after 8th grade graduation.
The problem was that the summer school program started on Monday, and he didn’t graduate until Wednesday. Consequently, by the first day of class he had already missed three sessions of summer school which is equivalent to a couple of weeks of work in a college algebra class. He spent the entire weekend at the coffee table in the living room catching up on his homework, all day Friday, all day Saturday, finishing about 2 o’clock Sunday afternoon. That’s the kind of kid he was. I’ve been so blessed.
       After college, he got married to a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, the marriage did not last, but they were blessed with a beautiful child, Reia. Roark loves being a father.
       As an adult he refuses to compromise in two areas especially. He is completely devoted to being a good father and to live a healthy life, and he is and he does. The one thing that worries me is that he questions himself so much, as though his dedication, his intense focus, compromises his ability to fully engage in joyous relationships.
       I believe that the relationship he is missing is his relationship with the almighty.
     I was raised in the church and been searching for that relationship myself over the years. I used to think that the Bible was largely metaphorical, a guide to the good life. I bought into the whole evolution thing, but the more I search and study, the more I recognize that the Bible is a remarkable web of truth. Truths of science discovered in recent years and recent unearthing of historical truths, especially those brought to light by Nehemiah Gordon’s recalculation of the original Hebrew calendar, have revealed that those some 66 books of the Bible written by a couple dozen authors over a period of thousands of years are stunningly interwoven with historical truth. My solemn prayer is that my son will find that kind of joy.

I expressed that concern to my friend, Michael Dovi and his response is a song in my heart.

"My mother blessed me every single time I left her presence. I could hear her whispered prayer as I walked away. What a proud piece of dung I was, always brushing her whisper off with my haughty, “God helps those who help themselves."
“Each and every one of those mother son whispered prayers would later spring forward and bloom in my life as the Holy Spirit convicted me after she was long gone.
"Thanks Mom!
Keep pressing out prayers for your son.”