Tag: Cake

‘Do not let your Blog post be your Journal…?’

We had an anniversary, a triple cake treat by the kids, renewed vows solemnized again by our 3 who said they missed being there….

There was food like I’ve never cooked, (courtesy Kitsys Culinaries!) rings bought with their little earnings, gifts of card and music, prayers, photographs were taken;

I’m here thinking again on Blog advice (title) given by some Bloggers, and how the times have re-arranged us. Uncertainty hinges everything, one feels the need to celebrate heart on your sleeve, unabashed. Celebrate in the simplest ways, the complex matrix of Love and Life as is; thank the ones who deserve gratitude, bless those who may not, pray for all; ignore ignorance, hate hatred, use fear well, stay safe, honour all. Esp God.

*That feeling… all over again, yesterday*.
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Our wedding was an unforgettable event with white bougainvillea falling off trees, poinsettia in the hedges all the way to the chapel with a bell and a young priest who stammered for nervousness; it was surreal. We were 6000 ft above sea level, Mercara before tourism took its routes. That morning, families of clouds breezed through as the bridal march played. We’d never seen anything like that. The elements had come in to play among the pews.

I cannot help but think Life is a Marriage of Soul and Existence. We’re here like Clouds going through Chapters that turn with Winds of Change. We are way more than victims of ease or disease. We are citizens of kingdoms within and without. The questions we ask are between these kingdoms. The things we feel and write about or do not share are between these kingdoms.

What can I say; there’s rain and hail out side as I wrap this. Lockdown eases, fruit vendor wails for attention at 7 am. You dont want to yell him down, you’re thinking he has no money for rent, or his kids need lunch. It hurts, and it’s going wild in an insane way. It hurts to have cake, it hurts to not be at peace:

we are headed for answers to questions we asked long ago; only who knew these answers would question us. Answers about the meaning of life, and about things more valuable than ‘luxuries’.

Newspaper accounts are chilling. We are getting more introspective than ever. How long will C19 take, 10 years? By which time the Fashion industry, Entertainment and Industry would’ve morphed into Poetry of a greater kind, I’m telling you.

Also Bloggers. We will write about newer things? We mayn’t just skim surfaces of teacups & heart: we may be less shy, less afraid of Fear,Love,Joy,Peace. Words may turn out to be journals. Essential words, documenting Life as is. So yes, no! We may want to Blog-Journal, for the Times that will follow. For Posterity to know what 2020 felt like. For our own selves.

Old words will give birth to new ones: distance for instance. Who knows what will be when it comes to be?

But people of words, will find skills in their head and finger bones like they never thought possible. That and emotion. E’en Faith. And Fear, or the opposite of it. And Love. And the Face of the Invisible.

‘Eat Cake…’

Infamous Marie Antoinette quote that fired social rage, ‘Eat cake’ when people had no bread left: yesterday it brought home the fact of how rich these times of physical poverty can be;

I watched our little girl who’s outgrown/ still outgrowing little and large social – growing up- bruises in a time that’s maybe the best/ not the best for anyone this much@ home: she bakes a yum cake besides entire dinner/ lunch to warm our hearts, but it’s a day that hungers for all kinds of Breads.

It is the 40 days after the resurrection of Christ, I’m curious about everything He did during that time. Wasn’t there also an early morning He fixed a seafood breakfast at the beach, at dawn?

Also curious about ’40 days’. His fast was 40 too. What is the significance of those 4 tens? Here a Newborn must wait 40 days before a Christening. People fast 40 days at Lent. Curious. There’s time enough to look close at many things we chatted on about/ took maybe easily. Now it’s all looking in at our windows.

*We played LUDO! 🥰 another one from K’s Instagram*.
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My Gran Tara was Ace-Ludo player, oh was she queen at it, she’d kill, stalk us with the craft of a Chess champion. I wonder now, how the older Gen. would’ve handled Lockdown woes if they were here? They’d have taken music out, skimped on food mercilessly, there’d have been more fastings and prayer than we dare, or care to have, scripture readings….

Gran Tara was an avid Radio listener to everything from Vicks’ Vapourub commercials, to Beatle’s music and Billy Graham. Is how I got to hear him, and Beatles in the first place. Oh gran wasn’t into lyrics but she loved to dance, her sari pallu tied in knot at waist as she sometimes cooked a surprise meal for us, after insisting we all go out for a walk at the beach.

I try hard to be like the ones gone ahead. My Ma never never yelled if someone left a coffee cup somewhere. I break into hives, not that I’m a clean bee at all. Been praying earnestly for a ‘Clean spirit’ to de-possess my laid back self. Been praying for the easy wit of my dad, and Jeff’s dad, they were gentle-warriors too. Jeff has that patient love that will not take offense at all. I go up the wall. But no, not him. Yesterday all our streets were cordoned off and I know it’s all for good. I’m no extrovert, hate having to dress up to go somewhere, unless occasionally. Now I’m reeling at being physically fenced in like that.

Then. I read a blog post this morning from a young girl who lost her Mom this week, having given away their nice house to a poor family, to run from a political situation. My head blanks. How d’you cope with that?

Today is my quiet day, the family gives me abs space to go away into quiet with a list of things to ask Daddad in heaven. So my thoughts travel around all of us in an earth, in a time like Now:

will all miraculously change in 40 days? Should I take 40 to breathe soft in the air, pray, think, live, love deep: look at the dear ones around me, look for signs of things they need, watch them smile, eat their love offerings of little cake and hugs, take nothing for granted, not one little new green leaf in our tiny garden balconies and spaces around…

Jeff and me thought we took a good selfie at a friend’s new 11th floor apartment overlooking gorgeous acres of coconut grove & sky 3, 4? months ago. We never got those acres in any Selfie though, just our own shades. Haha.
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I’m thinking some more thoughts. They walk all over my floor, and ears and mind. Wondering how little we know of an earth we share, and how massive our blockades are, in terms of culture and development, or language and pace. It’s all crashing. Our needs are getting more basic today, our prayers the same, almost….? I’m trading a particular memory of an old chapel on a hill we used to go to, it’s well worn pew…. trading that for a new Christ Jesus I’m seeing recently : nothing about Him changed. He still walks through Locked doors and wall….

What if only now we’re eating at the same table, communing with the real thing… what if This is all going to break into a new Era, the likes of which we have never even begun to comprehend ….

What if the Love and Life of God hasn’t even begun in Us, what if we’re all about to be startled like never before, in our prayer closets, in our Upper Rooms, and Hiding places in gardens of a self-centredness, nothing like the original One; we have just been weeping for our own daily bread and physical safety, been judgemental legalistic and narrow/ suspicious of each other, with zero preparation for Eternity.

I get that about this apparently new Christ Jesus treading the Waters of Social mindsets, treading our well fenced privacies; a Christ @ that Gethsemane praying futuristically for us in 2020 that we’d get off our rocky status in rocky boat & take those steps to Him no matter the waves of uncertainty; a Christ in blood tears hoping we’d trade old anchor for a walk with Him yeah via this valley of the Shadow …

eat Manna, feast at Tables of Grace, rest in His Touch:

Grace: let its Oils bore deep in our minefields of habit…

I must stop for now, but this is real: this Covid Age – Christ walking on the Waters to you & me.

You are your own brand!

This Post is for anyone celebrating their birthday today, (and everyone else) I have this urge to celebrate you, and offer a tiny prayer too from my son who’s incredible gift is prayer. If you’ve been following posts you’ll know he’s not just blind but recovering from a series of disturbing issues, but this isn’t about him;

whichever part of the world you’re in: what a ride this is, and yet we are still the same people we were born as…

Was my birthday couple of days ago: “..no fuss,” I warned them, but there they were @ midnight, cake and candles, hushed whispers: in the morning among mysteriously bought gifts, was a Heart full of blue crystal stars from Kitsy, and Perfume from our eldest, my first name ‘Diella‘ hand- crafted in with scores of words like “Light”. (I got that name in a dream, after a long crazy illness. While I healed, there was a dream: it had my name written on a white stone. Diella means Worshipper);

mid- birthday joy, now there was announcement of national 21 day curfew; our entire street & surrounding areas went quiet, no bustle of traffic or twitter from Myna in trees running between our home and army acres across.

Within our walls, my family had strung out little lights, there was music and the smells of great cooking,

(I have officially surrendered cooking baton to second daughter Kitsy, who is master chef! (On left is how she used to be), now 👇….sigh, they grow so fast.

*Kitsy in our last visit out in a park…. why’d that seem so long ago?*
…

D’you sometimes feel guilty to feel happy? You know it’s a mess out here with virus and anxiety attacks, but now and then there’s a celebration,

so here’s the thing: we were going thru’ all our pics, and my Jeff he rounded off everyone’s words with, “Ray, you are … you are… unique….” ….words that make me stare at everyone else now…..

that, there is no one like you either!

No matter the news, nothing changes who you are, your essence is unique, novel! Yes they say ‘novel‘ for all kinds of things, but here we are, citizens and strangers and basic people born to mothers and families and lives that can change in the twinkling of an eye. We been warned of all that, but when it arrives it’s a thief in the night, it’s a touch between life and death…

We got two bone chilling letters from people we love, one from our precious nephew in a hospital in Germany, he’s a doctor; and the other from a very dear friend in the U.S. They wrote loving notes, asking family to pay attention to how deadly this Covid thing is, the pace at which it mutates, its silent stealth. These precious ones lives are at risk because of their professions: I can’t tell you enough what it felt like, to be gazing at/ celebrating life in all its hues: to hug across the miles, and cry tears of love and pain;

to know that we 7 billion are strong and yet we are this vulnerable. We are beloved and fragile, our life is like grass, and yet we are one-of-a- kind- each, Designer made, no matter that our breath can be whisked away; we are phenomenal, a Force to reckon with. The day we were born, people paused or clapped, kissed? …. wept.

We can die, and even that occasion is phenomenal. It causes chaos / maddening grief, because humans as a race cannot be ignored. If one of us is attacked in any unusual ordeal it is News. The entire planet of us under siege is another thing altogether, nothing competes with the vastness of that: the fact that we are under this kind of common indefinable, insurmountable distress is totally New.

If we survive this, and many will, there will be the aftermath of it and it may be unlike anything recorded in the history of mankind: I don’t want to go much there: this one is about birthdays and how it feels to celebrate humans, mid- international crisis; it feels strange and provocative -beautiful and Quiet.

This morning I woke up feeling different, younger and older, like I had more in my 206 bones. It’s an awareness… of what? The immortality of life, or its brevity? I’m staring at books we used to read, it’s like from another life: movies, talks. Some Quotes feel more right than before. Oh, bouquets and birds, they don’t change, they are like paintings and classical music; they have Eternity in them. But our conversation…. it is halved in a new way.

Birthday hugs: they are tighter.

Gazes and strummed guitar, candle lights and the clink of glasses… they say new things. I can’t say what, just new. And old. And somethings we never knew before. We thought we knew it all. Our parents and grandparents taught us how to say Grace and say please, thankyou and sorry. As we grew we thought we understood things a little more than yesterday. It felt sweet, sometimes sour.

Now, I don’t know… and that is a New Thing. It reminds me of how little we all truly know about each other as humans. You are a person with feelings and heart and we must care deeply for each others’ well being, must pray for one another’s lives/ souls…

this is more than birthdays: you can see this Post hovers around that word and how I want to wish you a beautiful life without sounding patronizing, even if it’s not birthday zone. Even if life’s not short and we’ll survive this and other wars.

Our daughter Vi does these Videos and I’d love for you to listen to this one. She’s a lot like me and feels deeply about things;

then our son walks in on her recording (he cannot bear closed doors), but the moment turns around, he prays and brings you right into our room facing palm trees on it’s right, with my large painting in the back drop. It is called DaySpring, and I wish you that Inner Spring of Light and Life.

Vi does her own take on Michael W. Smith’s Agnus Dei; we looked up those words and it means “Emblem: a Lamb bearing the Cross of Christ.”

All sounds so serious. D’you get the feeling life is way more than mortal detail? That there’s more besides thinking on Cures and everyday bread/ rice/ health… that oneday we might all be someplace else besides this planet?

And that we matter incredibly more than we suspect…