Tag: stories

Interview with Beth, Part 1

Rose breasted grosbeak in my backyard
Rose breasted grosbeak in my backyard

A few months ago, The Upper Room interviewed me for a prototype of a new magazine. The magazine didn’t launch, but I still have the interview. Here’s part one.

Upper Room: How do you pray?

Beth: I usually take some time for prayer each morning before I leave the house. It’s not a great lot of time — maybe ten minutes or less. Sometimes I read a daily reflections book like Openings by Larry Peacock. I have some set prayers that I say each day, helping me to get connected to God and asking God to guide me through the day. Currently I like to do this at the breakfast table — I like to look outside at the birds at the bird feeder. If the birds need food, I go out and fill up the feeder. Over the past year or so, seeing the birds makes me think of the scripture where Jesus talked about the birds and how they don’t store food, but trust in God to be fed every day (Luke 12:22-29). I’m sort of a worrier, and seeing the birds, feeding the birds, helps me have faith rather than fear.

During the day, I don’t have intentional times of prayer, but I’ll often find myself praying a breath prayer. I developed a breath prayer a couple of years ago when I was going through a stressful time. I used it so much back then that I find myself praying it unconsciously. The prayer is like this:  inhaling, I say, “Loving God.” Exhaling, I say, “I am yours.” Sometimes, if there’s a specific need I have, I’ll consciously change the words of the breath prayer to address the situation I’m in. Like if I’m afraid, I could replace the second half with “I trust in you.”

I want to add a prayer time to the end of my day, but I haven’t found the right fit for me yet. I’m interested in doing an “examen” at the end of each day, looking back on my day and evaluating what had happened. I believe that when I find the right way to do it, it will fall into place. There are so many different ways to pray that there’s bound to be a pattern, a prayer method, etc., that will fit me. I don’t think there is such a thing as a “one-size-fits-all” way to pray.

To be continued ….

Grandpa’s Peonies

Grandpa's Peony
Grandpa's Peony

Grandpa’s peonies started blooming yesterday. My Grandpa Wilson was a gardener. His entire back yard in Norman, OK was dedicated to a garden that he started harvesting in February (potatoes) and finished harvesting in late fall (turnips). He rotated crops, planting and harvesting three vegetables per season in the same rows. His compost pile, at times, was so tall that he had to walk up on top of it — about 5 feet in the air — to dump his compost bucket.

Grandpa was born in the early 1900s in Kennelworth South Africa. His parents nearly starved during the siege of Kimberly in the Second Boer War. The story is that they were starving, but Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma had planted a garden and knew there was food to be had. Great-Grandpa took a sack and snuck through the enemy lines one night to get to their garden. Though overgrown over with weeds, the plot was full of vegetables. Great-Grandpa filled up his sack and brought the food back through the siege lines.

Grandpa Tom didn’t have a lot of use for flowers (“You can’t eat them”), but there were a peonies planted in the back yard. After his funeral, I dug up a clump, put them in a grocery sack, and brought them back home to Tennessee. Early in the spring, they bloom, bringing alive memories of my Grandpa Tom. I’m blessed.