a time to laugh

as interviews go

msdaizyjane — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 13:48:31 +0000

In an interview I had a few months ago, one of the people there asked me to describe myself in one word. Since I usually put my foot in my mouth when I am put on the spot I just sat there for a minute. There were roughly ten people staring at me and I really wanted to say the right thing. Not for them – but for me. I wanted to say the right thing for me. In one word. That is difficult.

With the silence stretching on and me knowing that I could only sit there pretending to think for so long, I said the first thing that popped into my mind. ”Happy”, I said. ”I’m happy.” It was a cop out – kind of. See, I am a happy person. I’d rather be happy than sad. I prefer to smile – to see the side of things that doesn’t seem so dire and hopeless. Laughter, to me, is like air. One must laugh and breathe every day. If you don’t breathe, your body expires. The way I see it, if you don’t laugh every day, your soul starts to expire.

All that being said, I feel that one word doesn’t really capture who it is that I am and because I’m human, I really wanted that word. I was beyond the interview at this point. This was a journey that I knew I had to go on. What one word is me? (pardon the bad grammar – it seems to work for me at this moment) I figured it would take years – that I would have to go on this quest for the perfect word and that I might never find it.

I told my husband on my way home. He says, “Baby, you should have said melody. That’s your word.”

So, friends, I ask you. What one word describes you?

new year commemoration

msdaizyjane — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 14:45:20 +0000

The purposes of fire are many. Fires restore, rekindle, refine, cure, destroy. Fires are used as a source of heat, recreation, and as I see it, kind of do the same as dinner tables. They bring people together, and not only do they bring people together, they give a common experience. Fires provide a distraction for the eyes while people take turn speaking, listening, and being silent. They have a rhythm, a music of there own and every one is different. Some are slow and lazy – others burn with such intensity that one cannot go too close without fear of being hurt.

A fire must be tended. If left to itself, it will burn out or spread too far. To reach it’s ultimate potential, it must be fed and cared for by those who seek it’s company.

A fire is meant to burn – what are you meant for?

wink

msdaizyjane — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 14:08:37 +0000

I usually go out to take pictures in the garden when the sun is a little higher in the sky than this so that the light is better. I kind of like this picture anyway.

It lends itself toward promise. The hope of a new day is a powerful thing and I see that in this image. I also see the ‘perfect-imperfectness’ in it and with the sun reaching through the leaves, I am inclined to think that I am seeing a cosmic wink.

and I am ok with that because it makes me smile

love, M

another new thing

msdaizyjane — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:28:59 +0000

I like to grow new things every year. Sometimes that means that some of the “new things” from the year before get put in the “to grow” box, but not for the current year.

When I go to Franklin, there is this driveway entrance that is covered in gladiolas every summer. Pink, orange, yellow, purple… all mixed together in this rainbow of, well, happiness.

I smile every time I drive by – I figure whoever lives there has to be a pretty happy person. At least whenever they pull into and out of their driveway. I know I would be…

So I decided to plant a little happiness in my garden this year. For those of you who have never experienced the excitement of planting something in the dirt and watching it grow and then flower – I highly recommend it. You see life with a new perspective – one in which you are not the most important living thing in the universe.

The flowers did indeed make me happy whenever I went down to the garden or looked out the kitchen window and now they are currently residing in my carport waiting on a trip up to the new yard in Nashville. I thought about leaving them for someone else to enjoy, but decided to bring them in the end.

So next year, next to my “new thing”, there will be these pretty pink and yellow gladiolas dancing and laughing in the breeze and when I look at them I will smile and as I smile I will remember that I am not the most important living thing in the universe and that, my friends, will make me laugh.

I hope this finds you peaceful…

much love,

what I’ve wanted to do for years…

msdaizyjane — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 21:03:10 +0000

When we first started raising chickens, I had this idea that the coop would be in the middle of the garden and we would plant veggies around it that the chickens could munch on during the summer. After six years, I finally did it this summer. Then I found out we were moving (more on that later)… I hope to recreate a somewhat more elegant rendition of the above picture for our new chicken home…

much love,

Malinda

spring letting go

msdaizyjane — Thu, 12 May 2011 02:58:59 +0000

One day several years ago I planted some chamomile seeds.

Since then – about every February(ish) – I see random plants popping out of the earth.

and I am glad. I smile every time I see them because I am sure that this is the year

that they will not reseed.

So this year

- just as they came up -

I dug a clump

(to use my very sophisticated garden terminology)

and moved it to the edge of my garden.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been walking by the chamomile

and as my leg brushes the flowers as I pass by,

(or as I deliberately drag my hand along the tops of the carpet of flowers),

the subtle scent of yellow sunshine drifts lazily into the air

- past my smiling face -

and joins the smell of spring letting go

and summer setting in

have you noticed?

msdaizyjane — Mon, 09 May 2011 13:23:57 +0000

I have been smelling the honeysuckle in the air for the past few days.

The scent is so delicate – sweet enough to surprise me – an afterthought as I step into nature

and when the wind blows just right, the aroma dances on the breeze.

Maybe you have Noticed it and not even known it

driving down a backroad with the windows down or visiting with friends at a campfire.

Summer is quickly approaching….

enjoy these balmy days, but most of all

stop and smell the honeysuckle. It’s worth the time.

Promise.

the light from the lighthouse

msdaizyjane — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:54:10 +0000

This post may bother you. It may not. I don’t claim to know everything or to be perfect, but I want to say something that has been on my mind a lot recently.

Church is not a building. It is the living, breathing body of Christ. Church – the body of Christ – exists for the sole purpose of helping to make a broken and hurting world whole again. It is an organism that lives and worries and loves and works through problems and gets dirty – sometimes on a playground and sometimes working. The body of Christ doesn’t work to “get to heaven”, but it does work to rescue others from a living hell on earth.

Sometimes this Church – this BODY OF CHRIST – meets in a building. Sometimes it is a big, beautiful, elaborate building and sometimes it is a small building, a school building, or a tent. The purpose of this get together is to to worship God. We are to praise our creator. It is supposed to be a place to be thankful and to be accepted – regardless of class, sex, ethnicity, brand of clothing, lack or abundance of children, lack or abundance of money and material possessions, etc. I heard it said once that the building that the Body of Christ met in was the only building that exists for the people who don’t go to it.

This building is also supposed to be ANOTHER place that the Church (the body of Christ) can be in community together. It is to be used as a place to begin to reach out to those that we know are hurting, addicted, in some sort of slavery, happy, lost, found, cold, hungry, or just need a friend because they are SO. VERY. LONELY. This building is to be a visible sign of the love of God – like a lighthouse in the dark night for a boat on the sea that may crash because the captain doesn’t know where the shore is.

Friends – for us, that sea is Every Day, we are the captain of the boat (life) and we are desperately seeking the light (Jesus) from the lighthouse. I am not a theologian. I cannot tell you that the lighthouse I mentioned is God or Heaven, but I can tell you that the Body of Christ is the lighthouse to me. When we all work together to pierce the darkness that surrounds so many people’s lives, our love shines out like that light from the lighthouse and hopefully what the hurting and the lost see is the love of Jesus – and not us at all.

hawks, doves, rainbows, and the like :)

msdaizyjane — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 03:19:37 +0000

I saw a white dove today on my drive to school. It was sitting on a telephone line where I thought a hawk would be, but my hawk friend was absent and my new dove friend was very present.

Funny thing is – it is much more rare to see a white dove. I decided that that particular dove was neato because I can’t really remember ever seeing a white dove sitting on a power line – but since my hawk sighting revelation mentioned in past posts, (my sisters and my dad still let me know that they see them often) – I’ve realized how much I see the powerful, beautiful birds… and how little (never) I see white doves.

I don’t know that it means much to anybody, but I know that I noticed it and that I thought it was beautiful and that it reminded me that a rainbow is a promise and good and what is good is from God. What that means is still a mystery to me, but… my day was made so much better by seeing the little birdie that I was inspired to try to be a rainbow in someone else’s life and I think that today I might have succeeded.

much love to you and yours, M

consider the lilies – and the sparrows

msdaizyjane — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 05:54:53 +0000

I watched a sparrow from my music room window today and for a brief moment, I wished that I could go get it, put it in a cage and hang it by my window so that I could watch it whenever I wanted. Then I wished that I hadn’t immediately wished that particular wish. I mean, I looked back out the window and I realized that there were probably twenty or thirty other sparrows and that taking the lil chick from its little sparrow community would at the very least make her sad and possibly scar her for life.

Which is probably silly, but I think about stuff like that – anyway –

When I see them out in the yard after a rain, I think of Jesus teaching and telling people not to worry about stuff – what to eat, what to wear, etc – and that if God takes care of the sparrows then God can also take care of us. After all, nothing is more beautiful than a lily growing in the wild so why should we even try to attain that level of beauty?

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then today it was seeing the sparrows all fat and sassy in the mist made by the rain on a gray, gray day. The sparrows were my rainbow – my promise that God is bigger. The rain is falling now and all of the birds are seeking cover in the brush – wings askew as they dart into the dead weeds from last year.