
Monthly Archives: October 2018
An Apple Gathering

An Apple Gathering
by Christina Rossetti, 1830 – 1894
I plucked pink blossoms from mine apple-tree
And wore them all that evening in my hair:
Then in due season when I went to see
I found no apples there.
With dangling basket all along the grass
As I had come I went the selfsame track:
My neighbours mocked me while they saw me pass
So empty-handed back.
Lilian and Lilias smiled in trudging by,
Their heaped-up basket teased me like a jeer;
Sweet-voiced they sang beneath the sunset sky,
Their mother’s home was near.
Plump Gertrude passed me with her basket full,
A stronger hand than hers helped it along;
A voice talked with her through the shadows cool
More sweet to me than song.
Ah Willie, Willie, was my love less worth
Than apples with their green leaves piled above?
I counted rosiest apples on the earth
Of far less worth than love.
So once it was with me you stooped to talk
Laughing and listening in this very lane:
To think that by this way we used to walk
We shall not walk again!
I let me neighbours pass me, ones and twos
And groups; the latest said the night grew chill,
And hastened: but I loitered, while the dews
Fell fast I loitered still.
She Was 104

One of the greatest ladies I have ever known passed away yesterday. She was 104 years old. She was a true southern lady in every sense of the word. She was my neighbor when I lived in Alabama, and had been my grandparents’ neighbor for more years than anyone could count. When she got married, she married a younger man, so she lied about how old she was to appear younger than him. It didn’t work, everyone knew how old she really was, at least in her later years. She loved animals and animals loved her. It’s a sign of a good person when animals love you. I remember as a child going to her house across the road from my grandparents’ and she always had some candy from the candy kitchen where she’d worked longer than anyone could remember. She was an old lady all my life, but she loved gardening, especially her rose garden. Up until maybe a year ago, she still worked in her garden. She cut the grass with a pair of scissors so that it was perfect and pruned her roses to perfection. I could go on and on about how great she was and what a wondrous woman she was, but I will end on this note. Yesterday, she took a sip of Coca Cola, said she was tired and then closed her eyes and took her last breath. There is a small community in Alabama that wept openly yesterday because they lost one of the greatest ladies they had ever known.
More Mercy

Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied. (KJV) ( Jude 1:2 )
We are on a mission to continuously improve in mercy, peace, and love towards others. We can never be fully filled with peace or fully filled with mercy or fully filled with love. We can never say to ourselves, I am an expert in mercy and there is no room for improvement. However, each day we can take one step closer to God, who in turn grants us the ability to love more.
A Day Off

I slept in today. I needed to. I was tired from the last few days. I fell asleep before Murphy Brown even went off. I did get up this morning and put something in the crockpot for dinner, now I’m catching up on my posting.













