My niece in TX said she's into decorating for Christmas big time, and she's started already. I was baffled when I first moved into the deep South to see that folks down there (VA is mid-South) put their trees up the day after Thanksgiving and take them down the day after Christmas. Lissa and Rich put their outside lights up today...Lissa said the next weekends come too quickly and they wanted to get it done.
(The fonts on Vox today are doing their own thing...I bolded one little part and tried to turn it off and now I get this. Some fonts just have to be the center of attention...must take after the blogger, right?)
Anyhow, it's not that I don't like Christmas, I do. I love the music...religious and commercial. I like Santa Claus and family gatherings. And I love the food. I like seeing houses decorated. I just don't like seeing it this early. I hope my Yankee friends will assure me this day after Thanksgiving decorating is not occurring up North. I don't remember such a thing.
I wonder if people even know what Advent is. Doesn't it have something to do with anticipation? If these people are going to decorate this early, I'm leaving my damn pumpkins sit until the first day of winter...unless they rot first.
Glad I got that out of the way. On Thanksgiving we had dinner at Linda and Robin's (Lissa's brother and SiL). I think there were 11 adults and 2 children. Linda is so organized and did everything herself. I love holiday meals so I indulged, but modestly.
The next day Rich and I met up with nephew Mike who was visiting long time friends of his who live in Portsmouth, VA. We all gathered at The Cheesecake Factory in VB. It was great to see Mike...he's my first born nephew and a super nice guy.
Friday I met with Lindsay for a pottery lesson. She's letting me do more on my own now, and she said that's how it'll be in the future unless I'm learning a new technique, or if I want her to show me something in particular. I liked being on my own at the wheel. You really have to feel the clay and get comfortable with how it changes with various pressure applied by your hands.
I got an email from Norm...my gastroenterologist friend in Pensacola saying Helen Hobbs died. I'm so glad I called her last week and spoke with her in the hospital. Helen was a long time member of our Thursday group which met weekly at 7AM ....yes, I used to be in that group, and I was there at 7AM....I missed very few gatherings. Helen was the only other woman in the group.
(Well one font has gone to sleep...maybe the Bold font will follow the italic font.)
The Thursday group had been meeting weekly for 15 years before I was invited to join. In the beginning, I felt so intimidated to meet with them. The group comprised the Head of the Psychology dept. (a former RC priest) at the local university, a Physics Professor, an Episcopalian Church Music Director, an Orthopedic Surgeon, Helen (a retired nursing director at Baptist Hospital), two retired Baptist ministers, a retired Psychiatrist, a Chemical Engineer, Norman (Gastroenterologist) and me. I thought to myself...what on earth will I have to say that could hold the interest of this group?
Each week one person chose a topic for discussion....it could be anything at all. When your turn came up you presented the topic and spoke to it for 5 to 10 minutes and then opened it for discussion. The group would fly with it or simply change the subject. Some of our topics I remember....The Celestine Prophecy, Chocolate, Toxic Lies, Fruit flies.....I did a whole thing on Chocolate. I grew to love those people. We were open to opposing viewpoints and we trusted one another. I was sad when I left the group to move back here. I'm still in touch via Norm and hearing about Helen's death left me feeling a profound loss.
At the time of her death Helen was 87. She was the mother of 7 children who for the most part she raised alone after her husband left. She helped me with meditation when I was facing my hysterectomy. She's the one who introduced me to Jon Kabat-Zinn and his book 'Wherever you go, there you are'. You've often heard me say it isn't necessary to always be doing....it's ok just to be. That's from Kabat-Zinn.
So Helen's gone and that group is aging fast. They've had a few younger folks join, but not enough. I was in it for almost 15 years.
In addition to the Pensacola group Norm also runs a listgroup online for folks to discuss various points. I am turned off by bloggers who 'preach to the choir' and do not seek any opposing viewpoints. Not so with Norm's listgroup. He moderates it, and he'll end threads if they become redundant, but he posts opposing viewpoints.
Recently he put forth Karen Armstrong's latest book 'The Case for God'. I've read 2 of her books and find her very appealing. She has written in response to the latest books on the market by famous atheists e.g. Dawkins, Hitchens and others. I don't join in on many topics with this group, but I wanted to comment and wrote the following:
"Norm,
I think it'll be a long time before we can stop giving human attributes to God. Feminists are doing their best to have God be known as Mother God, and then there's the group that just sees God as some kind of force. Some of us learned that God sent us Jesus so we could 'see' God in our familiar human form. Who knows?
I think educating the masses will lead people to view God much differently. When you can't read you are more likely to believe what is preached to you. Same thing with Catholics. For years we didn't have Bibles in our homes....didn't read the Bible...just did what we were told. Once we started reading and asking questions about things that didn't make sense many of us no longer 'believed'. Once we studied the origins of other religions we began to start asking the really hard questions....to which there are no answers. One simply agrees to accept the tenets of a religion or they don't. Acceptance and belief do not require proof. "
I miss that kind of discussion group. My Women's Issues group is good, but it's totally focused on Women's Issues which is certainly important, but I would also like to find another group similar to my 'Thursday group' (as we called ourselves).
And so dear Helen you will be missed from near and far. I learned much from knowing you and you helped me develop my self confidence knowing I could hold my own with even the Thursday group of 'thinkers'. Thank you for that, and thank you for introducing Rich and me to 'it's OK just to be'....which isn't the same as being lazy. Read the book fellow readers, you'll find it to your liking, I feel certain.
