the least of these...

"But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind…"         Luke 14:13

living in oz...

If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

zen...

Say one word with your mouth shut.                                       Zen Saying

I have this thing about hanging pictures and properly placing things about.  Can't deal with the high in the sky method or the I didn't give it much thought technique. I'm not above asking for help and paying for it. I know when I'm out of my league. I did get a helper to assist in hanging my pictures in the condo on Folly and was happy to sigh in relief when it was done. 

Except:

I changed my mind!  Yes, I moved a piece and could not get it level.  I moved it a quarter inch this way.  I moved it a tad that way. I moved it up. I moved it down. The nail holes multiplied. They looked like a little village of pinpricks. It was always askew--a minute bit catawampus. Almost imperceptible, but it was there. I could see it from my chair.

Until:

One night I bumbled down the stairs in the dark, walked to the counter and horrors...I knocked it off the wall.  In exasperation, I picked it up from the floor and rehung the picture in the dark.  Actually, I just threw it on the wall.  And out of nowhere...

Magic:

It's perfectly level now...perfectly hung in the dark.

Because:

The whole of life lies in the verb seeing.               -Teilhard de Chardin

sea shanty...

Sea Rations

Back yard

Morris Island Lighthouse on Folly's East End

A sea shanty, chantey, or chanty is a type of work song that was once commonly sung to accompany labor on board large merchant sailing vessels. The term shanty most accurately refers to a specific style of work song belonging to this historical repertoire.

Toes in search of shoes

Adrift

Bank above the boneyard on the east end

I love the fog

unfold...

Do Not Be Ashamed

"Though you have done nothing shameful, they will want you to be ashamed.  They will want you to kneel and weep and say you should have been like them.  And once you say you are ashamed, reading the page they hold out to you, then such light as you have made in your history will leave you..."
                                                                                                       - Wendell Berry

From Journal (October 25, 1998) 

yom tov...

"The thing man seeks is seeking him..."  Florence Scovel Shinn

walk on water...

    Poster Credit:  Karen Salmansohn

how can you get the right answers if you're asking the wrong questions???

Kingstree is one of the oldest towns in South Carolina, and it is heartbreaking to see a place I love slide to its demise.  One late Saturday, I went to Bowen's Island with friends from Kingstree.  If you have never been, please come to see the unbelievable view.  Describing the fish house as rustic is understatement.  No heat, no air, stand in a forever line to order, limited menu, etc.  But they come.  We stopped to talk to the owner/manager, Robert Barber. He lived in Columbia for a bit and ran for state office at some point. Now he lives on Folly.  We talked about Kingstree and how many creative minds (Goldstein, Us (yes, us), influential politicians, and the like hail from the same small community.  We posed the problem then about its slow death and the people who live there that manage some degree of denial.  If they are fortunate enough to have money and privilege, life is okay.  They live a compartmentalized life.  If they belong to the majority, those suffering from a lack of education, discipline, hard work, and opportunity, they numb-out on alcohol, pills, risky behavior, jail, and lethargy.  They are preyed upon by those who have.  They live the life of victim and pacified infant, and the cycle repeats itself.  The lack of clean food, the inordinate amount of pesticides and chemicals, less than stellar medical care, racial tension, lack of education, lack of jobs, trash everywhere...that's what it is about?  I have always felt that in order to heal a situation, one must have the proper diagnosis.  Healing Kingstree would require therapy.  Yes, somebody needs to be on the couch.  Then, action.

Scout Cabin Early 80's

I realize that Darla Moore has transformed Lake City with her money and influence.  And, I'm happy about that.  But, truth be told, I have never cared for Lake City.  Kingstree had so much more class and elegance.  It seems they are throwing the last of it away.  I would move back in a New York minute if there were only a small contingent willing to insist that trash is unacceptable, crime does not pay, pride in where you live is necessary, the arts are alive, real food heals you, giving back makes you feel better, educators are not babysitters, victims can change, beauty in one's surroundings is important, responsibility for what happens belongs to you, old buildings are worth fixing, there is enough for everybody, and neighbors make a place strong.  I think it is interesting that Kingstree dates from 1732 and the nuns from the Catholic Church are basically doing mission work in the year 2016. Old money still lives comfortably in denial (albeit on the edge), and the uneducated underclass gets angrier and angrier. And they let our beloved downtown fall into ruin, one building at a time.

I love my hometown.  I love it's feel, its history, the streets, my memories, the people, and its potential. But somebody is fiddling while Rome burns...

Can it be saved?

Old School

Salters, South Carolina

Photo Credit bettersouth.org

Wee Nee Bridge at Baker's c.1900

"It is only shallow people who do not judge by  appearances."                                       -Oscar Wilde

             "Every man's memory is his private literature."                                       - Aldous Huxley      

drunk with light...

"It is time I came back to my real life after this voyage to an island with no name, where I lay down at sunrise drunk with light."                                                      
                                                                                                                                -May Sarton

Lover of light.  You will find my blinds open (or missing) and my windows flung wide.  It is a chilly 66 degrees on a cloudy April 15.  My feet are cold.  I have them wedged and warmed under the sleeping dog, my sweet Butler, as I write. The outside is a welcome green guest and the ever-present wind is here to chat.  Sometimes, if I am watering my tiny garden or feeding the birds, I take a little rest in my yellow chair stationed in front of the garage, rest my head on its back, close my eyes, and listen for the sounds the day is making.  Rustling palmetto branches, far-away barking dog, purring mower, frightened siren, a laugh here or there in the distance, the silent smile on my face (making the silent noise of happiness), birds flying, the squirrel stealing seeds from the yellow feeder, footsteps, a skateboard rolling along scratching the pavement, and a small plane flying in from the west and now high over the marsh.  The wind is a noisy guest.  If you don't listen, it will pull you in and fluff you about.  It blows the chair pillows across the make-shift drive, slaps the palmetto fronds until they whistle, and stings my brow with sand. I wish I could understand what it is saying.  Rain satisfies thirst.  Light gives life.  Darkness is a respite from the things we learn in the light. But I cannot determine what it is the wind so desperately wants me to know.  I've always loved the light and the rain and now after years on this sandy spit of land, I've grown to love the wind.

believe something new...

"How refreshing, the whinny of a packhorse unloaded of everything!"   - Zen Saying

The summer I moved to the Charleston coast there was an earthquake and a hurricane...a foreshadowing of the shaking up of my life and the moving of the ground under my feet.  The August 23 earthquake was centered in Virginia, but I felt the eerie pulse of the earth on Folly as I sat on my sofa in a moment of escape from the August heat. The oddest little shake and some things fall apart. Irene, blowing offshore on August 26, damaged the west end of the island and caused the County Park to be closed for the next year.  One storm offshore and an entire year was rearranged.  Bad enough that the Charleston jetties steal sand daily from the island, but the numbered and named storms do the same regularly and demand respect. None given. Just build bigger and build closer and pretend the sea and sky are not angry.  When the ground shakes under you and the wind blows you about, how is you come to believe something new...that the brutal rearrangement of the furniture of your life is a good thing, an update, a movement forward, growth...when it feels like the best part of you was shaken loose and blown to sea?  Believe. Something. New. 

"Oh my God, what if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen. Repent just means to change direction — and NOT to be said by someone who is waggling their forefinger at you. Repentance is a blessing. Pick a new direction, one you wouldn’t mind ending up at, and aim for that. Shoot the moon."     -Anne Lamott

Believe.Something.New. 

roar...

"Dare to declare who you are.  It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech.  The path is not long, but the way is deep.  You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap."

                                                                                                     -Hildegard of Bingen

don't worry, be happy...

www.behappy.me
Behappy Quote #905826

notes from the universe...

...it's as if you're pounding on the massive doors of the kingdom of your wildest dreams. At first lightly, even respectfully, then, losing patience, louder and louder. You pray. You plead. You beg. You ask. You cry. You wail. And just on the other side of the door, your faithful, adoring subjects silently writhe, some quietly crying, all intensely feeling your frustration and loneliness.

Yet they remember all too well how, on the day you left, you made them swear not to ever open the door, so that you might discover for yourself...

...that it was left unlocked.

I hate when that happens,
    The Universe

Thoughts become things... choose the good ones! ® © www.tut.com ®

Wake up...that was just a dream. The massive door was make-believe, just like any other obstacle you may ever dream up.  St. James Gate 11 Center Street Folly