Then and Now

Isn't it funny how day by day nothing changes, but when you look back, everything is different?

C.S. Lewis 

 

How can the little girl who wanted to be a dolphin trainer just a few years ago now be graduating from 8th grade? How is it that we'll have a freshman granddaughter next year? How is it that she is old enough to drive us instead of us driving her?

 

There was no Willie the Wildcat nor caps and gowns like there was for her preschool graduation back in the day. But,  I guess we blinked and life happened. Kinley graduated from 8th grade at 8 AM May 21. (Yes, 8 AM!) There were 127 students in the school's Navigators Team. (There was another graduation ceremony with a similar number of students later in the morning for the other team. Coming from a small school, the numbers blow my mind.)

 

 

 

The afternoon before, Brooke was promoted from 5th grade, making way for middle school next year. She started kindergarten in 2020 in the midst of the Covid pandemic.  

 

 

Yes, she still had the handy, dandy sign made by her mom, but her classroom was in the basement at home. Back in that moment of time, she wanted to be a teacher. 

 

On Wednesday, she was among 90 classmates who said goodbye to elementary school.

 

Brooke's preschool graduation in May 2020.

  

No caps and gowns for her either. Maybe we could still see a glimpse of that little girl in that confident, maturing new 6th grader? 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure what their current dreams for their futures are. But we've certainly been enjoying the present this spring. 

 

While the bulk of the girls' middle school tennis season was last fall, Kinley got to compete in a mixed doubles tennis tournament earlier this month. 

 

 

She and her partner got 2nd. 

 

 

Then, she got 2nd in her pool in the league singles tournament on May 6. 

 

In her "spare" time, she also went out for middle school track. She ran the hurdles ... and she didn't get hurt (the most important part).

 

 She high jumped. (I was not responsible for any of those genes.)

 

At various meets, she ran the mile and the 800. (Also not responsible for those genes.)

Tennis will be her sport in high school, so these final track meets will likely be her last. That's the difference between tiny schools and 6A schools. Students do more specialization. 

During the winter, we also got to watch Brooke play volleyball - with her mom as coach. It was amazing to see how much all the girls had improved from last year to this year. 

She played basketball, too.

Earlier this month, we went to Brooke's 5th grade music concert featuring recorders. Brooke told me and Grandma Christy that we could skip the concert. You know ... recorders and 5th graders? Yes, there was the requisite Hot Cross Buns, in both a traditional and a jazzy version. But who could turn down a chance to hear recorder renditions of Eye of the Tiger or Coldplay's Clocks? Contrary to pre-concert warnings, it was a good performance. 

 "The days are long, but the years are short." 

Long days are probably more a reality for parents than grandparents. But even for we grandparents, time races onward. 

 For my girls as you both leave behind the old and stride toward something new: 

Always remember that you are braver than you think, stronger than you believe, smarter than you realize and more loved than you can imagine. 

Transfiguration

Last Wednesday morning - Valentine's Day - I worked on a future blog post. It combined sunset photos and a few light-on-ice photos from Quivira National Wildlife Refuge that hadn't yet made it into the blog or my Facebook page. On that Ash Wednesday, the blog post also had a tie-in to the transfiguration of Jesus, which was the Scripture and theme for Pastor Benjamin's sermon the previous week. 

I was happy with it and thought it was a fitting beginning to the season of Lent in the Christian year. I hadn't written a devotional-type blog for awhile, and as I went upstairs to work on dinner prep, I thought that it would only take a re-read and a little polishing before I hit "publish" the next Tuesday. 

But then Wednesday afternoon happened. The senseless shooting in the midst of celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs victory parade - plus some personal stuff - had me tossing and turning that night. Eventually, I gave up and got out of bed, attempting to find a way to shut off my overactive brain. It was a short night. My well-articulated Thursday morning list was in disarray with other unexpected distractions. 

So much for planning ahead. So, why not do a little mindless Facebook skimming, right? I was behind anyway. And then I clicked on a link provided by an acquaintance from my days in K-State's Concert Choir. On her post, she shared that she'd linked this same choir piece to her Facebook page four years before, and unfortunately, it was relevant yet again. 

The piece is Let My Love Be Heard by Jake Runestad. It was performed by the Bob Cole Conservatory Chamber Choir as a tribute to one of their members killed in a mass shooting in Paris in 2015. (I actually wrote a blog post back in November 2015 about the Paris shooting, too, with a link to another song. (Click HERE for "God Bless Us Every One.")

The words to Jake Runestad's beautiful choral composition say:

Angels where you soar up to God's own light

Take my own lost bird on your hearts tonight

And as grief once more mounts to heaven and sings

Let my love be heard

Let my love be heard

Whispering in your ways

Let my love be heard. 

 

As I sat there with tears running down my face, I realized that perhaps my Facebook skimming wasn't so pointless after all. 

 

The simple - yet overwhelmingly powerful - words of that song preached a more powerful lesson than any blog post. Or any sermon. 

Let my love be heard.

 

I certainly try for that to happen. I spent the rest of the day on Thursday working on a meal for Core, a group works to help get people out of poverty. Our church is just one of the meal providers, taking our turn about once a quarter or so. While I was the planner and the cook, many congregation members contributed money for the ingredients to make it happen. 

 

And I remembered back to the Sunday before, when I'd taken a photo of the children at church, standing by a big pile of food donated for the local food bank as part of a Souper Food Drive on Super Bowl Sunday. 

 

Our little church collected 249 pounds of food, but we were just a tiny cog in a much larger effort for the church conference. Some 84 churches from the Great Plains UMC donated food to help Team KC collect 168,253.66 pounds of food during the Super Bowl drive. The California churches supporting the San Francisco 49ers collected 32,945 pounds. In all, 221 churches across the four conferences took part.

 

That's a victory for local food banks - no matter where the food was tallied. We couldn't accomplish that alone.

But I also had to acknowledge that I wasn't letting "my love be heard" when I commented to Randy about another acquaintance's Facebook post.

I can do better. We can all do better. 

 

I need to be part of the harmony so beautifully illustrated by that spectacular choir. 

I started writing. I changed 90 percent of what I had in the original blog post. But then I looked again at what I'd written to begin with. It included this quote on Jesus' transfiguration written by Scott Clark, a Presbyterian minister. 

 

Transfiguration brings us to the place where the words run out and invites us into the holy experience of silence. The silence between the words. The place where we meet God in ways that words simply cannot express.  

Another shooting? Yes, definitely the words had run out. 

Another email devotional included this prayer:

May our gifts reflect the warming light of your love in our lives. Just as Jesus was transfigured before them, may our hearts be transformed, and our actions reflect the love and truth Jesus embodies. Bless our giving and use it to bring your divine light to a world in need. In the name of Jesus, our Lord, we pray. Amen.

Looking for God in my today ... that seems like a good goal to me.

  

Baby Face

 

Check out the eyelashes on this little one!

We were sightseeing in the cattle lot, and a song drifted into my head: 

 

Baby face
you've got the cutest little baby face
there ain't nobody can ever take your place
you baby face
my poor hearts jumping
you started something

Baby face ...

I never need no shove
cuz I just fell in love with your
pretty pretty baby face.

Sung by Bobby Darin

 

It doesn't take much for a song to get stuck in my head. And I'm definitely not alone. 

 

More than 100 years ago, Germans coined the term öhrwurm—earworm—to describe the experience of a song stuck in the brain. Scientists call it other names, like “stuck tune syndrome” and “musical imagery repetition.” But the creepy image of an earworm crawling into people’s brains caught on.  

Your Brain on Music from The Kennedy Center

If Randy is feeling ornery, he makes it his mission to begin the earworm process. Maybe he'll hum "Take Me Home, Country Roads" under his breath. Or "The Long and Winding Road." Gee, thanks, honey!

Usually, my brain continues to sing along after I get out of the car and the radio quits playing. Or after the final hymn is sung at church. Or when an advertising jingle refuses to go away after the 60-second commercial is long gone.

TV and radio ads are a common source of earworms. Advertisers do their best to compose jingles or short songs they hope will turn into earworms. If they succeed, that means they have done their job to get customers to remember their restaurant, breakfast cereal, or other product. Another advertising strategy is to add classical or pop music that has already gained fame. For example, Bob Seger’s hit song “Like a Rock” was the theme song for Chevy trucks for many years.

from the article, Your Brain on Music 

I'm a sucker for a catchy tune ... and for cute little bovine babies. Thankfully, this tourist spot doesn't charge admission for the photos or the incidental music playing in my head.

(I'd better not say that too loud. Todd and Tye may start charging us in a "pay-per-view" plan.)

 I couldn't resist this little one. Check out the milk mustache!  

I have always been a sucker for babies with facial markings.

But, in these days when we strive not to offend anyone, I decided to feature another cute face, sans markings. 

This little one wasn't ready for any paparazzi. Snack time is much more important.

An afternoon snack was important for this guy, too. And speaking of brains, I'm still getting "This does not compute" messages when I see mismatched mamas and babies. They definitely take after their daddies. (I can relate to that, too. Jill has never looked anything like me.)

This one seemed more interested in a game of hide-and-seek than the lady with the camera.

We watched this poor mama with three babies trying to nurse off her at the same time. 

Only one of them was hers. Maybe she had the song, "Crazy," going around in her head.

 I would have. Just sayin'.

The Music of the Season

 

There's just something about Christmas music that helps set the mood. Whether it's practicing the piano solos I play for church service preludes myself or singing "Joy to the World!" with people from several different churches during a community Christmas service, it just wouldn't be the same without the music of the season.

This month has been rich in music of all types - from school programs to church to professional musicians. And it's made my month "harmonious" - so to speak. 

Our first concert was at Wichita's Orpheum Theater. It featured pianist Jim Brickman with father-daughter singing duo, Mat and Savanna Shaw. The Shaws began recording videos during the pandemic, and I'm a big fan. I hate to admit it, but I was less familiar with Jim Brickman, though he's had a long and storied career as a solo pianist. But the whole thing concert was great. (They sang the song on the video above during the Wichita concert. However, I was a good girl and didn't record or take photos during the concert since the audience was asked to resist that urge. Still, I wanted to give you a taste of what we enjoyed that night. I love the message of the song!)

I did take the photo of the piano before the concert ever started, and I love the black and white version.

The other professional concert was a last-minute addition to my schedule, thanks to my friend and PEO sister, Okema, who had an extra ticket to The Texas Tenors. 

That concert was last Saturday night at the Fox Theater in Hutchinson. 

And surprise! Her tickets were on the third row. 

Before the concert began, the general manager gave the go-ahead for photos, though he said audio and video recordings were prohibited. These three classically-trained tenors were fantastic. I'd seen them on television several times, but I'd never attended a concert in person.

Again, the lighting for the show added to the beauty of the music.  Their pianist was phenomenal, too. (That level of talent kind of makes this amateur a little "green" with envy - though I suppose green is an appropriate color for the season).

I promise I didn't record it myself, but I found their same rendition of "O Holy Night!" on YouTube.

 

But it doesn't have to be professional musicians to get me in the mood for Christmas. We also got to go to Kinley's and Brooke's school music concerts. 

 Brooke's was first up. There were four classrooms of second graders on stage that evening.

Brooke had a speaking part and did a great job.

Kinley's fifth grade music concert was the following night. In their school district, fifth graders must choose one of three options: choir, band or orchestra. I was surprised at how few chose choir, but Kinley was one of them.

She played the jingle bells in one song.

 And this was a small video clip from a crowd-pleasing song. 

Grandma had to have a photo of Kinley and Summer at home before we left for the concert.

And Kinley went along with a photo on stage after the concert, too. How'd she get to be so grown-up looking?

It's been a wonderful month of music - and it's not over yet!

 ***

I seem to have taken an unplanned hiatus from blogging. I had several homemade Christmas presents that took a lot of time and effort. I don't feel all that retired, since I continue to complete my weekday KFRM radio reports and devote a lot of volunteer hours to the church and other community ventures. So blogging fell by the wayside for a bit. As my Facebook memories have surfaced this month, I've also noticed a lot of cattle moving and feeding blog posts. I am thankful that I'm retired from the feed truck with wind chills forecast at well-below zero later this week!