Sky's the Limit!

 Sunrise February 19. 2024

The sky is the infinite movie for me. I never get tired of looking at what's happening up there.

Singer K.D. Lang

There's a game called "Never have I ever." Evidently, it's popular among teens at slumber parties. Well, I crossed a "Never have I ever" thing off my list last Friday. The Northern Lights were visible on the Kansas plains. And, from looking at Facebook, we weren't alone. People posted awe-inspiring photos from across the nation from places that don't normally experience them.

In truth, they were barely visible to the naked eye. But point the cell phone camera to the skies and a whole kaleidoscope filled the screen. 

We weren't the only ones driving around in our pajamas Friday night. We had to turn our headlights back on when our neighbors turned down the same dark country road where we were viewing the free light show. And yes, we all admitted to wearing our PJs for the trip outside.

We tried again on Saturday night, but clouds had started to move in, blocking the view. I did see photos from our neighbor, Rebecca, who knows more about photography than I do. But Saturday night didn't provide a repeat of the glut of Facebook posts that Friday spawned.

I've always loved to watch the sky. My sisters and I sang a Joni Mitchell song, "Both Sides Now," for a 4-H Club Day long, long ago. That song often rolls around in my head, much like the clouds that shift in Kansas skies:

 

Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere

I've looked at clouds that way.

 Sunrise February 19. 2024

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's clouds' illusions, I recall

I really don't know clouds at all.

I've always liked clouds, but I think I became even more aware when Brent was little. Some people have backseat drivers. I had a backseat cloud watcher. 

Sunrise and my sunrise tree - February

Brent was always discovering some shape in the marshmallow fluff of clouds floating by. 

Clouds reflected in the Rattlesnake Creek, April 2024

When the kids were little, I "retired" from working full-time as a writer-editor at The Hutchinson News, but I wrote a column for them, "At Home with Kim," for several years. Here an excerpt of what I wrote when Brent was in kindergarten:  

 

It was one of those days when it looks like the angels are using the clouds for tumbling mats. Brent and I were driving home, and he started cloud-watching.

"Oh, look, Mommy! That one looks like a dinosaur. And that one looks like a puppy."

We found an eagle and a dragon and a cat among the whipped-cream clouds. I was thinking that even though our world changes, some things - like cloud watching - have been children's pastimes for years and years.

And then he said, "Oh, there a roller blade."

 

As a child, I saw dragons and rabbits, but not a single roller blade was suspended in my cotton-candy skies. Change is part of us - even daydreaming cloud watchers confirm that.

 

Though I no longer have cloud watchers in the backseat, I still love watching the clouds. Perhaps it is their ability to change quickly, shifting the scenery in an instant. I personally struggle with change, so I guess I admire it in other things. 

April 2024

Maybe it's OK to have your head in the clouds on occasion

I recently saw this post featuring an Ralph Waldo Emerson quote on a friend's Facebook feed:

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in. Forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. Begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This new day is too dear, with its hopes and and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Maybe sunrises and sunsets are our celebration of a life colored by those attitudes - leaving behind the worries of the day and looking forward to the clear page provided by another new day.

It's worth a try.

Once upon a time, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.

Terry Tempest Williams

 

Kansas is Closed

Taken Friday, January 5, 2024

It's been awhile since we were all that interested in the cancellations banner, running at the bottom of the local news. Back when Jill and Brent were home, that's the way we discovered if school had been canceled for the day due to snow.

 

Today, we were supposed to have an important appointment with Mrs. Kylie Meyer's second grade class at Stafford Elementary School. As I was writing this Monday afternoon, I imagined that I'd be perched in front of my TV screen Tuesday morning, watching the cancellation notices. 

 

But, in this day and age, I learned via Facebook last night that school was canceled for today. So, Farming: Then and Now - as told by Randy and Kim Fritzemeier - will have to wait for another day.

 

 

It seems that Kansas is closed today for all intents and purposes. But, I also know that those who care for cattle and other livestock will be out there, still getting the job done. (I won't miss climbing into the feed truck today like I used to do. My brother already sent a photo of feeding cattle this morning. Tye and Todd also moved some hay bales to our farm yard before the storm ever started.) I know electric crews, road crews, law enforcement officers, health care workers and lots of others have been hard at work in terrible conditions.

 

 

Back to our school gig: Every year, Mrs. Meyer does a similar unit. She invites different businesses and organizations to talk to her students. The class spends some time doing research at the Stafford County Museum. Besides learning a little local history, the students also learn about contrast and comparison and other cross-disciplinary concepts. 

 

Several years ago, I developed a Power Point presentation using photos that my mom and dad compiled in a family history book they made for each of their grandchildren. Those helped provide the "then" part of farming. And, truth be told, both Randy and I have plenty of "then" stories of our own from our time growing up on our respective family farms. Besides the old-time photos, I added lots of photos from our own farming operation. 

 

When we do get to go to school, Randy says he'll tell the students about the snow days of our youth. I know they didn't happen often. And, as I've thought about, I remember a time when the roads were drifted shut. My dad took us the 3 1/2 miles to school at Byers, driving across farm fields. And the dress code was different back then, too. If we girls wore pants, we still had to wear a dress over it. Man, I really am old!

 

Taken after sunset on Monday, January 8, 2024. Yard light on the windmill in our backyard.

 

A disclaimer: All the photos in this blog post except the one immediately above were taken last Friday. We got some snow then, too, but we didn't have the wind to go with it. 

 

 

Photos from the latest storm will have to wait.

 

 

But last Friday, we had a much kinder, gentler exposure to winter. 

 

 

So Randy and I spent some time in the yard and then drove around for our own version of Eyewitness Weather.

 

 

The wind that is usually so prevalent in Kansas seemed bedded down for a long winter's nap .. or, at least it was taking the day off. (It was back with a vengeance yesterday and today.)

The only other living thing we saw at Quivira National Wildlife Refuge was a deer, who didn't seem particularly concerned about intruders to his domain.

I wish this was better focus ...

We were surprised not to see or hear any birds on the refuge at that time.

I'll probably get some photos of this latest snow at some point. But, then again, maybe I'll read my book for awhile.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road?

  

I saw a sweatshirt on Facebook recently that seemed made for me: Farm Uber. It was just another case of Facebook seemingly spying on my life. 

During my repeated trips to, from and yon in my Farm Uber role, I've been singing "Follow the yellow brick road, follow the yellow brick road" in my head. 

Granted, there's not a brick to be seen. But some of the road shoulders are "paved" with yellow. The gold in "them thar hills" may not have much street value or what most people might call a hill. But it sure has eye appeal (unless you're about to get your car stuck on poorly maintained roads ... but that's another story). 

Roadside sunflowers are producing a bumper crop.

 

It's just one of the glimpses of beauty that's all around us - free for the taking if only we pause and really see it.

On one evening trip to the field, I also loved the yellows (and all the other colors) during Golden Hour, that time right before the sun goes down. I had just talked that morning to the yearbook class at Stafford High School about advantages of light during the Golden Hour. There were examples all around me just a few hours later.

One milo field was illuminated by sunset.

 Another was catching a whole different light perspective looking to the east.

Peace Creek, looking east

One of my favorite local photo spots - Peace Creek along the Zenith Road - was looking especially peaceful as the sun was setting and the wind was settling down for the night.

Peace Creek, looking west

I couldn't resist one more stop before I headed for home. A windmill about a mile from our farmstead as the crow flies is a favorite western vista when there's a dramatic sky brewing.

Some curious bystanders came to check me out.

They definitely have a "room" with a view.

Through a Glass Dimly

 

After the Chiefs won their football game Sunday night, we drove to a pasture a couple of miles away to watch the sunset. It's a favorite location at dusk because of a windmill near the road. Who doesn't love a good windmill silhouette as a foreground for a beautiful sunset?

 

It was another gorgeous winter evening, and I did my usual take-too-many-photos-in-search-of-the-perfect-one routine.

But, as we were traveling back home, I took another glimpse of the scene through the passenger-side rearview mirror. It's cracked, so the view was definitely a different one than I'd been trying to capture as I looked westward and clicked both my regular camera and my phone's camera.

I had Randy stop so I could take a photo through the broken glass. A Bible verse flitted through my head, so I looked it up the next day. The King James Version of 1 Corinthians 13:12 says:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

It's a familiar verse, but what does it really mean? I looked at the Amplified Bible translation ...

For now [in this time of imperfection] we see in a mirror dimly [a blurred reflection, a riddle, an enigma], but then [when the time of perfection comes we will see reality] face to face. Now I know in part [just in fragments], but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known [by God].

... and the New Living Translation ...

Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

The rearview mirror view on a different evening in a different pickup from the driver's side

There's a presidential inauguration happening on Wednesday. Some of my friends are overjoyed. Others are mourning. And most are probably like me - tired of the fighting and the political maneuvering from both sides.

As I watch the news, I feel as though I'm seeing "through a glass dimly." I pray for people to find a clearer way - one without the agendas perpetuated by whatever media stream their "side" prefers.

I receive a daily devotional from the Great Plains conference of the United Methodist Church. Saturday's was by the Emporia State University campus minister Kurt Cooper. (Click here for his entire devotional.) In it, he talked about taking an intensive course called Theology, Civics and Civility while a student at Saint Paul School of Theology. The course challenged seminary students to ponder the intersections between the church, the political landscape and secular culture. 

 

 At the center of those discussions was what Christians know as The Golden Rule:

John 13:34-35

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Among the other texts they considered was written just after the turn of the 18th Century by a young colonist named George Washington. He's still fairly well known (tongue firmly inserted in cheek), despite being the 1st in a line of U.S. Presidents who will grow to add a 46th this week.

President Washington adopted what became known as the 110 Rules of Civility, principles he used throughout his life to guide his style of leadership and his life. These 110 hand-written rules heightened his successful Presidency and contributed to the shape of the Office of President. 

The theology students adopted their 25 best suggestions for following the Rules of Civility today:

• Let others go first.
• People have names: Use them.
• Consider everyone’s point of view; all voices have something to contribute.
• Avoid generalizations and blanket statements.
• Debate should end when the meeting is over — keep conversation in the room.
• Consider your responses before acting — practice prudence.
• Be conscious of one’s surroundings so as not to impose on others.
• Be proactive in hospitality.
• Acts of lying, cheating, stealing, coveting are uncivil.
• Speak the truth in kindness when expounding a grievance.
• Use language that uplifts rather than language that degrades.
• Listen carefully to the words of others before distracting yourself with your own response.
• If you take initiative, take responsibility.
• Be willing to laugh at yourself and smile often.
• Let insults go unheeded — Never kick a SKUNK.
• No finger pointing, regardless of what finger you use.
• Endeavor to raise standards rather than lower them.
• Share all you can without resentment.
• Make sure everyone understands the rules and customs that will be followed.
• Play well with others — everyone gets a turn.
• Challenge uncivil behavior.
• Respect God’s creation: All life depends on it.
• Recognize your own self worth and the value of others; we are all Children of God.
• Pursue Physical, Emotional and Spiritual health and Wholeness.

It's a pretty good list, don't you think? I figure I can do a better job of putting them to practice. I figure we all can.

You see, we all come from different places, with different experiences and that colors our actions and reactions. I was reminded of that again as I witnessed a winter sunrise this past week.

So I wouldn't miss the show, I didn't clear the frost from my windshield. When I first arrived at my sunrise tree, the view to the east was somewhat obscured.

I got the full picture - or so I thought - as I stepped out of the car and pointed my camera east. But then I saw the western sky.

It looked totally different, but it was just as beautiful. If I'd only looked in one direction, I'd have missed part of the show. 

Perhaps it's a reminder to stop and think. Will we be colored by the positive? Or will the negative win the day? It truly is a matter of perspective, isn't it? It's kind of like the parable of the six blind men with the elephant, who touch the beast in different places and come up with wildly different impressions because of what they "see."

Looking north at sunset, January 17, 2021

It seems to me that our world could benefit from a look at different perspectives. No matter which side of the political aisle my friends claim, I would suggest there's validity in listening to another's point of view ... whether it's politics, race or even whether someone plans to wear a mask in public or not.

And isn't that the case with life? We get so focused on what's in front of us that we forget to take a breath and look around.

Some of the most beautiful things are found on the other side. 

Maybe it's the other side of the argument.
Maybe it's the other side of that bad mood.
Maybe it's the other side of sunset. 

 The "other side" of the sunset, October 25, 2018

 

Take a breath. Look around. Enjoy the entire view. Get a different perspective. You just might find beauty there.

Maybe our world could heal - at least a little bit - if we all were passionately on the quest for new perspectives. Worth a try?

A Time to Think

Every day we live is a priceless gift of God,
loaded with possibilities to learn something new,
to gain fresh insights. –Dale Evans Rogers, singer

A Time to Act

Encourage me God, to see the value in what I have.

A Time to Pray

Dear God, lead me through today with new insights and new hope.

From Guideposts email devotional