True blue New Mexico Sky

Greetings all
      My favorite color has always been blue.   I'm not sure why exactly...it just is.
When my parents bought our first house when I was 4 or 5,  it was 12,000 new three bedrooms, we got to pick out the wallpaper patterns.   I got to pick out the one for my room...  Pink background with rows and row and rows of little grey kittens with blue eyes in various positions of cuteness.   I was thrilled.   I can see it now...  I would look at the pattern at night and pick out my favorite kitten for that night.
     

        So where did the blue come from.   My love of blue... I think it came from my Daddy always calling things to my attention around me... In nature....  And in any environment.   Keeping alert for tiny details that would allow one to make decisions about what was being seen.
      Keen observer training to be sure.
      The New Mexico sky has the true blue colors almost all the time.   Calming...inspiring...calling out poetry from my soul .

   Happy day all. Happy day


     You know I think a little of that pattern would go a long way.   My mom picked out cardinals in bamboo...  There was way way too much of that in the small room it as in... I believe it was the first room we reprinted.

Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2013


   

back in virginia part 2

My parents died some years ago.  My daddy thirty years ago this year.  my mother 15. my mother's Brother Beanie, my mother's sister Dot (dorothy), her husband Frank, Then Kat, then Beanies' wife Gene, now Edgar.   The whole of the group...now reunited.  

And we cousins, now the top rank....

This group of Bane linked family,   Bane, Cayce, Giltz, Schaafsma were close.

so now... it is left to us.
Evans, Gail, Janice, Barbara, Bobbie,John,  Martha, Val, Joe, David, Jimmy, Ted, Kathy, Edgar 3, Christopher,  Johnny Molly, Kathryn, Shizuka,  Martha2 (akaBetsy), Teddy, Mitchell, James, John,  Saya,  Kazu, Edgar4, Desmond...


who did i forget to list...

so Saturday at 10 am in the chapel where Edgar was confirmed, married, we will have a service of memory for him and in part the whole of them.  Let the scriptures touch the hearts of those who most need to hear and be healed.

God Abide
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2013
Virginia Beach, 

back in virginia

Grace and peace.
   my mother's parents lived in Virginia Beach as I grew up.  My grandmother turned their house into a tourist home, (bed and breakfast) after my Granddaddy couldn't work due to illness.  It is a beautiful house that looks just as pretty as when they were there.   The people who own it obviously love it.  I have really no desire to go into the house because I know it has changed inside and my memory is strong of it being as it was when Grandmother and Grandaddy lived there.  A large living room with a beautiful deep red wool carpet, a large dining table and credenza that stood beside it.  Two pictures of ships on the sea.  her sewing machine in a corner to the side.  big windows that looked out to the tennis court or the front yard.  the winding wooden polished staircase with steps that weren't too steep. and a banister polished and lovely.   the stairs were perfect for bumping down....the screen porch with a glider where grandmother would sit with a bigcolander of green beans to snap.  rocking and talking and exuding love...  the peacefulness and the love-ed-ness i still feel when i think of it.

around the corner lived my aunt and uncle, Kat and Edgar.   They were younger than my parents and yet the four of them really cared about one another.  It is hard to remember them not laughing or being happy.   They would ride over to grandmothers with us on the handlebars and we'd watch tv for a little while and then ride home.   no helmets...just perched on the handlebars.   bliss.  Kat and Edgar have been, were, remain a big part of my life story.   Whether they knew it or not.  I remember Kat staying up with me when i was sick...calming me if i was afraid at night and being basically really happy to see us.   i always felt loved and cared for by them when we were there.  I know that I was the younger, my cousins, their kids were a littler older, but they always treated me like I could have done all the things Gail and Evans could do.  

We spent most of every day on the beach.  Kat and my mother would make tuna sandwiches, pbjsandwiches, and things to drink to take to the beach.  There were no juice boxes or bottles we'd put water in a jar with some ice and wrap it with foil to keep it as cold as we could.   there would be cokes sometimes but only bottles as there were no cans and my memory doesn't register whether we'd ever take those on the beach.   there's nothing better than a tuna sandwich with a little sand...crunchy...

Edgar would body surf and we sometimes had rafts, mostly would rent one or two, but not every day.  Edgar would have us hold on his shoulders and he would ride a wave in and we'd get the best heads up part of the ride.  That was until we learned how to catch the waves ourselves.  We had to learn how to get in just the right place, decide if the wave was the right size and then lean into it and take the ride.  It was a great ride.  Then if we didn't want the ride we'd dive through the wave and the water would rush over our bodies and massage and invigorate us.  It was grand.   I haven't ridden a wave in for some time just because I got anxious about hurting my back.   And now we mostly go to the Gulf Coast for swimming with waves without the power and crash of the ocean.  
 
Edgar and Kat taught me how to play tennis, how to play cards,  bridge,  pit, rook,  etc.   They taught me so many things.   When i was really little and not accustomed to being apart from my parents I would go over to their house and then chicken out and they'd take me home.   Then i finally was ok with staying.  

Gail and i would stay up and tell stories and giggle until we only got quiet on threat of being separated from one another.   My cousins Jan and Martha and I did the same giggling as well.   Ah what bliss.  

Kat and Edgar were with me at important times.  When my Daddy was dying they were there as we sat on the porch and sang to him and prayed with him until he took his last breath.   Kat and Gail came out to see me when my mother had an episode with her health and I had two kids and John had to leave town and I was working at the church in Utah.

Edgar was probably one of the most congruent people i've ever known.  That is to say he was true to who he was his whole life.  There was nothing fake or uppity about him.  He was brilliant and down to earth.  

feb15

new mexico life
huge sky blue and very high
easy to believe

wind blown trees sing
with sunshine it still seems warm
but chill still in air

thoughts of loved one gone
fill eyes with bittersweet tears
one more missing now

feeling older now
wanting more time to share love
precious now is mine

life breath joy peace hope
wash over me and heal heart
ready now we go

Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2013 ABQ, NM 

Lent 2013 waiting

Grace and peace to you all
   I find myself neglecting this page but have taken on a Lenten discipline of writing and reflecting here. 

   We marked the beginning of Lent last evening on Ash Wednesday.   It is a good time to take a breath...all of lent is a good time for a breath.    An opportunity to get closer  to God. 
We break down the barrier of BUSY and open the  gates of WAITING.  

Waiting is not an idle  venture.  Waiting is not just standing in place.  Waiting is....
First let me hear from you about waiting.  

Does that word have either positive or negative connotations for you?   Take a breath and listen to your inner response. 

Is it too often associated with wasting time?   Losing time?   

Waiting can also connote anticipation-Looking ahead with great expectation-Like waiting for a loved one to return.  It is a good thing. 

So lets use this Lenten time as one of anticipation-great expectation.  
It's like waking in the morning and saying...what now God?   Let me be a channel of blessing 

God abides 
Bobbie Giltz McGarey 
@2013. 

Risky

Stravinsky: Petrouchka

I've missed you all hope you are well.

When I was a senior in high school and president of the drama club, the Jesters, I was called one morning by our teacher and asked to go to the Columbus Ohio board of education office to spend the day as the radio announcer for the Board's radio station. My mom took me down and I was to be picked up at 4. I walked into the building and was hustled up to the small studio, introduced to the director, and then given a notebook with page by page things to read between the music that was played. 
I sat down and off I went. It was fun for the most part. The director was a kindly man and we would chat in between the numbers. This day was their Classical Music day. Which really presented few challenges but I thought after a while I should read ahead in the script and see if there was anything I couldn't or didn't know how to pronounce. And there I saw it. Petrouchka. 
I asked the director how to pronounce that and he said...don't know. So I did a couple of more breaks and when the next recording started I went down the hall to find someone to pronounce this for me. I had 4 minutes. So I walked here and there in the offices and asked folk how to pronounce it. No one knew. I did this several times. But as we were approaching that piece the director smiled, chuckled, and said. Well good luck. 

I pronounced it the best I could. I could see the director laughing in the other room. After the 
piece started I said...Oh my what did I say? He was still laughing. I had to recover from laughing with him to make the next announcement about a happening with the school board and 
a play being put on in one of the high schools. 

When the break came the phone rang in the directors booth. I could hear him say, her name is Bobbie Giltz, ....she's a senior at Whetstone, ....she said it right?! ...thank you for letting us know. 

A teacher from one of the schools had called in apparently amazed that what ever it was I said in pronouncing "Petrouchka" was right. Then the director and I did laugh.

The day went on and 3:45 came and I was leaving to meet my Mom when the director told me it was really a fun day for him

.All too often we don't take risks. Risks in sharing our faith, or helping a stranger, or doing something bold outside our usual expectations. Step out friends today and take a risk. Use the brains God gave you to make a difference in the world. Look at a mystery before you and take a chance that you can 'say' it just right as well. And laugh....You may just get it right.
God abide with you
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2009

July. July

Hello friends This time last week I was in Pittsburg for the Presbyterian General assembly. As always there were some interesting decisions. But perhaps somehow they should have a huge dove kite fly over the plenary reminding folk of the Holy Soirit leading. But, as sure I as I am about most anything I think everyone no matter which side of an issue they fall felt led by the Spirit. Some were just led by the Spirit they wanted to be led by...and if a vote when another way it was THEM defying the Spirit calling. I stood outside the plenary one time and when folk passed I said may the Spirit bless you. Folk would look, at me, what I was wearing, buttons for a cause or not. Rainbow stole or not. ( maybe burkenstocks or not). And reply, on, ya, uh ha, thank you ...it was an interesting experience. I think of the prayer. " not my will but thine...". " thy will be done". And think that too often we change it to not thy will but MINE....MY will be done... Or like john and I heard Jerry Falwell say' ". If we all pray together we can put pressure on God.". Wow, really. Perhaps our daily prayer should be, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts, be found acceptable in your sight, O God. Our strength and our redeemer.". It's a thought. God abide Bobbie Giltz McGarey @2012

Swoosh

What was that? Oh it was June leaving. No not my cousin June, but the month of June 2012. Swoosh! Time passed.m The 4th of July brings great times for some folks. Parties, fireworks, friends gathering. For my PCUSA it's General Assembly time over the 4 th. And I'd have to say there are expectations for the fourth to bring the same to the church. Parties. Fireworks. Firends gathering... But it seems, as I read reactions that there are some who want to make a name for themselves as they deride everything....everything that happens as wrong, subversive, holding some mysterious Meaning... Many of these things are put into questuioning tones that in a backhanded way make folk wonder. This is a true story. There was once a church where the janitor took care of critter problems with a gun. Bye bye squirkes, rabbits, and then cats. Althoight he had been warned not to shot his gun on church pretty...he did. My darter said we should have shorts that say... We Presbyterians don't kill cats. I didn't have a shirt made but I did get it etched on the black of DIY computer. Imagine what kind of interest a sign generate... " honey, we are Methodists...do we kill cats? Because Presbyterians don't. ..Which are the cat killing churches." . Some of the rhetoric from folk who aren't happy with the denomination just now seem to send out messages like this cat one. We don't do this,,,, leaving it blank for the same time like...we don't disrespect Jesus, just so you know" leaving us by inference to think that it's only kind of presbyterians whobbelieve . so god abide. yes bobbie Giltz McGarey @ 1894