"And the joke, or tragedy, of it all is that these golden moments in the past, which are so tormenting if we erect them into a norm, are entirely nourishing, wholesome, and enchanting if we are content to accept them for what they are, for memories. Properly bedded down in a past which we do not miserably try to conjure back, they will send up exquisite growths. Leave the bulbs alone, and the new flowers will come up. Grub them up and hope, by fondling and sniffing, to get last year's blooms, and you will get nothing.

"Unless a seed die..."   {"Letters to Malcom, Chiefly on Prayer," by C.S. Lewis, Pg. 27}

    Walking through fields of memories, I can't help but hope for yesterday's blooms. The sticks are dead, brown, lying on the ground in a trampled mess. How I miss the fragrant blooms of yesterday... blowing in the breeze, waving at me as though the flowers and leaves were saying hello after a long absence. "I'm back!" I want to shout. "Where are you?" The cold winds of winter are my only answer. After the chill, the snow comes gently falling, falling, dancing to the ground in an unsung melody. The tears gather up in my eyes and start to spill over and run down my cheeks. The snow is covering my once beautiful flowers. There's no hope of revival, is there? I'm watching the white flurries cover them like a slow, gradual burial. They are dead and gone.

    Is the death the real tragedy? Or is the real affliction my hopes of conjuring up the past again? I wish for better times... the winds of Summer, the warmth and green of Spring, the newness of everything that blooms when all the frost is gone. Don't the best things happen when you're walking through fields of flowers? When all the world is coming up roses? I'd even settle for cut roses in an ugly vase. Any reminder will do. Any little bridge to the past will suffice. Any sort of escape to "the good old days," will please me.

    The thorns never stay amidst the memories of a rosy past. The prick and poke sharply enough in the present, but memory has a way of cutting them clear off the stems. All that's left for a grieving heart is the beauty and fragrance of the rose. Nothing more, nothing less. "What's the danger in that?" I question. Don't you wonder, too?

    Wishing for nothing more than the glory days of the past is the cunning, deft little thief that has stolen many good hours from me. Good hours, full of potential in the present. Here, NOW. The door to the flowers, sunshine and glories of 2010 stands open to me, and I can do nothing but lie at the door of 2008 and weep. The tears have blinded my eyes. The memories have dominated everything that lies before me. It's time to move.

  
     "Return to your rest, O my soul, For the LORD has dealt bountifully with you. For You have rescued my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.
            I shall walk before the LORD in the land of the living."      {Psalm 116:7-9}

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas tree ...

How lovely are thy branches! Even more lovely, the lights they string around your furry arms, and the ornaments that make you stick out in all your seasonal splendor. The rotunda is much more interesting with you there to fill the halls with the fragrance of pine, and sparkle with light when the sun goes down. I can't help but think of excuses for walking by to drink up your magnificent presence... and wonder at the journey you took to get here.

.read the story of the Capitol Christmas tree here.


The Christmas Tree is an ancient and wonderful tradition here in America. That wasn't always the case... it took Hessian Soldiers, war, and Queen Victoria to turn the branches of the evergreen into an American staple. Even Martin Luther had a hand in perpetuating our modern tradition.

Legend has it, late one winter evening, Martin marveled at the beauty of the stars sparkling through the trees on his walk home. Excited about the beauty of God's unique creation, he went home and placed candles on the Christmas tree to recreate what he saw for his young children. The flickering flames danced like the stars in the sky on the end of each evergreen branch.

What began as nothing more than a Druid superstition ( Who used holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life, and placed evergreen branches over doors to keep away evil spirits.) became St. Boniface's tool for teaching the Trinity, and then Martin Luther's canvas for re-painting the beauty of the night sky. I can't help but think that when Luther lit up the tree, he was thinking of that one, great star. The star that lit up the way to the Christ child, born in a manger.

Now, it is for Him that we light the tree, give gifts (even as the magi did), and sing heralds of His birth. He is the Messiah ~ Emmanuel, God with us.

Merry Christmas.

>Snowflakes<

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
 ~ H.W. Longfellow

This is in honor of the snow dump that we received this past week ~ 10-12" in Lincoln, Nebraska! The drifts are nearly 6' high, and the egress windows are storing the surplus snow below the ground. Yesterday as I peeked out the frosty window, a bright red Cardinal perched on a nearby birch tree.

What could be more lovely?

What could be a more perfect way to welcome Winter and all the cheer of Christmas?

--- Recent Cake-Bakery ---

Things have been hectic lately... but I did manage to cook up some delightful birthday cakes. Isn't it great that those family magazines have free online ideas? Here is a visual feast for you...

The skateboard was for my brother Preston's 18th birthday. Between the aesthetics and the sugar content, it was a success. (He graciously ignored the lacy cardboard base... it was the right tool for the right job... I guess.) The wheels are a combination of pretzel rods and mini chocolate-covered doughnuts. The skateboard is up-side down because the interesting stuff is always on the under-side.

 

The second was baked for my friend Jordan ... who deserves more than a cake for all of the Saturdays he's spent helping us chainsaw and split cords and cords of wood. Now that the snow is falling, the wood-burning stove is my favorite place to curl up with a good book. Ah, Winter, and the good friends that make it better.

The "logs" are pound-cake covered with chocolate (and coconut) frosting. I had fun making the flames from colored fruit roll-ups.. and the doughnut holes serve as "coals." You should've seen it on fire... er, I mean, with the candles lit. It was amazing. 

Philosophical and otherwise intellectual posts are forthcoming. First, let them eat cake. :D

~ Noelle

.President Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation.

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well as the iron and coal as of our precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.


It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the imposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, 

and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

.Grandmother's Pearls.

They came all the way from Spain. The clasp is a larger pearl, on top of a golden piece of metal that clicks happily when you fasten it. There's a necklace and a small bracelet that leaves just the right amount of wiggle room when you click it onto your wrist. These are my grandmother's pearls.

Yesterday morning I stretched my elastic string of faux pearls out and slipped them over my head. I stepped back to survey the fashion of the morning - a red antique sweater topped off a high-wasted black pencil skirt and heels. The cashmere, appliqued red sweater has seen so much... it was a little-worn purchase of my great-grandmother. I've worn it into the world of politics now, and it has more stories to tell. A sigh escaped my lips. One more day of budget debate ahead.

Mom popped her head in, surveyed my outfit, and mentioned something about it being time to "pass on the pearls." She returned, smiling, with a red jewelry box, stamped with an elegant seal. It sprung open to reveal a string of pearls... and a bracelet to match. Their elegance and shine betrayed that elastic string around my neck as a ridiculous, $5.00 fake. I was delighted to surrender them for the real thing.

Grandma and Grandpa are in a nursing home now. Some days are wonderful, and some are filled with confusion, dimentia, and frustration. Her brothers came to visit last week, for one last time. I wear the pearls around my neck because she can't enjoy them anymore. That string of shine makes me feel like such a princess; a real daughter of a real God who delivered my family from the Armenian Genocide.

Those pearls from Spain are so much more than an accessory to me... they're a remembrance of the work of the LORD in the life of Miriam Kassarjian Badeer so far... and all His kind intentions for the future.

Hello world of blogger!

I'm new here! After a few weeks of fiddling around with layouts, banners, and other such aesthetic matters, I'm ready to begin the work of writing. The stage is set, and now it's time to do something.

My old venue, xanga, is almost officially defunked. It's time to enter the world of blogger, banner ads, html, and other unknown regions of technology. The writing part should be a piece of cake.

Stay tuned... and in the meantime, check out the other fantastic blogs I've found. They're just a little to the left. I won't be gone long...