Potpourri

Random Quotidian-ness

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 9 Comments

HELP

I’m not gonna lie.  I’m about three months behind in my Read Through the Bible in a Year plan.  Often I begin my reading time with the prayer from Psalm 119:18, “Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your law.”  At least those are the words I hurriedly mumble with a momentary blink of my eyes, thumbing pages.  I don’t fool God, though; He sees my doubting heart, hears my silent sighs.  Yet, He “deals bountifully with his servant.” (Psalm 119:17)  He knows my fainthearted need for pictures – to see to believe  – if only through the meat of hearty metaphors which he heaps upon the plate my weak arms lift limply up to Him.  “Learn not the way of the nations…” I read.  “Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried for they cannot walk…” (Jeremiah 10: 2, 5)  O, Lord, help me to dump the stupid scarecrows I haul around.

YELP

Yesterday morning I went outside to check the pool water, and a movement just beyond the view fence caught my eye.   A mere 10 yards away a healthy coyote was looking up at me.  (Ironically, the night before I’d watched the dude flick “The Grey” with my husband.  For an instant I imagined glowing yellow eyes in the beast’s head.)  The coyote began nonchalantly wandering back into the desert and was at the walking path before I thought to try to snap a photo with my phone.  Can you find him – or at least its tail?

HELP

Today, above the brush into which the coyote retreated, there are softly billowing grey clouds.  A cool breeze wrinkles the pool water.  Raindrops dapple the pages of my Bible.

 

 

YELP

I’m afraid to skillet- flip eggs.  Spatulas are good.

 

 

Oooooo!

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 4 Comments

When my stepfather sold part of the property he owned near the beautiful Niobrara River in Nebraska, the new owners were curious about some of the plants my mother had left growing in the garden.  They wondered if they might be “some kind of Oklahoma pepper.”  My mom is an Okie, but the plants were not peppers, they were OKRA.

Here, once again directly from the pages of my Secrets from the Southern Living Test Kitchens book, is the definition of OKRA: “Slender green, fuzzy, fingerlike pods containing numerous small, edible seeds.  Brought to the South by African slaves, okra is still popular in Southern cuisine: it’s an ingredient in many dishes, such as gumbo, but it can also be fried, steamed, or grilled as a vegetable.  Okra has a mild flavor, but when cooked in liquid, it give off a viscous substance that thickens the liquid.  Okra is at its peak during summer months, but it’s also available canned and frozen.”

Thankfully, even though I strayed a little from my own Oklahoma roots, God let me find an Okie to marry so we could engage in lively debates over the best way to prepare OKRA.  We both agree that steamed or boiled is just too slimy, but he prefers it dredged in cornmeal and fried in bacon drippings.  I do agree it’s pretty hard to beat anything dredged in cornmeal and fried in bacon drippings, but I also love OKRA pickled.  He won’t allow pickled OKRA within a country mile of his mouth.

Blogging from A to Z Challenge April 2012

WomanNeverSleeps Gets a New Home

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 4 Comments

 Welcome to the new home of WomanNeverSleeps.  After three years on another blog site, I’ve switched to Word Press.  Here I hope to continue to “quaff at the fount of quotidian quandaries – the quirky, the quaint, the quietly holy.”  This will be a work in progress for awhile.  I’ve imported all my old posts, but I hope you don’t mind overlooking a few glitches in the appearance until I can get them reformatted.  Thanks for your patience, and thanks for reading.

Made for you and me

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 2 Comments

You know the song…”California…New York Island…Redwood Forest…Gulf Stream waters…ribbon of highway…endless skyway…golden valley…diamond deserts…wheat fields waving…dust clouds rolling…”

My recent vacation back to my home state (and Woody Guthrie’s) brought these words to mind as I relished the sights, sounds and scents of familiar – though not recently traversed – terrain. As I was re-exploring the verdant beauty of my sister’s property one morning, I was struck by how similar it was to some of the places I visited on my vacation to another continent last summer. Yes, many who have not experienced the beauties found in my home state might find it shocking, but I don’t think any natives of Oklahoma would be surprised to find that one can compare her secret glories to those of… Ireland! And while my time in Ireland included several overcast and drizzly days that make one want to curl up with warm blankets and beverages, my home state also delivered a similar, albeit more demanding-of-attention cozy, grey beauty. There’s nothing like a good thunder-rolling, lightning-electrified, gusty rainstorm. I love the way another writer describes these scenes found in the Midwest. “…fat spring clouds went somersaulting, rumbling east. Then it poured, a storm that walked on legs of lightning, dragging its shaggy belly over the fields.” (From “Mother” by Ted Kooser) Perfect imagery that – “legs of lightning,” “dragging its shaggy belly.”
Now I am back in the land of “diamond deserts,” and hoping that all who vacation or travel through this land of yours and mine, will be as moved as I was to take time to marvel and give thanks for it.
A scene from the West of Ireland

A "Lot" to Consider

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 3 Comments

Last year my youngest daughter (she was nine at the time) came to me and told me she was going to try to read through the Bible. I gave her my hearty approval without a second thought. Not too many days later she came to me with her Bible and said, “Mommy, I don’t like this story.” She was pointing to verses in Genesis 19. The verses tell the story of Lot’s scheming daughters getting him drunk and sleeping with him in their efforts to preserve their family.

My first reaction was one of grief for my daughter. Like any mother, I don’t’ like my children to be upset. BUT…I also know that grief – sometimes in pretty hefty doses – is part of this life. So, my next reaction was one of relief. A couple of very positive things were happening in this interaction. First, my daughter came to me with her concern. As a very imperfect parent, I think it’s an amazingly cool act of God’s grace when my children come to me with their concerns. Second, she recognized that this story reveals some seriously scary things about the human heart. That her young mind could grasp this truth was also an incredible grace. These two good things led to the best part of all – an opportunity to talk about the gospel, the good news that Jesus came to live, die and live again for people like Lot and his daughters, for people like her and me.
I share this story because lately I’ve had more than the usual number of opportunities to consider these kinds of stories and situations. I’ve been thinking about how the Bible is full of stories of sin: murder, rape, adultery, immorality, coveting, lying, etc., etc. My church’s book study group has been reading through some of Flannery O’Connor’s short stories. Like stories in the Bible, O’Connor uses dark and grotesque situations and language to contrast the beauty of God’s grace. Other authors and screenwriters do this, as well, but Miss O’Connor specifically stated this as her purpose in writing. On March 31st I also blogged about the use of grotesque language in music.
It might seem better, and it might be easier, to make no place in my life or my children’s lives for such stories, movies, and songs; but, to extract them from our lives seems to me a denial of the power of the gospel. “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? And He did so in order that He might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory.” (Romans 9:22, 23)
I don’t ever want to condone gratuitous sex, violence and profanity. I do want to thoughtfully consider the Bible’s example in presenting stories that show sin and sin’s consequence for what they are. I don’t ever want to expose my children to stories they’re not mature enough to handle, but I also don’t want to censor them from ones which, when they are ready, will further their understanding of God’s grace and help them become discerning adults. Indeed, there is more than a “Lot” at stake.

Just call me "Blog Killer"

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 3 Comments

Yes, I am on a poetry kick, which I realize is probably a blog killer. Former Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser, writes that “There’s no money in poetry because most of my neighbors, and most of yours, don’t have any use for it.” Nevertheless, I’m reading Kooser’s Poetry Home Repair Manualto try to improve my – er-“craft.” Well, Neighbor, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about this becoming a poetry blog – even if am inspired and convinced of Kooser’s reasons FOR writing poetry, and actually improve my techniques.

Kooser would probably approve of little, if any, of what you’re about to read. (Doesn’t that just make you want to get right down to reading it?) Actually, he might acknowledge that there is structure. Might.
I wrote this Seuss-like little rhyme for my daughter’s high school graduation last year. Now she’s moving away for culinary school, and these thoughts have come back to mind.
On Your Head
Your MeMa would say you “weren’t big as a minute,”
but you set a big goal and eventually you’d win it
Just barely four you were back then
but I will always remember when
from the time you got up until going to bed
you were determined to STAND ON YOUR HEAD!
With your head in the floor and your feet in the air
you learned many things, but just three that I’ll share
Just three little things from back in the day
but they’ll serve you well as you start on your way
The first thing you learned form your time on your head
is it takes PERSEVERANCE to get up and ahead
You employed this as you studied for tests
or perfected a recipe for special guests
You learned what it means to persevere
and I know you’ll persist through joy or fear
Now the next thing you learned – this is number two
is that sometimes you just have to change your view
We have another word – we call it PERSPECTIVE
and this requires that you be perceptive
to learn with all things and all people you meet
if you should be standing on your head or your feet
And finally the third thing you’ve heard as a fact
that life is simply a BALANCING ACT
In your room where you taped scriptures on the door
there also were stacks of movies galore
For a Christian young woman in the century we’re in
you must juggle two worlds with discipline
You are in, not of, this place
and ultimately you must walk through each door with grace
PERSEVERANCE, PERSPECTIVE and BALANCE – these three
are three things I think will help you to see
when all is done and all is said
you’ve learned quite a bit from your time on your head!

A Harvest for the Fatherless

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ 5 Comments

Thousands will spend this Father’s Day without their fathers. The vast majority will probably have mental images of the last moments spent with these men. For some such images are peaceful – perhaps an aged man resting in a casket after a life well-lived. Others will remember the back of a father as he walked out a door never to be seen again. As for me, I remember my father standing on an idling tractor in the middle of a dusty plowed-up field, my ears burning from the tongue lashing he was giving me. I was eight, and he had sternly forbidden me from walking out in the field when he was plowing. That night he died from a heart attack as he was driving home from my brother’s Junior Prom. And it was good.

Saying “it was good,” is one of the great mysteries of my life, and yet I know it to be true. My father’s death undoubtedly changed the course of my life. I lived places I wouldn’t have lived, did things I wouldn’t have done, made friends I wouldn’t have made. I married a man I wouldn’t have met and had children I wouldn’t have had. I can’t imagine my life without any of these things – especially my husband and children. Yes, I suppose I would have married someone else and might very well have had a great life. But that was not meant to be.

There is a Bible verse that says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28) There is also an Irish saying that goes, “You’ll never plow a field by turning it over in your mind.” I agree with the Bible, and to the Irish saying I add my own take, “If your mind IS a fertile field, its plowing just might produce a harvest.”

In my mind I’ve often returned to that field where I had that last meaningful interaction with my father. Standing among the dirt clods, feeling like a dirt clod, I was being trained not to do stupid stuff, e.g., chase after a tractor when the driver doesn’t know you’re there. And though I wish I hadn’t needed that reprimand, I am thankful that my father was the type of dad to give it. That’s the image I treasure.

The Bible says something else, “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!” (Psalm 126:5) If you are sowing tears as Father’s Day approaches, I hope you will take heart, and I pray you will find joy.

This was just supposed to be…

~ Bri Sperry-Renfrew ~ Leave a comment

about me wondering if I should consider turning this into a blog featuring my daughters’ art work. It turned into me thinking about other upcoming events, which were probably already hovering like a delicate, wispy cloud in the back of my mind, not to mention over my heart.

This latest painting is from Daughter #1. She just returned from
Oregon, which might have inspired this piece. But everyone knows Oregonians don’t use umbrellas, so this must be her back in Arizona, reflecting on her time there, the umbrella a symbol of protection for those dear people and places she left back in the rain. Not that I’m trying to force my interpretation on her work. We’re long past…

me forcing anything on her. In 20 days she leaves home to begin a pursuit of another one of her artistic endeavors, culinary school. And if I could paint a picture of this process of sending her off – the excitement, the joy, the hopes, and fears – well, maybe I should just show you her art. It’s always best to let it speak for itself, right?