Just a note

This is cool . . . thanks to my DEAR FRIEND, Mary Kurtz, I am now beginning to understand how to use this silly system . . . BEAR with me . . . please! Happy August!

Summertime in the mountains

Summertime in the mountains is one of my very favorite things. And this summer is especially good for me because the weather is as cool and gentle as I remember it being in my long ago childhood; and because I’ve had the joy of meeting some young people who have made me smile and given me renewed hope for the future of this Country I still love so well.

 

That was a long intro to what I plan to make a fairly brief comment on the state of my small “nation” . . . As I learn about this new form of communication known as blogging, I try to spend a little time each day thinking of things that I care about that might also matter to other people.

 

Every day Danny Boy takes me for a walk. While he romps through the aspen forest in search of adventure, I pray in search of God’s will, His wisdom and His direction for this continuing adventure that is my life. (Danny, by the way, is an Australian Shepherd pup who calls me his own—he is, you see, not mine, I am his.)

 

Yesterday, as we walked, it occurred to me that the joys of my childhood remain deep within my heart and still speak to me in the same way they did long ago. When I was a little girl growing up in the East Los Angeles suburb of Montebello, my very best times came on family vacations at Mammoth Lakes in the distant High Sierras where, for two weeks each year, I was in heaven. Today, that dream of Heaven lives on. Only now, I reside in the Rocky Mountains in a little cabin on a quiet country road where I wake up every morning thanking God for this home, this place, this life—a few of His most treasured gifts to me.

 

What does all this have to do with the young people I mentioned earlier? Quite a lot really. This past week, I had the joy of meeting two young men and (in another setting) two younger girls, all engaged in the hopeful and innocent adventures of their youth.

 

The young men were a pair of twenty-year-old crusaders riding bicycles from Tempe, Arizona to St. Paul Minnesota to raise awareness of and money for a Catholic outreach for college students that is spreading across the Nation offering students a setting in which to share their faith and increase their own hope. Daniel Tansill and David Edwards (who is actually turning 20 today) are “Spreading God’s Love Across the Country” on the odyssey they call the Tour de CROSS. You can learn more about their adventure at: http://tourdecross.blogspot.com.

 

The younger girls—fifteen-year-old Sierra and fourteen-year-old Sarah, were cousins on vacation riding horses with their aunt and living, like I once did, their horse-loving dreams for a brief two weeks in the mountains far from their homes. Of course I identified most with the girls. But by all four of these youngsters, I was enriched.

 

In the boys I saw a faith in God that I didn’t have at their age, a faith that I’m sure would have led me on a less perilous course through life than the one I chose. In the girls I saw the innocence and the road map for life that God offers through association with the horse. And, through the passion those girls had for the horse, I was reminded of God’s gift to me of love for this great creature that I believe He sent to carry me across the miles toward Him on the journey I once thought was mine alone.

 

Because I saw the girl I once was in both Sierra and Sarah, I gave each of them all three books in the Lost Legend Trilogy (http://www.horselegend.com), in hope that through these stories, they’ll come to know the origin of humankind’s great partnership with God’s beloved horse. Both girls promised book reports. When these promises are fulfilled, I’ll share in this blog what the girls have to say.

 

I’ll pray for all four of these young people from now on in hope that each one will know our Lord always as He leads them in their quests toward fulfillment in Him. And I’ll pray that when the dreams of their youth become reality, they’ll recognize the Source of the Gift and pass the message on.

 

May you and your dreams be forever-Blessed by the Merciful God who loves us all.

Jesus was a storyteller

Have you ever considered the fact that Jesus taught His followers through the telling of stories—parables in the Biblical vernacular? Is it any wonder, then, that many of us still learn through truths skillfully woven into the fibers of a good story, or hidden in plain sight between the lines? Although this applies to both fact and fiction, for me, the latter is preferable. 

My dad was a great storyteller. My early years were filled with the music of his voice, and of his piano. I still hunger for those sounds. I still seek wisdom through stories. I still write with my dad's favorite music playing in the background.

How about you? 

The Lost Legend Trilogy

Welcome to Lost Legend Trilogy

Through the horse, God gave to mankind a very special form of liberty, a bequest that altered not only the face of the earth, but the heart and spirit of its human inhabitants as well. Still, for some reason, the Age of the Horse, and the miraculous changes brought about during this season in time, are most often overlooked. Largely thanks to humankind’s partnership with the horse, territories were discovered, explored and civilized. Lands were cultivated and wars were won. In truth, the impact of this gallant creature on world progress is far more monumental than the changes brought about by any of the more heralded historic periods such as the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, and the Industrial Age.