I could read before I could read.

I thought so, anyway. Wasn’t I doing just what Mommy did when she read the book?

But it had to be the book—Teddy Bear of Bumpkin Hollow.* My favorite. The one I begged to have read—over and over and over.

Thing was, I heard it so often, I learned the entire narrative by heart. And the illustrations clearly signaled when to turn pages.

So sometimes I got my begging request, and other times, well, I just “read it to myself.” Right out loud. I still remember some of it by heart, even in my aging adulthood:

“Teddy was a little brown bear. He was just about the cutest little brown bear that ever lived in Bumpkin Hollow. But he had one very bad habit. No matter what his Mother told him to do, Teddy wanted to do just the opposite…”

Only I’d say “ops-di-dit,” because I couldn’t pronounce the big word rightly.

I think I knew well, however, what it meant. I also suspect someone bought that book because of its lesson about this “very bad habit” not being a very good idea.

I suppose it helped me learn not to say “no.” Which is good. To a point. Like when I stood fierce and firm atop the hall stairs and said it with gusto to Daddy. He’d said to come down those steps, and I’d declared, “NO!” just like that! Then I discovered how fast Daddy could run up stairs, plus what a spanking from him felt like—the only spanking he ever gave me. Evidently I learned well (not to say no), and never needed reinforcement.

But you can learn that too well, can’t you? Did that make it harder for me to refuse manipulative people—or even people asking favors? Books with moral lessons can over-magnify in a child’s tender mind.

This thought fades the luster of my favorite toddlerhood book somewhat. Yet meanwhile, two favorites for my own toddler glow warmer in my heart…

How like a comfortable blanket Good Night, Moon feels! The “great green room” indeed looms large in the (bunny) child’s eyes. The night is dark, and that dollhouse lit up in the dimness could look spooky. But with the sweet old lady whispering “Hush” and the comforting cadence of the text, almost anyone hearing it is ready to drift into peaceful sleep after the final page turns. Such warm, secure love envelopes little bunny-boy, and consequently reader. What a rare, precious thing, in this era of angst and scurry and upheaval!

Because angst and upheaval visited my son and myself even before the book, I’m glad it was the one I read often before tucking him in at that time, instead of one implying dire consequences if you don’t do what you’re told.

My other favorite, by the same author: The Runaway Bunny, speaks even greater grace.

This little bunny wants to run away. But the one who loves him tells him no matter how he schemes escape to lonely freedom by imposture, she will stick close, following him everywhere; he’ll never shed that companionship, even if he tries. So finally he surrenders to persistent love, deciding just to be who he is, and runs into her arms.

This book we acted out—spoke the dialog and pantomimed the actions. At the end, I’d squat, arms outstretched, to catch my “little bunny,” who came running, throwing himself hard into them, “knocking me over” (as I let him), erupting us into rollicking laughter.

How like the great Lover of my soul, and my own surrender to Him! No wonder I wanted my child to conceptualize such persistent love.

Excellent book favorites for any parent and child, especially taken together.

***

*You can listen to a recording of Teddy Bear of Bumpkin Hollow here, in its entirety.

****

Apology: Since one of last week’s posts contained two new collages, I took the liberty of reusing the one above today. This series is still slated to present 31 original collages by the end, and we still have eight collages in eight days… Just in case you wondered… 🙂

*****

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1 Collage and 31-Days Introduction

Day 2 Collage: Nothing-But-Junk Fish

Day 3 Collage: What Grabs Your Heart?

Day 4 Collage: Why I Chose to do this 31 Days–Really

Day 5 Collages: On Being Transparent

Day 6 Collage: Salute to Birds and Dragonflies

Day 7 Collage: Got it Made in the Shade

“Oh. 81 and 80,” he said.

He was reading this weekend’s forecast temperatures.

It’s the second weekend in October—and this isn’t Florida. We live in the Northeast.

This autumn can’t decide if it’s summer or winter, or that season it’s supposed to be, in between. One day the sun blazes down through humid air, making everybody sweat more than they did this past summer, which wafted breezes light and mild. The next day we wake to frost formed thick enough on roofs to mimic snow.

Mostly it’s been posing as summer, and here it is again!

Perfect time to publish this collage, made in still-warm September, using cutouts mostly from house-and-yard catalogs, and named “Got it Made in the Shade.”

That describes my personal forecast for today.

I’ve cranked out our own table umbrella on the patio to full unfurl, and moved the hammock to beneath the apple tree. I plan to lounge there long in warm breezes and snooze or read, or gaze around above me at leaf colors I don’t normally associate with hammock lounging.

Yet ironically I added leaves to the collage, to represent the shade of trees—and the leaves, you’ll notice, aren’t green, but autumnal gold!

It is Sonday—the day I like to rest, really rest, “in His shade.” And a couple of Psalms verses drift through my purposely lazy head:

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty” (Ps 91:1 NKJV).

and

“The LORD is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night” (Ps 121: 5-6 NIV).

I’ve got it made in His shade today!

Hoping you do, too!

*****

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1 Collage and 31-Days Introduction

Day 2 Collage: Nothing-But-Junk Fish

Day 3 Collage: What Grabs Your Heart?

Day 4 Collage: Why I Chose to do this 31 Days–Really

Day 5 Collages: On Being Transparent

Day 6 Collage: Salute to Birds and Dragonflies

This one is for the birds!—And the dragonflies! I thought of them both with great appreciation when I leafed through the home accessories catalog and saw their images, now pasted in this collage:

And here’s why:

The summer birds are gone now. All we hear, mostly, are crow caws and blue jay squawks, and, soothing in the evening and early morning, the soft hoot-hoot of our resident owl.

One flock we miss most, even before the air grows chill, are the swallows that perch in spring and summer on overhead wires (like the birds in the collage), holding their flying and bug-catching seminars. While they hang around here, soaring and swooping, the mosquitoes grow scarce. Right after these feathered friends leave on their exodus south, you can notice the difference. (Swat! Scratch!)

The insect population surges, but not for long. Soon those other wondrous creatures appear in greater numbers, darting and air-dancing iridescent over the lawns and fields: the dazzling dragonflies. On sunny afternoons I sometimes get to sit and watch them, fascinated. They glint and glimmer in the sunlight, and sometimes flash past so fast my eyes can’t keep up with them.

A few flycatchers show up more often as well. One’s been hanging out with me lately when I grab warm days in my porch sitting place. I ask him if he’s the one who sang to me from the roof peak two summers ago. Then I watch him do his air acrobatics, which still make my jaw drop. I cannot figure how a bird with such ordinary, non-hummingbird build can pause midair the way he does.

What a delight for me are these birds and dragonflies! So when I saw bird line-up and dragonfly images on facing “junk” catalog pages, I set right into cutting, and soon after did the pasting. The rustic shutter came from the same catalog, as I think did the field flower images.

In my paste-up, at first the dragonflies disappeared too much. So I gave them some embellishment: outlining and dotted doodles around their borders, and glitter-glue dabs on their wings.

That’s how today’s collage happened: Like a thank-you to Him Who creates such wonders and a salute to those helpful and beloved winged friends.

*****

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1 Collage and 31-Days Introduction

Day 2 Collage: Nothing-But-Junk Fish

Day 3 Collage: What Grabs Your Heart?

Day 4 Collage: Why I Chose to do this 31 Days–Really

Day 5 Collages: On Being Transparent

Today I want to limit my words and let the visual imagery do most of the talking and stir up your thinking.

I want simply to ask you a few questions to ponder–about the two collages, and about life and people:

• What does it mean to be transparent?
• When is it good to be transparent, and when not?
• In the collages, what is transparent, and what merely appears to be transparent but is only reflecting something that is, or distorting what’s really there?
  • How about in life, regarding the people around you and the world–and you yourself?

May these ponderings enrich your thinking, and your life!

*****

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1 Collage and 31-Days Introduction

Day 2 Collage: Nothing-But-Junk Fish

Day 3 Collage: What Grabs Your Heart?

Day 4 Collage: Why I Chose to do this 31 Days–Really

Only four days and I’m already feeling like I’ve stuck my foot in a peat bog and am getting sucked in over my head. Already I find so many demands and nags calling to me and tugging at me from all different directions that I regret my commitment…

But wait! Maybe I need to step back and consider why I’m doing this.

I am so agitated inside by all the cacaphony that I can’t seem to let down and do this.

I need to put first things first.

First for me is God.

First doings for me are getting with God, with all my baggage and angst, and directing my voice, my attention, my heart, toward Him.

I pray for His help in doing this and turn to the Psalms, which so often express my heart better than I myself could.

And as I do so, I begin to think the reasons for my 31-day commitment run very deep.

Through many years, I have let a lot of interferences cut me off from developing many aspects of what makes me… me. I have often stifled that in the interest of others’ dreams, bents, and desires. Oftentimes rightly. But sometimes wrongly–or at least needlessly.

And one of the verses that “happens” to pop up in my reading is this:

“Your hands have made me and fashioned me…” Ps 119:73.

I think of how I have often expressed my passion about that fact:

“I wanna be the me that He made me to be!”

Aiming, working, striving, to be the individual creation that God designed in oneself is not the same thing as selfishly following one’s own whims and desires with no regard for others. It’s honoring God’s creation, and His wisdom.

I know that part of the way God made me was empathetic, with a come-alongside spirit that encourages others in finding their gifts and supports them in following their bents and doing “heartily” what they’re made to do well. That is a good gift, and one that needs to be used for the love of God and the benefit of others. But it’s not all there is to me. He also gave me a leaning toward writing and art. It may have been good and right and even best that I put aside going to the art school that accepted me, and relinquished that J-term trip to France in college, and put the skids on my writing endeavors in the interest of motherhood. But right now there’s no good reason not to pursue those neglected aspects of who He made me…

And to do it heartily!

Mini collages and mini blog posts are my baby steps in that direction.

May He bless your efforts to be what He made you to be, too, dear reader.

*****

Previous posts in this series:

Day 1 Collage and 31-Days Introduction

Day 2 Collage: Nothing-But-Junk Fish

Day 3 Collage: What Grabs Your Heart?