At Home in Wyoming

Meeteetse Mercantile

The Meeteetse Mercantile in Meeteetse, Wyoming

One thing that I love about Wyoming is that historic buildings don't seem to be primed and painted and gussied up the way that they are back East...what they were, they still are, and don't look all that different, and most don't have a gift shop attached!  Now I'm not knocking museums, but sometimes it is nice to see things still being useful.  It shows a continuity with the past, a connection with those that came before.  Which leads me to the Meeteetse Merc.

Meeteetse Wyoming is a small town (population a little over 300) about 30 miles from Cody.  The Meeteetse Merc was a dry goods store built about 1906...I believe it was originally a Company store for the Pitchfork Ranch.  Can't you just see women in long dresses shopping for a bolt of calico, or little children pressing their noses up against the display cases hoping for some penny candy?  As tiny as Meeteetse was, and is, I imagine that the Merc was the center of town activity, with news and local gossip being bandied around. 

Sadly, the Meeteetse Merc now stands vacant...I believe it is for sale.  I would imagine that it would be hard for a General Store to compete with Walmart, even if it is 30 miles away!  The local gas station has a tiny grocery store attached to it, selling convenience items to hold the residents over until the next trip to Cody...life has moved on.  Our culture has changed.

I used to subscribe to a magazine from England.  I wish I still had the article but I must have thrown it away.  But the old time General Store was fading from their villages, too.  Gone the way of the closing of the village schools, which were now being consolidated to bus children to more central locations.  The problem was that village life began to cease with the eradication of the school and General Store.  Mothers no longer were able to chitchat when picking up their children from the village school.  Old men were not able to play checkers on the front porch of the General Store in summer, or trade news around the woodstove in winter.  Women were now doing their shopping at the super stores nearest their town. It was noticed that the schools and store were the glue that stuck the village together, and with the closing of these gathering places village life was slipping away.

But they came up with a novel idea.  They put out grants to keep the General Stores going, something like our nonprofit grants.  The stores were subsidized by the grants, and they were then able to keep the stores open for the good of the village, and the villages began to thrive again.  Elderly people no longer needed to drive miles away to do their weekly grocery shopping.  Community life flourished.

I thought about that article a few weeks ago when I walked past the Meeteetse Merc.  I thought what a blessing it would be to the town if we had grants for purposes like that.  I don't know, maybe we do and I just don't know about it...but in the meantime, the old store still stands vacant...a glimpse of the past, and maybe a hope for the future, too.  DLB

 

Benedictine Monks and Your 'To Do' List

 

Bronze statue outside the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, entitled "Code of the West" by Herb Mignery.  Notice the fall leaves under the statue against the background of snowy Rattlesnake Mountain.  It's like getting two seasons for the price of one!

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I have still been reading "For the Family's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macauley.  In chapter 10 she discussed the Benedictine way of life, and the influence "Benedicts Rule" (for monastic communities) had on European culture.  She states:

     "I've quoted Benedict's rule once or twice so far.  He was planning a community's life pattern, and then filled it out with wise lifegiving content.  As he based his rule on the authority of the Scriptures, it's ages-old wisdom and simplicity guide us with principles for planning life uncluttered by the confusing too-much that surrounds us today.

     It helped me no end to think on his advice to first of all set your necessary basic pattern of the everyday, and only then can you decide what, when, and how all the other demands can be fitted in.  He clearly emphasizes that the basic routine won't keep changing apart from the appropriate flexibility when age or health demands it.  This regularity is health-giving for the body, mind, spirit--for the individual and for a group such as a family." ("For the Family's Sake" by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay).

Every morning I sit down with a notebook and do my "To Do" list for the day.  There is always more on the list than hours in the day!  I must be pumped up on all that caffeine to even HOPE, in my wildest imagination, that I will be able to complete even half of my 'to do's'!  But I was getting a lot done...do you know how?  It was by tossing overboard things like sit down family meals, Bible reading time, prayer time, reading for pleasure time, walks up at Beck Lake and a normal bed time that ensured proper rest.  I was skipping church on Sunday, and picnics.  In short, most of the things that brought zest to life.

Now I do things a little differently.  I still sit down with my coffee and make a 'to do' list, but the first things on the list are the things I mentioned in the paragraph before this one.  This is the frame for my day.  Then, and only then, do I piece in all the other things that need to be done.  The house may be a little messier, and the meal less elaborate...the fall leaves may still be lying on my front porch waiting for the broom...but I no longer resemble a snapping turtle around my loved ones because I am stressed, and when I hit the pillow each night I feel like I lived the day, instead of just existing through it.

How is it with your 'to do' list?  Are you running your life, or have you found that your life is running you?  Guess what?  Only you can change it!  DLB

Too Much Fun!

Where I went on the evening of the 4th of July to escape from all the celebration madness...the smokey appearance of Heart Mountain was due to the California fires.

We survived another 4th of July weekend in Cody, Wyoming!  For those of us who live in town, we learned for a few days what it is like not to have a parking space in front of our home, how to deal with bumper to bumper traffic, long lines at restaurants, long lines at Walmart, fire and police and ambulance sirens (in the parade and going to accidents).  We saw some poor cowboy who never made it home from the bar (which was open until 4 a.m. on the 4th of July) asleep on the street the next morning using the curb as his pillow...his cowboy hat a few feet away.  I saw the great great niece of Calamity Jane on horseback at the corner of 12th and Sheridan cracking a whip in front of anyone that would watch.  I saw more people than I had seen all year, some I knew but most I didn't.  I saw the governor of Wyoming ride a horse down Main Street, and watched the Mayor describe all the floats in the parade from his vantage point on top of the Irma.  I saw it all and did it all, and at some point in the day it all just got a little too much.

If you go to the Emergency Room in Cody (thankfully we were not there this 4th of July) they have a big bulletin board with a map, and they mark with pins the home of each tourist that ends up in the ER.  Then they categorize the accidents...rodeo, horse, hiking, car accident, snake bite...and then the catch all category, which reads "just plain having too much fun"!  (That category has more check marks next to it then all the others combined).

Having too much fun can be exhausting...so I escaped town and headed toward Powell, Wyoming to watch my son ride his horse out on farmland.  It was so peaceful, no noise, only the sound of the meadowlark and the breeze.  All still.

And that was my 4th of July, family and friends, fun...and some quiet.  Maybe it is because I am getting older, or maybe because I am getting saner, but I think I enjoyed the quiet most of all!  It was literally the pause that refreshed!

Hope you all had a fun and sane 4th of July!  DLB

A Lesson From Great Aunt Louise

View from my front porch swing...

My  husband's Great Aunt Louise was dying.  Looking back, I think that I was the first to notice that something was wrong.  Her son, who resided and cared for her,  had died suddenly and unexpectedly in surgery, and while her faith in Christ was still strong, she was getting weary.  Still, she soldiered on, trying to sort out her new life living alone now as an elderly woman.

Great Aunt Louise was one of the spunkiest women I knew.  She could out shoot, out fish, out ride most anyone I knew.  Widowed early, she provided for her family and worked well into her late 70's.  She was stubborn, opinionated, loved the Lord Jesus  and western life.  Still, when her son died, she lost some of her old spark, and when I had her over for Sunday supper after church, I could tell she was fatigued.  I settled her next to the fire, put a blanket over her, and read a book while she took a little nap.  It was as she was lightly snoring that I heard the gurgle in her lungs.

We took her to the hospital that afternoon, and they admitted her for tests, and told us that she probably had not long to live.  It would not be a quick death, but a lingering one, and they felt that she would best be served in the hospital long term care unit.  So she settled in, and began the process of dying.

One afternoon, I was sitting by her bed and asked her what it felt like to die.  Great Aunt Louise was always matter of fact and a straight shooter, and death was not about to change that.  What she told me that afternoon I have never forgotten...

She said that it was not as hard to die as you might think, because at her age more people were waiting for her on the 'other side' than were still here,  and yet, she said, it was still hard to go.  But she said that she had time to think about her life while lying on her deathbed, and she said that what she realized was that she had spent her whole life working, providing, saving for the rainy day.  Always so busy...but as she faced death what was really important to her were the little things.  She mentioned the feel of her dog's tongue on her hand, the rose arbor over her front door, the feel of a warm egg when she went to gather them from the henhouse, family picnics and the faces of loved ones. 

She told me that she spent all her life focusing on work, and money and security...but she could care less about any of that on her deathbed. What meant the most where the things that she paid scant attention to at the time.  Little things.  Sweet things.  The things that she paid the least attention to.  She said that it was a sad thing to come to the end of her life and realize that she had lived it backwards.   If she had it all to do over again, she would have paid less attention to the big things, and focused more on the LITTLE things in life...

I think of that deathbed conversation often.  I asked my husband a few weeks ago what his favorite part of his day was...and he said that every day he looks forward to coming home over his lunch hour.  He can smell lunch cooking, and we sit at the table and talk and watch Andy Griffith on DVD...same old shows we have seen a thousand times, but  can still make us laugh.  I do a lot of big things for my husband, but it is this one simple little thing that gets him through his day.  Great Aunt Louise was right, the little things are the BIG things!

So this 4th of July, find lots of little things to do.  Wave that American flag, go to a parade, light some sparklers, eat watermelon, go on a picnic or take in a band concert at your local park.  Eat ice cream at an ice cream social, or BBQ at the Elks Club.  Take your lawn chairs and a blanket and curl up and watch your community's fireworks display.  Enjoy an ice cream cone, double dip! 

This year while you celebrate the birth of our country, celebrate the little things in your life.  They may end up being more important than you know!  DLB

Are You Miffed at God?

What Cody, Wyoming looks like in June on Sheridan Avenue...

I had a plan blow up in my face a few weeks ago.  It was a good plan.  It involved someone else.

Someone came to me with a big problem.  I prayed hard about it, and the perfect solution occurred to me.  I was sure that God gave me the idea, and I proceeded to lay it out to the person with the problem, who acted on it...and it was great for awhile.  Me and God, we were just clicking away on all cylinders, everything was falling into place for this person just like wayward pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, snapping neatly together at last...that is, until the rug was pulled out from under that person and the plan was done for. 

I felt God, who can do anything, had missed the boat on this one.  Didn't He know that this was the right solution to this person's problem?   Didn't He give me this idea in the first place?  I felt surely that He was not paying attention, so I began to pray and pray and pray for Him to correct this, but of course to know avail.  God pricked with a needle the balloon of my plan, and I have been hearing the bang/pop ever since.

I became miffed with God.

I have a little sister.  My role is the big sister, who always bosses the little sister around.  For those of you who are old enough to remember the "I  Love Lucy" show, Lucy was always the one who got the grand plan, the grand scheme, and her friend Ethel always helped Lucy make the scheme happen (usually with disastrous results).   Over the years, I became Lucy and my poor little sister became Ethel.  I had the idea, she would make it happen.  Until recently, when she told me she didn't want to be Ethel anymore!

It occurred to me, when I was miffed at God, that I was putting Him in the same spot I used to put my little sister.  I got the idea, and it was God's responsibility to make it happen.  Until a few weeks ago anyway, when God showed me in no uncertain terms that He did not want to be Ethel either!

Presumptuous.  The dictionary defines it as "overstepping due bounds".  I have another definition of it, 'me'.  Once I realized what I had been doing, I got down on my knees and confessed my sin of presuming upon God, and asked him, when people come to me with problems, how should I then deal with them?  He showed me that I was missing one crucial step. First, I was to seek the mind of God about this person, and then I was to ask Him how He wanted me to pray for them.  I was not to pray, tell God what I thought should be done, and expect him to pull it off.  I was to LISTEN.  God always has a plan, and it will end up being a whole lot better than mine!

When I look back over the last few weeks, I am ashamed of my presumptuousness.  I marvel at why God, the great I AM, wants to deal with me at all!  But that's the thing about God.  He corrects us when we are veering off course, and while correction is hard, it is always done with perfect love.

Are you miffed at God?  Did it seem that He did not answer a prayer in the way that you wanted, or didn't seem to come through for you at a difficult time in your life?  If so, please tell Him how you feel.  All the hurt and resentment, if you are blaming God, tell Him.  His shoulders are big!  He can handle it!  (He knows it all anyway, who are we fooling).  And once you tell Him, confess your sin of thinking you know best for your life, and the lives of others.  Begin to seek His answers, I promise they are much better than our own!

I will leave you with this scripture, from the Book of Job (now there was a man with some problems), but God showed him who was in charge when He said,

"Where wast thou when I laid the foundation of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;

When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for Joy? " (Job 38:4-7)

Clearly, like Job, I wasn't there when He laid the foundation of the earth!  I am so thankfiul that God cares enough about us to put us in our place!  DLB

Who's In Charge Here Anyway Part 3

This is Part 3 of "Who's In Charge Here Anyway".  Please see two previous posts for Part 1 and 2...

"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  Matthew 11:28-30)

Hard times...they are often better looking back on them then when you are going through them!  With distance you can see why God allowed certain things into your life, and you can even be thankful...but when you are going through painful circumstances all you want to do is run.  I had no where else to turn, so I ran to God.  I began to seek him during my lunch hour from work, by going to an empty church and just praying.

I had always prayed to God since my salvation, but am ashamed to say that I always was a kind of "drive-by"  prayer.  I would see a need, fire off a few rounds of prayer, and then drive off.  I found that a relationship with God takes time.  I needed that time with Him in order to grow.  I began to pour my heart out to God, hour after hour, day after day.  I began to crave that hour with God so much that I started going to that church on my coffee breaks and after work too.  I found I had a lot to say!  I began to take my Bible with me, and I would read about Abraham, Joseph, Jacob, Moses and especially David...now those men knew trouble!  And you know what they found out?  That God is enough.  No matter what they had to go through, they found out that God was enough.  He became their foundation, their Rock.

Finally, after weeks of talking and talking to God, I finally was talked out, and began to just sit in silence and listen.  I found out what it meant to "Be still, and know that I am God".  After a few days of sitting in silence, I discovered that God had a lot to say to me!  The Holy Spirit began to convict me about many things...I discovered that there were many areas of my life that I had never really given over to God.  I was so heavy burdened because I was thinking that I was in charge of my life, and what was going on around me.  I found that He wanted to take that burden, and all that I had to do was submit to his Will in every area of my life, and obey Him. And I didn't even have to do that on my own (I couldn't anyway) but the Holy Spirit would do it through me as I submitted.  What a relief! I felt like I won a million bucks!  I gave Him all my cares and burdens, and walked out of that church so light I practically floated back to my job.

After that, I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with different areas of my life.  Once I prayed it through and knew what He intended in various situations, I tried the best that I could to do what He bid me do.  I gave my notice at work and quit my job.  I began to regularly attend church and got into a good Ladies Bible Study.  I began to build my home, putting God first instead of giving Him the little bit of time I had left over.  And slowly, as I surrendered, God began to put the pieces of my life back together again in ways I never could have imagined.  It didn't happen overnight, but I am seeing huge changes for the better. 

Surrender.  It is a day-by-day, minute-by-minute thing.  Every thought, every action, I have a choice.  Do it my way and greet my disaster, or yield to the leading of the Holy Spirit...and greet peace.  I am a long way from getting it right all the time, but I found out that life is so much sweeter when I allow God to be in charge!  DLB

Who's In Charge Here Anyway? Part 2

joying the Abundance of Lilac Season

(Part 2 of  "Who's In Charge Here Anyway"...Please see Friday's post for Part 1).

"Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty." Job 5:17

Anytime you feel that the Lord is leading you in a different direction for your life, it is a good idea to see if it lines up with scripture.  You want to be sure that you are hearing God correctly, and He will never tell you anything that would be contrary to His word. In my case, I wanted to be sure that I was ascertaining the Will of God before quitting my job to be a full time home builder.  Searching  my Bible, I could find nothing contrary to scripture in the way that I felt God was leading me, in fact, I found much to confirm it.

Next, I talked to my husband, who was not so hot on the idea. But as time went on he changed his view...he said that as he is getting older, he would love to come home from work to smell supper cooking and know that he did not have to do a blessed thing.  Like me, he was tired of running too.  He would be willing to take the financial hit for a little peace and quiet. 

There came a point in time that I was certain that this was God's Will for me, and to not obey and quit my job would be sin.  So, did I praise God and obey?  NO!  I did this sneaky little thing with  God, I said I would obey, in a year...which ended up being three years.  I put off obeying...because secretly I wanted to be the one to call the shots, not God.  To tell you the truth, that has always been my problem.  Surrender and submission.  They go hand in hand like hot chocolate and marshmallows!  I was having trouble with those 'S' words.  So I had set myself up for some good old-fashioned Godly disipline and chastening, and believe me it was not long in coming...

I live in an old, old house.  If you go down into my root cellar, you would see that my house sits on great big, giagantic rocks instead of cement.  Like my house, my life was anchored and sitting on giant rocks too.  One 'rock' was God, one was my marriage, one was my son, one was my job and one my extended family and so on.  I had my 'rocks' lined out in the way that I wanted the foundation of my life to be.  The only problem was, it was my design, not God's.

So God in His great mercy began to blast away all the rocks propping up the foundation of my life.  I went through the darkest time of my life. I will not be specific, as a lot of it involves other people and I am not going to bare all facets of my life (or theirs) on the internet...but suffice it to say that everything that I counted on in my life began to crumble before my eyes, and rock after rock was blasted away, until the only rock that was left, the only rock I could count on, was God.  He became the foundation, He was the only rock left! 

I knew that I needed some quiet in order to seek Him, but my life had become so chaotic, I had no quiet place to go.  I finally found a church that allowed prayer in their sanctuary, the only rule being that you had to be silent.  I began to sneak off to meet God during my lunch hour every day... DLB

(Tune in tomorrow for Part 3 of "Who's in Charge Here Anyway"...)

Who's in Charge Here Anyway? Part 1

Our Front Porch

About a year ago I quit my full time job.  It was a good job, as jobs go.  Excellent wage, friendly working environment, flexible work schedule and within walking distance of my home.  It was in social work.

I quit this job because I felt that God was 'calling me home' (when he laid this on my heart I thought it meant I was going to die, until further prayer revealed that he was calling me to be a home builder..."Every wise woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands" Proverbs 14:1 KJV).

At the time I thought that I knew why.  I thought it was because my husband and I were tired.  I had a job that dealt with people and their problems all day long, which left me emotionally drained.  My husband has a dangerous job where his life, and the lives of others, depend on his being mentally alert at all times.  When we returned home depleted each night, we began our second job.  Supper, dishes, laundry...you working women know the drill.  The only time you rest is when you fall into bed each evening only to get up and start it all over again the next day.

Weekends had become catch all days for all the stuff that we did not get done all week...lawn work, doing more laundry and putting it away, getting and putting away groceries, bill paying, vacuuming, scrubbing floors, cleaning toilets etc. etc.  When Sunday rolled around I finished all that I did not get done on Saturday.  If I had a spare moment I just wanted to be left alone to sit and twitch!  It was kind of like being on a sinking ship...you throw overboard anything that will lighten the load.  What I threw overboard were activities like Bible reading, prayer, worship services and fellowship with believers.  Not to mention sweet and simple things that create a satisfying home life like gardening, Sunday suppers, flower arranging and making homemade ice cream on my front porch.  My priorities revolved around work, and God and family got the little bits of time left over.  I wasn't following God's order of God first, family, church, home and then work.  Somehow I got everything backwards. I was miserable and God was not pleased.

So, once He told me that I needed to quit my job and return home, did I obey?  I am ashamed to say that it took me three years to obey.  (I am paying the consequences of that disobedience today).  Why?  Because I was afraid.  Afraid of going from two incomes to one, afraid of not making ends meet, afraid that if it did not work out, I would never find a job as good as the one that I had quit.  Do you know what I was really afraid of?  Surrendering to God.  I knew that He would supply my needs, but I was secretly afraid that He would not supply my wants.  Boy, is that a shameful thing to admit!  And arrogant...my heart beats only because He allows it to.  I resisted God's plan for me because I wanted to run my own show.  What was I thinking?

I wasn't thinking, because I was too busy to think.  Satan gets a lot of us that way, we scurry around like ants on a hot griddle, always running but never getting anywhere.  No time for God...but thankfully God has time for us!  And he was about to show me who was in charge.  Guess what, it wasn't me!

Stayed tuned on Monday for Part 2 of "Who's In Charge Here Anyway".  DLB

(P.S.  This series in no way states that all women should quit their jobs and return home.  The Proverbs woman herself worked outside of the home...but her focus was always centered on God and serving her family.  My focus was self centered rather than God centered...and this series is a commentary on how HE is dealing with me).  DB