My mom wanted a picture of her flower bed. That’s why I’m holding my birthday cake outside.
The earliest birthday party I remember was my brother Danny’s 7th birthday. I was 5. He had invited about a dozen of his classmates to come over after school on his birthday – September 11. Mom had organized lots of simple games to play, and all the games had prizes for the winners. Even though I didn’t know most of the kids, and I was much younger, being only a kindergartener and they were all second-graders, I was allowed to play the games. One of the games was dropping clothespins into a quart jar. Whoever got the most clothespins in the jar, won the game. I didn’t get any in the jar. But what was so wonderful about that, is that I learned that there was such a thing as a booby price. I won the prize for being the worst player of the game. Wow! What a new insight into life! You don’t have to be the winner to be special and win a prize. Even being the worst at something can be good.
Danny
I think I was about 10 when I went to the best birthday party ever. It was for my friend Susan. It was in the summertime, I remember. Susan had invited about 10 of our classmates, all girls. She had told us in the party invitation to wear play clothes, not to dress up in party dresses. When we all arrived at her house, we piled into a couple cars and rode to a farm near Lake Mills. This wasn’t just any farm. It was a horseback riding stable. The stable owner paired each of us up with a horse and helped us climb into the saddle. In my case, my legs were too short to reach the stirrups regardless of how much he tried to shorten the straps. He finally figured out that he could maneuver my feet into the leather above where the stirrups hung, and that would stabilize me enough to not fall off the saddle, especially if I held on tight to the saddle horn. I was in heaven. At that time in my life, Roy Rogers was my hero. My biggest dream was to have my own horse. That never happened. But that day, I could pretend, and I loved the gentle old horse that plodded along the trail, dutifully following the horse in front of her. Our ride lasted an hour. Then we got back in the cars and rode home to Susan’s house where she opened her presents and we had the usual birthday party supper – hot dogs, potato chips, Kool-Aid, birthday cake and ice cream. I think I can safely say I’ll never forget that day! Almost 60 years later I still remember it as the best birthday party ever.
Susan is on the far left. I’m next to her, sitting down.
I could write on and on about special birthday celebrations, like:
- The year Mim turned 30 and I gave her 30 presents. The most fun that year was shopping for presents that would reflect Mim’s interests at each year of her life – a sort of biography of Mim written in presents.
The year our mystery-loving friend Marilyn turned 40, and Mim and I gave her seven little presents, each being a clue to what her real present would be – a weekend trip to Waverly, Iowa, where we boarded a luxurious passenger train for a 3-hour journey, and we dined on-board with a 4-course gourmet dinner as we watched the countryside fly by.- The year I turned 50 and my co-workers decorated my office in black because they mourned my passing into old age.
- Or, this year, when Mim will turn 70 on Saturday, and she will receive a 5-CD set of me playing some of her favorite songs on the piano – as she requested.
Birthdays are on my mind these days because summertime is the busy time of the year for birthdays in our household. Our resident Carolyn turned 96 on June 13. (Our other resident Anna had already turned 96 earlier in the year.) On June 24, I reversed the digits “96” and turned 69. Mim is already 69, and will turn 70 this Saturday, August 5. Then on August 22, Dulce (the girl we help support in Honduras) will turn 9, and on September 1, Leydi (the other girl in Honduras we help support), will turn 14. Like I said, summertime is the birthday season for us.
Celebrating Carolyn’s 96th Birthday at Norske Nook – Denise (one of or colleagues), Anna, Mim, Carolyn.
Yesterday I spent some time thinking about how wonderful it is to celebrate birthdays. Honoring someone’s birthday is the perfect opportunity to let the birthday girl (or boy) know how special they are. One tradition in our home is to stand up all the birthday cards on the piano for a week or two as a strong reminder of how loved that person is. The birthday girl needs to be reminded of how special she really is.
“There are two great days in a person’s life – the day we are born and the day we discover why.” [William Barclay] Celebrating birthdays helps us remember that.
I hope you are filled with love and joy as you celebrate your own birthday and the birthdays of your friends and family throughout the year – and every year. Happy Birthday!
I’ve never used words quite like that to talk about “playing.” But as usual, Chittister gave me something to think about every day. One day she quoted Albert Einstein, “Play is the highest form of research.” She went on to explain, “Play frees our minds to think things we have never had the opportunity to think before. It enables us to come to know ourselves in other ways. It prompts us to think differently – about old things and new.”
The first thing I do after I get dressed in the morning, before I go upstairs for breakfast, is light a few candles in the sitting area of my office, and do some devotional reading for maybe half an hour to an hour. It’s a good way to start my day. I sit in the lazy boy with my feet up and pick up a book from a stack on the end table next to me. Floey often hops up on the love seat near me for this quiet time.
“Wow! That’s a neat image, too, Floey. I never thought of being Jesus’ sheepdog before. Working together with Jesus to care for the people of the world… That’s an image I want to ponder some more.”
“Look at the gentle words in the first verse, Floey. Words like tender care and pleasant pastures. It’s easy to imagine how much the shepherd loves each little lamb with words like that. It’s comforting to feel like a little lamb with a very kind shepherd, isn’t it?”
“Maybe we should keep this hymn as our own little theme song, Floey, so we never forget these images.”
Last week I posted a blog entry called “Progress.” It was an update on the progress I’m making on my latest writing project, a devotional series based on my favorite hymns. The first part of the series will be a booklet of reflections based on 31 of my favorite Psalm-based hymns. My first draft of last week’s blog post was too long to expect you to read all of it, so I chopped off the last several paragraphs of the post. Here’s the rest of it – what you didn’t get last week.
One of the books I’m reading as part of my own devotional reading this year is JESUS ALWAYS by Sarah Young. In the “Introduction” to her book, Young writes, “I enjoy singing this short, simple song in the morning, ‘This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.’ It helps me approach the day as a precious gift from God – remembering that every breath I breathe is from Him.”
Last week I was at our Christmas Mountain timeshare in Wisconsin Dells again for a 4-day, solitary getaway. I packed heavier than usual this time. It took me 9 trips to bring everything from the car into the condo. I had one small suitcase with a few clothes, 3 briefcases full of books and notebooks, my computer, my piano keyboard with its ironing board-like stand and folding bench, a step stool so I can reach the top shelves of the kitchen cupboards (where the wine glasses are kept), an ice chest, and a bag of groceries. I’m not a backpacker when I travel. I like to have everything with me that I might “need.” Needless to say, I make myself comfortable in my 1100-square-foot timeshare.
Several months ago, when I stopped blogging weekly, I defined my next major writing project to be a daily devotional book that will be reflections on 365 of my favorite hymns. I started the project last fall by creating a list of all my favorite hymns and sorting them into the most appropriate month for each hymn.
Late last fall when I had about a quarter of the November hymn devotions drafted, I decided to jump ahead to December’s hymns.
I decided to start with Psalms because that’s where church music has it’s beginnings. In my “Introduction” to the 
The original song writer of Psalm 100 must be delighted to know how far and wide this Psalm has spread, especially considering that the Psalm begins with the words, “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands! Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing…” [Psalm 100:1-2 KJV] Millions of people have been singing this song of praise for thousands of years. I’m delighted to be counted among them!
For the past several years, our church, Messiah Lutheran Church in Madison, has published a daily devotional booklet to be used during Lent. In January, members of the congregation are invited to volunteer to write a one-page reflection on a Bible verse that will be assigned to them. Every year volunteer writers range in age from elementary school children to very senior citizens. The resulting booklet is a wonderful devotional aid for all of us to read throughout lent. Here’s a link to this year’s booklet on the church website: 
Why in the world did one of the criminals hanging on the cross next to Jesus ask Jesus to remember him? Why was it important to this criminal to be remembered by Jesus? Why was the question important enough to Luke that he included it in his Gospel?
Many years later I read a quote attributed to St. Augustine, “Whoever sings, prays twice.” That’s what was happening when we sang that anthem. We were not only expressing the words of the song to God, through the music we were sharing our feelings with God. That’s what’s so special about music. With music, our ability to communicate is not limited to our mere intellect. Our mind, soul, and body are all involved as we sing or play a musical instrument.
O come, let us sing to the LORD!