"Without a Map" by Meredith Hall

I have just been re-reading "Without a Map", and don't know how to recommend it enough.  For one thing, her reunion with her adopted son goes to show that you do not have to become an abuser if you yourself are abused. You can make another choice.  As, wonderfully, her eldest son has done.

Here, I hope, is an extract:
http://unhmagazine.unh.edu/f07/stranger_3.html


If I were a painter there would be a beautiful - watercolour? oil?  mixed media? silk? - painting in my blog today as I would have tried to capture the scene I drove through on my way back from the Kingdom Hall after the Sunday meeting.  The sea was turquoise, sparkling, with little yachts bobbing about - and the sky was a tender blue, full of fluffy white clouds.

We went for a short walk on the beach in the evening - a beautiful summer evening with numinous light from the setting sun.

Another sunny morning - we have shopped - at Lidls - Col has gone to meet a fellow Butterflyer in Houghton Forest, and I have done a load of washing - and had half an hour on the balcony in the sun looking out over a sparkling Channel while doing my study.  We are looking at Leviticus at the moment - and also learning how we can exercise whatever modicum of power we have in a godly, Jehovah-like way.

We see power so misused, as we live during the time when "man has dominated man to his injury".   Horrors all over.  How much we need the coming rescue.

Back to the Field - Part 2

Feeling very apprehensive, I quavered off to the field service group this morning thinking that I must actually get back on the door to door work.   It was a very hot morning too.  Where were we working?   Clymping. A bit of a drive - a difficult drive back.   A very awkward right hand turn into traffic.

I prayed to Jehovah for help.  And...

,,,the kind brother conducting the group - Ron - scooped me up and took me with him.  It is a long, winding and lovely country lane - where we went for our wedding anniversary - and Ron said we would stop as soon as I could go no further and he would go back for the car and take me home.

We managed an hour together - and while everything aches,  I did do better than last time.  We found very few at home - and nobody interested in what we had to tell them - oh and one lady who was a visitor to the country lane (cat sitting), who is studying the Bible with us back in her hometown!

Once again, I got the sense of the power of the worldwide preaching work.  Sue and another sister were out with the bookstand and as Ron and I went up to the Hall to get it for them, our brothers and sisters from the Hall Field Service group were streaming out, with their maps and their territories, all looking very cheerful.

I must now start thinking about getting back to the weekday groups.

Col took us out for lunch yesterday.  We were going to Warnham but it started to pour with rain as we set off so we went to Arundel instead.  Met Terry and friends, and gave Terry a lift back. We shopped and bought a half leg of lamb which I must now go and cook.  Hot today, cold tomorrow. Can't believe the price of red meat nowadays, we so rarely buy it.

The Beautiful Names of Moths

I have been doing nothing much, except lying on the bed and reading.   So now I feel guilty.  I did clean the fridge and provide Captain Butterfly with his meals - plus the usual studying (on the balcony, in the sun) and housework.  And replied to Kathryn's card. They have been on one of those river cruises in Germany - which apparently was as good as they look in the telly adverts.  I hope to see her and Jen in September.

The Captain's log is full of moths now. And what beautiful names they have - the Grass Veneer, the Rosy Tabby, the Dusky Pearl - and how exquisitely made they are.  Jehovah is the Grand Creator - His work tells us that at every turn.  Genesis tells us that nature was not created "red in tooth and claw".  And the whole Bible - from Genesis to Revelation - assures us that the peace of Eden will be restored earthwide, through the incoming Kingdom of God.

There will be a "new heaven" - a new rulership over the earth, from heaven, by the heavenly government, the Kingdom of God - and a "new earth".  Within the Christian congregation we are already being gathered back into the one loving family that we always should have been.

Spoke to Lara at the meeting last night - we will get together on Tuesday for a practise session, as I am her householder next Thursday.   We had a short video about our upcoming Convention at Twickenham. There will be 50,000 attending.   Jackie, Maggie and I are all wondering about where the Old Crocks Seating will be.  And how far we will have to walk from the coach... we have been warned it might be quite a way.

at Bailiffscourt

We had lunch at Bailiffscourt to celebrate 41 years of marriage.  A wonderful venue chosen by the Captain himself (see the photos on the Captain's Log).  I had no idea it even existed. As one of the staff said, its a hidden gem.   We had lunch in the beautiful dining room - a stylish sort of lunch - Col had pork on a stack of tasty thingummies, and I had risotto with truffle oil. I have never had truffles before in any form, but will be happy to have them again. We finished with strawberries and ice-cream.  And of course we had a glass of wine.

We wandered round the grounds afterwards - it was a perfect Sussex summer day - blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds, flowers bees and butterflies everywhere, including (the Captain was thrilled to see) a hummingbird hawk moth.  And there was a peacock, sitting sensibly in the shade.

Just being able to wander round the grounds was something. We were both hobbling - a pair of Old Crocks. We are both tired today. But it was a happy day.   IF we are both still clinging on to life this time next year... maybe we will go again.

The more important thing though is: will the present system of things still be clinging on to life?  It all  building up exactly as the book of Revelation warns. The world's religions are goading the political powers - and the level of corruption at the heart of things is becoming more and more evident.

But who knows when it will all go?  Only Jehovah. Even Jesus didn't know when he was on the earth.  He might know now of course.  We see him, in Revelation, as the Rider on the white horse.

So I should be out on the doors today begging people to search for Jehovah while he is still to be found.   An feel guilty that I am not.   But I am so tired after yesterday.  However, it was something to be able to stroll through the grounds and to go our for a meal without having to carry cushions to make the seat higher.   Its all taking a long time - and I will never be the walker I was - not in this system of things that is.

But I hope to be on the earth when this prophecy is fullfilled:

"At that time the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness. For in the wilderness waters will have burst out, and torrents in the desert plain."  - Isaiah 35:5,6

The lame one will climb up just as the stag does.

My mother, also crippled and wasted by the family arthritis, said that in her dreams she found herself a child again, running and jumping and skipping around.   When she wakes from the dreamless sleep of death, as I hope she will, she will think she is dreaming at first.

What a wonderful awakening its going to be.

An Anniversary

Tom and Jacks came on Saturday night.  It was a fun evening, as it always is with them.  My Chinese food didn't turn out so well as last time - but the cheeseboard was lovely and so was the dessert - mousse of various flavours.  Thank you Mr.Waitrose.   Drove to the meeting on Sunday, and gave Maggie a fright as I suddenly arrived at my seat just as it was starting.

I had got sidetracked by meeting a regular visitor we have - a gentleman in a wheelchair who had two knee replacements a couple of years ago.  We discussed our operations and compared scars thoughtfully and suddenly realised the meeting was starting.  I had to hurtle (in a slow kind of way) to the other side of the Hall to my usual seat.

There is no teaching like it.    As people said when Jesus was on the earth - he teaches "with authority".  And the authority is Jehovah's inspired word.

Its our 41st wedding anniversary today. And we are both hobbling!  

I hope we will be here on the earth celebrating our 441st.

The Honey Crisis

I was cooking the ginger and honey chicken yesterday (Tom and Jackie are coming for supper tonight).  It is one of those recipes that tastes much better for being cooked the day before - when I realised we were out of honey!   At least not out, the current jar was empty, but Captain B buys our honey in binloads (its cheaper by the ton) and I didn't know where his cache was.  And he, with several others of the Butterfly persuasion, were in Dorset for the day, chasing after the rare Duke of Lulworth Cove Fritillary (or words to that effect). See his blog for details.

I rang him on his mobile, but he must have installed a "When Your Wife is Cooking" app as it refused to talk to me or let me leave a message.

Summer has arrived with a vengeance, though we did get some much needed rain this morning.  It was hot hot hot yesterday, the sea was a sparkling blue - the balcony geraniums glowed in the sun - and the players at Wimbledon kept falling over on the dry dusty grass in truly terrifying fashion.

The Butterfly paperwork arrived yesterday and I am ploughing through it.  I had intended to go to the Field Service group this morning, but my shoulder is playing up and Col asked me not to, as if it flares up he will have to cook the supper for us all tonight.  I am hoping to get out tomorrow as there is a field service group after the meeting.  That is if the Captain is out a'butterflying and not at home requiring lunch.

A Soup Fail

My cauliflower soup has failed...   at least, there is soup, and its edible. It just doesn't taste very nice.   Did another shopping trip to Waitrose, and found a disabled parking space, and so was able to get in the basics.

My big dilemma?  What to do with the other half of the cauliflower?    Philosophers have written books about such problems...   well, no they haven't.  But their books might be a lot more useful if they had.  The would also of course be in the Cookery section in the Library and not on the Great Thoughts shelf.

The pain in my ankles has subsided, to be replaced - moan moan whinge whinge - by various other pains, all competing fiercely with the pain in my knew knees.

What was that joke the family branch in Oz told about us Whingeing Poms?

"How can you tell when a planeload of Poms has landed?"
"I don't know. How can you tell?"
"The whining goes after the engine has stopped."