God’s Abundant Grace

For the last week we have been cleaning and rebuilding these three small framed garden beds. The surrounding ones are part of the community garden we have joined. In December 2020 we sold our beautiful three story home of 23 years that we purchased in 1999, the year we were married. It was built in 1926 and we were constantly upgrading and doing repairs and creating more beauty to our beautiful garden areas. We loved it! Where for all those years we served hundreds of individuals and families together as licensed mental health counselors, in the business space we created in the lower portion of our home, "Skagit Family Study Center" and our art gallery, "Ullulate Gallery." Where over those years our children and all six of our grandchildren have joyfully visited many, many times and both of our parents joined us together in celebration. In 2020 the pandemic was changing everthing for everyone. We had both turned 72 that year, me in May and Chuck in October. Our health needs were changing.

It was time to retire. We bought a one story condominium. I put us on a waiting list in February of 2021, to be a part of the community garden around the corner from us and along Lake Whatcom. We were 24 on the list. As we settled in it took a couple of years to adjust. Especially during the pandemic. Loosing close friends to covid, and this past June, loosing Chuck's brother to lung cancer, has been daunting for the family. In the last few months Chuck has begun to prioritize his years of poetry writing, preforming and media magic into his own utube site: "Chuck Britt Poems, Into The Neuron Woods". It's wonderful to witness!

To continue the community garden story...I bugged the lead person in charge of the list every so often and after three years we came to the top in January, 2024! We completed all the necessary paper work, agreeing to three pages of rules and paid the minimal annual dues. Since then we have cleaned the three unkept beds we were given, removed the old fallen fencing and completely rebuilt the framing. It's been very difficult work. We are focusing on safety for ourselves as we work. This week we are building fencing and a gate to keep away the critters. This morning I came across a piece of writing by Emerson. It reminded me to notice the blessings of the day as it ends and not let the hard work get in the way of the beauty of the deer wandering around our place and the redwing black birds singing along side of us as we work on our garden space together. Chuck said the sound of their singing is like listening to good jazz. Then there is the sound of the beautiful creek flowing along the community garden into Lake Whatcom. And just today we witnessed two magnificent great blue herons flying into the huge fir tree to greet us as we entered the garden to start our day.

After 25 years of marriage we continue to be filled with the beauty of God's abundant grace!

Here is the writing by Emerson that inspired me.

Finish Every Day

"Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day for all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on the rotten yesterdays." Ralph Waldo Emerson, The Letters of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Volume 2, 1836 - 1841