A Morning Ramble

The visibility last night was less than a mile. Looking out my back door into the night, there were only shadows and fog. Made me think about how often we deal with that same sort of unclear vision of our lives. We can't always see where the road ahead is leading us, we can't see for certain where the road is leading, yet we take one step after another, following directions, ethics, morals, and faith that guide us, provide a map of sorts.
Fog should always remind us of what faith is like. It's stepping out into uncharted territory, knowing that there is an unseen hand, leading us. Most of us, wish to explore on our own a bit or get waylaid from time to time, knocking us off our feet, but we get up, dust ourselves off and begin again to take one step after another, not seeing more than a mile ahead at any one time. Spurred on by belief, by hope and at times, desperation. Control freaks have a hard time with faith, it puts someone else in the drivers seat. Free spirited folks don't much like it either, because the path seems so planned and well laid out. Then there are the folk that just want the facts..."where are we going, when will we get there and what will we do there?" Fog and faith are hard for them to deal with. So many unknowns. Faith is the easy part for me, trusting that things will all work out, its just I never quite know just how much God wants from us, the level of following the directions. I suspect that is a product of where I have been. There is probably not a single day that goes by that I don't think about things like headcoverings, dresses only, no television, staying separated from "the world".
The house is chilly this morning, but I am planning on painting the wall by the wood stove so I will just put on a jacket. Looking around the room, I love the simplicity of it. The bare wood floors, the cedar window frames with the deep window sills, made with love and great care by my love in life. Kerosene lamps here and there, chasing away the darkness and filling the room with a golden light that seems to capture all of the good parts of the olden days. Baskets of knitting projects and others filled with wool to be spun. Herbs hanging to dry off the big cedar beam that crosses the room. Books on table tops, beside a chair and of course on shelves.
Hand dipped candles hanging in pairs reminding me that I need to make some more, out of the bayberry wax I purchased. Bayberry is just so much a part of my own history. I can so imagine the generations so long ago, my very ancestors, gathering the berries that grew so plentiful and boiling them to see the wax float to the top, for candles. I would much rather buy things like bayberry than fancy shoes. Wool to spin more than fluffy towels !
It is day 5 on my following "You Are What You Eat" plan. The weight is coming off fast, but I miss a proper cup of tea, with sugar and milk. I miss toast and an egg. I do feel much better though, not stiff in the mornings getting out of bed, I feel more like I did at age 30. My energy is much greater. My complexion healthier looking. But oh how I miss baking bread, or smelling Indian pudding bubbling away in the crock pot. The food I love is like the bayberry, part of my heritage. Recipes I make are the very same ones my great great grandmother made. On just about any given day, I can figure my Aunt is making the same sort of food I am, we laugh often about that. Over a thousand miles apart and we make the same recipe on the same day with no knowledge of what the other one has planned.
People seem to live about the same span of years, give or take a few years, despite the food they eat, of course the quantity is the big killer.
Its time for me to get to work, doing some chores, wish I had more outside chores. I miss having all the livestock we once had. I like chores.
I have given a proper ramble, covering so many of my morning thoughts.
Life is amazingly wonderful, yes, there are trials and hard times but just the very fact we are alive is amazingly wonderful.
I am grateful for a mind that thinks, a body that carries breath, a bed to sleep in, food to eat and for all the love that surrounds me. What more is there to want ?