An Invitation

When God instructed Moses to construct a place, a tabernacle, in which the Israelites could worship Him while in the desert, He gave an invitation to the people to join in with the gifts He'd provided for them. Craftsmanship, materials, precious metals, and design abilities to name a few. And so,

“All whose hearts were stirred and whose spirits were moved came and brought their sacred offerings to the Lord. They brought all the materials needed for the Tabernacle, for the performance of its rituals, and for the sacred garments.” (Exodus 35:21, NLT)

An invitation came my way recently. It began with me wanting snacks for my tummy. I got a feast for my soul.

One evening last week on vacation with my hubby on the Pacific Coast of the Olympic Peninsula, we set out for a walk to the little grocery store. I glanced ahead and my heart skipped a beat. You know when that late afternoon light hits and everything goes golden? My view of the western sky was blocked by some foliage and buildings but up ahead I could see the cabins were aglow. It was almost like I was in a dream and unable to make my feet go faster so I could see what was happening out there.

And then! And then! I was past the blockage and I wanted to dance. Oh, I did dance. With my iPhone camera. The views at Kalaloch are always beautiful but this was spectacular. The low-lying clouds had rolled up like a stage-curtain that had then gotten stuck and the sun poured through the slit in red and gold profusion.

As I snapped picture after picture, I felt like God called out to me, inviting me to participate with Him in creating art. This stretch of beach and bluff, the trees, the sky, all His creation beyond our comprehension. And it was a privilege to be there, to respond, to find angles and perspectives, to create.

It was never clearer to me than in that moment, and I hope to carry that realization forward, He is always inviting us to participate in His creation. Photography, writing, teaching, whatever the gifts He's given, we get to create with Him.

Sillybration Week in My Little Corner: Post #4

Glimpses into the Life and Times of Mrs. Dunwoodie (Continued)

“I know Mrs. Dunwoodie volunteered her services in chiromancy at Mount Tiara’s Community Haunted House,” Mr. Fenster said. “But you know she thinks that means giving people a little adjustment by smacking ‘em upside the back of the head as they walk past, right?”

Ruthlessly following the HOA protocol Mrs. Dunwoodie positioned her Viking helmet on her head, armed herself with her ax and in denial of her own promethean personality destroyed all evidence of her neighbor’s decorative expressions of same.

“Being a skilled gradgrind, Mrs. Dunwoodie eventually gets under your skin and into your closets,” warned Mr. Fenster. “But you may not realize it until the skeletons are rattling out.”

“You may have heard Mrs. Dunwoodie referring to herself as a 21^st Century woman,” said Mr. Fenster, “but the only thing neoteric about her is her knee replacement.”

“If my Viking helmet doesn’t discourage that cat burglar from terrorizing Mount Tiara, this ought to do the trick,” Mrs. Dunwoodie muttered, putting the final touches on the alarm system she’d devised featuring sounder grunts and squeals.

Mrs. Dunwoodie took first place in Mount Tiara Community Clinic’s third annual nosocomial gurney race but only because she hooked her Viking helmet by invisible wire to the zip line hidden in the ceiling.

“I asked Mrs. Dunwoodie why she kept looking over her shoulder at herself in the mirror as she ran on the treadmill,” Mr. Fenster said, choking on a chuckle. “And the surd woman said she was trying to follow the advice in Proverbs 14:7, the one that says ‘escape quickly from the company of fools; they’re a waste of your time, a waste of words’.”

I believe I have succeeded in confining her once again
but she's a slippery one. She might be ba-ack.

Dear brave reader. Let me congratulate you on surviving this onslaught of terrifying verbiage and the escapades of Mrs. Dunwoodie. I hope you can agree with Mr. Fenster when he confessed, “Although she’s an annoyance, I prefer Mrs. Dunwoodie on those days when her most prevalent personality is a flaneur rather than when it is a flaunter; with the former our eyesight is at least spared grievous injury.” 

Sillybration Week in My Little Corner: Post #3

Glimpses into the Life and Times of Mrs. Dunwoodie (Continued)

“Better call the veterinarian to bring a neuroleptic from the horse stables down the canyon,” Mr. Fenster advised the paramedics trying to restrain a Viking regalia-clad Mrs. Dunwoodie from axing the trees around Mount Tiara’s community club house.

In releasing Mrs. Dunwoodie from protective custody and returning her belongings to her, including the Viking helmet, Mount Tiara’s law enforcement unwittingly participated in an epitasis resulting in a confrontation at the community’s gated entrance where our infamous heroine had taken it upon herself to stand guard against the postal service.

While visiting a cooperative agriculture center, Mrs. Dunwoodie assured the farmer, concerned about how his cows were uncharacteristically milling about and mooing loudly, that it was her numinous Viking helmet eliciting the bovine blessings.

“I thought Mrs. Dunwoodie said she had an appointment to see a foot doctor for orthopedic shoes but from the looks of it, he’s given her the same orthogonal pair worn by Frankenstein’s monster instead,” Mr. Fenster said as the woman lurched up the sidewalk to her front door.

“Yes, Mrs. Dunwoodie was once a Radio City Music Hall Chorus Girl, and no, she is not practicing her Mount Tiara Talent Show routine when she does that little hop and kick,” explained Mr. Fenster. “It’s a little tic she has whenever she heads in a dextral direction.”

“No, Mrs. Dunwoodie,” Mr. Fenster raised his hands in protest, “This is not the time for an intimate lesson in paleography, regardless of having had those tattoos applied in your long-ago seafaring days.”

Mount Tiara residents knew it was ten-foot pole time when Mrs. Dunwoodie started pawing the ground with her foot, the whites of her eyes turned sinopia and steam escaped from her nostrils.

“Please keep in mind that the red pomiform kettle on Mrs. Dunwoodie’s porch does not contain what it resembles, the bulge in her cheek is not a piece of bubblegum and her spittin’ aim is far from accurate,” warned Mr. Fenster as he led the way across the yard.

(To be continued…)

Sillybration Week at My Little Corner: Post #2

Glimpses into the Life and Times of Mrs. Dunwoodie (Continued)

Coyote snickered, well, as much as a coyote with a mouthful of synthetic blond hair can snicker, at the thought of poor Mrs. Dunwoodie awakening poolside with a sunburned bald spot wondering who avulsed her wig.

“She won’t be taking this decumbent,” sighed old Mr. Fenster when dawn’s early light revealed the toilet paper streamers decorating his neighbor Mrs. Dunwoodie’s lawn and trees.

Far back in the dusty reaches of Mrs. Dunwoodie’s aging mind, a smidgen of inwit nestled, a smidgen which kept her from rushing out in broad daylight and rolling herself up in the toilet paper streamers festooning her yard.

“One good thing about Mrs. Dunwoodie wearing shorts this late in the summer is that when the hair on her legs begins to inspissate, I know to prepare for an unusually cold winter,” Mr. Fenster said to the furnace repair man.

Not only did the landscaping yob assault Mrs. Dunwoodie’s ears and sinuses as he used the leafblower for three hours, in his sloppy handling of the noisome machine he sent her brand new wig off on a new flight.

Because it was more like a bottomless pit than a handbag, in which Mrs. Dunwoodie subsumed everything but the kitchen sink, the Mount Tiara Women’s Club always avoided asking her to take the deposit to the bank.

“Too bad Mrs. Dunwoodie has no understanding of apollonian pie making,” Mr. Fenster said at the Labor Day block potluck as he spit out a nasty unidentifiable glob of pastry. “Savory and sweet should be combined to bring harmony to the tummy and she definitely did not bring it.”

Barely able to see out from under the old horned helmet, worn by her Viking ancestors in a time of spoliation and passed down through the generations, Mrs. Dunwoodie still managed to make quite an impression at the Mount Tiara Women’s Club Autumn Tea Extravaganza.

(To be continued…)

Sillybration Week in My Little Corner: Post #1

For some months now I’ve participated in today’s word on Brandilyn Collins: Seatbelt Suspense Facebook page. My creative juices spurted with truly frightening results and an ominous character came to life, one I hope you never have to meet face-to-face.

Watch out! Apparently she has escaped the confines of my word processing program and has taken over here on my blog.

And beware, readers. Other horrors await you should you decide to proceed. If monstrous words frighten you, if vocabulary of the weird and grotesque makes you squirm, if terminology dug from the depths of a thesaurus raises the hair on the back of your neck, then that is what you may face. You have been warned.

Glimpses into the Life and Times of Mrs. Dunwoodie

“The worst thing that could be said about the Mount Tiara condominium development was the tendency of the architects to platitudinize in their designing expression,” the real estate agent explained to the eager young couple looking for their first home, all blissfully unaware the worst thing was actually Mrs. Dunwoodie.

Having been elected the new Home Owners’ Association President, Mrs. Dunwoodie considered it her proof of being impeccant in all decisions regarding community improvements or lack thereof.

The HOA had never seen Mrs. Dunwoodie more philippic than when she campaigned for the removal of five weeds from her neighbor’s back yard.

Perhaps it was the spit spray accompanying the ten minutes of Mrs. Dunwoodie’s philippic that made it feel like a decennial flood but everyone wished they’d worn their high waders.

“Mrs. Dunwoodie has switched her philippic into high gear this time and nobody is getting a mora in edgewise,” observed Mr. Fenster at the HOA board meeting.

If Mrs. Dunwoodie had only taken the time to embrace mnemonics when she had a mind to do so, the money she’d stashed away in various nooks and crannies would be available to her now.

It came as no surprise to the residents of Mount Tiara, when the new neighbor offended Mrs. Dunwoodie by parking his work truck on the driveway rather than in the garage, that as a schoolgirl along with elocution she’d taken malediction as an elective subject.

(To be continued…)