by MarianBeaman | Apr 4, 2015 | Easter, Education, Literature, Reflection, Travel, Uncategorized
Khristos voskres! Christ is risen indeed! These words spoken in Russian are the very first expression of Easter joy we hear on Sunday, April 24, 2011 as folks gather at Birth of Christ Church in Kiev, Ukraine, preparing for the worship hour. Here is the choir after...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 21, 2015 | Literature, meditation, Purple Passage, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
SPRING “Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like? “It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine . . . ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, author of The Secret Garden [in Just-] a poem by e. e. cummings, (his name usually shown in lower case...
by MarianBeaman | Mar 4, 2015 | Family / Nostalgia, Mennonite History, Mennonite Lore, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
I am sitting with my three friends, Gladys Graybill, Hazel Garber, and Millie Zimmerman near the pulpit in front of Bossler Mennonite Church to be baptized. At the prompting of our Bishop Clarence E. Lutz, we kneel, and as we kneel I hear the crinkle of the skirt of...
by MarianBeaman | Feb 21, 2015 | Education, Lists, Purple Passage, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
To my friends both in the northern and southern hemisphere, some thoughts about the weather. All quotations from BrainyQuotes. Sometimes I wish I was the weather, you’d bring me up in conversation forever. And when it rained, I’d be the talk of the day....
by MarianBeaman | Jan 17, 2015 | Lists, Purple Passage, Quotations, Reflection, Uncategorized
On December 29, author/blogger Joan Rough published a post declaring her optimistic intentions for 2015 and pondering a single word to characterize this new year while contemplating words of wisdom used other years. Some choices she suggested: Believe, Dare, Trust,...
by MarianBeaman | Jan 10, 2015 | Family / Nostalgia, Memory, Mennonite Lore, neighborhood, Nostalgia, Reflection, Uncategorized
Every single memory of snow in my childhood is pleasant. Sparkling flakes in luminous free-fall as I look out the kitchen window. Snow festooning evergreen boughs. Then bundling up in snowsuits, knitted caps, mittens. Getting out the sleds. After more than one...
