“World Ocean Day unites and rallies the world to protect and restore our blue planet!
Since launching global coordination in 2002, World Ocean Day has grown from an idea to thousands of events and millions of people reached each year. The World Ocean Day network includes 2,000+ organizations in 180 countries.
Following a four-year petition drive with our international network, the United Nations officially recognized the Day in 2008.” unworldoceansday.org
Robert and I are fortunate to live about twenty minutes from the ocean—the Atlantic Ocean. Tybee Island (aka Savannah Beach).
1. This unique little “Dog Library” that I discovered near us here in historic district Savannah the other day.
A variation of the Free Little Libraries and Free Little Pantries scattered across the country?
2. This simple, unassuming little fresh-from-the-garden zucchini gift from friends and what I made from it.
YUM!
3. Rejuvenating Spring Rain. (We’ve had a bunch of it lately.)
4. Robert’s Oh So Delicious! St. Louis Ribs on Memorial Day.
5. Attending a fascinating lecture at our local Jepson Center for the Arts about their latest exhibit, Moss Mystique: Southern Women and Newcomb Pottery.
We didn’t know much about Newcomb Pottery until our Toledo-in-the-Summer and Savannah-in-the-Winter friends Don and Jim told us all about the incredible pottery.
From the exhibit: “IN 1895, THE ART DEPARTMENT AT THE H. SOPHIE NEWCOMB MEMORIAL COLLEGE, a women’s school in New Orleans, Louisiana, began a new enterprise: the Newcomb College Pottery. The educators hoped to provide their graduates with way of putting their design education into practice and earning an income in a manner that was socially acceptable for white upper-class women.”
“These women decorated a variety of wares with ornament inspired by regional fora and fauna. Though students were educated in ceramics, the Pottery hired men to create the wares, which were formed from a mixture of clays from around the region. Promoting the Pottery to national and international audiences, its founders and some decorators claimed that the products were unique and authentic representations of the American South.”
“The Pottery’s aesthetics shifted dramatically over the following decades, and the school added other media, such as textiles, to the enterprise, but the emphasis on these products ‘Southerness’ remained in place until the Pottery’s closure in 1939.”
“Drawn from the permanent collection of the Newcomb Art Museum of Tulane University, this exhibition explores Newcomb decorators choice of imagery and their relationships with regional identity. Plants and vacant landscapes suggested isolation from busy urban centers in New England and the Midwest, while moss-draped oak and cypress trees matched descriptions in fiction that romanticized the pre-Civil War period. Even the decorators’ status as upper-class white women placed them as ‘belles’ in these fantasies. Though these women created many of these designs over 100 years ago, their work reinforced perceptions about the American South that remain powerful today.”
May you Exhibit some Powerful Joy this mid-spring Weekend!
At our church’s Easter service this morning, we sang one of my very favorite songs/hymns of all time: The Hymn of Promise. Its truth is exactly what I needed to hear, sing, and believe during these trouble times in which we find ourselves.
If you have a moment, I invite you to experience its uplift and encouragement. (The lyrics are below.)
In the bulb, there is a flower In the seed, an apple tree In cocoons, a hidden promise Butterflies will soon be free
In the cold and snow of winter There’s a spring that waits to be Unrevealed until its season Something God alone can see
There’s a song in every silence Seeking word and melody There’s a dawn in every darkness Bringing hope to you and me
From the past will come the future What it holds, a mystery Unrevealed until its season Something God alone can see
In our end is our beginning In our time, infinity In our doubt, there is believing In our life, eternity In our death, a resurrection At the last, a victory
Unrevealed until its season Something God alone can see
Tonight was our church’s (Asbury Memorial, Savannah) fourth and final Taize service before the beginning of this Sunday’s Passover and Holy Week.
“Taizé is a meditative prayer service that incorporates simple repetitive song and chant, scripture readings, and periods of group silence in a setting of peace and soft light that fosters communion with God.” St. Mary’s of the Hill
After Pope John Paul Il visited the ecumenical, monastic Taizé community in France in 1986, he said:“One passes through Taize as one passes close to a spring of water. The traveler stops, quenches his thirst, and continues on his way. The brothers of the community do not want to keep you. They want, in prayer and silence, to enable you to drink the living water promised by Christ, to know his joy, to discern his presence, to respond to his call, then to set out again to witness to his love and to serve your brothers and sisters in your parishes, your schools, your universities, and in all your places of work.”
So come into this place of peace & let its silence heal your spirit; Come into this place of memory & let its history warm your soul; Come into this place of prophecy & power & let its vision change your heart. (From the service bulletin.)
Tonight‘s chant:
Let all who are thirsty come. Let all who wish receive the water of life freely. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.
Although you can’t quite tell it, this is a fountain filled with little stones. 
REMEMBERING OUR BAPTISM. You are invited to “Remember your baptism” by coming to the altar and receiving a stone from the flowing water of life. We encourage you to keep the stone with you throughout the seasons of Lent, Easter, and Eastertide. (From the service bulletin.)
And the oft-forgotten mindfulness of the inhale and the exhale.
4. The Breath of Fresh Air Robert and I are experiencing with the television reality series, “Love on the Spectrum.”
“Overview: Seven adults with autism dive headlong into a dating group to explore the unpredictable world of romance, tackling misconceptions about both themselves and how they want to live.” (Series Website)
We recently stumbled upon season two and are working through it now.
5. Playing hide and seek with a Japanese Flowering Cherry tree near us here in historic district Savannah.
May you experience a Bit of Play somehow this spring weekend.
Tonight was our church’s (Asbury Memorial, Savannah) third Taize service of the 2025 Lenton season.
Taize is a meditative worship service known for simple, repetitive chants, scripture readings, and times of silence, originating from the Taizé community in France.
Peacefully beautiful as usual, with the theme this evening of “There is a balm in Gilead.”
Whatever our faith (or lack thereof), we all probably need a balm from time to time, a gentle soothing.
The tranquil chorus we sang several times throughout the thirty minute service:
“There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole; There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.”
May we all experience a Bit of Balm this lovely Springtime Season.
NealEnJoy 