A nice recipe from The Pioneer Woman that uses great produce from your garden; tomatoes, zucchini, lemons, and parsley. Some of you l, like us, are in the zones that are good for citrus fruits and have a lemon tree. Tomatoes are in abundance now as are zucchini so let's eat them to prepare delicious dishes.
http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/pasta-salad-with-tomatoes-zucchini-and-feta/
What's on my mind...hymns, family and tradition. Sunday as we sang A Wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord (He Hideth My Soul), I recalled the feeling of standing in my home church, Trinity United Methodist, in Orangeburg, picking up the purple hymnal and joining with my mother's beautiful soprano voice and the strong tenor of my father with my brother singing too. Some Sundays I sat with my grand aunts and uncles and raised my voice among theirs. The sound of the pipe organ and the voices of the congregation singing hymns together gave me a great appreciation of those stirring songs of faith and grace.
There were many people present in our church, some we interacted with regularly; they were our teachers at school, scout leaders, sports team coaches, store clerks, bank clerks and librarians. Others congregants we only saw on rare occasions seldom at all during the week but we gathered together for worship. During those times we may not have spoken to one another much, we may have only caught a glimpse of some people as we took our seats but during the singing we all participated together, voices raised with one purpose with a sense of community and bond of chords, notes melody and lyric that joined us for those few moments.
There were also special times when at my grandparents' house,in Orangeburg, they would pick up either the United Methodist or A.M.E. hymnal and sing. My grandmother, whose father was a Methodist minister, was herself a pianist and loved beautiful music. When she opened the hymnal she showed me the key, time signature, helped me follow and read the notes and sang with me, often pointed her finger along the words or notes as we sang.
One of my fondest memories is if my brother Reggie and I spending the night with our grandparents and it was cold. Granddaddy made a fire in the fireplace in the front bedroom for us then sat in the rocking chair. He stayed in the room.with us for a while and sang to us. He sang a couple of hymns as my brother and I watched him and enjoyed the glowing of the fire and the shadows on the wall and ceiling.
Our grandmother in Anderson loved to sing at church and along with the recordings on the radio played by Rev. Willis Crosby. She rarely missed his program and didn't like any interrupts when the program aired. It was a joy to see her enjoying the program filled with songs and prayers.
I am grateful for the tradition of singing the hymns together that so often brought comfort, strength, joy, encouragement, hope and peace.
A blog post from author Trillia Newbell about current racial tensions in our nation. She calls for us o join her in prayer in September. See more in her post.
http://www.trillianewbell.com/2017/08/17/call-prayer-anxious-time/
