Joyful Journey

 My age is showing by the title of this post since I remember the show that Art Linkletter hosted during the 60’s. But they really do say the funniest things. I started this blog because I wanted a way to remember and blogging seemed like a more appropriate way to remember our years living in Switzerland. I knew if I didn’t “write it down,” it would be forgotten, especially the feelings and emotions of those everyday experiences. And I thought it would be a fun way to share with family and friends our life abroad. We aren’t experiencing the travels and adventures that we did while living there, but there are still things that I want to remember. And a couple of those occurred during our weekly family call this past Sunday. I greatly enjoy the Sundays when we gather via Zoom (begun via Skype while we lived overseas, before two precious daughters-in-love and 11 grands were added to the family.) We chat about home projects and family activities. When the grands are all on, sometimes t...

 Until his wife said it, I had never thought about the fact that the family had never been all together.  My mom was one of six children, although the oldest boy, Edwin, died as a young boy from diphtheria. And my Uncle Phil was not yet born when Edwin died. My mom’s father died young, the result of developing gangrene in his leg after falling out of a tree in the orchard that he managed. He died at the age of 42, when my Uncle Phil was only 3. As I have continued to mull over that statement, other things have come to mind. Mostly lyrics to songs. The first being “May the Circle be Unbroken,” a frequently sung hymn when I was a child, but not sung in church in my recent memory. When I looked up the lyrics, I realized I have forgotten most parts of this hymn, remembering only the refrain. Each verse talks of different times that are common to all of us: the loved ones now in glory, our joyous childhood when those now gone pointed us to Jesus, as we age and remember the hymns we...