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Thursday, October 28, 2010
A Country Preacher
A Country Preacher
by Beverly Pearce
A seed was planted today
This i know
By a country Preacher
And a new brother strong
Into boys hearts who Somehow lost their way
Their mama's taught them
a long time ago
About God's love on Calvary
But a few wrong turns
Away from the Cross
Left them to bear
Life's burdens all alone.
A seed's been planted today
By a Country Preacher
Whose been down their road
A road of confusion
And unhappiness
A road of darkness lives
Where there is no rest
With the Preacher
A new convert came along
He did not HIDE his light
Nor wait TOO LONG
Only time will tell
Where that seed will go
Mothers, let us pray
It will explode and bloom
Thanks to a Country Preacher
In a lonely room
this Poem hangs in the library of Don Holder
Minister of Alcohol and drugs
Boone, North Carolina
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Blizzard of 1993 "STORM OF THE CENTURY"
Not since 1899 was there a storm like it. the massive blizzard of 1993 that swept through the Appalachians with brutal fury. Roofs caved in, 500 deaths in southeast.
Where I was on Beech Mountain, eastern America's highest incorporated town, over two hundred were stranded at the slopes. Many ski Beech lifts had to be evacuated and those who tried to hike home because their cars were covered with snow succumbed to hypothermia. they were rescued by our mountain police.
The pelting of snow and high winds were relentless. As I stood watching the fury out my double pane storm windows i realized that my husband and son may not be able to make it home.Joshua was in the valley town of Valley Crusis My all weather police radio was telling me how couples were being separated from one another all over the mountain. Stranded everywhere. Big ten car pile ups up at Fred's country Store.
A call came in from my husband who was in charge of the Ski Beech Security team of about twelve. "Bev, listen...I cannot leave my men. we may lose power and this may be my last call to you....we are running our three snowmobiles to take the women and small children home first and may run out of gas.....
If the roof begins to go, Bev take that key to the Delongs house nest door and go over there....they have a new roof. " "BOB WHAT ABOUT THE DOGS" (we had two big dogs and two cats) "Never mind the dogs Bev, you have to save yourself" Click...he hung up...guess he was so busy.
Well, no way i would trek next door in pitch darkness trying to fight a rising snow drift and did not know what sort of heat they had or anything.Not only that I was not about to leave my beautiful 10 year old German Sheppard "Mindy" who would gladly give her life to save me" nor would i leave her son, Bozo a mixed breed of part lab and the two cats. I might not make it through the heavy snow drifts and the wind as houses on Beech Mountain are wide apart. Gratitude filled my heart as i was all cozy with the state of the art wood stove my Dad had bought for us. We kept enough wood at all times to last two weeks or more....and more was stacked with a tarp over it on the front deck...I was grateful for all the training Bob had given me with the Coleman lantern, the beautiful oil lanterns we had in every room, the down sleeping bags used for camping in freezing weather in case we lose all heat..The purpose of our wood stove was in case of a BIG STORM SUCH AS THIS..Then he trained me how to work the wood stove which was really tricky. Lots of things could go wrong. the homes were all made of wood, so one had to be careful to have a slow fire and keep it going. As i kept feeding the logs into the fire, settling myself right in front of it where I would stay all night long ....for it was not long before our phones went dead and all power went out all over our mountain. It was really SCARY TO BE ALL ALONE....especially with windows rattling and whole house shaking and the special radio telling me that the news of a shelter roof caving in in Newland, next town from us. They were trying to evacuate the people in the shelter..I thought of what Bob said about our roof. "Please dear Lord, keep our roof from caving in and keep me and my dogs and cats safe"
Dosing off and on as i was too excited to sleep and knew I could not let the fire go out ....I also knew the heat tape around the pipes would not be working so pipes could freeze so I let a small drip go in all faucets that Bob had also trained me to do and that would keep our pipes from freezing. Our lazer propane heater had gone off hours before.
Once when I loaded a piece of wood that was too fat to go all the way in the wood stove opening, it got hung up and would not go all the way in and HALF of it was on fire...I had my fireproof heavy gloves on thank GOD...and yanked it out and quickly opened the front door with other hand and pushed my way over to railing of deck and tossed it into the snow..."Good work, Bev, i thought Bob did not teach me that one"
Morning came and we were totally snowed in. Storm was over, sun out, i had a time trying to remove enough snow to let the dogs go poop on the front deck...No phones were working. radio was going non stop about the storm's aftermath....gradually after one more night alone you could see people begin to stir and it was kind of funny too, One man was pulling his kid in a sleigh...with high rubber boots on and I asked from my deck what was he looking for as he was digging in snow right in front of my house..."Think i lost my ROLEX right here, he said..
When the phones finally came on Bob called me and said that his men had to all sleep on the floor and cots, no one could get home yet..cars buried, snowmobiles out of gas, roads not drivable and would not be for maybe a week and longer in remote places...I got a call from one of my rich friends on the golf course (those homes were mansions) their heat was OUT...they had no power and no wood stoves. "Bev are you freezing" "Heck no, this wood stove heats our three bedroom chalet perfectly" I am cooking scrambled eggs and making coffee on the cook top stove (wood stove has cook top)
This went on for two more days and on the forth day I saw a RARE SIGHT .....there was Bob coming down the street with two big black garbage bags that he had placed around his legs with big rubber bands and it had taken him all morning or half the day to get home from his security office at the slopes...
He started right in shoveling us out and when he saw what a good job i had done with holding down our fort, keeping our pipes from freezing, he said to me "BEV, I HAD MY DOUBTS ABOUT YOU HERE ALL ALONE, A SPOILED ONLY CHILD, FORMER DEBUTANTE BUT GETTING THROUGH THIS STORM ALL ALONE WITHOUT OUR PIPES FREEZING AND YOUR PRAYERS TO SAVE THE ROOF...THIS QUALIFIES YOU AS A TRUE MOUNTAIN WOMAN..i was so pleased that i never forgot those words and to this day I dream back of that moment and all the inedible mountain times i had in the most beautiful place I feel God ever made. And that is why i call myself "Mountain Woman" Josh made it home too from his friends home with all kinds of incredible tales to tell. There were so many people stranded on beech Mountain. Couples ran out of money for they could not fly home..had to wire parents for money. The hotels and restaurants could not serve as no one could get to work to serve anyone. We took in a couple whose windows had been blown out. and gave them the guest room as did many residents on our mountain. After a while there was still no school so the parents started a shuttle to take our kids who loved to ski up to the top of White Lightening ski slope and then pick them up at bottom and drive them up again...as no lifts were running and whole mountain was paralyzed...the locals had a blast on their inner tubes, sleds, anything they could find for days till the schools reopened..End of this tale.
Where I was on Beech Mountain, eastern America's highest incorporated town, over two hundred were stranded at the slopes. Many ski Beech lifts had to be evacuated and those who tried to hike home because their cars were covered with snow succumbed to hypothermia. they were rescued by our mountain police.
The pelting of snow and high winds were relentless. As I stood watching the fury out my double pane storm windows i realized that my husband and son may not be able to make it home.Joshua was in the valley town of Valley Crusis My all weather police radio was telling me how couples were being separated from one another all over the mountain. Stranded everywhere. Big ten car pile ups up at Fred's country Store.
A call came in from my husband who was in charge of the Ski Beech Security team of about twelve. "Bev, listen...I cannot leave my men. we may lose power and this may be my last call to you....we are running our three snowmobiles to take the women and small children home first and may run out of gas.....
If the roof begins to go, Bev take that key to the Delongs house nest door and go over there....they have a new roof. " "BOB WHAT ABOUT THE DOGS" (we had two big dogs and two cats) "Never mind the dogs Bev, you have to save yourself" Click...he hung up...guess he was so busy.
Well, no way i would trek next door in pitch darkness trying to fight a rising snow drift and did not know what sort of heat they had or anything.Not only that I was not about to leave my beautiful 10 year old German Sheppard "Mindy" who would gladly give her life to save me" nor would i leave her son, Bozo a mixed breed of part lab and the two cats. I might not make it through the heavy snow drifts and the wind as houses on Beech Mountain are wide apart. Gratitude filled my heart as i was all cozy with the state of the art wood stove my Dad had bought for us. We kept enough wood at all times to last two weeks or more....and more was stacked with a tarp over it on the front deck...I was grateful for all the training Bob had given me with the Coleman lantern, the beautiful oil lanterns we had in every room, the down sleeping bags used for camping in freezing weather in case we lose all heat..The purpose of our wood stove was in case of a BIG STORM SUCH AS THIS..Then he trained me how to work the wood stove which was really tricky. Lots of things could go wrong. the homes were all made of wood, so one had to be careful to have a slow fire and keep it going. As i kept feeding the logs into the fire, settling myself right in front of it where I would stay all night long ....for it was not long before our phones went dead and all power went out all over our mountain. It was really SCARY TO BE ALL ALONE....especially with windows rattling and whole house shaking and the special radio telling me that the news of a shelter roof caving in in Newland, next town from us. They were trying to evacuate the people in the shelter..I thought of what Bob said about our roof. "Please dear Lord, keep our roof from caving in and keep me and my dogs and cats safe"
Dosing off and on as i was too excited to sleep and knew I could not let the fire go out ....I also knew the heat tape around the pipes would not be working so pipes could freeze so I let a small drip go in all faucets that Bob had also trained me to do and that would keep our pipes from freezing. Our lazer propane heater had gone off hours before.
Once when I loaded a piece of wood that was too fat to go all the way in the wood stove opening, it got hung up and would not go all the way in and HALF of it was on fire...I had my fireproof heavy gloves on thank GOD...and yanked it out and quickly opened the front door with other hand and pushed my way over to railing of deck and tossed it into the snow..."Good work, Bev, i thought Bob did not teach me that one"
Morning came and we were totally snowed in. Storm was over, sun out, i had a time trying to remove enough snow to let the dogs go poop on the front deck...No phones were working. radio was going non stop about the storm's aftermath....gradually after one more night alone you could see people begin to stir and it was kind of funny too, One man was pulling his kid in a sleigh...with high rubber boots on and I asked from my deck what was he looking for as he was digging in snow right in front of my house..."Think i lost my ROLEX right here, he said..
When the phones finally came on Bob called me and said that his men had to all sleep on the floor and cots, no one could get home yet..cars buried, snowmobiles out of gas, roads not drivable and would not be for maybe a week and longer in remote places...I got a call from one of my rich friends on the golf course (those homes were mansions) their heat was OUT...they had no power and no wood stoves. "Bev are you freezing" "Heck no, this wood stove heats our three bedroom chalet perfectly" I am cooking scrambled eggs and making coffee on the cook top stove (wood stove has cook top)
This went on for two more days and on the forth day I saw a RARE SIGHT .....there was Bob coming down the street with two big black garbage bags that he had placed around his legs with big rubber bands and it had taken him all morning or half the day to get home from his security office at the slopes...
He started right in shoveling us out and when he saw what a good job i had done with holding down our fort, keeping our pipes from freezing, he said to me "BEV, I HAD MY DOUBTS ABOUT YOU HERE ALL ALONE, A SPOILED ONLY CHILD, FORMER DEBUTANTE BUT GETTING THROUGH THIS STORM ALL ALONE WITHOUT OUR PIPES FREEZING AND YOUR PRAYERS TO SAVE THE ROOF...THIS QUALIFIES YOU AS A TRUE MOUNTAIN WOMAN..i was so pleased that i never forgot those words and to this day I dream back of that moment and all the inedible mountain times i had in the most beautiful place I feel God ever made. And that is why i call myself "Mountain Woman" Josh made it home too from his friends home with all kinds of incredible tales to tell. There were so many people stranded on beech Mountain. Couples ran out of money for they could not fly home..had to wire parents for money. The hotels and restaurants could not serve as no one could get to work to serve anyone. We took in a couple whose windows had been blown out. and gave them the guest room as did many residents on our mountain. After a while there was still no school so the parents started a shuttle to take our kids who loved to ski up to the top of White Lightening ski slope and then pick them up at bottom and drive them up again...as no lifts were running and whole mountain was paralyzed...the locals had a blast on their inner tubes, sleds, anything they could find for days till the schools reopened..End of this tale.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
SOMETHING OF SUBSTANCE FOR NEW YEAR from Brother's Karamazov
Well, it is New Year's Eve and for the past twenty years while i was still married we decided not to go out but just have two or three couples in from the neighborhood rather than be on the dangerous roads. Another thing we loved was to go to a small country church and have a candlelight service, returning home early.
So as I sit here as a single woman tonight reflecting on what is important that i want to infuse into my daily walk with the Lord i think of passages from "the Brothers Karamazov concerning "elder Zosima's teachings. this is book I never wanted to read until my son Joshua urged me to. He keeps it on his nightstand to reflect upon the spiritual passages.
If you are a writer like me and if you love the written word...reading Brothers K will seem like a great accomplishment since Bob Hope used to say "Oh, you're reading Brothers K, see ya in FIVE YEARS." IT IS ONE OF THE LONGEST NOVELS EVER WRITTEN.BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY who is hailed as "the finest novelist of all time"
In fact he said "If I can finish this work, I will have expressed myself completely.
His impressions of God are expressed through the main character in his book named "the Elder Zosima, a devout Monk. Here are some of his teaching that i feel are worth listening to for our coming year.
QUOTATIONS FROM THE ELDER ZOSIMA'S TEACHINGS:
Can a man Judge His fellow Men?
Above all, remember that you cannot be anyone's judge. No man on earth can judge a criminal until he understands that he himself is just as guilty as the man standing before him and that he may be more responsible than anyone else for the crime. Only when he understands this can he be a judge. Absurd though as it may sound, this is the truth. For it is possible that , if I myself had been upright, this man would not be standing before me accused of a crime. if you can accept the responsibility for the crime committed by the man standing before you, whom you are judging in your heart, then take the crime and pay for it with your own suffering and let the accused walk away without reproach. and even if the law makes you his judge, you must still endeavor to act in that same spirit for when he leaves he will condemn himself more than you could have.
Attend tirelessly to good works, if before going to sleep at night, you remember something you have not done, rise up at once and do it. If you are surrounded by wicked ruthless people who will not listen to you, go down on your knees and beg them to forgive you, for if they do not listen to you, it is through your own fault. And if they should all turn against you and these evil men still refuse to hear your words, serve them in silence and humility and never abandon HOPE. and if they should all turn away from you and drive you away by force, prostrate yourself
on the ground when you are ALL ALONE, kiss it, and wet it with your tears, and the earth will bring forth fruit from your tears, even if NO ONE SEES OR HEARS you in your solitary retreat.
Have faith to the end. Even if everyone else on earth goes ASTRAY, give life to your faith and keep PRAISING THE LORD, EVEN IF YOU ARE THE LAST OF THE FAITHFUL LEFT ON EARTH. And if you find another being who has preserved his faith, there will be a world of living LOVE, for you will fall into each others arms and praise the name of the Lord with fervor. for IN THE TWO OF YOU his truth will have been fulfilled.
Love the animals: god has given to them the beginnings of thought and untroubled JOY. so do not disturb their joy, do not torment them, do not deprive them of their well being, do no...and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us. Do not work against god's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you
Above all love little children, for they are sinless, like little angels, and they are there to arouse our tenderness, to purify our hearts, and in a sense to guide us. Woe to the man who offends a small child!! This is all i am going to say tonight. later i will talk about the Storm of the century and how i survived it all alone on Beech Mountain. This according to my late husband qualified me to be a TRUE MOUNTAIN WOMAN.
So as I sit here as a single woman tonight reflecting on what is important that i want to infuse into my daily walk with the Lord i think of passages from "the Brothers Karamazov concerning "elder Zosima's teachings. this is book I never wanted to read until my son Joshua urged me to. He keeps it on his nightstand to reflect upon the spiritual passages.
If you are a writer like me and if you love the written word...reading Brothers K will seem like a great accomplishment since Bob Hope used to say "Oh, you're reading Brothers K, see ya in FIVE YEARS." IT IS ONE OF THE LONGEST NOVELS EVER WRITTEN.BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY who is hailed as "the finest novelist of all time"
In fact he said "If I can finish this work, I will have expressed myself completely.
His impressions of God are expressed through the main character in his book named "the Elder Zosima, a devout Monk. Here are some of his teaching that i feel are worth listening to for our coming year.
QUOTATIONS FROM THE ELDER ZOSIMA'S TEACHINGS:
Can a man Judge His fellow Men?
Above all, remember that you cannot be anyone's judge. No man on earth can judge a criminal until he understands that he himself is just as guilty as the man standing before him and that he may be more responsible than anyone else for the crime. Only when he understands this can he be a judge. Absurd though as it may sound, this is the truth. For it is possible that , if I myself had been upright, this man would not be standing before me accused of a crime. if you can accept the responsibility for the crime committed by the man standing before you, whom you are judging in your heart, then take the crime and pay for it with your own suffering and let the accused walk away without reproach. and even if the law makes you his judge, you must still endeavor to act in that same spirit for when he leaves he will condemn himself more than you could have.
Attend tirelessly to good works, if before going to sleep at night, you remember something you have not done, rise up at once and do it. If you are surrounded by wicked ruthless people who will not listen to you, go down on your knees and beg them to forgive you, for if they do not listen to you, it is through your own fault. And if they should all turn against you and these evil men still refuse to hear your words, serve them in silence and humility and never abandon HOPE. and if they should all turn away from you and drive you away by force, prostrate yourself
on the ground when you are ALL ALONE, kiss it, and wet it with your tears, and the earth will bring forth fruit from your tears, even if NO ONE SEES OR HEARS you in your solitary retreat.
Have faith to the end. Even if everyone else on earth goes ASTRAY, give life to your faith and keep PRAISING THE LORD, EVEN IF YOU ARE THE LAST OF THE FAITHFUL LEFT ON EARTH. And if you find another being who has preserved his faith, there will be a world of living LOVE, for you will fall into each others arms and praise the name of the Lord with fervor. for IN THE TWO OF YOU his truth will have been fulfilled.
Love the animals: god has given to them the beginnings of thought and untroubled JOY. so do not disturb their joy, do not torment them, do not deprive them of their well being, do no...and that is true, alas, for almost every one of us. Do not work against god's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on your superiority to the animals, for they are without sin, while you with all your greatness, you defile the earth wherever you appear and leave an ignoble trail behind you
Above all love little children, for they are sinless, like little angels, and they are there to arouse our tenderness, to purify our hearts, and in a sense to guide us. Woe to the man who offends a small child!! This is all i am going to say tonight. later i will talk about the Storm of the century and how i survived it all alone on Beech Mountain. This according to my late husband qualified me to be a TRUE MOUNTAIN WOMAN.
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