Opinion

Acouple of times a year the men of one of my churches gather in the church kitchen (yes, we have special permission from the kitchen overseers). We get together to make cinnamon rolls to sell at the annual Bazaar and every other year for the Yard Sale. These rolls are popular with folks because they have a unique recipe - they are made from a yeast dough. Because of the special properties of yeast, the rolls come out light and chewy (unless we add too much flour).

“Once in a blue moon,”as an expression, speaks to a rare event. It rolls off the tongue much more easily than ‘once in a total solar eclipse’. Two full moons in a month is not as spectacular as the moon blocking the sun but May will start and end with a Full Moon and both of them are a bit unusual.

Irecently stopped at a rest area along I-64 and saw a heartwarming sight.

Flora Molton was a street singer in Washington, D.C. She accompanied herself on guitar and sang religious songs and songs of her own composition; “spiritual and truth music,” she said. Her roadside marker on Three Notch Road (U.S.-250) near Zion Crossroads tells of encounters with generations of people on the streets of Washington and speaks kindly of the love she sensed coming from all of them. Flora Molton (1908-1990) was born here in Louisa County, daughter of the Reverend Mr. and Mrs. William Rollins. She embraced the joys of singing at church gatherings early in life. For many, the songs of youth linger unknowingly embedded only to flourish later in a thriving adult. So it was with Flora Molton. Her spiritual and truth music and her compositions are lasting here at home, on the streets of Washington and beyond.

This year America is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I feel very fortunate to live here in Virginia, which contributed so much to those formative years of a young sovereign nation. A few months ago I vowed to myself that, in celebration of the semiquincentennial, I would try to partake in as many historical opportunities as I could.

This world we live in is fixated on power.

There was a time in my life, a time in all of our lives, when we were young that we would look around and “what should I do?” Some of that came from boredom, some came from true bewilderment at a situation we faced, some came from being at a crossroads where we had a choice to make and we were struggling with the import of the decision. “What to do” is an important question, if not the most important question of our lives. Afterall, most of us spend a lot of time thinking about what we want to be doing with our lives. How will we live our lives; who will we love; what will we make for dinner/breakfast/lunch; where and how should one live; how am I going to spend my time today; the questions are myriad and often need time and more information to answer.

Dear Reader, something amazing happened last Friday evening. My husband turned on the television set in the hotel room we were in for the night. To my best recollection, he’s never done so - ever. We just don’t watch tv in hotels. But the amazing thing is, if Rick hadn’t turned on the tube, I would have. What the heck was going on?