SEASONS - KEEPING THE SEASONS OF SPRING BY CELEBRATING THE PASSOVER WEEK

OBSERVING THE PASSOVER

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

I am a Christian, believing in Jesus Christ as Messiah.  When I observe Passover Week I am NOT trying to act Jewish; I am simply trying to be a more accurate Christian.

I strongly feel that God has used the Jewish people to teach Christians the right ways to live.  Thus, I have developed a very Hebraic heart.

The people of Israel were a physical shadow and type of the Church of Jesus Christ to come.  The Church (those filled with God's Holy Spirit) did not replace Israel; the church grew out of these people called Israel, who were called of God to proclaim His ways throughout the earth.  They were the nation blessed with the physical blood lineage of Messiah.

Because of this, I keep the Spring Holy Days in my home according to the Jewish calendar.  It is, after all; the same calendar that Jesus kept, and it proclaims the same days that the disciples continued to keep, even after the Resurrection of Christ and His Ascension into heaven.    

I have learned, similar to how the Hebrews and the disciples learned; that God gave these dates in the time order of appointed sacred times, and that they have never been changed by God, even after the fulfillment of the Resurrection on the second Holy Day of the Seven Days of Unleavened Bread, during the Passover Week on that day which many of us call the day of Early First Fruits.  

If the order of these Holy Days were changed by God, like many people think, and God's calendar had ended at the cross, so much of God's story which He had told through the Holy Days would remain unfulfilled!  

Yet; sadly; many stop their religious observances after the celebration of Passover and The Resurrection.  Resurrection is only the beginning!

By only keeping and observing a portion of the well laid out plan of God, the continuation of God's plan is skewed to the observant believer.  There are three more holy sacred times that HAVE NOT YET been fulfilled which come AFTER the Passover.  

Teaching people to forget these Holy Days and God's calendar only helps Satan to keep God's people skewed.  It keeps them from seeing all of God's complete prophecies.    

This year (2017) The Passover (which includes The 7 Days of Unleavened Bread and Early First Fruits) will be observed April 10^th at sundown – April 17^th, ending at sunset.  It is a very sacred and holy time that is rich with ancient history and modern transitions.    I feel sorry for anyone who is so caught up in the trappings of the world's teachings that they miss or dismiss the true time of Passover.  

Many people think Passover started with the Exodus from Egypt, but the whole concept actually began way back in the garden with Adam and Eve.  God first showed the concept of Passover to Adam and Eve when He killed an animal and used the skin of the animal to cover their nakedness.  It is thought by the sages that God roasted the meat of the animal killed to cover Adam and Eve’s sin, and they ate a meal together just outside of Paradise.  This was the beginning of God repairing the breach caused by their sin inside the garden.

In this sense, observing Passover is the beginning of repairing the breach between God and mankind.  Note that it was initiated by God, planned and laid out as a way for us to come back to Him.  God has never wanted mankind to be separated from Him.  He has used Passover to teach us this.

We know that Adam and Eve taught a concept of Passover to their children who taught it to their children all the way up through history, right up to the  present generation where we are living now. 

 
Even when the great flood came, Noah kept count of God’s sacred days and he and his family celebrated them together on the ark.  Afterwards Noah’s son Shem became the family high priest for the first new family after the flood.  He taught about God’s sacred holy days in the first school that he founded to teach people about God's way of life. 

Many generations later, in the days of Moses God’s people were taken into slavery and held captive by an Egyptian Pharaoh.  God told Moses to lead the people to freedom.  When Pharaoh refused to let the people go God sent plagues across the land of Egypt.  The last and worst plague was the death of every first born son.  Before this night, which was Passover; God instructed Moses to tell the people to put the blood of a lamb over the door posts of their homes.  On this night, if the Angel of Death saw the blood of the lamb over the door post of the home, he would pass over and the first born of that house would be saved.  This is how God helped His people remember this sacred time even when they had been held for years in captivity and had not been allowed to worship Him or keep His sacred times.  God was reminding them that HE set the dates of our time.  He is the eternal timekeeper.  He stands outside of time; but He has planned for every second of our life as He watches over it.  Some of our seconds, minutes and hours are more blessed and sacred and should always be set aside.  

Many years after the wilderness experience of the Israelites, during the days of Solomon’s temple, the people brought their lambs to the temple to be slaughtered by the priest.  Each sacrificial lamb wore a sign around its neck with the family name painted on it.  The blood of the lamb was poured out at the altar and the meat was taken home and roasted on a pomegranate pole until it was done, and the whole family would gather in the home and have a sacred meal to remember how God had atoned for their sins by the blood of their lamb. 

They would also remember how God had delivered their ancestors from the bondage of slavery and led them through the wilderness to the promise land.  All of the lamb was eaten in this meal.  If any was left over it was burned in the fire.  

The stories of these things were told each year to the next generation so they would always remember the sacred stories of God.  

Are you passing these stories on to your next generation?  

It is so easy for children to see these stories when you observe the Passover Seder inside your home.  

Then came the days when Herod was king.  Jesus Christ was born to a young virgin named Mary.  Jesus grew up keeping God’s sacred, appointed times.  He was the first man to ever live without sin.  He was the Son of God who came from God to earth in the form of man.  He endured every temptation known to mankind without sinning.  He was a great teacher and He taught about The Kingdom of God.  He had many followers and they were called disciples.  

Jesus and His disciples understood sacred, appointed times and they observed The Passover for seven days. 

On the night before Jesus was crucified the disciples ate the Passover meal with Jesus.  On that night Jesus asked them to always remember him with this meal.  Shortly after that He was crucified.  He hung on a cruel cross, suffered and bled and died for my sins and your sins and the sins of those disciples that ate at the table with Him.  

He was the Holy Lamb of God.    

On this very same day called Passover Jesus Christ became the lamb for the door post of our hearts. 

He atoned for our sins by giving His life in exchange for the debt of our sin.  

He redeemed us from the bondage of the slavery to sin.  

Christians must remember this at Passover .  He commanded us to always remember this.

 At the time the disciples participated in the Passover with Christ before His crucifixion, they were on their way to being REAL Christians, the very blessed People of a Resurrected Messiah.  They had done all that was humanly possible, and Jesus was about to do the rest.  There were appointed, sacred times for fulfilling all of this.  God had set them in motion from the foundation of the world.  Jesus understood this.  He waited on God's timing and then accepted His mission to save the world just as they had mapped it out together right from the very beginning.    

Today we have come to know that Jesus Christ is the Holy Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  He was and is our Passover.   He fulfilled everything  that had been learned in the keeping of Passover for all the years before and after His death, burial and resurrection.  He asked us to always remember.

The people who love God today still keep the Passover, and they have not forgotten the words of Jesus when he said “Remember Me.” 

They know that Jesus became our Passover lamb, and that His blood was perfect blood which atoned for all the sins of mankind forever. 

God’s people still keep God’s sacred, appointed time called Passover.  We remember each Sabbath and we remember each Passover.   In all the years that have passed, God's people have never forgotten.

So now we all know of these things which came about over time through the different generations of people serving God that further fulfilled the meaning of Passover.   These little stories were added to the whole story, and passed on from each generation of people as pieces of Passover developed and unfolded and happened in their own time.  

From the beginning of time God wrote, knew, and understood the whole story; but we have had to live through the story in order to understand it all.  

We will always remember to tell the story to our children;  to pass it on to the next generation.  

Our children must understand all these things that God used to teach us that Jesus Christ would become The Lamb of God offered up for the sins of the whole world.  Each year as we remember this, we tell our children of the greatest love story that ever happened, all the while hoping that they too will learn and grow and love and know the goodness of The Lord and pass the beautiful story on to their children one day. 

At Passover we glorify the Lamb who is worthy to open the scroll; the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the world; who hung on a cross to pay for the sins of all mankind.  

He is worthy of all glory and honor and praise.  

 We must always remember how much God loved us as He decided to send Him to us.  

We must always remember how much Christ loved us; enough to die in our place.  

We must always REMEMBER.

Passover is all about remembering the most important things of God.  These are the things which we should never forget.     

The Passover season lasts for eight days. 

The Seder meal is eaten inside the homes of God’s people on the first day just after sunset.  

The meal is usually served on white linen tablecloths by candlelight and special blessings and prayers are recited to help us remember and to allow us as a family to offer up our thanks to a God with a heart bigger than the sky.  

THE HOUSE DOCTOR CONTEMPLATES SOME PEN ART FOR WORLD POETRY DAY

REVIEWING ONE OF MY FAVORITE SPRINGTIME POEMS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

This is not your typical article about making a house a home; but if you think about it long enough you will agree with me that every home across the land would be vastly improved by the incorporation of the use of more poetry in our process of daily living.  You could frame a poem, or draw a poem, or paint a poem and hang it on your wall.  It would always be there to remind you of the things that you value the most.  

Poetry is one of the best ways we have for expressing our hopes and dreams for our homes.  This poem I present today expresses more about improving landscaping; the landscaping of our yards, as well as the landscaping of our souls.  So keep all of that in mind as you continue to read and hopefully you will come to understand that today's article really does fit into this column instead of going totally off-track with a random slip of deep poetry.

Today is World Poetry Day; and being a poet myself, I chose to celebrate by reviewing one of my favorite poems.  

I wanted this poem to express thoughts about springtime, and this poem written by Marge Piercy does that so well.  I love her poem so much that I  decided to forgo my own work and opted to review hers.  I hope you enjoy reading the review as much as I enjoyed creating it.

So please be very aware and alert to the note that this is not my own poem but simply a compilation of my thoughts about the poem.   

I've always considered this poem that follows to be SO beautiful and thought provoking.  I think of it every spring as the buds begin to form on the trees and the newness of life begins to happen all over again in nature.    

The Seven Of Pentacles

by 

Marge Piercy

Under a sky the color of pea soup she is looking at her work growing away there actively, thickly like grapevines or pole beans as things grow in the real world, slowly enough.  If you tend them properly, if you mulch, if you water, if you provide birds that eat insects a home and winter food, if the sun shines and you pick off caterpillars, if the praying mantis comes and the ladybugs and the bees,then the plants flourish, but at their own internal clock.

You cannot tell always by looking at what is happening.

More than half the tree is spread out in the soil under your feet.

Penetrate quietly as the earthworm that blows no trumpet.

Fight persistently as the creeper that brings down the tree.

Spread like the squash plant that overruns the garden.

Gnaw in the dark and use the sun to make sugar.

Live a life you can endure: Make love that is loving.

Keep tangling and interweaving and taking more in,

a thicket and bramble wilderness to the outside but to us

interconnected with rabbit runs and burrows and lairs.

reach out, keep reaching out, keep bringing in.

This is how we are going to live for a long time: not always,

for every gardener knows that after the digging, after

the planting,

after the long season of tending and growth, the harvest comes.

Connections are made slowly, sometimes they grow underground.

Weave real connections, create real nodes, build real houses.

Live as if you liked yourself, and it may happen:

~ Marge Piercy ~

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ON THIS POEM

(by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Please note right away  that I do not believe in the use of tarot cards; but I think the writer of this poem used one of a tarot card's descriptions because it fit the subject she was speaking about.   The seven of pentacles is the card that represents the material world, and I think she is striving for a good harvest, including spiritual things, in spite of the situation she finds herself living through at first in the actual physical universe.  She is aiming for a good finish, a completeness with a harvest that goes beyond being materialistic and crosses over to something much better.

 In a sense she is saying that life is like the draw of a card, you never know what will come about, but you take what you get and you make the most of it.  When you draw something from the material world, which the pentacle represents here; you might not at first get all that you had hoped for.  But she decides to take what she draws and she begins to build upon that, slowly but surely with intention.  She tends; she hopes; she stays alert to the things that she can change and the things that God will change if she asks Him to do so.  Most of all she is speaking of cultivating a life as if you are tending a crop; nurturing everything with life and patiently waiting for the results.  

When she gets to explaining how she will go about this the poem becomes even more interesting.  My favorite line in the whole poem is  "Make love that is loving."  Could anything be more profound?

I also love the line that says "build real houses."  It seems she is expressing a desire for a "home" over a house, a dwelling place where people can actually LIVE as opposed to a showcase for the outside world looking in.  

 I love many other things about this poem, but the thing that jumps off the page to me is that the author is awake to the processes of life, and the necessity for different seasons in order to reach a place of maturity in one's life.   I've always been obsessed with the fact that God created seasons for reasons.  I sense that the poet sees the same thing. 

She sees that what you do with each and every season matters as long as you are paying attention to what is truly real in the everydayness of your daily life.  She has a reverence and a patience with this process.  She plants, she tends, she waters, she waits, she harvests in the end. 

She rarely sits idle.  She always endures, no matter the season.  She trusts in the things she cannot always see, the things that have not yet been revealed that she knows are real, and she sees the magical way that they all somehow connect.  She knows the One who connects the dots.  She uses her nurturing of the earth to underline her connection with God.  Both things require faith and perseverance.  Both things require endless waiting for answers to unanswered questions.    

She knows by instinct that every little thing affects something else, no matter how small or insignificant.   From this she learns a carefulness for living out her life.  You can sense her treading softly upon the grass, not intruding upon the bird's nest, soothing and straightening the tiniest little plant that has toppled over in the bed.    

She is consistently aware of an invisible process that is always being orchestrated by something or someone unseen.  That "someone" for me, and hopefully her; is God.  The unseen process is the whole wonderful mystery of life that He alone can orchestrate with all its ups and downs and twists and turns.  She has learned to let Him be in control.  She tries not to interfere with what He is bringing about silently and unseen because she knows He has a better plan than she could conceive.

This poem expresses how God has hidden the mystery of life into every little thing.   

When she says "live a life you can endure" she is expressing the fact that we often are our own worst enemies.  We must be careful how we go through life, we must treat all relationships and all of creation with love and dignity in order for this bounty to endure and thrive and continue to bless us with a harvest.  We must progress beyond the seventh pentacle of the material and reach the spiritual.  

She knows that our life is full of growing seasons, times of reflection and times of meditation.  These are all valuable in the whole process.  Pausing here and there makes all the motion so much more meaningful in the end.  She is in awe of the process of God through the seasons of her life.

She sees that the harvest comes in the end, something we will celebrate and see when the time turns into the future.  The future is hopeful and makes the day-to-day more interesting.  She holds on to hope all the way through to the end.

These are truly the words of a woman who thrives in all seasons of life. 

 May we all be so blessed!

SEASONS - WELCOMING SPRING INTO 2017

SEASONS – SPRING HAS SPRUNG

(Writing and photography by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Welcome to the first day of spring for 2017!  

Let’s turn a page into new and exciting things.  Let’s stop and look around and enjoy the newest scenery of our lives together.  

Don’t you love the fresh breath of air that each spring brings to the earth?  

I’ve always enjoyed that fresh, new aspect of the changing of the seasons from winter to spring. The privet is blooming and the pollen is flowing heavily through the air.  People are washing cars and dusting off their patio furniture and planting flowers in brightly colored pots.  Some places are carpeted with little pink petals and some walkways are lined with bright cheerful blooms that are popping their heads out to say hello to a new season.  

With the coming of spring one gets the feeling that everything can be fresh and new again.  I am so grateful that a season can do this to our attitudes.  This winter has been hard and full of political turmoil and critical national changes and more and more never-ending tragic news for days at a time.  I’m ready for a break from the constant bombardment of the negative facts of the ever-changing modern world and all of the harsh realities that sometimes go along with it.   

I love how spring seems to soften all the things around us.  It perks up people’s attitudes and even brings big wide smiles to their faces.    

How could you look at the changing landscape across America right now and frown?  The beautiful spacious skies are so blue and the amber fields of grain are turning a lovely shade of bright green.  The Great Artist Of Heaven has been busy!

Each spring brings its own form of loveliness  Everything everywhere stands up and speaks of hope, from the pretty new flowers to the cheerful colors of the blossoming fruit trees.  There is a warm breeze blowing through that is taking away winter's chill and getting us all ready for vacations.  

Let’s get some happy renewals going on; let’s step into this spring with renewed vigor and anticipation.  Every spring brings new life and this is reason to celebrate and rejoice.

One way to celebrate spring's arrival is to stop and remember the things that we are most grateful for.  

Can you look back over memories of spring times in your life and think of things that make you smile?  I hope so.

I have some wonderful memories of growing up on a farm and watching the season of spring come to cheer up the land at the end of every brown bleak winter.  Chicks were popping their little heads out of eggs, and birds were busy building their nests.  Baby calves and foals were being born and the ground was being turned and prepared for fresh new crops with hopes for a bountiful harvesting season.  I loved the feelings of anticipation.  Children were anticipating school ending; adults were anticipating nice long summer nights and sweet family gatherings and vacations.  The houses always got their spring cleanings; and everything seemed to take on a whole new pure, clean, wholesome feeling of renewal.  At the farm we didn't throw things away when they were old and dingy; we cleaned them up and made them look new again.  There was always this great transformation going on every spring.

All of a sudden you begin to see this drastic change!   It is so noticeable.  The people notice, the animals notice, and the land notices.  They notice the renewal of the life process that has arrived again just like clockwork.  The Great Timekeeper has wound his watch again and spring has appeared everywhere.  Suddenly everyone and everything seems to be watching and paying attention with wide open eyes; as if they are all coming out of a long winter hibernation and just realizing that there is so much more life to be living.

The spring family gatherings we used to share at the farm were so wonderful!  I have so many vivid memories and even some cherished photos to remind me of how very blessed it was to be able to share those years of my life with my family on the farm. 

My Mom's tables were always so beautiful and her cooking was delicious.  The time we all shared was very well spent.   I'll bet you have some similar memories of things that have happened in the springs of your life.  Hold on to them and cherish them.  They are something to pull out of the corners of your mind when the world feels too fast and too busy and too overwhelming.  Just slow down and remember springs past.  It will change your day and your mood and make you feel grateful.   

As much as I enjoyed those old memories, I am also very grateful for the memories we are making in the present in our own home.  

We have food.  We have shelter.  We have what we need to gather together with family and friends and thank God for putting up with us and loving us so much to bless us with each other.  We have abundance of all that matters.

I’m especially thankful for the seasonal changes that spring brings to our humble little castle where love abounds.  Any home can be a castle if love lives there and its owners are paying attention to God’s ways.  A home doesn’t have to be a mansion to be a castle; it simply has to be loved.  

Our castle is going through the empty-nest years; but the funny thing about that is for some reason our family just keeps growing, and the house is very rarely ever empty!  We are so happy with our grown kids, their spouses and our grandchildren.  Each one of them has brought a different set of blessing into our days.  Spring brings yet another reason for being grateful and celebrating family.



It is nice to be grateful for our past memories of spring, and even nicer to be appreciative of the moment we are living in right now.  Then there is also the aspect of looking to the future springs that will yet take place.  We begin to feel the hope that the changing season brings and we start to do the little things that we do that make us who we are.  Families gather, friends gather, wonderful things are set in motion to come together in beautiful ways.  This is the beauty that spring brings to us.

Today I am sending up a fresh new prayer, that this new season for you is glorious and full of love and laughter and fun.  I pray that God will bless you all abundantly.  I hope the IN SEASON blog can always play a tiny part in your day and the celebration of your spring happiness.  Look forward to some fresh and exciting new articles this spring.  

May you have all the time you need in this new season to bring your thankful heart before God and give Him the praise that He deserves for leading us ever onward and forward in so many beautiful and seasonal ways.  God surely blessed us when He created the changing of the seasons.  Today I am deeply grateful as I watch the negatives turning into positives and I see how God has blessed our land.  

OH THE PLACES WE SHOULD GO - ALABAMA WILDLIFE CENTER

ALABAMA WILDLIFE REHABILITATION CENTER

200 Terrace Drive

Pelham, Alabama  35124

(Writing and photography by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

My eight year old grandson just LOVES animals; especially turtles.  

He is fascinated with the way injured animals can be rescued and rehabilitated.  

He seems more interested in this subject than most kids; so for his last visit to our house; I decided to share The Alabama Wildlife Rehabilitation Center with him.  

I could not have picked a more wonderful thing!  He absolutely loved it! 

I had no idea that a place just a short distance from our home would provide him with so much fun and enjoyment.  The Alabama Wildlife Rehabilitation Center is located inside Oak Mountain State Park, which provides lots of amazing entertainment for people living in the area, as well as visitors from other parts of the country.

I had never been to this particular part of the park, so I really did not know what to expect.  I was pleasantly surprised and amazed at the discoveries we uncovered.  We followed the long wooded park road drive to the center, and as we drove I explained to him what we would be doing on the visit.  I didn’t see much reaction on his face at first; but I knew I had made the right decision when we arrived and he skipped out of the car and held both arms up high in a victory dance.  

He was so interested in everything that was going on there.  He took it all in with wide eyes, noting the information on the signs as we entered, and liking the rustic outdoorsy look of the building surrounded by beautiful and natural woodlands.  This was his kind of place!

Upon entering we could hear the sounds of birds singing and chirping “hello.”  

It seems that they receive over 1,800 birds from over 100 different species at this center.  They rehabilitate the injured and orphaned birds by providing them with food, shelter and medical care while they heal.  Of course the goal is for each of them to be able to return to the wild.

We arrived just before the morning feeding started.  We had to wait a bit; so we took in the curious books, pamphlets, stuffed animals and T-shirts in the lobby.  There were some very interesting items and I told him he could pick just one.  He very carefully chose a sweet little stuffed animal; a little wood owl.

As we were walking around looking through the glass walls at the birds who had found temporary homes in the shelter, a young girl approached us who worked there.  To our delight she had a miniature wood owl on her arm!  He was just adorable and Vinny actually got to touch him and gaze at him up close!  

 How cool was that!  We wondered around more and took in some of the nicely labeled and very informative exhibits, and looked through the glass walls to observe what was going on outdoors.

These people are really serious about their work.  They are open and working at this center every day of the year.  

The tables inside the building held lots of interesting information and great children's story books about birds and nature in general.  We got to go back to the feeding room and watch how they were feeding and caring for those birds who could not move around on their own.  

Later, we drove down the hill a bit to Terrace Drive and turned left.  We went past the park Headquarters on our right and made our way to the Wildlife Center's Treetop Nature Trail, on the left.  This was a wonderful 300 foot elevated boardwalk set among mature hardwoods in a stream-fed valley close to the lake.  There we visited with injured birds living in gigantic elevated cages.   These are the homes of the non-releasable birds of prey.  There were workers feeding the birds when we arrived.  They took time to chat with us and explain all the different species living in the large cages.  My grandson was glad to know that they still could live in the woods and have lots of room to try to fly if they wanted to.  I didn't have the camera with me for this leg of our journey, but I hope to go back to this awesome boardwalk again one day and get some great photos of the birds of prey and the boardwalk.  

At the beginning of the trail we saw two turkey vultures.  One had black feathers and one was an albino.  We immediately knew who they were because we had read about them.  We read that "Logan" the turkey vulture with the black feathers was found in 1997 near Hayden, Alabama.  He was suffering from wounds that impaired his ability to hunt for food.

We had also read about "Princess" the white albino turkey vulture who was brought into the center emaciated and starving in 1994.  

These two had to leave their home in the Oak Mountain forest for a brief period of time once as the extensive repairs and renovations were made to the Treetop Nature Trail.  Now they have completely remodeled new homes!  Their remodeling happened because of a partnership between the Shelby County government and the State's Department of Construction and Natural Resources.  The Alabama Wildlife Center is partnering with many community leaders, groups and organizations and corporations in order to accomplish continued support for making the Wildlife Center the best ever.  They provide a very important public outreach to our community and all of those living in the area are appreciative of their constant efforts and hard work.  

After viewing the vultures we saw some red tailed hawks, some great horned owls, barn owls and barred owls.  All of these birds have names now, which the public has helped to recommend.  You can make suggestions for names of any new birds by visiting The Alabama Wildlife Center facebook page or going to their website at www.awrc.org.

As we were leaving my grandson waved goodbye to the dedicated workers and thanked them for helping all the birds.  They smiled grateful smiles.  Without their hard work none of these birds would have survived in the wild.    

I highly recommend this great part of Oak Mountain State Park.  Any age would love visiting; it is interesting and informative.  We certainly had a great time there!