This afternoon brought one of those “AH HA!” moments.

During the past couple of weeks I’ve spent quite a bit of time reading, make that re-reading, books that take me to my “happy place.”

My library contains several of these volumes by Gene Stratton-Porter, an American author who was vastly popular in the early 1900’s. They were inherited from my mother. She received the books as gifts when she was a girl. They are filled with homilies pointing to a quieter more gentle time; a time when responsibility and steadfastness were paramount to our American way of life. In them I find my “happy place” because there is a complete absence of vulgarity, profanity, overt sexuality and crudity.  The stories have morals and the characters have morals, shining forth with decency and honor.

It’s not unusual for me to re-read The Girl of the Limberlost, The Harvester and Her Father’s Daughter once a year or so. I gain something from their old-fashioned common sense that is sadly absent in most modern media.

The AH HA moment? The sign, if you will?

This is it!

” It doesn’t seem__”

“That’s the bed rock of all the trouble on earth. We are a nation and a part of the world that spends our time on ‘seeming.’  Our whole outer crust is ‘seeming.’ When we get beneath the surface and strike the being, then we live as we are privileged by the Almighty. I don’t think I give a tinker how anything seems. What concerns me, is how it is. ” _The Harvester, Doubleday, Page & Company 1911

And one more thing:

“Just enjoy to the depths of your soul – that’s worship. Be thankful for everything – that’s praising God as the birds praise him. And do unto others – that’s all there is of love and religion combined in one fell swoop.” _The Harvester, Doubleday, Page & Company 1911

Hope this makes as much sense to you as it dose to me.