Serena

About Serena

http://www.serenabmiller.com

Posts by Serena Miller:

December172021

Whatsoever is true, honest, just, pure, lovely…think on these things.

SerenaBlog, Journal Entries1

...if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things!

I really don’t like living alone, so my son, Derek, and daughter-in-law, Julie, with their two children grown and away in college, were kind enough to move in with me last year.

Julie teaches at our local Middle School, and it has been a revelation watching her. She seldom sits down without a stack of papers in her lap to grade, or lessons to prepare. I have learned that a forty-hour work week is laughable to a dedicated teacher.

This morning I awoke at five o’clock and stumbled downstairs for coffee. Julie was already up, dressed, and sitting at the kitchen table with the contents of my button basket spread around her.

“Good morning.” She held up a small circle of burlap upon which she was busily sewing buttons. “I hope you don’t mind. I’m doing a project with my students.”

“Sure.” I poured water into the Keurig and popped in a pod of the strongest coffee we had. “I don’t mind.”

I stared at the Keurig, willing it to hurry and finish so I could jumpstart my brain with caffeine. My to-do list was long. Then it hit me. Buttons?

“Why buttons?”

“We’re making ornaments from found objects today,” she said. “And I thought if my students made these, they would learn how to sew on a button—many of them don’t know how—and it would also help them consider recycling found objects into useful things–like Christmas ornaments!”

“One of the other teachers at school has a whole Christmas tree decorated with things the students found and turned into ornaments. I’ll send you a picture of it when I get to school.”

We are not exactly an affluent community here in southern Ohio. Incomes tend to be low, parents struggle to find jobs. Knowing how to sew on a button or make-do with homemade ornaments can be a valuable skill.

All of which got me to thinking. The news we watch tends to focus on terrible and fearful things. The media has to do that, I guess, in order to keep ratings up and stay on the air. But that is not the whole story. If we rely on that for our sense of reality, our perception of society can become very twisted. The true reality is that there are so many everyday people who are just trying to live their lives while doing good and decent things.

Last weekend, I watched two volunteer moms shepherd a group of children through a Christmas play. As my four-year-old granddaughter, dressed as an angel, solemnly watched over a baby Jesus, it occurred to me that there should be a special place in heaven for those people who calm nervous children and help them put on their little Christmas plays.

Anyway—for those who might be struggling with a feeling that the world is going to hell in a handbasket—here’s a scripture to help push against the darkness. It’s one of my favorites. A recipe for mental health from Philippians 4:8.

“Whatsoever things are true,

whatsoever things are honest,

whatsoever things are just,

whatsoever things are pure,

whatsoever things are lovely,

whatsoever things are of good report;

if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise,

think on these things.”

So today, just because I can, I give you the image of my daughter-in-law getting up before dawn to prepare to teach her students how to thread a needle, sew on a button, and make pretty ornaments out of scraps of material. And of earnest children in churches all over the world, trying to remember their lines while watching over a baby Jesus.

In other words “…if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things!”

Merry Christmas, my friends!

July152021

A Weekend in Ohio Amish Country

SerenaBlog, Journal Entries, News0

A Weekend in Ohio Amish Country

Sometimes friends ask me what I do when I visit the Sugarcreek area. It differs from one visit to another, but this past weekend, I was invited by some Old Order Amish friends to bring my family and enjoy an evening of music in their barn. Their daughter, who is worshipping with a Mennonite church these days, plays bass guitar in a small Christian band and they were going to perform. I could hardly wait. In the meantime, we explored the area.

The following are some photos we took, along with some background.

Gospel Bookstore - Sugarcreek

This is my friend, Rhoda, who runs the Gospel Bookstore in Sugarcreek, Ohio along with her husband, Freeman. This is where I had my very first book signing. I was nervous, but Rhoda was so kind to this newbie author, she made the whole process a joy.

My daughter-in-law, Julie, who is a teacher, got so caught up in shopping while Rhoda and I visited, that she brought an armload to the checkout counter and then went back for more. “This is a REALLY good bookstore!” she told me.

I know! And it is run by really good people!

Cuckoo Clock - Sugarcreek

Across the street from The Gospel Bookstore, is the largest cuckoo clock in the world. Seriously. It really is. During tourist season, it can get pretty crowded there at the hour and half-hour as people crowd around to take pictures of the little wooden people who come rolling out playing instruments and dancing. It’s quite a spectacle.

My little granddaughter, Addy, wasn’t too sure about the cuckoo clock. It’s loud, and she’s only two.

Age of Steam - Sugarcreek

Right outside Sugarcreek is a place called The Age of Steam. It’s quite a place, involving the restoration of plenty of old steam engines, each with their own stories.

Anyone who loves old trains would enjoy this place, but they are adamant that we can’t use photos for websites, etc. So-here’s a picture of Addy I snapped mid-yawn while her daddy enjoyed the 90 minute tour. She was obviously not as impressed.

Lehman's - Kidron

Lehmans in Kidron. What a store! They have everything an Amish family could ever want. Beautiful kerosene lamps, washboards, old-fashioned toys, leather fly swatters, more brands and flavors of soda pop than I’ve ever seen, good quality jigsaw puzzles, and propane refrigerators, just to name a few. I rarely “want” things anymore. I go to a store and everything just looks like more clutter to store away or clean-but at Lehman’s? Somehow I always think I need most of the stuff in there.

MCC Thrift Store - Kidron

This is the inside of the MCC thrift store, run by the Mennonites for world missions. There are a lot of Amish/Mennonite-run thrift stores in the area, but this one-which is less than a mile up the road from Lehman’s-is something special. They use the scrap material they get to make quilts and comforters to sell. There were women working there on giant quilt frames, plus one gentleman who was making rugs on a large floor loom.

What did I buy there? Not quilts or rugs. I already have plenty. But I was thrilled to find a perfectly good Rick Steve’s duffle/backpack that normally sells for over a hundred dollars with a price tag of $3.50.

I also bought some children’s used Amish clothing because my four littlest granddaughters think it’s great fun to dress up and pretend to be little Amish girls. The thrift store price? $1.50 apiece.

Hotel Millersburg - Millersburg

Hotel Millersburg is a wonderful place to stay if you enjoy antiques and Victorian ambiance. This is a suite we rented for two nights that had three beds and two bedrooms plus a living room and bath. There is a nice restaurant on the main floor, and on Friday nights in the summer, they have musical entertainment in the courtyard.

From left to right, my youngest son, Jacob. His wife, Michaela, Addy, my oldest granddaughter Hannah (who is going to UCLA this fall for a graduate degree in voice) and my daughter-in-law, Julie, who is married to my oldest son, Derek, who had a cold and couldn’t come. (With a mean game of Catan on the table.)

Barn - Sugarcreek

Here is a quick snapshot from the back of the main event! Up front on stage are musicians playing what I would describe as Christian bluegrass, and probably close to two hundred people were there, all friends and neighbors of my Amish friends who were hosting it. We had all brought finger foods which were placed on tables in one wing of the barn. I bought some very fancy bakery cookies, which I was happy to see in the hands of a lot of little children during the evening.

Outside the barn was an orphaned few-days-old lamb whose mother had rejected it. Poor little thing was crying for its mama, but it had plenty of affection from the children and adults there. These particular Amish friends of mine take good care of their animals, so this little one will be well looked after.

While the bands were playing, some of the children, Englisch and Amish, decided that the new swing (at one time it held twelve children with no mishaps) was much more interesting than the bands. Addy, the little one in a pink dress with no bonnet, was the youngest of the bunch, but no problem. Some of the older Amish girls immediately took over her care and made sure she was secure on the swing. My daughter-in-law, Michaela, was a bit nervous, but it was a glorious amount of fun to be in the midst of so many happy children.

After watching those children enjoying that swing, I’ve decided we desperately need one here at my house. The hostess said they’d recently purchased it at Rural King. I was happy to find out it wasn’t some unique Amish-made toy.

Broken Grounds - Millersburg

We debated about going to one of the many area churches on Sunday morning, but the drive home was long, and we hadn’t thought to bring any church clothes. Down the street from Hotel Millersburg is Broken Grounds, a coffee shop, and we decided to walk down, get our coffee and breakfast there, and then head home.

We got a surprise when we walked in. Not only could we order breakfast, but a young African-American man was holding church services there! Apparently this happens every Sunday. As I waited in line for my food, I noticed that he was preaching an excellent Bible-based sermon.

My family and I are most definitely church-goers, but this is the first time we’d ever accidentally gone to church! I decided it was the perfect ending to our weekend in Ohio Amish country.

July12021

We Band of Angels

SerenaBlog, Journal Entries2

Sometimes, while researching, I stumble upon the most interesting books.
We Band of Angels: The Untold Story of the American Women Trapped on Bataan by Elizabeth M. Norman is an award-winning book about nurses, written by a nurse.
Here’s the story: After Bataan and Corregidor fell, the Amy/Navy nurses stationed in the Philippines were herded into internment camps. There, they endured three years of fear, brutality and starvation. They were young, single women, used to flirting and dancing, suddenly thrown into a horrifying situation.
By the end of their internment, they hated their military supervisor—an older woman who understood the value of routine. She bullied them into continuing their shift work as nurses despite starvation, illness, no medical supplies, and general hopelessness.
Day after day, she insisted they dress in whatever semblance of nursing uniform they could muster and do their rounds. Toward the end of the war, they often had nothing to give their patients except compassion. Frequently, they were as sick as the people they were trying to help.
Against all logic (others in the camp were dying in droves) when finally liberated, every last one of them survived.
After the war, they credited their nursing supervisor for literally saving their lives with her insistence on routines—no matter how pitifully inadequate their resources. She had forced them to awaken each morning with a modicum of purpose—if only to make their rounds to visit the sick.

This really resonated with me because, after the shock of being told that my husband had terminal bone cancer, I called a friend who was a physician. My question was brief and to the point: “How do I get through this?” The answer he gave was both practical and powerful.

He said, “The families I’ve watched best get through crisis are those who establish routines.”
I asked, “Like what?”
He said, “Take a walk every day—even if it’s short. Carve out time for prayer, even if it’s just five minutes. Establish times for regular meals, because in times like this it’s so easy to forget to eat. Bathe and get completely dressed every day, even though you won’t feel like it. Routines create a comforting sense of structure that will help you and the rest of the family survive.”
The routine I established was far from perfect, but it made a difference.
It is not my nature to have routines. I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer, and a seat-of-the-pants person, but I fell back on this advice again during the worst of Covid-19 and it definitely helped my health and my sanity.

I think the magic of routines is that they can give one a feeling of control in a world that is out of control. And apparently, based on the experiences of the “Angels of Bataan” it can even save one’s life.

My present favorite routine is naptime with my granddaughter, Addy! 🙂