Memories stir from a visual glance at the past. I pulled out the tarnish proof box that holds my good silver flatware in preparation for our Christmas Eve traditional celebration dinner. In 1976 just two hundred years after the nation of the United States was established, it was the custom to select a set of fine silver flatware, fine china and fine glassware and place these choices on a bridal registry list for gift giving. My Franciscan Ware china and matching glassware graced many holiday dinners. I had a set of twelve place settings with dinner plates, salad plates, dessert plates and glassware to include a water glass, a wine glass and a champagne glass.
After twenty years of intense use on a splendid Baker dining room table that was custom made so that guests would not be cramped at the table, the china and glassware were sold in a garage sale soon after my husband left me for his secretary. I did save the silverware. It was only silver plate and not Sterling silver as was the expectation at the time but it seems that it will still shine long after I am gone. And so here we are reduced to three for dinner, my sister, brother-in-law and me. Even in the tarnish proof box, the ones on top were showing tarnish. I dug deep to pull out three sets that were nice and shiny. After Christmas as I started to put the silverware away having hand washed it (as you would dare not put silver in a dishwasher), I decided to polish every piece in the box as I contemplated writing my annual year in review.
Year in Review – Why Bother??
I did not think I would even write a year in review this year as I had just published my first book and was busy working on my second novella, my obituary/memoir. People are dropping like flies this year and I am of that age (although in better shape than most in that I take no Western medicine drugs and did not take the jab.) There is nothing worse than an obituary that lists the boring facts, date of birth, date of death, children produced, people who died before the deceased and those who survived the deceased and where you are to be buried and the date and time to come look at a dead body and feel horribly uncomfortable. Boring. I have only read two obituaries that left me feeling that I knew the person and who they were and how they impacted the world around them in their lifetime. I live in such isolation that no one really knows me. There is not a person alive who could even write an obituary for me. I don’t want the little scraps of a boring obituary that would read Polly Jo Perry Warrenfelt Riddell almost Tomlinson born November 25, 1956. No biological children. Not going to be buried. No survivors who even knew her.
Remembering 2022
So how did polishing a huge set of forty-six-year-old silver flatware help me remember 2022? It didn’t. Instead, I remembered setting a fine table for 12 or sometimes even 24 and then cooking elaborate and delicious meals, dressed in high heels and flowing dresses (this was before the cowboy boot phase.) I remembered all the precious friends and relatives who graced the table. Most are dead but some are still living but they no longer want to grace my little table. Lifelong friends left our friendship over politics and I don’t even talk politics. Friends that were like family left over my ministry to brown skinned people from Africa. Many left over my conspiracy theory beliefs and never came back when those conspiracy theories became proven facts. Many were equally unimpressed with my beliefs about Western medicine and the physics of how the body works. Some left when they could no longer tell fact from fiction and the story being fed to them daily was akin to brainwashing.
Not Worth the Effort
Not one of them could agree to disagree and find value in the relationship that has spanned a lifetime. 2020-2022 polarized us so that no one loved anyone and everyone found reasons to sever relationships without the guts to calmly discuss, apologize or reconcile. I don’t have to win a debate with you. I don’t even have a desire to debate. I can agree to disagree. I want to cherish you for all your wonderful attributes. Above all I want truth to prevail but this year sadly proved there is no truth to be found or believed anywhere. I am fortunate to have found two people willing to join me for Christmas Eve dinner.
What I said in my 2020 Retrospective still stands
Love people unconditionally.
Encourage others by looking for and emphasizing their best attributes.
Keep your mouth shut on all the rest and do not talk about politics and religion with others that do not share your views, just love on them.
Don’t tell people they are too messy or have too much stuff or need to get organized. Rejoice for what they give to the world while they are not cleaning and organizing but are collecting memorabilia which helps them to remember.
The Highs and Lows of 2022
It will come as no surprise that I was yet again in search of another job. My perfect job of a loan signing agent stopped the October before and by January, I was again broke and searching for a job suitable for a geriatric starlet with more than a few quirks. A series of humorous and rather pathetic job search stories was the result.
Pushed to the Brink
Joe Biden’s America has pushed me to the brink. I am now working five and six days a week as a courier picking up blood samples all over the state. It is the perfect job as I love to drive. No one bugs me. I can study all the things my curiosity prompts me to research by listening to YouTube. I have studied everything from electricity to solar energy to fermenting vegetables to building water filtration devices and being a nomad living in a van in Quartzsite, Arizona. I don’t want to work this much but I have to. I have many more important things to do but it all takes money.
Those Who Need a Second Mother
I have become a mother to those who need a second mother. My God-daughter Kirbie got married and this was the result of a beautiful and powerful prayer we prayed many years before.
Jerry my African son wrote, “I want to remind you that life is not all about finances. The great thoughts and prayers of prosperity, protection and the fear of God you say for us every single day of life, matters a lot and are working miraculously. The Lord provided from afar, (from a place I have dreamed of since my youth, the USA) when you supported us for those years allowing me to work on a proposal for a Refugee led organization which was miraculously accepted and is now allowing me to provide for my family. What I need the most from you are your pure thoughts and prayers toward me. It is more than enough.”
Saving a Life
A colleague of Jerry’s wrote to me in search of a writing mentor. He lives in the most desperate conditions in a refugee camp in Africa for the last nineteen years. All the crazy things I study and my non-western medicine beliefs saved his life. I shared with him how to build a water filtration system and sent him in search of Ivermectin and taught him how some simple procedures of hands on the body can open blocked energy pathways. Within days of implementing this he was pain free for the first time in years. Parasites are at the root of all of our disease states. Try talking to someone in the US about such things!
BBPJ
It was the year of the BIG BODACIOUS PRAYER JOURNAL. So many are suffering and I can barely stand it. Several of my friends are old, single and the sole support of their household while they care for disabled children or parents. Their brooks have run dry. Their light of hope has grown dim.
Fifty Cows
I am even praying for a dowry of fifty cows. For an African couple, I am even willing to give one cow as a wedding gift but until the dowry is met, they cannot marry. It is life threatening to elope. You will be thrown in jail if you are the man and do not provide the dowry and they will hunt your father down and throw him in jail too. For the girl, the penalty is worse. If she refuses the highest bidder with a fifty-cow dowry, then she will most likely be beaten to death – Modern day slavery indeed. Two people who love each other and wish to serve God and bring peace to their war-torn country are not free to marry without a dowry that is simply unattainable without God.
What Legacy Will You Leave??
The impact that one person can make in the lives of others with prayer and encouragement is limitless. I encourage you to try it. Be the hands and feet of Jesus. When others find you of no value, move on. There is a world of hurting people who just want someone to listen to their story. There are so many who could use a second mother.
It’s a Wrap
So that is a wrap for 2022. I drove blood around from one end of the state to the other. I finally got around to publishing Moon at Eleven O’Clock. I indulged my curiosity and upgraded to YouTube premium so as not to waste time on commercials. I prayed alot, recording most in my BIG BODACIOUS PRAYER JOURNAL. I listened to a lot of stories and helped others to write their own. And yes I lost a lot of people who apparently did not really like me that much anyway.
Polly Riddell writing as G. Polly Jordan and recording prayers in a BIG BODACIOUS PRAYER JOURNAL because she knows the power of the God she serves.