Thoughts, Links and Other Valued Things

A Few Thoughts
I consider this page a place where I can be a little self revealing as evidenced in the title. I am a person of faith which effects all that I think and how I view and value things. My first responsibility is to that faith, then to my family and then to my membership in the community of humankind and all creatures great and small. I respond to my responsibilities as identified above in various ways. For instance, I respond to my responsibility to faith by belonging to a faith community and supporting the efforts of that community and by attempting to grow in that faith as I see my personal path leading. Family is not only my second most important responsibility but also one of my main expressions of faith in life. I see motherhood as my foremost vocation. I hope to raise my girls as caring responsible people who share their talents and personal wealth, both physical and spiritual with the community of humankind and all creatures. I hope that I model this for them in my choices of faith, family life and profession. Peace to anyone who reads and browses on this page and the links I favor.

LINKS-under construction!

Appalachian Culture

These links reflect my late coming pride in my Appalachian heritage. As a child of parents who were part of the great post WWII migration of job-seeking mountain people to the not too far away 'North' of the Ohio Valley, I found myself ridiculed by teachers and peers for my southern dialect. I quickly learned to adapt and developed a broadcaster's non-accent. Then I sounded 'intelligent' which pleased me greatly and pulled me farther away from my Appalachian roots. After all, teachers said I was a promising student that only needed to be encouraged away from that Southern Appalachian drop-out mentality. Actually, I never intended to drop-out and my parents would have 'never heard of such a thing.'

Appalachian People and Culture

Native American Culture

Once when I was a young teen and my great aunt of my mother's family was still living, I visited her, hoping as I entered her simple little plack board home for one of her famous shortbread cookies. Of course she never failed me, even then in her nineties. It was as though she had premonitions of our coming. The house always smelled of freshed baked shortbread and the cookies were luke warm. This day my Aunt, after placing a warm cookie in my hand, lead me over to her considerable collection of family albums and asked me if I would like to look at them with her. I saw it as an opportunity to heard one of her many rich stories of family lore and readily agreed. She launched into the album, pausing here and there at this distant cousin, uncle, aunt or family friend. However it appeared that she was seeking rather than browsing. She had a story in mind. I waited, more or less patiently...Then she arrested her search on a old photo, done in browns and white rather than black and white or maybe it was just faded with age. She paused, gathering her thoughts. "Sandra," she began, "this is you greatgrandmother _______(the name fails me) and great granddaddy. My mother and daddy. She was half Cherokee. People were not suppose to know it. She had to hide it, but she was proud. You look like her! You have her ways!" I never forgot her words. I have often felt the influence of that ancestor, a pull to Native American music and cultural values, especially values of respect for all living things and nature. I get a deep mystical feeling when under the influence of nature, especially around certain animals, flora or in experiencing a panamoric view, as though, if I pondered long enough, I would learn some great secret of life. At times I have verged on great spiritual awareness during these moments. I believe my Native American ancentors were lingering near whispering as the wind.

Native American Indian Resources

Historic Events

Social Responsibility

Spiritual Persuits

HOME
Return to: Schooling The Net With Mrs. Heller