Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness around the world.

August 10, 2007

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Publishers Favourite Sites:

Rosanne Catalano

http://www.rosannecatalano.net/

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Michael Smith

http://subs.zinester.com/86758/

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Barbara Weymouth

penwormprayerwarriors-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

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Helen Dowd

www.occupytillicome.com

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Today?s Announcements

?On Monday of this week, my friend Bob, kindly invited me to his home for dinner; I think he took pity on me knowing that my wife was away on a four day camping trip.
After a very tasty meal and great conversation with his family he announced, 'I'm going to show you how to roast coffee'.
Now, Bob, is extremely detailed and I knew there was no way he was going to just show me - I was about to get a thorough education - and he might even administer an exam, so I paid attention.
What a process - it was magical and wild.
He heated two cast iron frying pans on the barbeque and threw in raw green coffee beans. As the beans start to brown they expand and then turn black; they get shinny from the oil in the beans, then the outer part of the bean comes off with a crack - sounds like popping corn.? At this point he turned the heat down and when the beans were completely black he dumped them in a bowl. Next he handed me a hair dryer and a wooden spoon; my instructions were to stir and blow all the husks away while the beans cooled down.? I was soon covered in dark ashes.
The aroma was intoxicating but the piece de resistance was the taste - that freshly brewed cup of coffee was simply the best I have ever had.
So thanks Bob for a great dinner, a wonderful evening and my lesson on coffee bean roasting - I'm actually sipping a cup as I write this, from the beans you sent me home with and I can hardly wait to try my hand at roasting my own. - Steve

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Donations are always needed to help with the operating expenses of running the newsletter and to keep Storytime Tapestry the quality newsletter you are so accustomed to.? ?

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Please note that Storytime Tapestry is a free newsletter to members and there will never be a cost for the newsletter. Donations are purely voluntary and no member should ever feel guilty for not making a donation at this time.

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Today?s Stories

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I received many comments from my article ? The Soul Eternal, today I have two stories written by Clara Wersterfer and Sharon Bryant in response to animals having souls. B.J. Cassady compliments the articles with his story of how his dog teaches him faith and humility.? Finally a day is not complete without a story from Bill Walker. Today he talks about the injustice of the American legal system as per his point of view.

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She Called My Name
By Clara Wertsterfer

It was as if the lights all went out of my world when?my beloved grandmother passed several years ago.
She and I had always been so close I could not imagine this world without her in it. I was consumed with grief I could not throw off.
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For more than a year, I cried every day for her. She was the last thing on my mind at night, yet I never dreamed of her.? One night I was more depressed than usual and I did have a dream of her.

My dream began with me sitting by a stream of crystal clear water wherein fishes played joyfully.? Looking around there was a great profusion of flowers of all colors everywhere I looked. Majestic trees with beautiful large, green leaves lined the cleared area where I was sitting in the fragrant grass. All my senses seemed to be more acute.? Then I hear ?my name called, I turned to behold my grandmother.

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She was younger and prettier than I remembered her and at her feet frolicked my little dog, Tiny. Tiny had passed five years before. She had been a favorite of Grandma's. There were two Siamese cats that I recognized as Grandmothers.? They had also passed many years before. A halo of light seemed to surround all of them. The light was soft, yet glowing. Grandmother had a bouquet of flowers in her hand which she extended to me with a smile. I took the flowers and smelled the perfume emanating from them.? Turning, without speaking, she walked back?up the grassy incline from whence she had come?into the woods, looking over her shoulder?smiling as she and the fur babies entered the trees.

I awoke the following morning with the deepest sensation of peace and calm. I know it wasn't just a dream....but an actual visit. Even though she never spoke a word, other than my name when she first came out of the woods, she let me see her and know that? she was all right and had her sweet cats and my dog Tiny with her. She gave me the gift of fresh flowers, I am sure they represented a fresh life.

I actually felt happy that morning and for the first time in fourteen months, I did not cry that day.? Her visit allowed me to overcome my grief.?

Clara Wersterfer

cbwest@webtv.net

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I Saw the Other Side of Rainbow Bridge

Sharon Bryant

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I don't need scholars to try and figure out if our animals go to heaven.

They do.? I know that for a fact.

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I am an animal lover, always having dogs, and some cats in my lifetime.? I'm partial to dogs.?

When my son Andy?died in 1977, we had a dog named Kernel.? He was my son's protector, babysitter, and playmate.? Kernel changed the night my son was gone.? He died less than a year later and the vet told me his heart was broken, he'd lost his little master.

It broke my heart to see the way he moped around the house.? The way he would lay in front of my son's closed door and whine all the time.? It about killed me to tell him our little boy would not be coming home.? Kernel was 11 years old when he died.? Andy was five years old.

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Then there was Jenny, our Shepherd.? Andy had named her.?She loved the outdoors and wanted to be outside most of the time.? It was all?Andy and I could do to make her come inside on frigid cold winter nights.

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She lived to be 11 years old when cancer began in her sinus area.??? I remember a few years later?when she began to fall down running to the bus stop to greet my two other children.? I took her to the vet and was told she had a cold.? I then noticed blood in her water dish.? Back to the vet, and I was told she had a sinus infection.? Two days later, there was too much blood in her water dish and I asked that some tests be done on her.

The vet called me to tell me she had brain cancer.? I couldn't leave her there alone.?

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It was my dad who caught me crying one day when Jenny fell to the ground running down the driveway to wait for the school bus.? I was bent down petting her, begging God to make her better.? Dad told me she was suffering and in pain and I couldn't let her live like that.

I couldn't take her in to put her to sleep.? I just couldn't do it.? It tore my heart out knowing I was going to lose her.? And yet I couldn't let her be in pain.? She was a wonderful dog with such a funny personality and she'd given all 3 of my children so much laughter and fun....and love.

Dad took Jenny in that day.? I cried and cried.? When dad walked into my house, he handed me her collar and I'll never forget his words to me:? "Don't think I'll ever do this again.? This was the hardest thing I've ever had to do.? She was a beautiful animal."

He laid the collar on my table and bent his head down and went out my door.? Dad always?loved dogs too.

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Again, another hurt.

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Then came Pokey, our little mixed breed that we adopted from the shelter in 1992. ? She died in 2003 at 11 years old of stomach cancer.

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Pokey came years after my? first son's death.? Yet, on my bad days when I would not be feeling good as memories flooded my brain and I would get depressed, she always knew.? The love in her eyes was obvious as she would lay her head on my arm as if saying, "I'm here with you, I love you, I care."?

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It was Pokey that proved to me that our animals do go to heaven.? The day I saw her walk across my kitchen floor, tail up, prancing like she always did....I knew.? My husband and I heard her toenails clicking on the floor before I saw her.? I saw her walk right into our living room.? I jumped out of my chair and nearly knocked my husband over trying to get to the living room.? She was not there.? But as long as I live, I will never forget seeing her prance across that kitchen floor.

Nor can there be any explanation how I would come into my computer room and find clumps of her hair on my keyboard beginning the night she died.?

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There is no doubt in my mind my beautiful animals are waiting for me.

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Today, there are three more dogs.? Our four-year-old Border Collie Ladybug, our three-year-old Corgi, Bob, and the newest member of our family, our seven month old border collie, Dixie Doodle we call her.?

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When Pokey died, I didn't think I could bring another dog into our lives knowing their lives would not be as long as mine.? On the other hand, the love of animals overcame that doubt and today three more little furry "children" bless my life.

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I know that there is a possibility I will outlive them.? I know if something happens to them, I will fall apart.? But on the other hand, I know that while they are here, they know love.? They give me unconditional love in return.

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They protect me.? And I protect them.

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Just today I was making a pasta salad and all three lined up with those beautiful eyes.? I could just mentally hear them:

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"Please mom, just one bite?"? Naturally they all got a little of the pasta.? (My vet would have a fit if he knew!)

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Rainbow bridge is a poem that someone wrote.? What I saw when I watched Pokey walk across my kitchen floor was reality.? I thank God sometimes, that I have the ability to "see" things.? Not all things do I understand that I see, but I know that there is more to all life than what we know on this planet.

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I truly know now that we have our earthly life and our hereafter life.? I?know all my pets are waiting for me.? And it will be one happy reunion the day I see all of them.

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Sharon Bryant

1946@bellsouth.net

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Faith, Humility and Rudy
?B. J. Cassady

????? My dogs sure are teaching me a lot.? Rudy, the dog that joined our
family just about a year ago and is a pure white lab, his heart is pure to.?
He was shot as a puppy and we paid a lot of money to have his jaw fixed
and to eliminate the poison in his system.? He probably should have died,
but he didn't.
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???? He became the family dog.? He fit right along with Sandi, part
collie and Katie, part Irish setter.? The three fill our lives and seem to
teach me many things about the spiritual side of life.
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???? Last night Rudy was positioned at the base of my chair and he
looked at me.? This is hard to describe but I knew what he wanted.?
So I opened my arms to him and he crawled onto my lap.? Rudy is
not a small dog.? Rudy rested his head on my shoulder and commenced
to become a lapdog for the next hour.? He was nuzzling me and was
quite content.? My wife was amazed because for the year we have
had him, he has never done anything like this before.? He looked at
me.? He wanted or shall I say needed me.? He made a decision to
come to me.
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??? I remember when I decided to get baptized in the church.? I was in
my thirties and thought I needed a light bulb or something to happen.?
However, I realized I needed only faith, faith in what I believed in.
The same for when I joined the church.? The same when I married.? The
same for major decisions in my life.? Faith.? Before faith can be found,
we must be open and to be open we must be humble and to be humble
we must trust in a higher power than ourselves.?
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??? I wonder what lessons my dogs will teach me tonight?
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????????? B.J. Cassady

bj.Cassady@af-group.com
????????? Copyright 2007

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Bad Deal
Bill Walker
missourisage@yahoo.com

Our court system is a rotten stinking bad deal. Our government is in the same boat; just a bunch of inflated overrated crooks. When hasn't it been that way? We can go back?at least 2,000 years, and find the world was controlled by over inflated big I, and little you. I am thinking in this early morning hours of rules as to who lives and who dies by
rulings of a rotten stinking court system.

Let me give you two cases of rulings or lack of rules as to who lives and dies at the hands of government and the court systems.

The State of Nebraska,?said they can't put a known killer to death by the court system. It is an open and shut case. A double murder was done. There is no one else who could have done the crimes, but the court system said hold on here.

In a very few days the state of Georgia to going to turn the lights out on a man. There are many unanswered questions as to if we have the right man. Even now, some of the people on the jury, says if the facts they know now was known then in the court room, there would have been no way he was guilty. Many of the people that were dragged to the stand, now says, the words was put in their mouth to say, and the words were lies.

There are many strange things about this case in Georgia. Things that tell a person, let?s back off, and reopen this case, there is a great chance one of the finger pointers was the one that fired the shot that killed a man, that this man is to die for.

But the courts have washed their hands of the matter, much like that fellow did about 2,000 years ago.

Sure strange the same court system of today, can almost set a known killer free, while taking a life of another, who may have been just handy to put away. Much like 2,000 years ago.

The system was crooked then, hasn't change a bit since.
Tinker and Poo; The Boys Write

http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?&isbn=0-595-35741-5

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Poetry Corner

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Readers Feedback

Dollie Carol. ? The Soul Eternal - This is a masterpiece, of writing, and you covered all the bases.? I have always thought that God never had death in mind for any thing he made, but then came along Satan. Animals never did go against God. it was mankind that broke the rules.

Bill Walker

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Not a day goes by that I don't cry thinking of our wonderful years Ms. Dougie and I shared together and what she taught me about love, caring and sharing.? Mark Crider.

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Storytime Tapestry Angels

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Angels on earth, they exist they are out there.? Angels come in all ages, shapes and sizes, civil status, and religion.? Their nature is love and their purpose is giving to the less fortunate of this world.? Storytime Tapestry angels are no exception.? These angels are loyal members who have contributed to the upkeep of Storytime Tapestry newsletter so that Storytime Tapestry can continue come to your email box 350 days of the year.

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Here is our Storytime Tapestry Angels: Also, I would like to thank?those of you who?chose to be a silent angel and?gave an anonymous donation to keep?Storytime Tapestry up and running.

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Clara Westerfer, Mark Crider, Rosanne Catalano, Paula Booher, Kay Seefeldt, Mariane Holbrook, Mary Ellen Grisham, Louise Nomani, Sharon Bryant, Angela Walker, Hart and Helen Dowd, Keith Ready, Ginger Morgenstern, Ellie Braun-Haley, Surinder Jandu, Bob Shaw, Carol Meeks, Charlotte Hilliard, Maria Keller

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