tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-68511853316399708232024-03-05T21:13:23.132-06:00 There and Back AgainJaredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409391250839977301noreply@blogger.comBlogger379125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-59525513562085337932016-11-29T23:27:00.001-06:002016-11-29T23:27:48.168-06:00Thank you Ann VoskampThe house is silent. And I am grateful. Quiet Time. For stillness. For thoughtfulness. For confronting the things deep within that are unsettled and wearisome and weighty enough that they illicit tears. I am cracked and parched and desperate for someone to soothe.<br />
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I reach for a book, words to fill the last few moments of wakefulness, and realizing the book I am presently reading (<i>Frankenstein) </i>is left downstairs, I reach out, almost reluctantly, for Ann Voskamp's book, <i>One Thousand Gift</i>, which is a permanent fixture on my bedside table, The past few days have been, well, a bit angsty and panicky and hard. The struggle for joy- a painfully real struggle. The ordinary, which I normally see as life giving and hope-filled, clouded, not full of beauty, but dreadfully dull, monotonous, meaningless.<br />
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And yet, even in my dread, I reach for this book on thanksgiving and living the eucharistic life and find again what initially drew me to this work so many years ago: a source of healing, a promise of peace once again. Thanks. Giving thanks. Deliberately and constantly. If I felt the joy draining from me, perhaps it was because I stopped saying, "thank you" and forgetting, to quote my staretz, Mary Oliver, that "my work is loving the world." Loving the world right where I am at. Loving those right in front of me.<br />
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<i>"I am a hunter of beauty and I move slow and I keep the eyes wide, every fiber of every muscle sensing all wonder and this is the thrill of the hunt and I could be an expert on the life full, the beauty meat that lurks in every moment. I hunger to taste life. God." </i><br />
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Thank you Ann VoskampBethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-39055814980720568052014-06-06T00:37:00.000-05:002014-06-06T12:18:20.103-05:00Turning Seven<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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"The boys crowded into the kitchen, where they made a wonderful mess as they creamed the sugar into the butter, pounding fiercely with wooden spoons until they had achieved a perfectly smooth emulsion. They each broke one egg into a bowl, stirring with such vigor I was glad I hadn't given them a bowl made of glass. They measured flour and baking soda with enormous concentration, and buttered the pan so carefully that not a millimeter remained bare. Then they dusted it with clouds of flour. As I surveyed my ruined kitchen, it occurred to me that life really couldn't get any better than this." -froom Ruth Reichl's <i>Garlic and Sapphires </i></div>
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Russell chose carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, which he didn't eat.</div>
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Elliot chose chocolate cake with vanilla butter cream, which Russell did eat.</div>
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Happy Seventh Birthday to the Sons of Thunder!</div>
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Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-86249823379279021312014-05-31T17:07:00.000-05:002014-05-31T17:07:22.029-05:00Lovely to be Thy guest<br />
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<i>O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is...because Thy lovingkindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee...because Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice. </i></div>
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- from Psalm 63 </div>
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There is a stillness enveloping this day. Inside I hear the rhythmic patter of feet running up and down the stairs, the flip of a light switch off and on; laughter pure and without reservation. I am roused from my drowsiness by a bird chattering her laud outside the kitchen window; the cicadas relentless in their droning song; the leaves gently fanning away the heat of the day; the slight ripple of water in the birdbath.<br />
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<i>All of creation praises You but I do not.</i></div>
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What was I created for? To feed these children? To wash these dishes? To create a home? To hold a hand? To empty myself and embrace each person surrounding me, my sacred trust?</div>
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<i>I am small, insignificant but the Lord is at my side.</i></div>
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I am here. "Be still. Listen," Christ seems to whisper. "You are not alone." </div>
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The morning light flickers on the faces of the saints all around me and beckons me to remember. To remember that I am a part of a greater whole; a living thread in this crushingly beautiful tapestry of all creation, the Body of Christ.</div>
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<i>Glory to Thee, O God, for the Feast Day of Life.</i><br />
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Cleaning up my kitchen today and found these thoughts from nearly a year ago scrawled on a piece of paper. The title and quotes were taken from my favorite akathist, <a href="http://www.saintjonah.org/services/thanksgiving.htm">http://www.saintjonah.org/services/thanksgiving.htm</a><i> </i></div>
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Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-89597389272678234102014-05-23T17:26:00.001-05:002014-05-23T17:34:33.754-05:00A parent's prayer<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Love begins at home, love lives in homes, and that is why there is so much suffering </i><br />
<i>and so much unhappiness in the world today. If we listen to Jesus, He will tell us what He said before: 'Love one another, as I have loved you.' He has loved us through suffering, dying on the Cross for us, and so if we are to love one another, if we are to bring that love into life again, </i><br />
<i>we have to begin at home.</i><br />
<i>-Mother Teresa </i><br />
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O Heavenly Father, make me a better parent. </div>
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Teach me
to understand my children, to listen patiently to what they have to say, </div>
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and to answer all their questions kindly. Keep me from interrupting
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or contradicting them. Make me as courteous to them as I would have
them be to me.</div>
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Forbid that I should ever laugh at their mistakes or
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when they displease me. May I never punish
them for my own selfish satisfaction </div>
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or to show my power. Let me not tempt my children to lie or steal. And
guide me</div>
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hour by hour that I may demonstrate by all that I say and do
that honesty produces happiness.</div>
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When I’m out of sorts, help me, 0 Lord, to hold my
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May I ever be mindful that my children are children<br />
and I should
not expect of them the judgments of adults.<br />
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Let me not rob them of the
opportunity to wait on themselves and to make decisions.<br />
Bless me with the bigness to grant them all their
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and the courage to deny them privileges I know will
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Make me fair and just and kind and fit me, O Lord, </div>
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to be
loved and respected and imitated by my children.</div>
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Amen</div>
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<i>By Fr. James Meena, The Word, May 1978</i><br />
Peace and Goodness.<i> </i></div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-12113368753762192812014-05-04T20:53:00.001-05:002014-05-04T20:53:40.402-05:00I don't care if I never get back<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Take me out to the ball game...</div>
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Take me out with the crowd.</div>
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Buy me some peanuts and cracker jack...</div>
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I don't care if I never get back...</div>
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Let me root, root, root for the home team...</div>
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If they don't win it's a shame.</div>
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For it's one, two, three strikes, you're out...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUST5GszUZxqTqdPcMCjLl9HGRAZgcG-FFm08uI5TKjRo31UFFQZBLmdJTCMC04jH8vlmydKHfbu_VCtzeewjssXWoU2uwEmlV98Pvh5giX3Py5h0mnfjxO-4xeXx9vTyj9C5b_QzTHM/s1600/DSC_3623.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUST5GszUZxqTqdPcMCjLl9HGRAZgcG-FFm08uI5TKjRo31UFFQZBLmdJTCMC04jH8vlmydKHfbu_VCtzeewjssXWoU2uwEmlV98Pvh5giX3Py5h0mnfjxO-4xeXx9vTyj9C5b_QzTHM/s1600/DSC_3623.jpg" height="424" width="640" /></a></div>
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At the old ball game.</div>
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Jaredhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12409391250839977301noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-5860324137896401082014-05-01T22:02:00.000-05:002014-05-01T22:02:56.661-05:00Simple gifts<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>We do not have to do or be anything special in order to bring hope to the world.</i></div>
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<i>We may not even know when God has used one of us as an angel unaware,</i></div>
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<i>and that's just as well. Our part lies in being open, not to God Out There, </i></div>
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<i>but In Here, with us, in us. </i></div>
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<i> </i>from <i>A Stone for a Pillow, </i>Madeline L'Engle</div>
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Then said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving,</div>
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And he answered : You give but little when you give of your possessions. </div>
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It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQYEhwZ1VX6zPhGHYts5oaoTD4B9JX1TvcGHUkk879LNngQ-q7EySUvoAFKPm6O4cgGVKr9DAvnZfAlp_Si7pdvkHLzRc7bOanwGQB1LuttiscbGb5pRUM8uABuQ9Bz1E6uTfORBRZ8Mw/s1600/DSC_3571.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQYEhwZ1VX6zPhGHYts5oaoTD4B9JX1TvcGHUkk879LNngQ-q7EySUvoAFKPm6O4cgGVKr9DAvnZfAlp_Si7pdvkHLzRc7bOanwGQB1LuttiscbGb5pRUM8uABuQ9Bz1E6uTfORBRZ8Mw/s1600/DSC_3571.JPG" height="456" width="640" /></a></div>
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There are those who give little of the much which they have-and they give it for recognition</div>
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and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome. </div>
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And there are those who have little and give it all.</div>
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These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.</div>
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There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.</div>
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And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.</div>
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And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy,</div>
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nor give with mindfulness of virtue.</div>
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They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgldJ2qC761IO3AYbjDCNexxLzO-FCYT82qGBD28Gi29JuXe3KrifkcSDyUjuKLocsq3egWcIet2ysDu7YGyNzQe0UNGR1rRlY6ljmwbWrmteMDZbWSIvQt08mSTPeMGe77JWqALYGpJJI/s1600/DSC_3580.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgldJ2qC761IO3AYbjDCNexxLzO-FCYT82qGBD28Gi29JuXe3KrifkcSDyUjuKLocsq3egWcIet2ysDu7YGyNzQe0UNGR1rRlY6ljmwbWrmteMDZbWSIvQt08mSTPeMGe77JWqALYGpJJI/s1600/DSC_3580.JPG" height="640" width="456" /></a></div>
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Through the hands of such as these God speaks,</div>
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and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.</div>
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It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;</div>
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And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive </div>
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is joy greater than giving.</div>
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And is there aught you would withhold?</div>
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All you have shall some day be given;</div>
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Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours</div>
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and not your inheritors.</div>
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You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."</div>
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The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks of your pasture.</div>
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They give that they may live, </div>
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for to withhold is to perish.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
excerpts from "On Giving," from Kahlil Gibran's <i>The Prophet</i></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
May Day 2014</div>
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Thank you to our friends and neighbors for your gifts!</div>
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And despite nearly freezing, Thomas's team won their baseball game tonight!!!</div>
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Peace and goodness.</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-31307754485312111772014-01-02T20:36:00.001-06:002014-01-02T20:36:38.039-06:00Thank you<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour."</i><br />
-from Charles Dickens, <i>A Christmas Carol </i></div>
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Listen</div>
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with the night falling we are saying thank you</div>
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we are stopping on the bridge to bow from the railings</div>
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we are running out of the glass rooms</div>
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with our mouths full of food to look at the sky</div>
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and say thank you</div>
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we are standing by the water looking out</div>
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in different directions</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh6v812JMwkDqnUcntUxgbibMf0iqO6LK8DDKpIOSRI4FByuyLFq6k_akYkCm0VkcETqSQnAgwdFVht6ShJ5LJvdJ4i3NaOvf1dwJm3fpuPb_XMDEKftrw4xdtl2_uo2fQGBTC-ooIozY/s1600/DSC_3395.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh6v812JMwkDqnUcntUxgbibMf0iqO6LK8DDKpIOSRI4FByuyLFq6k_akYkCm0VkcETqSQnAgwdFVht6ShJ5LJvdJ4i3NaOvf1dwJm3fpuPb_XMDEKftrw4xdtl2_uo2fQGBTC-ooIozY/s640/DSC_3395.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
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back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging</div>
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after funerals we are saying thank you</div>
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after the news of the dead</div>
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whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you</div>
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in a culture up to its chin in shame</div>
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living in the stench it has chosen we are saying thank you</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlMUBv7N9Slw8KGGoFCrHiOLpfcIT2oBE-HM-GJJBmotjFDstqUND9PTO3CVRIq1Ky34ixj1ELoEn63NSXf2v1P9P-shyWmB4jD609yG40VZXp6x7kEA2CX6TzAAcurZNPnIQQT1CXxRE/s1600/DSC_3396.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlMUBv7N9Slw8KGGoFCrHiOLpfcIT2oBE-HM-GJJBmotjFDstqUND9PTO3CVRIq1Ky34ixj1ELoEn63NSXf2v1P9P-shyWmB4jD609yG40VZXp6x7kEA2CX6TzAAcurZNPnIQQT1CXxRE/s640/DSC_3396.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
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over telephones we are saying thank you</div>
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in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators</div>
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remembering wars and the police at the back door</div>
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and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you</div>
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in the banks that use us we are saying thank you</div>
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with the crooks in the office with the rich and fashionable</div>
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unchanged we go on saying thank you thank you</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXxgH-x_u-RIqB5eqvNq7-9T42tyroyj5h3q25CjzxL7HRa3oX8Pi7PIvJhX35I0iX4Yjj_zC8PU8wSsQ5IV0-u2_hRSLf59_KSbux2_2n07AyBooZcNDxdfx56EplJl8g2xlssCfUtzo/s1600/DSC_3397.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXxgH-x_u-RIqB5eqvNq7-9T42tyroyj5h3q25CjzxL7HRa3oX8Pi7PIvJhX35I0iX4Yjj_zC8PU8wSsQ5IV0-u2_hRSLf59_KSbux2_2n07AyBooZcNDxdfx56EplJl8g2xlssCfUtzo/s640/DSC_3397.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
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with the animals dying around us</div>
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our lost feelings we are saying thank you</div>
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with the forests falling faster than the minutes</div>
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of our lives we are saying thank you</div>
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with the words going out like cells of a brain</div>
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with the cities growing over us like the earth</div>
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we are saying thank you faster and faster</div>
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with nobody listening we are saying thank you</div>
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we are saying thank you and waving</div>
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dark though it is</div>
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</div>
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-W.S. Merwin</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-2112779105120815862013-12-16T21:38:00.000-06:002013-12-16T21:38:23.628-06:00What I have learned so far<br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
What I Have Learned So Far</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Mary Oliver</div>
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Meditation is old and honorable, so why should I</div>
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not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, </div>
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looking into the shining world? Because, properly</div>
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attended to, delight, as well as havoc, is suggestion.</div>
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Can one be passionate about the just, the</div>
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ideal, the sublime, and the holy, and yet commit</div>
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to no labor in its cause? I don't think so.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_Jj8zQRCvxgSDjgaM1SJLJqiC0WD4AfjKqCfqLgM9ZUQQOftt5indfJPJCfhy4xiEewGOuDPxbYZTvgXfzNAMH12nFkKqiti48ppUXVZCxWnOWcuA2XG3wfAXXkACd6QQoRBqBM_e5U/s1600/DSC_3400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE_Jj8zQRCvxgSDjgaM1SJLJqiC0WD4AfjKqCfqLgM9ZUQQOftt5indfJPJCfhy4xiEewGOuDPxbYZTvgXfzNAMH12nFkKqiti48ppUXVZCxWnOWcuA2XG3wfAXXkACd6QQoRBqBM_e5U/s640/DSC_3400.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
All summations have a beginning, all effect has a<br />story, all kindness begins with the sown seed.<br />Thought buds toward radiance. The gospel of<br />light is the crossroads of — indolence, or action.<br /><br />Be ignited, or be gone.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Delivering sugar cookies </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to the neighbors </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
St. Lucia Day</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
December 13, 2013</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-34597891741442599352013-12-04T21:59:00.000-06:002013-12-04T22:11:52.759-06:00Child of God<br />
From Henri Nouwen's <i>The Inner Voice of Love</i><br />
<br />
Do not discount what you have already accomplished. You have made
important steps toward the freedom you are searching for. You have
decided to dedicate yourself completely to God, to make Jesus the center
of your life, and to be fashioned into an instrument of God's grace.
Yes, you still experience your inner dividedness, your need for approval
and acclaim. But you see that you have made important choices that show
where you want to go.<br />
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You can look at your life as a
large cone that becomes narrower the deeper you go. There are many doors
in that cone that give you chances to leave the journey. But you have
been closing these doors one after the other, making yourself go deeper
and deeper into your center. You know that Jesus is waiting for you at
the end, just as you know that he is guiding you as you move in that
direction. Every time you close another door- be it the door of
immediate satisfaction, the door of distracting entertainment, the door
of busyness, the door of guilt and worry, or the door of self-rejection-
you commit yourself to go deeper into your heart and thus deeper into
the heart of God.<br />
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<br />
This is a movement toward full
incarnation. It leads you to become what you already are- a child of
God; it lets you embody more and more the truth of your being; it makes
you claim the God within you. You are tempted to think that you are
nobody in the spiritual life and that your friends are far beyond you on
the journey. But this is a mistake.<br />
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You must trust the depth of God's presence in you and live from there. This is the way to keep moving toward full incarnation.<br />
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Mumma's Tree Farm</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
November 29, 2013</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-12737936240765487182013-10-10T20:23:00.000-05:002013-10-10T20:24:49.588-05:00The grace of the world<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
The
Peace of Wild Things</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Wendell Berry</div>
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<br />
When despair for the world grows in me<br />
and I wake in the night at the least sound<br />
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,<br />
I go and lie down where the wood drake<br />
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.<br />
I come into the peace of wild things <br />
who do not tax their lives with forethought<br />
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.<br />
And I feel above me the day-blind stars<br />
waiting with their light. For a time<br />
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.</div>
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Annual trip to Stone's Apple Orchard</div>
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September 2013</div>
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One tiny girl fell off the hay rack while we were moving; one crazed mother jumped after</div>
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As of yesterday evening, all apples have finally been made into yummy sauce (sauce made especially delicious when Jared snuck in some ground cloves)</div>
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Been relishing each of these amazing "second summer" days with weekly field trips, arguing to myself that experiencing beauty and revering nature supercedes "schooling"</div>
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Tomorrow I leave for the annual <a href="http://www.mosestheblack.org/">St. Moses the Black conference</a> being held in Kansas City, MO. Pretty excited for a six-hour car ride without kids.</div>
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Peaceful weekend.</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-82696433990942086742013-09-22T22:35:00.000-05:002013-09-22T22:35:37.761-05:00Now you are four<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<i>Beauty is a heart that generates love.</i></div>
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<i>Thich Nhat Hanh </i> </div>
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The Princess has taken to singing. </div>
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Just the other night I stopped my frazzled attempts to clean the kitchen to give pause and listen to our daughter's tiny "Jesus Loves Me" as she quietly lay in bed awaiting sleep. The purity of the moment, her sincerity, humbled me anew. A glimpse of beauty. A glimpse of grace.</div>
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Another day she stretched her lean body in my arms as we all sat together, a solemnity on my heart as I read the beautiful book <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_GG8GKAqlo">14 Cows for America</a>, remembering September 11th and describing that terrible day to the innocents around our kitchen table. And she began to sing. From her mouth, the Prayer of St. Francis, "O Lord make me an instrument of your peace..." A light in the darkness. A glimpse of God.</div>
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Our little light turned four last Saturday. An intimate gathering of family and friends came together at my mother's home to mark the day. She was near giddy with excitement and could not help lingering near the gifts, gingerly brushing aside the pieces of colored tissue paper, hoping to catch a glimpse at the hidden contents, giggling when gently reminded that she needed a bit more patience.</div>
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You are lovely Lucia Ethiopia Kebedech, chosen and special, carved into the palms of God's hands. Happy Birthday to you!</div>
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Our traditional Ethiopian clothes. </div>
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Her favorite...chocolate cake</div>
<br />Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-81860258007767857632013-09-12T22:43:00.000-05:002013-09-12T22:46:29.971-05:00Idle and blessed<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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What was it, I wondered, this seemingly unidentifiable flying creature? A giant butterfly? A moth? And then with a closer look, I realized in amazement that what I was watching gathering nectar from our flowering hostas was a hummingbird. I was awestruck. Really. In my forty years, I had never seen a hummingbird, it's vigorous flapping wings, it's long, thin beak seeking nourishment. Somehow that seems like a tragedy. </div>
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School started for Thomas, Russell, and Elliot just over a week ago. And in the flurry of Thomas's and my challah baking and beeswax candle making (<a href="http://www.mommypotamus.com/diy-beeswax-candles-easy-healthy-and-affordable/">which was surprisingly easy</a>), today's cooler temperatures and vibrant sunshine afforded the tinies the opportunity to take advantage of their day and throw an impromptu "tea" party. (It was milk. And no, I didn't realize that the milk had escaped from the fridge and was sitting on the front porch.) They were thrilled, and since they were not fighting and were enjoying themselves, so was I. </div>
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In order to further relish in the milder temperatures, tomorrow has been declared "field trip Friday." Our plan is to drop off our church's grocery offerings to a local food pantry; venture to the grocery store for some red carnations and probably some doughnuts; stop at one of my favorite places, the Riverside cemetery, and light one of the said candles, say some prayers, and leave our flowers; then journey to Blackhawk State Park for some exploring. "Are you happy?" Russell still likes to ask. Yes, Russell, happy and blessed. </div>
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Peaceful weekend to you all.</div>
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The Summer Day</div>
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Mary Oliver</div>
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Who made the world?</div>
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Who made the swan, and the black bear?</div>
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Who made the grasshopper?</div>
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This grasshopper, I mean—<br />
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,<br />
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,<br />
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—<br />
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.<br />
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Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.<br />
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.</div>
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<br />
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
</div>
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I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down<br />
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,<br />
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,<br />
which is what I have been doing all day.</div>
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Tell me, what else should I have done?<br />
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?<br />
Tell me, what is it you plan to do<br />
with your one wild and precious life?
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Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-82840247336981883122013-09-08T22:20:00.000-05:002013-09-08T22:24:59.936-05:00Live this dayI stretch my arm through the steel bars of his hospital bed and draw his hand out from the plaid blanket covering his increasingly emaciated body. With his consent, I wrap my fingers around his taut skinned and bony hand and begin to weave a story, a story of a life unknown to me. His eyes so often closed are open on this day, bright yet glassy, eyes which are seemingly searching the contents of my face for some sort of recognition. To my questions, he offers snippets after moments of silence. Is this futile? I wonder. Does remembering provoke pain? What is the truth? You whose diseased mind has dispossessed you of your memories, the date you were born, your mother's name, how you met your wife, even your children, whose smiling images sit posed upon your nightstand. Did you actually play the violin? Or have a brother named Al? Were you in the army? It is sobering and disconcerting how few clues to your life surround me in that space. Perhaps one day, when I have read your obituary, there will be answers to the questions riddling my mind. But at this moment, answers are not what matter, for together we sit, the hand of your habitual Sunday stranger clasped in your own, listening to Beethoven, Smetna, Dorsey, reading Berry, Oliver, and the poetry of the psalmists. I kiss your forehead before I leave and pray, and I recognize the bitterness under my lips, that of a body moving from life to death.<br />
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Then to you, beautiful boy just turned nine, crack your knuckles, wear those white t-shirts, spit profusely, sing with gusto, rock 'em "Gangnam style," cling to your blanket and Baby Owen, and by all means request to crawl up into the lap of your mother. May God grant to you a long and prosperous life. While, God willing, I will not be at your side as you lay dying, I pray that someone will sit quietly with you, holding your hand, whispering that you are loved. May you live, darling son, truly live, and grow to be full of courage, and wisdom, remembering that it is the poor who are blessed, the gentle ones who will inherit the earth, the peacemakers who will be God's children, the merciful who will be shown mercy, the pure in heart who will see God.<br />
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Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-74344306703360415992013-08-05T16:28:00.001-05:002013-08-05T16:28:01.630-05:00Bless them<div style="text-align: center;">
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Benediction </div>
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Rabindranath Tagore </div>
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Bless this little heart, this white soul that has won the kiss of<br />
heaven for our earth.<br />
He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight of his<br />
mother's face.<br />
He has not learned to despise the dust, and to hanker after gold.<br />
Clasp him to your heart and bless him.<br />
He has come into this land of an hundred cross-roads.<br />
I know not how he chose you from the crowd, came to your door,<br />
and grasped your hand to ask his way.<br />
He will follow you, laughing the talking, and not a doubt in<br />
his heart.<br />
Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him.<br />
Lay your hand on his head, and pray that though the waves<br />
underneath grow threatening, yet the breath from above may come and<br />
fill his sails and waft him to the heaven of peace.<br />
Forget him not in your hurry, let him come to your heart and<br />
bless him.
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One of the Korean War veterans who helped us celebrate.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Thomas later went on to break a board.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Special friends that we love to see each year!<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">"Adoption has the
dimension of connection - not only to your own tribe, but beyond,
widening the scope of what constitutes love, ties and family. It is a
larger embrace. By adopting, we stretch past our immediate circles and,
by reaching out, find an unexpected sense of belonging with others." </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span data-ft="{"tn":"K"}">-
Isabella Rossellini</span></div>
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Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-39657250249352466242013-07-17T16:59:00.000-05:002013-07-17T17:02:55.645-05:00Works of peace<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>Jesus is your child, </i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>your spouse, your neighbor, </i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>looking for someone to comfort Him.</i></div>
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<i>Are you there?</i></div>
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<i> Let us make a resolution: I will be there</i></div>
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<i>for my child, my spouse, my neighbor-</i></div>
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<i>not just in words,</i></div>
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<i>but by my sharing and sacrificing.</i></div>
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<i>Maybe just a beautiful smile instead of that ugly look,</i></div>
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<i>maybe a beautiful word instead of that angry word.</i></div>
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<i>Let us take the trouble </i></div>
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<i>to be that one to comfort Him. </i> </div>
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- Mother Teresa<i> </i></div>
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And though I constantly fail, this is my prayer. Forgive me.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBt5A2f1PlirO-NAjaUbCTwhq6PiZzJtHzk7dhJ7Ze4_HmkVg4ZnG6tmTLUcI7skR_KRbKj_F6kn8OA_ZHHSJQ_b5Y8Ejak7TCPui0_Zkv0UIHCNfgtd4-NvEvleOLiGehaJSu5bFbyM/s1600/DSC_2689.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzBt5A2f1PlirO-NAjaUbCTwhq6PiZzJtHzk7dhJ7Ze4_HmkVg4ZnG6tmTLUcI7skR_KRbKj_F6kn8OA_ZHHSJQ_b5Y8Ejak7TCPui0_Zkv0UIHCNfgtd4-NvEvleOLiGehaJSu5bFbyM/s640/DSC_2689.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.<br />
And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,<br />
and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and though I give my body to burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuaM8cRUSDNVy1yoJJ4f-dZoDTq7ZAWrKZeTiLURu0a7-fgWPD32yelvlKTNzmtWO9J4IWNfwFTn8ucomrjgW9IB-6JsCyA4uOJgPQwANG2fYqyFU8YGjQdxHe65FMjv9DYEaoiVPC8yY/s1600/DSC_2707.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuaM8cRUSDNVy1yoJJ4f-dZoDTq7ZAWrKZeTiLURu0a7-fgWPD32yelvlKTNzmtWO9J4IWNfwFTn8ucomrjgW9IB-6JsCyA4uOJgPQwANG2fYqyFU8YGjQdxHe65FMjv9DYEaoiVPC8yY/s640/DSC_2707.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Love suffers long and is kind;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
love does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynJ4lj5kV4VG2QoKxwSV2jRRNgFC6sXXziITnSWSI-1nPNFaNjAkSH8yxT0xalpNdpBi6rDGBK9pjjMmJ7zyw3qgJcvLs8yI9aH0-y1enSZwjuPabTv60biLIGI4Gm-erEhY-e_bz6Vc/s1600/DSC_2777.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhynJ4lj5kV4VG2QoKxwSV2jRRNgFC6sXXziITnSWSI-1nPNFaNjAkSH8yxT0xalpNdpBi6rDGBK9pjjMmJ7zyw3qgJcvLs8yI9aH0-y1enSZwjuPabTv60biLIGI4Gm-erEhY-e_bz6Vc/s640/DSC_2777.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>
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love bears all things, </div>
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believes all things,</div>
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hopes all things,</div>
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endures all things.</div>
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Love never fails.</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-64015220492488964522013-07-02T18:48:00.000-05:002013-07-02T18:48:56.432-05:00Saints and poets<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
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</div>
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</div>
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<i>"Oh,
earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you."</i></div>
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-Thornton Wilder<i> </i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>"Do any human
beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute?”
</i></div>
<div class="quoteText" style="text-align: center;">
<i> </i></div>
<div class="quoteText" style="text-align: center;">
<i>"No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.”</i></div>
<div class="quoteText" style="text-align: center;">
-from <i>Our Town</i> by Thornton Wilder </div>
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<br /></div>
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Together they are on the couch, grandmother and granddaughter, eighty years separating them. Curled into the bend of her arm, my bathing-suit-clad daughter sits on my mother's lap, her pony tails bobbing into the side of her grandmother's face as she listens to a favorite story choice, "A House Is Built at Pooh Corner for Eeoyre." And I am grateful.</div>
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</div>
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<br />
He spies the abandoned flesh of a newly molted cicada clinging to the house and cannot contain his excitement, his awe. Without hesitation, he moves towards this hollow shell, that which I would thoughtlessly be quick to wipe away, to discard, to discount as ugly. Yet, he sees the beauty in this detritus of metamorphosis left by one of the least of God's creatures. And I am grateful.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Inside the house, with hands immersed in the soapy water of the kitchen sink, I hear his call, "Sing with me," he cries to his twin brother, and the younger cannot resist. Their mouths are open wide, offering to anyone and everyone the gift of their song. Their song is lusty, bold, spontaneous, and uniquely their own. And I am grateful.</div>
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<i>Last night the rain spoke to me slowly, </i></div>
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<i>saying, what joy to come falling out of the brisk cloud, </i></div>
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<i>to be happy again in a new way on the earth!</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiT3YiL-UOgSIAIO2NXATi4n03HgnqOu9KO-X02zNL2Gz1YEo0ufOHFJjRUMPN6z-pdvq7qQPp65YWz6gITMxzbFnD1unKRZSYnDh3cKZhrdLVyd-_b9PsebwbASfxri7haXtmsJJM7sfA/s640/DSC_2649.jpg" width="424" /></div>
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<i>That's what it said as it dropped, </i><br />
<i>smelling of iron, and vanished like a dream of the ocean</i><br />
<i>into the branches and the grass below.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Then it was over. The sky cleared.</i><br />
<i>I was standing under a tree with happy leaves, </i><br />
<i>and I was myself, and there were stars in the sky</i><br />
<i>that were also themselves at the moment </i></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiolgyJeUGM_H8lnbR28CLCtiUmeaplUIm3xA2lL3dEHaY8oz3PCe7qbQ4qgaNsxr0GeotNaNhmUuNngzmHl0Rcw2UPJaUNOcljoOOgPdrvflteOlsjCDtYdK7JvMjVv3w-hGrfYMbhMO0/s1600/DSC_2662.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiolgyJeUGM_H8lnbR28CLCtiUmeaplUIm3xA2lL3dEHaY8oz3PCe7qbQ4qgaNsxr0GeotNaNhmUuNngzmHl0Rcw2UPJaUNOcljoOOgPdrvflteOlsjCDtYdK7JvMjVv3w-hGrfYMbhMO0/s640/DSC_2662.jpg" width="424" /></a></div>
<i><br /></i>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>at which moment</i><br />
<i>my right hand was holding my left hand</i><br />
<i>which was holding the tree</i><br />
<i>which was filled with stars and the soft rain-</i><br />
<i>imagine! imagine!</i><br />
<i>the long and wondrous journeys</i><br />
<i>still to be ours.</i><br />
<br />
Mary Oliver </div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-11230297394863027772013-05-31T20:25:00.001-05:002013-05-31T20:25:57.425-05:00Dragon slayer<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>For Thomas </i></div>
<br />
Today. Today surrounded by you at the table, my holy innocents, at the moment where blessings should have come forth from my heart and out of my mouth, I became monstrous, ugly, enraged, the dragon lashing out, spewing forth curses of righteous indignation - the ripped screens, the shoes left in the rain, the scrawls of ink all over the walls, the not living up to my requests - my expectations so poisoned at that moment with anger (Lord, have mercy) I was unable even to pray over the food and demanded that someone do it for me.<br />
<br />
And you. You did not shy away but instead were like the warrior-saint - valiant, though perhaps afraid, daring to open your mouth at the offense, singing "Christ is Risen," and then offering gentleness, a soft answer, a blessing, to quell my distemper, bestowing to me, your mother who should know better, a kindly rebuke - a balm rather than a slap to my distorted face - to give me breath, a holy spirit, to create space for repentance.<br />
<br />
How quickly you opened your arms, forgiving me again, your terribly flawed, sinful mother. How pure is your heart. How beautifully you show me God.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Isaak's penitential psalm, unaccompanied.</i>
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Again, and yes again, O Ceaseless Tolerator </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: -1em;">
of our bleaking recurrences, O Forever Forgoing </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: -1em;">
Foregone (<i>sans</i> conclusion), O Inexhaustible, </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: -1em;">
I find my face against the floor, and yet again </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: -1em;">
my plea escapes from unclean lips, and from a heart </div>
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caked in and constricted by its own soiled residue. </div>
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You are forever, and forever blessed, and I aspire </div>
<div style="padding-left: 1em; text-align: center; text-indent: -1em;">
one day to slip my knot and change things up, </div>
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to manage at least one late season sinlessly, </div>
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to bow before you yet one time without chagrin.</div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
from <i>Idiot Psalms </i> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Scott Cairns </div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-33908159841831733322013-05-09T23:10:00.000-05:002013-05-09T23:10:07.675-05:00Noisome, lighted, and salt<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>Then He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them</i>, <i>"O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord'...Behold, I will bring the Spirit of life upon you. I will put muscles on you and bring flesh upon you. I will cover you with skin and put my Spirit into you. Then you shall live..." </i><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"I know<i> </i>only enough of God to worship him, by any means ready to hand. There is an anomalous specificity to all our experience in space, a scandal of particularity, by which God burgeons up or showers down into the shabbiest of occasions, and leaves his creation's dealings with him in the hands of purblind and clumsy amateurs. This is all we are and all we ever were; God <i>kann nicht anders.</i> This process in time is history; in space, at such shocking random, it is mystery.</div>
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rtWeiLv-gO23NHL73ZQ-u89AnSyRpJYAGv_Gftd_BAlbvwIHQzwyce5JptS0txASWWRnphMnYIAqol7_M3SUZP-hlda3dyQiPaz9y2xd66ALT-vjyRzAhsnUeiOTuzE_68DXFpFc4yE/s1600/DSC_2291.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0rtWeiLv-gO23NHL73ZQ-u89AnSyRpJYAGv_Gftd_BAlbvwIHQzwyce5JptS0txASWWRnphMnYIAqol7_M3SUZP-hlda3dyQiPaz9y2xd66ALT-vjyRzAhsnUeiOTuzE_68DXFpFc4yE/s640/DSC_2291.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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"A blur of romance clings to our notions of 'publicans,' 'sinners,' 'the poor,' 'the people in the marketplace,' 'our neighbors,' as though of course God should reveal himself, if at all, to these simple people, these Sunday school watercolor figures, who are so purely themselves in their tattered robes, who are single themselves, while we now are various, complex, and full at heart.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
"We are busy. So, I see now, were they. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, nor in the earth, but only us... </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjftnY80BfRoNC0hav0Gb5lBSGaaYFCsW_aTE7zFR9kJSU8af72xtdotIBgDjfmWosQwx0Y-t8morhWnjS7d9639avRrKXRXM3lXorz3ZPVJ2clArpVOO9JxjasIp1VIjGziZCD4Ka4bFM/s1600/DSC_2295.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjftnY80BfRoNC0hav0Gb5lBSGaaYFCsW_aTE7zFR9kJSU8af72xtdotIBgDjfmWosQwx0Y-t8morhWnjS7d9639avRrKXRXM3lXorz3ZPVJ2clArpVOO9JxjasIp1VIjGziZCD4Ka4bFM/s640/DSC_2295.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"...a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at
an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead - as if innocence
had ever been - and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak, and involved.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1PYuRdbta6JeDZqfloK_YZdurybO72HQg2q3_eJ0ucV-YNesuv4UEreqFanAQatzjbQJYu4kLSnaqAS_JHsuLfy0rcxreADZ15rMSNLIPyIZVehY1lngh8o8I_A4t34iWwvgUNf3cRKo/s1600/DSC_2296.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1PYuRdbta6JeDZqfloK_YZdurybO72HQg2q3_eJ0ucV-YNesuv4UEreqFanAQatzjbQJYu4kLSnaqAS_JHsuLfy0rcxreADZ15rMSNLIPyIZVehY1lngh8o8I_A4t34iWwvgUNf3cRKo/s640/DSC_2296.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"But there is no one but us. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzRi_KIa-EHfCwiMkZcI4fglq4IMFMJd8JEH6nQnAK9texXsiv5MCr18dr95TMZAxbybifGwVPI7tM18yOY4UUUAd_TmXC7TxxN55caJquIpBFkytnIEQL30uWjtCdzurxRKsI8kfDfA/s1600/DSC_2298.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwzRi_KIa-EHfCwiMkZcI4fglq4IMFMJd8JEH6nQnAK9texXsiv5MCr18dr95TMZAxbybifGwVPI7tM18yOY4UUUAd_TmXC7TxxN55caJquIpBFkytnIEQL30uWjtCdzurxRKsI8kfDfA/s640/DSC_2298.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
"There never has been. There have been generations which remembered,
and generations which forgot; there has never been a generation of whole
men and women who lived well for even one day.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
"Yet some have imagined well, with honesty and art, the
detail of such a life, and have described it with such grace, that we
mistake vision for history, dream for description, and fancy that life
has devolved. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJVryRlpufiInKyGgNHyO4LaGbW_FwYUlLySP5ql6hyphenhyphenHdcyhlpK0xyMryTp4ZjeBUzsa23S8ee5CLZccdTn1Ln-a0qj1opT2UPHEfsA9a-6Etk_kTUygek8OYAROap_yrfmQp1vGFlveM/s1600/DSC_2302.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJVryRlpufiInKyGgNHyO4LaGbW_FwYUlLySP5ql6hyphenhyphenHdcyhlpK0xyMryTp4ZjeBUzsa23S8ee5CLZccdTn1Ln-a0qj1opT2UPHEfsA9a-6Etk_kTUygek8OYAROap_yrfmQp1vGFlveM/s640/DSC_2302.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
"So. You learn this studying any history at all, especially the lives of
artists and visionaries; you learn it from Emerson, who noticed that the
meanness of our days is itself worth our thought; and you learn it, fitful in your pew, at church....</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
"Hoopla! All that I see arches, and light arches around it. The air churns out forces and lashes the marveling land. A hundred time through the fields and along the deep roads I've cried Holy. </div>
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"I see a hundred insects moving across the air, rising and falling. Chipped notes of birdsong descend from the tree, tuneful and broken; the notes pile about me like leaves. Why do these molded clouds make themselves overhead innocently changing, trailing their flat blue shadows up and down everything, and passing, and gone? </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Ladies and gentlemen! You are given insects, and birdsong, and a replenishing series of clouds. The air is buoyant and wholly transparent, scoured by grasses. The earth stuck through it is noisome, lighted, and salt. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? 'Whom shall I send,' heard the first Isaiah, 'and who will go for us?' And poor Isaiah, who happened to be standing there - and there was no one else - burst out, 'Here am I; send me.'"</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
from <i>Holy the Firm</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Annie Dillard</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i> </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Christ is Risen!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Kristo Gesso!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Kristos Tenestwal!</div>
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<span class="st"><br /></span></div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-69677286606970681312013-04-29T21:00:00.000-05:002013-04-29T21:00:51.443-05:00The curriculum of a good life<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion." </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Thich Nhat Hanh<i> </i></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
The sounds of engines leave the air.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Sunday morning silence comes at last.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
At last I know the presence of the world made without hands, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the creatures that have come to be out of their absence.</div>
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Calls of flicker and jay fill the air. </div>
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Titmice and chickadees feed among the green and the dying leaves.</div>
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Gratitude for the gifts of all the living and the unliving,</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpadpcqhPvOfxn7wQ1WDUQ_X1q6sHtwMqMZbU_Jm8xdSLTloj0GjYJLyHOFQuo40uFE3bHRb8YuhdWx5-V08oLEujN0sfg015p4UxDdAohBhCTKCKepmptPX88gOapayCxQeZB7b_khyphenhyphenM/s1600/DSC_2251.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpadpcqhPvOfxn7wQ1WDUQ_X1q6sHtwMqMZbU_Jm8xdSLTloj0GjYJLyHOFQuo40uFE3bHRb8YuhdWx5-V08oLEujN0sfg015p4UxDdAohBhCTKCKepmptPX88gOapayCxQeZB7b_khyphenhyphenM/s640/DSC_2251.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
gratitude which is the greatest gift, quietest of all,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
passes to me through the trees.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Learn by little the desire for all things</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqpeDamTWrFFKFlDaqMybcZzvDKsw9fvWcBTRaHgVWy8Yv4SDJFE0x55jGAF9eJP8jLURcmzYB-WPJI6tHRUnymkzsp1f1534Y_qSYVg86xoBe34rHMHtsLgxN1K6669-WIjHHxxKWz8/s1600/DSC_2256.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJqpeDamTWrFFKFlDaqMybcZzvDKsw9fvWcBTRaHgVWy8Yv4SDJFE0x55jGAF9eJP8jLURcmzYB-WPJI6tHRUnymkzsp1f1534Y_qSYVg86xoBe34rHMHtsLgxN1K6669-WIjHHxxKWz8/s640/DSC_2256.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
which perhaps is not desire at all </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
but undying love</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
which perhaps is not love at all but gratitude</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
for the being of all things</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
which perhaps is not gratitude at all</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
but the maker's joy in what is made,</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the joy in which we come to rest.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Wendell Berry</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>from </i>Leavings</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-20423906728139513582013-04-05T20:24:00.000-05:002013-04-05T20:24:30.318-05:00I love none better<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>I whisper with my lips close to your ear.</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>I have loved many...but I love none better than you." </i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>-Walt Whitman</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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I awake on this Friday, the tiny lips of my youngest son pursed against my own. Though somewhat resistant to leaving my dreamlike state, my blue eyes blink open in the semi-darkness of the room and are greeted by eyes deep and dark inches from my own. A smile spreads across his face.<br />
<br />
I meet my oldest son on the steps. Rather than passing one another in the hurry of our daily tasks, he blocks my movement, opening wide his arms, "Hold me." An offer such as this from the growing boy who has begun to scrunch up his face and hesitatingly receive my kisses-on-the-lips cannot be forsaken. His eight-year-old body is weighty. His arms press against my throat, clasped behind my neck. I feel him breathe. Together we sit on the kitchen chair, too heavy too stand, mother and first-born son entwined and silent for a moment, the warmth of the morning sun penetrating the kitchen, making it glorious, making it holy.<br />
<br />
It was a bone chilling day, a day many winters ago, back when we lived in Chicago, back when I worked and walked to work. My body was heavily draped with sweaters, a coat, a hat, mittens, ear muffs, and a black and gray wool scarf pulled tight around my mouth. The snow not yet cleared from the sidewalks crunched beneath each step. A house not unlike many of the brick bungalows so characteristic to the area caught my attention, drawing me in. A light glowed out of the frosted windows and I longed with every ounce of my being to cast aside my present wintry circumstances and live the life I imagined - a life where I sat with a cup of coffee heavy with cream, it's handle grasped by my fingers, my hand wrapped around it's heat, as a baby springing with life snuggled in the crook of my arm.<br />
<br />
This week I scrounged through our metal file cabinet in the basement, attempting to secure my medical history file. Opening up the manilla envelope, I read our doctor's scrawled handwriting from twelve years ago. A record of our initial meeting in 2001, where my husband of then four years and I sat full of hope and expectation that we, like so many of our friends, would without hindrance or obstacle commence our journey into parenthood. The record of our meeting a year later when there was no child nursing at my breast, no conception even born out of our love. The year in which tests were initiated, prescriptions written on white pieces of paper, medicines for healing ingested. Records of the years following, years of the poking, the prodding, the humiliations, the surgery, the anger, the tears, the hope, and the despair, and then the last record, a final note from our doctor in 2004, "total failure with fertility treatments." I wince just a bit at the seeming harshness of those brutally honest words, but mostly I smile at that watershed moment for rather than the end of the story, it was really just the beginning. <br />
<br />
<i>"Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." Psalm 126/127</i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
For you who cannot wait until spring so you can pick violets </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
For you who invites me on magic carpet rides</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjhyphenhyphenZ3jKr6Eia-qcAz0BnaDPqG2_2uMOgG2rmAsVVOUaveDfYdrtuLjWYk0cbzuNmSr4pVVi75cd3PMyH2z4TWdaSa5CF4PT6Xv-mvGaSNvChfTSDc8pAqTK-olOcDZyjUs3ObPpHeRi8/s1600/DSC_2205.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjhyphenhyphenZ3jKr6Eia-qcAz0BnaDPqG2_2uMOgG2rmAsVVOUaveDfYdrtuLjWYk0cbzuNmSr4pVVi75cd3PMyH2z4TWdaSa5CF4PT6Xv-mvGaSNvChfTSDc8pAqTK-olOcDZyjUs3ObPpHeRi8/s640/DSC_2205.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
For you who asks during morning prayers if we are over the rainbow</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsi_TGODg_UXgruFAu0F2Da8k7Pr0-1uL1JuJPjoXvEhmjjnJ6Y-ZzHw6FruToUVGU8161kz9pZEO8_Al5gN9Hf2Z9YTj-ytzkNFLsvsoGnB2QsEOxraq2YMJC3pFqdDCYbDucWuCgHs/s1600/DSC_2209.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixsi_TGODg_UXgruFAu0F2Da8k7Pr0-1uL1JuJPjoXvEhmjjnJ6Y-ZzHw6FruToUVGU8161kz9pZEO8_Al5gN9Hf2Z9YTj-ytzkNFLsvsoGnB2QsEOxraq2YMJC3pFqdDCYbDucWuCgHs/s640/DSC_2209.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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For you who finds fairies in the sunbeams flitting across the floor</div>
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Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-76866724262142447602013-03-22T18:50:00.000-05:002013-03-22T18:50:29.216-05:00Threnody<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>"We bury you, as grain in a field, and you will spring forth in another land."</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
The package of oatmeal cookies at the grocery store that suddenly and unexpectedly catches my eye and brings me to tears; the phrases and songs remembered, flowing out of the mouths of my children, phrases and songs singular to you; the touch of the cylinder shaped, striped, sofa pillow, so innocent, which elicits a vision of you, weary and worn by the burden of your physical decline; you, not bitter or resentful, without complaint, resting your head while we run, dance, and circle around your tired body; the memory of your voice speaking my name; your hand, weathered and aged, tenderly held in my own in those final days of your life with us; the man that you were, simple, unassuming, witty, kind, a man worthy of imitation: You come to me in my dreams. I feel your presence. I feel your peace. How thin the veil which separates us from one another.<br />
<br />
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<b><span style="line-height: 150%;">Threnody</span></b><span style="line-height: 150%;"> </span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">Scott Cairns</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">The dream is recurrent, and yes
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">the dream can leave me weeping,</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">waking with a start, confused,
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">and pressing my wet face hard</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">into the pillow.
That is to say </span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">the dream is very bitter.
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">The scenes are various, the gist
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">unchanging: my father returns,
<br />
and we all are at once elated </span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">that his death was apparently</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">an error, that he had simply
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">been away, a visit to the shore.</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">Then, increasingly, I grow</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">uneasy about how deeply
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">he has changed.
He is both frail </span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">and distracted (or it could be</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">that he withholds some matter
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">habiting his mind), and none of us</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">dares speak, neither of his death nor
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">of his sudden, startling return.</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">We share other confusions as well:</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">He has arrived in the camper truck
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">he drove when I was a boy, but my wife
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">and children are also here to greet him,</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">even my son, whom he has never met.
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">Often, in the dream, I am the one
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">who first suspects he cannot stay.
</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">I am the one who sees but cannot say</span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">his visit will be brief.
And just </span></div>
<div class="ecxMsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%; text-align: center;">
<span style="line-height: 150%;">as I suspected, as I feared, I wake.</span></div>
<br />
<i>Thank you to <a href="http://english.missouri.edu/grad-faculty/119-scott-cairns.html">Scott Cairns</a> for sharing this unpublished poem and offering me the privilege to post it here. The following was written two years ago, posted two days before my father died:</i><br />
<br />
While your father is dying, you rearrange the furniture in his living
room, pushing his familiar blue La-Z-Boy recliner from its prominent
position and replacing it with a white-sheeted hospital bed. You express
your gratitude to a compassionate nursing home staff and return your
father to the home in which he has lived for over forty-five years. Your
husband bears the bulk of your father's weight as he helps him from the
car to the piece of furniture from which he will never move again. His
homecoming is more subdued than the time before, marked by an atmosphere
of solemnity. There are no "get well wishes" offered, no encouragement
to eat more in order to get stronger, no talk of therapy, for this is
not what you have been called to do. Your sole purpose is to tenderly
pamper your father like a mother cares for her infant. You place cold
cloths upon his feverish head, rub lotion on his dry flesh, hold his
hand and remain constantly near to calm any fears that he is alone,
unwanted, unloved. You become intimate strangers with hospice nurses
with names like Teresa and Pam, for you know they will be the first to
console you when your father's final hour on this earth can no longer be
delayed.<br />
<br />
You open the door of your parent's home and
discover a mustached man donning a hat from a local grocery store. He
hands you a cardboard box filled with baked chicken, mashed potatoes,
gravy, and bread purchased by a long-time family friend. Unable to hide
the tears swelling up in your eyes as you thank this nameless deliverer
and utter "How kind," you are overcome again by the generosity of those
who love you. Your tears become more frequent, less controlled,
manifesting themselves at unexpected times like when you catch a glimpse
of your older sister crying in the arms of your mother, when your
husband leans down and promises your father that he will see him
tomorrow, or when your children kiss their grandfather good-bye. You
order a wooden casket crafted and blessed by local Trappist monks and
bearing a cross engraved with your father's name, Raymond Edward
Swanson. You meet with a funeral director and begin to make
arrangements. You pick out a blue sport coat in which to bury your
father and have it dry-cleaned. You cling to Christ's words, "Blessed
are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."<br />
<br />
You
take advantage of the few hours of rest while at home and in silence and
with a cup of coffee, launch into a massive deep cleaning, and try to
come to peace. You move furniture off rugs, vacuum, scrub hardwood
floors on your hands and knees, the stink of vinegar saturating your
fingers and hands. You pry crusted food off of your dining room chairs
and pause as you clean the armed chair, your father's chair. You grieve
his absence from your family table but remain grateful for all the times
he was present. You revel in warm air, flinging wide open windows,
delighting in a bird's song. You scramble to the park with your
children, bringing home pine cones and ever-green branches. You stop to
consider a hearty group of white petaled flowers telling your children
the yellow middle is a belly button. Your eldest son tickles it and his
siblings laugh. You set your children by your father's side and he
smiles. You sing songs taught to you by your own mother and now taught
to your children by you, "Love, love, love, that's what it's all
about..." Your sister joins in because, of course, she knows it too.<br />
<br />
You
stare at the cross bearing Christ's broken body hanging on your bedroom
wall. You imagine the God-Man with oxygen tubes thrust into His
nostrils; plastic rubbing raw the skin on his ears; a catheter hanging
limply at His side; cancer noiselessly consuming His flesh from the
inside out. You so recently heard Him whimper, "I thirst," and dabbed
his mouth with a wet sponge. You truly know that He is the Man of
Sorrows, who has borne our griefs and iniquities, and that ultimately it
is He who grants rest. <br />
<br />
You continually return to a
slightly torn, haphazardly hung copy of St. John Chrysostom's Paschal
Homily cemented by a firetruck magnet on your refrigerator: "He that was
taken by death has annihilated it! He descended into Hades and took
Hades captive! He embittered it when it tasted His flesh...It was
embittered, for it was abolished! It was embittered, for it was mocked!
It was embittered, for it was purged! It was embittered, for it was
despoiled! It was embittered for it was bound in chains! It took a body
and, face to face, met God! It took earth and encountered heaven! It
took what it saw but crumbled before what it had not seen! 'O death
where is thy sting? O Hades, where is thy victory?'" And while in four
weeks time, on that Feast of Feasts, you will resoundingly cry out,
"Christ is Risen!" you now whisper these words and take comfort.<br />
<br />
You
stand freezing in the basement of a defunct school which now serves as
the location of an Orthodox mission. You move forward to receive the
bread made by hands you know, bread now mysteriously transformed into
something wholly Other. You place the red cloth under your chin and hear
the priest speak the words, "The handmaiden of God Elizabeth
partakes..." You open wide your mouth like a dying man, like your
father, desperate to receive the life-giving nourishment spooned into
your mouth by another and say, "Amen." You are anointed with myrrh and
return back to your father's side skin fragrant and shining with it. You
hold fast to your faith that even in these last moments God is still
continuing a good work in the broken body of the man lying at your side.
And while you cannot even begin to fathom the depths of this loss so
imminent, you cling to the truth that "neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things
to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature"- nothing - "shall be able to separate us from the love
of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." <br />
<br />
<br />
<i> </i>Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-65792621667899786612013-03-14T20:49:00.000-05:002013-03-16T21:02:13.786-05:00The heart's innocent joyThere were boisterous and plenteous cheers and high-fives around the table. Punch glasses filled with juice clinked as toasts were offered to commemorate the occasion. Songs erupted and were accompanied by the accordion and the piano, as well as spontaneous outbursts of dances involving high kicks and our version of the Harlem Shuffle. Phone calls spreading the joyous news were placed to dad who was working late and Grandma Swanson. We all huddled around him and oohed and awed at the tiny tooth delicately held in his five-year-old hand, entering into his excitement, proclaiming him a "big boy." As the tooth disappeared under his pillow, we were told to sing, "Happy Birthday dear tooth." After all, it isn't every day that you lose your first tooth.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"I lost my tooth."</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"Are you so surprised?"</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
"I am so happy."</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9FyDfYN04cs0blc8VpYfiu6niu7A_aF3PFK80pBzA-L0prvtP448TeiLAce-zFUsD-BfPBVFuQVdyotItIUus3nnab1ANZqc8d9Hfd3NwwTbZVNXkUpxOvYpCCpVMuFNO1CAQGWCtLvw/s1600/DSC_2136.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9FyDfYN04cs0blc8VpYfiu6niu7A_aF3PFK80pBzA-L0prvtP448TeiLAce-zFUsD-BfPBVFuQVdyotItIUus3nnab1ANZqc8d9Hfd3NwwTbZVNXkUpxOvYpCCpVMuFNO1CAQGWCtLvw/s640/DSC_2136.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
"Will the tooth fairy give me coal?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Maybe a ball because I am medium-sized good and medium-sized bad.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Will I get it back?"</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
"Two-four-six-eight</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">
who do we appreciate?"</div>
</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
"Russell! Russell! Yay, Russell!"</div>
</div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-18248722756381239562013-03-09T21:18:00.000-06:002013-03-09T21:18:28.936-06:00Speak to us of Love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>We who are called to be poor in spirit, to be fools for Christ, who are called to persecution and abuse- we know that this is the only calling given to us by the persecuted, abused, disdained, and humiliated Christ. And we do not only believe in the promises of blessedness to come; now, at this very moment, in the midst of this cheerless and despairing world, we already taste this blessedness whenever, with God's help and at God's command, we deny ourselves, whenever we have the strength to offer our soul for our neighbor, whenever in love we do not seek our own ends. -Mother Maria Skobtsova </i></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
When love beckons to you, follow him,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Though his ways are hard and steep.</div>
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And when his wings enfold you yield to him,</div>
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Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.</div>
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And when he speaks to you believe in him,</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
Though his voice may shatter your dreams </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
as the north wind lays waste the garden.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
So shall he descend to your roots and</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
shake them in their clinging to the earth. </div>
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Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.</div>
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He threshes you to make you naked.</div>
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He sifts you to free you from your husks.</div>
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He grinds you to whiteness.</div>
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He kneads you until you are pliant;</div>
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And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,</div>
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that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.</div>
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All these things shall love do unto you</div>
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that you may know the secrets of your heart,</div>
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.</div>
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But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,</div>
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Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness</div>
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and pass out of love's threshing-floor,</div>
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Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh,</div>
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but not all of your laughter,</div>
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and weep, but not all of your tears.</div>
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Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.</div>
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Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;</div>
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For love is sufficient unto love.</div>
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When you love you should not say,</div>
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"God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."</div>
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And think not you can direct the course of love,</div>
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for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.</div>
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Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.</div>
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But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:</div>
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To melt and be like a running brook</div>
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that sings its melody to the night.</div>
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To know the pain of too much tenderness.</div>
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To be wounded by your own understanding of love;</div>
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And to bleed willingly and joyfully.</div>
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To wake at dawn with a winged heart </div>
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and give thanks for another day of loving;</div>
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To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;</div>
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To return home at eventide with gratitude;</div>
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And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart</div>
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and a song of praise upon your lips.</div>
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from <i>The Prophet</i></div>
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Kahlil Gibran<i> </i></div>
Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-8841563100466474662013-02-03T20:23:00.001-06:002013-02-03T20:28:26.545-06:00Luminous<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<i>Having known the grace</i></div>
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<i>that for so long has kept this world,</i></div>
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<i>haggard as it is, as we have made it,</i></div>
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<i>we cannot rest, we must be stirring</i></div>
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<i>to keep that gift dwelling among us,</i></div>
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<i>eternally alive in time. This</i></div>
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<i>is the great work, no other, none harder,</i></div>
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<i>none nearer rest or more beautiful. </i> </div>
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-from <i>Leavings</i>, Wendell Berry </div>
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It was a dream so vivid, so beautiful, so ethereal; the kind of dream you mourn the loss of once roused out of your unconsciousness; the kind of dream you desperately wish to return to like the reappearance of a long-gone friend. I was outside in the night. The sky was an inky black and the stars shone brilliantly as they do only away from the lights of the city. I was awestruck by how the stars dazzled as I sat on a hill. I began to search for the Big Dipper hoping to locate the Great Bear of which it is borne. To my left, a shooting star whisked by. With a twinge of regret, I slowly opened my eyes submitting to the reality of the day, thankful for the gift of the dream. </div>
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It was late, too late and a more level-headed individual would have long ago made their way to bed. But I am not that sensible. Already an hour had passed since Jared, clearly the more reasonable one amongst us, climbed the stairs up to our bed. I was alone, and the quietude afforded to me by our house finally at rest and the stillness of the fiercely cold night, was too much of a temptation to resist, and so I succumbed to temptation, and remained sprawled out on our couch, book in hand. I had chosen a book on Celtic spirituality from our shelves to peruse through on this eve of St. Brigid's feastday. Again and again, this ancient writing accounted the saint's life of generosity, how she chose to give to the poor, to the stranger, not from her surplus but rather giving away all she had because she was "unmindful of the morrow" and trusted in God to provide. That phrase, so simple, so complex. Unmindful of the morrow. It is stuck in my head. It has stuck in my heart. </div>
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It has been a week uncharacteristic to the typical workings of our family. A week which makes me hopeful that we are on the cusp of change, a return to our former way of existence complete with days where dinner is more or less ready on schedule and there is time beforehand to sit down at the table with a cup of coffee and squish play-dough through my fingers and create delicate desserts for Russell's restaurant, French Meal; a return to evenings dedicated to family reading and game playing. Don't be fooled, there is plenty of bickering, whining, yelling, and general chaos as we live out our days so closely enmeshed with each other. My eye is still twitching, and Elliot and I are still more often than not pulling out a glass container of lavender oil to breathe in and help us calm down. (A glass of red wine in the evening never hurts either.) Still, I am cautiously optimistic that the return of a familiar, more consistent rhythm may be just around the corner. And again, as we go about the routines of our day - sitting together at meals, standing together in prayer, making beds, doing laundry, cleaning up, building Legos, reading books, marveling at birds outside our window, laughing with one another over silly jokes - I am reminded anew that, in the words of a wise priest given to me many years ago, I am exactly where God wants me to be. To steal from Berry yet again, "And we pray, not for new earth or heaven, but to be quiet in heart, and in eye, clear. All I need is here." Peaceful week to you.</div>
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For the record, after a vigorous workout, Thomas had to disrobe a bit and Lucia insisted that she too wear a white, sleeveless t-shirt. Also, we began a new tradition for the Feast of the Meeting of Christ in the Temple (a.k.a. Candlemas): We made candles out of beeswax. Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6851185331639970823.post-61444938746084689252013-01-22T21:33:00.002-06:002013-01-22T21:33:59.194-06:00You say it's your birthday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
There was a homemade card. A whole lot of cheesecake. And a jubilant song. Happy 37th Birthday Jared! "With a family like this," said my husband, "how could I not have my best birthday ever?" Still not quite sure if he is being sarcastic. And speaking of cheesecake...I believe the birthday boy and I are going to enjoy one more piece with a glass of wine while watching one episode of Downton Abbey before heading to bed. Peace and goodness.</div>
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<br />Bethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14112621312574831899noreply@blogger.com3