Thursday, May 24, 2007
Suburban housewives have a woman after their own heart
I sometimes think the saints had it easy in a way... some of their choices were so crystal clear. I always think that I'd certainly proclaim Jesus Christ as my Savior if faced with imminent death by a firing squad. Martyrdom gives you the black and white choice of Life vs. cowardly betrayal. Seems easy huh? Then while I envision myself on my heavenly cloud ascending brilliantly to heaven for my brave choice, I have another thought: I'd give my life for the name of Jesus... but would I jump into a pit of teeming poisonous spiders for Him? Would I tend to the wounds of an HIV infected person for Him? Would I do simple, annoying things for His glory and without a second thought? So often I do not... I waste my Cross.
Suddenly, I'm scrambling for a parachute as God backhands me off my cloud of glory.
Today is the anniversary of Blessed Mother Teresa's final profession as a Loretto sister.
Here is a lovely piece my friend sent to me that really speaks to our own hearts. I especially pondered this thought:
"Sometimes it would be easier to love a beggar dying in the street than the neighbor who growls at my children if a stray ball rolls in their yard."
Again that black and white choice of being IN IT with the poor and destitute of the world seems much more simple and noble than what I'm called to do in my life: smile at the cranky neighbor, pray for the man that cut me off in traffic, change diaper after diaper after diaper and prepare nourishing meals for my hardworking husband.
-Ellie
Labels: Reflections
one of us ::
12:37 PM ::
2
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Tuesday, May 22, 2007
and even more on gardening
I'll have all of you know that my thumb is anything but green. I appreciate beautiful gardens and I long to have one myself but I don't know a thing about anything. I don't know about what plants go where or how deep or when to water, fertilize, etc. It's so overwhelming to me that I can look at my little plot of a yard (which is mostly concrete and pea gravel) and feel quite depressed that it's never going to have the glorious foliage adorning it that I'd like. Despite this, I'm determined to do SOMETHING. Last week my husband and I started ripping out some ugly plants and weeds out of our front yard and extended the border or the garden area but pulling up the grass. It felt so darn rewarding when we were finished to see the beautiful brown dirt in between nicely spaced plants (it really was quite overgrown and poorly designed to begin with). And then I picked up a neat little book I've been reading that makes me feel just a wee bit better about NOT being out there weeding and planting and doing what I want in my heart to do. I felt guilty because I feel like a garden is so much WORK. Of couse I want fresh tomatoes and basil and raspberries and lovely flowers bordering our walkway. Who doesn't?! But I get a sinking feeling whenever I think of how much work it involves to maintain a garden. This passage struck me:
A garden tends to get inside us. If we go there to accomplish something or get something, the garden soon becomes a burden. With expectations that it must look good or produce no matter what, we will soon grow tired. The garden is really a place in which we can give ourselves away. This is true of any serious contemplation too. We are transformed by it. We are reduced and revealed by it. In it we may experience a lived sense of our connection to the earth, to our inner freedom, and to the Sacred, the ground of our existence. For me, gardening is a process that invites me to be fully engaged. It is also a constant exercise in letting go since so much happens that is not in my control. Strangely this duality seems to cultivate a joy that embraces impermanence and finds refuge in the invisible... I want to trust that with reverence for place and awareness of my foibles, I can grow to be more present and a better steward of my small corner of the earth. (Gunilla Norris in "A Mystic Garden: Working with soil, Attending to soul")
-Ellie
Labels: Quotable, Reflections
one of us ::
7:45 PM ::
2
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Monday, May 21, 2007
A book for Spring
We've just finished planting this year's little vegetable garden... lots of produce to look forward to!
One of our readers just expressed interest in how to get started on her own garden. Whether you live in the city or on land, you can have a garden of some sort. There are a few basics to starting a garden: choose a South-Eastern facing part of the yard; take out the grass and turn it into a vegetable garden by adding fertilizers and more topsoil if needed; start a compost pile with your kitchen scraps, etc. These are just the basics, but everything you need to know is here in this book below. If you're any type of serious gardener, growing flowers or vegetables, I'd like to
recommend a great book to have around. Lately I've been reading
THE NEW ORGANIC GROWER: A Master's Manual of Tools and Techniques for the Home and Market Gardener, by Eliot Coleman of
Four Season's Farm in
Harborside, Maine. This book has been a real treat for me to read over my lunch lately. It has always been my reference book whenever spring hits. As one reviewer said, he transforms gardening from a task to a craft, and finally to a 'local science'...
This book is not only an excellent manual but also incredibly motivating! Whenever I read any part of it it just increases my desire to learn more about growing my own food and to get on top of more projects such as growing our own salads all winter long in greenhouses... ah, to have more land!
~sia
Labels: Books Music Culture, Reflections
one of us ::
10:05 PM ::
3
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
more prayers
We have a couple new additions on our expectant mother prayer list. Please continue to keep them and all mothers in your prayers and forward us the names of anyone who may be expecting that you know. Also I'd direct your attention to Kim due next month. Her family is dealing with a heavy cross already with their 7 year old daughter who has cancer. May the peace of Christ reign in the hearts of those who suffer for Him!
one of us ::
3:47 PM ::
0
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Today we celebrate the Ascension of the Lord.
Today, I also want to ask our readers to keep a particular family in your prayers; they've been longtime friends of my family; I've grown up with these children in the parish of my childhood. This father of 6 was killed yesterday in a logging accident. His name is Emil; he was a good and gentle man. The family has been preparing for the oldest daughter's wedding. The oldest son is in seminary. The youngest is still in grade school. I ache for the pain they must be feeling and ask that God uses it for the conversion of souls.
one of us ::
8:20 AM ::
1
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Tuesday, May 15, 2007
St. Isidore
St. Isidore, pray for us!!
I don't have much experience in the world of farming, but I did spend a solid few years tending an acre of land in Ohio where I grew vegetables and flowers, mulched our fruit trees and built compost piles. I got up every morning to weed and do whatever work there was to do before it got too hot outside. After 2 pm I'd go back outside and work till dusk. All day it was silent, save the sound of the birds, the bees, the distant barking dogs. It was just the earth and myself. I was very in tune with the weather. I always knew when it would rain, when a storm was coming. I can't think of another time in my life when I was more alive, more in-tune with God's voice. I was at peace in my heart, mind and whole being. It was, spiritually, probably the richest time in my life I can remember. I miss having land to cultivate. However, I am also now a mother of 2 babies and seem to have a lot less time now to devote to anything other than the simple humble, everyday tasks such as cleaning, cooking, laundry, diapers and nursing. I don't think I'd be capable of tending lots of land right now anyway! I have a new path to holiness, which is through my new tasks. However, I still think it very important to get one's hands in the dirt every so often. In Russia, as Catherine Doherty points out, a farmer is called Krestianin. This means "Christian", which fits: a farmer should be the epitome of a Christian. Farmers, Shepherds and such live very close to the natural created world in which there is unique peace-- one which is hard to find amidst our noisy culture of today. I may not be able to be a farmer, but I can try to find those bits of peace and give them to my children through doing little bits of contemplative gardening outside in our little suburban plot of dirt here in our own backyard.
Here, working with what we have, we have taken out the old play structure and replaced it with a large portion of dirt, which is now our vegetable garden. (We can always go to the playground!)We compost all vegetable matter, which I carry out and top with leaves. Currently I have lots of large containers going for this decomposition step, but within a few weeks I hope to "build" a compost pile, using wet matter and dry matter, with the help of the sun. We have wildflowers, herbs and berries bordering the yard and now perennials in large pot containers to cheer up our tiny concrete patio. I'd like to have goats and chickens, too-- just to get our neighbors out of their little suburban comfort zone-- ;)-- but for now this is enough. It is enough to stay in touch with the outdoor world, trying to hear the geese, the birds, the bees in the midst of the deafening silence of Suburbia.
~Sia
Prayer to St. Isidore the Farmer:
Lord God, all creation is yours, and you call us to serve you by caring for the gifts that surround us. May the example of St. Isidore urge us to share our food with the hungry and to work for the salvation of mankind. Amen.
Labels: feastdays, Reflections
one of us ::
4:43 PM ::
2
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Friday, May 11, 2007
testament to life
I sometimes think the saints had it easy in a way... some of their choices were so crystal clear. I always think that I'd certainly proclaim Jesus Christ as my Savior if faced with imminent death by a firing squad. Martyrdom gives you the black and white choice of Life vs. cowardly betrayal. Seems easy huh? Then while I envision myself on my heavenly cloud ascending brilliantly to heaven for my brave choice, I have another thought: I'd give my life for the name of Jesus... but would I jump into a pit of teeming poisonous spiders for Him? Would I tend to the wounds of an HIV infected person for Him? Would I do simple, annoying things for His glory and without a second thought? So often I do not... I waste my Cross.
I'll have all of you know that my thumb is anything but green. I appreciate beautiful gardens and I long to have one myself but I don't know a thing about anything. I don't know about what plants go where or how deep or when to water, fertilize, etc. It's so overwhelming to me that I can look at my little plot of a yard (which is mostly concrete and pea gravel) and feel quite depressed that it's never going to have the glorious foliage adorning it that I'd like. Despite this, I'm determined to do SOMETHING. Last week my husband and I started ripping out some ugly plants and weeds out of our front yard and extended the border or the garden area but pulling up the grass. It felt so darn rewarding when we were finished to see the beautiful brown dirt in between nicely spaced plants (it really was quite overgrown and poorly designed to begin with). And then I picked up a neat little book I've been reading that makes me feel just a wee bit better about NOT being out there weeding and planting and doing what I want in my heart to do. I felt guilty because I feel like a garden is so much WORK. Of couse I want fresh tomatoes and basil and raspberries and lovely flowers bordering our walkway. Who doesn't?! But I get a sinking feeling whenever I think of how much work it involves to maintain a garden. This passage struck me:
