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Showing posts from 2011

Out of darkest December ...

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And, with the Winter Solstice, into the light. Very gradually into the light.  It will be weeks before I notice a slight lengthening of the daylight, and it will feel like a tease.  Day will be longer, but the ground will still be frozen and, potentially, snow-covered. There are homey comforts to be enjoyed in winter, of course: sitting with dogs by the fire, being snowed in on a workday, Christmas Eve in church, a hot mug of spicy herbal tea. But December has sometimes been a hard month at my house.  Sixteen years ago I said farewell to my mom, Ruth Ann,  at her funeral on December 20th, as a snowstorm raged (now wasn't that fun!).  And on the 19th of this December, we said goodbye to my mother-in-law, Grace.  Fortunately this time, there was snow on the ground only, not piling up around us. So I have reason to dislike December. Clearly, I have difficulty keeping in mind the message of Christmas: it's hard, but it will pass; the Lord is Emanuel; He is here. Fear not.

A midget mea culpa

It's my fault, as much as anyone's. What do I do now? I paid bills last night -- 10 of them, including a couple of charitable contributions.  This took me a whole twenty minutes on my computer, even stopping to let the dogs out and in again, and pausing to grab a can of Diet Coke. Then I went downstairs and turned on the TV. And there it was, right on CNN -- the Post Office is in worse shape than ever. Half of the processing centers (including a BIG one near me) may have to close.  People are going to lose jobs. This sucks. Merry Christmas, you're unemployed. What now? Go back to writing and mailing checks? Send Christmas cards? (I had to give that up years ago; besides, we have a wonderful parish Christmas card now that we all contribute a message to, and it goes to everyone on the mailing list. Too tempting to refuse). I'm afraid I'm not a good enough person to take a step backwards from e-checks, e-cards, and e-mail. Which makes me wonder ... what other k

Early Dark

The early darkness of the coming winter usually doesn't bother me, but this year I feel differently, and it's bothered me since the time-change. I suppose J. and I are becoming more than normally aware of our own mortality, as his mom, the last of our parents, seems to have entered her final weeks. Our oldest dog, Shadow, seems to be entering her final stretch as well, though I have no reason to think she's in any pain. We're also watching a loved one cope with addictions, and anticipating a potential job loss next year. These are all difficult events. It's hard to see past them somehow.They loom large, and we find ourselves in their shadow. Life in general is difficult for many people we know right now, as we wait for things to get better in so many ways. Waiting through sadness is harder than for future joy. Yet I guess Advent is all about waiting; in fact, it's about waiting through difficult times.  Who had harder lives than people in sub-Roman Palestine? 

Making progress, one centipede at a time

Anyone who knows me well is aware that I am absolutely phobic about spiders. Spiders, in fact, have no reason for existence in my personal universe.  I don't give a damn what other bugs they eat, or whatever other good things they do for the ecosystem. Pffft! Spiders go with cans of Raid like mustard goes with hotdogs. A few years ago, however, after a guilty struggle, I did become able to tolerate a spider's presence on my porch -- providing it stayed at the uninhabited end of it, down by the wind chime, spinning its nasty webs down from the porch roof to the top of the woodpile, and with the assumption that the spider would conveniently freeze to death (or whatever happens to spiders in the fall) long before I would ever need the wood. I guess you could say I kind of feel negative about insects in general. Now, in my defense, I have to say that I am downright fond of certain creatures that don't make most peoples' top-ten list: snakes, rodents of all kinds, and li

When Halloween was in the dark ...

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When I was a kid, Halloween was my favorite holiday.  Probably some children feel that way still.  And there was a whole "Halloween season," which started right after school reopened in the fall.  By the end of September, the classroom was decorated with pumpkin drawings and construction-paper cutouts of ghosts and witches (I don't remember cornstalks.  I imagine they were not yet in vogue).  But the best thing about Halloween, in the early 1960s, was the freedom of Halloween night. Hard as it is to believe, Halloween trick-or-treating back in the day was done in the dark, absent hovering parents.  Parents stayed at home and watched TV, after helping us children get into our costumes, handing us flashlights, and warning us appropriately about getting run over (this is the only warning I recall ever receiving).  Costumes could be more-or-less the same for several years. "Blue fairy again?" Mom would inquire, and I consented to be the blue fairy until I outgrew

Sign of the Times?

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 Another chunk of my childhood seems  about to drop off and float away on the river of time.  I should be used to this by now, but it gets me every time! The link above is for the church where I grew up, the Cathedral Church of Saint John, in Wilmington, Delaware. I learned recently that the Cathedral will be closing in July 2012, for lack of funds.  I knew there were financial problems, but I had no idea it had come to this.  I have never before heard of a diocese without a Cathedral, though perhaps I am naive to be so horrified by this thought. Below is an excerpt from the History portion of the Cathedral's website: The Cathedral Church of Saint John is the Cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Delaware and the seat of the Bishop of Delaware. June 13, 1857, the cornerstone was laid, and the church was consecrated on November 3, 1858. Alexis Irenee du Pont is credited with founding the church and donating the funds for its construction. Joh

Courage and Faith

A Facebook friend of mine, Jeff,  died recently.  He was only 54, younger than I am, and had suffered from muscular dystrophy. Close to the end, he had only 10%  of his lung function, and was on a ventilator. I was saddened by his passing, but I'm amazed by his courage. A week ago Saturday,  Jeff had a party.  Twenty or so of his closest friends were there, as were his parish priest, his two adult children, and his physician and hospice nurse.  After feasting on his favorite foods, including large quantities of chocolate, Jeff gathered his friends together to watch as he received Last Rites. At that point, the doctor administered to Jeff a dose of ativan, and, at Jeff's direction, removed his ventilator. With his children at his side and his friends offering comfort, Jeff died peacefully. This is a beautiful story, and I know we would all like to die peacefully at home, with our families and friends at our side.  The question is, would I have the courage to make the dec

Cruel, cruel summer

A hearty welcome to autumn! I am generally glad to see summer end, because I don't like the heat -- even having lost quite a bit of weight over the last few years, I am still not comfortable in summer.  And this summer has been like the "cruel, cruel summer" of the old Bananarama song: we had family drama, work drama, unrelenting heat, bad storms, trees down ... Enough drama. It could always have been worse, but even so, I'm glad the season is over.  In the middle of a violent rainstorm, as I was slogging along soaked to the knees, a fragment of Psalm 73 popped into my mind:           14 For all day long I have been plagued,               and am punished every morning.  So it's time to move to a new season.  As an academic librarian, I have long been attuned  to the beginning of the fall semester: it's a time of higher energy, more optimism, a new beginning.  Let's move forward.

Walk across my swimming pool!

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I got home rather late last night, after a long, fruitful meeting with a directee, a meeting accompanied by some excellent General Tso's chicken (the Holy Spirit moves quite often, now as in the Gospels, through a shared meal; or it could be that I simply like to eat, especially Chinese food). To my sheer delight, when I flipped through the channels, there was the 1973 film version of Jesus Christ Superstar , which most people reading this are too young to remember. This film, along with Godspell , actually helped to bring me back to church after a long absence.  I was tired last night and wanted to sleep, but I had  to stay up to hear "Herod's Song," featuring the wonderful Josh Mostel as Herod Antipas. Even in the negative context of the Gospel story, the song is very amusing, especially the immortal lines Herod directs at Jesus:                           "Prove to me that you're no fool --                           Walk across my swimming pool!"

For Sale

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  My Family Home I was in my hometown last Tuesday for a business meeting. And I couldn't help it -- I had to check up on my family's former home, the house where I grew up -- which had seemed abandoned the last time I saw it. To my great relief, it's been cleaned up and is on the market! This is the photo from the MLS listing. The house sits in the shade of an enormous maple tree, almost the only large tree left on the property.  When I was small, however, this scant quarter-acre was my Eden. Back in the day, when my grandparents lived with us, their green thumb and love for trees were in evidence.  On the front lawn you'd have found, in addition to the maple, a blue spruce, a magnolia tree, azaleas, and boxwoods.  In the back yard were a tall birch, a peachtree, a Japanese maple, lilac and hydrangea bushes, a vegetable garden, a rose bed, and yet another maple tree. There was also a slender mimosa tree, planted by my father on the day I was born. I can still fee

O Canada!

I'd like to personally thank our friends north of the border for the beautiful cold front taking over our weather today. The air is crisp and clean, autumnal, the very first hint we have had of approaching fall. My window was open all night. What a blessing the turn of the year is -- the revolving of the seasons speaks directly to my spirit. "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!"

The River of Time

On a recent Saturday evening, about twilight, I was cleaning up in the kitchen and found myself staring out the kitchen window. The sky was overcast, and the rampant vegetation in the yard lent a peaceful, greenish cast to the light. Birds flocked to the newly-filled feeders. There were the pileated woodpecker, the catbird, the usual flock of sparrows (those good little laborers in the vineyard!), and the goldfinches that I have come to think of as "mine," since I finally figured out how to attract them. Funny, isn't it, how we come to think of things as "ours." I recall my mother and grandmother, in the house where I grew up, standing in the kitchen, aprons on and sudsy water to their elbows, and looking out the kitchen window into the yard that was "theirs." It was a different scene, of course, in addition to being a different window: my grandmother was a great gardener, so in those days they looked out on hydrangea, lilacs, beds of

Woman mistaken for hamburger ...

Life can be so silly sometimes. In my latest episode of silliness, I was quietly making hamburger patties in my kitchen, accompanied by my oldest dog, Shadow, who is nearly blind and almost completely deaf. When the burgers were finished, I stowed them in the freezer, picked up the container of bread crumbs, and reached down to stroke my faithful, furry friend, prior to washing up. She can still smell just fine, it seems. Smelling meat, she clamped down on my fingers good and hard. This is a girl who loves her food. She wasn't missing out on this! I yelled in pain. Shadow jumped, knocking the bread crumbs out of my other hand. We had an eruption of bread crumbs several feet into the air. I said a few things that would, as Anne Lamott puts it, "make Jesus want to drink gin from the cat dish." Fortunately, the skin was not broken. But I wondered if the last joint in my finger might be broken, when it swelled up and got very red. What do you do for that? Go to the ER? I coul

Greetings from the blogging deadbeat!

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Oh, OK, you're right ... It's been awhile. I, like many people, got through Christmas and collapsed. Why do I do this to myself every year? I don't even have little kids to use as an excuse. Next year, all I want is a candle in the window and a wreath on the door. Hear that, J.? Adjust! On the other hand, I wouldn't mind having an itty bitty tree (say three feet tall), with all my glass ornaments (icicles, raindrops, snowflakes, etc. on it). And white lights, of course. See, I'm already caving in! At the moment, however, I am stewing over the fireplace. There was an article in our newspaper recently about how terribly polluting wood-smoke is, so I have been feeling guilty every time I light a fire. Particulates! Yuck. So I have a decision to make, now that the firewood is nearly gone and spring will be here soon (I hope). Do I purchase a cleaner-burning fireplace insert that still burns wood? A pellet stove? (somehow that makes me sound like a guinea pig) Or some