I just posted my two most recent Life Lines columns on my Web site. You can find “Different Retreats, Same Goal,” my reflection on making three retreats in the span of six months, by clicking HERE.
And I continue to search for a way to make contemplation happen amid life’s chaos in “Clearing the Counters in Search of God,” which you can find by clicking HERE.
Head on over to the Festival of Hope at The Tail End today by clicking HERE to read what I have to say about true and lasting hope in a cynical world. You also have a chance to win a signed copy of my book if you leave a comment. (Look for the post that includes the photo of my book cover. That’s where you should comment. It’s after my hope post.)
Thank you to Barry Michaels for inviting me to participate in the Festival of Hope, which is running throughout the month of November. It’s a great idea, and much needed during these uncertain times.
I just finished cutting down all my perennials and raking our front lawn. Quite a job, but one I actually enjoy. I find raking to be calming, almost prayerful, although the wet leaves made it more of a challenge today.
Raking to me is very Zen. Slow and deliberate, a moving meditation. I clear the leaves, all the while knowing that more are falling from the sky and littering the ground behind me, making the raking an effort in futility. It’s a little like those Tibetan monks who make sand mandalas and then blow them away. OK, not exactly as labor intensive as that, but if those monks had three kids following them around they’d probably settle for raking over sand mandalas too.
Dennis sees the leaves from a different perspective. He’s all about the leaf blower, and quite a leaf blower it is. It requires ear muffs to prevent hearing loss and can blow away not only leaves but small children in its path. That is his preferred mode of leaf clearing. I’ll take raking any day. The only thing that really dampened the experience today were the balmy temperatures. Too warm for me. I attempted a jean jacket, but even that had to go. When you’re raking leaves in upstate New York in mid-November without so much as a sweatshirt, something is terribly wrong. I’m hoping tomorrow the temperatures will cool, as promised, before I attack the backyard. It’s that time of year — clear everything out, batten down the hatches, take St. Francis and Our Lady of Guadalupe in for the long cold winter. They’re not used to New York temps. They winter in our sun porch, saintly snowbirds.
So I’m waiting for the weather to catch up with the season here, a season that, despite the drab skies and warning signs of winter, is incredibly beautiful to me. There’s something sacred about this season, this dying time. I love watching the trees shed their leaves, the plants die back to the ground. Everything retreats, waiting for rebirth in a few months. Spring is wonderful with all its bright green and new life but late fall has a wonder all its own. It’s like a deep sigh, a spiritual shrug. All things must pass, the visible worlds says. And we nod our heads and hunker down.
OK, I received my first blog “tag.” I feel as though I have arrived! What happens — in case you don’t already know — is that I am “tagged” by another blogger and given a set of rules and a set of questions. So here we go…
Here are the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you. That would be Roxane Salonen at Peace Garden Mama, who is already listed in my “Blogs worth a visit or two” in the left-hand column of this page.
2. Post these rules on your blog (Voila!).
3. Tell about your six quirks (Check the list below. I’m cringing already).
4. Tag six bloggers to do the same. Let’s see…Roxane already tagged one of my favorites, so I’ll have to work extra hard. I’ll be tagging Lemmondrops, Conversion Diary, The Tail End, From the Field of Blue Children, Sustainable Mom, and Happy Catholic.
5. Leave them a comment to let them know you’ve tagged them.
6. No tag backs.
So…six quirks…I’m sure the people who live with me would find it hard to believe that I could possibly have six quirks, but I’ll see if I can surprise them:
1. I like my hot beverages extremely hot. I mean, burn the inside of your throat hot. I have finally found a coffee maker that can produce coffee hot enough for my taste, and I do have taste. It’s not just about the heat. Gotta have taste and heat.
2. I have a giant stack of magazines — Health, Fitness, Vegetarian Times — on the stereo speaker next to my favorite spot on the couch. If I sit near them, I’m sure to get some benefits, right?
3. I refuse to enter church from the front side entrance. I must enter from the back and walk up the aisle, not down the aisle, much to my family’s chagrin.
4. I have a habit of yelling, “Come on, Grandpa,” when I’m driving behind someone particularly slow. So much so that Chiara often thinks that her grandfather is actually in the car ahead of us.
5. For the life of me I cannot remember the stations I need to know on TV. Drives Dennis crazy. But even worse, apparently, is the fact that I will sit there watching a show in standard definition when it is available in high def elsewhere. Oh the humanity.
6. I am the rare woman who hates shoe shopping. I have been known to spend an hour in LL Bean, trying on four different hiking boots, climbing their pretend mountain, only to walk out dissatisfied. Duck feet. It’s a curse. I buy most of my shoes at Payless, I’m afraid to say.
The Festival of Hope continues over at The Tail End with a very moving reflection by Regina Doman. Click HERE to read “The Story’s Loose Ends.” I was reading Regina’s beautiful essay surrounded by my three children — one home from school with a sinus infection, one home from school with a pulled neck muscle, and one crying from her upstairs bedroom because she didn’t want to nap. I was at my wit’s ends, and then I read Regina’s story and remembered how blessed I am and how quickly life can change. Suddenly it doesn’t seem so stressful having my three children at home with me on a November afternoon asking for hot chocolate and grilled cheese and biscotti and television and monopoly and and and….
