Week Ending 7 diciembre

Here's my contribution to the linkup that Wanda hosts over at her blog, Reinventing Mother, for


Let me start by saying that it's been literally freezing cold here all week (unusual for this area). Every day has been colder than the day before.

The weekend started on Friday night with dinner at the home of a couple whom we have been close to for over 40 years. Both of them are artists: he is a world-renowned sculptor of birds, and she is a painter (I featured one of her paintings in my recent blog post here). There has been much rejoicing in that family because their younger daughter and her husband and sons have moved up and now live in the old homestead (just like our younger son and his family), while the parents live in a cottage they built on the same property (just like us!). We had a great time hanging out with them - it's such a gift to be with long-time friends!


On Saturday we went into town to pick up a couple of things and go to the Christmas Fair at the Presbyterian church. Our two oldest granddaughters had a booth there selling things made by young women rescued from the sex trade in Africa and India. The women are taught how to make these bags and jewelry as a way of earning money and supporting the ministry where they have found a safe haven. All the money my granddaughters made went to support this ministry.

The name of the ministry is Hope's Gate and you can find out more about it here.

The wind was bitingly cold so we scooted on home and sat in front of the fire for awhile before heading across the road to visit with a couple who are our "spiritual parents". Then we went to vigil mass, where we met the new priest. He's a Discalced Carmelite from the Philippines, and he speaks fluent English and Spanish, which is necessary in this parish. Of course, it's WAAAY too cold to wear sandals around here, so he was wearing the same kind of heavy shoes that everyone else wears (I just had to check that out as soon as he entered the sanctuary!) For those of you who don't know, "discalced" means "unshod" - this particular monastic order was distinguished from the main Carmelite order in that the monks and nuns didn't wear shoes.

The reason that we went to vigil mass on Saturday was so we could join the rest of our family at their Baptist church on Sunday. We have known many of the people in this congregation for decades, and we always get a very warm welcome whenever we show up - even though they know that we're now Catholic. Today they had communion - this is a rare occasion for them, and in fact in 20 years we've never been there when they served communion before. After the service the Pirate took the pastor - an old friend of ours - aside and explained why we didn't partake and we had a good conversation about the philosophies behind closed and open communion.

One of the great traditions of this congregation is that they all have lunch together after the service. They actually built a huge kitchen/dining room right at the back of the sanctuary for the purpose! It has been a strong factor in building close relationships in this little country church.

Sunday evening was our second granddaughter's 16th birthday party. It was held in the fellowship hall of the Presbyterian church in town, where the youth group (high school and college-age kids from several churches) holds its meetings. Everyone from the youth group was there, plus a bunch of parents and grandparents. Most of the time was spent in dancing - to "Cotton-Eye Joe" and other fun tunes (we were taught the steps to them - they were all line dances), and at the end there was a long bout of square dancing (the simple type, in a double line, like many of us learned in elementary school). What fun!

It's so heartening to see the innocence of youth still being nurtured and honored in rural communities!

Now it's a matter of packing up the truck with all our goodies and heading south of the border…we expect to get to the border by Wednesday and home by Saturday.

A Simple woman's daybook for December 2013

Here is my offering for the linkup to The Simple Woman's Daybook.


Outside my window…is a line of tall redwoods blocking the view to to the mountain on the other side of the river canyon.

I am hearing…the fire crackling in the wood stove and Noah Wotila on the roof, installing 2 solar tubes.

I am thinking…about today's saint, John Damascene, and the comment in the "Saint of the Day" book that "his holiness expressed itself in putting his literary talents at the service of the Lord". I'm wondering about the time I spend blogging - it's not an activity that I am eager to engage in, but if what I say encourages others, it's worth it. Unless this activity is "put at the service of the Lord" there's not really any point in spending time on it, so I pray that God will use this offering for the benefit of His beloved people (i.e. anyone who reads this).

I am thankful…for the surprise breakfast that Julie and the girls brought over this morning. They said that it was too cold in their house (when the Pirate built it, insulation was a luxury we couldn't afford), even with the fire going full blast, so we all had breakfast in the cottage, which IS fully insulated and warms up fast when a fire is started (only wood heat when you live in the forest, don't y'know).

In the kitchen…I have started a pot of beans in the slow cooker: black, red and white beans with a ham hock and sausage, diced tomatoes, onions (of course!) and garlic, cooked in beer and broth. I may throw in some other things at the end.

I am wearing…brown corduroy boot-cut jeans, a long-sleeved knit shirt and a favorite hand-knit mohair sweater from Ireland (brrrrr! It's cold here on the north coast!)

I am creating…an afghan for our outdoor daybed in Todos Santos. The wind is sometimes strong enough, and the weather cool enough in the winter, to warrant a light cover-up when I snuggle in for a nice read.

I am going…to town to put my property tax payment in the mail, and to do a small amount of grocery shopping at my favorite grocery store in the whole world, Mendosa's.

I am learning…how to be more deliberate in offering my (VERY small) sufferings and sacrifices to God. I continually remember quite late into it that even the smallest "suffering" (e.g. stinging eyes) or the least sacrifice (e.g. skipping lunch) can be used by God to strengthen me spiritually [1 Cor.9:27] or to direct additional spiritual strength to someone else who needs it [Col. 1:24]. I got a picture the other day that helps me to "get" what offering my suffering for someone else's benefit accomplishes. Imagine someone buried under a building in an earthquake, where the opening to rescue them is too small. Now imagine the extraordinary effort to the point of exhaustion or suffering that the rescuers would use to increase the size of the opening so the trapped person could escape. That's what offering our sufferings does, but in the spiritual realm rather than the physical.

I am reading…"The Sanctified Body" by Patricia Treece. After having read her "Nothing Short of a Miracle" (PLEASE read it - it's a GREAT faith builder!), I ordered two more of her books which weren't available electronically. Whenever we come up to the States, I order books which I can't get electronically and have them delivered to our cottage in Mendocino. "The Sanctified Body", which I just started, is fascinating. It deals with the various physical expressions that occasionally mark an exceptionally holy person: luminosity, bilocation, incorruptible bodies, etc. Sounds pretty woo-woo, but she's approaching it in a very non-sensationalistic, scholarly way, relying on well-documented instances and (the real point of the book) tying these physical manifestations to God's intent to unify all things in Christ, both physical and spiritual, both visible and invisible.

I am hoping…in and relying on God's great grace to make all things work together for good and to use our pitifully weak offerings to Him to accomplish His astounding purpose for us.

I am looking forward to…my granddaughter Ayla's party for her 16th birthday, which will be on Sunday after her youth group meeting. It will be an "ugly sweater" party so the Pirate and I have to go find a couple of ugly sweaters to wear!

Around the house…we are making headway in burning all the boxes that the many books and other things we ordered arrived in. When we arrived, we couldn't even see the desk for all the boxes piled on top! As usual, it's mostly books that we'll be taking back to Mexico with us, mixed in with a few tools (the Pirate buys tools like I buy cooking spices!)

A favorite quote for today…[spoken by Father Solanus Casey as he was in the hospital dying, in response to the question, 'where do you hurt?'] "My whole body hurts. Thanks be to God. Thanks be to God. I'm offering my sufferings that all might be one. Oh, if I could only live to see the conversion of the whole world!"

And another great quote…"True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." - C.S. Lewis

I am pondering…how to hide the C.S. Lewis quote in my heart and learn to live it.

One of my favorite things…learning what the saints have to teach me. They are such amazing role models!

A few plans for the rest of the week: just hanging out with my family!

A peek into my day…

Pirate Post, Poem vol. 1

The Pirate writes beautiful poetry, and since we were recently up at the family compound where he built the house that one of our sons now lives in, this seemed like an appropriate place to start his weekly contribution to this blog.

The House I Built

In this house I built
A place still standing
Despite its deep inadequacies
I hear the stillness of
10,000 nails, clutching wood
Faithfully holding their assigned angles
Only one or two complaining at midnight.

Redwood boards
Basking in fog and sun
Fog and sun, are hoping
To be released. Straining to return
To the friendly twigs and green
Back to the forest floor.
Once my songs played in this house
They’re embedded in the walls.
This still place where sons rolled on the floor
Where now their own children
Play, and color, cry and sing
Life grinding and growing in this house I built

Today, the growers are elsewhere
On the job or swimming camp, or
The Ladies Social Activities Team
I’m alone with the chickens
To enjoy the unusually thick quiet.

You know it rather than understanding it
You feel it rather than hearing it
Forty something years later,
Sitting in this house I built
Beyond life’s buzzing
I become aboriginal.
These eternal patterns, this stillness
Helps me find my voice again.


NOTE: I don't have a photo of the original house he built, but here's a picture of the view.

5 Favorites, Forest Edition

We're up at our original homestead with the forest part of our family, and there are so many things here that are long-time favorites, it's hard to pick out just five. Plunging right in, here are five things that I'm always blessed to see when we get here:


[1] THE FOREST. Redwoods, everywhere. They may be rare in the rest of the world, but they are the main species around here. Our property is in prime redwood forest, and our son does a wonderful job of managing it and doing selective logging (which is necessary to keep the trees from crowding each other out).


[2] THE OCEAN. When our boys were young, my mom would come visit and take them to the beach. One time when the ocean came into sight she asked them, "what's the name of the ocean?" (thinking this would be a good teaching moment). Our oldest son answered "Joe!" so from then on the Pacific has been known to this family as Joe Ocean.


[3] THE COMMUNITY. One of the nearby volunteer fire departments had a barbecue fundraiser on Father's Day, which is typical of the sort of community gatherings that happen around here. The entire county is rural - forest, vineyards, and other agriculture - and the events that happen regularly around here are low key gatherings that draw people from the many small communities in the region.



[4] OUR CABIN. We built this for my mom when she retired, and she lived here for over 20 years. When she died a couple of years ago, the Pirate and I fixed up the interior and turned it into our "home away from home". It's about 30 feet away from the main house which the Pirate built when we were newly married and which our younger son and his family live in.


[5] OUR OLDEST FRIENDS. Wherever we've lived, we've made a special place for our "first friends" - the stuffed animals and dolls that we had from infancy. They watch over our cabin while we're in Mexico and are comforting presences to come back to when we come to the forest cabin.

For more Favorite Things, visit Hallie et al at Moxie Wife.

Monday Musings: you CAN go home again

We've arrived at the homestead in the forest. We flew up to San Francisco on Friday and drove up Highway 1 (The Coast Highway) on Saturday. We've only driven that route maybe four times in our lives because it takes about twice as long as it does to use the big freeway (Hwy 101). But we wanted to celebrate this visit in a special, slow pace way since it is the first time we've been up to the homestead in probably 20 years that I didn't have to bring any work with me. The view is gorgeous all the way up (about 150 miles). I told the Pirate to pull over at any point that he thought was particularly photo worthy, but we immediately realized that would mean stopping at every pull-out. Here are a few examples:




I am a cherry fanatic - I come by it genetically, and I've passed it along to one of my sons. He and I could easily eat an entire flat of cherries in a single sitting. One of the great treats about this trip is that it's cherry season, and of course we stopped at the first cherry stand we saw.


As long as I was active in my profession our vacations were primarily "working vacations" for me, especially here at the homestead. The Pirate could relax and do whatever took his fancy, but I had to spend much of my time focused on work. This visit is SO different - I can be fully present when family members want to come over to our cabin and chat; I can go to local events without having in the back of my mind all the things that I'd have to get done when I got back to the cabin; I can just loll around and read and knit or crochet.


Yesterday (Father's Day) one of the volunteer fire departments in the area (there are lots of them because there are lots of small communities around here) held its annual Father's Day chicken barbecue.

Our son, who is on the volunteer fire department of our local community, helped grill the chicken.


Our daughter-in-law and granddaughters held down the booth selling non-alcoholic drinks (there was also a booth for beer and wine)

The Pirate and I got to have some good, long conversations with old friends whom we rarely see. That's the Pirate in the black cap and our granddaughter Jordan standing behind him.

What a great gift God has given us to be able to come back to our original home and spend time with old friends as well as family. And in such a beautiful place, too!

Sing a Song

Sing,
Sing a song
Make it simple, to last your whole life long
Don't worry that it's not good enough for anyone else to hear
Sing,
Sing a song.

Our years in the forest were lived with Sesame Street songs in the background. These were the songs from the early years of Sesame Street, and we had ALL the cassette tapes that were produced by CTW. We played them in our home and in the car. We sang them when we weren't playing them. They were a fundamental part of our lives.

The Pirate and I are flying up to the States tomorrow, to spend three weeks with the forest branch of our family. One of our granddaughters won't be there because she's on a mission trip to Africa with Teen Missions. But we'll get to hang out with the rest of the forest family, including miscellaneous goats, chickens, rabbits, dogs, cats and birds (I don't think I've forgotten anyone).


This is the first time I've had a chance to just BE there without having to spend a good portion of my time working at my profession. Now that I'm fully retired, I can do the things that have always been most satisfying to me, the things I learned as a young wife when we lived in the forest. Knitting, crocheting, cooking, sewing, as well as hiking around in the forest and seeing dear long-time friends. For the first time in a LONG time I have nothing that I must do there and I can simply settle in and do what comes naturally in that place that will always be our family home.

Five Favorites - held in my heart

We went to the nearest city today (it's an hour away) and then went to evening mass and the Pirate's worship team practice, so I didn't have time to write anything earlier. However, I got inspired as I looked through my photos and want to share some of my most deeply held favorites with you.

[1] These guys. The males in my family - one husband, two sons, one grandson. There's definitely a family resemblance, don't you think? Thanks, Jordan, for the great collage!


[2] These angels. They stand on either side of the tabernacle behind the altar at our church. That's how I want to be before Jesus - barefoot and kneeling! Well, actually prostrate, but just being able to look at these kneeling angels stirs up a sense of awe in me.


[3] This man. I chose this image of him because he looks so very ordinary. I know he thought of himself as pretty ordinary, but consider how many millions of people he continues to influence to seek a deep and true devotion to Christ. I am one of those - I was set on the path to Christianity by reading The Great Divorce which my ignorant and unconverted heart knew described Truth. Thank you, C.S. Lewis!


[4] This window. This is behind the altar of our church, so it's the main thing we see. Our church is Nuestra Senora del Pilar - Our Lady of the Pillar - and that's her in the niche of the window. Soon after I entered the Catholic Church I read that the pillar on which she stands is a reminder of her solid and unshakeable faith. What an encouragement and comfort to have that image and its meaning present before us as we worship God!


[5] This place. This is one of many views from the homestead in the forest where this family started. It's now home to one of our sons, but we have a little cottage there as well, which is our home base when we go to the States. This place has been our anchor and foundation of our lives for 45 years. Those are redwood trees, by the way - our property is located in prime redwood forest.


For more favorites, scoot on over to Moxie Wife, and Dios te bendiga (God bless you)!