the Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord.

And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.

Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid;

for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.

Because he that is mighty,

hath done great things to me;

and holy is his name.

And his mercy is from generation unto generations,

to them that fear him.

He hath shewed might in his arm:

he hath scattered the proud in the conceit of their heart.

He hath put down the mighty from their seat,

and hath exalted the humble.

He hath filled the hungry with good things;

and the rich he hath sent empty away.

He hath received Israel his servant,

being mindful of his mercy:

As he spoke to our fathers,

to Abraham and to his seed for ever.

                                                        Luke 1:46-55

the visitation of Mary to Elizabeth

(observed today)

flashing

trying to stay cool, I guess

I think she's learning some new habits from Henry.

remembering the fallen

Remember, Lord, the fallen
Who died in fields of war,
In flaming clouds, in screaming crowds,
On streets that are no more,
That we today might waken
And greet this day in peace
With grateful prayers for those who bear
The storms that never cease.

Remember friends and strangers,
And those forgotten now,
Whose names are known to you alone,
Before whose love we bow
And ask that you surround them
With mercy's endless light
That they might live, and we forgive
The foe they went to fight.

Remember, Lord, the living,
Who bear the pain of loss -
A death she died who stood beside
Her Son upon the cross.
Remember all your children,
The dead and those who weep,
And make us one beneath the sun
Where love will never sleep.

  a hymn found in Magnificat,   May 2012

"the mystery of Pentecost"

"Today, O Lord, through the mystery of Pentecost, You sanctify Your church in every place and nation. Pour out the gifts of the Spirit upon the whole world, and bring to completion in the hearts of Your faithful the work of love which You began with Your first proclamation of the kingdom"

a very hot May day

a day for hot kitties in the window,

and breezy summer curtains in the living room.

a lump in the bed

Dolly, whose eyes grow big at the sight of bedclothes or laundry - ah, what bliss to be able to disappear for a while!

all my thread in one basket

Found a better way to organize my sewing supplies by getting rid of an overlarge and surprisingly unnecessary sewing box, and making use of some little drawers under my sewing table.  I am surprised (and relieved) to find that all my thread fits in one drawer.

Much neater-looking.

sweetness on the air

My red grandiflora started blooming last week, and the rugosa is blooming now too. But it's that invasive wild rose that's perfuming the air.

It's in the forsythia hedge - it's everywhere.  My brother redid the clothesline which was messed up from the October storm, but I can't wheel anything very far along the line because there's a big prickly bush of it right there. And I'm not cutting it till the blooms are done.


On another note, I was ironing in the living room late this morning, my brother out mowing across the brook.
I heard the motor cut off. A minute or so later, his voice,  "Hurry - come 'ere!"  You know, that urgent but trying to be quiet sound. "There's a deer in our yard!"  I looked out and there she was, big as life and five times as beautiful. I ran to get my camera and ran back in time to see her go into our neighbor's yard and disappear back up to where she came. No picture. What a sight! They're around town, but not in our yard!  Ah, well.


My chive picture will have to do.

a stack of towels

Debra is happy with her present, so now I want to show what I made her, because this is a great and useful way to use up excess cotton fabric.

Anna came up with this a few months ago - double-sided kitchen cloths the size of a dish towel, more or less.  Instead of dish towels!

I made myself some small ones for the bathroom, and use them every day. But I've got plenty of dish towels, so had no reason to make any of those. Until Debra's birthday loomed, and I thought she might like some of these. And she did!

I stuck with a blueish theme.

Right sides together, stitched with a space open to turn inside out and then topstitched all around. 

One thing I did do extra was put a row or two of  "quilting" in the middle on each of these. I wondered if the two layers might shift while drying dishes and thought this would keep things together better.

You can see I had some fun with this.

Seven in all.

I've heard of some who make their own single layer towels, but I like this double thickness idea. If you get your cotton on sale, it could be much cheaper than the real thing, which is often expensive.

They're pretty, Deb's happy, and I've used some of my fabric.  Now I'm starting work on a quilt.

joining Leila  this week

bunch of blues

There were several shades of blue involved in a birthday gift I've been working on, and after shrinking the fabric today I ended up with such a pretty ball of threads -

 

(Now that I think of it, should I have thrown it into the compost bin? According to Katherine Whiteside in The Way We Garden Now, she says you can throw in anything biodegradable that doesn't have meat in it. In her list, wool is a possible ingredient. She says, "your entire old ragged gardening sweater will compost". Well, cotton is biodegradable! But what about the dyes? Still, wool gardening sweaters come in all colors. Hmm.)

Anyway, the finished product is all wrapped in a nice length of bias binding, waiting for my friend.

prayer

"We are not meant to consider prayer as a magic button to touch whenever we want anything. Nor are we to ever stop praying, as if we were lacking trust in God, just because we think He may not give exactly what we ask. We are to come with total faith and total trust, believing that He exists, and that He does 'reward them that diligently seek Him.' We must believe that something specific takes place in history as His answer, something as a result of our asking, because He says this is so. Faith is believing even when we don't recognize or 'see' the answer."

                                          Edith Schaeffer,   The Tapestry

sunshine again

after a few rainy days.

beautiful greens

organic from the farmers' market. They gave too much to my friend Debra, so she shared.

like pink snow

The cherry blossoms finally hit the ground

sweet kitty

pea soup, compost and a breakfast companion

Joining Leila today for {p,h,f,r} -

and I'm very happy because my kitchen scraps will no longer go to waste

we're composting!

Dolly is pretty funny - when anyone's eating, she also wants to be companionable, and have a bite of something, too.  What isn't funny, is that somebody threw up afterward, and I think it was her!

Although it's May, it's been really chilly, and so today is definitely a pea soup day.

Thanks to Leila.

high hopes

and...

of course.

"an inner structure that brings ...delight"

"Time. How crucially time is linked to the mysticism of everyday life. For only when time is understood as precious, but not scarce, do we begin to live. Only when time is broken into discrete segments, and not allowed to become a blur of memories and projections - what I didn't spend enough time doing, what I won't have enough time to accomplish - can we hope to open ourselves to the opportunity of seeing God in the world. How distorted we have allowed time to become, fearing continually that it is running out. But when time is framed it provides an inner structure that brings intensity, awareness, calmness, delight. These wise monks have learned that when time is so regarded, when they live in the now, they transcend the constraints that time normally imposes upon us.

In essence, they experience eternity. For what more is eternity than the everpresent now?"

                             
                                             - Paul Wilkes,  Beyond the Walls