it takes all kinds

Debra was leaving town and had too many peaches; they were all ripe and did I want some? Yes!

After reminding my brother for the second time that we had some local peaches, and feeling guilty that I was eating them all, he said, "I suppose I could eat one as a penance." !! 

How strange - I tend to think of peaches as something which must be on Heaven's menu.

No more guilt.

a little warning

I went to make ice cream the other day and poured a cup of milk into the blender, whereupon I saw a moth floating. Fortunately, I had more milk. Don't let this happen to you!

our apprenticeship

"When we hold a newspaper upside down, we see the strange forms of the printed characters. When we turn it upright again, we do not see the characters. We see the words. A passenger in a boat seized by the tempest only knows the complex combination of wind, current, and swell with the position of the boat, its form, its sails, and its rudder.

In the same way that we learn to read or learn a trade, we must learn to sense in everything, above all and almost only, the obedience of the universe to God. This is truly an apprenticeship. Like an apprenticeship, it demands time and effort. For those who have completed their term, there is no more difference between things, between events, than the difference felt by someone who knows how to read the same phrases reproduced several times, written in red ink, in blue ink. or printed with this, that or other characters. Those who don't know how to read only see the differences. For those who know how to read, it is all equivalent since the phrase is the same. For the one who achieves apprenticeship, things and events, everywhere and always, are the vibrations of the same, infinitely fresh (sweet) divine word."

                                                            -  Simone Weil,  from Magnificat, July 2018

Mr. Kibble: the current situation

One morning a year ago, we were getting ready for work, when I saw a cat on a lower back step, stretched out and resting. It was Mr. Kibble - we had not seen him for eight or nine months, which was nothing unusual. He meowed, which was.

My brother had been feeding the cats anyway (it's his job in the mornings), so he got some food ready and stepped outside with it. That's when we noticed Mr. K's condition. His coat looked dusty and dull and he had a desperate air about him; and, more alarming, his movements were very awkward.

This photo was taken that day - his paws are far apart because his balance was so off, and he looked up at us with a weird angle to his neck.

Every time we went out to refresh his food he would hastily and awkwardly back down the stairs and it was plain he had some sort of neurological issue. He'd always seemed to have a peaceful dignity to me, and now it was gone. I was afraid he had a degenerative disease or a parasite.

My brother left the house before I did, so I watched Mr. Kibble to see where he would go. He ambled through the back yard toward the bridge and underneath it, but fell over on his left side two or three times along the way. He had no trouble getting up again, however.

The next day I spoke to Diane, who was as alarmed as we were over his condition. It turns out she was more familiar with him than we - she said he'd been coming around for ten years or so, and didn't make trouble with her cats, but she had never been able to get near him. We determined to keep our eyes on him.

We watched for his appearance every day at mid-morning and in the evenings in case he showed up.  My brother moved the cat shelter near the house and cut another entrance to it near the railing, so he could easily get inside from the step; we had all sorts of plans to try and get him used to going inside, so when winter came, he'd be safe and nearby. But after three weeks he stopped coming, and we had no idea what happened. The logical thing would have been to call Diane, but since we're not actually chummy, I never did.

Meanwhile, Cyndi came over with her new Ragdoll kitten. She lives a mile away, and it seems she has a neighbor who feeds and shelters stray cats. It turns out that Mr. Kibble had been that way just a couple of months before! I had no idea cats roamed so far. So the time went by, with us often looking out the windows for him, but afraid something terrible had happened.

Then one day in late October I was making dinner - it was a beautiful day and in between cooking I stepped to the back; I noticed a black and white cat laying right underneath the screen door and when he looked up at me - it was Mr. Kibble! He was much improved - his coat was shiny and his movements were at least eighty percent better, I'd say. I saw him again a week later, and that was it, until we found out that Diane and her husband had managed to trap him and get him into her house before the cold weather came.

We figured he must have had a stroke, because cats can often recover from that, whereas if he had a disease it isn't likely he would have gotten better. I missed seeing him around, but he was safe in a house, and Diane told me she wasn't going to let out him at all, unless she could be sure he wouldn't go back to his old wandering ways.

To be continued.

Mr. Kibble this spring

faith

"The servant of God, then, must believe without the slightest doubt that the invisible God is near him, yes, within him. He should stand before his eyes like a chaste spouse, with holy fear, with reverence and humility, saying with Elijah the prophet: The Lord lives, in whose sight I stand. Often also should he repeat such words as these within himself: The Lord is here; the Lord sees me. When he has been much distracted, he may easily bring himself back to the remembrance of God's presence by these or suchlike words."

                                                      - Dom Blosius the Venerable, from Magnificat, July 2018

kitchen garden

My brother is so organized in his gardening, and it's such a pleasant thing to look at. When we come out of the back door, we see the beans trained up the railing and then climbing some string tied to the awning.

From the driveway:

The other plants look wildly messy, don't they? But it's just the angle - it's really quite neat.

just housework

I made new curtains for my brother's room today - his old ones were torn.

I used a sheet from the thrift store.

I guess I was preoccupied last week - we had a cookout for all the cousins on my mother's side of the family. There were sixteen adults and two little ones. It was very hot and humid, but we sat under trees and nobody minded. They did all enjoy it, but we hadn't entertained so many before, and there's a lot to think about, isn't there? I'm not sure what I could have done better; I'll have to think about it.
Dolly escaped out the back door twice, so we harnessed her up and she was a hit with little two year old Ollie, so patient with his pettings. She impressed everyone.

She peed on the new rug. (Sorry to mention such a thing, but I like to share.)

I brought it outside to spot wash. It's cotton, and not heavy, but it's inside now and still smells. The area is on an edge, thank God, so perhaps I can drag it to the tub sometime and soak that section. She ran outside this morning when I opened the front door for a delivery; ran to the neighbor's and actually started to climb his tree! I wanted to say, Dolly, do you know how old you are? She didn't go up, though, and I was able to grab her. Her fur was all fluffed up with the excitement. Mr. Kibble is outside at this moment, and I've never seen him abroad after dark before - we do worry about him, but how much can you do with a cat who won't let you touch him? Except give him food and water. I'll have to get back to that story.

like dew and heat

"Thus says the Lord to me:

 I will quietly look on from where I dwell,

 like the glowing heat of sunshine,

 like a cloud of dew at harvest time."

- from Isaiah, chapter 18

"the shaping of everyday life"

"She loved beauty and she was creative, but her creativeness found its joy in the shaping of everyday life to a form of comeliness, so that it became not just something that one put up with, but something that was enjoyable and lovely in itself."

                                                   - from The Heart of the Family

the present toil

"For what is the welcome of the host if behind it there is not the labour of the women? Through the years the three women had lit the fires and spread the sheets, scrubbed the floors and washed the dishes, polished the furniture and baked the bread, tended the children and nursed the sick, comforted the sorrowful and prayed for them. Caroline could never understand how women could dislike looking after a house, especially an old house like this one. Did they never pause sometimes and sit quietly as she was sitting now, and remember the other women and feel their present toil a part of that past toil? A sort of freshness came when one did that, as though the work were a clean wind or a running river that lived forever to cleanse impurities away."

                                                                  -  Elizabeth Goudge, The Heart of the Family

Dolly likes the new rug

Well, why wouldn't she?

It shows her off so well.

for Independence Day

Father of all nations and ages,

we recall the day when our country

claimed its place among the family of nations;

for what has been achieved we give you thanks,

for the work that still remains we ask your help,

and as you have called us from many peoples to be one nation,

grant that, under your providence,

our country may share your blessings

with all the peoples of the earth.

- collect from today's Mass for Independence Day

"a little farther through the dark"

"This sense of futility... it's nothing - merely the reverse side of aspiration - and inevitable, just as failure is inevitable. Disregard them both. What can we expect when we aspire as we do, yet remain what we are? Struggle is divine in itself, but to ask to see it crowned with success is to ask for that sign which is forbidden to those who must travel by faith alone. Each fresh leap of the flame from the charred wood lights your footsteps a little farther through the dark."

                                                        - again, from The Herb of Grace

The lover of life holds life in his hand,

Like a ring for the bride,

The lover of life is free of dread;

The lover of life holds life in his hand,

As the hills hold the day.

But lust after life waves life like a brand,

For an ensign of pride.

The lust after life is life half-dead:

Yea, lust after life holds life like a brand,

Dreading air and the ray.

For the sake of life,

For that life is dear,

The lust after life

Clings to it fast.

For the sake of life,

For that life is fair,

The lover of life

Flings its broadcast.

The lover of life knows his labour divine,

And therein is at peace.

The lust after life craves a touch and a sign

That the life shall increase.

The lust after life in the chills of its lust

Claims a passport of death.

The lover of life sees the flame in our dust 

And a gift in our breath.

- George Meredith

like vintage port

"To get nicer and nicer you must love the sun and give good juice when you're bruised."

                                                             - from The Herb of Grace

the spirit of a house

"Both houses gave one the feeling of having been built from inside as well as from outside, as though the men and women who had made them...had put them forth bit by bit from their own souls and bodies ... And the strength of their blood and bones still lived on in the wood and stone of each house, plain for all to see, and something of their spirits lived on in the spirit of the house; and the spirit of the house, though so ancient, was not yet full-grown; it waited on those who would come for the perfect flowering."



   " Is that a holy image?  asked Jerry, gazing round-eyed at the deer.
    Yes, said Ben.
    What's a holy image? asked Jose, also round-eyed.
    Something someone makes for the love of God, said Ben steadily.
    Then a house could be a holy image, said Jerry.
    Yes, said Ben."

                                        - both quotes from The Herb of Grace

home

"...it was home-making that mattered. Every home was a brick in the great wall of decent living that men erected over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil. But women made the bricks, and the durableness of each civilization depended upon their quality; and it was no good weakening oneself by thinking too much about the flood."

                                                    -  Elizabeth Goudge,  The Herb of Grace

"Why I Wake Early", by Mary Oliver

"Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety -

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light -
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness."