Here's a project I began a few years ago, but when something has a place in this house, it can easily be forgotten. But then I remembered it, and would like to finish it.
I'm just "quilting" these two fabrics together by hand, with different flosses as my whim dictates. Half is done, and I'm going the other way.
"Our peace doesn't come from the world, from exterior circumstances... It is the fruit of prayer...The only time we have good discernment is when we are at peace. When we're preoccupied by worry, disturbed by events in our lives, our emotions can get the best of us and we don't have an objective grasp on reality - we are tempted to see everything in black and white and question everything in our life.
When a problem has robbed us of our peace, the most important thing is not to resolve the problem in the hope of regaining our peace, but to regain a minimum of peacefulness, and then to see what we can do to face the problem. We will avoid making irrational choices for all the wrong reasons. How do we get back this minimum level of peace? Essentially through prayer, listening to the Word, and believing that God will never abandon us."
- Father Jacques Philippe, from Magnificat, July 2026
We've had such beautiful weather this week - so welcome, after the Previous Awful. And the nights are in the fifties lately! Very unusual for July. In this morning's prayers: from Psalm 65 - "the hills are girded with joy". I underlined it. This sort of poetic description just takes you away, doesn't it?
I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov - wish me luck. I expect it'll take me at least a month.
I sat on the front step this evening before sunset and saw two young rabbits frolicking across the street. After a while, they ran back across the road to our back area, I think. But then I noticed two more still across the street, so life continues.
I bought a dress - new - and it came with a scent that I didn't want. It smelled like a fake fragrance you get from some detergents - not appealing. Why? A new dress! Anyway, I knew what to do. I hung it on the clothesline. This was last Saturday. Then we had heavy rain on and off. I left it out. A new dress. It wasn't on sale, by the way, but what are you going to do? I had washed it, but it has only happened once that a smell came out in the wash - not usually. Anyway, I was determined to give the fresh air a chance.
I turned it over every day - I was concerned about fading, but the coloring has a faded effect anyway, so I hoped it wouldn't be anything obviously awful. On Thursday I sniffed it, and - it was ninety nine percent gone, and that was good enough for me.
"O God, in your love, you have sown the Good News of the Gospel in the wilderness of the world and brought it to flower and fruit through the death and Resurrection of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Grant us the wisdom to recognize your love at work in hiddenness, the faith to trust in your love at work in weakness, the hope to live by your love at work in darkness, that all the world may grow to the fullness of life you offer in the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen"
It was ninety-eight degrees on Tuesday; yesterday was supposed to be slightly cooler, with possible storms in the evening. I went to work and noticed it was looking like something was brewing outside - it was yellowish out there, but the weather report said nothing. It was the patrons who told me it was from the Canadian fires. I tell you, it was so bad, my eyes were stinging all day and everything outside looked unnatural, like another planet.
Today, I woke up with a headache that nothing would touch. I went out briefly in the morning and it got a little worse. It only started to improve when I put on the a/c. There was still haze today and will be tomorrow, but at least it doesn't look weird. It's been a strange summer, with high heat and this....
But I think I'm caught up on my sleep! - I took about four naps, and did only the minimum of housework.
I wonder how the creatures felt - do their eyes burn? But I will say this - in the height of summer, on the hottest days of July, you can't step outside without hearing a mockingbird singing somewhere, nearby or in the distance, but if you know their sound, you will hear them.
I've been reading an article in Plough, an interview with Ken Burns, the filmmaker and historian.
"This word 'liberty' had an incredible effect. Why would anybody want to give up the benefits of being a subject of the British constitutional monarchy? Most of everyone's wealth, education, prosperity, and literacy came from that colonial relationship. Why would you give up those benefits for freedom and democracy, ideas never tried before in human history? At the heart of the American experiment is possibility. At the heart is risk. At the heart of it is this willingness to be this new thing, a citizen.
It's not hard to be a subject. You're under authoritarian rule and you just put up with stuff. But to be a citizen is to assume responsibility, to assume the pursuit of happiness, which the Founders understood not as the acquisition of things, but the pursuit of lifelong learning. Lifelong learning made you more virtuous, and the more virtuous you were, the more possibility that you could begin to bear the responsibility of citizenship and to be able, if not to answer, then to ask more authentically those essential questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? What is my purpose? Where am I going?
I am interested in these gigantic conflicts like the Revolution that produce something as spectacularly interesting as this idea that people, for the first time in human history, could govern themselves. It wasn't just the aristocracy that pushed this forward, but ordinary people who debated over the ratification of the Constitution and the subsequent Bill of Rights. It is one of the most active moments in the history of humanity of people coming together in a civic way to create something. But did they agree? No, not at all.
In the compromises of the Constitution, there was the perpetuation of slavery, even though it had just been proclaimed eleven years earlier that 'all men are created equal'. And yet saying these things began to open the door to permit even the people who knew it wasn't about them to see path forward. Women, Native peoples, free and enslaved black people, and the poor understood that this was the opening salvo in battles that they could fight to make the words truer and less hypocritical. So, for me, in American history, the best sometimes comes out of the worst and sometimes the worst comes out of the best."
- Ken Burns
I didn't mean to quote so much of it. But it's a week since the 250th July 4th, and it seems weird that it's not more of a big deal; I really appreciate his vision of this country.
She fits in it perfectly.
She hides underneath it, so no one can see her!
The pie came out well, I decorated the table with lots of red, white and blue, I made strawberry coconut milk ice cream and we stayed in with the air conditioning. Of course! One has to make the most of things. I wore my latest dress creation - the coolest thing I own.
I was hoping I'd hear some bells ringing if I stuck my head out, but I suppose city dwellers would be more likely - nobody near me was ringing any bells. I would have rung some, if we had any. I even had the idea to dig around for some little Christmas bell decorations, but I stored my ornaments differently this year and have no idea where they are! I would have rung anything if I could have just found it!
We were talking a bit about the founders: what made them persist, what gave them their momentum to shake off the British and start their own government. It's easy to give up, especially when the average person complains in the pub, but that's about all. I did read a book about Samuel Adams where the author gave him credit for never letting go of the idea to throw off British rule; he was constantly talking about it, planting the idea in people's minds. I need to find more books about that.
And after a week of extreme heat, it was barely seventy today, and raining. Cold air was actually blowing in! I'm happy for the creatures - I couldn't tell if anybody was drinking from the little trays I set out with water. The rabbit above was out in the rain for a while today, and didn't mind the wet at all. Maybe the leaves he ate were jucier.
I was busily peeling and cutting apples when I noticed that a couple of them had a Liberty Bell-shaped sticker.
The heat's intense and the air conditioner is humming, which makes me feel in another world. I'm sure the cats also feel that way, very different from the winters, when we're also shut in, but without the humming.
There is a birdbath on one side of the house, near a tree. Last night I found a couple of tins and filled them with water for the outside neighbors, with a rock in one of them, for the other side of the property - the brook is dry.
I intend to bake an apple pie, so I should get going. The phrase, "As American as apple pie" came to me, so I thought it a good idea when I was planning the menu for tomorrow, but with so much electricity being used in southern New England, to use the oven at a high temperature for almost an hour seems silly.
I'm going to do it, anyway.
