No time for words today. We're happy to share images from our summer days with
Eric Carle.
Remember when we celebrated the Feast of Eric Carle?
For more about our Storybook Year, please visit here.
Patrick made this collage. He returned to soccer yesterday, 15 weeks after tearing his MCL. It was so good to see him play. We are making some very concrete changes as the season shifts. He's had a lot of time on his hands as he recovered. Now, he will have school and work and the formidable challenge of getting back to elite athlete fitness levels. The times they are a-changing. Frankly, we all need more structure, so it's good.
I find myself:
::noticing God's glory
My garden is finished. It was a less than stellar garden year. I'm looking for guidance for what to plant now. Maybe I can have a rocking fall garden?
::listening to
quiet. Everyone is still asleep.
::clothing myself in
curly hair. On Saturday, I got my haircut. I went to my usual lady and when she asked me what I wanted I said, "I don't care. Do whatever you want. I'm sure no matter what you do, I'll look better than I feel right now." (It was the last day of pretty much the worst week since the turn of the century.) So, she proceeded to cut my hair and do some sort of magic that made it stick straight. When I saw my children after the haircut, Karoline cried (curls are very much a Kari-Mommy thing). Sarah said, "Your hair is weird; it's so straight." Stephen said, "It's not that bad." And Katie, bless her heart, said, "I'm not going to lie. It's awful." Happily, I sat in the rain and watched soccer for four hours on Sunday and now it's back to its curly chaotic mess.
::thinking and thinking
that some things are better left unsaid.
::pondering prayerfully
Like Jesus, we belong to the world living not for ourselves but for others. The joy of the Lord is our strength. ~Blessed Mother Teresa
| ::carefully cultivating rhythm |
It's soccer camp week. I will be living in my car. I like my car, so that's ok.
::creating by hand
I hope to sew tomorrow morning and Wednesday. I'd like to get back into a rhythm.
::learning lessons in
I don't know. I'm certain there are lessons to be learned here in the midst of my mess, but right now, I'm too tired to make sense of them. Last week was a hurricane. The list of big, difficult things is impressive. I kept thinking of Padre Pio's advice to "Pray, hope, and don't worry." And I did. But I didn't sleep. Now, I'm sick. So, the takeaway is to pray, hope, don't worry, and get some sleep. It's a new week. New strategy? I think so.
::encouraging learning
We are going to attempt a full school schedule in the mornings and then soccer in the afternoons.
::begging prayers
for all the people who have joined our weekend prayer community. I carried your requests with me to Mass and I will keep a candle lit for you throughout the week.
for a dozen personal intentions--each of them precious and urgent.
::keeping house
the laundry is all caught up. So there's that.
::towards being unplugged
I experimented last week with keeping my phone off and away except when I pick it up to use it as a phone. I think the experiment was a bit of a failure. I missed an email Saturday evening that significantly affected our Sunday morning plans. I read it around 11:00 Saturday night, five hours after it was sent, not the ideal time to be making new plans. I missed several texts on Saturday and Sunday and I'm sure people wondered if I was being rude. And I missed an important phone call from my sister-in-law early Friday morning. I'm sure there's more. Anyway, unless the rest of the world is going to operate in "unplugged mode" I'm not sure it is going to work for me to operate that way.
::crafting in the kitchen
I have about six hours to figure out five meals that can happen here at home this week while I'm not here to cook them or serve them. Suggestions welcomed.
::loving the moments
a shining bright spot in an otherwise difficult week was the benefit dinner I attended with Mike on Saturday night. We met Ginny and Jonny there and we all sat with my friend Molly and her husband. It was an amazing evening and I'll share more of that with you later. But as I sat there, I couldn't help but be grateful for the internet. Those two ladies at my table are dear and precious friends. Real friends. We have history. We've shared hearts. It was so incredibly good to see Molly and get to hug her and to get to soak up actually being with Ginny all evening and just let it all be real. These are two women who are go-to girls for me when things get rocky around here. They are close friends who don't live close by. I was so grateful to bridge the physical distance.
::giving thanks
for hope.
::living the liturgy
I cannot receive the Eucharist without requesting a nearly gluten free host. At my little mission church, this is no big deal. I tell Father beforehand and either I or him or my sons who are altar servers take the special host and put it where it won't be forgotten. Then, I wait until everyone else has gone to communion and put myself at the end of the line. Two Sundays ago, I introduced myself to a new priest and we put the wheels in motion. When it was my turn to receive, the priest looked back to the altar and then, with tears in his eyes, looked to me and said, "The altar boys must have taken it away. I don't have communion for you."
Wednesday was a feast day. We went to a church nearby because there was no Mass at the mission. No low-gluten option there. Then, yesterday, I went up to the mission and we had a visiting priest. He was in prayer when I arrived. There is a formidable language barrier, also. I didn't even try to explain. No communion. And I am missing it. There is no daily Mass at the mission this week either. The Saturday vigil seems a long way off. I am so eager to welcome my priest home from vacation. So eager.
::planning for the week ahead
Sleep would be good.
The internet is a formidable force for bringing the comfort and consolation and hope of the Lord to all of us. It can be an incredibily powerful medium for community. There is an unfathomable resource for prayer here. We have on the 'net the privilege of praying for people and of being witness to the miracles brought forth when fervent, faith-filled people pray for one another.
Let's be that community of hope and faith for one another.
How about this idea? What if I pop in here every weekend, share Sunday's gospel and talk a wee bit about how we can live it and pray it in our homes? And then you tell me how we can pray for you that week? Deal?
{And please, do return and let us know how prayer is bearing fruit.}
The Jews quarreled among themselves, saying,
"How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"
Jesus said to them,
"Amen, amen, I say to you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
you do not have life within you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
has eternal life,
and I will raise him on the last day.
For my flesh is true food,
and my blood is true drink.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
remains in me and I in him.
Just as the living Father sent me
and I have life because of the Father,
so also the one who feeds on me
will have life because of me.
This is the bread that came down from heaven.
Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died,
whoever eats this bread will live forever."
Think
"Do not lose such an excellent time for talking with [Jesus] as the hour after Communion. Remember that this is a very profitable hour for the soul; if you spend it in the company of the goo Jesus, you are doing him a great service..." ~St. Teresa of Avila
Pray
Bring me closer to you through the Eucharist, Lord.
Act
At Mass today offer your Communion for those who don't know Christ in the Eucharist. Or pray this spiritual communion at home: "My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the Most Holy Sacrament. I love you above all things, and I desire to receive you into my soul. Since I cannot at this moment receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace you as if you were already there and unite myself wholly to you. Never permit me to be separated from you. Amen."
--from the August 19 entry of Small Steps for Catholic Moms
Good morning! It's me again. My guest post-er had a little war with her sewing machine. So, here I am. I haven't sewn much at all this week. I ran out of pattern tracing paper and had to sit and wait and wait and wait for it to arrive. It came yesterday! So I was all set to make some flannel shirts for the fall, beginning with one for Karoline, who has followed me around carrying the Oliver + S Class Picnic Blouse pattern for days and days.
I read 7: And Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker again this week. I'm also reading several of the social justice encyclicals. When I read the book the first time, I was struck again and again by how much it resonated with the truth of Catholic teaching on social issues. So, now, I'm bouncing back and forth between the two. Because I am weird like that when something speaks to me.
My sewing plans changed yesterday evening. Mike's dad was admitted to the hospital. I've had this fabric set aside for him since he admired it last fall and challenged me to make a quilt of "nothing but strips." So, today's sewing and praying will be the "Between the Lines" quilt of a Butterscotch and Roses jelly roll. I beg your prayers, too, please?
I'm reading Project-Based Homeschooling now, too. It's written by Lori Pickert of Camp Creek blog. Lori is easily one of my favorite people on the web. Year after year, she is bright, fresh inspiration for meaningful, intentional childhood, whether one homeschools or not. I can't recommend her stuff enough:-).
What about you? Sewing? Reading? A little of both? Or are you embroidering? Pulling a needle with thread through lovely fabric to make life more beautiful somehow? Would you share with us just a single photo (or more) and a brief description of what you're up to? Will you tell us about what you're reading, also? Would you talk sewing and books with us? I'd love that so much.
There is a phenonomenon happening in the housewares/linens department of every Target in the country. Just watch. There are middle-aged moms and late-teenaged kids in every aisle. The moms are fighting tears and trying to be overly cheerful. Some of the kids are, too. Or, perhaps, neither party is speaking to the other and they both are determinedly shopping with pursed lips. Target is a painful place this time of year. My children will attest to my all-out sobbing in the aisle with the graphing calculators a couple years ago.
I bumped into my friend Khristie in the linens department last spring right after acceptance letters were received. We got a headstart on the sobfest and stood there for nearly an hour crying talking. It's weird what linens can do to moms letting go. I think it's partly because we've so intentionally worked to create for them a nurturing home. (Um, I just made myself cry reading that link.)
We want so much to tuck ourselves into that trunk--to be sure they'll eat right, change their sheets, do their laundry, study, stay out of trouble. Oh, please, please stay out of trouble! Instead, we send them off without us and we stay home and pray in a way that we've never prayed before.
The kind folks at Catholic Embroidery are offering a little something you can tuck into that trunk as a reminder of your prayers--and a reminder for the college-bound to say theirs.
It's two Standard (32" by 22") or Queen (38'" by 22") white 100% Egyptian cotton pillowcase boasting a 3" hem that are embroidered with a Mini Celtic Cross design along with an excerpt from St. Patrick's Breastplate: "Christ Before Me ~ Christ Behind Me".
Sweet reminder. Sweet dreams.
I'm Elizabeth. I'm a happy wife and the mother of nine children. I grab grace with both hands and write to encourage myself and others to seize and nurture the joy of every day. I blog here with my daughter, Mary Beth, a wholehearted young lady on the brink of adulthood.
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