Happy New Year!

As this year draws to its end,
We give thanks for the gifts it brought
And how they became inlaid within
Where neither time nor tide can touch them.

The days when the veil lifted
And the soul could see delight;
When a quiver caressed the heart
In the sheer exuberance of being here.

Surprise that came awake
In forgotten corners of old fields
Where expectation seemed to have quenched.

The slow, brooding times
When all was awkward
And the wave in the mind
Pierced every sore with salt.

The darkened days that stopped
The confidence of the dawn.

Days when beloved faces shone brighter
With light from beyond themselves;
And from the granite of some secret sorrow
A stream of buried tears loosened.

We bless this year for all we learned,
For all we loved and lost
And for the quiet way it brought us
Nearer to our invisible destination.

John O'Donohue. To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings. NY: Doubleday, 2008. 159-160.

"Why, God? Why did you invent dogs??!!"

We're keeping the "lost" and found puppy. I took her to the vet today. She weighed 7 pounds and is about 7 weeks old. Poor thing was left in our backyard at only six weeks! We've named her Maisie.

This is our fifth dog that our vet is taking care of. He's been our vet for almost 31 years, as we got our first dog (Bagel, a cocker spaniel) a few months before our first child (DC) was born.

I am sure our cat is wondering WHY we have a THIRD dog!

Puppy Pictures!

The lost puppy who was found on Dec. 26 in our backyard is still with us. Tomorrow our postman will tell us whether his family wants her. The other two families decided against taking a new puppy. So we'll know tomorrow whether we have our third dog!

13 year old Baillie with the puppy

5 year old Cisco with the puppy

DC and AA's Sampson playing with the puppy; Sampson is the only one of the dogs in our family who plays with the puppy. However, Sampson lives in Austin.

MJ trying to read with the puppy. You can see how much this puppy wants to chew!

Christmas Pictures 2009

Christmas Eve
MJ and Sampson, DC and AA's dog

AA and Sampson

Sons BJ and DC

Although AE and KA stayed in Seattle for Christmas this year, we had fun with our other children and their dogs coming home. Troy, the energetic Brittany Spaniel, is not in pictures this year, but he ran and barked outside all the time. Sampson, friendly and hunkering bull dog, scared our cat so much that she stayed in her bed in the bathroom the entire time:

Gracie

12 Inner Intentions for 12 Days of Christmas

My friend NKE sent a link to Lynn Jericho's blog about the Twelve Days of Christmas, which she says is an opportunity to delve more deeply into ourselves. She calls this blog of thoughts and guided meditations, with questions to ponder or journal about: Inner Christmas 2009: The Twelve Inner Intentions.

You may sign up for reminders for these twelve messages. Also, you may look at the blog and go back to the other days.

I have not had the time to devote to this yet, because I am preoccupied with our "lost" puppy. Having a puppy is like having a baby to take care of. Still, I hope to sit with one or more of the days of meditations and ponder them in my heart--or in the future.


This is what Lynn says about making an "Inner Christmas Journal":

"Select and copy the text of the message to your text program. Make any changes to the font for your reading comfort. Create an Inner Christmas 2009 folder on your desktop.

"You can then use the message as a journal by inserting your own thoughts, responding to the questions, or adding questions of your own.

"Also you can insert lots of blank space after each thought, paragraph or question for your writing; print the document; write your thoughts in the blank spaces; and keep all the messages in a binder.

"I encourage you to return to the messages throughout the year to deepen your understanding of your soul and the ways you meet your soul's needs."

How well Diane writes!

Diane at Faith in Community wrote this:

"We contemplate the incarnation in the midst of real life, while God is busy hunkering down in our real life.

"Somehow, God is redeeming the world, and somehow God is using us, our flesh, to redeem the world, but when I look at us, I doubt it."

How true and beautiful this is. Thank you, Diane.

Madonna by Chidi Okoye

Where did everyone go?

Everybody's left, except for MJ who is reading. Too many goodies still around, though DC and AA took some home with them. We even gave them some "aged" beer that was in the cupboard for several years, since they're having a New Year's Eve party.

We're back to having two dogs instead of four, though honestly we have three (and had five) since a lost puppy was found in our backyard on Dec. 26. She looks like a mixture of golden retriever, lab, and who knows what else and is darling. We've posted signs around the neighborhood and have notified the lost pet hotline. No one has called yet.

And now CB and I are going off to post more signs around the neighborhood.

Here is MJ with the "lost" puppy.

Claymation Joy to the World

Prayer

The breath of life in you is God’s Love everlasting

The gifts you share with others is God’s Joy within

The words of Love you speak is God’s Peace on Earth

The life you hope for is wrapped in the manger abiding

May the First Christmas Story be the center of your heart

and may the New Year ahead be established on true

Hope, Peace, Joy and Love which surpass all human understanding.

From HOPE, PEACE, JOY, LOVE by Takouhi Demirdjian-Petro

Merry Christmas!

Orkut Scraps - Christmas Scraps

Christmas Blessings

The birth of Jesus with shepherds
	JESUS MAFA is a response to the New Testament readings from the Lectionary by a Christian community in Cameroon, Africa.

An Illuminated Joy: A Christmas Book of Hours

An Illuminated Joy: A Christmas Book of Hours intertwines artwork from Jan Richardson's series The Advent Hours with a wondrous song from Garrison Doles. (It’s from his Christmas CD The Night of Heaven and Earth.) Jan posted this on her blog The Advent Door.

Recyling over the Holidays

Well, our recycling containers are full and overflowing, with cardboard, catalogs, newspapers, and bags of shredded paper (the latter were provided as packing material in a box that AE and KA sent us from Seattle.)

Our recycling is picked up every two weeks, but "our day" is this Friday, which is Christmas, so there will be no pick-up. In 2 1/2 more weeks, I cannot imagine how much we'll have to recycle! After Christmas, there will be even more cardboard to recycle. But we'll do it and be glad when it's finally picked up on January 8, 2010.

It's almost Christmas

Tomorrow son DC and wife AA and younger son BJ are arriving! Also coming are their dogs: Sampson the bull dog and Troy the hyper Brittany Spaniel.

So today I baked three kinds of cookies. Tomorrow I'll clean. Then they'll be here in the afternoon. Yay!

Too bad daughters AE and KA will be staying in Seattle this year. I'm glad they call often.

Christmas Letter from 1513

Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435–1515) was a Renaissance pioneer, accomplished as an architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist, classical scholar, and Franciscan friar. Today we remember him most for his reassuring letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513.

---

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant.

Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver. But we, judging its gifts by their covering, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love by wisdom, with power. Welcome it, grasp it, and you touch the angel's hand that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial, a sorrow or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there. The gift is there and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Your joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it; that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims together, wending through unknown country home.

From Gratefulness.org

Our Wedding Anniversary

Today CB and I have been married for 38 years! We were married in Saint Paul's Episcopal Church in Bellingham, WA. My mother made my wedding dress. The four bridesmaids (or their mothers) made their cream blouses and green velvet skirts. My mother and I baked cookies for the reception in the parish hall across the street. It was a beautiful wedding on a cold night. It was a much simpler wedding than those that are currently popular. Even so, my dad kept asking me if I'd rather elope to save money and skip the rigamarole!

Advent as life

Genji and Woman Viewing a Snow-covered Landscape

from the series Elegant Genji - Furyu Genji
Figures by Kunisada
Date: 1853
Publisher: Iseya Kanekichi

Much of the northeast USA is under snow--and northern US. So this thought from Mitch Finley seems appropriate:

"Do you live in a snowy land? Or do you remember living in a snowy land at an earlier time in your life, waking up to find the world under snow? The first snowfall of the winter. Remember. Look out a window at the first snowfall of the year and capture the silence in your heart. Everything is quiet; the snow muffles sound. In the snow, under the fall of snow, the world becomes an Advent place, waiting quietly, waiting for whatever destiny the snow may bring. Waiting quietly.

"Sing a song of Advent, pocket full of sky. Four and twenty snow birds all begin to fly. There are no words, there is no poetry wide enough to hold the mystery that is Advent. As we step into the last week of Advent we realize, with chagrin, that Advent is always beginning. Even as Advent starts the snow, quiet walk towards its own end we know that it never ends. Even on Christmas, we know that life itself is one long Advent, waiting, looking forward, moving toward the beginning that is the end of life. Life is one long Advent moving toward the Christmas that is our ultimate destiny. Each Advent reminds us of this. Each Advent reminds us."

~~Finley, Mitch. Season of Promises: Praying through Advent. Williston Park, NY: Resurrection Press, 1995. 49.

AE and KA in Seattle got all three packages today via the wonderful USPS. AND I only addressed ONE package to the wrong address. The aware postal employees got it with the other two to the correct address. I am so happy!!

Letter to Santa

Friday Five: Christmas Traditions

Christmas traditions vary from family to family and from regions afar. I've been pleased that my oldest son's wife AA loves to be with our family for Christmas, though I don't think we do anything out of the ordinary. It helps that DC has one brother and two sisters to liven up our home.

Since I finally decorated the Christmas tree and have started baking Christmas cookies, I am thinking of Christmas only being one week away.

Rather late into the morning, I am finally getting around to thinking of our family traditions.

1. Christmas Letter with cards:
I love sending out our family's Christmas letter, because each member of our family writes his/her own part. Oddly, this tradition started 17 years ago, the first Christmas after my mother died. I could not write the letters I usually did for our new home in NJ, so I got each child and CB to write their little parts. Back then, the letter was one typed page, but in recent years it has extended to front and back of a sheet of paper.

It has always been our policy that each person writes whatever they want. In adolescent years, that was sometimes difficult to accept, but we did. In return, I can see that my children do not criticize my offerings of a religious vein, for which I am grateful.

I wish I had carefully saved each letter since 1992, along with the family picture taken, and archived them someplace. I never did and deeply regret that. With the busy-ness of four children and various moves, I never realized that this was a new tradition in our family!

2. Christmas cookies:
My mother and her family were famous for baking, especially of cookies. I usually overdo the baking of Christmas cookies, but am hoping I'll restrain myself somewhat by my commitment to health and Weight Watchers.

I inherited my mother's recipes and her love for cookbooks. Christmas cookies are made with butter and chocolate and other rich ingredients. The recipe I discovered last year is one I love, because marzipan and almond paste are Christmas treats for me (but not the males in my family, who don't like them). The recipe is for almond shortbread and is from the Odense website. Here it is:

Almond Shortbread

Yield

One 9" x 13" tray of shortbread

Time

15 minutes to assemble.
25 minutes to bake.
Total Time: 40 minutes

INGREDIENTS

1-7 oz box Odense Almond Paste, grated 1 cup sugar 2 sticks salted butter, room temp. 2 egg yolks 2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking powder

TOOLS & EQUIPMENT

Electric mixer
Baking dish, 9"x13" or similar
Wire rack, for cooling

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Grease the baking dish.
3. Add grated Almond Paste, sugar and butter to a mixing bowl. Mix on low speed until combined. Increase speed to high and beat for three minutes, scraping down bottom and sides of bowl.
4. Add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well between each yolk. Beat on high speed for three minutes, until light in color and texture.
5. Sift together the flour and baking powder. Add to batter. Mix on low speed, until just incorporated. Do not over-mix!
6. Lightly press the dough into the greased baking dish, using a sheet of wax paper to help smooth the surface.
7. Score the surface with a knife in the size squares that you wish. This makes for easier cutting later on.
8. Bake 22-26 minutes or until lightly golden.
9. Cool pan on wire rack. Don't cut until cool.
10. Store in an airtight container.

3. Homemade cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs on Christmas morning:
My mother used to bring her own baked cinnamon rolls from Bellingham, WA to wherever we lived for Christmas morning. (She would also bring the pieces of gingerbread she made for the kids to build a gingerbread house.)

When she died, I felt obligated to keep those food traditions going, though the gingerbread house does not always get baked. For the past 3-4 years, daughter MJ has made the cinnamon rolls and BJ cooks the scrambled eggs.

4. Nativities or creches:
I collect nativities and have for years. Friends and family have given me unique ones from various places in the world, especially daughter AE from Germany. Last year I posted pictures of some of them.

My first nativity set was given to me by my cousin Margaret (who I visited in Calgary) when I was a little girl. It is wooden and was made in France. Mary is holding baby Jesus.

I've always a "thing" about our images of the Nativity with Jesus stuck in the manger, which was "invented" by Saint Francis. Babies need to be held and fed by their mothers. Now I realize that my first creche showed this and maybe influenced me more than I ever imagined.

5. New tradition of stocking gifts for each other:
We had a long tradition of Santa Claus visiting our children, with four children. When Santa finally stopped coming to our house, we began giving each other a small gift in stockings. CB and I even have stockings, because my friend JKJ (from high school!) gave us stockings she'd sewed in the 1970's, with our names on them. We never used them until this new tradition began and are so glad we have them now.

My mother made embroidered and needlepoint stockings for the children. She died before she could finish one for MJ. When MJ was a little girl, a sweet lady named Sara Beth from church made a beautiful needlepoint stocking for her. And Lands End "made" one for KA!

My Stupidity

This is how I feel. I just learned that I sent mail to my daughters AE and KA in Seattle to their former address. Since I mailed three different packages to them for Christmas, this could result in them not getting them at all. I wanted to surprise them with homemade cookies, which I mailed today via priority mail, so when they ever get them, if ever, they will be stale. And now the cookies won't be the surprise I wanted them to be either.

I feel really stupid and disappointed. Careless, anyway.

Resting in God

"Only when we rest in God
can we find the safety,
the spaciousness,
and the scary freedom
to be who we are."

~~Richard Rohr, OFM

God created. . . .when?

"Lord God, Creator of All, caught thousands of Sumerian farmers and mathematicians somewhat off guard."

Today in our EFM class, a member read this hilarious piece from The Onion's "The Top 10 Stories of the Last 4.5 Billion Years." It is a take on the fundamentalist idea that God created the world approximately 6000 years ago, which is when the Sumerians were at the height of their culture:

"Members of the earth's earliest known civilization, the Sumerians, looked on in shock and confusion some 6,000 years ago as God, the Lord Almighty, created Heaven and Earth.

"According to recently excavated clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script, thousands of Sumerians—the first humans to establish systems of writing, agriculture, and government—were working on their sophisticated irrigation systems when the Father of All Creation reached down from the ether and blew the divine spirit of life into their thriving civilization.

"'I do not understand,' reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. 'A booming voice is saying, "Let there be light," but there is already light. It is saying, "Let the earth bring forth grass," but I am already standing on grass.'"

Go here to read the rest of this funny essay.

I always remember my mother singing, "Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat; won't you please put a halfpenny in the old man's hat?"

Well, Christmas is coming, and I am way behind. I am trying to remember the lectio divina verses from last week from Philippians 4:4-7:

4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.

4:5 Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.

4:6 Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.

4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

My message was to remember that "the Lord is near" and to "rejoice," which I took to mean not to worry and stress. So I am trying to take one thing at a time, though I got rattled today when wrapping presents to mail and kept losing things, only to find them under some paper or right behind something!

Amazingly, I got to the post office and only had to wait in a short line (of three people). I am very happy that I mailed my packages to Seattle, especially the large one for daughters AE and KA.

We put lights on our Christmas tree today. Soon ornaments may appear. . . .

Dog Christmases

yawning........

I cannot stop yawning and so am going to go to bed, without doing Friday Five or thinking of something profound (or not) to post today. I am getting up at 6 am in the morning so that I can drive to San Antonio. I am meeting DC and wife AA at 9:30 in San Antonio. We'll wait for MJ to finish her first semester final and then we plan to go shopping at the San Antonio Museum of Art's annual Bazar Zabado. It will be fun to do this together, with a meal or two interspersed in our time together.

Advent thought

"The birth of Christ is an example both unique and eternal of how the will of God is worked out on this earth. It is the birth of love in our hearts, which transforms life. God's love overwhelms us and breaks into our lives leaving our human good will behind. It was never Christ's purpose to bring about self-improvement. He became poor not to offer us a moral toning up, however good this may be. The Word became flesh so that the same amazing life that broke into the world when Jesus Christ was born actually becomes realized in our own lives here and now.

"The meaning of Advent and Christmas is thus the coming down of God's love. This love alone revolutionizes our lives. . . ."

~~by Philip Britts

Britts, Philip. "Yielding to God," 109-117. Watch for the Light: Readings for Advent and Christmas. Farmington, PA: Plough Publishing House, 2001. 116.

My grand-dog with Antlers

Son DC sent this picture of their dog Sampson, being prepared for their family Christmas picture. Poor puppy.

Are we ready to become Light?

"In the beginning, the Spirit brooded over the face of the waters and God spoke and there was Light. Likewise, in the fullness of time, an angel announced to Mary and the same creative Spirit visited her and she conceived the Son of God. This Advent, our Advent, is equally a time of creation. God's same Spirit abides in us--brooding over our waters--shaping and forming us, being formed and shaped by us. We are God's creative works in process. God alone knows what we shall become. What might God have in store in the fullness of our time? In the beginning, God created Light. In Mary, God became flesh. What will God become in us this Advent? Is there room in us for God's seed to take root and grow? God has visited us with grace and favor. Are we ready to become Light?"

~~by Thomas Hoffman

Hoffman, Thomas. Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany with Caryll Houselander. Franklin, Wisconsin: Sheed and Ward, 2000. 20.

Cracked and broken dishes

Every morning I sit and read the newspaper on the couch in the living room, which faces the street. This morning, as I was reading, and husband CB was in another room at the computer, there was a thunderous and tumultuous crashing. What could it be?

Not quite as devastating as the picture above, yet it sounded like that many dishes fell from the china cabinet. It was a big shock! The glass shelf on the upper part sheared off and Ken Edwards Mexican pottery was in pieces. Bowls and a tea pot were smashed to pieces, as well as some other glasses.

It is sad because my mother (who died in 1992) bought the Ken Edwards china for me when we moved to Dallas from Corpus Christi in 1985. Sometime since then he stopped making his pottery in Mexico.

So we've had two recent "disasters" at our house--the flooded bedroom and now the broken china. (It turns out that some of the plastic brackets holding the glass had broken off, so that the glass had little support and broke.)

Christmas is coming. . . .

Finally some steps towards Christmas were taken today. . . .

1. Husband CB put up multi-colored lights on the eves of the house and around the bush and lamp in the front yard.
2. I put out our old familiar Christmas wreath.
3. Christmas letter has been contributed to by all members of the family.
4. I've started to address Christmas card envelopes. With family and friends beyond Corpus Christi, I like to send and receive cards at Christmas. Sadly, many people are not doing this anymore, and so we don't get any news about them at all.
   

Since youngest daughter MJ will not be done with her semester finals until Dec. 17, she will not be home for awhile. I am so accustomed to her nudging me to get our tree up and decorations out that I have not done anything yet. Oh, well. . . .

Other news is that we must replace the rug in the back bedroom. Water overflowed from its tiny bathroom on Friday, which we discovered much too late to remedy the situation. That night the city water department came and unplugged a pipe in the backyard. They told us that all the rain had caused similar backups in other pipes around the city.

It was really cold here on Friday and Saturday, unusually so for south TX. There was even snow in Houston, with 1-4 inches. Son BJ called to say that there was an inch by his workplace.

I was supposed to drive to San Antonio early on Saturday morning to attend a class on mysticism and psychology, but I only got to Robstown and turned around. The car had been slipping a little on black ice. (I haven not driven on black ice since we lived in Oregon.) When I saw an overturned car with other damaged vehicles on the other side of the freeway, I decided to turn back and go home. It was nice to be home on such a cold day.

Maranatha: Come Lord Jesus

Lord Jesus, master of both the light and the darkness,

send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.

We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.

We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us.

We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom.

We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence.

We are your people, walking in darkness, yet seeking the light.

To you we say, "Come Lord Jesus!" Amen.

from the Catholic Family Prayer Book, published by Our Sunday Visitor, 2001.

With thanks to Roberta at Spiritually Directed.

by Trudy Kenyon

Trudy is my friend, who makes cards from her paintings. This is based upon the beautiful wooden labyrinth at our church (All Saints Episcopal) and upon one of the chants sung at the contemplative Eucharist.

We're ALL going to Hell!

Try to read the small print on the sign--we're all going to hell! (I am reassured by Father Kelly Nemeck saying no one is in hell.) I'm definitely a feminist and a liberal, among other labels listed.

Thanks to my daughter who emailed the link to me, which is at The Yale Daily News. Here's a brief recap of the picture:

Evangelist causes a stir 12.04.09

Jesse Morrell — a 25-year-old evangelist preacher from Cheshire, Conn., who said he did three stints at the juvenile detention center on Whalley Avenue for selling drugs — says he knows where most Yale students are headed: hell.

Friday Five: Do Nothing Christmas

Sally at RevGalBlogPals writes for this Friday Five:

I am reading a wonderful little book for Advent it's title: "Do nothing Christmas is Coming!"

So this weeks Friday Five is simple.

List Five things you won't be doing to prepare for Christmas.

And while you are doing nothing play the bonus, put your feet up and listen to your favourite Advent Carol, and post it or a link to it...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, I haven't done a Friday Five for awhile or posted, because I was at a Christ-centered prayer retreat from Monday-Thursday this week, which I will post about later. So I am excited about the prospect of doing nothing/little for Christmas
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. I am NOT baking as many cookies as usual, because I am eating healthier (and have lost 25 pounds!) with the Weight Watchers plan. I usually go overboard, supposedly to give cookies away, but we end up with way too many in the freezer. (Cookies are delicious when they are frozen!)

2. I am buying much less and so have less stress about presents. Since most have to be mailed away, I will order things online or give gifts to charity online.

3. I will not go shopping at busy shopping malls.

4. I am not worrying about all there is to do to make a "perfect" Christmas. That I am letting go of.

5. I did not buy a gigantic bag of Hershey kisses at Sam's yesterday.

My favorite seasonal song is "Mary, did you know?"