Monday, March 31, 2014

last day of March went out like this

( worth reading slowly to the poets name)

It is the first mild day of March:
Each minute sweeter than before
The redbreast sings from the tall larch
That stands beside our door.
There is a blessing in the air,
Which seems a sense of joy to yield
To the bare trees, and mountains bare,
And grass in the green field.
My sister! ('tis a wish of mine)
Now that our morning meal is done,
Make haste, your morning task resign;
Come forth and feel the sun.
Edward will come with you;--and, pray,
Put on with speed your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
No joyless forms shall regulate
Our living calendar:
We from to-day, my Friend, will date
The opening of the year.
Love, now a universal birth,
From heart to heart is stealing,
From earth to man, from man to earth:
--It is the hour of feeling.
One moment now may give us more
Than years of toiling reason:
Our minds shall drink at every pore
The spirit of the season.
Some silent laws our hearts will make,
Which they shall long obey:
We for the year to come may take
Our temper from to-day.
And from the blessed power that rolls
About, below, above,
We'll frame the measure of our souls:
They shall be tuned to love.
Then come, my Sister! come, I pray,
With speed put on your woodland dress;
And bring no book: for this one day
We'll give to idleness.
Wordsworth

Friday, March 28, 2014

the end of Spring Break


Yesterday, we had our book discussion on Tim Keller's book: Walking with God through
Pain and Suffering. It was most lovely with the setting and food and thoughts. I know there
were angels around us. The subject touches each of us. Our hearts were full of unspoken 
and spoken thoughts. Maybe this friend will post photos?

Our next book is back to a favorite: Elizabeth Goudge.
The Scent of Water. 
It is a reread for me and I can't wait. 

I am reading The Snowchild right now. So taken with the story line in Alaska
that I sent my sister a copy. 

It is the end of my Spring Break from my English class to homeschooled high schoolers 
under the Humanitie's teaching of this pastor. ( here )  I have learned so much and my 
students present declamation thesis papers on Tuesday. The hard work is done: rough drafts!
Have a good last weekend in March!

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Sabbath rest



Today was overcast with rain off and on. 
We were thankful. The grass seed planted on Friday needs water.
It needs to grow. It needs sun too .

I finished this book this after after picking it up in a stack on friday
from the library:



I couldn't put it down. It is beautifully written. It takes place in Japan. The new housekeeper
cares for the aging math professor who was in an accident years before and can not remember
anything past that day and for 80 minutes. It is about the poetry of math, friendship, loss and 
redemption , and math. I learned about from this famous math professor and his mind saw
everything in numbers. I highly recommend it. 

A few beautiful words I copied in my journal from Ogawa's book:

"But those tears were different, and no matter how I tried to wipe them away, 
they seemed to flow from a place I could never reach." 

" I began to approach numbers in the same intuitive way I'd learned music or  reading."

and from the housekeeper's trip to the libary:
" The mathematic stacks were as silent and empty as ever... apparently no one suspected
the riches hidden there." 

and one more about the Professor:
" .. he seemed convinced that children's questions were much more important than those 
of an adulr. He preferred smart questions to smart answers." 

" The square root sign is a sturdy one. It shelters all the numbers."


Also finishing this book and on the very last chapter for Book Club this week:



Sunday, March 16, 2014

Today's choir anthem



Here is the song at a church in Boston.
Doesn't the trumpet make your heart soar:


This song reminds me of some other song but I just can't think of what it is.
Do you know?

Maybe Jerusalem by Blake:


Friday, March 14, 2014

Wish I was here




From Cabbages & Roses, London


LOOK 7






























LOOK 6

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Visit to a nearby monastery



We postponed our tour from a snow day to today. 
Brother Edwards met us in the vestibule and showed us the stained
glass windows, ( church fathers we have studied this year), 
the history of the church building,  and a quick
walk through the monastery. It is in the Benedictine order. 

We stayed for the midday prayers. 
The quiet struck us. 
The posture to God and the men singing and 
praying together. 


This guest keeper monk was probably the happiest person I have ever met. 
He said he is happy and when he has a bad day, for everyone has bad days,
he pulls himself UP by the liturgy of prayers and exercise and his duties. 
Do you ever meet anyone who says they are happy?!
One of his duties is to greet every guest as Christ would.
We had fun learning it is an ordinary life of prayer.
My students , all girls today, were very interested because
we have studied the Church Fathers and Heraldry and 
St. Benedict. 

He was blessed. He even said so.




This is the Adoration Chapel  back in the woods for intimate prayer time. 



Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Poetry





"Teach you children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom, and makes the heroic virtues hereditary."

-Sir Walter Scott










Sunday, March 9, 2014

last song this morning in worship


Still mesmorized by this song
that has us all surrounded by music and quiet this morning:



best book that I have read in a long while


Makes me laugh.
Makes anyone who reads it laugh.

And it is a children's book:



Thursday, March 6, 2014

a messy birthday day


It is rainy and cold outside. No snow.
I am with the adorable girl under the umbrella~
The good thing about today is that it is #4 son's birthday.
He is coming down from the mountains to have a dinner
celebration ( surf) and be home for Spring Break. 
I will like having him around. 

Here he is at his #2 brother's  rehearsal dinner two years ago almost 
to the day. Next to him is his beautiful girlfriend and next to her
is his beautiful sister.  



Tuesday, March 4, 2014

still point




At the still point of the turning world.
 Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards;

at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement.

 And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. 

Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. 

Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, 

and there is only the dance.

From Burnt Orton, The Four Quartets , T. S. Eliot



(via mieke willems: plantlife)



Saturday, March 1, 2014

I would miss my blogging friends


and I love reading your blogs. 
They have strengthened my in the Lord.
They have given me hope.
They have given me beauty.
They have given me an education .
They have sent me into prayer.
They have taught me much , even though I have never meet most.

Great song as we go into this third month of the New Year.
I will hear Eric Peters  next weekend. He is part of The Rabbit Room. 
So much hope in his words:





A friend went to the recent Hutchmoot Conference at Laity Lodge in Texas.
She got another of Kathleen Norris' books signed for me. We met Kathleen
in the 1990's so some of my books are signed by her. Now The Quotidian
 Mysteries has her signature in it. I am not sure which is my favorite. I think 
this one might be. She taught me so much about the holiness of being a homemaker.