Showing posts with label Pilgrimages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pilgrimages. Show all posts
Saturday, July 9, 2022
Friday, August 23, 2019
Summer Highlights Daybook
It’s ...
triple-digit hot outside but I am on our shaded front porch because even when I oversleep the morning cool, I still need to get outside. #catethegreat is napping in her crib in our room.
Also outside...
Dragonflies are abundant this summer and I’m seeing so many of their beautiful double-winged bodies on our property in the blue & green variety.
From the bookshelves...
Mary & I recently finished Hellen Keller from the Childhood of Famous Americans series. I remember enjoying Florence Nightingale in that series myself and we enjoyed reading this one and talking about our Cate so much.
With my hands...
I’m sipping iced coffee and typing, resisting the urge for another Chessmen with it. I’ve baked a lot of chocolate chip cookie bars lately for our school faculty, Mary’s class for her recent birthday, and the football team but Chessmen are my good & easy go-to for afternoon coffee time cookie, “biscuit” as it would be called on the Great British Baking Show. :)
In my head...
I’m musing on a podcast I recently discovered: Emily P. Freeman’s “The Next Right Thing.” So. Good. Leaves me feeling peaceful and inspired. And empowered. A new favorite of mine, to add to Danielle Bean’s weekly “Girlfriends” and Leah Darrrow’s less frequent “Do Something Beautiful.” (Such a good one recently on integrating faith & psychology! Need to remind My Cowboy to listen to it.) I’m adding all Emily’s books to my reading list.
On my heart...
Lately? Constantly. How to love Cate and everyone else, beginning with myself, better. More truly, more resiliently. More humanly. I know with God’s grace that love expands and multiplies to meet the needs. My downfall is still in not trusting enough to slow down and recognize my own needs before I feel desperately overstretched.
Clinging to Christ by the “Little Way” of Cate’s middle-name patroness Therese has become a source of insight and grace in my days again. More on that another time.
#catethegreat update...
She has finally been fitted for her wheelchair seat and back! It was an impressive process involving measurements then vacuum-packing her in two beanbag-type pillows which were 3-D scanned and uploaded right in front of us. A 3-D model will be made from images and her seat/back supports from the model. Her first wheelchair, a manual one, should be ready in about a month. I’m trusting we’ll be ready for it ourselves by then.
Recent road trip adventure...
We went to OK City one Sunday this month. It was too hot. Kids were grumpy. Parents got that way too. We visited the cemetery where Bl. Stanley Rother is currently buried- all but his heart which remains in Guatemala. We prayed there for Cate's healing. We saw JP’s (and all of ours!) good friend who recently relocated for lunch at his job. We bought a new set of steak knives at a popular kitchen goods store we don’t have at home.
Quote of the month:
From James Bryan Smith, interviewed on “The Next Right Thing” podcast-
“I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights. I live in the strong and unshakable Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is not in trouble and neither am I.”
It reminds me of St. Teresa of Avila's-
“And all will be well...”. I recently read that her deeper conversion happened at 39! I’m only 42- there’s hope for me yet!!
triple-digit hot outside but I am on our shaded front porch because even when I oversleep the morning cool, I still need to get outside. #catethegreat is napping in her crib in our room.
Also outside...
Dragonflies are abundant this summer and I’m seeing so many of their beautiful double-winged bodies on our property in the blue & green variety.
From the bookshelves...
Mary & I recently finished Hellen Keller from the Childhood of Famous Americans series. I remember enjoying Florence Nightingale in that series myself and we enjoyed reading this one and talking about our Cate so much.
With my hands...
I’m sipping iced coffee and typing, resisting the urge for another Chessmen with it. I’ve baked a lot of chocolate chip cookie bars lately for our school faculty, Mary’s class for her recent birthday, and the football team but Chessmen are my good & easy go-to for afternoon coffee time cookie, “biscuit” as it would be called on the Great British Baking Show. :)
Since I'm thinking about food, here's a pic of this summer's seafood feast with My Cowboy.
In my head...
I’m musing on a podcast I recently discovered: Emily P. Freeman’s “The Next Right Thing.” So. Good. Leaves me feeling peaceful and inspired. And empowered. A new favorite of mine, to add to Danielle Bean’s weekly “Girlfriends” and Leah Darrrow’s less frequent “Do Something Beautiful.” (Such a good one recently on integrating faith & psychology! Need to remind My Cowboy to listen to it.) I’m adding all Emily’s books to my reading list.
On my heart...
Lately? Constantly. How to love Cate and everyone else, beginning with myself, better. More truly, more resiliently. More humanly. I know with God’s grace that love expands and multiplies to meet the needs. My downfall is still in not trusting enough to slow down and recognize my own needs before I feel desperately overstretched.
Clinging to Christ by the “Little Way” of Cate’s middle-name patroness Therese has become a source of insight and grace in my days again. More on that another time.
#catethegreat update...
She has finally been fitted for her wheelchair seat and back! It was an impressive process involving measurements then vacuum-packing her in two beanbag-type pillows which were 3-D scanned and uploaded right in front of us. A 3-D model will be made from images and her seat/back supports from the model. Her first wheelchair, a manual one, should be ready in about a month. I’m trusting we’ll be ready for it ourselves by then.
Below is the Montessori space I set up for her this summer, an IKEA trip and my project while M&M were at The Pines.
Recent road trip adventure...
We went to OK City one Sunday this month. It was too hot. Kids were grumpy. Parents got that way too. We visited the cemetery where Bl. Stanley Rother is currently buried- all but his heart which remains in Guatemala. We prayed there for Cate's healing. We saw JP’s (and all of ours!) good friend who recently relocated for lunch at his job. We bought a new set of steak knives at a popular kitchen goods store we don’t have at home.
Outside the chapel where Bl. Stanley Rother is interred. Lake Nocona pic above was our early summer weekend adventure thanks to some friends' sharing their lake house. Port A vacation still to come this Labor Day weekend...
Quote of the month:
From James Bryan Smith, interviewed on “The Next Right Thing” podcast-
“I am one in whom Christ dwells and delights. I live in the strong and unshakable Kingdom of God. The Kingdom is not in trouble and neither am I.”
It reminds me of St. Teresa of Avila's-
“And all will be well...”. I recently read that her deeper conversion happened at 39! I’m only 42- there’s hope for me yet!!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
What do Reinhold Niehbur, Mark Twain & Abe Lincoln have in common?
Our mid-west roadtrip.
It was fun & an adventure but it is also good to be home and relax at home (by doing projects) b/f we both have to head to work next week. We caravaned w/ my mom & brother across the midwest to Galesburg, IL, a small town outside Peoria for my sister's wedding. It was gorgeous. She was beautiful. It really reflected their joy-filled & family/friend-centered lives and God. was. there. In their desire for his blessing and, mostly, in their deep desire for unconditional, eternal Love.
So, we read a little of R. Niebur per my uncle's recommendation, from his Essential Writings- on his RN's life itself, as well as a chapter on "Mystery & Meaning." Had already read the essay on "The Christian Church in a Secular Age," which was excellent, better in my opinion. Don't agree w/ all his ultimate conclusions, considering how hard he is on the Catholic Church, but I think he has a lot of astute observations along the way.
We did Hannibal, MO & Mark Twain on the way north. Learned a little about his life as a writer- mostly that he was from a working class family and always had to work to support himself, learned as a printer's apprentice, actually just wrote a handful of books (which surprised me considering he is such a towering figure in American Lit, primarily for his innovation in style, of course- making it contemporary, colloquial), and didn't publish the first novel until after he was married and trying to support his young family. He wrote about what he knew, similar to Louisa May Alcott that way.
Springfield, IL & Abraham Lincoln was the stop on the way home and struck me in a similar way. I always knew he was from a poor family and a self-taught lawyer (particularly amazing to me considering I & everyone I knew paid extra to take an additional Bar prep class, after graduating law school). I hadn't thought about how successful professionally and personally he had to have been to make the climb that he did. And how responsive to God's will he must have been, first in his formation, then living his mission. No one makes that kind of journey, especially a sacrificial one- which his ultimately was, alone. He wrote his timeless pieces in the course of his work as a politician, responding to the needs of the people he served and represented. Some of the comments about Mary Todd's struggles reminded me of myself. Hope I don't suffer from such severe MDD later in life.
So, my take-away light from these men is to be true to myself as God created me to be, including my struggles with practicing & being a working-mom, including with my more spiritual desires to read, write, & reflect more than seems I have time.
It was fun & an adventure but it is also good to be home and relax at home (by doing projects) b/f we both have to head to work next week. We caravaned w/ my mom & brother across the midwest to Galesburg, IL, a small town outside Peoria for my sister's wedding. It was gorgeous. She was beautiful. It really reflected their joy-filled & family/friend-centered lives and God. was. there. In their desire for his blessing and, mostly, in their deep desire for unconditional, eternal Love.
So, we read a little of R. Niebur per my uncle's recommendation, from his Essential Writings- on his RN's life itself, as well as a chapter on "Mystery & Meaning." Had already read the essay on "The Christian Church in a Secular Age," which was excellent, better in my opinion. Don't agree w/ all his ultimate conclusions, considering how hard he is on the Catholic Church, but I think he has a lot of astute observations along the way.
We did Hannibal, MO & Mark Twain on the way north. Learned a little about his life as a writer- mostly that he was from a working class family and always had to work to support himself, learned as a printer's apprentice, actually just wrote a handful of books (which surprised me considering he is such a towering figure in American Lit, primarily for his innovation in style, of course- making it contemporary, colloquial), and didn't publish the first novel until after he was married and trying to support his young family. He wrote about what he knew, similar to Louisa May Alcott that way.
Springfield, IL & Abraham Lincoln was the stop on the way home and struck me in a similar way. I always knew he was from a poor family and a self-taught lawyer (particularly amazing to me considering I & everyone I knew paid extra to take an additional Bar prep class, after graduating law school). I hadn't thought about how successful professionally and personally he had to have been to make the climb that he did. And how responsive to God's will he must have been, first in his formation, then living his mission. No one makes that kind of journey, especially a sacrificial one- which his ultimately was, alone. He wrote his timeless pieces in the course of his work as a politician, responding to the needs of the people he served and represented. Some of the comments about Mary Todd's struggles reminded me of myself. Hope I don't suffer from such severe MDD later in life.
So, my take-away light from these men is to be true to myself as God created me to be, including my struggles with practicing & being a working-mom, including with my more spiritual desires to read, write, & reflect more than seems I have time.
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