Monthly Archives: March 2016

Callas and Comfort

death, family, love, quotes, , , ,

gl calla bouquet 3-16 P1030732When we broke up and filled in the swimming pool last summer, the surrounding planting beds were also excavated and new dirt was brought in for the new plants to grow in. In one corner where calla lilies had grown for a decade, we put in native California currant bushes.

Then the callas sprouted again, up through the little blooming ribes. I’ve had to go out every few days and yank out perfectly healthy lilies when they start to encroach too closely around the young plants that I am trying to encourage.

One morning last week when my daughters and I were packing up to visit the cemetery and have a picnic afterward, we discussed going to tP1030837he store to buy some flowers to lay on their father’s grave, because I said I didn’t have any flowers in the yard to take.

I suppose I was thinking about how the snowball bush didn’t yet have any flowers ready to pick. Last year at this time it was loaded with flowers, and one reason I did not take out the old thing was that I anticipated having its beautiful blooms to put on my husband’s grave every March. snowballs crp 15

Well, I had forgotten the calla lilies! Brave and hardy plants that keep coming…. We picked plenty to take to the cemetery, and since then have had more in vases in which they seem to fall naturally into elegant arrangements.

As you can see, we had other home-grown flowers to use — a few surviving ranunculus from the front yard, and even a Bird of Paradise from Pearl’s garden. Several freesia blooms were left after their extravagant display a couple of weeks ago. Scout and Ivy helped by decorating their grandpa’s grave, and their father drew us together by reading these words:

gl grave 3-16 P1030745

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:38-39)

Just now I’m reminded of another passage from I Thessalonians, which is also about our togetherness in the Lord (and it ties in nicely with my “C” post):

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.  Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Pies and Baby

family, friends, pie, ,

Today I am gathering up some stories that feature “B words,” as part of my Springtime Scheme.

Over the last week and more people have been feting my birthday. It started with a Peter Rabbit Garden apronP1030836 that arrived in the mail from friend Gabriella. I already washed it so the picture shows it a little wrinkly. The birds and bees and vegetables go with the theme of my new garden space, and I’ve even been wearing an apron more often again – especially last weekend, as I will tell you about with a different letter of the alphabet.

Soldier and Joy came with the boys and she had made me a vegan coconut cream pie with coconut crust — I know, it sounds incredible, and it was — and then on my birthday itself Kit baked a blackberry pie for me. I was telling Pearl about it on the phone while the pie was in the oven, and I couldn’t stop giggling over the topsy-turvy charm of that particular gift: After 40+ years of me baking a blackberry pie every July for my husband’s birthday, even when I had to do it over a campfire, on my first birthday without him someone is baking the same for me. Life is strange and wonderful.

gl birthday berry pie 3-16

The sweetest thing that belongs to this post is not exactly edible and doesn’t live in the garden. Baby Jamie turns a year old this month; he was the boy I wrote about last year, who was born the day after his grandpa’s funeral. We had a slightly early birthday party for him while their whole family was down remembering his grandpa with me.

Jamie first birthday March 2016

He had the traditional first-birthday-brownie baked by cousin Maggie. And he also had his first chance at enjoying Grandma’s playhouse. Then, too soon, we had to say, “Bye-bye!”

gl Jamie 3-16 playhouse IMG_1884

A scheme for my springtime.

church, education, nature, time, writing, ,

alphaomegaEarly on in our 21 years of homeschooling I found that my style of learning and teaching was suited to doing unit studies. Someone has explained the concept like this: “Unit studies are collections of learning activities tied to a theme. They are popular with many homeschooling families because they provide a hands-on approach to learning that incorporates subjects such as math, science, language arts, and the social sciences.”

I think the first such curriculum we used was Konos, which centered the lessons on character qualities, starting with the quality of Attentiveness. The reasoning was that in order to learn anything, we must pay attention. One part of the nature/science study for this unit was Birds, because to notice them requires associated powers of patience and concentration. Pathfinder built a bird feeder on a post outside the dining room window and ever aftegl P1030454r, as long as we lived in that house, while we ate our meals we could watch the house finches enjoying theirs at the same time.

I thought of the word attentiveness when I was developing my idea for a series of blog posts to write over the next month or so. I wish I had some simple unifying theme that would tie together the recent myriad events and thoughts that seem to demand my reflective documentation. Ah, but I do – because my theology is also suited to Life as a big unit study, with one theme: Everything is a gift from God.

That still doesn’t help me to separate my material into short blog posts, especially at this season when I have less time to sit around thinking and writing. So I am going to use a kind of easy-reader (easy-writer!) system of The Alphabet. Every day or two I will try to write, going through the 26 letters in sequence. This post is my first, using the letter A, which does stand for Attentiveness.

And also for the Alpha and Omega, which is one of the names of God. He is the Beginning and the End, as those Greek letters are the first and last of that alphabet. He and his creation comprise the totalitygl candle from DH of what there is to study and know. All the rest has no substance.

Just last week we remembered the one-year anniversary of my husband’s falling asleep in the Lord. A dear friend gave me this candle as a memorial present, with the letters Alpha and Omega pressed into it.

I’ve still been thinking about kairos a lot. It is described as that time when everything happens at once, or as eternal time, when God gathers all time together. It’s the kind of time we experience in Divine Liturgy, and I think it is the reason for the idea that “Nothing is ever lost.”

I think that is a good beginning to my springtime storytelling. And with all of that material available, who can tell what each day, or post, might bring?