All posts by GretchenJoanna

Unknown's avatar

About GretchenJoanna

Orthodox Christian, widowed in 2015; mother, grandmother. Love to read, garden, cook, write letters and a hundred other home-making activities.

Warm us up!

Advent, church

“Come unto Him and be enlightened, and your faces shall not be ashamed.” This line from a hymn at the close of Divine Liturgy this morning was being sung at the same time sunshine beaming through the window reflected off the floor and shined on me, blinding me for a few moments.

It was lovely to have a sunny morning for the beginning of our Nativity fast, and I was blessed to be free to participate. There weren’t many of us, so we fit easily into our little church, and the two women who were surprised to compose the whole choir did valiantly.

Our priest exhorted us to join together in zealousness, as the epistle reading from Colossians also conveyed to us the apostle’s prayer, that our hearts might “be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”

And he reminded us that just as the body cannot exist without the head, nor the head without the body, so Christ and His Church always go together, and in this Advent period we are helped by our joint efforts in making use of the gifts of fasting and prayer, to prepare our hearts to receive, in about 40 days, the mystery of God With Us.

I want to remember, I want to live by the reality of the light of Christ shining in my soul. When the light from the created sun is so thin that it doesn’t have much effect on my earthly body, it’s still an encouraging sight and teaches me about intangible realities. Dear God, warm us all up!

Flowers cheer me up.

my garden,

Leaves from the cherry plum tree are piling up in the back yard. I should get out and rake them, but I just look out from my kitchen window, beyond the leaves, and notice the zinnias still climbing, past five feet now. On the windowsill was remains of a three-week old bouquet, so it was time for a new bunch, don’t you think? Some French lavender rounds out the picking.

Out front the Pristine rose is blooming. And recently I planted a spread of violas, with ranunculus bulbs down below in some places.

This is my favorite.
 

What dust can do.

church, saints, ,
St. Paul

Father Stephen writes about how we don’t often follow the Apostle Paul’s example of glorying in our weakness. The title of his blog post is “Your Weakness Saves You.” We need to pray out of our weakness and not when we are feeling strong; but Fr. Stephen observes that many of us would prefer to glory in our strength:

At some level, we believe that we are not saved through our weakness, but will be saved through our strength, and that the whole life of grace is God’s effort to make us stronger – never suspecting that God’s grace may actually be purposefully developing our weaknesses.
….
I often tell people who say they are struggling with prayer to quit trying to pray like a Pharisee and learn to pray like a Publican. We often want to pray from strength – to approach God when we at least feel spiritually alive. The Publican refuses to lift his eyes to heaven. The contradiction of his life and the goodness of God are more than he can bear. And yet he prays. And, ironically, it is he who goes down to his house justified rather than the Pharisee.

I find that the Orthodox prayer book cultivates this awareness of my weakness with its many cries of “Lord, have mercy.” Sometimes I am engaged in some activity that doesn’t allow me to give my full attention to prayer, but I am still burdened over a difficult situation or the need of a friend. I can express my helplessness to do anything by human strength, my inability to even think about what a solution might be, by praying “Lord, have mercy,” as many times as necessary to reach a place of quietness of heart.

As Psalm 103 reminds us weekly, “He remembers that we are dust.” When I pray that, I feel the love and tenderness of the Lord. He knows our weakness, and when we know it too, and pray with that understanding, we are near to Him.

Lavender Baby goes home.

crafts, family,

Back in August I posted this picture of yummy fabric I had bought to use sewing the Waldorf doll I wanted to give to granddaughter Ivy for her first birthday at the end of September.

I managed to do it! As it was my first time assembling this kind of head and body and sewing a face, I decided to make two dolls so as to get extra practice. I was so glad I did, because very quickly it became obvious that two very different little dollie girls were taking shape.

It wasn’t just that one had brown hair and one had yellow. The expressions on their faces and even the shape of the heads gave them different personalities.

I knew early on that I liked the brown-haired dollie much better than her blond friend. The blonde  — I hate to say it — looked like the neighborhood girl no one wants to play with.

Why was that? My friend Myriah agreed that she wasn’t very likeable, but she thought I should try to fix her. So when I was up at the cabin in early September I tried to brighten her up a bit.

Both her eyes and her mouth were problematic. I guess I had learned how hard it is to make short and precise stitches in such a way that they form at least vaguely even features, when the instructions are to use only two stitches per feature. The mouth looked pinched, and the eyes squinty.

Before

Not only the position of the features and the meagerness of them were unappealing, but the color was lacking. The eyes were pale blue, the mouth pale pink, and as I had already sewn a light color of hair on her head, the total effect was washed out.

On a rainy afternoon up there in the mountains I set to work, and added bright aqua embroidery thread to her eyes, and darker pink to her mouth. After just a couple more stitches in these more intense tones, her disposition and her IQ improved dramatically.

After

Her jaw is still a bit too prominent, shall we say, but maybe that will not be too bad when she gets her hood on. I’m just happy that she is calmer and more agreeable. I still haven’t finished Blondie, because I knew I wanted to give the sweeter baby to Ivy.

The thrill of seeing the two dollies come almost to life was not something I expected. Immediately I had the urge to start forming a new creature right away, just to find out what sort of character he or she might turn out be. Other things have taken my attention and prevented me, but my materials are at the ready whenever I find the block of time to take the next first step.

In the meantime, I finished the brown-haired lass up with a lavender suit, and posed her all over the house and yard in hopes of getting some good pictures to show you.

I was surprised at how much Bag there is to a Baggy Doll. The drawings in the book from which I got the pattern somehow don’t convey the pillow-like quality of the doll’s body, a shape they say toddlers love.

I pinked the edges of some fleecy fabric to make the first layer of “wrapping,” and then put her in a final layer of blue flannel that could also serve as a doll blanket in the future if the children get into the business of playing house and wrapping up dolls or stuffed animals.

They might not…they are outdoorsy kids whose own mother never cared much for dolls. But the dolly whom I now call Lavender Baby won’t mind if she sits on the sidelines or in a corner of the crib. Her hood and all her wool stuffing will keep her warm, and she lives in a house full of love and joy, to which she has already contributed just by being her happy and cuddly self.

Little Ivy didn’t waste any time getting familiar with her new doll and flopped her around contentedly.