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.

Tree Collard

my garden

Overall the plants in my garden look as though the gardener has been absent. Too true — and the sky is lacking rain. So I at least did take the hose to everything yesterday, and found one “tree” that seems to be thriving under neglect.

It’s the tree collard that a dear friend gave me. I knew that these perennial vegetables grow very long and tangled stems, so I had planted it in a corner of my cramped yard, out of the way of annual beds.

My photo doesn’t show much of the curly stalk, and the pictures I found online are of plants that grow tall and straight, not like the more recumbent ones we seem to have around here, which get very complicated twining around themselves. The trunk-stem gets longer and longer and the leaves grow mostly at the end of it.

If I had more room I’d love to have a large plantation of these hardy greens.

Theophany Worship and Doctrine

church, feasts, quotes, Theophany, water

Today the Orthodox Church celebrates Theophany, about which I have posted a time or two in the past. This year I found a blog by a young woman in Greece who has posted a rich mix of photos, videos and accounts describing the celebration of this feast around the world, and its meaning for us.

It all well illustrates the message of this short quote from the newsletter of my parish:

WORSHIP AND DOCTRINE:

“In the Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, doctrine and worship are inseparable. Worship is, in a certain sense, doctrinal testimony, reference to the events of Revelation. Thus, ‘dogmas are not abstract ideas in and for themselves but revealed and saving truths and realities intended to bring mankind into communion with God.’ One could say without hesitation that, according to Orthodox understanding, the fullness of theological thought is found in the worship of the Church.

This is why the term Orthodoxy is understood by many not as ‘right opinion,’ but as ‘right doxology,’ [that is,] ‘right worship.’”

—Archimandrite Zacharias, Ecclesial Being, pg. 88.

Those movies of people diving into icy waters make me consider in a more bracing way the scriptural exhortation to “present your bodies a living sacrifice….”

Some friends of ours celebrated Theophany at our Northern California beach last year, where the current brings chilly water from Alaska, giving the children who dove for that cross a bit of the experience of their fellow Orthodox in colder climates.

To all who celebrate in worship and truth, a most blessed feast!

Mosaic from Ss. Constantine and Helen Orthodox Church
Colorado Springs, Colorado

Lucy gets new clothes

dolls, , ,
Lucy on Christmas 2010

Lucy would call me “Great-Grandma” if she could talk, but I don’t expect that ever to happen because she is a doll. She belongs to my granddaughter Maggie, and once before her picture showed up here, modeling clothes that I made.

This year I made some more outfits for Christmas presents. When the family flew across the continent to California Maggie couldn’t fit Lucy into her carry-on, so her Aunt Kate’s doll Felicity who still lives with us modeled the new togs the night before Christmas.

I only got two outfits done in 2011: black silk pants with a corduroy jacket (McCalls 6137); and a cowgirl skirt, blouse, vest and boots (McCalls 6257). I guess the boots are really moccasins, because I didn’t want to put foam board on the bottoms as the pattern called for.

Everything was made out of used clothes, either my own or things I found at the thrift store, such as a leather skirt that worked nicely for the vest and boots instead of the faux suede that had been suggested on the pattern envelope.

Felicity

While she was visiting here, Maggie had Felicity wear all the clothes, and she brushed out her hair and braided it nicely as well.

But as soon as Maggie returned home, it was time for Lucy’s 4th birthday party, so she wrapped the new clothes in pretty paper and ribbons, and a tag attached, “From Great-Grandma.” They were presented to Lucy along with chocolate cake for the occasion.

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday, Lucy!

After the holiday I got word that a new (18-inch) “great-granddaughter” has arrived in Annie’s house, and her name is Elizabeth. I don’t think I’ll stop sewing doll clothes anytime soon!

Walking in 2012

nature, winter


I don’t take walks by myself anymore. At least, I didn’t for a long time, but maybe that is changing. Yesterday I asked Mr. Glad if he would like to go for a walk, and he quickly answered, “No, you should go for a walk; I am going for a bike ride; and it’s going to be dark soon.”

“But I don’t want to take a walk by myself,” I whined.

“Just do it,” he said simply and authoritatively. “You need to get outside.” I had been away from the house a lot over the last few days — in church, in our church’s new hall setting up our new bookstore, in church again…but out of doors very little.

Oh, why not? I thought, why not just follow my husband’s advice, go for a walk by myself, and start two new trends in 2012? Some time in the last few years I got impatient with walking alone. I don’t like exercise for its own sake; I’m lazy in that department. Walking is time-consuming, and if I walk on the treadmill at the gym I can get a better workout while distracting myself with interesting articles in magazines at the same time.

My memory was not serving me well, I discovered as I set off down the street and on to the bike-and-walking path two blocks away. Walking all by one’s lonesome in the outdoors can serve many purposes, if Getting Things Done is the aim.

I didn’t have my camera last evening, which caused me to remember right away why I don’t burn so many calories when no one is along to keep me moving: I want to stop all too often to examine a flower or new redwood needles, and often to delve more deeply and longer by looking through a lens in order to get another slant.

On this, my first solitary walk of a new year, I particularly noticed the thickly blooming berries on the shrubs that the city must have planted long ago. Every Christmas for 20 years various ones of our family have come here to snip a few branches for decorating the house. Even last week — oops, the week before that — Pearl had taken her children on a walk and returned with a bag full of cedar and redwood branches, and many sprays of berries.

Because I didn’t have my camera, I walked very fast and came home in about 15 minutes, grabbed my pruners and a bag and walked right back to the path. I carried home several branches, and re-supplied some of my tabletop displays with fresh berries to get us through Theophany.

Today my husband and I took a walk together, into the center of town to Starbucks and back — one of our new jaunts together since he retired recently. Later I went by myself once more, down to the path along the creek to snap some photos of those berries that are so striking in the winter.

As I set off I realized that what had seemed like a good use of my time, avoiding these more leisurely walks, has been a missed opportunity. When walking “alone” one is never alone, because God is everywhere present. There are the trees and bushes, the sky and the birds and sometimes friendly strangers walking often beautiful dogs.

The “distractions” of nature and real people are not nearly as diverting from prayer as what I do at the gym, and my strenuous indoor workout turns out to be no substitute for the much more soul-profiting outing that I can otherwise get — and I don’t even have to drive the car.

Whether I’m happy or sad, it’s almost impossible to go walking without remembering my Divine Companion at least part of the time, talking to and listening to Him. I’m thanking God for giving me the idea for one more way to avoid the winter blues.