Category Archives: church

The supreme moment of hospitality.

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Because when I recently rediscovered this post from three years ago, I was nourished by it again, I am re-posting it for my new readers and for all of us. It concerns the most enduring things, never outdated. One of those always-new things, which I’ve only this year begun to read and think about in the context of the Annunciation, is hospitality of the sort that the Virgin demonstrated toward the very Son of God. She is an example for us all.

Today is the beginning of our salvation;
the revelation of the eternal Mystery!
The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
as Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
“Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!”

I had wanted to continue my ruminations on The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air by further considering The Moment that Søren Kierkegaard refers to when, after waiting in silence, “…the silent lily understands that now is the moment, and makes use of it.”

I don’t know what that moment consists of for you, for me, for us as a world community, or in our cities or church communities or families. No doubt there are overlapping times and seasons containing infinite instants, and only by quiet listening can we make any sense of them. But this passage in particular I wanted to pass on, in which the writer discusses what is missed when we fail to make the proper, standing-before-God kind of preparation:

“Even though it is pregnant with rich significance, the moment does not send forth any herald in advance to announce its arrival; it comes too swiftly for that; indeed, there is not a moment’s time beforehand…. But of course everything depends upon “the moment.” And this is surely the misfortune in the lives of many, of far the greater part of humanity: that they never perceived ‘the moment,’ that in their lives the eternal and the temporal were exclusively separated.”

So many thoughts swirl in my own noisy mind and heart that I could not imagine how I might find a way to share even these few gleanings with you. Then, in God’s providence and the church calendar, appeared someone who is the supreme example for us of being ready for the moment, that time in history and that time in her life, in a particular moment of a day, when the Angel Gabriel appeared to her. Today we remember that event, when Mary listened, and responded, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

The Word became flesh and came to live with us, taking on all our human experience, its weakness and suffering and  death. He defeated death, and opened the gates of Paradise. The Incarnation, the beginning of our salvation, is The Moment of history; our own “Yes” to God, echoing Mary’s willingness, can be the essence of our every prayer as well, as we wait on Him.

Kierkegaard exhorts us, in words that seem especially fitting for this time of uncertainty and change: “Would that in the silence you might forget yourself, forget what you yourself are called, your own name, the famous name, the lowly name, the insignificant name, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Hallowed be your name!’ Would that in silence you might forget yourself, your plans, the great, all-encompassing plans, or the limited plans concerning your life and its future, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Your kingdom come!’ Would that you might in silence forget your will, your willfulness, in order in silence to pray to God, ‘Your will be done.’“

We know that God’s will for us is good, now as ever. Our inability to see or understand that is due to our weakness or sin, or His hiding of His works. May He give us grace to wait and to pray, and eventually we will see the full salvation of the LORD.

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!
For who has known the mind of the Lord,
or who has been his counselor?
Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be glory forever. Amen.

Romans 11

Sowing in late winter…

church, my garden, quotes, ,

…or is it early spring?

The best time to plant some of these seeds would have been two or three weeks ago, but I was otherwise busy on the mild days, and when the weather turned colder I wimped out. But this week, at the end of a day when the sun was shining and my hands didn’t hurt from the cold, I was able to organize my thoughts and my packets enough to get some seeds into the ground. The rain has returned, blessed be God, and has watered them thoroughly.

Calendula plants and stock are growing in a couple of places in the garden; after the hardest winter battering, the stock are covered with little flower buds. The lemon tree having been pruned to a less gangly form, it’s showing off its dozens of fruits to better effect. I love the two plum trees! If they never produced another plum, I’d still count them well worth having, for the way their blossoms brighten these cloudy days and remind me that every hour brings us closer to summer.

Working in the garden through only the late afternoon made me incredibly happy. When I came in the house I could only pray “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

It’s been quite a week, indescribable for the most part, at least, in the way I would prefer to write about things. My report must be vague: The days have been full of friends, those Lenten services that are characterized by bright sadness, and the mercies of God new every morning. Mostly I came here to write about my garden that He uses to bestow on me His also indescribable gifts…

Here ends another day, during which I have had eyes, ears, hands
and the great world around me. Tomorrow begins another day. Why am I allowed two?

-G.K. Chesterton

A feast of fasting guidelines.

church, Lent,

More Fasting Guidelines,
from Abbot Tryphon’s The Morning Offering:

FAST from self-concern and FEAST on compassion for others.
FAST from discouragement and FEAST on hope.
FAST from lethargy and FEAST on enthusiasm.
FAST from suspicion and FEAST on truth.
FAST from thoughts that weaken and FEAST on promises that inspire.
FAST from shadows of sorrow and FEAST on the sunlight of serenity.
FAST from idle gossip and FEAST on purposeful silence.
FAST from problems that overwhelm you and FEAST on prayer that sustains.
FAST from criticism and FEAST on praise.
FAST from self-pity and FEAST on joy.
FAST from ill-temper and FEAST on peace.
FAST from resentment and FEAST on contentment.
FAST from jealousy and FEAST on love.
FAST from pride and FEAST on humility.
FAST from selfishness and FEAST on service.

Celebrating March with bread and blossoms.

church, food and cooking, my garden, winter, , , , ,

Over the years since I planted two Elephant Heart plum trees in my back yard garden, I have begun to notice a pattern: In February or March the trees begin to put out their blooms, and in the same months we get hailstorms. Then I say something on my blog, like, “I worry about my plum blossoms!”

This is the eighth springtime that these trees have found themselves in my garden when they woke from dormancy. Every summer I get more fruit, so I guess things are pretty good. This particular first day of March is still very cold and windy, but the sun is shining in a blue sky, and it looks like we’ll have three days of sunshine before we welcome the rain again.

I’m almost out of firewood, and it doesn’t look like I’ll get any more for this season; but I have a good furnace, which I wouldn’t mind using even more than I do if it weren’t so noisy. When I get tired of its roar I turn down the thermostat and put on a coat. Today I have time to build a fire before going to a Lenten service in the evening, and it will be nice to come home to a cozy and quiet house.

What’s another cozy and homey thing? Baking bread! Even if it’s done in the big church kitchen. Three of us made that kitchen nice and comfortable yesterday when we made these loaves of Communion bread together.

My computer guy came yesterday afternoon to do a check-up on my desktop; he hadn’t been here for so long, we had a lot to catch up on. His happiest news was all the sourdough bread baking he has been doing for his family, of which he showed me photos of the sort they put on the covers of artisan bread cookbooks. He is going to leave a jar of his starter on my doorstep tomorrow! I have been thinking for a few months that I want to come out of my bread-baking retirement. It’s just too severe a cutting away of my former self, not baking bread, and I’m going to try to graft that branch back in.

One reason I gave it up was that so many people are eating gluten-free, and it seemed a challenge to find people to give my (mostly excess) bread to; I feel differently about that part now, for some reason. Yesterday we ended up with two little bits of dough left over, and made them into two “buns” that we baked along with the regular loaves. You can see the smaller one at the top left of the photo above. I took that one home and ate it for lunch, and it was the most delicious thing. Bread is a wonder.