Open, wide-awake eyes.

Advent, quotes, , ,

“The lack of mystery in our modern life is our downfall and our poverty. A human life is worth as much as the respect it holds for the mystery. We retain the child in us to the extent that we honor the mystery. Therefore, children have open, wide-awake eyes, because they know that they are surrounded by the mystery. They are not yet finished with this world; they still don’t know how to struggle along and avoid the mystery, as we do. We destroy the mystery because we sense that here we reach the boundary of our being, because we want to be lord over everything and have it at our disposal, and that’s just what we cannot do with the mystery….

Living without mystery means knowing nothing of the mystery of our own life, nothing of the mystery of another person, nothing of the mystery of the world; it means passing over our own hidden qualities and those of others and the world. It means remaining on the surface, taking the world seriously only to the extent that it can be calculated and exploited, and not going beyond the world of calculation and exploitation. Living without mystery means not seeing the crucial processes of life at all and even denying them.”

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, God is in the Manger: Reflections on Advent and Christmas

December lights and colors.

Christmas, my garden, winter, ,

We still haven’t had a frosty night here, and there are none in the forecast, so many of my plants are still blooming. Indoors, it seems the Thanksgiving cactus flowers are on the wane, and the Christmas ones haven’t opened. Though when I got my hair cut the other day, my hairdresser’s two Thanksgiving cactuses were blooming away, in a western window.

I found mealybugs on my orchids, I suppose because they lived out on the patio all summer, where anything could invade. But overall they are healthier for their summer outdoors, because it was easier to water and feed them. Also an inchworm chewed up a patch of leaf before I saw what was happening. I got some neem oil therapy, and new orchid bark in which to repot all the orchids, but don’t think I’ll manage to do that whole job until January, some sunny day.

Other things are more hardy and less insect-prone out of doors:

Last week at the full moon, we had nearly clear skies, so I took another moon picture from my driveway. The moon was noticeably more northerly from its summertime position, when I have more often been out there looking. I liked getting some of the Christmas lights of the neighborhood in the picture.

I ordered a lighted star to put in my upstairs window that faces the street, something like what I used to have 8-10 years ago, but now they cost three times or more as much. And this week a friend is helping me to get a cut tree in town, which I will keep in water in the garage temporarily. With the help of my grandchildren when they arrive, we should be well decorated by Christmas Eve.

2014

 

One without looks in tonight.

animals, poetry, ,

THE FALLOW DEER AT THE LONELY HOUSE

One without looks in to-night
…Through the curtain-chink
From the sheet of glistening white,
One without looks in to-night
…As we sit and think
…By the fender-brink.

We do not discern those eyes
…Watching in the snow,
Lit by lamps of rosy dyes
We do not discern those eyes
…Wondering, aglow,
…Fourfooted, tiptoe.

-Thomas Hardy

Eyvind Earle, Deer

St. Nicholas Day through the years.

history, music, my garden, saints,

On this day ten years ago I did not post anything about St. Nicholas, whose feast day it was and is. Just now I was checking back through the years to find out what I’ve already said about the God-loving man who is so dear to people all over the world, when I discovered this post from ten years ago, at the time my new garden was pretty much installed (the back part of the property). If I didn’t have pictures like the one below, I would not believe how fast a garden can happen. The fountain shown did not remain long, because it exfoliated in its first winter and was returned to the nursery where I’d bought it.

Early December 2015

The most enjoyable posts here over the years on St. Nicholas Day seem to me these two: One when I traveled to a parish of which he is the patron saint, and one in which I have a lovely icon and the quote from Fr. Thomas Hopko in honor of him. So if you’d like to read about St. Nicholas or his feast you can click on those links. One of the posts includes this photo:

2025 is another year in which I won’t be celebrating with our sister parish on their feast day, because I am not completely well from a cold that knocked me down a bit, and I’m catching up on rest and everything else that didn’t happen for a few days. But it doesn’t feel right to let the day pass without joining in the commemoration at some level.

St Nicholas of Myra, 12th century; Church of Saint Nicholas of the Roof, Troodos mountains, Cyprus.

I’m sure that after Divine Liturgy for the feast, everyone at St. Nicholas parish will be singing this song at their festal meal. It is playing in my mind right now:

Though they are singing in a different language, Old Church Slavonic or Russian, I like the rendition of these men the best:  “O Who Loves Nicholas the Saintly.”

I pray that the joy of St. Nicholas reaches you wherever you are.