Tag Archives: comfort

wet and comfortable

philosophy, , ,

I need a wood fire for something more than warmth today. The storm brought to us by the Pineapple Express weather front is dumping buckets of rain steadily all day and night, but without cold temperatures. Last night as Mr. Glad and I were decorating our Christmas tree we actually got way too hot from the blaze I had going — of course that just gave us an excuse to go outdoors and cool off on the front steps, and smell the rain.

This morning is just as warm, but after discussing the principles of Want vs. Need with myself, also covering the question of Wastefulness, I came to some conclusions.

1) If the fire in our woodstove puts out more heat than we need, we can leave some windows open to the music of raindrops and puddles, a concert we have been longing to attend for what seems like ages.

2) If I have the soul-nourishing comfort of a wood fire to keep me busy and to remind me of the goodness of God and our life here on earth, I won’t feel the need to fortify myself with the cookies I am planning to bake today. If those cookies were to go to my waist it would surely be a waste!

3) I’m reminded of the need to resist the exaltation of the principles of Efficiency and Economy. What may look to some people like waste of resources might be a very wise choice. Besides, I don’t live my life by principles but by the Life of God.

I wish I could take a picture of the sounds and smells around me this moment, but I’ll have to make do with one from my files, from a time when we had not only a toasty fire, but sweet cats on the hearth.

zoe by fire

As the sun at noon.

poetry, , , ,

This poem by John Donne I believe did not start out as a poem. Someone posted it as follows, in poetic lines, but I found the same lines as prose on Bartleby.com, in the middle of a passage in “Sermons Preached on Christmas Day.” Donne evidently did not give the title “In Heaven it is Always Autumn” to anything, but more than one person has more recently used his line to title a poem, as I found in my searching.

Donne uses several vivid words to describe the winter we can experience in our soul at any time of year, showing that he is familiar with that inner dark and coldness. We know that he did suffer terrible grief when his wife died, and it was doubtless not the only occasion when he felt desperate need of God’s presence and mercy.

What an encouraging word the preacher poet brings out of his training in God’s ways, able to comfort us “benighted” ones with the comfort that he has been comforted with, as in II Cor. 1:4. Because these thoughts were part of a Christmas sermon, I thought of sharing them later at Christmastime, but taking my cue from the first line extracted, and because it happened to be in the current season of the year I needed a reminder of God’s thawing Love, I’m not waiting.

“In heaven it is always autumn,
His mercies are ever in their maturity.
We ask our daily bread
And God never says
You should have come yesterday,
He never says
You must again tomorrow,
But today if you will hear His voice,
Today He will hear you.
He brought light out of darkness,
Not out of a lesser light;
He can bring thy summer out of winter
Tho’ thou have no spring,
Though in the ways of fortune or understanding or conscience
Thou have been benighted til now,
Wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed,
Damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied til now,
Now God comes to thee,
Not as in the dawning of the day,
Not as in the bud of the spring
But as the sun at noon,
As the sheaves in harvest.”

– John Donne, 1624

A few more helpful gleanings.

homemaking, quotes, women, , , , , , , , ,

With my youngest daughter Kate getting married in just a few days, you’d think I’d have precious little time for writing here. And that is so true, which is why I’m mostly passing on some more gleanings from my recent readings. If you ever pray for bloggers you don’t know, add me to the list this week!

1) Leila writes about some of my favorite things in her post Housewifely. I specialize in ironing and wearing an apron, but the other G & S 6-85things are also high on my list. She writes, “When you put on an apron, you do not merely protect the garments. You also announce your commitment to the task at hand, your willingness to suffer the slings and sputterings of the pots and pans, your resolve to see the work out to the end.”

I wish I had written this post. Sometimes I think I could write a whole book about aprons alone, and how practically and symbolically they are so significant to my own homemaking. I don’t only wear a apron in the kitchen, but to clean house and dig in the garden.

Aprons were one love that I shared with my now-departed friend Bird which is why I made her a new apron at a time when she had no obvious need for one. Bird and I knew that she did in reality use one, as a way to keep herself on the continuum of the woman she had always been.

2) Daphne writes common sense and wisdom about dating and marriage.

43 m&l
My cousins 70 years ago

“Start dating after you are ready to get married, and date people you can actually see yourself marrying, as doing otherwise is typically a colossal waste of time. ”

“A good marriage is intentional and dating should be too.”

“And none of them live in magical fairy tales; no matter how it’s arranged a relationship always involves confusion, mistakes, and heartache. Crossed wires are built into every human interaction. ”

3) This article on acedia I found to be revealing of all the many ways self-love manifests itself. Fr. Aidan Kimel quotes a 4th-century desert monastic on the eight fundamental passions or thoughts; acedia is central.

“Frustration and aggressiveness combine in a new way and produce this ‘complex’ (that is, interwoven) phenomenon of acedia.”

“’A despondent person hates precisely what is available,’ Evagrius writes, ‘and desires what is not available.'”

4) The last thing I offer you, which was most helpful to me at this time, is Father Stephen writing about Comforting One Another, which is also about comforting ourselves — or rather, not comforting ourselves. You see, we try to comfort ourselves by running away from the heartbreak or pain and suffering, running to pleasures that we think will ease our hurt. They often bring us further pain. We have to make ourselves not run away, but turn to Christ and let Him truly comfort us by His being and presence.

“For it is when our hearts are broken and do not run away or hide that we can call on God to comfort us. And He does….That comfort is the gift of His own life within us, a sharing of His own joy and love.”