too much

Hurricane Michael just came ashore as a category 4. 

The north of Haiti is dealing with the aftermath of another earthquake - not as bad as the last one - that would be very difficult - but whole areas flattened and everyone in tents. Including people dear to some of the sisters. (Our sisters are in Port-au-Prince and doing well.)

https://twitter.com/cjeanfils/status/1050102634793893888

Indonesia...

Nasty politics. #MeToo and #IBelieveHer. The stories break my heart. And I remember stories that have been told to me by women close to me.

Various friends and family members with serious illness or injury.

And I just found a priest from my youth who made a huge difference in my life on a list of accused abusers. 

I can't even.

Obviously I'm praying, as we all are. 

But why, oh why, oh why do we continue to hurt one another like this when life is already difficult?  Yeah. I know...

Just wishing I could do something more.  So many people in pain.

Pray with me, please, for them.

And so, along with the prayer (and especially the Eucharist), I am holding to the little things today.  Tiny spots of goodness like Sr. Claire Marie's lemon-(fresh-from-our-garden-)kale salad. A laugh with a sister. A walk before Evening Prayer (I hope). Looking forward to this weekend's family wedding and the deep contentment of spending time with them all. It won't fix the world, but it will help give me strength to get in there and continue the work set before me.  

    

a 60th to celebrate

Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of my parents' meeting. My father loves to tell the story (and he has just corrected me on a few details, having found this post before I could tell him). I can hear the lead up (a story for another day) and then the moment itself, as she comes to the door of the Cornell chaplain's house in a red slicker and matching hat to deliver a homemade ironing board for doing sacristy altar linens (big enough to do a corporal, my mother assures me). As though struck by lightning, he crosses two rooms to meet her and can't feel his feet as he walks. This, he already knows, is the girl he's going to marry.

I don't think Mom remembers it well - though she did correct my details about her outfit.

Mom and Dad in 1959, probably the front door of the Kappa house

The best he could do was a coffee date two days later.

He came back during finals week in June and sat with her as she hemmed a dress for her home ec final.  I've worn it - she saved it all those years.

His first REAL date with her, he says, was dinner and a movie later that week. On that date, he told her that God had ordained that they be married and that there wasn't anything she could do about it. Her jaw hit the ground...

She thought it was a line, though.

This summer, they will have been married for 58 years.  I'd call that a pretty good line, wouldn't you?

a love story

Addendum: Dad points out that she is a more beautiful woman now than she was then.

"Goodnight Moon" as read by LeVar Burton to Neil deGrasse Tyson

"Many moons ago, in a far off place..."

OK, I'll stop before I get too far singing from Once Upon a Mattress, the Princess and the Pea musical.

Many moons ago, one of my younger sisters founded the Moon Club (I kid you not). Around the same general time, she had a school friend who owed her so many favors that she made him call her every night to read her a bedtime story.

I wonder if one of them was Goodnight Moon.

Now, I will never catch up on favors after all she has done, especially in the last five years. However, I promise I will never again draw a line up the middle of a room we share or charge her rent if she borrows my clothing. Unless she throws it on the floor again, but I digress... :-D

Better yet, I have a bedtime story for her.

Liz, this one's for you. ❤





Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.

— Margaret Wise Brown, Goodnight Moon



Time for the Great Silence. Everyone sleep well.

gratitude from miles away

I need to share my gratitude and relief. You may have heard that there were tornadoes yesterday afternoon and evening in Indiana. No one was killed. No life-threatening injuries. The tornadoes that made the news were mostly around Kokomo, where one took out a Starbucks. I gather everyone was OK because the manager got them all into the bathrooms, which stood when the rest of the building collapsed. Someone in a nearby restaurant who didn't quite realize the severity of the situation stayed out in the dining area and filmed it. Good thing it wasn't a hundred yards in his direction.

I heard about the tornadoes yesterday evening because much of my family lives in NE Fort Wayne, Indiana, and one of them was out driving back from the South Bend area during all this. Sirens galore.

I'm wondering what it will be rated.

There was a huge one just northeast of Fort Wayne in Woodburn, near New Haven, as well as another to the south. Rotating clouds all over the place. 

There was quite a bit of damage, but everyone was fine. Mostly it seems to have taken out corn and barns, though there were  a few homes damaged and destroyed as well.  It could have been so much worse. 

This morning I found this video.

In the midst of so much other news of death and disaster, natural and man-made, I am grateful there was no loss of life here. Very, very grateful. 

Do pray for those whose lives have been affected by this and by recent flooding, fire, earthquake, and hurricane, that their needs be met with swiftness and compassion.

lightning tour of Cincinnati

Just how fast can you retrieve baggage, get picked up by your nephew and his girlfriend, eat lunch, and get a lightning tour of the University of Cincinnati area and still arrive in time for vespers at your conference nearby? Well, I found out! And I didn't even get rained on much in the process.

Welcome to Cincinnati!

I recommend Graeter's ice cream wholeheartedly. Good fuel for a speedwalking tour.

Welcome to the University of Cincinnati!

Interesting campus architecture and lots of tulips - it's spring here!

more interesting campus architecture

delighted to see them

They don't make pools the way I remember them... and this is just the recreational swimming pool on campus. They also have a lap pool (which may or may not be the competitive swimming pool; I forgot to ask).

UC architecture class final projects on display
I would love to know what the assignment was.

How's this for some high school architecture?

quick view of the outside of my father's doctoral alma mater with a picture taken just for him
(I love you, Dad!)

My nephew pays a whole $200/month rent for a room in this house. Toto, we're not in Massachusetts anymore...

Whew! We made it!
And it was a great conference, too.

#Beloved #EpiscopalAdvent

As a big brother cares for his baby sister... 

#Beloved #EpiscopalAdvent #family #awww

second Advent word of the day: abide

Abiding in love... My parents are the best example I know of this. 54 1/2 years married and still in love. God permeating all their life together. Enacting that love between themselves with us and others in the daily.

#Abide in love. #AdventWord

No one is perfect, but I can't imagine anyone else I'd rather have as my mother and father.  Mom and Dad, you inspire me and I love you.

Eagle Marsh

Eagle Marsh, Fort Wayne, IN

My mom has been doing so much better that I invited her to come with me to Eagle Marsh yesterday. Some of you may remember her car accident last summer and all those long months in the hospital. Well, now she can walk short distances, and it's high time she started getting outside. And I don't mean between the house and the car.

Eagle Marsh

Eagle Marsh is a conservation area in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  It might have been there when I lived there as a child, but I certainly never heard of it.  I just did a search on the internet for such a thing, and voila, there it was. http://www.lrwp.org/page/eagle-marsh

barn swallows

No sooner had we parked the car and opened the doors than we heard the birds. Lots of birds. Barn swallows swooping around, along with goldfinches.

I love goldfinches.

I was a little dismayed that there were so few trees and no benches - Mom can't stand all that long - but it was beautiful nonetheless. I gather that wooded area at the far end is part of the conservation area, but she couldn't make it that far. 

Mom walking!

The next thing we saw once actually out there was a leopard frog.  Quite a few, in fact.  However, we wouldn't have seen them at all if they hadn't jumped. Even when I knew exactly where one had landed, it was quite difficult to find it again until I crouched down a bit.  Really outstanding camouflage.

leopard frog

OK, maybe not this one below.

froggie has some learning to do about successful camouflage...

I have to say that I've always liked frogs and have lots of personal associations and stories with them, but I found these to be cuter than most.

You don't see me. 

Lovely wildflowers along the  path...

We saw a bird I'm still trying to identify - think it might be a dark morph red tailed hawk, which I haven't seen before. I have lots of photos, but they soar so high up that I couldn't get a close enough photo to be sure. 

waaaay up, but still beautiful to watch

We finally reached the water - not far for most of us, but quite a hike for Mom, who said that was as far as she was going.  Next year?  I went a little further, as I could see gulls, a heron, and an egret in the distance. 

opinionated gulls

There were at least two kinds of gulls and a great variety in personality among them.

The Odd Couple

I didn't actually see the duck until I edited my photos a few minutes ago. 

gull arriving, carrying dinner

Everyone was looking for an afternoon snack, or maybe an early dinner.

Great Blue Heron with gulls

found something...

Great Blue Heron, Great Egret

I could have stayed there for hours. Too bad they didn't have a bench for Mom and Tammy.

time to head back... Mom and Tammy, her home health aide

still watching swallows swoop around

Meanwhile, up on the tower...

Starlings, maybe? Anyone, anyone?

They just kept coming...

We may have been leaving, but it looked as though the party were just getting started.

It's a convention!

So thankful for this bit of peace outdoors.  In the midst of all that's going on in the world, we can all use some time in God's creation, remembering he created it good - that means us, too. 

Tiny creatures can be beautiful, too.

Until next summer...

Sunday in Manistee

Enjoying a weekend in Manistee, Michigan, with my two sisters.

Our day began with the Eucharist at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church.  It was going to begin with breakfast out at a coffee shop first as our Sunday treat, but, well, let's just say getting up as early as intended didn't happen on anyone's part.

Note to church geeks: the fascinating set of manual acts at the Eucharist today included almost no orans at all (mostly hands down), but did include elevation with sanctus bells x3 at the words of institution. Ponder that combination. 

These two lovely birds above and below greeted us on our exit following coffee hour. Maybe they knew my sister had won a plate of cookies at a raffle just minutes before.  In which case they were sadly disappointed, as we did not share even though the subject of the sermon was generosity. We'll work on it.

We made our coffee shop stop following church.

Coffee shop lunch: coffee (of course), half sandwich, and smoothie (that's my fruit and vegetable, right?)

I love the interesting buildings downtown.

Scenic drive through town on the way back, during which I tried unsuccessfully to take more pictures of hawks overhead. They haven't discovered that they can come visit me right at my sisters' cottage and be warmly welcomed by their own personal paparazzi.

Manistee loves books, too.  

Happy Owl: doesn't the name itself make you want to go in and stay a long time? Add coffee and a B&B, and I'd probably move in. It's right on the river, too. Hmmm.... Mission house?

More books!

a whole row of these little pavilions, each with its own picnic table and grill
Manistee, I love you.

The little ones at the beach looked as though they were enjoying themselves. Finally got home from church, changed, and went to the beach near the cottage. Ahhhh... 

For this particular beach, this is a crowd.

  

Really, could you ask for Lake Michigan to be more beautiful? I think not.

Early afternoon was perfect for being in the water. Then when the clouds came in, it was the perfect time, place, and weather for finishing a novel I started on the plane here.

It thundered on and off, but the rain stayed to the north while we watched the sun break through the clouds.

And then it got gorgeous again.

Wandered home at supper time, walking slowly in case any interesting critters showed up. You never know...

I think it's a baby... look at the spots on its breast!

Finished off our vacation day with style.  We began our supper with ice cream, eaten as we walked along the river.  The heavens opened, and we scooted to a bench under a tree with dense foliage and finished up, watching the birds and enjoying it down to the last drip. Poor sparrows... Once again, we forgot to share. 

Pleeeeeeeeeeze?

We had planned to roast hotdogs on an outdoor fire, but given that our plans were dampened, we settled for take out pizza* and had a cozy evening inside. 

*ice cream followed by cheese... good for the bones, right? We're just thinking of our health. No, really. 

Tomorrow afternoon we leave for Indiana; I'm hoping we miss the thunderstorms. On the other hand, that always makes it easier to leave.  I remember how we used to beg Mom and Dad for one last swim at the lake on the way out the door - at least once they actually let us do that. We must have ridden all the way back home in our sandy swimsuits. 

Tuesday we move my sister Rebekah to a new city and into a new apartment. She'll begin a new job Thursday.  Pray for her as she settles in.

I'm so glad to have this time with my sisters. God is so good.