One Wild and Precious Life

Travelogue: Day One

Of  course, travel doesn't really begin on day one, but far, far in advance of that, with the purchase of tickets, the reading of travel guides, the purchase and preparation and anticipation.  So day one, September 22, really wasn't day one at all, even though it's the day that I left the US for Europe.

I was very lucky to get such a cheap ticket from Nashville to Zurich, via Newark.  I've watched the prices of tickets since before I bought mine, and nothing has been within $100 as cheap as the one I bought.  Lesson:  It pays to start looking early, being flexible with regard to dates and destinations (I would have flown into Milan or Rome, probably -- but the ticket to Zurich was not only cheaper, but allowed me to go to Einsiedeln and see one of the famous black madonnas there).  It also allowed me to ride the train through the Alps, both to and from my destinations in Italy.  There were multiple gifts in that simple decision.  One of my hopes for this trip was that I would remain open to the gifts that same to me every day  of the trip.

I had shopped for clothes to take with me, and had five things to wear "on the bottom:"  3 light skirts, a pair of well-worn and much-loved black cotton knit gauchos, and one pair of fairly new, LLBean black cotton knit slacks, and also six nylon t-shirt tops that I knew (from experience in California in July) could be washed out and dried overnight in most situations.  I had only a little underwear that I would also wash out overnight.  I left with one large rolling backpack (the best $25 I ever spent in my life), and one lovely leather bag that could either be a knapsack or large shoulder bag.  I also had a small nylon duffel crushed into the bottom of the not-completely-full rolling bag.  It was all very portable and carry-on, eliminating the question or problem with checked luggage on the trip over.  There was plenty of room to expand as I went along, and then to check a bag on the return trip, as I had done in 2005 when I made this trip).  I also knew that less is better where jumping on and off trains and other transportation is concerned.  Hauling lots of heavy luggage makes any trip more difficult than it needs to be, with a little thought.

I shouldn't have taken my large, telescoping tripod or my mini-notebook computer.  That would have cut down on bulk and weight, and I didn't/couldn't really use them much, anyway.  I took a swimsuit which I didn't use, but that was a good idea anyway.  A parishioner friend, a very gallant retired pilot, used to say, "Never leave home without your passport or swimsuit."  I like that attitude; it's  quite romantic, really.  There were beaches, and on another trip, I might have made excellent use of that swim suit.

So, a parishioner/friend drove me to Nashville.  All flights left on time and seamlessly.  I sat beside a sweet young German couple who sneezed, coughed, and blew their noses for the entire 7-hour flight over the ocean.  I swore.  I prayed that I would not get sick, too.  Yes, I did get sick, but not immediately, so who knows if it was their germs or some other that caught up with me, 5 days or so after arriving.

I arrived in Zurich, Switzerland sometime on Wednesday morning.  At the airport I bought my ticket into Zurich and also to Milan in the late afternoon.  Then I found the tourist information  center in the Zurich train station, as I expected, and received great advice (and a map) about how to walk down either side of the river (the upscale shopping side, and then the charming, infinitely more interesting, "old city" side.  After that long walk, I would take the train to Milan, Italy, riding through the Alps.

Here's a little of what I saw:

This is the station  where I arrived in Zurich.  It's a lovely old structure, and very few of our US cities have retained this sort of train depot.  Of course, the pigeons fly in, especially from the back end, where the trains come in.  It's a lovely combination of outdoors and indoors, and the air never gets close and stale, because there is always the part that is open to the trains.

Around the perimeter of the  interior, there are lots of shops and cafes, and in the front part,   the entry you are seeing and to the right of that, there is a lovely market -- not simply tourist trinkets and other "gift items" such as flowers or candy, but a full-fledged market with stalls that sold meat, breads, cheese, and other household supplies that could be easily picked up after work and taken home.

Switzerland uses the franc, not the Euro, so I had to visit the bank machine to retrieve some Swiss currency.  I thought I withdrew an exorbitant amount, but things are so expensive in Switzerland that I really didn't.

Zurich is also a very gracious city, however.  There was charming old architecture to observe at every step.  There were lots of parks and benches to sit on and relax.  Unlike Italy, where there are often not places for a weary traveler to relax (though I say the monuments of Rome are highly polished by the butts of locals and tourists), Zurich offered lots of benches along the way.

The Swiss are known as clock makers, of course.  This clock, on a street corner near the station, chimes on the hour with a lengthy song.  See all the bells that ring so sweetly?

I walked down to Lake Zurich on this street, mostly past very high-end stores.  When I stopped for lunch, I found a middle eastern place that offered "kebaps," which I'd never had before.  I fully expected them to be some sort of "kabob," as we say in English, some sort of meat skewered, roasted, and eaten from a stick.  On the other hand, what a "kebap" really turned out to be was meat that we in the US would call "gyro," meaning a large chunk of meat roasted n a spit and turned, turned, turned.  It was put into a soft tortilla with a whole bunch of vegetables  as well as a sauce that moistened it -- and it was eaten like a soft-shell taco or a burrito.  It was cheap, fast, and tasty, but in no way local to Swiss cuisine.  Still -- when you're on the run during the day, it was an easy meal.  When I got to the lake (maybe a mile?) this is what I saw:

Ignore those cranes  in the distance.  It was a charming sight, with many swans.  It was a popular local lunch site.  I know these pictures look like cloudy black and white, and am not sure why; but the sun was shining, and people really flooded out of the businesses and came to walk on the many docks, or to sit on the many benches to eat their lunch.  I also saw lots of tourists lining up for ferry tours of the lake.

The walk down the other side of the river, for this was the great crossing point for traffic, was through a very medieval-Europe-type area, with winding roads, beautiful churches, and lots of charming shops.  I stopped into the church where Zwingli preached some of the more radical Protestant doctrine of the time (which actually sounds very moderate, compared to the radical evangelical preachings and teachings I hear daily here in Tennessee).  I bought myself another journal, which I had decided would be my  own souvenirs of a place.

After some time spend lingering in a park close to the station, I caught my late-afternoon train through the Alps to Milan.  Lessons and reflections for that first day:  Try to have a little German, or at least familiarity with a phrasebook, when traveling in what is essentially a German-speaking country.  It's a bit arrogant and rude to do otherwise.  I was careful to have a tiny bit of Italian and some facility with my phrasebook for Italy -- but completely, thoughtlessly ignorant, where Zurich was concerned.  I'll do better next time.

No Place Like Home

I have been home approximately one hour.  It's raining here, the first rain I've actually been in for 3 weeks (did ride the train through some precipitation yesterday).  I've heard that the Plateau is waterlogged, but I have to say I don't mind it.  Cool and wet feels okay, and I don't know if I've ever been so happy to be in my beloved little rectory.

Tomorrow I will start with pictures and the real travelogue, I promise.  It is just 11:30 pm here, but the time clock I've been on for the last 3 weeks says it is actually 6:30 am, and I've had very little sleep in the last 24 hours.  I'm still pretty wound up from the trip home, but I have to work tomorrow beginning at 9:30, and so will have to turn in very shortly.  Also -- tomorrow I get my doggies back from the kennel!

But tonight I'm just rushing in for a moment to say that I've learned so very much -- about the black madonnas, about Italy, about myself -- all for better and for worse.  There were moments that were thrilling and that made me proud and amazed at myself, and only one emotional meltdown.  But as far as I'm concerned, all lessons are good lessons, whether they're pleasant or unpleasant.  It sure is good to be home, even with this cat I'm not sure I like very well, even with a bag full of dirty clothes (I just put the first load in the washer), even with literally hundreds of pictures from the sublime to the ridiculous, in my camera.

I'll also say that it was cool in Milan yesterday, cold in Zurich this morning (when I rode the train back through the Alps from Milan to Zurich, there was snow on the tops of the Alps, and we even rode through just a lick of it), and also cool here on my beloved Plateau.  It was amazing yesterday to go within 24 hours from palm trees (in Palermo, Sicily) to snow!

I can't tell you how good it feels to be surrounded by English again -- the spoken language, the printed material, the internet (I haven't even had the TV on yet).  I know it sounds a bit chauvinistic, except that I truly don't particularly think English is the best language, only that it's the one I'm fluent in.  Italian is a beautiful, melodic language, but it's not mine, and I could understand only the tiniest bit of it.  It's lovely to hear words I can understand again, and read headlines in my native tongue.  That being said, I'm determined to improve my Italian.  On the train from Palermo to Milan (yes, the whole train came across the Straits of Messina (location of the famed Scylla & Charibdys, and the Sirens) on a ferry), I heard a German speaking woman talking in fairly methodical "schoolgirl Italian," much slower and clearer (to me) than native speakers, and it was amazing.  She was perfectly and delightfully understood by Italians, but also (almost) by me, and I thought, "I could learn to do this."  I do know one native Italian speaker here in Tennessee, and I intend to try to arrange sessions where we can speak English part of the time (she really needs to improve her English), and Italian part of the time (for my practice).

Two days ago I would have said that I was so sick of Italy that I never would return.  And two days before that I was fantasizing about spending half the year in my retirement at a lovely little place outside Palermo (more about that magic pranza -- lunch -- another day).  And today I fantasize about speaking more fluently, for those places (and there are many, many) where English is not spoken at all.  Go figure.  I'll have to sleep on the whole thing before I have a single clue about what I may want in the future!

So do be patient one more day.  I will delight you with some shots of Zurich, taken the day I arrived, and perhaps even some of Milan (if I took any!).  The travelogue begins!

Drat!

I will try and post with pictures tonight, but just now I'm discouraged that a mega-post from Rome didn't get auto-saved by typepad.  It seems to auto-save when I don't need it, but that night I really needed it, it has disappeared!

At any rate, I'm here in Napoli, at 3:20 pm, whatever my time stamp says on my post.  It's gorgeous, and I'm headed off to the Museo Archaelogico (everything here's open till at least 7).  I've got pre-historic and Greco-Roman stuff I want to see today, and a day trip 20 miles out of town tomorrow to see another madonna.  Then I head off to Sicily tomorrow afternoon.  Today's dilemma is whether to go by water the long way, or by rail to the very tip of the toe and cross the short way by water (maybe even a hydrofoil?).

My 4 days in Roma was very productive -- I discovered two that I haven't found documented yet, right in the Pantheon.  I love Rome.  She is such a gracious, all-embracing lady.

I'm forming some very firm ideas about these black madonnas, too!

Oh, and I'm learning about travel, and picking up more Italian, and hoping I'll find a nice beach in Sicily to chill out for a couple of days.  I've got lots and lots of pictures, but my battery's waning now and I haven't had lunch, and I've got a date with a black Diana carving....

Italia!

Oh, I am having so many adventures, have taken hundreds of pictures, but I find that internet connections are spotty at best, especially for posting pictures; so that will have to wait.  Perhaps if I were in one place for more than a day or two, or if I weren't sick (yes, I've come to Italy to get a cold!), I could figure it all out more efficiently.  In a couple of days I will be in Roma, and plan to be there 3-4 days; that may give me a chance to show you just a bit of what I've seen and done.  But yes, I've seen black madonnas, for sure!  I've seen the dark icons, but the ones that fascinate me most are t he carved wooden figures, all very dark and strange to our eyes.

It's all taking me much longer than I anticipated.  When one relies on public transportation (and my poor, abused, but ever-faithful feet) and the vagaries of the 12-3 pm lunch "hour" that is almost universally observed in the places I've been, I just don't get to all the places I want to.  There was one Madonna outside Genoa and Milan (about equidistant) that I just couldn't get to, because I needed to rent a car, and could only do that at the airport.  If I see one Madonna a day, I'm doing well.  I know now that I was greatly overreaching myself when I thought I would see all of them in this trip.

Every day I re-think and re-plan.  Since I know I can't see them all, I've decided to concentrate on Rome and Sicily, which have the greatest concerntrations in the smallest space.  If I have time, I'll double back to Naples, Venice, and that one I missed near Milan.

And I've discovered new loves that I never expected.  Genoa:  what a great city!  Very gracious, right on the ocean.  Beautiful architecture, lots of old churches, and plenty of beautiful places for a tourist to park her weary self.  And Zurich!  Who'd have guessed that Switzerland would also have flowerboxes overflowing with blooms?

And so I will close today, reporting in from Livorno (saw the Madonna of Montenero, the patron of Tuscany, today).  I need to check my mail, and I'm having one of those marathon sneezing fits.  Pray for my improved health, okay?

The State of Things

No pictures today, but some talk about gardening and travel.

I'm just about ready for my upcoming trip to Italy.  It's hard to believe that I depart in a little more than 2 weeks!  I'll fly into Zurich and see the black madonna in Einsiedeln.  You can google this and see her.  Than I ride the train down through the Alps to Milan, and go see the black Madonna in Oropa.  Then it's on, on, on to all the black madonna sites I can reach in about 2 1/2 weeks.  I've got a tentative itinerary done.  I've got my map.  The main book I'm using is Lucia Chiavola Birnbaum's book, Black Madonnas: Feminism, religion, & politics in Italy.  She includes a great map with what she says are the "25 significant sites" of black madonnas in Italy.  It was a great starting point.  I've discovered maybe 5-10 others that I want to see; I'm sure there are more.  Her book is still available, if anyone's interested.  I'll admit that I'm not all that interested in the political movements in Italy, but that's really only one chapter of 11.  What I'm really interested in is the map, and her theories about the origins and popularity of the black madonnas, most particularly in Italy.

I chose Italy because I was there in 2005, so I know Italy a teeny bit, love it passionately, and have the tiniest bit of Italian to work with.  The number of madonnas there seems manageable, unlike southern France, where there are dozens, if not hundreds (see Ian Begg's book, The Cult of the Black Virgin, which includes maps of France).  Sorry, I'm not even doing hyperlinks tonight -- how lazy is that?  Google is your friend.

I'm going alone.  This is not a "store bought" pilgrimage or study trip, though it will be both for me.  I'm making it up as I go.  When I get back, I'll share what I saw and learned, and you can do it yourself -- or I might just lead a pilgrimage myself!  The climax of the trip will be Sicily, where there are 10 sites.  I intend to spend 6 days.  But my plans are very fluid.  I've been sick, and due to allergies, am still not 100% well.  I will do what I can do.  If I get slowed down and only have 2-4 days in Sicily, so be it.  If I get there and am not happy there, I'll come back to the mainland and spend more time in Naples, or Rome, or Florence.  Win/win.  I'm not one of those people who has to be locked into a schedule and reservations, being a certain place on a certain date.  In fact, that seems really distasteful to me.  I want to be able to stay in the places that call to me, stay with the madonnas that call to me.  And then move on.  I'm so excited I can barely stand it.  It's like Christmas Eve as a little kid, multiplied by about 12, till I'm actually leaving for the airport.  I know what clothes I'm taking and wearing.  I do not think my rolling, carry-on knapsack will be nearly full.  Plenty of room for souvenirs and icons and pictures, even though I've also packed an extra duffel if I buy too much.

But as I said, I've been sick.  I'm over the bronchitis that I came home with a month ago, but I'm still working on managing allergies.  I never had allergies till I came to Tennessee.  Now I do.  In previous years they took the form of stuffed up nose and sneezing marathons that could go on for 15-20 sneezes.  Occasionally I had to take an antihistamine to calm them down.  This year, they've decided to live at the back of my head -- in the form of post-nasal drip and a tendency to cough.  I have to talk a lot in my job, so the coughing has got to be managed, somehow.  Antihistamines and decongestants seem to do the trick, but working out the right combination is no mean feat.  But by George, I think I've almost got it.  But it has left me tired and drained, and still with a pain in my side (from a pulled muscle, people tell me) that responds to ibuprofen.  So my energy has been low.  I've learned something about not being 25 again, when I recovered from anything in about 5 minutes (or 5 days).  I've learned about just submitting to the time it takes for my body to heal, and to be gentle with myself (even though part of me feels I should be at least back to 100% now, if not more).  I've learned about accepting the kindness of others to bring me stuff, or just to give me permission to be sick for a while.

My spiritual director is also a reiki practitioner, and Friday she gave me a treatment.  I don't know exactly what happened, but by yesterday I felt so good that I did 2 hours worth of gardening (which was, of course, like stuffing pollen directly up my nose).  My back walk looks fabulous, and I learned some stuff about what I want to do back there with the runaway, invasive bamboo that my predecessor planted.  The answer to that is: nothing.  Cut it back a couple of times per season, transplant any other things I want to save, and just give the bed over to (trimmed) bamboo.  It's hopeless.  I've heard that burning and digging out and herbicides are powerless against bamboo.  Resistance is futile.  But it actually looks nice if I keep it cut back off the sidewalk, out of the boxwood, and from around the hosta.  So even though I was all choked up for most of the day (not a good thing on Sunday, with 2 services), I've learned some stuff.  And there's such great satisfaction in seeing the difference my two hours' labor made.  I've decided to do just a bit each week that pleases my eye, and I'm slowly encroaching on the borders of the big beds that my predecessor planted (with the help of 3 assistants -- I have NO gardening assistants), making them just a bit smaller on all sides.  Six inches or a foot smaller on each side can make them easier to maintain.  Just when I get the jungle of yard conquered, it will be time to retire, or to leave this parish!

I've also been enjoying my tiny back porch.  I sit out there in the morning when I can to enjoy the birds and plants, and to write my morning pages.  Yesterday I went around looking for leftover perennials, but could not find the coreopsis I was seeking for a pot.  So I bought a big pot of yellow mums at Walmart.  Not bad for 5 bucks.  Five dollars for a pot of pure sunshine.  Yellow-gold mums (not the eye-shocking bright yellow, but a golden color), big pot, beautiful with my gold marigolds with the deep red edging.  Sunshine every morning.

So that's my last couple of weeks.  I hope to post daily or so when I'm traveling -- I'm taking my mini-notebook with me, which has a card-reader for photos, and wireless capability.  So if I can access wi-fi, I'll be able to show you what I'm doing and seeing.

Long Time Gone

Well,  now that I check back, it has been a really long time -- more than a month -- since I've posted here.  Unlike lots of you whom I read, it isn't about spending more time on Facebook.  For me, it's about summer, travel, and being sick.  This could be fairly long, and I have lots of pictures.  Be prepared.  Here are only a couple that were from General Convention in California:

The convention center was huge, though I'll admit I didn't venture above the ground floor.  There was a huge escalator that looked four stories high, but I admit I was halfway intimidated by a recent television show I watched when a large escalator fell, a woman was trapped in a mob of falling people, and nearly had herself shredded.  Think giant, multi-story shredder of humans.  Now I'm sure I would have ridden it, or found an elevator, if I had been sufficiently motivated.  But it seemed there was more than I could handle on the  first floor.  I loved our sign, though -- so typical of the Episcopal Church -- our shield, which is recognized by all Episcopalians, and the words, "welcomes you," which embodies what we're about as Episcopalians, I hope.  Then there was this shot: 

This was the Hilton, immediately perpendicular to one end of the Convention Center, where we were lucky enough to get to stay.  It was a very good place to stay, even though I was glad to get home to breathing real, outdoor air after two weeks of very little of that.  Still, I'm grateful for such luxurious and convenient accommodations, since most of the rest of our deputation were also in the Hilton, and most especially the Bishop, in whose suite we met each day for lunch.

It actually wasn't very hard to adjust to seeing palm trees everywhere -- I guess at home, here on the Cumberland Plateau, I'm not that far from South Carolina, where I also get to see palm trees.  The weather, though, was delightful.

Now I came home from Anaheim, and tried to catch up on all I missed in the 14 days I was gone.  I also had a sermon to write on the Saturday night I arrived home.  The sermon part wasn't hard, though, because I knew I could talk about what happened at General Convention.  People like to hear about the larger church, and also what I've been up to while I was gone from them.  But then there was (were?) two weeks' of mail and business to accomplish in a week, before I left again for a vacation in Buffalo.

Then I went to see my friend Cheryl's new house.  Well, it's new to her, but it was actually built right near the turn of the century.  It's a lovely double, with a luxurious first-floor flat (with reliable tenants), an even more beautiful second-floor flat, where Cheryl lives, after considerable work, and an unfinished third floor "servants' quarters" residence with plumbing already installed, where it's my fantasy that I'll live out the summers of my retirement.  It's a true classic, great neighborhood, well-preserved woodwork and fireplace, etc.  There's a huge front porch, wide as the house, and with sturdy awning framework in place (no canvas awning yet).  Here's a beautiful shot or two of the front porch:

  The leaves on the awning framework are fake -- and interspersed with tiny white lights.  When Cheryl explained it all to me, she said, "It reminded me of the rooftop patio in Naples, where we drank that bottle of wine and talked.  And yes, I could see it clearly.  I don't care what they look like to others (though my stubborn Sicilian friend, Cheryl's partner Tom, did grudgingly admit they were "nice"), darn it, when I sat out there with her, I could remember being in Naples (where I'll be again in 4 weeks!).  You see the three beautiful flower boxes -- this photo shows only half of the beautiful front deck.  We were aiming, in late Buffalo Summer, for the effect of Venice, where the flowerboxes were abundantly overflowing wherever we went.  I planted one, to help Cheryl get started, then she planted another FIVE all by herself, and they were all beautiful.  I am grateful for this vacation.  I loved seeing Cheryl, and her beautiful new house.  We even had a few days at the lake, which I also love.  What I didn't love was coming down with bronchitis while I was there.  I got to sit at that lovely table you see every morning, drinking coffee, writing in my journal, just enjoying the great outdoors of a city I love.  But within two days I had developed a cough (allergies, they said), and before long, I was awake at night, coughing my lungs out.  Whatever caused it, I managed to let it get bad enough to make me really sick.  The vacation was a disappointment to both of us, I think, because usually I'm eager to go and see and do, or at least to stay up late enjoying one another's company.  But I spent a lot of this week in bed, or on the sofa.

The drive home was also miserable, and I'm a great lover of driving.  I was so sick that I felt absolutely unsafe.  When I came home I encountered a whole series of disappointments in a minor scale, and when I finally saw my doctor on the following Monday, she thought I had pneumonia.  Thank God she could see me.  Thank God I could get antibiotics and a cough syrup.  But here's where I've spent a goodly portion of the month of August:

Yeah.  Sigh.  I got home on the 8th,  saw the doc on the 10th, and have spent a goodly amount of time here.  Propped up, just like in the pic.  I finally realized (with the help of some parishioners) that if I prop myself up, I'm less likely to drown in mucous (sorry).  Even this past week, 2 weeks after I saw the doctor, I was still coughing and had post-nasal drip, which threatened to progress into more of the same.  And I have a trip to Italy in 3.5 weeks!  I have to be well.  My activity practices (running each morning with the dog, yoga 2-3 times a week) also ceased, so I'm more out of shape than I've been in 4 years.  But after a re-consultation with the doctor and some self-medication as well (I think I need a drying-up decongestant, as well as an allergy-treating antihistamine), I'm finally resembling something akin to health.  I've taken several 20-minute brisk walks (as opposed to my prior 30-40 minute runs), and today  I actually got some yard work done.

When I visited Buffalo, I also spent some time with my friend Janet, who is a gardener of great gifts.  She showed me and talked to me about her gardens, and I was re-inspired to attend to my own yard.  I won't even show you to gone-to-pot (not literally!) veggie garden, but here's what my front walk and steps have looked like for several weeks now:

Notice the overgrown condition of the spiderwort, especially.  Not only is it encroaching onto (and has rooted into) the front steps, but it has completely overgrown the two beds on either side.  I feel like I'm wading through a sea of weeds and chiggers each time I approach my house.  Yuck.

So I've been sick.  Which not only has let my weeds grow unimpeded, but makes me feel like a pile of crap, besides.  I spend time lying on the sofa, torn between episodes of "American Justice" and "Dr. Phil/Oprah" (aren't they really the same show?), and berating myself for all I'm not doing -- at the church, around the house, and everywhere else.  Anyway, as I began to feel better, and this entryway became the source of great annoyance to me, I decided to follow some good advice to set a timer for 15 minutes, and then again and again, if I felt like it, and see how much I could get done.  As always, we surprise ourselves; I surprised myself.  Here's what all that mess looked like after 15 minutes:

You see that the steps have been mostly cleared up.  The bushes to the right and left of the sidewalk are more clearly defined (by the removal of overgrowth).  There's still some growth on the steps themselves, and lots of scrap and debris on the sidewalk.  I set my timer for 15 minutes again, and of course, the timer went off, and I hadn't accomplished all I wanted.  So I kept going.  I didn't time myself, but I suspect the time I spent was about 45 minutes total.  Not bad for an old gal with residual allergies and/or bronchitis.  Here's what it looked like at the end:

All cleaned up, and 45-60 minutes total.  In this particular shot, I've even removed the HUGE pile of clippings and pullings -- enough to pile a wheelbarrow higher than is prudent.  Oh, I think it looks lovely.  I needed to spend a little time making things look nice out front again.  When I walked the dogs at 6:00, I enjoyed every second of approaching the porch.  I had also pulled the poison ivy that was growing over the front sidewalk.  When the men of the church had a workday, they didn't get it  out, so I finally had to, despite my fears of contamination.  But I don't seem to have contracted anything as yet, so I'm pretty sure I've got it made.

Anyway, I wanted to fill you all in on my comings and goings, my  ups and downs (mostly downs, unfortunately).  And why I haven't talked to you in ever so long.  But perhaps between now and when I leave for Italy, I can fill you in more about my trip, my preparations, and my expectations.  Love you all.

Whew!

Well, last Saturday night I got home from our Episcopal General Convention, held every 3 years.  The trip from Tennessee to Anaheim, California, is a big one, on a number of levels.  It was overwhelming, amazing, hard work, but with a bit of time to play.  I didn't expect to go, as I was a 2nd alternate deputy, with only the regular deputies and the first alternate having a paid spot.  But the first alternate had to drop out, and I got an expense-paid trip, with 5 days' notice.  Everything fell into place in the most remarkable way: dog care, supply clergy, kitty care, and all the rest).  This is my fourth General Convention, but the first one where I haven't been a visitor, and actually felt some responsibility to do some work!  There was a lot of work to do, though I had the easiest end of things, being an alternate, and only called into duty when deputies needed to be off the floor of the legislative session.  Still, there was a lot to do, a lot to learn.  I admit, I only got to the health club once, and didn't get to the pool or hot tub a single time.  I went to committee hearings and legislative sessions.  But I was only an alternate -- it was our deputies, who also had committee responsibilities, who worked so very hard.  I loved it, and did also work hard myself, and saw my friend Fran, and we talked and talked and talked.  I haven't seen her in 7-9  years, but I think we had even more to say to each other, more to share about common interests and activities, than we did back when.  Oh, I finally counted and figured it was close to four hours we were together, but it felt like 1/2 hour.  For anyone who thinks folks on the internet are axe-murderers:  neither Fran nor I seem to show any proclivities for that.

But after 2 weeks away, it sure was good to get home.  I've loved being with my dogs again.  I've loved sleeping in my own bed.  I've loved being back in the weekly routine of office hours, services, bible study, and the people I love here in Tennessee.  It was great being with colleagues and our dear bishop in California, but home is always best, isn't it?  I know I won't be here in Crossville for the rest of my life; but right now, right here, it feels absolutely right.

I spent the week debriefing from the time away.  The Convention did enact some controversial resolutions dealing with openly GLBT people in the discernment process for ministry -- ordained or not.  We made the news in those places where people find religious news.  This had to be presented to the people here at home, the people in the pews.  But I didn't really get fully caught up on what happened here while I was gone, both at work and at home, and now I'm heading out again!  I'm going to Buffalo (where, I'm sure you  remember, I lived for 24 years), and will see my best friend's new house.  I will spend a few days by the lake, where I can just unwind and get back to my true self.  I'll see lots of old friends.  I've taken care of all the details I need to take care of, and now can do my laundry and re-pack my bags, and I'm out of here soon.

I'll miss my garden, I confess.  There are beans, cucumbers, and tomatoes (finally!) to pick, weeds to pull, and grapes to watch.  I've recently (finally!) transplanted annuals into pots and containers for my porches.  They need watching and watering.  There's always more to prune and burn and spray.  I don't use a lot of poison, but just today I attacked my bumper crop of poison ivy.  I've watched it uneasily for long enough -- now it needs eradication!

But I will enjoy the cool of Buffalo (I hope  -- it can get hot there, but on average is lovely in the summertime.  And when we go out to the lake, in a camping trailer on the Rez, near Silver Creek, it's bound to be even cooler and more refreshing (though sometimes rainy, right there 100 yards from the lake).  I can't wait.  I need this time to rest and revitalize, before a 6-week return to work, and then my 3-week trip to Italy.  I know I will be nourished by the love of my friends.  My best friend Cheryl and I are truly soul friends.  Despite each of our tendencies for self-preoccupation, we always listen eagerly and offer free, unsolicited advice to one another.  I know Cheryl holds me in her heart always (as I do her), and that kind of acceptance allows for deep rest and re-creation.

How is travel for all of you?

Happy Summer!

Once again, it took a friend to remind me that I haven't been blogging in some time!  I'm sure you all can identify with the way the days just fly by for me, slipping through my fingers.  Every day I think of this blog, and plan to write something; and I try to keep up with reading all of yours, too, but I seem to go from one thing to the next, and one of the "things" I get to isn't getting a blog post done!

As I said, I've been busy.  And it's full summer here on the Plateau, and that means hot and humid!  So I've been doing lots of indoor activities, like shopping and napping.

At the end of last month, I went to a collage workshop that was given by a couple of women who are in my spiritual directors' peer group.  The theme was on the various questions that Jesus asks in the Gospels, and two that caught my ear were, "What do you want me to do for you?" (answer:  take away my fearfulness), and "What are you afraid of?"  The boards we used were the centers cut from mat board -- wonderful material on which to collage.  Rather than naming my fears, I chose to make affirmative statements, because I knew I would want to focus on it.  Here's mine:
Hell's bells, I'm not happy with this picture, but it's the best I could do.  I'm sure it's my editing of it, but I'm not going to mess with it now.  If I did, it would be another month before I got a post done.  Oh, well.  Live and learn.

I wish you could read the words and see the pictures better.  You can see the bright colors, which make me feel positive.  Under the "Freedom" is a beautiful dove.  Above that it says, "Choosing Faith Over Fear," and the little strip below the chalice says, "breakthrough."  The little orange card at the lower right is a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson:  "To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."  Making this small, simple piece reminded me how important it is for me to do even simple creative projects.  I'm grateful for the reminder.

I've been shopping for my Italy trip.  Got a good leather knapsack, some lightweight tops (to wear with lightweight skirts I already have), some good walking shoes.  I'm busy plotting out my itinerary, and finding more and more black madonna sites that I'd like to visit.  I've got a summer's worth of research to do before I can even decide where I need to stay.  Got a recommendation from a friend to check out Hostelling International, and for 18 bucks (yes, I qualify as a senior) I think I'll join.  Most hostels offer single rooms, and the prices are excellent.  I'll continue to explore monasteries, as well.

You can see that my gardening is happening in fits and starts:

The front porch is still a work in progress.  I've filled three big pots, and still have a window box to do.  Then I have several backyard planters; meanwhile, the plants are languishing, poor things.  I need to set them into a tray of water, at least.  There!  I just took ten minutes to do that -- maybe the poor babies will live to grow another day.

I keep working at things in bits and pieces, but that seems all I'm capable of and have time for right now.  Lots keeps happening on the church front, including lots of folks in the hospital.  I'll get it all done before I go on vacation in late July, though -- I'm sure of that.

The veggie garden is thriving, including the weeds.  I've got all kinds of baby veggies, and with the heat has come the tremendous growth spurt I expected.  Rain has been forecast every day for ages, and some folk on the Plateau are getting it, but it seems to pretty much skip over my little corner of the world.  This morning I got about 8 drops of rain before I walked the dogs, then maybe a 10-minute shower during the 8:00 am church service, and that was it.

This is the fullest view of the veggie garden I could get in a pinch.  In the lower right corner, barely visible, are my grape tomatoes and Italian parsley.  I'm pretty sure it's all weeds on the lower left.  The next bed in has beans and bell peppers -- the beans are really taking off, beginning to blossom.  They look like they'd like something to climb on, even though they're supposed to be bush beans.  Last year they were in the bed at the bottom of this picture, and the deer ate them nearly clear down to the ground.  Not this year!  They don't munch much on tomato plants, so that's what went near the fence.  The patch of dirt at the bottom is Swiss chard that hasn't sprouted yet.  The third bed from the bottom has all tomatoes, except for 2 bell papper plants.  The tomatoes are Romas and Better Boy.  Beyond that are watermelon, and beyond that, my strawberry bed.

You can see that my "Spicy Globe" basil is thriving -- about time to clip some (I have two plants) for my tomatoes.

I'm eating lots of tomatoes these days.  They're available, juicy and ripe, in all the fresh produce stores.  It's a minor competition around these parts, to see who can get their tomatoes in earliest, and get them to the farmer's market, or garden center, or produce store, or farm stand, the soonest.  I've failed miserably at that, getting most of my stuff in after Mother's Day this year -- a really safe, "sissy" date to plant.  The best trick I've heard is to put some fresh cow or horse manure beneath a thin layer of soil in the bottom of your planting hole -- the manure is "hot" enough to warm the roots of your plants and encourage them to grow, even at pretty cold temperatures.  And you've got built-in fertilizer!
Look at the teeny baby cuke!  I've actually got one bigger than that on this plant, but still a few days too small to harvest.  This one will be full-size within a week, probably.  They grow really fast!  And that's a good thing, because I'm learning about using cucumber slices in place of crackers for cheese spreads.  A friend gave me some local chevre with Italian herbs, and yum!  Unfortunately, I'm doing a 2-week, low-carb food plan, and can't have those lovely, buttery and crunchy little crackers.  So cucumber slices are not too bad as a substitute.  I'm also eating quite a bit of salad, and enjoying the cukes and those ripe, juicy tomatoes in salads.  Soon I'll have them from my very own garden!

Here, happily, are some little bitty grape tomatoes.  Yum, yum, they're my favorites!  I am so glad that I went to the garden to take these pictures, because I hadn't seen anything but grapes and the one cuke so far, and I was getting worried (why do I do that?).  Now I'm much reassured that I will have produce this year, probably more than I can eat.  Have I told you here that I freeze my tomatoes by sticking them whole or cut into chunks into quart or gallon size freezer bags?  If you chunk them, unless you freeze them spread out on a cookie sheet first, they're going to stick together -- so I usually put the chunked-up ones in quart bags.  But the whole tomatoes don't stick together, and so I freeze them in the gallon bags, and then just pour out as many as I need for a soup or sauce.  No, I don't blanch or peel them first.  Yes, I have to contend with (or ignore) peels at cooking time.  But the romas can be dropped one-by-one into hot soup, then speared almost immediately with a fork, and the skins slide right off.  I almost always consider the skins as "bonus fiber" and leave them in, unless I'm making something fancy.
I promise, this is the last veggie photo, though I have some other non-veggie photos to share, too.  Aren't my grapes just wonderful?  I can't remember if they're the reds or the whites, but the other vine didn't produce very well.  The only bad part about these lovelies are that they hang on the outside of the fence, and if the birds don't get 'em before I do, I'm afraid that the deer will!  But this is the first year I've had any significant production of grapes at all.  Last year I had one very small bunch, very good, but very small, and that was it.  So this year I'm thrilled.

Now, just a few more pictures.  Do you need another beer, or glass of iced tea, or something?  Now would be the time to get it.  I can't help it -- once I get going, I have a hard time stopping.  Next time I'll try to find something more interesting to natter about.

Now, isn't this bee balm pretty?  Last year a neighbor, a gardening buddy, gave me bee balm and bright pink yarrow, and I put them in this "nursery bed" until I could figure out what I wanted to do with them.  Look how big they've grown!  Somehow I thought they would be knee high, and instead, they are shoulder-high.  I love them.  It has been a great year for flowers on the Plateau, probably owing to a cool spring and lots of sunshine.  I'm also going to post a closeup of the bee balm, because it's so pretty, and so unusual-looking.  No simple daisy-shapes here!

Doesn't it look like some kind of strange, alien thing?  I love it.  Very delicate.

Now I have only one more picture I'm going to share with you.  I took a couple more, but I do want you to see a problem I'm facing in my back yard.  My predecessor here planted some very beautiful, very invasive variegated bamboo.  It's everywhere, and I can't get rid of it.  I have a corner bed that has many interesting things planted in it, bordered by boxwood.  You'll see in the photograph that the bamboo is taking over everything, and you can barely even see the boxwood.  I can cut it down, of course -- did last year, which caused it to grow up even thicker and more beautiful than ever.  I may try to rescue the plants that are struggling to coexist in this bed -- but I'm afraid if I move them, I'll bring along shards of bamboo, too, and it will soon invade elsewhere.  I could spray it with poison, but I hate using poison, and would probably kill everything else growing in this bed (Solomon's seal, hostas, a Japanese painted fern, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't even identify).  I don't want to kill everything, but I'd sure be happy to get rid of some of this bamboo!

Isn't it pretty?  Isn't it lush?  Can you find the boxwood?  Nope.  How about the hostas and other stuff?  Sigh.  I'm about to just give the whole bed over to the stuff, and abandon all hope and all the other lovely things there.  Sob.

So just one more thing.  The low-carb food plan I referred to.  I'm on day 9 of 14.  It's Dr. Phil's Rapid Start Weight Loss Plan.  It's only a jump-start prelude to his much more moderate and wise weight loss plan, which I intend to follow.  Basically the Rapid-Start Plan is carbs (breads and grains) only at breakfast, small portions of everything but veggies, and just a little fat.  In 9 days I've lost 6 pounds -- not too bad, though I'm pretty sure I did as well in my first week of Weight Watchers, way back when.  But the thing is, I finally decided that I should quit waiting for a hero to come along and save me from myself -- I guess I'm going to have to step up and be the hero of my own life (I think Elizabeth Gilbert used that in "Eat, Pray, Love").  Losing weight is difficult, but it's not rocket science: eat less and move more, right?  So I've ramped up my runs to 45 minutes, 5 days a week, and continue to try to get to yoga 2-3 times a week.  I want to do a little weight work at home, too:  building fat-burning muscle, and all that.  I've got to get some weight off so I can dress more comfortably, fly to Italy more comfortably, and walk more comfortably once I get there.  I finally faced up to the numbers and now admit that I have about 85 pounds to lose.  Sigh and sob again.  But the good news is, that I'm doing it.  I always believed that I needed carbs to feel satisfied, and couldn't imagine a meal without a carb.  Of course, my mom was always a meat-and-potatoes kind of cook, meat, starch, and vegetable.  But if I do it right, I can be quite satisfied with minimal carbs.  It really is an addiction of some kind, thinking I need my bread!  So this week I've allowed myself to feel pretty smug.  I've done well, even in the light of temptations like the parish barbecue dinner, complete with potato salad and cake for dessert.  Skipped 'em both.  If I do it right, I don't even get cravings, though I've had them from time to time this week.  Five more days and I can have a glass of wine and a cracker with my cheese.

It's 49 years since my father died.  I miss him this Father's Day.

Now it's off to bed with my journal and my mug of ice water.  It has been a good day.  Happy solstice!  Happy summer!

Back Home Again

Okay.  I've had an absolutely lovely time away.  The retreat was great.  All the presentations, including mine, were well-received.  The Mercy Center in St. Louis was probably the loveliest, most gracious retreat center I've ever attended (and I've attended quite a few of them).  I took a couple of pictures of my favorite parts: 

Yes, the Mercy Center has a lovely labyrinth, constructed, as I read the story, over landscape fabric.  It was initially built by a group of women, and mulched with wood chips (wisely salvaged from pruning and trimming on their own property -- oh, that I could get our church to do that!).  Now the dark black mulch is shredded rubber, an excellent choice, I think, and I wish I could get hold of some for my own labyrinth.  It was striking.  It is a 12-circuit, like the large one at Chartres Cathedral in France.  It also seems much like the one at Kanuga Camp and Conference Center, where I actually learned to appreciate the labyrinth.  It does seem longer than the one at Kanuga, though.

The outdoor stations of the cross also touched my heart, probably because I saw them so soon in the Easter Season!  I've longed for outdoor stations at our parish.  We have a beautiful and unique set inside our church, and we use them exactly once a year, during Holy Week.  I'd be happy, though, if others wanted to use them more often.  But in the church, to move from one station to another really only requires a shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.  I really wanted stations that you could actually walk a few steps between.  You might be able to see in this photo that the cross sits in the center of a very large circle that contains all 14 Stations of the Cross, each one sheltered in a small wooden "house-shaped" structure, mounted on a pole.  My idea, exactly!  And executed most beautifully, with great love and devotion.

I did not get any pictures of the presenters, but the Hindu woman (a social worker by day) appeared in a sari; the Muslim woman appeared with appropriate head covering, the Jewish woman wore a lovely yarmulke or kippah, and the Zen Buddhist wore traditional Japanese robes.

I didn't get pictures of them all, but I was so very pleased that they were so warmly received by the audience, a Christian religious order (some of whom, I was told, might be fairly conservative).  Everyone there seemed to want to know more about the worship and mystical practices of the world's great religions.  I was also very touched at the warmth with which my talk and my presence were received.  Though I was much too much of a newcomer to share in the rather intense emotional experience of the entire retreat, I certainly felt loved and welcomed, and that was a Good Thing!

During my presentation, I offered this quote, by Bede Griffiths, an English Roman Catholic Monk:  "If you look at religions as they present themselves to us, it is like five separate fingers.  But if you penetrate to their source -- to the palm of the hand -- you will find they all spring from the same source  and instead of being separate entities they are, at their base, sharing in one common, mystical tradition."  This quote was received with many nods and murmurs of assent.  It's what I believe, too.

I left the retreat warmed to my heart.  I was fed by all of the presentations (on interfaith approaches to prayer, worship, and meditation) and the people who were there; I slept a lot, signifying that I had allowed myself to relax into this time of grace and rest.  I was also installed as a Companion in this order, something requiring more of a commitment than my previous status as "Friend."  I wish I had also taken more photos of this gracious location, with its wide, spiral staircase spanning three levels (but also with elevator), its lovely grounds, and the delicious food we were fed with far too great regularity!  I loved this beautiful and holy place, and do hope to return.

And then I drove the three hours back to my family's home in the easternmost part of central Illinois.  Oh, how lovely that was!  I wish I had pictures, but I don't.  But my heart danced in the arms of my family.  I conversed and broke bread daily with the ones I love, and then also had a lovely dinner with my one remaining brother, who generously shared pictures of himself and others in my family.  He lost his wife 7 months ago, but is coping remarkably well.  I was so happy to see my loved ones doing well, and regretted missing the ones who were working in another part of the state.

This afternoon I arrived home.  I was so, so happy to be with my doggies again.  Mr. Buddy, who seemed to have a sore back when I left, is fully recovered.  My kennel lady was kind enough to text me and tell me of Buddy's return to dancing.  The kitty has taken up residency in a windowsill in my study, and I'm delighted that we can finally all be one family down here.  My  youngest dog, Ms. Clementine, has grown far gentler and more respectful, so the kitty need not live in terror any longer.

So I'm so happy to be here.  I was only gone a week, Wednesday-to-Wednesday, actually eight days, if you count them up on your fingers.  But meanwhile, things have gone wild in my garden!  Just look at a few of these!  I've often had the experience of being gone midsummer, and finding my garden gone wild upon my return.  But never have I had this experience so early in the spring.  Things are so much more lush and beautiful than when I left a week ago!

This tree peony never fails to knock my socks off.  I love the vibrancy of it.  This year it has more blooms than it ever has had.  I made the mistake early on in my time here of cutting it back severely, and it has bloomed ever-so-slowly and sparsely in the years since.  I love the blowsy sensuality of these blooms.

This is only the second year in my 7 springtimes here that I've seen these clustered purple wisteria blooms.  The wisteria is amazing, when it decides to happen.  The problem is that it doesn't like any severe cutting back, and if I actually trim back what has extended into the little tree next to it (see upper right), then it doesn't bloom again for ages.  Of course, two years ago we had a severe late frost -- but I'm ever so grateful for these blooms that occurred during my absence!  Now if I could only nurture back its twin, which was chopped to shreds -- twice -- by my ever-helpful lawn crew.  This year I will try once again to pick one perfect stem and nurture it into a small tree.

I could post a number of other photos I took today, including some dynamite columbine.  But  all of these sweet flowers do announce spring to me.  I love lilies of the valley.  I remember when I was a young teen my favorite cologne was "Muguet des Bois" (flowers of the woods, as I recall) -- the sweet scent of lilies of the valley.  They are such a pretty addition to my springtime.

I can't believe that I was gone only for a week, with nothing but the barest hints of these things when I left!  Now they are all in full flower.  Besides that, when I took my walk with the dogs tonight, I discovered many, many tiny bunches of grapes on my wild-as-can-be (though of a domestic variety -- only neglected) grapevines.  I have a parishioner of Italian extraction, who knows about these things, who insists that all these tiny buds will produce only tiny, tiny heads of grapes.  But it's too late to prune as he has instructed, this year.  And there are so many little bunches!  The very best I can do is to find ways to repel the deer, so that I can eventually see all that develops for myself.  Then I'll know better what I should do for next year.  I have shiny things to set blowing outside the garden to scare away the deer.  I can get some netting (though this is best in battling birds).  I might even surrender to the terrible prospect of "liquid fence" -- garlic and rotten eggs!  Oh, my.  But I'd love to save the grapes that have budded out (pictures another day).

How lovely to get away!  How lovely to visit a fine facility and also be part of a lovely retreat!  How truly heartwarming to visit old locales (including the gravesites of my parents and daughter), and to enjoy the love of my family for a few days!  And how wonderful to return home, especially to an abundant garden!  Thank you God, for all of this!

Happy Easter!

Well, we've passed through the glory and the agony of Holy Week, and now we're in the Great Fifty Days of Easter.  You've gotta love a holiday that lasts not just 12 days, like Christmas, but a full 50 days!  Yep, that's Christian Easter!  We get Easter clear up to the Day of Pentecost (May 31 this year)!  Yay!

This week has been a week of "normalcy" in my schedule, and also of holy rest.  I've slept deeply every single night, and also napped every day, I think.  Holy Week, if you really enter into it, can be an intense and exhausting experience for anyone.  If you're a priest, it's a lot of activity.  And if you're in a really good spiritual place and a priest, it's a lot of very intense activity.  And even though it doesn't seem like a lot of work at the time, because the spiritual energy is so intense -- afterward, a good rest is in order.  Most priests take the week after Easter off; I chose not to because I'm taking a week from this coming Wednesday to the following Wednesday (more about that later), and also because I will take time in the summer, as well as the 3 weeks in the fall to go to Italy (2 weeks of which will be continuing education time).  So I'm gently resting in the midst of a return to normal parish life.

On Monday, though, here's what I got done:

Yes, the labyrinth is completed!!  I'm not sure what drove me to do it on Easter Monday, except that it was a beautiful day, and there was only that one circuit to complete.  It did mean collecting and hauling two trunkloads of stone, but I did seem to have the energy and motivation!  I'm so very pleased with it, and will tell you about this evening's experience later.  I want to talk about two more things first.

I'm preparing for a retreat in St. Louis.  It's for an Anglican religious order called "The Worker Sisters of the Holy Spirit" (there are also Worker Brothers).  I'll be installed as a "companion" in this order at the retreat.  The theme this year is interfaith approaches to prayer and meditation.  We're leaving out all the theology, and skipping right to the heart -- the encounter with The Holy in each of the 5 major religious traditions:  Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam.  I get to make a presentation on Christian meditation (and contemplative prayer), and then engage in a dialogue with a Zen master.  I'm so excited.  What a wonderful opportunity for first-hand interchange and learning.  I've long loved Thich Nhat Hanh, and his writings about the intersections between Christianity and Buddhism.  Wish me well!

I will also get to see my family for a brief time on this trip, and I miss them.  I'm really, really looking forward to it.  I'll stay in my sister-in-law's home, and also get to see my wonderful grand-niece, Madeline Anne.  Yay!  And on the way back, I'll see my brother, too.  My last remaining brother, who was so very good to me when I was a little girl.

The second thing I want to talk to you about is this:  Susan Boyle.  I post the URL for the two people in the whole world who haven't seen this appearance on "Britain's Got Talent."  Why, you might ask, do I bother to post it, to mention it?  Why on earth would I possibly care about a plain, rather chubby, perhaps invisible middle-aged woman, who comes across a little bit ditsy at times, but who is, as Simon Cowell says, "a little tiger," and possesses a pearl of great price within her?  Gosh, I don't know.  Don't have a clue.  All I know is that I listen to this You-Tube broadcast over and over and over, and cry and laugh every time.

Now:  tonight's labyrinth walk.  I've been walking pretty much every day.  Having my own labyrinth is as great a privilege as, say, having my own swimming pool or hot tub (how I'd love those!)  As you may have gathered, this time in my life is incredibly spiritually rich for me.  So I quiet myself at the start, as I always do.  I have no particular question or problem as I begin, but I'm aware of being both incredibly grateful, and also that I need to ask so much for myself.  "Thank you" and "Please" are the words that I can articulate.  I begin to walk quietly and meditatively.  Almost immediately I notice sticks and dead vines (that I've pulled as I was building it) in the path.  I stoop each time to pick them up, and soon I have one hand nearly full.  Then I hear God's voice.  It's in my head, but I don't believe it's my own self-talk voice.  It says, "Take care of what I've given you."  And I know that voice is about taking care of the labyrinth (which was totally a God thing, as far as I'm concerned -- I couldn't have done that much work all on my own), but it's about so much more, too, in ever-widening circles.  It's about taking care of myself: my body, mind, and soul; my pets; my home; my family; my parish and all I encounter in the course of my work; this community, and yes, even the world, praying and advocating in whatever ways I can.  "Take care of what I've given you."  Yes, it's a call and a big job, but also a big gift, to hear this.  I'm not sure I deserve to have heard God's voice, but I have.

Now:  Have any of you heard God's voice?  I don't seem to hear it as some biblical characters do -- coming from the outside, like "hearing voices" (in our culture, that's a sign of mental illness).  No, my experience of this (I actually only have a few times when it has happened) is that it's a voice in my head, but it's not my voice.  If it were my voice, it would have said something like, "I must take care of everything that God has given me."  But this voice definitely said, "Take care of what I've given you."  It was a directive.  That's one of the Big Ways I've heard God's voice.  Often it has been much more subtle -- like an idea or a hunch.  Or a sermon.  Y'all don't possibly think that I just think up or make up my sermons every week, do you?  Nope.  I consider them gifts that are "given" to me, almost like dictation that I just copy down.

Anyhow.  When I hear God's voice, I always want to tell someone.  And I usually think maybe it's a message that's not just for me, but for other people, too.  So maybe there are things you all need to treasure more, and take better care of, too.  Well, if the shoe fits, is all I can say.

But I do hope you're rejoicing in the power of the Spirit, and in the power of true Resurrection!