Faith, now. That's a different thing.

Most human conceptions of divinity are doomed attempts to grasp at the ineffable. It's ineffable. Not mythology.

Church Today

Verse Three ...

For sins of heedless word and deed, for pride ambitious to succeed, for crafty trade and subtle snare to catch the simple unaware, for lives bereft of purpose high, forgive, forgive, O Lord, we cry.



One of the great lessons of Jesus is "Do not fear." It is one of the most oft-reinforced exhortations from Christ,  the words perhaps varying, but the message essential to the nature of Christianity itself.

One of the things many fail to notice, if they even notice this theme at all, is that there is no implication that there is nothing TO fear.

This is what it means when it is said that religion is a comfort.

Today, I realized these things, and I also asked myself, "In the void where fear might have been - what are we to do instead?"

Act.

Collection

Mary-Louise Jensen at The History Girls on the church that was buried and the sandy lands of Jutland. Some really nice photos here. There is a lesson about building on solid rock, but mine is not to judge. :)

Lauren at American Duchess shows a great step-by-step on vintage-izing a hat and dress. I used to wear hats sometimes; hats are such fun.

Nyki Blatchley on authorial agenda, invented secondary worlds, and EastEnders. Is his fantasy work less "real" than my own recreation of the worlds of characters whose lives lie utterly beyond my experience? It may be closer to the realities we like to understand as such; yet each of us is writing some expression of truth ...

We found a HUGE number of beached jellyfish on an outing while I was on vacation not long ago. Here, the hugest single one of all ... Strangely beautiful photos.

Finally, the Caustic Cover Critic has another eclectic post of both regrettably and (of course!) hilariously poor cover designs. Proving once again, the wilds of the public domain can be a scary territory to broach.

Collection

On "performing" the seven deadly sins (without actual commission!). One should be "sharp when expounding, stern when correcting and kindly when exhorting." (For those who are uber-nerdy on this subject, the full paper is here.)

An interesting essay contest - in which a farm is the prize ...

Cue Mission Impossible theme music: the intel in monkey feces - or "Why Primatologists Love to Collect Poo" - best headline I've seen today.

Primary sources are the best. Medieval Jews' writings on Christianity and Christians, from the Eucharist to money lending.

Sabbath Day

There is a smell of sawdust in the house.

The smell of sawdust is so essentially living, it is reviving me. Where there is sawdust, there is a small scent of creation.


No church today, but a piece of stewardship to that greatest material blessing G-d has granted me - some work being done on the house.

Collection

Moe Ferrara at BookEnds Literary Agency asked such a good question on their blog, I want to ask it here too. Have you ever met your literary hero?

Here was my answer ...

Donald Harington was an American author not wildly well known, but he's been compared to Chaucer, and I was privileged to converse with him electronically a year or two before his death. He told me he was working on a novel featuring one of his past characters (his novels often centered on a fictional Ozark town called Stay More, and picked up facets from one another), Latha Bourne.
It was not until after he died I read "Enduring", the novel he told me about, and it still brings up the little hairs along the back of my neck. As if his work hadn't power enough, that launched my experience of reading that book to a new level, and it felt joyous and intimate and meant so much to me.
Another of my favorite writers was Roger Ebert. I didn't tend to agree with his assessments of movies, but LOVED his manner of expression. I was able to exchange a few emails with him as well some years ago. He was an incredibly thoughtful (in the sense of intellectual openness and willingness to consider unaccustomed points of view) and generous man, and very kind. I still sometimes go back and read his reviews or his blog.
Much more recently, I met Hugh Howey, at the James River Writers Conference last October. He was sitting on his own and I chatted with him for a few minutes - not about my writing nor even his, but just the event and the people and the food or whatever. He could not have been more charming and pleasant.

The History Blog brings us two very different stories worth the click ...

First: three-hundred year old tea preserved by (whom else?) the Brits. In a museum. Because, of course!

Then: 98-year-old blackboards in Oklahoma - "frozen in time, if not in place." Incredible! I only wish I could get the video to play.

Okay, now your turn. Tell me about your heroes!

Easter Grass

Church was short one Diane today; I've been spotty in attendance since we lost our priest, and I have a thing about being one of those people who only show up at the high holidays. So yesterday, I spent time with my family. Today, I am spending time alone.

Image: publicdomainictures.net

Just came in from mowing the grass. It is a beautiful, breezy, and sunny day; and, for me, there is as much (and perhaps sometimes more) worship in the act of maintaining my greatest material blessing apart from my body - in doing something around my home that is for my neighbors too, which going to church is not. And in simply being outside, my happy Yella Dawg watching and berating the mower when it comes too near her, the wind in my hair and using that body which is my first and last material blessing; working it and sweating and waving at occasional passersby.

Coming inside, I visited Janet Reid's blog for the firs time since last Sunday (she was taking time for prayer and worship of her own this week), and saw that she'd opened a forum for the community of her Reiders to get to know each other by posting links to their blogs and sites - and the comments section is nearly 200 responses deep.

And so, now I shall observe the holiday by adding links to my bookmarks, by reading a few individual pieces to add to upcoming Collection posts, by learning a bit about the lurkers, by learning more about those who comment most.

I haven't put up my own link - per usual, a bit late to the party; and there is so much to swim through as it is I can't add to the ocean. Sometimes it is better reading.

And, indeed, it can be instructive. Like writing, the best way to learn how is to READ. So with blogging; curating and cre-ating the most worthwhile content takes understanding what works!

The only thing missing today is pancakes. But, come to think of it, I have the fixin's for daddy's biscuits, so that might work.


And so. Hello to my Reiders. And my readers, too. And blessed weekend to all - whether it was in learning why this night is not like other nights ... or whether it was in contemplating what exactly "fondant" really is, as defined by the good folks at Cadbury ...

Collection

Today, I enjoyed a few posts and images, and thought they ... shall we say, created a flow (Tom, I hope you will pardon the pun!).

So here is a quick moment to share Mojourner's signposts (good for a look even if you're not in the mood for a brief read)...

Tom's Thames (still more images here) ...

The History Blog teaches us, sometimes you don't (quite) have to crack the egg.

And an exceptionally beautiful sermon from Rev Mibi, whom I have not forgotten (and who I would venture to say hasn't forgotten me, to the tune of sharing this - I've noticed those hits!).  Worth *reading*, definitely.  She's no slouch with a word.  Or "The" Word, if you will.  I did not go to services today ... but it was not because I did not want to ...

Love is Stronger Than Death

Image:  Huffington Post

Thank you, Mary.  You make me wish I didn't stay away from church on Mother's Day because the sermons always patronize my failure to reproduce.  Bless you.

Ew

The way things appear to be going in my tum, and with some sdubby codjesjun, once again there shall be no church for me this morning.  I don't feel Actually Sick (there is a line drawn by my mother in my mind, heart, and soul, only beyond which do I stop feeling guilty for calling in sick), but two things prevent fellowship - one, the prospect of having to dab through an hour and a half or so of time I'd rather be dignified, and two, the what-if-I-am-sick transmissibility issues.  Catholic-lite is no less rife with opportunities to hand over your germs than the full-calorie Church, one of those times the human-soup of existence opens the door to sharing.

Though I intinct instead of sipping, the obvious vector of course is the Eucharist,where we all get to share wine in succession.  But there's also The Peace, which is the part we all reach out and touch, shake hands, etc. (though we had a moment of polite greeting in the denomination of my childhood, it never involved looking at more than maybe two people, and certainly no physical contact).  The full minute or two or three of Peace-ing is a far more engaging sport!

So no for me again this week, but yes I believe to some housecleaning.  As this was my worship for many years before I found fellowship, so it remains, and though usually I don't do it on the actual Sabbath day anymore, it's hardly inappropriate to take it to this day.

But first ... a little TOS.

It Goes On

Yesterday I remembered there's a novel to be revised - and was a little in wonder, recalling how well things were going so soon before Siddy succumbed to illness.  I covered only three pages, and I'm honestly unsure whether the word count went down, or possibly even up, and I am too lazy to pull out the external drive and even open the lousy thing to be sure.  But I worked on it.

I also found a beautiful plant, from the nursery where my brother worked way back during The Reagan Years.  It is brightly yellow, deeply green, copiously thick, and has leaves at its base of the most shocking, beautiful black and red.  It is strikingly beautiful as she always was.  It is alive, and it lives where her bed sat.

Last night, my friend B came over with her daughter, and we enjoyed comfort food, "Blackadder" (the Third - the daughter's first experience of Hugh Laurie outside of "House"), and a bit of Eddie Izzard.  We were together until two a.m., and they were so generous and such wonderful company.

Today ... I clean house.  It's stupid and self-indulgent, but I hate to clean up all her fur.  But I do need the act of worship which is the maintenance of my hearth and home, the chief blessing I have had which is not Siddy. I need the peace of this place, clean, beautiful, and ... quiet.  Too quiet.

Happy New Year

Oh, my achin' back ...  *Grin*

I do enjoy Christmas decorations, and the holiday was REALLY lovely - nice time in my own home this year, just me mom and her husband - but me oh my, how I do love how big and clean and bright the house seems for New Year's when I take it all down again.  It wasn't up long this year, scarcely over two weeks.  But today I finally got a huge new piece of furniture brought into the house.  Today all the dismantled tree bits, and boxes of ornaments, and standalone knickknacks are all stowed.

Today the house is very much lighter and more open.  Larger and spacious - even with a huge new piece in the dining room.  Today the stress of moving that, and all the picking up is done.

Tomorrow, I return the furniture dollies.  Tomorrow, I go to the grocery for a few very special ingredients.  Tomorrow, I will observe my New Year's rite - and worship - and dust and scrub the small stuff.

Tomorrow, the decks will be clear, the work of 2011 done - and I will be loaded and ready to fire away for 2012.

Housecleaning Music

Not much improves on Paul Simon's "Graceland" for making excellent housecleaning music (and listening to "Diamonds in the Soles of Her Shoes" while sweating and grubbing your way through toilet cleaning and trash takeout makes the whole job better), but today, in the golden sun of autumn, with the wind blowing outside and the maple seeds pelting the house during the more sustained gusts, making the sound of hail against the windows, Type O is hitting the spot.  Tis the season for a good, wildly self-indulgent (and tongue-in-cheek) dirge.  I'll need to dig out my CD of Iggy Pop and others reading the poetry of Poe (Walken, of COURSE, reads "The Raven" ... and it could never be the same after hearing him read it - though, sadly, Homer Simpson's version is not included here).  I'll need to watch Langella.  Oh, Frank, I still love you the most, man.

I love Hallowe'en.  Dork.

*Grin*

Satunday

For over twenty years, but how many I honestly can't remember, Saturday has been a day of worship for me.  It is my housecleaning day, and until recent years, the only ritual rite I ever observed was the stewardship of my hearth and home - the greatest material blessings in my life.  Even since becoming a churchgoer, this is still important to me; worship and religion do go together for me now, but giving up the habit of solitary worship even now I have accepted religion never seems to have occurred to me.  Thinking about it now, it seems wrong.

With worship distinct from religion, I have omitted my solitary observance when there is reason to; a family gathering, some event more important than being alone with my gratitude.  When I was in mourning after my dad died, I had a hard time just getting up the energy for any kind of divine appreciation.  So I'm not religious about this worship, even about the day I hold for it.  It is, after all, a self-centered act, even if it is one of thanksgiving and even offering.  Bust sitting down after a bath in my clean and pleasant home is always a benediction.  I think of these ten years especially, since "home" became something I actually own.  I think about Mr. X with me here, or my family; the times I've shared with so many, here in these cheering walls.


Yesterday, of course, was one of those days I forwent the ritual of Saturday.  Since this weekend is so long for me; I held today for my deferred expressions, and have done most of what needs to be done.  There's still some vacuuming to be done (I always hate vacuuming, and have dreams of getting myself a Roomba), but the winter rug came upstairs just now - and that alone is a massive job.

Siddy will have a nice place to lie down; the hard wood being hard as described, and of course even with beautiful October weather it's cooler to try to nap on.  It'll be a little quieter; it'll be a little warmer.  It'll be cheering - that word X used, looking at pictures of the place last year.

I change the place around seasonally, and sometimes even oftener than that.  The recent experiment with the couch under the front livin room window was a diversion; but not one I felt the need to stick with very long.  Right now, it's in position to receive the longest autumnal light, long golden rays slanting across the kitchen.  Within a couple months, the room will draw in close and cosy, and Christmas will bring with it tree deployments and all the usual winter changes and amusements.

I love my hearth and home - but am no more religious about its arrangement than I am about its cleaning.  It's filled with antiques from my family, art from my friends, little meaningful things and kind of funny things.  It *is* a cheering place, and comfortable and beautiful to me.  The sum of everything between these walls is the accumulation of my relationships - so much to be grateful for.


Time to go upstairs and retrieve my 400-pound vacuum ... and finish off my worship - before the benediction ...

Tonight

Today is my mother's birthday, and I have hardly gotten to say hello to her.  Tomorrow is the day we (begin to ... ?) find out whether my friend is dying of pulmonary fibrosis.

My grandmother died of PF.

My dad did.

It is simply, literally beyond my comprehension that a friend I have known since I was a twelve year old girl ... could die.  I love her so very much.  She has been a friend like none of my others; winsome and silly and all the things we naturally love - but her heart is unnatural.  It is wide and kind and utterly loyal.  She has for a husband a man with one just like it.  Her friendship is a gift I have been thankful for, has spanned across thirty-one years now.  We were little girls when we met.

We still are.

She is a woman of a depth of generosity I have always admired; she is brash, and wonderfully crass, and has a mean streak just as wide as mine.  She is pragmatic - and romantic.  But for her friends - and I am one of the oldest - she is the deepest well.  She was there for me when dad died.  I can hardly bear the thought of being there for her when she does.  Of being there for her husband, who is also, so truly, so deeply, my friend.

Please pray for peace.

Pray for my beautiful, bitchy, batty, and beloved friend.

Kicked Out ... and Soldiering On

I should have gone to church this morning; not because it's an imperative unto itself, but because I needed it and felt and knew that - but I was feeling small and dirty and mean, and turned over in bed and would not go. It takes a bit to kick the church out of me. Having adopted the habit late (as a volunteer), it has an urgency youth's exposure had never made it. But I clung to a nasty temper, and laziness, and stuck out my lip and wouldn't do it. There is a certain stubborn influence, which is the cause of the worst of my temper, which feeds this petty arrogance. I couldn't meet this stubbornness without indulging in my own. And meeting it with conciliation hasn't been a working prospect.


***


I started off my day on Thursday, decided that challenges were what I needed. I dug in and I met them - "Bring it on," I actually said out loud to people - and beat them down ... and still watched the day explode. Friday was worse, but that was personal. And so I start this week, this stubborn week, which refuses to not come - inexorable - with heels dug in and jaw set, insistent on asserting myself. This week will not get the best of me. Neither will its pettiness and meanness. You hear? You will not get the best of me. I *am* The Best. Indivisible.

The Day of the Shoving

It is the Day of the Shoving of Furniture.

When spring time comes, and the air gets warmer, and the days get longer, Diane gets nesty, and sooner or later, there comes a week when she finds herself thinking, "Where will this beautiful new chaise go, the happy addition to my cheering home?"

And then begins the Swiffing-of-under-of-things, the piecemeal vacuuming-as-we-go-along, the sweating and puffing, the brute forcing and redeploying. And the living room is set up early, to catch windows-open weather cross ventilation. To open up as much space as we needed to curl down around to keep things cozy in winter time. To realize, seriously, JUST how much light this living room really gets.

Later on will begin the ordering out. I still haven't decided on Arianna's, Flying Dragon, or - possibly best of all - Roma's. But it's not even five, and Season Four of Buffy is just underway on Netflix. There's much light left in this day, and I am neither hungry ... nor even close to being done cleaning ... just yet. And the decision itself is one I can savor, as I set up my happy home for its fresh new look, and take breaks to listen to silly stuff on Netflix, and get around to cleaning *myself* up just as nice as the house will be soon enough. And then relax for the rest of a peaceful weekend. Mmm.

The living room is done, and it looks very nice. Next up, a little kithen and bath scrubbing, the dusting upstairs, and what vaccuming remains. I think I will change the bedspread for the cotton quilt, too. Then a nice Saturday night of laundry, and possibly reading. Not a bad day. I am a stupidly fortunate woman.

Saturday Afternoon Delight

The sun is coming in the kitchen vivid, gold, and incredibly bright - an narrow band, slipping around and thinning to a strand, smiling on the countertops and chrome, making the clean look cleaner, and showing off how low it can go. It would be a champ under a limbo pole; almost completely horizontal.

I've made good time on housecleaning today, so soon it will be over; twenty minutes of Swiffing and vacuuming are all that remains, and I don't even feel a hurry to complete them. I can sit here and post, watching the gleam of the camellia leaves at the end of the afternoon, and still know it's not going to be darkening to evening in any greater hurry than I'm in. This is a beautiful home, a blessed place, and I'm more eager to enjoy that in all its stages than to push it around right now to some particular state, when that state is less a goal than a pleasure. If there's pleasure in this moment, too, why rush my way beyond it?

I do look forward, though, to settling in once the light does dim, and setting to pampering myself. An hour or so on my nails, cleaning them up and buffing them pretty; probably just clear polish today, keeping it simple stupid. Then upstairs for a bath, a powder, a perfume, a dress and impractical shoes. Then out into a night not so cold I need rush in that so much either. It is my plan to dance tonight.

But for now, my fingers dance. My dog dances with me while "baby I love your way" plays and I sit on the kitchen floor with her, just paying her attention, just making her tail wag, and happy that she scoots in for a hug, a silly sway with me. The sun dances in leaves blowing outside, but in my home it is still and peaceful. Not even much dust dancing within it today. Simply a moment of un-marred content. And not even content I wish I could trade for satisfaction. Just peace.

I know why my church bids people peace. It is a joyous thing, the peace of quietude.

And with that, I bid you peace. Peace be with you, my brother, my friends, my family, my strangers from Belarus and the United Arab Emirates, and from Russia, even if that count appears to be all bots. Peace, and a good night. Maybe pleasant surprises.

Saturday is my day of worship - of stewardship to my home (and my dog). Of tending what has been given to me. Sunday at church is a climax, not the initiation of worship, for me. My day has been one of service to my blessings.

And so I will get to that Swiffing, that vacuuming, and get my service done. Before tending to that temple of silliness that is myself, and my stinky, house-cleaning-grimed self. Heh.

Peace. And don't forget to breathe, and to smile, too.