Month: September 2014

Summer 2014 Wrap Up

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Last summer, I dreaded every day. It was too hot. I had no energy. The kids were too noisy and watched too much television. I pretty much hated every moment of last summer. In 2013, from the first day off, I had a countdown going for when they would go back to school. Seventy-six days and counting was my familiar refrain. With the number of days changing, of course.

I was very worried that this year would go much in the same way, and I was quite surprised at how well it went; not just that it went well, but that the kids had fun, I had fun, and I spent more days happy and content (for the most part) than not.

When the kids would ask me at various times during this summer when school was starting up again, I had to look at a calendar; I did not have it memorized and I wasn’t counting down the hours. Even they were surprised by my lack of knowledge.

Here in our section of the US, the students in the elementary schools are let out the last week of June. Camps and Summer Recreation programs don’t typically start until after the 4th of July holiday and they are expected back at school on the Wednesday or Thursday after Labor Day. This is usually about seventy-seven days.

In 2014, summer vacation was seventy days. Perhaps it was knowing that summer was ending a full week earlier than usual, but it started pretty well, and kept going that way. I could feel the difference. Part of that, I know, was my medication doing its thing, my continuing to focus on my coping and walking away when something was too much. I also asked for help. The kids were also a year older, which seemed to make a tiny bit of difference also.

With no summer school for anyone this year, the 4th of July was our first item on our summer to do list.

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Writing Prompt

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With October starting in just a couple of days, today’s prompt came easily enough.

If you decide to use this prompt and want to share what you’ve written with others, put your posted link in the comments. If you’re an artist and use this prompt, please share that as well. We’d all love to see the creativity around us, and that can inspire us too!

Squash, Gourd, and/or Pumpkin

Change is Coming

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Fall has always been my time for starting over and resolutions. I’m starting here. 🙂

Beginning next week, I’m going to make some format changes and additions. Some pages may be inaccessible for a short time.

I’m going to start five regular weekly posts. I know from the likes and the views that several readers are also writers, so on Mondays I will post a prompt and share the free-writing fun. I know I’m more motivated when I have my workshop prompts to work with instead of coming up with my own all the time.

I will also have a photo post, weekly quotation, and a recommendation post.

In addition to those planned posts, I will continue to blog and publish my writings as well as photographs and art and timely activities.

I will also be changing the categories and tags, and hopefully simplifying them.

I welcome suggestions and feedback.

Sept 22 (Luke 8, Proverbs 3) Reflection

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There were several things in Monday’s Mass that struck at me with familiarity. The first was the Reading: Proverbs 3:27-34, in particularly verse 27:

“Refuse no one the good on which he has a claim when it is in your power to do it for him.”

And the Gospel of Luke 8: 16-18

16 “Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see the light.17 For nothing is hidden that will not become evident, nor anything secret that will not be known and come to light.18 So take care how you listen; for whoever has, to him more shall be given; and whoever does not have, even what he[e]thinks he has shall be taken away from him.”

 

How many reminders in the Scriptures are there for helping your neighbor? And we all know that it isn’t always literal neighbor, but a euphemism for fellow man or rather mankind.

If you have the ability, as Proverbs says you should help without questioning yourself, your neighbor’s motives or needs or whether or not you feel like it. It can be just as hard to ask for that person or more than it is to go without.

And Luke. How many passages do we read that have to do with light shining in the darkness? Following the well-lit path? Showing someone else your own light?

The light is so many things – our lives, our faith, the brightness in a child’s eyes, the glow of the sun’s rays through stained glass as it skitters across a wooden or stone floor. When I first came into the church, I couldn’t help but notice the different lights: the skylight, the small stained glass windows, the large Blessed Mother in the front, the large windowed cross in the back and of course the candles and how each light reflected itself, but also shown differently in the shadows; to be more nuanced than simply light and dark.

I saw Christ in the light – the proverbial awakening of my soul through the spirit.

I have come full circle through most of the passages. It won’t be complete until the third year of Gospels, but for some of the readings I’ve heard them before, and they still jump out at me as I recognize their impact on my heart.

Monday’s Antiphon was the first one I ever read, and that was a random picking of a page back when:

I am the salvation of the people, says the Lord. Should they cry to me in any distress, I will hear them, and I will be their Lord for ever.

 

He did.

And He is.

E4K2014 is Just Around the Corner

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wpid-2014-09-19-23.31.58-1.jpg.jpegThis will be my second year participating in Random Acts’ Endure 4 Kindness. It is a two day event of marathoning an activity. As I did last year, this year I will also be writing.

I sat at the table, laptop in hand so to speak and wrote – free writes to prompts – for eleven hours. My plan in 2014 is to aim for an even twelve hours.

Last year, I wrote for 11 straight hours for a total of 15 separate pieces and 12,363 words. I hope to surpass both of these in October.

I will be taking pledges through CrowdRise. For myself, I will be donating $10 regardless of additional donations. I’d like to be able to give Random Acts more than that. If you are interested in donating/pledging (any amount) in support of my attempted endurance, I welcome it.

This is my CrowdRise page: https://www.crowdrise.com/endure4kindness/fundraiser/karenbond

I have some ideas to keep me busy for twelve hours, buy your prompts are always welcome. Email me at kbwriting11@gmail.com

Spread the word, and for more information about Random Acts and the work they do, visit their website at therandomact.org.

This E4K event will take place over the course of the weekend of October 18 and 19, 2014.

Sept 21 (Matthew 20) Gospel Reflection

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Since beginning my Catholic education that led to my recent baptism this past Easter, I have continually been astonished at how much I’ve learned that I already believed. I’ve never had any formal teaching in any Christian religion. I had attended a handful of Masses with friends or for their weddings, a christening or three, and I’ve had one or two who believed in evangelizing and brought me pamphlets and materials to read and consider.

One of the things I always had a problem with was Judgment Day and whether or not and who would make it into Heaven. My belief had been, and I apologize for the flippancy in which it sounds, but my belief was always that even if I didn’t believe, if Jesus was real, He would forgive my ignorance. He would take me into his flock because that’s what he does. It’s His thing.

Honestly, I tried to avoid this conversation because it does sound disrespectful and I’d never meant it in a tongue-sticking-out way, but in my head, it was just a logical assumption.

Over the course of the last year (it is almost exactly a year since I began in the program), I have had the privilege of taking several classes and workshops. I also ask a lot of questions, and I am so happy to say that they are always answered. My questioning is welcome and I find that when I can ask anything, it is easier to allow myself to think and decide what it is that I believe within the religious framework that I’ve been seeking.

In addition to daily Mass for the past two years, I’ve gone to lectures on Matthew’s Gospel by a local priest, and one of the things he expressed was this feeling, this statement that whenever you come to Christ, you are accepted. You can be the last one in the door, and still you are welcome. (He also had a few things to say about Judgment Day which I also believed in my heart since forever, but that is another essay.)

In hearing Sunday’s Gospel (Matthew 20: 1-16), it reaffirmed that and what I’d always thought.

If I have made a conscientious choice with no malice, and I was mistaken, not through hubris, but through faith and reasoning, I would not be punished for my opinion. Jesus wasn’t that kind of a person. (Again, in my Jewish faith, I thought of Jesus as a person, not divine; this has changed in the last two years.)

He would not turn me away.

I’m not the last one in the door, but I have still found this to be true. I have been welcomed; not only by Jesus and His example, but by his representatives in the church and parish community.

Here is an excerpt from the New American Bible of Matthew 20: 1-16 that made me smile on Sunday:

20 “For the kingdom of heaven is like [a]a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 When he had agreed with the laborers for a[b]denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. 3 And he went out about the [c]third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; 4 and to those he said, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. 5 Again he went out about the [d]sixth and the ninth hour, and did [e]the same thing. 6 And about the[f]eleventh hour he went out and found others standing around; and he *said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ 7 They *said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He *said to them, ‘You go into the vineyard too.’

8 “When evening came, the [g]owner of the vineyard *said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ 9 When those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a[h]denarius. 10 When those hired first came, they thought that they would receive more; [i]but each of them also received a denarius. 11 When they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ 13 But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? 14 Take what is yours and go, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. 15 Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye [j]envious because I am[k]generous?’ 16 So the last shall be first, and the first last.”

Mixed Feelings (Rosh Hashanah)

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I have mixed feelings about Rosh Hashanah this year.

I had planned on observing it and keeping the kids home from school on the first day of the holiday, but it wasn’t on my calendar and I’ve made a committment to drive on of the elderly ladies to our memoir workshop, which is on Thursday (the first day of the holiday). I thought of maybe observing the second day instead of the first, but if I make a nice holiday dinner on Thursday, my husband won’t be home because he’s going to the high school for back to school night.

I may have to split the difference and do parts of each day. Have the dinner tomorrow night, go the workshop and then come home and continue with my own observance.

The liturgical year also starts in the fall, closer to November I think, I’d have to check, but that just reinforces my beliefs that becoming Catholic is an extension of my Jewish life, especially if you look at the New Testament as a part II, then my being Catholic after being Jewish is also a part II, a next chapter.

Once you are aware of all of the holidays, you can truly see the overlap, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, etc. I actually gave my take on Passover/The Last Supper to one of the presenters at the Spring Enrichment. It’s nice to be able to contribute with something I kind of know.

It’s also one of the reasons that I think joining the adult enrichment ministry is a good fit for me.

 

E4K Art

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I know my drawings aren’t much but I enjoy the process of doing them.

This is the badge I made for my E4K this year. I should have a proper post about the event on Monday.