Sometimes an inspiration takes on many forms and has many hands to form it.
The pictures below are a couple of my visit (pilgrimage, I suppose it could be called) to the Canadian National Shrine of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. I had been trying to visit here for several years. I was hampered from visiting due to their pandemic closure, and then I thought I wouldn’t be able to again this year because their opening hours did not coincide with our vacation plans.
My husband rectified that by suggesting our return a couple of weeks after our vacation to visit the shrine. And so, I was able to fulfill my desire to see the final resting place of St. Kateri Tekakwitha. This was my final stop in seeking out Kateri’s footsteps, and it was a beautiful experience that I will share in time.
In the meantime, enjoy these photos that do not do the site justice:
St. Francis Xavier Mission Church. Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada. (c)2023
The Altar. (c)2023
Looking from the altar to the entrance of the church. (c)2023
Tomb of St. Kateri Tekakwitha that holds her relics. (c)2023
August has been full. Already. But as I looked over some of my recent photos, I thought of little things that inspired me and still help me look forward. See photos for captions.
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero
My view on July is that it’s too hot. It’s barely the first week, and it is already too hot. When will fall be here? However, we still need to get through July (and the rest of the months) as we do all the other days. Be in the present. At least, try to be. The photos I’ve shared on bright, colorful, and motivating. Especially the books. The books are my intentions for July: spiritual journaling (and other writing), continuing to read the daily Scriptures in the voice of the Indigenous Peoples of this land (Turtle Island), and participate in a four week personal retreat with the four female Doctors of the Church: Therese of Lisieux, Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Hildegard of Bingen. Each has a special meaning for me that I hope to share in the next four weeks as I go through the book.
What are your plans for July?
What inspired you this week?
What is making you determined?
My new spiritual journal. PS I found the lost one. 😦 (c)2023
As I mentioned in the June Inspire last week, I’ve been awed by the number of inspiring events I’ve been privileged to have participated in since the very beginning of the month. Since I was unable to choose one or two to write about, I thought I’d write about most of them, and include some photos and links so you can explore on your own in your own timeframe and let them capture your imagination and inspire you as well.
One warning before I really get into it: this will be picture heavy (as well as, from my estimate, word heavy).
June began with a weekend retreat that I’m still feeling. June is also the end of the school year, and so during finals and Regent’s exams, my youngest often doesn’t have to go to school, and since the whole crew at home took a day off to see The Flash movie (no spoilers ahead), we decided to take a road trip to Connecticut. And then finally, a field trip to a college outside of Albany to tour a set of books (a Bible actually) of Biblical calligraphy and illuminations. And in between all of that it’s been busy with driving my kids, funeral for a colleague and friend, interfaith doings, Red Hats lunch, a broken hearing aid, weekly rosary, and Father’s Day, an interfaith prayer service, and a fellowship luncheon.
June has been a lot more than usual, and it’s still got a few days left; Indiana Jones will be inspiring in its own way. I don’t want it to sound as though I’m complaining; I’m really not, although once I get started it’s hard to turn off the listing; it’s like a waterfall. However, I can’t say it’s been dull or uninspiring; it’s definitely been the opposite of both of those.
For those who know, Wednesday is new comic day. It’s a weekly collaboration and celebration of reading and community tied together with a pull list and a handful of new issues. They range from black and white and vibrant color and everything in between, where words and pictures mesh to create something new that cannot be done with only one or the other.
Each local comic store has its own personality, and Earthworld Comics in Albany, NY’s personality was as big as the heart of its owner, JC Glindmyer. As the motto stated, they (and he with an assortment of helpers) had been rotting minds and seducing the innocent since 1983. We moved to the area in 1995 and had been visiting Earthworld whenever we were in Albany before that, well befoe our kids were born. My husband wouldn’t move to a place that didn’t have a comic store, and with Earthworld he found the best.
JC died this week.
We missed him on Free Comic Book Day due to a family obligation – it was the first one we’d ever missed, and this one really stings. Each first Saturday in May we’d get there early, waiting for the doors to open, hanging out with the costumed superheroes of the day that JC arranged to be there: Spider-man, Gamora, Batman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman. There were special days all through the year: Batman’s 75th anniversary, Halloweenfest, Fangirls Night Out, and while Free Comic Book Day was filled with free comic books and entertaining heroes, the biggest hero was JC, raising money each year for local charities.
I would also be remiss in not mentioning how often he helped us by floating our comics from payday to payday, knowing our struggle, but also knowing that we were regulars (for a couple of decades) and needed the respite of reading the new issues without the embarrassment of not being able to afford them. Kids don’t always understand the money aspect of life, and JC knew how important some of those books were to the little ones.
If Halloween was on a Wednesday, Earthworld would be our first stop before trick or treating. Below is a photo or our kids dressed up as Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman – the one trio we couldn’t wait to dress them up as!
During the covid pandemic, I’m sure he was worried about business, but he pulled together a curbside delivery after one week or so, and we tried to get there each week. We didn’t necessarily need the comics, but supporting JC was something that we didn’t even have to discuss. He met us (and other customers) curbside in his Earthworld t-shirt, Superman cape, and of course, his mask and gloves. A real super-hero.
This is JC. My husband dressed as him for a recent Halloween.
We’ll be there today because it’s Wednesday, but the store will seem emptier, quieter, sadder.
If you’re visiting upstate New York, stop in at the Albany store, and see the magic for yourself. If you’re too far to appreciate our bounty, visit your local comic book store and see the magic there.
May your memory be an eternal blessing, JC. You will be sorely missed. ❤
“Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with it is a toy and an amusement. Then it becomes a mistress, then it becomes a master, then it becomes a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster and fling him to the public.”
Winston Churchill
Let’s try that again. The entire essay is gone. No recovering it, and we’re off to the races again. It won’t be as witty or a breathtaking example of fine writing, but it is what it is.
I woke up this morning with a ton of stuff on my mind, and in my mind, and my mind would not settle down. I thought of a great story to write about the holidays, but it would also make a great blog post, and it might be a good memoir essay for the prompt of “details, details” that I’ve been struggling with, but it was also a good piece of family history, and it was probably prompted by a conversation I had with a friend about the balancing of Passover and Easter. As an aside, I happened to look at a calendar, and next year Easter is March 31, and Passover is near the end of April, so that should cause less balancing and juggling and stress, but of course, we’ll see how it goes. The best laid plans and all.
The thoughts and memories were coming fast and furious, one thing after the other, and I tried to filter out other unrelated memories that happened in the same space I was writing about. I had twenty minutes before I had to leave, and I could use that time to get it down before it was gone forever. I’ll remember it, I told myself. No, you won’t. You never do. And to make matters worse in my head, I knew that NO ONE in the history of writing remembers when they say they’ll remember and will jot the thought down later. No. One.
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.
Coco Chanel
One thing about dates on the calendar is that the days change. I’ve been thinking that today is the National Day of Unplugging, but it turns out that it was this past Friday. Rather than being set on March 6th, it seems to be actually on the first Friday in March. It doesn’t really change the topic for today for me since my whole point in bringing up this National Day of Unplugging is to disavow it and suggest that perhaps unplugging isn’t right for everyone.
There is no firm one thing that works for everyone. We are all different and we handle our stresses differently. We use different tools to work through the stresses of our days and go about our work and play. Sometimes, that means unplugging for an extended period of time, but being plugged in isn’t necessarily a bad thing for everyone.
I do certainly agree that screen time should be limited for children, but I also think that if older kids and adults of any age get their entertainment from being plugged in, then don’t shame them for it.
During the pandemic, we were told to stay offline since we were spending so much time online with our work and school being on screens constantly. For me, this was not tenable to my contentment or mental health. I use an e-reader for about 90% of my reading. I get my news from Twitter (and now from Spoutible). How is checking Twitter news different from turning on the television and watching the news on that screen? I would rather play Solitaire on my Kindle than with the cards on my table (which by the way has no room for the cards to be laid out). How are podcasts worse than listening to an audiobook? Music videos vs. music audio?
The rule of thumb should definitely be everything in moderation, but guilting someone for enjoying themselves is not okay in my book.
Some of us are also neurodivergent and need the stimulation that comes from the online world and the very real friendships we’ve forged and fostered there.
Today alone, I’ve used either my Kindle of my laptop for the following, and it’s not even noon yet:
Checked and answered email – both personal and professional
Zoom meeting for Cursillo grouping
Rechecked my church website for the date of the Lenten Penance Service to add to my calendar
Set up tomorrow’s Zoom for the Scripture Study for the Month of March
Balanced my checkbook
Read a chapter in Lady Justice by Dahlia Lithwick
Posted to Instagram for Bring Your Action Figure To Work Day – go check it out – link’s on the sidebar
Did a bit of the research for Friday Food which will publish at the end of this week
I couldn’t have done half of these things without plugging in. No guilt trips welcome here.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
– Theodore Roosevelt
This is a picture I took in the hotel my daughter and I stayed at right before Covid. Her brother and father were visiting friends in Florida and we stayed in New York, so I took her for one night to a hotel for her to go swimming. It was a fun time. Little did we know how much would change in the next couple of weeks. I’m sharing this photo now because I came across it and it’s been in my phone as a photo that I want to draw and sketch, so I’m including it now to give them the push to try and get it done before the next inspiring post. Wish me luck. (c)2023
January almost always starts off with a bang. I’m organized, I’ve got my calendar, I’ve planned my blog and my classes up to a point, and then around now, not quite halfway through February, it flounders.
But…
It hasn’t floundered. Not really.
I think I may have found a routine, sort of, some motivation, kind of, and even though it’s not perfect, well, nothing is, it seems to be working (for the most part).
I’m still trying to find the perfect storm of organizing while not being overly fastidious and ridiculously detailed.
I’m sitting at my desk (read: dining room table that was actually cleaned last night for dinner, but is currently not even remotely close), surrounded by folders, papers, planner, notebooks, car keys (which actually have a home, but are not there at the moment), and my cell phone.
I have a meeting in ten minutes, and I’m still trying to get this post halfway done so I can put it up tomorrow (Wednesday). It would only be two days late (in my mind) so that’s okay, and that’s what I wanted to talk about.
Since the beginning of the new year, I’ve been on top of things. Not only on top of my website writing, but the site housekeeping is coming up this week (ch-ch-ch-changes), and I’ve been getting ready for my two new classes in March, and working on organizing my two books on Scrivener, my storyboard program.
And, the list goes on and on. Not sure if that’s such a good thing.
Since my success in November with NaNoWriMo, I’ve been really excited about writing. I’ve tried to keep track of my writing time, word counts, ideas for future items, and writing every day. Almost every day. This has been coupled with moving all of my computer folders onto an external hard drive to better organize my writing and be able to see what I have and what I can do with those old workshop pieces. Next up is transcribing those workshop notebooks that go back about a decade.
Things seem to be coming together, and I’m hoping that by writing about it, I won’t jinx it.
I had my final therapy appointment (until I find another therapist) last week. I’ve decided to take a month off and see how I’m feeling. It’s been ten years and therapy has been a lifeline as well as a mental comfort. I’m not sure how I’ll be, but I’m hyperaware of how I feel, and I have my coping. There have been so many changes recently and a lot of the positives began about ten years ago when I found therapy; my faith; my writing. It’s been a lot in ten years and the changes take some getting used to. Including deciding on a new therapist.
I had a funeral last week for a wonderful woman in my writing group. At her funeral (and unrelated to my friend), I believe that I was given inspiration for a short story.
Inspiration is everywhere.
I’ve been on a new social media site, Spoutible. It opens to the public on Thursday and despite its glitches and slowness, it’s amazing. The atmosphere is truly the anti-Twitter. Everyone is so nice and friendly and we’re all following each other. We’re helping each other figure things out and having conversations, and I think I’m going to really like it there.
It’s still in beta (and will continue to be on Thursday) but it’s a million times better than a week-old site should be. I feel safe, I feel lighter, something I didn’t feel on Twitter. I can feel my blood pressure remaining steady. And when I open it, I don’t see Jim Jordan, Ted Cruz, or Lauren Boebert like I do on Twitter at the top of my feed even though I don’t follow any of them. It’s kind of annoying. I mean, I can’t mute everyone, can I?
I will have a Spoutible account attached to this site, something I did not do with Twitter. I’m not sure how I’ll use it but come along for the ride.
That’s it for now. I have an exciting Friday Food coming up at the end of the week. Come back for that!
I’m looking for a new title for this monthly series. They will continue to include quotations, photos/art, and reflections. Let me know any of your title ideas in the comments. I’m looking forward to your thoughts.
A few quotations that struck me for the new year (in no particular order):
In the beginning the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.
Douglas Adams
And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.
Ranier Maria Rilke
The new year stands before us, like a chapter in a book, waiting to be written. We can help write that story by setting goals.
Melody Beattie
You are your choices.
Seneca
Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.
Alan Cohen
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down.
I have three inspirationals to share with you this month:
The first is, of course, VOTE. Election Day is tomorrow in the US and it is the most consequential of our lifetimes, especially if those lives are female. VOTE BLUE for DEMOCRACY. I will have a post tomorrow of some races to watch, and will try to update at the end of the night or early the next morning. Despite not being able to drive yet [see my personal update on the home page], I will be going to the polls with my son, who is a first time voter. He understands the responsibility of voting, but I still think we’re more excited than he is. My offer to drive locals to the polls still stands; I will just need to find a substitute driver if the need arises.
The trick is not becoming a writer. The trick is staying a writer.
Harlan Ellison
The second is Nanowrimo! Even if you’re not officially participating, take some moments today and write something. Write for ten minutes without stopping and then write for ten minutes more. I have been meeting my writing goals of Nano [1667/day to meet the thirty day deadline] so far. Some days are better than others, but I’m surprising myself with how much useful writing is coming out for my book. In fact, I was just inspired by a book I’m reading [rec below] to look again at one of the places I will be writing about, and describe it in more detail. I may share that excerpt later in the week.
Third, I’m only halfway through this book, but I highly recommend it. I feel that he’s in my head with his side comments and irreverance, and then doubling back and doubling down on the incredible faithful journey he’s experiencing in the Holy Land. As I said before, reading his very detailed description of his visit one Sunday afternoon has made me want to revisit one of my wanderings and see what I can come up with this eveniing for today’s Nano writing session.
Griffins and Ginger Snaps 