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Sundays in Lent – Holy Thursday

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I really believe that we see G-d everywhere if we choose to look. He is in our work, our hobbies, our cooking, our families. However, where he really and truly shows His Presence is in the natural world. I don’t mean holistic, organic, no preservatives, but in the things of the world that man hasn’t created.

This photo is a dichotomy of that. In the foreground is what once was a building with doorways and window spaces, but it’s built into the surrounding rocks and grassy mound. Beyond the wall is a larger, sturdier, massive wall of rock, a hilly walkway that brings you to the beach and at the top corner of the photo is the sea.

Look at the photo. Really look, and find G-d.

March: Blustery, Green, Wet: Reflection

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A Self-Retreat

​Right about now, the middle to end of March, I begin to feel the heaviness. The clouds are fat with moisture, lumbering across a grey sky. When the sky is blue, the air is wintry cold. yesterday was grey, but I didn’t wear a jacket. I did, however have on my snood and gloves. That was enough to trick my body into thinking it was warmer than it was.

It’s not just the weather that’s heavy. Things are picking up for school assignments. Drama club has finally ended, but it’s been replaced by notes to parents for help on those end of year assignments, and how can it be the end of the year already? There’s Easter upcoming, full weekends, bills to pay, taxes to do, and nowhere to escape.

I’ve kept busy with my kids, our weekly television viewing, a church breakfast, reading Chernow’s Grant, tagging along to find The Lost Book of Moses, two days of reflection that were everything I’d hoped they would be, and more, and still not enough.

One or two times a year I try to give myself a retreat. A self-guided retreat, some planned out and some spontaneous, encompassing both spiritual and writerly things and if I’m lucky a tiny bit of travel, too.

I am lucky this weekend to be heading out on a spiritual-slash-writing retreat and I hope to bookend the weekend with two days of my own guidance.

If you don’t have a retreat center nearby, I would highly recommend giving yourself a self-retreat.

Begin by blocking out a few days in a row. I would suggest a minimum of three days. If that’s not possible, try and arrange your regular work days off to be two consecutive days.

Choose a theme. What are you trying to get out of this time “away”? Are you looking to get something done? Are you looking to get nothing done? Quiet time? Or contemplation? Meditation and prayer? Silence and solitude?

Will you bring music along?

Will you bring food or eat out?

Will you return home at times or is one of the objects to get away from home except for sleeping?

Be flexible, but plan your itinerary. You don’t want to spend most of your limited time trying to figure out what to do.

Have a map and/or a GPS.

Have a fully charged cell phone and keep the charger in your car in case you run out of battery power.

Even if you don’t normally use one, bring a journal. You can record where you went, the weather, what you saw, what you ate, what stood out to you, what you were thinking.

If you draw, bring a sketchbook and a pencil.

Dress in layers and bring a sweater or shawl. Wherever you are, you will either be too hot or too cold, I guarantee it.

Unless your phone functions as one, bring a camera. Looking at pictures later can highlight a memory.

Most importantly, know what you hope to get out of it before you go.

For awhile last year, I would take myself out to lunch once a month to “write”, and after awhile, it was rote, and I was getting nothing new out of it; nothing helpful. This kind of self-retreat is a good way to jump-start your creativity, your motivation, but also to jump-start your SELF.

[The above photo is from my first self-retreat. On that one, I had a little guidance from Father Jim Martin’s enhanced ebook, Together on Retreat, which can be found on Amazon.]

Sundays in Lent – 4th Thursday

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With his feast day approaching in two days, I thought I’d share two photo collages of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland and the adjacent park named forr him where one of the wells attributed to him is commemorated with an engraved stone.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin, Ireland. (c)2018

St. Patrick’s Cathedral and St. Patrick’s Park, Dublin, Ireland. (c)2018

March: Blustery, Green, Wet: Recipe

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One of my favorite comfort foods, and perfect for the cold, unpredictable days of March is Sherpherd’s Pie. I have always called it Shepherd’s Pie as has my mother-in-law who is actually from Ireland, but alas over the years I have been informed (many times) that what I make is not Shepherd’s Pie. The last time, in fact, was when I was in Northern Ireland and our cousin, Christine, made this for us one night for tea. Shepherd’s Pie is made from mutton, or sheep. What I make, and what she made for us is better known as Cottage Pie, which is basically the same thing except substituting beef in the place of mutton.

I used to make this with ground beef, but after seeing my mother-in-law in the kitchen, I began to use leftover roast beef, which is traditionally how it is made.

It is a great leftover dish, both made from leftovers and to eat as a leftover, but I’ve yet to have it last more than a meal and a half.

The ingredients I use are:

Leftover roast beef, cut into small chunks or diced. Uniformity is not necessary.

Leftover gravy, 2 TB Worcestershire sauce, 1/4 cup HP sauce (found in the international aisle of your supermarket) or you can use ketchup.

Leftover sliced carrots, peas, anything really. If you have no leftover vegetables, use half a bag of frozen peas and carrots.

Mashed potatoes.

Cover with cheddar cheese and sprinkle with bread crumbs, although the bread crumbs are optional.

Bake for 45 minutes at 350.

Scoop and eat. It goes well with dinner rolls, Yorkshire pudding, salad.

It is delicious and filling.

March: Blustery, Green, Wet

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​Blustery.

Green.

Wet.

No longer does March come in like a lion and out like a lamb. It is just as likely to come in like a lamb and go out like a a lion. What is happening with our climate and climate changes? Back in 1997, my son was born on March 21st. He had to stay in the hospital for a little less than two weeks, but while he was there, during the first week in April, we had what amounted to a blizzard. In April?

Last week in upstate New York it was seventy degrees. Two days ago it was fourteen. Today it is thirty-five. The sun is shining, the sky is blue after two days of rain, freezing rain and snow. I wear my capri pants year round now.

But despite the wind, the rain, the leftover snow, and of course, mud season, we think of March as green. It really isn’t, but it still has that perception. I think St. Patrick’s Day has a hand in that. We’re also wearing our bright colors before we have to don our duller and sullen Good Friday wear. Even for non-Christians, the feelings are there: attempted brightness and joy until we look outside and see the mud, the carnage in the snow. Right now, my backyard looks like a Bil Keane cartoon.

(c)2018


Courtesy of The Comic Journal, 2011. (c)Bil Keane, Jeff Keane, 2018


But after a couple of weeks of forgetting that February is over, and with the wind dying down, we plan our gardens, we don our green apparel, we prepare our palms and our matzo, and at the end of our holidays and feasts and prayers, we remember that spring always follows winter, and in twenty more days, we will have spring and I will have a twenty-one year old.

The climate may change, and we need to change with it, but the seasons will set their own agenda, and they will arrive like clockwork.

Blustery to green in twenty-one days.

January: New Year, New Beginnings: Quotation

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​Let me listen to me and not to them.

– Gertrude Stein


Let us have faith in each other. Let us not grow weary and lose heart, for there are more seasons to come and there is more work to do.

– Hillary Clinton [11/11/16]


Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in good season we shall reap.

– also from that speech by H. Clinton, drawn from Galatians 6:9