tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74180679860396142572024-03-04T23:47:43.200-05:00Rambling FollowerIn which I share my ramblings with my traveling companions. Musings about the Church, cooking, mothering, movies, teaching and everything else.Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.comBlogger596125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-37930758621522260212015-08-03T09:38:00.001-04:002015-08-03T09:38:55.878-04:00Praying in My Mary Garden<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's been a long summer and summer isn't even over. My family has managed to declutter dozens of bags of excess from our home and weed bag after bag of weeds from our yard. With the help of my sons and a young adult family friend, (<i>pictured here with our cat</i>) I managed to carve out a Mary Garden from an overgrown patch of yard.<br />
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Today I sat in the garden for the first time, with a cup of coffee, my <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2012/05/wow-mothers-love-braceletchaplet.html">Mother's Bracelet </a>rosary from my friend <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/07/when-words-fail-pray-for-sarah-harkins.html">Sarah</a>, who died a year ago last week, and my iPhone because despite all these decades of being Catholic, I really do not know how to <a href="http://www.catholic.org/prayers/rosary.php">pray the Rosary.</a><br />
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The sun rose as I prayed and the finches and cardinals, at first shy because of my presence, forgot about me and began to visit the two feeders. My hour of contemplation prepared me for a phone call from my sister, updating me about my dad's frailty and gave me the strength and inner peace to face what is in front of us.<br />
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I posted a video of the garden this morning on my <a href="https://instagram.com/allison_sal/">instagram account </a>and one of my nieces commented that it looks picturesque. I don't see Beauty enough: I find flaws everywhere. This morning and that note is a reminder that the journey is not about achieving Perfection but about understanding how Christ is with us, showering us with Grace.<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-15631724818531880102015-06-24T12:05:00.002-04:002015-06-25T10:42:19.790-04:00Join Us! Reading Shirt of Flame and Following Saint Therese of Lisieux<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Several girlfriends ....from Alaska to New Jersey... are planning to read together <a href="http://shirtofflame.blogspot.com/">Heather King'</a>s little masterpiece,<i> Shirt of Flame: A Year with Saint Therese of Lisieux</i>. Join us!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIjKBBaxghXQH_c17EMUzdXiqYVUEM_xqwN_io5qzl1-dqq-jfkla6G2AShyGrHyiBAqqeIkI5Ijs7T_3wBBTS66TfiIMDpzJt7Nc73Y1DIZGKhg4FjukgTv05jVm17IbVwuamyqou1c/s1600/shirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqIjKBBaxghXQH_c17EMUzdXiqYVUEM_xqwN_io5qzl1-dqq-jfkla6G2AShyGrHyiBAqqeIkI5Ijs7T_3wBBTS66TfiIMDpzJt7Nc73Y1DIZGKhg4FjukgTv05jVm17IbVwuamyqou1c/s1600/shirt.jpg" /></a>This 135-page spiritual memoir has what one reviewer calls "the grit of sanctity" because of its unaverted gaze at the mess that is King's life, that is all our lives.<br />
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Until a few years ago, I knew nothing about St. Therese, a cloistered nun who died at the age of 24. This woman was declared a Doctor of the Church is 1997. You do not have to be a catholic to appreciate her Little Way, which gives us a path to grace and meaning by confronting our everyday existence.<br />
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I'm just on the first chapter, called Early Loss, but here is one gem from King:<br />
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<i>"Therese's gift was to have suffered early loss but also to have chosen to remain childlike. Not childish, for from a very young age she was mature beyond her years, but childlike, trusting, resilient, lost in wonder."</i><br />
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I put little stars by those three traits. As someone who also suffered deep losses early in my life, I can relate to the idea of learning right away that life is a series of losses. I've learned it's important to consider the gifts of the accidents of our births.<br />
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So please read the first chapter and share your reflections below....<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-18399833633020822352015-02-02T18:34:00.003-05:002015-02-02T18:34:22.731-05:00Moping on Candlemas and Struggling to be a Light Bearer<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Today is the <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2013/02/candlemas-at-our-house.html">Feast of Candlemas</a>, which marks 40 days since Christmas. If you have not taken down your Christmas tree, as my family has not, today is really the last possible day you can claim it is still the Christmas season.<br />
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Starting tomorrow, you can just say you are well prepared for December 25 of this year.<br />
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It's been a long cold winter with lots of snow and ice and time to brood. Today I had a day off from school, thanks to the snow and ice. So did our son.<br />
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I slept until noon today as I am fighting a nasty stomach bug and the sinking feeling I do not fit in the Catholic Church so well. A long talk with my patient priest yesterday was a help, but I can't seem to shake the feeling that church life is not for me.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULGNNhaOO6GlPHBPnfDG_vQgBhSoRcGl-1dc-CT793wVq5EOJdMiiy5qr5QGZHLcyV-hbnTeU2B9wZYS4joro1NOHE3Dxxum8Kjz74JTstFgH2tjQ8RNnTrvbIPgkC9Nkfs_Qbibu46g/s1600/10959846_10202989173324284_7776218379017267052_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiULGNNhaOO6GlPHBPnfDG_vQgBhSoRcGl-1dc-CT793wVq5EOJdMiiy5qr5QGZHLcyV-hbnTeU2B9wZYS4joro1NOHE3Dxxum8Kjz74JTstFgH2tjQ8RNnTrvbIPgkC9Nkfs_Qbibu46g/s1600/10959846_10202989173324284_7776218379017267052_n.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a>I bought an <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/asin/1586172506/4reallearning">Ignatius Catholic Study Bible,</a> which is sitting in a basket in our bay window, unopened. I am planning my Lenten journey with it. But alone? Are we really meant to travel this life of faith alone?<br />
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The whole point of being Church, I guess, is to share our travels and our travails with other followers of Christ, to share in its sacramental life.
In these days, however, I do not feel the realities of my day to day life fits so well within the walls of Catholic belief. I believe every word of the Nicene Creed, but I am searching for "takeaways," from homilies and public prayers, for ways to translate those beliefs into my everyday existence of being married for more than two decades, raising questioning, thoughtful sons, and teaching high school students, some of whom carry burdens I had only known of in the abstract but now see face to face. I sit in Mass and have moments where I feel like the worship is all an exercise of acting "chosen" and "better than" and confirming our own tickets to heaven and condemning the rest of the created world. I am not feeling smug about my return trip into the Mystery. The thing is, I do not ever want to be.<br />
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Here is a piece of a<a href="http://www.catholic.org/prayers/prayer.php?p=3187"> Candlemas prayer. </a><br />
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It helped me a little on this windy winter night.<br />
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<i>Help us to live in that Light,
to make it our own,
and to kindle it in the souls of others,
increasing the area Of light
and lessening the darkness in the World.</i><br />
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<i> This,
dear Lord, help us do,
through the merits of Your own dear mother, Mary,
who did everything for love of
You, from the moment she brought You into this world
till the day she joined You in the realms of light at her death. </i><br />
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<i> Then we, too, working for You,
shall be light-bearers who will help to spread Your kingdom on earth,
and increase the number of those who dwell in heaven,
the city of eternal light.
Amen.</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOwEJVDfouPl1H4jgyAOdRo6oEnwKUR7O9I8i4Z3Y9AvjpqMHQ0O4LhocspuPJdG5dGs7fQlUbUs4rFVj1lHGQHyT647eb-npduFPgE6nlk4MY03_a8PySca3ducLaulWZtci5Ixn3zj8/s1600/10978531_10202989173404286_7986467933259524652_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOwEJVDfouPl1H4jgyAOdRo6oEnwKUR7O9I8i4Z3Y9AvjpqMHQ0O4LhocspuPJdG5dGs7fQlUbUs4rFVj1lHGQHyT647eb-npduFPgE6nlk4MY03_a8PySca3ducLaulWZtci5Ixn3zj8/s1600/10978531_10202989173404286_7986467933259524652_n.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Street light, about 5:30 p.m., by our home</td></tr>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-84651256970308492492015-01-22T08:16:00.000-05:002015-06-25T10:39:31.275-04:00On A Failure of Love: "Poor Baby: A Child of the Sixties Looks Back On Abortion"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
As thousand march on Washington to protect human life in all its vulnerability, I wanted to share this piece from my archives. First published in March 2013....
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Last night - Good Friday - felt like the right time to download on my brand new Kindle a book - really more like a 50-plus page essay, by L.A.-based writer <a href="http://shirtofflame.blogspot.com/" style="color: #cc9966; text-decoration: none;">Heather King</a> called <a href="http://www.amazon.com/POOR-BABY-Child-Abortion-ebook/dp/B007BVBJUQ" style="color: #cc9966; text-decoration: none;">"Poor Baby,"</a> a raw meditation on her three abortions.<br />
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No matter one's personal history, or one's political views on whether abortion should be legal, or one's moral belief as to whether abortion ever can be an ethical choice, this book is worth reading. In fact, I would say anyone with strong views about abortion should read this book with clear eyes and an open heart. We need King's voice in the conversation.<br />
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So much of the profoundly polarizing abortion "debate" in this country lacks nuance; this book does not.<br />
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><i>"Even women, who will talk about anything, don’t talk about abortion. Women, who within five minutes of being introduced will know each others' career and relationship status, family situation, taste in clothing, food, movies, books, and men, don’t talk about abortion. I think this is because women, of all people, know that abortion is a <span style="color: red;">failure of love. "</span> </i></span><br />
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King, who converted to the Catholic faith long after she terminated three pregnancies by three different men, has come to believe, as I do, that abortion is not an ethical act. But this book not a polemic. It is personal history written from a place of deep suffering lived out in the presence of overwhelming love.<br />
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In a sense, I could not relate to King's story. All four times in my life that I have been pregnant, I have wanted to be, and considered the fact that I was, miraculous. That is because during my childbearing years, I struggled with infertility, so much so that when Greg and I were talking about getting married, I let him know it was probable I could never have a child conceived in my womb and asked him: would he be open to adopting children? (Of course he was.)<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEV-wlAY7WiKnWSK4khLBji7emUTX7gJkHYoiP3FRukW2iXiSXiibfSp_1OYHf8mb4COlnCwTjY6dQOy1EP0k8rWKBN70x-E-Uwy1Sd2yiEvsrnUXfmDyDQTuzf2LyBd8D8sPVOBXK13v9/s1600/Heather-King_0035.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; color: #cc9966; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEV-wlAY7WiKnWSK4khLBji7emUTX7gJkHYoiP3FRukW2iXiSXiibfSp_1OYHf8mb4COlnCwTjY6dQOy1EP0k8rWKBN70x-E-Uwy1Sd2yiEvsrnUXfmDyDQTuzf2LyBd8D8sPVOBXK13v9/s320/Heather-King_0035.jpg" style="border: none; position: relative;" width="210" /></a>King's meditation is raw and my only quibble with this book is that it feels as if she took a big breath and just started talking and never stopped. I would have liked some chapters, or some breaks in the text so I could breath a bit to better take in all her intensity, and honesty.<br />
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Here is an example of how powerful the work is. Before telling her own story, King takes equal aim at both sides of the abortion debate and meditates on what is truly at stake. She questions, for example, why abortion opponents always choose a blond-haired child as the one who was saved from abortion. In classic Heather King style, she takes that observation and makes a still bigger point.<br />
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<i>Why not choose as your pro-life poster child a 20-year-old with Down syndrome, or a flaming drag queen, or an abscessed meth freak? Why not acknowledge that a good percentage of the babies who are “saved” are going to become broken-down homeless people, illegal immigrants, and vicious criminals? That of course is no reason to promote abortion; in fact, that’s the very reason abortion is wrong. </i><br />
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<i>Let’s remember who we’re dealing with here, folks: the unfathomable human race. We’re all bothersome. We’re all, in our ways, broken. Which somehow makes it all the more imperative that we not lose a single one.</i><br />
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King's book reads as incantation, as a sometimes angry, always honest, prayer, a pouring out of what it means to be human, to have suffered, to have lost and to be found. We need her witness.</div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-70434949691676574172015-01-03T21:01:00.000-05:002015-01-04T10:23:46.376-05:00"Small Victories:" A Good Way to Celebrate Epiphany<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I began reading essayist <a href="http://barclayagency.com/lamott.html">Anne Lamott's </a>new book, <i>Small Victories</i>, after hearing her speak in November at the <a href="http://www.freelibrary.org/">Free Library of Philadelphia. </a>My <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Save-Bones-Shannon-ODonnell/dp/0982616015">friend Shannon,</a> an author and a jail chaplain in Tacoma, suggested this would be a great book to read for Advent.<br />
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Well, even though it's under 300 pages, I just completed it today. Lamott's is an authentic voice, one that does not sugar coat reality but which helps me find God in the smallest moments. Finishing the book is a good way to celebrate the Epiphany, that time when Jesus revealed himself to the world beyond his circumstances.<br />
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Lamott is a writer we writers are supposed to love and one whose work I have not taken the time to read fully. While I have read bits and pieces of her illuminating work, this is the first full book of hers I have read from start to finish. She labels herself a "left wing" Christian and I suppose she is, but the label, as any political label does, reduces the value of her insights.<br />
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This book is a series of 23 essays divided into four categories: "Companions," " Families," "Airborne" and "Ground." Lamott has such a talent for describing the most minute, banal, potentially embarrassing moments of her life and helping us see how she found grace within them. People cutting in line at the movie theater. An elderly friend selling her home of many years. Taking a young friend dying of cancer skiing at Easter time. Through all of this, Lamott manages to catch glimpes of the Divine. This is a journey I have been on as well for many years, trying to find transcendence in the ordinary moments.<br />
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For the past year or so I have made the acquaintance of a woman in her early twenties. She is a lifelong Catholic and currently dating a young man who is a professed atheist. She shared with me that she is having trouble explaining to her boyfriend her faith. She does not see eye to eye with the Church on many issues, including its opposition to gay marriage. But the Church is a part of her past and her present and she imagines raising her children-to-be one day in the faith. She is asking me my views.<br />
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In addition to telling her it would be important for her boyfriend to respect her beliefs, I told her God finds wherever we are, not just within the walls of a Church. A living faith, I told her, is one we take with us from Mass and into our encounters with those put in front of us. Lamott, a church-going Presbyterian, knows how to do this.<br />
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Lamott's skillful use of metaphors throughout this book was a reminder to me of how interconnected the created world is during what she calls our "ebullient trudge" through our lives. She tells the story of winning a free ham in the supermarket, and not wanting it but taking it graciously. One her way to her car, she knocks her shopping cart in the parking lot into the car of a woman she knew in her recovery program, a woman who is hungry and needs food to feed her children. The Hand of God is made visible here.<br />
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<i>"I thought about the seasonal showers in the desert, how potholes in the rocks fill with rain, When you look afterward, there are already frogs in the water and brine shrimp reproducing, like commas doing the macarena, and it seems. but only seems, that you went from parched to overflow in the blink of an eye." </i></div>
Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-80483751244475118082014-12-31T18:42:00.001-05:002014-12-31T18:48:59.848-05:00On New Year's Eve and That Holy Day Tomorrow<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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When I was a young adult, I was annoyed by <a href="http://www.marypages.com/SolemnityofMary.htm">the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God</a>, a Holy Day of Obligation that falls on New Year's Day. It felt to me as if the Church were acting like a scolding mother, insisting we show up bright and early New Year's Day for Mass. It felt as if the underlying strategy was to make sure we didn't drink too much the night before. Is this holy day really necessary?<br />
<a name='more'></a>Well, I am an older adult now, and I realize the Church's wisdom in giving us the option of a Vigil Mass for this Solemnity. Our family of four attended Mass tonight, along with about 100 other parishioners. Most of them older were than we. The celebrant joked at the start of Mass that he figured tonight's Mass would be attended by the biggest party people among us. And how we clearly are not.<br />
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Not that anyone has asked me, but for all the slams against the Church for its sexism, I appreciate that the Church commemorates the role our <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15464b.htm">Blessed Mother </a>played in bringing us our Messiah. I know of no other group of Christians who acknowledge her central role and who gives her such reverence.<br />
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Tonight's homilist spoke about happiness and how longing for happiness reflects, at its heart, the longing for the Infinite. <a href="http://www.stpetertheapostle.org/about/frtom.html">Father Tom Odorizzi,</a> C.O., our pastor, pointed out that if accumulating stuff made people happy, then we Americans would be the happiest people in the world. Pleasure alone doesn't make us happy either: the temporary pleasures of alcohol are an example of how moments of pleasure can cause serious harm to oneself and one's beloved.<br />
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Our Blessed Mother found happiness despite being poor and marginalized. The invitation to respond the the Mystery is open to each of us, regardless of our circumstances. This message, which is at the heart of the Christian Gospel, was a great one to hear as we enter this new year.<br />
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May all of us have a happy new year; that is a year in which we learn to count our blessings and be grateful for the lives we have been given. And once we finish watching "<a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080487/">Caddyshack,"</a> we will help consume an enormous dish of lasagna a friend of ours has cooked.<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-81029467826348176462014-12-30T08:54:00.002-05:002014-12-30T17:39:36.035-05:00Ringing Out 2014: A Photo Montage <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In a break with a long family tradition, I did not send out <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/search?q=christmas+letter">a Christmas letter </a>or a Christmas card this year. I do not think I sent them out last year either. It has not been a priority. I blogged intermittently: too much real life happening here. </div>
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When I spied this <a href="http://www.houseunseen.com/2014/12/12-in-2014-link-up.html#more">link up, </a> however, I figured I would do that.This was the year our older son graduated from high school and we launched him into <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/08/thoughts-as-our-son-leaves-home.html">college,</a> and the year our younger son switched <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/06/a-new-school-walk-in-dark.html">high schools. </a></div>
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We all traveled a lot this year; my husband went as far west as Portland, Oregon and our older son spent two weeks in Valencia, Spain. I spent time this year in <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/12/pretis-visitiation-and-our-search-for.html">Virginia,</a> <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-silly-search-for-real-vermont.html">Vermont,</a><a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/07/time-with-vonnegut-and-atheist-in.html"> Indiana,</a> Florida, <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/12/feast-of-holy-family-preaching-to-this.html">North Carolina</a>, Massachusetts, Texas and <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/03/from-bedford-new-york-reflections-and.html">New York. </a></div>
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Midway through the year, I lost a t<a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/07/when-words-fail-pray-for-sarah-harkins.html">reasured spiritual guide. </a></div>
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I joined Weight Watchers, our parish choir (with our younger son) and finished<a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/12/after-half-marathon-walk-mulling-what.html"> a half marathon, </a>(with my husband). When I was culling through photos to mark our year, I realized most of my fondest memories come from right here in central New Jersey. </div>
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Happy new year to my friends old and new. </div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"> "</span>Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The flying cloud, the frosty light.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The year is dying in the night;</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The year is dying in the night;</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Ring out, wild bells, and let him die."</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">"Ring out the old; ring in the new.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Ring, happy bells, across the snow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The year is going; let him go.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Ring out the false; ring in the true.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">The year is going; let him go.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Ring out the false; ring in the true."</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">OK. Not Jersey. Not even close.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Ring in the valiant men and free,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">The larger heart, the kindlier hand.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ring out the darkness of the land;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ring in the Christ that is to be.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Ring out the darkness of the land;</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> Ring in the Christ that is to be" </span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span><span style="font-family: Lucida Grande, Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Sans, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<i style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Alfred Tennyson, 1809-1892</i></div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-81529802866895395062014-12-29T19:37:00.001-05:002014-12-29T19:37:19.451-05:00 Feast of the Holy Family: Preaching To This Mother's Heart<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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On the <a href="http://www.churchyear.net/holyfamily.html">Feast of the Holy Family</a>, our perfectly imperfect family found ourselves at the church where Greg and I were married 21 autumns ago - the <a href="http://www.sacredheartcathedral.org/">Sacred Heart Cathedral</a> in downtown Raleigh, NC.<br />
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We did not plan to be there on that day in particular. Nor did the celebrant, <a href="http://www.sacredheartcathedral.org/content.cfm?id=439">Father Justin Kerber, C.P.</a> write his homily with me in mind.<br />
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But in the mysterious ways of the Holy Spirit, I found myself in the church where I had married, with my husband and two teenaged sons, hearing the same New Testament reading we chose for our wedding, followed by a homily that felt as if it were written for often impatient, occasionally harsh-and-judgmental -to-those-I-love-the-most me.<br />
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This parish holds a special place in our hearts: it's was <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2013/06/rest-in-peace-father-tim-man-who.html">a priest there </a>who brought us fully back to the Church. The priest has disappeared back into the Mystery, but the utter sweetness of the place was evident from the moment we stepped into the church Sunday just before noon.<br />
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Father Kerber's homily spoke directly to this mother's heart. In preaching on one of Paul's letters, he asked us (and I paraphrase here) :<br />
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<i>If God forgives us, why can't we forgive each other? </i><br />
<i>If God is patient with His children, why can't we be patient with ours? </i><br />
<i>Why do we not trust that God will speak to our children in His time? Why do we try to rush our children to accept the values in which they have been raised. </i><br />
<i>God waited for us, didn't He?</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In case you missed it, here is the start of Sunday's reading: </span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfFQpOcI5r0fmjeIfXHV5EAwiHHRcsD33rbroCDw7h7SoA3OWMxHF-WDbUckfloH8ZmGXvGz7h06cleM7I0cCP2Smm1u_g0CX8YQ9yDGjBsJBRL7lCDHzNctCLLB4W5p1k_pBK0JTy7MQ/s1600/wedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfFQpOcI5r0fmjeIfXHV5EAwiHHRcsD33rbroCDw7h7SoA3OWMxHF-WDbUckfloH8ZmGXvGz7h06cleM7I0cCP2Smm1u_g0CX8YQ9yDGjBsJBRL7lCDHzNctCLLB4W5p1k_pBK0JTy7MQ/s1600/wedding.jpg" height="320" width="213" /></span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Brothers and sisters:</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved,</div>
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heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,</div>
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bearing with one another and forgiving one another, </div>
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if one has a grievance against another; </div>
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as the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.</div>
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And over all these put on love, </div>
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that is, the bond of perfection.</div>
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And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, </div>
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the peace into which you were also called in one body.</div>
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<a href="http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/122814.cfm"><span style="font-family: inherit;">And be thankful.</span></a></div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-25598551225922121982014-12-26T22:11:00.002-05:002014-12-26T23:36:12.314-05:00Christmas Musing: Preti's "The Visitiation" and Our Search for the Infinite<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When we rounded the corner to the left and into the Baroque room at the <a href="http://vmfa.museum/">Virginia Museum</a> of Fine Arts this morning, my eyes welled with tears. There it was; the painting I had visited the museum for, a painting called "The Visitation" by 17th century Baroque master <a href="http://www.stjohnscocathedral.com/mattia-preti.html">Mattia Preti</a>, a Calabrian and a protege of<a href="http://www.caravaggio-foundation.org/"> Caravaggian</a> naturalism.<br />
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How fitting the painting first went on display here on Christmas Eve.<br />
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I was struck by vulnerability on the face of the Blessed Mother and even more moved by how Elizabeth's hands are touching Mary's belly, which is newly ripe with child. What a deeply human gesture. Elizabeth, who in old age is pregnant with her own child, realizes Mary, who took a perilous visit to see her, is to be the Mother of God.<br />
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Elizabeth realizes the word has become flesh.<br />
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It dwells among us to this day.<br />
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"This is one of the coolest things we've obtained recently," the docent standing near the painting told us. My family chatted with him and some other museum visitors for a few minutes and then he suggested we check out the woodblock display around the corner.<br />
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It was the first time to this Richmond museum for my sons and me; Greg had visited 30 years earlier. The museum has an exhibit right now called Water and Shadow, which features the early works of <a href="http://vmfa.museum/exhibitions/exhibitions/water-shadow-kawase-hasui-japanese-landscape-prints/">Hasui Kawase </a>, a Japanese landscape painter and woodblock print maker. In 1923, an earthquake in Japan destroyed most of his work.<br />
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As I toured the woodblock exhibit, I thought about how we are all born with a longing for Beauty, for the Infinite. I thought about how incredible it is that Preti's oil painting somehow survived through the centuries. How amazing the woodblocks survived the earthquake.<br />
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I thought about how Kawase's art also reflect the longing to capture the ephemeral nature of life.<br />
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In other words, artists attempt to memorialize our lives. But God-made-flesh gives us the possibility of disappearing forever back into the Mystery that made us. Elizabeth's moment of recognition is the reality reflected in Preti's powerful painting. </div>
Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-83162571083192875432014-12-20T18:10:00.000-05:002014-12-20T18:10:15.350-05:00Praying for Healing for Terrorism's Survivors<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;">Ever since September 11, 2001, I have had an intermittent nightmare. It goes like this: <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2011/09/introducing-my-beloved-who-survived.html">Greg</a> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;">have been together for years. In some dreams, like last night's, we've been raising our boys together. But in every nightmare he Just. Won't. Marry. Me. In the dream, I am caught between longing to stay with him anyway and wondering what my life would be like with him gone. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A trauma therapist told me years ago my dream is about loss and about the fragility of life. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I always wake up from it anxious. And sometimes, I wake up sobbing. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; font-family: inherit; line-height: 21.466667175293px;">I nearly lost my husband but I did not lose my husband. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A photograph I saw on the web earlier this week of a woman prompted this nightmare. She had been held hostage and she was hugging police after escaping the Lindt Chocolate cafe in Sydney. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span data-reactid=".ay.1:3:1:$comment10202691515443023_10202692536828557:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.0" style="line-height: 17.0666675567627px;"><span data-reactid=".ay.1:3:1:$comment10202691515443023_10202692536828557:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.0.$end:0:$0:0">Based on our family's experiences, she will need a tremendous amount of support and love to live through her experiences. PTSD will a "help" because </span></span><span data-reactid=".ay.1:3:1:$comment10202691515443023_10202692536828557:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3" style="line-height: 17.0666675567627px;"><span data-reactid=".ay.1:3:1:$comment10202691515443023_10202692536828557:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3.0"><span data-reactid=".ay.1:3:1:$comment10202691515443023_10202692536828557:0.0.$right.0.$left.0.0.1:$comment-body.0.3.0.$end:0:$0:0">one does not have to process each aspect of the trauma at one time. It protects our souls. One revisits the trauma in pieces, which can aid healing if the survivor has access to the proper therapists and spiritual guides.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Please please pray for those who lost and are continuing to lose their loved ones to terrorists. They need healing and all the love we can muster. And if you don't mind, remember that survivors do carry invisible scars.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">It was not an easy day but during breakfast with my husband and our sons, I ate some pomegranate and considered how, once I return to the mystery from which I was summoned, I want to thank the One who made me for inventing that fruit. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Later, I laid down for a nap and listened to my midday prayers on my iPhone. The hymn began like this: </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>"O quickly come, great Judge of all.</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i> For glorious will Your Coming be. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>All shadows from the truth will fall. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>O Come and heal that we may see. </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>O quickly come! </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>For doubt and fear Dissolve like cloud when You are near." </i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #141823; line-height: 21.466667175293px;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><a href="http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Tuttiett,_Lawrence_%28DNB00%29">Lawrence Tutiette (1825-1897)</a></i></span></span></div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-14799228147470482842014-12-08T19:52:00.000-05:002014-12-08T22:15:08.855-05:00After a Half Marathon Walk: Mulling What Matters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxbG_MTS1V4AQnj1XPpOKOOloP2OgrfJ4-bqHHRiSw-0Z6uPYIy2_KwL6rjVzwTyPkUttTkN-jrRMgeUhTCK36RbMFiyCp3m8G3oAvdAKa3BjUAspP5Emq0vYIe7HqToFDm8hvAI1eEQ/s1600/groupshot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKxbG_MTS1V4AQnj1XPpOKOOloP2OgrfJ4-bqHHRiSw-0Z6uPYIy2_KwL6rjVzwTyPkUttTkN-jrRMgeUhTCK36RbMFiyCp3m8G3oAvdAKa3BjUAspP5Emq0vYIe7HqToFDm8hvAI1eEQ/s1600/groupshot.jpg" height="245" width="320" /></a>The meaning I am finding in the life I've been given isn't going to come from extravagant gestures. It comes, the way grace comes, every day, step by step, ordinary moment by ordinary moment. That is the lesson I learned over the weekend, when my husband and I participated in a half marathon in San Antonio, Texas.<br />
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We had trained for this race for months, spending our Saturday and Sunday mornings together, walking and running through parks by the river in our neighborhood. The plan was to meet up with dear old friends in San Antonio for the <a href="http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/tour-stops">Rock and Roll series' half marathon.</a> My friend Meredith is a diehard half marathon walker and the weekend was a way to join her and to celebrate her husband's fiftieth birthday. She and her husband, whom we met as engaged couples in Raleigh, NC, are raising their children outside Indianapolis. They walk much faster than we do and were several corrals ahead of us.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyesDqExTxdxf6urKyvEyxcc9GL-xP2asOTXoHy2pdXzFY-in3EjhoNQN58oJsdPlkMPSCev3Xw3XRg3sjyADOnNxszy1klcoUhEtlUtOFc8q3G7opeB-C-1SVJYG7zZB9Lm5rfgpRxdI/s1600/banner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyesDqExTxdxf6urKyvEyxcc9GL-xP2asOTXoHy2pdXzFY-in3EjhoNQN58oJsdPlkMPSCev3Xw3XRg3sjyADOnNxszy1klcoUhEtlUtOFc8q3G7opeB-C-1SVJYG7zZB9Lm5rfgpRxdI/s1600/banner.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a>My apologies in advance to anyone who likes a loud and showy corporate-sponsored sporting event, such as the one the Rock and Roll company puts on, but my husband and I thought the event was disorganized and demoralizing. The expo was loud and the salespeople were brash; one even tried to shove earphones onto my husband's head, insisting he buy them.<br />
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We had heard that part of the fun of participating in such a hyped-up event was the energy from the participants, the bands at each mile marker and from the throngs of volunteers along the way cheering us on. This is why I didn't bother turning on my <a href="https://www.runtastic.com/">runtastic </a>app; I figured the crowds and the energy would propel me forward.<br />
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That might be the case if you are racing in the front or middle of the pack. The experience, however, from the last corral is different. We walked our warmup first mile, at a very modest 18 minutes, and yet the mile-one neon sign said more than an hour had already passed. That's when we realized the race organizers were keeping official time from when the first corral left - 45 minutes before we did.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnNjY2Tan4BeY22fSBcp3l6wU_5zdGuhqHzO3B4jv8_yN7khl5aGadKgU3WqkuBU5R55f7pL-3WFyAiMnLvfgIi2Dr0_r-9wgiJb3p5XzCsvVtDCcLzTXcxqA8V4iEqW8BOZOWThgI0W4/s1600/alone.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnNjY2Tan4BeY22fSBcp3l6wU_5zdGuhqHzO3B4jv8_yN7khl5aGadKgU3WqkuBU5R55f7pL-3WFyAiMnLvfgIi2Dr0_r-9wgiJb3p5XzCsvVtDCcLzTXcxqA8V4iEqW8BOZOWThgI0W4/s1600/alone.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></div>
By the time we hit the halfway mark at <a href="http://new.trinity.edu/">Trinity University,</a> our pace had improved but the bands had largely disappeared; from then on the volunteers did not glance up at us as they folded up their tables and swept empty water cups in the streets. The whole thing felt lonely. We were walking and running on hard concrete residential roads and on cobbled stone streets instead of the pedestrian paths we were accustomed to in our county parks. My feet felt blistered, though they were not. Also, water was not always available in the second half of the race because some of water stations had been packed up. Still, we were pacing pretty well. I'm not clear why the bands and the water were gone. We clocked in past the race's four hour limit; it appears the organizers started the clock when the first, not last corral began.<br />
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I also had several different physical issues during the walk that you do not want to know about; suffice to say I threw out my walking pants in our hotel room trash can after finishing the race.<br />
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Introverts that we are, Greg and I realized we much prefer our walks through our local parks, just the two of us, his fitbit, my runtastic app and our conversations. Including the race and the walk through various airports to get home after midnight, we walked 17.5 miles Sunday and we are creaky but not sore. That is an accomplishment I don't need a fancy, faraway and expensive race to give me.<br />
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I am thrilled we got to see our friends, worship with them at deeply transcendent Mass at <a href="https://www.catholicearth.com/index.php?option=com_community&view=profile&userid=31&Itemid=151">Cathedral San Fernando</a>, and experience the magic of downtown San Antonio at Advent.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_PBpmSocvURCN3Lfw14QD23YztHu3ax_05LL2EaSlGc1r1rpv0ezhqihCux7QecIjYrfoSdhyphenhyphenrrhIC2rtGiIY_vKZZ-a0Rdj1_nEc52xiImDjd2ddFu_zE501e6cx4ex1ZKR9hL53Os/s1600/66.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_PBpmSocvURCN3Lfw14QD23YztHu3ax_05LL2EaSlGc1r1rpv0ezhqihCux7QecIjYrfoSdhyphenhyphenrrhIC2rtGiIY_vKZZ-a0Rdj1_nEc52xiImDjd2ddFu_zE501e6cx4ex1ZKR9hL53Os/s1600/66.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a><br />
Mostly, I am grateful to realize the best things in my life are right in front of me: my husband, our sons, and walks waiting just out the door of our home.<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-50043895057444857982014-11-22T20:34:00.000-05:002014-11-22T21:21:43.587-05:00On Half Marathons and the Potentate of Time<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Today: John Lynch Bridge, Piscataway, NJ</td></tr>
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This morning, in subfreezing temperatures, my husband and I completed eight miles of walking, punctuated by tenth-of-a-mile runs. Tonight, after our two-hour naps, I went to 5 p.m. Mass at our parish, not remembering until I showed up that this Sunday is the <a href="http://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost11.html">Feast of Christ the King.</a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkF3s5aXXQk3nklwB-IWE2kKPfGJPHw4HtcfqOclI87wJd9l-HhS0Ju1J5NXt8_GL2ZHt5jS-HJtBXdt6OL2M1UpNrdFcCcidEdXok3531WSyDGrIEc5ZsH1KLKpTlqEyBAbzLBZUldo/s1600/10488022_10201904871097406_8327234657594315129_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkF3s5aXXQk3nklwB-IWE2kKPfGJPHw4HtcfqOclI87wJd9l-HhS0Ju1J5NXt8_GL2ZHt5jS-HJtBXdt6OL2M1UpNrdFcCcidEdXok3531WSyDGrIEc5ZsH1KLKpTlqEyBAbzLBZUldo/s1600/10488022_10201904871097406_8327234657594315129_n.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">July: Canal Walk, Indianapolis</td></tr>
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Since early summer, we've been training to walk<a href="http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/san-antonio"> a half marathon in San Antonio, Texas.</a> I am sharing here photos I've taken with my iPhone of walks in Vermont, Indiana, Massachusetts, and New York, as well as in our home state of New Jersey. Greg and I will be walking with friends, a couple we met in Raleigh, North Carolina more than two decades ago. The months have brought me more physical strength and helped me to endure <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/09/death-is-not-worst-thing-about-life.html">some nearly unbearable loss. </a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEKdX1ZxwB-zA9hsd90jwcYtvTbUzxAPUBnLhty3i5RS3ctTfQJfOEdz1rMnHg6-XD4zpXTJh-oYH0D8hs-F-Qpq56cyNzaYUP-tdmNWKUl9P3xoYYt_B_yc6RVCMjrUc2TLZ3uwZ3hF4/s1600/10354727_10201963657047018_4155225440572975843_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEKdX1ZxwB-zA9hsd90jwcYtvTbUzxAPUBnLhty3i5RS3ctTfQJfOEdz1rMnHg6-XD4zpXTJh-oYH0D8hs-F-Qpq56cyNzaYUP-tdmNWKUl9P3xoYYt_B_yc6RVCMjrUc2TLZ3uwZ3hF4/s1600/10354727_10201963657047018_4155225440572975843_n.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">July: Country Road, Chester, Vermont</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0HS9Zo3BZkwu0nh4nGm9s7sfSI5kGfsRjgERrAcBlBPDRmrMFFTjBPDoTVxvg6IPTZ-2JVP_cIgMroi4YJXvur8TpOT0a3OuU9KmWzpbeWXGX-kOx3TTxAbnqvIyyPHZ8dhwk_5pMVnI/s1600/10390999_10202085418250972_7076757109878110814_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0HS9Zo3BZkwu0nh4nGm9s7sfSI5kGfsRjgERrAcBlBPDRmrMFFTjBPDoTVxvg6IPTZ-2JVP_cIgMroi4YJXvur8TpOT0a3OuU9KmWzpbeWXGX-kOx3TTxAbnqvIyyPHZ8dhwk_5pMVnI/s1600/10390999_10202085418250972_7076757109878110814_n.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">August: Green Hill Park, Worcester, Mass.</td></tr>
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No matter how we walk in Texas, there will always be more goals to set. Saint Augustine says it best: Our hearts are restless until they rest in You. <br />
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A teacher colleague, a mother of three, runs marathons. In the hallways between classes, we've been trading stories about training. She told me whenever she is about to run the race, she tells herself this will be the last one, And then, once the race is through, she realizes she wants to run again. She said it's like being pregnant; the thought that one cannot bear to be pregnant again. And then the baby comes and the joy outweighs the physical discomforts of pregnancy and childbirth. She completed the New York Marathon on Nov. 1, telling herself the night before that this would be her last. And now she plans to run again.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5aXLCXG8DqG_92YOFAsiF5XK0HdCnoW4rU3109H3gcFeUNRHVccucraJCa4Dq04t_Y3dOWuFQHa5oMZchymwUffXsvAP4rDYg1B8TQo_29h0lY79qJHV6RVvY-rnTchfNZNcO4ns1wzE/s1600/10519651_10201924445066743_5629015306248401129_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5aXLCXG8DqG_92YOFAsiF5XK0HdCnoW4rU3109H3gcFeUNRHVccucraJCa4Dq04t_Y3dOWuFQHa5oMZchymwUffXsvAP4rDYg1B8TQo_29h0lY79qJHV6RVvY-rnTchfNZNcO4ns1wzE/s1600/10519651_10201924445066743_5629015306248401129_n.jpg" height="640" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">July: Belt Parkway Promenade: Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York</td></tr>
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I'm not so sure I would walk another half marathon. The training has taken many, many hours. Then again, I am planning to run a 5K in February at a park across the river from our home.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0G_lPHbZ4CsE0yJayd9ENFPs1YqFNukbW3mfevg1h65QurNVX3RNbpFKe9ub8za69w51A-2RjBf1CLZ83MknKMJpAtVYWmSnfLLXb6ZPgEbYEHxEONvarCyBpN7fcTH8Kx34Xj8IbvuQ/s1600/10665974_10202201037741387_1746469418983560204_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0G_lPHbZ4CsE0yJayd9ENFPs1YqFNukbW3mfevg1h65QurNVX3RNbpFKe9ub8za69w51A-2RjBf1CLZ83MknKMJpAtVYWmSnfLLXb6ZPgEbYEHxEONvarCyBpN7fcTH8Kx34Xj8IbvuQ/s1600/10665974_10202201037741387_1746469418983560204_n.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">October: Manasquan Reservoir, Howell, New Jersey</td></tr>
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This all leads me to Christ the King, and why it felt so fitting to celebrate this feast day after our final run before the half marathon. The words of one of the hymns we sang settled into my soul.<br />
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"<span style="background-color: white; font-family: serif; font-weight: bold;">Crown Him the Lord of years, the Potentate of time,</span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: serif; font-weight: bold;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: serif; font-weight: bold;">Creator of the rolling spheres, ineffably sublime.</span></div>
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One of our parish priests, Father Jeff Calia, C.O. pointed out in his homily that Christ is king for sure, but a king who rules not through coercion but by giving us free will.<br />
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We run to Him.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">August: Mianus River Gorge, Bedford, New York</td></tr>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-84961838708707596072014-11-06T17:59:00.000-05:002014-11-06T18:16:46.526-05:00Accepting Mercy On the Supermarket Line <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I am watching the cashier at the local supermarket ring up my purchase. $25.72. I pass over my singles, one at a time, then the two five dollar bills, then the four dollars worth of quarters I found in various nooks in my car. And I realize I am 72 cents short.<br />
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I am buying tonight's dinner - a full chicken for roasting, a bag of carrots and four sweet potatoes.<br />
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I am also buying a half gallon of soy milk, a dozen eggs, and a jar of applesauce because I plan to bake oatmeal raisin cookies on this rainy November night. I glance over my purchase. What don't we need tonight?<br />
<br />
"Oh, let me put two of those sweet potatoes back," I tell the cashier.<br />
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The woman behind me in line smiles. She offers the cashier three quarters. "This happens to me all the time, " she says to me<br />
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For a split second, I feel embarrassed. I want to explain to her that my husband's paycheck clears at midnight tonight, that we are solidly middle class family with two jobs, a mortgage that is paid on time. Truly, I could have found those quarters on the floor of my sedan, I want to say.<br />
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But she's smiling and I realize none of that matters: whether I am temporarily without three quarters, or whether this is a daily occurrence.<br />
<br />
She wants me to buy those two extra sweet potatoes and she was put in front of me so I could be humble and accept her gesture.<br />
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How often our pride gets in the way of seeing the hand of Our Creator. I like to think of myself as the giver, not the receiver: I'd spent part of my afternoon at the wake of a friend's father, a man who had had an often difficult life. I had actually been trying to list the seven - is it seven? - corporal works of mercy on my drive home, patting myself on the back (figuratively of course) for driving to the wake and comforting this friend and never considering that I might be in need of mercy, too.<br />
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<b><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="background-color: white;">A world so free and profligate reveals your loving hand, O Lord. With dawn and all the gifts of day we praise you, Abba, breath and word. </span><br style="background-color: white;" /><em style="background-color: white;">– Lauds and Vespers, <a href="http://contemplation.com/">Camaldolese Monks, OSB</a></em></span></b><br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-78867956732571341212014-10-10T23:19:00.001-04:002014-10-10T23:19:53.435-04:00A New View Thanks to a Wrong Turn on the Interstate This Morning.<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I leave for my high school teaching job before the sun rises but because I drive north, I do not see the sun rise. I see the clouds slowly being illuminated by the rising sun, but I do not see the sun itself. </div>
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Bone tired, I was running late this morning, and thinking excitedly how our oldest son is coming home from college for the weekend. I was so exhausted and anxious and distracted that I took a wrong turn and ended up heading west on an interstate instead of north. </div>
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So I had to turn around, head east, then north again. This is what greeted me as I headed back to my usual route. </div>
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<a name='more'></a>This new morning view reminded me how so much depends on the view from where we stand. We see the world from our vantage point and yet there is Another who sees existence from every perspective, beyond the human limits of space and time.<br />
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I can get so caught up in my own circumstances that I forget about the Mystery that summoned me to this place on the planet. <br />
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<i>– In the morning let me know your love.</i></div>
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<i>Make me know the way I should walk.</i></div>
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<i> </i></div>
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<i>from the Book of Hours</i></div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-72433535341385822252014-10-01T09:30:00.001-04:002014-10-01T09:30:24.431-04:00Life's a Beach: Brain Popcorn<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihBpeo7qEjYlcp668WEe1ksvmlZu82wgKg_C_ob-cX7uAZPxAu8j44vaQYlAz0ZRmOYGM2UNqtD-YntckswbV4n82KRnB5D8cauYcNXoFpwJGcMWxeMsdB9xDGI3hzEnHoirSo7eRr9M/s1600/download.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiihBpeo7qEjYlcp668WEe1ksvmlZu82wgKg_C_ob-cX7uAZPxAu8j44vaQYlAz0ZRmOYGM2UNqtD-YntckswbV4n82KRnB5D8cauYcNXoFpwJGcMWxeMsdB9xDGI3hzEnHoirSo7eRr9M/s1600/download.jpeg" height="200" width="176" /></a></div>
On the coffee table in my mother's family room sat a pile of audiobooks her church thrift store had given away. My mom had taken them home because she knows I listen to audiobooks during my long commutes to work. "Which ones do you want?" she asked. I rifled through.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>Let me say here I am a literary snob; if I am going to spend time reading or listening to books, I want them to be excellent. None of the audiobooks my mom showed me were. I did end up taking <a href="http://clairecook.com/">Claire Cook's </a><i>Life's a Beach </i>for two reasons. First, I felt I had to take something so as not to disappoint my mom. Second, since the audiobook had been produced by BBC Audio, I figured it couldn't be all bad despite its dopey title. If the sign of a good novel is that the reader wants to turn the page, or in this case, pop in another CD, this novel is not so bad.<br />
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Granted, Claire Cook is no <a href="http://americamagazine.org/someone-alice-mcdermott">Alice McDermott</a> but I have to say I kept listening because I wanted to know what would happen to Ginny Walsh, the 41-year-old never-married protagonist of this light read by Cook, who markets herself as a "reinvention expert."<br />
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I finished the book yesterday afternoon during my drive from work to the gym. The ending did not satisfy. Ginny Walsh "finds herself" in the quotidian way we are accustomed to hearing about on shows like Dr. Oz or Oprah. Then again, a book like this is popcorn for my brain. Not particularly bad for me, and temporarily filling.<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-64131474397247054352014-09-25T17:40:00.000-04:002014-09-25T17:58:55.380-04:00Reflections on a Mother's Love: Milk, Cookies and a Carelessly Tossed Gym Bag<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I snapped this photo this afternoon, shortly before leaving my parents' house after a brief overnight visit. The scene is a vivid reminder to me of what being a mother is all about.<br />
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I arrived at my parents' house close to midnight last night after driving from my graduate school class in Jersey City. My octogenarian parents were in their pajamas in the family room, waiting up for me, even though I told them they could leave the back door open and I could slip in. They turned off the television and my mom served us all milk and cookies.<br />
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We talked for nearly an hour, me sharing my tales from this fall's teaching, and they shared a story about one of their nine grandchildren, who recently found an excellent solution to a struggle.<br />
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I was settling into this four-poster bed in the upstairs guest room, when my mom knocked on the door. She told me she wanted to add a few details to her story. But first, she spied the purple gym bag, which I was using as my overnight bag, on the floor by the bed. "Be sure not to trip on that if you get up in the middle of the night." "Oh, I won't," I answered. Without a word she moved the bag to the chest at the foot of the bed and continued telling her story.<br />
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I'm nearly 52 years old, long past the time when I need anyone to pour me a class of milk, serve me cookies on a plate or move a gym bag out of the way. Her gestures remind me that no matter how old our children become, we are always their mothers. This thought comforts me, both as a daughter, and as the mother of nearly grown children.<br />
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Mother-love is a powerful force and it will journey with our children long after we disappear back into the Mystery. </div>
Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-30252238481217151922014-09-11T14:19:00.003-04:002014-09-11T14:39:22.861-04:00Death Is Not "The Worst Thing About Life" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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On this <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2011/09/survivors-story-life-after-911-comes.html">most difficult day</a> I am thinking about death.<br />
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Last night, on my way out of my graduate class in Jersey City, a friend texted me to let me know our next door neighbor's infant son had died suddenly. I spent the long drive home talking to Ruth. When I got home at 11 p.m., I sat in my car in the driveway, crying and still talking with her and noting that all the lights were on in the family's home and all the shades drawn. My friend and I were grieving, trying to make sense of the unimaginable.<br />
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"There has been a lot of death lately," I told her.<br />
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"It's the worst thing about life," she answered with a sigh.<br />
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At that moment, it struck me I did not agree with her at all. Death, I thought, is not the worst thing about life. But I did not respond. It was late, we two were drained from grief, full days of work and parenting. We were having trouble speaking. Besides, I am not in the business of getting into theological debates with dear friends.<br />
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For me, this has been a summer of loss. My friend Sarah died unexpectedly in July, a death that so struck Ruth, who had never met her, that she cried for days. Sarah was pregnant with her fifth child.<br />
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Earlier this week, my husband and I made a shiva call to the home of a former colleague of Greg's who died in his sleep. We stood in crowded living room, shoulder to shoulder with his widow, his two grown sons, his rabbi and many neighbors as they prayed the Kaddish. Like Greg, Larry had survived the September 11 attacks; Larry had been riding into the World Trade Center on the PATH trains when the planes hit the towers. They rarely spoke of that awful day, but, in the ways of men, felt that bond deeply whenever they encountered one another. He and his wife had just sold their home down the block from us a few days before and were planning to retire to Manhattan.<br />
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A few days ago, I stood on the sidewalk in front of our home, talking with my young neighbor and admiring her baby Joseph's beautiful eyes and chubby cheeks and talking to her about the baby's feeding schedule and temperament and how his older sister was adjusting to his presence. I did not want to hold him just yet because he was so fresh from heaven. And now he is gone from this world.<br />
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As someone who grew up in the Catholic faith and follows it still as best I can, I have never believed that, despite the sense of lives cut short, that Death has the final say. I believe in the One who summoned us with immeasurable love from utter nothingness into being and that our hope is, when we die we might encounter His face.<br />
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I believe that those who leave us are still with us and that our relationship, while transformed, is not over. They can pray for us.<br />
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I believe that Death is not the worst that happens to us. Instead, I believe the worst thing about life is to live without understanding we are loved. We were loved into being and are loved without measure and through no effort of our own. The sufferings we endure are not meaningless if they draw us closer to the One who formed us in our mothers' wombs.<br />
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Last night, as we were finishing our phone call, my friend apologized for texting me such difficult news just before my long drive home. I told her I appreciated knowing about Joseph's death because then I could pray for his soul that night. With all my difficulty in finding words last night, I managed to say to my friend that I believe our prayers have <i>agency.</i> They do more than soothe our grief.<br />
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However, with all that I believe, it was still tough this morning to leave our home. The shades were still drawn next door. My neighbor Avi's car was still parked in front of his home even though he leaves for work the same time I do. I cried and prayed all the way to work that somehow, somehow, these parents will find a way through unbearable grief and that they would be lifted up by the presence of the One who made us.<br />
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<b>A Kaddish for Baby Joseph</b></div>
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<em style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.yahrzeit.org/kaddish_eng.html">May the great Name of God </a>be exalted and sanctified, throughout the world, which he has created according to his will. May his Kingship be established in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of the entire household of Israel, swiftly and in the near future; and say, Amen.</em><br />
<em style="text-align: justify;"><br />May his great name be blessed, forever and ever.</em><br />
<em style="text-align: justify;"><br />Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled, honored elevated and lauded be the Name of the holy one, </em><br />
<em style="text-align: justify;"><br /></em>
<em style="text-align: justify;">Blessed is he- above and beyond any blessings and hymns, Praises and consolations which are uttered in the world; and say Amen. May there be abundant peace from Heaven, and life, upon us and upon all Israel; and say, Amen.</em><br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-72206208011706107212014-09-05T09:16:00.000-04:002014-09-05T09:16:04.187-04:00As Another Sept. 11 Anniversary Approaches: A Suggestion from a Survivor<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This week I am realizing that the high school freshmen I teach were just a year old when the September 11 attacks happened. Will the significance of the attacks fade as time moves forward?<br />
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My husband Greg's thoughts on how to mark the day are <a href="http://news.rutgers.edu/feature/september-11-let-us-not-lose-sight-significance-day/20140904#.VAm1pGRdVpt">here. </a><br />
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Please never forget the families of those who survived; the families of those who lost loved ones and the families who are facing unimaginable brutality at the hands of extremists.<br />
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Pray for their souls too; violent men need mercies humans cannot provide.<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-67583515705985447102014-09-01T14:58:00.000-04:002014-09-01T15:00:24.639-04:00Book Review: Don't Bother with "Carsick" <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This morning, once I finished reading it, I left my copy of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000691/">John Waters' </a>travelogue, <i>Carsick,</i> on an northbound NJTransit train, next to our used New York Times. You see, I did not like the book. At all. It was one disappointment after another. I recommend no one read it.<br />
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But I am not capable of throwing out a book. But to donate it to my public library or to Goodwill somehow would feel like an endorsement. So some unsuspecting commuter is going to thumb through this book now at his or her own peril.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>The book's premise intrigued me: film director John Waters, 66, hitchhiked across the United States, from his home in Baltimore to his home in San Francisco and wrote about it. I spend much of my summer traveling and I love the idea of life as a kind of journey in which we encounter fellow travelers, share some experiences and gain insight into our own path. So I figured that would be this kind of book.<br />
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But it isn't. To be fair, part of my problem with the book was my own stupidity. I began reading it not realizing the first two-thirds of the book are pure fiction. The first third is Waters' fantasy about what his road trip would look like and the second third is his nightmare. I was many stories into the first third and kept googling to see if the book is fiction because the tales were so fantastical. But nothing I found told me that he was writing fiction. It was only when he claimed to have been an accomplice in a bank robbery that I began to get suspicious. Also, his stories were so bawdy, so crass, they frankly repulsed me - lots of sex and drugs with strangers. The X-rated stories strained credibility. What was going on? Surely not everyone who picks up hitchhikers is a sex-crazed criminal? I kept hoping for something edifying. By the time Waters' narrative reached Nevada and he said he had been picked up by some fading famous starlet, I started looking at the table of contents.<br />
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Oh.<br />
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That's when I saw the chapters titled the Real Rides. So I started the book there. Because I spent $26 for this end-of-summer reading book, I still had expectations: for some kind of nuanced insights into the characters he encountered and the places he visited. Nope. Most of the text was about waiting on I-70 entrance ramps, calling his assistants in Baltimore to complain he wasn't getting rides, and checking twitter feeds for the news that John Waters was hitchhiking across the country.<br />
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Waters earned an advance for this book and my hunch is the hype did not conform to his hitchhiking reality. That might be why the book is padded with pretend adventures. Waters is a creative soul. Despite the gross-out parts of the book I read, I did develop an affection for him and and I just wish he had taken...hm...a road less traveled.<br />
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Perhaps next time a big-name publisher pays a big-name celebrity to do such a stunt, the celebrity needs to stay off the interstate, travel some backroads and dig a little deeper into his own soul.<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-7832807472951624762014-08-23T00:04:00.000-04:002014-08-23T02:50:34.657-04:00Walking: Grieving And Rejoicing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I've spent many hours walking this summer - through my neighborhood, along a canal in Indianapolis, <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/07/my-misbegotten-hike-down-mount-kilington.html">down a mountain </a>in Vermont, and through many, <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/08/middlesex-greenway-little-thunder-road.html">many parks in New Jersey</a>. By the time summer is over, I will have logged nearly 300 miles. This is happening in part because my husband and I are training to walk a <a href="http://runrocknroll.competitor.com/san-antonio">half-marathon in December</a> and in part because I have been grieving. And so I walk and I pray and I grieve.<br />
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I've walked with my husband, and with my friend Meredith, but most of those miles I have walked alone. Something is soothing about being out in nature, using my legs and my arms, hearing my own breathing and feeling the sweat pour down my face. It's a reminder that every breath is a gift from the One who loved us into being.<br />
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Today I walked more than four miles through the <a href="http://www.mianus.org/">Mianus River Gorge Preserve,</a> a wild swath of land near my parents' house in Bedford, New York. The photos are from today's walk.<br />
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All that I grieve has to do with time passing, with <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/07/when-words-fail-pray-for-sarah-harkins.html">the death of a young friend</a>, the loss of memory, the <a href="http://ramblingfollower.blogspot.com/2014/08/thoughts-as-our-son-leaves-home.html">passing of childhood</a>. I am comforted when I walk by the music of the hundreds of songs on my iPhone: including the <a href="http://daughtersofmary.net/daughtersofmary.php">Daughters of Mary</a> singing<i> Ave Maria </i>and reciting the rosary, my beloved Bruce Springsteen, Bessie Smith, James Taylor, the Dixie Chicks and Stevie Wonder.<br />
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I shuffle the songs so I will be surprised by what comes next. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8EBt7pFAFw">The song </a>(you can click to listen) that gives me the most comfort is by a singer/songwriter from the Shenandoah Valley named <a href="http://www.mariemillermusic.com/bio/">Marie Miller.</a> She wrote it for a struggling friend, but I like to imagine God singing it to me. The lyrics go like this:<br />
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<i>"I wanna save you, I wanna save you from the pain. I wanna help you, I wanna help you feel the same again. I wanna fix you, I wanna fix your brokenness. I wanna change it, I wanna change it for the best.</i><br />
<i>So listen to me now. I'm not gonna stand here, when my friend's down and out. I'm not gonna run when, it's hard to figure it all out. If there's anything to say, I will tell you right now: </i><br />
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<i>You're not alone, </i></div>
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<i>You're not alone, </i></div>
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<i>you're not alone."</i></div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-34889666812296803452014-08-18T00:34:00.000-04:002014-08-18T00:34:04.840-04:00Thoughts As Our Son Leaves Home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I developed a new habit for a week or so this summer: I would scan google news for reports of missing people. I even would type "missing" into its search bar and read the stories: missing tourists, missing Amish girls, missing man, missing teen and on and on. <br />
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I kept doing this until I was able to figure out the source of my obsession: our oldest son is leaving for college. He will be <i>missing</i> from our lives. I will be <i>missing</i> him.<br />
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Gabriel is absolutely ready for this next chapter of his life. And my husband tells me to consider the alternative: he graduated from high school with academic honors and <i>doesn't </i>go to college? He stays home? What would that look like?<br />
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My love, however, is not logical. I know it's time for him to step out into the world and yet my heart is heavy every morning when I wake now. The day after tomorrow he and I head out in the family van, loaded with his clothes, his bed linens and three bicycles, for his dorm room in Massachusetts.<br />
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I will try hard to keep in mind that mothering is not a role I have to relinquish; it's my lifelong vocation. Gabriel is my child forever and our relationship will continue to develop as he explores the world with all its beauty and adventure. I'm remembering <a href="http://robertmunsch.com/book/love-you-forever">the book </a>I read to him over and over when he was young.<br />
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It begins this way:<br />
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<i>"A mother held her new baby and very slowly rocked him back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And while she held him, she sang:</i><br />
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<b><i>I'll love you forever,</i></b></div>
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<b><i>I'll like you for always,</i></b></div>
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<b><i>As long as I'm living</i></b></div>
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<b><i>my baby you'll be. "</i></b></div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-27566220013460081792014-08-15T14:12:00.002-04:002014-08-15T14:12:49.549-04:00How To Make Iced Latte Without Ice<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I was inspired this afternoon to make an iced latte, following the directions of Danielle Walker, on her wonderful blog, <a href="http://againstallgrain.com/2013/03/27/iced-vanilla-bean-latte/">Against All Grain. </a><br />
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This, my friends, is not what my iced latte looked like:<br />
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Yes, I went to Wegman's yesterday and bought actual vanilla beans, a purchase so startling that our 14 year old asked me more than once as he was putting away the groceries exactly where the nearly empty bottle was supposed to go. </div>
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I bought coconut milk too. I was ready to go.</div>
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But after I'd made the coffee, and put in the coconut milk, the vanilla bean, the Vermont maple syrup and the cinnamon, I opened our freezer door to discover that someone had thrown out the big bag of ice that has been sitting in there all summer. </div>
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I ended up sticking the glass in the freezer for 15 minutes. This coffee is delish! And I need to buy me some ice cube trays.</div>
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Happy Feast of the Assumption. My brilliant, lovely friend Michelle has written a wonderful piece that you can read<a href="http://quantumtheology.blogspot.com/2014/08/feast-of-assumption-wracked-with.html"> here. </a></div>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-3401636229625012742014-08-09T19:41:00.001-04:002014-08-09T19:41:18.009-04:00Summer Moments: Toddlers and Cats<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgugXyBXFKldo3DVg8mHkc4Gmat0pfU9r3wLJYMOkWrJN0UjeFY9MUQgSCoRaZpz4JkrnNNZOpW50TU7Zv8Sx67fr8XdQlmEnGYz24CTj3FjU1EBQsFeTXqZHABIZ-6F16lCd8jkM0_bqg/s1600/10609698_10202023685827700_4236289108605365808_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgugXyBXFKldo3DVg8mHkc4Gmat0pfU9r3wLJYMOkWrJN0UjeFY9MUQgSCoRaZpz4JkrnNNZOpW50TU7Zv8Sx67fr8XdQlmEnGYz24CTj3FjU1EBQsFeTXqZHABIZ-6F16lCd8jkM0_bqg/s1600/10609698_10202023685827700_4236289108605365808_n.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjegjI6X_GkZp84xbPw4ZCIwZ8Baujg1tgSL38I1gizZWbFYXjITHDGVhy9Cmvsbz_XYLUTBEDez_ZTbO0-a9EpQbbU5FpLLd93wt0jVptKj1dPu8IQEp6b6RH1bZpMthZm8mlyQ5eswxg/s1600/10377534_10202023685707697_115508789962990439_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjegjI6X_GkZp84xbPw4ZCIwZ8Baujg1tgSL38I1gizZWbFYXjITHDGVhy9Cmvsbz_XYLUTBEDez_ZTbO0-a9EpQbbU5FpLLd93wt0jVptKj1dPu8IQEp6b6RH1bZpMthZm8mlyQ5eswxg/s1600/10377534_10202023685707697_115508789962990439_n.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a>I was heading out of the car from a dinner date with my husband just now and a family with toddler twins was on the sidewalk in front of our house, intrigued by our cats.<br />
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As it turns out, this family of four has been living down the block for two years, the mother home full-time with the twins, who are two and a half. And we had never met them. I am glad we did!<br />
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My husband was in the house with our dog, who, watching from the family room window became very jealous at all the attention the cats were getting. The toddlers were treating the cats like dogs, throwing a white balloon at them and hoping they'd fetch. Being cats, of course they did not comply.<br />
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-91299653471630405622014-08-09T00:06:00.001-04:002014-08-09T00:59:17.820-04:00Rambles in Bedford, NY and A Piece of Unsolicited Advice <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPN0DZiTvJDDAWCs9xyWY5QjhHtkFkqIxrm_gV9z9It92kVolqv09WS3rkC7yny2ZpG_cQYzcVPDWawy_Pn9UPg3HAMeQg_GjXXQ8sbEnGhnOT9rlbyJdYFoiR_3LcHmgM8ai6nqLjxc/s1600/10547621_10202019275797452_4150646296620526645_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmPN0DZiTvJDDAWCs9xyWY5QjhHtkFkqIxrm_gV9z9It92kVolqv09WS3rkC7yny2ZpG_cQYzcVPDWawy_Pn9UPg3HAMeQg_GjXXQ8sbEnGhnOT9rlbyJdYFoiR_3LcHmgM8ai6nqLjxc/s1600/10547621_10202019275797452_4150646296620526645_n.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: black;">On a visit to my nearby parents, I walked and jogged about 10 miles over the past 24 hours, up and down Middle Patent Road in Bedford Village, New York. Now the site of million-dollar homes, this forested neighborhood was a flashpoint during the American Revolution when British burned the entire village of Bedford to the ground. </span></span></div>
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The winding five-mile-long road, which is called East Middle Patent Road once it hits North Castle and then Stamford, Connecticut, earned its name because the land through which it runs was granted by the English king in three separate patents: East Patent, West Patent and Middle Patent.<br />
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Some of the stone walls marking property lines were built during Colonial times. Other dividing lines are much newer.<br />
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I did not encounter many cars, either on my mid-afternoon or my early morning walk/jog. A few men ran past and one woman cycled by. One middle-aged man, however, slowed his Land Rover down to offer me some unsolicited advice. First, he identified himself as "a neighbor." I kept jogging as he slowed his car to talk with me.<br />
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"You look great!" he told me and then proceeded to tell me how I should consider a weight-loss program he had used himself to lose 38 pounds. Thanks but no thanks, buddy. </div>
Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7418067986039614257.post-54899372056422793952014-08-08T22:30:00.000-04:002014-08-13T15:04:20.208-04:00Overheard in a Retirement Community Dining Room<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Some moments lodge deep inside one's heart. That happened to me today, as I ate lunch with my parents at a retirement community they wanted to check out. <br />
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We ate lunch with the director of sales and marketing in the community's dining room. A few tables away sat a family, two young adults, a middle-aged man and woman, and an elderly woman with flyaway white hair. As I ate my Caesar salad, I could not help but overhear. Their voices were loud, perhaps because the older woman had limited hearing.<br />
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"Have you been here before?" the old woman asked the man. </div>
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"Yes, I come here every day," he answered.</div>
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"Why do you do that? " she asked.</div>
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"To visit with you," he said.</div>
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"I'm sorry, I did not know that."</div>
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"That's OK," he answered. </div>
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What is left of us once our memory fades?<br />
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What is left once we no longer can recall the moments that string one, after another, when we no longer can count the beads of dew that build our days?<br />
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Why does a son visit his mother, every single day, even though she forgets the visit as soon as he walks out of the room?<br />
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I realized that when nearly all of us is gone, love and grace remain. And I remembered this prayer.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty,</span></div>
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<big><span style="font-size: large;">my memory, my understanding,</span></big></div>
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<big><span style="font-size: large;">and my entire will,</span></big></div>
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<big><span style="font-size: large;">All I have and call my own.</span></big></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">You have given all to me.</span></div>
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<big><span style="font-size: large;">To you, Lord, I return it.</span></big></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;">Everything is yours; do with it what you will.</span></div>
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<big><span style="font-size: large;">Give me only your love and your grace,</span></big></div>
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<big><span style="font-size: large;">that is enough for me.</span></big></div>
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<i><a href="http://www.ignatianspirituality.com/ignatian-voices/st-ignatius-loyola/"><span style="font-size: x-small;">St. Ignatius of Loyola</span></a></i></h2>
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Allisonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16021781602272064901noreply@blogger.com1