Bidding a fond adieu to summer in a local paradise

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You can see the upper cottage at the top, built into a knoll.

This was the best summer I’ve had in many a year and a lot of it was because I started walking during my lunch hour.

I work in Wellesley, MA in the center of town where there are a treasure trove of walking trails (which I’ll share with you in a future post).

The walking plus frequent kayak trips have reconnected me with nature in way I haven’t experienced since I was a child. When I can find the words to share how this connection has fed me, I will share it with you.

On to The Outermost House to prepare for winter.

I’ve started re-reading The Outermost House, a poetic classic of nature writing of one man’s year spent on the outer Cape. The author, Henry Beston, knows how to express connections with the natural world. I think once I immerse myself in his poetic words, I will find my own.

In the meantime, I’ll share with pictures.

On Labor Day, my husband Rich and I drove up to the northern Massachusetts town of Ashburnham where the family camp of my brother-in-law is located. The two cottages were built by relatives back around 1920 on 5 wooded acres overlooking Lake Winnekeg. The air was crisp and cool, the area bathed in sunlight and the sky a deep blue. Needless to say it was very hard to leave this paradise, but it was the appropriate way to bid summer a fond adieu.

Here’s my photographic memoir of the day.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

How was your summer? What memories can you share?

Click to Tweet & Share: Bidding a fond adieu to summer in a local paradise http://wp.me/p2D9hg-aL

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To Work is to Pray – guest post from The Holy Rover

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The Holy Rover is one of my favorite spiritual blogs; in part, it inspired this blog with regards to spiritual writings. Blogger Lori  Erickson presents spirituality in a way that makes me hunger for more. I will be featuring teases from some of her posts with links back to the full post, and I hope you will enjoy them as I do.

To Work is to Pray

The Trappist monks at New York’s Abbey of the Genesee bake bread to help support their community. (Abbey of the Genesee photo)

On a recent trip to upstate New York, my family and I visited the Abbey of the Genesee, a Trappist monastery overlooking the green, rolling countryside south of Rochester. In its gift store, loaves of bread made by the monks were prominently displayed. “Monks selling bread?” my son asked. “Why do they do that?”

One answer, of course, is that monks, like everybody else, need to make a living. Religious houses often operate businesses, from cheese making and dog training to raising chickens. In my home state of Iowa, Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey sells delicious caramel candies while New Melleray Abbey makes finely crafted wooden caskets.

These enterprises do much more than bring in income, however: they are also a way to craft souls …

Click here to read the entire post.

Click to Tweet & Share: To work is to pray … guest post from the Holy Rover http://wp.me/p2D9hg-a8

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Read my other blog, Louisa May Alcott is My Passion

 

Tweets of the Week (September 5, 2012)

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Here are some great links and tweets I found this past week:

From the Post Bulletin @PB_News

Moonlight kayaking – I want to do this! – Post Bulletin http://www.postbulletin.com/news/stories/display.php?id=1507175

From Patheos.com @Patheos

I am so blessed to have two outstanding spiritual friends – Spiritual Direction vs. Spiritual Friend http://shar.es/7V9RA

ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Will Braden holds Henri, the cat who stars in Braden’s videos

From the Seattle Times @seattletimes

Here’s the producer of the Henri 2 video, winner of the first internet Cat video award: Garfield High grad wins Internet Cat Video Film Festival http://tinyurl.com/9jjgycd

From the Kenilworth Weekly

Kayaking Katie backs move to end paralympics exclusion rule  – http://tinyurl.com/8nwkfym

From the NewsandSentinal.com

“It’s just a gas to build a beautiful boat that looks like a piece of furniture and then float away.” http://tinyurl.com/9cahrkq

Click to Tweet & Share: Tweets of the Week: moonlight kayaking; meet maker of Henri 2, Spiritual direction & more http://wp.me/p2D9hg-ap

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Making the right choice even when it seems impossible

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I again wish to feature the homily that Fr. Edwin Gomez gave last Sunday based upon these readings from scripture: Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b; Psalm 34:2-3, 16-17, 18-19, 20-21; Ephesians 5:21-32, John 6:60-69

There are just too many choices.

In our modern culture we have so many options that many times we can’t choose one over the other.

We can have 500 hundred channels of cable TV and still have nothing to watch on the television.

We treat life like sampling a Chinese pu pu platter: we want to be able to try everything.

College students many times have 2, 3 or 4 majors … different degrees so they can have a lot of job options.

Too many choices! And we want to have it all.

Today we have two examples in the scriptures of just the opposite.

The fact is that spiritually and honestly for the best things in our lives we do need to make choices that exclude other things.

Joshua in our first reading tells the people that they could choose to worship the God of their ancestors, the God that they were used to, or they could choose to worship the God of this new land, the God that will be unfamiliar to them. Joshua leads the people to choose to serve the Lord, the one God of Israel. They made their choice.

A choice between goods will always be a difficult choice
and it always excludes something else.

The same thing happens with Jesus in our Gospel, This is the 5th week in a row that we hear “I am the bread of life”.

Stop saying that!

What they said was, “This is too hard. This teaching is too hard; we cannot accept it!”

Jesus made it clear a choice had to be made: “Choose to believe that I am the Son of God that came down from heaven. And the way that you believe in me is that you will eat my body and drink my blood.”

This saying is too weird. This teaching is too hard.

The healing, the teachings were nice, the reaching out was nice and inspired them, but now he has gone too far.

What is sad about this scripture is that some of his disciples turned away and no longer follow him. They went back to their former lives.

Choices!

I wonder what in our day will make us choose like that. What could Jesus say to us that will make us say, “This is getting too hard, I do not know if I can do it!”

Some of us struggle with some of the teachings of the church.

I have and I do. There are a few things that I can think of that cause me to say, “This is hard, who can accept it?”

For some of us it is hard to accept that God is forgetful.

He forgives us and unlike humans, he forgets. God holds no bitterness, no resentments, and no anger against you.

It is hard to accept that God is blind and he is indeed blind.

He does not see the negative or the broken in us, only the positive and the possibility of healing and fullness of life.

It is hard to accept that God is stubborn and he is indeed stubborn

He will not give up on us, ever. There is nothing we can do to make him love us any more than he does. And there is nothing we can do to make him stop loving us. He will pursue our hearts, for decades if he has to, until he gets us to fall in love with him and let him in.

I think what the gospel is inviting us to say is what Peter says, what Peter representing all the apostles said to Jesus:

“Lord, to whom shall we go, you have the words of everlasting life.”

“We are convinced that you are the holy one of God.” Notice that Peter does not say, “Okay! I got it, I understand it all, and I am right on board with you.” I am sure Peter and the disciples were as freaked out as everyone else.

But Peter’s answers reflect faith and faith sometimes needs to step out.

There are things that we do not believe, things that we do not completely understand. Maybe there are things we do not agree with. We say, “This is a hard saying,” but where else will we go?

“You have the words of everlasting life.”

We had to make a choice by coming here. There are a lot of things that we could be doing but we made a choice to come here.

At some point in our life we are forced to make a choice between one thing and another.

The choices we make now will affect us later on. We will need to let go of things in order to get what is really important. To me the choice is to be present as much as I can in my life. To see the beauty in everything, to find God in everything, even in our struggles, shortcomings and sins, and to remain open and aware that nobody has all the answers.

For me it is about letting go of all my junk, letting go of my prejudice, my control, my securities and the false belief that I have to know it all and have all the answers.

So, maybe we do struggle, I know I struggle. Sometimes I do not get it. And yet to whom shall we go?

Click to Tweet & Share: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” What happens when the teachings of Jesus are too hard to accept? http://wp.me/p2D9hg-9L

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Read my other blog, Louisa May Alcott is My Passion

 

First-ever cat internet film festival crowns its winner: “Henri 2, Paw de Deux”

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The Golden Kitty goes to … “Henri 2, Paw de Deux!” Except perhaps for the first Simon’s Cat video, this one definitely deserves the prize. I’ve posted both with a place where you can vote: which is your favorite?

Here is “Henri 2, Paw de Deux:”

And here is “Simon’s Cat ‘Cat Man Do:'”

And now for your vote:

Click to Tweet & Share: “Henri 2” wins Cat Internet Film Fest but should “Simon’s Cat'” have won – what do you think? Watch & take our poll http://wp.me/p2D9hg-9E

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Sisters, sisters …

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Kitty Clubbers! One of you (Rose Marie W, thanks!) sent me the perfect picture of the Sisters Spooky and Venus:

Sisters, sisters … Spooky and Venus

I couldn’t resist. I had to post this video, one of my favorite songs, one my best friend and I used to sing together.  From “White Christmas” I present Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen singing “Sisters.” Imagine Spooky and Venus in their places. 🙂

Click to Tweet & Share: Spooky and Venus rival Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen in “White Christmas” singing “Sisters” 🙂 #sevenkittens http://wp.me/p2D9hg-9i

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Tweets of the Week: kayaks, scenery, cats, weather, birds … take your pick!

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from http://www.mnn.com/family/pets/stories/cat-helps-boy-express-his-emotions

In an effort to invite as many as I can to visit Be as One, I maintain an account on Twitter (and you can follow my tweets in the side bar – there’s a link where you can follow me). I’m following several interesting people and organizations and thought that on a regular basis, I would share interesting tweets and links with you.

Here are this week’s Tweets of the Week:

from http://wildbirdsunlimited.typepad.com

from Kenn Kaufman ‏@KennKaufman
Roger Tory Peterson artwork going up for auction soon. The background story

and from Wild Birds Unlimited ‏@WildBirdsUnlmtd
Funny bald Blue Jay – Wordless Wednesday – Don’t Speak with your Mouth Full

Click to Tweet & Share: Tweets of the Week: kayaks, scenery, cats, weather, birds … take your pick! http://wp.me/p2D9hg-92

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Susan Bailey, Author, Speaker, Musician on Facebook and Twitter
Read my other blog, Louisa May Alcott is My Passion

Detachment: a “dirty word” that promises freedom

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What feelings come up when you read the following two words:

  • Obedience
  • Detachment

Are your feelings positive or negative?

Are these words to be avoided at all costs or embraced?

Do these words hinder your freedom or enhance it?

In a later post I will deal with obedience, one of the most freeing words in the entire English language.

Today I will deal with detachment because I finally found out what it means.

Detachment can strike fear into the hearts of those pursuing an authentic spiritual life. It means walking away and letting go.

What do I have to give up?

Will I have to watch less TV, skip that beer or ice cream, put aside dreams of a tropical winter get-away in order to instead travel to snowbound Buffalo to visit elderly parents?

Will I have to give up something, or someone I dearly love?

What will I have to sacrifice?

Detachment in part means sacrifice and both words have a negative connotation in this age of you-can-have-it-all.

And there’s more to sacrifice than giving up time, money and material items. There are feelings inside of us that need to be sacrificed too.

That sacrifice is known as self-control.

Thud. Another word that stirs up a negative connotations.

In this age of exposing ourselves on Facebook and Twitter, self-control has fallen by the wayside.

When we feel bad, we show it. Why hide it? We not only show it, we indulge in it. We feel entitled to wallow in it. Hell, we feel like crap so why not just let it take over?

At some point you long to escape. Escape, as you know, comes about in many unhealthy, even deadly forms. Just ask Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson and Anna Nicole Smith.

Oh that’s right. We can’t.

What does all this have to do with detachment? Here’s how.

And I only just learned this in the last few days.

On Saturday we said goodbye to our 26 year-old son. He is moving from his place near our home in central MA to Brooklyn, NY to explore new options in his life. It’s only four hours away but it might as well be on the other side of this planet to this mother’s heart.

I urged him to go.

Heck, I was the main cheerleader. And I was bound and determined not to lose it in front of him.

So just before the big goodbye, I stole away to the bathroom in his house and begged God to help me put a lid on my emotions.

The response was an impulse to pray the Hail Mary.

With that first of many Hail Mary’s I recalled that the Mother of Jesus had to endure such a goodbye too. She would understand and she would listen to me.

I then rifled through my pocketbook and found my rosary ring. I put it in my pocket and fingered it, continuing to pray.

And when it came time to say goodbye, I only cried a little.

We exchanged warm hugs and a few tears flowed but I held it together.

I realized at that moment that asking God to intervene, He stepped in between my son and myself, providing that little bit of detachment that allowed me to keep a lid on my emotions.

Later on in the privacy of my kitchen, I had my cry.

Detachment saved me from embarrassment, not only for myself, but for my son and everyone else that was there when we exchanged goodbyes.

from http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_blackholes_blackholes.html

And now I am working on building on that detachment.

The pain of saying goodbye is not unlike grief and it can become a black hole, sucking you in and smothering the life out of you.

The natural inclination is to go towards that black hole.

The smart thing to do is to step back.

I work up this morning filled with pain over the goodbye. But I washed up, went to Sunday mass, did the food shopping and spent the day with my husband.

I clung to God and made a deliberate effort to tell that black hole I wasn’t going to be sucked in.

It wasn’t easy.

A lot of the time I just wanted to lay down on my bed and go to sleep.

The lesson of yesterday’s goodbye and the taste of freedom from that small bit of detachment gave me the impetus to keep pursuing it.

I sacrificed the urge to give in to the pain.

Using self-control, I deliberately turned away from pain of the past and fixed my gaze upon the future.

Little things like a medium Dunkin’ Donuts mocha ice coffee helped in the cause.

God teaches us detachment for a reason.

He wants to set us free. I feel like I have discovered a most precious secret.

And so I bid my son a bittersweet farewell, knowing it’s for the best and wishing him many blessings in his journey.

I have already found mine.

Click to Tweet & Share: Saying goodbye to our son hurt but taught me something new: turning to God, I learned to walk away & not lose it. http://wp.me/p2D9hg-8s

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Susan Bailey, Author, Speaker, Musician on Facebook and Twitter
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Forget it and move on

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The associate pastor at my parish of St. Luke the Evangelist, Fr. Edwin Gomez, gives wonderful homilies. From time to time I’d like to share them with you. This is  his homily  from Sunday, August 19, 2012, the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time on the liturgical calendar.

The readings used for that week were Proverbs 9:1-6, Psalm 34:2-7, Ephesians 5:15-20, John 6:51-58.

Fr. Edwin reminds us of something we often forget. He begins with a story …

An 80-year-old couple was having a problem remembering things; they decided to start writing things down and make notes to help each other remember.

One night while watching TV, the old man got up from his chair and his wife asks, “Where are you going?”

He replies, “To the kitchen.”

She asks, “Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?”

He replies, “Sure.”

She then asks him, “Don’t you think you should write it down so you can remember it?”

He says, “No, I can remember that.”

She then says, “Well, I also would like some strawberries on top. You had better write that down ‘cause I know you’ll forget that.”

He says, “I can remember that, you want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries.”

She replies, “Well, I also would like whip cream on top. I know you will forget that so you better write it down.”

With irritation in his voice, he says, “I don’t need to write that down, I can remember that.”

He then went into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes he returns from the kitchen and hands her a plate of bacon and eggs. She stares at the plate for a moment and says, “You forgot my toast.”

Forgetful and Very Wise at the same time. Ha!

“Brothers and sisters: watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise” (Ephesians 5:15) To be wise is the invitation. And today I am going to share with you my greatest discovery…I have found the way to become really wise.

Ready?

In order to be wise you have to be forgetful as God is forgetful. You have to imitate God’s forgetfulness.

Surprised? Let me explain.

Think about His mercy. He forgives you and unlike humans, He forgets.

He holds no bitterness, no resentments, no anger against you for anything you have done in the past.

The past is history, the future is a mystery, so live in the present with no fear of recrimination or punishment.

You cannot be wise unless you have been in some kind of interpersonal, interactive relationship with God. Only will you know that God is compassionate, that He will let you start over again, every day fresh and new.

Good News: God forgives anyone who is willing to be forgiven. Willingness is the key here … that is the only requirement to becoming wise.

And this is the bread from heaven. (“I am the living bread that came down from heaven…” Gospel of John, 5:51)

This is what we need to learn to eat. To eat the life of God.

And if you do not have a life with God, an hour in church on Sunday is probably not going to make up for you. If you are not living with your merciful and “forgetful” friend all week, an hour during the weekend does not create a friendship.

That friendship has to be pursued and nurtured morning, afternoon and night as with every true friend that you have.

And then, you learn how to imitate God’s love and how to be wise, because you know what God is like. God is El Amigo, is a companion, is someone who loves you more than you love yourself, who forgives you more easily than you even know how to forgive yourself.

Today is a new day, a day in your journey to meet the friend, to meet the “forgetful” God. The only way to become wise is to imitate God, the One who loves you just the way you are, the One who is forgetful and forgiving about your past and loves you.

“A wise man once sat before an audience and cracked a joke … all of them laughed like crazy. After a moment he cracked the same joke again, and fewer people laughed … he cracked the same joke once again and no one laughed. Then he smiled and said ‘If you can’t laugh at the same joke again and again, then why do you keep crying over the same thing over and over again?’”

Forget the past and move on.

“Loving God, help us to imitate you … help us to forgive and forget as You forgive and forget. Amen.”

Fr. Edwin Gomez, former associate pastor of St. Luke the Evangelist Parish, Westborough, MA

Click to Tweet & Share: Forget about it! God’s way of forgetfulness is the truest love of all http://wp.me/p2D9hg-86

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Acts of kindness are alive and well

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This piece was posted on the Facebook page of my son Stephen who is 26. I asked him if I could share it with you.

The next time the world starts to get you down with all the darkness, selfishness and cruelty that seems endless, think of little stories like this and remember that decency, thoughtfulness and childlike purity are all alive and well.

After picking up my girlfriend Nic from her place, I noticed a Buzz Lightyear toy lying in the road while at a stoplight.

In a rush of pity and instinct I jumped out of the car to save it from oncoming traffic. As we were driving away, I noticed a Woody doll lying on the opposite end of the street staring forlornly at us as we drove off.

For the next ten minutes I lamented only being able to save one of them from a miserable fate until Nic finally suggested that maybe I should go back and retrieve him as well.

Feeling kind of silly and stupid, but determined nonetheless, I turned the car around at the Hess station in Watertown to go back. Sure enough, the Woody was still lying in the street.

As I pulled over to park, I noticed a tall biker gently reach down and pluck Woody off street and walk to a parked car nearby. Woody and Buzz Lightyear, sidekicks from the Toy Story series,  usually come in a set and figuring if he was rescuing one he’d want the set, I got out of the car and walked over to hand over Buzz Lightyear to him.

Friends forever: Woody and Buzz Lightyear

As it turned out, the Biker was handing the toy to its original owner, a small kid who had accidentally dropped both toys out of the car as he and his mother had driven down the street some time earlier.

“Woody!” he excitedly yelled as he was reunited with his lost toy.

The mother smiled as the Biker and his girlfriend joked that she should drive with the windows up from now on.

The boy’s eyes lit up even more as I handed over Buzz Lightyear and explained that I had found it earlier and felt bad splitting the two famous friends up.

“Buzz!” he exclaimed, and hugged the two toys to him.

There was a quiet moment between the four adults as we all chuckled a little and smiled at each other.

Thinking about it as I drove away, I realized that had I come at any other time, this moment would never have taken place.

I guess it just goes to show that it’s never the wrong time to try and do something nice, even if you’re not sure why you’re doing it in the first place.

Stephen Bailey

Click to Tweet & Share: Toy Story friends Woody and Buzz Lightyear inspire unexpected acts of kindness. Decency lives! http://wp.me/p2D9hg-7T

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