doubt

(mijo in the bathroom sink...of his own volition)

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.

~ Voltaire ~

I didn't get the bedroom pictures downloaded; however, Mijo gave me this photo op today so I am sharing it with you.

Tomorrow I head to Mom's to continue work on the project. I will make great strides. This is a certainty--not absurd.

Have a good weekend. I'll be in touch.

massage day

I really did take more pictures. They are still in the camera. I'll see if I can get them downloaded and attach to tomorrow's post.

In the meantime...it's massage day.

Yes!

love thursday 10.28.09 ~ mom's room

(still gotta put the bar and shelf in the closet...and put the door on)

(first night in the almost finished room)

Well, I almost finished this room. We decided to get some new closet hardware, so I will have to finish it next time I come over. Probably this weekend. I have a few more hours to work in the morning. I have to be back for an appointment in the afternoon.

I love my mom. This job is all for her.

away from home

I am not at my computer. No access to my quotes or my pictures. Guess you'll have to just bear with me...or not.

I am out of town, working on the project. My intention is to get the bedroom finished. I think I can do that this trip and get Mom moved back in. My brother hooked up the heater. I have a little more woodwork to install and putty, paint to touch up. Voila! That should finish that room.

If I remember, I'll try to take some pictures to share the outcome. I think for do-it-yourselfers we did okay.

Hold the intention with me...okay? Thanks.

militancy

To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up ... Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon, if it ever did. It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming.

~ Audre Lorde ~
from her book Sister Outsider

Tomorrow I am headed back to the project after an appointment. I'll be there for two half days and one whole one.

Regarding this project, I am militant: actively working for change in the absence of any surety that change is coming!

Actually, it is looking better all the time. It just keeps going on and on and on. Perhaps this trip will be the one.

Hopeful Militant

late night

I got home after midnight last night. Nope. Didn't finish the project. I am going back tomorrow afternoon after some appointments and will stay until Thursday. We'll see how much I accomplish this time.

home stretch

When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.

~ Helen Keller ~

Off to do the finishing touches on the project. I'm hoping that we will get it all done. I know there will be bits and pieces that can't be finished. I'll go back in a couple days and will do those and help Mom clean the house.

Of course it took four times as long as we had hoped--and it didn't help that I was out of the country for a week in the middle of all that. Fortunately it wasn't four times as expensive--or even twice as expensive as we thought it would be--some more, yes.

I did the best I can. I hope it makes a difference.

holy

Laughter is an effervescent form of holiness.

~ Anne Lamott ~

A dream:

A large, gentle man interviews me about my spirituality. "I was wondering. Do you have a special time when you pray?"

I start to answer and my throat wells up with tears. "I pray all the time," I tell him. He tears up, too.

Have some laughs this weekend...

Be holy.

oh, i hope not....

I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states ... Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

~ Martin Luther King Jr. ~
from his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

I hope my computer problems are not affecting you...truly.

love thursday 10.22.09 ~ foggy voyage

(on the ferry from victoria: shot with my palm treo)

Feminism's agenda is basic: It asks that women not be forced to choose between public justice and private happiness.

~ Susan Faludi~
U.S. feminist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist

We sailed through fog from Victoria to Port Angeles--calm water with very little visibility. Somehow, it seems appropriate that a raven rode the deck in the area of "keep out."

The voyage to Canada couldn't have been more different. My sea legs reappeared when I went aft for a couple bottles of water. Glad to know I've still got them. Sitting on the starboard side and looking out the port windows we saw water...sky...water...sky...water...sky....

What most amazes me is that the foggy return trip granted me much higher likelihood of seasickness. Riding the waves exhilarates me. Looking at the gray nothingness disorients. But Poseidon blessed me and I didn't get seasick going either direction.

I love being on the water.

found

Remember this?

It is on its way home.

on my way home to these guys

(mijo facing the camera and honeyboy in blur)*

(the blur that is probably mijo playing with bird-on-a-stick)

Prayer always thrusts one out into action sooner or later. One of its main functions is to induce one to think creatively; it stretches the imagination; it enables one to see things and people not as they are but as they might be.

~ Muriel Lester ~
social reformer and pacifist
(1883-1968)

The ferry leaves at 10:30 a.m. We must be in line at 9:00 a.m. and we are not then allowed to leave the area. Customs, you know...and I don't mean traditions. I am praying for a more benign customs officer experience on both sides of the water. For my part, I will see them "as they might be."

I accomplished what I came here to do: 1) accompany and "heave-ho" for SO; 2) rest. I slept 10 hours for three nights and 8 hours each of the others. Lovely...and apparently, much needed.

Now I am ready to go home. The kitties await me. Before long, they will be CATS. With paws the size of dinner plates that make their faces disappear when they hold up a hand in front of their faces, I expect them to be men of stature. In the meantime, I miss my kitties who I am sure have doubled--nay, tripled in size while I've been gone.

How satisfyingly odd that these little furry creatures come to live with us and capture our hearts.

(photos by LC--one of our kitty-sitters)*

magnificence

I don't find anything comparable to the magnificent beauty of a soul and its marvelous capacity.

~ Saint Teresa of Avila ~
from The Interior Castle

Kinda like the magnificent beauty of a tree and its marvelous capacity for colors.

people talk to me

(one more honeyboy shot by mr from yesterday)

I do not go to Mass to make myself "better." I go because, in the dimmest reaches of my scattered, angst-ridden mind, there is something that wants me to get down on my knees and, in spite of my own suffering and all the suffering around me, give thanks. I go because I am beginning to believe that heaven is not in some other world, but shot through the broken world in which we live.

~ Heather King ~
from her essay "Heaven and Earth"

...and I don't mean dead people. Well, maybe they do, too.

I am talking about live ones.

You may not know that I am an introvert. I can do extrovert. I can turn on the juice and interact. Since I've been sick, though, relating to people on that level requires more energy than I want to afford to spend. So I measure my interactions and choose carefully--hopefully, wisely.

Still...people talk to me.

1 ~ I am in the locker room, putting my clothes in a locker. She comes in and says hello as if she is expecting to meet me here. I ask, "Am I in your way?" "No. No hurry." I finish and as I turn to go to the hot tub, she says, "I'll be right in," as if we are together and I will be waiting for her.

We're not. I'm not.

She comes in and talks. "Why don't you come in for a swim?" (I've already been in the pool and am sitting in the hot tub.) She tells me about her week of baking, canning, and quilt making--to help her friend with a project at the friend's church--being off work because of her back pain. Her physiotherapist wants her to swim. He will be pleased that she has been in the pool six times since she last saw him.

And she talks some more.

I start to get out to meet SO for lunch. "Will you be back? I'm not sure I will be here again this week so I might not see you again."

2 ~ Several times in this and my previous visit to Victoria I passed a jewelry store and admire the custom work. Today I find time to go there during their open hours. I walk through the door and the owner starts talking to me. I am looking through the book of designs. She tells me they do custom work and can do whatever I want. Am I a ring, bracelet, or necklace person? (Ring.) "But you're not wearing any...." (My fingers are sausages today and I can't force my rings on without soap. Not a good way to begin the day.) Oh, hers are a little swollen, too. It must be the change in weather. She and her partner (who also owns the gallery next door) have had the shop for 34 years. They manage even though it is small. She has been married 34 years and is making her ninth wedding ring for herself. She gets tired of the rings after a while and--well, the relationships change, too. Her husband is used to it by now.

And she goes on until I can ask for a business card and leave.

3 ~ SO and I are in the hotel bar-restaurant for lunch. She is there by herself. The servers call her by name--a regular. Our lunch doesn't come for a long time. She starts talking to me. "You look just like a friend of mine that I haven't seen for a long time." (Everywhere I go, I look like someone a local knows.) "She's a sweet girl--so gentle. I got an invitation to the wedding. I don't know if I responded or not. I didn't go to the wedding. I haven't heard from her since. I need to look her up. I called her father." I say nothing and smile to be gracious. I look away, waiting for her to see that I am no longer listening and am engaging SO in conversation. She keeps talking. I look at her again and smile. "You even have the same teeth." (I have a gap in the front. Apparently her friend does, too.) And she goes on.

Eventually, she starts to leave. Our waiter comes with our food...finally--after a half hour or more. She waits for him to finish with us...so she can talk some more. And then she leaves, wishing us a good stay.

I don't start it.

I don't invite it.

I don't understand it.

They just talk.

To me.

I hope they get something they are needing.

I hope it is good for them.

randomness from my day

(honeyboy)*

(mijo)*

Only when enough adults practice and teach children love and respect at home, in schools, religious congregations, and in our political and civic life will racial, gender, and religious intolerance and hate crimes subside in America and the world.

~ Marian Wright Edelman ~
from her book Lanterns

~ Since I am missing my kitties, my neighbor who is visiting them in the afternoons took these pictures while they were playing and emailed them to me.

~ I love email.

~ A group of adolescents arrived en masse at the hotel today. Their meeting sounded like bad cheerleading. After I (and no doubt countless others) called the front desk to find out if I would be listening to them all weekend, they got quiet. Thank you.

~ In order to break the suction of the hotel room, we went outside the city tonight for dinner. We found a wonderful Thai restaurant where I had the best Panang curry I have ever eaten. The. Best.

~ Finally, we found a store that sells dark chocolate M&Ms.

~ I spent the afternoon reading Hope Edelman's The Possibility of Everything. Having been to Belize, I am enjoying the additional richness my experience brings to reading her book. Only about 30 pages left.

~ The hotel across the street has a pear tree in the front yard. When pears drop on the sidewalk they split.

~ www.accuweather.com was not so accu today. Okay with me. We got less rain than they predicted.

~ We are now officially half way through this trip.

~ I slept almost 10 hours last night.

*Photos by my neighbor, Monique

six degrees....do you know these people?

Posting this at the request of a blogger I read--now at 4 degrees!

"Please repost this photo. Let's see if 6 degrees works. I found a camera while biking just North of Kapalua on Maui at the end of July. I would like these people to get their camera and picture of their child back, if you know them email me at gbpniko@yahoo.com."

love thursday 10.15.09 ~ showers

Everyone who's ever taken a shower has an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.

~ Nolan Bushnell ~

Accuweather.com was pretty accu. Rain during the 1 o'clock hour. Big wet drops at 1:30--far enough apart that I didn't really get wet. In fact, when the first drop hit me I thought it was a pigeon dropping guano on my head. Glad I was wrong.

They also predicted rain during the 4 o'clock hour. At 3:30 rain arrived at a 45 degree angle and was over by 4:20. I am very grateful that I decided not to go for a walk downtown about that time.

On another note, the shower in the room here hurts. That's right. It is so powerful that I couldn't stick my face in it and I had to use one hand to protect my chest from the stream of water. In this age of "low flow" and water conservation the bigger challenge is getting enough water to come through the shower head.

I am not complaining. I rather like it.

What's all this got to do with Love Thursday? I have no idea.

Hope your Thursday is full of love.

is this the face of a "person of interest"?

The self is not something that one finds. It is something that one creates.

~ Thomas Szasz ~
(1920-)
American Psychiatrist

We are in Canada. Whew.

However....

They did a background check before they would let us in.

Huh?

Maybe it was the face...this face. (I get pulled aside on both sides of the border for personal inspection far more often than random selection would deem statistically possible. Would that my odds were as high for winning the lottery!)

Maybe it was the car. (Red Volvo convertible--but, hey...we had the top up.)

Maybe it was the fact that our passenger forgot her passport and had to have someone fax a copy to the ferry terminal so she could even leave the US. (What can I say? All we did was give her a ride.)

Maybe it was the fact that I said we were here for a workshop and they were afraid that we were here earning money instead of spending it. (NOT.)

Maybe it was the really snarky customs officer. (I've never had a customs officer who smiled, so I suspect it is their training. However, this one seemed to go out of her way to be unpleasant. She was the crankiest one I have come across to date. The one who did the background check never smiled either. However, she managed to convey kindness and humanity through her tone and demeanor.)

Whatever.

Here we are. I plan to rest, read, and have some fun and adventures. Not sure what yet. Adventures tend to unfold as they will and I haven't ventured outside yet.

I do hope that whatever adventures I find are more pleasant than yesterday's entry.

on the road

(parliament)

Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.

~ Mother Teresa ~
(1910-1997)

Albanian Missionary

We are headed north today. It's a 5 hour drive to Port Angeles, an hour wait, and an hour and a half on the ferry. Then we are in Victoria.

I'm supposed to have Internet in the room. May it be so.


By the way...the loop is as closed as it is going to get. We can each only do what we can do. I hoped for more. At least we spoke to each other.

close the loop of communication

(view from the ferry to victoria, bc...where i am headed again tomorrow)

Reconciliation is the ultimate aim of nonviolence because nonviolence holds not only for the absolute inviolability of the human person, both friend and enemy, but maintains that human beings are ultimately one family, brothers and sisters to each other.

~ Niall O'Brien ~
Columban priest in the Philippines

I made a mistake. I hurt someone's feelings. My tone comes out sharp and the person I am talking to gets blasted. (I hate it when I do that.) Then I have to own it and apologize.

I recognize that I speak too sharply at times. I am working on doing it softer, gentler, better--and much to my dismay--I still lose my capacity to hold my tongue until I can modulate what's behind it. I apologize.

I apologized for this one, too. I am sad and feel bad that I hurt his feelings. Truly.

He won't take my phone calls--hasn't responded to my messages. I left two--one non-specific: "let's talk" and one specific: "I'm sorry." No response.

The loop is open and it feels bad--I feel bad.

Reconciliation cannot occur if the loop remains open. It just can't.

saint damien: canonized 10.11.09

(father damien at painted church in captain cook, hawaii)

I would not be cured if the price of the cure was that I must leave the island and give up my work… I am perfectly resigned to my lot. Do not feel sorry for me.

~ Father Damien ~
born Joseph de Veuster
(January 3, 1840 – April 15, 1889)

I have always loved the story of Father Damien. His love and compassion alone make him a saint to me. Finally, the Catholic church is figuring it out.

work to do

No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There's too much work to do.

~ Dorothy Day ~
The Catholic Worker

Today...the work is painting.

Yesterday, a neighbor surprised me by being verbally (racially) violent with a young man of color going door-to-door for his work in our neighborhood. We heard. We went outside. SO walked up to and talked with the young man as the neighbor went in his house. SO told the young man that he won by not resorting to violence. And he did.

Yesterday, the work was walking outside and showing up to stand for and with the young man.

I am sad and shaken...but not hopeless, for there is work to be done.

we all must be peace

It is not the product of a victory or a command. It has no finishing line, no final deadline, no fixed definition of achievement. Peace is a never-ending process, the work of many decisions by many people in many countries. It is an attitude, a way of life, a way of solving problems and resolving conflicts.

~ Oscar Arias Sanchez ~
Excerpted from his 1987 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech

In a few more days, I will be headed out of town for a week. If all goes well, I will have internet service and be able to post from my destination--Victoria, BC. If not...well, I guess you won't be hearing from me for a while. I am staying at the same place I went last time, however, so I am assuming that the internet will work.

A few days fewer than that, I am headed out of town closer to continue the project at my mom's house. We are getting close. Painting this weekend. Yes!

And today...Friday...I get a massage.

love thursday 10.08.09 ~ love is my name

To say that I am made in the image of God is to say that love is the reason for my existence, for God is love. Love is my true identity. Selflessness is my true self. Love is my true character. Love is my name.

~ Thomas Merton ~
from A Book of Hours

From my lips to God's ears.

Happy Love Thursday. Share a thought of love today.

things i am hoping for...

Hope ...
is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.

~ Lisel Mueller ~
from her poem "Hope"

A good night's sleep--pain free.

An interesting workshop tomorrow that makes it worthwhile and not just a place filler for the CEU hours I need.

A phone call from someone who may be having a hard time, so I can urge an appropriate intervention.

Fingers that bend when I wake up.

Snuggles with my kitties.

Time to take some more photos.

What are you hoping for?

i'm back

Goodness is a process of becoming, not of being. What we do over and over again is what we become in the end.

~ Joan Chittister ~
Benedictine nun, author, and lecturer

No picture today. Sorry. Just me...and my quotes.

It's good to be back. Maybe I will have a chance to get the camera out and create some new material to work with.

The project continues. Everything is now primed and textured. Next weekend...the real paint colors. You can help me paint if you will let me hold your frog....

i wish i had mama cass's voice...

another wedding dance

I thought this was kind of fun:



I'll see you soon....

bak sun

I am headed out of town for the next portion of the project. I'll be working for the next three days and won't have computer time, so I'll leave you brief entries to remember me by.

Love ya.
Miss ya.
Mean it.

And as Winnie the Pooh says, I'll be "bak sun."

Muah!

friday list...and i've been saying this all along

To be human is to be responsible. That is the inner meaning of the "dominion" of Genesis 1:26, which is a dominion not of domination but of stewardship, taking care of the world's back yard ... God the world-maker is God the care-taker. Humans properly stand over other creatures only as they stand with other creatures, showing them love, giving them space, and granting them "rights."

~ Kim Fabricius ~
from his book, Propositions on Christian Theology

Return Grey's Anatomy (season 5, disc 3) to Blockbuster
*This season is farcical and remembering that is the only way I can watch it. As it is, I keep talking back to the TV*

Go to work: see clients, make phone calls
*Short day*

Go to the bank
*Small deposit...sigh*

Research drywall products
*Hoping that what I now have will do what I want it to do"*

Home Depot
*Remember the list this time!*

Go to the pharmacy
*Again*

...and if all goes well...
take a nap.

What's on your list? May we both accomplish the whoooole thing.

love thursday 10.01.09 ~ resistance to oppression

Resistance to oppression is often based on a love that leads us to value ourselves, and leads us to hope for more than the established cultural system is willing to grant ... such love is far more energizing than guilt, duty, or self-sacrifice. ... Solidarity does not require self-sacrifice, but an enlargement of the self to include community with others.

~ Sharon Welch ~
The Feminist Ethic of Risk

I've been really busy and out of town a few days each week. I haven't had time to write or read much. Bear with me. I'll get caught up eventually.

Thanks for continuing to visit.

And Happy Love Thursday!