Here’s a thought
Sometime or other I have a WordPress.com site coming to a close. Why not transfer it over here somehow. At least some of the photos because that saves finding new ones for here. But then they will be old and out of date.
Back on the path
St. Francis has been rescued from the raspberry patch and relocated to flower bed. A moment ago I accidentally deleted a post I spent quite awhile making. Oh well. I shall make a shorter one.
What I mean by “on the path” is making posts on this site. About my spiritual reading. Last night as usual, St. John of the Cross.:
…virtues keep the soul so tranquil and safe…
St. John is referring to saintly people not to virtually virtue-less people such as me. The theological virtues are faith, hope and charity. I have some faith, some hope at times, but no charity. I am too nervous and afraid.
There is a carpenter working on a roof for my stairs. I think my cat is hiding under my bed. I have been planning that roof for a long time. Both cat and I will be much safer this winter without snow falling on the stairs.
It is almost solstice. Not very warm and the creeks and lake are very high. The garden is finally starting to grow a bit. The vegetables taste superb. Maybe strawberries in a few weeks…
return
Back at this domain with wounds. I tried something new, was doing alright, but accidentally (or carelessly, or ignorantly and impatiently or all of the above), lost my content. Fortunately some of it was still here in the trash of this website. Not the newer stuff– that is gone beyond me. But the old stuff I can build upon.
St. John of the Cross is still my spiritual reading choice. His ideas have got so beyond me that I have difficultly finding a daily quote that is short enough to remember and relate to during the next day. I am well into The Spiritual Canticle, yes, but I now find reading takes effort.
Last night I caught a quote St. John took from the Gospel of St. John:
“Leap up into life everlasting”
(John Book 4, verse 14). The quote certainly leapt up to me. I feel trust, hope, faith, and optimism. Things I can never have enough of.
At the Zoom morning prayer service today, the leader tried a style of Lectio Divina. I cringed, tightly clasped my hands and fought against shutting the sound off. The reading and reflections were short and sincere though. I was not up to contributing, but appreciated the contributions of others. Hours later I find I feel much calmer than I did before the Zoom service. Thank you all.
Yes?
More experimenting here. I am not thrilled with using a child theme. I just don’t know enough about css and php. But lots of time to work on it. So instead here I am using a free theme from WordPress.
Pushing Away
As the world around me changes, internationally and close to home, I feel myself changing too. There is still awhile to go on this blog, but I have turned off the automatic renewal. I have another cat site on wordpress.org that I have been tinkering with.
This site has served its purpose. I got myself through the saddest times following the loss of Muffin. I still have lots of reminders of her in the trailer and in the yard. Zillions of photos and old web pages. I still have her hair brush even.
I find working with wordpress.com limiting. And costly. I have months to go still. But I don’t like working on the site anymore. I don’t know if this is the “last post” or not. I don’t think there will be too many more.
Rosalee and I are entering a new phase. She is becoming a bit of a lap cat. Which makes up for her choosing the living room as her sleeping spot. She was up here on the computer table with me for a bit.. Now she is kneading the clean laundry pile on the couch. The rain pours down.
Posting Along
Not quite the cup of tea I was expecting and hoping for. After an awful lot of trial and error bumbling around, I think I have the general idea of how to use the Themify Builder. Long ago I got a Themify membership and the other day decided to use it for something. This is the result. Not Themify to blame for shortcomings… Just me.
Today looks promising for gardening. I have a lot of transplanting to do. The ground may not have dried up enough for digging though.
Meanwhile across the train tracks where no gardeners dig, plants are popping up.
Rain Gardening
St. John of the Cross reading has entered a more complex stage now. I no longer really like what I am reading. Just a bunch of words. As soon as I read them, I forget them. I still read a bit at night before I go to bed, but have to really hunt for memorable phrases.
Gardening season has arrived but before I could really get started seeding, the rainy season started. I am transplanting seedlings in to pots. I cannot safely work the soil until it dries out. I can make potting soil mixtures of some bagged soil I still have, potting soil, seedling soil, compost. All sorts of odds and ends.
That should keep the poor little things alive until I can make proper garden beds. Meanwhile, though, the weeds are sprouting. Today I should out there and start pulling them up. Good plan.
Little Joey, the neighbour’s cat, is not so little any more. I think he is responsible for digging up some of the few. transplants I put in before the rains started. Yesterday I saw him lying plump and satisfied-looking in what used to be a raspberry patch (the neighbour’s construction crew flattened them with dirt as their backhoe knocked down the screen fence. I turned the hose on him. He leapt right over the replacement fence I have strung up.
He is a very sweet cat and I don’t mind him elsewhere in the yard. But not in my food garden.
St. Thomas Aquinas
Surely there is no author to compare with St. Thomas Aquinas. Difficult to read! Extremely so, and– forgive me– therefore intensely, painfully boring. I am referring to his books.
The music of St. Thomas Aquinas, however, is much more bearable. Perhaps the very first Latin hymn I learned to sing was Adoro te devote. Simple easy-to-learn melody. And I vaguely understood what the words meant. At times I sang English translations. In Catholic and in Anglican churches. That is probably how I learned what the song was all about. A eucharistic hymn about God hidden in the Sacrament.
This morning I woke up and the hymn was in my mind. The first two lines, in Latin, in particular: Adoro te devote, latens deitas. Eventually I found time to consult an English translation. Yes! Hidden God! And I felt a connection to the God of St. John of the Cross, hidden within us.
The Eucharist then, is something like the hidden God within us. We believe in the Eucharist, even in today’s world of facts and necessary factual proof of facts. I believe in the Eucharist. Though I have not received since November last year and am not in a rush to return to in-person church services.
I don’t make any heretical claims here. I am not proposing anything really. Just noting that the concept of “hiddenness” that St. John of the Cross applies to God in general (and in particular to God within us), and the concept of God hidden in the Eucharast (Jesus) are similar.
That is my theology thought of the day. No offence intended to God, Jesus, St. John of the Cross or St. Thomas Aquinas. Just expressing what came to my little mind this morning. My little morning thought has made me regard Adoro te devote with much more affection.
