Unexpected pleasures

Last week I took a friend of mine, who is recuperating from surgery, outdoors in her wheelchair every day for a jaunt around our property. The timing was good, as early fall days were still sunny in the afternoons. One of the unexpected pleasures of these hours was the daily variations that we saw, even though we took the same basic path every day.

Here are two of Thursdays sights: the colias plant is an off-shoot of the one I planted last summer. This one grew twice as tall and is flowering! What a delightful surprise.

The second one is not really the bunny per se, but how close it let us come before scampering away. 

In our four-season climate these autumn days are special as we all know that everything we are seeing now will soon be disappearing for a few months, as winter sets in. Hope you're enjoying your October, too.

 

An excerpt from a prayer we are adding to our Evening Prayer everyday  this month.

Prayer for Leadership

Give us, O God, leaders whose hearts are large enough

to match the breadth of our own souls

and give us souls strong enough

to follow leaders of vision and wisdom.

  

Give us the hearts to choose the leaders

who will work with other leaders

to bring safety to the whole world.

 

Give us leaders who lead this nation to virtue

without seeking to impose our kind of virtue

on the virtue of others.

 

Give us a government that provides for the advancement

of this country without taking resources from others

to achieve it.

 

We trust you, Great God, to open our hearts

to learn from those to whom you speak in different tongues

and to respect the life and words

of those to whom you entrusted

the good of other parts of this globe.

 

We beg you, Great God, give us the vision as a people

to know where global leadership truly lies, to pursue it diligently,

to require it to protect human rights for everyone everywhere.

 Amen

Weekend Wonders

 

This weekend I had the opportunity to do one of my favorite things--take a visitor around Presque Isle (the peninsula). No matter the season, the month, the day, there is always something there that is special. This time it was a large (maybe 18" in diameter) turtle crossing the road, the houseboats--all closed up for the winter, and this: a blue heron right on the shoreline. I got this shot from inside the car! It's not the best, but it was just that to see it, and so close up.

Last Friday I finally got the chance to take a picture of a display at the Child Development Center that occupies the first 3 floors of the building where our offices reside--on the top floor. Everyday as I trudge (and it is indeed that some days!) up the stairs, I see the latest "art work" that the 3-5 year olds have done. This latest one has to be one of the best--self-portraits perhaps? or their mothers? complete with yarn hair. It is just wonderful.

Prophets of Peace are everywhere

This may be a Sweet Autumn Clematis, at least it seems like the one I found on a    garden site. In person, it looks like a huge cloud of falling stars, has a lovely, sweet aroma and is really the only new thing blooming in the garden right now.

This weekend we held our annual Prophet of Peace Award ceremony. An award given to a person or group that exemplifies our corporate commitment through their life. This year we honored Alice Edwards, PhD, from Mercyhurst University. Alice, a professor of Spanish, has spent her life in classrooms, working with local immigrants and in developing multi-cultural relationships for her students and with other groups both in Erie and through her visits to Latin America. 

Some recent awardees were: Sister Simone Campbell, healthcare; SONS of Lake Erie (Save our Native Species), lake fishing, water conservation, and care for children; Linda King director of SAFENET, a refuge for women; Kelly Armour, multi-cultural musician, especially with children; Edwina Gateley, spirituality writer; and environmentalist Mike Campbell.

8:00 am

I drove into work a little later one day this week and because of that 1/2 hour difference I was behind a school bus in the township where I live. It stopped four times in front of me and each time I witnessed a parent, one man and three women, sending their elementary children off for the day. 

Waves and kisses accompanied each child. It was so Norman Rockwell-ish and warmed my heart quite a bit, a hopeful sign to balance the non-hopeful things I've witnessed recently in our national political scenes.

If children can start their days like this, maybe there is hope that with basic love and kindness in the world goodness and care for each other will prevail.

This week

 

Here's one of the nicest photos of our North Windows, from the outside, that I've seen. Everything has to be perfectly right to catch this scene: inside lights all on and  a clear night outside...and one night this week it happened. Thanks to my friend Cheryl for catching this.

Vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz was in Erie last week, too. It was a perfect late summer day here and his presentation was right on the Bayfront at Liberty Park. A number of our sisters attended and they said that he raved about the venue: the water, the boats, the view of the Peninsula and the couple thousand people who turned out to hear him.

Pennsylvania and Erie County are labeled as purple states--sometimes going Republican and sometimes Democratic. The city is almost always Democratic, but the rest of the county sways back and forth. Will be interesting to see in a couple months how we, as one of the 6-7 swing states, go.

MSNBC featured Liz Cheney all weekend because of her recent political statements. Liz will be here in Erie October 17 at the Warner Theater. Should be a terrific time, just 3 weeks before the elections.

Hard to see now

 

Now that summer is shifting into September, here are three local scenes that I probably won't be seeing much more, if at all, until summer 2025. This is the little "village" of Ferncliffe--originally fishing cabins, now homes right on the water. Last month I saw that one was for sale, a rarity. 

I wonder how much they asked for it.

Here's a sunset from a boat on the bay...beautiful experience. 

Have you noticed the set of stamps of lighthouses ? Well, surprise, one of them is ours, this one on the North Pier of Presque Isle. The stamp doesn't have the ship Niagara in the background as this photo does, but otherwise it looks just like this. 

Watch your mail, maybe you'll get one some day.