I watched a 2-hr movie online this week, Conclave. It's fiction of course, kind of like The DaVinci Code, in the thinking----well, it could be real or semi-real. It's on Peacock (NBC streaming) and very enjoyable, albeit fiction! Enjoy...
Here's my cardinal friend, now trusting enough to sit right outside my window on the nearest tree, just waiting to come over for some food, while also fending off others!
Well, we came out the other end of a recording-setting lake effect storm. Where we live, the northwest corner of Harborcreek Township, about 7 miles from the center of Erie, we received 58" give or take!!
One of the eeriest things about it for me was watching TV programs from around the country where the weather was warm and sunny or at least not snowy. It's really surreal to see the extreme difference when you're sitting in the middle of an extreme weather moment yourself!
Here's another and hopefully final look at some of our recent reality!
Late October 2024: How to be interviewed by CNN, The Washington Post, etc? Be accused of voter fraud by a nationally known conservative blogger.
Late November 2024: How to be on The Weather Channel and have one of their meteorologists in town for the weekend? Live in Erie, PA. amidst 45.2"....so far.
We have lots of guests/visitors this month. I don't know if they are here because they want to get in some time before the holidays or the weather can interfere with travel plans or if it's just the time of year when they need some reflection days or, possibly, maybe they just decided to come--and they came.
Whatever, one of the guests is wearing a hair extension on the top of her otherwise grey hair. The extension is grey, too, but its pieces are thicker than hair, more like a decorative mop. It looks nice on her, attractive in a creative, unusual way. She reminds me of how much I enjoy quirky guests. Probably because most of us aren't.
I am reading Louise Penney's latest (#19) Detective Armand Gamache mystery, Grey Wolf. In it she returns this story to the island monastery from an earlier book. Everything about this place is unique, including the almost total lack of visitors. The story and Penney's writing talent is terrific, of course. Maybe the visitors' issue in it is what's making me more aware of our own visitors these weeks. Lucky us!
We are talking and reading a lot these days about hope, both personally and nationally. Here are three recent things I saw that help feed my hope.
A sunrise--photo taken right from the little patio
at the end of our residence wing last weekend.
At the end of this week we will celebrate Mary Lou Kownacki's new book, Everyday Sacred, Everywhere Beauty, (Orbis) a selection of her best blog posts. Here's an excerpt of one from November 2016. It's eerie how true it rings, eight years later.
God is trusting in us
November 9, 2016
When I awake each day I say a short prayer.
This morning I had to force every ounce of integrity to pray it. I am heartsick over last night’s national election, in anguish for what this mean-spirited political view will mean for the poor, for women, for refugees, for the sick, for all the vulnerable. I am frightened of what military force we will unleash around the world without an ounce of concern for the unarmed civilians in its wake. And I am fearful that what we really woke up to this morning is the unraveling of the American dream, a country sharply, irrevocably divided about what the Constitution, freedom of press, the Statue of Liberty, and democracy itself mean.
I am also appalled at the misogyny at the base of this election and angry at my church for its deafening silence over a presidential candidate who is disgusting in his treatment of women. But, then, my church is misogynistic, too, and, yes, disgusting in its treatment of women.
I am also bewildered by my own lack of perception. Who are these people who voted for Trump? Who are these neighbors, board members, co-workers, people that I celebrate weekly liturgy with at the monastery, that I thought I knew? And even liked and considered friends? How did I not know what they really believed and valued? My relationship with them is forever altered and it breaks my heart.
So, it was in deep agony, almost disbelief, that Old Monk forced herself to pray: This is the day our God has made. Let us be rejoice and be glad.––Psalm 118:24
November 17, 2016
Lots of people commented on the last journal entry. Many of you suggested praying and trusting in God. Prayer––yes, of course. I’ve devoted a lot of years to prayer. And so what? For me, there is only one measure for authentic prayer: am I becoming kinder, more tolerant, more courageous, more god-like? I pray to change myself and you can see that’s taking quite a long time. I do not pray to change other people, life’s circumstances, world events or the future.
As I get older, I have a private measuring stick for my own spiritual integrity—do I speak my truth without fear and act on what I believe? That’s all I pray for these days. Of course, I’d like to do it with all the kindness I can muster, but my bottom line is speaking truth to power. It’s the one irrevocable lesson I’ve learned from getting to know Jesus of Nazareth.
As for trusting in God, I think it’s the reverse. I believe God is trusting in us. God is trusting that in giving us the gift of life, we will bear good fruit. That we who claim to be on a spiritual path will accept our responsibility to co-create the kind of world that God envisioned. It’s up to us, each one of us, to be faithful to God’s trust and do everything in our power to bring in the day when “justice and mercy embrace.”
Last week we continued to have "interest" from media outlets. Reuters came and interviewed for a story and ABC posted an interview from their time here. See it here This is the URL, if needed:
abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/Nuns-fight-back-false-fraud-allegations-115335038
Meanwhile, life (tries) to go on, highlighted by more beautiful fall weather, mostly mild with colorful scenes throughout our area.
And right in our backyard, our larch is orange again and displaying its unique fruit orbs.
As they say, " I would never in a million years" have thought that this week would be as exciting as last week. But it was!
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/politics/video/nuns-pennsylvania-election-fraud-accusation-digvid
CNN interview at the Mount:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/25/politics/benedictine-sisters-of-erie-pennsylvania-election-fraud-viral/index.html
https://www.goerie.com/story/news/local/2024/10/24/voter-fraud-accusation-erie-benedictine-sisters-deny-cliff-maloney-charge-social-media-x/75820224007/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/23/pennsylvania-republican-voting-nuns-erie/
What a week to live in Erie, PA! On Monday vice-president and presidential candidate Kamala Harris was here and spoke to a crowd of over 9,000 at the Erie Civic Center (to those who know Erie, it's the sports center attached to the Seawolves baseball park on E 9th St.)
Then on Thursday, Liz Cheney was interviewed by Sister Joan Chittister at the Bayfront Convention Center on Presque Isle Bay, sponsored by the Jefferson Education Society. The crowd there was 4,000 a record for the JES.
Many sisters attended, although many were not able to get into see Harris as the Civic Center filled up early. As Steve Scully said to Cheney in his wrap up, "You do know that you're in the swingiest county in the swing state of Pennsylvania, don't you?" She smiled and laughed, as did the audience.
Here's the local news clip on Harris.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Since most blogs, are personal--either in sharing ideas and thoughts or just daily goings on, I am taking the opportunity of doing just that in mine this week.
Being on vacation, which means living in a much more relaxed and flexible schedule than normally, I took the opportunity to watch all four nights of the DNC last week...all of them lasted until near midnight! Even though I am admittedly a Democrat in my philosophic leanings, I still found the whole event outstanding in its presentations, energy, organization, and creativity. Whoever the producers and idea people were they really did a wonderful job of presenting the philosophy of the party in many and various ways, all of them highly interesting, diverse and extremely relatable to the audience.
Although I am in awe of the speaking skills of both Barack and Michelle Obama (of which the next day's CNN headline was something like: Michelle Obama gave a master class in oratorical presentation) the ones that really moved me were all the "ordinary people" that agreed to tell a little part of their life experience in some area or another that fit into the platform of the candidates of the Democrats this year.
As always, it will be fascinating to see how things "shake out" over the next 10 weeks.
The San Diego Zoo just introduced the public to its new Pandas. The young male and young female are the first new pandas that the US has been able to acquire in 20 years. In case they run out of bamboo, they can make a quick call to southern New Jersey where I am spending some vacation time and pick some up here.
On our daily walk on the 10-mile long Middle Township Trail, we pass this beautiful grove of bamboo, right there in the middle of nothing special. It's quite an unusual scene. I guess I'd better send a text to San Diego and tell them of this emergency cache, just in case.
Another vacation sharing: if you're into Wordle maybe you'd like to join us with these words and see how you do---let us know if you ever get it in "2."
Here's what we're playing for the last 5 months of the year, join us: August-Auger; September-Sepia; October-Clout; November-Novel; and December-Decal.
As you can imagine I’ve read a lot about the concept of community in my life. Here’s a very unique definition of it from Anne Lamott… it’s pretty good!
“Community means we’re collaborating. It means you help my children and my old people and I help yours. It means we are in this together. Most of us are perhaps a tiny bit self-absorbed, and good at keeping out people who don’t look, vote, or act like our friends, and that’s very nice. But a good community includes all those other people and those of us at the edges. Welcomes are offered: hey, come on into the circle—yeah, you. You with your nose in the air, or a neck tattoo, a walker or a Rolls.”
These are the latest in our continual flowering in the inner courtyard. My "Seek" app names them Surprise Lilies and after this first little bunch arrived about 20-30 are now in bloom. They are sweet and appear fragile and delicate. I haven't been brave enough to try them in a vase indoors in chapel, but maybe I will this week. However, there really isn't a great need for that since our hydrangea will seemingly last into November---they are huge and in endless number this year!
These days we are celebrating life passages for some of our sisters. Miriam Mashank passed into the next life last week. Her obit is on our website here if you haven't read it yet---quite the list of accomplishments. This week we honor 10 jubilarians, celebrants of 50, 60 and 70years of Monastic Profession. Short bios of each of them can be found in the latest issue of the MOUNT magazine here.
"A supporting, integral or upstanding member or part." Thus says my Merriam-Webster Dictionary and thus was our Sister Miriam Mashank.....truly a pillar. See her obit and prayer card here.
I an always showing you all the beautiful and lovely parts of Erie, our lake and surrounding areas, so in the interest of fairness I should show you some of the more, well I should say, not overly attractive attractions, too!
Here is part of our resident turkey raptor--they can be called a flock, but isn't this unusual word better! They are very common around here, especially close to the lake, where they congregate on the Peninsula and surrounding shorelines. We have them in our own woods, but this "flock" is near a friend's apartment complex, right on a bluff overlooking Presque Isle Bay. Ugly things...but oh so delicious!
OMG, Anne Lamott has a new book, Somehow, and I just got it. She is one of my favorite writers: great spirituality, creative writing, laugh-right-out-loud humor, and a healthy dose of irreverence in between beautiful reflections.
Here's the back cover:
"One day at a time, and somehow one hour at a time, love will be enough to see us through, get us back on our feet and dust us off. Love gives us a shot at being the person we were born to be." Anne Lamott
A mushroom in our front yard, just missed stepping on it. I think the red coloring must have caught my eye.
One of the students who went to high school with the shooter in Butler, PA this weekend gave an interview where he talked about how the shooter was bullied in school. "He was bullied every day, every single day," he said. When pressed by the reporter on why, he responded that he ate alone at lunch and the kids made fun of him because of the clothes he wore and other things. That story and the fact that this is the Feast of the Franciscan St. Bonaventure, took me back to a memory of the one year I spent at St. Bonaventure University, located in western NY about 100 miles from Erie.
I didn't get bullied, but I was pretty lonely those first couple of weeks, and remember eating alone in the cafeteria. Since I was quite shy at that point, it was an odd feeling to not know anyone and have to eat alone in a dining hall full of other students. It mustn't have lasted too long for I only recall it at the beginning, plus I did make friends, one that I still have to this day! Four of my good friends had entered religious life that year and I was sent off to college. Loneliness and the feeling of being all on my own were my constant companions that year.
I can't imagine what today's bullying does to children in schools, especially, in high school, where they are in the midst of finding their identity and young adult selves. "Every day he was bullied, every single day."
P.S. What happened to the four friends who had entered when I went off to college? All four left religious life within maybe 10 years; all four married; one divorced and has a new partner; one is a widow; one died a couple years ago after many years of "battling" cancer and the fourth is the primary caregiver for her husband who has Parkinson's disease. And here I am, entering one year later...some 60+ years now, taking picture of leaves after a summer rain! Go figure!
A downed tree right along the path. Guess the mushrooms found a gold mine!
At the end of the trail was Lake Erie. Here is a mother duck and 6-7 of her ducklings, out for a weekend paddle--along the shoreline. Wonder if they came from the peninsula or are living along one of the many creeks that feed into the Lake around here?
An unusual announcement in our paper this week: one of the twenty-four houseboats on Misery Bay sf for sale. Most of the time, it said, they are passed on through the families, not put up for public sale. Price? $300,000 But I know, because of a friend that owned one, the yearly maintenance is the biggest part of ownership--everything needed is underneath the boat. Keeping it working/in good condition is quite the task!
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Today I share with you some summer entertainment options that we have been enjoying recently.
Through PBSPassport, a benefit when you join your local PBS station (with a minimum of $5/month), you can get access to everything, and I mean everything, that has been broadcast on Public TV. The index of programs is seemingly inexhaustable! Nature, documentaries, mysteries, dramas, news, etc.
We are into the mysteries: the acting is suburb, the settings beautiful and unique (we watch a lot that are set in Europe), and the storylines are great.
Here are two that we've been watching this summer: The Paris Murders and The Tunnel. The first is set in Paris, obviously, and the scenery alone is wonderful. The second is about crime that takes place between England and France, either in the English Channel or in the tunnel under it. Both have closed captioning in English, though the scripts, esp. The Tunnel, have a lot of English in them. The closed captioning doesn't bother us a bit.
We love these shows. The different venues than American cities is refreshing and the relationships among the detectives in each of them make their appeal more than just the solving of a murder.
Still awaiting, however, for the newest seasons of Astrid and Professor T. ....our #1 favorites!
Yes, the daily is still with us, but it is not so daily now. It is unique and marvelous.
Of course we still get up in the morning, attend Morning Prayer, breakfast, get off to work, come home, attend to other responsiblities at the monastery, attend Evening Prayer, go to dinner, and end the day with whatever activities are on for that evening.
But, this week the daily has taken on a special "movement" in the spring/summer "symphony"...the calla lilies have bloomed.
Beauty is everywhere, which I'm sure is no news to you!
This week I found it in our gardens (thank you to my friend, Charlotte)
and along a seam between the grass and one of our asphalt roads.
I hope you're having enough of a combination of sunshine and rain to make your grounds beautiful, too. Our guests, and there are quite the number in the summer, enjoy our land so much. And we enjoy meeting them, too!
If you read the last post you know that we were on retreat last week and I can "report" that it was a very fine week. The weather cooperated so there were lots of opportunitites to be outdoors.
I did, however, do a 180 the second day. I decided to change the book I was reading. I went to Ilia Delio's The Emergent Christ which is quite the challenge, but full of great "food for thought."
The first chapter attempts to get readers on the same page as she: understanding the latest science and theology of evolution/the universe, especially from a spiritual perspective. I taught high school physics for 20-some years and I admit that it was a stretch for me to stay with the vocabulary, both theologically and from the quantum world. From chapter 2 on it got simplier and she, probably on purpose, repeats in various ways, her message, using different examples and wording...as any good teacher does, trying to find THE way that each student will understand a concept.
The final chapter on God is her culmination of the ideas and how the concept of god fits in. Very fine.
If you try it, don't be discouraged....take it in small bites and when you get spinning, stop and take a break! It'll be better the next time you pick it up.
