Christmas at our house-2023

Modern Advent wreaths

 

Our Advent wreath is not a wreath at all, but instead is this really cool (sorry, I grew up in the 60s!) contemporary expression of the season of Advent with the traditional four candles, but set in a quite artistic and contemporary "wreath-like" setting. The candles and accompanying ribbons are set on four pyrex stands with a long sprig, well it's more like a branch, of an evergreen tree from our grounds, put inside.  Here's a close up of one of them and another photo of the whole group in the center of chapel.

This is one thing I really love about our creative liturgist, musicians and artists--they can take traditional and valued expressions/symbols and put them in a more contemporary, meaningful setting. They do this with so many of our religious symbols and signs, songs and prayers. 

Recently I re-connected with a gal that was two years ahead of me in high school and, as things are at that age, was one of the basketball players I looked up to when I was in 9th and 10th grade (as she was on the varsity in 11th and 12th). Here she is, back in Erie after quite a number of years on the west coast and, lo and behold, has found her way to the Mount and is experiencing our prayer through our Saturday night Advent vigils. After pulling away from formal religion for a while she seems to love our prayer and find it meaningful. I am thrilled to see her again and isn't that what it's all about? 

 

I am using this photo (taken in the summer) because this is exactly what our shoreline looked like this week, as we had 1-2 days of 50+ degrees and smooth waters on the lake. One of my friends mused that it seems as though our worse months of winter (cold and snow) have settled into January and February in the last few years--a change from former snowy Novembers and Decembers. Despite the non-lake effect weather, we continue to celebrate Advent and see Christmas erupting all around us. The amount of house decorations is greater than ever. Up and down the residential side streets we see roof lines outlined in lights, blown up Santas, deer and all sorts of characters on lawns, and, of course, the traditional decorated trees and nativity scenes. 

Our own inner courtyard's line of azalea bushes have grown large enough and strong enough to hold Christmas lights, too. Finally, in the Christmas spirit many of us are attending local holiday concerts. Manheim Steamroller was in town last week, the Philharmonic orchestra has special Christmas performances, as did the North East choral club this weekend. 

The Week Between

The week between Thanksgiving and the beginning of Advent brought these two scenes to our place that I'd like to share with you.

The first one happened during the early part of the week (Nov. 27-29)--our first real snowstorm:

The second one happened near the end of the week, this past Friday, Dec. 1--an Advent display of Brother Thomas' blue pots---perhaps his rarest color--at least in our collection:

Winter feeding begins

I've been delaying beginning my "winter bird feeding" until I was pretty sure that the natural world was not supplying enough of what they need. Of course I don't really know when that is, but when the birds started to check the empty feeders more vigorously I thought that it may be time.

These plain old common chickadees are just about my favorite. Yes, they are everywhere and yes, they don't seem too special, except for their coloring, but I love them anyway! It probably has to do with the hand feeding they let me do a couple of years ago...what a treat that was.

Ditto for these, just plain old brown sparrows, I think. There seem to be scores of them around and they aren't too nervous, as they let me get close to them---which I certainly can't say for both the male and female cardinals, woodpeckers and others that appear at our feeders only in the winter. 

I have this window feeder in my room, one on a pole outside below my windows, and one right outside the inner courtyard doors. Keeping them all in food and with a little water in the nearby bird bath, takes some real dedication, especilly when the snow piles up. But, the sisters (and I) love to see them throughout the winter months, so it's certainly worth it.

Building update

Back on August 13th I posted two photos of what seemed to be clearing of the woods west of us across Troupe Rd. Rumor had it that a developer was looking to build an events center in the midst of these woods. Anne and I had trooped through the woods and ruts to get some early pictures of the progress.

This weekend, three months later, we trooped out again, albeit easier this time. Not a whole lot has happened except that it is greatly cleaned up and the entrance from the road now looks like it could manage trucks without their risking being stuck in the mud. With colder temps and snow coming my guess is that things will stop now and pick up in the spring. One of the sisters reminded me that she read that the new building was scheduled to open in 2025. So, if that's true, there's a lot of time to work on the project; especially if the builder is doing much of it himself, as we also heard!

 

Archives

 

The larch in our backyard has started to drop its unique pods /seeds. I'm not sure of the proper name.

They are so very unique, we never get tired of looking at them.

This week the archivist for our Federation is here for some business. It is such a treat to have "access" to her expertise and advice. She'll be meeting with our community archivist and I hope to get her in town to look at what we're doing with Sister Joan's literary works, too. I am such an amateur at this but I really love the work. It is such a joy and so rewarding to organize and preserve the best of an organization for the future. 

I've called myself "Sister Nancy Drew" for the many times I find something out of the blue, that we didn't know we had, and turns out to be so valuable. Archives seems to be a subset of detective work.