Ramblings from the Homestead

To Live by Faith By Fr. Dominic Rover, O.P. To live by faith is to live peacefully, prayerfully, hopefully, hopelessly, outside myself. At peace with myself yet outside myself. Not leaning on myself, old rubber-legs, but leaning on God Who stands up straight and begs us, almost, to lean on Him, God with His daily gift of hard rocks and white flowers. To live by faith is to live outside myself. To live by faith is to be at home and yet a stranger in my own house. It is to be sure about God yet unsure about everything that is not grounded in God yet sure about everything because everything can be grounded in God. To live by faith is to stop justifying myself to stop frowning to stop whimpering like a cropped poodle on Pablum To live by faith is to stop wondering why things don’t turn out right. To live by faith is to stop talking –– when talk is fear or frenzy or a giddy cover-up, when talk is all about setting things right, my way. Dear God, to stop talking! To live by faith is to be si...

Look deeply... I got lost in his eyes today.

Directive by Robert Frost Back out of all this now too much for us, Back in a time made simple by the loss Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather, There is a house that is no more a house Upon a farm that is no more a farm And in a town that is no more a town. The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you Who only has at heart your getting lost, May seem as if it should have been a quarry— Great monolithic knees the former town Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered. And there’s a story in a book about it: Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest, The chisel work of an enormous Glacier That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole. You must not mind a certain coolness from him Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain. Nor need you mind the serial ordeal Of being watched from forty cellar holes As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins. As for the woods’ excitement over yo...

Wandering through fall colors, crackling dry underfoot...and then it slows me... and I see right away that no one lives here. My heart beats a little faster as my steps take me to stand at the base of the porch stair. I push the dried leaves with the side of my foot, and see that the wood is good, it will hold me. One foot, then another, and then I am close... close enough to peer through grimed windows. Bones of old houses and leavings of sad lives... I spot an enameled cookstove, covered with newspaper, oilcloth, mouse droppings, a tipped mug. Immediate wonder at who left their life behind for strangers to find. What illness, crisis, or calling led to the last locking of the door and the resolute walk away? What knarled hand slid down the old banister for the last time, or watched as the trees waved farewell? No one lives here.

Thought for the Day A great deal of virtue and piety is simply the easy price we pay in order to justify a life that is essentially trifling. Nothing is so cheap as the evasion purchased by just enough good conduct to make one pass as a "serious person." --Thomas Merton-- Conjectures of A Guilty Bystander: 195.

Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny. We are free beings and sons and daughters of God. This means to say that we should not passively exist, but actively participate in His creative freedom, in our own lives, and in the lives of others, by choosing the truth. To put it better, we are even called to share with God the work of creating the truth of our identity. ...To work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls "working out our salvation," is a labor that requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. It demands close attention to reality at every moment, and great fidelity to God as He reveals Himself, obscurely, in the mystery of each new situation. Thomas Merton. New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Press, 1961): 32. Thought for the Day We do not know clearly beforehand what the result of this work will be. The secret of my full identity is hidden ...

In a couple days, I will head off to Florida. Please keep me in your prayers as I travel and visit with my family. More posting soon.... I promise!

It has been a Lonnnnnnnnngggg time since I posted anything... bizzy bizzy in a tizzy all the time. Work, play, clean, run on the treadmill... work, play, clean, run... you get the picture.

There is no better friend than a sister. And there is no better sister than you. Lance Armstrong said, “If children have the ability to ignore all odds and percentages, then maybe we can all learn from them. When you think about it, what other choice is there but to hope? We have two options, medically and emotionally: give up or fight like hell.” What Cancer Cannot Do Author: Unknown Cancer is so limited... It cannot cripple love. It cannot shatter hope. It cannot corrode faith. It cannot eat away peace. It cannot destroy confidence. It cannot kill friendship. It cannot shut out memories. It cannot silence courage. It cannot reduce eternal life. It cannot quench the Spirit.

To lawn equipment during hunting season...

...it was a road in Blakeley State Park, Spanish Fort, Alabama. We have hiked at the park on three separate days in the last week. The first day, we hiked about a mile. It was warm...in the 70's and humid. We ate a leisurely picnic lunch at the gazebo under monstrous, twisted live oaks dripping with spanish moss. A breeze stirred the treetops, but only occasionally reached us on the ground with enough force to stir the dried leaves. After lunch, we drove up to a parking area, and walked down a slight hill to the Blakely River. The Explorer, a covered excursion boat, rested sleepily at her moorings. No tours today. We walked along the river, high enough above the cypress knees and palmetto fans and dark mud patterned with raccoon tracks. Spiky sycamore seedpods crunched underfoot, and bicyclists passed us, accompanied by their bandanna-wearing dogs wet from a cooling dip. Near the shoreline, the breeze was steady. The path turned left, away from the river, and climbed back toward t...

Pick a road, any road, and follow it. Follow it to the rest of your life. No expectations. Just possibilities. When ya' leavin'? Charlie Knight, Ute

You know, so much of the time we're just lost. We say, "Please, God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true." And there is no justice: the rich win, the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie. And after a time, we become dead... a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims... and we become victims. We become... we become weak. We doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs. In my religion, they say, "Act as if ye had faith... and faith will be given to you." IF... if we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves. And ACT with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts. [1] [1] Frank Gavin, as played by Paul Newman, The Verdict

What makes a world tilt? How do you know when one last straw loaded into your bag of tricks becomes enough to tip you over backwards and cause you to lie stunned, helpless, cursing life, yourself and the straw… and finally stilling, to fall upwards into the bowl of heaven above? When do you feel God's presence surely? Is it in the tipping-over free-fall moment of human failing that His grace is revealed? Or is it the moment you close your eyes, only to see clearly? When in weakness our hearts cry out or when through our numb lips and tears we laugh at the strangest things, like Alice through the Looking Glass, (it is all so very odd)… a tea party invitation that tickles our funnybone… No. No comfort to be found, none wanted, you see… the pain is what sustains me through this moment, this day. It is MY pain.. do not try and take it away, understand it, explain it, analyze it… Leave me to it. I own it. In this moment, let me hold my loss and anger, let me breathe it and then… and the...

Last Saturday, David and I walked through the Weeks Bay Pitcher Plant Preserve. The weather was warm, breezy, perfect for the outing... A wide boardwalk keeps hikers feet out of the flora and away from the fauna. This boardwalk meanders down through open field and woods to the mouth of Fish River, where it joins Weeks Bay. The pitcher plants were not in bloom when we visited, but they were beautiful, nonetheless. We sat a while on a shaded bench, and admired the play of sunlight and shadow on trunks and leaves, and were still... listening to birdsong, frogs, and the wind in the trees. It was a perfect example of God's beautiful creation... Thank you, Lord!

Polished and dark, the baby grand sat solidly in the corner of the living room. As you entered the front door the stairs rose directly in front of you across a small vestibule. To the right, along the wall, sat a small slant-front desk with cubbyholes and tiny drawers. The desk was forbidden territory, but the piano was not. A black and white vase always perched atop the piano, and a large fern on a stand sat nearby. Sunday afternoon light from the front window slanted across the keys as I practiced. I cannot remember how old I was when I learned how to play, probably five or six. I was given a scale fingering book, and my chubby fingers picked at the notes. Every Good Boy Deserves Favor. It was how I was taught the line notes, and F-A-C-E were the notes inside the lines. I still remember the notes from the lessons in the language of a child. My first piano teacher fades from memory, but by the time I got to the second teacher, I knew the basic notes. Mrs. Dusseldorf was a flat fa...

In about a minute this feisty fellow found the door I had left propped open. When I returned from inside the house with a broom, there he was, trapped at one end of the screened porch, beating his wings against the screen. I ran for cover and yelled for D... who came up the steps, took his hat off and gently, so gently, put it over the bird, then flipped the hat over and held him. He spread one wing downward and we admired the white patch on it. A few indignant squawks and one very fierce eye later... D tossed it gently out the door into the air, and it made a beeline to a nearby pecan tree, scolding us the whole way.

One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do --determined to save the only life you could save. Mary Oliver

When we set out, I had no idea it would turn into a summer on the road. Honestly. We gave the phrase “traveling light” a new meaning. Simply hitchhiking away from the familiar, leaving behind roads and houses that we recognized, and sailing off on a grand adventure with just the clothes on our backs, and twenty five dollars in our pocket. From northern Wisconsin we made our way south, then east, meandering through state after state, begging meals at Burger King and Dairy Queen, offering to pick up the parking lot trash in the hot sun for a chicken sandwich, fries and a drink. We lived on the kindness of strangers; we slept curled in the corners of backseats, jolted awake by turns and braking… a surreal world of lights in darkness, and the swoop of semi trucks as they passed too close for comfort. Down through the late summer haze we traveled, to the Florida Keys, burning our skin in the blinding sun and our feet on the hot pavement. We swam the sugar sand beaches of Panama City in our ...