The philosopher Diogenes was sitting on a curbstone, eating bread and lentils for his supper. He was seen by the philosopher Aristippus, who lived comfortably by flattering the king.
Said Aristippus, “If you would learn to be subservient to the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Said Diogenes, “Learn to live on lentils, and you will not have to be subservient to the king.”
-Louis Israel Newman
Continue reading “A Love of Lentils: A Recipe for Freedom” →
I haven’t seen my dear little Buster in over a week, and Sunny hasn’t been by since last month. I did see a fox run into the woods near Buster’s burrow a few days ago. I also heard a hawk in the woods later that day. Maybe it was the same hawk that dive-bombed my neighbor’s bird-seed party, the attendants of which were numerous songbirds and the chipmunk that lives in her front yard.
It’s been a spectacular Father’s Day weekend! My father came up Friday and left early this morning. We went out to brunch at Inn By the Sea yesterday and then took him out to a steak dinner last night. We thought the first day of outside seaside services at St. Ann’s was going to get rained out but the weather pattern changed at the last hour! It was a beautiful albeit chilly service after which we went to the Franciscan monastery in Kennebunk to witness the beauty of the Rhododendrons in bloom. It was like a fairyland!
Continue reading “St. Anthony’s Franciscan Monastery is in Bloom!” →
This morning we attended services at Saint Peter’s By the Sea in Cape Neddick now that the summer chapels are opening for the season. Next week our beloved Saint Anne’s will be opening where we’ll attend services all summer. So excited! I dream about it all winter. We stopped at Perkins Cove in Ogunquit on the way to church:
Continue reading “Perkins Cove, St. Peter’s By the Sea, Walker’s Point” →
The Supreme prayer of my heart is not to be learned, rich, famous, powerful or even good, but simply to be radiant. I desire to radiate health, cheerfulness, calm courage and good-will. I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural, clean in mind and clean in body, unaffected – to say ‘I do not know,’ if it be so, and to meet all men on an absolute equality, to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid. –Elbert Hubbard
The last time we saw Sunny, the chipmunk who had only a stub left of her tail, was a few days after our wedding in September. According to my research chipmunk’s tails do not grow back. As you can see in the photo above from last summer, whatever happened to Sunny caused her to lose not just her tail but the fur around it. Because the other chipmunks went underground for their winter torpor at the same time (one to two months earlier than the year prior) I was confident then that she was safe in her burrow. Even though I hadn’t seen her this spring I wasn’t giving up since we’ve had so many cold rainy days that it has felt more like March than May.
This morning after more days of cold rain the sun rose and quickly warmed things. I still had seen no sign of her, even after I walked over to her house entrance and called her name. Not long afterward I was standing in my backyard speaking with a salesman about an estimate when Sunny suddenly appeared (after Buster had followed me around like a little puppy and Tailor tried to chase him away)! However, what I saw next filled with such hope and joy that I had to share it with you here!
Any one who uses the term ‘menial’ is touched with intellectualism. There are no menial tasks.
Buster was out early this morning before the rain and feasted on a slice of Mandarin orange and sunflower seeds. We went to church, enjoyed a lovely service and coffee hour before we came home to a simple Easter luncheon, the menu for which is now a tradition since we enjoyed it so much last year.
“God will not look you over for Medals, Degrees or Diplomas, but for Scars!” -Elbert Hubbard, The Note Book of Elbert Hubbard
I’ve learned that time does NOT heal all wounds but God loves them and us! There can be beauty in a graceful brokenness when we use God as a crutch. But wait, isn’t needing a “crutch” a sign of weakness?! YES! Aren’t we weak when we’re left to only our own devices? I choose spiritual prowess over destructive earthly vices I’ve given up. I no longer feel ashamed about my scars, a shame which fueled a lot of my destructive crutches (smoking, drinking, overeating). I’m not ashamed to say I’m in recovery, my last drink being almost twenty-five years ago. I’m cool with not being cool. My deepest scars are invisible, although I do have, shall I say, an “oven kiss” on my hand I acquired while removing a lasagna from the oven last fall.
When I first started “eating retro” and lost weight over ten years ago I was leaving behind the tyranny of an insatiable appetite which seemingly stemmed from two issues: my relationship to food and eating junk. Underlying the usual analysis of overeating and weight loss was that I was feeling sorry for myself. Why? Because I couldn’t eat as much as I wanted when I wanted without consequences. I was also attached to the illusion that a lifestyle of eating too much, especially sugar and refined carbs was somehow good for my soul. I mistook edible artifice for nourishment. I was always “hungry” but was feeding the wrong appetite. I was focused on eating all the things instead of seeing all the gifts from a healthy relationship to and with food. Why would I, right? Shouldn’t I be entitled to unlimited access to what was mine? Did God put food on my table? No! I worked hard to put that food on the table, and why even talk about God when all I wanted was an Oreo Blizzard from Dairy Queen.
Continue reading “Grace Before Meals For This Recovering Ingrate” →
