We recently had a couple who lives nearby over for breakfast. Considering the fact that they are organic food activists sharing chemical farming country with us, they live amazingly nearby – 2 miles to be exact. When we met, they were scheduled to come on a Monday night, but as is our routine, we were outside most of the day Monday and didn’t receive their phone call. By the time we did get in touch, she had gone swimming and preferred to push our get together to Tuesday morning.
“She went up to the park and got in the swimming pool,” our new friend said, “and now she’s kind of flowing with that and would rather wait until tomorrow.”
Two other times, he had mentioned this flowing into this or that. I smiled. They are true hippies, I thought. But they’re also passionate about organic foods and food activism. It will be fine.
But then over the week, I sat on this concept of flowing in the back of my mind where funny ideas take shape into real, concrete realizations and learning. I realized that I am breathing again out here, really breathing. The drowning, choking, suffocating that had become synonymous with life itself in the city…it’s gone. Deep breathing is the norm now.
And I saw clearly how the people around me who still farm or in any way live off their land truly are on “country time.” It’s not a myth. There are commitments to be made, and time schedules to be kept, here and there. But most of the time people are home, there is no time schedule besides the weather-dictated one, and late, early, and on-time blur into a big window of time allowance. I am by nature well suited to that kind of schedule.
So this week I’ve been practicing allowing myself to flow based on my mood, my interests, and the needs of our family. Mama’s been happy. So have the kids.
Sassy and I are planning to take classes to join the Catholic Church this fall. She attended Vacation Bible School at the Baptist Church down the road this week. She had a wonderful time! It was so fun to watch her come home each night excited about what she had learned. I’m determined to be sure she has regular activities like this throughout the school year as well.
I went down to watch the end-of-VBS performance and slide show with the other parents last night. It was funny. It brought back so many of my own VBS memories, most happy, some stomach-churning, though I couldn’t place my finger on why. Maybe stage fright? But it also cemented my decision to pursue the conversion to Catholicism and take the RCIA (Rites of Christian Initiation for Adults) classes. The fact is, I feel closer to God and more on-track with my spiritual learning inside the traditions, rites & yes even rules of the Catholic Church than I do in the Protestant Churches. I can’t explain it better than that, and I certainly don’t mean it to disparage my Protestant upbringing and the many Protestant ministers that have meant a lot to my spiritual growth.
Sometimes, however, answers and feelings and directions are so clear, you can’t deny them, no matter how far they are outside your little comfortable box. To me, it’s always been the same God, same Bible, what’s the big deal about differences? I’m beginning to understand how different the practice of worship can be, even when it is directed at the same God. And the craziest part is that the one I grew up with isn’t the one that keeps me focused.
So we’ve been watching these little Catholic videos for kids about different saints as part of Sassy’s “Little Flower Girls” club. We’ve watched one about St. Therese and one about St. Catherine. One of the two saints told her parents that she wasn’t going to eat much of her food anymore so she could give it to the poor. Later, she went on to become a nun and dedicate her life to God, but one of her first acts of sacrifice had been to give up part of her food each day.
Well, I made roasted vegetables on Wednesday night. I cut up potatoes, onions, yellow squash, sweet banana peppers and garlic cloves, drizzled them with olive oil, and roasted them in the oven. Sassy turned up her nose when they came out and decided she only wanted the potatoes. I told her she could not pick through the serving plate for just the potatoes, leaving all the rest. But I’d be happy to give her a bowl of her own and she could eat them however she wished.
About 20 minutes later, I asked her if she was finished with her roasted vegetables. “No,” she said, “I want to be like St. Catherine, Mommy. I want to give my food to the poor.” I smiled, amused, and told her that was fine, to get ready for bed.
I went to the table to put her food away and saw that she had eaten all the potatoes out and left just her squash and onions and peppers for “the poor.”
“Hey!” I said, “All the poor get are your squash and onions? If you want to give all your food to the poor, let’s give them the suckers and Tootsie Rolls that grandpa keeps buying for you, hmmm???”
To my challenge, she replied, “Well, then the poor wouldn’t be very healthy, Mommy.”
I can’t laugh when she says this stuff because it makes her mad, but I couldn’t stop giggling on the inside. I guess she’s been listening all along. Say what you will about squash and onions, but they are healthier than suckers and Tootsie Rolls.
And our pictures for the day...
We set up our guest house to be sure all was in order:
This lovely critter was attacking my tomatoes. She's a hornworm and she had quite a vicious looking horn atop her head, well...for a bug. She's carrying her eggs on her back.
Our kindest of the new chickens, Lemon, the light-brown Buff Orpington, was the winner of the hornworm snatching contest.
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