Well, that's a bit better

Yesterday was just 'one of those days' that 

one is struggling with many things at once, 

with a few nights of poorer sleep.

Today was better.

I went to our local church for the

Feast of St Michael and all the Archangels and 

it was really good to be there.

I have read of miracles of St Michael the Archangel 

and know that God has many in his realm who 

help us... years ago (11 it seems!) I read this post

by Fr Stephen Freeman and I have never forgotten it,

about St Michael and Archangels.  

His then 4 year old's prayer (his son must be in his early 30s by now)

is a treasure of simplicity and faith... and it's very helpful for

trying to explain or go into at all why I and others 

who are usually Orthodox, Catholic or perhaps high church Anglicans, 

(and I hope more than this, but don't know)

believe in Angels and Saints praying for us. The post is here. 

I can't remember exactly where I read about how Angels have helped so many

who are Christian but I one of these articles was this one.

Last night I had such a hard time falling asleep,

but I remembered years ago a song about God covering us with His wings

and how I felt, at the time, that it was a deep song for me,

that the suffering I was in then (my protestant spiritual mother was 

in her last year of life from cancer and I was young, in shock and grief)

was part of what God would use as the 'wedding for my soul' to Christ

and the image of being extremely vulnerable on a steep cliff with a storm raging

and having very little protection but then remembering that God is

our Refuge, the one who Covers us, Protects us, Saves us...

and God sends His Angels of Fire to be with us... 

***

I've been listening to this song a lot this week

and it seems to be voicing both the tragedy of living in this world 

and also the valour and hope that we still have while in the time of

tragedy.... and of beauty...

(Sadly this video was taken down recently but google
♫ Lord of the Rings - The Grace of Undómiel (with lyric and see
if it is find-able for you).
I read DE Stevenson's Shoulder the Sky and part of it, 

about bearing our troubles with courage, 

really spoke to me.

***

It was wonderful to be at liturgy,

to have lunch with a local friend afterwards,

go to NYC to do errands, plus have one scoop of vanilla ice cream...

I talked to my Mom and my quilting friend on the phone while walking around...

I have head phones for this of course...

I filled my cart as full as full could be with everything from the wonderful

cranberry almond-crust pies that Trader Joes sells now at this time of year to

restocking my chocolate chips and getting the cranberry and Camembert hors d'oeuvre.

I had help from a lady in NYC with it down to the PATH train,

I kept telling her it was heavy but yet she wanted to help

(I basically let the cart slowly go down in front of me step by step 

when it's loaded down and heavy).

I managed to get things cleaned up when home,

dishes nearly done, other than dinner dishes and a dishwasher full of 

clean dishes... we had left overs + salad for dinner.

I enjoyed a muffin and tea for dessert!

I am so wanting to try this way of making scrambled eggs

this Saturday and having eggs and a muffin with tea for breakfast!

***

Tomorrow I have to bring the car in for an oil change and tune up.

The place we bring it to is not far but I always feel a bit apprehensive about it,

because of one turn I have to take in it.

Prayers for sleep and good courage are quite welcome! 

***

I pray that all of us will be reminded of how God cares of us and 

how He is our Protector, the one Who Saves.

Tuesday: Friend's visit, wonderful tea, quilt progress, reading and reading DE Stevenson

 I made muffins! I felt that the molasses overpowered the spices put in

(ginger, cloves, cinnamon, cardamon, black pepper)

 so I want to do a 'redo' with this.  

One nice thing about them though is that they are not overly sweet. 

I read another DE Stevenson book,

Charlotte Fairlie

which I discovered is also the book The Enchanted Isle

both of which I recently acquired! So I have 2 copies... for now I will keep them merely

because both are not in the best condition... but later when I get a better

condition of one of these, I will give the others away, DV. 

Right now I am reading Stevenson's Shoulder the Sky 

A local friend came again for lunch and tea!

I was pleased to have a lunch of pizza and salad,

with muffins and tea, she brought the tea, a newly acquired

Earl Grey Supreme that was most lovely.

We talked about how tea, esp. teas that are flavoured,

such as Earl Grey which has bergamot oil, 

loses some of it's pungency as time goes on.

So, since she has a lot of the tea and it would lose it's pungency before she was

through it all, she gave a good amount to me!

I look forward to having some again tomorrow!

(I am also wondering if I should purchase, in the future, 

bergamot extract to use in tea (like to flavour a lot of loose tea

that has lost it's initial pungency)... 

In other news, I finished my quilt top... my friend helped me carry up

our longer table... now I have to refresh myself on how to do the

rest of the quilt... I really hope to keep going on this!

Well, tomorrow is another day... 

I am slowly feeling the move towards the Nativity Fast...

and am thinking of what I will read...

Still doing some spiritual reading of course, but will try to add more...

always so much to think about and seek to do.

May God help us all and have mercy on us!

The flurry of many days

Lots going on in these November days.

Saturday quilt guild, a lovely wedding ceremony of friends, vespers

Sunday liturgy, lunch, nap, walk, chili from a neighbour (so good!)

corn bread muffins the blue paper stained them! (not good!)

I also did more sewing of buttons (reinforcing) of my red coat that I got 

on a very very good sale last year in MI when visiting my +Aunt Karen...

Today cleaning the house and piles of laundry, reading, a short nap, dinner preparation. 

Also home things including switching out sugar bowls to pretty organic (on sale) sugar...

I baked cookies Friday (after sewing adventures)

and on Friday I got three unexpected treasures!

A book (again, I am guessing a poor cover though very vintage), 

a very encouraging card, pictures of Cornwall and lovely bookmark

that about made me cry from Elizabethd (thank you so much!) 

and a lovely washcloth and card from my longtime friend K...

and then today I got another DE Stevenson book (also from UK) and two beautiful

small cloth panels from a monastery friend who got them in Alaska! 

So I feel like God is showering me with blessings... 

we are still in early days of seeing if the hope for better re: our unbloggable situation

will work out and are praying... I feel like God is giving me gifts to encourage me

along the way, which is a blessing I do not discount. 

Tomorrow I have a friend over, Wed my Husband works from home,

Thursday liturgy and NYC and Friday home...

So a busy time.  

I have my Thanksgiving dinner ordered!

Well, time to prepare dinner, finish laundry and welcome my Husband 

home from another day in NYC. 

May God have mercy on us all!

Katherine's Marriage / The Marriage of Katherine by DE Stevenson: Some Notes

I was so pleased to find that there was a sequel to 

Katherine Wentworth by DE Stevenson

which is a book about a woman who is a widow

with a stepson and biological twins.

The description of her struggle to make ends meet, as they say,

the exhaustion, worry and toil of having very little

but making it work very well for her children,

is very real, moving and her movement towards life

and her way out of what could be said 'a very bad time of it' in simple

English by the English, that is, a deep loss, grief, depression

with the overwhelming work of poverty, 

is not only striking but worth re-reading for instructions on how to live

in the most difficult of circumstances. 

DE Stevenson writes 'romances' so PR says and 'light novels' so my 

copy of The Marriage of Katherine, or as my copy says, Katherine's Marriage,

By the end of the first book one sees a woman exhausted by her 

circumstances being given care and having a holiday where she

is given a deep physical/emotional/mental rest that to me is the theme of the book.

The second book is of her marriage and has moving descriptions of

the Scotland and includes a very well written passage that involves

the death of a person is very rich but utterly without love or loved

and the reaction of Mr. MacLaren, with his words about the Lord

and of hope for his soul because of God's mercy. 

While I did not fully agree with it, in that Stevenson seemed to be

in line with George MacDonald who did not allow his characters

the option of hell (see Alec Forbes of Howglen) 

which to me makes free will that God gives us of little use,

it takes away mystery and frankly the Gospel and words of Christ.

How nice it would be though, if one is given a chance to learn after

death, a chance to repent but it does not seem that the Church

traditionally teaches that.

I would say though that this book has great worth in those few pages about this

and that I could only wish I would have seen this carried out further in the novel but nonetheless

it is not something one would expect in a 'light novel' or 'romance' which to me points to 

the idiocity of how books are advertised; Elizabeth Goudge, a master at novels

that give not only striking pictures of Christian life, Christian struggle, instructions on how

to live in great sickness or in a difficult marriage, or when one finds oneself single,

but she is, at least in the past with PR in charge, seen as a 'romance novelist' which to me,

with the cheapening of such words, is a laughable untruth as her books are 

rich with description, inwards struggles and the struggles of her age (esp the wars) and 

the ramifications of her time.  That both Goudge and Stevenson write comedies,

as in that which can be seen with a 'happy' ending is true.

I enjoyed very much Katherine's Marriage though I felt the book a bit too short,

as in it was wrapped up too quickly without enough of Katherine at the end, 

or even of the man who died, whose funeral we are going towards...

I would have liked more of it, though this is not what is given.

In this book there is also a turn, a profound healing of her step-son that is 

deeply Christian as it has to do with the love required towards others and God.

And the portrayal of Scottish persons, from those far-out in the countryside 

tending sheep, the poverty of a large land owner, a gentleman with a ruined castle, 

it gives a picture much clearer of what a good gentleman (meaning one with land)

looked like, something with all of the meaningless English lit theory of

'post-modern' times ignores - that there is noblesse oblige that in some was 

very real and really lived out, in honour and dignity.

I am very glad that more DE Stevenson is being republished and can only wish

that ALL of her books will, in time, be republished, as they are 

worth reading and I would say are NOT merely 'light novels' but novels

that are comedies, with jewels in them often tucked in the stories that 

have comedy in them because they are Christian not because they 

have all characters with happy endings or even books that are simple.

Stevenson, I would say, is wide-ranging in scope of her novels,

her Mrs Tim books, at least the first, being quite different that the 2 novels

I just described to you here, but also worth reading.

Out of Hundreds of Pictures, I Chose Two

My Husband and I left yesterday around 4 PM to go to our far-away church,

it was their 20th anniversary and a celebration of

St Elizabeth the New Martyr and St John of Kronstadt. 

It was wonderful.

***

I helped out with the meal preparations but it was a wonderful vigil last night

 and liturgy and meal after today.

St Elizabeth is a special saint to me; one of my Mother Saints and we

share the same patron Saint: the Mother of St John the Baptist.

She is a big part of my Husband and I's early relationship and

I feel that she sent me to NJ to be his wife, that I was called for this.

I am grateful for her powerful prayers to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

***

On the way there we ate at a Thai restaurant, 

later, at the hotel I was hungry again and had a salad.

Today we feasted after liturgy and my Husband heated up leftovers for

both of us and we listened to the Hobbit being read out loud via audible. 

***

I am tired but grateful.

I have dreams of baking cookies tomorrow but we will see what God allows.

I know I need some rest too.

***

I did my best to pray for many who I know are struggling

and I am glad we can go to church to pray.

May God bless and help us all!