The only word that comes to mind as indescribable this morning is Paris.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream for Consciousness Saturday this week is “Indescribable.” Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/11/13/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-nov-1415/
In my faith tradition, we are called to welcome the stranger and extend hospitality. Welcoming the stranger is also part of the civic tradition in the United States, exemplified in the Emma Lazarus poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty in the New York Harbor, although I must admit that we as a country often fail to live up to our highest ideals.
I was heartened to hear, however, that a meeting called to see if there were people interested in aiding the re-settlement of Syrian refugees in our area was so crowded with local folks wanting to help that they had to expand the meeting room to accommodate them all.
Our Greater Binghamton (New York) community has a long history of welcoming refugees and is an official re-settlement area. Over decades, there have been refugees here from diverse countries, such as Laos, Ukraine, and Iraq. It would be an honor for some of the Syrian refugees who have suffered so much to find a new home here with us as well.
I get a bit choked up thinking about new refugees arriving because one of the main organizations that will help them is the American Civic Association, which suffered a mass shooting as few years ago. Despite that, they continue to do great work, welcoming the stranger, helping them to learn English, teaching them about the United States, and helping them create a new home here.
I truly appreciate their work and their example of what “welcoming the stranger” really means.
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Linda’s prompt for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: strange/stranger/strangest. Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/30/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-3115/
I try to find grass-fed beef for our home. Cows evolved to eat grass and their digestion works best when they do. When you hear about cattle being major emitters of methane, it is often because they are being fed things like corn that they don’t digest well. The methane when it is in the atmosphere is a potent greenhouse gas and exacerbates global warming, so it is good for the environment for cows to eat grass.
There used to be a slogan about a dairy selling milk “from contented cows.” The cows probably got to eat grass! Science also has shown that cows are especially happy if they get to eat flax.
Grass-fed beef is also healthier for people to eat. It is lower in fat and the fat that it does have is higher in omega 3 fats rather than omega 6 fats. Corn-fed beef is high in omega 6 fats with little omega 3s.
I wish that farmers in the US would change their practices to go back to the older practice of cows eating grass. It would be better for the climate, the cows, and the people.
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Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “beef.” Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/23/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-2315/
I am still away on a long weekend trip with B to celebrate our Third of a Century wedding anniversary. We had to be apart on the anniversary date in June, so we – okay, I – came up with this commemoration plan instead.
We had a lovely breakfast at the B&B this morning, featuring fantastic apple cider pancakes and a maple apple crisp that was one of the most delicious things ever. The innkeeper joked that because they didn’t serve it with ice cream, it was a breakfast food rather than a dessert. Of course, we agreed. As native New Englanders, we know things like fruit pies are perfectly acceptable breakfast foods!
Not sure what else we will be doing today. I still wanted to participate with SoCS, but didn’t want to devote much time to a long post.
Can you blame me? 😉
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. The prompt this week is “still.” Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/16/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-1715/
Singing has been a constant in my life. As a child I sang at school and at church. In high school, I sang in the mixed chorus and in my final year made the Girls’ Ensemble. I could sing, do (simple) choreography, and smile all at the same time! I also was in a few musicals, nearly always in the chorus.
I really learned to be a good choral singer in college. At Smith, I finally learned to sing classical music, everything from Gregorian chant up through newly composed work. Granted, in those days, we sang Western music only. Today, I would probably get to do some world music as well. I also got used to singing in different languages. While I had sang mostly in English, with a bit of Latin, before college, I sang frequently in Latin and German, with some Hebrew and French.
For the past 33 seasons, I have sung with the Binghamton University Chorus, which is a town-gown group, meaning we have students, faculty and staff from the university, and community members participating. Some of our members are in their 80s; I know of at least one who has reached her 90s!
I hope that I will still be singing, if I am blessed enough to reach that age.
As the hymn says, “How can I keep from singing?”
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. The prompt this week was to begin the post with a word ending in -ing. Please join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/09/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-1015/
This past week’s calendar was filled with lots of expected tasks and commitments, with fall activities back in full swing after summer hiatus. Of course, the unexpected has a way of springing in. Here are some of the unexpected things that cropped up this past week.
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. This week’s prompt was “expect/unexpected.” Please come join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/10/02/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-oct-315/
Linda’s prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday this week is “-eat.” She says, “Use the word ‘eat’ or add letters to it to make a different word.” So, in true stream of consciousness fashion, I am starting off with the word “peat.”
Which probably seems like an odd word for my brain to settle upon, but I was listening to the radio the other day and they were talking about peat and permafrost and how they are such massive carbon sinks for the world and how, if the permafrost melts and all that carbon gets released into the atmosphere, the planet will heat so much that, well, it will be really bad for humanity.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised that this was where my mind went. After all, writing/thinking/reading/discussing carbon emissions and climate change has been part of my daily life (or almost daily life) for several years now.
It started with joining the fight to keep high-volume hydraulic fracturing of shale formations out of New York State and inevitably led to educating about the broader problems with carbon emissions and global warming and increases in severe weather, droughts, fires, etc., sea level rise, melting land and sea ice, and the increasingly urgent need to end reliance on fossil fuels and convert to renewable energy sources, especially those that are no/low carbon emitting.
I could – and have – gone on and on about this, but I will spare you today!
I will, though, send my thanks out to Pope Francis, currently 200+ miles to my south in Philadelphia, PA, for spreading the message around the world about the urgency of fighting climate change and the effects it has on the planet and the human community, particularly the most vulnerable people. His solution is to develop an “integral ecology” that serves to both protect the environment and ensure the dignity and needs of all people are met.
We are all in this together. Let’s clasp hands and forge ahead with the work needed to save the planet and ourselves.
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/25/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-2615/
I heard this morning that Pope Francis is en route to Cuba, where he will spend a few days before arriving in the US.
His route here will take him to Washington, New York City, and Philadelphia. There will be high profile speeches to the US Congress, UN General Assembly, and at a conference on the family in Philadelphia. There will also be several public Masses with attendance in the thousands for the indoors ones and hundreds of thousands when outdoors.
I have been eagerly anticipating his arrival and plan to watch the coverage, including a group “watch party” for the Congressional address.
I was reading an article by Father Tom Reese in NCR the other day, asking if people would really hear what Francis has to say while he is in the US. I know that I will be listening carefully. I also know that, while I will agree with many of the Pope’s points, I will disagree with others. For example, Francis, though he means well, does not understand women’s lives. While he is wonderful about acknowledging social justice issues with those in poverty or on the margins, he fails to notice that this group is disproportionately female and that sexism and sexual violence/exploitation play a large role in their plight.
I am especially interested in how the Congress, many of whose leaders are Catholic, will react to what is sure to be a challenging speech to them, probably on the grounds of climate change, militarism, lack of care for the country’s and the world’s most vulnerable, rampant consumerism, and greed.
I am hopeful that Pope Francis’s voice on environmental issues and systemic marginalization of those with the least economic resources, especially in the global South, will spark conversation that will lead to a strong US voice for the climate and environment and for justice, for “integral ecology” as the Pope terms it, so that there will be a strong international accord coming out to the Paris climate talks at the end of the year with full US participation in the implementation.
That sounds like I’m asking for a miracle.
Maybe I am.
But I think there is hope through Francis, who speaks not only to Catholics but to “all those of good will” and maybe even may reach those who are not especially “of good will.”
Godspeed, Francis. May you have a safe and fruitful journey.
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This is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. This week’s prompt is route/root. Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/18/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-1915/
I am tempted to stay up late so I can watch The Late Show with Stephen Colbert when it actually airs, as opposed to recording it with a DVR and watching it the next evening. Even though this is the first week, there are clips of it on the morning news every morning.
I am so glad that the show is off to a great start. I loved Stephen on The Daily Show and watched the entire run of The Colbert Report (the T is silent!) with B, always on delay by DVR.
Despite the temptation to stay up late, 11:35 is way past my 10 PM bedtime, so Stephen will just have to wait inside our little black DVR box until the next evening when we get to see what everyone else was laughing about the night before.
It’s not all laughing, of course. While Stephen is a comedian, he is also a very philosophical and intellectual person. That can come out much more readily in his new show, where he gets to be (somewhat) more himself, as opposed to his former idiot-pundit persona on The Colbert Report. It must be a relief, especially when dealing with such sensitive topics as losing a son, as in the case of the interview with Joe Biden. Stephen lost his father and two brothers to a plane crash when he was ten, so he knows a lot about loss. It’s good that he can let that human side show, now that he doesn’t have to be in character all the time.
How about you all? Are you watching Stephen late at night, on delay, or not at all? Of course, this applies to US folks more than those in other countries, unless you can view it on the web.
For anyone who wishes to watch the Biden interview, CBS has it posted in two segments: http://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/video/Pc4LDUqN8wMyGkYP2ngp3WWQpNLfXpRz/vice-president-joe-biden-interview-part-1/
http://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/video/E73677BA-3D99-0881-3FC2-BA98560FCC49/vice-president-joe-biden-interview-part-2/
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Linda’s prompt for this week’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “temp.” Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/11/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-1215/
One of my volunteer gigs is facilitating for a spirituality study group at my church. We meet on Wednesday mornings to read and discuss a book on a spiritual topic. After a summer break, we met for the first time this part week to begin reading Between the Dark and the Daylight by Joan Chittister.
The subtitle of the the book is Embracing the Contradictions of Life. We all feel that we need help with this!
Sister Joan begins by explaining that life is full of paradoxes and then illustrates the point through a series of relatively short chapters, with titles like “The Poverty of Plenty” and “The Sanity of Irrationality” and “The Certitude of Doubt”. Not that I have read the whole book yet. I like to keep a bit ahead of the group so that I am prepared to lead discussion, but I don’t like to be so far ahead that I am throwing in concepts from later chapters before we get to them.
It is a bit odd that I am facilitating the group because I am its junior member. OK – in most contexts I am not considered a “junior” but, at 54, I am the youngest. Many of the women – and we are all women, even though, theoretically, a man could choose to attend – have children in my age cohort.
I wound up doing it because the IHM sister who began the group decades ago needed to move on to some other duties and asked me to take it on. Do you know how difficult it is to say no to a sister when she asks you to do something for the parish? So I said yes, even though I didn’t feel qualified. Part of what makes it work is that I facilitate discussion rather than try to teach. The wisdom of the authors of the books we read plus the wisdom of the group carries us through.
It’s enlightening.
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This post is part of Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturdays. The prompt this week was “light.” Join us! Find out how here: http://lindaghill.com/2015/09/04/the-friday-reminder-and-prompt-for-socs-sept-515/
Joanne Corey 