Those Lips

Merry Christmas!

Our soup days are nearly over and part of me is relieved, looking forward to filling and fulfilling food, but part of me dreads every night feeling....satisfied. We are so, so blessed here.

It has been a good advent.

Today we bake springerles and make cranberry sauce. Tomorrow we (hopefully) ice skate in the day and get all dressed for dinner at the same place we always enjoy on Christmas Eve with Grandma Carol. Christmas morning will be filled with wonder the way it always is. The Abbey Mass will resound glorious Gregorian awe in it's small, humble chapel and we'll kiss the Infant lying there in a manger. My time in the kitchen on Christmas day this year will be spent on turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes instead of our usual Christmas dinner as I've been desperately craving the pilgrim meal since Thanksgiving day. And so we break tradition, just this once.

The ritual begins....but before I go I'll leave you with a few soul inspiring links. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!

Excerpt of One Thousand Gifts....from the book so many of us are waiting for

Wonderous Love....proof that you don't need many words to say it all

Merry Christmas....not just a picture. I wait for her posts and finally, yesterday!

And Now She is Seven....the innocent and humble save us, the stained and proud....isn't she the story of Christmas?

Madonna and Child Wall Reliefs

I am so sorry for not posting about this sooner. I'd been having difficulty with the sculptures...they were coming out all flawed and I was spending hours upon hours (just ask my husband who kept household order those days!) cleaning up the details of each one with fine sanding tools and toothpicks. The problems with the mold have been solved. I'm only sorry it was not in time for Christmas - I really wanted to be able to have them ready for you.

What I need to know now is how many of you would still like to purchase a sculpture despite that it won't arrive until after Christmas. Please comment, even anonymously. Just trying to get a number here.

Thank you kindly for your patience.

The Home Tells a Story

I like shelter magazines generally (though my favorite one went out of print last year). They're fun to look at. But most of the time, though the photographs can be quite lovely, the motive behind the lens is not a good one. Often it leaves one coveting, hungry for things...better things...nicer things. At this time of year the focus is preeminently "christmas"....mantles covered in greenery and gold, trees draped in blue and silver, designers telling that proper decorating must reflect a theme unifying the dwelling place or we're not doing it right.

This time I think they got it right, however partially. If the home isn't reflecting a theme....a story that speaks to those who dwell within....what is the point? But the story we are telling, you and I....isn't one that leaves us hungry for things, is it?

Our story is one of a Babe...

in a walnut shell, cradled by little hands
then hung on a tree
the nativity shares branches with the snowflake

and the Savior and His Mother share a place with the birds

a soft bed is made with good deeds

a chain of offerings, one broken each day, leads to a nativity scene behind stained glass

handmade snowflakes share space with advent candles...an ugly window turns beautiful

a son is born unto us....and so a new stocking is hung

windows from an advent calendar open, His Word revealed

scenes are contemplated and discussed

and the hunger for Christ is revealed in doors peaked open before it is time

The home tells the story of our deepest longings, but true beauty is revealed in only one Message....

~

O Come, Divine Messiah!

The world in silence waits the day

When hope shall sing its triumph,

And sadness flee away

~

Dear Savior haste;

Come, come to earth,

Dispel the night and show Thy face

And bid us hail the dawn of grace.

~

Loved

I dropped the girls off at a kids' crafting activity last weekend where all the children had made posters. They could write whatever message they wanted. I passed over Hanna Montana banners and superhero signs to find this. For us.

Caught

Totally unstaged.....in all his de-tangling he never took that ribbon out of his mouth....boys are so different....love them.

The Advent Table

We always use fresh greenery for advent, but the wreath I bought this year is drying out quicker than usual. I think next year I'm going to cave in and invest in something I can use year after year. Makes sense. Must be why everyone else does it. They're sensible. :)

We are doing something that has turned out, though quite by accident, to be extraordinarily sensible this year. In deciding what to offer as a family this year for Advent, we settled quickly upon having soup and bread for our dinners leading up to Christmas Eve. I know Advent is a season of joy and watchfulness (and gingerbread houses and cookie baking) and we're soaking up plenty of those things too.

From this we anticipated particular goods to come, both interior and exterior....and not all of them entirely selfless (like the pounds dropping). What I didn't realize was how perfectly this would simplify Advent even more. It is wonderful not to have to wonder what's for dinner, and to know that meal prep will be smooth and easy every night. I have more time for all the things I love about Advent...the prayers, the feast days, the decorations, the music. All the old traditions and the extra time to make new ones. This is the first year I've done a Jesse tree and it's devotions for the children. I can't really explain why I've never done it before other than to say I just didn't think I would like it much. How wrong I was! It's beautiful. Of course it is. Again, the sensible people knew this all along.

So I think we have a new tradition along with our Jesse tree. Soup for Advent. I couldn't be more pleased with the simplicity this has afforded us all. There's so much a family can do with this...give the money saved on food to those in need, offer it for special intentions, use the extra time you'd otherwise spend in the kitchen to love better and in other ways. Oh, and kitchen clean up! Did I mention easy clean up?

This Moment

{this moment} - A Friday ritual. A photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, visit Soulemama here.

A Hard Day

"For the last time, would you please stop bothering me? Go away....we'll read it later....just..let..me..finish...."

I turned away from the simmering soup to scold with eyes too, but her sunken face, those tears welled up, that fallen mouth trying hard not to burst into weeping, braced me.

This wasn't the first time that day my girl was pushed into sadness and rejection. Earlier while playing outside I overheard the sister scold, "Why are you such a klutz?". This time though she hadn't cried, she just came inside for a hug and asked for a snack. But I knew she was distracting herself from feeling rejected.

For a brief moment I tried to justify myself and my words with thoughts that motherhood is hard some days, that I was exhausted, that I was trying to get dinner on the table for them....yes, yes, here I was selflessly giving to them and couldn't be bothered.

I realized at once the contradiction of that last excuse...giving, but not really Giving. I once studied long and hard principles like non-contradiction and others. My life is so different now than it was back then, so...practical. Sometimes when I stop and observe myself I wonder that I ever wrote and defended "The Necessity of the Existence of the Agent Intellect" against the likes of Kant and Descartes before a board of intellectuals. Oh how fascinated I was by the faculties of the mind. How smart I was back then. But now here I am, older and supposedly wiser, discarding reason to justify myself.

Here I give...but can't be bothered.

Sometimes all it takes is the look on my children's faces to reveal the real truth about myself and so many other things. Once I saw her beautiful face all swollen with sadness I realized instantly how I had failed. Images of Pharisees, of people who claim to give while holding back...and of the sunken face of Jesus as He longs for them to really give. I saw myself in the hypocrites. I saw Jesus in my daughter, who needed not a mother to neglect immediate duties to read a story, but a gentle, loving response to her request. Soft words and the look of kindness, those things which are real gifts to a child. All she needed were those things, and I didn't give.

I see the face of Jesus in her, it is easy. But she must see Him in me.