Summertime Fun

We're having a lovely summer--so many beautiful feast days to celebrate: Corpus Christi, the Nativity of John the Baptist, Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Heart of Mary, Saints Peter and Paul. Best of all, Max and his girlfriend came for a visit, so we've had a lovely time all together, going to the beach, a visit to Middleton Plantation (they have an oak that's a thousand years old!) and the Angel Oak (about 500 years old). So fun to be a tourist in our hometown--Max is a good tour guide too. We also ate a lot. Michael's brisket is soooo good. And we had a traditional Indian meal at home too, with mangoes and heavy cream.

How the Garden Grows--Father's Day Edition

My husband is the gardener and I'm the harvester. So grateful that we are mostly self-sufficient in this department. No pesticides, no chemicals, just fresh food produced with water, sunlight, soil, and if using hydroponics, adding mineral salts. The kids came over for a steak supper on Sunday to celebrate Father's Day and we were thrilled with the Christmas-Easter-Father's Day gift Ian made for Michael. He started it last fall at Clemson, but with getting married, starting a new job, he's been so busy... but beautiful things are worth waiting for. We love it. So perfect for Bodach Books and Brews. Michael did his first brew in the new system on Friday--he should have enough to supply the men's group and have a bit left over for home use. 

We've been eating a lot of salad. I add a lot of herbs and microgreens so it's very flavorful. Alas, some caterpillars find their way into the salad bowl as well. And wouldn't you know it, Dagny found one on her plate :) She does examine her food more closely than the rest of us. 

The watermelon and sweet potatoes are growing but I hope we get more fruit and not just leaves. The crabs had better leave my melon alone. I love smelling the sweet flowers when I'm on the porch.  

I love that Dagny has such a loving father. It set the standard for whom she would marry. And we love that they live in Charleston. We enjoy our time together so very much. And it reminds me that to love, you first have to know love. That's why I want everyone I know to read Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen. Know that YOU are the beloved of God. 

Happy Pentecost!

What an amazing weekend! We had the great pleasure of listening to the Charleston Symphony perform some of the most beautiful pieces of music--Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei (swoon), Schubert's Mass in G (my heart soared at the Sanctus), and more. I bought tickets at the last minute because we weren't sure whether we'd be going to the priestly ordinations at the St. John the Baptist Cathedral that very night, but with six priests being ordained, I knew there'd hardly be any room. So we went to the concert instead and given that all of it is a prayer, I felt good about offering it for the new priests. Dagny made an interesting observation--that one can sing these beautiful Mass settings for a concert, yet in many places, the Latin Mass is being suppressed. How can that which has always been holy be restricted is beyond my understanding. But that's a discussion for another day. Many in our Charleston Sound Chorus were able to come to listen to our own Danielle Simonian sing. She's amazing. Listen to her hold a looooong note at the very end in her quartet Encore: How Many Hearts Have You Broken (near). 

Saturday we sang at Fr. Justin Damask's first Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. It was the old Pentecost Vigil, lesser only than the great Easter Vigil, and so very beautiful. Fr. Wilson gave a rousing homily, reminding that in the early church, vigils would go long into the night as the faithful listened to the Word, prayed, and were exhorted to live a good Christian life, and so we participate in that tradition of the Apostles and Mary. Yes, she was there! He spoke about pride, how language becomes a tool to control and the great reversal of Babel at Pentecost. From the beginning, the church is Catholic. It doesn't erase differences, but brings order to chaos. We see the New Covenant reflected in the Old, the Holy Fire, that doesn't annihilate, but transforms. And when we are open, the graces that rain down to us from above overflow. So many blessings! 

Finally, I share a bit of my own artwork. On First Fridays, our local library hosts Crafternoon, so I go there to play for a couple of hours, then off to First Friday Mass (devotion to the Sacred Heart). Given the plethora of AI-generated art that's trained on the work of humans who are not compensated, I wanted to share my first efforts at painting animals. I made the collage for Put a Ring on It quartet that sing the cutest song: A Dress with Pockets (my mother sewed pockets in all of our dresses). The stained glass is a gift from Dagny. Fitting for Pentecost! Come Holy Spirit! May this be a summer of great growth in all the gifts that God has bestowed upon us.