List of Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday of all. The family, the food, the non-commercialization, these all add up to what makes this the best week of the year.

My list of thanksgiving, in no particular order:

Art, freedom of expression, and authenticity
Good books, great authors
Food in abundance
Being a woman after the feminist movement blazed the way for my freedom
Music, singing Handel's Messiah, family singing
Heat, energy, and light in this great vacuum of space
Jobs, employment, health insurance, good work
Health, strength, exercise
Home with Kevin, music, garden, and kitties
Education, learning, teachers and mentors who made a positive difference
Generosity of friends, family, and strangers
Quality time
Conversation
Diversion, leisure, browsing, relaxation, vacation
Soft answers, patience, forgiveness
Global community, exchange of information, travel, many cultures and human richness
Wilderness, primitive places, isolation
Civilization, political stability, engineering, medicine, warm sanitized water
Humor
Creation, songs, painting, improving the world
Sacrifice
Beauty, nature, flowers, mountains, deserts, sky
Mercy
Questions, processes, opportunities
Family, tribe, heritage, roots and connections
Good night's sleep
Love

I hope that you will be blessed with thankfulness, happiness, and companionship this holiday!

These Roses Know What They're Doing

This week I am aspiring to be what I've been wanting to be: a woman of leisure. I took off work and it feels wonderful! I spent the morning in the warm sunshine seriously cutting back my roses for the winter.

As I knelt down with each of my 16 rose bushes today, I couldn't help feel a little apprehensive with all this cutting away. It was a tangly, thorny job. Thank goodness the garbage man came in the middle of my pruning because I filled the garbage can twice. I almost didn't get the first full garbage can to the curb while the truck rumbled down my street, but had to go running down my 80-foot driveway with an awkwardly full can crying, "Wait! I have garbage!"

I'm told that roses love nothing more than to be cut back, that essentially my hacking away at them down to the wood today will make them blossom even more come June. Taking a break myself this week, I couldn't agree with them more.

Methodical Miscellany: Women Doing More

When I start feeling grateful, I start wishing there was more I could do to help people who are really in need. A great new blog (new to me, at least), Women Doing More is a place that gives daily ways we can become more involved in filling these needs. How awesome.

I’m glad that I live in this beautiful world

Today I am thankful for beautiful music, warm days, and loving friends. I've been thinking of this primary children's song lately, and I think its message is beautiful and simple with the merging of nature, the senses, and God's love. I should have sung this more when I was the primary chorister last year. I think if I could give one message to children that they could internalize, this would be it.

Whenever I hear the song of a bird
Or look at the blue, blue sky,
Whenever I feel the rain on my face
Or the wind as it rushes by,
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
Or walk by a lilac tree,
I’m glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heavenly Father created for me.

He gave me my eyes that I might see
The color of butterfly wings.
He gave my ears that I might hear
The magical sound of things.
He gave me my life, mind, my heart;
I thank Him rev’rently
For all his creations, of which I’m a part.
Yes, I know Heavenly Father loves me.

"My Heavenly Father Loves Me," The Children’s Songbook, p. 228

Here's lookin' at you, kitties

Here are two crazy autumn cats caught doing what they always do: Aja is perched on something that's a wee bit too small for her so that she will be noticed. And Phoebe? She likes it when she can see, but not be seen (always suspicious). Any proximity to Aja is a bonus. This picture cracks me up.

We are the ones for whom we have been waiting

"We are the ones for whom we have been waiting."

-Hopi Elders

What do you think of this idea? Are we the ones who have come to rescue ourselves? Are we enough? Is the idea that we may have to rescue ourselves from ourselves a frightful or comforting idea?

An ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? [...] What we must have are those books which come upon us like ill-fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us.

-Franz Kafka, as quoted in The Promise by Chaim Potok

This is not a post about the books we read for fun, for guilt, for pleasure. This is about the novels that shape us, sometimes in painful ways.

What are the novels that have torn you up, that have cracked the ice within you? The first fiction I remember that was really meaningful was A Wrinkle in Time. It changed my perspective on many things. As you think of your own soul-shattering novels, here are a few of mine. I had long explanations on each of these, but I've decided that these books are just too personal to explain in a few sentences and share with the world. So you get the revised high-level list:

• A Wrinkle in Time

• To Kill a Mockingbird

• Beloved

• Heart of Darkness

• My Name is Asher Lev

As I look over this list, I realize that all of these books were read between the ages of 12-18. It's a transformative time. Yes, as I was earning two literature degrees in college I encountered many far-reaching novels that I assume have shattering potential equal or greater to the ones I've listed (The Color Purple and Jude the Obscure come to mind). Yet in some ways these were variations on the themes of the previous books. The foundation had been laid, torn down, modified, rejected, and remodeled through each of these reads. Now with that, I could build a palace with other uncomfortable, strange, new, and sometimes disturbing reads.

What about you? What novels/fiction did you read that shattered your universe and molded you into who you are?

The Leaves are Falling

The leaves aren't just turning anymore: they're falling. Unfortunately for my cats, that means all their outdoor hiding spots will be revealed. Some people say that fall is a spring where every leaf is a flower. I really enjoy the colors, and I'm sad to see them go.

One saving grace is November has pretty clear, beautiful skies.