Home Again, Home Again, Lickety Split
Aug 30th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas

So that’s what my Grammy Charlotte used to say. But it was hardly “lickety split” … 17 hours in a car … spread over 2 days. Oy. We did get in a good visit with my aunt in Boston. Now don’t you say that word “aunt” as if it were a small black insect. Say it properly … using both vowels, please. We had a good visit and she gave me some treasures of my grandmother’s and my great uncle’s. And we traded some family stories. Best of all, she had a good dinner waiting for us when we came in off the road.

The LightChildren held up well for the car ride. Only one time in two days was there anything like a complaint. In a small voice, on day two, in the mid-afternoon from LightBoy’s direction I heard, “My legs need to move. They really, really do.” But that was all.

Later today (when they become available) I’ll post some of the pictures that LightHusband took as we poked through New York City. It took over two HOURS to get from the Connecticut border to the George Washington Bridge. This normally takes about a half hour. That was not pretty or fun, but we were fortunate that it was the only real traffic we faced.

And so, we’re home again, home again, lickety split. With dirty laundry, and fabulous memories. And glad to be here too.

Last Things
Aug 27th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas



So today is our last day in our little cottage. We didn’t do much. Just mucked around. LightHusband took some pictures of mouldy gravestones of my long dead ancestors. I was bummed that one set was completely engulfed in pickerbushes. And sadly it was the g-g-g-grandmother who LightGirl is named for. So she couldn’t even see her namesake. Oh well. That’s what happens when everyone moves away … no one takes care of your gravemarkers and pickerbushes grow up around them. It’s a sad thing.

Then we went to what became our favorite place on this vacation, West Quoddy Head Lighthouse National Park. There was a little rocky beach there that the kids loved to play on and I loved to read at and LightHusband loved to take pictures at and while we were there this phenomenal fog rolled in … creepy, pea soup fog that was so thick you could taste it. It was fabulous.

We had lunch at our favorite diner. The owner was there again. He has taken a real liking to us and LightBoy in particular. He discovered that LB likes music and so all 3 “men” went to the upstairs … which is largely unused (this restaurant is in an old house/funeral parlor) to see the owner’s musical instruments. Well … when they came down LightBoy was full of all the ghost stories that are associated with the restaurant!! It was great fun. He and LightGirl left the restaurant with eyes as big as saucers.

Here’s a picture of the rocky beach at West Quoddy Head … the rocks say “chanky-chank” when you walk on them.

Picture of the Day – Friday
Aug 26th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas


So … it was a tie … so … shoot me … you have to look at two pictures. Wahhh.

We went on a whale watching boat ride and actually saw some whales, and dolphins and eagles and lots of other things too. LightHusband took 600 pictures in 3 hours on a boat. And didn’t delete nearly as many of them as he thought he would … but he still deleted a lot. It was one of the most sparklingly clear days ever. You only get about one a year … today was it for this year. So we went on a boat ride. Then we had our requisite Maine lobster dinner on a pier. It was a beautiful day … we didn’t let it get away.

Mustard
Aug 26th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas

So today we started out at a mustard mill. It’s the mill where they used to produce all the mustard that was made to pack all the sardines in. But now there aren’t any more sardines. So Raye’s makes fancy mustard. Good fancy mustard. We bought a case of all different kinds. Yes, most of you will get to taste it. If you’re very nice to me. Even if you’re mean … you all know I like having you all over for dinner alot. And … LightHusband likes mustard.

Here’s a picture of one of the old stones that they used to use to grind the mustard seeds. It’s out in front of the factory. They still use stones just like this. It weighs half a ton. One thousand pounds. The seeds get ground between two of these. Actually there are 4 sets of them. And the seeds have to go between each of the sets … it takes 8 stones. EIGHT. Each weighing one THOUSAND pounds to grind mustard seeds to make mustard.

That gives new perspective to this bible verse from Matthew 17 – “Jesus replied, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” I always thought of a mustard seed as just being tiny … now I see it’s also really sturdy and tough. After all … it takes 4 TONS of stone to grind it into dust and that only after being soaked in a water and vinegar solution.

Funny … the things you learn on vacation.

Pat Robertson
Aug 26th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas

So here goes … I wasn’t going to say anything about this current flap. But now I think I will. I clicked through my own link. I don’t know if any of you use “My High School English Teacher.” But if you’ve ever clicked through that, you’ve seen that it’s an editorial cartoon site. For Jeff Danziger. Now he’s nationally known. But a **number** of years ago he was a high school english teacher and I took Expository Writing from him. As did every college bound senior in my high school. Before he taught high school he was in the Viet Nam War as a translator. He shouldn’t have been. It scarred him. Badly. I don’t think he had any choice in the matter. Warning: He’s fairly leftward leaning … so if that’s going to bother you, don’t go there. He’s also fairly caustic, so if that might bother you, don’t go there. He’s also an atheist, or perhaps to be fair an agnostic. I really don’t know his religious beliefs … I just know he doesn’t have a lot of time for religion.

Here is the cartoon he posted last night:
You know … there are so many ways to take that. I know better than to take it personally. And I’m actually relieved to see someone finally say it out loud. But in general, the things that Pat Robertson advocates have as much to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ as pigs do with flying. Now I have no idea as to where Pat stands in terms of his own faith, belief, “salvation”, etc. What I mean to say, is that the things he speaks of publicly have nothing to do with the things of Jesus, or God or the Holy Spirit as we know about them from God’s Book, or the rest of God’s people who have spoken to us down through the ages. I really do wish he’d keep quiet. Or as Jim Wallis (from Sojourners) has called for him to do, that he’d retire. You can read that article here, but you have to register first and they’re very good … they won’t bother you, or sell your name, or anything.

What gives me hope and comfort during all of this is the firm knowledge that there have always been Pat Robertsons around trying their best to give Jesus a black eye (whether they knew it or not) and a bad name. They have not succeeded. Jesus is still the lynchpin of history. We still mark His birth as the before and after. Whether we acknowledge it or not. It is His birth that is the crucible, the Common Era, the Anno Domini. We don’t even know the names of all the other Pat Robertsons and future generations won’t know his.

The other thing I wonder about is how most of the Muslim community must feel. After all, they have faced this for 4 years now. Being made to look like crazy people by a few crazy men saying crazy things that have nothing whatsoever to do with the things that they really believe.

I think that in the end, God is able to take care of Himself. His Light will continue to shine through the works of the people who genuinely love him and are doing His work, being His body here on earth. Those are the people who are not concerned with garnering the spotlight … they are the people who take Jesus words seriously about bringing water to the thirsty, bread to the hungry, and caring for the least people in their communities. Look around you for those people and there you will find Jesus working still whether or not they claim Him.

Regentrification
Aug 25th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas

So today we ventured 10 minutes across the bay, or 50 minutes by car, to Eastport. We can see Eastport from our house … but it takes almost an hour to drive there. How silly is that?

When we were here 11 years ago, I would have guessed that Eastport would have been a complete ghost town by now. It was almost completely dead. It’s waterfront was listless, faded … nothing happening. You couldn’t even get a cup of coffee in Eastport. Okay … that may be the tiniest exaggeration. But it was on the way down.

That has changed. Not that things are booming now … but there’s even a Mexican restaurant in town … La Sardina Loca (the Crazy Sardine – which has a fine logic in an old sardine factory!!) By northern New England standards it was fine Mexican fare … for those of us who have had actual Mexican food, it was … well … shall we say … um … slightly commercial. But … they’re trying and we have to give them an A for effort.

There were several gift stores and LightGirl and I went shopping. LightBoy and LightHusband had fun “helping” the fisherfolk out on the wharves and taking pictures. Then we found another restaurant and I discovered that I’m slowly morphing into … MY FATHER! (imagine horrible organ music here) Here’s a funny thing up here in Maine that’s on the menu almost everywhere … Bread pudding. Okay … so here’s the list of things that you can’t find down south that I have just been so happy to see all around me all week.

– Bread pudding – I love homemade bread pudding (this is evidence that I am morphing into my father … if you knew him you’d be frightened).
– Beets on the menu everywhere – I love beets.
– Iced tea UNSWEET and I don’t have to say it!!!! Because who in their right mind would put sugar in their iced tea for HEAVENSSAKE.
– Brown bread in a can (with and with out raisins) – this is to be steamed in the can and eaten for dinner on Town Meeting Day. Don’t ask.
– In EVERY restaurant the sign when you walk in “Please seat yourself”
– There is not a grit, or an okra, or a hushpuppy to be found … anywhere.
– Mosquitos are the state bird … or think they ought to be. They are HUGE … okay this does not make me happy … but saying it’s the state bird annoys LightGirl and that makes me happy in an annoying mom way.

Okay … back to regentrification … so we walked around beautiful downtown Eastport. And I tried to tell LightGirl about how dreadfully boring it is to grow up in a small town. But all she can see right now are the benefits. Like she could ride her bike anywhere. Like she doesn’t get that that would be fun for about half an hour. Of course, my hometown is LOTS smaller than Eastport or even Lubec Maine … so … those might be different. She is very enamoured of small town life at the moment. UGH. Just the thought makes me claustrophobic. Of course, I grew up in the tiniest … most pretentious little snotty town there ever was. Maybe it could be different somewhere else.

When we were done walking, shopping, helping the fisherfolk and taking pictures, we drove back to Lubec just in time for dinner and a piano concert at the gazebo. Well … after the late lunch and dessert, LightBoy was the only one hungry enough for dinner. This picture here on the left is of the Masonic Lodge and the line for dinner. But we went down and listened to the music anyway and LightHusband took some more pictures. I worked on this little quilt I’m making and talked about the music with LightGirl … she was convinced it was all just boring. I could see (it was alot of show tunes – lots of Gershwin – and without the words) how it would be kind of repetitive and boring. I had the words in my head … but those of you who know me well, know that I shouldn’t sing out loud. It’s not pleasant. Or polite. I tried just saying the words to Porgy & Bess, but even that was embarassing to LightGirl, so I kept the words inside my head (as we like to say in our family).

So it was a good day and you have to check out my new picture in my profile … it’s from today. On the wharf at Eastport … I think it goes with the whole “Light” theme I have going on my blog … don’t you?

Poetry Thursday – Levertov
Aug 25th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas

Making Peace
by Denise Levertov

A voice from the dark called out,

”The poets must give us
imagination of peace, to oust the intense, familiar
imagination of disaster. Peace, not only
the absence of war.”

But peace, like a poem,
is not there ahead of itself,
can’t be imagined before it is made,
can’t be known except
in the words of its making,
grammar of justice,
syntax of mutual aid.

A feeling towards it,
dimly sensing a rhythm, is all we have
until we begin to utter its metaphors,
learning them as we speak.

A line of peace might appear
if we restructured the sentence our lives are making,
revoked its reaffirmation of profit and power,
questioned our needs, allowed
long pauses. . . .

A cadence of peace might balance its weight
on that different fulcrum; peace, a presence,
an energy field more intense than war,
might pulse then,
stanza by stanza into the world,
each act of living
one of its words, each word
a vibration of light–facets
of the forming crystal.

Calling
Aug 24th, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas

So our first day in our little cottage was very quiet. That was good … we’d spent the last three days being very busy, travelling and doing. So we needed to be quiet. We watched the tide come in and go out in our little cove. If that sounds rather mundane you have to consider where we are and that the tide comes in and goes out to the tune of 20+ feet here. You can see from the low tide and high tide pictures that it’s sort of dramatic. That is the same shipwreck in our cove at low tide and again at high tide.

I also caught up with my friends and their blogs. My AwakeFriend wrote a real doozy on Sunday. You really need to read the whole thing. But what really got me thinking was his description of seminary and the training he underwent for giving sermons. It made me think of the days when I was in graduate school and the training I underwent to become a teacher. There were many similarities. They are both very artificial training grounds. Which is sad and silly. Why do we (that is, the corporate we) think that we can reduce pastoring or teaching (or any profession where we are leading/mentoring other people) to a list of things that can be measured and then taught. These are not sciences after all. And then my thoughts kept wandering down that little path and came to this:

The other day we we had lunch at one of the most local of local diners. Actually we’ve had 5 meals in the last 4 days there. They’ve adopted us there. We met an elderly lady who is clearly well loved by all. Her name is Mimi (pronounced mimee, as in short i, long e). We were told that just about everyone in Lubec over the age of 30 had had her for a teacher at one time or another and most of those under 30 had probably had her for a substitute … she told us that last year was probably her last year … she didn’t think she’d sign up again. She’s definitely pushing 80 or so. Among other things, she told us the story of when she went to Normal School (as teacher training schools were called back then) and as she was filling out the paper work she was next to a girl who confided in Mimi that she (the other girl) didn’t like children. Mimi looked at us in wonder as she was telling this story. Still amazed after 60 years. How could someone who didn’t like children consider going into the teaching profession?

And that’s just it. I hope my AwakeFriend will forgive me … but I know that the same thing happened at his seminary. Clearly he was called into ministry. At our church we benefit from his calling on the weeks he speaks, and on the weeks he hangs out … we benefit from his gifts of grace and mercy that he models for us just by being. But here’s the thing … I wonder how many of his fellow students at seminary were just there because they mistook a fifty percent off sale for a calling (don’t snicker … it happens), or because their father was a pastor … or for a hundred other reasons, none of which have anything to do with the things of God. And it’s not just seminary, either. How many jobs in our world are filled by people with no heart for them? Like the girl that Mimi knew sixty years ago … there aren’t any spaces on our forms that ask us whether or not we like children when we’re training to be teachers. We forget to ask the most important question sometimes. I have to wonder about that. And it makes me uncomfortable.

Picture of the Day – Tuesday
Aug 23rd, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas


So today we went to Cobscook Bay State Park and played around in the water. Well, the kids did … I read and LightHusband took pictures (like this one). I think the seaweed looks like dreadlocks on the rocks. LightGirl says it feels like walking on spaghetti … she’s right … it does.

List Tuesday
Aug 23rd, 2005 by aBhantiarna Solas

So ordinarily I’m a both/and kinda gal. I like combining things. Putting things and people together. I like including people. Pulling it all together … drawing the circle bigger as it were. But I have discovered as I’ve travelled this life that there are a few things that do not (I repeat … NOT) belong together. So … in honor of my Brickfriend … I present my List for List Tuesday …

These Things Do NOT Go Together:

1. Jazz and Celtic music.

2. Blueberries and Salmon.

3. Country and any other music … okay … country shouldn’t be considered a music form but that’s a post unto itself. It’s the only form of music I won’t listen to … EVER. Which tells you something.

4. Plaid and polka dots

5. Raisin bran and orange juice (and yes, I’ve seen someone actually eat this).

6. Blueberries and Lobster (hmm … I’m sensing a theme here).

7. Catsup (ketchup) and any Indian food.

8. Finally, because it is only exceptions that make a rule … here are two things that don’t belong together but somehow are and they work: A health/organic/vegetarian food store combined with a hardware store … yes, Virginia there is one up here in Machias, Maine. And somehow it works. Right next to the nine penny nails is a whole selection of Annie’s macaroni and cheese, a great selection of Indian food mixes, teas, a wall of spices and herbs and best of all, “Freedom Beans.”

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