Tuesday, April 25, 2017

SPRING....maybe

The calendar says it is spring but here in the UP that is not always the case.  We were spoiled on Saturday with temperatures in the 60s and absolutely beautiful outside. Sunday, we woke up to snow.  Not enough to pile up but enough to cover the grass and the bird feeder in the maple tree.   So far this week, it has been chilly and gloomy but there is no snow.  I am okay with that.  I am a person who has an intense dislike for snow and cold.  If I had the power, winter would start on December 1st and end on December 31st.  A white Christmas and not much else is fine with me.  I look forward to spring as it reminds me that summer is on the way.  But I digress, so back to my thoughts on spring.

This morning I had my coffee in my favorite cozy chair near the front window and surveyed spring.  The bird feeder in the maple tree has become a favorite gathering spot for a variety of birds, squirrels and chipmunks.  My husband says they eat too much and threatens never to refill the feeder again but he always does.  There are beautiful buds on the maple tree as well as on the lilac bush and white birches.  I watch them impatiently each day waiting for those first leaves to appear.  The barn cat who lives on the farm across the road has made his springtime journey across the field and I smile as I watch the little bundle of blonde fur run, stop, look around and then run again.  The sound of raking means that my husband is beginning on his seasonal obsession...the grass.  The plastic coverings are coming off the windows today so when those warm temperatures return, the fresh air can fill the house and chase the stale winter out.  Spring is here at my house. 

It may not be totally spring in the UP yet but there is always hope it will come soon to stay.

Saturday, April 15, 2017

A Easter Haiku

                                                            His death on the cross
                                                           all our sins are forgiven
                                                             and we will be saved.

Sunday, April 9, 2017

Haiku for Palm Sunday

                                                         The King comes this day
                                                          upon a donkey He rides
                                                            Palm Sunday is here.

Saturday, April 1, 2017

My Rosary

In times of stress, worry or fear, we all have something that brings us peace and comfort.  For small children, it can be a teddy bear or a nightlight.  As we get older, it can take the form of a well-worn quilt, a cup of our favorite tea, a cozy chair in a sunny corner or it can be a Bible with favorite scripture verses and prayers.

For me, it has always been the rosary.  I developed this love for the rosary as a young girl.  My mother as well as my grandmother and aunts had always felt that nothing could give one greater peace than the feeling of the beads moving across the fingers while silent prayers were spoken.  Many a time, my mother would begin a novena whenever she felt someone in the family was in need of extra help and not a night would go by that she would not pray the rosary before bed.  In the last weeks of her life, when the pain would get to be too much, she would always ask for her rosary.  Just holding it in her hand brought a sense of peace that was so very apparent on her face. 

I myself have a number of rosaries.  A pink one I received for my First Communion at the age of 7, one with irish green beads given to me by my husband as a reminder of my irish roots and one with beads carved into the shape of roses blessed by the Pope given to me by a priest friend after his trip to Rome.  However, the one which comforts me the most is a rosary made of blue glass.  It was my grandmother's and upon her death, it was given to my mother.  She never used that rosary.  She kept it in a small box in her jewelry case.  10 years ago, my mother gave it to me.  It goes with me everywhere.  It gives me great comfort just to hold it in my hand, feeling each bead just as my mother and grandmother had done in years past.  However, holding the rosary in my hand is really secondary to the prayers which are said with it.  Each prayer is another movement closer to our Lady.  Each prayer is a whisper for help, a call for understanding, a hope for clarity, a plea for intercedence.  It is the love in your mother's eyes as you confide in her, it is the soft touch of her hand when you feel so alone and it is the warmth of her arms hugging you when you are afraid.   It is a reminder that no matter what my life is throwing at me, my heavenly mother Mary will hear, understand and comfort me.

“The Most Holy Virgin in these last times in which we live has given a new efficacy to the recitation of the Rosary to such an extent that there is no problem, no matter how difficult it is, whether temporal or above all spiritual, in the personal life of each one of us, of our families…that cannot be solved by the Rosary. There is no problem, I tell you, no matter how difficult it is, that we cannot resolve by the prayer of the Holy Rosary.” -Sister Lucia dos Santos of Fatima