The Feast Day of Saint James

Today we celebrate the life of James, one of the 12 disciples, the first to be martyred (Acts 12:1 tells us by Herod's sword). He's known as James the Greater (to distinguish him from James the Lesser, James the son of Alphaeus). He's the brother of John. He was one of the first to join Jesus, and Jesus chose him to go up the mountain to witness the Transfiguration. He is the patron saint of veterinarians and pharmacists, among others.

Lately, I've heard more about St. James, as more people become aware of the pilgrimage that involves walking to his shrine in Santiago de Campostela in Spain from a variety of starting points. Walkers who cover 100 km or cyclists who cover 200 km get a compostela, a certificate, and a blessing.

St. James is associated with scallops, and if you look at a map, you'll see that the pilgrims arriving from a variety of beginning points to the same end point does look like a scallop shell. There are now travel agencies that will help pilgrims, but I've been told that it's not hard to set up one's own journey. There are all sorts of lodgings along the way, all sorts of support.

In 2023, I finally saw the Martin Sheen/Emilio Estevez movie, The Way, which features this pilgrim's path. I'd love to actually walk part of it, but it seems increasingly unlikely. But life has taught me never to say never. If I could go on the Santiago or Iona, I'd probably choose Iona, but who says I would have to choose.

I'm not the only one who finds the idea intriguing. In 1985, only 690 pilgrims made it to the end point, the Cathedral of Santiago de Campostela; recently, 179,919 pilgrims completed the journey. The most hardcore pilgrims walk barefoot. I would not be one of those pilgrims.

A few years ago, one of my good church friends figured out how to walk part of the Santiago de Campostela, how to make sure her pets and children were taken care of for 2 weeks, and off she went with her husband. I found her journey so inspiring. She kept a blog while walking and has continued to keep writing posts in her "regular" life.

Let us remember that we're all on a variety of pilgrimages, even if we're not leaving the house. Let us remember that God is with us.

Getting the Band Back Together

Yesterday I spent much of the day shopping and getting ready for our South Florida church friend's arrival for dinner--which is odd since I wasn't buying food for dinner.  But it was that time of year when it was time to restock on basic pantry staples and over the counter meds and such.

I spent far too much time trying to think about what would be best for dinner.  In some ways, I was lucky:  my friend's only request was not to have lettuce (future readers may have forgotten the cyclospora outbreak of this summer which is much wider than usual, but as usual, linked to lettuce grown on factory farms).  I thought about grilling.  I thought about vegetarian dishes.  I know my friend has been traveling and not gotten much in the way of homecooked meals.  I thought about pot pie.  The idea of a cozy chicken casserole began to take shape in my mind, and that's what we ended up having.

I had this picture in mind as I thought about our dinner:

This picture is from Easter Sunrise Service 2021 at Trinity Lutheran Church in Pembroke Pines, Florida.  I'm on the upright bass, which belongs to Piper who is standing beside me.  Piper was here for Music Week a few weeks ago, and Eileen (in the blue dress) was our dinner guest last night.  Carl, my spouse, is on the violin.

I thought about staging something similar last night, with a witty caption about getting the band back together.  But I didn't want to disrupt the good vibes of the night.  We had a great meal of chicken and broccoli rice casserole with a mushroom white sauce holding it together, maple glazed carrots, homemade bread, and blueberry pie for dessert.  We had wonderful conversation.  We haven't seen each other since summer 2022, so we had lots to catch up on.

In one light, it's sobering to think of what's happened since this picture was taken:  people moved away, people dead, buildings gone.  But it's also inspiring:  new jobs, new houses, new churches.

But what I love best:  we could pick up right where we left off.  I'm fortunate to have so many friendships that are like that.

More Late Summer Gratitudes

Two weeks from today, I'll be getting ready to drive down to Spartanburg for a day of meetings, faculty workshops, and not just one but two meals.  Those of you who have never worked in a place with a day of meetings and faculty "development," but no food or coffee provided may not understand why I am so happy and grateful to be in a place where we get food along with our trainings and meetings.

But what I'm most grateful for is finding myself in a place where faculty are appreciated.  That appreciation takes the form of food or a verbal thank you during meetings or supplies . . .  on and on the list could go.  It seems so simple and yet in so many places, berating seems to be the default, not appreciation.

Today, though, I want to post about summer gratitude, here in these waning days of summer.  I've already touched on some of my gratitude, like for summer veggies which turns into good eating (in this blog post) and creative time with friends (in this blog post about making cut paper cards) and Music Week gratitudes of all sorts.

Earlier this week, I saw a Facebook post from Beginnings Quilt Shop about a birthday party for Georgia Bonesteel and inviting us all to stop by on Tuesday from 10-noon.  I was relatively free, so I decided to pop by.  And I'm so glad I did!

Georgia Bonesteel's books on lap quilting were some of the first I read, and while I never could figure out how to put the smaller quilted pieces together into a larger quilt, I was inspired by her work.  I was one of the first ones at the shop, and I had a chance to tell her how much her work meant to me, and that felt great.  I was not starstruck and mute, the way I have found myself in my younger years approaching writers whose work had meant a lot to me.  She asked me what I was working on, and I had a photo on my phone that I pulled up, the one I posted Tuesday morning:

We chatted a bit more, and I moved over to get a piece of cake, so that I wasn't monopolizing her time--even though there weren't others waiting their turn.  

I considered some pieces that had potential as a backing fabric for the quilt, but decided it was better to wait until I'm sure of how big a backing I need.

Yesterday I zipped down to the Spartanburg house to deliver yet another light fixture, in the hopes that we can get a final inspection on the fixer-upper house rewiring.  In some ways, I don't mind.  It's a lot less commuting than I do in the school year.  I was also able to pay the water bill in person.

In the afternoon, I went to the Lutheran World Relief quilting group at Lutheran Church of the Nativity, the Lutheran church around the corner from my Arden house.  They are a wonderful group, and I'm happy to have a chance to work with them, as I have been doing for 4 years.   

We also got the phone call that both final inspections (for the HVAC and the rewiring) are scheduled for Friday--fingers crossed!  Then we can figure out what makes sense for a timeline for the remaining work that we need to get done before we move in:  painting the interior and refinishing the hardwood floors. 

I was very tired by day's end, and I finally gave in to my urge to go to bed, even though it was only 6:30.

Today one of our South Florida church friends is coming by for dinner.  I am looking forward to catching up, grateful that she's the one on her way back to Florida (she, too, has moved away from South Florida, but not out of the state), not me.

I have been feeling such joy this summer and so much gratitude, along with feeling a bit odd about feeling this way.  The world is burning, both literally and figuratively, and my mood doesn't match.  I'm grateful about that ability too, to be aware of my good fortune, to try to help others, and to be able to have such joy, even with the sorrows that come from being 61.

Poems for the Feast Day of Mary Magdalene

Today is the feast day of Mary Magdalene.  If you came here hoping for a historical and theological and feminist type blog post, I wrote that type of blog post for my theology blog, which you can read here.

This morning, I'm thinking of Mary Magdalene and the way she has appeared in poetry.  My favorite is Marie Howe's Magdalene is my favorite, both the book and the individual poem, "Magdalene--The Seven Devils" (the poem is here).

And a sidenote before continuing with this post:  I do realize all the ways that talking about demon possession is problematic, and I do think that characterizing Mary Magdalene as a prostitute possessed by demons was a way that the early Church tried to discredit her.  Back to poetry.

Howe's poem is so fabulous that I hesitate to post mine here; I'm fairly sure that I had not read her poem when I wrote the two poems below.  I wrote one and then a few years later, decided to revisit the idea in the poem that I thought had more potential.  It's an interesting insight into the ways that poems can influence each other, talk to each other, and lead to different poems.

Here's the first one, which I wrote after reading the passage in Acts where the slave girl has her demons cast out, which makes her valueless, since she can no longer forecast the future.

Demon Dwellings



Mary Magdalene misses
the sixth demon the most,
the one who was her best self,
the one who knew what to say,
how to dress,
how to make the best cocktail,
the one who slept
peacefully through the night.

The slave girl misses
all her demons—
no one else would talk
to her when she was possessed.
No one talks to her now.

I eat dinner with homeless men,
and I remember my mother explaining
demon possession as an ancient
way to explain mental illness.
The homeless man rants in a language
not quite human, and I ponder
those demons and their destiny.

Here's the poem I wrote a few years later, when I was continuing to think about Mary Magdalene and what healing from demon possession might be like, especially after Jesus was gone.

The Fifth Demon



You moderns read about my demon
possession, and you think of The Exorcist:
gravel voices out of the mouths of schoolgirls,
mouths that spew gobs of green goo.


I tell you, it wasn’t like that. Each demon
had a unique personality, a tone
that only I could recognize. In the night,
the hiss of their suggestions soothed
me into sleep. By day, their constant
criticisms and complaints proved motivation.

And then I met Jesus. His voice
filled my head and crowded out the demons.
His stories left me slightly dizzy,
like I had spent weeks sleeping
on a sailing ship and returned to land.

I miss the fifth demon most.
I lost them, and then I lost
him, and now I have only the tomb
of my empty mind.

Last Weeks of Summer

Three weeks from today, my onground classes start at Spartanburg Methodist College; it will be both similar and different for me.  It will be my 3rd year of full-time work at the college, after 1 year of adjunct work, but the beginning of the tenure track for me.  I'll write more about that in a few weeks.  

I wish I could say that our plans to be in our fixer-upper house in Spartanburg are on schedule, but they are not.  I will make a few phone calls today and hope to figure out where we are.  We've been having electrical work done and HVAC work done, and from what I can see, we're close to having final inspections done, but those haven't been scheduled yet.  

Once those final inspections happen, we'll paint and redo the hardwood floors.  We're holding off on the kitchen remodel until next summer, mainly so that we don't sink all our liquid cash into a not-liquid asset, our house.   The kitchen that is there is workable, though far from ideal.  We've had worse, but we are now used to having better (like a dishwasher).

Today I will also go to Hendersonville, where my favorite quilt/fabric store, Beginnings, is having a 90th birthday party for famous quilter Georgia Bonesteel.  Her books on lap quilting were some of the earliest on quilting that I read.  Those books in the 1980's had a plan for how one could quilt in smaller pieces and then join the pieces together into a bed-sized quilt.  

I've spent the summer making a quilt in my old-fashioned way, hand stitching much smaller scraps into what I hope will become a beautiful quilt.  

I do a lot of this work while my spouse is watching T.V.  This week we've both been enjoying Clarkson's Farm, which is a good reminder of why farming is so difficult, even when one is a TV figure with other income streams that are significant.  Jeremy Clarkson has lost several small fortunes in these seasons of doing farming.  He can afford it.  It's a very funny show, if one ignores the sobering reality of farming in a world where the climate has changed dramatically.

I'm hoping to have a quilt top ready for Quilt Camp in late August.  I want to create a quilt for our new bed that I hope we will have in the house by late August or early September.  In some ways, each time I pick up my needle and thread, I feel like I'm doing some version of "manifesting."  

It also reminds me of my garage sale rambling as a child, where I would pick up things like napkins and dishes and think of the hope chests that I read about in books about pilgrims and prairies.  In my darker moods, I find myself thinking that I'm doing the enjoyable work while trying to ignore the harder, sweatier work that needs to be done to make the house habitable--or even avoid phone calls to contractors.

Happily, our time line is our own.  I've been commuting every week day to Spartanburg, and I can keep doing that.  So far, the costs that come with an additional house have been manageable.  And I much prefer to spend summer in the mountains, instead of doing home renovation work in the Upstate (SC) heat and moving in August.

Farm Stand Eating

We have had a stretch of farm stand eating.  You may say, "Of course--it's July--it's how we're all eating."  But I spent 24 years in South Florida, where summer is not a growing season, where growing any sort of vegetable during any month takes planning and good fortune and is likely to end in tears.

One summer, I wanted peach cobbler in the worst way, a homesickness that was wrapped up in missing my elders that had died, missing friends far away.  I stood by a display of overpriced peaches, not one of which had any kind of smell:  not peach, not rot, not any smell at all.*

I wanted to cry.

And because I'm an English major, I thought of those lines from Keats' "Ode to a Nightingale":   

"Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears amid the alien corn"

I thought about tears and alien produce and how I didn't really like peaches much anyway, and then I moved along.  I thought about my peach triggered homesickness a few weeks ago when I was peeling peaches from the box I bought to support one of the high schoolers in the church I serve in Bristol, Tennessee.

One of my other parishioners has been bringing us other gifts from her garden.  We've had a blueberry pie because she made jar after jar of pie filling made with blueberries from her yard and brought the jars to church.  Yesterday she brought a bag of green beans and implored us to take them all so that she didn't have to can them.

I was happy to help, even though beans aren't my favorite vegetable.  On the drive back across the mountain, I snapped each end and got them ready to cook.  I thought about hot afternoons on my grandmother's front porch, with bowls of beans on our laps and a paper bag on the porch floor to catch the vegetable waste, which my grandmother would dig back into the compost strip in the back yard along the detached garage.  

Back to yesterday's beans:  I found some hunks of ham frozen from Thanksgiving, and we let the beans and ham bubble away on the stove and had a wonderful dinner.  I had gotten some Mills River corn that had just been picked on Saturday, so we had that too, along with  the yellow squash casserole I made on Saturday and tomato slices.

Classic farm stand meal--and could there be a poem peeking around the edges too?  Or would it just be a collection of cliches?  Is there anything new to say?

I do like the idea of snapping beans in the front seat of a car instead of a front porch.  I like the idea of channeling the elders by way of food, but that's not a new idea--far from it.  Let me continue contemplating.

*After writing this blog post, I wondered if I had written about the earlier peach experience--and I did!  Go here to read that blog post from 2016.

Housing Contentment with Ants

For the past two weeks, we've had a solitary ant in the kitchen.  I've thought it odd--ants don't usually travel alone.

This morning, I'm wondering if it was a scout ant, sent ahead to find a good homestead.  This morning, we have ants all over the kitchen.

We rarely have bug problems in this house in Arden, which is strange because we live on a densely wooded lot, the kind of woods that means we don't have any yard care tasks.  We pay for termite protection because we're in a wooden house on a wooded lot.  But we don't have roaches and ants only a few times in the last 4 years we've lived here.

Wow--we have lived here 4 years.  I still think it was a smart move.  My spouse still misses Florida.  I used to say that I missed every place I had ever lived, even the ones I didn't particularly like while I was living there.  Now I am realizing that I don't miss those places anymore.

Is this one of the undiscussed joys of aging?  More probably, it's something specific to me.  For decades I was baffled to discover that most people don't miss places where they used to live.  Most people don't go back and give deep consideration to roads not taken and decisions made.

I am now in a place that I don't long to leave:  I love all my jobs, and I'm happy to be able to live here in the mountains.  I have good friends, both near where I live and far away.  My health feels stable.  I'm also happy with our fixer-upper in Spartanburg.

Yesterday I took a quick trip down to Spartanburg.  I needed to get the check to our neighbor who takes care of our yard and to get the mail.  I also wanted to see first hand how the rewiring project was going.  The rewiring project is much closer to finished than I expected--all but 1 fixture is installed.

It is much easier to feel less stress about this fixer-upper house because I love our mountain house so much.  We're going to keep that house and move back and forth.  If I have some additional commuting time to Spartanburg Methodist College, if the fixer-upper house isn't ready by the time classes start, that's O.K.

It's easier to deal with home repairs when I'm not living in the house being repaired.  That, too, is a source of my current contentment.

It's time to shift my focus.  This week brings major due dates:  SMC online grades on Monday, a Candidacy Endorsement Writing Project on Monday, and my Paul paper on July 26, Sunday.  Let me turn my writing attention to other projects this morning.