Author Archive

Word came yesterday from Father Moses Matonya that the women in Ikowa Village are busy with agricultural works on their farms and that the piglets are growing “big and healthy.”  Further, he said that the piglet project (what we call the Wilbur Project) has brought new hope and power to the women in Ikowa.  The women are returning to Church and they are accepting responsibilities and duties  that women have always done in our churches in America.  Believe me its the women who will save Africa.  Those of you who have bought piglets  and especially St. Mary Magdalene’s Church that held a bake sale in late summer and raised nearly $1,000 to buy piglets, please know what an impact you are having on the women and children of Tanzania.  Actually, even the men are happy.  Moses’ words went straight to our hearts:  “Tally and Jessie, the depth of your love to us is immeasurable and is beyond comparsion.  It is a gift that is graciously flowing from God and we are blessed by it.”  We truly do believe that it is from God and we remain humble and thankful for the privilege given to us and for your abiding love and help as well.   Rain has come!   Moses will visit Ikowa in late January and will take pictures of the newest little oinkers!

Jessie and I will have a KARIMU booth at our diocesan convention ~ should you be there as a delegate, guest or clergy, please stop by and visit us ~ see the work that is being done and learn how you can help.  Is it too late to say Happy New Year?

Ah, ha.  It IS still Christmas.  Look at our Christmas cactus about to  bloom!  The one in the window is about to bloom as well.  Those are African candle sticks given to me as we prepared to leave in October.  They are hand carved with elephants in the middle.  The picture, for the record, is Tally Pendo, Jessie’s famous Jack Russell in my lap ~ you might say we see eye to eye or is it nose to nose?

Why do you suppose some are eager for the season of joy and light to end?  Everyday should be Christmas ~ people seem friendlier, more willing to speak as you pass on the street and more willing to share and give to the poor.  Jessie keeps saying she is going to put me out on the street with a tin cup to collect coins for those in Africa who are poor beyond belief.    I threw out the holly and the ivy today but only because it was so dry, but the tree stands with all of it’s memories ~ ornaments collected for 58 years ~ each with a story to tell.

I read yesterday that the Africans celebrate the New Year with special food if it is available, primarily goat or a chicken.  And we eat beans or black-eyed peas for good luck.  Our Tanzanian friends go to church and dance and sing on New Years’ Eve.  We seem to no longer have New Year’s Eve Watch Services in our churches.  That’s a loss.

Moses wrote that the women in Ikowa Village have bought the pigs for another group of women, thanks to the good people of St. Mary Magdalene’s Episcopal Church in Seven Lakes.  All piglets are doing well.  It started with a meager amount of money and has blossomed into a business for the women who will use the money to see that their children go to school.   Primary education is free, but there is the cost for transportation, uniforms and books and supplies.  Many simply cannot afford those things. 

I have a story about the Wise Men which I will save until Epiphany ~ January 6th.  For a few more days we can enjoy the season and then we can hunker down for those months when we vow to keep our resolutions and to read all the books that are still stacked on our nightstand.

My resolution is to look for the holy in everything.  HAPPY NEW YEAR DEAR READERS.

Remember when we were about to move into this century and there were dire predictions that the world would come to an end?  Today I received a video via e-mail with more dire predictions about the collapse of the American economy and the dollar that will eclipse anything we have ever known before.  Something that will happen early in 2012 that will change the way we live and not for the better.  Not being an economist I haven’t a clue but it is at least scarey and makes me wonder if we should take what we have and bury it in a tin can in the backyard!   All in all, I agree that the state of the world is not very promising.  On a much happier note though, I received an e-mail from Katerina Whitley, Greek born author, teacher, church journalist, retreat leader and extraordinary human being.  Google her and read all about her.  I was privileged to once take a writing workshop with her and have read her books.  She wrote in the e-mail that she has stopped looking at the news (3-years now and hasn’t missed it) and she doesn’t “do” Walmart either!  These words were at the end of her e-mail and they struck me as words of great hope and reminded me of the brightness of the African sky at night with no ambient light.  “When it gets dark enough you can see the stars.”  (Charles A. Beard)  On this eve of a new year may we all see the stars and see wonder and awe every day. 

It had to happen.  Here we are in the Twelve Days of Christmas (Christmastide) and what did I see in WalMart yesterday?  Valentine’s Day candy!  My friend Gail says that I am a throwback to yesteryear.  An ink pen and clean piece of paper thrills me just as a real letter makes me stop my day and sit down to read words formed by hand ~ a true gift of love.  I doggedly go around saying:  Merry Christmas.  In the gym on Tuesday, Mike said:  “Christmas is over,” and a woman said:  “Thank goodness.”  That makes me sad.  Things change ~ the world changes day by day.  Technology, which I love is running wild and I struggle to barely keep up.   Everyone sits around checking their I-Phones with little conversation.  Secular takes over f rom the sacred when everyday should be  sacred.  Today is the 6th day of Christmas ~ six geese a’laying which might just mean the 6 days of creation.  I looked for my true love to give me 5 golden rings yesterday ~ didn’t happen so maybe it is just a silly English Christmas song.  Maybe this one makes more sense:  “Love Came Down at Christmas.”  The last verse goes like this:  “Love shall be our token; love be yours and love be mine, love to God and neighbor, love for plea and gift for sign.”  (Christina Rossetti).   MERRY CHRISTMAS.

“Today!” the boy says.  “Why Christmas Day.”  Yes, as told in Dickens’ timeless “A Christmas Carol” it is now Christmas Day.  

A prayer as we begin this day with families and friends, dogs and cats, happiness and sadness:

Lord, let us love the humble, the lowly and the lonely.  Amen

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO OUR FRIENDS  ALL OVER THE WORLD.

The day draws near as we make our way to the stable once again, and we are filled with joyful expectation that life will be renewed.  And it is, over and over and over. 

For many, Christmas evokes memories.  When I was a very little girl I would sit in our living room all by myself and look at the lighted tree and read or listen to music.  Last night, for the first time in days, I sat down, not at the computer which doesn’t count as “sitting down”, but in the living room.  The tree lights were on, the last act of La Boheme was on the radio; I read Steve Bouser’s piece in our local newspaper about Christmas in Russia when he and his wife and daughter lived there.  He said if he had ever experienced a miracle in his lifetime, “it was the resurgence of Christianity in Russia after so many decades of cruel repression.”  Earlier I had read Barbara Crafton’s Almost Daily e-Mo (bcc@geraniumfarm.org) and laughed and resonated with her words about downsizing.  Check it out ~ in her indomintable way she hears “the voice with the steely love I recognize as the voice of God.”  I hear it every now and then and it quickly puts me in my place, such as my aggitation the other day as I sat in the Toyota dealership for 3 hours when I had at least a trillion things to do.  The voice said:  “but you have a car.”  We forget sometimes, don’t we?  Barbara was grousing that she has not unpacked all of the boxes filled with silver and teapots from her recent move.  The steely voice reminded her that “the Son of Man had no place to lay his head.  A woman in the Philippines surveyed the sodden pile of mud sticks of wood that was once her home.  A family arrives a the air base in Dover to claim the body of their only son, the last American casuality of the Iraq war.”  You get her message.  I did.

After the opera more beautiful music continued into the night.  “The Shepherd’s Farewell” filled the room, a lilting piece of music by Berlioz that is so plaintive that it makes my heart melt.   One futher memory as I thought of Johnny and our choir so often doing that lovely piece:  Father Hank and I would stand in the Narthex of the church quietly anticipating the first sounds of “O Come All Ye Faithful” before midnight Mass.  We would look at each other and each gulp down the lump that had formed in our throats.  We were well into the third verse before I could sing a note.  How will it be at St. Thomas’ in Sanford this year where I was graciously asked to serve one more time?   Our African friends will sing those words 7 hour before we do.  “O Come All Ye Faithful.”

St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Sanford, North Carolina