Jeez Louise

 Word for the day:  ashes: the remains of something destroyed.   But for me, ashes are a sign of new life.  One needs only study the changes to Mt. St. Helen’s following its eruption! Or how the burning of the earth can revitalize the soil and perhaps the soul.   The dirt which produces the dust and the nourishment to many at the farm in Homedale!  Beautiful Owyhees! Here’s a lovely Ash Wednesday poem  y Jan Richardson: Blessing the Dust For Ash Wednesday All those days you felt like dust, like dirt, as if all you had to do was turn your face toward the wind and be scattered to the four corners or swept away by the smallest breath as insubstantial— did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust? This is the day we freely say we are scorched. This is the hour we are marked by what has made it through the burning. This is the moment we ask for the blessing that lives within the ancient ashes, that makes its home inside the soil of this sacred earth....

Word of the day: Transfiguration: an exalting, glorifying, or spiritual change.   Perhaps that is what I was expecting on the Camino, to a degree. Rather, it was a more subtle, quiet, meditative change.  I am more mindful, and place kindness and gratefulness as my day starters!   in Marrakech, a mostly Muslim city, the Mosques 🕌 and the Imams would chant their beliefs 5 times a day. I would arise in the morning for the 6:30 am prayer, and pause when their prayers were repeated throughout the day.  There is something powerful about praying at dusk and dawn, to start and end the daylight hours in  Prayer 🙏               The Medina in the enclosed city   Eileen and I at Cafe Franc overlooking Marrakech         Eileen and her friend Hamza, who arranged our Riad at the home of his family friends. According to Wikipedia and other sites:  Faith ( iman ) includes six primary beliefs: [11] Belie...

 Words for the day:  How did time get away? The State of the Union Address, 🌎 Super Bowl Sunday,  🏈Valentine’s Day 💜 and now almost President’s Day, 🇺🇸, Mardi Gras 🎭, and Ash Wednesday 🌋.  Perhaps it has been negligence on my part.  Negligence:  A failure to behave with the level of care that someone of ordinary prudence would have exercised under the same circumstances!   So has my lack of meditation 🧘‍♀️ been a lack of discipline that others may have exercised.  But it seems to a bit of a blaming connotation!  I’d like to think that life got in the way!    And I hope to return to near daily musings during Lent!  And perhaps share and review the 2nd half of my Camino.   So, I attended the latest exhibit at the Museum of Art and Culture (MAC) on the 11th of February with my church.  There were 2 profound exhibits. One on Native American culture & stereotypes titled: “Savages and Princesses”.   The oth...

 Word for the day:  Journey!  Heading home from Denver to Spokane.  Spent time with 2 sisters and brother in law.   An altitude sickness from climbing 14,000 feet to the top of Pikes Peak was not fun.  But I learned that garlic and cloves are good alternatives.  Garlic helps with nausea, dizziness and increase in blood flow.  Cloves help oxygen move more efficiently. It certainly seemed to help.                        The world at 14,000 feet.       My Camino friends, Jane and Ann in Denver Reading “The Universe bends toward Justice” by Obery Hendricks.  From the gospels, including the beatitudes; to many Old Testament prophets: they all shout out for preferential option for the poor.  Leviticus 25 clearly discussed righting wrongs with his Jubilee year, where debts are forgiven and people can start fresh!  Deuteronomy 15 calls for the freeing of slaves,...

 Sunday mass readings included Isaiah58, one of my favorite passages.  S/he calls us to “Cry aloud, do not hold back.”  I must recognize that fasting means nothing unless I change my attitude and deeds. 6. Is not this the fast that I choose:  j to loose the bonds of wickedness,  to undo the straps  k of the yoke,  to let the oppressed 2  go free,  and to break every yoke?    7    Is it not  l to share your bread with the hungry  and bring the homeless poor into your house;  when you see the naked, to cover him,  m and not to hide yourself from your own flesh? So, I must change my ways to serve those most in need.  Then and only then: 8    n Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,  o and your healing shall spring up speedily;  p your righteousness shall go before you;  q the glory of the  Lord  shall be your rear guard.    9    Then you...