Where Love Shines: An Epiphany

Guest post by Heidi Hess Saxton

Love can take many forms.

A gentle hand on a feverish brow.

A knowing smile across a crowded room.

A deep breath that swallows a word best left unsaid.

And once, in all of human history, love took the form of a star.

And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them,

until it came and stopped over the place where the child was.

They were overjoyed at seeing the star,

and on entering the house

they saw the child with Mary his mother.

They prostrated themselves and did him homage.

Then they opened their treasures

and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

From Matthew 2

In the darkness of the world, love shone through even brighter. That, too, is the nature of love – the darker the night, the brighter the star. With that in mind, I would like to invite you to join me in “The Love Project” (http://heidihesssaxton.wordpress.com/the-love-project/), a series of posts, quotes, and stories that showcase the many kinds of human love, and how that love images the love of God in the world. If you have a favorite quote or story that you would like to contribute, please either post a link on the website, or send it to me at Heidi.hess.saxton@gmail.com.

This project will continue every day through Valentine’s Day – and possibly after that, if enough people want to participate.  Each day I include a little “Today’s Love in Action” step to help you shine a little brighter in your corner of the world. I hope you find time to join us . . . and maybe leave a comment!

God bless you!

Life Rules for Foster (and all) Parents

Being a parent is one of the hardest jobs there is, and being a foster parent adds a whole new set of challenges to the mix. There are so many moments when I just want to wave the white flag of surrender. Keeping that in mind, I thought that this list of life rules for parenting was very good: Life Rules for Foster and All Parents

Do We Live "With" Others, Not Merely "Among" Them?

Charity Vogel raises this important question in her December 2012 article in St. Anthony Messenger: Grace in a Coffee Pot

We have become such a consumer-focused world, where everyone's individual tastes can be met. Vogel focuses on single-serve coffee packs, but the same is true of a lot of things. For example, there are 7 people in my family and we have six different brands of toothpaste that we buy. There are also several foods that we buy because it is one person's favorite and his or her special "treat."

I tell my children to "share" their toys - maintaining that they are actually communal property, but the refrain I hear from every last one of them most of the time is "That's mine!" (With mine pronounced in this long drawn-out way that makes it sound more like "Mayan.") Clearly, sharing is a difficult concept. We keep working on it.

Yes, the individual has taken precedence in this world. We want what we want when we want it the way we want it. We are becoming less and less willing to share what we have and sacrifice for the good of the whole, even among a unit as small as a family.

Vogel writes:


Look around your home or workplace, and it’s not hard to see other examples of this phenomenon in action. Find a house in this day and age in a new development that does not include double sinks in the master bathroom and it’s something of a novelty.

And yet what is this trend toward his-and-hers sinks but the most basic of household statements about the need for our own stuff, even after marriage, homebuilding, and the arrival of children?
Bathrooms in homes built in the World War II era—I know this because I used to live in one—had communal toothbrush holders bolted to the matching ceramic tile walls, ready for use. Today, many families can’t even spit into the same basin.

And yet coexisting is different from existing next to someone else, which is what the double-sink vanity asks us to do. In the past we never had to spell that concept out. Now we do.

How much of a surprise would it be, then, if people who make their own single-brew cups of coffee each morning, after brushing their teeth at their own private sinks, before reading newspapers on their own private iPads, lose something of the ability to live with others, not merely among them? That might not be the worry that keeps everybody awake at night, but it has given me pause. 


I think Vogel has given us something worth thinking about.

Weaving

I happened to open up my copy of Let Us Be What We Are: The Joys and Challenges of Living the Little Way and came across this poem by J.B. Tabb which really spoke to me today.


Weaving

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me;
I may not choose the colors,
He knows what they should be;
For He can view the patten 
Upon the upper side,
While I can see it only,
On this, the underside.

Sometimes He weaveth sorrow,
Which seemeth strange to me;
But I will trust His judgement,
And work on faithfully;
'Tis He who fills the shuttle,
He knows just what is best;
So I shall weave in earnest
And leave Him with the rest.

At last when life is ended,
With Him I shall abide,
Then I may view the pattern
Upon the upper side.
Then I shall know the reason
Why pain with joy entwined,
Was woven in the fabric
Of life that God entwined. 

- J.B. Tabb

51 Inspiring Ideas for Your Next Art Project

This is an article I wrote back in 2005.

Are you eager to begin that next painting, drawing or needlework project, but stumped for an idea? Let the list that follows offer some inspiration.

1) Trace a child's hand. Add his or her name and the date for a lasting momento.
2) Use a pattern from your favorite piece of dinnerware.
3) A favorite painting or print
4) A fishbowl
5) A baby stroller or bassinet
6) Your child's artwork
7) Use a pattern for a quilt block and create a "quilt" of stitches
8) A collection of leaves
9) A child's favorite toy or toys
10) A still-life of garden tools
11) The flowers you received for a special occasion
12) Wildflowers growing in your yard
13) A barnyard animal
14) A run-down barn
15) A stained glass window
16) A postcard from a much-loved vacation
17) Your house, or a portion thereof
18) A collection of acorns
19) The doodle you made while sitting in that boring meeting
20) Your dog or cat
21) A still-life of fruits or vegetables
22) An old or interesting piece of jewelry
23) Create an abstract image using a digital photo or scanned image and your computer's photo-manipulation software
24) A pattern from a piece of fabric
25) A houseplant
26) The view out your kitchen window
27) A hanging pot rack
28) A lantern
29) A wallpaper border
30) A piece of lace
31) Part of a city street
32) An old mill
33) A grouping of colorful buttons
34) Kitchen canisters
35) Leather-bound books on a bookshelf or table
36) An interesting lamp on an end table
37) A bottle of wine with glasses. Look at the way the light reflects, creating many colors.
38) A teapot with a teacup
39) A line from a favorite poem
40) A tree in winter - with or without snow
41) A wicker basket full of blankets
42) A rocking chair
43) Jelly or mason jars
44) An umbrella stand with umbrella
45) A fancy hat
46) A wreath decorated for a particular season
47) A grouping of seed packets
48) An antique doorknob
49) A park bench
50) A fireplace
51) Look around you and be inspired!

Sharing Some Archived Articles from the Spiritual Woman website

I've decided to stop updating my Spiritual Woman website. It was the website I first started when I started writing, in the days before blogs were common, but my blog has really taken the place of it and I never was able to make the website what I hoped it would be. I plan to leave the site up, at least for a year, so that people can have access to the archives.

In the meantime, I plan to share some of the still-relevant archived articles on this blog. I hope that you will enjoy them.

The Church and Mental Illness

Understanding of mental illness has come a long way in recent years. I'm old enough to remember a time when it wasn't talked about at all, or if it was, it was in hushed whispers as something shameful.

Yet, even today, many people still struggle with understanding it, especially if it isn't something they have ever experienced themselves. Very few people would ever tell someone with a cold (a relatively minor illness) or cancer (a much more serious illness) to just "Get over it" but that is often what happens when people suffer from a mental illness. While a cold or cancer is no fault of the person suffering, the same holds true of someone suffering from a mental illness. There is something amiss in the brain's chemistry. Being blamed for it, or told that it is only a figment of your imagination, only compounds the problem and makes the person not want to seek help.

How we respond to mental illness as a Church is important as well. A person's faith is often one of their strongest weapons in the battle to live with mental illness, and the support of a faith community is hugely important. The same is true when it is not the person himself who is suffering, but a family member such as a parent or a child.

This article in US Catholic offers some valuable insights into how the Church can help those battling mental illness: Parishes Called to Welcome and Support those with Mental Illness