March 1. 2014

March 1. 2014

Dear Friends,

As usual, we are apologizing for the weather–I mean OUR weather. The forsythia has been fooling around with buds. NO good to warn it that it is ahead of time and watch out; you may get nipped. The little plum tree is flowering outside the refectory, and the flowering pear in the garth is sending its glorious white blossoms up and over the roof. It’s WARM, folks.

We have about finished our House Report. We are most certainly “lovers of the place”, as our primitive documents state it. The beautiful western landscape works its way into our hearts and into every second of our lives. It rests on and in our memories and our motives until we seem to ourselves to be made of the sky, the whirling dust, the gold grass, and the (occasionally) green.

It is tomorrow, and lo some rain. it came from California, which is getting whopped with a surplus. when your land has been dry (and hard) for so long and suddenly is unable to absorb rain, you get landslides. Poor California.

We have finished the House Report. And oh it’s really raining, slanted from the west–CALIFORNIA. You can’t imagine the sunrises and sunsets we have had lately. Blazing in the morning, and in the evening, reds, oranges and the softest of lavender, million dollar views.

The Rosemont Mine people are assured that they can get their permits by the end of the month. Now think of the plight of the native Americans–just one of the issues involved. That land is sacred. The remains of their people and their sacred objects are buried there. Imagine what is going to be dug up and tossed on piles of tailings, or sent off to be smelted with the ore.

We have Father Olaf offering Mass for us right now, our dear friend from Germany who comes for a retreat every year before Lent. He and his co-priest serve thirteen parishes.

Happy Lent and a super-happy Easter. Easter spells HOPE.