Journal

2014 Journal

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...

2014 Journal

We just had an adventure. Of course, adventures are not anything unusual for us. We had a golf cart that is a Godsend for our guest mistress when she has to take food and cleaning supplies to the retreat house. But unfortunately, it bit the dust. So today, a lovely family of friends brought a replacement, a reconditioned cart with a windshield and the kind of second seat that can fold back to carry loads. They also brought a baby to show us, the fourth generation of those who came. It's really beautiful so see such an extended family showing off the youngest member. (She was dressed for Valentine's Day.) We encouraged her to crawl around on our magnificent new chapel carpe...

2014 Journal

Dear Friends, We are more. Our dear Sr Jacqui has officially changed her Stability to Santa Rita's in a lovely ceremony on the first of February. Vicki stood beside her after the homily, and we all went up at the conclusion to give her the Peace. She was delighted that the flowers in the sanctuary were--"the white rose of York"! It was accidental, since we failed to remember that her family comes from Yorkshire. God provided. More later. there has been trouble with posting the journal entries. Love from all your sisters.

2013 Journal

Dear Friends, We are having a (sort of) rainy day. Can you imagine. Our climate, when it’s normal, does provide winter rains. The only trouble is that it hasn’t been normal for over a dozen  years.      Do pray for the backbone of the Environmental Protection Agency. The proposed Rosemont Mine, which would be an environmental disaster, needs a permission regarding the Clean Water Act, and the EPA has come down hard on withholding that. Keep praying that this holds strong, and our air, water, roads, natural beauty, and silence will no longer remain threatened—not to mention the tourist industry on which our local economy is based. Our Sister Cathy, who has been with us six or seven years, had...

2013 Journal

November 4, 2013 Dear Friends, If you remember, last year about this time a large flock of sparrows descended upon us and remained until spring; they are back. They congregate around the tree wells filled with water. They and the ravens get along well. The ravens get along well with the dog too. We have two pecan trees, and the ravens adore pecans. They either pick them off the tree or eat those fallen to the ground or both. The other day they were pecking around under the tree that is in the dog’s yard, and the dog was ignoring them from about ten feet away. When the sparrows fly together, they are like a snow storm sweeping across the...

2013 Journal

The tomatoes have advanced into whatever paradise God has prepared for fruit and vegetables. Esther has dumped the soil from their pots and picked both the green and red remnants of a  happy season. Never have I lived in such close proximity to the life cycle of a tomato. There they were, seven pots of seven plants climbing their stakes right under my very nose outside the window of my choir stall. There they were, progressing from seedling to expanding foliage to leafy branches decked with green glossy fruit--to big fat red fruits. Then the red ones would disappear from the garden to reappear on the refectory table. I think there is not enough sun for proper development where they were...

2013 Journal

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013 Dear Friends, The year is winding down toward Advent. More about that later. Yesterday the president fulfilled his office as Mourner in Chief—for the fifth time in a full scale shooting incident. One of the tragedies had been in our beloved Tucson. Yesterday’s was in the DC Navy Yard. Deaths that did not have to be. Hearts that did not have to be broken. Good, hard working people who woke to a day whose ending they did not know they would not see. Three of us attended a memorial service on the 14th that was very different. J.D. (Braz) Braswell was a dear friend of the community, an extraordinary kind of person whose life is especially poignant...

2013 Journal

Dear Friends, our landscape gives us a deal of fun at this time of year. No longer beige and brown, no longer the cheerful austerity of what I think of as "God's bones." but grass and more grass to the extent of our wondering whether Abel can keep up with it and give us defensive space before he has to come to an end of his summer work.     We do not have the seasons of the East, but our very own variety of       change. If only the peace of our fields and mountains could invade and possess all the human hearts in the world... our beautiful pampas...

2013 Journal

With Fr Robert returned to his monastery, we went off to Mass on Saturday evening, driving through lush green hills and past herds of cattle munching away at the unaccustomed luxury of all this greenery. The monsoon rains, such as they are, have wrought a radical change in our world. You’ve never seen it like this. Well, maybe last year, but you’ve forgotten. Then when we arrive at the church which is on a side-street in the little town of Patagonia, what should we see but what I thought was a bride. A wedding at 5:30 in the evening? No it was a quinceanera, the celebration of a girl’s fifteenth year. Of course there will be a party. But right...

2013 Journal

We just had a real rainstorm. It lasted five minutes, but what can you expect. It was honest rain and even hail, with a lot of wind. The Monsoons have not yet evaporated. There has been trouble with some type of caterpillar. They ate one whole walnut tree outside the Altar Bread building, and have moved on to the pecan tree in the dog yard. In addition, this is the season in which flies and gnats seek shelter within doors. They are little creatures of God, but STILL... The Holy Father has asked for a day of fast and prayer on Saturday. So we moved our Friday soup-and-bread lunch to Saturday, and included in our Celebration of Word and Communion a prayer for...