The Rich Man and Lazarus

Sunflowers that planted themselves under the bird feeders

The Gospel reading yesterday was one of my favorite parables.

Jesus said to the Pharisees:
"There was a rich man who dressed in purple garments and fine linen and dined sumptuously each day. And lying at his door was a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, who would gladly have eaten his fill of the scraps that fell from the rich man's table. Dogs even used to come and lick his sores.When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried, and from the netherworld, where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus at his side. And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.' Abraham replied, 'My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented. Moreover, between us and you a great chasm is established to prevent anyone from crossing who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’ He said, 'Then I beg you, father, send him to my father's house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.' But Abraham replied, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.' He said, 'Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.' Then Abraham said, 'If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.'" (Luke 16:19-31)

Sugar maple in my backyard

That  story gets to me every time I hear it.

Some years ago, a small group of friends and I gathered for prayer and to study the scriptures. We got to talking about the good things that God is doing throughout the world. "I want to be a part of what God is doing in the world today," someone said; "I want to do something big for God." This is what everyone wants--to do something great, something that makes a difference. But, God has called us to lighten the load and brighten the days of the people in our own house, those we work with, the people we meet as we go about our business each day, our neighbors, and we can't even do that. We resist doing the work God has put before us. We don't want to feed these people; we want to feed the starving children in Africa!

I love this parable, because of the way it illustrates human nature. We live our lives thinking: "If only I had (fill in the blank) then I could do great things for God." But, God has already given us everything we need to love and serve Him. And, there is Lazarus lying on our doorstep. 

Right Here, Right Now

Guess what's baking in my oven right now, filling my house with its delicious aroma?

We went apple picking on Friday, all seven of us (the third photo above is a shot of all five of my "babies"). It was a beautiful autumn day, perfect for a country outing. We walked through the pumpkin patch and down dirt roads to get to the orchard. After picking, we ate just-fried apple-cinnamon donuts and drank farm fresh milk and cider. Then we visited the farm animals and hand-fed them cracked corn.

Tonight, we're catching up on episodes of Broadchurch and Sleepy Hollow, I've got my knitting in my lap, and there's warm apple crisp and vanilla ice cream for dessert. Life doesn't get any better than right here, right now.

Making and Reading

 

I'm knitting a simple pair of self-striping socks in the colors of September: wild aster, goldenrod, and jewelweed orange. I'm just at the place to start the heel of the first sock. I'm going to do a short-row heel from leftover gold yarn, so as not to disturb the effect of the nice pretty stripes.

I'm reading Weird Massachusetts, which is part of a series of unusual travel guides--perhaps you can find one for your state. I am learning all kinds of interesting things and gathering lots of ideas for places to visit. It's very entertaining and a little creepy to know how many strange phenomena have occurred around here.

A bit unsetlling, isn't it? Our silly doberman pup likes to look at me through the kitchen window while I do the dishes. She's nine months old now and getting B I G.

What are you reading and making these days?

Joining Ginny in her weekly Yarn Along.

Hammond Castle

 

On Saturday morning the girls, Luke and I drove up to Gloucester and visited a castle.  It was astounding.

The castle was built in 1926 by John Hays Hammond Jr., who was a scientist, inventor and avid collector of Medieval and early Renaissance artifacts. He wrote in a letter:

For the last three years I motored many miles through Europe.  After traveling all day, I would arrive at my destination to see a church, a cathedral, a town hall, a scrap of Roman wall or viaduct, a colosseum or an ancient theatre.  It was always a piece of architecture that suddenly dissipated the obscurity of time and brought the living presence back of all ages.  It is in the stones and wood that the personal record of man comes down to us.  We call it atmosphere, this indescribable something that still haunts old monuments.  You can read history, you can visit a hundred museums containing their handiwork, but nothing can reincarnate their spirit except to walk through rooms in which they have lived and through the scenes that were the background of their lives.  It is a marvelous thing, this expression of human ideals in walls and windows. (Unpublished letter, 1929)

He built the castle as a wedding gift to his wife Irene Fenton Hammond. The couple lived in the castle all of their lives.

       

The castle sits on a cliff at the edge of the sea. When we arrived in the morning, the view was veiled by mist.

John Hammond Jr. was an interesting man. He invented the remote control and over 800 other inventions. He held 400 patents--the most next to Thomas Edison. He had a fascination with the occult and conducted telepathic experiments. "He tried to mix science and magic as the key to immortality. He is said to have built a contraption to trap ghosts, and kept his father's corpse in his basement laboratory for years, attempting to reanimate it." (Weird Massachusetts, by Jeff Belanger 2008, article by Mike Carey).

Hammond Jr. was an animal lover and had many pet Siamese cats. When he died, his instructions were to place his body in a crypt with his mummified cats. He ordered that the crypt be planted over with poison ivy to ward off ghouls (grave robbers). Even so, his crypt was broken into and his skull stolen (ibid).

He left the property to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, who later sold it. It is now a museum. Several live-in caretakers have claimed that the castle is haunted (from the website: History of Massachusetts). It is notable that author H.P. Lovecraft visited the castle and went on to write horror stories about a mad scientist living north of Salem, Massachusetts, who tried to raise the dead (Belanger/Carey).

How I loved this library! I would have liked to take more interior photos, because the rooms were so gorgeous and creepy--filled with 1,000 year old artifacts from Medieval Europe--, but I wasn't sure if it was allowed. I found out later that only commercial photography is prohibited.

  

 This gargoyle gives you the shivers as you pass through the stone archway.

It was a wonderful place, full of wonder, mystery and the magic of ancient things.

Knitting, Reading, Doing

 

 

These are the Optimistic Mitts (free pattern) knit in Cascade Superwash 220 pumpkin spice. I opted for antique looking metal buttons that feature a coat of arms. My daughter loves them. : )

I'm still reading A Walk In the Woods aloud to my family in the evenings, which everyone is enjoying. It's interesting and funny, although I do have to come up with creative edits for the many swears, like, "What the Fandago was that?" For personal reading, I've been flipping through magazines and catalogs and loving all of the autumn photos and ideas. I'm also reading Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent, which is a really good, well-told historical novel about the last young woman to be publicly beheaded in Iceland, in the nineteenth century. I am loving the description of 19th century life in Iceland (I love Iceland and would love to go there someday).

My son brought me home a treat last night:

Little 'Stovers decorated with cute vintage-y Hallowe'en pictures. The chocolates were yummy--and yay, it's time for spooks and pumpkin lanterns!

Last night I finally signed up for Pinterest. I spent an hour mindlessly creating boards and "pinning" things that I liked. It seemed pretty pointless. But, then this picture of me began to emerge--my tastes, my personality, the hidden spirit of myself. And, it was kind of neat. I might play Pinterest again later today. ♥

Joining Ginny for her Wednesday Yarn Along.

Sparrow and Secrets

I found this little male house sparrow limping in my backyard yesterday. He appeared stunned. Perhaps he flew into a window or something. I picked him up and put him in our old bird cage so he could rest. He was so tiny and light; it was like holding air. I gave him food and water and left him alone for an hour.

When I came back, he looked better. I took the top off the cage to see if he was recovered enough to fly. I kept my distance and watched over him. After twenty minutes or so he took off for the trees.

I read something wonderful in the newspaper yesterday. It is called secret fore-edge painting. After reading about it, I want to do it to all of my favorite books. Wouldn't it be fun? I like secret things. It is fun to leave messages for people to find: a tiny envelope stuck in a tree hollow with a feather inside, a ribbon-tied scroll in a colored-glass bottle, a Victorian-folded note left on a window ledge. My children and I used to enjoy letterboxing, which is an outdoor mystery that ends in discovering a lovely secret.

I love secrets, and mysteries, and books, and small wild things. ♥

Wingaersheek

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

  

 

We woke up to rain and gray skies, but the kids said, "Let's just go to the beach anyway." By the time we packed our picnic lunch and our towels and sand buckets, the rain had stopped and the sky had begun to clear.

The shore was heavenly. The dogs ran. The kids waded. We found interesting shells, a mermaid's purse (skate egg), a large hermit crab, and an anemone in a tide pool. Gulls wheeled and cried (and stole some of our lunch).

On the way home the sky began to darken again. We just made it home before the rain came.

I'm so glad we went and got to enjoy those few hours of sunshine. ♥ 

Next Week

September roses from my garden.

"Indiana Jones" getting a drink from the kitchen sink.

Our first day back to lessons required abandoning all plans to follow my littlest's interest, which currently is bears. He woke up that morning crying that he hates "school" and "why can't it still be summer?" So, I gathered all of the field guides and books on the topic I could find and we sat on the couch and read about black bears, brown bears, polar bears, Asiatic honey bears, spectacled bears, panda bears. He colored a bear picture. We did some letter and number work. Then we made slime in the kitchen, which was a big hit. Somehow, despite an unhappy start, we managed to get all of our lesson work done. However, that evening the stomach virus hit: first Amy, then Emmeline and me the next night. Two full days of it in the midst of a late summer heatwave with temps over 90°. That put an end to our lessons and our first week back to "school".

We're all feeling a lot better today, but taking it easy. Tomorrow, we plan to drive up to the beach with the dogs. It's supposed to be cooler by then. It will be fun to climb on the rocks, explore the tide pools, and hunt for shells and beach glass. I love the sparkling sand, the grassy dunes, the roar and crash of the waves and the endless blue.

We'll have another go at lessons again next week. ♥

September Diary | 8th

   

On September evenings I like to sit on my deck and watch the bats wing wildly against the sky as I listen to the music of insects: crickets, greater angel wings, and katydids. They are LOUD--it is more of a rock concert than a symphony. In September it is hard to believe that in two short months nature will go to sleep and all will be silent. It is easier to believe in snow. It was cold last night. I had to put on a sweater. And socks. How quickly cold comes to New England. 

We went to the flea market up in Rowley this morning. First, we had a proper New England breakfast (donuts and coffee). Then, we walked among the hundreds of tables and blankets laden with old treasures. I've been looking for an old fashioned rotary telephone for my kitchen. They had a few, but not one that I really wanted. However, there was a teeny tiny ceramic house I liked that would have fit nicely on my window ledge. The seller was asking six dollars for it. I thought that was too much. I didn't buy anything this time, but I had fun looking.That's what my father calls an excellent shopping trip. : )

Trixie and Lucy-two of our little red hens

This afternoon we walked the dogs in the woods and admired the banks of goldenrod. It's an easy walk down a dirt road. I finished reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed last week. She hiked 1,800 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. She was not an athlete or an experienced hiker and she had only limited camping experience. She was twenty-six years old--a woman alone in the wilderness. Now, I'm reading aloud Bill Bryson's, A Walk In the Woods to my family. He walked the 2,169 mile Appalachian Trail as an unfit forty-four year old. Both authors said they have never been so ill-prepared to do a thing as they were to hike those long mountain trails. But, they did it--they did it.

Tomorrow is the first day of the fall semester in our little home school--back to our daily lesson work. Only my girls and Luke are left under my tutelage this year; Seth and Zach have moved on to their own plans and higher education. Our learning days will have an entirely different atmosphere with only the four of us at the table. We're eager to get started and are looking forward to bright days ahead. ♥

Catching Up

 

It's been a couple of busy weeks since I've written here. I went to Florida to attend the wedding of a dear friend's son during that time. It was a beach wedding with palm trees and beach oats waving in the sultry breeze at the edge of the clear blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico. It was beautiful. It was hot. It was good to be with our friends, but I realized that I could never be happy living in a place of endless summer. Little lizards skittered along the pavement and up the sides of buildings as plentiful as ants. At night, the frogs sang love songs; they were as big as my hand.

At home, I've been fall cleaning--getting ready for cold weather (and snow ♥). I still have a bit more to do, but I made good progress this week, despite Luke's coming down with a fever. An hour west of here, there is a frost warning tonight. It seems so early to me, but already the trees are beginning to change. I wonder if it will be an early winter. It is currently 50° F outside.

My roses are in their last flush of the season, and they are so lovely. My orange "Brandy" tea roses are especially beautiful--I think they could win at the Fair if I entered them in the rose show. 

The other day, my children and I decided that pugs aren't really dogs. They are something else entirely, although we are not sure what. It is possible that they are alien beings from outerspace (we think). They might be part cat. And walrus.

Yesterday I made one of my family's favorite recipes: The Best Baked Donuts Ever. It is from an old cookbook that I received as a bridal shower gift twenty-five years ago, called Applehood and Motherpie. These faux donuts are scrumptious and make a perfect fall morning breakfast or afternoon treat:

Oven: 350° F                       Yield: 42 mini donuts

1 c butter softened
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
3 c flour
4 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 heaping t nutmeg
1 c milk
1/2 t cinnamon

1. Blend 1/2 cup plus 2 T butter with 1 cup of the sugar. Add the eggs and mix well.
2. Stir together flour, baking soda, and nutmeg. Add to the butter and sugar mixture.
3. Blend in the milk and mix together.
4. Fill greased mini muffin pans 2/3 full. Bake until donuts are golden brown (15 to 20 minutes).
5. Combine remaining 1/2 c of the sugar with the cinnamon.
6. Melt remaining 6 T butter.
7. While donuts are still warm, roll them in melted butter, then in cinnamon sugar.

YUM!

Have a wonderful weekend,

Susan ♥