7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. XLI)

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Winter snow on Wednesday:

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Snowfall in New England always reminds me of Robert Frost, though there are more winter poems in his corpus than "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening."

Looking for some of these other poems after this week's snowfall, I came across "Birches."  Here's Frost reading his poem:

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Re-read this week:

If you are willing to bear serenely the trial of being displeasing to yourself, then you will be for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter. (St. Thérèse of Lisieux)

When Christ admonishes not to judge, that means we may not pass judgment on ourselves.  We can be neither more merciful nor more just than God.  We cannot presume on His mercy, but we cannot also presume on His justice. 

Sometimes the largest cross we carry is the burden of ourselves -- that's often how I find myself.  If, in humility, we could look upon ourselves with the eyes of Divine Mercy, as God does, perhaps we would find our selves less burdensome.  Perhaps we might even learn to love ourselves as we should -- and in doing so, love our neighbor and God better.

Such delight God takes in us -- amazing, isn't it?  That He loved us from before the creation of the world, and is so madly in love with us that He offers us Himself, again and again, through prayer and in the Sacraments.

So I will bear with being displeasing to myself better this year, with God's grace.

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"I have a dream..."

I was a small boy when I first heard a recording of this speech.  It moved me deeply, and even more so now.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

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My love told me earlier this week about an article in the January/February 2013 issue of Yankee Magazine titled, "In Search of New England's Classic Cocktail," by Wayne Curtis.  It's a great article for cocktail aficionados, and it was fascinating to learn about several distilleries trying to revive the production of rum in New England, where it long had a base until Prohibition.  Might have to check out some of these distilleries and their products.

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I discovered a winter farmers' market near me last weekend while out walking with my love.  Wohoo! Fresh winter greens and root vegetables, among other things. Just seeing the fresh local produce made my heart sing! Hoping to go back this weekend and do some shopping.

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Someone asked me if there was a prayer of blessing for a house.  During the course of our search, I came across a prayer of blessing for bacon or lard.  Huh.  Who knew such a thing existed?

See you Tuesday, readers! Monday is the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday, and I won't be posting then.

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