The duck is stone, but the frog is real. ** Click to enlarge.
St. Francis thinks about it all.
Why is the stone bunny bigger than Francis?
In honor of the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, take a little time to slow down and contemplate the love of Godde and where the Spirit is leading you in your life.
+ Maya Pavlova has always had impeccable theological taste and I did not ask her to sit on this book several weeks ago when I took this picture. She chose it of her own volition. Because this book by Rosemary Ruether is called Gaia and God, I have called this photo "Maya and Gaia."
+Maya believes in your freedom of conscience and in the power of the laity, however many or few legs the laity may have, so she will not bully you into signing this letter. She does, however, invite you to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest its concerns.
Read the story behind the picture here.
Click photos to enlarge them.
Meanwhile, off to the kitchen to make salsa, the first homemade one of the summer. The tomatoes are in full glory at the farmers' markets and I also bought some hot little green peppers, ¡ay!, and there are onions in the house as always. And lime juice. And garlic, if I decide to include garlic. Much as I love garlic, I tend to leave it out of salsa. I will have to wait till tomorrow to put in fresh cilantro, which I neglected to get today, but the other ingredients are here, so I'll have a cilantro-less salsa tonight (with a little cumin in it) and a cilantro-fragrant one tomorrow. 
Giving thanks for the earth and all growing plants and the people who grown them.
I heard of Bishop Gallagher some years ago when she became a bishop, but discovered her blog when the Episcopal Café reported on the fact that she had been asked by Bishop Michael Smith of North Dakota (also a Native bishop - Potawatomi - he blogs here) to accompany those in the diocese who did not share his positions on human sexuality and other controversial matters. This is a first because he is a more "conservative" bishop and she a more "liberal" one (I try not to use those two terms, which have become either meaningless or likely to trigger quick reactions, so I put them in quotes) -- usually the more "liberal" make provisions for the "conversative" minority. Bishop Gallagher wrote about the decision and invitation here.
I think this photo is from the 1950s, but I am not 100% sure. This is one of the ways I remember my grandmother -- full of life and with a puppy in her hands! In the later 1950s, when I first came to Vermont as a very little girl, there were two St. Bernards at camp; their names were Jack and Jill.Not sure whether this is a St. Bernard puppy; maybe one of you dog experts can tell me. Most of the other dogs in the family were smaller breeds. The cats were of all types. Most of us grandchildren, interestingly, have become cat people -- but this may have something to do with the fact that we are mostly urban, though maybe not, because one of my urban cat-people cousins has adopted a dog this last year, in middle age (he's middle aged, not the dog) and in Manhattan. Anyway, although I was terrified of dogs all through childhood and adolescence (except for the St. Bernards, who were sweet and placid) and developed allergies to cats (eventually just to some, not others, which is why Maya Pavlova and I get along fine - she is one of the others), you can see why both +Maya and I are multi-species-friendly.
And now you know where I get the dark eyes and eyebrows and prematurely white hair!
(Well, prematurely some years ago. Not any more since I am no longer pre-mature.)
My grandmother died during my first year in college, in March 1970, ten years to the day after my grandfather.
The photo was clearly taken up at camp during the summer. That's the huge camp dining hall behind my grandmother, and that's an Adirondack chair she's sitting in, wearing shorts and a summer top. I was one of the few 1950s and 1960s kids I knew who had a grandmother who wore shorts. (She also is the person who gave me my first Beatles record -- an LP from England on the Parlophone label.) During the year, my grandparents lived in Brooklyn, New York (this is why P.J. and I are sort of related), which according to my mother was almost rural during her childhood in the 1920s and 1930s. She remembers a dairy farm up the road! Times have changed. By the time I first visited Brooklyn in 1957 and then 1960, it was a big city, and as a little girl from Paris I thought it very strange. But that is a story for another day.
What do you mean, you're going to a retreat center for the day and you have to close my window? Also, the BBC has the story, so it must be true. ;-)
Alleluia. Oremus.* which is a theological matter and not just "about discrimination" - as if the two were ever separate. Still, it sounds as if Christians did listen to one another at the gathering, which may be as much a sign of hope as the actual news.
Ruth Gledhill has full detail, for those of you who are inclined in that direction and have time to read.
Today is the birthday of the Russian-French painter Marc Chagall, one of my favorite artists.
I have a small lithograph of the above in my study. (Back in the 1970s, you could find 'em cheap in a French art magazine called Derrière le Mirroir.) 
Chagall is not all flowers and flights of fancy. The painting below, "White Crucifixion," was occasioned by his reflection on the Shoah (Holocaust) and the decades of persecution and pogroms suffered by Chagall's Jewish neighbors and kin in his native Russia.
One also wonders whether the story of the Jewish artist in Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev (am I remembering the right book?) and his use of crucifixion as a symbol in his painting was in any way inspired by Potok's viewing of this painting. Just a speculation, but it's possible. 
Nephew the Younger, to the delight of everyone in the family, is in the wine biz. Alas, he lives in Italy (and is not to be confused with Nephew the Elder, who lives in Portugal) so it's a little hard for Auntie Jane R to bop on over and mooch freebies from him. He is also a cat person and Her Grace Maya Pavlova and I have sent him love and feline vibrations on this auspicious day.
And a couple more...
This next one is part of Chagall's series inspired by the Song of Songs.
This is a view of one of the more beautiful parts of Cascais, Portugal, where I won't be going this summer.
