Month: October 2013

making beauty in our lives

  This piece is being moved from a gallery in New Hampshire to Denver for an upcoming Exhibition on the Pentateuch.  It was first shown in a collection I did for the Museum of Fine Arts.  Each clay vessel in the show will reflect one of the books of the...

angels

It is their wings that fascinate me. I was never sure of Santa or the Easter Bunny and yet I did so love the merchandise so I held my tongue as kids do. But angels? It is preposterous that they not be real, like a rock or a funnel cake...

Sabbath rest and little martyrdoms

In the catacombs of Saint Callixtus outside Rome, lies the memorial to Saint Cecelia, the patron saint of music.  She was of an aristocratic family and was martyred in the 3rd century.  Her remains were transferred in the seventh century but this culture remains to mark the place in which...

the stewardship of quiet

  Today I will spend a bit of time assembling tomorrow's pic nic in the Denver Botanical Gardens with friends - a simple lunch of meats, cheeses, wine, tomatoes from a friend's garden, olives and stuffed grape leaves.  It will be a fun little project in what will be, today,...

the stewardship of our welcome

  We have this term in our language which refers to opportunity knocking. "When opportunity knocks" we say.  And to be honest, if there is a rest of that phrase, I am not sure what it is.  I guess we are to think that when opportunity knocks, we need to...

the stewardship of simplicity

  Sometimes the only thing to do is make some soup.  The ancient work of simmering food in liquid may be one of the most wonderful inventions in the history of mankind.  When the politics of church and state begin to rub the skin off, the best thing to do...

the stewardship of our inner monk

  Ringing the bell at the monastery was one of my jobs as cellarer.  As the cook of the monastery's house in the country, it was my job to ring the bell for the mid-day and evening offices which which preceded the meals -meals I had been cooking. The ancient...

The Feast of St. Francis

  Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace; Where there is hatred, let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is error, the truth; Where there is doubt, the faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, joy....

ruins in praise of God

This is one of a few photos I keep in a special file on my commuter to which I go when life gets hard.  It reminds me that this life is not about me.  It is not that I in any way diminish my grief and sadness, confusion and regret,...

A prayer for the stewardship of our light

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of...