Bits and Pieces of Our Days

The other day, when Ramona came in from playing in the snow, she said, "My mittens are soaked to their little cloth bones. Poor dears." She'd been busy making this guy:

*****

Betsy got the part of an angel in a play at church (last year I was the director, but this year I will be a calm, contented audience member.)  I'm happy for Betsy because she got just the part she wanted.  And although Betsy is a wonderful actress, this part won't be much of a stretch. She is an angel. She is walking, breathing proof that God is good. She's a middle child, just as I was, so I do worry about her a little for that reason. But mostly I just look at her and sigh. Where does God get ideas like Betsy?  I don't know, but I'm just so glad He gave her to us.

*****

Anne-with-an-e (who is also walking, breathing proof that God is good) is eagerly awaiting an upcoming unit in her biology class: dissection. Her best friend and lab partner, S., is not terribly eager and wishes we could stick to virtual dissection, as in the squeamish-friendly website, Froguts.  I seem to recall, from my high school days, thinking that dissection, while leaning toward the icky, was actually quite interesting.  Anne takes it beyond "quite interesting."  She loves this kind of thing. So why doesn't she enjoy making dinner and prepping raw chicken?

*****

Ramona loves to draw. Yesterday she presented me with the following picture of "Mary, the Blessed Virgin" which, since it was drawn on a whiteboard, I had to capture on film:

*****

We went to confession last week. We stopped in at a church in the area that has a relic of the Cross near the Tabernacle. I'm always tempted, with relics, to fall into a new realm of awe, to consider what (and Who) has been in the presence of a given object. The Cross? Really? The wood that actually held His Body? But then, I'm always overcome by a different, familiar, yet-never-old, always-new kind of awe, the awe that drew me into the Catholic Church, the awe that keeps me there, the awe that moves me to tears and makes me feel very small and incongruously large in God's eyes: the awe that comes from the knowledge that I have the opportunity to receive that very Body at each and every Holy Mass that I attend. He's always there. More real than wood. Every Catholic church is holy ground.  And for awhile, after I have received His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, I am walking holy ground for a time. I cling to that, as tangibly as one can cling to wood.

*****

This morning, as Atticus and I sleepily prayed Lauds, I was suddenly reminded of a quote from Garrison Keillor:

"Thank you, God, for this good life, and forgive us if we do not love it enough."

*****

It's my Baptismal Birthday! Twenty years ago today, I was baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  

Thank you God, for this good life.