San Francisco Christmastime

Yesterday friend K. and little T. and I went to The City for the second of our annual Christmas outing.

First we stopped by Union Square to see the Christmas tree. My photo is from last year, but this year's looked just the same. And this year the giant tree was an "85-foot Shasta White Fir from the Carlton Tree Farm in Mount Shasta."

The St. Francis Hotel features an elevator with windows looking out on the Square, so we rode up to the 31st floor and down several times.

Then on to lunch at the famous John's Grill. The restaurant has good food, and a replica of the maltese falcon from the movie by that name, hearkening to a scene from the movie shot in the restaurant. A couple of years ago the "original replica" was stolen, so this one is new copy.



John's Grill is a favorite spot for politicians to meet for lunch, and you can see framed photographs of various famous people all over the walls. Right above our table was a picture of our former-maybe-future governor with a past owner in 1984.

We rode the cablecar  as we did last year. This time T. was happy to watch the guys adjust the cables at the end of the line and push the car into position for its return ascent.



After a steep ride that had T. and me hanging on to our post and sliding down the seat nevertheless, we arrived on Nob Hill, where after the 1906 earthquake and fire, big hotels were built and named after the wealthy people whose mansions in that neighborhood had been destroyed. I enjoyed the grandeur of the Fairmont Hotel, its spaciousness and the marble columns.

Even the gingerbread house was on a large scale, and made with real gingerbread and gumdrops, half a ton of ingredients and days and days of work. I was impressed by the silky evenness of the ribbon candy, as I've recently been on the hunt for some for my father-in-law. What I found in the supermarket is downright ugly compared with this.

It smelled rich and gingery, too!

We were on our way to Grace Cathedral, also on Nob Hill. The original church was also destroyed in 1906, and the new cathedral not complete until the 1960's. K.'s parents were married here. 

The crèche was my favorite part of our time in the cathedral.

Chinatown brought us back to the hustle and bustle.

This year's oddity was these dragons made out of rope...

...and in another window, this year's winner of the Christmasy Shoes contest.

Last year I snapped pigs resting in a Chinatown window. They were there again yesterday--or had they ever left? Those pigs prophesied of this morning, when I slept late, dreaming that I was writing a novel.

A relaxed outing, a lazy morning....it's the last I'll see of those for the next week. I'm going to enter to fray in earnest, now.

Homesick in Our Homes

Christmas Poem by G.K. Chesterton

There fared a mother driven forth
Out of an inn to roam;
In the place where she was homeless
All men are at home.
The crazy stable close at hand,
With shaking timber and shifting sand,
Grew a stronger thing to abide and stand
Than the square stones of Rome.

For men are homesick in their homes,
And strangers under the sun,
And they lay their heads in a foreign land
Whenever the day is done.

Here we have battle and blazing eyes,
And chance and honour and high surprise,
But our homes are under miraculous skies
Where the yule tale was begun.

A child in a foul stable,
Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where He was homeless
Are you and I at home;
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost—how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.

This world is wild as an old wife’s tale,
And strange the plain things are,
The earth is enough and the air is enough
For our wonder and our war;
But our rest is as far as the fire-drake swings
And our peace is put in impossible things
Where clashed and thundered unthinkable wings
Round an incredible star.

To an open house in the evening
Home shall all men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home.

Thanks to semicolon where I found this poem today, a good reminder of important truths of the season.  This Advent period is when we remember how we are "homesick in our homes." The reality of that estrangement and fallenness and longing is a good bit of why we get physically sick, or sick and tired of various features of our earthly life.

O Come, O Come, Emmanuel!

Colorful, Loud, or Quiet Traditions

It wasn't unusual to hear sirens in the neighborhood this evening. We aren't far from the thoroughfare down which most fire trucks travel on their way to emergencies. But from the kitchen the sounds were a little different this time, and I wondered if there was an emergency on our street, so I went out front and indeed, there were the flashing lights, just two houses down.

Next door I could see the shape of my neighbor, so I crossed the grass and asked her what was going on. It's Toys for Tots, she said. They do this every year. The fire truck leads a procession including Santa and reindeer, and makes stops in different neighborhoods each night to collect toys for needy children. The well-off neighbor tots were running out of their houses to donate gifts and get a chance to hop up in the sleigh for a picture with Santa.

Sure enough, I read the several days-old newspaper when I came back indoors and found out that this has been going on under my nose--or in my front yard, to be exact--for many years. I'm embarrassed to let on how out of touch with the town events I am. My nose was in a book or sniffing a pot of soup, I suppose. Or maybe we were driving around town with the children to see all the houses with their fancy light displays.

I have been enjoying the beginnings of decorating. So many of our beloved tree ornaments have been gifts from someone, and I usually can't remember who! The little Czech doll at top I know came from our dear little Czech lady friend, no longer with us, and the the lamp-shaped glass ornament is very old, having been used by B.'s family for decades before it came to our house.

When the children were young, they and I would make various kinds of ornaments, and one of the early projects was a choir of angels made from wood shavings. They have been very durable and the largest always graces the top of the tree.

But for the last several years my favorite ornaments are real or glittery glass pine cones, and birds, like this staring owl given me by H. Much if not all of his plumage is made of bark and other plant fibers; she's also given me wooden birds whose feathers are real feathers.

So...I've gotten started installing our traditional and longstanding Christmas decor. I hope soon to show my newer cozy and festive elements. And I have to say, I've been enjoying looking at photos of Christmas all over Blogland. Thank you all!

Silence and Music

My last post remembering Saint Herman prompted Pom Pom to ask me if I had read The Music of Silence, book she had just received in the mail. I haven't read such a book, so I googled it and immediately have several tangents to run along now. I don't know if she meant this memoir of Andrea Bocelli, or this one about singing the Hours or services of the church through the day in Gregorian Chant.

One reviewer wrote of the latter book, "Nothing is as ordinary, or as sacred, as time. Far from being an infinitesimally small unit of measurement or a means of separating one event from another, time provides the means by which the still, small, silent voice of God may be heard."

Silence....hmmm....I know so little of it.

When I read about music, silence, solitude, it can be an inspiration and a reminder, but my readings and thinkings are typically like so many rabbit trails, to use a term that hints at the fun of scurrying from one author or thought to another. A rabbit is doing what he was made to do, and glorifies God by it. I was made to live by the Holy Spirit in communion with my Creator.

So I need to STOP on the trail and pray--and maybe even get off the trail sometimes! It wasn't books and ideas that made it possible for Father Herman to sing with the angels. It was prayer. The kind of prayer St Isaac of Syria is talking about when he says, "The wisdom of the Holy Spirit is much greater than the wisdom of the entire world. Within the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, silence prevails; the wisdom of the world, however, goes astray into idle talk."

My mind is given to talking idly with itself. So much of my remembering of my Savior is like the awareness I might have of an earthly friend when she is in the room with me, but I am not paying close attention. I might hear her talking without really listening, I might even speak with her--but not make eye contact.

Don't we all have this weakness in our human condition, worsened by modern life, that we can't settle our minds down firmly even when in prayer? Abba Dorotheus of Gaza said, "Just as it is easier to sin in thought than in deed, correspondingly, it is more difficult to struggle with thoughts than with deeds."

But as C.S. Lewis said, "Virtue--even attempted virtue [I hope this includes attempted prayer]--brings light; indulgence brings fog." So I will keep struggling in prayer, to push past the distractions, to listen for the Silence that is God's music.

It's not the wonderful blog posts and the writers of them that are my problem. Nor my own writing, because just the discipline of organizing the chaos at least gets me on the road to taking every thought captive to Christ, though my readers might legitimately question how often I get to my destination. With God's help, I know His presence and see His working in the world by the goings-on of the blogosphere and the piles of books throughout my house. Glory to God for all things! Lord, have mercy!

One more rabbit trail, leading quickly to the spot where all those paths ought eventually to end up, was posted by hiddenart this month, a poem by George Herbert:

Christmas

The shepherds sing;
and shall I silent be?
My God, no hymn for Thee?
My soul's a shepherd too;
a flock it feeds
Of thoughts, and words, and deeds.
The pasture is Thy word:
the streams, Thy grace,
Enriching all the place.
Shepherd and flock shall sing,
and all my powers
Outsing the daylight hours.
Then will we chide the sun for letting night
Take up his place and right:
We sing one common Lord;
wherefore he should
Himself the candle hold.

I will go searching, till I find a sun
Shall stay, till we have done;
A willing shiner, that shall shine as gladly,
As frost-nipped suns look sadly.
Then will we sing, and shine all our own day,
And one another pay:
His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine,
Till ev'n His beams sing, and my music shine.
 

St Herman

On December 13th we remember the repose of St Herman of Alaska, a monk who was sent from Russia to America in 1794 as part of the original Russian Orthodox mission to Alaska.

Many stories of his more than four decades there can be found here, the following among them:

The Aleuts related that when Father Herman was still alive and lived on Spruce Island, the local inhabitants used to go to the Elder for some reason or other. And more than once it happened thus: They approached the chapel where he celebrated divine services, and they heard superb choral singing, a multitude of voices singing. They wondered where the people had come from. And all this time the singing was clearly audible, and such harmonious, sweet singing . . .

They opened the door into the little chapel, and there Father Herman stood alone reading, chanting half aloud, celebrating the Lord's service. And of course he was alone and there was no one there with him. ... And such a thing was noticed more than once. It was angels of God who sang praises to the Lord with him.

The biography of Father Herman records the following incident. The Elder was asked: "How do you live alone in the forest, Father Herman? Don't you become bored?"

He replied: "No! I am not alone there! God is there, as God is everywhere. Holy Angels are there. How can one become bored with them? With whom is it better and more pleasant to converse, with men or with Angels? With Angels, of course!"

 I am most familiar with this quote from Father Herman, which is included in the icon of him in our church and is worth meditating on the year round: "...let us make a vow to ourselves, that from this day, from this hour, from this very moment, we shall strive above all else to love God and to fulfill His Holy Will!"

    

Bird Food Improved Upon

I am inspired by a blog on Brussels sprouts and peanuts here to prepare the recipe posted. Also to tell you my own story of birds and sprouts. Missing from my story are the peanuts.

This is what the vegetable should look like before it is harvested, but my own try at growing these impressive stalks didn't work out as planned. At the time when little buds should be growing into big sprouts, there was nothing but  big, bare stems. Could the flocks of quail who frequented our back yard have anything to do with this? I knew they ate the leaves on top....

Eventually I took the time to examine those stems up close, and there were indeed little sprouts on them, the size of pinheads, and never able to grow larger. My plants had been so starved by the constant bird pruning that they had nothing to put toward production of fruit.

I love to cook Brussels sprouts, and even B. has overcome his off-putting childhood initiation so that now he happily eats them. Cooked, mind you. Once as a little boy he was accompanying a farmer friend of the family on a walk through the vegetable garden when the man plucked a sprout off the stalk and handed it to young B. saying, "Here, try it, it's a Brussels sprout." B. obediently chewed the raw sprout and found it the most horrible thing he'd eaten in his short life.

It took many years for him to get over that first taste. Sprouts are so darling and yummy, though, that simple steaming has been enough preparation to suit us most of the time. After I got married I learned to cut a deep X into the base of each sprout before dropping it into the steamer basket. That lets the inside leaves cook along with the outside, so you aren't left with a choice between mushy outsides or crunchy centers.

Now I'm off to the market and will certainly bring home some Brussels sprouts. I'll let the birds eat the raw, and will serve mine cooked.

Good-bye, Gus

Our first cat we had 16 years. This is his photograph when a kitten. I'm sure you are laughing at my attempt at animal photography. We named him Custard, which shows I didn't know anything about custard pudding. My neighbor said, "He's an eggy custard, isn't he?" I was pregnant with our firstborn at the time.


This second photo shows how the baby and Custard got along just fine. But Custard was always in the background, and not demanding or very important to our lives. We had human children keeping us busy and happy, five of them by the time he died.










Then this cat moved in. We found out about a year later that she actually lived just down the street and only wanted to sojourn with us while giving birth.

Aren't her kitties darling? The father was a Turkish Van. We decided to keep the fellow in the middle of this group, and named him Mackenzie. This was before all Mackenzies were girls. He reminded me of a polar bear and therefore the name of a river in snowy country seemed right for him.

The whole family adored Mac, but he was always skitterish, not often cuddly. The older he got, the less he liked to be petted. He stayed outside most of the time and often sat on the rabbit hutch, facing the corner of the back yard fence, where he seemed to us to be in deep contemplation. If you look carefully at left, you can see his mostly white shape lower center.

By the time Mackenzie died of old age, all our children were moved out of this barn of a house, and we thought a new cat or two might add a little warmth. At the feline rescue center we visited both the adult cat room and the kitten room. We sat down and waited to see if any cats would be friendly and affectionate.





There was one in each room that came right up to us to be petted, and they were both very pretty, so we took two cats home!

With Gus and Zoë we had five golden months. We laughed at their romping, and one of them was always happy to snuggle if we wanted.

Then when we were out of town, Zoë was hit by a car and killed. She had been our favorite, serene and attentive, so we were terribly sad to lose her, after having her so short a time. But we still had Gus, who at the loss of his friend became a little less the wayfaring adolescent and liked nothing more than to sit on a lap for hours at a time.

He was unusual in many ways, but one odd thing was that he loved to hang upside-down on/from my lap and be brushed with the wire brush. You could scratch and scrunch his fur and flesh till your arms ached, but he would want still more lovin'.

Last week Gus met the same fate as Zoë, only a block from our house. I'm ashamed to tell this; I can see in hindsight that neither of these adopted pets was ultimately suited to the minimal arrangements we'd made for them when we were traveling. It must be that they didn't have enough sense of home, when we weren't here.

So we lost Gus, who everyone agrees was the best cat there ever was; and we lost our confidence about owning another cat. Our grief is sharpened by a conviction of irresponsibility. There are various reasons we'll postpone the decision about whether to get another pet. In the meantime, our drafty house is a bit colder again.