...and some long overdue thank you's to my amazing family!

This is, finally, my last post here, scheduled to post itself on Monday morning (as I start Office of Readings with the sisters) after I'm gone. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works!)

It's Multitude Monday...and about time that I took some space on this blog to say "Thank You" to the people who who have been the deepest source of inspiration, the greatest loves in my life, no matter what: My family.

Apart from God, no one knows me better than you. We have been through so much together...

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Mommy and Daddy,
thank you for teaching me how to pray and how important prayer is. You have always invited me and the others to holiness by example as much as by word, if not more.
Thank you for all the very important little things you did to make my life beautiful... for singing to me when I was a baby, for throwing me in the air, for tipping my mattress up at night (the best good-night routine ever!), for cleaning up (and teaching me how to clean up) my messes (physical and spiritual!) over the years.
Thank you for being there to listen and help me all the time, even (especially) during all the years when if I rarely took proper advantage of your help or listened to you!
Thank you for all of the sacrifices you make for me and our family to keep us healthy, happy, and holy. It really has been a grace, a great grace from God to have grown up in this family, in this household.

J,
I know I've already said this, but I'll say it again, it bears repeating, because it is just so true...thank you for being the best big brother ever! For the laughs, for the lessons, for the love. To take just one moment, or rather some of the best moments of my childhood, I'll never forget the joy of playing on the swing set during the summer listening to the Maple Leaf club's amazingly beautiful music. So much fun! And that pretty much sums up our life, doesn't it, only the goodness in you goes deeper than just plain fun. Being your sister makes holiness more fun than anything else I know! Thank you!

G,
thank you for putting up with me when I was (hopefully this only pertains to the past tense) an annoying little sister all those years. Following you around at the barn was fun, even if it didn't turn out to be my thing, and it meant a lot to me to have you as my prefect and my captain during my freshman year of highschool. I always looked up to you when we were growing up together, and still have so many reasons to admire you today. Good luck with all of your cooking adventures, and thank you for "following" me.

F,
thank you for being the best 'big' sister ever! (I don't remember when I started calling you my big sister, but I'll never forget all the ways that you have been, sort of.) For all of your the advice that I took, for better or for worse (always for better in the long run!), for your zany stories that amuse me to no end (they are just stories, right?!), for all the times we spent just talking about life...you're the best. And I mean it! I Love you, Little Lee Lee Lotta!

S,
what did you do to my cute little brother?(sorry, just had to ask that!) I am so proud of you, and it is such a joy to see you excel at everything, from academics, to running and swimming, and building upside-down ball tower tracks out of K'nex...thank you especially for bringing me to Compline these last few weeks, I owe you for that! ...all in all, life with you has been an amazing adventure...Godspeed!

D, last of all...
(Gretta: "Why am I always last?"//Uncle Max: "Because you are the most important!"-The Sound of Music)
I love you, love you, love you so much. Every minute we spent together was a real blessing, from our morning walks to church to our evening walks down by the bay. Thank you for talking with me, listening to me, and putting up with my occasional need to quiz you on the saint of the day! You are an absolutely beautiful young lady, and you have taught me so much over the years, about faith, life, and love. I am going to miss you so much, but look forward to your visits at the convent. I love you!

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And to everyone else in my family: Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins...thank you for all the good times in PA, NY, FL, RI, or wherever the good Lord has brought us together over the years (though I think I've covered all the bases, I hope..oh, wait...D.C./MD/CT/NJ should be on that list, too!) We have had so much fun together, and I am incredibly grateful for all of your love, encouragement, generosity and prayers.

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To all of the above, I am living in the convent because I love God and I love you.
In Christ, I am yours forever...


Love and prayers always from your unworthy daughter/sister/granddaughter/niece/cousin,

Mary

E.E. Milne, Papa Haydn, and Song of Songs...

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In other words, it's been a beautiful evening!

I just finished reading A.A. Milne's masterpiece Once on a Time, just for fun between other things.

Here are some (rather long) excerpts from my favorite part:

(background first) Wiggs is a young girl who has always dreamed of being a beautiful, graceful dancer. One day, a fairy gave her a magic ring that would grant her a good wish if she managed to do only good for a whole day, and a bad wish if she managed to do only bad for a whole day. After being good for a whole day, she makes a very difficult decision, a decision which she thinks will help another but prevent her dearest wish from coming true, and then she runs away from the castle, into the forest...

It was very quiet in the forest. At the foot of her own favorite tree, a veteran of many hundred summers who stood sentinel over an open glade that dipped to a gurgling brook and climbed gently away from it, she sat down. On the soft green yonder she might have danced, an enchanted place, and now—never, never, never...

            How long had she sat there? It must have been a long time—because the forest had been so quiet, and now it was so full of sound. The trees were murmuring something to her, and the birds were singing it, and the brook was trying to tell it too, but would keep chuckling over the very idea so that you could hardly hear what it was saying, and there were rustlings in the grass—“Get up, get up,” everything was calling to her; “dance, dance.”

           She got up, a little frightened. Everything seemed so strangely beautiful. She had never felt it like this before. Yes, she would dance. She must say “Thank you” for all this somehow; perhaps they would excuse her if it was not very well expressed.

            “This will just be for ‘Thank you,’” she said as she got up. 

“I shall never dance again.”

            And then she danced...

(Milne, A.A. Once on a Time, 156)

 Of course I can't help reading into this beautiful passage a bit, bringing my faith into it. I love the sacramentality of nature in what Wiggs experiences here. The beauty of the world, compelling us to dance, to sing, to praise. We must say "Thank You" to God in whatever way we can, even if it is "not very well expressed."

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This reminds me of some lines from a song I got to sing in choir two years ago; 

Haydn's "The Heavens are Telling":

The Heavens are telling the glory of God,
The wonder of his work displays the firmament...
In all the lands resounds the word,
Never unperceived, ever understood.

And there is one more passage that I have to share from Milne, which appears shortly after the one quoted above...

...There is blue magic in the morning; the sky, deep-blue above, melts into white where it meets the hills. The wind waits for you up yonder—will you go to meet it? Ah, stay here! The hedges have put on their green coats for you; misty green are the tall elms from which the rooks are chattering. Along the clean white road, between the primrose banks, he comes. Will you be round this corner?—or the next? He is looking for you...
(Milne, A.A. Once on a Time, 158)

Sadly, I was unable to find a picture to capture these words, but maybe some more words from another book might do?

Hark, my Lover, here He comes!...My Lover is mine, and I am His!

Enough said.

late night thanks...

...better late than never. It is not Multitude Monday, but thanksgiving happens everyday, so why not record today's gifts and give thanks to the Gift Giver?

-Lord, I thank You for Your forgiveness and for this amazing story of forgiveness
-the DMV adventure w/ father and sister
-the grace to finish drafting my application letter all the way to the end so that I can send it tomorrow
-family that loves me no matter what
-reminders of that love and God's love everywhere I look
-the recent wonderful visits with family and another one on the horizon
-tomorrow I get to begin again, back to "normal"
-kitchen time after dinner and an episode of Star Trek, cleaning up and dancing and thinking about life
-a gentle hint that maybe "routine" isn't necessarily a great thing if it leads to ruts and anxiety when I break it

Praise be to God, now and evermore.