Blog Posts - A Cottage by the Sea

Flowers representing completion and perfection

1/1/2025

Yesterday, December 31st, I wrote my last gratitude for 2024: #4252 "Jessie and Priscilla." I could have written 'good health, good sleep, good energy, good weather, but I didn't. I wrote the names of two good friends who had been in touch with me on my birthday, one through a letter, the other with flowers, and both by phone calls. Each of these friends are close to 30 years younger than I. I was a teacher to one, and a church friend to the other when she was a young mother.
The number seven represents completion or perfection. I do my best to write 7 gratitudes each day. I miss some days, but I'm pretty consistent about this daily practice. Sometimes I have to think for a while, but when the list is complete, I know it is perfect.

Sharing December birthdays

12/29/2024

December is a busy time for everyone. That's a fact. There is Christmas, Hannukah, and New Year's, with one or more of those for everyone. For me, so much that is personal is packed into those five plus days at the end of the year: Jesus' birthday on the 25th and mine on the 30th (with my wedding anniversary on the 28th).
As I look back on those December birthdays, I see that I was gifted some important life lessons. Early on I learned to say, "My birthday is five days after Christmas." Those were my words; that's how it was referred to by friends and family; that's how it is still identified; that's how I still say it. Deep in my heart, however, I have always known that Christmas is the favored December birthday to celebrate
I have memories of wrapped presents under the tree, waiting to be unwrapped upon our return from church after we celebrated Jesus' birthday. We had been to the carol sing and candle light service on Christmas Eve, but today was Jesus 'actual birthday, and so mid-morning, off we went.( No discussion, no complaining allowed!) I am very grateful for that gift my parents gave me, not a gift to unwrap, but the gift of going to Jesus' party at church on the very day of his birthday.
You might think that that is the end of my birthday story, but it isn't. Six years to the day, five days after Christmas, my sister Margot was born. I love sharing my birthday with her; no, not my birthday but our birthday. It has always been easy. After all, I had already learned to share with Jesus.

Public and solitary judging

12/12/2024

I've been thinking about judging people. My faith tells me not to do it.  I know I shouldn't, but I do it anyway, even the obvious ways, such as gossiping. Of course, judging gets in the way of the silence, solitude, and simplicity I long for.
     I trust that we can all find ourselves somewhere on the Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover. Good for Rockwell back in 1948 including both men and women, although the gossip starts and ends with a woman. (I think he did another cover with a man starting the rumor but I haven't found it yet.)
      Little know fact: the woman starting the gossip is Rockwell's wife, Mary; the man chastising her at the end is Rockwell.
      Well known fact: Rockwell and Mary were kind, compassionate people.

      We may  all know about the kind of gossip depicted in this cover, but what about the gossip that remains only with us? We tell no one; we talk with no one about it. Instead it gnaws away in our mind, taking up huge amounts of space and time; we go over and over whatever it is we don't like about a person. Projection  becomes rampant. I'm finding  that the best way to get rid of this mental negativity is stop being part of Rockwell's cover.

Simplicity: living simply, simply means being.

12/9/2024

This blog is for those who are looking for silence, solitude and simplicity, and who sometimes like to be along. For all of the fifteen years of its existence, I haven't written much about simplicity--I haven't even thought much about it. Silence and solitude always seemed to be center front for me, trusting that simplicity would follow. And besides, simplicity was a given. Of course, we all want simplicity!
As I grow older (on December 30th I turn 85), I find that simplicity is offering me new understandings and desires. I'm getting rid of stuff in the house; I've stepped away from commitments at church; I run the household as simply as I can; I'm not traveling alone any more. These all feel like natural evolutions.
What feels dramatically different, however, is my personal understanding of leisure. What used to be a break from my busy, productive life, I now consider as part of my life. Leisure is what I do, along with cooking, exercising, brushing my teeth… I simply figure out what I want to eat; I simple walk; I simply brush my teeth; I simply take leisurely moments. Less thought, less planning, less thinking. Hmm, maybe living simply, simply means being.

Everyday gratitudes

11/27/2024

Most mornings in my journal I write 7 things for which I'm grateful. Today I wrote numbers 1978 through 1984. Oh, I've missed a few days, such as when traveling or when I get up late. There are many repeats, a current one being "No news," which means I didn't listen or read any. Since the election, every morning I've been grateful for that.! Other repeats have to do with a friend I'm seeing, or if there is a day of solitude on the calendar. And then there is my all time favorite, my mom's '4 gratitudes,' which she acknowledged each day: (in no particular order)--"my friends and family, my faith, my health, and my life." Missing you mom at Thanksgiving time.

Silence Thoughts: Day 3

11/13/2024

                       Day 3

Silence is the state in which all the powers of the soul and all the faculties of the body are completely at peace, quiet and recollected, perfectly alert yet free from any turmoil or agitation.
Anthony Bloom

Good as is discourse, silence is better and shames it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

One can never be alone enough…there can never be enough silence around one…even night is not night enough.
Franz Kafka

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.
Mahatma Gandhi

Keep in mind that God’s first language is silence.
Fr. Thomas Keating

…and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire, and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.
1 Kings 19:1

The Brownie Fairy is alive and well

11/10/2024

I've returned to silence, solitude, and simplicity. Maybe you didn't know that I had left it. Well, I did, kind of. I compartmentalized myself, keeping to silence, solitude and simplicity during most of my awake time, except when listening to the news. And, I must admit that I became rather addicted to it, listening for two to three hours. I did this until ten days before the election, when didn't turn on the TV. When my candidate lost, it became easy to keep the TV off. Why would I want to listen?
As I look back on this past year, I realize that I was becoming cynical and judgment, reaping what I was sowing. I didn't like that in myself, but what to do? The elections results became the catalyst. On Thursday morning I made the commitment to focus my life I what I could do to help people in my orbit, people I know who need visits, contacts, and perhaps a gift from the Brownie Fairy, who is alive and well.

Peace Prayer, attributed to St. Francis

11/6/2024

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

O Divine Master,
Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood, as to understand;
To be loved, as to love;
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life. Amen.

Silence Thoughts: Day 2

11/4/2024

Day 2

To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present.
Eckhart Tolle

Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Psalm 4:4

The best cure for anger is silence.
Marcus Aurelius

Silence was imposed on me from the very beginning, and I lived with it until it became my own.
Linda Olsson

May you grow still enough to hear the stir of a single snowflake in the air, so that your inner silence may turn into hushed expectation.
Br. David Steindl-Rast

There is a silence which can be only met by silence.
Amy Carmichael

Silence Thoughts: Day 1

10/25/2024

I believe that God is in me as the sun is in the color and fragrance of a flower—the Light in my darkness, the Voice in my silence.
Helen Keller

Do not speak unless you can improve upon the silence.
Quaker saying

The English word “silence” comes from the Latin, dēsinere, which means to stop.
Br. Curtis Almquist

A critical step in the embrace of silence and solitude is setting aside the notion that we have to be “doing something” throughout our waking days.
Richard Mahler

The first requirements of silence are to have faith and patience, and, with one’s whole heart, strength and power—to love and to hope.
St. Gregory of Sinai

The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
Ram Dass