A Place to Call Home

December has arrived, bringing unusually warm weather today: over 70 degrees (farenheit).

This is a month of riches, with the freshness of Advent expectation, with great feast days dedicated to Mary, with birthdays for Teresa (Dec 6) and Agnese (Dec 21). And then, of course, there is Christmas Day and the week that follows. The secular new year arrives in the midst of Christmas celebrations. While the days are short, the house glows with light and greenery and wonder at the God who became a little child.

Even the sparse daylight can have a charm. December in Virginia often has sunny and brisk days, and the bare trees open up new vistas in the Valley, and give us the contrasting hues of branch and sky, of bark and hilly rock, and of the evergreens that now have their time of special glory.

Our Valley has a grandeur and an intimacy that I have come to appreciate more over the years. This is a great place to call home, nestled in rolling hills, and it also has heights and depths: blue green hazy peaks and tall trees and plunging stream beds where the water runs relentlessly even when it is nothing more than a trickle.

A place to call home... even as I look up at the tops of the hills and the line of the ridge marking the horizon with the faint outline of the limbs of distant trees. It is a home that fills me with longing.

Within Shouting Distance

Josefina hams it up instead of doing her math.

It's remarkable that at the age of 51, the human being I probably spend the most time with every day is a seven year old girl.

Josefina is usually within shouting distance of wherever I am during the day. When she goes to the Center, I work in the office there. When she stays home, I stay home.

Much of the time, she does her things and I do my things. On home days, Mommy is often in and out of the house, but I am the fort holder. I'm always "around." I see what the dolls are wearing, or the latest artwork, or I hear about her most recent imaginative perceptions.

Some days, I need to lie down a lot. She will come and settle in nearby with her coloring stuff, and draw her pictures and talk to me.

I am grateful to have her.

"Helllllllooooo. How may I help you?"

People All Around Me

Home office. Sort of... Not a man cave but a camping spot.

It's summertime. I plop myself in the living room, in the middle of everything -- which is where I like it best -- and allow the surroundings to blend with my own work. When I open the Internet I open a window on the whole world, right here in the living room in the midst of my family. But in a profound sense the same thing happens when I open a book. A world of understanding is contained in those pages, and something much richer than digital imagery is required to visualize it: the human imagination.

I can easily get lost in these worlds of interactive media, articles, and old fashioned books with pages. But I don't like being thus "lost" -- I don't think the unconscious loneliness of it is good for me. Sometimes I have to be alone, but more often the hubhub that surrounds me is a good and congenial thing. I love being surrounded by people when I think. I also like being interrupted, which is a good thing because it happens plenty.

Don't just leave the pieces here!

The heat is keeping most of us inside right now. John Paul is playing the guitar in his own room (and learning too). Jojo is singing some tune of her own and making a puzzle on the floor. Some of the scattered pieces are under my feet. Drawers open and close in the kitchen, water runs, glasses clink. Actually, it's pretty quiet at the moment.

I write. I pray to the Holy Spirit to enlighten me about words, and about life. How do I listen to His inspirations? I feel so dry, sometimes. Where is God? He is inside the needs and tasks of this day, in the children and their concerns, in the time Eileen and I have together, in the rhythm of my work and prayer. When I pray, "come, Holy Spirit," I am asking Him to manifest Himself; to enrich my awareness of His presence. He calls out and gives Himself through the invitation to love contained in the most ordinary circumstance.

His invitations say, "Love all the way. Do not stop at your own satisfaction. Seek the Source of what attracts you, and -- in affirming the goodness of whatever is given in the circumstances -- allow yourself to be embraced by the Source."

Of course, things don't always seem especially good. How often our situation appears to be dull, repetitive, and fruitless. Here especially we must call out to the Holy Spirit, and listen to the silence in which He whispers the secrets of Divine Love.