I just took a pie out of the oven. A pie and two custards, actually, as I had too much pumpkin filling for the crust. The pie turned out wonderfully–the custards a winning experiment. Best of all, though, was what happened while they were baking. The house was quiet and I was alone in the…

From my notebook writing before liturgy… “9:51 AM. Tucked into the stairwell above the entrance to the main church level, waiting for the 9:00 Mass to let out but not in any hurry. I am quite comfortable, actually…warm, pleasantly secure, and in a position to hear and see much. Listening to the cantor sing during…

Friday five from the Rev Gal Pals! 1) Do you have a food processor? Can you recommend it? Which is to say, do you actually use it? Have access to one–but prefer chopping by hand. There is something satisfying about wielding a knife and watching the pile of ingredients mound…. there’s also the sensory experience–the…

Taken from my notebook where I was writing before liturgy today… “Sitting in a pew, watching the choir arrange themselves in the section where I usually tuck in…now listening to them practice the Gloria and finding it a much more pleasant alternative to the woman who is speaking even louder now to be heard by…

I am planning a Mass with 45 kids and two other teachers. To get the maximum input, several different groups were created and pieces assigned. One homeroom, write the petitions and pick the kids to read; one homeroom, the offertory-pick the symbol to be carried forward in addition to the candles, flowers, bread and wine…

Well, not so much playing as using it as an analogy. I was having tea while visting a friend this afternoon when conversation turned to music and whether someone who knows music parses sound into notes instinctively the same way my friend, an artist, can parse shades and colors into component pieces that add up…

It’s soon to be Halloween. Doors are being decorated in the middle school, costumes planned, skits created, gooey brains flung onto the ceiling. Yes. Gooey brains. Created out of some sort of slime putty designed to please children and peeve adults. On the ceiling. On the sixteen-eighteen foot ceiling. Flung there by a holiday-thrilled eleven…

From RevGals… it’s the Friday Five! Tell us about the five favorite places you have lived in your lifetime. What did you like? What kind of place was it? 1. Don’t remember much about it, but my parents brought me home to a barn. Always makes a fun intro line when writing one’s life story….