Sunday Salon --- Blessings

Weather: Rainy. Need I say more? The sky is crying and so am I. I don't know about you but I feel like I need a blessing today.

A blessing for St Patrick's Day: Our family will be gathering to share the boiled dinner Sunday, a day early -- corned beef, boiled potatoes, & steamed cabbage.

A benediction: We had coffee with friends today and N. shared the benediction her father, a pastor, always used to close the church service. It is so precious I am sharing it with you:

A blessing for those of you who are grieving or missing a loved one: 

A blessing from my sister, a preschool teacher, who posted this on her Facebook page as a reminder that all children, no matter their race or creed, are welcome in her classroom:

A blessing from the moon -- the blood-red moon we saw this week during the lunar eclipse (even though we had to stay up pretty late to see it in full eclipse):

and this poem -- which profoundly touched me when I found it this week:

When Life Seems a To-Do List

Marjorie Saiser

When the squares of the week fill

with musts and shoulds,

when I swim in the heaviness of it,

the headlines, the fear and hate,

then with luck, something like a slice of moon

will arrive clean as bone

and beside it on that dark slate

a star will lodge near the cusp

and with luck I will have you

to see it with, the two of us,

fools stepping out the backdoor

in our pajamas.

Is that Venus? -- I think so -- Let's

call it Venus, cuddling up to the moon

and there are stars further away

sending out rays that will not

reach us in our lifetimes

but we are choosing, before the chaos

starts up again,

to stand in this particular light.

Breathe, Listen, and Notice: Lenten Art (Take a moment for quiet contemplation)

Books and blogging: 

• Currently reading:
• The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky. This is my One-Big-Book of the year selection and also my Classics Club spin book for March. I set a goal to read 25 pages a day. At 850+ pages it will take me over a month to complete. Currently I am on page 321. I have a long way to go but I am making progress and really enjoying it!
• The Not-Quite States of America: Dispatches from the Territories and Other Far-Flung Outposts of USA by Doug Mack. A nonfiction book about the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the Northern Mariana Islands. This has been on my reading list for several years. Print.55%.

• Recently completed book:
• The Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood. In an odd case of coincidence this is the second book this month about dealing with grief which is set in Australia. I am not sure if the narrator of this book found peace, but I cried, so I must have been touched. Audio. 
• Blog posts from last week:
• TTT: Unreliable Narrators
• Graphic novel review: Brownstone
• Tanka-poetry reviews: Stone Yard Devotional; Lisette's List; With My Back to the World

May you find a blessing every day this coming week.

-Anne