Last of 2013

After the party tonight I will cook and I will eat only healthy, fresh, green, locally grown food.
I promise.  We have been eating a lot of kale, really we have.

This is the last day of 2013.  I hope everything that was suppose to get done got done, because the hours are going.  It doesn't help that it gets dark just after 4 pm and it is very cold, down around freezing.

We have had a great year with many visitors.  Jerem and Conor came in January along with Jennifer and Vicki.  Jon Kennedy moved into The Loom in March.  We went home and renewed visas in April.  We've been to Northumbria in June with Lane, and deepened the relationships with the local Belfast based Northumbria Community by regular meetings and going on retreat to Kilbrony Centre Rostrevor.  Then six sets of visitors came in September and October.  We've deepened the relationships with the North Belfast clergy through the 174 Trust clergy forum.  I learned a few words of Irish.  We sang in the Together Stronger community choir.  We lost Jeff and Kenny.  We met challenges with grace and we prayed together most every day.  Praise God at all times.

Replica Identified

A few months ago I posted my photo of the high cross replica in the Ulster Museum, a casting that was made over 100 years ago. Jan and Byron Brown immediately identified the cross as Monasterboice. They had just come from the site the day before. Here are some details: www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/muiredach/muiredach.html

OMG May already!

Rhodies are out.  Trees are full.  Everything is green.  This week is warm.  Days are long and I'm wanting to go to a garden. 
Ward is a homebody and I have to pry him out.  He will come along mostly willingly but he would NEVER initiate a trip anywhere to anyplace.
That's how we know that this "call" to Ireland was not his own idea but inspired by divine means.
We are basking in the optimism of a new era

here and we are hopeful that the tipping point of
people will get behind a revival of soul, heart, and mind.
I did get to two gardens this week.  We went to Greenmount walled garden which is on the grounds of the Agricultural College.  I also went to Rowallane where we went with the Eastons to view the handkerchief tree.  In bloom here to the right. The tree is from 1904 and was brought from China.  Amazing!
You all must look at the write up of the first vertical garden in Northern Ireland.  Hint it is on the Skainos Building.  I am finally excited about what I'm seeing building and environment wise in Belfast.  Come and visit.

New friends Denise and Mikes

Our new friends Denise and Mike came with their friend Michael Tinne who spent every summer of his life in Co Donegal. His father had a summer cottage. How this visit came about was an email, "Subject: ADX alum”. Denise introduces herself as alum of ADX Zeta chapter, coming to Ireland, and was told she had met me in Berkeley.

She later said she was at the Dwight Way house, my house, and Celeste’s Maybeck mansion, over 10 years ago. Her email said she is an artist (with a website). Bingo! We exchange a few excited emails and set to meet up, later turning into staying with us for a couple of days.

Her work is www.seedsfineart.org and she is active with CIVA. They came and I ran them around Belfast city. Mike is an architect, she an artist using clay, and a type 1 diabetic, they go to a Missouri Synod Lutheran church of 5000 people (St John's in Orange, CA), and she recently fired up a big gas kiln, 7 years after it was provided to her. Her work inspired me and she loved Ward's poetry and our church.

Her advice: Go sell at Victoria Square. God will provide something miraculously so I should build the kiln shed and wait.

Final few thoughts

The red door is ours. Now we have a doorbell too. People do drop over and we are blessed by their visits.

We have prayer time on Monday and Wednesday mornings at 7 a.m. and quiet meditation at 5 p.m. on Wednesdays. An evening visit from the Belfast L'Arche community to inaugurate the prayer room was also held this month.

We had eight days of frozen heater pipes but thankfully none burst and three people came to our rescue with space heaters. This started while Marda was away for a short jaunt to Lebanon while she got delayed in London's Heathrow airport both ways. Ward was worst for the wear and Marda returned with our friend Mui who good naturally suffered with the cold as we did.

We are enjoying the last few days of the millennium's first decade. God's blessings to all of you for 2011.

ThanksGiving

What is this? After 2 1/2 years I have bought a rice cooker! It comes with a steaming rack so I'll have to experiment to see if it will warm or cook anything while the rice is cooking below. I opened my Christmas present to myself early to make a ThanksGiving meal on Saturday. A10# frozen turkey cost $30 here.

We are full of thanks. Grateful. resting, reading, and creating things. Ward is working on a Christmas poem and I am making porcelain pottery.


This photo is us with four children from the 34th African Children's Choir. These four girls and their teacher stayed with us for a night after performing a concert at our church on November 10th. They are from Uganda and Kenya and have been traveling for 14 months in the States and UK. They sing and dance and tour and raise money that supports over 3000 children in African schools. This experience demonstrated what love can do for a child and how infectious that love is. Uncle Ward and Auntie Marda were very much loved by these happy, thankful, and talented girls. We loved it all.

Last bit.

Today is American Thanksgiving and we got our first snowfall of the season here in Belfast.

This photo is taken from our front window.

September 2010 - Fame with God

Eliot Engel is my sister’s Congressional Representative in America. He represents her and a districtfull of voting others in his high political office. He telephoned me recently and asked if I were the same Ward Stothers who drove around America camping out with him for twelve weeks in 1967.

I was and am. He came over to my house in California and shared warm, memoried stories of our trip. For this time period of discussion I acquired his fame, notoriety, and distinction, getting to know him again. I became a friend and a link to his importance and voice.

Our God has made it easier for us to know Him and His glory, with the talkfull thought of prayer, and a songfull praise of voice. Friends, do we meet God every day in response to His call, or do we set Him aside in history, skipping His leading, forgetting His name.

Now is God’s Call for Our Worship.

OMG time is flying by!

This photo is of a portion of a glass window in the renovated Belfast City Hall. When we have visitors we get out and see things. Thank you visitors!

We hope the sentiment behind this window is not WORKERS OR MANAGEMENT but one of all of us as workers laboring for peace. Someone designed it, someone paid for it, someone installed it, someone made it, and someone conceived the sentiment. Together we transform.

I am taking five minutes to post before I go into manic worker mode to complete all that needs completing. Posting some snail mail. Completing some children's crafts for our Summer outreach. Switching my mobile phone number to my new phone. Signing the lease. Getting our passports. Coordinating the move with our housemate. Closing our gas and electric accounts. Moving the landline. Informing the neighbors. Pack and move. Somehow it feels good to tell the world. Will you pray with us and for us?