August 21,2013
Dear Friends,
My favorite tomato from beside the church is gone. Esther picked it and it weighs one and a half pounds. We look forward to tomatoes that taste like tomatoes. They are knobby and funny-looking but they outclass the perfectly round, anemic sort you get in the market, which hardly deserve the name tomato.
Father Robert celebrated his eighty-something birthday on the Solemnity of St Bernard. How about that—being born to be a Cisterican.
I prayed for our Jewish brothers and sisters. Many Jewish men are called Bernard because St Bernard got up out of his sick bed to go to Cologne and save the local Jews from a pogrom. “When you touch a Jew, you touch the apple of God’s eye.” The name got passed on when its provenance had been forgotten. Little boys were named after their fathers or Uncle Bernie and still the name is popular.
Between yesterday afternoon and last night we chalked up a whole half inch of rain. It was very noisy rain, because in addition to massive thunder and lightning, the rain itself came down with a vengeance. One could sit at the window and just LOOK. I mean you could if you didn’t have anything else to do. The dog gets antsy, but we are hoping her hearing has deteriorated.
There is the loveliest stamp on a card I received from Eire—a hare with big ears on a green background. (Well, the ears were on the hare and the hare was on the background.) We call them jack-rabbits, and don’t have them often. Even the cotton-tails are scarce this year. Jacqui says she has found one (a hare) and made friends with it.
Our ravens seem to have kicked out the kids. I have only seen the parents recently. And they are practically encroaching on our house. I wonder how long they live, because we would surely miss them when they are gone. Whenever you see quail, you breathe a sigh of relief, because on our property they are safe. And they are so darling.
Robert will leave September 2nd, so we will be going back to the parish on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. It will be good to see the familiar faces and worship with such a beautiful group of the People of God.
A dear friend of the community is in his nineties and on his way to heaven. Vicki and Kate went over to say goodbye and to pick peaches from his orchard. So now Kate is busy preparing peaches for freezing, which will wind up as peach butter and peach bread for gifts. Maybe even cobbler.