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

August 11, 2013 Dear Ones, Today is clear, warmish, and sunny. I hope the monsoons are not over. They have given us our only rain for ages. And the grass leaps up as if it would never see moisture again. We look like Ireland, believe me. A day after Abel cuts it, back it is, waving in the breeze. This

      We are getting used to seeing Cathy in her new black veil. Cathy came to us from the Missionary Sisters of Korea, and has her Green Card for US Permanent Residency. She is a delightful, talented and generous sister to us all, and we are grateful for such a gift of God. Her darling mother, in a

June 24, 2013 Dear Friends, We keep getting forecasts of rain. We even get congratulations on same. The only thing we don’t get is rain. I spent a week in Kentucky for a meeting, and the air was so humid you could wring it out. We do have a bit of humidity—monsoons are upon us—but it never coalesces into water.

June 8, 2013 Dear ones, We had the most wonderful community day for Cathy’s Profession. What we do in these circumstances is to descend upon the kitchen and pitch in together to prepare the meal for next day as far as we can ahead. So on the Profession Day we are free to concentrate on the Big Spiritual Event without

June 6, 2013 Dear Friends, It feels as if the monsoon has begun. They date it by the dew point, but one can feel the humidity, and the increasing heat. This does not mean we will get rain. We can hope, of course, and pray. It would be so nice to have rain. The grass panics at the first drops

May 16, 2013 Dear Friends, A couple of quail have taken up residence outside my window. There are few things cuter than quail. Our Iris season is almost gone. Great gratitude to the hybridizers. Think of it: huge white ones with orange beards; yellow with white falls edged with more yellow; velvety, deep wine; pale blue; very dark purple; multi-colored

APRIL 19, 2013 All the news is from Boston, if it is not from Korea. Why do we hurt each other so? All the news pours into a monastery’s heart and runs out as prayer. We try. What else can we do but keep trying to love, and keep trying to rest in the sacrificial heart of Christ? A friend

March 19, 2013 Sisters who have been in town for appointments or shopping tell us that people they have never met stop them to ask what they think about the new pope. It seems kind of sad that we should be so happy about a man who is simple, loving, and gifted with a touch for the other. Very sad,