Virtues at 13°

 Outside I go, into the cold of 13° just to get a chore or two done. Winter is a funny season for me, one minute I don't mind the cold, next I want no part of it. I guess it's the wind that really puts a damper on things. Today, not so much. This winter has been cold, consequently we've gone through more wood than last year, which has had me loading the stove less frequently, thus, in a way I've been able to practice the virtue of frugality! Now let me say straight out, I'm not a great practitioner of the virtues, even though I good priest I know would always drill it into us to practice them whenever we had a chance. He used the example of driving in a car, especially an interstate, when you're stuck behind a 'slowpoke', that this is a perfect time to practice the virtue of patience. Unfortunately, I'm still working on that one...

While out, the wind chimes ring their individual songs, all different, but still always the same. I like them like that. And the winter birds that visit our feeders are living proof (to me), of the Hand of God in everything. To be, what appears completely happy while living in 0° And lately I've been thinking of St. Francis, and how he was so aware of his surroundings, the material world and the spiritual world. Why can't I be just a little bit better at that? I do believe that Francis was a chosen vessel, chosen by our Lord Jesus Christ, and the amount of grace that was given to him, and moreover, how much he accepted, how much he absorbed, is probably well beyond what I could even handle. In a way our state of life dictates how we see life, but not how we should see life. Our job, as people who are always trying to stay on the narrow path, is to constantly practice the virtues, no matter how bad we do it or ignore doing it. Think of the virtues first thing in the morning, in the dark, holding your Rosary, perhaps with the first flames from the wood stove filling the room. And at the end of the day, in the dark and fighting off sleep, think of the virtues that you practiced (or tried to) today. Either way, Our Blessed Mother and Our Lord will be pleased.  

Searching for Silence.

 Much happens, yet much remains the same. No big revelation there. But when you're living it, seeing it go by slowly like a winter in New Hampshire, you feel it, inside and out. The sameness of one's life, when you get to a certain point of age and physical stagnation, your thoughts can turn to many different things, with only some of them leading you forward. Take prayer life and social media. They do not go together. I try to make them both work, giving time to each one, but social media, or really any kind of media, is a big distraction for me. It is so easy to scroll, scroll, scroll. Harder to go out to the garage when it's 25 and putter. It's cold! And let's face it, I don't have much to say that's very interesting. Heck, I don't find many people very interesting anymore. Personally, I think the world is in a bad spot when it comes to FB, YouTube, etc. People can talk themselves into thinking that one is getting smarter by watching and even contributing to this stuff. The answer is no, and we all know it. Joy comes to us in fits and starts, and evil hides it's face all the time, even when he shows it to us. Push it away, turn your face from it, even if you have to sit in silence, by yourself and turn off the inner noise. Even if nothing comes of it, even if the silence is broken, still, the turn was there, even for a moment.