The Gift of the Beauty of Fall
It’s fall where I live in northeast Ohio. Fall is one of my favorite seasons. I associate it with the harvesting of fruits and vegetables, with warm days and crisp, chilly nights, and with the trees donning their array of fall colors: bright yellow, rich orange, deep red, and subdued russet.
Yet, fall can be a melancholy season for some of us. We might even dread the shorter days, the colder temperatues, the bare trees, and the coming of snow. At the same time we might welcome the slower paced life that comes when we don our flannel shirts and cozy up at home with bowls of hearty chili and homemade soups.
Two weeks ago, I gave you a treat for your ears: “Clair de Lune.” Today, I’m giving you a treat for your eyes: a 10 minute video that showcases the stunning fall foliage in New England. I like this video because it shows us fall from afar–skimming the tree tops–and close-up, focusing at times on a single leaf. The visuals are accompanied by natural sounds–wind, water, and walking through the fallen leaves. And there’s music and silence for your ears! At the end of the video is a short ad by the filmmaker, Ally Marie Brown. You can skip the ad, of course!
For now, sit back, relax and enjoy the artistry of our Incredible Creator God!
For reflection:
How do you view the season of fall? Is it melancholic? happy? both?
Do you have a favorite activity you associate with fall?
Do you have a favorite childhood memory of fall?
Does fall make any impact upon your spiritual life? your prayer? your sense of who God is? If so, how?
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Announcing: My New Book!
I have a new book coming out soon!
It’s called Sunflower Seeds of Hope
and it’s a collection of 40 reflections from my blog over the years.
It includes reflection questions, suggested videos,
and even some of the comments from readers like YOU!
It’s due to come out in December!
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PS: I ask your prayers for a weekend retreat I’ll be leading at Villa Maria Spirituality Center in Villa Maria, PA. The theme of the retreat is “Celebrating Three Gifts of Autum: Beauty, Letting Go, and Peace.” We have about 45 participants signed up. I appreciate the support of your prayers! Thank you!
+ I hope you will share some of your thoughts on autumn below!
Celebrating World Animal Day
October 4th is World Animal Day. Appropriately, it falls on the feast of St Francis of Assisi. Pope Francis has said this about his patron saint: “St Francis’ response to the world around him was so much more than an intellectual appreciation or economic calculus, for to him each and every creature was a sister or brother united to him by bonds of affection.”
Today on this blog we will celebrate our bonds of affection with our fellow animals in three ways. First, by reminding ourselves of some of the fascinating and mysterious facts about certain other animals. Second, by enjoying photos of a few of those animals. And third, by watching a video that highlights a few of our brother and sister animals who share this beautiful planet we all call home. First, here are fifteen fun and amazing facts–with a few photos interspersed:
1. Butterflies taste with their feet.
2. Octopuses have three hearts. Two move blood through their gills and one pumps blood through their body.
3. Flamingoes are naturally white or grey. They turn pink from the algae and shrimp they eat.
4. Sloths poop only once a week. They must go down to the ground to poop–so the less time they spend on the ground, the safer they are. It can take a sloth up to one month to digest one leaf!
5. Horses can’t breathe through their mouths.
6. Giraffes have no vocal chords.
7. Tigers have striped skin as well as striped fur.
8. Cows have best friends. They form close bonds with other cows in their herd. Like us, they become stressed when something negative happens to one of their friends.
9. A newborn Koala joey is the size of a jelly bean.
10. Otters have the thickest coats of any furry animal.
11. The fastest flying animal in the world is the peregrine falcon. They have been clocked at over 186 miles per hour when swooping or diving.
12. The most endangered animals today include rhinos, gorillas, Amur leopards, and two species of sea turtles.
13. Male seahorses give birth. They have a pouch where they carry and give birth to their young.
14. Which animal out-performed some humans in memory tests? The chimpanzee!
15. Who are the friendliest animals (besides cats and dogs)? Dolphins! They interact with humans both in captivity and in the wild.
For reflection:
Did any of the animal facts surprise or amaze you? (Feel free to add another fun or amazing animal fact in the comments below.)
Have you ever had a pet that you felt especially bonded with? What was that relationship like for you?
Have you ever bonded with an animal that was NOT a pet? How did that bonding come about? What affect did this relationship have on you–and on the other animal?
What animal (besides a pet) do you find yourself often thanking God for?
Let’s conclude our celebration of World Animal Day with a short film put out by National Geographic. The video invites people to send their best animal shots to National Geographic for their website. While extending that invitation, the video displays some incredible photos of animals around the world.
Once again, I invite you to write a comment on this reflection below. Join in the converation!
The Gift of Music: “Clair de Lune”
Writer Kurt Vonnegut said the only proof he needed for the existence of God was music. Others have said that it is through music, perhaps more than anything else, that we get nearer to God. Victor Hugo maintained that “Music speaks what cannot be expressed. Music is the melody of the Soul.” And Poet Maya Angelou wrote, “Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.”
Today I am giving you a small gift of music: Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” (in English “Moonlight”). Published in 1905, this piece was written when he was only 28, and it is perhaps his most well-known piece. The video below is the entire piece of music–only 5 minutes and 13 seconds. The video shows two hands on a keyboard playing the piece while the notes are scrolling down. It’s almost like watching the roller on an old player piano–if you’ve ever had the joy of playing a player piano as I have! I suggest you either close your eyes and just listen to the music or be mesmerized (as I was) by the sound of the music coupled with the visual notes. I was in awe at the song’s blend of simplicity and complexity–made more apparent by actually seeing the notes. Without further words, then, here is “Clair de Lune.”
For reflection:
What words of phrases would you use to describe your experience of listening to this “small gift of music”?
What role did music play in your early years and youth? What role does music play in your current daily life?
Did any of the quotes in the opening paragraph speak to you?
Do you ever feel closer to God when you’re listening to a particular piece of music? If so, what music or song does this for you?
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PS: Speaking of fall, I will be giving a weekend retreat at Villa Maria Spirituality Center in Villa Maria, PA from Friday evening October 11 to Sunday afternoon October 13. The retreat theme is “Celebrating Three Gifts of Autumn: Beauty, Letting Go, and Peace.“ I’d love to see you there. Visit vmesc.org or call 724-964-8886 for details!
I invite you to write a comment below about anything that stood out for you in today’s reflection, or share with us your answer to any of the questions. My readers and I love to hear from you!
My 80th Birthday
On September 16, 2024 I am completing my 80th “free trip” around the sun. In other words, I’m celebrating my 80th birthday. At noon. (Mom always said I arrived just in time for lunch!) This significant birthday fills me with awe and gratitude. It also makes me wonder, “How did I get so old–so fast?” I don’t feel 80 years old. In fact, I sometimes feel like an 18-year-old girl inside. On really good days, I feel like a 6-year old kid!
I wanted to do something special for my blog today. But, believe it or not, I find myself at a loss for words. Not all words, of course. But most. So today I’m filling my blog mostly with pictures with a few words interspersed. Remember, whatever your age, it is the age God chose for you. May these “historic” photos, cause you to pause and reflect on the gift of your own life, a life that I hope fills you with awe and gratitude too!
This is a picture of the big yellow farm house on White Road where I lived until the day I left for the convent in 1962. I had met the Sisters of Notre Dame at Regina High School (now closed… another loss…) I admired them as teachers, but I was attracted by their comaraderie and joy. Eventually, I felt God was “calling me” to join them. In the picture above, notice the pretty trees in bloom: apple, cherry, and pink dogwood. In 1980 our home and the entire farm was taken by the expanding Cuyahoga County Airport under the law of eminent domain. They burned down the house, tore down the other buildings and trees, and converted the property into part of a golf course. This experience was a real heartache for our family. I wrote an article about this event which ended with these words: “Nothing lasts forever–except love, maybe? Yes, except love!”
The top left picture shows the other young women I received the religious habit with in January 1963. That’s when I was given the name Sister Melannie. (I’m in the first row, third from the right.) The other top picture (taken in 1999) shows the six Sisters in my vow group: Sisters Marilyn Sabatino, Mary Jo Ludwig, myself, Sally Huston, Joanne Keppler, and Pat Teckman. Our group also “adopted” Sister Donna Gonda. These six sisters are very dear to me. The bottom left picture is me mowing the grass at Notre Dame College (now closed… another great loss…) The maintentance men mowed the wide expanse of lawns around the college with a big tractor, but I sometimes mowed the grass close to the building to help cut costs–and I enjoyed it too! In every place I served, we Sisters and lay men and women were always trying to cut costs. The last picture shows me meeting Pope John Paul II in Rome in 2004. It may look as if the Pope and I were good friends, but our actual meeting (where he handed me a rosary) lasted about 2.3 seconds… Still it was a memorable few seconds for me!
So much of my life has been spent in education–in the formal classroom for about 22 years as well as in parishes, retreat centers, novitiates, motherhouses, and through the written word. Here is a picture that is a symbol of my years in high school education. It is the graduating class of 1978 from Cardinal Gibbons High School in Raleigh, NC. Back then, the school enrollment was 217 students. Today, at the “new” Cardinal Gibbons, it is about 1500. I am standing on the left and the principal Sister St. Colette (now Joanne) Miller is on the right. Kathy Alanso, a lay teacher and single mom, is behind me. She’s just one of the beautiful people I was privileged to minister beside. We sisters wore white habits during the hot Raleigh weather. We had practiced our outdoor graduation for days, but as you can see in this photo (taken right before the carefully planned outdoor ceremony), black clouds loomed on the horizon. Within minutes after this picture was taken, the heavens opened and the rains came pouring down. Each graduate, faculty member, and guest grabbed a folding chair from the lawn and ran “like heck” into the gym–where (believe it or not) we regrouped and had a very nice graduation ceremony–despite the momentary chaos! Whoever said that life was going to go as you plan OR that education was easy?!
The final picture is very contemporary. It was taken June 30, 2024 at the Mass in our chapel celebrating the jubilees of twenty-five Chardon Sisters. Sister Megan Dull is the photographer. It is only fitting that I include a picture of this sacred place, our chapel, filled with Sisters, families, and friends, giving thanks to our Beloved God for a lifetime of blessings.
Let me conclude this reflection with this little prayer:
Beloved Creating God… source of all love, goodness, beauty, and truth… I thank you for the gift of my “one wild and precious life.” … I thank you for my entire life… for the ups and downs… fun times and heartaches… for gains and losses… for the answers and (more importantly) for the many questions I still carry in my heart… for times of peace and times of restlessness. Most of all, I thank you, O Great Choreographer, for all those special individuals you incorporated into my little dance of life–often just when I needed them… Beloved One, I entrust my past and my future into your loving hands until my final birthing– my final homecoming–into the fullness of Life forever. Thank you, thank you!
With all my heart, Me
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- “one wild and precious life” is from “The Summer Day” by Mary Oliver
- I apologize that some of my pictures are not very clear. I’m still learning the technology involved in posting a blog…
Did anything stand out for you in today’s reflection?
What are some of the joys, heartaches, and surprises of your own “wild and precious life”?
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PS #1: Thank you for your prayers for the retreat I gave last week for the Sisters of Loretto in Nerinx, Kentucky. I want to thank especially Sisters Mary, Liz, and Cathy for showing me around and for helping to facilitate the retreat. I really enjoyed my golf cart ride checking out their 700 acre farm, the tour Sister Eleanor gave me of their Heritage Center (one of the best ones I’ve ever seen!), and meeting so many wonderful Sisters, Co-members, and employees and staff! The whole week was a real blessing for me!
PS #2: IT is looking into why my blog was NOT sent out to you last week–even though it was posted.If that happens again, just search for my blog using my name and/or “Sunflower Seeds blog” and you’ll find it easily. Thank you!
I chose one of my favorite prayers for our video today, Pslam 23 “The Lord is my Shepherd.” This is Stuart Townend’s version. On our farm we had a few acres of woods in the back of our property. There was a stream that flowed toward the west, eventually emptying into Lake Erie. We kids loved to explore back there. Though the stream in this video is much wider than ours was, it does remind me of that special place in my childhood.
I invite your comments below:
Come and See… Come and Be Seen
On August 24th we celebrated the feast of St. Bartholomew (Nathaniel), one of the apostles. The short gospel story for the feast always intrigues me (Jn. 1: 45-51). Philip has met Jesus and has accepted Jesus’ invitation to “Come follow me.” He runs off to find his friend Nathaniel and says, “We have found him whom Moses and the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” Nathaniel responds with a cynical, “Can anything good come from Nazareth?” But Philip persists, “Come and see!”
When Nathaniel meets Jesus, Jesus surprises him by saying, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” What a thing to say! Jesus could have said, “Here is a man held prisoner by his own cynicism!” But no, Jesus sees more deeply into Nathaniel and detects his goodness and personal integrity.
This story is all about seeing–or, more accurately, about seeing and about being seen. Nathaniel goes to see Jesus, despite his reservations that anyone of importance could come from a backwater place like Nazareth. In the end, he ends up believing Philip and accepting Jesus’ call to discipleship. But would this have ever happened if Nathaniel had not been seen by Jesus first?
What would happen if we saw people more as Jesus sees them? What if we saw beneath the talkitiveness, a desire for connectedness? If we saw beneath the rashness, a capacity for leadership (as Jesus saw in Peter)? What if we saw beneath the shyness, an exemplary tenderness? Or beneath the wildness, a passion for justice for all?
I suggest you take a few moments to recall individuals in your life who saw something good in you that perhaps you didn’t even see in yourself. Here are two of mine. As a young adult I met a woman who had been our babysitter when I was quite young. She said to me, “You were the happiest little child I ever babysat for. And you were interested in everything–a bird singing up in a tree, a stone in the driveway, a daisy you found in the field.” She painted a picture of me as a happy, curious child that affected the way I viewed myself.
Years later, in graduate school at Indiana University, I was part of a seminar with mostly younger students who really knew their British Literature. I was at IU only in the summers. During the year I was teaching teenagers things like the the prinicpal parts of verbs and how to write sentences! Consequently, I felt I had nothing worthwhile to contribute to a discussion on the novel we were reading. But one day I mustered up some courage and made a contribution. The professor took what I said, enhanced it with his own words, and said, “That’s a really good insight, Sister Melannie!” The fact that I can remember these tiny incidents–after so many years–shows the impact they had on me!
Perhaps you can also try to see others in your life as Jesus might be seeing them; that is, to see in them a good quality rather than focusing on one of their negative ones. This new way of seeing them could eventually have an impact on them and your relationship with them.
And finally, here’s a little prayer you might want to say:
Jesus, see me… See me as you saw Nathaniel under the fig tree that day… See all of me–not just my weaknesses and shortcomings… but my strengths as well… especially my sincere desire to be a more loving person… May your seeing of me give me greater clarity of who I am… and greater encouragement to follow you as your disciple… May your way of seeing others impact my own way of seeing others, a seeing that helps free them to be the beautiful people they really are… Jesus, see me… today and every day. Amen.
For reflection:
Who saw good in you that you didn’t even know you had? How did their seeing of you impact your life?
Have you ever seen good in someone that made a difference in their life?
What can help us to see people and situations more with the eyes of Jesus?
PS: This week I’m leading a retreat in Nerinx, KY, at the Sisters of Loretto Motherhouse located on their 700 acre farm in rural Kentucky! The Sisters have been at this location since 1824! I’m eager to be with these Sisters this week and learn from them. I’ve always admired their congregation and their amazing work in Catholic education and social justice. I ask for your prayers for this retreat, a retreat that will focus on celebrating HOPE! Thank you so much! I will let them know you are praying for them!
Our video is called “The God Who Sees.” Using some stunning images, it sings of God’s everlasting care of us.
I invite you to comment on anything in this blog–the words, the pictures, the video…
