A Berry, Berry Nice Time

While the sunset falls earlier, and the evenings are cooler, and the season is winding down, it is still a good time to be here at the House on the Cove. On Friday, I went to the Farmer's Market and purchased sweet corn, red raspberries, peaches, Maine blueberries (from Washington County) and tomatoes.

After the trip to the Farmer's Market, we went to Cadillac Mountain for a photo shoot (Papa Bear is experimenting). I stayed in the car and read. Then we went to the grocery store.

That evening, we had our long-anticipated dinner: fresh corn, burgers, Real Pickles dills, and Peaks Organic Nut Brown Ale. It was yummy, and the fresh raspberry sorbet was fabulous. Papa Bear has a great recipe now!!

I love it that we have black berries ripening in our yard, that the red raspberries are so sweet, and that the peaches are so yummy. We have made sorbet from most of our fruit: watermelon, strawberries, peaches, raspberries, and blackberries (we seeded the blackberries, and they were store-purchased as we only have a few ripe berries now.)

Saturday was a long run for me - 3.5 miles. Papa Bear worked in the yard. We did some errands in the afternoon, and had another nice dinner that evening.

Today was worship at St. John's for me. The Rev. Vesta Kowalski led us, and talked about how Christ in Luke tells us we should be able to see what is going to happen, but that we never seem to: we are always surprised by it, especially when disasters happen, and so we live reactively. And she wondered if it was because we did not want to see it so we do not look, or if it is that we are simply too self-centered to look outside ourselves, or if we are incapable to see what is coming or that we see it but refuse to act. We know how to react and respond, but perhaps we do not know how to prevent. She talked about how churches are communities - we care for each other, and for those outside our walls. She talked about how young people are surprised that churches have this purpose as a part of who they are. She shared that a recent study indicated that young people want churches to be places of mentorship - both for their lives as Christians and their lives outside the Church, they want civility, they want transparency and they want integrity. She shared that so often what we want to do is to recreate what we had at a time in the past when we were comfortable with what was happening, instead of looking forward to where we are called to be. We need to be community. We need to be community within and to spread that community without.

The words about this lesson are my interpretation of what was said. The actual words said and ideas presented belong to Rev. Kowalski and were delivered in a manner that was more interesting and likely clearer than what I have shared here.

Laundry, reading, Red Sox and prep for my trip to Boston tomorrow took up the remainder of the day. Papa Bear took some time to make seedless blackberry sorbet. It was amazing!!