Laura Bruno Lilly

The road ends, but the journey continues...

Tag: Holy Week

Pandemic Potpourri #2

April 10, 2020 /

“I don’t know about you guys, but I could do with getting lost in trivialities. Making small talk with strangers, while waiting for my coffee to be made, about inconsequential things. Nothing of importance that mean everything.”       Andy Murray

As mentioned in Pandemic Potpourri #1 herein I will blog, and commenters can comment, without feeling guilty about seeming to disregard the seriousness of our present COVID-19 Reality.
In other words, this space is reserved for escaping Reality – however that translates. Anything goes, so here goes!

Paul Hollywood’s authentic Hot Cross Buns

Paul Hollywood's Hot Cross Buns

Paul Hollywood’s Hot Cross Buns


I saw a Great British Baking Show ‘masterclass’ rerun on PBS last week where this was a featured bake. It inspired me to bake up a batch for this coming Easter Morning. Seemed reasonable as I always have Bread Flour in stock. I use it for my own special breads as opposed to regular All-Purpose flour and know there truly is a difference in baking results for specific items. When I checked on my personal supply, turned out our cupboard was bare, so I had to go out into the cold cruel COVID world of grocery stores in search of a 5 lb bag. Guess what? The grocery shelves are also bare of any type of flour whatsoever.  So I’m debating whether or not to try this new-to-me recipe with the regular flour I have on hand…still undecided – what do you think?
Oh and BTW: Paul’s from Liverpool, folks! yeah, yeah, yeah

~~~

In the previous Pandemic Potpourri Post I featured a photo of a colorful array of newly planted Gerbera Daisies on our front porch. That very Friday evening I jotted this down – sans margarita!

On the front porch – gorgeous afternoon – the cool/dry lull before the ‘storm’ of a normal SC Spring/Summer filled with heat and humidity.

What is adding to my delight are the heavenly scents of BBQ* chicken wafting in & out with irregular intervals that tease and entice. Looking over to my right – a few feet away from my – ahem – feet are the bring-a-smile-to-my-heart newly planted Gerbera Daisies. They’re settling nicely into a fav Italian Lemon Tree clay pot with the tree stumps collected from our Family mountain property in CO and Breck** behind and beside this bit of joyful color.

TWL’s (my hubby) BBQ is filling the neighborhood with smells of soulful food. Our appetites continue to need quenching regardless of this virus that is eating away life as we know it – scattering collaterally damaged humans as its tally & proof of power over us as vulnerable.

Because Green Gunk*** Allergy Season is in full swing, I am struggling with fatigue and other allergy related malaise in the afternoon especially. A price I willingly pay for enjoying these few otherwise perfect days outside before the SC Spring/Summer (seasonal weather) ‘Storm’ and expansion of the COVID-19 ‘Storm’ continues to ravage this Earth and its peoples.

In conclusion, please enjoy “The Sound of a Pandemic” parody by Shirley Serban – shared and brought to my attention by bloggers Jennie and By Hook Or By Hook:

 *Apologies to our Southern neighbors, but we call it BBQ, not ‘grilling’.
**Breck = local term for Breckenridge, CO
***Green Gunk Season = my term for the SC seasonal thick coating of pine pollen that engulfs and smothers anything outside from mid-March to around mid-April

Andy's Insights from a Parisian

April 16, 2019 /

Reprinted here from Andy’s blog:

After Speaking With A Parisian

andys notre dame spire

Surviving Revolutions and World Wars, Notre Dame’s spire has long been a familiar sight to generations of Parisians, puncturing the capital’s skyline for over 800 years.

Back in the 1500s, the culture that we had built in the West embraced multigenerational projects quite easily. Notre Dame. Massive cathedrals were not built over the course of a few years, they were built over a few generations. People who started building them knew they wouldn’t be finished until their grandson was born.

-Jamais Cascio

Maybe it’s hubris, but we expect our creative monuments, our works of art, to last forever. Fixed points in man’s timeline.
Last night I spoke with a Frenchman, a Parisian, who was in mourning, speaking of a devastating cultural loss. I began to think of iconic buildings whose loss would affect we British people similarly. And then, as a Mancunian, a particular building in my own city, regularly seen but perhaps taken for granted by me.
I struggled to make a connecting comparison.
Then, the morning after that conversation, I woke to a photograph and an idea that, within all of last night’s images of destruction and despairing, I had lost touch with: there’s always hope.andys cross image

 For You are my hope, O Lord God; You are my trust from my youth.
Psalm 71:5

Favorite Holiday?

November 18, 2018 /

I had a teeth-cleaning appointment at the Dentist a couple of weeks ago. The hygienist is personable and always asks questions while my mouth is fully open exposing a set of teeth in ‘ready-to-be-cleaned’ position. It must be a lonely job, just hearing yourself talk with a client who mostly can’t respond.
This time around the question of the day was:

“What’s your favorite holiday?”

And this time around, she climbed out of my mouth, looked me in the eye (she’s a pro – she can locate those eyeballs amidst the open mouth-face) and waited for a response.
I had none at that immediate moment.
She filled the silence by answering her own question with the standard (at least it seems that way to me after all these years of living) “I don’t like the hype of Christmas, etc etc, it’s no fun anymore, etc, etc, SO: my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving”…no surprise. Sorry to say, but I’ve heard all that a million times before to where it sounds a bit trite. But, I get it.
During the next extended open-mouth segment, I pondered her question. I realized my answer to that question has not only morphed over the years, but I could express in a ‘sound bite’ (pun actually unintended!) a sort of reason for my response in the response itself. Kind of important given the brief time for articulation available while in The Chair.

“For me, my favorite holiday is anytime the family gets to be together.”

My, aren’t I clever?

So, what’s your favorite holiday?

Holy Week 2016

March 21, 2016 /

Yesterday’s Palm Sunday marked the start of Holy Week – the last week of Lent and the week preceding Easter. It is a time for reflection and commemoration of the Passion of Christ for those of us who are followers of the Prince of Peace.palm sunday quote

palmetto fronds

palmetto fronds


saw-palmetto-leaf-2

saw-palmetto leaf: the artistry of His Creation


 
This year, I realized the connection between Sunday’s palm fronds to the area where we are currently living: the Palmetto State of South Carolina. Not a spiritual connection, but one that helps me to see some inter-connectedness in my personal life and this place – well, at least its flora.
 
That said, I thought I’d use this liturgical timeline as a means to express some thoughts I believe reflect the heart of Christ’s message.  I’ll be sticky-noting some quotes/images from this blog’s archives that reflect those thoughts* and maybe come up with a new post when all is said and done.
 
 
*just scroll down to view them as I (re)post them over the course of this week.
(click here & here for the two I selected)

Peace Post – Passion Scars

May 9, 2014 /

Peace, love and happiness don’t just happen.Passion Scars by Peter Steele

These qualities arise from a life of intent, purpose and passion.
Passion leaves scars.  Scars are not bad.  Scars are proof.

Imagine the scars of love on the risen Christ while walking the road beside Thomas.

“Reach here your finger, and see My hands; reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing.”*

Proof that it is He.
Passion leaves a legacy.
Consider the statues of Easter Island.  horses on Easter IslandLong thought to be created using slave labor, researchers now believe the Moai were fashioned as part of a community ‘Passion Project.’  Many generations hauling and carving stone, raising the giant heads all to honor those who had gone on before them.  Passion to make those they loved ‘known’ beyond their short time on earth.
Peace, love and happiness don’t just happen.
Passion is not without its costs. 
Passion leaves scars.  Scars are not bad.  Scars are proof.
*John 20:27

Credits: Photographer Peter Steele’s latest body of work, Passion Scars Peace, Love and Happiness documents the carving in aspen trees from Steamboat Springs to Telluride, Colorado. Steele has identified four groups of people who carve in the aspen trees: sheep herders, elk hunters, the casual car camper, and homesteaders.Steele’s image of the oldest carving in the collection, dated 1922, was taken in an old growth aspen grove outside Telluride, CO. While Steele does not condone the act of aspen graffiti, and does not carve in trees, he enjoys searching and documenting these sacred messages that people have passionately expressed on the smooth canvas of the bark of the aspen tree. Peter Steele’s collection consists of 2000 tattooed aspen photographs recorded while hiking hundreds of miles of trails throughout Colorado.

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