THE "BIRDER" AND HIS BROTHERS IN ITALY

I have been here in Italy with my brothers.  I have seen millions of what I gather are Bank Swallows or a unique European version of Tree Swallows. In the beautiful medieval towns of Florence, Pisa and Siena which we visited they "control the skies" 2nd, of course, to the Rock Doves. Here in Venice where we are staying with my Redemptorist confreres the Rock Doves above and on the Plaza of St. Marks  will greet us tomorrow when Benedict XVI  comes to Venice for a huge open air Mass.  Enjoy some of our moments.

At Rome's  Colliseum

On a Bridge over Arne River in Pisa

On Route to Redemptorist Parish, Our Lady of Consolation -Venice

THE MOUNTAIN---A VIMEO VIDEO FROM TEJEIDE SPAIN

This is another truly splendid video which the filmaker, Terje Sorgjerd,  made, using some wonderful time lapse photography on the highest mountain in Spain.  As he says in his explanation one of his chief goals was to take some high altitude, clear time lapse shots of the Milky Way.

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

A "FINALLY SPRUNG SPRING"--THE MOUNT

Before my two brothers and I go to Italy this Saturday, I would like to share with you some pictures of my favorite haunts at The Mount. They are the route that I like to follow, entering at the dip in the road after our Northern entrance from 9 W. One goes to the left along what we always called "The Acre Stream"..Then up along the Acre Pond which is our northwestern, rock lined border with the owners of the Apple Bin.  There is one picture of the blooming Purple Beech which I have on Google Earth..

SPRINGTIME--IN HUNGARY

A very beautiful website where very wonderfully shot videos are found is where I found this one, SPRINGTIME. It was shot by Joseph Weigert ten months ago in the outlying area of Gyomaendröd in Hungary.  It is truly beautiful, with music and artfully and carefully rendered...Here in Esopus, NY we are "waiting for" our own slowly arriving springtime.  The video is 5 mins long, but well worth it. HAPPY SPRINGTIME!...And the 2nd video is called FLOWERIZED.  It is an equally glorious nature video.



Springtime from Joseph Weigert on Vimeo.

Flowerized from Joseph Weigert on Vimeo.

THE POWER OF WORDS

"FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND"--SUNG BY LEONA LEWIS

I found this very nice video by a Miss Shaw who prepared it for her primary grade school class.  It has the "Events of Holy Week" set to this song by Leona Lewis.  Today I heard the melodious sing song of the Eastern Pewee who have "finally" arrived here at The Mount.  Holy Week begins joyful, gets somber and sad on Holy Thursday and Good Friday.  Then on Easter, when Jesus rises to new life, as happens each springtime for the Eastern Pewees, plants, vegetables, flowers and earth..Holy Week is filled with a Joy which I truly hope will grow and grow in our world and never end.

SPRING SPRINGING SLOWLY AT "THE MOUNT"

Here are two pictures: first at what we used to call "The Acre Pond". The pink bench you see is part of the old "Penalty Box"  where our rougher hockey players back then in the 60ties spent a good part of each game.

And this is a view as one move up along the trail that skirts the Acre Pond heading toward the Pell Farm one sees the Apple Bin orchards to one's left.

And the pink blossoms high up show "spring springing to life".

The Budding Weeping Willow

And some small buds and thorns that I found along the southern flowing stream passing right below my Sylvester Feeley Abundant Life Garden......By the way I have "resisted the rules" of planting.  I have reduced the rows between my beets, radiches, red and green lettuce and broccoli to less than 10 inches.  I am going to try and plant some "Burpee Seedless Tomatoes" at the end of May.  And I still have some packets of cauliflower and turnips to sow this Holy Week.

SPRING--AND BAPTISM IN TEXAS

Spring is a time when the earth, deeply asleep and cold, "resting" during, in this year's case...a "very long and difficult winter...when the earth "comes alive again"...For this reason Roman Catholics, as many other christians celebrate Baptisms at the end of Holy Week as we celebrate Christ himself arising from the dead to NEW LIFE...For this reason I share with you this quite moving Baptismal Rite from Curtis Park in Texas.

Baptism Spring 08 from Steve V on Vimeo.

EDITH STEIN-SR. BENEDICT OF THE CROSS

In the nearly three years I have spent on the retreat team here at Mt. St. Alphonsus I have created at least three retreats that treated our the connection between all things in the universe.  Call it ecology.  Call it Creation Theology.  The fact is that all life is connected.  We human beings, with our intelligence are the "crown" of creation.  But our intelligence, besides being a great "gift of God" holds us responsable for being just and compassionate caretakers (stewards) of all life.  Right now I am preparing a Holy Week retreat for women (1 day) and for Men (3 days).  One recent Roman Catholic Saint, St. Benedict of the Cross (Edith Stein), has helped me understand how, if we understand the "connectedness" of all life, all people and all created life....it can "lead us to God".  This is what happened to Edith Stein, born a Jew, become a great philosopher but never allowed to have a professorship in her native Germany, first because she was a woman and later because she was also a Jew.  The experience of being excluded, hated, despised led Edith Stein to understand and accept the person of Jesus Christ as one who like the Yom Kippur "scapegoat" took all the evil and all the pain and all the sin of our world and destroyed it.  No one likes suffering.  But Edith Stein learned that great love leads people to great suffering.  It happened with Jesus. It happens with good, valiant and loving people of all times.  And it happened with Edith Stein.  

Sustaining 2nd Generation Mexicans in the Faith – 3/28/11 : Currents

Recently Fordham University had a most interesting panel on the subject of Sustaining the Faith of 2nd Generation Mexicans in their Catholic Faith.  This video shows my Redemptorist confrere, Rev. Francis Skelly C.SS.R. and also Deirdre Gould (Cornell)  with whom I have been working in Migrant Ministry here in Ulster County.



Sustaining 2nd Generation Mexicans in the Faith – 3/28/11 : Currents

WINTER IS GONE

I truly loved this short video shot by Justin Leyba who shares it with us on VIMEO.  Justin tells us that he decided to film this walk in the woods with his little sister.  As he says in the caption, he shot it entirely without aid of a tripod. I hope you find it as beautiful as I did and long for the end of this long, harsh winter and the arrival of spring.

Winter's Gone- Short Film from Justin Leyba on Vimeo.

TWO FLEDGING "AMERICAN KESTRELS" (Sparrow Hawks)

During the ten years that I worked in Immaculate Conception Parish in the South Bronx one of my delights was going on our roof which had a great view south and west.  On the water tower of "Cookies" right in front of us I saw two perched Kestrels.  Later on I discovered and observed two of their nesting sites which I have learned NOT to advertise on the Internet.  On one occasion we observed the "first flights" of two recently fledged Kestrels.  It was wonderful, because they were not only as big, but a bit bigger even than the female (Mom).  (Females Kestrels are usually larger than the male.  Here is a very well shot video of two fleding Kestrels at a site unknow..

American kestrel nestlings about to leave the nest from Brady Beck on Vimeo.

Tips for Organic Gardening

INDOOR VIOLETS WAITING FOR "SPRING OUTSIDE"

As the temperature stubbornly hovers below freezing here at The Mount (Esopus), my potted violets look outside and say, Wow!! That sun is great, but thank God the Birder doesn't open this window. We'd freeze to death!"... Last year Easter was before April 8th and our three magnolias were in full bloom by the 12th of so of the month. I don't think it will happen this year.  But who knows!  Two good days of sun and they will burst out with their great, uninhibited beauty.  Meanwhile you'll have to be content with my two violets.

"LOVE ONE ANOTHER"

(Song by for Japan --Michael Africk and Mai Kuracki)

4 mins.

WAITING FOR THE EASTERN MEADOWLARKS!!1

One of the most joyous signs of Spring last year for me was that I "finally" saw two Eastern Meadowlarks out in our northern pastures here at the Mount.  The silo and pieces of the original barn still stand.  We had Black Angus cattle there from the early 1950 ties.  There is a pre civil war small cementery there where workers of Robert Livingston Pell are buried.  It was called the "Smith Family Cementery" but there is the name Terpenning there which is still a family name here in Esopus.  Our now deceased tax assessor was a Terpenning and had asked me about the names on the tombstones there.  At any rate I finally saw my Eastern Meadowlarks flying between the marvelous Purple Beech Trees that were near the original Pell Mansion and the western border of The Mount in the meadows.  There song, although not as long as the Western Meadowlarks, is still quite musical.  I'll put the Western Meadowlark first.
And here is the Eastern Meadowlark...

St. Fiacre-Irish French Patron of Gardeners, Potters and Florists

Today my friends and "Garden Advisors". Jack and Marty Roberge,  visited my Sylvester Feeley Abundant Life Garden.  (Jack and Marty were the ones who advised me to choose the spot on The Mount last year. It is on a hill just behind cypress groves.  It was cultivated back before the 50ties as a peach orchard and possibly in the 60ties for potatoes.  It gets about 9 hours of good spring and summer sun each day.  I had pretty good luck last year as a first time gardener.  Starting in early April I planted carrots (which never came to much), red and green leaf lettuce which were very productive, broccoli, cucumbers, zucchini and Beafsteak Tomatoes.  The tomatoes did pretty well.  But I did not stake them well and the voles ate a lot of them. I also did not get after the hornworms that weakened my tomatoes, but all in all the tomatoes did just great.  My best tactic was surrounding my garden with a ring of marigold, which are natural pest controllers.  My 2nd planting was of bush beans which did just fine, cauliflower which the slugs got.  (I put the cups of beer out too late!!!  They had already taken care of the cauliflower)  Marty and Jack gave me this anachron done by Patricia Baker    who does each one individually.  This saint, Fiacre was born in Ireland but emigrated to France where he became a kind of agricultural hermit.  He is said to have had quite miraculous powers of planting and also of healing people.  However he has the bad reputation of having excluded women from his monastery because of a woman who claimed he was a sorcerer.  (You can google information on Fiacre, but one has to know that myth gets confused with fact and real history with this ancient saints. (Notice the phrases above and at the sides of this anachron. Also notice all the details of fruits, birds, owls, butterflies, and all kinds of vegetables.) Join me in praying hard to St. Fiacre for my and all gardens this spring!      

You can find pictures of Patrica Banker's anachrons at http://www.saintspreserved.com/  and also at http://www.folkloricarts.com/                                                                                                                                               

OH, THE DEEP, DEEP LOVE OF JESUS

This video is down by a group called SELAH.  It seems that the word SELAH comes from the Bible, mostly from the Book of Psalms.  It has varied meanings.  But one of its meanings "rest" or "interlude" gave rise to a kind of peaceful, meditative christian music as is this video.  (Here at Mt. St. Alphonsus on a Wednesday of each month we have a TAIZE musical concert in our chapel with lights, soft, beautiful and meditative music which is probably a lot like the SELAH musical concerts begun in 2000) THIS VIDEO IS 6 MINUTES LONG.

SPRING MIGRATION-MT. AUBURN CEMENTERY--Galveston TX

Even though we are still having snowfalls, IT IS SPRING.  This video made in Mt. St. Auburn Cementery in Galveston Texas is truly beautiful.  Even in the height of Spring Migration down in Central Park, NYC one does not see as many Neo Tropical warblers as in this video.

Mt. Auburn Cemetery 5/22/2011 from Jackson Childs on Vimeo.

FANCY --by Reba McIntire and a LENTEN REFLECTION

Last Sunday, travelling on NY Rt 42 towards Monticello, NY to say a Mass for Hispanics I heard Reba McIntire's version of "Fancy  that tells of a poor girl from New Orleans whose Mom and little brother are sick and dying.  The Mom, despite her poverty, prepares a beatiful dress for her daughter and implicitly insinuates that she "go where she had to and do what was necessary" to have a better life. It is a powerful song that shows how poverty and desperation and the indifference of others can drive persons to sacrifice their human dignity.  This video by Reba shows a "good end" to a terrible life journey.  I think Lent calls us to help ourselves and, most especially others, out of journeys of pain, aimlessness and self destruction towards journies of HOPE, LOVE, SOLIDARITY AND FAITH IN GOD.  The song was written by Bobbie Gentry in the 60ties.


THESE ARE THE LYRICS..

"Well, I remember it all very well lookin' back

             the summer that I turned eighteen.

We lived in a one-room, run down shack

on the outskirts of New Orleans.

We didn't have money for food or rent

to say the least we was hard-pressed

when Momma spent every last penny we had

to buy me a dancin' dress.

Well, Momma washed and combed and curled my hair,

then she painted my eyes and lips.

Then I stepped into the satin dancin' dress.

It had a split in the side clean up to my hips.

It was red, velvet-trimmed, and it fit me good

and standin' back from the lookin' glass

was a womanwhere a half grown kid had stood.

She said, "Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!

Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.

God forgive me for what I do,

but if you want out girl it's up to you.

Now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

Momma dabbed a little bit of perfume

on my neck and she kissed my cheek

Then I saw the tears welling up

in her troubled eyes as she started to speak

She looked at our pitiful shack and then

she looked at me and took a ragged breath

She said, Your Pa's runned off, and I'm real sick

and the baby's gonna starve to death.

She handed me a heart-shaped locket that said

"To thine own self be true"

and I shivered as I watched a roach crawl across

the toe of my high-healed shoe

It sounded like somebody else was talkin'

askin', "Momma what do I do?"

She said, "Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy.

They'll be nice to you."

She said, "Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!

Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.

God forgive me for what I do,

But if you want out girl it's up to you

Now don't let me down,

now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

That was the last time I saw my momma

when I left that rickety shack

The welfare people came and took the baby.

Momma died and I ain't been back.

But the wheels of fate had started to turn

and for me there was no other way out.

It wasn't very long after that I knew exactly

what my momma was talkin' 'bout.

I knew what I had to do.

Then I made myself this solemn vow:

I's gonna to be a lady someday

though I didn't know when or how.

But I couldn't see spendin' the rest of my life

with my head hung down in shame.

You know I mighta been born just plain white trash.

but Fancy was my name.

She said, "Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!

Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.

God forgive me for what I do,

but if you want out girl it's up to you.

Now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

Wasn't long after that a benevolent man

took me in off the streets

One week later I was pourin' his tea

in a five roomed penthouse suite.

Since then I've charmed a king, a congressman

and an occasional aristocrat

and I got me an elegant Georgia mansion

and a New York townhouse flat.

Now I ain't done bad

Now in this world there's a lot of self-righteous

hypocrites who call me bad.

They criticize Momma for turning me out

No matter how little we had.

But I haven't had to worry 'bout nothin'

now for nigh on fifteen years

But I can still hear the desperation

in my poor mommas voice ringin' in my ears.

"Here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down!

Oh, here's your last chance, Fancy, don't let me down.

God forgive me for what I do,

but if you want out girl it's up to you.

Now get on out, you better start sleepin' uptown."

THE REAL MEANING OF LENT-BAPTISM

Before I chose this short video on Lent, I had listened to Stephen Colbert.  I like Stephen Colbert, most especially for the strong stand that he "seemed" to have taken regarding the need for Immigration Reform.  He recorded his program up at Gill's Corn Farm  In West Hurley, NY.  last summer. It was both funny and made some strong points about how the Immigration System has been broken and needs reform.  As Stephen is a practicing Catholic he will often link his humor to this. On his first program this year near Ash Wednesday he did a skit where he had ashes on his forehead.  Then he explained that traditionally LENT was a time when Catholics gave up something.  Then he improvised saying that, Catholics should give up something that is very important to them. Then he said (and it was meant to be a joke) So since my Catholic Faith is very important to me I have decided to give it up for Lent.  I still like Stephen Colbert, but his approach was really misleading.  You can find his sketch at this link

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/376919/march-09-2011/stephen-gives-up-catholicism-for-lent
Maybe you found it funny, maybe not.  But this video hits the "target" on what Lent is about.