The Anchoress
First, I want to shout out a big thank you to all of you who have used the Amazon search button (or any of my amazon links) to purchase goods – I’m especially grateful for whoever it was bought the Amazon Kindle, as it brought a $35 kickback to the site.
What I have been doing with Amazon monies is putting 30% of the earnings into a charity (varies between the hospice which helped my brother and the Summit Nuns Capital Campaign, because our good sisters’ kitchen cabinets are falling on them as they try to cook!) and putting the rest toward Buster’s college tuition which – while our salaries lie stagnant, has risen another 4%. Usually, that means about $30.00 a month to charity and $60.00 toward tuition. This month – thanks to you and your good reading habits, the sisters will get $60.00 toward their goal, and Buster will get $180 towards his, so you see you really do help out when you shop at Amazon, though this site.
When you buy the awesome Mystic Monk Coffee you also help out others, but you also help yourself. No, really. The Carmelite Monks of Wyoming have realized over $30,000 in sales from this site, which is helping them move quickly to build living and worship space for their quickly burgeoning house – they have more young men asking for entrance than they can fit, which is very good news. Here is a very nicely done new video, explaining their life – showing the monks at prayer, listening to sacred reading at supper, (the reader chanting from the writings of St. Teresa of Avila, the great Doctor of the Church and reformer of the Carmelite Order) at recreation and even roasting the coffee, which – as I keep telling you – is miraculous stuff. In this house we call it “liquid crack.”
And too, like the Summit Dominicans, the Carmelite Monks pray daily for their patrons, customers and benefactors, so even if you feel like no one in the world is praying for you, you can be assured – as you sip your Ethiopian blend or slather on a bit of hand creme, that these unseen prayer-warriors have remembered you in their orisons.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I that certainly consoles me a little!
Please take a moment to visit all of the advertisers in my right-hand sidebars. Internet advertising is drying up, and I am very grateful for these folks for placing their ads, here. I particularly urge you to take a look at the iPhone applications for the Liturgy of the Hours. To be able to take the daily offices with you, and access them as you are riding a subway or bus, or awaiting an appointment, can be a huge salve to your day as you grab a bit of silence in this ultra-noisy, maga-distracting world – like a balm on a never-quite-closing wound. I believe we need this, badly.
Heh. Speaking of “badly,” Chesterton once said “anything that is worth doing is worth doing [even] badly.” The Liturgy of the Hours is done very well by these folks. So well, in fact, that I don’t see the sense in my doing the podcasts any longer – although sometimes I might, if the spirit moves me. What do you think – would you like me to continue the LOTH Podcasts, or would you prefer that I simply read the scriptural readings and psalms from daily mass? Or would you prefer that I shut up, altogether? I really want your opinions.
Which reminds me. The podcasts of the Joyful and Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary seem like they’re being well-used. I will try to record the Glorious Mysteries later today and the Luminous, tomorrow.
Oh, and a final reminder: Eat a Sea Kitten Recipe Round Up; the deadline is approaching. Let’s get some good fish recipes for Lent! :-)
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