Bushel Bush

Sophia, singing to my mother Thursday morning, when mom went to pick her up from Atrium because Maeve was sick. Or not sick. Or sick. Who knows? Anyway:

This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine
This little light of mine
I'm gonna let it shine,
let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Won't hide it under a bushel bush, NO
I'm gonna let it shine
Won't hide it under a bushel bush, NO
I'm gonna let it shine
Won't hide it under a bushel bush, NO
I'm gonna let it shine
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine

Bushel bush. I love when kids come up with things like that.

In other, only loosely related, news, St. Pius V is on the South Grand House Tour this year. I was telling my neighbors about how it's different to prepare a church than a house for the tour--what to write in the booklet about the house is a whole different story. You don't write about who lives there, for instance, I say off-handedly. And Brent, home sick with the same crud that got me and Maeve this week, said, but you could do some interesting things with that...house of God and all.

You know, it's been a long time of hiding under that bushel bush. Whatever the heck that is. ;^) (Yes, I realize she's hearing it wrong: it's a bushel basket). It's been a long time of fearing the idea of sharing faith. Dare I say that my Protestant neighbors make me a better Catholic? If they were of a different sort, that would probably really irk them to hear it (of course, if they were of a different sort...they would then be of the sort that wouldn't change me at all).

Lastly, you know what doesn't make me a better Catholic? The idea of joining Ecclesia Domestica. The Catholic Homeschool support group here in town, especially approved by the archbishop as a public association of the faithful. Someone recently handed me their newsletter. Holy pre-vatican II submit your will to the archbishop and talk in Latin to your children, Batman! This same person told me that she could never send her children to the Atrium because it was not such a "public association of the faithful," and was used by such radical folks as Episcopalians and Methodists. Funny, that's part of what attracted me--the Christian focus of the whole program. Yes, it is very Catholic, but it is completely adaptable. Sophia comes home singing, ruminates on the Kingdom of God, brings home little pictures of the woman with three measures of flour that she's copied from the light table. She does "works" with lambs and shepherds and "pastings" of altars ready for mass. It's a lovely, tender program. Nothing stuffy, nothing you have to translate from "the Latin" (ecclesia domestica, which may be obvious, means church in the home/domestic church). The ecclesia woman I know is satisfied where she is--suffice to say, I'll stick with Atrium and the bushel bush.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
(from the Desiderata by Max Ehrmann)