Neighborhood Pics
These are recent additions to a Flickr set: Around the Block in 365
Seán Collins is a Saint Louis-based public media producer interested in community-building, cool lamps, photography, slow food, poetry, and the creative tension of already/not yet.
He's been a Benedictine monk, a bookseller, a network news producer, and a pastoral minister.
A Small Thanksgiving (by James Stone Goodman)
Personal Installation
A small thanks-giving
for the common gifts of your life
the expected ones
the ones you get if you live with others
your family
a livelihood
the works of your hands
the good you have done in the world
the good done you
these first fruits
the model from the first Thanksgiving
when the Pilgrims and others
brought down Sukkot as their guide:
Deuteronomy 26: 1 – 3
When you enter the land,
go to the holy man,
take baskets of first fruits,
go where God tells you.
Give your baskets to the holy man,
then – tell him what happened, in brief:
we have been lost, we are coming home.
End the story with gratitude
for having been brought to this place.
Bow down and sit together with
the holy ones
and the strangers among you.
Have a meal together.
Set up large stones,
inscribe these teachings,
every word,
on the stones.
Today you have become a people of
God.
Live in that for a long time.
Thanks-giving Installation
When they entered the land
they were grateful, the Pilgrims
they landed December 11, 1620
the first winter was devastating
46 of the original 102 who sailed on the Mayflower
died.
There was no thanksgiving that first winter
if there had been a way back
I imagine a good number of them would have taken it,
But when you’re in the thick of it
when you wonder if there are better days ahead
that’s the time for thanks-giving
when it’s the least likely --
Then -- they had a bountiful harvest
they celebrated the first successful harvest with a meal
1621
they only had to wait a year
I imagine it was a long year
but by that second year --
harvest galore
the survivors celebrated with a feast
the Wampanoag and the Pilgrims ate together
at Plymouth Massachusetts
Pilgrims invited 91 Indians who had helped the Pilgrims survive
after the shock of the first winter.
I haven’t been there – to Plymouth Massachusetts
I’ve been to Plymouth Michigan
near where I grew up
I used to wonder --
why is it called Plymouth?
What pride in the story --
How Plymouth Michigan got its Name
The first settlers in Michigan met
25 miles west of Detroit
February 26, 1827
the downtown then was officially called Podunk
Later Podunk a term for a mythical American town
from a group of natives who settled
around the Podunk river in Connecticut
Podunk became code for small American town
from Buffalo Daily National Pilot newspaper
Letters from Podunk -- a series beginning January 5, 1846.
The north end of of Plymouth town was called Joppa
Biblical reference to the port near Tel Aviv
somebody suggested Peking as a name for the town
their first choice was LeRoy
but those names were taken
some of the early settlers came from Plymouth Mass-a-chu-setts
so they called it Plymouth, Michigan.
We live in a great country.
Big Tent Country
Full of goofy stories
Big feelings
Gratitude
Thanks and thanks emanating
from Plymouth Massachusetts
second winter.
Here in St. Louis, Missouri
I tell it to the wind with our hair wound long
Passing the story stick to craft and memory
Claiming the tale for honor and delight
And the last taste
gratitude
as taught by the elders
who wrote it on a wall
read it by flames
beginning in silliness
concluding in gratitude
nothing hard
come home brothers and sisters
you may dig yourselves permanent wells here
without fear
you may feel
thankfulness
like you have never known
live in that for a long
time
and for this Thanks-giving ---
be entirely
happy
Amen.
jsg, usa
—James Stone Goodman
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Dorcas Reilly Day
In honor of Dorcas Reilly, the Campbell Soup Test Kitchen Chief who developed the recipe for Green Bean Casserole, I present this truly remarkable image search.
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