La Blog de Annie

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Union Square Green Market

Yesterday we spent most of the day walking around Manhattan. It was wet and drizzly, but not too cold. Here I am eating a delicious prune-plum that reminded me of the Farm (not that I just ate one - we bought a pound and I definitely consumed the lion's share).

The pumpkins, squash, and corn were a reminder that the summer is over...

This is an ear of roasted sweet corn, served hot and dripping with butter. Mmmm!!

Manhattan street market

Friday, September 26, 2008

A few more pictures

These row houses are typical for DC. I am in love with the colors... people are so creative. Isn't it neat how different cities have their own distinct architecture? You could identify the location immediately if you saw a street in San Francisco or New York.

These are of Jason and I last weekend at my very favorite coffee shop ever, Dos Gringos, in the lovely neighborhood of Mt. Pleasant.

Here is one final picture of my room. You can see it still needs a lot of decorating work, but the left wall is entirely papered with old maps, in the style of Em's and my Chico apartment!

My beautiful habitation!

Here is the dining room...

and living room...

These last two are of my bedroom, upstairs...

...here is my beautiful plant and adorable heater!

At long last!

Isn't it fantastic? It's nearly one hundred years old! So historic. And all three of the upstairs windows go to my very own bedroom. Pretty much the polar opposite of my basement home of last year in terms of size and light :-)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

The Beauty of the Desert

It is difficult to find words to describe the clash between the amazing beauty of the desert and the unspeakable suffering that occurs there. It was hard to really make sense of, like many things this summer...

Every single sunrise and sunset was breathtaking. I took this one from the best sunrise-watching spot of all, the camp toilet :-)

In the ghost town of Ruby, one and a half million bats live inside an empty mountain; they leave every night to hunt insects.

A barrel cactus bloom. During the monsoon season, which begins in July, everything turns green and flowers... the desert is transformed.

This peak, called Baboquivari, is on the Tohono O'odham nation, to the west of Arivaca and of our camp. It is sacred in their tradition.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Yosemite!

It doesn't matter how many times I go to Yosemite, each time I am completely blown away again. I think it is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

While we were there we saw a bobcat, a mother bear with a cub, and a meteor shower! It was amazing.

Pensamientos

We must hope against hope. We are called to do so especially within a hopeless humanity that is more and more paralyzed by fear… fear is useless, and instead we must look for love far and wide.
- Oscar Andrés Cardinal Rodríguez

La calle es un espejo de
las formas de dominacion
y poder donde los mas
grandes y rapidos
intentan aplastar a los
mas pequenos y lentos.
El uso de la bicicleta,
como medio autonomo de
transporte, es una forma
de insurrection al
capitalismo. No
queremos ser grandes y
veloces como las autos,
ni mucho menos
poderosos, solo ser
libres...

As long as there is a United States of America, there will be territorial and social boundaries between it and the rest of the world. What is not given is the nature of those boundaries. Whether they are walls or bridges, or boundaries of death or of life, whether we perceive and treat those on the other side of those boundaries as inferior and less worthy of lives of multifaceted security, or as fully human and thus deserving of the same rights and privileges as us, is, as always, a matter up for grabs.
- Joseph Nevins

If I had any hatred, I wouldn’t have lasted at all.
Hatred is self-destructive… you have to have Love for a cause.
- Emma Tenayuca, labor organizer

Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, falling in love in a quite absolute, final way. What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect every-thing. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude. Fall in love. Stay in love. And it will decide everything.
- Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

To the question "Who do you say that I am?" we cannot give a merely theoretical or theological answer. What answers it, in the final analysis, is our life, our personal history, our manner of living the gospel.
- Gustavo Gutierrez

Because love is an act of courage, not of fear, love is commitment to others. No matter where the oppressed are found, the act of love is commitment to their cause - the cause of liberation.
- Paulo Freire

The average American consumes as much as 50 Haitians... What would happen if the fifty Haitians consumed as many cars, as many televisions, as many refrigerators or as many luxury goods as the one American? Nothing. Nothing would ever happen again. We would have to change planets. Ours, which is already close to catastrophe, couldn't take it.
The precarious equilibrium of the world depends on the perpetuation of injustice. So that some can consume more, people must continue to consume less. To keep people in their place, the system produces armaments. Incapable of fighting poverty, the system fights the poor.
-Eduardo Galeano

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, but we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Solidarity is another name for the kind of love that moves feet, hands, hearts, material goods, assistance, and sacrifice toward the pain, danger, misfortune, disaster, repression or death of other persons or a whole people.
- Jon Sobrino, SJ