This is Meg, formally known as Sister Margaret Kealer, OSF, who in her career has engaged in teaching and nursing, and who now is a chaplain at the Veteran's Hospital in Palo Alto. Meg bakes, making Franciscan persimmon bread with Domincan home grown persimmons.
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| Meg holding freshly baked persimmon loaves. |
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| Almost completed puzzle. |
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| Completed puzzle |
Meg does puzzles (usually the 500-piece variety) in the living room on the coffee table. And she keeps the dining room table center pieces in step with the seasons. The Feast of St. Nicholas, December 6th, on the left has a Dutch motif since this Sisters of St. Francis congregation was founded in the Netherlands in 1835. On the right, we are currently in Advent and anticipating the Christmas season.
Meg also enjoys crafts projects. She read the Secret Life of Bees and was moved to create a replica of a scene in the novel. If you want to know the plot, Wikipedia has it here. The wall in the model is of Lily's (the 14 year old protagonist's) wailing wall. In the novel, it is in the rock wall that Lily leaves messages, prayers about the things that sadden her.
I mentioned the Feast of St. Nicholas, which people fondly have nicknamed St. Nick's. Below is a picture from our St. Nick's day celebration. The celebration was a few days earlier than the actual day, on Sunday, December 2nd, instead of on Thursday, December 6th. Franciscan sisters and associates gathered at the provincial headquaters in Redwood City for food and festivities. St. Nick, and his sidekick, Pit, visited handing out sticks if one was naughty or bags of fruit, nuts, and candy if one was nice. Some people got both! Pit (Sr. Linda Gonzales) tended to hand out the sticks. St. Nick (Sr. Pat Rayburn, our provincial minister), being much more benevolent, tended to reign-in Pit's exhuberance, often replacing the sticks with bags of goodies.
So, my week began with a party. Monday, 12/3, was dinner out at Chiara House, one of the local communities in Belmont. Below are (left to right) Franciscans: Maureen, Norberta and Sheral, with Felicia and Dorothy in the back row. Sheral cooked; we had delcious turkey soup (using some leftovers from Thanksgiving). I intererruped "doing the dishes" to take the picture. A little explanation -- so, there really aren't any convents in Northern California. People live together in a house and form a community. Alternatively, folks also live in their own places and gather together, meeting perhaps weekly, to form regional communities. Each of the communities has a name. So, the community in Belmont is named Chiara House after St. Clare of Assisi (Chiara is Clare in Italian). I live with Meg and Carol in Providence House.
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