May Day, 2008

The seedlings are already growing and it is amazing that this is happening so fast! I forgot the beans when I listed them the other day--green and yellow. They are growing the fastest, although the squash plants will probably be the biggest.

Today is the feast of St. Joseph the Worker, which is St. Joseph under his patronage of all of us as workers, all of us seeking work. He is the primary saint to turn to for intercession when we need work to meet our customary needs. I think of him as the patron of fathers and then remember that he is also the patron of work. Many of us need his prayers for us today as our economy continues to flounder.

May day used to be a day for giving flowers and a friend remembered me with irises from her garden. Big, beautiful, frilly flowers that make me think of girls with their party dresses, they are blue, white and a peach that has lavender highlights. Gorgeous!

May day also was a traditional day for lovers to pair off and accept each others invitations--thus the tradition of the Maypole and dancing that went with it. That, of course, has not been the case for many decades. There may be few village greens left on which to set up a Maypole, let alone dance around it.

One of the truly heartening things that I saw in the news today was the dockworkers marching in protest against the war--shutting down the ports all along the West coast. They lost a day's pay today--that is truly making a statement and a commitment at a time when making ends meet is becoming harder for everyone. I cannot remember another time when this occurred so I am cheering for them.

I would also like to see a solution to the injustices of immigration discrimination. All of my ancestors were immigrants. They did not speak English. In fact, the French Canadians who immigrated to the Detroit River Raisin area of southern Michigan spoke French as their primary language until the turn of the nineteenth century into the twentieth. They had been there for 250 years and they saw no reason to change until the school system mandated that their children speak English.

I pray tonight to St. Joseph, that he will intercede for all of us that we may work and live in peace and prosperity. I am grateful for his feast.