Hostel

We walked the streets and I kept my disposable camera under wraps. We tried to understand the subway and took in the culture of urban dwellers. I kept saying to myself "hey, I could do this! I love the city."
And I was free to say it because I had money in my pocket and I wasn't alone.

A city takes in all kinds and it distracts you. And you can find someone to fight with or alongside. The wealthy of the top floor at least provides the crumbs for those who gather underneath the table. Cities offer the world at the next station, but some children never leave the Borough.
Then the most amazing contrast. We took ourselves to Times Square Church. And we agreed together, these strangers gathered to the feast prepared for us, that we would worship God in Jesus.
And we all could say, but not with words, that we knew His spirit and we knew His people. The impression of Him far outweighed the Musicals, the Food and the Wealth. It outweighed the sight of the girl arriving 2 am to the hotel. Or the man curled up in the rain.
I had two dollars to take the train there, and the clear head to find my way.
God Bless the City

Gold Medal

I may know how to knit, but I don't know how to post my medal on my blog sidebar. I think I may go traditional until then and print one out and wear it hard copy on my hard copy sweater.

My love for you is
young and narrow
It sits with snapshots
taken tightly
It looms large, then
I conceal it
So you won't feel the need
to feed it

My prayers for you are
large and ageless
Wandering years and
patching loopholes,
my answer to the
splintered phrases
"I hold you, limited
by daylight".

Yeah; I'm done...2/23 @ 10:43 a.m.....

Sunday Hit Parade

Joel writes and plays stuff...check it out

Medal Hopeful

I got together with my homies this morning. Caffine and conversation help me set pace to finish the front and 6 inches of sleeve. I'm still well supplied with Valentine candy and I think I have enough yarn. I took matters into my own hands, ignoring the suggested yardage (gasp!) and cast on with color of choice. (I did put in an emergancy order of Lamb's Pride and I'll cross any treacherous dye lot bridges if I come to them.) Fool-hardy, I know. But champions take risks. Let's see if I am one!

If Frustrated and You Know It, Clap Your Hands...

Some voices out there are well listened to. Andrew Jones, by wisdom and tenure, has the loud-speaker today and it is a relief to me. Here, he has his say in the escalating puzzlement over the new forms of Meeting (read church). In a word, yes. In a word, Yes to all of us, however you describe yourself.

Some who read this my see yet more points to wrangle over. But I find grace in the midst of his words and I hope you can settle down again as I have.
As Rob Bell says in Velvet Elvis:
"If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody"

Progress

Back completed.....avoiding injury.....on to the front!

Nature that Nurtures

This is a bit of research that has magical possibilities and poetic mysteries...
link to the NPR story-

Repenting

I am repenting of Judging. "Hi, my name is Suzanna and I am an Opiniaholic. I have been sober for 5 minutes."
I am trying Henri Nouwen's imagined life free from the need to judge anyone. Because it is a toxic drug (this preoccupation with being right), it keeps me from pain, joy, and being present with what is happening right now. Judgement snatches real life right out from under me.
I am not a doctor that needs to examine a patient. I am not a tax accountant that needs to keep track of numbers. I am not keeping the books of court or asked to manage a dangerous and complicated society.
So I am abdicating this self-built throne of observation and pronouncement. And when I try to crawl back onto it this afternoon, please people, remind me that I carry the "light burden of being Judged".
Forgive me for not enjoying your painting.

Musical Moments

For an amazing treat go to the link and watch Jake Shimabukuro play his Weeping Ukelele. (I got one for Joel for Christmas.)
I think this guy could probably make a tin can sound melodic.

subversive

`They commonly enter seminary motivated by a commitment to God and a desire to serve their Lord in some form of ministry, and find that they are being either distracted or deflected from that intention at every turn. They find themselves immersed in Chalcedonian controversies, they find themselves staying up late at night memorising Greek paradigms, they wake in the morning, rubbing their eyes, puzzled over hairsplitting distinctions between homoousios and homoiousios. This is not what they had bargained on.... Seminaries were regarded as the graveyard of spirituality. Seminaries were where men and women lost their faith.' -Eugene Peterson

Churches can be a graveyard as well.
No matter what we study: Greek or tech sheets

Keep seeking Keep knocking(up from the grave He arose)

Christian faith, by definition
Cannot die
The death has already been done

Shared Thought

Thy Grace is Sufficient

We're all trying to live it and figure it out it seems. Our faith that we claim is never stagnant.
Steve Norris quotes Peggy Noonan here:

"My mother, too, associated Catholicism with unhappy things, though she was not clear as to why. They married in 1947, my father just home from the war, and one belief they seemed to hold in common was that organized religion was for the old-fashioned, for hypocrites and creeps who would hit you on the head for wearing the wrong shoes.

They wanted to be modern, They wanted to leave their not-adequately lit apartments behind and enter the American sunlight. And while the church held little for them, other areas of life, which might even be called competing areas, seem more alluring."

Every Generation.
Even the Greatest Generation
Moved On
and Left behind the community
that seemed to offer them nothing.
And someone let them go
Some people didn't fight for them and
woo them
and love them through it.

Or maybe they just wanted out.
and they told themselves they were
misunderstood
When it may be that
They didn't seek to understand

Still Soliton

So, four months later, I am still wondering about Soliton.
Soliton, a gathering of seeking believers in Ventura last year, still much to my dismay is having it's ripple effect upon me. I am asking all the same questions as the rest of the group, but not at all liking the continuous loose end. Here is my first impression, written the day I got home, freshly nudged to Blog:

....I found something so new and beautiful at Soliton, but I am terrified by it thin and fragile frame.
To others, the frame may be bold and compelling. But I took in all that my ears and heart could hear and I am left shaken. I was not aware of the accountabilty to scripture. A new theology, but in reference to what? The ideas that were explored were out of my framework. My black and white unpopular unPC framework. Not all, but enough that I am having a hard time trusting. How can I take in the ideas and not the Soul Individuals that freely create them? This is touching on my co-dependancy. I want to take care of them. I am grieving over the gap I fear.
I am asked to make relationship with precious hurting urban people, to not turn from them.
I am losing courage. People are hard to hang with! I am writing my own song of lament. Micheal Card has written of this.
Psalm 119 touches on this. I want people to be heard and accepted and loved, but as Jesus would.
Now even who He is has come into question.
Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me. Matthew 11:6

So today, I know as much as then.
Soliton gleamed such promise for me, and gave me a warning. Show me what you got from it.
I must have a huge blind spot...
Show me Christ and I can see you clearly.
Show me what He sees and I will trust it.
Lay your answer down deep in this Man and I will follow you.
Lay your mystery down deep in this Man and I will live there.

Who'll Make the Team?

At the risk of turning this into a Knitting Blog (please don't run away), I'd like to announce my semi-final selections for this years Knitting Olympics:

Ribbed Center Cable or
All-Over Right Twist (sounds like a ski-jumper's manuever)

Yarn Harlot is logging up to 700 responses to date. Next thing you know, Matt and Katie will be calling for an interview.
I'm going for the Gold!

Knitting Olympian

I'm in training to take a blogger's challenge. I'm sure you'll be cheering me along with the downhill racers and bob-sleds. I'll be following the Yarn Harlot and lots of other knitters in a challenge of strength and stamina and we'll still get to eat what we want and avoid the cold snow from getting in our boots.
I'll be doing a classic Aran in Lambspride Oatmeal. 'Twill be lovely and just the thing for our trip to NYC for my B-day. Oh what a good idea!
Check out the Official of the Games @ the link......

worshiping

Tomorrow, I begin again to offer what I have, what's been given me and what I can't keep.
But why does it always have to run this path of anxiety?
The shortness of breath reminds me that I do not supply the air.
The images freeze-framed remind me I do not supply the vision.
The memory at a loss makes me rely on another Word.
Only one note in a long melody.

Grieving

Prayers and condolances. I pray where others cannot.
(Gene J. Puskar/AP Photo)

All Our Hands are Dirty

With my son, daughter and friend I saw Syriana last night. It was not as violent as I expected it to be, but it's hopeless images left a mark on me. Every character in this movie has their humanity all over them.
I knew it would be political, presenting a side of the story with the usual villains; corrupt government, greedy corporates, naive up-and-coming youths with their idealism.
Did any one else see the inference in the corporate names?
CONnex and KILLen.
Is it a coincidence that there is something in a name, converging to make a power that murders through deception?
But what was new and welcome to my sense is how this movie puts all our world players in the same desperate world. All the various motives and lies that hold up our world structure make all of us involved and important. It does matter how I react. It does matter how it is all connected. The story seems to demand a reaction that will offer more hope than a suicide bomber or a displaced, desperate government worker.
How can I make a difference? Instead of hardening my heart to the need, I must continue to allow the injustice to effect me, even going against the political tide of my community that turns our face from the collective greed in SUVs and thoughtless consumption. When will I begin to fast from that which does have it's roots in the poverty of others?
We are beholding to the Kings of the Earth. And in this movie about the Oil, the Middle East and American Greed, we apparently have many kings. Who is mine?
Who is willing to die in a way that brings life? Yes, the west and all it's philosophy does fail the destitute, and the forms of religion that continue to bring oppression. Good men everywhere know that we must continue to fight for justice. How will I emulate my King? Does His Kingdom reach from me across the world which I can now view from my laptop?
If I found myself in a small room with those my life could effect, would I disclose myself and offer the Good News of His Kingdom?

1/1/06

Light against Dark;
the reason I sleep
Love over death;
the hope in my prayer
Silence against the clamor;
the walls around my Kingdom
His breathing;
why I speak