What It's All About

...our annual love feast and quilt jubilee. This should happen everywhere, all over the world.

Merry Christmas

Glee

Switch It Up

I sent off the last of the packages today after my marathon week of rehearsals and waitressing for Uncle Phil's Diner.
Matt and I had a great time and made new thespian friends along the way.
But when I picked him up from school today, he said what I was thinking- "I'm sure glad we don't have practice tonight."

Tonight was spent making risotto and putting lights on the best tree ever. (I think we say that every year). But it is the best tree ever; recently living and looking alive for the next two weeks. The tree really does represent something to me and I am very grateful to bring the large organic altar onto the carpet.

I am trying again to live at Christmas rather than lose heart and consciousness. Some of it, as we all know is important, and some of the stuff is not.
Be blessed by what you determine to give and and receive what has also been yours to have:
...and the greatest of these is love.

Gift

Purchase some gifts from Thistle Farms and help Magdelene.

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio.
The West
Boston
The Inland North
Philadelphia
North Central
The Northeast
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

No Room at the Diner

Come see Matthew and I whoop it up in Coley's Comedy Extravaganza.
Christmas Puns and Sentimental Moments are in store like a long listen to your favorite Andy Williams Christmas album.

I spent the waking hours and then some this past weekend making costumes. Now for the unending week of rehearsals and performances. But we're having fun getting nothing else done.

Thursday December 14 6:30 pm
Friday December 15 8:00 pm
Saturday December 16 1:00 pm and 6:00 pm
Sunday December 17 1:00 pm and 6:00 pm

Weary Mother of God, Pray for Us

I have to find my own labor-bed
Kings of the earth are too important
for the common mother

I will gather my own clean straw
Inn keepers are too distracted
to tend to a child

I am wrapping up my child in homespun
the family is far away. They
don't see the color of my newborn's eyes

His Father is unseen
The child comes from me
and the Wind of the Air

I suckle my son, the only warmth of the night
No husband can build this boy
a house which will hold Him

I am watching the days unfold
Men of influence are too self-absorbed
to acknowledge our life

My Father is unseen
This child comes to me
upon the Wind of the Air

I am strong with the hope I bear
The way of the world is not taught to me
who has yet to teach the world

I will intercede whether on tongue of prayer
Or by Just Peoples who answer callings
waiting unheralded



(The Anticipation of Christ crafts a song from even the loneliest of hearts)

A Christmas Story

Advent: Day Three

Here's an alternative to The Christmas Story, the American favorite with Ralphie, Bunny Suits and Cigar Smoking Elves:

Christ the Lord by Anne Rice

I read through this slowly last winter and savored every word. It's like gazing at a Master Painting and camping on the hard wood museum floor for days to catch the details. I would love to have a Read-Along over this. Let me know if you'll join me; I would love the community...

An Advent-ual Folk Tale

You are ancient and immediate

Holding us there. the
Moon overhead. and the
Voice breathing toward me. the
Black shadow of grass.
the moon
the voice
the shadow
Over all through all and in all
She sang that triad song
But Christ didn’t need to be said because

I move over You the grass beneath your feet
I whisper and caress you the cool of breeze
I light upon you the grey moon muscle
I open Your hand the fitted form and tender

you bend under weight of days and patient watching
You cradle witness of the funeral
you think and write a parallel network
You pace a landscape unseen

my remembrance a spongy soil



Another Advent poem

The Royal We

What can I say? Some people got it and some people don't.

This is my Best Season. I am so grateful for courage and stamina to work within it. In former times there has been the spirit of Christmas past which has been heavy on my shoulder, but not this year. It's Christmas Present visiting me lately.
I'm so grateful; have I said that?

I'm busy in a good way. I'm making gifts and enjoying that process, but all the while so mindful of the deeper spiritual growth that has come about this past few months.
I am not the same person I was last year at this time.
Not all for the better, but accepting things as they are.

When I had finally lifted my head, I found friends and family in plenty.
A royal plenty.
The preparation for Advent has already been tooled in me. I am anticipating generosity and the exchanging of Gifts.

afterward there may be a reflection of that Gift under the tree.

Can You Dig It?

Matthew was an Existential Caterpillar in fine form. Complete with the rhythm of bongo and finger snapping, he delivered his lines in Olivier fashion.
Alice in Wonderland, the Musical.
"Nietzsche!"

After the Houseguest

On November 5th
They came.
We talked with Shane.
We ate.
The fledglings, myself included, mingled about and looked harder at each other and the future of our faith.
Well, what shall we do now?

I think we agree that we are meant for each other. We can only really live if we stick together. Use whatever you've got. Enjoy the ones that are around you, they are really quite unique.

It's okay to dream out loud and meet the ones who stir up our dreaming. Then we wander off and remember the time we had together.
23 of us.
Maybe like a church.
Maybe like the start of something, like Jesus was true.
Maybe a way to feel the love we need to feel in order to change.

...and here's a couple photos of Joel and Karin that Cole took.

Shane's coming

Wow, this is great! I got to meet him @ Soliton last August. I had read his book over the summer and then handed it to three of my friends. We thought we'd try to hear him speak next time he was in town.

Well, one thing lead to another and now it really is a mini-soliton (is there any such thing...?)
here in Fullerton. Though it's a little weird to not know how many people will actually come, there are a few extremely joyful senior guys who are inviting everyone.

Stats:
Joel Bond's House
339 N. Drake
Fullerton, Ca. 92836

Sunday November 5th
5-7pm

Come.
We shall watch events unfold...

garment

When you tend to a child be gentle
Before you approach
say a prayer
Tender skin to match a tender heart
Too fresh for self-preservation:
a word a child can't know

When you speak to a child be slow
Before you breath in
accept what you hear
Tender past that never leaves you
Can grow again a-right:
a hope a child can't deny.

Cloth a child in cloth made of mercy
Feed a child the steady diet of plenty
Lilies of the field
Birds of the air

The Poverty of Dissention

I have been challenged this year in a way that I thought I would welcome. I have put myself in places of discussion that has broken down some of the tired and fruitless ways of being in community and faith.
I have crossed boundaries that kept out love and yet am confronted by the lack of connection within my own fences.

I have been reading Wendell Berry and he is illustrating community for me in the context of the deep social contracts which are grounded in marriage, extending to the preciousness of trust and forbearance for those who gather together.
This comes on the heals of discovering the conditional description read in one of Brennan Manning's books: the poverty of uniqueness.

Berry is a dissenter, an observer of community that can only offer his true observation from within the bounds of community. He says only community has the grace within it to shape it's change. A dissenter must speak out the truth that can offer fruitful change. A dissenter must remain within the community it criticize in order for the community to trust what the dissenter observes.
If the community doesn't trust the words of the dissenter, then membership is broken by their inattention or ambivalence.

It's feels like hard work to be a dissenter. Within even the best and most affectionate communities, the dissenter must be respectful of the irregular paces she might put them through. A seed planter is not experiencing the same fellowship as the harvesters.
Artist and poets who are often dissenters, if not always, create their own sub-communities in order to teach each other the proper social steps which engage the encompassing community.
I am coming to this artful community with more energy and purposefulness lately. I have to name myself Artist. No one else can.
I must also deal with the dissenting quality of an artist, who is not so named to satisfy a hunger for notariaty or position, as I am learning, but merely a word of description.
People may admire art or poetry for the mystery of it, but if doesn't effect change, the community is itself poverty stricken. Artistry is not always rewarding. It has within it a mysterious fellowship. An artist can find her life within that fellowship. Each unique person, no matter what their labor, has their fellowship which then nurtures the other members.
There is an interdependence within the community that must loosely grasp by respect the unique poverty of each of its members. We don't belong to each other because we must, but because each one of us contains a unique gift with the freedom to give when it's fruition comes in season.
Even if it's the gift of dissenting.

Happy 17 Jacob

Alain and I warmed up the Industrial Cottage and produced a shirt for our friend.
serendipity ruled the day as I had a vintage pattern from '68 and yardage that I bought in Carmel last summer. We made the v-neck of Jake's dreams.

Credit to Alain for the idea and impute. He can sew now, putting in the hours for pinning, cutting and machine operation.

Get Yours

Support the Protest

vapored fresco

You walk barefoot silent along dark stone, the infinite
come small
You come years and years through musty kitchen dust
brushed off
You shape hair and smile in chorus sung broadly, plaited
wax and fibers twining
You kiss tender beads to marble, standing, catching,
caressing music
You tell plays and swinging hammers, clay to seaglass
treasured findings, worshiped Godhead

You bear children
You seed kinfolk
You smile broadly
You pass doorframes
You see moonlight
You crown princes
You cover homeless

You voice sighs in waiting rooms, cast peppered, wrought
and bloody
You yearn singular life, our one and only, scattered seed
born; multiply many

You wait
You watch
You live
You listen manifest in new days stretched membrane thin
to press your lips I'm hearing

-written 8/11/06

Some Things Worth Saving

My friend gave me this. She received a box from her mother's friend. It had all the scraps of calico purchased from the local department store where she lived in 1960's Iowa. Amoungst the quirky fabric was this child's pattern tenderly folded in a clear brown sugar plastic baggie (the elder saved everything of use. Recycling before it was a planitary caution) To get warmed up for my Industrious Cottage of sewing my own garments, I made up the vintage pattern.

I'll post the results when the buttons are sewn...

A Group

The first Knitting Blog Group I ever was excited to join is now posting some great creations by fellow Elizabeth Zimmerman Enthusiasts. I thought I would show off a few of my own on this bit of turf.

Following a Thread

I have a friend who tells of her early years being very conscious of God. She tells moments where she experienced extraordinary devotion and worship of Christ as a young child. They must be stories from family lore as she recounts it like she is reminiscing from a photograph.
Some childhood stories have to be like that. You know, the type of stories your mother tells about frantic travels to the hospital or how you were such a fussy baby who wouldn't let Auntie Maude hold you.

But when does the consciousness of God happen? When do we start the narrative from our own experience?
God is sometimes described as Other. Holy, as in set apart. When do we become aware of His separateness?

I, for my part, cannot remember being unaware of God. There was no dramatic conversion. I had my middle school years in which I was challenged to pray and read the Bible. This began the Great Segregation of Time for God from the time when everything else happened. Did the effort of others to instruct me end up creating a great fault line in me that now must be ratified? I spend so much effort reassuring myself.

So I read books and talk with people. When my Mom was alive, we would talk for hours about faith and how we thought it should be. She had a dramatic life with real grief, qualifying her for wisdom and heart. We often ended the conversation with an "I don't know" and a shrug of the shoulders. And we kept on watching. We both seemed to be literally fascinated with Jesus. I would often ask her tell me stories of him that anyone would call the gospel. But for me they just felt like family stories, not unlike the ones she would also tell about her brothers keeping the farm.

When the books don't sound like her voice, when they don't speak from her trusted vantage point of real suffering, when they don't have the affection for the Nazarene Jew in their tenor, I find I am guarded.

The eclectic background of Catholic/Protestant/Recovery serves me to narrow the choices. I want to hear of faith as it holds up a mirror to what I want to see in myself. But I have a home of heart.

As I knit together my days, what's left is the hollow where light can shine. I make a life, but I also create an emptier space in order to be filled up with more stories that woo me home.

One of the Many Reasons

Sometimes I am reminded of how much I miss Joel.
How long has this photo of the chandelier from our old house
been sitting on top of our current hall fixture?

He left breadcrumbs that say "this is still my house too!"

Can I enjoy the fruit but not the tree?

I am taking my cues from this book for my journaling. Like Fr. Driscoll, I am taking a word and enjoying what I have to say to myself about it. Authors of books become kindred spirits. I feel that affinity with Jeremy Driscoll.
I began to research him, and the publisher of his book. What I find there leads me even farther from home and I am skeptical. Cautious and not easily convinced. This publisher does not do the deciding for me. It offers many books on other philosophies and religious practices. And even as I am casually curious about my new literary friend, I get set off today by the vast heading of "Christian" books. It's a big wide world, and although I am ready to listen, I am not ready to buy the cow and farm, as it were.
I feel that over the past year I have examined many erroneous lines of thought on my part and have been willing to change and become more accepting. But there are limits. I am reminded that there are limits. And the truth that I pursue is served by limits. What those need to be is beyond my declaration, but I am happy with the choice to examine and say "I don't know." At least not yet.

Not a Cobbler

So along with my new conviction to be my own Cottage Industry, I took all the clothes that gather unless dust in my closet to the somewhat local Buffalo Exchange. They gave me money for my, what, hip clothes and then sent my more likely unhip clothes to the needful unclothed.

Phew.
So with this cash, I went to Nordstrom.
My long story shorter is that I need (nearly) orthopedic shoes for work. After being gone from the "floor" for nearly a year, I have discovered I feel my youth after 8 hours of heavy lifting.
I went to the internet and researched that in fact the USA makes ugly shoes.
They tend to make ugly cars and apartment houses too, but that's not what I'm talking about.

How can you possibly buy shoes that are not made in China? You can't buy them cheap that's for sure. You can buy shoes that you wear out and re-sole. You cannot please peer-pressured children. I'm sure conscious shoppers have all their own set of hurdles.

But here is where I discover that somewhere in my childhood I've heard this discussion before. Then I never had the realization that other people might not like making 3 cents and hour. My not buying shoes from their bosses hardly handles their paystub, but where else can I start?
I cannot make my own shoes. My mother, in her own deprived childhood having tried, told me it is not meant to be. Slippers, yes. Back supporting treads, no.

Funny, ironic, surprising as I looked at labels, thinking a European origin was better for my conscience, I got to meet the VP of ECCO shoes right there on the sales floor of The OC's Mecca. Since I am hip, I liked the styles. Ecco seems to be turning a new leaf in the fashion department. I think their bread and butter clients may be dying off.
I made the sales rep who organized the product event nervous as I asked the introduced VP about outsourcing. He explained that his company was part of the 3% of shoe manufacturers that own their own tanneries and factories. Not minding that a cow gives her life for my shoes and that people who crafted them were actually making a livable wage, I bought a pair with my recycled money.
Funny, ironic, surprising that I found what I was seeking. I wonder if my questions to a VP sifts down somewhere among marketers? The sales guy commented on my concerns as unique. I'm sure they were.
What kind of questions are you prepared to ask out there in the marketplace? I'm sure we're asking "Where did that spinach come from?" these days.

What other questions could we be asking? One never knows who might actually cross our path who could really provide the answer.

the Corp

Finally saw it and it just reinforces my desire to live a sustainable life right here in my own kitchen and closet. I cannot wait to downsize, live more simply and cheaply and get back to making all my own clothes again. I am committed to not getting anything until I understand where it's coming from. I am too powerful with my choices to not take heed.
I'm so glad K is working at Buffalo Exchange. I'm so glad I can have the option to get a hybrid car. I am finally glad I live in a Democratic state that is getting some clean air legislation on the books. I'm so glad we can sell this home and make a choice to live near where we work and worship.
I am overwhelmed after seeing Inconvinient Truth and now this movie. Even though some issues might be politically super-charged, I want to live in my conscience, grateful for the wisdom and the will to do what's right.
About fifteen years ago I really began paying attention to all the garbage I generate. I hated giving my kids juice boxes and happy meals with trash for toys. I got overwhelmed by the mega-super markets with the endless supply of 12 to 24 packs and the leaning tower of paper towels at Cost-Co. I am happy now to have the spell broken. I was right! It isn't good, all this garbage! I'm excited to think about how much money I'll save now that I'm not shopping even at cheap Old Navy every other week. I won't be having anything new except what I make with my own hands. I am running my own sanctions protest against my own spending.
What would our lives look like if we truly were sustainable as families?
I am ready for this.

insomanywords

Joel Bond has a new tune. Let him know what you think.

Encouragement

I've been reading Manning's Abba's Child. I'm hoping to be able to sit in on his talks at Vanguard in October. We'll see if I can sneak get into the closed sessions with Karin. I found this article on Brennan. I hope to act on love with as much courage as he has.

Let's Turn it Down

Kester Brewin has a challenge for us. Who will lead? I just turned it down and got myself a tall cool glass.

Leon Leyson

Leon Leyson is the youngest person on Schindler's List. It took an American movie maker to encourage him to open up his story, but now Mr Leyson is gently and insistantly telling his life.
My friend Margie McCoy, who works for the Dean of the School of Education at Chapman University in Orange, Ca. invited me to hear Mr.Leyson as a part of the school's Welcome Week. Chapman has an active and flourishing Rodgers Center for Holocaust Education.
I was able to meet Mr. Leyson and the kind individuals who work on campus for the Center and it's Library.

When Mr Leyson took up the podium he spoke with the universal humility and truth of all survivors. He explained his method of witness: no prepared notes with only an intent to open to us as he "let the events roll out from behind his eye, coming as he remembered them".
It was a moment.
He took us there with him and he shielded us from the horror as he once again re-lived the memories, occasionally pausing to feel the tip of grief. He would breath and then proceed. He shared the irony of being forced to the back of the bus in pre-ghetto Germany and then forced to the front of the bus in the pre-civil rights South. He spoke of his respect for Schindler and his still child-like amazement of the rescuer's attentive capacity.

I think his silence all these years prior comes from thinking, along with many other valid reasons, it could never happen again. But now we see that it might not for Jews, but it is for countless other people groups. We all must listen in order to be watchful.
"violence will not be heard again in your land"... Is 60:18
Our work is cut out for us.

The Campaign run by Protest4 is offering a t-shirt that raises awareness of a secret and cruel existence for many woman and children. The goal is to change things and the culture that enslaves them.

You can go here just to donate,

or if you would like to sport your own personal (and much more comfortable) sandwich board go ahead and visit this site which will get you delivery to your U.S. address. Each shirt gives $4 to fund the campaign.

I just ordered mine.

Just watch, the shirt will soon show up in Us Weekly. Louis Vuitton is so last week...

So Far So Good

Karin misses me sufficiently. Not too much, not too little. I can even lend a hand at internet tools. Next step is for her to get a blog. I'd read it! Then again, that may be the drawback.
The Vanguard University campus (formerly Southern California College back in the day) is just right for the type of college it is. And close by is Buffalo Exchange, where K will work. I'm really happy for her and am looking forward to sharing this time with her.

The house is pretty quiet, a little cleaner perhaps, but not very fun. I still may not be recovered and I feel badly for those who are left in this dwelling with me. But I am thankful for small graces and a few friends who are listening for me at the door of their lives. The world is really a beautiful place. The fog may yet clear for me to see it properly.

Uganda May Get Peace

Peace does have a price, but should the price be justice? The peace talks in Uganda means that some may go free in order for there to be a stop to the killing. What would the children want? What can bring peaceful nights to the parents who live in fear?

Can it be enough to just hope and pray that for now, no one has to die?

Ginnungagap

While in Seattle I went to see Sigrid Sanstom's art at the Frye.
It was one of the many ways I was listening before coming to see friends @ Soliton. The images of ice connected me to what I saw and experienced in Alaska, but the images of explorers with flags staking claims arrested my attention. She speaks to the longing in us to "lay claim". She wonders through her paintings, films and installations whether permanence is impossible and what we do with the longing which can often distract us from our purpose. The question hangs in the air. The film of a vast ocean with a flag on a floating buoy let's the question be beautiful and fascinating.

Some notes form my journal as I reflected on these images:

I see that flag again. How can one be welcoming in a barren expanse? We have to have a rootedness in order to welcome. Do we see a wilderness in us longing for a claim; a place to settle? This artist says there is a falsity to laying claim. And it's disturbing to think only because she may be right. We follow Jesus who was of a clan of wanderers. Why do we put up structures? And when we do, why are surprised it can't hold people?
We make a home, but only for children who move away. We make a church, but it cannot contain heaven. I am really speaking of houses and Cathedrals; the symbols.

Maybe like the faith of the Father, I can love and never let go. Maybe that faith sees the whole. Maybe the Prodigal in fact never really left the Father. The Father only lost sight of him. It is fitting that the Father would trust this. He knows because of growth. (And the son(s) being in his bloodline can be expected to grow likewise.) At least this is the design of things, this is the opportunity. This is the inheritance, freely given. Whether he is alive or dead, it doesn't matter, the Father was more than willing to give it away. Here I am reminded that this must be a story of God. How impossible it all seems.
The Father, this Good Father, shows himself to always give freely. Even to the one who stays at home. The Elder somehow did not understand he was free to receive and lay claim. The Father says "Here, take it all"
We can be the son who takes all from the Father and we can be the Father who gives all to the son. The Love between them is the Holy Spirit, the hidden love that makes things visible. I don't know whether I can say I've layed claim to this love. I don't know if love is like a wide open sea with a depth too deep to anchor. But this painting speaks of Home. And I choose to trust the one who paints it.

I Will Survive

"as long as i know how to love i know i'll stay alive"

I think I heard this in the airwaves as we ate together this afternoon. Matt was sitting across from Karin. The dynamic at the table was gracful for him even though He could hardly look at me 'cause I had to lay down the parental.



Laying down the parental means telling the boy what needs to be said to him in spite of how cool I am. We are usually on the same side of the political landscape of our home, but I had to remind him of a few things. I am convinced, that even though he is all of 14, (pause and think of that! -how insufferable) he should treat house guests which had arrived that morning with more than a silent stare. I must teach him.
So I was making my point at the table with an uncharacteristically heavy hand. I've been a single parent this past week.
To add to the parental duties, is the College Dorm Shopping.

I am too young for this.
We are at times taken for sisters. But today I am clearly the ol' Mum.
It physically hurt. I would be waiting for her at the end of the shampoo isle, the towel isle, the small electronics isle. I tried to straighten up from my slump over the cart in time as she approached. I tried to keep the deep sighs from reaching her ears. I had moments of transcendence and grace in which to forget that she is moving out. I had singular moments where I was not aware that this part of her life is over and I'm disappearing from the Role I once played.
Something is coming after all this, but I don't like it. So I will go for a drive and listen to MJB.
The soul, the soul, it must be all good for the soul.

One Moment is Enough for One Word

One moment is enough
for one word
and what you say to me of
lists and gangling fences
corral my self tight tethered
Brick-fast
plastered to embankments
blasted by winds of words
cast in careless timetales
microwaved in mindless
microclimates

One moment is enough
for one word
and what you say to me of
tesselating glances married
unto bright and outlined funneled
braces
folding outer arms and basements
heated by a tender covering
shaped by silent potter's tension
cut loose and visited by
daily uses.

Mind Your Elders

This elder brother is saying so much to me and I am hearing his justice. We all love justice deep down. Who hasn't suffered doing the right thing only to forget that all that work just might keep him from the reward of that work? I for my part have given what I now wonder if I never really released. The gift has now gone it's way and disappeared. The other son has come home and I am stuck out in the field, hearing the music, but hurting too much to come inside.
I am loving so much that the Father has come outside to plead with me! I rant and rave in my own accent and see that Love is calling me in too. I might be able in a moment, just give me a moment.

Now it is time for the elder to come home, to come home to the blessing. What do you think that blessing should look like? The elder thought it sould look like the party the Father was giving to the one who sinned.
But what will it look like for the elder and the younger to meet when he finally comes inside? Can the younger also come to his brother and offer everything he is to the offended one? Never mind rights! It's not about who's right any more. It's about pulling each other in and hearing from all sides "this party isn't complete without you. I'm sorry I sinned against you, I humble myself because you are worth more than my righteousness."
The love the Elder really needs is not out in the field. It's with the fellow sinner in a place called home.

I am still wondering. Father, give me one good reason why I should come inside.

Bearly up

I've wandered around a bit and stumbled onto Hemlock Lane. Take a look there to see what has kick started this jag.
Getting a dose of hospitality is fine when you're in the mood for it. But what if you don't want to come in?

I will be heading off for a much needed rest after I lay it down right here.

I'm dealing with lonliness and loss these days and I have only so much spiritual muster. I am to bear with the "one anothers". This is what is so arrestingly written of in Hemlock Lane's "Ponderings."

I am bearing and it sucks! I am bearing and it must be love cause it feels like hell. Just when I think I may be over the hurt and it's settled into a dull enough pound just to let me know I'm still breathing, I find I am more than alive with the imbalance that has me as noisy as a dryer on tilt. I'm too full of "ifs, ands, and buts". I am throwing it done now, and someone else can bear it, if you please. Humanity? Yeah I've got that in spades! Justice for my little cause; probably not.
Bearing with those I love as they get to live the life they want is not going to feel like love. It's not going to make my story sweeter. The others cannot understand how their choices effect me and the burden they put on me to love them anyway. My only gift is empty hands. Who will fill them?
I pray who will fill them.

How to Come Home

All I needed really was a photo of a house for your veiwing pleasure. I'm happy to have found this.

A Moon House.


In addition to being a place of shelter, the house had a cosmological meaning for the Haida, who thought of the house as a very large box and often decorated its walls to coincide with the images used on boxes. The concept of boxes within boxes is central to Haida beliefs about containers and the spiritual beings who safeguard their precious contents.

Can coming home ever be easy when you've already ventured out? How much you've traveled makes for a new home when you arrive, don't you think? My home is filled to the brim and what I've brought back with me is hard placed to settle. I'm not sensing it's good to ignore the messes that need my time and attention. So that means work. My house is my work.

Everyone needs to get back to work. I have my sense of belonging from my work/my home, but it has been stifled by a naive acceptance. I am not my work/my home, but the work of my home can benefit from who I am now. My house needs to be in harmony with what is real in the world and in me.
The change in me is good. I am wise to hold on to the good. I have a large house through which I manuever my daily living. It's too large. That's why there are changes happening this coming year. What once was an identity through aquiring more has now become a contentment with simplicity. My Old Order is inhospitable to my New Order. Reminds me of that certain parable Jesus told. Not only is it through humility the younger son comes home, but also with great courage. No one will relate to him the same way again.
I am at home in prayer and hopeful about new possibilites.
But the coming home will never be the same.

Irresistable

I've discovered Foxfire and how it will help me to make these posts all the more savvy. Content, however is another issue I'm still working on.




I'm finishing up Irresistable Revolution and instead of seeing a book that I am drawn to for it's comfirming message, I am being challenged to my roots.
Growing up, my faith community loved peace at any cost and the gospel at any price. But in the years between then and now I have opted for a preaching gospel rather than a practicing gospel.
I had been lured all these years with looking "right" rather than being right. Just in the past few weeks I have been given the chance to turn the other cheek. I am now seeing the enormous life calling of imaginative redemptive action. This is only the beginning of my education.
Rather than harping on it, I am doing it. I absorb the cynicism that comes from suggesting that High Schoolers can make a church. I whittle down the enormous piles of material that I have accumulated for the past 22 years. Instead of saying goodbye to my children, growing up and moving out, I welcoming any and all people who I meet through my days looking for God in their faces and being Christ for them by some grace.

Today I am given and today I will

• Welcome anything that Replenishes
• Give everything without measure
• Forgive so that today can hold the whole weight of blessing

It's not so much that I need to switch political parties or eat certain foods. But I may need to line up with the changes that are happening within in me. I may have to become someone many would not expect in order to be the person I expect to be.

The post is looking pretty good. How's the content?

The Greatest Prize

Are you surfing around and reading anything and everything about Soliton? I am and I love that the sharing hasn't stopped. A whole year for me to gather up into friendships that for others are pages deeper. We all can share. And for such a small number, relatively, we are blooming so large. So find out what you can and share the heart of thought you have, we're listening.
Just being present is a prayer. I am coming back home to my own body, realizing my worth at just being here. Because all those years of digesting Christ have to lead to some sort of trust that He is having his way with me, even if I mess up. Many of the questions that last year's Soliton stirred up in me remain silent and unknowable still, but who cares? I'm amoung friends now. The best has taken me in. The best in me will take in others and never again have to insist on their finished package. Christ allows me to treasure them in this moment. Hospitality is a thick road in a narrow way.

The hurting is there no doubt. We all come rich with feeling because of what's wrong with everything. We know deeply that we want this acceptance for everyone. And there is a hospitality that goes the whole way. It says "No matter who you are, I will welcome you in." No small task when we carry the victim around inside us, or the aggressive arguer inside us. For a time, we set that aside to welcome the other. Some of us have more stamina is all. But we got a taste at Soliton. Some giving what is seemingly menial and obvious: a warm bed, a meal, a bottle of water. We crown them with words or prayers, they were not unseen or unappreciated. And for those of us who walked in the door and out again, we will imitate you and echo your gift.
The Bridge without their own home was the greatest prize at Soliton. Their authentic self in hospitality.

Let Me Count the Ways

I loved my two weeks. That should be a title: My Two Weeks.
The time at the center of my life. So many things culminated for me during this time away from home. I set new values, new trends and solidified deep resolutions. Alaska, Seattle, and Ventura. All these places had me meeting and finding friends that made me feel loved, beautiful and contributing. Nice way to set the pace for goings ahead.

I drove away from Ventura and all of Soliton with a minimal of tears. This in itself a testament of solid gifts ground deep. It's only a walk around the park until I meet these Favored Ones again. You know how time is speeding up. I'll let it work for me now.


The Summer of Reading had me ready to give. I was not found out of sorts or quizzical of signs. Time spent alone, rather than being a selfish thing, had me thinking and responding to many different people.
Some were those I met on the street. I had time to pause and see them.
Some I held in my thoughts and prayers in anticipation of meeting/reunion. Time spent well.
I revisited places from some tender years. The bittersweet memories were held in the light of these new inner friends. We carry our dear ones with us, admit it. I let them speak to me and I listened to their love for me. I hope to spend some time writing impressions from this time in the days ahead. I'll listen for what continues to echo.

I think on Him my focus and
my re-member.
I pass over fear by loving
and surrendering to
God who holds it all

Bless you
Bless you
Bless you

I move under you the grass beneath your feet
I whisper and caress you the cool of breeze
I light upon you the grey moon of muscle
I open your hand the fitted form and tender

You bend under weight of days and patient watching
You cradle witness of the funeral
You think and write a parallel network
You pace a landscape unseen
my brain a spongy soil.

Two Types of Genius

Randy over at Ethos pointed out this article from "Wired". It's a very encouraging way to find the acceptance for your sort of creative smarts. Take a look; click the link

Oswald Says:

"The golden rule to follow to obtain spiritual understanding is not one of intellectual pursuit, but one of obedience. If a person wants scientific knowledge, then intellectual curiosity must be his guide. But if he desires knowledge and insight into the teachings of Jesus Christ, he can only obtain it through obedience. If spiritual things seem dark and hidden to me, then I can be sure that there is a point of disobedience somewhere in my life. Intellectual darkness is the result of ignorance, but spiritual darkness is the result of something that I do not intend to obey."

Irresistable Revolution

"There is the kind of conversion that happens to people not because of how we talk but because of how we live. And our little experiments in truth become the schools for conversion, where folks can learn what it means for the old life to be gone and the new life to be upon us, no longer taking the broad path that leads to destruction. Conversion is not an event but a process, a process of slowly tearing ourselves from the clutches of the culture" - Shane Claiborne

Soliton

We'll be there

#7 EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE

It is said to never judge a book by it's cover. I agree with this.

The cover of this book, however has a strange fix on me. As I read it, I found myself placing my hands irresistibly on the red hand glowing from the front glossy. It connects me to my son, who had this book in his car that day we shopped for a toaster and of Sasha, my friend in Ukraine, who drew the outline of his hand of top of one his letters sent to me years ago. One hand from a friend far away and one hand from my eldest, broken that August day so well remembered.

Inside the book was all the memories and textures of singular moments that catch inside us. I read along, curious and yet not wanting to hear about the loss again. We all have so much to lose. There is not a lot of belief in these characters. They are shaped by frozen love. But this is their education, they way they learn through unimaginable circumstances.

As the young and old like navigate through the pain of being "alive and alone", they must find a way to move forward even when it's too hard to live. And yet live they will. There is way more power to their coming and going then they can believe. Way more faith then they themselves can admit to. So I found myself confronted with my own areas of unbelief and fear. I would stop and pray or stop and read over and over a phrase that I didn't want to forget, yet knew I would.

Most of us keep some kind of journal in order to remember. One character fills his house, his suitcase, his life with words he refuses to speak. He sees that all of them will mean nothing and that only his name will remain. It fills him with such dread. Yet he cannot allow his words to go to God because of his insurmountable loss.

I go to read the scriptures once more and the loss there is flung out to God. God, who watches disaster and new born babies. Voices of these scriptures cry out to God against the void. What incredible men. And yet, this is what comes to us- a hope and grace undeserved, like a net we could never invent on our own.

Maybe Stephen Hawking could really see that if he were a poet, he could give us something to live on. I would agree with him.

Summer of Reading #6 THE MEMORY KEEPER'S DAUGHTER

This is just a case of the sub-conscience picking the book when the frontal lobe wasn't paying attention.

There is some undisclosed info in my own family that this book subject centers on. I'll leave that to your imagination, but this book merely pealed back my family's own story and laid out consequences that I have seen play out among my own loved ones.

If you take up this read, you will find a generation of story that goes deep into secrets and the fall-out emotions spent over a lifetime. It tells a story of second chances, when that isn't always possible. It has a logical, partial happy ending, but left me with re-living some memories of my own. Not my favorite book this summer, for personal reasons. I'll be happy to chat with you about it "hardware style" over a venti-my life's not the one that's secretive.

Truly ironic, how books find you!

Read it if you're looking for a great family drama. It's paints a redemptive story.