Redemption Junkie

How does a seed give thanks?

2012-01-26T07:56:00.001-04:00

To give thanks is to recognize what has come to you.... How does the seed give thanks? It flowers. You take what you have, who you are, and you respond to the gift of that beingness with a course of action that aligns with it. You do what is in your nature.

Source: Patrice Vecchione, Writing and the Spiritual Life

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Purity

2012-01-25T12:20:00.005-04:00

"I did a study recently of how Jesus understood the ideas of purity or cleanliness. He never applies it to the body or the physical world, but only to motivations (Matthew 23:26) and to the heart (Matthew 5:8). In fact, he declares “all foods clean” (Matthew 7:19) in strong disagreement with his own Jewish tradition. Purity seems to be singleness of heart for Jesus, when I am not split, when I am “all here”. Impurity is mixed motivation, denial of parts of the picture, and self delusion. How different from most religion which has been preoccupied with purity codes, based in physical touching, eating wrong foods, seeing bad things, sexuality, and avoiding of “UnChristian” people and places. Again, Christian tradition has not followed its own teacher, and he was indeed a master teacher here." - Richard Rohr - Unpacking Paradoxes - Purity

i am of apollo

2011-12-20T08:04:00.000-04:00

I have grown weary and worn and discouraged and even hurt by the dividing that happens in this "kingdom of God". Wheat or tares, sheep or goats... Driscoll or Bell... in or out... weren't we told by Jesus that was a job for the angels???

I am far from the place I began my journey sitting with my head covered, silent in that little Bible Chapel on Walworth Street in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

I have felt the sorting. The dividing, the parsing into clubs that so many need to feel safe. I have been made to feel many times that I have stepped off that straight and narrow path I was raised on... how tragic it is that for me personally this path I tread now has lead me deeper and farther into my own heart and the heart of God than I have ever had before.

I found at a time, when everything tasted like dust, words and thoughts that very few in the kingdom would dare to utter. They were life to me. A clarion call through the fog that my spiritual life had become. Creativity and soul and poetry and art were supposed to be a part of this journey, not a trivial waste of time or effort?!?! I found those words in the mouth of a boy named Rob Bell... he was a punk kid at a conference I attended, in a little room at a big hotel, late at night while rock concerts were going on in the big room. He had made a movie, it was like 6 minutes long... and nobody knew who he was. He was humble, quirky and deep. I liked him instantly. There were only about two dozen of us in the room. He talked about his idea to tell the truth, but tell it slant (not his words, but mine...errr. well Emily's) And I have followed him since.

I never really had a pastor before that time, mostly they were my husbands bosses, or back in the old days pastors were not "biblical"... so Rob Bell became a pastor to me, far away, words listened to through my computer, films watched on dvd... words read on pages of quirky weird postmodern books, but they fed a part of my soul that had been starved since I was a child. Life became much more full, I became much less morose and God incarnated within me and gave birth to a soul that I never dreamed could be possible.

Is this the path everyone should be walking? I don't think so, but for me I honestly can say it changed everything. It may have even saved my life. I have felt great shame for my emerging soul. I have kept much of my writing and passion to myself because of that severe judgement and wrath sent upon the heads of those who stuck their necks out. I have lost friends, family and relationships because of my journey.

My word for 2012 is BRAVE. As a part of embracing that word I have decided that I'm going to let the chips fall where they may. I'm tired of feeling ashamed for something that brings me great joy and life - and I'm done hiding my self, silencing my voice and folding myself into tiny little pieces to keep others mollified. I will not argue. I will not debate. But I will not be silent any more. More light than heat is what I long for. I'm weary of that age old division, that snide looking down the nose of those who hold their faith in exclusive clubs. I don't belong, I never have, but I have found a place where I have community, and deep conversation and inspiration and real life. I am of Paul... I am of Apollo... I am finished. I am beginning.

This morning I was pushed by the words I read, again, by Rob Bell in his farewell to his church, many of them have had to sit with the same judgement and disdain that I have felt - his response and encouragement to them took my breath away.

"i write this to you because of how many of you have been
challenged about your participation in the life of this
church, often with the accusation: but what do they believe
over there at mars hill?
as if belief, getting the words right, is the highest form of
faith. Jesus came to give us life. a living, breathing, throbbing,
pulsating blow your hair back tingle your spine roll the
windows down and drive fast experience of God right
here, right now.
word taking on flesh and blood.
and so you've found yourself defending and explaining
and trying to find the words for your experience that is
fundamentally about a reality that is beyond and more than
words.
so when you find yourselves tied up in knots, having
long discussions about who believes what, a bit like
dogs doing that sniff circle when they meet on the sidewalk,
do this:
take out a cup
and some bread
and put it in the middle of the table,
and say a prayer and examine yourselves
and then make sure everybody's rent is paid and there's
food in their fridge and clothes on their backs
and then invite everybody to say
'yes' to the resurrected Christ with whatever 'yes' they
can muster in the moment and then you take that bread
and you dip it in that cup in the ancient/future hope and
trust that there is a new creation bursting forth right here
right now and
then together taste that new life and liberation and
forgiveness and as you look those people in the eyes gathered around that table from all walks of life and you see the new
humanity, sinners saved by grace, beggars who have
found bread showing the others beggars where they found it
remind yourselves that
this
is
what
you
believe.
remember, the movement is word to flesh.
beware of those who will take the flesh and want to turn it
back into words"

Beware of those who will take the flesh and want to turn it back into words...

I welcome you to break bread with me - to find the common in and amongst our uncommon ways. I bless you on your path, and know that mine is mine alone - and I walk with those limping, misfit, rag tag bunch of ragamuffins I adore.

You can find the complete farewell here: Rob Bell's Parting Epistle to Mars Hill: Grace + Peace

Fair Trade Christmas Gift Links

2011-12-08T09:31:00.001-04:00

A friend posted a plea for help in finding fair trade Christmas gifts as their family gift exchange requirement was that all gifts be fair trade. It's a great idea and I offered to help with the links that I have culled over the years - and instead of posting 15 different facebook updates I thought I'd put them all here so that she and anyone else looking can have this reference. I will be happy to update the list if you leave me links in the comments with your favorite products and sites. These are in no particular order and I am not affiliated or associate or benefiting from any of these links:

Saints Coffee - fair trade coffee - support Orphan work done by Tom Davis and hopechest.org
Bead for Life - jewelery and beads to diy your own jewelery made in Uganda
Sole Rebels Footwear - shoes, slippers and boots - all hand made, sustainable and fair trade, made in Ethiopia
Krochet Kids International - hats, hoodies - one of my favorites - college boys make good - must just go and look around the site
Equal Exchange - fair trade coffee, tea, chocolate, nuts
Pants to Poverty - undies for men, women & kids (British term PANTS means bad or rubbish and underwear -so the pun is intended)
10,000 Villages - Stores, online and traveling markets - tons of beautiful products from all over the world - a store in Columbiana, Ohio in Das Dutch Haus mall (friend lives close by)
Trade as One - like 10,000 Villages -nice Christmas items
31bits - Fair Trade Jewelery - really beautiful pieces
A Trade for Trade - fabric, stamps (for Mom Laryssa!) and recycled Sari linens - so beautiful
Green Heart Shop - lots of products - toys are cute
Little Footprints Toys - sweet toys
One Mango Tree - clothing, accessories, jewelery
Natural Candy Store - some fair trade candy and lots of more organic non-additive candies
Modern Homesteader Green Gift List - list of some fair trade, but lots of sustainable, green items and products

These are not necessarily "fair trade gifts" - but support great work on the ground in locations where these NGO's are located:

Gifts of Compassion - Compassion International
World Vision Christmas - World Vision
Oxfam Unwrapped - Oxfam International

Hope that helps - by no means exhaustive - but will give you a good start :) (again, will gladly add any links to other fair trade items left in the comments)

Wonderstruck

2011-09-14T06:17:00.000-03:00

I love Brian Selznick's original book The Invention of Hugo Cabret so much and cannot wait for the movie this Christmas - his second work Wonderstruck just released yesterday and I am excited to get my little hands on it. Selznick not only authors the works, but uses the most detailed pencil sketches.

This book weaves two stories, one told in text, one told in illustrations together until they become one. I cannot wait to read it. Here is the beautiful teaser Scholastic put together for his new work. Enjoy!

Don't miss the great article in Brain Pickings - Wonderstruck: Remarkable New Work from Brian Selznick

September resolutions

2011-09-05T07:15:00.003-03:00

It seems to me that January resolutions are about will; September resolutions are about authentic wants.... The beauty of autumnal resolutions is that no one else knows we're making them. Autumnal resolutions don't require horns, confetti and champagne. September resolutions ask only that we open to positive change.

Source: Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance via herondance.org

Real

2011-08-13T10:57:00.001-03:00

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real, you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

Source: The Velveteen Rabbit

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

2011-08-10T15:13:00.001-03:00

A small gift of a film landed in my lap today. I found myself feeling melancholy about the loss of my fall position as librarian and caretaker of the stories at the elementary school I have been working at for the past couple of years. Most of the time I don't dwell on it, but with the dreary rain today and the smell of fall in the air already my heart began to break again for the loss of those small wee faces upturned to hear me read to them my favorite stories and to help them find their own.

I can't even re-create the steps that brought me to Moonbot Studios website for morrislessmore.com but I was instantly enchanted. I poked through the site, watched all of the vimeos available and was hooked enough to lay down real money to download the short award winning film. It is stunning and heartfelt. Have not been so moved by film since the first 30 minutes of Pixar's Up.

It begins in New Orleans and tells the story of the hurricane stealing everyones stories. Miraculously no words are spoken but hope is restored for this community as Morris finds his own story again. Watch for the little red head at the end of the film... she too was a keeper of stories, even for a short time.

Please make sure to click through this link to watch a tiny preview - it won't let me embed it here - you won't regret it, promise.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

Humpback whale says thank you to the people who saved her

2011-07-18T13:47:00.000-03:00

This is so moving - an incredible metaphor for freedom - the joy with which she explodes from the water afterward is magical.

Don't turn your back on the possibility

2011-07-13T15:34:00.000-03:00

To embrace one's brokenness, whatever it looks like, whatever has caused it, carries within it the possibility that one might come to embrace one's healing, and then one might come to the next step: to embrace another and their brokenness and their possibility for being healed. To avoid one's brokenness is to turn one's back on the possibility that the Healer might be at work here, perhaps for you, perhaps for another.

Source: Robert Benson, Living Prayer

inward/outward

Soul Gardens

2011-07-04T11:35:00.001-03:00

Here's the link to the talk I gave last week at church - I was really happy with the way it all came together:

Soul Gardens

The spaces in between

2011-07-01T08:55:00.000-03:00

What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.

So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.

When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of the fuel
together, that make fire possible.

We only need to lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire
grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way.

Judy Brown
Source: Teaching With Fire
Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Don't even know where to start

2011-05-25T09:47:00.001-03:00

I have been such a negligent blogger as of late - mostly just putting quotes in place so that I can reference them at a future time... on the bright side my life outside of the internet is lovely. We played host to University students as they prepared for their Europe term, they are traveling now and our home is much quieter and we miss them dearly.

On the sculpture front we realized in April that the idealism of fall - doing a major outdoor project before May - was naive at best. We informed the head of the competition that we would still be very interested in participating, but we would be unable to make the end of May deadline as the weather has just not been our friend this year. I guess growing up in Southern Wisconsin & Ontario gave us a false sense of what spring could be - and this spring here in New Brunswick has been non-existent. So glad we made that call, and that we have been invited to participate in next years competition - so we will be using the summer months (if we ever really get a summer) to create the sculpture and enter in next years competition. Good news all around.

I am heading to a 3 day silent retreat tomorrow and really looking forward to it. It is sponsored by my spiritual director and while I am a bit anxious the idea of silence and solitude, harvesting my journals and being creative without words will be special, maybe even sacred.

We are making good progress on our yard and hope to have the stone patio in place in a few weeks and then we can begin to focus on making the outdoor brick oven we hope to have in place by the end of summer. So hard to accomplish any of this with all of the yucky weather we've had, but when you look at the flooding, tornadoes and wild fires others are dealing with I guess grey, rainy days should be the least of our worries.

Hope this finds you all well, miss the heydays of blogging we used to have. But I guess that season helped us all get to where we are now. Doing a lot of writing off line now... maybe one day I'll be back to a regular blog, until then I guess it will just be random updates and interactions. Take care!

Note to self

2011-05-15T09:45:00.002-03:00

…gradually you come under the right influences, picking and choosing, and being selective, and then maybe your voice is the combination of 6 or 8 other voices that you have managed to blend in such a way that nobody can recognize your sources. You can learn intimacy from Whitman, you can learn the dash from Emily Dickinson…you can pick a little bit from every writer and you combine them. This allows you to be authentic. That’s one of the paradoxes of the writing life: that the way to originality is through imitation.

— Billy Collins, at the White House’s Poetry Workshop

Watch the broadcast Heidi!!!

again from Austin in Austin

Ah - this is so ME!

2011-05-03T19:00:00.002-03:00

PHENOMENON: When you read more than you speak, often you don’t pronounce the words properly in your mind when you read. So what you end up with is a new 2 second lag before you figure out how to say certain non phonetic words you lazily read incorrectly all of the time.

— Kelly Oxford (Yes.)

Austin (again)

Hoarding ashes

2011-04-27T16:57:00.000-03:00

“The impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”

- Annie Dillard, The Writing Life

via Austin Kleon

Do not despise the here and now...

2011-04-21T09:04:00.001-03:00

"In order to arrive there,
To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,
You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.
In order to arrive at what you do not know
You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance.
In order to possess what you do not possess
You must go by the way of dispossession.
In order to arrive at what you are not
You must go through the way in which you are not.
And what you do not know is the only thing you know
And what you own is what you do not own
And where you are is where you are not."

- T.S. Eliot, a small sliver from his poem "East Coker"

thank you Erin.

Do Not Be Ashamed - Wendell Berry

2011-04-12T09:35:00.000-03:00

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine round about you,
and behind you will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty:
you misread the complex instructions,
you are not a member,
you lost your card or never had one.
And you will know that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed, that they cannot reach.
Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked,
say to them: "I am not ashamed."
A sure horizon will come around you.
The heron will begin his evening flight from the hilltop.

but I say hello....

2011-04-10T10:51:00.002-03:00

“Goodbyes always make my throat hurt…I need more hellos.”

- Charlie Brown

A Purification

2011-04-01T09:43:00.000-03:00

At the start of spring I open a trench
in the ground. I put into it
the winter's accumulation of paper,
pages I do not want to read
again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the sun, growth of the ground,
finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins:that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise;
have been inattentive to wonders;
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse
of mind and body, I close the trench,
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.

Source: Wendell Berry, Teaching With Fire

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

A profound mystery

2011-03-26T14:19:00.000-03:00

The leavening of yeast must have seemed to ancient men a profound mystery, and yet something on which they could always depend. Just so does the supernatural enter our natural life, working in the hiddenness, forcing the new life into every corner and making the dough expand.

If the dough were endowed with consciousness, it would not feel very comfortable while the yeast was working. Nor, as a rule, does our human nature feel very comfortable under the transforming action of God, steadily turning one kind of love into another kind of love--desire into charity, clutch into generosity, Eros into Agape.

Creation is change, and change is often painful and mysterious to us. Spiritual creation means a series of changes, which at last produce a Holiness, God's aim for us.

Source: Evelyn Underhill, The School of Charity

Read more and add your thoughts at inward/outward

Dry Ground Planting: Before Easter

2011-03-10T08:56:00.000-04:00

Harold R. Wilkins

For Karis - Happy Birthday my friend!

~I~
When I was little
we stepped down hard
on our dark iron spades
previously sharpened by hand
with whetstone and well water
til the shovels’ edges
shined a silver hem all around
their cutting aprons...

all in order to turn the dry person,
I mean, the dry earth
over for the new outlook to be
forced into the dead ground
of the mind and heart,
I mean, the seed, of course,
the seed to be forced
into the winter weary ground...
and all this
in the time before Easter...

far down in the bodies of humans,
the river Esperanza, Hope
is buried in the unconscious,
but has kept the human heart alive
even through deadened life, I mean
of course, the land, I meant
the dry land of the Midwest contained
this secret miracle
that the spade brought to light...
Though a mile away, the St. Joe river
had kept the earth deep down
moist, a little mucky even,
and ready to clasp
the seed just right
til it could break through to the Light.

~II~
Sometimes, hitting a stretch
of fine, dry topsoil
our grandmothers,
in a display of strength
enough for nine men
and nine horses,
would throw shovelfulls
of the black dust up
into the air,
grab our little hands,
and we would rush forward...
eyes clamped closed and
holding our breath...
we would rush
through the cloud of
airborn earth,
coughing after,
but feeling holy

And our grandmothers
over so many years,
telling these ways of
living more
and freshly every time,
would aver that no matter
what week it fell
or falls upon in this year,
This opening of the earth
and turning it over
from its dry side
to its wet side
was our Ash Wednesday
the original sacramental...

that is...
the original remembering
of the battering
the New Child of Light
both receives and takes,
and that this Child of Light,
regardless of the 40 days
of suffering the hail of fists
or like our fields, the hail
of ice; the starvation of
no water but gall given,
or like our fields,
the gasping for lack of water...
that the Holy One, even if in
retreat, like our fields
in fallow or draught,
seeming with green song dead,
will nonetheless Live
again, come back to life, again,
no matter what.

~III~
Thus in all these years
when I am as old now
as my grandmothers were
back then, and
my silver lipped spade
has become my pen,
and the earth that has
wintered so hard in the field,
is now my body and my mind,
my heart and spirit,
my soul ...

and my thoughts
‘that once were’--
are the dry dust now.
And the thoughts
raining into me now,
sucking for ‘new life’-
are the wet side of the earth,
now cut into me,
spaded down deep in me,
hefted and turned upward
with great effort, slammed
down hard
to break the clods
open.

This spading will go on,
cutting, hefting, slamming
and breaking
as all are readied to receive
the hand-chosen seeds
kept safe over winter.

When the flower is greater
than the weather, we will
be done for now.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Lent 2011 - Food as Holy Provision and Simple Gift

2011-03-09T08:59:00.003-04:00

Lent snuck up on me again this year and I find giving things up without some consideration and time isn't helpful for me personally. Any time I create a vacuum in my life it ends up being filled by something; usually something worse than what I had given up. In previous years I intentionally replaced what I am fasting with a positive practice that makes life more balanced for me - I did not take the time to prepare this year, so I have chosen to use this Lenten season to consider deeply the food I eat, the emotions tied to it and the practices around it.

As a woman with an eating disorder and a long history of body issues I have had some healing and wholeness replace much of the distortion I grew up with around food, nourishment and self image. Far too often though I find that many who do find life long recovery with an eating disorder never find the joy and the celebration in food that I think God intended us to live with. Food is always the enemy, the foe or the temptation. I'm not sure that real healing stops there. I long to find the place of balance, where food is neither my best friend, or my worst enemy. Those around us know that we love to cook and celebrate with food here at the Turner household. We are slowly learning to replace the over processed and restaurant food we were raised on with home made recipes and healthy alternatives. Each layer of healing pulls us more toward the center of who we long to be.

I have also found that far too often that there can be a legalism that creeps into the healthy food mentality - the once "holier than thou" that rubbed me raw in my childhood has, at times, become "granolier than thou" and I bristle at the rigidity that some circles have around healthier eating. I long to find a balance and find the invitation into healthier choices instead of being guilted and shamed into changes I am not really ready for.

To that end I was thrilled to find that Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation is spending Lent 2011 on this same track -

Lent 2011 is a time for self-examination and reflection. Usually, "good" religious observers eliminate sweets or other foods that distract from God. This year, the Center for Action and Contemplation invites you to discover food and the act of eating as something to embrace and reclaim as a daily and sacramental action.

In 1825, the French philosopher and gourmand Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote, "Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are." Since our culture has commodified food, and eating has been reduced to a consumer act, our hope is that in this daily meditation, we will begin to connect more deeply to food as a soul activity. One that connects us with rain, sun, soil, wind, animal and the farmer who has bent to sow, grow, and harvest the food that nourishes our collective body and soul daily.

Join in here: Lent 2011 - Food as Holy Provision and Simple Gift

And on that same note I awoke to this on my facebook feed. While I know that Hellmen's is owned by Unilever and it is actually part of the problem, not the solution, the information in this video is striking in the way it turns stats and information into tangible, visual understanding:

Image: "Stilleben," Floris van Dyck, 1613

Utterly ignorant of celebration

2011-03-01T08:14:00.000-04:00

The spiral of materialism is eternal and never ends.... The materialist is never satisfied. For the heart is not made full or satisfied by any, or even all, of the things that the religion of materialism and its preachers of advertising want so desperately to sell us. "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be," warned Jesus. And the treasures that lead to compassionate living are not buyable because they are less objects than they are experiences.... Greed never asks when is enough, enough? It knows nothing of limits. Therefore, it knows nothing of the true pleasures that life is about. It is utterly ignorant of celebration.

Source: Matthew Fox, A Spirituality Named Compassion

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Michael Leunig pt. 2

2011-02-13T15:08:00.000-04:00

Had not heard of Michael Leunig before I posted yesterday, found out that he's an Australian artist/poet/cartoonist - and another poem of his showed up on my facebook page today - enjoy!

Love and fear / Michael Leunig

There are only two feelings, Love and fear:
There are only two languages, Love and fear:
There are only two activities, Love and fear:
There are only two motives, two procedures,
two frameworks, two results, Love and fear,
Love and fear.

If you're enjoying these you will LOVE his art - his cartoons are wonderful:

Michael Leunig

97% of Women Will Be Cruel to Their Bodies Today

2011-02-13T10:03:00.000-04:00

This month in Glamour Magazine is an incredible article everyone needs to read - even men - we need this to stop, 97% of women are verbally abusive to themselves each and every day, most of us far more than once a day. As a woman who has struggled all my whole life long with an eating disorder I know the cruelty that I have treated myself with - never would I speak those words to another, or allow myself to be spoken to in that way - it's more than our bodies, we need to change our minds, hearts and souls.

Read these words: “You are a fat, worthless pig.” “You’re too thin. No man is ever going to want you.” “Ugly. Big. Gross.” Horrifying comments on some awful website? The rant of an abusive, controlling boyfriend? No; shockingly, these are the actual words young women are saying to themselves on any typical day. For some, such thoughts are fleeting, but for others, this dialogue plays on a constant, punishing loop, according to a new exclusive Glamour survey of more than 300 women of all sizes. Our research found that, on average, women have 13 negative body thoughts daily—nearly one for every waking hour. And a disturbing number of women confess to having 35, 50 or even 100 hateful thoughts about their own shapes each day.

Live Slowly

2011-02-12T09:28:00.000-04:00

God help us to live slowly:
To move simply:
To look softly:
To allow emptiness:
To let the heart create for us.
Amen
Source: Michael Leunig, The Prayer Tree

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

Synchroblog: Creativity and Christianity

2011-02-07T16:15:00.015-04:00

Surprisingly one of the best parts of our move to New Brunswick was the lack of really, consistently good restaurants available to us. There are a few, but far too often we would get frustrated with their lack of variety, hit-or-miss menu or just the unfamiliarity of it all. We had favorite foods that we couldn't find or weren't up to our hopes, so we determined to make them ourselves.

I could have never known how much joy and satisfaction cooking and hospitality has brought to our family. We really love to create meals together, be bold and experiment with tastes and new foods. It's been an amazing surprise for us all. We're all healthier and far more adventurous than we could have dreamed.

One of the motivators for our culinary quest was a celebration meal we had at a highly recommended restaurant in our area. The menu was vast, every type of food available, so many options. We each ordered just what we wanted and it was set before us, attractively prepared, but when we tasted the food it was like eating left overs. Keith and I looked at each other, not wanting to wreck Ali & Jake's enjoyment of a night out, but very disappointed in the amount of money we were spending for such unappetizing food. As we left the restaurant we saw into the kitchen things we could not see in the light of the finishing day. Microwave upon microwave. The chef was a very talented cook. His original creation was probably wonderful. Unfortunately his vast menu was the downfall of his service. Trying to keep up with all of the items required him to make in bulk and freeze items for later use. Creativity in the can. Freeze dried moments in time.

I find I have much of the same experience when I come in contact with things labeled "Christian art", "Christian music" and "Christian fiction". I am not saying that it is all bad, there are many talented musicians, authors and artists that produce within the evangelical mainstream. What feels pre-packaged to me is the desperate need to over explain, direct and homogenize the "message".

I am re-reading Madeline L'Engle's Walking on Water, Reflections on Faith and Art as I prepare for the largest art project I've ever undertaken. She draws the distinction between overtly religious books she was given as a child and the story of The Secret Garden. She says:

"The Secret Garden is probably the most successful and most read and re-read of Burnett's books; it is also Christian, though I don't remember whether or not it ever mentions Jesus. And it is more successful than Little Lord Fauntleroy, for instance, because it is a better piece of storytelling, less snobbish, and the message doesn't show, like a slip hanging below the hem of a dress. I think we can all recognize ourselves, at least to some degree, in Mary Lennox, who is as spoiled and self-centered a child as one can find, thoroughly nasty and unlovable, basically because she's never been taught to love anybody but herself. The secret garden is as much the garden of Mary's heart as it is the walled English garden, and we watch Mary's slow growth into the realization of other people's needs and then into love. Mary's journey into love is, in fact, her journey into Christ, though this is never said and does not need to be said."

"Like a slip hanging below the hem of a dress" - that metaphor says it all for me. Can we tell the story and allow those who receive it to meet it in their own gentle way? Jesus always allowed for this. Story is portable, I carry it with me when I go, unpacking it at my leisure, retrieving from it what I am able and returning to it again and again for something new. When we over-explain or feel the need to only tell ONE story over and over again, recycling the "come to Jesus" moment in every script, story and song the only people left listening are those who no longer need that story.

Redemption is found in the most elemental of places. When something that is lost becomes found we all connect with that emotion and depth. When things are laid bare like a slip below the hem line there is no mystery to unpack, no resonance to echo, no unpacking left to do. Those are the stories, the songs and the scripts that leave me cold, like that re-heated meal at the restaurant. Instead I am warmed and I find a deeper satisfaction by the cooking of our own meals, our kitchen filled with steam and laughter, sometimes even chaos and frustration, but most of the time love and connection. Creating teaches me about God. Becoming a co-creator engages me in the story, in the majesty, in the redemption.

I was raised in a rather sparse corner of the faith kingdom. Bare walls, few instruments and little story. It nearly squished all of the life out of my little bohemian heart. There were life guards along my path though, teachers engaging me in great literature, explaining the stories behind the music, fanning the flame that was my soul. How sad that so little of that happened within my faith structure, that most of the stories I did hear there were of fear and conformity. I felt like an outsider even in the club, and at times, especially in the club. Nothing in me ever wanted to rebel. I possessed a deep longing to glorify God and bring joy; how unfortunate that there were so few channels to do so within the church.

Instead I changed, I conformed and I did my level best to live in a way that fit. It was obvious to everyone including me how little I understood the rules, knew the script and could follow the directions, I truly never did fit in. It was never out of a sour heart, just a total lack of instinct. So I shut down. I withdrew. I projected a persona that could maintain a small social interaction, but did not allow for my inner person to be seen. It wasn't safe, I wasn't sure.

It has been years of healing and growth that has finally brought me to a place of beginning to own my co-creator-ness in a more public manner. Some of my art hangs framed on the walls of my home. I make gifts from time to time for others. Each risk in turn brings the capacity to take a larger one. And it has finally come to the time when I must throw caution to the wind and try for all I am worth to own this bohemian soul I have been given. Hippie to the heart, grace to myself and others, storyteller and redemption junkie. I am going big or going home.

This Friday is the 2nd deadline for our entry in the Kingsbrae Garden sculpture contest. We have cleared the first hurdle, and are prepared for the second. I am sending in the photos of the maquette we have created. It is a miniature of a 50' long mother humpback whale and her 15' calf. The mother's blow hole and the calf's fluke will be done in cement mosaic, the rest of the form will rise,out of the sod, as if you were standing on the edge of a whale watching ship - go big or go home...

I am terrified, electric, overwhelmed and excited. None of this necessarily fits into the "Christian Art" category, but it is the most deeply spiritual exercise of my life.

L'Engle likens the setting aside of Christ's power to become a man to that of the artist. Loss of control, becoming a servant of the work is what each author, composer and artist pray for. Annunciation is the most Christ-like act on the face of the earth. Setting aside our power for the sake of another. She says:

"But the reality of the outcome of all annunciations is a reality which is scoffed at by most of the world. It is one of the great triumphs of Lucifer that he has managed to make Christians (Christians!) believe that a story is a lie, that a myth should be outgrown with puberty, that to act in a play is inconsistent with true religion."

"Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, "Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me." And the artist either says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord," and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary."

"Christian art? Art is art; painting is painting; music is music, a story is a story. If it's bad art, it's bad religion, no matter how pious the subject. If it's good art...and there the questions start coming, questions which it would be simpler to evade."

Creativity & Christianity should never be enemies. Profanity yes, but engaging as a co-creator with God is the highest calling we all can have in any sense of our lives.

We have been approved for a Kickstarter application - if we make it over the next hurdle we will be broadcasting our need of patrons here very soon. We would love for you to be co-creators with us in this endeavor. We will also be documenting this process - nearly 25 years of marriage has taught us that even the most simple things can bring out the worst and best in us - we can imagine how something this huge and creative could really become a spectator sport, so we'll track our progress of the whole process here:

Imperfectionists

Ironically - it is currently very IMPERFECT - as we are having horrible problems with images and css - if any of you are code wizards your help would not go unrecognized - we have a great wordpress theme, but are really struggling with all of the tiny bits of customization.

This blog post is part of a communal synchro-blog effort - you can find more on Creativity & Christianity here:

February Synchroblog - Creativity & Christianity

here are the link lists so far for February synchroblog:

Bethany Stedman – How God Creates
EmmaNadine – Creativity and Christianity
Bill Sahlman – Created, Continued Creativity
Heidi Renee – Synchroblog Creativity and Christianity
Annie Bullock – Old Things are New
John O’Keefe – What is Half of 11
Kathy Escobar – open.
Tim Nichols – Artist-Priests in God’s Poetic World
Maurice Broaddus – The Artist and the Church
Jeremy Meyers – Creativity First Christian Act (link not working yet)
Steve Dehner – The Divine Projectionist
Ellen Haroutunian – Creativity and Christianity: It Matters
Tammy Carter – His Instrument His Song
Steve Hayes – Creativity and Worship
Marta’s Mathoms – Mythos and Create-ivity as a Spiritual Act
Peter Walker – Creativity and Christianity?
William Lecorchick – Heaven and Hell
Jacob Boelman – God’s Magicians
Liz Dyer – Divine Seeing
Minnowspeaks – DNA
Christine Sine – God Created the World by Imagination

Beatrice and Virgil - Yann Martel

2011-02-07T11:29:00.004-04:00

Long awaited (by me) new book by Yann Martel - Beatrice and Virgil - reviewed here by The Rabbit Room - love this quote oh so much:

I leave you with Martel’s own words via Beatrice, a donkey accompanying his monkey companion, Virgil, during their walking conversation.

Virgil: I was thinking about faith.

Beatrice: Were you?

Virgil: Faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?

Kickstart an album project for The Geese

2011-02-05T18:24:00.002-04:00

Good friends, great band, wonderful cause - please support their indy music - deep, deep souls.

When ideas become defenses

2011-02-04T11:30:00.000-04:00

We operate with the assumption that giving people new ideas changes people. It doesn’t. Believing ideas is, in fact, a way of not having to change in any significant way, especially if you can argue about them. Ideas become defenses.

If you have the right words, you are considered an orthodox and law-abiding Christian. We burned people at the stake for not having the right words, but never to my knowledge for failing to love or forgive, or to care for the poor. Religion has had a love affair with words and correct ideas, whereas Jesus loved people, who are always imperfect.

You do not have to substantially change to think some new ideas. You always have to change to love and forgive ordinary people. We love any religion that asks us to change other people. We avoid any religion that keeps telling us to change.

Richard Rohr, Adapted from How Men Change: A Thin Time (CD, DVD, MP3)

Risk...

2011-01-14T08:39:00.002-04:00

I don't care if no one likes it, she said, unless no one likes it. ~ The Story People

This one made me laugh out loud today. Starting a HUGE art project and I am internalizing these thoughts even before I begin...

Epiphany!!!

2011-01-06T08:37:00.001-04:00

What a difference! The three kings had only a rumor to go by. But it moved them to make that long journey. The scribes were much better informed, much better versed. They sat and studied the Scriptures like so many dons, but it did not make them move. Who had the more truth? The three kings who followed a rumor, or the scribes who remained sitting with all their knowledge?

Source: Soren Kierkegaard, Only Rumor

Vulnerable like a bird

2011-01-03T06:52:00.005-04:00

Birds have become an important metaphor for me this past year - so I really loved this thought:

Life is precious. Not because it is unchangeable, like a diamond, but because it is vulnerable, like a little bird. To love life means to love its vulnerability, asking for care, attention, guidance, and support. Life and death are connected by vulnerability. The newborn child and the dying elder both remind us of the preciousness of our lives. Let's not forget the preciousness and vulnerability of life during the times we are powerful, successful, and popular. ~ Henri Nouwen

O God, make me discontented

2011-01-01T14:08:00.002-04:00

O God, make me discontented with things
the way they are in the world,
and in my own life.
Make me notice the stains when people get spilled on.
Make me care about the slum child downtown,
the misfit at work,
the people crammed into the mental hospital,
the men, women and youth behind bars.
Jar my complacency,
expose my excuses,
get me involved in the life of my city and world.
Give me integrity once more,
O God, as we seek to be changed
and transformed,
with a new understanding and awareness
of our common humanity.

Robert Raines

Just lengthen the chain

2010-12-27T11:56:00.002-04:00

Here Is Where We Meet, John Berger,

The mother says, “Let a few things be repaired. A few is a lot. One thing repaired changes a thousand others.” The son replies, “So?” And out flows a maternal speech:

"The dog down there is on too short a chain. Change it, lengthen it. Then he’ll be able to reach the shade, and he’ll lie down and he’ll stop barking. And the silence will remind the mother she wanted a canary in a cage in the kitchen. And when the canary sings, she’ll do more ironing. And the father’s shoulders in a freshly ironed shirt will ache less when he goes to work. And so when he comes home he’ll sometimes joke, like he used to, with his teenage daughter. And the daughter will change her mind and decide, just this once, to bring her love home one evening. And on another evening, the father will propose to the young man that they go fishing together… Who in the wide world knows? Just lengthen the chain."

In this season of peace, may you lengthen a dog’s chain. And then see what happens.

via

The Moon is Always Whole

2010-12-27T06:59:00.001-04:00

God of the two lights,
I love the sun,
its revealing brilliance,
its lingering warmth;
but in the dark of night,
let me learn
the wisdom of the moon,
how it waxes and wanes
but does not die,
how it gives itself
to shadow,
knowing it will emerge whole
once more.

Jan Richardson, inspired by Barbara Kingsolver's poem "Remember the Moon Survives"

via - The Advent Door

Fill the house with lions

2010-12-21T21:17:00.002-04:00

"Beware when you honour an artist.
You are praising danger.
You are holding out your hand
To the dead and unborn
You are counting on what cannot be counted.

The poet's measures serve anarchic joy
The story-teller tells one story: freedom.

Above all beware of honouring women artists.
For the housewife will fill the house with lions
and in with the grandmother
comes bears, wild horses, great horned owls, coyotes."

-Ursula LeGuin

thank you karis!

This is why the questions are important

2010-12-11T08:25:00.001-04:00

If the world is to change, first I have to change. The way I change (often kicking and screaming) is by coming to where the abyss of faith is located. I believe in a new way: not by suppressing the questions and the doubts, but by living more and more deeply into the questions and the doubts. I come to faith in a God who is paradoxically revealed in the very struggle to name God. The closer I get, the more I am questioned in my questioning, the more I am probed in my probing. I begin to wonder how it all fits together, especially when I don't fit together too well myself. I feel naked and exposed and frightened....

My fear and anger are very useful, provided I am able to resist that first panicked impulse to run. If I stand still in whatever cave I've been pushed into, my anger and fear can be a means to my understanding more clearly and with precision what is going on, not only within me but in the world.... Doesn't God reveal God's self in the areas of our greatest weakness--in our questioning, our probing, our suffering and our anger? I believe God does. This is why the questions are important. They stretch and enlarge the heart so that it is capable of receiving a deeper revelation. They expand our horizons. It would be strange if we didn't find this enlarging and expanding process deeply disturbing.

The simple truth is that reality reveals its secrets to us in proportion to the level of our willingness to ask questions. We receive "answers" to fit the kind of "questions" we pose. If our questions are narrowly and unimaginatively conceived, the answers will be, too.

Source: Alan Jones, Soul Making

via inward/outward

Through a glass dimly

2010-11-25T16:42:00.001-04:00

Press your face
against the darkness.

Own the countenance
reflected by the pane.

You are known
on both sides
of the glass.

Source: Nancy Compton Williams, Theology Today, Corinthians 13:12

via inward/outward

He was a good man

2010-10-31T07:43:00.003-03:00

One of my favorite new to me voices I've been reading lately - John D. Blase

Taken from his blog Dirty Shame:

In our efforts to see a savior beyond the gentle, meek and mild variety, I fear we've constructed a golden calf of the word great. But riddle me this, batman, when God created the world, you know, back there in Genesis, when all was said and done each day, what was his refrain? and it was great? No, I'm pretty sure it was and it was good. Not a page later and God said it wasn't good that man be alone, so along came the lady, yeehaw! The psalmist wrote it is good and pleasing when folks dwell together in unity. It'd be pretty cool if we could read Acts 10.38 in a Tony the Tiger voice:
Jesus went about doing gr-r-r-r-r-eat!...

but we can't. Jesus went about doing good. Even the word 'gospel' describes a news clarified not great, but good. Don't forget the Bible itself used to be known as the good book. And one of these days, I hope to hear the words well done, good and faithful servant.

Why has this word, that seems to mean such a great deal to God, fallen on hard times? What if God doesn't really want us, or our churches, or our organizations to move from good to great? What if he's quite delighted if we live good in this world gone bad? Remember that childhood lunchtime prayer - God is great, God is good? What if God's the only one who can be both, both great and good, and we, his children, are to be good? We can't be both because we're not God. Maybe that was the banana peel Lucifer stepped on, he tried to be both great and good, like God, but he slipped...and fell. Maybe the road to great is broad and wide, but the road to good is a knife-edge you must be faithful to each mundane day, and it'll take the great God's help if you ever hope to be a good man, or a good woman, or a good kid, or a good neighbor, or a good pastor, or a good friend.

I hope one of these days, when my wife and children and friends and acquaintances and creditors are gathered around the funeral canoe, getting ready to set my body ablaze and send it out upon the waters to Avalon, that somebody, maybe a little kid just happening to walk by will ask was he someone great? and one of you will chuckle, reverently of course, and say nope, not a chance, kid...but he was a good man.

Bold tracks in the land of now

2010-10-22T08:49:00.005-03:00

I was telling my friend Rachael about the level of frustration I was feeling as so much of my journey seems familiar to me again. I have been shaming myself with "You should be past this" and "You know better than this" self-talk and I realized that on the spiral staircase that is my life I am passing by some very familiar pain and wounding. I am not going backwards, but I am re-feeling and learning healthier ways to move through this stage in my life.

We used this poem last night at group and I wanted to remember it again this morning.

Help Me to Believe in Beginnings

God of history and of my heart, 
so much has happened to me during these whirlwind days:
I’ve known death and birth; 
I’ve been brave and scared; 
I’ve hurt, I’ve helped; 
I’ve been honest, I’ve lied; 
I’ve destroyed, I’ve created; 
I’ve been with people, I’ve been lonely; 
I’ve been loyal, I’ve betrayed; 
I’ve decided, I’ve waffled; 
I’ve laughed and I’ve cried. 
You know my frail heart and my frayed history - 
and now another day begins.  

O God, help me to believe in beginnings 
and in my beginning again, 
no matter how often I’ve failed before.  

Help me to make beginnings: 
to begin going out of my weary mind 
into fresh dreams, 
daring to make my own bold tracks 
in the land of now; 
to begin forgiving 
that I may experience mercy; 
to begin questioning the unquestionable 
that I may know truth 
to begin disciplining 
that I may create beauty; 
to begin sacrificing 
that I may make peace; 
to begin loving  
that I may realize joy.  

Help me to be a beginning to others, 
to be a singer to the songless, 
a storyteller to the aimless, 
a befriender of the friendless; 
to become a beginning of hope for the despairing, 
of assurance for the doubting, 
of reconciliation for the divided; 
to become a beginning of freedom for the oppressed, 
of comfort for the sorrowing, 
of friendship for the forgotten; 
to become a beginning of beauty for the forlorn, 
of sweetness for the soured, 
of gentleness for the angry, 
of wholeness for the broken, 
of peace for the frightened and violent of the earth.  

Help me to believe in beginnings, 
to make a beginning, 
to be a beginning, 
so that I may not just grow old, 
but grow new 
each day of this wild, amazing life 
you call me to live 
with the passion of Jesus Christ.

Taken from Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder

this is so me right now

2010-10-20T08:18:00.000-03:00

Waiting for the pen to dry up so he can start fresh with thoughts that are worth new ink.

via Brian Andreas, The Story People

Risking Everything

2010-10-03T07:14:00.005-03:00

I want to give myself
utterly
as this maple
that burned and burned
for three days without stinting
and then in two more
dropped off every leaf....
Source: Jane Hirshfield, from Lake and Maple in Risking Everything
via inward/outward
image credit

Pennsylvania Apple Pancake

2010-09-25T11:04:00.004-03:00

We tried a new recipe this morning and it is definitely a keeper! It's called Pennsylvania Apple Pancake - and while we never had it while we lived in Pennsylvania it is from my favorite cookbook - Food Editor's Hometown Favorites Cookbook - American Regional and Local Specialties - this one is from the Pittsburgh Press. (We tripled the recipe so I'm posting that version here)

Pancake

9 eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/2 c milk
3/4 t salt

Preheat oven to 450* while preparing batter. Beat eggs in a bowl; add flour, milk and salt and beat. Slightly lumpy batter makes a light pancake. Melt 2 T butter in a large ovenproof skillet. Pour butter into hot skillet and immediately place in preheated 450* oven; bake 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350* and bake 10 minutes longer, or until crisp and golden.

Filling

7-9 apples (I used a mixed variety we had picked at Todd's Point along with some granny smiths I had on hand)
1/4 c sugar (I used splenda)
6 T butter

While pancake bakes, prepare apples. Peel, core and cut apples. Melt 6 T butter in large skillet. Saute apples with sugar in butter until crisp-tender. (I added cinnamon & a dash of real maple syrup as splenda does not caramelize as well as sugar and the syrup helps). Set aside

Remove baked pancake from oven. Spread apple filling over half of pancake surface. Fold pancake in half. Pour butter from skillet over pancake. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon-sugar. Cut pancake in wedges and serve with lemon (we did not have lemon, but will try next time). (NOTE: Make sure your skillet handle can tolerate 450* heat or you'll have a souffle-ed handle.)

The Beautiful No

2010-09-02T10:32:00.003-03:00

Donald Miller announced the winner to the story contest yesterday, sadly it was not me. I realized along the process that wanting/wishing/hoping/asking is the most important "winning" I could do. Somewhere along my 44 (almost 45) years I have had the hoping taken out of me. I am a positive person and usually quite content, so this surprised me when I realized it. Between the last week when they originally were supposed to announce the winner and yesterday I began to realize that not hoping/wishing/wanting somehow happened because I thought I was too fragile to be disappointed. I truly am not.

I don't like disappointment, but I would far rather hear the beautiful "NO" than live a life that is void of hoping. I also want to be able to hear the beautiful "NO" if it is one that protects me from ruin. Looking back the hard "No's" that I/we have received along our path have always been the best answer. That house we had our hearts set on - big, beautiful and a money pit - that no saved us from financial ruin as I can now see how much the current owners are having to do to keep up. How much more life giving our real home is because it doesn't need everything done to make it livable. That NO was truly a gift. We didn't think so at the time, but looking back truly understand it's beauty.

So, I am not fragile, and I will keep hoping/wishing/wanting/dreaming and listening for that beautiful no, even if it disappoints - because everything truly is unfolding as it should.

When the mind and heart are one

2010-08-30T10:15:00.003-03:00

This echos so much of what I said in my last talk at church - I agree wholeheartedly and find that comfort with which we divide ourselves is so commonplace that we don't even question it any more.

Richard Rohr:

When our brain is separated from our heart we will invariably think dualistically, because we ourselves are split. The last 500 years, when we came to rely upon printed words for truth, rational thinking was idealized into what we ironically call “The Enlightenment” (largely beginning in the18th century). This period separated the mind from the heart rather totally, and we might add, since this time war has been almost non stop, and Christianity began to divide into all head people or all heart people, as we often still have today. Both lose half of the picture.

When the human person is split, we find ourselves either in a “war culture”—or in the culture wars that we have in America today—or both. It seems we have to hate somebody or something when we cannot resolve the contradictions that are everywhere—first of all within ourselves. As Jesus said, “the lamp of the body is the eye” (Luke 11:34). And the eye sees most truthfully when it looks out from that place where the mind and the heart are one.

Raising my voice

2010-08-24T06:03:00.000-03:00

When a man is singing and cannot lift his voice, and another comes and sings with him, another who can lift his voice, the first will be able to lift his voice too. That is the secret of the bond between spirits.

Source: Martin Buber, Ten Rungs: Hasidic Sayings

Add your thoughts at inward/outward

How can suffering be redemptive?

2010-08-08T07:52:00.001-03:00

The Gospel was first heard by people who were longing and thirsty, who were poor and oppressed in one sense or another. They knew their need and their emptiness. So we must go to the same place within ourselves to hear the Gospel. We must find the rejected and fearful parts within each of us and try to live there, if life has not yet put us there. That should allow us a deeper communion with the oppressed of the world, who are by far the majority of the human race since the beginnings of humanity.

If we wish to enter more deeply into this mystery of redemptive suffering—which also means somehow entering more deeply into the heart of God—we have to ask God to allow us to feel some of their pain and loneliness, not just to know it intellectually. It is what we feel that we finally act on. Knowing is often just that, and nothing more.

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Job and the Mystery of Suffering, p. 15

All the Good Words are Taken

2010-07-27T05:10:00.001-03:00

From one of my favorite wordsmiths: Cheryl Lawrie

all the good words are taken
so i will use them anyway
and mean something else:

i am blessed.

I will not say it to mean i am lucky to have what i do;
especially bestowed with something
that others lack
due to my good luck
or god’s good nature
or something between the two.

but i will mean
that i choose to live
as though in this next moment
and action
i have been given the chance
to be a person of grace.

i am blessed.

AAUGH!!

2010-07-22T08:15:00.003-03:00

“You can’t create humor out of happiness. I’m astonished at the number of people who write to me saying, ‘Why can’t you create happy stories for us? Why does Charlie Brown always have to lose? Why can’t you let him kick the football?’ Well, there is nothing funny about the person who gets to kick the football.”

- Charles Schulz, Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Me (via All Things Charlie Brown)

We are her best dreams coming true…

2010-07-20T07:28:00.018-03:00

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes tells of a dream of a time she was telling a story. She felt someone tapping on her toe. Looking down she realized with surprise that she was standing on the shoulders of an old woman. She tried to encourage the woman up to stand on her shoulders so she could see and the woman reassured her that no, this was the way. Upon looking down she saw the old woman too was standing on the shoulders of an even older woman and the ladder stretched far away.

I was raised in a sect of faith that tells women that they have no stories to tell in public. Stories are for home, for children and other women. It affected me deeply because I believed them. I believed that it made God happy if I was silent. It restored creation order. So I willingly agreed to keep my stories to myself. I knew in my heart that God’s happiness was far more important than my own.

But then one day I gave birth to the most beautiful, porcelain skinned baby girl and I realized that it was no longer just about my happiness. I had a world to give her, would it be one of silence or one with a voice? Heavily I weighed these things I had been given from such a tender age.

I grasped that there was much that I was willing to sacrifice for myself, but my daughter was not, and should not be, one of those things. She was growing up in a brand new world, a world where the female voice was not only welcomed, but invited. I saw that this silence was taking far more than it was giving and slowly it occurred to me that if I did not tell my stories no one would.

I remember watching my own mother navigate the silence. It was not where she was raised. She came to the silence late in life. She too longed to make God smile. Her heart was good, but her voice was strong. It was a constant battle for her to keep silent and not tell her stories. She had a rich voice and a deep laugh. I remember being awakened in the early morning as she sat at her Smith-Corona letting her voice pour out her fingers and onto scrap paper, her frustration mounting as she tried desperately to find a story that would please the publishers so she could have a voice again. Her silence magnified her sickness. She died at the age I am now. 44. Unpublished and voiceless.

After her death, and the birth of my daughter Alinea, I began to understand that a God that silences half the population of his creation to restore some order isn’t truly the God of creation, but a sad, mean idol created in the image of men threatened desperately as they tried to find their own stories. I found that upon telling my story it restored much, which in turn made God rejoice. This was a full throated God, not threatened by truth or spirit, but one with broad shoulders and warm thick arms to wrap all the stories together.

This was a world where I could raise a daughter, this was a God who was worthy of my service and worship. You see this daughter of mine has a way with the pen, the keyboard and the language. She is the magnification all of the good that her grandmother possessed, and the entire bottled up story that fell silent so long in me. It flows through her so naturally, so beautifully. She stands on these shoulders as I stand on my mum’s. If I could I’d raise her up to stand on my hands. Raise her up as high above my head as I am able. We are my mother’s best dreams coming true.

So I write today, Mr. Miller, Donald, if I may, to ask you to help me raise her up, help me to help her by learning to tell my own story, and live my life fully and provide her with every tool possible to do that in the very best of ways.

If there was any way to get us there I’d do it. Portland was our family destination 2 years ago for a reunion and we adore it. There is just no way we can get from our coast to yours on our own. So I'm asking you to help me. I don’t even know if we’re eligible to win. If it’s residency we are out, you see we live about six blocks from the Maine border in New Brunswick, Canada. But if it’s about social security numbers and being American there is a possibility we could qualify. Either way I knew that I needed to enter to verbalize these things that are birthing in me.

I have a dear friend who makes wishes and prayers and releases them by writing them on tiny strips of paper and then tying them into knots and setting them in a safe place. She said it was a way to dream big dreams and allow yourself to ask for things you’ve always been told you shouldn’t ask for. That was a few months ago, about the same time you announced this event. With hands shaking and skepticism in my heart I wrote my very first (and only) little prayer.

“I want to go to Portland at the end of September to see Donald Miller & Aunt Peg.”

I told no one. It was my little experiment. Then I saw your contest and knew that I had to enter.
We meet regularly with some others in our community here to pray and try to figure out a way to create something locally to help people, especially children, out of the generational poverty that has eroded much of the foundation of life away from so many. We have seen that children raised in this level of poverty have no chance at hope and freedom. We have been talking about a Million Miles and the Mentoring Project as inspiration to think far outside regular nonprofit walls to begin to change the direction of the erosion; rerouting the water flow so that it works against the desolation instead of the hope.

Also, because this will be read by people who you care about and care for you, I want you to know that I am truly grateful. You have swamped the well of stories for the church and the old, ugly stories are falling away so that new, more life giving stories can be found. Your humility and ability to engage the soul changes everything and I want you to know I'm so thankful. I know you stand on the shoulders of some truly wonderful people and with your words you lift us all up.

Thank you.

Your friend,

HeidiRenee

This is my entry for the Living A Better Story Conference

Living a Better Story Seminar from All Things Converge Podcast on Vimeo.

Putting poison into the public reservoir

2010-07-14T09:34:00.006-03:00

"No one can keep the consequences of any evil to himself. They seep through his individual life, and run out into the community. When the Scripture says, "Be sure your sin will find you out," it does not mean "will be found out." It means what it says, "will find you out," track you down, spoil your character, destroy your happiness, ruin your influence; and because it does that, it will find your friends out, will tend to pull them down with you, will surely make goodness harder for them, and within your family circle will roll upon those who love you a burden of vicarious suffering.

If one could sin privately, he might allow himself the ignoble self-indulgence. But he cannot. Somebody else always is involved. The whole world is involved, for the man has deprived the world of a good life and given it a bad life instead. Sinning, even in its most private forms, is putting poison into the public reservoir, and sooner or later everybody is the worse for the pollution."

Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Meaning of Prayer, pg. 175-176 [X-c]

Bleu Lavande

2010-07-14T09:22:00.004-03:00

A sensory gift from my dear Quebecois friend Annick - handmade lavender soap from Fitch Bay, Quebec - the blue of the soap is the color of the glass tile back splash in my kitchen - and it smells so good I want to eat it! It is the most authentic scent of lavender I have ever smelled - it's like walking in a field of flowers. Glorious!

Blue Lavande

Seriously crushing on Peanuts

2010-07-12T12:50:00.000-03:00

via

May it be so

2010-07-10T17:58:00.002-03:00

This was written for me by a friend and left in comments and I think it is too precious to hide there. Thank you Kel!

as you sit by this grave
daring to name memories
and mourning resultant loss
may you feel the presence of
the one
who as you said
carried this for you
until you were ready

at the foot of this gravestone
i see a rosebud
i believe it will bloom and unfurl
into the fully fragrant rose
it was created to be

may it be so

Splitting my world wide open

2010-06-25T08:59:00.005-03:00

"Most writers, like most children, need to tell.

The only problem is that much of what they need to tell will provoke the ire of parent-critics, who are determined to tell writer-children what they can and cannot say.

Unless you have sufficient ego and feel entitled to tell your story, you will be stymied in your effort to create.

You think you can't write, but the truth is you can't tell.

Writing is nothing if not breaking the silence."

--Betsy Lerner, The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers

Image Credit - Tara F - Slow Traveler

I ended last year with this quote. It summed up where I had been in my inability to blog and give voice to my thoughts. Sadly, six months later, this is still true. Now that school is over and I have a bit more time on my hands I'd like to change that, and I think that taking a risk is the best way to begin.

Anyone who really knows me can tell you that I am quite able to give voice to things that most people would or could never say out loud - I am able to talk about the things that silence most people.

Ironically the thing that silences me is that I have a voice. That I am a teacher, even a preacher and that I have opinions and beliefs that might be different than those around me. I have not wanted to bear the rejection that could come with owning that.

It feels like a big risk. My blog isn't a random internet address anymore, it's linked to my Facebook page and hundreds of friends who have known me throughout my life. Many of those from a time when I was silent and head-covered.

I do not want to hurt or offend or ostracize any of those people or myself, or to provoke their ire, but I long to own who I am and what I am and stop being ashamed of that any longer.

"By their fruit, you will know them."

The crazy thing is that when I am given the opportunity to teach there is fruit. Good, wholesome fruit. I am not a rebel by any means, but owning this feels so rebellious, so risky. So I asked myself, what are the real risks?

Will owning this make me loose some friends on Facebook?

Possibly, but as I'd tell my kids they probably weren't my real friends in the first place.

Will it cause me to be secretly judged?

Always - I can't seem to do anything without that happening.

So why then should I stay silent?

Why then should I not own this very important part of myself?

I truly have no idea.

All I know is that it feels so risky.

I love this part of me, I treasure it, it feels like the pearls of my life - and I know I have no control over the audience. I don't know if it would even find their radar screens, but what I do know is that there are so many people I adore who do truly love me for who I am. I am in a place where my voice is heard, welcomed and invited. I have a place at the table, and I treasure it.

Another quote I found while looking for the one above made me feel warm inside:

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?
The world would split open.

Source: Muriel Rukeyser,From Cries of the Spirit, edited by Marilyn Sewell

Crack, crack, crack...

So here is my big risk. Here is my voice.

This is a link to my talk I gave a couple of weeks ago at my church, I'm really happy with it:

Roll Away Your Stone by Heidi Renee Turner

farmerpages.com

2010-06-24T18:15:00.001-03:00

For all of your farming questions, needs and supplies go to farmerpages.com

You're welcome Chris :)

James K.A. Smith on Redemption

2010-06-23T14:44:00.003-03:00

Beautiful thoughts on redemption from James K.A. Smith - Via Cardus:

So our redemption is not some supplement to being human; it's what makes it possible to be really human, to take up the mission that marks us as God's image bearers. Saint Irenaeus captures this succinctly: "The glory of God is a human being fully alive." Redemption doesn't tack on some spiritual appendage, nor does it liberate us from being human in order to achieve some sort of angelhood. Rather, redemption is the restoration of our humanity, and our humanity is bound up with our mission of being God's co-creative culture-makers.

While God's redemption is cosmic, not anthropocentric, it nonetheless operates according to that original creational scandal whereby humanity is commissioned as ambassador, and even co-creator, for the sake of the world. In an equally scandalous way, we are now commissioned as co-redeemers. Redemption is the re-orientation and re-direction of our culture-making capacities. It is we who have invented the twisted cultural systems that deface and despoil this good world; restoring creation to its lush plenitude and fecundity will not happen by divine fiat or magic—it will require the hard, patient, Spirit-inspired work of building wellordered systems, creation-caring institutions and life-giving habits.

Complete article here: The Story: Creation > > Fall > > Redemption

God Alone is Enough by Claudia Mair Burney

2010-06-23T11:09:00.007-03:00

My long-time blogger bestie Claudia Mair Burney has just published her first non-fiction work for Paraclete Press. Titled God Alone is Enough, a Spirited Journey with St. Teresa of Avila - it is such a joy to hold the work of my dear friend in my hands. We have read each others words for more years than I can count and watching her journey has been a true joy.

I am the ninth step on a blog tour through the book and was asked to blog on Chapter nine - Ecstasy is Not a Drug - an appropriate chapter for a "redemption junkie" :)

Before talking about Chapter 9, I want to explain the book to those who aren't following the tour.

Claudia makes Theresa's writings so accessible. It is a beautiful primer for the saint(s) - and a beautiful introduction to centering prayer. It is fun, funny and filled with the reality of both the author's and the saint's struggles and joys. The only criticism I might make is that the cover shows a prim and proper woman in prayer - it belies the very nature of this book. If this book was my neighbor I wouldn't have to clean my kitchen, or even get out of my pj's before I invited her over for tea. It is as real as it is lively - just like my friend Mair.

I think a more "Rosie the Riveter" kind of sister on the cover would have been a more accurate visual representation of the sense of the book. Don't get me wrong - it is a beautiful cover - I just am such a visual person that I do unfortunately, at times, judge by said cover. Okay, on to chapter 9...

If anyone is at all familiar with St. Theresa and her Interior Castle you will know of her ecstasy.Theresa opines that there are four stages of prayer that the learner passes through. She uses the metaphor of watering a garden to explain:

"Now let's see how we need to water the garden, so we'll understand what we have to do, how much the labor will cost us, if the time and work we put into it is worth it, and how long it will last. Our garden can be watered in four ways: We can draw water from a well, which is a lot of work. Or you can get the water by turning the crank of a waterwheel and drawing it through an aqueducts. I've tried this myself and know it's not as much trouble to do as the first way. And you get more water.

Or you can channel the water from the flow of a river or stream. The garden is watered much better this way because the ground is saturated and you don't have to water it as frequently. This is a lot less work for the gardener.

Or the water may come from an abundant rain pouring on the soul; the Lord waters the garden himself, without any work on our part. This is by far the best method of all." (pg. 43, 44)

Chapter 9 is focusing on that fourth level of centering prayer - when God sends the rain - Theresa calls it "that sacred kiss" - this is the intimacy of the ecstasy with God that very few, myself included have ever experienced. Theresa explains, "The soul detaches itself from everything, daughter, so it can abide more fully in me. It is no longer the soul that lives but I. Since it is not capable of comprehending what it understands, there is an understanding by not understanding."

The holy longing for that level of intimacy with God - where our soul is joined with God has been lost to most of the church these days. We spend our time hauling water and building aqueducts instead of praying for rain. Centering prayer is a lost art form to the evangelical church and we are poorer for its lack.

This is a book I will be passing on to my daughter and one I'd use regularly with teen girls to teach on centering prayer. Thank you Mair, both for the book and for venturing into non-fiction. I adore your story and look forward to one day holding THAT book in my hands.

Finding the right name

2010-06-02T11:12:00.002-03:00

There is nothing in your life
too terrible or too sad
that will not be your friend
when you find the right name to call it,
and calling it by its own name
hastening
it will come upright to your side.

--Laurens van der Post

Step 1

2010-05-31T17:05:00.001-03:00

FFFOUND!

Mumford & Sons - Roll Away Your Stone

2010-05-28T06:29:00.004-03:00

My Madi has introduced me to a new to me band - I am far behind on the amazing music scene - but will catch up quickly with Mumford & Sons - oh my. I watched "The Cave" on her fb page this a.m. and scooted over to their website and found their new live video on their song Roll Away Your Stone - black and white, foot stomping glorious!

Lyrics to Roll Away Your Stone :

Roll away your stone I will roll away mine
Together we can see what we will find
Don't leave me alone at this time
For I am afraid of what I will discover inside

You told me that I wouldn't find a home
Beneath the fragile substance of my soul
And I have filled this void with things unreal
And all the while my character it steals

Darkness is a harsh term don't you think
Yet it dominates the things I see

It seems that all my bridges have been burned
But you say 'That's exactly how this grace thing works’
It's not the long walk home that will change this heart
But the welcome I receive with every start

Darkness is a harsh term don't you think
And yet it dominates the things I see
Darkness is a harsh term don't you think
And yet it dominates the things I see

Stars hide your fires
For these here are my desires
And I won't give them up to you this time around
And so I will be found
With my stake stuck in the ground
Marking the territory of this newly impassioned soul

And you, you've gone too far this time
You have neither reason nor rhyme
With which to take this soul that is so rightfully mine

First with ourselves

2010-05-27T07:53:00.001-03:00

Openness is the sign of a fully human life. It leads to the capacity to give life to others. It is important to know our own selves, and that we are different from others, and to be compassionate, first with ourselves.

- Jean Vanier, A Human Future, November 04.

My new tag line

2010-05-21T10:33:00.001-03:00

Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light.

Groucho Marx

I'll love you forever

2010-05-19T08:28:00.006-03:00

Robert Munsch has always been my absolute favorite childrens author and now that I read-aloud 8x a week he is my very best friend. Yesterday the news hit that he has opened up about his long struggle with mental illness and addiction. This only makes me love him more. Anyone who takes a princess who has lost everything and gives her the chutzpah to stand up to dragons and shallow princes could never fall from grace in my books.

I hope this will allow parents to begin to have discussions with their kids about these difficult topics and that others will see the beauty that can come from pain. So thrilled that Annick Press and Scholastic are standing fully behind him as he finds healing and recovery.

Toronto Star - Robert Munsch lauded for addiction admission

CBC Canada - Robert Munsch speaks of addiction battle

Renovatus

2010-05-16T07:54:00.001-03:00

“The only chance of renovation is to open our eyes and see the mess.”

- Samuel Beckett

via Today I Love

Hello mother

2010-05-13T06:26:00.004-03:00

Two beautiful, very different videos on mothering. Absolutely love them both.

The first is an interview from StoryCorps that has been animated into a film short. 12 year old son with Asperger’s syndrome interviews his mum. Having my own 12 year old son I love to hear the way she honors his individuality with such honesty. His questions are so probing and insightful and this peek into their relationship is precious.

The second is for anyone who has ever gone away to camp, missed your mum and given the gift of your creativity in your time away - it's poet Billy Collins reading his poem called "The Lanyard"

Q&A from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Touching our fear

2010-05-10T09:24:00.000-03:00

You see the problem with us is that we can be governed by fear. Fear of not being loved, fear of being abandoned, fear of suffering, fear of death. It is very important for human beings that we touch our fears -- to know where our fears are -- because we cannot let ourselves be governed by our fears.

- Jean Vanier, Address to the Business Community, April 05

100 months

2010-05-08T14:20:00.002-03:00

While I was babysitting the daughter of my good friends Jeremy & Jennifer I got a chance to read some of Miroslav Volf's new book Against the Tide: Love in a Time of Petty Dreams and Persisting Enmities. It was a special treat and Jeremy left it out just for me (thanks Jer!) to read while she napped.

It is a book of short essays so I skipped around and sampled lots. The one that made the most impact on me was his piece on infertility. I don't have the book with me, so I can't quote it - but he wrote of the 9 years of infertility that he and his wife endured before the adoption of their first son. It resonated deeply with me as it was 9 years of trying before our beautiful Alinea came along. He used the term "100 months" and it made cry immediately. 100 months is a very long time - each and every month hating my body and feeling like a total failure, those months were the most excruciating I have ever endured.

Celebrating mothers day without a mom and without children is nearly impossible. I can remember refusing the lame carnation that was being handed out at the door to all of the mums in church that day. I could have punched out the man to tried to shove it in my hands like a consolation prize when I rejected it. Biting the inside of my cheek so I didn't yell at him or begin to break down in the foyer.

Today my Alinea is 14 years old and Jacob 12 - I can hardly remember the deep pain of those months because the joy of their arrival erased them from my active memory. Re-reading that essay brought back some of the emotion. I would encourage you to be gentle to those around you tomorrow - please don't increase their pain or their struggle with lame words that make you feel better, not them. Infertility is a horrible master and there are no words that can stem the pain.

I told my daughter yesterday about the 100 months of preperation we had for her arrival - and how that those times of lack made me a much stronger person and more ready to mother her when she arrived. I will never say that it was a gift or that learning could not have come in other ways - but I can look at that time now and realize that I am a better woman and mother because of it.

I Love Leftovers!

2010-05-08T07:08:00.001-03:00

The opposite of a scarcity mentality is an abundancy mentality. With an abundancy mentality we say: "There is enough for everyone, more than enough: food, knowledge, love ... everything." With this mind-set we give away whatever we have, to whomever we meet. When we see hungry people we give them food. When we meet ignorant people we share our knowledge; when we encounter people in need of love, we offer them friendship and affection and hospitality and introduce them to our family and friends.

When we live with this mind-set, we will see the miracle that what we give away multiplies: food, knowledge, love ... everything. There will even be many leftovers.

Henri Nouwen

I know what I like

2010-05-07T07:36:00.000-03:00

A Cultural Fable by Brian Andreas

Once upon a time there was a pig who spoke eight languages & did sculpture with pieces of wood & rusted metal he found on his travels.

One day he was out in the woods working on a new installation piece & he met a family from a small town in Tennessee. They had been walking for days.

The dad saw the pig & said what are you doing, little piggie? They were all quite surprised when the pig said working with counterbalanced forces using found objects.

They all stood around & looked at the piece for a long time. No one said anything. Finally, the dad shrugged & turned to the mom & said I don't know much about art but I know what I like & then they killed the pig & ate him.

First love

2010-05-05T07:56:00.002-03:00

If you come in touch with that first love you will discover not only that you are loved unconditionally, but that the One who loves you unconditionally loves all of humanity unconditionally, with that same all-embracing love. And the fact that God loves you so intimately and personally does not mean that God loves anyone else less or differently. Uniquely, yes. But whether they are Nicaraguans or Russians, people from Afghanistan or Iran or South Africa, they all belong to the house of God.

And therefore, when you enter into intimate communion with the God of the first love, you will find yourself in intimate communion with all the people of God, because the heart of God is the heart that embraces the whole of humanity. That's why intimacy with God always means solidarity with the people of God. To put it more precisely: God pitched a tent among us and took on our flesh so that there is no human flesh that has not been accepted by God.

Source: The Road to Peace, Henri J. M. Nouwen

via

Best Car Repair in San Antonio

2010-04-26T06:25:00.002-03:00

Google bombing for a friend - please disregard unless you are Google (or live in San Antonio and are looking for a good mechanic) :)

Kastis Automotive Repair in San Antonio

Nick Vujicic - A Life Without Limbs

2010-04-21T08:34:00.006-03:00

I don't know if any of you remember a short film I posted a few months ago called "The Butterfly Circus" - it is one of the most moving, artful pieces of story I have ever seen. I highly recommend taking the 15-20 minutes it takes to watch. It is so uplifting and redemptive.

My friend from high school, Jackie, just posted a short video of the actor featured in the film giving a motivational speech - I was so excited because I had meant to do some research on him and the impulse got lost in the flow of life. His name is Nick Vujicic and he is a motivational speaker in Australia. He runs a ministry called "Life without Limbs". He's talking here to a group of high school students about body image, self worth and beauty. It's so beautiful to see the kids respond to his words. Watch the movie first and then come back and watch this clip - you will have invested about 30 minutes you will not regret, I promise!

You can find his DVD on Amazon - No Arms, No Legs, No Worries! - and he has a new book coming out in October - Life Without Limits.

Update on Nicola

2010-04-20T18:09:00.003-03:00

Some of you may remember my friend Nicola - she of the riding elephant and brave travel adventure.

She just posted an update on the University blog that tracks her whereabouts and how she has spent the past few month. I just can't say enough about how much I love this girl - her courage and zest for life is extraordinary - so excited she's headed back east in the fall.

Nicola Gladwell - There and Back Again

No expectations

2010-04-20T07:20:00.001-03:00

"When you are interiorly free you call others to freedom, whether you know it or not. Freedom attracts wherever it appears. A free man or a free woman creates a space where others feel safe and want to dwell. Our world is so full of conditions, demands, requirements, and obligations that we often wonder what is expected of us. But when we meet a truly free person, there are no expectations, only an invitation to reach into ourselves and discover there our own freedom.

Where true inner freedom is, there is God. And where God is, there we want to be."

Henri Nouwen

Finding Rebirth

2010-04-17T08:38:00.001-03:00

Strangely enough, as anguish rises up in us, a new freedom comes to birth. We discover more deeply the small, innocent, trusting child within us; we discover new life.

- Jean Vanier, Seeing Beyond Depression, p. 69

Clear a decent shelter

2010-04-15T08:10:00.001-03:00

You must be able to bear your sorrow; even if it seems to crush you, you will be able to stand up again, for human beings are so strong, and your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself, part of your body and your soul, you mustn't run away from it, but bear it like an adult.... Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears his grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.

But if you do not clear a decent shelter for your sorrow, and instead reserve most of the space inside you for hatred and thoughts of revenge--from which new sorrows will be born for others--then sorrow will never cease in this world and will multiply. And if you have given sorrow the space its gentle origins demand, then you may truly say: life is beautiful and so rich. So beautiful and so rich that it makes you want to believe in God.

Source: Etty Hillesum, An Interrupted Life

via

A new language

2010-04-13T15:27:00.001-03:00

"During these years the Church has fought for self-preservation as though it were an end in itself, and has thereby lost its chance to speak a word of reconciliation to mankind and the world at large. So our traditional language must perforce become powerless and remain silent, and our Christianity today will be confined to praying and doing right by our fellow men.

Christian thinking, speaking and organization must be reborn out of this praying and action ... It will be a new language, the language of a new righteousness and truth, which proclaims the peace of God with humankind and the advent of his kingdom," - Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

via

Here's your Easter Sunrise Matt

2010-04-06T07:30:00.000-03:00

Remembering who I am

2010-03-11T08:03:00.002-04:00

"to be nobody but yourself - in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." (ee cummings, poet)

via four rooms

Espresso for my soul

2010-03-09T09:07:00.004-04:00

Cheryl Lawrie has a gift for distilling her thoughts into beauty with an economy of words - like the best espresso she gives voice to the aching places of my soul.

Here are her 22 words of lent

i forget how hard it is

to remember to be human

to fail
to be fragile

tomorrow i will not try harder

Dreaming Big

2010-03-07T21:02:00.001-04:00

Lighten up

2010-03-06T07:38:00.002-04:00

"Humor is the prelude to faith
and laughter is the beginning of prayer"

Reinhold Neibuhr

Dangerous thoughts

2010-02-27T11:06:00.003-04:00

Thanks Brian you made me laugh out loud today!

Filled to the brim with dangerous thoughts &
no where to put them since she lives in a small town &
everybody's always watching.

via storypeople

It was what I was born for

2010-02-26T06:41:00.008-04:00

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less
kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle
in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for--
to look, to listen,
to lose myself
inside this soft world--
to instruct myself
over and over
in joy,
and acclamation.

Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,
the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant--
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,
the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help
but grow wise
with such teachings
as these--
the untrimmable light
of the world,
the ocean's shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

Source: Why I Wake Early, Mary Oliver

via inward/outward

Minding my own business

2010-02-24T10:44:00.002-04:00

I needed this today like a plant needs water. Thank you Martha dear!

Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy; meditate on these things. Philippians 4

[good things this morning.]

[question of the day: if we only meditated on things that fell within the list, above, how could we ever fall into despair or remorse? how could we ever get caught up in the hurt that comes with being gossiped about? or the pain of being hurt by what others think, say or do? if we mind our business and keep our focus on God, how can we think otherwise?]

Truly, madly, deeply do

2010-02-21T19:08:00.000-04:00

Lenten Prayer

2010-02-19T14:09:00.001-04:00

Beautiful and idealistic - a prayer from my heart - not because I am here, but I long to be:

We have chosen to fast

Not with ashes but with actions

Not with sackcloth but in sharing

Not in thoughts but in deeds

We will give up our abundance

To share our food with the hungry

We will give up our comfort

To provide homes for the destitute

We will give up our fashions

To see the naked clothed

We will share where others hoard

We will free where others oppress

We will heal where others harm

Then God's light will break out on us

God's healing will quickly appear

God will guide us always

God's righteousness will go before us

We will find our joy in the Lord

We will be like a well watered garden

We will be called repairers of broken walls

Together we will feast at God's banquet table

Christine Sine - via BeliefNet

When You Reach Me

2010-02-18T06:58:00.004-04:00

Every so often a book comes along that weaves a story together so beautifully I am left in awe. As a wanna-be author these books teach me to reach and to stretch. When You Reach Me is one of those books. We just finished it last night as a family and all of us were so pleased and a bit sad it was over.

Rebecca Stead not only wove her own story, she brought the threads of one of my most favorite stories, A Wrinkle in Time, into it so beautifully and thoughtfully - and did it so well. She just won the 2010 Newberry Award and it is well deserved. To tell you any more would damage your own experience - all I can say is go read it before someone tells you some of the plot - you want to experience this unsullied. Madeline L'Engle would be proud.

Tesser well!

Perspective

2010-02-16T08:28:00.002-04:00

At night, as I lie in the camp on my plank bed, surrounded by women and girls...dreaming aloud, quietly sobbing and tossing and turning, I am sometimes filled with an infinite tenderness. And I lie awake for hours, letting the impressions of a much-too-long day wash over me. And I pray, "Let me, oh Lord, be the thinking heart of these barracks." That's what I want to be.... The thinking heart of a whole concentration camp. I lie here patiently, and now calmly, and feel a lot better. I feel strength returning. I've stopped making plans and worrying about risks. Happen what may, it's bound to be for the good.

Source: An Interrupted Life: the Journal of a Young Jewish Woman, Etty Hillesum

This is exactly what I needed today - perspective.

Oh to be a thinking heart in the midst of my circumstances.

via Inward/Outward

The kids are alright

2010-02-08T06:59:00.003-04:00

I have officially had enough of winter. I can feel it in my bones. This is the long stretch that makes me begin to doubt my sanity each and every year.
This was the last of the PostSecret cards yesterday. I usually read them Sunday morning, but there was a power outage down south because of the snow storm and he didn't get them posted until later. So I got to enjoy them with my Monday coffee instead of my Sunday coffee.

Seeing this reminder gave me a bit of late winter hope that spring indeed is coming.

Be more curious

2010-02-01T09:12:00.005-04:00

At the end of last year I began to ponder and pray about some way to encourage Keith, Alinea & Jacob in the new year. I created an small art piece around each of these and this is the one that I made for Keith. I was reading my friend Mike's blog today Waving or Drowning and he had this video of the inspirational Seth Godin talking about curiosity - it is spectacular. Wanted to link the two here on my blog. Thanks Mike!

'curiosity' from Nic Askew on Vimeo.

Turn the faucet on

2010-01-24T08:42:00.003-04:00

"If you’re going to be a writer,
the first essential is just to write.
Do not wait for an idea.
Start writing something
and the ideas will come.
You have to turn the faucet on
before the water starts to flow."
~ Louis L’Amour

(my western lovin' dad would be so happy I'm quoting his favorite author!)

via my new favo art blog: Daisy Yellow. Make sure to read her 13 tips for kicking your inner perfectionist to the curb!

Go wild

2010-01-22T09:24:00.001-04:00

What she can do with imagination, markers & prismacolors makes me so happy - I am such a fan of Mary Englebreit - and I just love reading her blog. She doesn't post often, but she's really generous with her knowledge and it's so fun to just get a peek into her process.

Sunbeams

2010-01-17T13:29:00.003-04:00

It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

- Robert Southey (1774-1843, From A Word A Day)

via Deegy

Blackmail

2010-01-14T08:53:00.002-04:00

I warned Keith he had better be nice to me or I'd post this picture on Facebook and tag it as him :D

via People of Walmart

Running against the wind

2010-01-13T08:50:00.005-04:00

via vol. 25 (quote credit) (image credit)

One giant step

2010-01-09T08:40:00.002-04:00

"Sometimes we have to "step over" our anger, our jealousy, or our feelings of rejection and move on. The temptation is to get stuck in our negative emotions, poking around in them as if we belong there. Then we become the "offended one," "the forgotten one," or the "discarded one." Yes, we can get attached to these negative identities and even take morbid pleasure in them. It might be good to have a look at these dark feelings and explore where they come from, but there comes a moment to step over them, leave them behind and travel on."

Henri Nouwen