Step 1

FFFOUND!

Mumford & Sons - Roll Away Your Stone

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

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

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

Groucho Marx

I'll love you forever

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

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

- Samuel Beckett

via Today I Love

Hello mother

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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

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

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

"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