1717 Aletheia Lane

sweet water memories

2008-12-21T06:38:00.000-08:00

This is my 3rd winter in the Northlands, my third season of months on end of snow and ice. We have had two large storms in the last week and I have realized that I need to change my perspective on snow. I do not want to just endure, I want to rejoice . This desire to rejoice, even in the midst of windchills and ice and deep snow brought me to Psalm 148.

Psalm 148 is a psalm of praise: Hallal YHWH over and over. Praise Him! Praise Him! Tucked away in the list of that which praises YHWH, I discovered snow...snow praising Him! If snow praises our Heavenly Father, then I definitely need a new perspective on it.

There are many verses in scripture that speak of snow and teach us that snow is from Him just as everything else is....His breath blows it, His storehouses store it. One verse brought home to me the issue I had been having with snow: fear.

Prov 31

"She is not afraid of the snow for her household, For all her household are clothed with scarlet"

Thank you Father for bringing me to this place of recognizing my fear...fear that keeps me from resting in your love. Thank you for allowing me to see the beauty of what I would not see before.

As I read the scriptures on snow I was reminded of the source of water. There comes a time in the seasons when the snow that has laid upon the ground begins to melt...begins to flow and replenish those places the need this life- giving water. Here in the Northlands a beautiful creek is behind our home. Right now it is frozen ,suspended....covered in snow. With spring it will become a gigantic, gushing flow that speeds down the mountain and into Lake Superior. The power of this melting off is amazing and forceful.

When I was younger, my favorite place to get away and think was a spot up on the Mogollon Rim called Horton Springs. This spring came right out of the side of the Rim and the water was sweet, pure and cold. Obviously it is and was fed by the melting snows. There is a connection between the snow and the water that I was not willingy to see or appreciate until this weekend.

Thank you Father...thank you for new perspectives.

Horton Springs

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quietness

2008-12-17T09:24:00.000-08:00

I have been occupied and quiet and I see that this season will continue for awhile. In moments , I have been reading Yours, Jack. These are excerpts of letters that CS Lewis wrote. They have been greatly encouraging and thought provoking. Of course, reading Lewis brought me back to George MacDonald and the following essay stretches my wings and creates a desire to soar with the gifts God has given:

George MacDonald

The Fantastic Imagination

Introduction from The Light Princess and other Fairy Tales, also reprinted in a Dish of Orts.

That we have in English no word corresponding to the German Märchen, drives us to use the word Fairytale, regardless of the fact that the tale may have nothing to do with any sort of fairy. The old use of the word Fairy, by Spenser at least, might, however, well be adduced, were justification or excuse necessary where need must.

Were I asked, what is a fairytale? I should reply, Read Undine: that is a fairytale; then read this and that as well, and you will see what is a fairytale. Were I further begged to describe the fairytale, or define what it is, I would make answer, that I should as soon think of describing the abstract human face, or stating what must go to constitute a human being. A fairytale is just a fairytale, as a face is just a face; and of all fairytales I know, I think Undine the most beautiful.

Many a man, however, who would not attempt to define a man, might venture to say something as to what a man ought to be: even so much I will not in this place venture with regard to the fairytale, for my long past work in that kind might but poorly instance or illustrate my now more matured judgment. I will but say some things helpful to the reading, in right-minded fashion, of such fairytales as I would wish to write, or care to read.

Some thinkers would feel sorely hampered if at liberty to use no forms but such as existed in nature, or to invent nothing save in accordance with the laws of the world of the senses; but it must not therefore be imagined that they desire escape from the region of law. Nothing lawless can show the least reason why it should exist, or could at best have more than an appearance of life.

The natural world has its laws, and no man must interfere with them in the way of presentment any more than in the way of use; but they themselves may suggest laws of other kinds, and man may, if he pleases, invent a little world of his own, with its own laws; for there is that in him which delights in calling up new forms--which is the nearest, perhaps, he can come to creation. When such forms are new embodiments of old truths, we call them products of the Imagination; when they are mere inventions, however lovely, I should call them the work of the Fancy: in either case, Law has been diligently at work.

His world once invented, the highest law that comes next into play is, that there shall be harmony between the laws by which the new world has begun to exist; and in the process of his creation, the inventor must hold by those laws. The moment he forgets one of them, he makes the story, by its own postulates, incredible. To be able to live a moment in an imagined world, we must see the laws of its existence obeyed. Those broken, we fall out of it. The imagination in us, whose exercise is essential to the most temporary submission to the imagination of another, immediately, with the disappearance of Law, ceases to act. Suppose the gracious creatures of some childlike region of Fairyland talking either cockney or Gascon! Would not the tale, however lovelily begun, sink once to the level of the Burlesque--of all forms of literature the least worthy? A man's inventions may be stupid or clever, but if he does not hold by the laws of them, or if he makes one law jar with another, he contradicts himself as an inventor, he is no artist. He does not rightly consort his instruments, or he tunes them in different keys. The mind of man is the product of live Law; it thinks by law, it dwells in the midst of law, it gathers from law its growth; with law, therefore, can it alone work to any result. Inharmonious, unconsorting ideas will come to a man, but if he try to use one of such, his work will grow dull, and he will drop it from mere lack of interest. Law is the soil in which alone beauty will grow; beauty is the only stuff in which Truth can be clothed; and you may, if you will, call Imagination the tailor that cuts her garments to fit her, and Fancy his journeyman that puts the pieces of them together, or perhaps at most embroiders their button-holes. Obeying law, the maker works like his creator; not obeying law, he is such a fool as heaps a pile of stones and calls it a church.

In the moral world it is different: there a man may clothe in new forms, and for this employ his imagination freely, but he must invent nothing. He may not, for any purpose, turn its laws upside down. He must not meddle with the relations of live souls. The laws of the spirit of man must hold, alike in this world and in any world he may invent. It were no offence to suppose a world in which everything repelled instead of attracted the things around it; it would be wicked to write a tale representing a man it called good as always doing bad things, or a man it called bad as always doing good things: the notion itself is absolutely lawless. In physical things a man may invent; in moral things he must obey--and take their laws with him into his invented world as well.

"You write as if a fairytale were a thing of importance: must it have meaning?"

It cannot help having some meaning; if it have proportion and harmony it has vitality, and vitality is truth. The beauty may be plainer in it than the truth, but without the truth the beauty could not be, and the fairytale would give no delight. Everyone, however, who feels the story, will read its meaning after his own nature and development: one man will read one meaning in it, another will read another.

"If so, how am I to assure myself that I am not reading my own meaning into it, but yours out of it?"

Why should you be so assured? It may be better that you should read your meaning into it. That may be a higher operation of your intellect than the mere reading of mine out of it: your meaning may be superior to mine.

"Suppose my child ask me what the fairytale means, what am I to say?"

If you do not know what it means, what is easier than to say so? If you do see a meaning in it, there it is for you to give him. A genuine work of art must mean many things; the truer its art, the more things it will mean. If my drawing, on the other hand, is so far from being a work of art that it needs THIS IS A HORSE written under it, what can it matter that neither you nor your child should know what it means? It is there not so much to convey a meaning as to wake a meaning. If it do not even wake an interest, throw it aside. A meaning may be there, but it is not for you. If, again, you do not know a horse when you see it, the name written under it will not serve you much. At all events, the business of the painter is not to teach zoology.

But indeed your children are not likely to trouble you about the meaning. They find what they are capable of finding, and more would be too much. For my part, I do not write for children, but for the childlike, whether of five, or fifty, or seventy-five.

A fairytale is not an allegory. There may be allegory in it, but it not an allegory. He must be an artist indeed who can, in any mode, produce a strict allegory that is not a weariness to the spirit. An allegory must be Mastery or Moorditch.

A fairytale, like a butterfly or a bee, helps itself on all sides, sips every wholesome flower, and spoils not one. The true fairytale is, to my mind, very like the sonata. We all know that a sonata means something; and where there is the faculty of talking with suitable vagueness, and choosing metaphor sufficiently loose, mind may approach mind, in the interpretation of a sonata, with the result of a more or less contenting consciousness of sympathy. But if two or three men sat down to write each what the sonata meant to him, what approximation to definite idea would be the result? Little enough--and that little more than needful. We should find it had roused related, if not identical, feelings, but probably not one common thought. Has the sonata therefore failed? Had it undertaken to convey, or ought it to be expected to impart anything defined, anything notionally recognisable?

"But words are not music; words at least are meant and fitted to carry a precise meaning!"

It is very seldom indeed that they carry the exact meaning of any user of them! And if they can be so used as to convey definite meaning, it does not follow that they ought never to carry anything else. Words are live things that may be variously employed to various ends. They can convey a scientific fact, or throw a shadow of her child's dream on the heart of a mother. They are things to put together like the pieces of dissected map, or to arrange like the notes on a stave. Is the music in them to go for nothing? It can hardly help the definiteness of a meaning: is it therefore to be disregarded? They have length, and breadth, and outline: have they nothing to do with depth? Have they only to describe, never to impress? Has nothing any claim to their use but definite? The cause of a child's tears may be altogether undefinable: has the mother therefore no antidote for his vague misery? That may be strong in colour which has no evident outline. A fairtytale, a sonata, a gathering storm, a limitless night, seizes you and sweeps you away: do you begin at once to wrestle with it and ask whence its power over you, whither it is carrying you? The law of each is in the mind of its composer; that law makes one man feel this way, another man feel that way. To one the sonata is a world of odour and beauty, to another of soothing only and sweetness. To one, the cloudy rendezvous is a wild dance, with a terror at its heart; to another, a majestic march of heavenly hosts, with Truth in their centre pointing their course, but as yet restraining her voice. The greatest forces lie in the region of the uncomprehended.

I will go farther.--The best thing you can do for your fellow, next to rousing his conscience, is--not to give him things to think about, but to wake things up that are in him; or say, to make him think things for himself. The best Nature does for us is to work in us such moods in which thoughts of high import arise. Does any aspect of Nature wake but one thought? Does she ever suggest only one definite thing? Does she make any two men in the same place at the same moment think the same thing? Is she therefore a failure, because she is not definite? Is it nothing that she rouses the something deeper than the understanding--the power that underlies thoughts? Does she not set feeling, and so thinking at work? Would it be better that she did this after one fashion and not after many fashions? Nature is mood-engendering, thought-provoking: such ought the sonata, such ought the fairytale to be.

"But a man may then imagine in your work what he pleases, what you never meant!"

Not what he pleases, but what he can. If he be not a true man, he will draw evil out of the best; we need not mind how he treats any work of art! If he be a true man, he will imagine true things; what matter whether I meant them or not? They are there none the less that I cannot claim putting them there! One difference between God's work and man's is, that, while God's work cannot mean more than he meant, man's must mean more than he meant. For in everything that God has made, there is a layer upon layer of ascending significance; also he expresses the same thought in higher and higher kinds of that thought: it is God's things, his embodied thoughts, which alone a man has to use, modified and adapted to his own purposes, for the expression of his thoughts; therefore he cannot help his words and figures falling into such combinations in the mind of another as he had himself not foreseen, so many are the thoughts allied to every other thought, so many are the relations involved in every figure, so many the facts hinted in every symbol. A man may well himself discover truth in what he wrote; for he was dealing all the time things that came from thoughts beyond his own.

"But surely you would explain your idea to one who asked you?"

I say again, if I cannot draw a horse, I will not write THIS IS A HORSE under what I foolishly meant for one. Any key to a work of imagination would be nearly, if not quite, as absurd. The tale is there not to hide, but to show: if it show nothing at your window, do not open your door to it; leave it out in the cold. To ask me to explain, is to say, "Roses! Boil them, or we won't have them!" My tales may not be roses but I will not boil them.

So long as I think my dog can bark, I will not sit up to bark for him.

If a writer's aim be logical conviction, he must spare no logical pains, not merely to be understood, but to escape being misunderstood; where his object is to move by suggestion, to cause to imagine, then let him assail the soul of his reader as the wind assails an aeolian harp. If there be music in my reader, I would gladly wake it. Let fairytale of mine go for a firefly that now flashes, now is dark, but may flash again. Caught in a hand which does not love its kind, it will turn to an insignificant ugly thing, that can neither flash nor fly.

The best way with music, I imagine, is not to bring the forces of our intellect to bear upon it, but to be still and let it work on that part of us for whose sake it exists. We spoil countless precious things by intellectual greed. He who will be a man, and will not be a child, must--he cannot help himself--become a little man, that is, a dwarf. He will, however need no consolation, for he is sure to think himself a very large creature indeed.

If any strain of my "broken music" make a child's eyes flash, or his mother's grow for a moment dim, my labour will not have been in vain.

THE END

dancing chickens, weeping bees and attaining 700

2008-11-03T04:31:00.000-08:00

With a family as large as ours, it can sometimes be hard to spend one on one time with each child.
This week I had that chance with the three who live full time in our home and it created a longing in me to ensure that I do it more often.

Sardius and I spent an evening at the symphony, courtesy of Bampa for Sardius' birthday. We enjoyed a simple ice cream cone beforehand . We attended the pre-symphony talk and decided that while it was interesting, the talk was too long to do it again :)

Sardius is learning to play the violin and finds great enjoyment in music. I find this incredibly ironic as he is our one child who appears to be tone deaf. Our favorite piece was Pictures at an Exhibition. The program listed the different paintings/sketches that corresponded to the movements and we had a hard time not giggling as the music wonderfully portrayed a chicken ballet. The ending movement represented a city gate and church....the music so powerful that we were both deeply moved.

I treasure every moment that I can sit close with Sardius and hold his hand, his head leaning on my shoulder...
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Anonimo took Jasper, Emerald, Sardius and Electrum to Jasper's hockey practice. This left a quiet house with just myself and Quartz. Quartz is a solitary young man and he has always been uncomfortable with more than just a couple of people around him. We have walked some agonizing paths with him and my love and burden for him go very deep.

Quartz recently learned to play rummy, so we sat down to a special time of just being together. I would normally choose to play classical music or gentle hymns, but I know that this music, especially the hymns, grates on his nerves. I brought up the Pandora website and had him make his own station, knowing that his love in music is techno/percussion. My only thought as we listened to it was an extreme thankfulness that he does not like rap or heavy metal.

He taught me to play rummy and the evening slowly rolled along. I talked too much as I always do with him...I have too much desperation in wanting to reach through to his heart. I have not heard the words "I love you" in over two years from his mouth. I have though, perhaps seen it spoken in his eyes and the tilt of his head. He mocks my beliefs and cannot begin to comprehend my love for God.

He attained 700 before me and the game and time was over.

The love for this son is almost too much sometimes.
************************************
Garnet and I both love good books and a time of reading. We both love to write. A favorite book is The Secret Life of Bees. It is very rare that we actually go to a movie theater to see a movie, but when this movie came out this week, I agreed that we should go see it.

Garnet is my step-daughter and a young woman, the oldest of our 8. Anonimo and I have discovered that each of us will never have the same emotions for our step-children as we do for our blood children. Our hearts have been bound to our blood children since birth. Our hearts have only been tied to our step-children for a short time.

We have learned more about the love of the Father with our step-children than we have with our blood children.

Both Garnet and I enjoyed the movie and I wept as a picture of love was drawn before us on the screen. A picture of love between people related and people not related, but brought together as family.

I hope to enjoy other movies and time with Garnet. I also hope to let go of my stubborn heart.

*****************************

The fog has rolled in this morning and softens the lines of my normal view. This lack of clarity makes for a beautiful picture.

Perhaps not everything always needs to be so clear and "finished". Perhaps softening my view is what is needed and .......most of all, what is most loving.

excercising artistic expression

2008-10-18T08:42:00.001-07:00

My dear Anonimo has quirks....just like I do :) and I love him for these quirks and so much more.

When we married, Anonimo had a wooden dining room table that he prized. After his divorce he had little in the way of furnishings and this table was one of the first things he purchased at a second hand shop.

He would lovingly clean the table top and then apply oil to make it shine. He likes a clean tabletop...one where the light reflects off the finish of the wood.

I, on the other hand, treasure irregularities and mishaps. For me a table should tell a story of all the years it has sturdily sat and provided a place for the family to gather together. A scratch? No problem says I. A hot pan scorches the corner. Ahhhh, that will always be a memory says I.

Anonimo does not treasure the irregularities and mishaps. He prefers the restored, the symmetrical, the "nice".

For many months we had that dining room table and around it sat several mis-matched chairs. As much as I might like mis-matched, I did not like those chairs. We looked at furniture store after furniture store and were aghast at the cost of chairs. Neither of us could bring ourselves to spend so much on a matching set of chairs.

A few weekends ago we stopped at a yard sale. Sitting by the entrance was one dark wood chair with a blue covered seat. A small sign was propped on the seat: Chairs $5 each, Table $35. "May we see your dining room set?"

We walked inside the small house with a very nice older man. Immediately our eyes widened in surprise. What a perfect dining room set. Gorgeous wood. The legs of the table sturdy and yet artistic. 6 matching chairs, with one of them being a "papa chair". The table had always been covered with a table pad and so the wooden top was pristine.

Total price $65.

We went home and took down Anonimo's prized first table. When we took out the leaves it shrunk into a tiny round table and we all laughed in delight at this. The mismatched chairs went into the van to go to the dump.

Getting the new table into the house was quite a chore, but Anonimo and Sardius managed. As soon as it was set up , Anonimo gathered his rag and cleaning materials and began his "artistic exercise".

To watch him clean the table is like watching a performance. He is focused and concentrated on the task, his arms and hands sweep across the table. His stands back and carefully eyes the table from every position until he finally judges it "clean".

I smile everytime I see him do this. It could be the other way around....it could exasperate me. Thank you Father that it does not.

We both came out of first marriages where we did not know what it meant to appreciate our partner and love. This time we embrace instead of exasperate.

In many ways we are so incredibly different, but in so many other ways we are perfectly matched.

eHarmony took all of our quirks and all of our qualities and shook them around and computed: Anonimo for Aletheia, Aletheia for Anonimo.

It worked, quirks and all.

Mr. Tooth Decay never sleeps

2008-10-14T06:11:00.000-07:00

Sardius woke in the middle of the night in pain. "My teeth hurt". I was immediately pricked as I remembered that I should have taken him to the dentist month's ago to fix a cavity.

He got a little snack and took an advil and went right back to sleep.

I called the dentist and was able to get him in that day. As I left work to pick him up, I was so thankful that I have a job with flexibility (and good insurance).

The dentist worked on Sardius for over an hour and then called me in. "Now mother, I see here by this x-ray that Sardius was here last year and that we identified a cavity. I am not sure how this all slipped through the cracks, but you must remember- Mr. Tooth Decay never sleeps."

I , who hate correction or reproof, slightly simmered as his eyes gazed at me over his gauze mask. His jaw moved back and forth as he chewed his never-ending gum.

"ummm, yes."

And I walked away convicted of my pride and my procrastination. Sardius was just happy to have the tooth fixed .

Next stop was Walgreens to pick up wart medicine for his hands. We went to the pharmacist counter for a recommendation and Sardius held out his hands . The pharmacist spoke one word: "Wow."

For years he had severe eczema on his hands. Now he has wart upon warts. He bears all this beautifully. I know that I would not bear it as well. And I do not...for my warts do not show on my hands.....they attach themselves to my soul....and show in those moments when I least expect them.

Sardius' medicine will freeze off the warts in about 14 days.

What about my warts? Am I procrastinating in their removal?
What about my cavities? Am I allowing them to continue while I sleep?

I am not one to see an analogy in every situation....yet this one does hit home.

Fe Fi Fo Fum

2008-10-11T08:11:00.000-07:00

I hear her enter by the downstairs door. Her voice squeals as she greets Sugar and showers her with love. Up the stairs she comes. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Fe, Fi, Fo Fum I call out. I cannot help it...I hear the giant coming. She laughs as she continues to climb BOOM. Fe!. BOOM. Fi. BOOM. Fo! BOOM Fum! One last BOOM and she enters the kitchen laughing with me. "Fe Fi Fo Fum. I'mmm gonna get you!"

She is beautiful tonight...tall. Wearing new boots that she could not resist keeping on inside the house. Her hair is pulled back and she wears no make-up. Her Daddy's leather jacket is over her red and white school sweatshirt. She has painted her fingernails red and white. She is ready to go.

It is Homecoming night and Hyacinth is excited. Into the car we go and I drop Garnet and Hyacinth at the gate of the football field. I watch Hyacinth stride off as Garnet follows with a smile. The night air is very chill. Hyacinth swings my red wrap as she strides.

BANG. The downstairs door slams shut and I hear her voice squealing again with delight as she greets Sugar. Garnets voice lovingly greets Sugar in a lower tone.

There is no fe fi fo fum as she climbs the stairs this time. She has removed her boots and comes into the living room with her eyes sparkling. "I Won! We got a strike! I won!" And we all laugh with her.

"Time for bed honey". She goes downstairs and changes into her pink penguin pajamas and comes back up for a bedtime snack. She lovingly carries her baby-doll wrapped in a purple blanket, her steps very soft now as she walks in her tinkerbell socks.

How can we help but love her?

my chair

2008-10-10T05:19:00.000-07:00

My favorite chair is dark green, It sits up high on its two rockers. I sit between the two sturdy arms and feel cradled and comfortable. We bought my chair at a yard sale a few months ago. The previous owners told me they had purchased it from the remains of an old schoolhouse. It had been the teacher's chair and upolstered in faded and torn leather. They re-upolstered it in Victorian green. My favorite part of the chair is that it rocks. Movement soothes me.

I wonder how many books were read aloud from this chair. How many children curled up in it when they were not feeling well.

From where I sit, I can look out our front window and directly through two windows of the second floor of a neighbors house. The shades are always up in my neighbors room and that allows me to view the sunrise over the Lake as if looking at a painting hanging on the wall.

This morning is still dark, the days are unveiling later. The sun begins with a blazing and deep orange that quickly fades into lavender into pink and now into the sky.

I sit in my comfy chair and view beauty through the layers of three panes of glass. And my mind can roam and come back again. My spirit can inhale the beauty of the colors.

To have a chair and a view is an important thing.

Yoda is a Republican

2008-10-09T04:57:00.001-07:00

Last night Electrum took up his political theme again.
"Are you for McCain or Obama?"
"ummmm, I am not sure"
"I am for Obama! I don't Like McCain"
"Why is that?"
"Cuz I saw this thing and it said that McCain wants to turn all the lakes into parking lots"
choking down my laughter "well, we cannot always believe everything we read...just because someone wrote it, does not necessarily make it true."
"It is true! I saw it!"
"well......."
"You are for McCain!"
"I did not say that."
"you don't think it is true so you are for McCain"

When oh when will I learn to just say hmmm and unhuh etc?

Sardius pipes in "Mom, would you ever forget that you are a Christian and tell someone you are a muslim?"
"What!?, of course not."
"Obama did. "J" heard it on the radio"

"Boys, lets take a moment to talk about our reasoning skills and common sense. "

.................

After a while of productive conversation on discerning truth, Electrum propped his Yoda backpack up in his lap.
"Yoda is a Republican. He is part of the republic so he is a republican. He will vote for McCain."

We have been waiting for Emerald to finish volleyball practice. She bounces into the van and Electrum pounces.
"Are you for McCain or Obama?"
"Hunh? what?"
"Who are you for?! McCain or Obama"
"Neither"
"You have to be for one!
" No I don't, I am not old enough to vote, and well, I don't think about those things"
In an aside to me "why is he talking about this stuff?"
I shrug my shoulders

Electrum "Can I vote?"
"No honey, you have to be 18 to vote"
"Why?! I can vote. I know who I want"
"Well, the government has decided that 18 is the age that people can vote"
Electrum gives a big harrumph and slouches down in his seat with Yoda the Republican.

Emerald: "Do you know what John Quincy Adams and John Adams have in common?"
"They were father and son."
"Well duh, everybody knows that."
"Oh"
"They were both cranky presidents. They were cranky all the time"
"Hmmmmm, interesting" I say with raised eyebrows.

We are almost home.

Electrum: "I can't remember which one, maybe it was Al Franken or Bill Clinton, but they were murdered."
Sardius and Emerald in unison "Abraham Lincoln!"
Electrum , his face firmly set "no not him, I know it was Al Franken or Bill Clinton...somebody killed them. We have been talking about President's at school and my teacher said."

We all pile out of the van.

the joys of parenting?

Sailboat Races and Moonlight

2008-09-17T16:24:00.000-07:00

I am on our "upper deck". It is not railed in yet, but I can sit here close to the wall and enjoy an amazing view. In front of me, the Lake lies under a late afternoon hazy sun. Sailboats circle together and prepare to drift slowly to the docks. Their racing has left circular paths in the water.

The marching band plays at the University down the street and I am reminded of high school football games from many years past. Electrum and his friend play army around the neighborhood. Their play guns click and their throats hoot and holler. Birds dart to and fro. Anonimo is barbecuing chicken and it smells amazing. Garnet has made a bowl of chopped vegetables seasoned with lime and salts....I cannot resist a spoonful every time I walk by.

Last night we went down to the Lake after dark. The moon was full and left a path of light right down the middle of the still water. Sailboats drifted out of the dark and into the moons beam, catching us by surprise. We ate ice cream cones: Mint Chocolate Chip and Caramel Caribou. The lights off the bridge twinkled.

What an amazing place we live in.....so beautiful. The snows and freezing temperatures will come soon, we know that, and so we treasure every moment of good weather that we have.

What if I knew for certain that snow and ice would be coming into all my relationships? That uncomfortable and hard times were just ahead? Would I treasure every moment of peace that we have now? What keeps me from treasuring moments? What or who has robbed my treasure?

Bind me - I still can sing -
Banish - my mandolin
Strikes true within -

Slay - my Soul shall rise
Chanting to Paradise -
Still thine.

Emily D.

Abiding in a Flower pot

2008-08-08T07:12:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago a red-breasted robin appeared in our back yard. At least I think it is a red-breasted robin.

She began to gather bits and pieces and commenced building a nest in a swaying branch directly above our deck. We watched as she flew to and fro and added a piece of string, only to have other parts fall down from the branch on to the deck. After much activity, she finally got the outlines of a nest built.

That evening a strong wind came and the nest fell apart. All the hard work of the day was gone in an instant. Unfortunately, she had chosen an insecure place to build, and when the winds came her hard work became nothing.

Later that week we saw her again, flying back and forth from our neighbors hanging flower pot. She had found a secure foundation, sheltered from the storms and she was rebuilding a nest. Within a few days little beaks poked up above the rim of the flower pot, wide open beaks patiently waiting for what they knew would come: sustanence.

I love watching these tiny creatures and the momma and papa birds. What a story they tell us as the parents feed the babies....as the babies confidently wait for their food. I can see God and His wonderful provision in every movement of these, His creatures.

The tiny ones are a bit bigger now. They can peek over the edge of the flower pot and look with anticipation for the coming of "the food". Through the week they have rested in that flower pot, abiding, secure in the fact that they will be cared for and fed.

Soon they will be big enough to leave the pureed food that the parents bring and seek a big solid worm on their own. They will have moved from "milk to meat".

Thank you Father that you give us exactly what we need in Your Word to grow and mature, to move from "milk to meat".

Some things that fly there be -
Birds - Hours -the Bumblebee -
Of these no Elegy.

Some things that stay there be -
Grief - Hills - Eternity -
Nor this behooveth me.

There are that resting, rise.
Can I expound the skies?
How still the Riddle lies?
E.E.D.

Memorial

2008-05-26T18:19:00.000-07:00

Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach's cello suites. A fire crackling. Dusk slowly enfolding us. The washer and dryer rumble gently below the floorboards. Peace. Quiet. Contentment.

Today is a day for remembering...for so many people in so many different ways. The Israelites had stones, feasts, cords and tassels for remembering. When Amy Carmichael established Donavhur, she set great value by the importance of days and events (I am currently reading A Chance to Die).

Perhaps in this fast paced life called America I forget the importance of the slowing down called remembering. With remembering can come sorrow...and...with remembering can come thankfulness.

Thank you Father that you never change.
Thank you that you are our Rock and Fortress.
Thank you that you are our Feast.
Thank you that you are our Peace.
Thank you for memories...good and bad.
Thank you that even when we do not have words, Your Spirit does.
Amen

the illusion of distance

2008-05-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

I am blessed beyond measure.

I have 3 beautiful children and 5 loving and wonderful gift-children. I am showered with acts of love: cards, flowers, pictures, chocolate, tea-cup, book, delicious meals...words of affection and affirmation.

I have an amazing mother who has done nothing but love me unconditionally all my life. She is a light that has given me light. She is comfort and has taught me to be a comforter.

I am blessed beyond measure.

Today I take out a precious little carved box that I seldom open. I lovingly run my fingers over the pictures and words carved into the box. I hesitate to open it and set it back down. I come back again and gaze at it longingly. I refuse to cry. I slowly open it........

Topaz....
10,000 miles .....
17 months......

I miss you my darling one...my precious first-born daughter. Will it be like this as each one of these beautiful gifts grows up and goes out on their own? Will I put them each in their own special box in order to protect my tender heart? Will I only think of them in fleeting moments, knowing that I still love them desperately....but also knowing that love and distance can overwhelm me?

It is a wonderous thing to take a child and with trembling fingers remove them from myself and place them in HIS hands. It is a humbling thing to recognize that she is her own woman now, that each of these gifts will step out our front door one by one.

I miss you my darling, complicated, independent, beautiful, smart girl.

Topaz.....
10,000 miles.....
17 months......

O Lord you are my God
I will exalt You
I will give thanks to Your name
For you have worked wonders
Plans formed long ago
With perfect faithfulness
Isaiah 25:1

Cacophony

2008-05-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

I sometimes wonder what our neighbors think of our large brood. We bring movement and noise into the neighborhood in a big and loud way.

The weather continues to be gorgeous and we love being out on the deck. Last night Emerald practiced her trumpet on the deck, Jasper played his saxophone in the living room soon followed by Sardius on his violin. Often all this is accompanied by Hyacinth on her flute or the piano.

To us, this is a joyful noise and not a cacophony....although it may sound like it at times :). Our neighbors have never complained, which leads me to believe that perhaps they enjoy these signs of life as we do.

It is the end of the school year....a busy time. This morning was Electrum's spring concert. He looked so cute and serious as he sang "Dial 555 Meow". Tonight is Sardius's orchestra concert and tomorrow Hyacinth's ballet performance. Quartz rehearses everyday for next weekend's 4 performances of Tartuffe and Jasper and Emerald prepare for the band concert on Thursday.

Busy, busy and yet so wonderful and fulfilling.

Thank you again and again my Father for this life you have given us. You have restored by Your mighty hand that which was destroyed. You have turned my mourning into dancing and I will praise you with all that I have. May every breath, every joyful noise reflect your glory and beauty. And oh my Father when life seems more cacophony than symphony please by Your Holy spirit remind us that is Your son's amazing sacrifice that has brought us peace and salvation . I love You oh my Father.....may it ever be so. Amen and Amen.

a new and unbearable disturbance

2008-05-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

Anonimo and I both worked a long day: 10 hours. We came home to three precious jewels completely oblivious to the dishwasher that needed to be emptied, the floors that needed swept, the trash that needed to be taken out.

All of this was not a new disturbance. We have faced this before and it is sometimes hard for us to believe the utter unawareness of surrounding that our dear children suffer from. But they do, they are just children after all. They have not taken on the mantle of responsibility to mortgage and maintenance.

Something has to change though....for their sake. Because someday they will have these responsibilities of their own and it is our job to prepare them. What will it be this time? Another chart? Another schedule? I am not sure. Prayer and thought is needed here :).

I handed out fierce instructions to all 3 and then Anonimo and I escaped off to dinner together where we fumed and vented and immediately felt better. We felt even better after ice cream. Or did we just feel full? Too full.

We returned to a home that was happy to see us and a relaxing evening. We made the decision last year to get rid of our TV. I have enjoyed evenings ever since then....a sweet peace and quiet. A time to talk, study.....read.

One of my finds from the weekend rummage sale was the book One Man's Meat by EB White, the author of Charlotte's Web. This book was written in 1938 and is a journal of those next few years of his life. I was struck by the following passage:

The news of television, however, is what I particularly go for when I get a chance at the paper; for I believe television is going to be the test of the modern world, and that in this new opportunity to see beyond the range of our vision we shall discover either a new and unbearable disturbance of the general peace or a saving radiance in the sky. We shall stand or fall by television- of that I am quite sure.

EB White was exactly right....television in our homes has become an unbearable disturbance...our families and our country is and has been falling by it.

Clearly the race today is between loud speaking and soft, between the things that are and the things that seem to be, between the chemist of RCA and the angel of God. Radio has already given sound a wide currency and sound "effects" are taking the place once enjoyed by sound itself. Television will enormously enlarge the eyes range and, like radio, will advertise the Elsewhere. Together with the tab(loids), the mag(azines) and the movies it will insist that we forget the primary and the near in favor of the secondary and the remote. More hours in every 24 will be spent digesting ideas, sounds, images- distant and concocted. In sufficient accumulation, radio sounds and television sights may become more familiar to us than their originals. A door closing, heard over the air; a face contorted, seen in a panel of light- these will emerge as the real and the true; and when we bang the door of our own cell or look into another's face the impression will be of mere artifice. I like to dwell on this quaint time, when the solid world becomes make believe, McCarthy corporeal and Bergen stuffed, when all is reversed and we shall be like the insane, to whom the antics of the sane seem the crazy twistings of a grig [ a cricket or grasshopper.... ].

Last week was National Turn off your TV week. I wonder how many people tried this and realized how much they preferred the things that seem to be over the things that are? When we gave up TV it was very hard.....very hard. Now that it is out of our lives I am thankful beyond belief....we focus more on the primary and not the secondary. We are no longer slaves to a grig-like schedule set by corporations that have nothing to do with our family. We set the schedule as to when we might watch a DVD on the computer.

I know that a TV free home is not for everyone....for us it brings that time for quiet that is sometimes so hard to come by in this frantic world where all around us grasshoppers and locusts devour the time.

Jeremiah 50:14

"Draw up your battle lines against Babylon on every side,
All you who bend the bow;
Shoot at her,
do not be sparing with your arrows,
For she has sinned against the LORD.

to weave a tapestry

2008-05-04T18:53:00.000-07:00

I always start my weekends with a mental list of all I want to accomplish, most of it housework related :)...all those things that do not get done during the week when I am working. I had such a list this weekend. None of it was accomplished...and that is more than ok, because our family was very busy weaving..

I do not like the phrase blended family. When I think of Anonimo's 5 and my 3, I think of a tapestry and therefore I like the phrase: Woven Family. When we started this journey our tapestry was very threadbare, full of holes and loose threads. It was difficult to see any pattern or beauty. Here we are two years later and the design is becoming clearer, the colors brighter and the weave tighter.

For the first time, Anonimo and Jasper were able to discuss events that happened several years ago....and yet have been hanging over them. Tears washed away the uncertainties and our tapestry lost a bit of its grime and dullness. Part of the design that was not visible before has now come to the foreground.

The beauty of our tapestry is sometimes difficult for me to see in the midst of our everyday lives.....in the midst of the children's squabblings.....in the midst of the tyranny of the age we live in. This weekend I beheld the beauty and I am incredibly thankful and blessed.

Sunday nights are always hard when 4 of our precious jewels return to their mother's home and this home quiets down to 3 precious jewels.

Anonimo and I pulled our tired selves out for a walk. We collected fallen branches, dried flowers and pinecones of every shape and variety. I arranged them on the mantle and breathed deeply a sigh of contentment.

Our home, our children, our lives....one living tapestry of incredible value and beauty....all woven with care by the ONE who loves us beyond all comprehension.

Nothing accomplished and yet everything accomplished.

Psalm 30:12

That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

Count your thankfuls

2008-05-03T07:17:00.000-07:00

I wake up at 5:15 and realize it is Saturday and I can sleep in. I am thankful.
I hear Electrum's feet pattering up the stairs and he begins to sift through his army men. I am thankful.
I snuggle closer to my wonderful husband. I am thankful.
I decide not to work overtime this weekend. I am thankful.
I look in on Jasper and Sardius sleeping soundly. Sugar is curled up next to Sardius. I let her out and feel the cleansing wind on my face and the cold paving stones on my bare feet. I am thankful.
I start a pot of coffee. I am thankful.
I look forward to taking Emerald to the cafe on the corner for lobster soup. I am thankful.
I look forward to spending the afternoon with Quartz getting his hair cut and a new jacket for prom tonight. I am thankful.
I take Garnet to work and the sun reflects off the lake and the bridge in brilliant bursts. I am thankful.
I walk in the door and the wonderful smells of Anonimo making breakfast greet me. I am thankful.

Thankful is the word and concept that I have been pondering on this week. I roll it around in my mind. I take it out and look at it....wonder at all its different facets. I silently whisper "thank You, thank You".

I looked up one of the Hebrew words for thankful this morning: YADAH. It is translated in several ways

thank, thanksgiving, hymns of thanksgiving, give thanks, give you thanks, giving thanks
praise, giving praise, gave praise
glorify
confess, confessed, confesses, confessing, making confession
placed, shoot, throw down

Just looking over this list illuminates some of the many facets of thankful. I stopped for awhile over the confessing words. I know when I hang on to my little sins or hurts, I am unable to be thankful. I think of the path through the tabernacle....the first step through the gate, the altar of sacrifice, the bronze laver [confession, cleansing] and into the Holy Place (the lampstand, the altar of incense, the table of Shewbread) and there the glorious veil that has been ripped apart for me! And oh the mercy seat.

I am overwhelmed as I think of the gift I have been given to be in this amazing relationship with our Saviour. Tears of thankfulness begin. I am seated with Him in the heavenlies. I am a Beloved Child just as He is.

thank YOU thank YOU thank YOU thank YOU thank YOU thank YOU thank YOU

Genesis 29:35

And she conceived again and bore a son and said, "This time I will praise the LORD ." Therefore she named him Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

Colossians 3:15

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.

Ready. Set. Go?

2008-04-28T19:04:00.000-07:00

I am a great starter and a poor finisher. Anonimo hesitates to start and finishes with a bang. These contrasts are just one of the things that make us so well suited for one another.

The air outside is still crisp and cold, more like a fall day than a spring day. The snow has melted and the city street washers were out this evening going up and down our street and alley. A red -breasted robin hopped about our back yard while a squirrel looked on. Signs of spring.

After a long winter of eating good food and sitting in our comfy chairs...it is time to walk. The only problem is that I did not want to start. I who start so well had a hard time pulling myself up out of the couch. Anonimo was the starter this time. "Let's go".

We do not need to pull out a scale to see our starting weight....we carry it with us...we know there is weight where there shouldn't be. We do not need to measure our body fat...we look down and see it. We have set no goals...except to start , to continue and to finish well.

We enjoyed every moment as we walked through this Garden of Eden where we live. The swollen waters of the creek ran by us and sounded like music in our ears. The trees soared above us and a pair of mama and papa birds flew by. Sugar pulled hard on her leash as she led the way.

We breathed heavily as we pulled our legs step after step up out of the creek.

Sometimes the climb can be so steep
I may falter in my steps
But never beyond Your reach

Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
Oh God, You are my God
And I will ever praise You
I will seek You in the morning
And I will learn to walk in Your ways
And step by step You'll lead me
And I will follow You all of my days

Rich Mullins

Starting. Continuing. Step by step.

the effort to reunify the self

2008-04-28T10:14:00.000-07:00

I always enjoy finding books that I have not read yet by favorite authors , and so when I picked up Mandala at the Rummage sale this weekend I was looking forward to reading it. Pearl Buck's The Good Earth is an amazing book and being the optomist that I am, I was hoping for more of the same. I should have read the quote in the beginning before buying it:

Mandala

A schematized representation of the cosmos, chiefly
characterized by a concentric organization of geometric shapes, each of which
contains an image of a deity or an attribute of a deity. A symbol representing
the effort to reunify the self.

I read the first few pages at lunch today and knew this would not be for me. I may be old fashioned, but I want books on our shelves that any of our children can read also .

The idea that we as humans can actually reunify ourselves seems so desperate. The only unity worth having is the union that we share with our Savior when we believe upon His name. And in this there is no effort! He has done all the work! Blessed relief....to rest in HIM and know that I am now whole because of Him.

The good thing about bad books is that they always lead me back to the Best Book.

Unforced rhythms of Grace

2008-04-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

Rummage Sale season has finally started here in the Northland. Despite freezing winds and snow falling this late in April I stopped at a church rummage sale after dropping Quartz at a school event.

For $15, I walked away with a box of hidden wealth :)

1. an old-fashioned candle holder with intricately shaped leaves and twigs
2. a wooden yoke
3. Books!

Mandala by Pearl Buck
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (hardback, brand new)
The Burden is Light! by Eugenia Price
an old Sotheby's catalog
a WWII encyclopedia (for Electrum)
a set of American Heritage books with wonderful illustrations

Before I had left the sale, 3 people stopped and asked me what the yoke was. It is of course, not life sized.....it is a decorative piece, about 1 1/2 feet across. The moment I saw it I thought of "My yoke is easy and My burden is light". I plan to hang it beneath a wonderful painting that Anonimo's Aunt Maria gave us....a painting of two men on a cart being pulled by oxen yoked together.

When I saw the book by Eugenia Price , it seemed that a theme was forming around my morning. I knew that I recognized her name, but could not remember exactly what she wrote. This book "My Burden is Light!" caught my eye because of the subtitle: The Autobiography of a Transformed Pagan.

As I forced myself to rest today to try and get over this cold I have, I read the entire book. It is the story of a woman who lived for self and found the burden too much to bear....and then Christ came and took her breath away...and her burden away. His burden is indeed light.


Abruptly Jesus broke into prayer: "Thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. You've concealed your ways from sophisticates and know-it-alls, but spelled them out clearly to ordinary people. Yes, Father, that's the way you like to work." Jesus resumed talking to the people, but now tenderly. "The Father has given me all these things to do and say. This is a unique Father-Son operation, coming out of Father and Son intimacies and knowledge. No one knows the Son the way the Father does, nor the Father the way the Son does. But I'm not keeping it to myself; I'm ready to go over it line by line with anyone willing to listen. "Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly.: The Message by Eugene Peterson
What an incredible gift....to be allowed to walk yoked with Him in the unforced rhythms of grace.

the score is tied: 1 each

2008-04-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

We spent Sunday afternoon at the mall, specifically at Barnes and Noble. We each got something from the cafe (the kiddos had to use their own money :)) and then found an empty spot under the journal shelves. Garnet and Hyacinth found books to read and my eye had been caught by a new magazine Artful Blogging. Electrum wandered around with Daddy to find WWII books. The Three: Jasper, Emerald and Sardius asked if we could play their favorite game.

I choose a topic or theme and The Three set off to see what they can find. They bring the book back and explain to me why they chose it and I pick a winner.

First Round: Something I would enjoy reading or find visually inspiring. Emerald was back first with a book full of beautiful flower illustrations. Next was Sardius with The Joy of Scrapbooking. Jasper finally came in with a cheeky grin and held out the very magazine I was looking at: Artful Blogging. Round One to Jasper.

Second Round: Something that had pictures I could use for artwork. Jasper was first with a beautiful coffee table book of Japan. Emerald was next with a Martha Stewart magazine with neat pictures. Sardius then held out a board game, Settlers of Cattan. Round Two to Sardius.

Third Round: Something that would bring a tear to my eye. This time they were gone for quite a while (I found out later they sought suggestions at the customer service desk and from friends that were also in the store).

Emerald came back first with the book A Boy Called It. She asked me to read the back cover. I told her that it was a good choice and that I had read that story and it was definitely something that would make you cry. Sardius next held out Chicken Soup for the Mother and Son and reminded me of the hard times we had gone through when Quartz had run away from home and we thought he might not come back again. At this Emerald stomped her foot and sighed disgustedly "That's it, I've lost it".

Jasper then held out a book on how tough it is to raise adolescents ( 5 of our children are in the adolescent stage). I complemented each one of them on their choices....Round Three to Emerald for making me laugh so hard, a tear came to my eye.

the Perceptiveness of Emerald

2008-04-24T12:05:00.001-07:00

Anonimo and I rarely disagree and when we do it is always over the same subject: one of the children. Last night we had one of these disagreements, slight and overheard by none. We each went our own way to breathe deeply and (hopefully) pray.

I was in Quartz's room when Emerald knocked on the door and came in. She did not interrupt our conversation but leaned against the wall and listened. I knew her look....the tip of her tongue barely peeking out of her mouth, her eyes darting back and forth. Something was on her mind.

"Did you need anything honey?"

"Ummmm, no." She continued to stand there unwilling to speak out in front of Quartz and his friend.

"Do you need me honey?"

"Daddy needs you. I came to tell you Daddy needs you. He is on the front porch...and I know he is lonely and he needs you." the words rushed out one over the top of another.

"Do you want me to go to him?"

"Yes" she breathed out in a sigh of relief.

Emerald did not know we were apart on purpose...she only knew that there was a loneliness in her Daddy and she needed that loneliness filled right away. Such a perceptive girl....such a loving daughter.

The disagreement still hung in the air last night as we went to bed.....slightly swaying back and forth.

Elam's Kiss

2008-04-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

I have been reaching...reaching to try and grasp what it can possibly mean to love unconditionally. Everywhere I turn, I have found the answer just out of reach or slipping through my fingers. And then I cry out .....and He hears me.

From The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning:

Jonas Zook is an eighty-two-year-old widower. He and his children raise piglets for their livelihood. The oldest Barbara, fifty seven, manages the household. The three younger children- Rachel , fifty-three;Elam, forty-seven; and Sam, forty-five- are all severely retarded. When I arrived at noon with two friends, little Elam- about four feet tall, heavy-set, thickly bearded, and wearing the black Amish outfit with the circular hat- was coming out of the barn some fifty yards away, pitchfork in hand. He had never laid eyes on me in his life; yet, when he saw me step out of the car, this little mongloid dropped the pitchfork and ran lickety-split in my direction. From two feet away he flung himself at me, wrapped his arms around my neck, his legs around my waist, and kissed me on the lips with fierce intensity for a full thirty seconds.

Well, I was temporarily stunned and terribly self- concious. But in the twinkle of an eye, Jesus set me free from propriey. I buried my lips into Elam's and returned his kiss with the same enthusiasm. Then he jumped down, wrapped both his hands around my right arm, and led me on a tour of the farm.

A half hour later, Elam sat next to me at lunch. Midway through the meal I turned to say something. Inadvertantly, my right elbow slammed into Elam's rib cage. He didn't wince, he didn't groan; he wept like a two-year-old child. His next move undid me.

Elam came over to my chair, planted himself on my lap, and kissed me even harder on the lips. Then he kissed my eyes, nose, forehead and cheeks.

And there was Brennan, dazed, dumbstruck, weeping, and suddenly seized by the power of a great affection.

And there I was, early in the morning, weeping as I read of this unconditional love. I suddenly realized that a love I had always thought of as gentle and kind is actually fierce and nowhere near sedate (peaceful, yes; sedate, no). He is in me....HE has given me His mind, His heart, His spirit.....HE has given me Himself. He has given me the incredible gift of being loved ...fiercely.

Unconditional love, the ability to love unconditionally, I now feel as if I might be holding it loosely in my cupped hands.

Please Father breathe through me, love through me. Less of me, more of You.

Clipped Wings

2008-03-27T06:07:00.000-07:00

"Why am I afraid to dance, I who love music and rhythm and grace and song and laughter? Why am I afraid to live, I who love life and the beauty of flesh and the living colors of the earth and sky and sea? Why am I afraid to love, I who love love?" Eugene O'Neill

Relationships are a funny thing sometimes. The interaction and interplay of emotions and desires. The push and pull of the sin nature on the new nature.

How often we cut one another off at the knees or reach out and clip a loved ones wings.....and amazingly we do not even realize we have done this! It takes great courage to speak out in love and let one another know that we have become afraid to dance....afraid to live....afraid to love.

The courage (strength of heart and mind and spirit) to honestly state how an issue is affecting us is hard to come by. Most often we lash out in anger or frustration and completely divert one another from the actual thing that is wounding us.....and then our hurtful words and actions wound one another further. To speak in love and patience with each other is a supernatural act......the Holy Spirit working in us. Blessed relief! We have no part in this......but to abide in HIM.....and the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit, as we reject our sin nature and walk in the new nature works all things together for good. What we cannot do in ourselves (be patient and forgiving and speaking truth in love) HE does for us. Oh, what peace this brings to a fluttering heart and a distressed mind.

My courage then comes straight from the beautiful new heart within me, the heart of my Savior Jesus Christ, and I am able to not try and wound because my clipped wings hurt.....I am able to say "This is why I am afraid to dance......this is why I am afraid to live..to love."

I have been guilty of cutting my dear husband off at the knees, of clipping my beautiful children's wings. My selfishness and desire for control blinds me to what I have done.

Lord, open my eyes.....give me eyes to see and ears to hear.....open my eyes wide and dig my ears deep. Let me always see the ones I love the way YOU see them. Give me discernment and awareness. When I begin to cut or clip, pierce me by Your wonderful Spirit so that I may stop. And in this process of less of me, more of YOU.....painful as it sometimes is.....may we all grow ever closer to Thee.....may Your face be my only desire....Your life my only self.

Shall we Dance?

Circumstances

2008-03-26T19:12:00.000-07:00

Circumstance (a clogged toilet) led us to spend the evening at the local mall (no clogged toilets). One of our favorite stores there is Barnes and Noble and we all disbursed to find the books we enjoy and settled down to browse and read. Tonight I chose a short story compilation edited by Brett Lott "Eyes to See" and a novel by Rumer Godden "In this House of Brede".

I knew I had a chance of finishing one of the short stories..so I started there and read GK Chesterton's "The Blue Cross". I am not much of a detective story fan, and yet I loved the writing of this little story with several little phrases making me stop and just roll them around on my tongue :)

" Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea"

" full of an accidental stillness."

"there is in life an element of elfin coincidence which people reckoning on the prosaic may perpetually miss."

"wisdom should reckon on the unforeseen."

What a way he has with words. Sitting in the big comfy chair with Jasper doing his homework in the chair next to me, the piped -in music suddenly stopped and there were no people walking by......"an accidental stillness".

I looked through the next few short story's and stopped at Shusako Endo's "The Final Martyrs". I first heard of Shusako Endo when I lived in Japan...and yet I had never read anything by him. This short story is graphic in some ways...torture of believers is graphic. The entire time I was wishing I could read it in his native Japanese.......I knew so much was lost in the translation.

On our way out of the store my eye was caught by a display in the religion section. The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning....another book I had heard of years ago and never read. I bought it :)

In looking at the first chapter a sentence stuck out to me "The institutional church has become a wounder of the healers rather than a healer of the wounded" I bought it for my dear husband, Anonimo, who I knew would find much to like in this book.

This same dear husband is working away at that stubborn clogged toilet. He has just gone by carrying a large bucket......we are hopeful that he will be successful.

A victim of circumstance ;)

All of you

2008-03-26T18:56:00.000-07:00

I recently began a study of 1st Peter and I am enjoying it so very much. I am encouraged and convicted.

"Father, thank you for the incredible opportunity and gift to learn more about You through Your Word...please be with us by Your Holy Spirit as we seek to know more of You and more of Your Son.....and in turn know more about who we are in You."

"All of you “

Peter address his first letter to all of us...in his time to those believers who lived in a specific geographic location: Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia...and in these times to all believers: men, women, elder, younger, servants, free, husbands , wives. All of you. All of us.

Peter takes great care to exhort and testify to us the true grace of GOD; Who we are in CHRIST now and forever, Who we can be in CHRIST while on this earth, What we may be as we follow CHRIST, what we were before we believed in HIM. Peter tells us all these things which seem like so much and yet at the end of his letter he says that it was brief! How much more there is in CHRIST and because of HIM. One of Peter's greatest exhortations after reminding us of all that we are in CHRIST and were before HIM is: Stand firm in it!

Psalm 40:2 “He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and HE sat my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God; many will see and fear and will trust in the LORD.”

Peter talks about that old song, the one we sang before we believed...the one that those around us who do not believe still sing.......and unfortunately the one we sometimes choose to try and sing when we ignore who we are in the new man and choose to belt out the old song in our old man.

That old song has the monotone of sin. It is composed of lusts, ignorance, futility, disobedience, doom, foolishness, wandering, sensuality, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties, abominable idolatries and excesses of dissipation. It is without mercy and the face of the LORD is against those who perform this old song. Singers of this old song will have to give an account to HIM.

Thankfully, along with Peter, we can focus on the New Song and sing a song of praise to our GOD. Peter reminds us in this letter of who we are in CHRIST and what this beautiful new song sounds like. As I read through 1st Peter I was struck with how packed the letter is with reminders of who we are: singers of a New Song. Following is a list (wonderfully long!) that I wrote down as I went through 1st Peter from beginning to end. I hope and pray that it encourages you as much as it did me.....shall we meditate on it together? Listen with me to the amazing, sweet notes of the New Song:

we are aliens
we are scattered
we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of the Father
we are chosen by the sanctifying work of the Spirit
we are chosen to obey Jesus Christ
we are chosen to be sprinkled with His blood
we are born again to a living hope through the resurrection
we are caused to obtain an imperishable, undefiled, unfading inheritance reserved in heaven
we are protected by the power of God through faith
in all this we greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory
our faith is more precious than gold
we love and believe in Jesus Christ even though we do not see Him
the outcome of our faith is the salvation of our souls
grace came to us
the prophets who prophesied served us
things into which angels long to look have been preached to us
we are children of obedience
we are called by the Holy One
we are redeemed with precious blood, the blood of Christ
Jesus Christ appeared for our sake
we are believers in God through Jesus Christ
our faith and hope are in God who raised Christ from the death
our souls are purified in obedience to the truth, for an unhypocritical love of the brethren
we are born again of imperishable seed: the living and enduring word of God
the living and enduring Word of God has been and is preached to us

And that is just Chapter One! There is no monotone here. We have been given a majestic symphony, movement after movement.

we are living stones
believing in Him, we will not be disappointed
for us who believe, we have a precious value: the Living Stone
we are a chosen race
we are a royal priesthood
we are a holy nation
we are a people for God's own possession
we are called out of darkness and into His marvelous light
we are the people of God
we have received mercy
we are aliens
we are strangers
we are called for a purpose: to do right , suffer and endure patiently
Christ suffered for us
Christ left us an example to follow
our sins were borne by Christ in His body on the cross
we are dead to sin
we are alive to righteousness
we are healed by His wounds
we have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of our Souls

As I read through this I have to hold back from making exclamation points. My heart hears the forte , the pianissimo, the fortissimo. My spirit sings with the beauty of what our Saviour has done for us and is doing for us.

we are heirs of the grace of life
we are called for the very purpose that we might inherit a blessing
the eyes of the Lord are toward us
His ears attend to our prayers
we are slandered because of Him
we are reviled for our good behavior in Christ
Christ died for our sins, once for all, and brought us to God
we are put to death in the flesh
we are alive in the spirit
we are maligned
we live in the spirit according to the will of God
we have received a special gift
we are stewards of the manifold grace of God
the Spirit of Glory and of God rests on us
we are the household of God
we have been saved with difficulty
we are partakers of the glory that is to be revealed
He care for us
the devil is our adversary and prowls like a roaring lion seeking to devour us
we are called to eternal glory in Christ

Amen and amen. All of you. All of us.

1 Peter 3:8

“All of you be harmonious...”

Enjoying the New Song

“Happy is the man whose fingers are wedded to his harp” CHS

Teacups and Postcards

2007-11-27T16:19:00.000-08:00

"...she ....took out a tea-tray, on which she had soon arranged a china tea-equipage, whose pattern, shape and size denoted a remote antiquity; a little, old-fashioned silver spoon was deposited in each saucer, and a pair of silver tongs, equally old-fashioned, were laid on the sugar basin."

Charlotte Bronte, The Professor, 1857

For the last several months, my beautiful mother has sent me a postcard each and every month. The latest arrived today carried across the ocean by a sweet little stamp: Nippon 70 . On the back of each postcard she has written a verse that always encourages me and lifts my heart. This month the verse was:

"Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God"
1 Corinthians 10:31

...all to the glory of God
...all to the glory of God

This makes me stop and consider....am I doing all to the glory of God? Do I take the time to consider if my actions are for His glory or my own?

Time for some more thinking.....and perhaps a cup of tea.