"You see, the ocean and the land are the most important providers there can be."

This morning

I slept in!
woke up to a cozy, warm room
had tea (two cups!)
made french toast.

I danced! 

finally discovered John Legend.

It's only noon!

Thank you, God, for peace and life and love and your joyful Spirit who teaches us to savor and enjoy all of it.

I want to look back and think, "I lived this year fully;"
          "I lived this season fully.
           I lived this month fully.
           I lived this week fully.
           I lived this day fully."

With all your help, God.

The First Thirteen Words

It's nice to have been made me.  Thank God for slow, delicious mornings.

Autumn makes a baker of me.

Don't worry,

I will paint the possibility too beautiful for you not to change. 

If you have trusted me to do it, I will do it.

This is indestructible, because it is built on me and not you.

"What gain has the worker from his toil?  I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with.  He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.  I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live;  also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man."

Wow, this statement!

"

It's awesome dipped in very dark to bitter chocolate as a nibble with a demitasse of espresso--one of my favorite gustatory moments.
"

helmet head

With so severe a helmet as this I could cycle into space.

"Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good."

at what point does East meet West,

and far as they seem, are they not closer than anything?

the smell of rain and grass and flowers from an open window, cool in my nose.

These are my dream-come-true days, my me with you days.

Drinking coffee is like sipping on hopefulness; strong, pure, true.

With You

every night is Friday night
and every morning is Sunday morning

Becoming New

every day a little more revealed surprise.

There's a Love

deeper than flesh, and more insistent
purer than the honey from a wild hive

it's easy

I'll take one, please.

Coffee, Tycho, the back porch and a Beautiful day.  Ahhhhhhhhh.

On 'loving / hating' your life

Yggdrasil

Yggdrasil

Last night in the dream, the eagle landed on my head.

Today I am patchouli with legs.

Quiero que sepamos que Dios nos guía, y siempre nos guiará.

la agua, la vida

se mueven
unidas

el mar, el alma
turbulento y la calma

fijo y activo
maldijo y agraciado

la tuya, la mía

Kyrgyzstan

Are you ready to go?

"Where there is great suffering, there is also always opportunity for great compassion."

                                       

When I was young, I sometimes thought about how God could have made me to live as a seagull, or a blade of grass.

a well-lived life (the hopeful version!)

"...but could we but live a million of years, then how delightful to spend in perfect contentment so many thousand years in quiet study in college, as many amid the grateful din of machines, as many among human pain, so many thousand in the sweet study of Nature among the dingles and dells of Scotland, and all the other less important parts of our world! Then perhaps might we, with at least a show of reason, 'shuffle off this mortal coil' and look back upon our star with something of satisfaction...

Eternity, with perhaps the whole unlimited creation of God as our field, should satisfy us, and make us patient and trustful, while we pray with the Psalmist, 'Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.'..."

- John Muir in a letter to Mrs. Jeanne Carr, 1866

A celebrity
is who we choose to celebrate
and what we celebrate
is what we value

what do we value?

What we value
is what we give our time and money to
...is it worth it,
what we value?

What's worth it
is what gives beyond itself.

worth/comes from/value
value//valiant
valiant//strong, powerful...

Is what you value strong and powerful?
Do you want it to be?

Who do you wish had the attention?
How can you give it to them?

"It is always the same Christ who says:

I was thirsty - not only for food, but for the peace that comes from a pure heart. 

I was thirsty - not for water, but for peace that satiates the passionate thirst of passion for war.

I was naked - not for clothes, but for that beautiful dignity of men and women for their bodies. 

I was homeless - not for a shelter made of bricks, but for a heart that understands, that covers, that loves."

- Mother Teresa

Information, Technology, and Spirituality

While waiting at the toaster this morning, a song from my choral years at Worthington Kilbourne streamed through my mind,

 "OoooOoooOohhh, Ohhh-o homeland......Thaaaa deeearest and thaaa best!" 

was all I could remember, and I thought surely I could Googlesearch those lyrics alone and find who wrote the song, when, and even where I could purchase copies and listen to the piece performed.  Sometimes I forget how unlimited and astounding technology is these days, then I stop to think about it for two seconds and am blown away afresh.  We have come to an age in which nearly any bit of common information - anything we might need or want to know - is beyond accessible, in fractions of a second, no less! 

We have all the answers.  It's incredible and astounding and a real achievement, a great gift.

But having the information is just a good step.  In order for it to have any greater value we must learn to assimilate it, otherwise it's just information for information's sake.  Nifty or profound as some facts prove themselves, the information is completely useless unless we allow it to inform our living in real ways.

At some point this thought shifted me to the Bible.  God has given us "everything we need for life and godliness" by His word and its revelation of Jesus for who He is, how he restores our hearts and gives us lasting, fullest life.  Everything we need.  We can choose to ignore it, appreciate it, or sincerely seek to apply that information, to steer our lives by it.

Hopefully, information gives way to wisdom and fuller life for everyone.  Otherwise it's trivia, at best.  Great to win a game of Trivial Pursuit, but where does that get you, really?

The Good King

The good king establishes rules for justice, peace and freedom in his kingdom.  From his throne he does not puppeteer the life of his people, or otherwise force the decisions they make either in accordance with or contrary to his hopes for the kingdom.  In order to ensure as just a life as possible for everyone he is, however, the one with the most sway to decide the fate of the one who acts in opposition to his desire for the people's good.

Resolved, 2013:

More dancing!

How are pistachios so good?

A Word on Beards from a Jesus-Loving Lady

 

In considering this recent beard-splosion and the energies some dear brothers seem to have personally invested in it, a little adaptation of 1 Peter 3:3-4 has been the driving inspiration for writing this post.  It goes a little something like,

          "Your manliness should not come from external guise, such as elaborate mustaches or   
            displays of hulky-strength or flawlessly memorized and well-timed delivery of the right
            guy's quotations.  Rather, it should be that of your inner virility, the unstoppable force of
           God's strength in you, which is AWESOME because it comes from God, bro!!"
                                                               ____     ____     ____


"Jesus had a beard."
Fact.  I'm no religious historian, but some measure of delving could better illustrate Jewish law and its prescription that men leave their beards be.  Plenty of the old greats have given good case for the beard; Epictetus recognized beardedness as living in accordance with nature, C.H. Spurgeon adds that it is "scriptural, manly and beneficial," and St. Clement of Alexandria goes so far as to designate hairiness a symbol of manhood.

Perhaps you've taken note of inspiring longhairs, captivated in manly pinterest board fashion by recurring mental images, leaving you drooling into your no-shave stubbly stumble toward proper outward manliness.  Maybe you keep a running list in your flannel-shirted pocket, next to your heart, of the tips you've acquired from prolific beard-growers on the maintenance of a perfectly praiseworthy chin-crown of glory.  However the mode, you're attentive. 

So what cautionary word could I possibly dare to issue against your growing affection for these patches of wonder-hair?  Nothing against the beard, certainly, but rather what motivates its growth; under the skin, in the soul.

I wonder sometimes if the preoccupation with your outward effort toward manliness is crowding out any chance of the development of your inward virtues as a man.

Now, now -- I fully acknowledge that we beardless* women are not blameless; in fact, we are the queens of questionable motivation;  how natural, really, is straightened hair?  Where is mascara's true place in our aims for true beauty and womanhood?  In contemplative nail-painting sessions I have pondered this struggle as much as the next gal, and from this weak human stance share a beautiful truth in which us ladies, in recognition of our shortcomings, at some point in our lives have taken refuge as a substantial platitude for our true worth as children of God:

 "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight." - 1 Peter 3:3-4

For us ladies, the hangup that keeps us from depending on God is this concern about our beauty, our appearance-- this is the secret cleft for our self-worth, as much as we may try to deny or overlook it.  In much the same way, I fear the beard has overshadowed, more than your face, your heart's confidence in God as your true strength.

In truth we all, somehow or other, have pursued meaningless vanities with our lives, poorly stewarding our time or finances or mental energies by giving them to what does not matter. (Think TV shows, new jeans when our legs are already well-enough covered, trivial crap with NO functional purpose, physical, spiritual or otherwise...) Be alert!  Where are your thoughts, time, expenditures really getting you? Further, what are they doing for others?  We give ourselves constantly to what is at best worthless and quickly passing, or even worse, drawing us away from God rather than driving us to abide more deeply in Him.

Though this 1 Peter verse was written as a word to wives, a closer look reveals a truth more universally-applicable. What produces this gentle and quiet spirit in the wife?  It is her steady trust in God which comes from knowing Him, having experienced His characteristic faithfulness and completely satisfying love. 

In what should we, then, as brothers or sisters or bachelors or husbands or wives or widows, invest our hope for fullest life and unshakable identity?

Let's look at what God has shown us:

"...you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect... through him you believe in God...and so your faith and hope are in God... you have been born again through the living and enduring word of God.  For,
   'All people are like grass,
   and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
    the grass withers and the flowers fall,
   but the word of the Lord endures forever.'" - 1 Peter 1:18-25

So, then, as we are born again through the living and enduring Word of God, and the Word of God endures forever -- that is, lasts longer than beardhair or mascara (even waterproof), we will do well to invest ourselves in the Word.

For further insight, from Bibleresearch.org's article on Old Testament Beard Law;

"The apostle James directed the following comments to the early church in order to remind them that they should not forget who and what they are and what is required of them:

"But you be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man seeing his natural face in a glass: For he sees himself, and goes his way, and quickly forgets what he is. But whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty, and continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed" (Jms.1:22-25 KJV Para.)

What is it about a man's face that would cause him to reflect on who and what he is and what is required of him? If he wore a beard in compliance with the holiness code, he would immediately be a reminded of his obedience to God and his ways."

So then, fellas, let the beard remind you of your true manliness, not be it.  I assure you, we females acknowledge the diligence and commitment it must take to grow a beard, but what we need from you now and will continue to treasure most later when we're wrinkly old ladies with lipstick-teethed, genuine-heart smiles whose backs can no longer strain to paint our toenails, is your unwavering strength in God's love.  We need your ability to strongly guide us daily in God's truth.  We need and respect and deeply admire your love for His Word and the way you bring it to life for us and those around us in your own wrinkling flesh every day of your life.
You may mystify the world with your hair, but can only serve it with your heart.**

Grow accordingly.

*(bearded even, for that matter.)
**For the unbearded or even balding among you brothers, don't worry, this speaks just as true for you -- we can see your heart in more than your hair.