"Vandalism"

A friend sent this ...
__________

God is a tagger on the walls of nonexistence.

You and everything are the four dimensional graffiti of God.



God writes his name a thousand different ways, not as an egomaniac

but to claim the emptiness

on the walls of nonexistence.



There is another who hates the color – says the walls are his-

who works to strip all of it clean into nothingness

or to at least sandblast that name unrecognizable.



but He who showed up as the art and the artist,

scandalous scrawny four dimensional spray can manifestation of outrageous word-shapes

was Himself sandblasted and stripped on the wall of nonbeing.



He took his name and the art to the other side of the wall, claiming it forever

color reaching us from the inside, we hang with Him, the name which is written a thousand

different ways.



still somewhere obliterated on this side, we spray it back, knowing who we are.

- from "a Denver Book of Prayer"

Visual Faith

Art is a subject I’ve wanted to study – not art history, and not the how-to. I’ve collected many books and it may be what I write on next, having blogged about the calendar for two years and putting it in book form (I really have several books in meself to write!) (and, as I’ve written sometime this summer, I am going to change my blog format … someday … when I’ve more time … haha!). But my art quest began moreso with “Come to me as a child” and the desire to Recapture the Wonder (which is the title of a book by Ravi Zacharias, and then there’s Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli). I want to study of the power of beauty, the power of the visual – Visual Faith.


I got a new Bible for this year’s devotional/ meditational/ lectio divina/ contemplative reading. It’s called the Mosaic Holy Bible, using the word mosaic as referring to us believers. On our own we are little more than bits of stone and glass, but together we make up the body of Christ, reflecting His image. The front third of the book has guided Scripture readings appropriate to the church season, along with writings encompassing a great cloud of witnesses from old to new; prayers, hymns, and poems, as well as full-color artwork – all for engaging the soul. Then the last 2/3 is the New Living Translation. I’ve not read that translation and am finding it refreshing.

I recently read the section titled “Creativity”. Remember, calendar girl me has told you our Christian Year begins the end of November with the start of Advent, and we are now in the season called “Ordinary Time”, the 22^nd week after Pentecost. I really resonated with this creativity theme. Even if I weren’t artistic (which if you say that of yourself, I’d question your definition of “artistic” and maybe some quotations and comments here will help you think this through) … I’d still value the thoughts worth pondering.

“Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us” … So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them … Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
- Genesis 1

“Deep within all of us is a longing to recapture a sense of wonder, to marvel at the mystery of God and His creation like we did as children. But through the years our capacity for wonder has been stifled by busyness and ambitions, and we have resigned ourselves to explaining away all that once made us gasp in awe … Our sense of wonder is a blessing from God.”
- Ravi Zacharias


“Every experience of beauty points to infinity.”
- Hans Urs von Balthasar

All creation proclaims God’s craftsmanship and glory day after day and night after night—they make Him known in their way.
- Psalm 19

“I am creating new heavens and a new earth … Be glad, rejoice forever in my creation! And look!”
- Isaiah 65:17,18

I have been looking. I do notice. I do appreciate, hopefully beyond a rational assertion … but in the realm of aha!!!!!


“Art has long been a spiritual practice. Its modern stigma has undeservingly dampened Christian creativity and squelched the innate novelty with which we were formed. Fortunately, churches are once again beginning to embrace the full range of the arts, exploring the nonverbal ways God is glorified.

Of course, we were given this very mandate and model for creativity in God’s creation—nature and humanity are brave testaments to an imaginative Creator. As we enter an awestruck posture, it is right and appropriate to respond using the creative nature with which we’ve been blessed.”
- Mosaic Holy Bible

Our imagination as Christians has been primarily nourished by the spoken and written word as well as music. The church and its experience with beauty appears to be estranged, and the role the church could offer has been supplanted by art galleries and theaters. In desiring to respond to the presence of God with the whole of our beings, is there a place for visual artists and their responses in church? In saying above that we’ve been moreso nourished by literature and music, could I also say that we’re mal-nourished in our visual imagination?

The importance of creativity “is that the Christian life involves the use of the imagination—after all, we are dealing with the invisible [like God], and the imagination is our training in dealing with the invisible—making connections…”
- Eugene Peterson

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
- Albert Einstein

The root word for imagination is “image”, meaning a visual representation, a visible impression, a mental representation or idea, a simile or metaphor. The visual has a way of sticking in our memory and making demands on our conscience long after the explanations have been rubbed thin by the frictions of daily life. We do need moral propositions and principles, but we need images too, because we think more readily in pictures than in propositions. And when a moral principle has the power to move us to action, it is often because it is backed up by a story or visual image.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God … Through Christ God created everything … “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself …”
- Colossians 1:15-20

“Creator God, your Spirit enables our own creative abilities as we allow you to work through our words, our hands and our imaginations.

We thank you for the beauty of created things, for pots and bowls moulded by the skilful manipulation of clay, for a portrait which captures the essence of a personality, for the written word which transports us to a faraway place, a poem that captures the raw emotion of a moment, a prayer that speaks to our heart and soul.

You are present wherever mankind opens its eyes to see, can be heard whenever mankind opens its ears to hear, can be felt as hands are outstretched in faith.”
- John Birch

“The desire to create is not taught. The world and everything in it is the workmanship of the Creator. As created beings, we carry the image of God, not least of which is an innate urge called creativity.

Creativity is a spiritual discipline that followers of Jesus have too often ignored. As far back as Genesis, God gave humanity an artistic assignment. He asked Adam to name the animals and thus invited him into the creative process with himself, the Creator.

Unfortunately, the beauty and order of creation were soon scarred; God, however, was not deterred. The story of Jesus is the mark of the creative master at work. Only divinity could take something as offensive as the cross and use it to restore beauty. He continues his redemptive plan by empowering us to join him in this creative work … And the Spirit came in power to an expectant group of Christ-followers, and the creative force embodied in one person, Jesus Christ, is now available to everyone.

Peter quoted the prophet Joel to describe what has happened: ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people’ (Acts 2:17). And with these words, God’s creative spark ignites the hearts of men and women in a whole new way.

God the Creator now places his divine imprint on our spirits. Pentecost shatters the glass ceiling of possibility. The garden is now replaced with an upper room, and the new assignment goes beyond simply naming his creation to calling his creation into a regenerative process, making old things new.

Wherever there is a divide, God’s creativity in us leads us to build a bridge. Wherever there is doubt, God’s creativity in us stirs our imagination and produces faith. Wherever there is despair, God’s creativity in us pictures and pursues hope. Wherever there is injustice, God’s creativity in us finds a way to show his love.”
- Mark Miller

Travis had a poster that said “Expose yourself to art”. And I think it was Madeline L’Engle who said to not judge art, but let art judge you.

Germs?

"Unless you're in a kissing relationship,

skip the dip."

- as said by Lynne Rossetto Kasper

on NPRs Splendid Table radio show this weekend.

Anyone needing me to explain?

Worship Quote

"There is no one in this world who is not, at this moment, at worship in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, formally or informally, passively or passionately. . . . the question is not, When do we worship ...? Instead, it is, Whom do we worship and with what condition of heart?"

- Harold Best

Quoted in Marva J Dawn's newest book In The Beginning God: Creation, Culture, and the Spiritual Life. (I love her books!)

Dust Quote

Monte sent me another quote that I'll post here to capture (and delete the email) and then comment.

Stop dusting, and you can use your coffee table as a message board!

I'll have to ask him where it came from, but I think I know why he sent it. It's not that my coffee table or any table is so dusty. For some miraculous reason our house doesn't create much dust (but don't look too close). I think he sent it cuz I have a quote (Sarah wrote my quote on our graffiti chalkboard wall in the bathroom) -

"Dust is Country"
- Karey Swan

Our home is a country home with a country look and feel, and dust is a part of that. Is it that we hardly have any dust? Or does the decor just not glaringly show forth dust? Or do I decorate country so I don't have to dust? What tis the question?

Life a Craft

As Geoffrey Chaucer lamented,
“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”

But for today’s weavers, lifelong learning is the joy as well as the challenge of the craft.

Just capturing a quote from an old friend of Monte's.

CS Lewis Quote

"I believe in Christianity
as I believe that the Sun has risen,
not only because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else."

Dream Quote Ponderings

"Those who've abandoned their dreams will discourage yours.
Your job is to not listen."
- Bill Baren

I just read that quote and wanted to post it, to capture it, so to ponder.

Pondering about people who tend not to dream or dream too small. Pondering dreaming as giving one life and hope.

Or pondering those who do the discouraging of others. Do they dare to dream? Or why do they abandon their dreams? Do they need to step on others to feel better? feel better than you? feel better about themselves? Or maybe step on you in hopes of getting taller so maybe they can see further? yet in attempting to shatter dreams ... what is really going on?

Pondering not listening ... Some speak lies - these we're to not believe ... Listening is a piece of communication, which I'm all for ... yet there's a place for not dialoguing, like in the Garden of Eden story ... How do we know, how can we tell, when not to listen? It makes me think of John 10 and knowing My Shepherd's voice amongst all the other voices.

Oh that I know my shepherd and his voice, and in knowing and loving my shepherd, I have life and hopes and large dreams!!

What If ...

What if you knew you had but one year left to live, what would you be doing today ... and tomorrow ... and the next day ...? My emotions of the past few days have brought me back to this thought, asked of me years ago by a very dear older lady.

As I sat next to my friend Sunday morning, very recently diagnosed with breast cancer, she was praising and trusting God. As I tried to sing the worship songs, I wasn't very worshipful. I was trying to absorb her positive attitude ... I was feeling her husband's pain ... but the songs words had me going thru the wringer of emotions, including sadness and madness ... but maybe that's exactly where God wanted me, maybe that is worship.

I know lots of people who have, and are, living many years beyond that diagnosis. But maybe we all need to live each day from the outlook of what that diagnosis would bring. It wouldn't mean, shouldn't bring, ditching our jobs and sailing around the world - but living each individual extraordinary day intentionally. Not running away from our life, but fully embody the life we're leading.

I've been thinking thru what to do for a devotional at tomorrow's last MOPS meeting. I had an idea ... but now I've been pondering this returned thought. We tend to live as if we have all the time in the world.

I ordered a bunch of books from the library a while back under the theme of "Creative Journalling" and a book that must be popular just came and I started reading it last night. Where did it begin? What if you only had 37 days left to live ... OKaaaaayy God ... I think this is where you want me to begin tomorrow's devotional. The book is Life Is A Verb. I think I ordered it because the title intrigued me. I had posted earlier the thought to ponder: "God is a Verb".

So ponder.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."
- Steve Jobs

"Time only seems to matter when it's running out."
- Peter Strup

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it."
- James M Barrie (author of Peter Pan)

"What you do, [when you find out you have a year to live] if you have little kids, is lead as normal a life as possible, only with more pancakes."
- Marjorie Williams

Indifference Quote

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

- quoted by Elie Wiesel, survivor of WWII concentration camp and set free April 11 in 1945 as a teenager and went on to write many books and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

May we now move forward with resurrection power, living life full of beauty, faith and love.

Wendell Berry Prose

"Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness,
or elegant because I honor the grace that keeps this world.
I am a man crude as any, gross of speech,
intolerant, stubborn, angry, full of fits and furies.
That I may have spoken well at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is."
- Wendell Berry

I love Wendell Berry's gentleness and grace in his story-telling. My favorite of his books is Hannah Coulter. They all take place in rural Kentucky depression/WWII era lives. I love his philosophical farmer full of meaning phraseology.

Food for Thought Quote

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

The Prodigal or Love of God Story

"For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not 'How am I to find God?' but 'How am I to let myself be found by him?' The question is not 'How am I to know God?' but 'How am I to let myself be known by God?' And, finally, the question is not 'How am I to love God?' but 'How am I to let myself be loved by God?' God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home."

From The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Art: The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt

I love both the artist's work and the author's books. In my lifetime I have been the prodigal, the elder brother, and too, "I am my beloved's and He is mine".

Art and Body Gifting

I've readied some of my needlefelting to take to church today for hanging. I mentioned before that our church is set up with a professional hanging system for art. We have artists within our community and we change out the art periodically.

One of my pieces I'm taking I call either "Community" or "Jesus' Body". Scripture refers to those of us who love God and believe in Jesus, as family, parts of His body. I value that our church values the differing gifts within our body and desires to let these differing gifts be used within our community. So often in churches we only see the giftings of teaching and music, and then of course the helping, serving, administration, encouraging ... are ongoing.

I have a grapevine in my greenhouse. I've posted pictures of it. This last year was the most productive year of all, with clusters hanging at our head level all over. All it takes is basically doing nothing! Yes, I still nurture it with fertilizing and watering, and I do need to cut it back as it tries to take up more of the space than I desire. But I used to prune it back very severely, because I had a book ... I found out that table grapes are not to be pruned like wine grapes.

In fact, the severity of pruning wine grapes looks familiar ... It is the center frame of my picture. All around are the three-dimensional vine, grape clusters, and leaves. In a small group, we had drawn grape vines. Ellen had lots of hidden grape clusters saying that she needed community to help her see her fruit. I have gone through very barren times where I've felt my fruit gobbled up, and if I'm not regularly nourished from the source I will remain fruitless. This piece is a Spring, Easter, seasonal hanging.

My other art piece is made up of three. Because they were inspired from the same time frame of reading and journalling, I just hung them on the same backing. The top I call "Starburst". God said, "Let there be light". Walking in His Truth, His light, I don't fear walking out into the world with it's varying culture. I walk, bringing gleanings back to the light before venturing out again on another ray of light.

The middle piece I call "Crucible". I looked the word up and it's origin means "lamp on a crucifix". To me this means, that in all life brings my way, that in all my choices, if I filter them thru the truth of the cross ... It's a God-consciousness in all I do in my every ordinary days (Extra- ordinary!).

The bottom piece I call "Longings". Henri Nouwen had written, "Longings are doorways thru which we come to God and thru which God comes to us". I've pictured my heart with layers like an onion, restricting and fighting the real me, the God-created-me, in being revealed. If my desire is to live out of my center, I don't have to focus on removing the layers, but focus on having more desires/longings, which would mean more doorways of God and me connecting!

Does this make sense?

Humor Value

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

-GK Chesterton

Intimacy Quotes

A current benedictine monk said, "Naked we come into this world, and naked we shall return. But not quite: our hope is that when Christ receives us, he will recognize his own image in our hearts."

Which reminds me of another quote I read several years ago in the book Deep Unto Deep. "When I stand before Him face to face one day soon, when I meet His eyes for the first time, will I experience a memory in that gaze? Will there be familiarity?"

Oh do I yearn for this intimacy as I live this life, rather than just knowing about God.

Velveteen House II

When there's a holiday, school break time, I am reminded of my original Velveteen House post, click here. Why? Though Dawson is still living at home while going to college, it's during these break times that our home gets more worn with wear. Like with the dialogue in the Velveteen Rabbit classic book, "by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby."

Dawson, Splarah and Conner, are currently eating jalepeno grilled cheese panini sandwiches and tomato soup they just made for themselves for lunch. They are sanding Dawson's new desk he's making in his bedroom. (He just painted his floor red, "to coordinate with the red in my ceiling!", which is red sponged over black, which him and Gary did probably a year ago, needing to re-drywall it.

Yesterday morning, walking into the kitchen, Dawson was making pancakes. Since I go into a nutrition talk when they bring home Bisquick, he was being witty, saying he was making them from scratch ... "I've already been out this morning gathering whole grains to grind, and squeezing chickens for eggs" ... Cute! ... I have to smile.

I never know who's sleeping here. Splarah and Lizzy have often been in the guest room and it's been a mix from Conner, Aaron, Caleb to Nick lately, sleeping scattered about (since Dawson's room is disastrously torn apart, with most everything in Heather's old room or the storage room next to Monte's office).

Young people were at the kitchen table drinking sparkling apple cider from goblets, and playing card games, when Monte and me got home from a party. We didn't know they'd be there since they were ice skating for New Year's Eve at Evergreen Lake. But since they were going skiing for the next two days, they decided to sleep here and leave from here.

And now that Dawson is learning to weld and forge metal, people want to participate and experience it too. So young people are wanting to hang out and play. 

House guests come and go. Like yesterday, a young couple we'd not seen for awhile were here for a bit. Everyone loves the well worn wood floor in our great room and don't think we should refinish it. Some people don't come out of the guest bathroom for awhile, cuz they're either reading or writing more graffiti on our chalkboard paint wall.

Ministering seems to come our way. This season of Monte's and my life is full of visiting young people and scientists wanting to hang out here. More memories for the walls of this Velveteen House to bounce off - memories full of stories. Like a plaque in our house says, "Home is where your story begins."

Menopause

I just read this quote - 

"I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere."

- unknown

Reminded me of a card I bought for myself more than a year ago and it sits on my desk. I'm posting a picture of the front of the card. When you open it, it says - 

"I think I'm going

through mental pause."

Childermas - Holy Innocents Remembered

This is the day Matthew 2:16-18 is remembered. The wise men came asking about the baby born "King of the Jews". Warned by an angel, they did not return to tell Herod where they had found Jesus. Herod, in jealous fear, slaughtered many male children in his attempt to get rid of Jesus. Thus the beginning of the choice for mankind: for or against Jesus.

Matthew quotes Jeremiah, "...a voice was heard...sobbing and loud lamentation; Rachel weeping for her children." Have you ever really thought of this piece of the Christmas story? Many artists have pondered it, so that it's depicted in many paintings and stories. (The pictures here are by Giovanni, Giotto, and Ruebens.)

Joseph was warned in a dream to flee this slaughter and escape to Egypt. I have a book we read every year by Madeline L'Engle called Dance in the Desert. It imagines the Holy Family traveling in a caravan to Egypt, and one night all creation comes to pay homage to their Creator. The pictures are beautiful, of toddler Jesus and various animals. The caravan men have knives ready but Mary always says, "Wait".

All cultures throughout time have the stain of innocent, unwanted children. On this day we can think of children all over the world who suffer innumerable forms of violence which threatens their lives. We can pray for our children and the world.

"Today we celebrate the heavenly birthday of these children whom the world caused to be born unto an eternally blessed life rather than that from their mothers' womb, for they attained the grace of everlasting life before the enjoyment of the present ... For already at the beginning of their lives they pass on. The end of the present life is for them the beginning of glory. These then, whom Herod's cruelty tore as sucklings from their mothers' bosom, are justly hailed as 'infant martyr flowers'; they were the Church's first blossoms, matured by the frost of persecution during the cold winter of unbelief."
-- St Augustine

It's Peter Pan Day!

Starting in 1904 in England, everyone would wake up on this day and say "Peter Pan. We get to go see Peter Pan today!" The tradition of the play went on for years.

That's why Peter Pan movies periodically come out in December. The movie "Finding Neverland" came out for the 100th year anniversary in 2004.

I've been a Peter Pan fan for over a decade now. There's a message there that was a part of my pursuit that eventually led to my experiencing of God in a deep way.

I started with recognizing things missing in my life. I had become so rational, so "adultish". I wanted to regain my sense of wonder. So I started down a path of pursuing what it meant to be childlike.

My favorite Peter Pan movie is Spielberg's 1991 "Hook". The setting is Christmas, so he knew of the tradition of Peter Pan at Christmas time when families are gathered together seeking entertainment.

It's an "adultish" Peter in the movie. Grandma Wendy invited the family to England. Peter is forever on his cell phone. His wife is frustrated. His kids are enamoured with Wendy and the nursery window and are full of anticipation.

Grandma Wendy finally has to get in Peter's face and ask, "What do you remember of your story Peter?" Peter had forgotten his story. He didn't know who he was!

The rest of the story, since Captain Hook stole away his children, has Peter relearning how to be childlike to win back the hearts of his children. He had to relearn how to play, how to fly!

That too was my quest. Who was I really?

Watch the movie "Hook".

Watch "Finding Neverland" (with Johnny Depp!). It is so close to the real JM Barrie story in that it tells us why he wrote Peter Pan. Barrie wrote many stories inspired by his mother's Scottish highland tales. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Barrie saying, "I am a capable artist; but it begins to look to me as if you are a man of genius. Take care of yourself for my sake. It's a devilish hard thing for a man who writes so many novels as I do, that I should get so few to read. And I can read yours, and I love them."

In the movie you meet the family of boys who inspired the lost boys (the movie shows these boys' father as already dead, though in real life, Barrie nursed him through his illness.) When the Davies boys met Barrie, they said they'd found a childlike adult in the midst of stodgy Victorian England.

There's a line in the book that's central to Barrie's vision. Over the years his vision had been watered down, thinking it too dark for families. It's - "To die will be an awfully big adventure." This line is the heart of the story (as too in many stories, including the Gospel).

It's a looking for something good out of something tragic. Tolkein calls this 'eucatastrophy' - a victory of good over evil, but with a price to be paid - a redemptive sacrifice. So when faced with the possibility of drowning in Mermaid's Lagoon, Peter is going to make it an adventure.

Hmmm ... "to die will be an adventure"... Doesn't Jesus ask me to come to him as a child? and to die to self? and that in dying there's true life/living?!

Advent - 1st Sunday

Christianity begins with the birth of a baby. This Feast of the Nativity originally called, "Christ's Mass" includes days of preparation, referred to as Advent. Advent means "to come". It encompasses the past, present and the future. Christ was waited for and came in the past. Christ comes and is present with us day to day. And Christ promises a future.

As I type this I'm listening to the sound track of the movie "The Nativity Story" that I bought having seen the movie. The artwork is called The Living Cross by Vincent Barzoni.

Today's Advent candle? the Prophecy Candle. "Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus", "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". People waited, hoped, and trusted, having heard and read the words of the Prophets. I today still wait, hope, and trust.

Advent each year can be a journey of awakening - "Keep awake" says Matthew. Aware, alive, attentive, alert, awake - full consciousness - to God's doings in the world. Advent is a preparation time - making room in my heart for Christ's birth in a new and fuller way. My waiting, hoping, and trusting - content in God's timing, God's heart's desires and resolution. My desire is to not miss a bit of life's greatest gift from God to me.

The fairytale of the Gospel...[is] it not only happened once upon a time, but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still.
Frederick Buechner

November 22, 1963

Where were you? That's what's been on the news radio this morning. I'm old enough to remember where I was November 22, 1963. I was in third grade and I remember all the teachers crying.

Actually, on that day, three people died within hours of each other. But one so overshadowed the other two. JFK, our first TV president was assassinated. Being a kid, I was frustrated the following Saturday when cartoons were preempted for John F Kennedy's funeral that went on and on and on ... !!!

CS Lewis and Aldous Huxley died too. Huxley wrote the book Brave New World describing a totalitarian society that disregards individual dignity, and worships science and machines (GK Chesterton did a spoof on the title writing a book called Brave New Family). His grandfather, Thomas Huxley was a friend of Charles Darwin. I attribute Darwinism to him. I think Darwin would not like seeing where his observations around the world on the Beagle voyage have come to.

CS Lewis is one of my favorite authors. I love everything he wrote. He is so quotable too. Like this: "Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realize the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors. We realize it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, is in a prison. My own eyes are not enough for me. I will see through those of others ... Literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do." Like him, if I'm not reading good books, I "feel impoverished."

I have a book called Between Heaven and Hell, subtitled, "A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with JFK, CSLewis and Huxley". Peter Kreeft imagines their discourse as a modern Socratic dialog - a part of The Great Conversation that has been going on for centuries. Does human life have meaning? Is it possible to know about life after death? What if one could prove that Jesus was God?

Kreeft portrays Lewis as a Christian theist, Kennedy as a modern humanist, and Huxley as an Eastern pantheist. Lots of good thought written very creatively. Thoughts I've wrestled with myself as I interact with varieties of people.

(Peter Kreeft's book, The Journey, I read aloud to Monte and Dawson as we drove around the deserts of Arizona for a couple weeks. It's a "Spiritual Roadmap for Modern Pilgrims". A journey with Socrates out of the cave in search of truth through varying worldviews.)

I love books.

Good Friends

My sister Kelli is coming to Sonoita to visit me here for the afternoon and go out to eat with Monte, Stan and me, and the 3 Norwegians (every time I mention the Norwegians in my posts I think it sounds like a rock group - which it is! since this is all about geology).

I had written the directions into this high desert neighborhood in the notepad of my iPhone yesterday to tell my sister, and saw this quote I wrote while in Wisconsin at my sister-in-law Linda's home - 

"Good friends are like bras - 

supportive, 

never leave you hanging, 

make you look good 

and are always close to your heart."

:0)

Pablo Picasso Quote

I've quoted him in posts before, but Pablo Picasso was born today in Malaga, Spain (1881). He said, "I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

I may even have posted this quote, I don't remember, and haven't looked. But I could say the same thing of myself too.

Galileo Galilei Quote

"I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him."

I agree with this quote, but do I "have the eyes to see ... ears to hear ... patience ..." Oh that I live believing this so that all I meet I take the time with ... without first making a judgment ...like "live in the present moment", so that I'm present with people I encounter ...

Classic?

What makes a book a classic? When was the term first used?

On this day in 1904 a Joseph Malaby Dent began to flesh out an ambitious vision of reprinting classic books in what would be called the Everyman's Library.

Are books of old dry, uninspiring, and hardly suited for the fast-paced world the Industrial Revolution brought to the twentieth century - and what do we call today?

I've read, read aloud to my kids, and listened to audio classics for years. I have to put myself into the shoes of the characters and author, desiring to see from their perspective what was going on in their culture. What of their culture drove the events, the inventions - what were the era's questions?

What if all we read are current era/popular books?

CS Lewis said, "A good rule, after reading a new book, is never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between ... A new book is still on trial and has to be tested against the great body of Christian thought down through the ages."

How many of today's books will transcend beyond our culture?

This is what defines Classics: an ability to adapt themselves to various times and places and thus provide a sense of the shared life of humanity over the course of space and time. They stretch, shape, and confront us - and are ever new.

Could books help us rise to another level? Do we sometimes habituate ourselves to companions of small statures? I like to visualize it as standing on the shoulders of others, a great cloud of witnesses, for a better view. Reading can take us away from ourselves to where we can step back and see the whole, instead of just 'me, myself, and I', and self-success thinking.

Maybe the more books we can live in, we could be more rehearsed in life: knowing the stage, recognizing the plots and props - having tried out many characters and scenarios. With my kids I thought of the unencumbered time they had to invent their own images, explore thier own fantasies, to create their own possibilities - with both books and movies. They seemed able to get on with meaningful living when they left the nest of home.

Someone said, "In a very real sense, people who have read good literature have lived more than people who cannot or will not read ... It is not true that we can have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish."

"A good book is not problem-centered; it is people-centered. It reveals how to be a human being and what the possibilities of life are; it offers hope," wrote Gladys Hunt in her Honey for a Child's Heart, speaking about how many books are agenda driven, with many children's books being moralizing and sermonette style stories. These do not touch the heart.

"The importance of poetry and novels is that the Christian life involves the use of the imagination - after all, we are dealing with the invisible [like God]. And imagination is our training in dealing with the invisible - making connections, looking for plot and character."

- Eugene Peterson

Albert Einstein Quote

"The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science."

Galileo Galilei Quote

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."

GK Chesterton again

"If there were no God, there would be no Atheists."

I'm mentioning his quote only because there was a time in history when Christians were called Atheists by the Romans. It was in the early Roman Empire and the Christians only believed in one God when the Romans had many gods.

e e cummings quote

The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.

Wendell Berry Quote

"If we are to hope to correct our abuses of each other and other races and of our land, and if our effort to correct these abuses is to be more than a political fad that will in the long run be another form of abuse, then we are going to have to go far beyond public protest and political action. We are going to have to rebuild the substance and the integrity of private life in this country. We are going to have to gather up the fragments of knowledge and responsibility that we have parceled out to the bureaus and the corporations and the specialists, and we are going to have to put those fragments back together again in our own minds and in our families and households and neighborhoods. We need better government, no doubt about it. But we also need better minds, better friendships, better marriages, better communities. We need persons and households that do not have to wait upon organizations, but can make necessary changes in themselves, on their own."
-Wendell Berry

Chesterton Quote

From the very quotable GK Chesterton -

"Paradox is truth standing on her head to attract attention."

The greatest paradox was Chesterton himself: a massive man whose nimble thought danced through his day, entertaining and enlightening millions, and on into the present. CS Lewis said that Chesterton was his mentor, as was George MacDonald.

Peter Kreeft Quote

“The self is like a baseball. Throw it back to the divine pitcher who pitched it to you in the first place, and the game of love goes on. Hold it, and the game is over. That is the difference between Heaven and Hell”

Perichoretic relationship of humans with God quote, by Peter Kreeft.

Pascal Quote

"Faith declares what the senses do not see, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them, not contrary to them."

Martha and Homemaking Beyond Maintenance

Today is the calendar day to remember Martha. Martha, Mary, and their brother Lazarus were good friends of Jesus.

One of my workshop titles is "Homemaking Beyond Maintenance". If you look for it on Amazon it will tell you it's a book not yet in print - so my title and me as the author is there ... waiting ... I've been meaning to write that workshop up into a book. People have requested it over the years.

I mention Mary and Martha. We've all heard countless time about Mary making the 'better choice' in sitting at Jesus' feet. Martha is often denigrated. Housekeeping for several decades became denigrated (though Martha Stewart helped turn some of that around).

I've sat with that scripture often. First I noticed, in conjunction with other scriptures, that Jesus often returned to this home in Bethany. Martha always welcomed Jesus into their house and made him feel at home. Martha practiced hospitality well.

Then, it seems Jesus is reprimanding Martha after her requesting that Mary leave listening to Him at His feet and help her in the meal preparations. But in looking closer I saw that Jesus' only complaint was that Martha was 'so distracted and worried by many things'. He didn't mean for Martha to stop preparing the meal - instead, He meant for her to open the eyes and the ears of her heart to be present to Him in what she was doing.

I used to have a book that had some subtitle like "More of Martha to be More of Mary" (that's not it, but like it) - the point being, that maybe if we plan well in our home keeping, we'd be able to also just sit at Jesus' feet. I've taken the time as a Domestic Engineer to research the tools of my trade and how to wield them skillfully.

Martha was engaging in her tasks in a self-preoccupied state that took her awareness away from Jesus' presence. We need to go about our tasks in a state of God-consciousness. Home Keeping can be a labor of love as I use my head, hands and heart in creating a home, moving beyond mundane maintenance into the realm of creativity. In all that I do, am I reflecting the Image of God?

As Mary Englebret says, "Like whatever you do".

Arlo Guthrie Quote

"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in."

EB White Quote

E.B. White wrote, "Just to live in the country is a full-time job. You don't have to do anything. The idle pursuit of making a living is pushed to one side, where it belongs, in favor of living itself, a task of such immediacy, variety, beauty, and excitement that one is powerless to resist its wild embrace."

Evelyn Underhill Quote

A spiritual life is simply a life
in which all that we do comes from the center,
where we are all anchored in God:
a life soaked through and through
by a sense of God's reality and claim,
and self-given to the great movement of God's will.

I like Evelyn Underhill. I only have one book of hers and should have more. I've quoted her before.

Thomas

Today is the calendar day to remember the Apostle Thomas's story. His story? Not much is known of Thomas and if not for the Gospel of John, we wouldn't know much of anything. Other's have mentioned Thomas in their writings. And it's said he was allotted to go to India as a missionary and died a martyrs death.

He's called "Doubting Thomas" by most Christians. The term is used in a sardonic way - like "better are we who believe without the need to see!" Or like it's wrong to doubt. Are Christians not to doubt? If no doubts, why would we need faith?! "Doubt is the shadow cast by faith" - Hans Kung. (The painting is by Caravaggio.)

Thomas is also referred to as Dydimous, meaning "twin". The idea of twin reminds me that I can be two people - both a doubting person and a believing person at the same time. In my doubts, a community of faith can help me see the Truth, and not let doubt destroy me.

I liked what Michael Yaconelli said of Thomas in his book Dangerous Wonder (oh, that Mike were still alive to write more wonder-full books!). Thomas asked a lot of questions. He had a childlike curiosity. During the last supper, Jesus assured the disciples they knew where He was going. Thomas, just like a questioning child ... "where?", "why?" ...

Thomas missed seeing Jesus after the Crucifixion. Thomas wasn't satisfied with just seeing Jesus, he wanted more. He wanted to touch Jesus, embrace Him! I don't see Thomas as doubting. I see him as longing for Jesus. I thirst, hunger, and long for more of Jesus too.

"Curiosity is a hunger of the soul, and because Thomas was strong and courageous and spoke bluntly, he was daring enough to ask tough questions. He was not refusing to believe, he was refusing to settle for secondhand faith. Thomas was driven to know truth--to mingle with it, wrestle with it, become intimate with it." Mike wrote.

On Thomas's calendar day I remind myself Jesus wants me to live as a child - curious, daring, reckless, adventurous ... Not asking questions just for information, but for relationship.

Desmond Tutu Quote

Since I've mentioned this sentiment several times lately I just had to add Desmond Tutu's quote -

"The good news is that God loves me long before I could have done anything to deserve it."

Who Am I?

I read two things this morning that got me thinking ...

A Nietzsche quote (he is so quotable, and tho he didn't understand what Jesus and his disciples was really about, he was so right-on in many of his comments on Christians and humanity) -

"We are unknown, we knowers, to ourselves ... Of necessity we remain strangers to ourselves, we understand ourselves not, in our selves we are bound to be mistaken for each of us holds good to all eternity the motto, 'Each is the farthest away from himself'--as far as ourselves are concerned we are not knowers."

This was in context with the subject of a book Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book - that we can learn more in ten minutes about the Crab Nebula in Taurus, which is 6,000 light-years away, than we presently know about ourself, even though we've been stuck with ourself all our life.

And I read James 1, and paraphrasing here, verses 22-24 -
"You listen, but you do not act upon what you read and hear ... Hearing and not doing is like looking at yourself in a mirror, and after walking away you immediately forget what kind of person you are ..."

I've lately been reading in both Numbers and Deuteronomy and see how ridiculous the Israelites were! So many times in frustration, God wanted to wipe them out! They 'saw' so much, and yet in the next instant would forget and grumble and live wrongly. If they, like children, had so much of God's personal attention and guidance, and saw so many miraculous things on a daily basis, can't 'grow up' into a mature faith - how can we?

They wandered the desert for 40 years, killing off a generation and growing up a new generation. Before they were to enter the new land, God did not want them to melt into the surrounding cultures. He wanted them to know who they were and not forget. How did he do that? He gave them rhythmical calendar celebrations and lots of visuals and imagery and ritual/tradition to instill into their lives so they would remember and not forget who they were/are in God.

We too can get so caught up in our current culture and learnings and not know who we are. How best to remember who we are? First: know and believe that God loves me first as I am, and that He desires a relationship with me. Then act on that!

The very nature of love means choice. Choice means I need to know something (or someone), so I can make good choices. But there's so much to know! I boil it all down to simply going about my days in love with God. The same tools God gave the Israelites, I have for my use too. I use the calendar days and all the connected stories of so many who have lived in love with God. If God was there for them in their midst, then He's going to be here for me today and tomorrow. I can know who I am, and live better ... live fully alive! live more whole.

Irenaeus

Irenaeus is known as Bishop of Lyons in southern France and today, the 28th, is his day on the church calendar. He became one of the most important Christian writers of the second century - a great theologian. The institution of church was still in it's 'newness'. He was a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of John the Evangelist, who knew Jesus intimately.

His primary work, Against Heresies, was especially concerned with the Gnostics (Greek for "knowledge"). Irenaeus thoroughly investigated the various Gnostic sects and their "secret", and contrasted it with the teaching of the apostles. Many of his other writings are quoted in other people's writings.

Irenaeus opposed the Gnostic attitude toward creation by affirming both creation and redemption as the acts of God. The "One Creator God" worked through his "two hands".

"The things we learned in childhood are part of our soul," he wrote, and he cherished Polycarp's teaching "not on paper but in my heart"; "This is what I heard from the man who knew the man who saw and heard and recorded it". Irenaeus was the first to state the four Gospels as canon, saying they are the ones we may trust.

"Give perfection to beginners, O Father; give intelligence to the little ones; give aid to those who are running their course. Give sorrow to the negligent; give fervour of spirit to the lukewarm."

Robert Frost Quote

"The best way out is always through."

CS Lewis Quote on ...

This CS Lewis quote reminds me of one of my needle-felted pictures I did several years ago called "Starburst". It's inspiration grew from an image I got while reading, and drew in my journal and developed further. I'll explain what it means to me at the end of this post.

In his book, An Experiment in Criticism, Lewis writes, "We therefore delight to enter into other men's beliefs ... even though we think them untrue. And into their passions, though we think them depraved ... And also into their imaginations, though they lack all realism of content ... in order to see what they see, to occupy, for a while, their seat in the great theatre, to use their spectacles and be made free of whatever insights, joys, terrors, wonders, or merriment those spectacles reveal ...

"This, so far as I can see, is the specific value or good of literature considered as Logos; it admits us to experiences other than our own. ... Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom fully realise the enormous extension of our being which we owe to authors (and other artists, including movie directors).

"We realise it best when we talk with an unliterary friend. He may be full of goodness and good sense but he inhabits a tiny world. In it, we should be suffocated. The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less of a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through the eyes of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. ... In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in the Greek poem, I see with a myriad eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself; and am never more myself than when I do."

God is love and light. God, and us too as we walk in Him, lights up the darkness. My Starburst felted picture has people walking into the darkness. I don't fear walking out into the darkness - the world's cultures, arts, etc. Walking on the rays of light I bring my gleanings back to center, to the light, to Truth, before venturing out again on another ray of light.

fun food quote

"The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found."

King Edward VIII Quote

"The thing that impresses me the most about America is the way parents obey their children."

Frances de Sales Quote

We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love.

Story Quote

My friend Ellen sent me this quote since I so often talk of the value of story.

Story re-orders, sifts through experience, and allows others, young children and adults alike, to hear what we think truly matters. We are constituted by the stories we tell ourselves and others. Thus stories serve an ontological purpose. Story connects us with that which lies beyond ourselves and this process makes us ask questions about the meanings of our lives. It is, in fact, a way we can begin to define what we mean when we use the term "spirituality."
- Barbara Kimes Myers
Young Children and Spirituality

As I said before, I'm home alone. Been gardening. It's beautiful outside. Sat awhile outside off and on yesterday reading and watching the birds. Monte and Dawson are in the southern Arizona desert and said it's 115 degrees! So going out early, starting at first light and needing to quit just after noon.

Einstein Quote

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

Augustine Quote

Ask the loveliness of the earth, ask the loveliness of the sea,
ask the loveliness of the wide airy spaces, ask the loveliness of the sky,
ask the order of the stars, ask the sun, making daylight with its beams,
ask the moon tempering the darkness of the night that follows,
ask the living things which move in the waters,
which tarry on the land, which fly in the air;
ask the souls that are hidden, the bodies that are perceptive;
the visible things which must be governed,
the invisible things that govern - ask these things,
and they will all answer you, 'Yes, see we are lovely'.
Their loveliness is their confession.
And all these lovely but mutable things, who has made them,
but Beauty immutable?
- Augustine
Sermons 214.2

As our friends Aram and Ellen said, "This is a Monte-esque quote".

Dancing Quote

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astair did, 

but backwards and in high heels!

- Faith Whittlesey

Supper 2

I'm soooo tired ... I'll say phrases, and a song will pop into my head. With the opening phrase, it's the Beatles line in a song, "I'm so tired ..." but I'm NOT "feeling so upset". (I grew up with the Beatles and loved them.) All I'm doing as chef for these visiting scientists is wonderful.

Second supper, one more to go Friday night. Two lunches done, two more to go. No, I wouldn't want to do it all the time. People so often say, "You should have a restaurant"... But then I wouldn't enjoy cooking! I did the grilled chickens on the beer cans tonight - six of them. The Norwegians took pictures of them on the grill, and the eating was great!

I'm really writing just to post another Picasso quote. He really does say some things I like (I've already quoted him in other posts):

"There is no abstract art.
You must always start with something.
Afterward you can remove all traces of reality."

I can't tell you why I like this. I've read as Americans we are mal-nourished when it comes to art. It was a discussion at the supper table tonight. Dawson is working on a college English project and had a poster picture he's creating from photoshopping a photo he took. The Norwegians said he shouldn't add words. My thinking is that today, with the mal-nourishment, a picture may not necessarily say a 1000 words.

Call it hand-holding or educating or nurturing ... but it's a helping people to 'see'.

Dickens Quote

"Have a heart that never hardens, 

a temper that never tries, 

and a touch that never hurts."

- Charles Dickens

Speed Reading

"I took a speed reading course and read War and Peace in twenty minutes. It involves Russia."

- Woody Allen

Too funny. And sad. Why sad? Some things we read are meant to be chewed upon and savored. 

I could write a ton on that thought and probably will over time since I so value 'story'. I always have to have 'story' type reading amongst all my reading. It's in story we know who we are.

And by the way, I've read War and Peace.

Books

Author Anatole France, born today in 1844, said,

"Never lend books, for no one ever returns them;
the only books I have in my library
are those which people have lent me."

We definitely have the books in our house - probably over 1000!?! I should count, I think Monte has and I should ask him how many he thinks we have. (OK, I asked Monte ... he says we have at least 7000! Boy was I off.)

We hate to lend books, but we do. It seems the moment we lend a book, we want it for something. So there's some kinds of books we never lend anymore. And I've borrowed books too and I really try and remember to return them!

So I don't think there's many books in our library that were lent to us ...

Work Quote

"Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else."

- James M Barrie

I think I'm doing lots of work, yet I'm enjoying what I'm doing. I do have to go to the grocery store soon, when I'd rather be doing something else - so that is WORK.

"Deviant"

My son Travis designed a T-shirt. We usually think of the word 'deviant' in a behaviorally, socially negative way. But if you really think about it, what is the norm or sociably accepted standards might be something we should do differently, and be unique (does 'a peculiar people' fit here?). 

Trav's T-shirt really is a good visual for Blaise Pascal's quote - 

"When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board ship. When everyone is moving toward depravity, no one seems to be moving; but if someone stops he shows up the others who are rushing on, by acting as a fixed point."

We went to church tonight instead of tomorrow. Aram preached and reminded me of this quote I've read before, and too I thought of Travis's T-shirt design.

Anne Frank Quote

"The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature, and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As long as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles."

- Anne Frank

Criticism

Should I say anything or let the pictures speak for themselves. If you think of them in relation to me or Monte ... Or think of what goes on in churches and culture and history ...

My Worth Quote

My worth to God in public 

is what I am in private.

- Oswald Chambers

Story Quote

My friend Ellen had this quote on the bottom of one of her emails. Maybe she did it just for me? She knows me!

"There's an old Jewish saying, 

'What's truer than truth? 

The Story!'"

And I do love it's message!

Beauty

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder? Or might I ask, is it merely in the eye of the beholder? Or is it something 'out there'?

"You can recognize truth by its beauty and simplicity."

- Richard Feynman, Nobel laureate in physics

Science and Theology Meet in The Evidential Power of Beauty

"Beauty is the battlefield where God and Satan contend with each other for the hearts of men."

- Fyodor Dostoyevski in The Brothers Karamazov

Buechner and Dillard "Remember" Quotes

Instead of adding these to the last post, I thought I'd post them separate. Of the variety of books I read, these are two more of my favorite 'very interesting' authors.

I like the word "remember" and it's in Scripture more than 300 times. The thief on the cross asked, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." And Jesus at the table said, "Do this to remember me."

"When you remember me, it means that you have carried something of who I am with you, that I have left some mark of who I am on who you are. It means you can summon me back to your mind even though countless years and miles may stand between us. It means that if we meet again, you will know me." - Frederick Buechner

OH, does that tug at my heart reminding me just now as I typed that above of this quote in the book Deep Unto Deep by Dana Candler: "When I stand before Him face to face one day soon, when I meet His eyes for the first time, will I experience a memory in that gaze? Will there be familiarity?"

"I have no problem with miracles ... that isn't the question I struggle with. To me, the real question is, 'How in the world can we remember God?' I like that part of the Bible that lists kings as good and bad. Suddenly there comes this one, King Josiah, who orders the temple to be cleaned up and inadvertently discovers the Law. This happens after generations of rulers and after the Israelites followed God through the Exodus. Somehow they had forgotten the whole thing, every piece of it. A whole nation simply forgot God." - Annie Dillard

This quote tugs at my heart as well. It reminds me of Nehemiah 8 when Ezra does read the Scripture they found. The people STOOD for the entire reading of the Torah, hearing it for the first time, and they wept. Then they partied!