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!

Tongues Quote

"Art, music, dance, theater, literature, film. 

They're all a way of speaking in tongues."

-Ian Morgan Cron

Learning

Pablo Picasso said, "I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it."

This also describes me. A while back I posted about "Process vs Product" and I described myself as a process person. I'm forever wanting to learn how to do new things. I'm forever researching. I sometimes pick the hardest patterns in textile arts just for the challenge of a more interesting process.

I'm not taking pictures of my newest project until I get the stuff on the wall. Oh ... maybe I'll do one of the door, just to show the new colors. But of course the door's not done. (I guess installing door trim is another new thing I need to learn from Monte so I can finish all the trim around this house. It doesn't seem to bother him, but it really bothers visual me!) I taped some areas of the door as guides, to see how it would work and look. I think I'd like to add more green in some indents, but taping takes so long, but I don't think my hand is steady enough for straight lines.

I'm going to the airport to pick up Monte in a little while. There's a fish taco place out there where I'm looking forward to eating. I got a coupon the last time I was there and had been waiting for a long time. The place is really popular. I don't think there is one of these restaurants on our side of town yet. I haven't made fish tacos yet, but I'm going to research and learn how! Monte's had them in San Diego and Tucson and loves them.

Who's My Neighbor?

I have this phrase on a post-it-note by my computer and it's reminding me of what I just read this morning. The note says -

"From head to heart to feet"

I was sitting with scripture's Good Samaritan story. So often in my self-righteousness I get mad at the priest and Levite wondering what kind of spiritual people they are?! But when you really think about it, they were very much loving God in strictly obeying the Torah - you became impure when you touched a dead body, even if your shadow falls upon the body. And this guy laying in the road looked dead. But they didn't turn aside to look closely, so they didn't really know, but looked straight ahead, quickly walking on by.

Maybe their hearts moved with some concern and compassion, but the 'letter of the law' forbade them. Their hearts weren't connected to their head knowledge. But if you were a religious person wouldn't you know God and see a disconnect between how you were interpreting scripture and who God might really be like?

But then I think about me - I've got my day planned ... I don't want to be bothered ... someone else will do it ... they seem kinda weird. So in a sense my own feet and hands don't follow through on what my heart might be suggesting. God does like obedience, but the spirit of the law would want us to love others, not just recognize needs, but wanting my attentiveness in following through in some way.

So I'll be pondering this for awhile and pray for attentiveness; seeing eyes and listening ears, and asking God how He might want to show His caring for others through me, not me inviting Him into my plans, but how I might join into what He's already doing.

Faith Quote

This quote is currently at the bottom of my friend Barb's emails. And this is so true of Barb - she so loves the One who is leading, and does not really know right now where she is being led - but she's trusting.

~ Faith never knows where it is being led, 

but it knows and loves the One who is leading ~

~ Oswald Chambers ~

Quote of the day

"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other."

by Eric Hoffer

Work Quote

"Work is much more fun than fun."
- Noel Coward (1890-1973)

Work might be a four-letter-word to some people, but not to Monte and me. We agree with this quote, but I guess it's because our life is not compartmentalized.

There's a book called The Three Boxes of Life with the boxes being Play, Education, and Work. The idea is to keep all the boxes open and a continuum.

My thought is that when one follows the boxes as sequential seasons or compartments of focus in life, at some point they will stop working and expect to enter their final box, only to discover that they have forgotten how to play.

It's important that we not forget to play!

Religion and Politics

"In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination."
- Mark Twain

I've spent a lot of time studying and just sitting with scripture, wanting to make the faith I grew up in and the image I had of God be my own. I want my relationship with God to be 'first-hand'. I don't want to just know about God, I want to know God.

Politics? My salvation is not there. But I may take some time to know more about who's running this year, rather than relying on second-hand, and often third-hand info.

Telling Stories

"Those who tell stories rule society."
-Plato

I like this quote because the Bible tells us "to remember", to "tell the children...", more than 300 times! The remembering and the telling is connected to stories of God-in-our-midst.

It's why I write and talk about stories associated with the calendar and history that really are just extensions of Acts - what I call The Third Testament.

Stories remind us of who we are - we shouldn't have an identity crises!

TV? Gum?

"TV is chewing gum for the eyes."

-Frank Lloyd Wright

A Good Friend

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are -- chaff and grain together -- certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."

-George Eliot

This made me think of people I know ...
Thank You God for just such people in my life!!