I've Been Away....

Well, not so much away as unavailable. Within my own skull I mean. Just not the headspace to be able to put pen to paper. I have been at my wit's end for most of the summer and now long into the fall.
Way to much on my plate, way to many people with demands, way to little power and autonomy.
Not so different from the rest of the world in that I guess.
But I'm feeling better.
I am seeing the trees at the edge of the forest in definition now.
I am feeling freer to practice (and practise) the person I am becoming.
And, with the best news yet, Martyn Joseph will be in Grafton on February 6th. Change your life to be there too.

Some of us witnessed the passing of the torch this weekend: the much beloved Sylvia Tyson slipping away as a music icon and the birthing of the newest generation: Catherine MacLellan - daughter of the past pop era legend Gene MacLellan, singing on the same stage, sharing the same workshop, enjoying the comraderie of the song and lyric.

Some of us were busy making lunch for those folks.

I thank Dan Sheffield for the photo.

Haiku - The Perfect Creative Outlet for the Busy and Impatient:

The Question

The God who is there
Will he show up tomorrow
When I need him most

Garden Produce

Flowers open and close
Like the sign in the window
Nectar sold daily

Avian Idol

Birds on their nests
Snuggling with their body heat
Next year's musicians

I remember when.....

I remember in the late eighties when the punk thing was so new and scarey, and good christian folks were distancing themselves from the ungodly spiked haired safety pin wearing kids, I watched a group of them sitting together talking.

When one kid spoke, every head turned, every eye was on her/him. Then the next kid talked, and the same thing happened; everyone's attention was solely on them.

I was mesmerized - I realized that these kids had found themselves a family - a community in the true sense.

It's what the human heart craves - and we will look for it 'til we find it - regardless of the cost - and sometimes it costs a lot.

Osprey Media. - Northumberland Today - Ontario, CA

Osprey Media. - Northumberland Today - Ontario, CA

Melwood Cutlery

Amen and amen!

A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawn mower is broken.
— James Dent

As Stolen Directly from Dan Sheffield's Blog....

He's so old now, he won't even notice....
Happy Birthday by the way.

Scriptural holiness is the attitude embedded in your heart when you allow Christian scripture to shape every word, fill every thought, and guide every action.
that's a thot from the recent issue The Asbury Herald. J. E. Kalas, the president of Asbury Seminary added a few more thots in his editorial.
...scriptural holiness isn't manageable... holiness, like Aslan, the Christ symbol, cannot be domesticated. Just after we have found some new spiritual victory, we discover a whole new territory that is waiting to be taken for Christ. This isn't because the boundaries of sin have changed, but it is because we've become more sensitive to our reading of those boundaries. Once we were satisfied that our deeds were acceptable, then holiness asked us about our wayward tongues and our even more wayward thoughts. One day we thought we had at last gained humility, so we announced it -- and in that moment we lost it. Having won a battle with lust, we thought we had gotten purity of heart -- only to discover that self-righteousness is an even greater hazard to a pure heart.
and then there's the challenge to translate personal holiness into social holiness. Scriptural holiness doesn't allow us to be content with clean habits, clean speech and pure thought... holiness insists that we participate in social renewal. We can't be content as long as poverty, injustice, war and selfishness rule our society. We are driven into the public arena. Our neighbourhood begins to encircle the globe, and although our interests can't taken in everything, they're never allowed to be comfortable with what we can already manage. Scripture holiness isn't for spiritual sissies. It calls for heroic souls...
will scriptural holiness work in a culture as complicated and superficially sophisticated as ours? Not only will it work, I don't know of anything else that will. The ills of this age are too deep to be cured by religious or intellectual hocus pocus.

I am thankful for the mess to clean after
a party because it means I have been
surrounded by friends.
— Nancie J. Carmody

Happiness makes up in height what it lacks in length.
— Robert Frost

Whoever one is, and wherever one is, one is always in the wrong if one is rude.
— Maurice Baring

glumbert.com - Master Juggler

glumbert.com - Master Juggler

Put all your eggs in one basket and – watch that basket.
— Mark Twain

Tori 4 Secretary

Kate and Tori's video.
Fun to watch.

They Don't Sell You This At Hallmark

Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. Here is the original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.
Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not betaken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summon sof war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that ageneral congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests ofpeace.

Julia Ward HoweBoston 1870

Short Term Mission Trips

Another perspective.
And they say we are self sufficient!
We go for us, not for them.
Turns out, we need all the help we can get!
DanSheffield

Sarah Harmer -I'm A Mountain (Shelter Valley Folk Festival)

Kate and Meghan are Hippies

Born 35 years too late they say.

Alas, they look longingly at this video from the 60's and pine and mourn.

meghan says

My prediction: In 35 years, their grandchildren will be saying the same thing when they look at this photo and video....

Open up the doors and let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring your hope
Songs that bring your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice
-Delirious

What the *&^%$#@ are we doing. Or not doing.

Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Speak out, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.- Proverbs 31:8-9

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.
— Palmer Sondreal

meghan says

meghan says
is our daughter Meghan's blog. Very interesting and insightful reading -- if I do say so myself!

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.
— Anne Lamott

I Like To Try New and Different...

And sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't.
This template just feels more like me.
And my husband should be happy: he was struggling to read the text on a black background.
Like and old sweater, this new look feels good.
Snuggly, warm -- me.

Each day comes bearing its own gifts. Untie the ribbons.
— Ruth Ann Schabacker

Waving or Drowning?

Waving or Drowning? Mike Todd's Blog has a great piece about what we as world citizens to help to help GW see a better way.
If you agree Gitmo is incredibly unamerican, sign here....

The Dignity to Give and Receive

"Nobody is so poor that he/she has nothing to give, and nobody is so rich that he/she has nothing to receive."

These words by Pope John-Paul II, offer a powerful direction for all who want to work for peace. No peace is thinkable as long as the world remains divided into two groups: those who give and those who receive.

Real human dignity is found in giving as well as receiving. This is true not only for individuals but for nations, cultures, and religious communities as well. A true vision of peace sees a continuous mutuality between giving and receiving.

Let's never give anything without asking ourselves what we are receiving from those to whom we give, and let's never receive anything without asking what we have to give to those from whom we receive.

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim.

~ A Franciscan Blessing

I've Changed the Look of Things....

Like moving furniture, and taking stuff no longer needed to good will, revamping is good for the soul. And mind. And heart. It's spring, and it's time to change things up a bit.

Strange, Odd, Freaky -- Sounds like Just the Right Ingredients for Restaurant Decor....

The Blingdom of God: Jesus theme restaurant in Japan

An Honest Being-With

Being with a friend in great pain is not easy. It makes usuncomfortable. We do not know what to do or what to say,and we worry about how to respond to what we hear. Our temptation is to say things that come more out of our ownfear than out of our care for the person in pain.

Sometimes we say things like "Well, you're doing a lot better thanyesterday," or "You will soon be your old self again," or"I'm sure you will get over this." But often we know that what we're saying is not true, and our friends know it too.

We do not have to play games with each other. We can simplysay: "I am your friend, I am happy to be with you." We can say that in words or with touch or with loving silence. Sometimes it is good to say: "You don't have to talk. Just close your eyes. I am here with you, thinking of you, praying for you, loving you."

- Henri Nouwen

Bono's Acceptance Speech

St Patrick's Prayer of Blessing

May you bind yourself today to

The power of God to hold and lead;

His eye to watch; His might to stay;

His ear to hearken to your need;

The wisdom of God to teach;

His hand to guide;

His shield to ward;

The word of God to give you speech;

His Heavenly Host to be your guard.

Amen.

An Ad for A New Design for Church....

What a concept. An interesting idea. Can it be done? I watch and wait with baited breath.

Beauty

You can take no credit for beauty at 16. But if you are beautiful at 60, it will be your soul's own doing.
— Marie Stopes

And this is my grandmother (Nana) at 94. Even more beautiful than she was at 16. Or 60.

- Beth

The Meeting of Minds....Dylan does Seuss

as borrowed from http://dailyjive.blogspot.com/
Dylan Hears a Who!

Drew Marshall on 100 Huntley Street PART TWO

Drew Marshall on 100 Huntley Street PART ONE

Interesting Videos from 100 Huntley Street

Post Script: they are no longer archived on their website. Interesting.
Watch and you decide.

Amazing

Ages ago, Alex, Allen and Alva arrived at Antibes, and Alva allowing all, allowing anyone, against Alex's admonition, against Allen's angry assertion: another African amusement . . . anyhow, as all argued, an awesome African army assembled and arduously advanced against an African anthill, assiduously annihilating ant after ant, and afterward, Alex astonishingly accuses Albert as also accepting Africa's antipodal ant annexation.

—Walter Abish, Alphabetical Africa (1974)

Jacob Moon Trailer

Jacob Moon Trailer

Jacob Moon

Saturday Night in Roblin. Want details? Just ask.

Watch This Video. Change Your Life.

Invisible Children

The Meal That Makes Us Family and Friends

We all need to eat and drink to stay alive. But having a meal is more than eating and drinking. It is celebrating the gifts of life we share. A meal together is one of the most intimate and sacred human events.

Around the table we become vulnerable, filling one another's plates and cups and encouraging one another to eat and drink.

Much more happens at a meal than satisfying hunger and quenching thirst. Around the table we become family, friends, community, yes, a body.

That is why it is so important to "set" the table. Flowers, candles, colorful napkins all help us to say to one another, "This is a very special time for us, let's enjoy it!"

--written by Henri Nouwen

You will notice I am truly slothful -- I did not leave the comfort of the hot tub. Yes, I am the one in the toque. I am very very practical. Soon I will have my own show.

Bono on Karma

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.

Bono: That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep shit. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.

Assayas: The Son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's a mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled… . It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

Assayas: That's a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it's close to lunacy, in my view. Christ has his rank among the world's great thinkers. But Son of God, isn't that farfetched?

Bono: No, it's not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn't allow you that. He doesn't let you off that hook. Christ says: No. I'm not saying I'm a teacher, don't call me teacher. I'm not saying I'm a prophet. I'm saying: "I'm the Messiah." I'm saying: "I am God incarnate." And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet, we can take. You're a bit eccentric. We've had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don't mention the "M" word! Because, you know, we're gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no. I know you're expecting me to come back with an army, and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he's gonna keep saying this. So what you're left with is: either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we're talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we've been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had "King of the Jews" on his head, and, as they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I'm not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me, that's farfetched …


Bono: … [I]f only we could be a bit more like Him, the world would be transformed. …When I look at the Cross of Christ, what I see up there is all my shit and everybody else's. So I ask myself a question a lot of people have asked: Who is this man? And was He who He said He was, or was He just a religious nut? And there it is, and that's the question. And no one can talk you into it or out of it.

From Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas, by Michka Assayas, copyright © 2005 by Michka Awwayas.

Somebody's Got To Do It....

Sometimes, miscommunication happens.

Even when you have the best of intentions.

When a whimsical youngest child (daughter)says to a literal oldest child (mother), "For once, I'd like a cake with my name on it", that's what I did.

I aim to please.

I try to get things right.

David tried to translate. He asked," did she mean -- 'Happy 17th birthday Kate'?"

"Nope", I said, she said a cake with her name on it.

And this was the resulting face. "I didn't just mean 'Kate' written on a cake. That's stupid."

"Oh", was my reaction.

Thankfully, when she attempted to continue the whine for more than the alloted 10 seconds, she had older siblings who set her straight.

"At least you got a cake', was what I think the middle children told her. "At least they remembered your birthday', was what the child born at Christmas reminded her.

"Isn't that what you asked for," our oldest child suggested, scratching her head, and trying hard to figure this out.

Ah, yes, birth order. Like guilt, it's the gift that keeps on giving.

If ants are such busy workers, how come they find time to go to all the picnics?
— Marie Dressler

If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.

— Maya Angelou

Something to chew on (aka Meditation).....

We prescribe for one another remedies that will bring us peace of mind, and we are still devoured by anxiety. We evolve plans for disarmament and for the peace of nations, and our plans only change the manner and method of aggression.

The rich have everything they want except happiness, and the poor are sacrificed to the unhappiness of the rich. Dictatorships use their secret police to crush millions under an intolerable burden of lies, injustice and tyranny, and those who still live in democracies have forgotten how to make good use of their liberty.

For liberty is a thing of the spirit, and we are no longer able to live for anything but our bodies. How can we find peace, true peace, if we forget that we are not machines for making and spending money, but spiritual beings, sons and daughters of the most high God?

- Thomas Merton (The Monastic Journey)

Something Interesting to Ponder....

Healing Our Memories
-- Henri Nouwen

Forgiving does not mean forgetting. When we forgive a person, the memory of the wound might stay with us for along time, even throughout our lives. Sometimes we carry the memory in our bodies as a visible sign. But forgiveness changes the way we remember. It converts the curse into a blessing.

When we forgive our parents for their divorce, our children for their lack of attention, our friends for their unfaithfulness in crisis, our doctors for their ill advice,we no longer have to experience ourselves as the victims of events we had no control over.

Forgiveness allows us to claim our own power and not let these events destroy us; it enables them to become events that deepen the wisdom of our hearts. Forgiveness indeed heals memories.

Quote of the day....

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.
— Martin H. Fischer

Quote of the Day

Always borrow money from a pessimist, he doesn't expect to be paid back.
— Anonymous

I've Been Tagged ....

.... by that wild and crazy Paul Wilkinson. I like games, so I'm in. Here's the senario:

So it's about a five hour to flight to Los Angeles, and you've been given a free upgrade to first class and find yourself sitting next to ________________.
Of the Christian leaders and writers you're aware of, who would be the ultimate conversation for a five hour flight?

Okay, I'll let you name up to three.

1. 
   Dr. Helen Roseveare
2. 
   Dr Ron Sider
3. 
   Dr Jean Vanier

I'm tagging Lesley, DanSheff, and Sherry.

Leave a comment with your answers. I'll let you decide if you want to tag somebody else.

Rev. King Is Selectively Remembered - January 20, 2007

This past Monday, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have turned 78. He has been dead as long as he was alive – 39 years – and the world and especially his country are still grappling uneasily with his memory and message.

As Seattle journalist Geov Parrish has noted, many often recall King's"I Have a Dream" speech from the 1963 March on Washington. But our memories of King are often selective.We don't always recall, for example, that his home was bombed, his chest pierced by a knife, his body beaten and repeatedly jailed, his face rendered a spittoon by white racists, his personal world invaded by theFBI, and his life, and that of his wife and four children, constantly menaced by death threats, at times up to 40 a day.

Though each year on his birthday, now an official U.S. holiday, we are reminded of his lofty rhetoric and successful desegregation campaign inthe U.S. South, we seem to forget about mainstream U.S. scorn for King during his lifetime, and his widely held sobriquet, "Commie dupe."

We often even forget that he was a Baptist minister, and that his Christian faith and black church community served as wellsprings of his activism. Yet our recollections become particularly dissipated when it comes to his powerful indictments of poverty, state-sanctioned violence, and unchecked U.S. militarism, especially in Vietnam.

One of King's most prescient and compelling speeches, in fact, is one of his least quoted – his April 1967 address to a meeting of Clergy andLaity Concerned about Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City. It was the first time King spoke out publicly against the war, and his outspokenness continued until he was silenced by a bullet in Memphis one year later.

King's diagnosis of our society that night remains as pertinent today asit did 40 years ago:"I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the worldrevolution,"

Rev. King intoned, "we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a`thing-oriented' society to a `person-oriented' society. When machinesand computers, profit motives and property rights are considered moreimportant than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, andmilitarism are incapable of being conquered."

Anticipating the Jubilee international debt relief campaigns of Canada,the U.S. and the U.K. (not to mention U2's Bono), King continued:"True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is nothaphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values willsoon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa andSouth America, only to take the profits out with no concern for thesocial betterment of the countries, and say: `This is not just.'"

In light of the Bush administration's failed and morally insupportable invasion of Iraq, and Bush's recent order to escalate U.S. troopcommitment there, King's words could have been uttered yesterday:"The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: `This way of settlingdifferences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane,of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled withwisdom, justice and love.'" A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defence than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

King's speech invites us to pause and reflect on what kind of future we want for our children and ourselves. Do we want a future marked by endless war? Do we want to live in a future increasingly divided into the desperately poor and insouciantly rich? King had a dream, and he asks us, across the years, to ponder what our own dream as a society might be. He also invites us to ensure that our collective dream is not a nightmare.

--- Stephen Scharper
The Star.com

Pearls of Wisdom... From My Momma

• Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
• If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.
• Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
• The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin'.
• Always drink upstream from the herd.
• Good judgment comes from experience, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.
• Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.
• If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.
• Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly. Leave the rest to God.

Quote of the Day.....

Good instincts usually tell you what to do long before your head has figured it out.
— Michael Burke

For Sale

We are downsizing. Purging. Simplifing.

Here is one thing that's gotta go.

Email for details.

Modesty is the gentle art of enhancing your charm by pretending not to be aware of it.
— Oliver Herford

When you are through changing, you are through.
— Bruce Barton

Quote of the Day

The most I can do for my friend is simply be his friend.
— Henry David Thoreauau

Quote of the Day.....

Daily Meditation for January 2, 2007
by Henri Nouwen

Joy and sorrow are never separated. When our hearts rejoice at a spectacular view, we may miss our friends who cannot see it, and when we are overwhelmed with grief, we may discover what true friendship is all about. Joy is hidden in sorrow and sorrow in joy. If we try to avoid sorrow at all costs, we may never taste joy, and if we are suspicious of ecstasy, agony can never reach us either. Joy and sorrow are the parents of our spiritual growth.