This is Marci's World

you've got to crush the grape to get the wine

2012-02-10T07:58:00.000-08:00

No, we aren't tending a vineyard.
But we have been crushed. Ground. Shattered. Demolished. Decimated.
The business is falling apart.
Pride is being exposed.
Sin is laughing in our faces.

There is nowhere to go but to God.
He is there.
He has always been there.
He is forgiving.
He is healing.
He is picking up the pieces.
He is making all things new.
We are not standing yet but we are not down and out.
We have been humbled and hope to stay there - standing tall - under His grace.
"A bruised reed He will not break And a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice." Isaiah 42:3

coming back

2012-02-01T12:12:00.000-08:00

I can't believe it has been since August that I've written here. A lot has happened, a lot learned. I'm not good at talking about things; I guess that's why I turned to this medium so I wonder what it means that I haven't even written for a long time. Am I pent up? Not engaged? Tired? Frightened by what's inside? Hmmm.
My youngest child started her last semester in college in Sept. As traumatic and exciting as it was for her, it was bittersweet for me. Coming to that point in life - the threshold of no more children in college - is a jolt. I don't feel old enough for that to be reality. Yet it is thrilling to watch my youngest finding her way in life, working through difficult issues, managing work, classes, people, growing up - and doing it quite well. Her siblings are doing well, why wouldn't she!!
For me, this stage of life - watching children become adults - is about learning a new way of relating to them, talking with them. I was going to say - talking TO them but that is how parents often relate to children - talking TO them. Maybe that should change, too. Anyway, I'm making my mistakes along the way but she is forgiving and we go on.

let go; hope

2011-08-27T22:03:00.000-07:00

Today, my house was the site for a baby sower for my friend, Christy. Her baby is due in a month. These are exciting days for an expectant mother. There is a bedroom to prepare, clothing and diapers to buy, birth and after-birth knowledge to acquire, showers to attend.... and on it goes.
I was asked to present some thoughts. I had several months to prepare something original but I kept coming back to what my Grandma Amy told me so many times. Let go of expectations; let go of my children; hope in God. So that's what I said.
It was good for me to remember these things - they are valuable no matter what time of life it is. This must have been the secret to Grandma's contentment.

harry potter

2011-08-20T22:00:00.000-07:00

I finished the series today and saw the last of the movies tonight. I liked finishing each book and watching the corresponding movie that night with Lydia. There is much to discuss in each book. The movies, sadly, had to leave out so much.
There are two themes about which I'm thinking. One is the exploration of power vs. authority; the other is redemption.

why all the angst

2011-08-17T13:18:00.001-07:00

My delay in booking a ticket to go to Chicago in mid-July resulted in having to go the following week as the ticket price had tripled! I arrived the following Thursday Gracie and I worked all Friday morning going through Mom's things - choosing some for storage, some for giving to others, some for the "circular storage bin". It was really hard to look at letters, mementos kept 60 years which seemed insignificant to us, useless or unwanted - yet hard to toss. These were things that have mattered to her over the years. How could we be so cavalier to toss them! We spent a long time lingering over some of the decisions.
Later that afternoon, we sat in the front lounge with mom, Dad and Alberto. It was a busy day; people coming and going through the front doors. We were singing and laughing and visiting. I suggested we move to the rehab lounge which would have been quieter and more private. No, Mom wanted to stay there.
Not much later, an old lady, soaking wet from the heat and humidity of the day, struggled through the front door, banging her walker in her efforts to get in and over to the front desk. We heard her tell Madre, "I'm so confused. I'm lost and don't know how to get home." Madre asked her where she lived. Gracie heard - it was not far from where she lives - over an hour away in the afternoon traffic, not accessible by freeways.
Madrew led her to sit with us and called for nurses to come take her blood pressure and listen to her heart as well as bring juice and food. Poor Helen had been to the Dr. an hour from where we were sitting - about 2 hours from her home - and had had to fast 36 hours for some tests. Now, hungry, dehydrated and lost some 40 hours later, she sat with us in tears.
Gracie and I looked at each other. We knew we had to take her home. Over her protestations and armed with a map from Madre, Gracie drove Helen's car and I followed. The story unfolding in the car in front of me began in Latvia 88 years ago. WWII came and the Germans rescued Helen's family from the Russians. Helen landed in W. Germany where she became a Dr., married and had two sons. Her husband died early. Once her sons became adults, they came to the states and she followed some years later. She was churched as a child but after marriage, never went back.
Helen tried to pay Gracie for our troubles. Gracie refused. When Helen asked why we would do this for her, a stranger, Gracie had the opportunity to tell her that we wanted her to feel the love of Jesus through us but even more, to know the love of Jesus for herself in her own life. Helen's tears came but there was no more response.
On the way home, Gracie told me all about Helen's life and the conversation that ensued. Phone numbers were exchanged and Gracie said she would call Helen for her birthday (they are going out this week!).
As we talked, Gracie and I realized that if I had gone the Thursday I had originally planned, we wouldn't have been sitting in the lounge that afternoon. And if we had moved to the other lounge, we wouldn't have been sitting in the lounge that afternoon. We thanked God that He was leading us in these seemingly inconsequential decisions.
Gracie's husband, David, joined us for dinner with Mom and Dad. David and Gracie planned to stay in Mom's apartment in the midst of all the stuff we still had to organize. A roll-away bed was being delivered. I asked them to come with me to the home in which I was staying. Gracie has stayed there before; it is very lovely and comfortable. She and David thought on it but in the end, opted for the apartment. As they were falling asleep, there was a pounding on the wall and a feeble voice calling, "Is anybody there?" Twice this happened. Concerned, Gracie ran down the hall to get a nurse, thinking that the neighbor had heard talking in what should be an empty apartment. The nurse found that the man had fallen and couldn't get up. Again, what seemed to be an inconsequential decision to stay in the apartment that night turned out to have great consequences for the old man.
Application?
Trying to put together the Latin schedule the past two weeks has been difficult at best. Some families, back out, others don't answer emails, others change days and times repeatedly. How should I apply what I learned in Chicago? God is ironing out a perfect schedule for me and for my students. He is choosing with whom each student should study. It is like watching him play a board game!! So I can sit back and watch what He is doing and when the dust settles, I'll have His answer for me. I hope I carry this lesson into the more difficult situation that are bound to come.
Thank you Lord, for graciously teaching me what I need to know.

pointing forward

2011-08-11T20:15:00.000-07:00

I am in a group of ladies who are reading through the Bible in a year by theme. Currently, we are reading books on the theme of law and grace. Today I read in Leviticus. The amount of sacrifices, the blood, the meat and organs..... WOW!!

What I saw as I read that I haven't seen before (isn't the Bible always fresh!!) is the amount of participation on the part of the person supplying the sacrifice. There are options of what to bring for the sacrifice. They lean on the sacrifice, they eat it. This seems to be the stuff of priesthood yet here is Joe Blow doing it!

This early instruction points toward the later sacrifice of Jesus. He is the sacrifice, the priest, He brings himself; He is a wave offering, a heave offering; He is consumed.

I'm glad we live this side of the law but grateful that God has always provided a way for us to be made acceptable to Himself.

a call to arms

2011-07-25T23:17:00.001-07:00

It was a joy and privilege to watch Julian dream - working his eyes, mouth, nose - whole body - while he slept!

things we spend

2011-07-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

Time and money.
We spend both of these.
But only the money we spend can be earned back; the things we buy can be returned.
Time, once spent, is gone.

a monumental day

2011-06-29T00:08:00.000-07:00

I became a grandmother at 8:11 a.m. for the first time!!
I became a doula at 6:15 p.m.
I am posting my 100th post.

we are His workmanship - in love

2011-06-22T09:54:00.000-07:00

"We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the "intolerable compliment'. Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life - the work which he loves, though in a different fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child - he will take endless trouble - and would, doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and re-commenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumb-mail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed for us a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less."

C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

reflecting on a Job well done

2011-06-03T13:04:00.000-07:00

"Job never receives an explanation for his suffering. Job loses his family, his material prosperity and his health, yet God never tells him that he was being tested by the Satan, nor is the reader told why God even wants Job to endure such testing. For much of the book, Job is left without any tangible response from God. When God does show up, He essentially tells Job that he does not understand, but He is good and sovereign. God answers not by changing Job’s situation right away, but by showing Job that he has not been abandoned.
In the end, Job does receive a double portion of blessing, his health is restored and he has more children. Yet, even though this story has a "good ending" of sorts because Job is blessed for keeping his integrity by refusing to curse God, it leaves the reader unsettled. Job does not receive his children back. Job is never given an answer from God except an, "I know what I’m doing, trust Me," so to speak.
The book of Job emphasizes that man cannot understand God’s purposes and calls man to trust that God knows what He is doing and will bless those who take refuge in Him. In essence, there is no purpose to questioning God. God is good and God is in control."
Read the whole essay here - it includes commentary on Till We Have Faces.

why it's called a blog

2011-05-16T11:03:00.000-07:00

I wonder if it is because it has the word "blaaaahhhh" in it. So when you are feeling that way, you can work it out through writing about it..........
I remember the saying,"Not only do our beliefs change our behaviour, but also our behaviour changes our beliefs."

I'm struggling with polarically opposite feelings about something that happened to me and I can't quite seem to sort them out.

Maybe I don't have to. Maybe the answer is to say - it happened, God caused it and He will somehow weave this into beauty in and for me (and perhaps for others) and that is enough for me to know.
The feelings are real but shouldn't be the focus of my thoughts. Perhaps that is where He wants me to come to rest. So in my ongoing quest to accept the sovereignty of God in my life and find grace and peace there for whatever He sends my way, perhaps feelings are overrated in priority. They must submit themselves to truth - and the truth is - God loves me and does all things for my good.

So blaaaaaahhhh just turned to blog.
Thinking better; feeling better.
First things first!

(see myself at http://thisismarcisworld.blogspot.com/2010/09/darkenss.html)

learning to love.....

2011-04-30T23:06:00.000-07:00

My mother taught me everything beginning with how to love. She taught me that by loving me.

She has loved me for 56 years. She worked on my behalf, for my children and now for my first grandchild - her 10th great-grandchild. Her love for her 25 offspring is boundless. Even in her latters years, when she is tired and weakening, she works on our behalf - because she loves us.

And we love her back.

an antenna went to a wedding

2011-03-30T13:31:00.000-07:00

Yup!
An antenna went to a wedding.
The ceremony was lousy...........

but the reception was great!!!!

hands

2011-03-17T09:56:00.001-07:00

A woman does so many things with her hands.
A mother does a few more: caresses her husband, cares for her children, cooks, cleans, cultivates, comforts, creates. (I promise, I didn't try to alliterate.)
My mother has "the Johnson hands". So do I. So does Lydia.
There are times when we have wished for longer fingers - octaves seem bigger to us; rings look nicer on long fingers. But God gave us "Johnson hands" and I think we are all at peace with that now. Perhaps even proud.
So when I posted a crumby picture of my mother kneading bread, my friend, Sarah, who hasn't taken a crumby picture in - well - forever, asked to do a similar photo shoot.

My mother's hands have aged. They have spots and wrinkles. They aren't as strong as they used to be. But during her visit here, I've seen her hands working to lighten my load, make a baby blanket, cook and chop and knead. Her hands still do what they have always done - extend love in various creative ways.

Our "Johnson hands" work as well as all other hands of grander proportion and physical beauty. The real beauty is in what our hands do. And these are precious, beautiful hands.

stay thirsty, my friends

2011-01-31T09:55:00.000-08:00

"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellar full of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred proof grace–bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us singlehandedly. The word of the Gospel–after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps–suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home free before they started…Grace was to be drunk neat: no water, no ice, and certainly no ginger ale…"

- Robert Farrar Capon - The Ragamuffin Gospel
via Andy Jones

humble pie was the key

2011-01-28T23:32:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, I was sitting in my pew, minding my own business. Things have been going well. Our children seem to be in good places in their lives - learning through struggles, enjoying successes. Larry and I are fine. Things have been humming along.
One of the pastors approached me about 20 minutes before church was to start and said the organist would not be there that morning and could I play piano for church. Just that morning, as I was driving in to Sunday School, I had thought to myself how I haven't played the piano at home in over a year and that I should really dust off both it - and myself!! God seemed to be saying that the time to start was right then!!
I quickly practiced in another room. Things didn't sound too good but the clock ticked right to the last moment. Time to go!!
As I sat up there, a bit nervous, a bit trembly, I realized - once again - that God owns me. He was doing just what He wanted to do with me. He wanted to humble me. He would use my complete weakness and total imperfection to humble me. The morning progressed better than the practice session earlier that morning but my playing was far from perfect, far from good, maybe just OK. But somewhere during the acapella of the first hymn, I asked God to take my hands and make them His to do whatever He wanted. More than that, I asked Him to take my attitude and make it His, as well. No one likes to be embarassed. The potential for that was high on the embarass-o-meter. I chose to score high on the willing-o-meter that day.
I'd like to say I played better after my change of heart. I didn't. But I did manage to calm down. I managed to stop shaking. I managed to sing several of the verses. I managed to let God do whatever he wanted to do with my hands. He let them play, He let me be humbled, He let me enjoy the morning.
It's easier to see God when things are out of my control, and out of control things were!! And so, I saw God work in me Sunday morning.

end of the year

2010-12-07T15:38:00.000-08:00

It is the end of the year and I am feeling a bit reflective.
I recently returned home, having been in Chicago for a few days; this time to finish helping move Mom into assisted living.
I sense she is rather reflective these days, thinking about all the changes she has experienced in the past several years. She and Dad sold their house and bought a condo which they loved. Within a few years, they sold that and moved to Covenant Village, the graduated care facility in Northbrook where they now live. Dad moved to the secured Alzheimer's unit in March; we just moved Mom to assisted living December 2. The loss of independence has caused her to feel unsettled, displaced, confused, uncertain. One can hardly blame her! She thinks back to days not long ago when she could roll over to see Dad there next to her in bed; they companionably watched TV together at night; ate breakfast together. Now they live those intimate moments alone. And she thinks about it.
So do I.

What I think about is all the wonderful years they have loved each other. I am particularly aware of it when I visit and see Dad struggle to stand when Mom slowly walks down the hall toward him. She arrives to greet him and he wraps her in a hug and beams at her, tears occassionally coming to his eyes. He tells her he loves her. He tells her how beautiful she is.
He usually knows who she is but there are times when he confuses her with his mother or his beloved first wife who died long years ago. But he knows one thing for sure; he loves this woman mightily.
When I see this scene, I reflect on how their love is alive at a mitochondrial level. No function or malfunction of his mind has touched his love for her.
As for Mom? She rarely misses a moment to sit with him. Each day, all day, she is there with him. She doesn't always understand him when he tries to talk. His eyes are not always open. He has no news to share with her, no idea to add to the conversation. But she loves him as he loves her. Just being together is enough now.

So I reflect on these things at the end of this year of great change. I think about how I have been privileged to see that love when it was much younger and exuberant. I think about how I have been "programmed" to want their kind of love. I think about how blessed I am to get glimpses of a deep, abiding, secure, faithful, mature love near the end of its days.
And I am thankful.

spic 'n span

2010-11-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

I've been gone for 2 1/2 weeks visiting family. Larry was with me for one of those weeks. It was grand to get away with him, see Rachael and Andrew, Larry's dad and my parents and friends. He left after a visit with my parents; I stayed on for another week and a half.
When I came home, the house was spotless. It's always like this when I've come home from a trip. He works full-time but manages to have the place sparkling, laundry done, yard mowed, new sheets on the bed.... How does that happen!
I clean one room a day and it doesn't ever seem to be enough. I think I need to kick it up a notch and be more like Larry.

darkness

2010-09-21T13:41:00.000-07:00

"Why are the dark places holy?" Orual, Till We Have Faces; C.S. Lewis

"Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on His name. But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment." Isaiah 50:10,11
"Then Solomon said, "The LORD has said that He would dwell in a dark cloud" 2 Chronicles 6:1
"The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was." Exodus 20:21
"Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee; but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee." Psalm 139:12
Indeed, darkness and light are no different to God - the difference is ours to experience.
While it is true that "This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all" I Jn. 5:1, God is in the darkness as we experience it in our lives. He is not ONLY in the light but He is also in the darkness; sometimes He calls us THERE and not into light - for a while. He IS our light in the darkness which, I think, is why we are warned not to light a fire or torch. Our own answers are not THE answer.
So if you are in the darkness now, if the path to follow is suddenly obscured from view for you or those you love, perhaps you are right where God wants you. At the very least, He is where you are. He meets you there. He sits with you there.
"Are you answered?" asked the gods of Orual. "Yes. You yourself are the answer." Orual discovered that the questions and the darkness melt away in the presence of God. She found Light when she finally admitted she could do nothing about the darkness of her soul.
God brings us to the light who is the Light of the world. God gives us Jesus in our darkness.

dust

2010-09-08T13:12:00.000-07:00

I re-read my post about being dust and remembered a family story that always makes us laugh.

At another church we used to attend, there was a dear elder who would occassionally lead in worship and prayers. He is expressive in his everyday and prayer language. One morning, he was waxing quite eloquently on the fact that "we are but dust" (Ps. 103:14)....but his emPHAsis was on the wrong word... and we heard....we are butt dust.
Not just once, but several times over the course of the next few months, he said the same thing!! He had obviously been meditating on our totally fallible and frail human nature. We, however, were tense with anticipation and (dare I say it....glee!!) as he mounted the pulpit.
Our final week there, I thanked him for his work on behalf of the church family and expressed my personal gratitude for the hours of study he put into his Sunday School lessons and meetings at church.... and I told him of our dilemma when he would pray! I left him laughing hysterically at himself, delighted and mortified at the same time that such a thing had happened!!
We all felt the same way!! Still do!!

to err is human; to forgive is... nearly impossible

2010-09-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

I was reading another blog this morning. It was about how hard it is to apologize. So true. To admit I am wrong is against my human nature. I want to be right. I want others to know I am right!
Then I remembered a study done on forgiveness. I posted this in response to the other blog:
I think forgiving is much harder than apologizing. Forgiving is releasing the offender from the load they carry for the wrong done and taking it on myself. It is caring for the person who offended me. There is almost never a way to make the situation better once an offense has occurred. Only forgiveness does that. And the wounded one bears the load.

That is why the cross is so wonderful. I can't carry the load I just took PLUS the wound the offense gave me. I MUST take it to the cross where I am forced to remember that Jesus took ALL my sins/offenses and died for my freedom from judgment, guilt and shame.
Forgiveness is harder than an apology - but true forgiveness refreshes my perspective on who I am in Christ.
And so, an apology must be made with the awareness of what it is one is really asking the other person to do for you - take your offense for you.

my back is back

2010-09-08T10:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes living daily life is dangerous. Was it the vacuuming that did it? Was it reaching for that weed behind the flowers? Was it struggling with the flax leaf that wouldn't come loose?
What ever it was, a disk slipped and a nerve got pinched and I went down in pain.
We are fragile creatures, taken down by little things.
It is humbling to be human - both words finding their root in the Latin word for earth. And so I am reminded that I am dust - dust that is, nevertheless, headed for heaven. In this earthen vessel lives an eternal indestructable spirit!! Even this dust will be made new and everlasting.
Being down these last 5 days has given me plenty of time to reflect on the curious reality of holding eternity in a temporary,fragile, earthen vessel.

veils

2010-08-25T11:25:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago, I went to my son's dealership for the unveiling of the new Jaguar. It was quite dramatic; the lights were dimmed, exciting music was beating to match the heartbeat of car afficianados, the turntable on which the car, veiled from our eyes, began to turn. Slowly, slowly the lighting over the car began to brighten and the satiny covering was slowly lifted. The music exploded, the lights came up to full brilliance and cheers erupted as the new car appeared. It was drama played out in the showroom.
And not so long ago, a lovely veiled bride, who is my daughter, walked down the aisle to be unveiled by her husband.
The veil represented the separation between them. She could not be fully known until she was unveiled. That moment when the groom lifts the veil and kisses his bride
is always the high point of the drama of any good wedding, and so it was that day.

Veils represent separation, secrets, hiding. The veil I want to contemplate is a bit different. It has a sinister quality to it, perhaps even ill-intent.
In Lewis' book Till We Have Faces the veil is an ever-present character. Orual covers herself, believing that the veil will give her the power which her ugliness seemed to keep at bay. She also feels the need to protect her people from her ugliness.
It is this protecting people from herself that I find interesting. God veiled Himself until Jesus was born. He hid Himself from Moses. Though Moses said that he saw God, what he saw was a manifestiation of God in the burning bush and the backside of God as he was hidden on the mountainside: "'But,'He said, 'you cannot see My face, for no one may see Me and live.' Then the LORD said, 'There is a place near Me where you may stand on a rock. When My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. Then I will remove My hand and you will see My back; but My face must not be seen.'" Gen 33:22,23 Manoa, Gideon and Jacob declared that they, too, had seen God. Is there a contradiction if God says no one has seen His face but these men say they saw God!!
No! Have you ever heard anyone say, "I can see where this is going to lead us in the future."? Surely, this person is not clairvoyant!! What about "I see your father's face in your face." Or passing by a house that is designed by a student of the great architect, I have said, "I can see Frank Lloyd Wright in that." None of these is literally true. We see representations of the reality. But the reality is very clearly "seen" in the represetation.
God "veiled" Himself in representation. But these are not the only examples of where He was veiled.
The Jerusalem temple, a replica of the wilderness tabernacle, had a curtain that was about 60 feet in height, 30 feet in width and four inches thick. Whether or not these are the same dimensions of the Tabernacle, the idea was one of separation, protection for man from a Holy God who could not look on evil and sinful man who could not look on Holy God. The priests, Holy of Holies and the Tabernacle itself, for that matter, were representations of God.
Am I saying that God was not present in the representation. I don't think so. I'm not going to be dogmatic here. I'll leave that to pastors and better students than I. I could go either way. Nevertheless, I see no contracidtion in what God said and what these men said.
That was a rabbit trail.
Where does that leave us with Orual and God?
Orual unveiled herself. She was finally honest. She faced herself - pardon the pun. She was no longer a representation of herself as Ungit, her father (see other Till We Have Faces entries) but her real self - Orual. The unveiling - which was something the gods did TO her - led to salvation. (Interesting implications there for God's sovereignty in salvation.)
So too, did God's unveiling in Jesus lead to the final revelation of God's salvation plan. "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." God's plan was unveiled on the cross. The Tabernacle and the Law were part of the veil of God which, while not thrown away or invalidated at Jesus's unveiling, nevertheless were subsumed in His unveiling. The curtain, torn from Heaven to earth was God's final act of unveiling; once forbidden to enter, we are now invited into the Holy of Holies and to gaze on Him.
Psyche showed Orual what living faith would look like. Psyche was radiant when Orual visited her across the river. Psyche lived an unveiled life. It looked very different from Orual's in nature and quality. It was an untortured, hopeful life where she was free to long for her true home and the true Lover of her soul.
Jesus, in His new body, shows us what we shall be. That veil too, was torn away for us and we get a glimpse of what will be ours. No longer protected from God, we get to fully participate in the life of His Son and to know God the Father. Jesus is our Elder Brother. We are family with Him.
Let's hear it for the intentional unveiling of ourselves!
"Face" yourself before God. See yourself as you are. Then, if you are in Jesus, see yourself as God sees you. See God. See your future, unveiled in the Risen Jesus.

together again

2010-08-18T06:56:00.000-07:00

The dynamic duo will be reunited this afternoon.
Lydia left for Ohio to spend 5 days with Rachael and Andrew. Well, mostly Rachael, if I am to be accurate!! Mornings at Starbucks with the crossword puzzle from the newspaper. Laughing and talking wherever they are. This will be wonderfully refreshing for both of them.
Thank you, Larry, for doing this for them.
Thank you, God, for letting me know them.

it's like looking at my face in a mirror

2010-08-11T07:07:00.000-07:00

In one more month, I will be leading another group of friends in a discussion of C.S. Lewis' powerful story "Till We Have Faces". I have said it before - aside from the Bible, it is my favorite story.
Orual is perhaps the most complex character crafted by an author. Her self deception, self transformation, self destruction are disturbing to read. I often feel like shouting at her!

The other day I was reading the part where she sees Psyche's new home, the mansion on the forbidden side of the mountain. She sees it, and denies she sees it. Right in front of her yet not there!!! It makes me want to slap the snot out of her. (My college roommate used to say that to me!!)
Then I remembered that Orual represents me in the story. God puts Himself in my path all day, every day. I don't/won't see Him!!
Lewis has slapped me.
I am snotless.

if it isn't one thing, it's the same thing

2010-08-11T06:52:00.001-07:00

So if there isn't enough to keep one's mind occupied, now I have to worry about the pH of my body.
A new friend and I were talking about this. She tests herself every morning and maintains a healthy pH. I was sent home with a roll of pH paper and challenged to test myself.
I have work to do!! 'Nuf said.

David needed a shepherd

2010-08-08T18:04:00.000-07:00

The Lord is my Shepherd. So David wrote.

He would know what that meant. Being a shepherd himself he would know what it meant to call the Lord his Shepherd.

Sheep are needy creatures. They fall down and don't know how to get up. They charge each other and butt heads and deliver wounds in the head because their wool causes them to sort of stick rather than graze off each other. They foolishly follow each other - not always to good and safe places. If they wander off, they can't find their way back to the herd. No wonder the shepherd needed to help those who were cast down and couldn't get up; anoint heads with oil so the butting heads wouldn't cause injury but rather slide off each other; stay close to the sheep to keep wandering off to a minimum; leave the sheep to search for the one who got lost.

They are quite helpless creatures. David knew this.

So to compare himself to a sheep was quite profound. To call God his Shepherd was quite lovely. David once wrote, “Yet I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.” We all need guidance. We all need direction. We all need help, in this life. It is a good thing to recognize one’s neediness, for this realization puts one in position to be guided, directed, and helped. Only the needy know they need a shepherd. Only those who realize their need for guidance can be guided.

Falling down, wounding myself and others, getting lost. Sounds like things I do. I, too, need this Shepherd. And He is mine!!!

How Shall We Then Live?

2010-08-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

Having to miss church this morning due to ongoing strep throat, I was listening to a sermon on the radio. The preacher was talking about "How Shall We Then Live" - spinning off of Francis Shaeffer's book of the same title. One of his points had to do with redemption. These are my musings from the sermon point.

I can't read or listen to someone who is articulate without thinking about the words being used. (There is a difference to me between words used and words said - I think words are often tools and not merely said but used.) And being a Latin teacher, I hear derivatives and think about root words.
Redemption.
It's root word is emo, emere, emi, emptus - to buy. With the prefix stuck on it - we understand redemo... to mean: to buy back; to recover. These are two of the dictionary definitions of the word redeem. So what!!
To buy back from what? Recover what?

Well, if redemption in the biblical sense has to do with the payment of the blood of Jesus which He made to God with for our salvation, forgiveness, ownership, putting us in sonship with God, then our redemption means we are made perfect in God's sight. He sees us as he sees Jesus.
Are we then back to the condition of Adam? Was he perfect?
I don't think so. Perfect is another Latin derivative. It comes from two words which together mean thoroughly done, thoroughly complete. Adam was not thoroughly done. He had to pass the test, resist temptation. He didn't; He was never perfect. He was created sinless but not perfect.
No.
We are better off than Adam was. If God sees us as He sees Jesus, we are perfect. We are not sinless but we are perfect. In Adam, we failed. But now that we are in Jesus, hidden in Him, we pass!! We pass the test because we are in Him! There is nothing left to be done to be in relationship with God. As Jesus is in relationship with God, we are in relationship with God. God bought us back from Adam's condition. We had once been - in Adam - sinless. That wasn't enough for God. He wanted for us the perfection of Chris. We tdo it - Adam couldn't do it. And so, through Christ's blood sacrifice, we were bought back to God, beyond sinless, all the way to perfect. Profound.
We are not sinless but we are perfect. We are redeemed.
The question then is: How shall we then live?

lost right in front of us - but oh! so found

2010-07-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

Dad's Alzheimers is overtaking what is really precious now.
His little blondie, Gracie, seems to be lost to him.
"Where did you grow up?" he asked her the other day.

"Dad, I'm your blondie, Gracie. I grew up in your house with you. I'm your daughter."
"No one told me that!"
He's so lost in another world, yet there sits that once wonderfully active, strong and handsome body.
He's pretty much gone.
Why does God leave him here?
What is left to us?
Whenever Gracie reads Scripture in the garden or gets out the old church hymnal to sing or asks Dad to pray, Dad is unnervingly in the moment. He is coherent, accurate, quotes Scripture, full of praise, aware of family names and needs.
Why does God leave him here with us?

So that we can see God in all His glory in this disease-ravaged, imperfect and broken vessel we still lovingly call "Dad".
A few weeks ago - maybe even as recently as this morning, to be honest - I would have said that Dad wouldn't want to live like this - in a nursing home, unable to go where he wants to go, be home with his dear wife of 56 years, drive his car, watch TV in his own family room, feed the birds, take a walk. But he is living how he has always lived - giving praise to His dear Savior.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-19

here and now

2010-07-22T08:57:00.001-07:00

I read this in a blog this morning and want to remember it.

Do you realise that the only time in our lives when we like to get old is when we're kids?
If you're less than 10 years old, you're so excited about ageing that you think in fractions.
'How old are you?' 'I'm four and a half!' You're never thirty-six and a half.
You're four and a half, going on five! That's the key.
You get into your teens, now they can't hold you back. You jump to the next number, or even a few ahead.
'How old are you?'
'I'm gonna be 16!' You could be 13,
but hey, you're gonna be 16!
And then the greatest day of your life ...... .
You become 21.
Even the words sound like a ceremony.
You become 21.....YES!
But then you turn 30. Oooohh,
what happened there?
Makes you sound like bad milk!
He TURNED; we had to throw him out.
Then you're PUSHING 40.... Whoa!
Put on the brakes,
it's all slipping away.
Before you know it, you REACH 50 and your dreams are gone
But wait!!!
You MAKE it to 60.
You didn't think you would!
You've built up so much speed that you HIT 70!
Crash!
After that it's a day-by-day thing.

You get into your 80's and every day is a complete cycle.
And it doesn't end there.
Before you know it, you are into the 90s, you start going backwards;
'I Was JUST 92.'
Then a strange thing happens.
If you make it over 100, you become a little kid again. 'I'm 100 and a half!' May you all make it to a healthy 100 and a half!!

Some things to remember - no matter how old you are:
1. Throw out nonessential numbers.
This includes age, weight and height. Let the doctors worry about them. That is why you pay 'them'
2. Keep only cheerful friends.
The grouches pull you down.
3. Keep learning.
Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever... Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.' And the devil's name is Alzheimer's.
4. Enjoy the simple things.
5. Laugh often, long and loud.
Laugh until you gasp for breath.
6. Tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on.
The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
7. Surround yourself with what you love.
That means family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.
8.Cherish your health:
If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
9. Don't take guilt trips.
Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is. And don't travel alone if you can help it.
10. Tell the people that you love them, at every opportunity.
AND ALWAYS REMEMBER : Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

moving out

2010-07-20T08:40:00.000-07:00

Lydia is not a little girl anymore.
Lydia is moving out.
She is beginning to pack for the big move next week to a house she will share with 6 others near school.
I wonder what she will take with her - will she take pictures of her friends and family? Will she take all those pillows that "box" her in as she sleeps? Will she take her trophies from shooting? And which books will she pack - surely not just school books but some Shakespeare and Williams and other literature she loves!
Will she take any of those really hot shoes in all the colors of the rainbow?
What says "home" to her? Not this home. Her home. How will she make her "home"?
Lydia is grown up and moving out. I've been watching. I saw it happen. I like what I've been seeing.
And I'll keep watching and enjoying what I see!

things I'll....

2010-07-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

I was thinking of some new things I could do but then got to thinking about:
Things I'll never do again.
I'll never give birth again.
Live at home with my children again.
I'll never climb Mt. Fuji again.

And then there are:
Things I have yet to do.
Take my daughters to Japan.
Get in a car with Larry and drive for a few weeks with no plan of where we will end up.
Be a grandmother.
Bury my parents...
Get a Master's Degree.
Make a roast that turns out well.
Go to Europe.
Throw clay on a wheel.
Start a business.
Plan one more wedding.
Read all of C.S. Lewis

Here are things I cannot quit doing:
Loving my family and friends.
Anticipting Sunday morning worship.
Laundry.
Worrying about my kiddos. (not exactly worry but, you know...)
Making dinner every night.
Working on my weight.
Reading.
Meeting new people.

Looking over the lists, I realized I am OK with the things that will never be again; I'm excited about the things that have not yet come to pass; I'm resigned to and even enjoy some of the things that will always be.

All in all, I'd say things are looking up!!

who is important

2010-04-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

Is the title a question or a statement?

Important.
An interesting word.
It comes from a cognate of the Latin word porto - to carry; to be of consequence. Importans then would mean carrying in; being of consequence.
So someone or something that is important has consequence.
I wonder if we have given a bit more meaning to the word, however. We say there are importnat people in our lives. That would mean that, in contrast, there would be unimportant people. There are important events and unimportant events. Can that really be true?

Have you ever witnessed someone who was helpless be treated in an ill manner by others? Have you seen an elderly person ignored or not given preference somewhere?
Did a cashier roll his eyes to us about a foreigner or an elderly person in line who was hard to understand taking a bit too long to manage the debit card machine?
Did we turn away?
Did we roll our eyes back. Did we huff and shift our weight with impatience?
Did we laugh inside?
Because the person was unimportant?
Of no consequence?

Do we search out only the important people for conversation at a party or at church?
Do we answer the emails only from the important people?
Do we entertain only those whom we wish to impress, those who can benefit us?

Did Jesus hang out only with the important people?
Did He engage in conversation only those with whom everyone else was impressed?
Did He desire change, happiness, love only for the ones who would benefit him?
Did Jesus choose to save only the "important" people in the world?

Do we get to choose who is important, who is of consequence and who isn't?

Rather, Jesus held and taught the children, engaged the harlot in conversation, healed the paralytic and the leprous and the blind, called to himself the doubters and the unwieldy. Shall we do less?

It may be that the child to whom we stop and listen will open our eyes to something God wants us to see.
It may be that the older person with whom we stop to speak and to whom we listen will share a gem of life, a reminder of God's faithfulness. That foreigner should remind us that we, too, are foreigners yet residents here and that we, too, are awkward at times in that already/not yet-ness of living here on this earth which we will someday reign and rule.
The mentally and physically challenged among us show forth God's grace and wonder that ministers in mysterious ways to minds and bodies in ways we don't understand - but we may get a glimpse if we see them as important to God as we are.

It just may be that these are the very people God puts in our way. They have a very specific purpose for us.
Have you ever moderated your normal behavior, having given thought to the cashier's behavior, then deciding to assist the one struggling rather than be smug; perhaps you interupted your cup of coffee your reading material to visit with the lonely old lady next to you; looking the little child eye to eye at church, has that child felt safe enough to tell you something and as a result, taken you in as a friend?
You changed as you "made yourself of no reputation".

"...Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me....."

has this ever happened to you?

2010-04-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been telling a story to someone, been in the middle of a conversation with a group of friends, and right in the middle of what you are saying, you realize you are rambling? Going on and on. Going nowhere. Did you realize how mind- numbingly boring you were? Did you realize you were boring yourself? Why did I even start this story? Why am I exposing myself so much?

Have you ever noticed the eyes of the person/people to whom you are talking looking over your shoulder to someone with whom your audience would rather be? Or perhaps they were looking at nothing - and they would have rather been there!! Their eyes are darting around the room to find some way out, someone who would read their distress and come over and save them.

But you can't stop talking because that would be more awkward than just finishing this awful story, worse than standing there completely emotionally naked. You drop out hordes of details just to mercifully get to the end, realizing that it doesn't have to be cohesive because no one - not even you - is listening anymore.

And when you are done and the person/people quickly escape, do you commit to yourself on pain of death itself to join a social hermitage? Do you commit yourself to being insanely interested in whatever anyone else is saying so that you never have to talk again, never have to risk again, never have to expose yourself again, never have to humiliate yourself again!!
No?!
I didn't think so.
But there I go again.
Being boring.
Forget I said anything.
Please.

Love's as...

2010-03-31T00:24:00.000-07:00

LOVE'S AS WARM AS TEARS by C. S. Lewis

Love's as warm as tears,

Love is tears:

Pressure within the brain,

Tension at the throat,

Deluge, weeks of rain,

Haystacks afloat,

Featureless seas between

Hedges, where once was green

Love's as fierce as fire,  

Love is fire:

All sorts--Infernal heat

Clinkered with greed and pride,  

Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,

Laughing, even when denied,  

And that empyreal flame  

Whence all loves came.  

Love's as fresh as spring,

Love is spring:

Bird-song in the air,

Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering "Dare! Dare!"
To sap, to blood,
Telling "Ease, safety, rest,

Are good; not best."

Love's as hard as nails,
Love is nails:  

Blunt, thick, hammered through  

The medial nerves of One  
Who, having made us, knew  
The thing He had done,
Seeing (what all that is)
Our cross, and His.  

godly wastefulness

2010-03-27T10:55:00.000-07:00

Last week's sermon was, "Lent is about wastefulness."
That got everyone's attention. It was an encouraging sermon about enjoying God in lavish, even wasteful ways as Mary did when she poured out $15,000 worth of oil on Jesus' feet. Judas pointed out, as we might have done, that it could have been given to the poor. Rather than agree with Judas, Jesus commended Mary.
This lovely sunny, breezy SoCal Saturday morning, I sat down to read a bit. I pulled "Angels in the Architecture" off my shelf and opened to the chapter "Worshiping With Body". I will close here with the first few paragraphs of the chapter.

We so often lead lives forgetful of the fact that our God is very shocking. Amidst all our fragile piety and devouring busyness, we have a Lord who steps in and COMMANDS us such things as, "Thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever they soul desireth; and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household". (Deut, 15:26) Such unthriftiness. Such waste. Such gluttony. Such winebibbing. Such is a command of our Holy God.

For some reason foreign to our modern ears, God tell us that celebretion is central to pleasing Him; it is central to leading a good life. Modern American life has no time for serious celebrations as did life in centuries past. We've got work to do; projects and deadlines press us. And yet for all our industrial-strength pragmatism, few if any truly important things get accomplished. We have forgotten that celebration isn't just an option; it's a call to full Christian living.
Celebration is worshiping God with our bodies, with the material creation He has set up around us. Celebration - whether in feasts, ceremonies, holidays, formal worship, or lovemaking - are all part of obeying God's command to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul and with all thy strength" (Deut. 6:5; Mk. 12:30). We are to show our love for God not just with one portion of our being (the spiritual aspect); we are to love God with our whole body, heart and strength and legs and lips.

Complaint is the flag of ingratitude, and it waves above the center of unbelieving hearts - "when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful" (Rom. 1:21). Yet by grace, God's redemption and creation ought to keep us in a perpetual state of thanks which bursts out in celebration at every opportunity.

He depicts this redemption not in terms of intellectual satisfaction or quiet piety but in terms of an extravagant feast: "And in this mountain shall the LORD of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined" (Is. 25:6) - choice pieces, well--refined wines and fat things!! - all the blessings which anemic moderns say we shouldn't have. Redemption doesn't appear to be a low-cal, cholesterol-free affair.
Douglas Jones, p. 79, 80

Lewis on helping others

2010-03-26T11:26:00.000-07:00

One reader asked Lewis for a list of Christian books he would recommend for a friend of hers who was struggling emotionally and spiritually. Lewis replied that “where people can resist or ignore arguments, they may be unable to resist lives.” He added that his correspondent herself might be more pivotal in her friend’s spiritual healing than any book he might name.

pouting and tantrums

2010-03-25T07:19:00.000-07:00

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

I don't think it is supposed to apply to super great, award-winning pouting sessions and tantrums. You know, the kind regularly exhibited in the grocery store line when the child in front just ahead has received the fifth "NO!" to the request for candy.

I pout too much.

There. I said it.

Why do I think anyone owes me anything! Why do I think God should make a bumpless road for me to walk! How can I be reading my Bible and think my life should be different from anyone else's life! Who do I think I am! And why don't I choose to remember that God has given me all that I need! Why do I turn inward, emotional arms wrapped defensively and tightly around the very heart that claims to trust God!

I resist maturity at almost every turn.

I am re-reading The Chronicles of Narnia. Aslan sometimes purrs, sometimes growls, sometimes roars to get the attention of the pouter, tantrum-thrower and miscreant. He sometimes corrects with a look, sometimes with a word, sometimes with a swipe of His paw. As Mr. Beaver said, "Safe? Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe! But he's good, I tell you!" Aslan's growl was always followed by words of disappointment, correction, forgiveness and a nuzzle in the great furry mane.

If you see me pouting, remind me that "Aslan" is just around the corner.

I'd prefer not to hear the growl, not to disappoint God. I'd prefer to train myself to think that whatever lack or ill or bump in the road that has me pouting and throwing my hissy-fit was meant to drive me deep into His furr.

in sight

2010-03-22T13:41:00.000-07:00

Insight and in sight.
Understanding is seeing....
Hmm....
In the midst of the care and concern in the family, there were some light moments, as well. Here are a few.... in sight.
One is dedicated to Ruthie and several invoke Uncle Scott!!
Click the forward button - these will play!!
crazy Gracie keeps me laughing

feats of strength featuring the cousins Mel and Rach.

Doctor Linnea and Grocer Linnea with a shout out to Uncle Scott

More singing - I didn't say it was good but we enjoyed it!

a thread

2010-03-21T21:52:00.000-07:00

Dad just came through sugery. He is weak and in serious condition. Lee arrived this morning from Vermont and is with Mom.
I was just there last week - haven't even been back a week. He was in the hospital exactly a week ago.
Gracie just arrived at a beach condo in S. Carolina for a much needed and long overdue vacation with her family.
Kathy is in Africa but we are emailing just now. Strange that the one to whom I am connected right now is on the other side of the world. We met at the Throne just a while ago.

Dear God.... ...Tho' much is taken, much abides;
And tho' we are not now that strength
Which in old days moved earth and heaven,
That which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate,
But strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Ulysses, Tennyson

I love you Dad and Mom. They are yours, dear Lord.

a descanso kind of day

2010-02-25T09:40:00.000-08:00

Descanso Gardens is all dressed up in her Spring finery.
I walked the fragrant paths yesterday with a new friend after she treated to a yummy lunch at Dish in La Canada Flintridge. It was a perfect day of lunch, cheek chucking of her three month old, and good old-fashioned visiting.
On the way home, I thought about how much we miss in this text-happy world and how much I had gained that afternoon and I'm grateful we both took the time.

the coffee shop around the corner

2010-02-18T21:45:00.000-08:00

Almost everyday I go to the coffee shop around the corner. I read, study and enjoy conversation with the regulars and new people. It is a community place. Guys there do business. Students study on their computers. Friends visit. Tanya makes cupcakes and cookies and blended mochas and holds the place together.
I enjoy whatever happens there from day to day. Sometimes I just read. Sometimes I visit with Tanya if she isn't too busy. Sometimes I make a new friend. That happened yesterday. I fell into conversation with a young woman named Rachel who has been coming for a while. Turns out she knows lots of people at Biola, teachers of Lydia's. She loves Jesus. I made a new friend. I met another sister.

remodeling

2010-02-18T17:19:00.000-08:00

"Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."
C.S. Lewis

mudpies or sand castles

2010-02-17T11:03:00.000-08:00

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
C.S. Lewis

seasons

2010-02-12T11:41:00.000-08:00

Spring is sprung.

The grass is 'riz.

I wonder where

The birdies is.

Thank you, Grandpa Art!!

the outline of the Gospel of John as it relates to the Tabernacle

2010-02-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

This comes from a book called "Through New Eyes" by James Jordan.

The chapter in which the outline is found is discussing Jesus as the Tabernacle - how He is the embodiment of all the "furniture" and function of the Tabernacle. Then Jordan diverts his comments for a while to show how the Tabernacle itself is the pattern John uses as the outline for his gospel.

"The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." The reference to glory is to the glory-cloud that filled the Tabernacle and was enthroned in it.
John begins where the priest would begin, with the laver of cleansing. Here the priest would wash himself and also the sacrifice before offering it. Jesus is both priest and sacrifice, and also the one who washes His living sacrifices, the Church.
Thus, John 1:18 - 34 concerns the baptism of John the Forerunner.
In John 2:1-11, at a wedding Jesus takes water out of "six stone waterpots set there for the Jewish custom of purification" and turns it into wine.
In John 2:13-25, Jesus cleanses the Temple.
In John 3:1-21, Nicodemus engages Jesus in a discussion of the new birth, of water and the Spirit.
In John 3:22-36, John's baptism leads to an argument over purification, and a discussion of Jesus as the Bridegroom.
In John 4:1-42, Jesus presents Himeslf as Bridegroom to a Samaritan woman at a well In John 4:46-54, Jesus restores a dying boy to life at "Cana fo Galilee, where He had made the water wine" (4:46).
In John 5:1-47, Jesus heals a man at the pool of Bethesda, and then gets in to a discussion with the Jews about resurrection. This concludes John's section on the laver, which has revolved around water, purification, baptism, resurrection, and Christ as Bridegroom.
John then turns to the Table of Showbread. In John 6, Jesus feeds the five thousand, calls Himself "the bread of life", and tells the people that they must eat His flesh and drink His blood (v.53).
In John 7, Jesus presents Himself as the drink of life (v37), recalling the libations that went with the showbread and meal offerings.

The Lampstand comes next. Jesus presents Himself as the light of the world in John 8.
In John 9, Jesus heals a blind man.
In John 10, Jesus presents Himself as the Good Shepherd. The connection of this to the Lampstand lies in the fact that David was the Good Shepherd of the Old Covenant, and the Bible repeatedly speaks of David as a lamp (2 Sam. 21:17; I Kings 11:36; 15:4...) There is a conceptual parallel between a lamp shining in dark place and the voice of the shepherd heard by the sheep.
In John 11, Jesus raises Lazarus, explaining that it is a matter of awakening him from darkness and sleep to light and day. In John 12, Jesus comments that those who had not believed in him were blind, but that those who did believe would become sons of light.

Starting in John 13, we move throught these items of furniture a second time. Jesus washes the disciples' feet; breaks bread with them; moves into a discussion of the Holy Sprit, the ultimate archetype of the seven lamps in the Tabernacle. After this, Jesus prays His high priestly prayer at the altar of incense - concluding the re-cap in John 17.

The Crucifixion and Death of Jesus involved a double motion, in terms of the Tabernacle. The sacrifice was made outside the Tabernacle in the courtyard on the altar. Then, on the day of atonement the High Priest took the blood into the Most Holy and presented it before the Throne of God (Lev. 16:15). Just so, we see the Lamb of God sacrificed outside the gate, and then He presents His Death before the Father's throne (Heb. 9:7, 23-26) Under the law, when the High Priest came back out from the Most Holy, still alive, it was a sign that God had accepted the sacrifice. The Resurrection of Jesus fulfills that type.
Also, when the High Priest offfered the sacrifice on the Day of Atonement, he put aside his garments of glory and beauty and wore a simple linen garment. Agreeably, when Peter entered the tomb, "he beheld the linen wrappings lying there" (John 20:6), because Jesus had put back on His garments of Glory and beauty (Lev. 16:4, 23-24).

When Mary Magdalene looked into the tomb, "she beheld two angels in white sitting, one at the head, and one at the feet, where the body of Jesus had been lying" (John 21:12). Arthur Pink comments, "Who can doubt the obvious connection that the Holy Spirit would have us link up this verse with Ex. 25:17-19...." The tomb becomes the new Holy of Holies.
The tomb enclosed by the great stone formed but one more Most Holy Place, all the more so because here the incarnate Word was placed. Outside this tomb was a garden, a reminder of the garden-sanctuary of the Tabernacle. When Mary Magdalene saw Jesus, she rightly recognized Him as the New Gardener, the new Adam (20:15). The Magdalene, restored from her seven demons, symbolizes the Church, the new Eve, the Bride.
The tomb is the new Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle which had the Ark of the Covenant in which were the Law (Christ fulfilled all the Law and was thus - the embodiment of the Law; Aaron's rod that budded (Christ would live having been cut off from the land of the living); manna (Christ was the bread of life). Finally, it was the place where the priest would present the blood sacrifice. The tomb, when it held Jesus' body, was everything the Holy of Holies had been, but more so.

John is not finished with his Edenic motifs. As God breathed life into Adam in Genesis 2:7, so Jesus breathes life into His Apostles in John 20:22. As naked Adam hid in the garden, so naked Peter hid in the sea until Jesus restored him to his work (John 21:7).
Thus our Lord wrapped Himself in the garment of the old creation, and in His Death and Resurrection created all things anew."

change

2010-01-24T17:19:00.000-08:00

It was a joyful Sunday, being there for the ordination of a new pastor, one who will minster in our church. Rev. Andrew Richardson has been with us for a few years but today he received the title of "Reverend". That is a big change for us as a congregation, for him as a man.

Following a beautiful and delicious lunch, we added to the joy by having friends come over for a visit and a little football viewing. One of the sons, the oldest had shocked me earlier in the day! His voice had dropped! I know it happens as boys grow! But this was just a shock! I've loved him and his brothers as little boys and now he's turning into a young man! Whoa!

He's supposed to be this little boy!

Say it isn't so!

Yet, it is so and it is good and right.

He is leaving behind childish ways and his childhood while retaining the sweetness I've so enjoyed. I heard him offer to play a game with his little brother. How sweet that was. He engaged in conversation with his mother and me. How grown up that was.

With one foot stepping into the wing tips of young adulthood and one just barely leaving the barefoot playground of childhood, I got a brief glimpse into a family moving into a new stage of life - the entry of another man in its ranks.

I think he'll do just fine! I think they'll do just fine.

meditation on passion

2010-01-15T17:10:00.001-08:00

passion flower

passion perfume

passion fruit

What do these three things have in common? Passion.

Passion?

It doesn't even look like a word when stared at for a while. It sounds funny when said repeatedly.

Passion.

Some of you have heard me speak on this word. I think it just might be my favorite words and one of the most misused words in our beautiful language.

Take a sip of strong coffee. Strap yourself in.

Passion comes from the Latin word patior. This verb comes from a rather small group of verbs called "deponent" verbs. A deponent verb is passive in form, active in meaning. You probably remember that your writing teachers prefered active verbs to passive verbs in your papers.

Active verbs indicate that the subject is driving the action in the sentence - Susie bit the dog.

Passive verbs indicate that the subject is being acted upon - Susie was bitten by the dog.

So patior is passive in form but active in meaning. Messes with your mind a bit when translating and if the translator is not careful, strange things happen!! But the fact that it is in this special class of verbs adds greatly to its beauty. Hang on a bit more and I'll show you.

The first 10 definitions of "passion" in the dictionary are as follows:
1. any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
2. strong amorous feeling or desire; love; ardor.
3. strong sexual desire; lust.
4. an instance or experience of strong love or sexual desire.
5. a person toward whom one feels strong love or sexual desire.
6. a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.
7. the object of such a fondness or desire: Accuracy became a passion with him.
8. an outburst of strong emotion or feeling: He suddenly broke into a passion of bitter words.
9. violent anger.
10. the state of being acted upon or affected by something external, esp. something alien to one's nature or one's customary behavior

Do you notice that most, if not all, have to do with feelings, emotions, desire?

The Latin word patior, pati, passus means suffer, endure, allow, acquiesce, submit, permit. These words, in a very lovely way, reflect the passive/active aspects of this deponent verb. Suffering, enduring, allowing, acquiescing, submitting look passive but require a very active work in the heart. On the surface, there is not a lot of action going on when we think of someone suffering or enduring. But inside, there is struggling, questioning, searching, wrestling....

From this word, we derive "patient", "passive", "passion". In the first two are clearly imbedded the yin/yang nature of the deponent verb form as well as the meaning inherent in the Latin word itself. Being patient often requires an amount of suffering, enduring, permitting....closely related to the word passive - giving no response, enduring the circumstances..... It is clear to see that we cannot hurry up and be patient. It will involve discomfort at the very least, and perhaps even pain but most definitely enduring (which in itself in an interesting word; en = in, into; dura = hard).

However, the sense of the Latin word patior does not carry over into the English word "passion" as we commonly use it today. Not until definitions 11 and 12 are read (and who reads that far these days!!) do we get a sense of the word's origin.

11.(often initial capital letter) Theology.
a. the sufferings of Christ on the cross or His sufferings subsequent to the Last Supper.
b. the narrative of Christ's sufferings as recorded in the Gospels.
12. Archaic. the sufferings of a martyr.

At last, we arrive at the idea of suffering, enduring, submitting.....

"Why is she going on and on about the word passion", my dear reader is asking at this point!! "Enough, already!!", you may say. But I reply, "Endure! Be patient!!"

Do you read bios of authors? Articles in your college/university quarterlies? Bios of speakers, those in ministry? These are consecutive bios from one church's ministry leaders' page:

Passion for Ministry: There is nothing more thrilling than to see God transform hearts and lives!

Passion for Ministry: Sharing the Good News about Jesus to individuals who recognize their need.

Passion for Ministry: I have a passion to see God's children grow and mature in their walk with Jesus.

Passion for Ministry: Working with other men sharing biblical truths.

Passion for Ministry: Helping men develop a clear understanding of what God calls us to do as men and how we are to go about doing it. Tony also has a passion for missions in Cuba.

Passion for Ministry: One-on-one discipleship, leading bible studies for men and prayer.

Passion for Ministry:To see people grow in Christ and have the joy of knowing what and how real life should be lived as one born of God.

That's a lot of passion gushing all over the place. However, is it a lot of suffering, enduring, submitting....?

My point is this; if we are going to call it "The Passion of Christ", let's not also say we have a "passion for ministry", a "passion for baseball", a "passion to play piano". Let's not cheapen a rich, deep, beautiful word. Let's allow passion to express something for which you are willing to suffer, endure, bear, allow.

Words are tools. Use this one carefully and well.

digging up family history

2010-01-05T21:50:00.000-08:00

Handsome, isn't he! Does his long, narrow face remind you of my husband?
What a man this Reuben Steele was - born in 1802 - barely three years after the death of George Washington - in Wythe County, VA. His parents were not Christians. However, on his deathbed, Reuben's father converted and admonished his family to believe. The whole family believed. Desiring to serve God all his days, Reuben prayed to be a preacher and was ordained by a man whose last name was Patton - a forerunner of General George Patton.
Reuben's mother was Jerusha Powers Steele. The Powers line continued through to Francis Gary Powers, the pilot shot down over Soviet Russia in 1960.
Reuben Steele studied with Calvanist Presbyterian ministers in his area and wrote extensively as a diarist and meditative thinker. Larry has a copy of a sermon diary written in Reuben's lovely hand. He emphasized repentence, service, devotion to Christ, love of fellow man. He went on to be a much loved circuit riding preacher during the Civil War, preaching at hangings, praying at many battles and funerals. It is written that in his 51 years of ministry he preached thousands of sermons and tenderly cared for his family.
Reuben married twice. It is the youngest of his second marriage, his 14th child, Isaac, who is Larry Steele Parsons' great-grandfather.
He died in 1876, having lived through much significant American history. More importantly, it is said that 7,000 souls are in heaven through his ministry.
It is on the shoulders of such a godly man as Reuben Steele and his ancestors and descendents who share his faith that our family "works out (our) salvation".
We will meet Reuben and others some day.
What a day!

saying good-bye

2009-12-29T00:09:00.000-08:00

Today is one of those days I wished would never come.
Saying good-bye is not easy for me.
I remember when Matthew left for Japan for 6 months. Wow! Did that ever ache. It was like losing a limb. He was 18 1/2 . Going to the other side of the world. It didn't help that I had lived there and knew he'd be fine. The point was - he wouldn't be here! No "Hi Mom!" in the morning. No hugs. No sports page at the breakfast table. No dates with his sisters. Gone. The six months passed quickly. He was fine. I went over to travel with him and come home together.
And now....
Rachael leaves today.
She'll be away for 2 1/2 years.

No more daily cooking with her.
No more rides and conversations home and back to Biola.
No more editing papers together.

No more saying the liturgy or singing in church with her.
Oh, I know, I know. This is God's Will and we all knew this would happen and she's with Andrew and she's so happy and she'll make friends and have a wonderful life and she'll do wonderful things and she'll grow in many ways and I'll make a few trips there and she'll come back here. Blah, blah, blah. The point is: she won't be here.
It's like losing limb all over again.
It hurts a lot.
I'm going to cry for a few days. I'm going to sit in her room and cry. I'm not going to try to stop. Then one day, I'll gird up my loins, set it in perspective and do the next thing.
But not today. Not yet.
Today and tomorrow and for a long time, I'm going to miss her and I'm going to be very human and be sad.

Her family is going to miss her.

God bless you, Rachael and Andrew.

They did it!

2009-12-22T14:45:00.000-08:00

Well, it's all over and it's only just begun.
Who knew it would be this much fun to watch a daughter marry!
I thought I'd weep at losing her but no such thing happened! There was so much joy at seeing her well suited, well fit, well matched for Andrew.
God is great and God is good.
Now for the next chapter of joy in life!
I just keep learning to trust God, learning to anticipate and not dread the change that is always around the next corner.
As Pastor Garrett says every week - the trajectory is UPWARD!!

one more week

2009-12-13T08:22:00.000-08:00

There are so many thoughts and feelings I have as I approach this last week before Rachael's wedding.
There is the temptation to regret how inadequate an example I have been. There is the tendency to panic over the few details yet to be decided.
There is the desire to have time stand still; the desire not to let her go even though I can't keep her.

But as is true of all of life, it isn't about me.

These weaknesses of mine move to the rear when I realize how God has prepared Rachael for this step in her life. She is not a piece of fluff entering the whirlwind of marriage. She has been pruned, filed, sanded, gouged, fired, buffeted by people and circumstances and consequences God brought her way so that she is strong and capable and as ready anyone can be. The obstacles she has overcome in the past two years astound me.

Was I any more ready at 28 than she is at 21? Less, I would say.

So, it really comes down to God. It always does! He has prepared her for this. Rachael learned how to live in an imperfect family. Imperfect as we are, she loves us. That is preparation for loving others. She, better than the rest of us, I dare say, has learned how to forgive.
She is marrying her best friend. That friendship, already 8+ years old will stand them in good stead. Rachael and Andrew have learned how to talk to each other; they have learned how to talk with each other. They both have a friendship with God that binds them together.

There are many other reasons for a soaring heart on this day that marks a week before my daughter's wedding. I offer them all to God with gratitude for his loving gift to her of Himself as well as giving her as her husband, a very good man.

Hell. No!

2009-10-26T21:27:00.000-07:00

What is Hell?

Is it a place of eternal damnation, suffering, anguish, torment as medieval art portrays it to be?

Or is a place where its inhabitants get exaclty everything they always wanted? Just like heaven.

Those in Hell have wanted to be free of God. They will get that. Those in Hell have always wanted to be self-directed. I suppose they will get that. But if that is really, really bad for us here, won't that be a really, really bad thing there? And getting that, won't that be what they really, really wanted all along? Yes!

And no.

I may tend to choose anger over forgiveness - and think I like it - but do I want to be angry for eternity? That would be hell's reality for the one whose anger causes them to reject God's forgiveness I may be a selfish, self-centered person, seeing things from my perspective alone, never able to empathize with another. This, then would be my hell. Thoughts of myself would consume me. Perhaps that is what the fires of Hell are - the self-consuming lusts one has - for eternity.

No! I don't really want what I think I want. The things I think I want ultimately don't satisfy me. In the end, I'll do it "for the hell of it".

So. No lake of fire? No pitch forks? No demons tearing at flesh?

I don't think so. I don't know for sure, but I don't think so. I'm just working through some ideas..........

Of course, I won't ever know, because I'm not going there. Hell is not my future.

Praise God!

Can you tell I'm reading C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce? This work is not a treatise on Hell's real properties; rather, he explores the ontological fitness of its residents through conversations between them and residents of heaven, whom they knew while living on earth. Quite a read.

Brother Lee

2009-10-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

My dear Brother Lee.

He lives far away on a mountain in Rutland, Vermont. It is one of the prettiest places I have been in the United States. My header picture is across the road out his front door. We haven't seen each other much since he graduated college - he moved there and I ended up in L.A. Recently, however, circumstances have brought us together several times and each time is special to me.

When I was a little girl, he gave me The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis for my birthday and a whole new world opened - a love for story as well as a love for an author and his friends was born. At this time, Lee was a college man. That and the fact that he was my older brother gave the gift a gravitas. It told me he was sharing something special and thought I could handle it. I remember feeling great love for him and from him.

I also remember one Saturday morning long ago. His job was to mow the lawns. It was warm and he was finishing up his work. He called in to me to make him a fried egg sandwich. I had never made a fried egg before so I was nervous about breaking an egg, turning on flame.... And I didn't want to disappoint my big brother. But I made the sandwich. And when he was washing his plate, having devoured the sandwich, he turned and thanked me. I melted inside with love.

I never forgot either compliment.

From where I sit, his life is one of service. His job serves people in need. He travels and speaks to groups and helps people. He visits sick neighbors. He clears ski trails in the woods so others can ski comfortably. I'm sure there is much I don't know but I deeply admire what I do know.

And one of the best things I know is that we love each other.

Lee just turned 60.

You make it look really good, Lee!

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then?

I cannot say.

J.R.R. Tolkein
one of C.S. Lewis' friends

leaving things behind

2009-10-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

My friend Margie and I recently met with some wonderful new homeschooling moms. They are bright, energetic, thoughtful ladies. I am posting summary notes from that evening here.

We wrote a list of 5 things we would want to pass on to our children if we were to die soon. We weren't being morbid. Just reflective! Forward thinking. As we said, if you don't know what it is you want to teach, you'll end up teaching nothing.

Try making your own list. Refine it from time to time. See if you are accomplishing the things you think you want to accomplish. Be open to God adjusting the list. He may give you success!! Cross that one off (or keep adding to it, deepening it, broadening it....) and add more. Adjust your list as time passes. Watch your list mature as you and your children mature.

There were 5 things on Margie's and my list that we discussed:

Love free from idolatry. Idolatry prevents us from loving God and others.

Looking to something/someone other than God to supply our needs and wants is idolatry. (Norm Wakefield) We pondered another of his statements, "Whatever makes us angry is the very thing we idolize." We are angry when someone/something doesn't deliver what we think it should deliver, assuming that we would feel good, feel happy by controlling how our needs should be fulfilled. Hmmm. Scary thought. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry." Col. 3:5 "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." I John 5:21
Consider this next time you are angry. Watch your children. Observe what makes them angry. What is the idol? Self? Possessions? Being right? Being heard? This issue of idolatry/anger is perhaps where I struggle the most. It is the area that I could most receive finger pointing. It is the area in myself I most want to "veil" (see the Till We Have Faces posts). That means it is the area about which God most cares, where I most need Him, where He most wants to meet meall the while being the one thing I most want to hide from Him.

Choose forgiveness. Reject bitterness.
Forgive quickly. "Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled." Heb 12:15 The "many" can be your own children. We have to help them not be bitter AND we must guard against it in ourselves lest we teach them bitterness and defile them.

Parent trusting God. Don't parent out of fear/control.
Fear and control are the opposite of trusting God.
"Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God.
But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment. " Isaiah 50:10, 11
It is better to sit with God in the unknown, in the darkness than to figure your own way out of the difficulty or suffering you or your child(ren) are experiencing. God is in control. If He chooses pain and sorrow for you, then so be it. It is better to be with Him there than to get out of it. Judgment will come from lighting our own fires.
There are many verses on suffering. To avoid it is to miss so much.

Accept your own weaknesses and those in your children as built in by God.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." II Cor 12:9
It is in our weakness that the strength of God is seen, perfected (worked thoroughly) in us. His grace sustains us while that work is being done. So we get His grace AND His strength. Oh, what we miss when we disdain the way He made us. How would He get the glory in something other than what He made? Accept yourself. Help your children to accept themselves. It is our true selves that can truly love God and that God loves.

Live in hope. Don't live in regret for things done in the past.
"Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before. " Philippians 3:13 Hindsight is helpful as long as we turn forward again. Learning from the past is healthy. Getting stuck looking backwards is harmful. That's when we fall. Look ahead. The past is done. You can't change it. Learn from it but live in the kingdom come and coming. Live in hope.

....and counting

2009-10-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

70 days.....

Lewis on Self - Orual revelation

2009-09-30T23:28:00.000-07:00

Orual found her real self when she was unmasked. It was painfully uncomfortable and painfully freeing. Facing self requires the unmasking of the soul, the very us-ness we hide from God and others.
Friend Lewis says it so much better in this extended quote from Mere Christianity as found in John Piipo's blog:

""There are no real personalities apart from God. Until you have given up your self to Him you will not have a real self. [This reminds me of N.T. Wright's idea that, in Jesus, we see what humanity is. Some say, "Well, I'm only human." If only that were true. The Jesus-idea is that, without God's kingdom-rule in our lives, we're sub-human.] Sameness is to be found most among the most 'natural' men, not among those who surrender to Christ. How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerers have been; how gloriously different are the saints. But there must be a real giving up of the self. You must throw it away 'blindly' so to speak. Christ will indeed give you a real personality; but you must not go to Him for the sake of that.

As long as your own personality is what you are bothering about you are not going to Him at all. The very first step is to try to forget about the self altogether. Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. [This is the Jesus-paradox, recently highlighted by the likes of Dallas Willard and J.P. Moreland, that to live the truly good life one must not focus on living the good life. Or, as Lewis once wrote elsewhere, if one goes into a beautiful garden expecting to be blown away by its beauty, this will not often happen. But go into the same garden to say your prayers, and nine times out of ten the result will be to be stunned by the beauty.] It will come when you are looking for Him...Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ, and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in." [Thomas Merton has much to add to these Lewis-ideas in his many meditations that caused him to see the distinctions between the "false self" and the "true self."] "

Will I take the risk to expose my self to God and to others? Will I risk being real?

Some day....

2009-09-28T13:42:00.001-07:00

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”

C.S. Lewis

Orual wasn't totally out of it!!

2009-09-23T11:20:00.000-07:00

I have the tendency to think of pre-regenerated Orual as so thoroughly corrupted, so narcissistically imploded that she couldn't possibly think clearly about anything. But I'm wrong.

There may be other moments of clarity for her besides this one, but in this passage in C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces she is sitting with Arnom, the priest, in the house of Ungit as they prepare to observe the next Year's birth. She engages him in conversation about Ungit.

"If she is the mother of all things," said I, "in what way more is she the mother of the god of the Mountain?"

"He is the air and the sky, for we see the clouds coming up from the earth in mists and exhalations."
"Then why do the stories sometimes say he's her husband, too?"

"That means that the sky by its showers makes the earth fruitful."

"If that's all they mean, why do they wrap it up in so strange a fashion?"

"Doubtless," said Arnom (and I could tell that he was yawning inside the mask, being worn out with his vigil), "doubtless to hide it from the vulgar."

I would torment him no more, but I said to myself, "It's very strange that our fathers should first think it worth telling us that rain falls out of the sky, and then, for fear such a notable secret should get out (why not hold their tongues?) wrap it up in a filthy tale so that no one could understand the telling." (p. 271)

This is not the first time she has felt the inadequacy of religion. For her, religion reaches to the gods and then pulls back its hand. The gods are capricious, cruel, consuming of those who worship them. The priests in her life do not proffer adequate answers. She never really discounts the gods, but she is sceptical.
Then the judgment. Unmasked and naked before the gods, she bares her soul as well. She accuses them and condemns herself at the same time. She is guilty of the charge which she levels at the gods - taking possession of people. As does a child, exhausted by the energy consumed in a tantrum, she suddenly ends her tirade when the word "Enough" is called out. (p 292)
Silence falls.
The best part of the story follows but for now, I conclude that Orual , as dissatisfied with religion as she had been, was finally satisfied with the gods.
Is this a distinction we are careful to make today? Do we differentiate between religion and God?

"I was Orual"

2009-09-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

In C.S. Lewis' masterpiece "Till We Have Faces", Orual makes the statement early in her first book, "I was Orual (emphasis mine), the eldest daughter of Trom, king of Glome." She hated her father. He called her curd face and unworthy, stated he was barren when indeed, he had three daughters, dared the tutor to teach her and her sisters, punched and kicked her, ridiculed her. The father/daughter relationship in the story is painful and completely dysfuntional. In truth, it is non existent. Or was it? How did this relationship influence/affect her?

Curious.

I was Orual.....

A careful reading lets us discover that she tries very hard to eradicate Orual and become someone/something else. While this is a fascinating psychological study, it is not my primary interest, nor am I qualified to make observations and conclusions in the matter. Rather, I am interested in who or what she became once she decided "I was Orual..."

There are several incarnations along the way. She very nearly becomes a man. Her voice deepens, she takes up the sword and horseback riding. She fights in many battles with her soldiers and one in particular on her own. She eats and drinks with them.

She states near the end of the book, "I am Ungit", the black stone goddess (p. 279). Here she understands her propensity to confuse being loved with using/consuming people for her own stony hearted "blood gorged" purposes (p. 281, 282), calling that "love". She admits to being ugly in soul.

What I didn't see until today was this:

She became her father. How so?

When it is determined that Psyche must be sacrificed, the King is questioned as to how he could allow it to occur. He answers, "No one seems to remember whose girl she is. She's mine, fruit of my own body." (p. 60) Here he reminds me of Ungit!! Blood gorged. A user-up of people.

Toward the end of the book, Orual is called before the gods to read her complaint. She has already admitted to Shadowbrute and her father that she is Ungit - the goddess who represents the human condition. But there is a fascinating passage that until now I didn't connect to anything.

"The girl was mine. What right had you to steal her away into your dreadful heights?...There's no room for you and us in the same world. You're a tree in whose shadow we can't thrive. We want to be our own. I was my own and Psyche was mine and no one else had any right to her. ... What should I care for some horrible, new happiness which I hadn't given her and which separated her from me?.... Did you ever remember whose the girl was? She was MINE! Do you not know what the word means? MINE! You're thieves, seducers (p. 291, 292).

Not only had she become the faceless goddess she didn't understand, wouldn't worship, ridiculed. She had become the father she viscerally hated. She had no compassion for him at any stage of life. And now, because she had killed off Orual, the void left behind had been filled. She had allowed voracious hate, bitterness, envy to fill her. She had become her father.

Instead of spending her life working at forgiveness, instead of rejecting the lies about her unworthiness, she put all her energy into eradicating the very person she was made to be - Orual. She concentrated on hating, consuming, devouring herself and others. Conscious of what she was doing to herself, she was unconscious of what she was doing to others. Consider her relationship with Psyche, Redival, Bardia, even the Fox.

Ungit is religion's expression of the human condition.
The King is the human manifestation of the human condition.
Orual is proof that there is hope for the otherwise hopeless human condition.

There is a regenerative moment for us.
There is forgiveness extended to us.
There is forgiveness we can extend to others.
First, however, we must be face to face, barefaced with God.

She enters judgment as Ungit. But, in the end, Orual becomes Psyche! No, not a physical Psyche. But just as she embodied the awful nature of Ungit, the mind of her father and all her other incarnations, she DOES become Psyche. "(She) became unmade." "(She) became no one."
(p. 307) "Joy at last silenced (her)." (p.306). She, like Psyche, came to know that "You (the gods) are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?...." (p.308)

Moses meets Orual

2009-09-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

I was reading in Deut. this lovely cool morning. Moses died and was buried by God. Ch. 34:10; "Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face. "
Consider these other passages on the same theme.
I Cor 3: 12 - 18 Therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold. We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away. But their minds were made dull, for to this day the same veil remains when the old covenant is read. It has not been removed, because only in Christ is it taken away. Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

Till We Have Faces;
" "Uncover her," said the judge.
Hands came from behind me and tore off my veil - after it, every rag I had on. The old crone with her Ungit face stood naked before those countless gazers. No thread to cover me.... (p. 289) And the voice I read it in (the complaint against the gods) was strange to my ears. There was given to me a certainty that this, at last, was my real voice....The complaint was the answer. To have heard myself making it was to be answered.... I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?" (292, 294)

Orual's outer veil represented her inner veil. She hid her inner self from the gods (so she thought), people and even herself. She tried, throughout the book, to kill off Orual and become someone, something else - a man, a king, a mother, a warrior, a savior. All the while, she was demanding an answer from the gods about suffering, sacrifice, love. They would not answer a veiled face.

What then do I conclude about Moses? He was a veiled man at one time, after all! But unlike Orual, who veiled herself so as to hide her shame, who found power in her veil, Moses veiled himself to protect the people from the overwhelming glory resting on him, having been in the presence of God. His veil came off as the glory faded. But I conclude that he never had the veil that hid his "self" from God. Moses searched for God and found Him. Moses was honest before God. And God met him face to face.

Am I honest with myself? Am I honest with God? Will He meet me face to face? Will I shine in such a way that people will know God meets me face to face?

Longing in Till We Have Faces

2009-09-18T16:06:00.000-07:00

If it's not my favorite book, then I'm not sure what is, - aside from the Bible, of course. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis seems to me to be arguably the most profound, most intricately written book in print.

It is hard to choose from the many compelling themes which one stimulates my thoughts most earnestly. Perhaps, as when I read the Bible, where I am emotionally, physically, spiritually, mentally, has to do with that which I ponder and - to the poor soul who has to listen to me - about which I talk - for days on end.
Right now I am thinking about the whole idea of longing as presented in the book.

"It was when I was happiest that I longed most (ponder that for just a moment!!)...The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing...to find the place where all the beauty came from.... It was on happy days when we were up there on the hills, the three of us, with the wind and the sunshine...where you couldn't see Glome or the palace. Do you remember? The colour and the smell, and looking across at the Grey Mountain in the distance? And because it was so beautiful, it set me longing, always longing. Somewhere else there must be more of it. Everything seemed to be saying, Psyche come! But I couldn't (not yet) come and I didn't know where I was to come to. It almost hurt me..... I am going, you see, to the Mountain. You remember how we used to look and long? And all the stories of my gold and amber house, up there against the sky, where we thought we should never really go? The greatest King of all was going to build it for me..... - my country, my home the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home! For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back. All my life the god of the Mountain has been wooing me...." (p. 74, 75)

I see it. Beauty of the mountain led to her desire to go there and find her beloved. Desire led to Psyche's longing to give herself to what she knew of the unknown to gain that of which she was sure. Her tasks, her anguish, her perseverance from this point on in the story reveal her passion to gain and regain what she knew to be true. What she knew to be truth!!

If I don't have passion - the willingness to endure, suffer, submit to God and to circumstances over which I have no control - perhaps I don't have a clear enough vision of the beauty that is already prepared for me, beauty that should draw me to respond, beauty that awaits me, beauty that is my Savior.

take away that headache

2009-08-18T13:46:00.000-07:00

Those nasty headaches. Nothing seems to touch them.

What to do!!

We've discovered foot massage. Not just rubbing the feet, but massaging in specific places in a certain direction.
The right foot locations differ from the left so you must pay attention!

We've worked on headaches and cramps so far. When massaging, in the right spot for some kind of pain, you will most likely find a really sore spot. Bingo!! You found the place to massage that relates to your ailment.

Amazing stuff.

Aren't we fearfully and wonderfully made!!

Check it out at the Dorling Kindersley website.

up a road slowly

2009-08-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

Larry and I went to Vermont last week for my niece's wedding.

My brother lives up a long and winding mountain road, the kind of road that is full of dappled shade. Trees grow here in abundance. Ferns and all varieties of wild flowers, too.

Queen Anne's lace.

Black-eyed Susan.

Bee Bomb.

Thistle.

So many others.

All these went into bouquets and table flowers and window arrangements to make for a home-made-with-love day. It seemed the whole town was picking flowers and putting them in jars and pots and vases.

We drove the roads where my brother lives to get to the inn where my family was staying, to get to the home where we were staying, to get to the church, my brother's place, the town hall. And if we drove slowly enough, we saw the flowers, wild, free, lovely.

I want to find more roads and drive up those roads slowly.

I'm no Sarah R.

2009-07-21T20:18:00.001-07:00

But I can have my own fun!
This was at Como Zoo in St. Paul, MN. - no the bee was not an exhibit!

My camera is not as cool as Sarah's - not as clear, not as many possibilities - but I do what I can.

God's creation looks good no matter the lens through which we see it.

My Life is a Comedy

2009-07-07T18:28:00.000-07:00

"The comedy of man survives the tragedy of man."

G.K. Chesterton

What an intriguing statement. What does he mean?

To understand, I need to know the definition of tragedy and comedy. Webster says this:

tragedy a dramatic composition, often in verse, dealing with a serious or somber theme, typically that of a great person destined through a flaw of character or conflict with some overpowering force, as fate or society, to downfall or destruction.

comedy a dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion.

Certainly we can agree that Scripture is a comedy.

Disappointment, shame, hurt, betrayal, failure. These are the ingredients of tragedy.

But we see these things subsumed on the cross. Were it not for God and His plan to redeem the tragedy we made of the story He was writing, we would not be able to know the comedy we now enjoy. The Resurrection is the triumph over adverse circumstances of irreconcilable and otherwise incomprehensible proportion, bringing us on stage and allowing us to star in His new story - a never ending comedy.

i heart faces week 25 - wedding bells

2009-06-29T20:07:00.000-07:00

Do you hear them?

The bells are still ringing one year later.

Happy Anniversary, love bugs!!

check out the other bell ringing photos at http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/

simple pleasures

2009-06-19T13:39:00.000-07:00

What could be simpler than warm fresh bread, sweet juicy cherries and fragrant roses and gardenias!

It was interesting to hear the various responses as the bread baked and cooled, its yeasty goodness filling the house with its tempting aroma.

"OOOO! Mommy's been busy!"

"Can we have some of that soon?"

"I'll get the butter and honey! Who wants marmalade?"

What do you like to put on your bread?

my friend, Margie

2009-06-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

Margie has been my friend for many years. She taught piano to my children but more importantly, prays for them still. She is wise, a good listener and thinker. She is dedicated to her family and friends. Her principled approach to life weaves through our time together. She loves the Lord and prays over almost every decision.

We are different in many ways.

I am tall. She is.......not.

I have a little car; she does not.

I am casual; she is fancy.

I don't fast; she does.

I read a lot; she works a lot.

I don't memorize Scripture regularly; she does.

Different in many other ways but united in our love of the Lord, our families and the life of the mind.

Margie is a busy person. If she isn't teaching piano, she's playing with her grandson(s), cleaning, reorganizing something (I say that with respect - there is much I should organize) or ironing. Margie knows my "love language" is spending time one on one in good conversation.

Lately, she has called me in the morning of our mutual day off - Wednesday - to see if I can meet her at Perks for tea and.... So, when she meets with me, I know she is saying she loves me. And I love her back.

When she called me this evening to see if I could meet her at Satrbucks, i was naturally delighted!! We had the usual banter back and forth..... and then the subject for the evening came out. What did I think of this? Back and forth we went, agreeing and disagreeing with each other and ourselves. I think we both changed positions several times. But each time, we swung a bit closer to understanding the real issues, to understanding each other. And in the end, as we usually do, we found consensus. Even when we don't, we have enjoyed the engagement, learned a new point of view, spent valuable time together and strenghtened the bond between us.

How do your friends let you know you are loved?

Don't underestimate..... An American Anthem

2009-06-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

Take a few minutes and view this extraordinary video - made by a teen from Alabama.

senses

2009-06-01T20:07:00.000-07:00

kneading
i feel it forming a soft lump of dough

rising
i smell the yeast and wheat and butter

baking
i see the golden top forming

cooling
i taste its nutty wholesomeness as butter runs between my fingers and
honey drips on my chin

chewing
i hear the crunch of the crust

storing
i feel its smooth shell and
gently squeeze its tender sides

until another day when i can do it
all over again!

Home

2009-05-31T15:36:00.000-07:00

“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.”
Matsuo Basho

you know you're (getting) old when...

2009-05-20T20:49:00.000-07:00

Where to start!

Aches and pains.

Brain like a sieve.

Less sleep.

Less hair.

More chin hair!

More body.

More naps.

Sounds bad?

Married son!

College graduated son!! (Today!)

Engaged daughter!!

College-aged children!!

Successful children!!

25th anniversary!!

Free time!!

God is great.

God is good.

Now I thank Him.

For....

Everything!

God's economy

2009-05-19T07:26:00.000-07:00

I try to start my day by praying before my feet hit the ground. Sometimes I'm able to pray over many people and issues that are on my heart. Other times, my heart wanders and the morning's first activity forces me from bed....

Today, as I prayed, I was quite moved by the exchanges extant despite how I begin my day. God has exchanged His faithfulness for my faithlessness, His love for my apathy, His sufficiency for my inability, His thoughts for my thoughts, His wisdom for my folly, His Son for my sin, His "omni-s" for my human limitations, His comedy for my tragedy... You get the picture!

My grandmother used to call prayer - "doing business with God"!

I like the exchange rate!

shake and bake

2009-05-17T21:11:00.000-07:00

Today is Sunday.

The Lord's Day.

Everyday belongs to Him but today has special focus.

We worshiped well, sang well, feasted well and "parished" well at "Robertson central" - saying good-bye at the combined parish lunch to yet another fine young man who has been with us for a while .

It was hot today. 100 degrees. We baked.

Then, tonight, while I was talking to Larry who is in Utah on a fishing trip, there was a boom and some shaking. 5.0 earthquake.

Shake and bake.

It brings back Jan. 1994 every time it happens.

“It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily. "So it is." "And freezing." "Is it?" "Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”

week 18 adult - laughter

2009-05-11T17:15:00.000-07:00

Our friend Steve. He's a good laugher. He should be laughing here - he made these outfits for his daughter (right) and mine! Usually, when you squeeze a grape, you get a little whine, but in this case - you get a little POP!!!!

Hope you laugh, too!! Join the others at iheartfaces and laugh some more!!

he made me a mother

2009-05-11T14:11:00.001-07:00

Matthew. My first born. Dark hair. Tall and handsome. Smart. Funny. Musical. Good memory. Creative. Loving. Recently married. Doing well.

When he was little, he was THE cutest boy I had ever seen. Huge eyes. He was so talkative and interesting and sweet - still is. He wasn't the first one to jump into the action; rather, he stayed back with me or sat on the edge of a group and observed the situation, then moved in where he wanted to be. He knew himself and sensed where he fit in. Still does.

He was a story teller. He could repeat a story or dream up fascinating tales of Snoopy in far away places doing heroic things. Story - whether relating one or watching one is still a pleasure for him.

He was a lap boy. He listened to and then read to me many many books in my lap. As he grew, he'd still plop down on my lap!! Sometimes does!

But mostly, he's my first born. My dear son.

they made me a mother again....and again

2009-05-11T13:18:00.000-07:00

My girls. My daughters. They are young women now.
They are so different. Rachael is tall. Lydia is not. Rachael has long hair. Lydia cuts it often and has shaved it once. Rachael is a home body. Lydia is a social bug. Rachael likes to read. Lydia likes to "art". Rachael relaxes in the kitchen. Lydia hyperventilates with fear in the kitchen. Viva la difference!!!

studying in a fort made with sheets - just like the olden days!!

As room mates at college, the sisters live as friends with each other. They both love to laugh and, when home, make each other laugh all the time. They are both disciplined. They both have messy bedrooms. They are both deep thinkers. They both shower every morning. They are both excelling in school. They are both loyal. They are both a joy to know. They both love Jesus.

Such variety from the same womb. Such blessings. Such love. Such dear daughters and friends to me.

POV on motherhood

2009-05-10T21:35:00.000-07:00

Sarah’s baby shower
May 9

Quite some years ago, I heard a talk, the basis of which was that a happy marriage requires a bloodless martyrdom. Only then do we know happiness.The phrase and the concept have intrigued me ever since that hour aired. I pondered it for some time and realized that this is a very Scriptural idea. I have also tried to view motherhood as a life of bloodless martyrdom. It has lead to happiness but even more, it has lead to knowing Jesus more deeply. I put it out here today for your consideration, Sarah.
Not all of us are called to martyrdom in the classical sense of the word. Not all of us are called to follow the footstep of apostles and the like and acutally shed blood and die. But all of us are called to become consistent witnesses of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. Each time we elect life over death it is a bloodless martyrdom. Each time we opt for good over evil, it is a bloodless martyrdom. Each time we practice grace over sin, or choose heaven over hell its also bloodless martyrdom. Each time we choose others over self we choose a bloodless martyrdom.
For some, this may just be a paradigm shift – an adjustment of perspective on life. For some, this may sound a bit melodramatic or extreme. I think not. Martyrdom is defined as suffering and death. OK. That sounds extreme!! But motherhood is an extreme relationship. It requires a certain kind of death. As mothers, to what must we die?? …..
None of us shed blood over the things to which we die. in We die to our need or desire for sleep. Time is not our own. We die to privacy. We die to our ideas of what motherhood will be like! We die to our ideas of what each of our children will be like – and this is a big one! God has His own call on our children’s lives – His plans for them. As mothers, in partnership with our husbands, we need to help them know that. We must not make them “LITTLE US’s”. We die to the kind of freedoms to which we are accustomed. We die to the way we spend money. There are many other deaths to die as a mother.
What is the reason for the martyrdom? It is not to look heroic and inspire others to pity us. It is not to ingratiate our children to us. We do not parade our martyrdom in front of others.
Rather, martyrdom furthers the kingdom. The saying goes – the blood of the saints waters the seed of Scripture. What you will do for Guenivere and her siblings must illustrate Scripture in flesh and blood; you must bring the kingdom of God to them in word, deed and very often, in sacrifice.
How is this concept Scriptural? Romans 12 opens with a discussion of us getting up on the altar and offering ourselves as sacrifices to God – which is our REASONABLE service!! I once heard a speaker on this passage. He said that the failure of the Christian is that we are always crawling OFF the altar. Stay on the altar!! The writer is describing a bloodless martyrdom. In the end, what you are already doing and will continue to do for Guenivere, you are doing for God in real time.
The chapter closes with a series of imperative statements. Each imperative tells us to DO something – by definition, we are also being told NOT to do something else – we are to exchange one attitude in favor of another. In some cases, he even states the opposites. My definition of martyrdom a few minutes is an echo the exchanges we make in these imperatives. I highlight a few – look up the text for the whole idea:

Love one another. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another, Honor one another above yourselves… Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. Live in harmony…. Do not be proud, but …. associate with people of low position. Be humble. ...

Most of these are counter-intuitive. Each of these illustrates an exchange of one attitude, one behavior, for another. Therein lies the martyrdom. You must die to what you think you want now to get what you really want now - and later. You will exchange your life as you know it now for a different life. You have already begun this. You don’t drink “adult beverages” now because little Guenivere depends on you to keep her healthy. You have given up space in the house for her. You already have a different view on how to spend the money you have today and the money you will have in the future. You have already given her your body as her first home. You will continue to give her your body as you feed her, as you hold her when you are tired and she is not. You have already given up hours of sleep and will continue to do so for yet a little while. You have already begun to sacrifice yourself for Guenivere.
You will have the joy of making many other sacrifices for her. YES! There is a joy in sacrifice because it comes from a place of willingness (or it should!), from love. These sacrifices, these deaths will bond you to her. They will cause you to be grateful for your own mother who did much for you. They will illustrate Jesus to all who live in and visit in your home - did He not give His riches to us, give up His home for us, give His body and His very life for us!! These sacrifices, this bloodless martyrdom will draw you deeper and deeper into Himself. Done well, this life of bloodless martyrdom will make you more beautiful.
Don't look to me or anyone in this room or anyone you know as a measure of whether or not this is worth it or whether or not it works..... Look to Jesus. He is where all questions are answered, all doubts are settled. His life well illustrates the point.
Without developing a whole other talk - don’t sacrifice Aaron along the way!! He must remain your focus. It will be tricky but God will give you the grace and creativity you need.
But that is not where my thoughts took me for today. It is, however, part of that martyrdom – to increase the sphere of giving of yourself.
God bless you Sarah.
and thank you for the pictures - again - Sarah R.

iheartfaces - week 17 - hats - adult: Now this is what hats are all about

2009-05-05T15:52:00.000-07:00

My son and his wife like hats.

Early in their dating days, they got matching hats.

Just a bit on the fabulous side of way too cute, don't you think!!

See the other hats - and faces at iheartfaces.

lifting holy hands

2009-04-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

More things are wrought by prayer
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice
Rise like a fountain for me night and day.
For what are men better than sheep or goats
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer
Both for themselves and those who call them friend?
For so the whole round earth is every way
Bound by gold chains around the feet of God.

Tennyson,
Mort D'Arthur

thank you, Sarah, for the pic!!

a weekly family reunion

2009-04-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

We had just come from a wonderful Divine Worship service - beautiful singing, powerful preaching.

We headed out to Christ Church's first picnic of the year. It was Palm Sunday. Upper 70's. Citrus in the air. We had a full table of summer food - pulled pork for sandwiches. Cole slaw. Fresh vegetables. Watermelon. Cookies. Brownies. Double-frosted cupcakes. Icy cold drinks.

As I sat eating and visiting, I looked around. Children of all ages playing together on the playground equipment. Peacefully. Happily. Teens, 20 somethings and 30 somethings playing basketball and sweating hard. Girlfriends and wives and friends were watching. Pastor Garrett playing catch with his daughter. Two young women playing volleyball in the round with some girls. Men discussing theology and the championship basketball game as they kept an eye on children so wives could visit and eat. A grandma enjoying her grandchildren - and her children. Visitors eating with the regulars and laughing. One of the young men - a college graduate cleaning up the playground. Uncle M. spinning, flipping, twirling, balancing kids.

The hours flew by. Suddenly, it was 3:15. The first picnic of the year came to an end. We had fallen in love with Jesus more, with each other more that day. We had worshiped, been fed, then fed each other. We are a family.

thanks to Sarah for the pictures

quoting Dorothy

2009-04-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

“The first thing a principle does is kill somebody.”

“Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”

“Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe in age.”

Thank you, Dorothy Sayers

Maggie-Waggy, i heart faces - week 12 - pets

2009-03-31T07:55:00.000-07:00

Our dog, Maggie. Maggie-Waggy we call her. Her tail is hurricaneous in it swishing!!

She is every bit her 12 years. Her muzzle is greying. Her hearing is failing. She sleeps a lot.

But every once in a while, the puppy in her springs to life and oh! the glory of the chase, oh! the joy of the playfulness.

Here, I had interrupted a nap she was taking while lying on her back with paws curled up on her belly. Why was that even comfortable!!!??

See other pets at i heart faces.

Paul's pout - iheartfaces Week 12 - child entry

2009-03-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

What was little Paul thinking? It was a hot afternoon, he wasn't at his own home, there were a lot of adults around, the door was shut. That would make anyone pout!

Visit the other profiles of pretty, precious, pouty poses at iheartfaces - pronto!!

will this dad thinks it cute when she's a teen??!!

2009-03-30T13:12:00.001-07:00

Baby Talking - For more funny videos, click here

quoting ?

2009-03-29T20:50:00.001-07:00

And I don't cook, either. Not as long as they still deliver pizza.

Who said this?
I think I know for whom my family would vote!!
And NO FAIR CHECKING ON GOOGLE!!!

quoting L'Engle

2009-03-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

So I go to church, not because of any legalistic or moralistic reasons, but because I am a hungry sheep who needs to be fed; and for the same reason that I wear a wedding ring: a public witness of a private commitment.

Madeleine L'Engle

Why do you go to church?

quoting O'Connor

2009-03-28T10:16:00.001-07:00

Flannery O'Connor once said, “Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”

HT: The Avenue

If I'd known it would be this easy...!!!

2009-03-26T14:39:00.001-07:00

There I was, yesterday morning, minding my own business. I was at Perks, the coffee shop around the corner from my house. Sitting in my usual chair, I was reading Respectable Sins for the upcoming book group discussion. On the table was one of my Latin books as I was soon going to study for the 4th year class.

From behind me came the question, "Is this yours?" A large red book appeared in the hands of the employee. She had noticed my green book as being very similar to the red one which had been sitting behind the counter for the last two weeks.

If I'd known that all I had to do was post on this blog about the black hole that seems to eat voraciously all things Parsons, I would have done so long ago! But actually, two fine ladies, Margie and Lynn, both offered me their copies to replace the one I thought I'd never see again. Perhaps the kindness of friends is what God wanted me to know while I waited for him to return MY book!!

hungry black hole

2009-03-24T21:22:00.000-07:00

Does your home have a black hole? You know - the place where socks and little T-shirts and glasses and puzzle pieces and pens disappear.

Well, my Latin teacher's guide, precious to me for years of notes and Latin Jeopardy games - yes!! - has evaporated from plain view. It was there one minute and invisible the next.

Mystified, unsettled, frustrated, I keep looking in the same places thinking that - as mysteriously as it disappeared - it will reappear. Maybe with some of those socks whose lonely partners sit hopefully awaiting the return of their match. Where, O Where are you, my personal black hole? Won't you regurgitate your purloined meals!!

Week 11 - Adult Flash-free

2009-03-23T12:04:00.000-07:00

My lovely daughter, Rachael, graduated from home school high school three years ago. The festivities occurred in our back yard one fine June evening. As shadows began to gather, she shines here in her flash-free fineness.

Flash over to iheartfaces and see the other flash-free fotos!!

It's Easy Bein' Green - Week 10 Adult

2009-03-04T15:14:00.000-08:00

On a very green day, perfect for a bridal shower in June, my lovely daughter-in-law (then to-be) and her grandmother were very UNfrog-like in their stunning greens amidst the cool verdent shade of the trees. When you are this beautiful, it's easy bein' green.
Meet all the other greenies at i heart faces.

Humor

2009-03-04T08:45:00.000-08:00

Humor is a gift from God. Humor helps us deal with uncomfortable, painful, even sad times. Biting wit, sarcasm and irony are kinds of humor. So, to cheer us all in these hard times, I give you - serial, I mean - cereal humor. Click on the pictures to completely enjoy the delicious details.

to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

2009-02-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

...Tho' much is taken, much abides;
And tho' we are not now that strength
Which in old days moved earth and heaven,
That which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate,
But strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Ulysses, Tennyson

I love you Dad and Mom.

Week 7 - Adult - B&W

2009-02-23T11:54:00.000-08:00

Totally unplanned - V neck shirts, hands folded the same direction, necklaces, hair caught up!!
My daughter Rachael, right, and daughter-in-law, Valerie are friends.
This comfortable photo of them on the patio on a warm summer evening, with its grainy texture and soft lighting recalls the easy nature of our time together after a good dinner and the companionship of these young women.
I look forward to many more such times.

Visit i heart faces, post your own black and white photo and join the growing number of faces!!

Chicago

2009-02-22T20:42:00.000-08:00

Larry's birthday is this Friday. He wanted to go to the Chicago concert at The Long Beach Performing Arts Center. Well, it was just wonderful. We both love their music. It was my first concert like this and a lot of fun to hear the music we listened to as we grew up and to hear it live. We were the average age!! It ended earlier than the concerts my children attend - probably for us old people!! It was a perfect evening with my dear husband.
Happy Birthday, Larry.

Wonder - week 6 - Adult and Child entry

2009-02-18T18:30:00.000-08:00

CHILD ENTRY
My niece, Linnea, is a curious child. She explores EVERYthing to the delight of some and the consternation of others!! God's world is a constant source of wonder to her. Here's to you, little Linnea.

These two pictures are poignant as they sit next to each other. 82 years separate them. Love binds them. And both of them wonder about life.

ADULT ENTRY
My mother. Corinne. She has been dealing with cancer with grace and dignity for four years. This picture was taken not long after learning that the cancer had returned. The Dr. had told us that time was limited. She is on her patio with my dad, two of her four children, a son-in-law, two of her 11 grandchildren and one of her seven great-grandchildren. All but little Linnea are holding a cup like the one she has. It was a "cup of suffering" all were sharing with her. Each pledged to pray for her, to talk with her, to listen to her, to help, to be present, to love. All pledged to share in her suffering to the extent that they could. They would drink the cup she was being asked to drink, in as much as was possible. I called later and drank with her. Here, I see her wondering what the future holds as she holds her "cup of suffering". By God's grace, she is still with us, though slowly and gracefully fading. We all wonder.
Visit iheartfaces and wonder with us.

Week 5 - I Heart Faces - Silly Adult!!

2009-02-09T13:52:00.000-08:00

Dear sister Gracie has always kept us laughing!! A great sense of humor wrapped up in a great deep soul and a beautiful, caring heart - Gracie is a total package!! Love you, Gracie!

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