desert spirit's fire!

Christmas 2009

2009-12-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying,

"Glory to God in the highest heaven,
and on earth peace among those whom he favours!"

Luke 2:8-14

advent

2009-12-19T09:22:00.001-08:00

The Spirit and the Church cry out, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

All those who await his appearance pray, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

The whole creation pleads, "Come, Lord Jesus!"

"thank you"...

2009-12-17T11:00:00.001-08:00

here's the note I wrote to fans, friends and guest artists of suntreeriver design on Facebook...

Thank you, thank you, thank you to fans, friends and guest artists of suntreeriver design!

Again we celebrate a season of cultural, religious and family festivities; in the northern hemisphere shorter, darker days and longer, colder nights bring a particularly marked opportunity to recognize the gift of light without which life cannot prevail. At this time of year the world looks to the hope of a new star on the horizon bringing a vision of justice for all creation.

Beginning with light as the first act of creation, a river of life and tree of life in a fresh, untamed garden and ending with the river of life and tree of life in a city where the sun never sets, sun and tree and river are persistent images throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. The witness of scripture shows us how to live in community and to live in harmony with and as part of the natural creation. Today many of us live in places neither quite urban or exactly rural, where garden and city intermix and converge, but wherever we are, as artists, designers, photographers, illustrators and people who simply enjoy being surrounded by beauty, we can help make the world kinder, more lovely and less threatening.

As we move the calendar year 2010 may we do everything possible to live as stewards of the planet and of the light as our lives help restore, nourish, heal and sustain. May we fill our surroundings with beauty and grace and make this world safe for innocence, vulnerability and wildness so all creation will find a safe home on this planet that is the dwelling-place of the divine, the habitation of the Spirit of Life.

lessons and carols 2009...

2009-12-06T20:20:00.000-08:00

Sunday, 06 December in Founder's Chapel at nearby University of San Diego; again this year I'll describe Lessons & Carols at USD as "an exceptionally worthy piece of preparation for God's birth in our very midst, 'fulfillment beyond all human reckoning,' as one of the worship leaders described it," in my words from 2008. Here's Advent 1 2008 followed by Advent 2, Lessons and Carols @ USD 2008. The lute-playing "Angelo Musicante" by Melozzo da Forl was on the program cover again this year.

Our ecumenical Faith, Order & Witness Committee used to meet at USD quite regularly until it became impossible to schedule a room; the near-elegance and broad, gracious layout of the USD campus always makes me wonder. It's an expensive, church-related school with an overarching emphasis on justice, but like almost all the students I've seen walking around campus and in the dining hall, most of the students in today's program were atypical for San Diego, and as a group not at all characteristic of the tremendous ethnic, racial, cultural and economic diversity that is the San Diego I interact with every day and the San Diego of the condo complex I currently call home.

For the processional we sang "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel." Be with us, God-with-us, ransom your people, pay the price to free them, to liberate all of us from captivity to everything that holds humans and societies cultures in chains.

Comfort ye, my people! Every valley shall be exalted; the mountains and hills made low-- from the exilic Isaiah 40:1-11 and G. F. Handel. Jesus of Nazareth lived The Way that raises deep caverns and valleys, levels mountains and hills, straightens treacherous roads (repairs those potholes, too); that way is life on the edges of conventional society, words and action that subvert conventional political and religious pretensions to power. Doing justly and loving rightly includes advocacy for equity for everyone everywhere, reversing superfluous wealth and unseating corrupt government. The way of the baptized includes speaking truth to power and living as servants to all.

Erin Lovette-Colyer, Director of The Women's Center at USD was homilist. She suggested we put Mary's story into our own story into Mary's story into our own... and told us she'd talked with three "wise women" in her life as part of her preparation to preach at the worship event. Her own mother, diagnosed with terminal cancer; her recently widowed aunt and her brother's wife, her sister-in-law soon to deliver her first child. Erin told us no doubt Gabriel was well prepared to engage Mary in conversation. What teenager wouldn't want to and need to discuss the momentous future she was being asked to enter? I'd never thought of that, but of course Mary had to talk about it, but the main thing is Mary said "Yes."

Erin described so many of us as afraid to die, afraid to live and afraid to give birth and during this Advent 2009 I still find myself in the same almost forever of being afraid to die (not only to past disappointments and human expectations, but lots more, too), afraid to continue living with lack of basic community, with isolation and loneliness and still afraid of giving birth to a new life for myself and the strangers around me. What if, what if, what if not? Seems as if I still think somehow I can do it on my own, which definitely has not worked at all and after all, in baptism I'm already dead, I've already been raised from death to new life. At the end of her talk Erin Lovette-Colyer asked if we would be doing Advent with an attitude of hope rather than anxiety and "being honest with myself" my anxiety level still is far too high for a modicum of comfort, yet I'm doing Advent with hope, too.

Isaiah 11:1-10 was one of the readings ...₁A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. _4abut with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth..._9bfor the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Before the recessional the choir sang last year's recessional song, "The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy," an arrangement of a spiritual from the West Indies, proclaiming Mary's Baby Body "came from the glorious kingdom."

Jesus came from the glorious kingdom to make this earth a glorious kingdom, as full of the presence of God "as the waters cover the sea." In the power of the cross and the power of the Spirit, we live as God-with-us, God among us. The feast and the season of Epiphany is not all that far away, so in the words of one of my very young students quite a while ago, to live as the Body of Christ means "that we can be city lights!"

Observing Advent, hoping and longing for the Divine Presence in our midst ultimately is about desiring and longing for the death of death itself, hankering after Easter. Afraid to die? But God can only resurrect the dead! And I'm dead, already--baptized! How do we practice easter in the midst of tombstones? How do we live as if among the artifacts of death? Remember, remember... the straight path, the smooth, level road is the way of the cross, the axis mundi connecting heaven and earth as we live incarnation, resurrection and pentecost together. Celebrate eucharist: taken, blessed, broken and given...

do nothing friday 5

2009-12-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

do nothing friday 5 on the revgals

Sally had an interesting idea:

I am reading a wonderful little book for Advent it's title: "Do nothing Christmas is Coming!"

So this weeks Friday Five is simple.

List Five things you won't be doing to prepare for Christmas.

And while you are doing nothing play the bonus, put your feet up and listen to your favourite Advent Carol, and post it or a link to it...

Simple!

1. I won't be anticipating snow or expecting to shovel snow

but I will be full of gratitude for gifts of coastal desert and the hot desert

2. I won't be preparing to preach a Christmas sermon or play nativity liturgy

but I will be doing some designing

3. I won't be basking in the sun of a tropical beach paradise

but I will be giving thanks for sufficient food and shelter

4. I won't be enjoying that sense of "finally, at last, I'm home" I keep imagining is around the next corner I turn, the next community where I try to find ways to participate

but I will be doing and simply being whatever and however I can to fulfill God's call to me to be the welcoming embrace others seek and others need, daily and hourly to live as an attitude and a place of homecoming for others

5. I won't be celebrating the resurgence and revitalization of the ministry I prepared to do

but I will be remembering not a single door has been permanently closed and singing again the Magnificat, God's assurance of great reversals, the rich and irrevocable promise--along with proleptic evidence--of the inbreaking reign of heaven here on earth. I'll even rejoice in my too-many scars, evidence that in spite of it all, life has prevailed, after all! And during Advent and for Thanksgiving Eve I've been organist for evening prayer and love exposing the strident, sometimes-dissonant harmonies and angular vocal line of the Lutheran Book of Worship setting of vespers.

I've chosen a song that covers the entire liturgical year:

Mary, Did You Know?

by Mark Lowry and Buddy Greene

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day walk on water?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would save our sons and daughters?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has come to make you new?
This Child that you delivered will soon deliver you.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will give sight to a blind man?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy will calm the storm with His hand?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little Baby you kissed the face of God?

Mary did you know...

The blind will see.
The deaf will hear.
The dead will live again.
The lame will leap.
The dumb will speak
The praises of The Lamb.

Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy is Lord of all creation?
Mary, did you know
that your Baby Boy would one day rule the nations?
Did you know
that your Baby Boy is heaven's perfect Lamb?
The sleeping Child you're holding is the Great I Am.

advent retreat 3

2009-11-30T15:15:00.000-08:00

RGBP advent retreat 2009 3

Juniper hosts this retreat segment, and begins with Mary/Miriam's Magnificat we sing every day at Evening Prayer/ Vespers. I love the Mary icon, and will give credit when I find out the artist's name [here's his site: Scott Ward]. And I love The Message version of the bible!

Luke 1:46-55, from The Message

And Mary said,
I'm bursting with God-news;
I'm dancing the song of my Savior God.
God took one good look at me, and look what happened—
I'm the most fortunate woman on earth!
What God has done for me will never be forgotten,
the God whose very name is holy, set apart from all others.
His mercy flows in wave after wave
He bared his arm and showed his strength,
scattered the bluffing braggarts.
He knocked tyrants off their high horses,
pulled victims out of the mud.
The starving poor sat down to a banquet;
on those who are in awe before him.
the callous rich were left out in the cold.
He embraced his chosen child, Israel;
he remembered and piled on the mercies, piled them high.
It's exactly what he promised,
beginning with Abraham and right up to now.

Juniper reflects:

I remember the first time I saw a musical. I was maybe 11 or 12, and I went to see the local high school's production of Sound of Music. Everything about it transported me, but the most astonishing part to me (a novice to musicals) was the way in which the characters would, in the middle of mundane speech, be so transported by love or wonder or joy that they just had to burst into song. It was like magic.... In a way, the interaction between Mary and Elizabeth reminds me of some first-century-Palestine Broadway musical. The news Mary has to share is so stupendous, so astonishing, so joyful, that she cant even talk about it, she just has to sing...

She suggests questions to ponder:

1. What does your religious tradition have to say about Mary, if anything? How is Mary's journey important to you on your personal spiritual path?

Coming out of the major theological traditions of the Reformation, I need to remember that Martin Luther was greatly devoted to Mary, though I still haven't quite learned how to have an attitude of devotion and reverence toward a person or place without making it more central in my life than Jesus Christ. I've been serving on the local Ecumenical Council's Faith, Order & Witness committee, and moderated one of our discussions of the Anglican-Roman Catholic "agreed statement" Mary: Grace and Hope in Christ, though when I checked my blog archives I realized that was one I didn't blog. I think Mary is awesome... and as a model for us to follow Mary said, "Yes! I will, yes!" Yet I retain a lot of confusion. A few summers ago one of the times I taught in a bilingual Spanish-English Vacation Bible School, I mentioned to the congregation's senior pastor how horrendous the printed curriculum was. Not only marginally literate; the theology was anything but reformationish, starting with instructions to the teacher to "divide the class into saved and unsaved." As I said to senior pastor, "We don't do that in this kind of church," and he replied, "the problem is, there's so little protestant bilingual material," so I assumed he was trying to avoid high-level Mariology. For the next two years we used VBS material from Concordia's Spanish-language division. Given that it came from the LC-MS it was more conservative than ideally I'd have preferred, but still retained a strong emphasis on God's initiative, election and grace. Short answer? I think Mary is awesome but don't quite know where to place her in my own life, but she supremely and superbly shows us how to respond to God's initiative, election and grace...

2. When we hear it, we know how singing is different from talking - how much more deeply emotions are expressed, how the vocal range rises and falls, how freely and effortlessly the notes seem to fall from a good singer. Is it possible to capture that same feeling from reading words on a page? If not, how else might we experience the Magnificat?

Sometimes speech is not adequate. Simply not at all. Just think of how pale "And His Name shall be called, "Wonderful! Counselor! The Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace," invariably and inevitably comes across on the printed page or reading aloud once you've heard "For Unto us a Child is Born" from Handel's Messiah! I believe J.S. Bach's Magnificat definitely does near-justice to Mary's words and I've been enjoying singing - and during Advent, playing - the Magnificat from Evening Prayer in the Lutheran Book of Worship. The musical setting is by Donald Busarow, I think, but may be mistaken.

3. Mary does not name her Child, or even reveal her pregnancy in the Song. And yet, the hope of Christ's presence is strongly felt in the themes of justice and mercy expressed. What hopes do you have for the coming of the Christ child in this season?

Until now It hadn't occurred to me that Mary doesn't give her baby a name in this song--thanks, Juniper! What hope do I hold for myself and for the world around me? More than anything to find friends and a community that will burst into excited song or a near-equivalent when they see me. People who will be excited when I offer to do something rather than recoiling in horror or saying, "we're not going to do that any more" or "someone else is doing that." In all these years I've never srsly doubted my abilities, but I've frequently questioned my humanity.

I'll conclude this retreat session with Juniper's simply beautiful prayer:

God of all life, fill me so with your good news that I am fairly bursting with it. Help me to sing your song using the words and the tune that you have created just for me. Alleluia!

advent retreat 2

2009-11-30T14:32:00.000-08:00

RGBP advent retreat 2

Hosting this retreat session, Songbird begins by quoting Luke 3:7-18, including John the Baptist's charge to the gathered crowd to practice distributive justice and not to hanker after exhorbitant wages, bringing to mind the well-popularized and popularly decried salaries and bonuses of the investment house and bank principals we've been hearing about during the past year. Luke 3:16, John answered all of them by saying, "I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." and Luke 3:18 ...he proclaimed the good news to the people.

good news? For Paul, the gospel, the good news is death and resurrection. The death to self, to greed, to excess, the new birth into a servant community that cares not only for the needs in its midst but offers itself to a broken world. And we are baptized into the Good News; our first death and second birth at the font of life also is a baptism, a total immersion into the cleansing, anointing, refining Spirit of Pentecost. Baptism brings us God's word and promise, we no longer need to trust ourselves. Yes, the Spirit burns the chaff with fire that doesn't quit yet purifies and refines the chosen, royal, people of God's own choice.

As Songbird points out, "He's powerful, John. People wonder if he isn't the Messiah himself. When we look around the world today we see plenty of messianic figures, people who proclaim one truth or another. He's preaching the opposite of today's popular prosperity gospel, more like the common sense thinking of our grandparents' generation. Make do with what you have; do a hard day's work and earn what you're paid; keep an eye out for those in need and help where you can." I love Songbird's observation that, "It seems strange that his rules involve money and wages when he lives in the desert and not in the community of commerce."

For reflection Songbird suggests:

John speaks of wheat and chaff being sorted, and we tend to think of this as an outer process, a division of faithful people from the rest of the world. But perhaps we can apply this to the inner life. As we begin this Advent, can you identify the wheat and the chaff in your life? Are you ready to leave the chaff behind?

I like this a lot; I'm more and more aware that my denials of my own pain and cascading disappointments are huge these days and I cannot change or trust God to change what I refuse to acknowledge. Oh, yes, there often are insidious improvement in attitudes and situations we weren't aware of, but this is big stuff. Am I ready to leave the chaff behind? Jesus asked the guy by the Bethsaida pool, "Do you want to be healed?" And the guy replied, "Sir! there is no one to pick me up and put me in the pool after the angel stirs the waters." Yes, with my entire being I want and need to be healed but cannot do life on my own by myself. There has been no one to pick me up and put me in the pool... these days I barely can stand, let alone walk.

from Songbird,A Prayer

Advent God, in this season of anticipation, prepare our hearts and minds to receive the truth about our world and our lives. Help us to sort ourselves out with the help of your Holy Spirit. We pray in the name of the One who is Coming. Amen.

advent retreat 1

2009-11-30T14:13:00.000-08:00

RGBP virtual advent retreat 1

Mompriest offers a beautiful reflection on the year Advent 1C lectionary readings:

Entering the Advent journey is an invitation to travel, intentionally, into the wilderness – the dark night of the soul. One hopes that the Church guides this journey offering opportunities to pray, ponder, stirred up, conflicted. John, the desert prophet, proclaims the burning chaff, the background to our Christmas shopping. Advent sings of incongruous images - new birth and end of life, the Alpha and the Omega, of oppression and freedom, of despair and ultimately of hope. The path is uneven and twisted, spiraling in to the depths of our being, certain we are lost. And then, quietly, the Spirit of God calls to us, “Awake, arise, my love, my dear one.” The early morning desert sun illuminates the way - through the valley to Jordan’s bank - our God is near. Awake and hearken, let each heart prepare a place for the Word to break in, a child to come anew, whispering peace into you and me. Come, our long expected One, come.

Mompriest then suggests some questions to ponder:

1. John Newton, the author of Amazing Grace, describes our spiritual journey as a process of moving from desire for God, to conflict with God, to contemplation and peace with God. Many consider this process to be a spiral not linear. Based on these three "states" where are you in your faith journey?

Shorthand, nutshell descriptions can hint at reality but don't do well enough articulating the lived experience. For sure the spiritual is among the dimensions of our journey through life, but at the same time The Way of Jesus is earthbound, grounded and provocatively political and economic. Jesus calls us to engage the powers that be and at the same time the power of the HS enables us to do whatever possible to help create a world and a society where necessary goods and services are distributed equitably and where each individual gets opportunities to participate to an extent reasonably consonant with their abilities and desires.

In terms of my own level of trusting God along the often rock-strewn road, the labyrinth is an almost perfect model of how we find ourselves apparently closer to the goal of the center and a few step later closer to the edge. Where am I in my own faith journey? Interpreting "faith journey" as level of trust in the Giver and Sustainer of Life rather than my own level of merely human accomplishment, like many people, I'm far more trusting yet still imagining I can do it by myself. I remain at war with myself and with the Church and cannot be at peace until I again find a community of embrace that welcomes me, my gifts and experience and offers me reasonably full participation.

2. Does the mystery of Advent invite you into deeper reflection on your relationship with God?

...the mystery of Advent in some ways the "how to" is mysterious as we live simultaneously in darkness and light, amidst the reign of Christ and in the not-yet of still anticipating the Divine birth in our midst [everyone of the "both-ands" Mompriest lined out in her intro]. Every individual and each community has experienced broken dreams, irrevocably unfilled promises yet especially in the sacraments we keep on remembering, reenacting and reclaiming the eternal reality and the very present "NOW!" of our deliverance from death into freedom.

3., 4. Do you have a meditation of your own you'd like to share with us today ... or Advent resources?

I haven't written anything special but yesterday I was so very heartened at the live realization this is Luke's lectionary year again... I already mentioned shorthands and nutshells, and I love his emphasis on women, the marginalized and the Spirit! Although in the Day of Pentecost pericope in Acts Luke brings us maybe the most memorable account of the coming of the Spirit of Life, throughout Luke's gospel the HS always is present in a highly tangible manner.

day 30, 30 nov nablopomo

2009-11-30T13:01:00.000-08:00

I'll finish up this month of daily blogs with a month-long facebook status cloud and I almost cannot believe I did the whole entire thing--in fact I blogged a few times more than the requisite 30 in 30 days!

comments about the cloud

I love that both "friends" and "friend" show up in this medium-size cloud for the month of November. My designer and facebook design page name suntreeriver again is prominent, along with fans, design and world, all central to my life and vision. Also, my attempts to help Mi Chele rent the condo next door and my deciding to participate some in the virtual Walk For The Cure for cancer are in the cloud.

advent 1: blog month day 29

2009-11-29T00:12:00.000-08:00

Advent 1: Jeremiah 33:14-16

¹⁴"The days are surely coming," says the Lord, "when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: 'The Lord is our righteousness.'"

day 28: Knowing You, Jesus

2009-11-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

by Graham Kendrick

All I once held dear, built my life upon,
All this world reveres and wars to own;
All I once thought gain I have counted loss,
Spent and worthless now compared to this.

Chorus:
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing.
You're my all, You're the best,
You're my joy, my righteousness,
And I love You Lord.

Now my heart's desire is to know You more,
To be found in You and know as Yours,
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All surpassing gift of righteousness

Chorus

Oh to know the power of Your risen life,
And to know You in Your sufferings;
To become like You in Your death, my Lord,
So with You to live and never die.

Chorus

© 1993 Make Way Music

27 nov nablopomo day 27

2009-11-27T19:37:00.000-08:00

day 27 of 30: 1-week facebook status cloud... thought I'd use a monospaced font to contrast with the typographic variety in my cloud... What's been going on? The past seven days of (always well-guarded) facebook status topics have included design, images, suntreeriver, fans and friends. "infrastructure" related to Afghanistan, but given my background in urban affairs it could have referred to local streets and roads. With words like central, discount, apartment, rent, move-in and 1200, once again the condo next door was the main topic as again I was trying to help FB friend, real-life friend and former next-door neighbor Mi Chele, now living north of here a piece, rent her vacancy, and a couple days ago new neighbors moved in! Even better, this afternoon Mi Chele herself stopped by for a short chat and a round of hugs. A trio more of blog posts and I'll have finished this November's round for nablopomo!

Z: thanksgiving day, USA

2009-11-26T09:39:00.000-08:00

letter 26, last in the English alphabet

Zoos,

especially the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.

Zion

The City of God, the place of God's promised eternal Presence, not simply or solely a single place but wherever the people of God gather. A well-tended garden naturally grows into a city...

Zion National Park

In Southern Utah... it may be my favorite, but then again, all the national and state parks I've visited are wondrous!

z-coordinates

to indicate a 3rd dimension

giving thanks with letter "X"

2009-11-25T19:33:00.000-08:00

only two this time...

X

The Greek letter chi that we use to indicate "Christ," the crucified Man of Sorrows and risen King of Glory, the One Whose reign we celebrated last Sunday.

x-coordinate

it's useful to be able to indicate the exact location of the horizontal coordinate in applications like Adobe InDesign.

poetry party 41

2009-11-25T12:12:00.000-08:00

Christine has announced Abbey of the Arts poetry party 41 and book giveaway so I'm participating and she tells us the books from the giveaway all have been given away, yay!

All month long I've been blogging daily thanks for National Blog Month, and I'm delighted to offer a few more reasons for thanksgiving.

I am excited about my Facebook page, suntreeriver design and all my fabulous fans. Since suntreeriver design debuted on Facebook just over six months ago, I've featured galleries of my own design along with ten guest artists so far; two more guests are scheduled for the near future.

Last Sunday we celebrated the reign of the crucified Man of Sorrows and risen King of Glory, and my heart holds immense gratitude for a God Who chose to come to earth in flesh that fails, bones that break, dreams that shatter and plans that implode and that God continues choosing far less than ideal circumstances as the ongoing locale of continuing Self-revelation

A Facebook friend quoted from Shane Claiborne in Jesus for President: Politics for Ordinary Radicals "Christianity is at its best when it is peculiar, marginalized, suffering, and it is at its worst when it is popular, credible, triumphal, and powerful...." Despite my own tremendous ambivalence and pain, in many ways I yet am thankful for all these years of loneliness, marginalization and far less than full participation in church and world. After all, I'm a theologian so I do paradox and ambiguity very very well.

As we move into Advent's call to repentance and hope and then to the Nativity, the birth of the Baby Boy in Bethlehem, how can I not be everlastingly grateful for the Savior "Of Jesse's lineage coming ...amid the cold of winter when half-spent was the night" and for the Good News Jesus still brings, a gospel that fully engages and that calls us to stewardship of all creation.

Y-thanks

2009-11-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

letter 25, next to last in the English alphabet

yellow!

From pale to rich through ultra-saturated, my favorite color of all time, though I'm very particular about my yellows and generally speaking, plain ole spectrum yellow just will not do.

y-coordinate

in some cases an essential way of marking location; in others, a helpful way to get things looking right

YES.

not no, not maybe, not possibly or perhaps, but an unequivocal affirmative.

thanksgivings - letter W

2009-11-23T20:07:00.000-08:00

last 4 days and letters of the alphabet makes this the final home stretch

WildEarth!

WE love WildEarth!...it's in our nature.

weather

the climate and ambient environment we live in that sometimes changes and does interesting things and at times remains the same as before

world

the sphere on which we live; the earth we walk upon; the floor of the sky; the stage of nature and of God's covenant with creation and God's transformative, gracious actions in history.

words

we read them, write with them, speak them, interpret them, change them, communicate with them and Where Would We be Without Words?

giving thanks: V

2009-11-22T19:44:00.000-08:00

variety

...of weather, geography, flavor, temperature, culture, texture, size, color, shape, style and almost everything else.

[Antonio] Vivaldi

I Quattro Stagioni, a.k.a. "The Four Seasons" and especially the famous minor violin Concerto in a minor, Opus 3, No, 6 (RV356}. J.S. Bach made two transcriptions for organ of two Vivaldi concerti, and I love those, too, and esp love playing them. One of my Haarlem organ teachers observed, "With these arrangements you're playing two very great composers."

alphabet letter U thanks

2009-11-21T18:06:00.000-08:00

letter "U"!

Right now I can't think of anything for today's letter. This list isn't necessarily exclusively about major thanksgivings such as cats, the gospel, and the desert; some include what I called "spices, energizers, cools" a couple of Novembers ago. Stuff that's fun or funky, that adds flavor to any day and that energizes into a new perspective or simply feeling a little better and more optimistic all are reasons for giving thanks. However, despite not having something related to letter U today, since the English alphabet contains 26 letters and the month of November 30 days, there will be four leftover days at the end of the month and on those days I intend to fill in some so far forgotten and neglected thanksgivings.

T-hanksgivings for travel, tiramisu and time

2009-11-20T16:56:00.000-08:00

travel

Whether a walk around the block, a ride across town or a flight to another country, a way of refreshing your viewpoint and enlarging your horizon. I want to and need to do a lot more, locally and globally.

tiramisu

There are lots of other especially fabulous desserts, but this one starts with a "t".

time

One of the essential dimensions we're graced to live in.

PS font color is "siena"

S thanks

2009-11-19T12:12:00.000-08:00

as I'm moving into the home stretch, here's some backtracking about alphabetical thanks-giving for november

Jan at Yearning for God inspired me to blog alphabetical thanks and Mindy, who blogs at Bits and Odd Pieces of Mindy's Kingdom inspired me to try a daily blog for this month of November, so I'm combining them. And how cool is it that for national blog posting month "The theme for November is there is no theme for November?!"

"Thank You" to Tracey Delaney from Pretty Little Things - "life, art & everything else" for the blog month badge.

Sabi Sands

where the WildEarth leopards we ♥ love ♥ so live

scripture

a word of life for all the world

sacraments

paradoxical, mysterious and concrete Divine Self-revelation and Self-giving

sunrise

a fresh start for a new day, especially wonderful with a multicolored sky

sunshine

who can resist splashes of light, hints of light and all the ways a little sun or a lot of it transforms the world

sunset

sun down, whether marking the end of a tumultuous, disappointing or otherwise not great day or a satisfying sigh for a productive time. sunsets are especially fabulous in the desert southwest and over the beach!

giving R-thanks

2009-11-18T16:00:00.000-08:00

Rainbows!

In scripture, a well-known sign of an even better-known covenant between heaven and earth, rainbows also are a sign of inclusiveness, welcome and reconciliation.

Romans,

the epistle to. The apostle Paul's magnum opus, his systematic theology, some relatively tough-to-read and difficult-to-interpret Greek. It heavily inspired the reformer Martin Luther and Anders Nygren calls Romans the "purist gospel." For Paul, the gospel is death and resurrection...

Quilts-thanks

2009-11-17T11:09:00.000-08:00

quilts and

I love new and vintage and almost any miscellaneous textiles; as a very little kid I thought I'd become a textile designer. This gloriously flowered comforter that's probably from mid-1970's to 1980's was an ebay find.

more quilts

this smallish patchwork quilt is from a thrift store, was in excellent condition and probably isn't very old.

P-thanks

2009-11-16T10:14:00.000-08:00

Paradise!

what the local weather people often call this part of the world

Pumpkins

all sizes, colors, shapes and textures. Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Bread are especially wonderful!

Psalms

prayerful, passionate and practical...

Purpose

What I sometimes have too much of and occasionally too little of, but a great possibility that helps give life meaning.

Vision of the Anointed, ch. 1

2009-11-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

Originally I typed my notes from the online discussion of chapter 1 of The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell on Saturday, August 29, 2003 and now I'm finally blogging mainly what interested and intrigued me as I read the sample pages online. If I remember correctly we didn't get beyond chapter 1, though the book arrived from Amazon so I might read more later. At UMassBoston we read the author's Race and Economics and I remember it was close to spellbinding, so the possibility of reading and talking about this book interested me.

Chapter 1, "Flattering Unction"

"The vision prevailing among the intellectual and political elite of our time." "It is a prevailing vision… [offering] a special state of grace for those who believe in it." "…those who disagree are seen as being not only in error, but in sin." "People are never more sincere than when they assume their own moral superiority."

Vision, anointed, state of grace and sin all are biblical and theological buzzwords!

Early on our discussion moderator asked what the terms "vision" and "anointed" meant to us and why; she also asked if the author tells us why he chose those words, but since I don't have my book yet I can't answer that question, though possibly someone else can.

To do a brief word-study, in Israel, prophets, priests and kings were anointed into the legitimacy of their call; as the moderator pointed out, "Christos / Messiach" means the "anointed." As I posted on one of our earlier book threads, Jesus was anointed into his death in a most unconventional and unorthodox manner and in an unofficial, non-hierarchical setting outside of the legitimate religious, economic and political establishments. As Christians baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as we take the name "Christian" we're baptized prophet, priest and king.

Therefore, the "anointing" of those to whom Dr. Sowell refers are anointed into legitimacy. In our Christian tradition we use olive oil, from the olive tree – which arguably is the "Tree of Life" – as the anointing oil in our liturgies. So these anointed in Sowell's book can be imaged as anointed into fullness of life? Bizarre argument maybe, but I'm thinking! But then again, we Christians consider the cross the ultimate tree of life and although our moderator so aptly pointed out that economics is the most theological of disciplines, I've already cautioned against really getting off on a more explicitly theological track, so I'll quit on that particular subject, though not without saying "tree" is a persistent biblical image and concept.

Our moderator already wrote succinctly about "vision," and so many biblical "vision" settings are familiar to all of us, at the moment I'll pass on writing any more about visions. I'm interested in seeing what more he says about grace and sin in subsequent chapters.

Thomas Sowell speaks of the =insulation= of a vision, and he is very correct, because ideas and egos do become "inextricably intertwined," as he expresses it. Our own individual ideas (as if any idea anyone ever had were not at least somewhat derivative) assume the force of dogma and sometimes lives of their own mini-lives within our larger lives and worlds, so "I" need to protect and defend and, yes insulate "my" idea to the exclusion and sometimes the extinction of everyone else's ideas.

"Crusading movements among the intelligentsia usually include": (paraphrased)

Assertions of great danger to the whole society…to which the masses of people are oblivious;
An urgent need for action to avert impending catastrophe;
A need for government to curtail the behavior of the masses in order to assert the ideas of those prescient few;
A disdainful dismissal of arguments to the contrary.

His saying "Many are unaware there's any other way of looking at things" comes close to bringing me up short, since very suddenly I'm realizing that despite trying to broaden my "vision" by reading and discussing, all too frequently I become very, very unhappy when my ideas aren't accepted as the best, and of course when people aren't interested in listening to me and hearing me I can be truly devastated.

"Thinking People" vs. "Articulate People!" is an intriguing way of separating and distinguishing people! Seems as if the more articulate folks are the ones who get believed and get their articulations acted upon.

One of our discussion participants asked about Dr. Sowell, "what compels him to swim against the prevailing academic stream of thought."

"academic stream of thought" – because so-called liberal thought indeed does prevail in academic and intellectual groups and troops and is relatively rare outside of the educational and cultural whatever-you-want-to-call-it-complex.

I believe I was the one saying though I'd love to get into a discussion of otherness, Holy Other, Creator/creature and identity, I thought that'd get us off this book's track and into a more specifically theological excursion. But many thanks anyway for mentioning the necessity of something other than that supreme "me" and "I" when it comes not only to visions and dreams but when it just plain simply comes to life itself. None of us is self-generated, so thanks for saying the visionary force begins not inside of us but rather outside of us: the biblical distinction between Creator and created. Was not the very idea of creation a vision of our Creator-God's?

The whole superiority and self-righteous trip – me too, all more often than I care to admit. That's it on this chapter for tonight. Amazon said my book was supposed to ship yesterday (Monday), but I haven't gotten an email saying it has shipped, so I'll look forward to reading more of what everyone else has to say about this chapter.