Holy Experience

Links for 2009-07-10 [del.icio.us]

2009-07-11T00:00:00-07:00

What’s in a line?
...@ One Thing

Links for 2009-07-08 [del.icio.us]

2009-07-09T00:00:00-07:00

Handwritten Inspirations
... @ The Best Nesst (etsy)

Links for 2009-07-07 [del.icio.us]

2009-07-08T00:00:00-07:00

My Journaling Habit
@ Life and Godliness
My Journal...
@ Linda's Patchwork Quilt
Un-Ugly Inspiration...
@ Life is So Short, yet So Eternal
The crutch of prosperity
... Tony Woodlief
What Fire do You need to Stoke?
... @ Notes
Gratitude by a hospital bedside ...
@ A Circle of Quiet

Links for 2009-07-02 [del.icio.us]

2009-07-03T00:00:00-07:00

Christian Aid Workers Killed Over Mission Work
...@ Worthy Christian News.... I join you in praying for our persecuted brothers and sisters around the world who Go into all the world--because it really isn't a suggestion.

Links for 2009-06-30 [del.icio.us]

2009-07-01T00:00:00-07:00

Chronicling Your Life
... @ Internet Cafe. Compare the difference Journaling can make in a life!
A photo of your Journal?
... @ Dance by the Light. Such inspiration! Will you leave a link to a photo of your journal?
Might you pray for little Chase?
... I join you.
Holding Hope
... @ One Million
Designing Learning Spaces
... @ Wildflowers and Marbles... inspiring organization of learning spaces. HT: E. Foss
How to say Yes...
... @ MommyCoddle... I think I might write that on my hand too....

Links for 2009-06-24 [del.icio.us]

2009-06-25T00:00:00-07:00

As you Love Me
@ A Path Made Straight
Joy, the Color of Fireflies...
... @ Heart to Heart with Holley

Permanence

2009-06-25T01:00:00.003-04:00

How could we have known 15 years ago today how He would enlarge our love circle?

We bought the table with gifts from my mama, your parents, my dad. The circling chairs' paint crack with time's lines. Little Shalom, Peace Child, has nearly outgown spindled high chair. And you, oh you, my Farmer Husband, brought the crock there full of peonies from out at the mailbox, you brought it home for me, twinkle in your eye, gave me the pair of crocks, one too for the wooden chest before the hearth. Furniture vases. Permanent.

And when their handpicked flowers fade, a child, or me, you, one from the love circle, goes looking for beauty somewhere, gathers, and fills again. The crock vase always remains, always sits at the center. Always awaits the finding, the filling.

Beauty's everywhere.

I never dreamed the vase of these fifteen years could hold so much.

Related Love:
A photo of us 15 yrs. ago today: a barefoot bride, up in the barn...
I do
Love, Smiles, and Strawberry Pies

How to Nurture Geniuses

2009-06-23T03:30:00.004-04:00

Dormant geniuses lie sleeping down the hall.

They eat across from us at the breakfast table, sit next to us in mini-vans taxiing to soccer fields, even look back at us from our bathroom mirrors. What if genius is the normative intent of what God’ bestows and our own lack of faithful stewardship results in malnourished gifts?

László and Klara Polgár, parents of three daughters, understood exactly that. Homeschoolers in Hungary who were harassed by armed police to enroll their daughters in public school, Klara and László believed that any child could be nurtured to flourish, and exceedingly so. It was simply a matter of faithfulness. The Polgar’s were.

Faithful hours of considered study and practice were invested in the Polgar home. By 2000, these home educated daughters were at least tri-lingual (one daughter could speak seven languages), each had achieved top-10 ranking in the world of female chess players, and their youngest daughter, Judit, shattered the previous record for the youngest person, male or female, to earn the title of chess Grandmaster. She was 15 years old. While Susan would later be the number one female chess player in the world, Judit would be the first woman to be rank in the top ten chess players worldwide. How did the Polgar’s raise three geniuses?

It wasn’t a function of I.Q. or genetics. (László concedes he was a mediocre chess player at best, being regularly beaten by his oldest when she was five years old; Klara didn’t even know the rules when their daughters began playing. Current research clearly indicates that the top achievers are rarely high-IQ geniuses or former child prodigies.) It was simply the same way Mozart, Benjamin Franklin, Tiger Woods found their way: by faithful , wholehearted stewardship.

By diligent, attentive nurtuing of the gifts God hands out liberally to far more than a select few. It’s dangerously tempting to think that geniuses are exceptional products of blazing, divine intervention.

Because then we don’t have to closely examine how we are stewarding the gifts He’s given us. Are geniuses really only better stewards then the rest of us? Recent research suggests that rather unnerving possibility.

Hope picking June Rubies in the kitchen garden's strawberry patch

Shalom and Malakai sculpting and imagining and shaping ideas between fingers

Hope carefully stitching up old rugs

Malakai spontaneously setting up paints in the study to copy a local artist's vibrant hues

Joshua's most recent motorized, dual speed, self-engineered creation (oh, the legos here!)

Joshua testing a propeller's wing design with a blow dryer

Caleb painting his self-designed, two tiered (only just a tad, but hardly, wobbly) roadside stand

Carefully arranged boquets of blooms awaiting their sale in Mason Jars,
alongside vegetables from Cale's garden
and some fresh baked goodness he and Hope have rustled up

1. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Practice

Geniuses make it look effortless only because they’ve faithfully practiced. Anders Ericsson, a professor of psychology at Florida State University, posits that "extended deliberate practice" is the ultimate key to successful use of a gift. "Nothing shows that innate factors are a necessary prerequisite for expert-level mastery in most fields," he says. Ericsson’s interviews with 78 German pianists and violinists discovered that by age 20, the best musicians had spent an estimated 10,000 hours practicing, twice the average 5,000 hours the less accomplished group practiced.

Genius is a long faithfulness.

So fingers stretch across ivories here, shoulders hunch over Latin, brows knit in mathematical quandary. Just two hours a day of concentrated practice over a decade stacks up to 7,000 hours of faithful stewarding.

What would happen if every Christian used the 4 hours daily spent in front of the television a day (more than 126 hours a month!) or the near hour a day the average American surfs the internet and spent two of those hours developing their skill in a particular domain ( woodworking, quantum physics, photography) and one hour more on the spiritual disciplines that lead into a deeper relationship with God, (prayer, memorization, Bible meditation, fasting) – only repurposing three hours a day from the five we spend on passive entertainment --- and in one decade, our entire culture – and the world at large – would be entirely revolutionized. How are we being faithful stewards of our 10,000 hours?

Why not tenderly unfurl a gift?

2. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Pioneer

The flesh tugs towards the path of least resistance. Even if we practice, we’re tempted to keep practicing what we already know. But geniuses steward the gift by faithfully pioneering into unknown territory. Committed stewards continually forge ahead by asking: what weaknesses need strengthening? what skills need extending?

Faithful stewards fight the flesh and mind’s inclination to sloppily automate a skill, by careful analyzing the parts of the whole skill and altering their practice accordingly, which forces the brain’s internalization of an improved pattern of execution. Like Benjamin Franklin who would rewrite his favorite articles from memory, then closely compare it with the actual, we too stretch minds and skills with challenge of new ground.

How can I gently stretch a gift?

3. Geniuses are stewards who Faithfully Pursue

Geniuses steward the gift by, practice, pioneering and finally, pursuing a mentor. A coach or teacher is necessary to flourish a gift, to grow it into pioneer territory. And pursuing a supportive environment is paramount for fostering a gift. Parents can be mentors. Parents can be the positive environment. When Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford University, praised children for "how" they did a task—for undergoing the process successfully --- most children wanted to take on increasingly challenging tasks. The children wanted to pioneer. Generally, such encouraged children’s performances improved, and when it didn't, they still deemed the experience enjoyable.

How might we pursue a mentor and *be* a strengthening, affirming for others stewarding a gift?

Children slip out of beds, and another day dawns with its hours. I'm not so sure anyone here will ever be deemed "a genius", or if that is really even a worthy goal, but stewardship clearly is. And it’s clear that God’s far more generous in placing truly great gifts into our hands than we’ve ever realized.

It’s our hands that need be faithful with the talents.

I reach out and squeeze the young hand next to mine.

Related: (Outside Articles) Developing a Growth Mindset
Genius, The Modern View@ NY Times
The GrandMaster Experiment

(Articles from the archives...)
Pros and Cons to Homeschooling
If you are considering homeschooling
Seven Daily Things to Do for Holistic Homeschooling

State of the House and Poets' Dreams

2009-06-26T04:30:00.002-04:00

I think of it every Thursday, our cleaning day. We dust and pick up and scrub down and toss out and tidy up all our creativity still in process, the necessary trail of our 10,000 hours (the legos, the wood, the paper, the nails, the books, the paints, the material, the pots and pans) and I think of words from the novel, The Diary of a Country Priest:

"A parish is bound to be dirty. A whole Christian society's a lot dirtier. ...

"Some filth! Which all goes to prove, boy, that the church must needs be a sound housewife -- sound and sensible. My nun wasn't a real housewife; a real housewife knows her home isn't a shrine.

Those are just poets' dreams."

~ The Diary of a Country Priest

So Thursdays -- well, everyday --- I'm learning to take a deep breath, exhale, take up the Joy Habit... and happily clean, simply accepting we are messy people, inside and out. No, this home, the church, will never be a shrine.

Those are just poets' dreams.

Lord God, You know how a poet dreams up a house. Cause me to live knowing that You have far more creative dreams for our home....

Related:
Loving the Beautiful Mess
Make a Messy Life Art
Photo: kitchen counter's waiting cleaning... and me seeing just a bit of art

Multitudes on a Monday

2009-06-29T04:30:00.005-04:00

Counting the multitudes on a Monday... the best way to begin a week!

1026. It had been too long since I stretched out and watched leaves dance.
Lures on the ends of twigs, bobbing in blue, they caught me and I floated.

1027. In early morning still, our words unfurled at water's edge over glasses of orange juice, a long conversation blooming a delicate memory.

1028. When he slammed it over the fence, I squealed louder than the kids, and we all wildly cheer him in over home plate. I feel eighteen again when he flashes that grin.

1029. He's always wanted to fly. Come summer, he takes to the sky. The heights are his and he skims the trees.

1030. I remember when we picked dandelions in the ditches together. Now little brother's man hands picks me a bouquet of scarlet from his rhubarb patch, sends me home to arrange a pie.

1031. It was like Christmas in June, all green and red, a pile of love.

1032. The oldest boy-man cut and carried it in, his muscles hauling in spinach, to me all smiling. He asked if I could make that chicken salad, the one he said he could eat every night of the week, and I happily obliged.

1033. You careened into summer, crashed into me with laughter. It was the happiest of accidents.

It took months, days of months of paying attention, feeling the caress of His heart, to number 1000 gifts. The intimacy of the counting changed me. I knew Him, the way only skin can know SomeOne.

And then, after the 1000 gift milestone, I simply began to record the gifts as endless, innumerable .... but He, he never stopped the numbering, having more thoughts for me than the sand on the seashore. He numbers even each strand of hair on my head, again and again...

So could I not feebly try to number even some of the gifts with which He woos?

So I return to the numbering. These, a few of the multitudes on a Monday....

"With the voice of joy and thanksgiving,
a multitude keeping festival..."

~Ps.42:4

Care to pay attention to His gifts that you might spend your life in praise? It changes a life.
Prayerfully consider joining the The Gratitude Community.

If you'd like to work on a case of Soul ADD by counting the multitude of your blessings today, just slip a note into the inbox...

Might you take a moment to warmly wave a welcome to the newest members of the Gratitude Community. They join the congregating of His people to give Him thanks -- a multitude keep festival!

Jessie
Charlotte
Melanie
Sheri
Faith
Leah @ A Very Sweet Life
Lydia @ Living Peculiarly
Kelly @ The Hallahan's
Angela at Unveiling Radiance
Debbie at Debbie's Art Works
Katie @ Seeing Him & Knowing Him
Tabitha @ I Choose Bliss
The Pastor's Wife at The Real Me

Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: An Act of Prayer

2009-06-24T01:30:00.005-04:00

This is praying time, and the act of listening in prayer is the same act as listening in writing."

~Madeleine L'Engle

I read Scripture. I listen. I pray.

I pick up pen. I listen. I pray.

This writing becomes prayer, heart stretched right out, poems laid bare.

One of my held-close, always-come-with-me journals is my Prayer-Poem Journal. It is, like nearly all endeavors, rather derivative, and I'm indebted to Walter Brueggeman for the inception of this journal...

For 42 years, Walter Brueggemann began his seminary classes with prayer. A prayer awed to Heaven, echoing heaven's Words. A prayer that read as a poem; a psalm of sorts.

Whatever passage of Scripture was to be studied by that day's class, Mr. Brueggeman incorporated that Scripture into His prayer, either directly or topically. At the bottom of each written prayer, he noted the Scripture out of which that prayer-poem grew. Also, he noted any happenings of import that day in the headlines, or in his heart. He rooted the prayer-poems in earth.

After 42 years of praying Scripture before each class, these prayers were collected into Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. (You can read a lengthy preview of "Awed to Heaven's" moving prayer poems here ~Highly Recommended).

For example....

The Din Undoes Us

(written in anticipation of reading 1 Samuel 2-3: [Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening])

Our lives are occupied territory…
occupied by a cacophony of voices,
and the din outdoes us.

In the daytime we have no time to listen,
beset as we are by anxiety and goals
and assignments and work,
and in the night the voices are so confusing
we can hardly sort out what could possibly be your voice
from the voice of our mothers and our fathers
our best friends and our pet projects,
because they all sound so much like you.

We are people over whom that word shema has been written.
We are listeners, but we do not listen well.

So we bid you, by the time the sun goes down today
or by the time the sun comes up tomorrow,
by night or by day,
that you will speak to us in ways that we can hear
out beyond ourselves.

It is your speech to us that carries us where we have never been,
and it is your speech to us that is our only hope.
So give us ears.

Amen.

~ Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann.

How to Journal Your own Prayer-Poems that are Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth:

1. Read passage of Scripture.

2. Listen for the verse God whispers directly to your heart.

3. Pick up pen and write the date down in journal.

4. Copy out the specific Scripture

5. Now, listening, write a prayer founded in that Scripture. And let it line itself up slowly, word upon word, like a poem, repeating itself if need be, creating patterns, reflecting the gritty details of your life with naked honesty. Look full into the face of God and speak your heart in regards to that verse. Respond to His Word to you through prayer...

And again --- no comparisons regarding quality of words or concerns of doing it "right". Your only work in journaling, which is to pray, is simple, honest communion. That is all. Let the words lead you closer.

6. At the bottom of the page, note one significant event happening in your life currently, general or specific, that ties into this prayer-poem (e.g. As I pray that our children will hear directly from You.)

(For more models of prayer-poems, consider reading here)

We are rooted in earth, us of dust with these feet of sod.
But with His Word and our inked ones,
these penned prayers of a dialogue of listening,
we are Awed to Heaven.

:::

Notes to the inbox about the Spiritual Discipline of Journaling...

Why I Journal -- Jerri Phillips

I write with brutal, tear-stained honesty the agony of right now because when the path is easy, it is also easy to forget the pain so deep that one cannot breathe....

I journal because one day someone will follow behind me, and when they are in the place of such pain their very being is filled with it, I don’t want to forget where they are or how they feel. I don’t want to forget the desperate need of a kind word, a soft shoulder, and a loving touch.

I never want to add wounds because I have forgotten the pain of my own.

I journal so I can understand where people are by where I’ve been and recall the hand of God in my heartache to I can be His hand in theirs.

~ Jerri

And cheering for Cathy's who is, for the first time, faithfully journaling as is Heather. And Christin shares a discovery fom her journal that testifies not only to how journaling sets up markers that we can later revisit, but of a stunning encounter with God....
:::

Related: Every Wednesday I'm posting living out a spiritual discipline. Currently, every Wednesday focuses on the practice of journaling.

Part One:Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: Light Catchers
Part Two: Journaling: Being Real with Jesus
Part Three: Journaling: As Family Worship
Part Four: Journaling: Burning Bush Conversations
Part Five: Journaling: How to Set Up and Organize a Journal
Part Six: Journaling: Many Creative Ways

Next Wednesday: Journaling Potpourri --- the fragrance of your notes. If you'd like to share a glimpse of your journaling story, or a photo, with this quiet community... consider this your warm invitation to slip a note into the inbox.

Conversation: How Can I be a better Wife?

2009-06-30T00:30:00.001-04:00

I ask him at the end of the trail, the end of the weekend, the end of fifteen years. I ask him before we set out again.

We sit under the oaks, green banners flying in the wind. There had been a pause in our passing of words back and forth and it was what I was really wondering, so I’d stepped out into the fear (who knows how’d he answer?) and just released the words, slow and quiet, one at a time.

“How could I be a better wife to you?”

His eyes hold me. Like he knew we were coming to this. This bare, unashamed place. Intimacy is only a possibility when we slip out of small talk and gently peel off a layer of the heart. The leaves wave.

I wait while he gathers thoughts, watch the trees in June blue. The curve of his hand cups mine, a sure warm wrapping.

And then he speaks softly, wind in leaves.

“’’How could you be a better wife?” I take a deep breath, ready to cup his heart exposed.

“When I tell you that you’re beautiful, hear me.” I look away. Hide behind some fig leaves.

His voice finds me.

“When I tell you the things I love about you, accept what I’m saying. Don’t shrug it off.” I want to shrug it off.

This is how I can be a better wife?

He knows me. He’s right. Accepting the caress of grace can terrify. Why is it hard just to let love?

We take a new trail out, out into the next fifteen years.

The ugly ducklings out on the lake glide gracefully.

God, is that how Your Bride unintentionally rebuffs You too?
Self-condemned as too ugly, we shirk off Your love whispers...
Today, we turn and let You love...
love us into beauty...

Related:Best Beauty Tip
Radiate Beauty
Best Beauty Tip Proven

Photos: from our anniversary retreat

Old Love

2009-07-02T00:00:00.004-04:00

He came bearing jam from a dead woman's hand,
found at the bottom of a freezer he was cleaning out
and when he handed it to me,
like a ruby artifact dug up from the bowels of Pompeii,
I could only think of her bones in the cemetery these two long years,
rain and snow and sun falling on silent gravestone,
and yet still she will serve us jam
and still we will thank her and lick our lips,
tasting the sweetness of love.

But it took weeks before we finally broke the jar's seal,
(who could bear to? lid with her handwriting that made me hurt),
before we popped that lid open that she had screwed tight three summers ago,
and I stared a long time before I dipped knife in,
before I took my toast to the porch,
to watch the sun rise over our patch of strawberries,
all dangled in dew, and there I ate her jam spread thin,
and think of her with cancer, still arched in morning light, picking,
her thick Dutch hands stained red with the afternoon hulling,
her wiping counters spotlessly clean, always, in evening,
line of jeweled jars dazzling in fading light... fading light.

I eat berries ripened by a long ago sun,
picked and plucked and mashed by a hand
long ago ripened and picked,

and yes, I choke out thanks,
And yes, I taste sweet love,
And yes, the jar sits still in the fridge,

No one daring to spread the last of her out.

Photos: of my mother-in-law’s jam found still at the bottom of her freezer, Dutch Opa giving it to us with a scratched explanation on a sticky note : “From Grandma yet”…. Yet.
Her flight exit was two years ago this month….

Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: 8 Reasons to Journal (& some inspiration)

2009-07-01T01:00:00.004-04:00

My longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you." ~Ps. 38:9

1. Because journaling is a place to be unmasked and meet God

So we lay ourselves out on the page....

“A journal can become a sacred place,” writes Magaret Feinberg. “Mere blank pages are transformed into a site where you can record the most intimate parts of your soul. A place where you can travel with your deepest thoughts and confessions. A place where you can slip off the mask of who you are supposed to be and slip into something more comfortable: who you really are.”

We lay who we really are before Jesus, hiding nothing ... open books... and He takes us to Himself.

2. Because journaling lets us see soul areas the Holy Spirit is growing

“Journaling focuses mind and heart on the issues of growth with the aim of discerning what God is doing in one's life," writes Richard Peace, author of Spiritual Journaling: Recording Your Journey Toward God . "By using a journal, we come in touch with our cutting edges of growth, those areas where questions exist or where there is need or longing. These are areas where the Holy Spirit seems most active.”

3. Because journaling strengthens other disciplines

“Journaling is also an aid to other spiritual disciplines,” says Peace. “Writing down your insights is helpful in Bible study. Writing out prayers helps you to communicate with God. Creating a poem that praises God is an act of worship.”

(An Inspired Journal.... a place for photos and collages, verses and poetry, dreams and prayers)

4. Because journaling is a way to visually examine our thought processes

"I begin these pages for myself, in order to think out my own particular pattern of living, my individual balance of life, work, and human relationships," writes Gift from the Sea author Anne Morrow Lindberg. "And since I think best with a pencil in my hand, I started to write…"

(A Travel Journal -- for photos and captions, memories and thanksgiving)

5. Because journaling cultivates deep honesty and authenticity

"At first it was difficult. I felt self-conscious. I was worried that I would lose the journal or that someone might peek inside to see what I’d said," writes Gordon MacDonald concerning his practice of journaling. "But slowly the self-consciousness began to fade, and I found myself sharing in the journal more and more of the thoughts that flooded my inner spirit. Into the journal went words describing my feelings, my fear and sense of weakness, my hopes, and my discoveries about where Christ was leading me.

When I felt empty or defeated, I talked about that too in the journal. Slowly I began to realize that the journal was helping me come to grips with an enormous part of my inner person that I had never been fully honest about. No longer could fears and struggles remain inside without definition. They were surfaced and confronted…" (Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World)

(A Fear-to-Faith Journal -- for chronicling one thing each day (or week) that we were afraid of... but jumped out in faith to do anyways)

6. Because journaling is a way to see God in the dark

"There have been times when I have thought I was lost, completely lost. Later, on the other side, looking back through my journal, what I found was page after page of praise of God's glory. In the midst of the darkness, pain and confusion, He was there, ever faithful...and I was not really lost.

Just hidden in His tender care." ~ Connie in B.C.

"I personally find that writing is the only way I can concentrate on praying..." ~Sophie in Wales

(A Family Quote Journal -- for documenting memorable quotes, creating a family history)

7. Because journaling is a way to leave a legacy

"My grandmother Mary passed away at age 36 in 1941, leaving my dad and his brother and sister orphaned. After my dad passed away in 2000, mom gave me a tin that belonged to him. I didn't look in it right away. However, in 2001, as I still actively grieved my dad's death, I was drawn to it.

When I opened it, letters came bounding out as if they had been waiting for release. All in all, these told the story of my grandmother's losing her home and land to the U.S. Forest Service (KY is notorious for bad deeds!), her struggle with her husband who had to be institutionalized after he was gassed in WWI, letters from family in Oklahoma who wanted her to "come home," and an assortment of notes, grocery lists, prayers and hymns written on rough paper.

As I organized these letters by category and by date, I began to *know* my grandmother. What a gift her writing has been to me! I love her even though I didn't know her. This is what writing can do." ~Denise

(A Daily Image Journal -- look for an image and sketch it, adding date, time, location... let poems come too...)

8. Because journaling is a way to continually remember the character of God

"My journals are my lifeline, among many other things. I have sticky notes and little jibblets of paper that I carry around throughout the day and I go back to my journals and record His awesomeness. It brings me closer to God because I am always thinking of Him. I also know that when I write it down, or print things off and paste them in, I remember His words to me and claim them and that reminds me, too, that the one who makes the promise, keeps the promise. ~ Debra at The Morel Family

And finally... if you're thinking journal just really isn't for me: why it really is okay if you do not journal ... really.

Lord, today... even just one line, somewhere, scribbled down... a place to lay myself open before You.

:::

Related: Every Wednesday I post about the living out of a spiritual discipline. Currently, the Wednesday series is focusing on the practice of journaling.

Part One:Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline: Light Catchers
Part Two: Journaling: Being Real with Jesus
Part Three: Journaling: As Family Worship
Part Four: Journaling: Burning Bush Conversations
Part Five: Journaling: How to Set Up and Organize a Journal
Part Six: Journaling: Many Creative Ways
Part Seven: Journaling: As an Act of Prayer

Next Wednesday: BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS and more Journal Inspiration --- a potpourri of your stories, the fragrance of your notes. If you'd like to share a glimpse of your journaling story, or a photo, with this quiet community... consider this your warm invitation to slip a note into the inbox.

Photos: Personal journals... and photos from a July 2007, Real Simple Magazine article -- that I cut out and tucked into an envelope in the back of my visual journal ~smile~

Un-ugly...

2009-07-06T04:30:00.004-04:00

Every bush burns. Even the twisted, thorny ones….
I spent the weekend looking for beauty, God-sparks, in the ugly…

More of the Ugly-Beautiful... more of 1000-and-still-counting Gifts...

1034.
We sit at the edge of our cornfield and our thanks for living on this bit of dirt explodes, little bursts of light.

1035.
After she loses tonsils and adenoids, we go looking for popsicles and Anne of Green Gables and pain meds and find tender memories…

1036.
We peel back miles of green tape, still tacky with paint, and the house is trimmed with smiles.

1037.
Dirty little feet fall asleep with words but I stay awake counting toes.

1038.
Ours are the descendants of hers, the swaths of Sweet Williams that striped her garden like a strawberry sundae. The blooms fade and her memory doesn’t.

1039.
His smile’s a bit crooked and toothy these days, his speech a bit slurred.

1040.
And we just think he’s great.

Lord God.... You un-ugly all things. Even today.

The Only Way To Traverse a Life

2009-07-07T06:00:00.016-04:00

When my name’s called from the hallway by the nurse in green scrubs, I forget to mark my page, just scuttle my books into bag and step high over the legs still waiting, because I know she’ll be waiting, all eyes.

My sandals clack down the hallway, Mama clucking for a lost chick. She's ten without tonsils, and I'm aging old in hospital waiting rooms.

The door into post-operative swings soundlessly and I find her amidst the lines and tubes, her long and angled under cotton. Her eyes shine. I’m still holding bags and books and purse when my lips find her forehead, child of our one flesh, and I press her with love, relieved and long.

A nurse pulls the curtain. I let bags and books slide off into rocking chair. I stay close, pulling close, but the bed’s side rail digs into my ribs, a fence for a Mother Hen to scratch around. And so I reach, fingers combing long strands off cheeks flushed, and lean hard to whisper into ear found, “So good to be with you, Hope.” Her cheeks glow, embers stoked and I try to cool them with bits of me, fingertips smothering flames.

“You okay, Hope?” She nods, certain. I know the determined set of that chin, know how those eyes swell to the outer rim with cagey fear, know how that brave heart marshalls on anyways, always on. She is aunt, father, father’s mother and she is child.

“Sure, Hope?” How do I tell her it’s okay to be weak? I lay a palm cooled on stainless steel rail over on her far cheek, flesh afire.

And when I’m leaning over her, she feels covered, and just for me, just for a moment, she exposes a sliver of heart always valiant. “I missed you.” Her eyes well with first raspy words and a tear slips down. I catch her sadness falling and cup her face and nod all of me into all of her. “I missed you too…” She is still child, here in my hands.

“After they called you for surgery, and you walked out….” She had stood so tall, walked so serene… “I had to look up to the ceiling to hold onto tears.”

She smiles faintly, sorely, squeezes my hand.... then drowses off. I lace my fingers through her hair, keep cooling her cheeks, and beds roll past us and vitals are recorded and IV poles wheel in and she sleeps and the screen behind her bed strips it all back and her naked heart talks.

Mountain…. valley… mountain… valley… bleep….bleep… bleep… Neon green line pulses out pixels of existence across the monitor. This is the way she always is, like this, pounding, pounding. Under luminous epidermis, under chest wall cavity, in a knot of sinews and veins, blood roping around and through, who she is, who I am, who we all are, drums. I watch her staccato. Mountains drop sheer. Depths string to heights. Valleys bridge the mountains. Bleep… bleep.

As long as we tear off a bit of oxygen, stuff our lungs with heaven’s veil, we’ll scale and we'll fall. It’s how we’re shaped to exist. Heartprint on the screen gives away our DNA, the nature of the journey as souls encased in flesh: we are made to climb mountains, valiant. And to travel valleys, sadness slipping. Every flex of arteries pushes us on, always on: Mountain… valley… mountain. This too shall pass, always.

Bleep… bleep.

Her eyelashes flutter and she stirs and I rub the small of her back. She is brave heart and she is weak and together we will rise and fall.

And rise again.

But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. ~Deuteronomy 11:11

Lord God, cause me to embrace the terrain of a life: mountain... valley... mountain. We'll be weak and we'll be brave and Your heart will lead us Home.

Photo: sxc.hu

Journaling: Being Soul Brave

2009-07-08T04:30:00.008-04:00

So we carry about pen and paper and collect bits of our lives, clippings and cuttings, rubbings and wrappings, and lay it down between leaves, a pressing out of our lives.

We may shun photograph pixels tracing a sag here, a saunch there, disdain video recordings of our pitch and a bit of a paunch, but we brave the paper.

We unbutton a soul, for we know what we are made of. We are made by the Word, by breath of His word, to be words, His poiemas --- so we offer up words, naked and real, swollen with honesty.

Fear would silence us, leaving the descendants with old plates and tarnished jewelry, but no words, no hand-scrawled, inky words.

The enemy would busy us, gag us, leaving the Father with old hands and tarnished faith, but no words, no heart-bled, worshiping words.

We would let the Truth free us.

We choose the pen.

:::

A potpourri of your brave notes....

Establish a journal theme and gather scraps... a "culinary chronicle" of milestone meals: tea bag tags and napkins, rubbings of cutlery and place cards...

...a bakery bag, a restaurant receipt, a wrapper... a prayer from dinner, a quote to remember

A Vacation journal... with plastic pouches for a stone, some sand, a leaf, a postcard, a few blades of grass... a verse carried out for a walk, a word of praise along the shore....

A note from Maxine Grace...

I am a 54 year old mother and grandmother who has been journaling off and on for 28 years. The reason I think journaling is so important is that if you don’t write it down, you will forget...

I don’t journal every day, but I do try to write down what God is showing me and the important events of my life. I also journal my dreams. Several years ago while reading the Word, the Lord brought to my remembrance a dream I’d had many years ago. I searched through my journals until I found it, and as I read it, the Lord began to show me amazing things about His love for me………things I would probably never have seen so clearly without the dream He had given me 20 years earlier, which I had been obedient to write down.

As I’ve gotten older and realized how much I’ve forgotten, I’ve become more diligent to get it down on paper. One thing I wish I had written down was the profound things my children said when they were preschoolers. So I encourage you …….write it down!

Books to Inspire Spiritual Journaling

I've read, as have many readers: Journaling as a Spiritual Practice: Encountering God Through Attentive Writing

and also recommend --- (view lengthy free previews to each via the links to Google Books)

Budd, Luann. Journal Keeping: Writing for Spiritual Growth. InterVarsity, 2001.

Hauser, Richard J. Keeping a Spiritual Journal, Moving in the Spirit: Becoming a Contemplative in Action. Paulist Press, 1986 (ch. V).

Klug, Ron. How to Keep a Spiritual Journal: A Guide to Journal Keeping for Inner Growth and Personal Discovery. 2nd ed. Augsburg, 2002.

Shaw, Luci. Life Path: Personal and Spiritual Growth Through Journal Writing. Regent College, 2004.

Stockton, Sarah. A Pen and a Path: Writing as a Spiritual Practice. Morehouse, 2005.

Another waiting place in my own visual journal -- a capturing place for prayers and menus, gratitudes and small successes, tasks to remember and tasks to cross out...

a moving note from Lori in Tx:

Your series on Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline has unlocked a very hidden chamber of my heart.

Many, many years ago, I kept a journal as a young girl, and then as a teen. What turbulent years those were for me, but my journal was my secret place where I 'left' my chaotic life temporarily and could bare my soul. After a particularly fragile time with a first-boyfriend break-up, my heart was so shattered. I can still feel the deep agony of that hour....my journal was my anchor! (BTW, I did not grow up in a Christian home, hence the whole emotional roller coaster of being allowed a boyfriend.)

My mother must have been concerned about my mental/emotional state, for I came home from school one day to my desk drawer 're-arranged' where I kept my precious writings. I knew she had read it. I was devastated. Next thing I knew, I was in front of the fireplace, burning that journal, vowing to never, ever write anything personal again. My thoughts, my prayers, even after my sweet salvation, remained prisoner in my heart.

Through the years (25 precious ones now!) of marriage and motherhood, I would occasionally give journaling a stab, but the pretty notebook lay silent at my bedside. The words were screaming to get out, but the key was no where to be found.

Then, ever so slowly, gently, the Lord prodded my soul. I read about some dear sisters' 'Blessings Journal' and, going through a dry spiritual time, I found a small voice that could praise Him, thank Him. The still small voice of the Spirit kept prompting me....write, pray, praise, REJOICE....even when I didn't feel like it. Beauty from ashes...kneeling in front of that fire so long ago, watching my life, my voice, burn. A miracle, a key found, a door unlocked, a PRAISE bursting forth!

I now have a prayer journal, a blessing/gratitude journal, a rhema journal, and now, too, the makings of a visual journal! It is so exciting, so life-giving! The words pour forth sometimes like flood gates opening.

As I sit here with my sweet 15 yo daughter, tearing out pretty pages from magazines, she asks why I am doing so. I share your posts on journals (keep them in a special notebook!) ...visual, prayer, etc. I share my story from long ago, when I was her age, the pain ebbing away with each word I write. She starts tearing pages with me. "Mama," she says, "can I have a visual journal, too? Ooooh, and I would love one to slip in my pocket to write inspirations for the story I'm writing, and....." :0)

The circle of LOVE enfolds us. Her beautiful dimpled smile, shining, bright, alive...BEAUTY from ashes.

....

an inspiring note from Nancy...

The last several years I have began journaling poetry. Poems ... that usually come during times of worship have been included. Along with the poetry has come images. So the last year or so I have begun trying, in my own simple way, to transfer thse images from my head/heart into my journal.

They have become a comfort to me. I shyly share several with you (I am no artist).

In Jesus,
Nancy

:::

a note and creative journal photos from Alexis in MA...

The journaling practice I’ve taken on is one of

a. co-creation,
b. summarization and
c. reflection.

To Begin a Journal

1. At the beginning of each journal, I like to paint a picture, with words and with images, of just where I am in life: Where I’m living, what I’m reading, things I’m learning, simplicities my heart is taking joy in. With scraps, quotes, and meaningful images that represent my season of life, I create a meaningful blend of these things on the first pages of my journal.

2. A piece of writing that has held meaningful significance me over the last few months will typically take prominence in the collage ... other times a psalm or word from the gospels.

3. I’ll finish it off with the start and end journal entry dates, signifying when the journal was used.

It is difficult indeed to carve out time for creativity. But it is never in vain. The joy that comes in looking back upon these pages, the meaning that forms from simply visualizing the Lord’s doings in my life, and the gift it’s become to share them with others in need of inspiration in their journaling, has been inimitable. I have grown so grateful for the practice.

The practice, I’ve found, has allowed me tangible opportunity for wonder and appreciation of the life the Lord’s given me; a defense against the ever demanding list of to-do’s; a space to create a life of more simple visitation.

On days I find myself wondering how valuable this practice is, if it holds kingdom value or meaning for anyone besides myself, I remember Mary Oliver’s words:

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking world into my arms.

When its over, I don’t want to wonder
If I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
Or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.”

May we live faithfully.... never settling to simply visit this world.

~ Alexis in MA

To read the entire series on Journaling as a Spiritual Discipline...

Every Wednesday, we explore another aspect of Walking with Him...

Next Wednesday begins a series of considering the spiritual discipline of Scripture Reading. I look forward to learning from you!

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Open Door

2009-07-09T09:10:00.013-04:00

When they asked, I walked the tree. Traced the branches, the roots, wrote our names down, birthdates and birthplace, us all living out on a limb.

Come week's end, Opa Voskamp's boards the steel bird and flies home to the Netherlands and he'll carry the tree, the family tree, back to the old country with him, plant it in veins that run with his blood.

And it snagged me as I walked our branch of the familial tree. I had only one place name to write. Farmer Husband was born in the same hospital where I was born. We were married in the same town as that hospital. Our children were born in that same hospital, that same town.

Sometimes, home has old walls.

Last night, leaning up against the front door, I watched the sunset, Farmer Husband and I, children all tucked under worn quilts. Light burned as it brushed earth, flamed the sky. Our hands touched. Then he went to bed, next day still coming in the dark, and I walked out to edge of the field to feel the heat of day's end.

God always keeps the home fires burning.

Grass blades between toes, I warmed, sparrows strung across the hydro lines overhead. And as the last embers smoldered, I turned towards home, caught the windows panes kindling too. Do we burn?

Coming up across the lawn, I could see that I'd left the front door wide open. Like souls with open doors, welcoming pilgrims into the inner rooms. I step into the house, onto these old plank floors, into these interior places meant to be a dwelling place for God. He, a place for a heart to come home to, house with older than time walls, and Him seeking a place to lodge.

We live here with each other, the Lodger, and we who seek lodging within Him, and the maple tree grows old, branches sheltering generations.

:::

Welcome.

Darcy of Graphically Designing worked adeptly, wisely, to rewire the old walls of this blog so that there are no longer code issues, the sparking and shorting with Internet Explorer that had been plaguing this space for the last several months. And too, of course, she painted and moved the furniture around, what creative woman are apt to do when fixing up a place. ~warm smile~

Sometimes long-lived in houses need structural work to remain habitable. And then we move back in and wear the space into being loved and real.

I pray this newly renovated corner of the web may be a quiet place for your heart to to make a home with Him, a place that gently opens soul doors that He might come and take up a long-life residence. Poke around these old walls, roam through the crannies and links in side and lower sidebars, find a new page or two, and yes, make yourself at home.

The door's always wide open.

All's grace,

Photos: sunset and home last night, dwelling places ....

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Who Really Needs to Know?

2009-07-10T01:30:00.018-04:00

She comes knocking at 9:07, eight minutes early. She's come for her kid brother, come to pick him up for Uncle Frank's funeral. Farmer Husband's still before the mirror, standing in shaft of sure July morning light, shaving off the growth of five hard days. Levi's got the door.

"Dad's still showering up from the barn, Aunt Marian. I'll go tell him you're here already, kay?"

I can't clearly make out her words, me in the bedroom laying out clothes for a man, but I can hear her laughing words, words like water chuckling over stones.

She's had stones.

Marian's eldest of five, twenty, he sits in the van with his cane. Seven years ago, an all-terrain vehicle accident took and shook the head of a healthy, full of dreams boy and left them a seriously and permanently brain damaged son who will require life-long care. She loves long and deep.

In her purse, Marian carries Tylenol with her, for the vice of pain from the acoustic neuroma, a growing tumor compressing the 5th, 7th, 9th and 10th cranial nerves deep inside her skull. The acoustic neuroma never stops ringing her ears, tingling nerves in her face, pressing hard on her cranium. It was complications from an acoustic neuroma, a hereditary disease, that killed Uncle Frank.

Levi calls in the bedroom door, "Dad ready yet? Aunt Marian's here to go the funeral!"

"Just about, Levi." Farmer Husband does up the last button of his shirt and I straighten his collar, man dressed and put together.

"Mom..." Levi pulls up onto our bed, his own collar rumpled, shirt tail sticking out. "Why does Aunt Marian always talk with a laugh in her voice?"

Oh, son. Yes. To speak words that have taken their joy medicine. It's good for the bones.

"Well, Levi...." I struggle for words, hurt for my own bone elixir, pick up a stray sock from the floor. I speak the words more to me, than to him....

"I think some people just know what they are about."

But he's already slipped off the bed, after his Dad and a long man hug before the good-bye.

Farmer Husband leaves with his sister and two of her sons for Uncle Frank's funeral several hours away, and I stay home with our own four and two daughters, keeping about picking strawberries and rubbing goose aches and stringing out the line with threads scrubbed clean.

The hours slip, water beads down a hose on a July afternoon, and I pray for in-laws gathered in distant city cemetery, clustered in grief and strength.

Sun's low and we're all dirtier, windblown, tummy hungry when I hear Farmer Husband crack open that back door, wash his hands at the mud room sink out of habit, home.

"You good?" I meet him, rub his back, while he dries thick, rough hands in hand towel.

"Yeah... nice to be home." He slips an arm round, pulls me into us.

But it isn't till after dinner, me over a sink, and him getting a glass of water for Little One who always needs a water fount before she drifts, that he pauses and tells me something in passing that I need to cling to. He's halfway out the kitchen with the cup when he turns.

"One of Marian's boys gave her a sign of the fish decal, for the van."

Hands in suds, I half smile, nod. Good sons, hers.

"She put the bumper decal on the dashboard."

"Oh?" I rinse the last pot.

"While she was driving, she took one hand and traced it with a finger...." He gestures, making the invisible visible. Then he pauses, waiting for our eyes to catch, lock...

"And then she said:

I think I am the one who needs to be reminded that I am a Christian more than I need to tell others that I am a Christian.

I lay the pot down on the counter.

"Yeah..." The smile spreads across his face, across her words. "I thought that was quite something too. Isn't that the way to be the best witness of all?"

He turns to bring water to the parched and I stand in an empty kitchen thinking about crosses that I should wear under cotton against skin, and flags I should bring in and drape across our view, and words I need to preach firstly, gently, repeatedly, to myself.

And I whisper it to no one, to me, to him left.

"Some people just know what they're about...."

Because it's themselves they keep reminding.

Lord God, before I witness to others, have I witnessed first to me, chief among sinners? Because maybe the best way to preach to others.... is to preach to myself.

Photo: a cross I need to wear against my own skin, a reminder...

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Weekend Wanderings...

2009-07-11T08:00:00.006-04:00

But two link paths on a quiet, rainy Saturday morning, perfect hours for long prayers and long reading under the roof patterings....

Twitter as a Spiritual Discipline

I don't twitter... and I found this article compelling. Memorable and moving... Read the author's own tweets/twitturgies....

Free Audiobook Download: Crazy Love by Francis Chan, pastor

I simply cannnot recommend this book highly enough -- and now its free to listen to at Christian Audio! With more than 200,000 copies sold this past year (I bought several for friends too), "author Francis Chan issues a call for selfless, Christ-like living. Let the love you have received from God impact your life like never before. If you have made a commitment to follow Christ, then listen to Crazy Love to be reminded and challenged in your walk."

Perfect to listen to as the rain falls and we putter about on a Saturday....

May all your weekend wanderings, kind friends, lead you to a closer walk with Christ....

All's grace,

Photo: a bouquet of wildflowers picked by Caleb
(HT: Jon)

Multitudes on a Monday: All Gold

2009-07-13T04:30:00.000-04:00

He's always called it Sunday Sadness, that shadow that creeps up over me come mid-Sabbath, when I prematurely begin grieving the passing of Sunday, when there's still hours of it left, when I begin fearing the looming week to come, when there's still grace for it too.

It comes of years of Monday morning school buses that took me away from home circles, years of Monday morning university classes that took me away from farm weekends on gravel roads through cornfields.

Come Sunday by three, I'm in the throes.

Now it comes of Monday mornings that take me away from a dot of island rest out into waters too deep. Out into a week where I'll flail.

This weekend, I take my Sunday Sadness medicine early, soon as toes slip to floor and I pull up sheets, me whispering spoonfuls aloud:

"Thank you, Lord, for wrinkled cotton and long hours of sleep.... Thank you, Lord, for drawers of matched socks and stacks of clean towels... Thank you, Lord, for tubs of early morning light and open windows full of birdsong."

Eucharisteo, thanksgiving, is the soothing calm that keeps me present to the presence of God, holds me in the beauty of now. Gratitude is this antidote for the angst of what's being lost, this counter-agent for fear of what's coming around the corner. Who can be given over to worry and be giving thanks at the same time?

I count the gifts out loud, intentionally take the remedy for sadness and worry ... and find the elixir all gold going down.

Gold thanks from this weekend....

1034.

He incubated and hatched another batch, and I smile at this near man, broadening, thickening, captivated by soft gold.

1035.

Eyeing them in a box of her departed grandmother’s remnants, set out for the taking, she took them home to click on needles, gilded and long, knitting memories.

1036.

The picket garden off the kitchen yields what every dinner table needs, circle of sunny faces.

1037.

Gold feelers tickle up a cheek, his crazy boy laugh tickling me.

1037.

She is summer, long hair and hay, all flying.

Lord God, giving You thanks makes the day all glory, all golden.

May we quietly invite you to take the medicine that cures anxiety? Come join the Gratitude Community!

How to begin: Just grab a scrap of paper lying around and begin giving thanks, with your own ~~1000~~ Endless Gifts:

Why begin your own One Thousand Gift List --(just drop me a line if you;d like to begin giving intentional thanks, and I'll add either your name or a web link to the Gratitude Community --- I'm a wee ways behind in updating and look forward to catching up with each of you who've joined today! -- it's a privilege to join you in living thanks ...)

If you'd like the code for the updated Gratitude Community button, see here...

Read the listing of the endless Gifts

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Links for 2009-06-19 [del.icio.us]

2009-06-20T00:00:00-07:00

Smile! The Shadow Project
.... @ Color me Katie
Hollow of Silence...
... @ Dance by the Light
"What is that?"...
... @ Windscraps.... on patience... with our children, our parents.... strikingly poignant.