I really like the way holidays fall in our culture. I like that the end of a year is a great big party from Thanksgiving to the end, but that then we pack up all of the ornaments, and pitch the rest of the fruitcake, and buckle down to work on a new year.
I like having a milestone as a fresh start. I have never been a "new year's resolution" person either, but this year I have thought of about 5 already. Like writing thank-you cards. It is just so civilized and kind. I am going to start writing thank-you cards.
But like I mentioned in my last post, I like to review the past year before plunging into a new one. This, like many years has had ups and downs, and I think I have grown. Instead of just listing events, though, I am going to list the things that I have gained, and the things that are coming with me into this new year. There were plenty of things that were tried and amounted to little, or flat out failed, and I don't want to be dishonest by not sharing them, but it seems better to me, in this crazy blogging-world context, to focus on the bright side, and there is plenty there as well...
Here it goes...
1. A job at CAP! Big one! Last year at this time I was jobless with no idea what was going to happen. This job is one of the most inexplicable provisions from God that I have ever known.
2. Started this blog... Speaks for itself. :-)
3. Had immense success with my very first garden last summer.
4. In July passed the one year "living on my own" mark. I love this little house.
5. Kelly has grown much closer as a wonderful friend. Last year, at this time, I don't think we were even sharing who we might be harboring a crush on. Now there is not very much that remains a secret. At least that I know of... She is an amazing woman and is truly gifted in the skill of friendship. She cultivates and cares for her friendships like I did my snapdragons.
6. In the fall I began leading Primary choir at church. Yes, you have heard it a million times. I love it. There is nothing like getting little smiles and waves, or sometimes big hugs around my hips, randomly walking through the church hallways.
7. In May I went on a weekend trip to NYC with other young adults from the BIC Atlantic conference. It was a fascinating trip... Don't even know where to begin to describe it. The thing that I remember the most and hope I continue to take with me, at least in prayer, was a woman named Stephanie, sitting on some random steps in the Bronx, thin as a rail. Her husband had left her and she was going to be moving somewhere else in the city. She didn't know where. Wherever the welfare system would put her. I'm sure I won't see her again on this earth, but I try to remember to keep praying.
8. I began attending a new Bible study in the fall. It has been good getting to know new people who love Jesus, and who happily enjoy smoking a hookah. It makes me feel very comfortable and assured that I won't hear any lectures.
Those are the big ones. I may be missing some but my brain is kind of mushy because of staying up until 2am last night.
But for the new year ahead... who knows? I am praying for God's leading, and that he will keep me on the path he is planning.
PS.
On a very different note, and I am not sure what to make of it, last night I had a dream about Saddam Hussein. I didn't even know that he was going to be executed today until hearing it on the radio this morning. I have seen his picture on the news more lately, so maybe that is why. But in my dream I was at some kind of military camp, and I sat down to watch a movie, and looked over to discover that he was sitting beside me, lauging and enjoying the movie. He did creep me out so I tried to get up, and he sort of held me down, wanting me to stay and keep watching with him. I shoved him, got up, walked away and didn't look back... and that was it. But it is strange that by the time I dreamed this, he was probably already dead. So strange...
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
misc...
Today is one of those slow vacation days that stretches on and on. I am going back to work tomorrow, but until then I will be alternately knitting and reading and eating and sleeping. Eating is specifically mentioned, because I have been reminded again this holiday season how much I love it. I try to be one of those self controlled people who say no to more cookies and chocolate, but I usually, utterly, yet quite happily fail. As a very wise woman once said, I can either be thin or happy.
But enough of that. Today I spent my Christmas money buying the largest quantity of yarn that I have ever carried in one shopping bag. I am going to make an afghan, and it may take until New Years, '08 to finish it, but it will be a lovely celery color and the Egyptian cotton yarn has a soft and elegant sheen.
For the last five years or so at New Years, I have recorded the events of the previous year in my journal, just for my own reflection and record. I think I will post some of it here this year, but I need to get all my thoughts together, and I have a few days until the new year, so stay tuned.
Tomorrow is my big film-making debut. We are re-shooting one of our DVDs at work, and while Rob gets the handheld camera and will be bobbing in and out, doing close-ups, I will be sitting behind the other camera on a tripod, doing a very slow zoom in and out. Maybe a very gentle pan back and forth. Rob had me watch some training videos, so I learned about the rule of thirds, and that you never EVER crop someones chin. Top of head? Yes. Chin? No.
I am also in the middle of reading Peace Like A River by Leif Enger. It has been too long since I have soaked in a novel like this. It is gritty and marvelous and wonderful. The writing makes me want to quit everything, move to Minnesota where the characters are from and be an English major.
But before then, I am going to go upstairs and continue knitting.
I know this has been such a miscellaneous post. No theme. No allusions. No purpose, really. I have been thinking about things. Contemplating life. Like this odd time between Christmas and New Years, where I feel we are just hanging, waiting for our feet to hit the ground running next tuesday. Thinking about how the excess of Christmas ends up making me want to just get rid of things and have open space. Yesterday it made me clean like a madwoman and the bathroom has never looked better. I have been thinking about family, and love and going to NYC. They just haven't all come together yet in to one coherent whole. So here is an appetizer in the meantime. (They may not ever come together in a coherent whole though, which is really ok considering that appetizers are always so much larger than you expect them to be. Who needs dinner anyway? Desert on the otherhand...)
But enough of that. Today I spent my Christmas money buying the largest quantity of yarn that I have ever carried in one shopping bag. I am going to make an afghan, and it may take until New Years, '08 to finish it, but it will be a lovely celery color and the Egyptian cotton yarn has a soft and elegant sheen.
For the last five years or so at New Years, I have recorded the events of the previous year in my journal, just for my own reflection and record. I think I will post some of it here this year, but I need to get all my thoughts together, and I have a few days until the new year, so stay tuned.
Tomorrow is my big film-making debut. We are re-shooting one of our DVDs at work, and while Rob gets the handheld camera and will be bobbing in and out, doing close-ups, I will be sitting behind the other camera on a tripod, doing a very slow zoom in and out. Maybe a very gentle pan back and forth. Rob had me watch some training videos, so I learned about the rule of thirds, and that you never EVER crop someones chin. Top of head? Yes. Chin? No.
I am also in the middle of reading Peace Like A River by Leif Enger. It has been too long since I have soaked in a novel like this. It is gritty and marvelous and wonderful. The writing makes me want to quit everything, move to Minnesota where the characters are from and be an English major.
But before then, I am going to go upstairs and continue knitting.
I know this has been such a miscellaneous post. No theme. No allusions. No purpose, really. I have been thinking about things. Contemplating life. Like this odd time between Christmas and New Years, where I feel we are just hanging, waiting for our feet to hit the ground running next tuesday. Thinking about how the excess of Christmas ends up making me want to just get rid of things and have open space. Yesterday it made me clean like a madwoman and the bathroom has never looked better. I have been thinking about family, and love and going to NYC. They just haven't all come together yet in to one coherent whole. So here is an appetizer in the meantime. (They may not ever come together in a coherent whole though, which is really ok considering that appetizers are always so much larger than you expect them to be. Who needs dinner anyway? Desert on the otherhand...)
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Christmas Eve
It is officially December 24th now, exactly 12:33. I am at my Moms house, sitting in what was once my bedroom, and is now my stepfathers study, complete with fifty five volumes of Luther's Works. It has been too long since I have posted. Time seems to go so quickly in the Christmas season. We complain about stores putting up Christmas decorations as soon as halloween is over, but we get so busy and time still seems to fly by.
I think I touched on it in my Advent post, but it has been sinking into my brain more and more how crazy Christmas is. And I don't mean the hassle and the long lines. I mean that we believe that God was born here and lived with us, and that angels sang about it, and that it changes everything. I am really not sure that I can get my head around it. Lines like, "veiled in flesh the Godhead see." or "Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices." or "He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glory of his righteousness." What would that even look like? But though I have trouble getting it all into my head, I can see the incredible reason to celebrate. I'm beginning to feel sorry for non-believers who attempt to celebrate chestnuts and snowmen and magical family-togetherness. It is seems that those things are the myth. The things that we place hope in that don't come through and don't satisfy. And it is the thing that sounds initially most bizarre, a baby born to a virgin, 2000 years ago, who was God, who was "pleased, as man, with men to dwell." that means more than we can imagine, and gives us reason to celebrate, to party, to give a gift, to feast, to hang lights all over the shrubbery.
I discovered this week that you can subscribe to an email version of Garrison Keillor's, The Writers Almanac. There is something indescribably wonderful about Garrison's voice, as any fan knows, so I recommend listening to this poem as well as reading it. And I hope it is ok to post it, since it is used by permission, but I have included the link to purchase the book for anyone who would like to read more. The last line is really the kicker of the poem, and is what I mean when I think about Jesus's birth changing everything.
Poem: "Advent 1955" by John Betjeman, from Collected Poems. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
Listen to this episode of Writer's Almanac (Highly recommended)
Advent 1955
The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It's dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver-pale.
The world seems traveling into space,
And traveling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound —
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out 'Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.'
And how, in fact, do we prepare
For the great day that waits us there —
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end, of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know —
They'd sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising?
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell'd go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
"The time draws near the birth of Christ',
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago.
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.
I think I touched on it in my Advent post, but it has been sinking into my brain more and more how crazy Christmas is. And I don't mean the hassle and the long lines. I mean that we believe that God was born here and lived with us, and that angels sang about it, and that it changes everything. I am really not sure that I can get my head around it. Lines like, "veiled in flesh the Godhead see." or "Fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices." or "He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glory of his righteousness." What would that even look like? But though I have trouble getting it all into my head, I can see the incredible reason to celebrate. I'm beginning to feel sorry for non-believers who attempt to celebrate chestnuts and snowmen and magical family-togetherness. It is seems that those things are the myth. The things that we place hope in that don't come through and don't satisfy. And it is the thing that sounds initially most bizarre, a baby born to a virgin, 2000 years ago, who was God, who was "pleased, as man, with men to dwell." that means more than we can imagine, and gives us reason to celebrate, to party, to give a gift, to feast, to hang lights all over the shrubbery.
I discovered this week that you can subscribe to an email version of Garrison Keillor's, The Writers Almanac. There is something indescribably wonderful about Garrison's voice, as any fan knows, so I recommend listening to this poem as well as reading it. And I hope it is ok to post it, since it is used by permission, but I have included the link to purchase the book for anyone who would like to read more. The last line is really the kicker of the poem, and is what I mean when I think about Jesus's birth changing everything.
Poem: "Advent 1955" by John Betjeman, from Collected Poems. © Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)
Listen to this episode of Writer's Almanac (Highly recommended)
Advent 1955
The Advent wind begins to stir
With sea-like sounds in our Scotch fir,
It's dark at breakfast, dark at tea,
And in between we only see
Clouds hurrying across the sky
And rain-wet roads the wind blows dry
And branches bending to the gale
Against great skies all silver-pale.
The world seems traveling into space,
And traveling at a faster pace
Than in the leisured summer weather
When we and it sit out together,
For now we feel the world spin round
On some momentous journey bound —
Journey to what? to whom? to where?
The Advent bells call out 'Prepare,
Your world is journeying to the birth
Of God made Man for us on earth.'
And how, in fact, do we prepare
For the great day that waits us there —
The twenty-fifth day of December,
The birth of Christ? For some it means
An interchange of hunting scenes
On coloured cards. And I remember
Last year I sent out twenty yards,
Laid end to end, of Christmas cards
To people that I scarcely know —
They'd sent a card to me, and so
I had to send one back. Oh dear!
Is this a form of Christmas cheer?
Or is it, which is less surprising,
My pride gone in for advertising?
The only cards that really count
Are that extremely small amount
From real friends who keep in touch
And are not rich but love us much.
Some ways indeed are very odd
By which we hail the birth of God.
We raise the price of things in shops,
We give plain boxes fancy tops
And lines which traders cannot sell
Thus parcell'd go extremely well.
We dole out bribes we call a present
To those to whom we must be pleasant
For business reasons. Our defense is
These bribes are charged against expenses
And bring relief in Income Tax.
Enough of these unworthy cracks!
"The time draws near the birth of Christ',
A present that cannot be priced
Given two thousand years ago.
Yet if God had not given so
He still would be a distant stranger
And not the Baby in the manger.
Monday, December 11, 2006
long awaited newsletter
Today we sent it... BY ACCIDENT! Who knew that "Finished" in bulk email sending lingo really means "Send". It was not supposed to go out until tomorrow. Not for any very good reason other than that Monday's are busy after the weekend, and by tuesday, homeschooling moms or teachers are already settled into their weekly routine.
This e-newsletter has been weeks in the making and is the first one we have ever done. Writing this, designing that, editing ten times, overcoming technological hurdles, and just today doing our first recording. Yes, today we finally "laid down the vocals". All of that and by pushing one button it could have gone down the e-toilet. It didn't. That must be grace at work because by the time I pushed (yes it was me) the "finished" button, the final drafts, all of the links, the edited recording, had gone live. And before leaving work, after it was out for about an hour, we'd already heard (nice things) from three happy customers. And no, three out of 1,400, is not that many, but I have high hopes for my inbox tomorrow.
Soooooo, the moral of the story is,
Do not push the "Finished" button until you are really finished.
And, everything just might turn out ok.
And for your visual, intellectual and auditory pleasure,
Here it is,
Classica from CAP
This e-newsletter has been weeks in the making and is the first one we have ever done. Writing this, designing that, editing ten times, overcoming technological hurdles, and just today doing our first recording. Yes, today we finally "laid down the vocals". All of that and by pushing one button it could have gone down the e-toilet. It didn't. That must be grace at work because by the time I pushed (yes it was me) the "finished" button, the final drafts, all of the links, the edited recording, had gone live. And before leaving work, after it was out for about an hour, we'd already heard (nice things) from three happy customers. And no, three out of 1,400, is not that many, but I have high hopes for my inbox tomorrow.
Soooooo, the moral of the story is,
Do not push the "Finished" button until you are really finished.
And, everything just might turn out ok.
And for your visual, intellectual and auditory pleasure,
Here it is,
Classica from CAP
Friday, December 08, 2006
advent
Tomorrow morning I will running around my church with about twenty five bouncy choir children. We have rehearsal for our Christmas performance, and they have actually learned the verses to How Great Our Joy, and will be performing it a week from Sunday evening. If anyone wants to come see the spectacle, come! What could be better than kids dressed as shepherds and angels?
It is Advent now. Christmas time. Tonight I saw the Nativity Story, and it brought home the stark difference between what we celebrate, and how we celebrate it. The rocky desert of Isreal looks vastly different than any other Christmas image that I can think of. Snowmen. Christmas trees. Egg nog. None of that. And somehow we celebrate because of a mother giving birth to God as a child, in the most dirty, dark corner of a tiny ramshackle town, two thousand years ago. I sat watching the movie thinking that either we are all crazy or that this was the most profound, unpredictable, complete and powerful plan that a God could have made.
At work I have been feverishly and excitedly creating our first e-newsletter. Does not sound exciting, I know, but it has become my baby. It is possibly the one thing that I am most proud of producing since I began this job, and it is going to have flipping pages and animation and a contest for logic students to enter, and it is also supposed to have a Latin Christmas Carol. I am supposed to be helping to sing said carol and it was supposed to be done already, several times, and today was the day that I was hoping to send out the newsletter. But instead I am waiting, and I have become very familiar with the Latin words to O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
Veni, Veni Emmanuel
captivum salve Isreal,
qui gemit in exsilio.
privatus Dei Filio.
Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,
nascetur pro te Israel.
The Nativity Story opened with these words and this song. Deep voices, fortelling the future of a Savior coming. And heaven knows, after seeing this movie, Israel needed a savior. I also find it interesting that these words, in Latin, are in the language of their greatest oppressors.
Now though, the carol, O Come O Come Emmanuel is one of the most important anchor points of Advent for me. I always knew we sang it during Advent at church, and knew it is about Emmanuel coming, but it is based on very specific prayers, called Antiphons, each focusing on a different attribute of the Messiah. Each verse gives Emmanuel a new name...
Key of David, Dayspring or Morning Star, Rod of Jesse, Wisdom from on high.
And I don't know all of the details, but each of these verses are prayed separately through Advent. Each name considered and desired.
I love that Advent is about waiting. I don't like waiting, but I love the reminder that I am not alone. We are all waiting for something. Our culture looks down it's nose at waiting. It says to get what you want right now. But the striving doesn't seem to work, or never for very long.
Last sunday, in the sermon, our pastor gave the best example of waiting on God that I have ever heard. It was a quote from Henri Nowen, and I will only paraphrase it here as I remember it. He used the example of a trapeze team. The person on the team who lets go of their bar and flys up in an arc high in the air, must simply hold very still. They must not ever try to catch the catcher. It is the catcher's job to find their arms and grasp them, and the one in the air must simply trust that their catcher will be there.
I'm not sure why this resonates so well. Perhaps because I can feel it in my muscles and bones and can imagine the suspended stillness. Suspended stillness. That is where God calls us to be during Advent. That is where he meets us. In dry, barren, places. That is where he comes to live.
There will however, be no stillness tomorrow morning, and there will be no floating little cherubs, so no suspension either. But I must admit, I can hardly wait. And I really can't wait to send the newsletter!
It is Advent now. Christmas time. Tonight I saw the Nativity Story, and it brought home the stark difference between what we celebrate, and how we celebrate it. The rocky desert of Isreal looks vastly different than any other Christmas image that I can think of. Snowmen. Christmas trees. Egg nog. None of that. And somehow we celebrate because of a mother giving birth to God as a child, in the most dirty, dark corner of a tiny ramshackle town, two thousand years ago. I sat watching the movie thinking that either we are all crazy or that this was the most profound, unpredictable, complete and powerful plan that a God could have made.
At work I have been feverishly and excitedly creating our first e-newsletter. Does not sound exciting, I know, but it has become my baby. It is possibly the one thing that I am most proud of producing since I began this job, and it is going to have flipping pages and animation and a contest for logic students to enter, and it is also supposed to have a Latin Christmas Carol. I am supposed to be helping to sing said carol and it was supposed to be done already, several times, and today was the day that I was hoping to send out the newsletter. But instead I am waiting, and I have become very familiar with the Latin words to O Come, O Come Emmanuel.
Veni, Veni Emmanuel
captivum salve Isreal,
qui gemit in exsilio.
privatus Dei Filio.
Gaude! Gaude! Emmanuel,
nascetur pro te Israel.
The Nativity Story opened with these words and this song. Deep voices, fortelling the future of a Savior coming. And heaven knows, after seeing this movie, Israel needed a savior. I also find it interesting that these words, in Latin, are in the language of their greatest oppressors.
Now though, the carol, O Come O Come Emmanuel is one of the most important anchor points of Advent for me. I always knew we sang it during Advent at church, and knew it is about Emmanuel coming, but it is based on very specific prayers, called Antiphons, each focusing on a different attribute of the Messiah. Each verse gives Emmanuel a new name...
Key of David, Dayspring or Morning Star, Rod of Jesse, Wisdom from on high.
And I don't know all of the details, but each of these verses are prayed separately through Advent. Each name considered and desired.
I love that Advent is about waiting. I don't like waiting, but I love the reminder that I am not alone. We are all waiting for something. Our culture looks down it's nose at waiting. It says to get what you want right now. But the striving doesn't seem to work, or never for very long.
Last sunday, in the sermon, our pastor gave the best example of waiting on God that I have ever heard. It was a quote from Henri Nowen, and I will only paraphrase it here as I remember it. He used the example of a trapeze team. The person on the team who lets go of their bar and flys up in an arc high in the air, must simply hold very still. They must not ever try to catch the catcher. It is the catcher's job to find their arms and grasp them, and the one in the air must simply trust that their catcher will be there.
I'm not sure why this resonates so well. Perhaps because I can feel it in my muscles and bones and can imagine the suspended stillness. Suspended stillness. That is where God calls us to be during Advent. That is where he meets us. In dry, barren, places. That is where he comes to live.
There will however, be no stillness tomorrow morning, and there will be no floating little cherubs, so no suspension either. But I must admit, I can hardly wait. And I really can't wait to send the newsletter!
Sunday, December 03, 2006
one restless, anxious, grumpy, extremely cold, very bad day
The subject gives it away, but that is how the day was. I changed my mind about what to do in it about thirthy-seven times, mostly wanted to lay on the couch. But I didn't want to feel like I was wasting my weekend by being a bum laying on the couch. And the most interesting thing, and the real reason I am posting this, is that it was not only me. A good chunk of my family had the same sort of day. My brother is sick anyway, so maybe he doesn't count, but he sure sounded miserable sniffling and hacking all over the place. Mom was on the grumpy side, for no good reason, and freely admitted it herself. Poor Bekah has been furiously knitting a scarf for the last several days, and it will do nothing but curl into a skinny cylinder. She tried ironing it, stretching it, scolding it, all to no avail, so she will now be unraveling it. She stopped by her boyfriend John's house this morning after her choir practice, and woke him up, and you can guess it, he was grumpy. Bekah got annoyed, stayed for literally one minute, and then went home to spend the rest of the day bored and restless and didn't know what to do with herself either. I am pretty sure that even Maggie, one of the Daschunds, was more anxious and high-strung than usual, and she went potty on my jeans when I gave her her usual hello sqeeze.
So we are baffled.
Did anyone else have such a rotten day? And it is Saturday too!
Perhaps it is because of this extreme, super-duper temperature switch from seventy-two degrees yesteday, to thirty one today. Kurts (stepdads) theory is that we are approaching approaching the last full moon autumn (Dec. 5). "Sounds like you are being affected by the stronger than usual effects of this years autumnal bigmoonox."
So please tell me if you had a bad day too. We will pretend that this is a scientific study and compile statistics and debate bad-day hypotheses, and see if there is some external factor at work...
Or else it's just in my genes. And what's on my jeans doesn't help either.
So we are baffled.
Did anyone else have such a rotten day? And it is Saturday too!
Perhaps it is because of this extreme, super-duper temperature switch from seventy-two degrees yesteday, to thirty one today. Kurts (stepdads) theory is that we are approaching approaching the last full moon autumn (Dec. 5). "Sounds like you are being affected by the stronger than usual effects of this years autumnal bigmoonox."
So please tell me if you had a bad day too. We will pretend that this is a scientific study and compile statistics and debate bad-day hypotheses, and see if there is some external factor at work...
Or else it's just in my genes. And what's on my jeans doesn't help either.
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