million $$$ 5 Friday from the RevGals
This one could be either extremely easy or tremendously difficult; Singing Owl asks, "What are five things you would want to do with a million dollar deposit in your bank account?"
I'd start funding leading to:
1. an inner-city multi-service enrichment center providing educational and recreational opportunities for al ages;
2. regular contributions to Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab, Utah;
3. routine experiences in the fine, applied and practical arts at the above-mentioned enrichment center that would include performances and exhibits by professional musicians, actors and artists and by neighborhood residents of all ages and levels of expertise.
one for my own pleasure and edification:
4. takin' a fun trip or two or three of varying lengths with various friends.
finally, related to my first 3:
5. a sizable initial infusion of $$$ for the first 3 on this list in order to get everything rolling.
Friday, March 28, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
Friday, March 14, 2008
time & transitions 5
This morning I decided to Friday 5, after all, and from Mother Laura, this week's Palms Friday 5 considers Friday Five time and transitions.
For my own intro to this 5 I need to remind myself just as salvation history journeys from the triumph and excitement of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to the devastation of Calvary Hill and then to the Resurrection Dawn that still astonishes us, every one of experiences twists, turns, backtracks and unexpected non-transitions that only the Spirit of Life that raised Jesus from the grave is able to redeem and transform.
1. For my choice of historical time period I'll return to Florence as the Renaissance trickles down from the surrounding hills—at least I love to think of it that way!
2. For my most desired futuristic/science fiction development I'll take vibrant, healthy, productive cities, particularly neighborhoods that help grow kids and youth into trusting, giving, productive adults. That's a topic for more than a book, so I'll leave this by saying how sad that I'm playing this dream within the category of futuristic/science fiction—but in the HS's power it need not be so.
3. I have a not uncommon propensity to stay almost suspended and stuck in a nowhere inbetween remembering the past and imaging a future for myself and the world; how some ever, in a very real sense we live most of our lives embedded or at least floating in a here and now made possible because of past endeavors and experiences and that also partakes of an almost but not-quite yet reign of heaven we've heard about, read about, seen glimpses of and even proclaimed within the gathered assembly of the Church; outrageously I'll risk describing it as the proleptic realization of the eschaton...
4. Again I spent this year's Lent still almost paralyzed with a sense of loss of self, loss of purpose and wondering again about a future. But at least it was a little productive, since on the 5 Wednesday evenings I was pianist and facilitated discussion of a DVD series, Good God Questions from Luther Seminary.
5. As I anticipate this upcoming Holy Week I am very sad I won't be musician for the daily eucharist we celebrated during HW 2005, 2006 and 2007, since the pastor I collaborated with is in a different situation now and clearly, so am I. But I do plan to check out the various offerings around town and aside from Maundy Thursday, which I will celebrate with my "home" parish, I expect to be able to participate in some meaningful (cliché 1) reflections (cliché 2).
For my own intro to this 5 I need to remind myself just as salvation history journeys from the triumph and excitement of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem to the devastation of Calvary Hill and then to the Resurrection Dawn that still astonishes us, every one of experiences twists, turns, backtracks and unexpected non-transitions that only the Spirit of Life that raised Jesus from the grave is able to redeem and transform.
1. For my choice of historical time period I'll return to Florence as the Renaissance trickles down from the surrounding hills—at least I love to think of it that way!
2. For my most desired futuristic/science fiction development I'll take vibrant, healthy, productive cities, particularly neighborhoods that help grow kids and youth into trusting, giving, productive adults. That's a topic for more than a book, so I'll leave this by saying how sad that I'm playing this dream within the category of futuristic/science fiction—but in the HS's power it need not be so.
3. I have a not uncommon propensity to stay almost suspended and stuck in a nowhere inbetween remembering the past and imaging a future for myself and the world; how some ever, in a very real sense we live most of our lives embedded or at least floating in a here and now made possible because of past endeavors and experiences and that also partakes of an almost but not-quite yet reign of heaven we've heard about, read about, seen glimpses of and even proclaimed within the gathered assembly of the Church; outrageously I'll risk describing it as the proleptic realization of the eschaton...
4. Again I spent this year's Lent still almost paralyzed with a sense of loss of self, loss of purpose and wondering again about a future. But at least it was a little productive, since on the 5 Wednesday evenings I was pianist and facilitated discussion of a DVD series, Good God Questions from Luther Seminary.
5. As I anticipate this upcoming Holy Week I am very sad I won't be musician for the daily eucharist we celebrated during HW 2005, 2006 and 2007, since the pastor I collaborated with is in a different situation now and clearly, so am I. But I do plan to check out the various offerings around town and aside from Maundy Thursday, which I will celebrate with my "home" parish, I expect to be able to participate in some meaningful (cliché 1) reflections (cliché 2).
Thursday, March 13, 2008
praying on the prairie: lucky day
From T of Praying on the Prairie, I offer this cool meme in lieu of stuff I need to be doing; let me know if you play!
T's questions (she hasn't answered them yet): lucky day
From me about T: 1) Tell me why you friended me.
We both belong to the RevGals community; I first visited your blog after you announced your 200th or so post on WedFest.
2) Associate me with a song/film.
"Calling Out Your Name" by Rich Mullins:
3) Tell a random fact about me.
You attended Wartburg Seminary.
4) Tell your first memory of me.
I love prairies, savannahs, oceans, deserts and naturescapes in general, so I immediately loved the name of your blog. Oh, prayer, as well!
5) Associate me with a character/pairing (painting?).
You've already told us you were named after a character on Days of Our Lives...
6) Ask something you've always wanted to know about me (Play nice)
Do you like and/or live with dogs and/or cats?
About me: 1) Tell why I friended you.
We both belong to the RevGals community and you like people to visit your blog.
2) Associate you with a song/film.
People often associate me with Princess Leia from Starwars, but I typically go with Leah from Genesis. Her name means weary and weary is how I feel, despite having almost excessive physical energy.
3) Tell a random fact about you.
I love most expressions of the color yellow.
4) Tell a first memory about you.
I'm not sure what this means, so I'll go way way back and tell about my earliest memories of myself drawing at the dining room table when I was about 4.
5) Associate you with a character/pairing (painting?).
I often say I'm like the Energizer Bunny—just keep bouncing back, just keep on keepin' on no matter what.
6) Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
Do I like and/or live with dogs and/or cats?
T's questions (she hasn't answered them yet): lucky day
From me about T: 1) Tell me why you friended me.
We both belong to the RevGals community; I first visited your blog after you announced your 200th or so post on WedFest.
2) Associate me with a song/film.
"Calling Out Your Name" by Rich Mullins:
Well the moon moved past Nebraska
And spilled laughter on them cold Dakota Hills
And angels danced on Jacob's stairs
Yeah, they danced on Jacob's stairs
There is this silence in the Badlands
And over Kansas the whole universe was stilled
By the whisper of a prayer
The whisper of a prayer
And the single hawk bursts into flight
And in the east the whole horizon is in flames
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
I can feel the earth tremble
Beneath the rumbling of the buffalo hooves
And the fury in the pheasant's wings
And there's fury in a pheasant's wings
It tells me the Lord is in His temple
And there is still a faith
That can make the mountains move
And a love that can make the heavens ring
And I've seen love make heaven ring
Where the sacred rivers meet
Beneath the shadow of the Keeper of the plains
I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
From the place where morning gathers
You can look sometimes forever 'til you see
What time may never know
What time may never know
How the Lord takes by its corners this old world
And shakes us forward and shakes us free
To run wild with the hope
To run wild with the hope
The hope that this thirst will not last long
That it will soon drown in the song
Not sung in vain
And I feel thunder in the sky
I see the sky about to rain
And I hear the prairies calling out Your name
3) Tell a random fact about me.
You attended Wartburg Seminary.
4) Tell your first memory of me.
I love prairies, savannahs, oceans, deserts and naturescapes in general, so I immediately loved the name of your blog. Oh, prayer, as well!
5) Associate me with a character/pairing (painting?).
You've already told us you were named after a character on Days of Our Lives...
6) Ask something you've always wanted to know about me (Play nice)
Do you like and/or live with dogs and/or cats?
About me: 1) Tell why I friended you.
We both belong to the RevGals community and you like people to visit your blog.
2) Associate you with a song/film.
People often associate me with Princess Leia from Starwars, but I typically go with Leah from Genesis. Her name means weary and weary is how I feel, despite having almost excessive physical energy.
3) Tell a random fact about you.
I love most expressions of the color yellow.
4) Tell a first memory about you.
I'm not sure what this means, so I'll go way way back and tell about my earliest memories of myself drawing at the dining room table when I was about 4.
5) Associate you with a character/pairing (painting?).
I often say I'm like the Energizer Bunny—just keep bouncing back, just keep on keepin' on no matter what.
6) Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
Do I like and/or live with dogs and/or cats?
Monday, March 10, 2008
poetry party 14: I Invite You
Christine announces poetry party 14 and explains her photograph:
This week’s photo is of a gravestone in the cemetery where Chief Sealth’s (who Seattle is named after) grave is found on the Suquamish reservation. There were several of these unknown graves and they made me wonder who they might be, so I invite you to enter into your poetic imagination and give one of them (or several) a story.
InvitationYou've become unknown and unknowable to most of the world
but I'll open your grave with words of life!
I'll claim you, call you
I'll name and and know you
as friend and companion
I'll invite you to lunch
we'll saunter through the city
venture to the countryside
and talk about just plain stuff.
What's my agenda?
The same as yours—
we'll mutually bring each other back to life,
O Blessed One created in the image of the Divine
Who calls us "Friends!"
Friday, March 07, 2008
springing hope 5
sings of hope, signs of spring Friday 5 from the RevGals
I love this F5 from Sally!
What have you seen/ heard this week that was a:
1. One of my favorite signs of hope is seeing the very first spring green plant shoots making their way into the world after the slow and cold of winter, and in the wake of getting sufficient precipitation this rainy season, I've been seeing those signs a-plenty.
2. An unexpected word of light in a dark place came from Linda, a neighbor who recently moved back into the condo unit she'd previously rented. I've been aching for friendship and she offered to help me paint the rest of my condo when she finished painting hers. The times I've made offers and overtures to people that've been refused, often rudely, and now someone has reached out to me!
3. Similar to my answer to #1, the Anza-Borrego desert in full bloom right now at this very moment is the sign of spring in this part of the world. Each year is different, depending on rainfall amounts, but the desert resplendently in bloom always is such a powerful theological statement, reminding me as an individual and remembering the Church the identity-forming events in our lives.
4. For both challenging and surprising I'll mention the way my own life has not yet rewoven and regenerated to any kind of minimally acceptable degree as I knew it would. Each morning I struggle to remember God's faithfulness, yet the memories hold as I stay grounded in Scripture and participate in the Church's liturgy and sacraments and continue in the life of service Jesus has called me to.
5. the persistent realization that the world lives in the Pentecostal Reign of the Spirit remains major hope for the coming week/month/year for all of us.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 4, although I could have listed a few dozen songs or hymns or a lot of other Beethoven masterpieces.
I love this F5 from Sally!
What have you seen/ heard this week that was a:
1. One of my favorite signs of hope is seeing the very first spring green plant shoots making their way into the world after the slow and cold of winter, and in the wake of getting sufficient precipitation this rainy season, I've been seeing those signs a-plenty. 2. An unexpected word of light in a dark place came from Linda, a neighbor who recently moved back into the condo unit she'd previously rented. I've been aching for friendship and she offered to help me paint the rest of my condo when she finished painting hers. The times I've made offers and overtures to people that've been refused, often rudely, and now someone has reached out to me!
3. Similar to my answer to #1, the Anza-Borrego desert in full bloom right now at this very moment is the sign of spring in this part of the world. Each year is different, depending on rainfall amounts, but the desert resplendently in bloom always is such a powerful theological statement, reminding me as an individual and remembering the Church the identity-forming events in our lives.
4. For both challenging and surprising I'll mention the way my own life has not yet rewoven and regenerated to any kind of minimally acceptable degree as I knew it would. Each morning I struggle to remember God's faithfulness, yet the memories hold as I stay grounded in Scripture and participate in the Church's liturgy and sacraments and continue in the life of service Jesus has called me to.
5. the persistent realization that the world lives in the Pentecostal Reign of the Spirit remains major hope for the coming week/month/year for all of us.
Beethoven's Symphony No. 4, although I could have listed a few dozen songs or hymns or a lot of other Beethoven masterpieces.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
even the smallest...
...of creatures carries the sun in its eyes:
my interpretation of a phrase by Antonio Porchia I remembered from an old poster.
my interpretation of a phrase by Antonio Porchia I remembered from an old poster.
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