Weather

Just a quick note.

In reading a couple of my recent posts I've gone from snow and cold to instant bare feet in the dirt warmth.

Yes.

That's the nature of 8,000 feet and even the Mile High City of Denver, which we're a half hour from.

We tend to go from winter to summer.

Happenings

I have been blogging in my head for a week. Does that make sense? I talk in my head - forever! Sometimes I wish it would just shut up! It's what causes me to not sleep; been a curse since I was a teen - the talk, or reliving everything, or composing stuff I'd write, and thus, the lack of sleep. I sure don't want to get into it all now, or I'll not go to sleep.

Monte is watching some scene selections from a movie we just watched while I sit reading emails, writing this, and having my nightcap. It's had him saying he's returned to his ancestral roots. It was a Scandinavian kinda Viking era, tho not the warring stuff, movie. With his geology, he's been to Norway and Norwegians have visited us several times. He's pure Swedish, I'm part, and then Dutch and English - the English that came over on the Mayflower - Governor Bradford,  to be exact. But I look at all those Northerners so interwoven that we're all really One.

All I want to say for now is that I'm heavily gardening from morning till night, thoroughly enjoying the out-of-doors. And like I said earlier, my looking-forward-to, my bare feet have been in the dirt - they are stained! I was thinking of this when showering tonight - I still will wear sandals - in spite! 

But then genetically, I don't have feet or hands that can ever by 'pretty'. My nails grow upward, never curving downward. And my fingers and toes are stubby. AND I use my hands too much (and enjoy digging my feet in the dirt) to ever hold a mani/pedicure. If my nails don't get shortened from all my varieties of labors, I slice my nails often in my cooking from scratch (so we get some calcium from my nails! That's weird, I know, and gross, and not so prevalent - but Jesus used hyperbole to make a point!)

If I keep reading Annie Dillard ... but listening to murder mysteries counter-balances that ... 

The Gift of Art

I'm home from a meeting at church - a meeting of artists ... how to find and draw out people in our body of Christ ... value their giftedness (beyond just the typical written Word spoken and talked about, and then the music) ... let the rest of the body know more about 'their' body ... help people learn to see!

What's the 'help people learn to see' piece? I read a line in a 'art and the church' book about the fact, and yes, it is 'fact', that as protestants we are malnourished when it comes to our imagination. (I'm protestant and I have a lively imagination ... but ... )

Did you ever think that it truly takes imagination to read and grasp scripture? 

In this book it showed a bass-relief artwork of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem - he was riding side-saddle. If you saw that, would your imagination run away with your thoughts on the possibilities of that image?! The point, is that most of us would just register 'Triumphal entry of Jesus', and that's all.

Imagination thoughts?: Hmmm ... we think of Jesus as King, besides Divinity - why didn't he ride in in a Roman chariot, or riding a majestic horse? ... maybe horses are a too militaristic, warrior posture ... donkey, okay, peaceful ... but side-saddle? ... isn't that a feminine posture? ... hmmmm

I don't like filling in all the blanks for you. Just my hint at 'feminine' ... doesn't that help you imagine further?

I'm so glad the walls of our church are full of art. We want more. People still walk by without really 'seeing'. We don't have a white wall in our church, we have color. We are not a Black and White Church! There is so much color ... and I'm thinking it's way beyond the spectrum we actually see ...

Weather report

It's almost the end of May! It's been so cold and rainy for days. I've got bare-root strawberries and daylilies in the garage. I'm wanting to harden off some plants but not in this cold! And I don't want to plant my beans and squash until the soil is warm and not so wet.

I always wrestle with what to do with the old plants. I need a place just to put the early onions and spinach and kale and whatever that comes up from last year. I don't like to get rid of them. I've been eating them. But the old strawberries?

I'm creating a new bed with weed barrier cloth for the 3 new varieties I ordered. I was thinking I could put little pots under the runners later each summer for the babies to root in and plant in a permanent spot elsewhere.

I've heard it's best to have a three year cycle of strawberry beds - meaning, not letting them live beyond three years. Do people never let the runners root in these beds? Cuz then you end up with a new generation. Could you spray paint the oldest plants and use a new color for each year and then you know which are the aged to get rid of? Hmmm ...

I need to get going. I'm meeting my mom and Jim to go out and eat and then go plan a summer family reunion since we're the only ones living here. This actually is going to be a meeting of totally unknown Kansas contingency from my mom's dad's side. Monte's not going - he's running at the nose. He keeps saying, "My nose has never run like this, and I've not had a cold for years!" which he hasn't. I guess it's good for his immune system. He got it from Dawson last week when they were in the extreme AZ heat. I don't want to get it, so I'm not sleeping with him ;^)

Memorial Day

Our Heather married William Lavender last December 18th. He was newly home from Iraq. He is a captain in the military.

They left this morning in their rental truck full of stuff Heather's gathered over the years awaiting marriage. She's prayed very specifically since she was 10 for this man she'd marry. As she was approaching 30 she was still trusting and resting in God. I was trusting too, thought I'd often argue with God ...

How'd they meet? Through E-Harmony, an online Christian dating site. Bill is a wonderful man and they are like brother and sister - both in looks and compatibility.

While today we remember those who have died for our freedoms. I'm also saying thanks to those still alive, willing to give their lives for freedoms they value - like our Bill. 

St Philip Neri

Philip Neri

Philip Neri enjoyed his faith! He died today, the 26th, in 1595. Called the 'Apostle of Rome' since Philip took care of so many of Rome's sick and poor, including outcasts.

The Renaissance ended with a bang and Rome was ransacked and devastated by imperial troops. Philip would walk the streets seeking opportunities to engage people in conversation and offer them help. He'd stop people on the streets asking, "when shall we begin doing good?" and people would want to actually do good. Hospitals were founded and staffed - people joking and singing amongst the rooms and halls.
What he's most noted for is founding a society called 'the Congregation of the Oratory'. Evenings would find his band of disciples gathering to talk and pray and listen to scripture readings and music in a room they called their oratory. Originally the Oratory suffered through a period of "heretic" accusations since laypersons preached and the hymns sung were vernacular - of the ordinary dialect.
The Church itself was needing conversion and Philip's humble and gay personality converted many to personal holiness. Many, including 'important' people, sought his advice, and he was a spiritual director for many. Philip wanted people to become not less, but more human through their faith in God. His mission was the streets of Rome.
There was nothing gloomy about the sanctity he preached and practiced. Philip loved jokes and laughter; he would sometimes appear in public, perfectly deadpan, wearing his clothes inside out, or sniffing a bouquet of whisk brooms. He considered a cheerful temperament to be more Christian than a melancholy one.
"A cheerful heart is more easily made perfect than a downcast one." Philip Neri's autopsy revealed an extraordinarily large heart.
One of the epitaphs of Saint Philip Neri is:
"Philip Neri, learned and wise,
by sharing the pranks of children
himself became a child again."

Happenings

Getting ready for a weekend of company. My newly married Heather, with Bill, are flying in tomorrow morning. They'll be getting a rental truck to pack their stored stuff here, and drive to their new home at Fort Hood, outside Austin Texas.

Monte and Dawson have been in the SW Arizona desert this week doing geology. Dawson's been posting pictures on his photo site. I like the one of Monte's silhouette with pick in the rising sun. Normally you'd think 'sunset', but with afternoon temps over 100 degrees, they are going out at dusk and working till just after noon, or till they can't stand it! And Dawson captured a picture of a jackrabbit jumping. They fly home Saturday.

Saturday afternoon the whole family - with Travis and Sarah, and my mom and Jim - will be here and share supper together.

Tonight is my second needlefelt class in this 4 week course. We do wool-sculpted heads tonight.

So I'm off to ready the house and get ready for tonight's class.

And since I so often give a weather report for our 8000' Colorado Mtn area: supposed to be cooler today and rain, but it's been beautiful! Got some garden seeds planted, but need Monte home to ready the rest of the garden. The greenhouse is full and I'm starting to harden off the broccoli ('cole') family plants and some flowers for planting outside next week. Apple and Nanking Cherry trees/bushes are in bloom. Lilacs are soon to bloom. Hummingbirds are humming, and pine siskins are in abundance at the thistle feeder, and I'm keeping my eyes open for the occasional goldfinch. Someone has said we shouldn't get any more snow this season. Hoping.

Frances de Sales Quote

We cannot help conforming ourselves to what we love.

11 year old Keith Green

I can't believe this...a young blond haired Keith Green on "I've Got a Secret" and he does a song at the end. I saw Keith in concert in the early 70's and we have all his recordings. Of course then he had brown curly hair and the piano bounced with his music passion. We were so sad of his early death. I read his wife, Melanie's book of his life.

Story Quote

My friend Ellen sent me this quote since I so often talk of the value of story.

Story re-orders, sifts through experience, and allows others, young children and adults alike, to hear what we think truly matters. We are constituted by the stories we tell ourselves and others. Thus stories serve an ontological purpose. Story connects us with that which lies beyond ourselves and this process makes us ask questions about the meanings of our lives. It is, in fact, a way we can begin to define what we mean when we use the term "spirituality."
- Barbara Kimes Myers
Young Children and Spirituality

As I said before, I'm home alone. Been gardening. It's beautiful outside. Sat awhile outside off and on yesterday reading and watching the birds. Monte and Dawson are in the southern Arizona desert and said it's 115 degrees! So going out early, starting at first light and needing to quit just after noon.

Palimpsest

I've been reading reviews of the new CS Lewis movie release, "Prince Caspian". I learned a new word - palimpsest. One reviewer suggested that rather than say the movie is 'based on the novel', say 'it's a palimpsest of the novel' - that it has traces of the novel.

I guess artistic license has created a good action film that's not really a family film - and that it's missing most of CS Lewis's core story value.

I read (listened - I listen to hundreds of audio books) Dumas's Man in the Iron Mask and found the movie's story line was gleaned from only one paragraph of the book. When we're looking for movies to be like the books, I think we usually feel disappointed. And there's times I think the movies are an improvement on the book, or a whole new story to still enjoy and maybe touched by.

I like a lot of the past few decades movies over the older movies. I think today great questions are being asked - lots more to ponder and even discuss.

Clotheslines

I was just googling 'clotheslines'. I used to hang out clothes to dry and am missing it. I was looking for the kind I saw a lot of in Wisconsin, and Monte's mom has one. It's a heavy metal frame that can be moved around. They are non-existent online. I'd probably have to go out of the city to a country hardware store to find one. 

Do you know what is most prevalent under the subject of 'clothesline'? Blogs and articles on the trouble you can get in if you try and hang clothes out to dry. In this new 'green' climate (which I'm kinda sick of - it's mass consumerism! There's a new book out titled Big Green Purse, subtitled Use Your Spending Power to Create a Cleaner, Greener World. I'm an old hippie, and I've been called Earth Mother, and feel I've lived fairly green conscious, and I do want others to live greener.) clotheslines are a great idea.

I did have someone in an Arizona neighborhood tell me the covenants didn't allow hanging out laundry, but we lived so far apart, I ignored it and never got in trouble. But I guess people really do get in trouble for hanging out laundry and even clotheslines exposed to view.

I have nostalgic images of clothes-pinned laundry gently blowing in the breeze and neighbors talking over fences. I loved the fresh air and listening to the birds and the fresh smell of things dried outside. But I'm glad I live in an era where I don't HAVE TO air dry everything. I wouldn't want to do it in freezing weather or where it rains a lot. And some things just need to dry in the dryer. I rarely iron, using my dryer to take out wrinkles.

But what if I want to hang some things out?! I guess Monte will have to make me another clothesline. The last one rotted.

Brendan

So the Irish Saved Civilization, but did they discover America? Irish monk Brendan, who's Feast Day is today, founded many monasteries and boldly traveled visiting Scotland, Wales, Brittany and Iceland. But no one knows whether the sagas told, written, and sung, of a voyage to North America are fiction or nonfiction. Could he have crossed the ocean in a curragh - a round, hide-covered boat, a glorified canoe? 

Brendan lived from around 484-577. A stamp was issued in 1994 picturing such a journey. This man called 'The Navigator' and 'The Voyager', is pictured in stained glass at the US Naval Academy in Maryland. Frederick Buechner tells his story in a book called Brendan. Ogham, Irish inscriptions written prior to the 800's, have been found in North America.

Even if a religious allegory, it reminds me of a word I learned: peregrinatio. It's a hard word to define. Our definition of 'pilgrimage' does not really fit this word because since the Middle Ages pilgrimages have plans and destinations and when the goal is accomplished, people return home. 

It's been told that three men were in such a skin boat without oars, and when found they said they were "on a pilgrimage, we care not where". It's a celtic word for a journey undertaken for the love of God - surprising and risky and not really having some end or goal in view. But it's not a restless wandering because there seems to be some sense of grounding, and 'at-homeness'.

Brendan's story reminds me that I too have an at-homeness in God, but am I willing to go wherever the Spirit desires me, into the unsafe and unfamiliar - both external and internal journeying?!

Happenings

We almost always sleep with the sliding glass door open. Yesterday, awakening in the early morning I whispered, "shh". Monte and me lay listening ... birds singing (I like to recognize them - name them) ... and then, a hummingbird! The hummingbirds always come around mid-May and I anxiously await them, as I do the blue birds.

Growing up in the southern Arizona desert, I never heard hummingbirds 'hum' - so why are they called 'hummingbirds'? In the Colorado Mountains they are NOISY! all summer long. The Rufous shows up early July and then things really get feisty! He, with his bright copper color in the sunlight, doesn't want to share the feeder.

So yesterday morning before leaving for MOPS I cleaned the feeder and made the syrup mixture and hung it on its hook on the back deck. It's snowing again now, but I know summer is around the corner because the hummingbirds are back!

Sat with friends Jeanie and Marty after MOPS at Starbucks for over an hour talking. Marty wanted to talk about books since she just finished reading The Shack (a good read), and we go off on many bunny trails. But as my sister-in-law Linda always says, "Bunny trails come home".

I came home to Dawson and four friends playing Twister in the parlor! What's so unusual about that you may ask? First off, kids rarely play real games together any more, AND they are college kids! School is done (can I brag? he thinks he's got another 4.0 grade average again this semester). Later, after I put groceries away and wanted to check my emails, they were on their stomachs on my 'office' floor playing cards. Then later they were playing a game at the kitchen table. After finding out they weren't staying for supper, I teased them that they were trying out every room in the house playing games! (Remember my post about our Velveteen House?)

So, after Dawson's piano recital tomorrow night, him and Monte are leaving for southern Arizona to spend a week in the 100 degree desert doing geology. In getting ready, Monte and me are going to combine errands this afternoon down in Denver, and I start another needlefelting class tonight (we're saving gas).

So I'll be Home Alone again for a week. Yuck, looking out earlier I saw some elk go by and now it's snowing hard! I want to get my garden planted. The greenhouse plants are getting big and are ready to go out! I'm ready to go out! I want to get my hands and bare feet in the dirt!

Julian of Norwich

 

Protestant me (though I hate that word, but it does kinda 'place' me - maybe I should use 'Reformed', since I'm always reforming, but I don't like it's lingering images either...) - but to move on, I'm going to talk of another Saint. Mystic Julian is mentioned in some saint books and recognized with a calendar date in some faiths, but I don't think the Catholic church has included her in their calendar.

But 'calendar girl' me, is adding Juliana to my calendar because I like some of her thoughts. I posted a long time ago that the Church recognized people on their death days since they see that as their 'birthday' into heaven. (Though I didn't grow up with any of this, I find it interesting, and it is a part of church history - the 3rd Testament stories. Paul refers to us all as saints, and we have our stories too - a continuation of the Book of Acts.) Julian became very ill May 8 and died around now in 1423.

Julian of Norwich is known for her 'showings' written about in her Revelations of Divine Love. She lived at a time when people greatly desired visions from God (do we?) even to the point of experiencing Christ's death with a stigmata. Julian was 'shown' Christ's sufferings with extraordinary intensity, but also received assurance of God's unwavering love for mankind and his infinite capacity for forgiveness - "I must tell you about the goodness of God".

Julian desired to see reality as God sees it. Julian seemed to be given the gift of seeing life outside of our chronos earthly measurable time. In God's kairos unmeasurable time - actually 'no time' - she saw the Fall of Adam and the Incarnation of Christ as the same event. "When Adam fell, God's son fell; because the true union made in heaven, God's son could not leave Adam, for by Adam I understand all men. Adam fell from life to death into the valley of this wretched world, and after that into Hell. God's son fell with Adam into the valley of the Virgin's womb, in order to free Adam from guilt in heaven and in earth; and with his great power he fetched him out of hell."

When in bed sick she fixed her eyes on a crucifix because a parson had told her, "Look upon it and be comforted, in reverence to him that died for you and me." And then she said, "the room was dim all around me, as dark as if it had been night, except that in the image of the cross an ordinary household light remained - I could not understand how."

I mention the last paragraph because of having looked up the word 'crucible' in the Oxford Dictionary. I've mentioned I love words (like the fun language poem a couple days ago), and I like to see words' origins, since definitions and images change over time. How would you define crucible?
It's latin origin is "lamp on a crucifix". I love this.

I sat with the origin of 'crucible' for awhile and ended up creating a needlefelted image of it. It got incorporated into a wall-hanging of three pictures I'll have to describe later.


Thinking more on Juliana not being acknowledged in the Catholic Calendar ... I wonder if it would have anything to do with her seeing God as our mother as well as our father ... "God as nurturing ... giving birth to humanity ... that the body that died in its birth-pangs on the cross remains a source of generous maternal nourishment for humanity". In actuality, the Church looks for miracles after ones death, which would be evidence of them being in heaven. I think how they LIVED LIFE would be the most important.

Another tangent: If the 'present moment' is what touches eternity, how many of us really LIVE in the present moment? The past and future are not here and now. The only thing we have control over is what to do in the present moment?!

My hopes and efforts are to live with the cross ever before my vision and choices. And when it's dark, I trust God, that there's a light on the cross and my path.

Organics

I found this picture at this site.

I'm glad there are watchdogs out there.

Einstein Quote

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.

Asylum for the Verbally Insane

I heard this on the radio yesterday morning. I love words and find this very amusing.

Asylum for the Verbally Insane

We’ll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes,
But the plural of ox becomes oxen, not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese,
Yet the plural of moose should never be meese.

You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice,
Yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men,
Why shouldn’t the plural of pan be called pen?

If I speak of my foot and show you my feet,
And I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth,
Why shouldn’t the plural of booth be called beeth?

Then one may be that, and three would be those,
Yet hat in the plural would never be hose,
And the plural of cat is cats, not cose.

We speak of a brother and also of brethren,
But though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him,
But imagine the feminine: she, shis and shim!

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger;
Neither apple nor pine in pineapple.

English muffins weren’t invented in England.
We take English for granted, but if we explore its paradoxes,
We find that quicksand can work slowly,

Boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing,
Grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham?

Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend.
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all
But one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught?
Sometimes I think all the folks who grew up speaking English
Should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.

In what other language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
We ship by truck but send cargo by ship.
We have noses that run and feet that smell.
We park in a driveway and drive in a parkway.

And how can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same,
While a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language
In which your house can burn up as it burns down,
In which you fill in a form by filling it out,
And in which an alarm goes off by going on.
And, in closing, if Father is Pop,
How come Mother’s not Mop?

SNOW!!!!

I AM SO SICK OF SNOW! Woke up to no electricity and 10" of snow. Started the wood stove so I could make tea. Electricity is on now, but it's still snowing, and this time of year means it's very wet and heavy snow.

I remember my lilac getting flattened one year, so snow into late May is not unusual. Luckily no leaves are on the trees and bushes, so the snow won't break branches.

How much snow will we get is the question? Tornadoes, cyclones, earthquakes, electrical storms and volcanoes - the news is sure full right now. We still can't control nature.

Compost and Mother's Day

I get interesting gifts for Mother's Day - but they are what I ask for! There's been many years that I ask for compost bins. We've finally learned how to get great compost, so this year Monte made me a supper-nice 3-compartment compost bin. I've asked for rototillers and other gardening stuff.

I came down Mother's Day morning to a wrapped gift for me from Dawson. He's a gift giver and a creative wrapper. Lately his gifts have been wrapped in the many pages we helped edit for his college classes. He gave me a rock water-fountain. So now I can sit here in my recliner, surrounded by my many house plants and have the soothing sound of tumbling water.

When the rest of the world is waiting to be seated at restaurants, I prefer not to join the masses. But I get taken out quite a bit, so eating out on Mother's Day isn't so special. Just like when the rest of the world is vacationing, I'd rather stay home. But then we often go on mini vacations, so there isn't that need.

So is it that we enjoy treats, like dates, on a regular basis so there isn't this huge need for needing a holiday to make things happen ... or is it that we don't like crowds ... or are we just rebellious? (I do have a rebellious streak in me.)

Actually yesterday, after church, we went with friends to eat at Pannera Bread and sat talking quite awhile before Monte and me went to the REI outdoor store to get a new GPS he needs for his geology field trip he's going on next week. But like gardening paraphernalia, I like looking at all the camping, backpacking, and outdoor activity paraphernalia too. So maybe it wasn't a thing most would do for Mother's Day, but I enjoyed what I did with Monte. 

Can you believe it? - today, late this afternoon, the weather instantly changed from sunny upper 60's to freezing wind and rain. Denver is supposed to get 3" of snow overnight, so we'll get more! I finished planting my summer flower pots, but of course they'll stay inside awhile more. I filled all the bird feeders. I trimmed the grapevine in the greenhouse (so many grapes coming this year!) and emptied all the garden and kitchen scrap buckets in the compost bin.

High Tea

Just a quick note before going to bed ... I'm busy helping at church - tomorrow is a Tea. I was at church most of today helping set up. I got my ingredients ready for one of the tea sandwiches this evening - a Smoked Salmon Watercress Mayo and Radish open-face sandwich. I baked the bread for it yesterday. So tomorrow morning early I go back to church to assemble the sandwiches and help with all the other things needed.

Online Bible

Check out this - the Bible, almost any translation you prefer, on line

*Funny!?**

You need a laugh for the day, don't you? You need to watch this movie clip of Babies and Their Fathers. I forwarded it to Monte and he said it made him legitimate.

History

Most people don't know that back in 1912,
Hellmann's mayonnaise was manufactured in England.
In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment
scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico,
which was to be the next port-of-call for the great ship
after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of
mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know,
the great ship did not make it to New York.
The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise,
and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss.
Their anguish was so great, that they declared
a National Day of Mourning,
which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year
on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

WHAT!!!! You expected something educational from me?
I just had to post that. I've had this fun story for a long time
awaiting the right timing in history to post it.
I was too busy, and then tired, to post it earlier.

I grew up next to Mexico. I do know the real Cinco de Mayo story.
Though a small victory against the French,
it was a turning point for Mexico.
Lots of gaiety, color, good food, and fun pinatas.

Gardening at T&S's

We went to Ft Collins Sunday through Monday to help Travis and Sarah get this year's garden ready. Since they have a new dog, they felt the need for garden boundaries. So after spreading the well decomposed manure over their back yard and tilling it in, Monte and Travis screwed together boards for raised beds.

Sarah and me carried on spreading the manure on front beds after aerating them and made a new narrow bed in the front patio and planted flowers and scarlet runner bean seeds with some sweet pea seeds.

We're all excited about home-grown produce! We did Mexican last night, fitting with Cinco de Mayo, with typical burritos we make and the stuffed grilled poblanos (see my recipes). Poblanos did so good in their garden last year (I'm jealous) that they were having grilled chilies several times a week and are missing that. 

It looked like it might rain today, so I scattered old wildflower seeds along with grass seed and threw manure to cover in one of the done areas Monte had made last fall next to our campfire area. Got to get our garden ready to plant now. I've got my greenhouse full of sprouting and growing seed flats, and more to do.

Seeing Jesus Collage

I made a collage for church. This weekend there are tables set up as stations for engaging our many senses using the Deuteronomy 6 text.

I had lots of fun making the collage. The theme was 'seeing Jesus'. One of my errands last week was stopping by the library, so I looked on their "For Free" shelves and there were lots of National Geographic magazines. I spent an evening skimming through them (hard not to read everything) and found tons of great people from all over the world. That night I had faces floating through my sleep. Another artist friend did a collage of hands and emailed me saying, "ditto, but my images were of hands".

It may be hard to see, but I found a cool broken piece of mirror in Dawson's room and incorporated it into the collage. Do you get the idea?

Athanasius

Athanasius

Today is the Feast Day of Athanasius. He is a father or Doctor of the Church. Born of Christian parents in Alexandria, Egypt around 295, he was around when Christianity was becoming the religion of the Empire.

He spent several years with the Desert Father Anthony and wrote his life story, which became very famous and is still in print today. The majority of his life was spent fighting Arianism, which he thought would be easy. But he was exiled five times for his defense of Christ's divinity.

He could probably write as did Paul in II Corinthians 11:26-28, "In hard traveling I've had to ford rivers, fend off robbers, struggle with friends, struggle with foes. I've been at risk in the city and in the country, betrayed by those I thought were my brothers... And that's not the half of it, when you throw in the daily pressures and anxieties of all the churches."

The Council of Nicaea of 325 condemned Arianism and had to expand and affirm it further in 381 at the Council of Constantinople.

Dr. Spock

Just a quick post - another thing for this calendar day that Keillor (from the last post) mentioned - Dr Benjamin Spock was born on this day in 1903.

When I got pregnant with my firstborn, his book was about the only book out there. The massive bookshelf of parenting books we have today did not exist. I've read many of those books as they came out, back then - no more!.

I have to say, "I liked Dr Spock's book"!

King James Bible

Today in 1611 the first edition of the King James Bible was published in England. I learned about this from Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. King James had 54 linguists working on the project.

Garrison didn't say this, but I've heard rumors that William Shakespeare might have been one of those linguists. Something else I do know, is that in that King James Bible, the Young Earth Model of Creation began, since Unger came up with a date for the beginning of the earth and it was printed in the margin of that Bible.

I've posted on the Bible's history under Jerome's Feast Day. Do you know the Bible's history? In your imaginings do you realize that it's relatively recent that it's a book written in common languages and easily owned in most homes - even many copies and translations and paraphrases?! For centuries everything was oral and 'for the edification of the people' (that was one way the various books for the complete canon were picked).

Olympic Torch

The Olympic torch is now in China. The BBC News has an interactive map to follow the torch through China and learn about the various places through video, etc.

I learned new things about Hong Kong. I didn't know it was a British colony just recently handed back to China.

Annie Dillard's Birthday

I just read that yesterday was Annie Dillard's birthday. I've read most of her books, my favorite being Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. She won a Pulitzer's prize for it - and only 29!

I just ordered from the library her most recent book - The Maytrees.

I quoted her while back.

May Day

April showers

Bring May flowers.

A friend who used to live here always left little nursery flower starts in my mailbox for May Day. Tradition is to leave flowers at people's front door. Some years I think ahead and do that. 

I did mail some pots with herb seeds to Monte's Mom and my daughter Heather. And planting the herb seed pots for my Mom and my daughter-in-love (now you won't be surprised Sarah). 

Beautiful last day of April yesterday. Monte and Dawson went twice to have a horse ranch load both the back of the truck and trailer with well composted horse manure. Now we'll get some buffalo manure from our friend nearby who has buffalo, then we'll be ready to get our gardens ready for another year of growing.

But alas, not yet. It's been snowing since we awoke.

I'm posting some needlefelted flower pictures from some of my students.