L'Engle Quote

It’s no coincidence that just at this point in our insight into our mysteriousness as human beings struggling towards compassion, we are also moving into an awakened interest in the language of myth and fairy tale. The language of logical arguments, of proofs, is the language of the limited self we know and can manipulate. But the language of parable and poetry, of storytelling, moves from the imprisoned language of the provable into the freed language of what I must, for lack of another word, continue to call faith. —Madeleine L’Engle 

I love this quote. I've read most everything she wrote and appreciate how she stretched my thinking and view of life and the world.

The Great Dance

The Great Dance--perichoresis! Perichoresis derived from two Greek words was coined to describe the relationship of the persons of the Trinity. Peri meaning "around" and choreia meaning "dance"--a God dance. The Father, Son and Spirit created the human race so that what they have together could be shared with us, so that their great dance of life could be extended to us and played out in our lives.

Periichoresis

 



























For several years now I've been so enamored with the Trinity, the tri-unity God. I bought this candelabra for the beautiful representation of the great dance, reminding me that the relational God who's image I'm made in, invites me to join in!

One time I had put new candles in, but one fell and broke. I was thinking I'd melt it together. As I was reading one evening I wanted to light the candles but hadn't yet fixed the one. It was lying there broken. And it HIT ME...Jesus' broken body! I couldn't light just the two candles. I imagined the tri-une God not desiring to be lit till all three could be dancing together.

Yes I did add the mended broken one and for awhile I could see the break until they melted past it. The temptation now is to always break and melt back together one of the candles as a reminder of God's reaching down to extend the circle and their great dance of life to me. Jesus stepping out of eternity into history. Jesus's brokenness to draw me into the circle of their life.

"Vandalism"

A friend sent this ...
__________

God is a tagger on the walls of nonexistence.

You and everything are the four dimensional graffiti of God.



God writes his name a thousand different ways, not as an egomaniac

but to claim the emptiness

on the walls of nonexistence.



There is another who hates the color – says the walls are his-

who works to strip all of it clean into nothingness

or to at least sandblast that name unrecognizable.



but He who showed up as the art and the artist,

scandalous scrawny four dimensional spray can manifestation of outrageous word-shapes

was Himself sandblasted and stripped on the wall of nonbeing.



He took his name and the art to the other side of the wall, claiming it forever

color reaching us from the inside, we hang with Him, the name which is written a thousand

different ways.



still somewhere obliterated on this side, we spray it back, knowing who we are.

- from "a Denver Book of Prayer"

Visual Faith

Art is a subject I’ve wanted to study – not art history, and not the how-to. I’ve collected many books and it may be what I write on next, having blogged about the calendar for two years and putting it in book form (I really have several books in meself to write!) (and, as I’ve written sometime this summer, I am going to change my blog format … someday … when I’ve more time … haha!). But my art quest began moreso with “Come to me as a child” and the desire to Recapture the Wonder (which is the title of a book by Ravi Zacharias, and then there’s Dangerous Wonder by Mike Yaconelli). I want to study of the power of beauty, the power of the visual – Visual Faith.


I got a new Bible for this year’s devotional/ meditational/ lectio divina/ contemplative reading. It’s called the Mosaic Holy Bible, using the word mosaic as referring to us believers. On our own we are little more than bits of stone and glass, but together we make up the body of Christ, reflecting His image. The front third of the book has guided Scripture readings appropriate to the church season, along with writings encompassing a great cloud of witnesses from old to new; prayers, hymns, and poems, as well as full-color artwork – all for engaging the soul. Then the last 2/3 is the New Living Translation. I’ve not read that translation and am finding it refreshing.

I recently read the section titled “Creativity”. Remember, calendar girl me has told you our Christian Year begins the end of November with the start of Advent, and we are now in the season called “Ordinary Time”, the 22^nd week after Pentecost. I really resonated with this creativity theme. Even if I weren’t artistic (which if you say that of yourself, I’d question your definition of “artistic” and maybe some quotations and comments here will help you think this through) … I’d still value the thoughts worth pondering.

“Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us” … So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them … Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good!
- Genesis 1

“Deep within all of us is a longing to recapture a sense of wonder, to marvel at the mystery of God and His creation like we did as children. But through the years our capacity for wonder has been stifled by busyness and ambitions, and we have resigned ourselves to explaining away all that once made us gasp in awe … Our sense of wonder is a blessing from God.”
- Ravi Zacharias


“Every experience of beauty points to infinity.”
- Hans Urs von Balthasar

All creation proclaims God’s craftsmanship and glory day after day and night after night—they make Him known in their way.
- Psalm 19

“I am creating new heavens and a new earth … Be glad, rejoice forever in my creation! And look!”
- Isaiah 65:17,18

I have been looking. I do notice. I do appreciate, hopefully beyond a rational assertion … but in the realm of aha!!!!!


“Art has long been a spiritual practice. Its modern stigma has undeservingly dampened Christian creativity and squelched the innate novelty with which we were formed. Fortunately, churches are once again beginning to embrace the full range of the arts, exploring the nonverbal ways God is glorified.

Of course, we were given this very mandate and model for creativity in God’s creation—nature and humanity are brave testaments to an imaginative Creator. As we enter an awestruck posture, it is right and appropriate to respond using the creative nature with which we’ve been blessed.”
- Mosaic Holy Bible

Our imagination as Christians has been primarily nourished by the spoken and written word as well as music. The church and its experience with beauty appears to be estranged, and the role the church could offer has been supplanted by art galleries and theaters. In desiring to respond to the presence of God with the whole of our beings, is there a place for visual artists and their responses in church? In saying above that we’ve been moreso nourished by literature and music, could I also say that we’re mal-nourished in our visual imagination?

The importance of creativity “is that the Christian life involves the use of the imagination—after all, we are dealing with the invisible [like God], and the imagination is our training in dealing with the invisible—making connections…”
- Eugene Peterson

“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
- Albert Einstein

The root word for imagination is “image”, meaning a visual representation, a visible impression, a mental representation or idea, a simile or metaphor. The visual has a way of sticking in our memory and making demands on our conscience long after the explanations have been rubbed thin by the frictions of daily life. We do need moral propositions and principles, but we need images too, because we think more readily in pictures than in propositions. And when a moral principle has the power to move us to action, it is often because it is backed up by a story or visual image.

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God … Through Christ God created everything … “For God in all his fullness was pleased to live in Christ, and through him God reconciled everything to himself …”
- Colossians 1:15-20

“Creator God, your Spirit enables our own creative abilities as we allow you to work through our words, our hands and our imaginations.

We thank you for the beauty of created things, for pots and bowls moulded by the skilful manipulation of clay, for a portrait which captures the essence of a personality, for the written word which transports us to a faraway place, a poem that captures the raw emotion of a moment, a prayer that speaks to our heart and soul.

You are present wherever mankind opens its eyes to see, can be heard whenever mankind opens its ears to hear, can be felt as hands are outstretched in faith.”
- John Birch

“The desire to create is not taught. The world and everything in it is the workmanship of the Creator. As created beings, we carry the image of God, not least of which is an innate urge called creativity.

Creativity is a spiritual discipline that followers of Jesus have too often ignored. As far back as Genesis, God gave humanity an artistic assignment. He asked Adam to name the animals and thus invited him into the creative process with himself, the Creator.

Unfortunately, the beauty and order of creation were soon scarred; God, however, was not deterred. The story of Jesus is the mark of the creative master at work. Only divinity could take something as offensive as the cross and use it to restore beauty. He continues his redemptive plan by empowering us to join him in this creative work … And the Spirit came in power to an expectant group of Christ-followers, and the creative force embodied in one person, Jesus Christ, is now available to everyone.

Peter quoted the prophet Joel to describe what has happened: ‘In the last days,’ God says, ‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people’ (Acts 2:17). And with these words, God’s creative spark ignites the hearts of men and women in a whole new way.

God the Creator now places his divine imprint on our spirits. Pentecost shatters the glass ceiling of possibility. The garden is now replaced with an upper room, and the new assignment goes beyond simply naming his creation to calling his creation into a regenerative process, making old things new.

Wherever there is a divide, God’s creativity in us leads us to build a bridge. Wherever there is doubt, God’s creativity in us stirs our imagination and produces faith. Wherever there is despair, God’s creativity in us pictures and pursues hope. Wherever there is injustice, God’s creativity in us finds a way to show his love.”
- Mark Miller

Travis had a poster that said “Expose yourself to art”. And I think it was Madeline L’Engle who said to not judge art, but let art judge you.

Germs?

"Unless you're in a kissing relationship,

skip the dip."

- as said by Lynne Rossetto Kasper

on NPRs Splendid Table radio show this weekend.

Anyone needing me to explain?

Worship Quote

"There is no one in this world who is not, at this moment, at worship in one way or another, consciously or unconsciously, formally or informally, passively or passionately. . . . the question is not, When do we worship ...? Instead, it is, Whom do we worship and with what condition of heart?"

- Harold Best

Quoted in Marva J Dawn's newest book In The Beginning God: Creation, Culture, and the Spiritual Life. (I love her books!)

Dust Quote

Monte sent me another quote that I'll post here to capture (and delete the email) and then comment.

Stop dusting, and you can use your coffee table as a message board!

I'll have to ask him where it came from, but I think I know why he sent it. It's not that my coffee table or any table is so dusty. For some miraculous reason our house doesn't create much dust (but don't look too close). I think he sent it cuz I have a quote (Sarah wrote my quote on our graffiti chalkboard wall in the bathroom) -

"Dust is Country"
- Karey Swan

Our home is a country home with a country look and feel, and dust is a part of that. Is it that we hardly have any dust? Or does the decor just not glaringly show forth dust? Or do I decorate country so I don't have to dust? What tis the question?

Life a Craft

As Geoffrey Chaucer lamented,
“The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.”

But for today’s weavers, lifelong learning is the joy as well as the challenge of the craft.

Just capturing a quote from an old friend of Monte's.

CS Lewis Quote

"I believe in Christianity
as I believe that the Sun has risen,
not only because I see it,
but because by it I see everything else."

Dream Quote Ponderings

"Those who've abandoned their dreams will discourage yours.
Your job is to not listen."
- Bill Baren

I just read that quote and wanted to post it, to capture it, so to ponder.

Pondering about people who tend not to dream or dream too small. Pondering dreaming as giving one life and hope.

Or pondering those who do the discouraging of others. Do they dare to dream? Or why do they abandon their dreams? Do they need to step on others to feel better? feel better than you? feel better about themselves? Or maybe step on you in hopes of getting taller so maybe they can see further? yet in attempting to shatter dreams ... what is really going on?

Pondering not listening ... Some speak lies - these we're to not believe ... Listening is a piece of communication, which I'm all for ... yet there's a place for not dialoguing, like in the Garden of Eden story ... How do we know, how can we tell, when not to listen? It makes me think of John 10 and knowing My Shepherd's voice amongst all the other voices.

Oh that I know my shepherd and his voice, and in knowing and loving my shepherd, I have life and hopes and large dreams!!

What If ...

What if you knew you had but one year left to live, what would you be doing today ... and tomorrow ... and the next day ...? My emotions of the past few days have brought me back to this thought, asked of me years ago by a very dear older lady.

As I sat next to my friend Sunday morning, very recently diagnosed with breast cancer, she was praising and trusting God. As I tried to sing the worship songs, I wasn't very worshipful. I was trying to absorb her positive attitude ... I was feeling her husband's pain ... but the songs words had me going thru the wringer of emotions, including sadness and madness ... but maybe that's exactly where God wanted me, maybe that is worship.

I know lots of people who have, and are, living many years beyond that diagnosis. But maybe we all need to live each day from the outlook of what that diagnosis would bring. It wouldn't mean, shouldn't bring, ditching our jobs and sailing around the world - but living each individual extraordinary day intentionally. Not running away from our life, but fully embody the life we're leading.

I've been thinking thru what to do for a devotional at tomorrow's last MOPS meeting. I had an idea ... but now I've been pondering this returned thought. We tend to live as if we have all the time in the world.

I ordered a bunch of books from the library a while back under the theme of "Creative Journalling" and a book that must be popular just came and I started reading it last night. Where did it begin? What if you only had 37 days left to live ... OKaaaaayy God ... I think this is where you want me to begin tomorrow's devotional. The book is Life Is A Verb. I think I ordered it because the title intrigued me. I had posted earlier the thought to ponder: "God is a Verb".

So ponder.

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life."
- Steve Jobs

"Time only seems to matter when it's running out."
- Peter Strup

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it."
- James M Barrie (author of Peter Pan)

"What you do, [when you find out you have a year to live] if you have little kids, is lead as normal a life as possible, only with more pancakes."
- Marjorie Williams

Indifference Quote

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference."

- quoted by Elie Wiesel, survivor of WWII concentration camp and set free April 11 in 1945 as a teenager and went on to write many books and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

May we now move forward with resurrection power, living life full of beauty, faith and love.

Wendell Berry Prose

"Do not think me gentle because I speak in praise of gentleness,
or elegant because I honor the grace that keeps this world.
I am a man crude as any, gross of speech,
intolerant, stubborn, angry, full of fits and furies.
That I may have spoken well at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is."
- Wendell Berry

I love Wendell Berry's gentleness and grace in his story-telling. My favorite of his books is Hannah Coulter. They all take place in rural Kentucky depression/WWII era lives. I love his philosophical farmer full of meaning phraseology.

Food for Thought Quote

The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

The Prodigal or Love of God Story

"For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not 'How am I to find God?' but 'How am I to let myself be found by him?' The question is not 'How am I to know God?' but 'How am I to let myself be known by God?' And, finally, the question is not 'How am I to love God?' but 'How am I to let myself be loved by God?' God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home."

From The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J. M. Nouwen

Art: The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt

I love both the artist's work and the author's books. In my lifetime I have been the prodigal, the elder brother, and too, "I am my beloved's and He is mine".

Art and Body Gifting

I've readied some of my needlefelting to take to church today for hanging. I mentioned before that our church is set up with a professional hanging system for art. We have artists within our community and we change out the art periodically.

One of my pieces I'm taking I call either "Community" or "Jesus' Body". Scripture refers to those of us who love God and believe in Jesus, as family, parts of His body. I value that our church values the differing gifts within our body and desires to let these differing gifts be used within our community. So often in churches we only see the giftings of teaching and music, and then of course the helping, serving, administration, encouraging ... are ongoing.

I have a grapevine in my greenhouse. I've posted pictures of it. This last year was the most productive year of all, with clusters hanging at our head level all over. All it takes is basically doing nothing! Yes, I still nurture it with fertilizing and watering, and I do need to cut it back as it tries to take up more of the space than I desire. But I used to prune it back very severely, because I had a book ... I found out that table grapes are not to be pruned like wine grapes.

In fact, the severity of pruning wine grapes looks familiar ... It is the center frame of my picture. All around are the three-dimensional vine, grape clusters, and leaves. In a small group, we had drawn grape vines. Ellen had lots of hidden grape clusters saying that she needed community to help her see her fruit. I have gone through very barren times where I've felt my fruit gobbled up, and if I'm not regularly nourished from the source I will remain fruitless. This piece is a Spring, Easter, seasonal hanging.

My other art piece is made up of three. Because they were inspired from the same time frame of reading and journalling, I just hung them on the same backing. The top I call "Starburst". God said, "Let there be light". Walking in His Truth, His light, I don't fear walking out into the world with it's varying culture. I walk, bringing gleanings back to the light before venturing out again on another ray of light.

The middle piece I call "Crucible". I looked the word up and it's origin means "lamp on a crucifix". To me this means, that in all life brings my way, that in all my choices, if I filter them thru the truth of the cross ... It's a God-consciousness in all I do in my every ordinary days (Extra- ordinary!).

The bottom piece I call "Longings". Henri Nouwen had written, "Longings are doorways thru which we come to God and thru which God comes to us". I've pictured my heart with layers like an onion, restricting and fighting the real me, the God-created-me, in being revealed. If my desire is to live out of my center, I don't have to focus on removing the layers, but focus on having more desires/longings, which would mean more doorways of God and me connecting!

Does this make sense?

Humor Value

Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.

-GK Chesterton

Intimacy Quotes

A current benedictine monk said, "Naked we come into this world, and naked we shall return. But not quite: our hope is that when Christ receives us, he will recognize his own image in our hearts."

Which reminds me of another quote I read several years ago in the book Deep Unto Deep. "When I stand before Him face to face one day soon, when I meet His eyes for the first time, will I experience a memory in that gaze? Will there be familiarity?"

Oh do I yearn for this intimacy as I live this life, rather than just knowing about God.

Velveteen House II

When there's a holiday, school break time, I am reminded of my original Velveteen House post, click here. Why? Though Dawson is still living at home while going to college, it's during these break times that our home gets more worn with wear. Like with the dialogue in the Velveteen Rabbit classic book, "by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby."

Dawson, Splarah and Conner, are currently eating jalepeno grilled cheese panini sandwiches and tomato soup they just made for themselves for lunch. They are sanding Dawson's new desk he's making in his bedroom. (He just painted his floor red, "to coordinate with the red in my ceiling!", which is red sponged over black, which him and Gary did probably a year ago, needing to re-drywall it.

Yesterday morning, walking into the kitchen, Dawson was making pancakes. Since I go into a nutrition talk when they bring home Bisquick, he was being witty, saying he was making them from scratch ... "I've already been out this morning gathering whole grains to grind, and squeezing chickens for eggs" ... Cute! ... I have to smile.

I never know who's sleeping here. Splarah and Lizzy have often been in the guest room and it's been a mix from Conner, Aaron, Caleb to Nick lately, sleeping scattered about (since Dawson's room is disastrously torn apart, with most everything in Heather's old room or the storage room next to Monte's office).

Young people were at the kitchen table drinking sparkling apple cider from goblets, and playing card games, when Monte and me got home from a party. We didn't know they'd be there since they were ice skating for New Year's Eve at Evergreen Lake. But since they were going skiing for the next two days, they decided to sleep here and leave from here.

And now that Dawson is learning to weld and forge metal, people want to participate and experience it too. So young people are wanting to hang out and play. 

House guests come and go. Like yesterday, a young couple we'd not seen for awhile were here for a bit. Everyone loves the well worn wood floor in our great room and don't think we should refinish it. Some people don't come out of the guest bathroom for awhile, cuz they're either reading or writing more graffiti on our chalkboard paint wall.

Ministering seems to come our way. This season of Monte's and my life is full of visiting young people and scientists wanting to hang out here. More memories for the walls of this Velveteen House to bounce off - memories full of stories. Like a plaque in our house says, "Home is where your story begins."

Menopause

I just read this quote - 

"I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere."

- unknown

Reminded me of a card I bought for myself more than a year ago and it sits on my desk. I'm posting a picture of the front of the card. When you open it, it says - 

"I think I'm going

through mental pause."