I read another quote I like -
"I am not young enough to know everything."
--Oscar Wilde
It makes me think of a sculpture of me I did last January. It's from a picture of me taken in high school. The sculpture is almost entirely of wool and I did both needle felting and the wet felt process.
My write up for it, when it was in a gallery was: "As I get older I seem to be coming full circle back to my youth." And now as it's on display, it's title is, "Karey sees anew".
I like to ponder in my heart Jesus saying, "Come to me as a child".
Just read another good quote -
"The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be...The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists."
--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Martinmas was yesterday, the 11th, the Feast of Saint Martin of Tours. He died in 397. He was a cavalry officer in the Roman army of Constantine.
My favorite remembrance for him is that when in France he saw a freezing beggar at the side of the road. He removed his cloak and slashed it in two, giving the beggar half. In a dream he saw Christ wearing his half cloak.
And this story gives depth to Jesus saying, "Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me."
Now that I have my own digital camera I'll be posting more pictures. This is a new rock wall that Monte made. He's going to do more since he's been excavating our property. He says he missed his calling and should be a rock mason. He loved building this. Or could it be too that as a geologist he just loves rocks!
We've had this fire pit for years and had a series of levels for sitting. But the logs have rotted and we needed to enlarge the parking area in front of the house. Thus the rock wall.
We have friends who spend a lot of time around their fire pit. He loves to play with cooking over it and has collected a lot of stuff at yard sales for doing this. He also said almost all of the family's major decisions have been made around the campfire.
This fall has been amazing! I can't believe I was out with a short sleeve in November.
So I did some more fall clean up.
Dawson and Gary were re-texturing my laundry room now that Monte's moved his office out. I'm going to paint it purple and yellow. For awhile, it'll hold exercise equipment. Eventually it'll have stairs going up to Monte's new office.
I ate my cottage cheese with tomato, green onion and avacado lunch outside. Had my cup of tea and a book. I love watching the birds at my feeders and drinking water. I was soaking up the sun, getting my dose of vitamin D.
Tomorrow is a wedding shower for Heather, and we'll probably go to church tomorrow night. Sunday I pick Monte up at the airport. He's been leading a field trip all week down the coast from Oregon to southern California.
It's supposed to start snowing Sunday into Monday. So this is typical Colorado beautiful warm days before the storm.
An anonymous person left a comment for an earlier post of mine. I knew the word I used was wrong, but dictionaries don't help when you're in the dark!
Heather and me stayed overnight at Travis and Sarah's. They wanted to learn how to needle felt people. Travis finished his, and this is his guy.
I forget his name. Travis did name him.
It's fun teaching people. I finished my last needle felting class for the year last night. I love the variety. Unless they email me pictures I don't see them done, since they do more at home.
A friend gave me her goat fleece. It was very dirty and I barely touched it except to stick it in the washer. Goat hair makes the best hair for felted dolls. I have to pull the locks apart before I can use it since the grass and all is still in it. But at least it's clean grass (and burrs and poop and bugs!). But now I've got red, yellow, black, brown and white hair. (I've bought some green hair and a gal in a class gave me blue hair.)
Anyway, we had a nice visit. Heather knit while we needled away. We went out for sushi for lunch.
There are differing ways of reading. Today, we primarily read for information and then amusement. Then there's another way...I like the way Mortimer Adler describes it -
"If we consider men and women apart from their professions or occupations, there is only one situation I can think of in which they almost pull themselves up by their bootstraps, making an effort to read better than they usually do. When they are in love and are reading a love letter, they read for all they are worth. They read every word three ways; they read between the lines and in the margins; they read the whole in terms of the parts, and each part in terms of the whole; they grow sensitive to context and ambiguity, to insinuation and implication; they perceive the color of words, the odor of phrases, and the weight of sentences. They may even take the punctuation into account. Then, if never before or after, they read."
What if you wrote letters to your loved one and found out they'd not opened them and read them. Or just read them for facts...
Did you ever consider that God has written us 66 love letters?
Today is All Souls Day. Since I don't believe in purgatory...Jesus told the thief on the cross next to him, "Today, you'll be with me in paradise."
People use this day to pray for dead people, but it's like buying indulgences in Luther's day.
But...my thoughts can be on imagining Heaven...
How do you imagine Heaven?
Halloween has its pros and cons. Moreso cons. Our church has people who've come out of Satanic stuff, so it's a tender issue. It is the one time a year one could dress up to be what one might wish to be, but I think we wear enough masks throughout the year.
Jesus said "I am the light of the world" and as Christians we know the end of the story: He's already won the victory over darkness. "Hallow" means "to make holy." Halloween is the eve of All Hallows Day or All Saints Day.
In all we do, God looks at the intentions of our heart.
With God-in-our-midst we can enjoy fall decor and apples and pumpkins and corn, and love the candy and costumed people. And I'm sadly missing my scarecrow on my porch. I didn't make one this year like I often do out of old clothes stuffed with real straw. Friends knew the key to our house (when we lock it) would be in the shirt pocket.
In actuality, I remember that October 31st is Reformation Day - when Martin Luther nailed the 95 thesis on the castle door. The thesis were asking the church to reform. The castle door was used as a bulletin board and he was asking people to debate. There's more to this story that's not usually told related to the castle door.
Luther wasn't the 1st asking for reform. It had been asked for ages by various peoples, including many female "saints". The time was ripe for him to hatch the egg that had been laid.
The Muslim Turks were on the rampage. Many people in the Middle East were escaping into Europe - bringing ancient manuscripts. The Religious and Secular Enlightenment was a result of these manuscripts. People for the first time in Europe could see the original Greek and Hebrew writings (and art). There was a surge of language study. Also, the printing press was invented, with the Bible being the first book printed in the mid 1400's.
So people were finally able to read the Bible for themselves. Erasmus actually gave the Pope a Bible he had translated from the original languages and the Vulgate (remember I told you about Jerome?) side-by-side, along with his personal notes about where the church was wrong. (Erasmus and Luther debated a lot. Erasmus never left the Church, whereas Luther did, marrying a nun - Katherin.)
There's tons leading up to Martin Luther along with his own story that's too much to tell here. All I'll say is that with the Muslims pressing into Europe from Spain and the East - kings, Popes, and Lords were so preoccupied with keeping alliances for potential battle at their borders, that Luther was not burned at the stake for being a heretic.
His Prince Frederick whisked him off after his trial to a hidden place. During that time Luther translated the Bible.
(Watch the movie "Luther".)
What I like most about the story, is that Prince Frederick had a huge collection of Saint relics. Every November 1st, All Saints Day, he opened his castle doors for all Europe to come and (sight-) see (maybe buy relics/souvenirs! like we do when we travel!). People did come from all Europe and on the castle door was posted Luther's 95 Thesis for all to see.
Because of people telling all they met as journeying home, and the printing press having printed Luther's Thesis, they say that all of Europe heard of the church reform list in 4 weeks!
Did Protestantism just take off from then? If you read history, no. Law was, that a country went as the rulership went. So like with England, you have about 2 centuries of war between the Church allowing any other form of religious practice. So we swing from a Henry to a Bloody Mary to an Elizabeth, etc. Mainland Europe was just as bad. Many massacres.
As to All Saints Day--from all over, all localities had stories of people who did unique things for God. Saints are people who hear the Gospel message and live it out in their culture, usually addressing a need. Without saints we'd not have many hospitals, schools and meeting-needs-institutions. Saints live very "whole-heart-edly" (would that maybe imply that many people live 1/2 heartedly?!) and often on a tight-rope over a precipice; and are often called heretics in their time. And remember that the Apostle Paul calls all believers saints.
There were so many stories, the church started researching and 'canonized' about 400 to put in the calendar. So all the thousands others were lumped on this day. This day was originally in April or May and the Parthenon was the gathering place. Because of too many people and not enough food, it was moved to Nov 1 because of harvest food availability.My suggestion for this time is to go ahead and do costumes, but chose a saint or hero of the faith to dress as. Know their story and share it.I've been a part of a small group that reads scripture in a "midrash" (Hebrew) or Lectio way. I often bring a table decor that's visually in sync with the calendar or season. Visual Imagery is just as important and needed as the Rational. So for this day, I like to fill a shallow clay pot with lots of varieties of candles standing in sand. Contemplative, metaphorical me watches as the many varieties of people (candles) burn together and eventually falling on one another, igniting one another, and melting together. Such a great visual of the community in Christ.
