Arts, crafts, and life

     I spent a day with Widya Harsana in Ubud, Bali learning the ancient art of batik tulis.  Batik waxed by hand with a chanting tool is known as batik tulis.  It’s the oldest, most traditional form of batik.  A pattern is drawn in hot wax onto a piece of cotton or silk cloth.  When the cloth is dipped into dye, those parts which have been treated with wax will not take up the color of the dye -  leaving white lines and space where the wax had been.

   Struggling to carefully apply hot wax with the small chanting tool, I frequently dripped wax in the wrong place onto the design I had carefully pencilled onto the fabric.  “Ugh.  I made a mistake.”  I said with frustration as I dropped another blob of wax onto my fabric.  “No,” my teacher said gently.   “In batik, there are no mistakes.  You just draw this wax into the design.”  And he showed me how to turn my unwanted blobs of wax into soft shading for the flowers in the design.   It turned out beautifully.  

     Too often we try to cover up our mistakes, hide them, or erase them quickly before anyone notices. That was my first impulse - to try to scrape the wax out of the fabric.  But my teacher showed me that that would just make it worse - creating an even larger area of unwanted wax.  

    What if all our mistakes simply become part of the art that we call life?    In batik, there are no mistakes.  What about our life? 

AF

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I am making you a scarf

in your school colors,

my hands stained by blueberries

like the ones growing near your porch.

Eating them now I remember

how you called my name, 

excited to discover the first fruits,

how you inspected each berry, 

picked the sweetest ones

and gave them all to me.

What am I doing?

Do I imagine there is some magic

in recalling the sweetness

that will make you remember too,

some power in my hook and yarn

and blue-specked fingertips

that can stitch us back together

before cold weather comes?

I want to believe it.

Silly me.

SS

It's about family

     Hiking with my brothers (well, two out of  three brothers) In Petit Jean State Park in the Ozark foothills last week reminded me how much I enjoy tramping through the woods.   There's something about being in the woods that soothes my soul.  We saw a towering waterfall, ring necked black snakes, and way too much poison ivy.  You really had to watch your step or you would be standing in a nice thick patch of poison ivy just one foot off the trail.   Hiking requires sharp eyes - for seeing the beauty of the view once you reach the top - but even more for keeping an eye out for slithering snakes and leaves of three along the journey.   You have to pay attention - to where you put your feet and to what's brushing your shoulder as you travel along - but it's worth every step of the journey.  Sort of like life.

AF

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 I recently interviewed a teenager, who talked about the horrors of being jailed a month for addiction issues. While there, he got some lessons from fellow inmates who were shocked he had a loving mother who was working so hard to help him. ‘Was he crazy?’ they asked him. ‘Did he not realize what a gift that was?’  It was a God moment for him, he said. Something subtle shifted in him. He decided to let his mother help him, take her advice and go to the Charleston Recovery Center, a 24/7 substance abuse treatment and recovery setting.

The story is he’s doing great. The mom has no clue how she’s going to pay, but she’ll figure it out as she goes along. “I got my son back,” she said, the pain and exhaustion of years of struggling to help her son showing in her eyes.

Not all stories go down this way.

I wonder about that subtle shift in attitude that brings about a tidal change in life. I think of how hard she worked and pleaded and reasoned, yet it took strangers, fellow inmates, to give perspective. I think how many blessings I miss because I lack gratitude for what I have in plain sight. I thank God for prayer – the ever subtle shifting of attitude.

(If you’re interested in helping this family, visit this gofundme website.

DB

Courage, grace and hope

Happy Dancing, Liz

       This week I’ve thought much about a church friend who passed away after battling Lou Gehrig’s disease. There are certain people who make Providence Baptist Church feel like home to me. One of those has always been Liz, a constant, caring force with a gentle soul that belied the passion for her faith, family and friends. I loved seeing the sweet love between her and her spouse and hearing her rave about learning her new Zumba moves. It always cracked me up - this mix she had of radiating calm and peace with an undercurrent of wild and mischievous. I loved if she said she was praying for you, you knew that she was.
       My heart aches that I had to learn how courageous she was. She had one of the most positive attitudes of anyone I know at church. Faced with such a daunting illness, she took it in stride and pushed herself to her maximum at each stage. I never felt her positivity was put on. It came from a grateful and loving heart. I will miss you, Liz. I just so glad you gave us at Providence the gift of your amazing soul. We always will carry you with us. It’s one reason I love church so, of being in a fold, witnesses to each others’ lives.

DB

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        Recently I saw the new movie "Oz the Great and Powerful." It is the story of how a huckster magician from Kansas ends up in a magical land and becomes the Wizard of Oz in that movie we all grew up watching. In an early scene not long after his arrival in Oz, the young magician meets a talking china doll. She is frightened and tearful. Her legs have been broken and she says there is no way to repair them. Thinking quickly, Oscar (the magician, who also goes by the nickname Oz) reaches into the bag he brought with him from Kansas. "What is that?" the china girl asks. "Magic in a bottle," he replies. With just a few drops, he repairs the broken pieces of her legs, and she is able to stand and walk again. Apparently, the land of Oz had no such thing as common glue! 
       The scene made me wonder, what do I have at my fingertips that may seem like magic to someone who needs it? And how often do I wish for miraculous powers to help those who are hurting, when maybe all the situation requires is something simple, something in my "bag of tricks" already? I'm no wizard, but I can offer a helping hand and whatever I have. Most of the time, by grace, it is enough.

SS

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The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.  

                                                                                             John 1:5

     I love to watch the light change throughout the day.   The break of the early rays wake me up and beckon me to a new day.  The brightness of mid-day keeps me moving and working and the softness of early evening calls me to a time of rest.  Throughout the day, the light changes, sometimes gently, at other times with stormy energy .  The light of each day is a gift, a time to be cherished and shared.  LIght has long been a metaphor for hope, reminding us each morning that we have another day, a chance to try again.  Even in the darkest of times, in weeks where death has been close at hand, the light shines through. 

AF

Colors and kisses

"For lack of attention, a thousand forms of loveliness elude us every day."

                                                                                    ~ Evelyn Underhill

The home renovations continue.  I’ve decided I want the job of naming paint colors. What thing of beauty does this small square of color bring to mind? 

willow wind 

summer mist

whipped apricot

cosmic cream

sand swept
tangerine zing

olive marinade

revere pewter

paris mint

panacea

morning zen
plum martini

grassy field

The walls are ready for a new coat of paint - a clean slate, sanded, spackled and primed with fresh white paint.  New loveliness is waiting ...  as soon as I decide if I want azure snow or green tea latte. 

AF

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I wear the right color,

In hopes that external sign

Will change internal reality.

If I cover all my laziness,

Selfishness, doubt, fear,

In layers of purple,

Can I come closer

To repentance?

SS

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Blowing Kisses

        My 9-year-old asked me recently what a stud was.

        I hate those kinds of questions. How to answer?

        “It’s a large nail,” I answer, trying to think of the less complicated response. His two older brothers look at me and smirk. Ah, yes, they know the other meaning, of course, and are waiting to see if I’ll be honest with him.

        “There’s also another meaning,” I start, but then begin to fumble. How to explain the words hot and sexy? Why is there this reluctance to have our children grow up - to be initiated into the land of adult lingo and understanding. I grew up without YouTube or MTV, without this early exposure to sexuality and violence. It is a part of my kids’ fabric of life, rushing the loss of innocence.

        My youngest son asking the stud question is the most independent, yet he still blows a kiss to me each day from the sidewalk where I drop him off to school. One of his brothers said he should stop - that other kids will start to tease him. I shake my head, and tell them to let him be. We have all the time in the world to grow up. We forget to be the age we are.

         He has all the time in the world to be a stud. Just not today. But still, I explain the word. He smiles slyly, nodding that’s the definition he sought. Then he lights into song, ‘I’m sexy and I know it.’     

        I can’t help but smile. I see the young man he’s becoming. I can only comfort myself by words from writer Anne Lamont describing her adjustment to her son’s maturity - that in his face she can see every age that he ever was. It’s the gift of motherhood that we were allowed in for all those peeks and that we can still see all those pieces and parts - even when they grow up and are well-masked by adulthood.

DB

Unexpected moments in Lent

Fire and Ice

     I find snow and ice to make passionate landscapes. The brisk air has a cold searing force that burns the lungs and skin like fire. The white and ice strip the landscape of color, down to its bare essentials. Icicles sculpt surreal sculptures in spikes and spirals. Water drains on granite rock behind melting ice sheets, creating shadowy forms like skittering bugs. Though some would say the landscape stark, especially given the flowering cherry trees in the Charleston landscape right now, I would have to disagree. Shivering at the brink of Dry Falls, near Highlands, N.C. recently, I watched a rainbow pop out of the mists, snow falling incongruously through bright beams of sun. My soul stirred with a passion to rival that of spring. 

DB

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     I'm stripping wallpaper this week in our bathroom.  I didn't plan for it to become a Lenten discipline.  I thought I would slap on some stripping gel, pull off the old sheets of wallpaper, and get on with the painting.  Ah hah!  Like most home improvement projects, it's just not that simple.  

     Some of the sheets come off smoothly and mostly intact. Others, for some reason, cling stubbornly to the wall, and pull off in pieces, leaving small bits of white backing paper firmly glued to the wall.  Then it's a slow, meticulous process of carefully scraping and peeling all the little bits off the wall, without gouging or chipping the drywall.  I've tried all sorts of remedies recommended by friends and by Google, fabric softener,  a vinegar solution, hot water.  It all comes down the slow process of scraping and peeling each wall, inch by inch, foot by foot.

     I want to rush the process and hurry on to the painting, the part I enjoy.  It's frustrating to go so slowly, moving inches at a time, struggling with every leftover scrap on the wall.  It's frustrating, but necessary, to end up with a smooth, clean wall ready for a fresh coat of paint.

      Sounds like a Lenten discipline after all. 

   

AF

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     So far, I am failing at my Lenten disciplines. I suppose this too is useful in reminding me that I am dust-on-my-way-back-to-dust very much in need of a Redeemer, but most days I would honestly rather be successful. Many of us at Providence are reading through Chris Seay's book A Place at the Table during this season. The daily readings (on which I have already fallen behind) are meant to draw us toward solidarity with our poor and hungry sisters and brothers around the world.

     Like many Americans in my socio-economic class, I have never known what it is to be truly hungry, to wonder where my next meal is coming from, or to be truly grateful for the gift of physical nourishment. So I decided that during Lent I would eat more mindfully - prepare simple meals, refrain from overindulgence, use locally grown produce, pray before every meal, put only healthy food into my body, save money on groceries that I could then donate to hunger relief for others. It sounded doable on Ash Wednesday. And yet, here I am only a week later, finding myself once again too rushed and too hungry and so my meal becomes whatever is most readily available in the pantry. 

     This morning I grabbed the loaf of cinnamon raisin bread, disappointed in myself. I prayed as I began eating my breakfast, and made my best attempt at mindfulness. I read the ingredients and thought about all the lives affected by the production of this meal. Where was the wheat grown, and what is life like for the farmers there? Do they get paid a fair wage or are they taken advantage of? What about the people who turn the wheat into flour? And those who work the vineyard where these raisins were once ripening grapes? Where does cinnamon come from anyway, and who harvests it? What of the cows who produced the milk I bought at Publix? Are they treated humanely, or more like machines devoid of feeling? 

     I found myself praying blessings upon the farmers and the mill workers and the bread distributors, and yes, even the cows! I gave thanks for the sunlight and rain and fertile soil and miracles of science and nature by which God makes the whole process possible. It may not be exactly the Lenten discipline I had envisioned, but this turned out to be a very mindful meal in its own way.

SS

Slowing down to the speed of Lent

      My mind has been swimming the last few weeks. Some of the reasons are good, others not. No matter the cause, I have been distracted and unfocused much of the time. Now we come to Lent, and I remember that the word is from a Latin root that means "slow." I can hear my college French professor reminding me to speak "lentement" so that my pronunciation would be clearer. Staring out over the water at high tide, appreciating the silence and calm, I'm reminded that I need this in my life. My prayer for these 40 days is to focus outside myself and live "lentement."

SS

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      At a recent women’s retreat, we shared an intimate communion. A soft light bathed the bread and pitchers in the chapel at St. Christopher’s, where we could see the beach scene beyond. I had the privilege of serving communion - of offering peace to fellow believers. I enjoyed seeing each familiar face pass my way. There was the friend I walked the beach with and the one with whom I shared laughs and late night talks as roommates. We shared secrets from the soul, and I made a new friend with whom I have lunch at work with now. Some of us did latin dance together, letting go to be silly and sweaty. What can I say? What happens at St. Christopher’s stays at St. Christopher’s.

       Many of us had to move heaven and Earth to be able to attend. I always try to make the effort, though, because I gain so much from the bonding with other women. These weekends create space for moments of holy communion, for us to share our broken bodies and our imperfect paths to peace. The caregivers who break themselves into so many pieces to care for friends and family, pause to receive care. When women gather like this, I have found magic always happens.

DB

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If you wish to know the Divine, feel the wind on your face

and the warm sun on your hand.  - Buddha

     While showing many of my South Africa photos to an exceedingly patient friend, I was struck again by my complete immersion into the natural world while there.  Giraffes, rhinos and baby rhinos, impala, kudu, wart hogs, zebra and so on could be just around the next turn in the road.  While sleeping in tents at camp, we woke at the very first rays of dawn to an outpouring of sound from birds, baboons, monkeys, elephants, and more that I couldn't even begin to identify. We ate our meals outside. We spent the days outside. 

     Back in my warm, safe home, sitting in front of my computer at work,  I realize how much I miss that connection to nature.  I watch the cardinals at my bird feeder and see the egrets and herons in the marsh on my runs.  But here I'm lost in a world of emails and schedules, of blue screens rather than blue sky.

    As we begin the Lenten journey, I'm choosing to walk the path outdoors, finding more time to be outside rather than inside, listening for the sounds of the earth, the smell of the rain, the touch of the wind.  It's not just good therapy, it's holy listening.

AF

New Beginnings

New Year's Resolutions

I resolve to gasp at the colors of sunsets,

to love the people I love just a little better,

to lose the weight of hurts and disappointments,

to write more,

to laugh more,

to whine less,

to give thanks every day,

to embrace passion,

to push through fear,

to believe things can change

and to work for that change,

in the spirit and power of the One

who is always making all things new.

SS

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Pond Therapy

       The above photo depicts a dark pond with swirling algae and mirrored tree images - a type of pseudo Monet abstract.  I watch the swirls slowly change shape and size and realize I find it comforting as a Zen symbol of remaining fluid to life’s changes. New research by Harvard researcher Daniel Gilbert suggests that people generally fail to appreciate how much their personality and values will change in the years ahead — even though they recognize that they have changed in the past. I think this is fascinating, this human tendency to always think we’ve arrived or have everything figured out when our recreations of ourselves happen throughout our lives. 

       Dating again after 25 years is bringing this painfully home to me. It’s like change on steroids - the kind of change you experience in your early 20s. I’m having to be open to being sized up and sizing up other people with histories, likes and preferences of their own. A friend of mine jokes she'd never divorce her husband because it took too long to get him trained. Another friend stays single because she doesn't want to have to change.

       I figure the change is coming anyway. I open my arms to the movement. 

       And hope I don't drown.

DB

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What I am suggesting here is that everything in your life is a stepping-stone to holiness if only you recognize that you do have within you the grace to be present to each moment.  

                                                                                ~ Macrina Wiederkehr

     It's time to make a New Year's resolution, to turn over a new leaf.  Friends are resolving to "eat less, move more,"  to get in shape,  to finally get organized. Maybe I was feeling tired on New Year's Day, but my resolution this year is simply to live from a deeper place.  To slow down, breathe, pay attention to the moments.  It's not a measurable goal.  It's not very specific.  At least two people have asked me "But what does that mean?"  

      I've come to realize that writing this blog is a spiritual discipline in and of itself. Whether it's been a holy week or more of a hell of a week, I'm forced to write something down.  I have to find a moment of seeing the holy in the frantic busy-ness of life.  Some weeks, when I really think I've got nothing, a moment always opens up - but only because I am desperately paying attention.  For me, writing helps me to live from a deeper place. Writing forces me to put wispy fragments of thought into cohesive sentences and to think more intentionally about the ordinary fragments of my life. 

       As we begin a new year here at Ordinary Wonders, Dawn, Stacy and I thank you all for sharing our moments.  You keep us going!

AF

Christmas musings and a book!

         Our family held our 28th wind-up toy race on Christmas morning, an annual tradition since our first married Christmas in 1984.  Santa brings each person a windup toy and places it carefully at the top of their stocking.  Before the presents are unwrapped, we line up at the kitchen door, wind up our racers, and place them on the starting line.  This year, with both daughters, a son-in-law and a boyfriend at home, the starting line was a little crowded with six entrants in the race.   
         The wind-up toy that gets to the kitchen island first (or just goes the farthest before puttering out) wins.  You never know what Santa has brought you.  Some of the toys go in circles, others do back flips.  Some crawl forward slowly - but in a straight line.   This year, Alison gets bragging rights for a year with her winning panda on a tricycle - who didn't make it all the way to the finish but went farther than anyone else.  
         And Christmas morning begins with cheering and laughter.  I can't think of a better way to start the day.

AF

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The Sign of the Cross

       On one of my meditative walks Dec. 23, I tried to clear my mind of all the high-voltage pressures of the season and reflect on my chosen word of peace. I also was here to pray for discernment and a sense of the presence of God in making an important decision in my life for the New Year.

       I felt numb. Where was the Prince of Peace in this time of frenzied activity? Where was his message to me in what path to take? As I rounded the bend, I stopped dead in my tracks. The rising sun made the sign of the cross on the pathway. A step to one side or the other and the cross disappeared. A sense of blessing descended. The weight of the season lifted. I felt a settling of my heart – and the message that we find what we seek but it may take stepping off the familiar path.

DB

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      Recently, a lifelong dream came true for me. I opened the cover of a book - a real, honest-to-God book - and saw my name on the table of contents page. What a gift! Now I feel like an author! Along with twenty-one other women, I can call The Modern Magnificat mine. The title is perfectly chosen, I believe. When Mary speaks the poem of praise known as the Magnificat early in the book of Luke, she is still in awe of the way God is at work in her life and the role she gets to play in the redemption of the world. In The Modern Magnificat, I get the chance to tell my own story of responding to the call of God, as do the authors of the other chapters, all of us Baptist women called to ministry. This time of year especially, this book comes as a beautiful reminder that God is always calling, always redeeming, always inviting us to join in that work. I invite you to read the stories in The Modern Magnificat: Women Responding to the Call of God, and I pray that they will inspire you to be always responding to God as well.

SS

Heroes and Holly

      Recently, I got the chance to meet one of my heroes. As a writer and a person of faith, I have long looked up to Anne Lamott. She is, as I put it on the day I met her, someone who gives voice to the unspeakableness in my soul. Her insights are shared with such openness, humor, and irreverence, it makes me feel a little safer to say what I'm really feeling, even (perhaps most especially) about God. Anne was at First Baptist Church, Decatur, GA to talk about her latest book, Help. Thanks. Wow: The Three Essential Prayers. She was funny, honest, and even more gracious than I expected to those of us who asked her to sign our books and pose for photos. I will certainly be a lifelong fan now. I need people like Anne to remind me of the value of messy honesty, and the importance of story, as she does in this passage from her latest book:

"We are too often distracted by the need to burnish our surfaces, to look good so that other people won't know what screwed-up messes we, or our mate or kids or finances, are. But if you gently help yourself back to the present moment, you see how life keeps stumbling along and how you may actually find your way through another ordinary or impossible day. Details are being revealed, and they will take you out of yourself, which is heaven, and you will have a story to tell, which is salvation that again and again saves us, the way Jesus saves some people, or the way sobriety does. Stories to tell or hear -- either way, it's medicine. The Word." (Help, Thanks, Wow, pgs. 52-53)

SS

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Deep within the soul of the lonely caged bird,
Beats the rhythm of a distant forest.
Etched upon its broken heart,
The faded memory of flight.”

  -Ginni Bly, poet 

Bah Humbug

          OK. If I'm perfectly honest, I sometimes tire of happy, positive statements - the like of which you might find in spirituality blogs such as this. When I find I've had my fill of holiday cheer and party glitter, I sometimes indulge in some sappy Hallmark movies that have all kinds of terrible life events happening to the characters. I weep and wail as my boys snicker at this odd ritual of mine. There are times I also like to read books or quotes such as the one above full of pain and pathos. This feels real to me. It somehow cleanses all the holiday glitter and trappings. Christmas, more so than other holidays to me, is a packaging of all my losses, a reminder that my brother's not here, that I'm divorced, that I’m short on cash and a long string of other lacks, including obviously a lack of faith for not having the requisite amount of cheer during the holidays.

           Instead of fighting the mood, though, I've learned to give in. To walk through the sadness. To acknowledge the rhythm of a distant forest. To find comfort in a winter sky that once burned bright over a winter stable. To weep inconsolably at ridiculous Hallmark plots.

          Oddly enough, I always feel better.

DB

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         I've taken to calling it the Christmas crap.  It's all the stuff - the nutcrackers, carved Santas, bowls in Christmas colors, angels in every shape and size,  snowmen, etc, etc, etc   The holiday doo-dads Don and I have accumulated over almost 30 years together fill four giant plastic bins.  
       After spending two weeks in South Africa (and the last few days there in a tent with no electricity!),  I'm feeling overwhelmed by the overblown commercialism and all the shopping, decorating and stuff that makes up our American Christmas.  I find myself creating empty space, putting the doo-dads back in the bin (or in a bag destined for Goodwill!) and making room for photos that trigger memories of places we've traveled and people we love.  In comes the  holly, boxwood, and cedar.  Out goes the plastic and the shiny... except for Christmas lights. You can never  have too many Christmas lights!
     Love came down at Christmas.  Let's make room for the Love.

AF

     

Slowing down to marvel

     Hurley and I took a walk on the trails through Palmetto Islands County Park, enjoying the hint of fall in the air. As usual, we had different rhythms. I would prefer to power walk, getting the best workout possible in the least amount of time. Hurley would prefer to sniff every inch of our surroundings. 

     Not long after I adopted Hurley, I got a great book called Bonding With Your Dog by Victoria Schade. One of the author's suggestions was a compromise, a sort of game on walks, allowing both dog and human to enjoy it. Hurley knows the routine by now. He walks ahead of me and gets his sniffs in until I catch up and pass him, then runs ahead again. If something really interesting catches his nose, he pulls at the leash behind me a bit and I pause. "1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . Let's go!" Then we move on. Hurley knows the game so well now that I rarely ever have to finish counting before he starts moving.

       It's good for both of us, and causes me to slow down and notice things, too. If we hadn't been motionless on the trail for a few seconds, this little fiddler crab wouldn't have come out of his hole! 

     How much do we miss when we don't allow ourselves to pause and count to three sometimes?

SS

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A Message from our Sponsor

     I love how I get a “word” from the Lord from the oddest of places. One of my favorite places is through a church just down the road from my house. I can tell I’d like the pastor or layperson who keeps up the church’s sign. It always has a pithy saying that doesn’t seem to preach or come off as righteous as do other church signs I see.

     One of the latest sayings: “We are too old when we lose our marvels.”

     You have to love that. My boys laugh at me sometimes when we’re out hiking a trail. I get unduly excited when I see a flower, such as my recent “find” pictured above, or a view I’ve never experienced before. They humor me for this juvenile behavior. To me, though, it’s like being touched by the Divine.

DB

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     I open the door to to the back porch, balancing my morning coffee and notebook.  The air is so suddenly cool, it catches me off guard.   After weeks of smothering summer heat and humidity, this fresh, clear morning is a welcome relief.  I breathe in deeply, with an immense sigh of gratitude.

       As I sip my coffee, I think of the word ruah. This Hebrew word essentially means wind, air, the very breath of God in creation.   Ruah creates, inspires and brings order out of chaos.   Ruah is the mighty wind that roars over the waters but ruah is also the gentle breeze on the porch that brings comfort and relief.

     I feel the breath of God on my face, renewing my life.  I linger on the porch, resting in ruah.

AF

Thorns, redbuds, and a diaper pin

Can you identify this thorny vine?

I spent part of Ash Wednesday weeding - pulling vines out of the holly bushes, cutting back bamboo, pulling grass and weeds out of the flower beds, trying to steer clear of any poison ivy.   There's a particularly thorny vine that wants to take over my yard, it seems.  I don't even know it's name - but it's very prickly and blooms with a little white flower.  Even with two pairs of leather gloves, I felt the tiny thorns as I pulled it out of even pricklier holly bushes and asparagus ferns.  

I think weeding will be my spiritual discipline this year for Lent.  Rather than giving up something I love, I'm going to look for the weeds in my spiritual life and pull them out by the roots.  Grass growing in the wrong place. Prickly vines taking over. Bamboo that persistently returns to sprout in the middle of my lawn.  Smilax winding up the crepe myrtle.  Nettles, plaintain, white clover.  Even the star aster that I planted myself and then found that it would completely take over the flower bed.  

What are those weeds in my own life that need to be pulled, cut back, or uprooted?  What are those things that waste my time and energy?  What creates chaos in my life? What activities have simply outgrown their place?  What are those things that have taken over my spiritual garden, leaving no room for the Holy? Time for some weeding!

AF

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Frosty country barn

Eastern redbuds in the mist

Spring thaw, flaming bright

        This is a haiku I jotted in my journal after a misty mountain walk in the mountains in Tryon, N.C. The magnificent purple-pink blooms of the Eastern Redbud trees were the only color breaking a mostly gray landscape while I was there. It's one of the prettiest times of the year for this tree, and I was delighted to witness its passage into spring. The haiku captures the moment and mood for me more than other ways of journaling. The short poems, which can be read in one breath, feel like clean, simple meditations, verbal snapshots of emotion.

DB

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     Inside the collar of my ministerial robe hides an object that looks a bit out of place. When I was given the robe during my ordination, it came with a green stole, the kind we wear during ordinary time. That one is tapered at the place where it goes around my neck, so the next time I wore my robe, to preach at Providence during ordinary time, my stole stayed in place.

      In the winter of 2010, I was asked to do my first funeral, which called for the white stole I had gotten as a gift but not yet worn. This was not just any funeral. My Gramma Carolyn was the one in the casket. I had a lot on my mind as I arrived at my parents' house in KY the day before the funeral. The fact that my stole wouldn't stay in place just added to the stress.

      My mother and I tried to safety pin it, but we couldn't find a pin large or strong enough to go through the thick robe and stole. "I think I've got something that may work," Mom said, and went rummaging in drawers until she found what she was looking for -- one of the diaper pins they used when I was a baby. It was the right size, and seemed fitting in other ways, too. Now it is a permanent part of my ministerial attire. It reminds me of the whole person I am, past and present, child and adult, daughter and granddaughter and minister. Amazing that one little pin can hold so much together.

SS