So. Basically I really hated yesterday’s prompt and had a rebellion. You’ll be left forever wondering what it was, why I hated it and what I might have responded to it if I’d stopped kicking over the traces long enough to actually think. My tiny little excuse is a really really bad case of hives that is apparently caused by the sun. I have turned into a vampire.
Har. Just kidding. Some meds I take for seizures are causing sun sensitivity which, in my case, causes hives. This has happened before in the past 5 or years since I started this new drug, but I’ve never been in the sun as long as I was on Friday (riding a tube down the Shenandoah). So the hives were mighty and cursed this time. Prednisone has become my new best friend. However, I had so much fun on that tubing trip I’d do it all again … I’d just give in and go to the doctor’s sooner
Today’s prompt is this –
What’s the first thing you notice about a man when you meet him? A woman?
The first thing I notice about men and women is their eyes. Maybe it’s because I was taught to look people in the eyes when being introduced. Or maybe I just love eyes. Or whatever. Who knows … I could spend all day rationalizing, but the bottom line is I dig people’s eyes. I love eye shapes and sizes and colors. I love the way a person’s eyes define their face and their mood. I love the way eyes sparkle and gleam. I think the most fun I ever had in a class was when I took a class on portraiture and learned how to draw eyes. I got so much perspective from that experience.
The second thing I notice is their hands. You can tell a lot about a person from their hands. You can see how they feel about themselves in the way their hands are carried and used in a conversation. You can see how they relate to the world in how they take care of their hands and how their hands are used in their line of work. When they shake hands with you, you can tell a lot about how that person perceives you and your status vis a vis them. Personally, as a woman, I love it when a man gives me a good firm handshake. I hate the namby-pamby woman shake that I’m subjected to in the name of chivalry or whatever. It sucks. It’s like expecting a great bowl of good chocolate ice cream and you get a tiny dish of half melted soft-serve instead. Bleh. I also like good hugs but only from friends. Stranger-hugging is weird in my book. And there is entirely too much hugging here in the south (from my northern perspective). But I digress … as you may have noticed I also love hands. And lately, I’ve loved watching as my children’s hands are developing from pudgy kid hands into adult hands. They are beautiful. The same is happening with their friends and cousins. It’s like a small marker of passage through time and is enjoyable to watch as they cavort through life together.
What about you? What do you notice when you first meet people? Does it differ with the genders?
I’m reviewing two album/CD’s here. “Songs For A Revolution Of Hope” by Brian McLaren in collaboration with Tracey Howe and “Shameless Jane” by Teel Montague Cook. LightHusband and I listened to them both together, and the review that follows is a compilation of our thoughts (he’s a retired professional drummer who has participated in the production of more than one album, I have an amateur background in music and we both enjoy listening to a broad, eclectic spectrum of artists).
I have several pet peeves when it comes to the Christian music industry and, unfortunately, neither of these albums did anything to dispel those.
First – sound engineers tend to be very cautious and the result is that you don’t where to point your ears. Think of a painting in which the artist uses the same hue of paint all across the canvass in the same amounts and judiciously meted all the colors in the same amounts as well. You wouldn’t know where to focus your eyes or what the artist wanted you to look at first. That’s what happens when a sound engineer gets overly cautious.
Second – dynamic range in vocalists … vocalists also tend to be very cautious and want to live in one range. This makes for songs that have very little aural interest. That means our attention begins to wander (for those of us with short attention spans) and for those of us with sensitive hearing it can actually be unnerving to listen to these for any length of time. At the risk of sounding petty, the feminist in me wishes really hard that female Christian vocalists would lose the breathy thing. This is a personal preference (and I’ll admit it) but I prefer strong female voices, no matter what their range and breathy gets annoying after awhile. Sing from your diaphragm and belt it out, believe in yourself and what you have to offer. You have a beautiful gift, share it with glee.
Third – lyrics … please, oh please write some lyrics that help the audience to think about the wonder and mystery of God. That engage the audience and invite them to the throne room of grace. Don’t stand behind them and beat them about the head with what you think they need. That’s all I could hear in the lyrics on these albums … here was the writer’s interpretation and they drew the picture so perfectly that there was no room for me to use their music in my life at all. I had no use for it; there is no room for my imagination or LightHusband’s or anyone elses’.
My definition of good worship music (and by far the most excellent of these can be seen with U2) is a song which creates enough mystery, yet enough presence that the listener is invited to participate in the portrait the musician is creating of God with his/her song. Too many songwriters now have their vision; their only requirement of the audience is that they become a mirror. Listen to Grace by U2 as an example of lyrics which allow the listener to participate in the portrait of God rather than being told what the details are by the singer in so many other worship songs.
Songs For A Revolution of Hope, by Tracey Howe and Brian McLaren, produced by Brian McLaren & Tracey Howe – “…it’s better than the J0n@s Brothers.” Thus spake LightBoy … and faint praise it was, given his low opinion of the latest teeny bopper idols.
LightHusband’s overall perspective (without any foreknowledge of who he was listening to … as he said later, “I thought this was some tiny little local church putting out an album. Someone with the resources of Brian McLaren should be putting out a much better product.”) was that this music deserves a much more aggressive mix; whoever mixed it was much too cautious. This was obvious with the songs where the instrumentation was simple; those songs were handled beautifully. When all the musicians were playing, the engineer seemed overwhelmed, leaving the listener with no direction for their ear. As is typical for many Christian sound engineers, they had no idea what to do with the drums and consistently under mixed them; making them an annoying afterthought rather than an integral part of the music as good percussion should be. Overall, it sounded as though it were mixed by a vocalist rather than a instrumentalist, because there was no separation of the instrument voices and they became very muddy to the ear.
Here are some specific notes about certain tracks on the album … these four were potentially the best songs on it.
Canticle – no drums and sounded really good. The mix they were trying to force on the whole album works here. Good balance … sounds very much like Nickle Creek and we enjoyed this song very much.
In Your Crucifixion – cut back to only acoustic guitar for intro … added in acoustic bass; instrumentation is lovely – once again the mix works and produces a lovely song. Hint – no drums. Lyrics needed a lot of work; I didn’t really need the vocabulary lesson … but otherwise well done.
Let’s Confess – just drums … beat music and beat poetry. I get that the conservative Christian church is like 50 years behind the curve, but do we really need to go through all the steps? Or could we just say that, yes … it’s been done and move along. What was fresh and experimental in the 1960’s repeated now is sort of … um … That said … drums are interesting and vocals are interesting … however, the mix is horrible and the drums drowned her out.
Chant – don’t do it unless it’s really part of your tradition and daily prayer walk. It’s pretentious. The voices in the background could have been used in some really imaginative and wonderful places … the harp was wonderful, beautiful instrumentation. The final chorus was good and should have been used more frequently. Those background voices were annoying until the final chorus, when they became beautiful, but we had to wait too long and in the interim they were a distraction.
Have Love – potentially the best song on the album … ruined by the cautious mix. We should be able to hear the drums up front, then the brass and the cowbells … instead the instrumentation sounds like mud because the engineer didn’t know what to highlight. This song could (and should, given the subject matter) be a party in my speakers … it’s awesome, instead I’m sitting frustrated by the mud.
[Begin Rant] I am so fed up with Christians putting out a shoddy product in God’s name thinking that people will flock to it because it’s got the God stamp of approval on it. Just because you do something for God, doesn’t mean you give Him short shrift. The Classical and Renaissance periods are filled with artists who waited for the right moment or starved (hence the term starving artist) rather than produce artwork that was not their best. For heaven’s sake, do it right. Do it well. Do it for His glory rather than on the cheap.[End Rant]
Here’s a quote from the liner notes on “Songs …”: We had only five full days to track the album but were able to track most of it live, again, something that was amazing to witness as some of the songs took on great complexity.
It was interesting to read because as LightHusband and I listened to this album (before I read those notes) that’s exactly what we thought: this album was done too fast and without enough resources behind it. The songs did take on great complexity, but the mixing did not reflect that with the result is that the listener doesn’t have any direction for their ears.
Given the resources that could (and should) have been invested in this album it could (and should) have been so much better than it was. Clearly these musicians are well trained and know their craft. There were moments of brilliance here. It’s a shame it got lost in a rush to put something out without the proper support behind it.
Shameless Jane – by Teel Montague Cook, produced by Earthshaking Music, Atlanta, Georgia.
Here’s the better news about Teel Montague … she’s got tons of potential. She oozes potential. I listened to her and heard overtones of Janis Ian. If you don’t remember Janis, you can hear one of her songs here at this free download. Unfortunately, this album is all about potential … unrealized potential.
Nothing is working, not even this song … this is a line from one of the tracks on this CD and cynically, it seemed appropriate for the title of this review.
The best thing I can say about Shameless Jane is that this album is unoffensive; that should never be the best thing one has to say about a work of music.
The lyrics were pedantic, not thought-provoking; they don’t leave much space, mystery or subtlety to let the listener think, process or breath. It was pretty obvious that Teel has some interesting thoughts she wants to put to music, but that’s part of the problem … she was too obvious. Dress it up a little, use some metaphor, analogy, play with words … have fun with song writing. Although she had a few tracks where she approached this, namely Bean Dip Bomb and Peter Pan, so once again, her potential is there and I do hope that Teel continues to play and engage her craft. There’s a lot there to be developed in the future.
The music, melody, etc. seems to be an afterthought. Dynamic range of songs never change. Tempos rarely (if ever) change. After the first song or two, my ears were tired. The acoustic guitar was well done, and the vocals strong, but breathy. While this would be excellent to have as background music for an evening with friends, I found it difficult to listen to and engage with as a listening event because of the range and tempo issues.
Teel Cook is a mom with two teenagers at home. This is an obvious first album that shows her roughcut artistic talent. She’s got a lot of potential. I hope she gets the support, time and resources that will help her to realize that potential … and I hope to hear more from her in the future. I really do …
As those of you who read this blog regularly know, I homeschool the LightChildren. Well, a more appropriate description is … they engage in home learning and I throw books at their heads. No. That’s not right either. But something happens around here and occasionally something like an education seems to sprout.
Well, we fell behind in history. This is sorta bad since I’m just a hair shy of being a certified social studies teacher. Three hairs shy of having a masters in secondary education with a focus in … history and social studies. So you’d think that we’d just fly right through history. Well, yes. And, um, no … not so much. You see, I have all these hang ups and pre-conceived ideas about how history has to be. So we fell behind. We’re scooting through the modern period this summer and starting over again with the ancients this fall. It will be fun because now I’m finally teaching a teenager and all.
In very exciting news, LightGirl has decided that she’s going to work on her own theory of everything. The books are spread out all over the sofa. First, though, she needs to get over Lyme Disease. It all began yesterday when she and LightBoy watched a documentary on the History Channel on the island of Atlantis. They came up from the playroom and recounted the whole thing to me. Silly mom … I thought they’d been watching cartoons and was plotting revenge. In any case, as she watched the documentary, LightGirl began to notice that many of the stories from Atlantis bore a striking resemblance to all the myth stories she read when we studied the ancients several years ago. Later in the day, she asked to go to the library so she can get some books on myths and Atlantis. She is quite determined to find this “missing link” as it were. She didn’t even realize that we’re getting ready to tackle the ancients again this year in history. It was a pleasant surprise. Her eyes were sparkling. She’s busy plotting the next book she wants to write.
In the meantime, we’re just flying through modern history, giving it a lick and a promise. The girl who lives in my heart and studied international relations twenty-five years ago is weeping with shame at the utter horror of raising children with so little knowledge of modern history and its importance to where we are now. (Okay, weeping may be overstating it just a little … but … you get the picture.) So, here’s the thing. We have a family movie night tradition. We love to watch movies together. LightHusband makes delicious popcorn, we have a light dinner before hand, turn down the lights and snuggle in together. It can be any night … but we watch the movie together and then talk about it for some time afterwards. So I thought it would be a good idea to get some movies with historical content to watch for modern history. But I’m running out of ideas. I’m going to post my list below. Please add yours in the comments. I’m looking for any reasonable movies about history anywhere in the world from 1875 to the present. Please remember the ages of my children are 11 and 14. They’re used to some violence (we’ve watched BraveHeart together without the final death scene, and LightBoy has watched Saving Private Ryan) as long as it has purpose and context. We try to stay away from sexual content … but well the Viv@ Vi@gra ads and KY ads on television these days leave little the imagination, so really … who cares.
Here are the movies I found:
Gandhi Reds Grapes of Wrath We Were Soldiers To Kill A Mockingbird Judgment At Nuremberg
… for a special announcement.
Some of you may remember a period of whining and complaining earlier this year when BlazingEwe and I were involved in making my/our guild’s raffle quilt (pattern is Shakespeare In The Park, copyright by Judy Martin in The Creative Pattern Book). It was finished in June, quilted and everything. We’re kinda happy with it.
So we entered it in our county fair …
… and WON … Best Of Show AND First Place in our category (made by a group).
We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.
The Trinity is hard to understand. It’s far too complex to have been made up, and no where do we have it explained to us with any kind of absolute understanding. We’re faced with the fact there’s one God, and yet there is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They’re all different. But there’s only one God. Unity and Diversity. Three in One. How does this work? Well, there have been a lot of suggestions over the centuries. The latest prevailing attitude has been to see the Trinity as a hierarchy. The Father, then the Son, then the Spirit. But that’s not quite right, because there’s a lot of discussion in Scripture that doesn’t make it all that neat. The Father gives all his authority to the Son, who sends the Spirit, who had already sent the Son. It’s unusual. Add to this the fact it’s not the kind of relationship we’re used to dealing with in organizations. They love each other. It’s the love and the relationship that is the bond. God is love. There’s no intimidation or manipulation or ambition or dissension. There’s just relationship. And this kind of relationship has been given a name. Perichoresis. Basically this is a big word to say something not that hard to understand, but almost impossible to live. Instead of being a hierarchy, the persons in the Trinity are continually circling around each other, interwoven, interdependent, interpenetrating. Or to put it more simply… the relationship is kinda like a dance.
The Trinity is hard to understand. It’s far too complex to have been made up, and no where do we have it explained to us with any kind of absolute understanding. We’re faced with the fact there’s one God, and yet there is the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They’re all different. But there’s only one God. Unity and Diversity. Three in One. How does this work? Well, there have been a lot of suggestions over the centuries. The latest prevailing attitude has been to see the Trinity as a hierarchy. The Father, then the Son, then the Spirit. But that’s not quite right, because there’s a lot of discussion in Scripture that doesn’t make it all that neat. The Father gives all his authority to the Son, who sends the Spirit, who had already sent the Son. It’s unusual.
Add to this the fact it’s not the kind of relationship we’re used to dealing with in organizations. They love each other. It’s the love and the relationship that is the bond. God is love. There’s no intimidation or manipulation or ambition or dissension. There’s just relationship. And this kind of relationship has been given a name. Perichoresis. Basically this is a big word to say something not that hard to understand, but almost impossible to live. Instead of being a hierarchy, the persons in the Trinity are continually circling around each other, interwoven, interdependent, interpenetrating. Or to put it more simply… the relationship is kinda like a dance.
You may remember that at the beginning of last month I put a call for articles? Well … the dance is now on. Patrick and I, with the help of our friends, put together a lovely issue of Porpoise Diving Life. There’s a wonderful variety of articles, stories, and even a poem and a song all over there for you to read, listen to and absorb. Each looks at the dance of relationship among and between the Trinity and us in different ways. Won’t you join the dance?
You may have noticed I haven’t been around much lately. There’s been a bunch going on off-line and so I haven’t been on my computer as much recently. Some of you may remember a quilting class I took almost two years ago? Well … yesterday I finally finished the quilt top. Almost. I still have to put borders on it. I have to find that fabric which is somewhere in the house. But I finished the hard part. The tedious part. The part that was making me slightly nutty.
I’d learned what I needed to learn and could have moved on. I really did not need to finish the quilt. But I had a picture in my head that needed completion. Of course, it was not small. It’s never small. These pictures are always big. Bigger than life. This quilt will be big enough for a queen size bed … almost. I could have learned what I needed to learn in a wall hanging. But that picture was not enough. So I did an enormous quilt … it will be almost 9 feet square when I’m done. It’s an old habit of mine …
My grandfather (on my father’s side) used to look at my plate at the end of a meal and say, “Hmmm … it looks to me as though your eyes were bigger than your stomach again.” And left me to puzzle it out. He was forever saying mysterious things like that. He couldn’t just say, “Shut the door, please.” He’d say, “Put the wood in the hole.” Then us kids would sit there in a puzzlement while he grinned like the Cheshire Cat. He’d hand out hints like lollipops, slowly and one at a time, until we figured it out.
All of that is to say, I’ve been taking on things that are perhaps too big and too much all my life. My eyes are bigger than my stomach. I don’t know when to quit. I’m learning though the lessons have been hard, hard won and slow. So I’ve been sewing a lot lately. And a lot of the sewing has been of the tedious nature. Repetitive. There are parts of quilt-making that I love and other parts I endure. The sewing tiny bits part, I endure because of the end result … which can be spectacular. There is a zen to it, to be sure, but sometimes it’s just boring. So I have the television on for distraction.
Now, if I’m going to have the television on … it has to be certain shows. Basically, it has to be a show that I’m really not terribly interested in, so that I can just listen along but not get too distracted. Otherwise, I’ll stop sewing and pay attention to what’s on the television. TNT is a good network for me to have on … they have on shows that I can listen to, but not actively watch (mostly). Especially on weekday afternoons. Two hours of Law & Order, then two hours of Charmed, then dinner mixed in with more Law & Order in the evening and I get a lot of sewing in.
Charmed (if you’ve never seen it) was a show on WB (which is now defunct), … about three witches who were good witches and fought demons. They were sisters. There was a whole mythology surrounding them. Alyssa Milano played one of them (Phoebe, the other two were named Piper and Paige[sometimes] and Prue [in the beginning]). Now if you find anything concerning magic offensive, you won’t like this show. I find it a great way to have spiritual conversations with my kids.
A couple of days ago one of the episodes was quite interesting. The sisters had grown very weary of fighting demons (it’s the last year of the series) and want to have a “normal” life. I find this desire interesting since they were born to fight demons, so for them they have a normal life. But that’s another blog post. In any case, events have transpired so that they have tipped the balance of power in the world almost entirely to good with the help of some beings called “avatars.” However, there are still a very few people who still have some latent anger that they can’t cope with and those people are simply “disappeared” by the avatars. Here’s the interesting thing. When that happens, those who love the people who “disappear” don’t grieve, they just go about their business a little bit blue and say things like, “Well, it’s for the best, you know s/he is in a better place after all.”
Two of the three sisters lost someone they loved; one of them lost her husband who has been a fixture on the show for the entire series. He planned it as part of the way to tip the scales back. Because by now he and the third sister have realized that having everything good has unleashed a set consequences that they knew nothing about (the “avatars” are not good and all, you see). Now the third sister, Phoebe, has to get Piper and Paige to realize that they are not feeling anything. She has to make them understand that feelings are important. She eventually does this and casts a spell to give them their feelings back. The scene that followed as they embraced grief was astonishing and well done.
The whole episode made me think about our church and our culture. How much do we value feelings? How much do we value showing an even temper in the worst of times? How many times have you heard someone say “after all s/he is in a better place” in the face of the death of a loved one? with a brave, wavery chin? We try so hard to find a silver lining in all of our clouds that we don’t feel the rain on our faces. How can we feel and embrace those feelings? How can we love each other in the midst of life’s rollercoaster which can often put us at odds with one another? This makes it all terribly difficult … but then … we were never told that the way would be easy. Just narrow.
Take a minute, and feel the rain on your face. Be unafraid and unashamed, for the God of all comfort will be with you even unto the end of the age.
Unwritten
Here’s a fun little game going around in blog-land. For no reason … it was just fun.
a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search. b. Using only the first page, pick an image. c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker.
The questions:
1. What is your first name? 2. What is your favorite food? 3. What high school did you go to? 4. What is your favorite color? 5. Who is your celebrity crush? 6. Favorite drink? 7. Dream vacation? 8. Favorite dessert? 9. What you want to be when you grow up? 10. What do you love most in life? 11. One Word to describe you. 12. Your flickr name.
Some of the photos ended up a bit obtuse. I added notes below to make deciphering my choices a little easier. I left 10 and 11 blank for you to fill in with your own imagination. I’m sure you’ll have fun with them.
1. Do I need to answer this? 2. I have favorite foods for different restaurants or times of year … so I just picked whatever came into my head. 3. U32 … don’t ask. 4. I don’t have a favorite color … I just typed the color that came into my head. 5. Heh … Mr. Big … gotta love him and have since he started wearing plaid ties on L&O in the 90’s. 6. Coffee … the magic bean. 7. Ireland and a Celtic monastery. 8. Good apple pie. 9. What else? 10. 11. 12. Threadbare …
This is a fun way to see a lot of different photos. If you decide to play along, leave a link to your version of the mosaic in my comments.
One of the places I follow along loosely is Porpoise Diving Life. The editor is Bill Dahl. He’s a very interesting guy with a neat purpose for the site. But he needed to take this year off and do some writing, reading and growing. So he asked around for some help to keep things going. I think it’s been a great success. Each month a different person has stepped forward to take the helm and organize the content. The result has been startling, refreshing and riveting. Like the difference between cold clear mountain spring water and fizzy sassy mineral water. Both taste wonderful and slake your thirst, but they have a remarkably different feel in your mouth.
Patrick Oden (of Dual Ravens) and I decided that we’d handle the wheel for month of August. Patrick is also the author of It’s A Dance, a wonderful conversation about perichoresis … the dance of relationship between the Trinity and us. I fell in love with the book. Then I read The Shack and we had visions of doing something that would cross-pollinate the two books. But that never took off. So we’re focusing, instead, on the differences between perichoresis and hierarchy. And best of all … we need you. Yep. You. You with the great ideas, poems, photos, stories, articles, etc.
You see it’s like this:
When the idea of hierarchy really was getting attention it was thought that churches should be modeled on this. So, churches became about authority. From Father to Jesus to Apostles to Pope to Bishops to Priests to the People. Some churches are still like this either explicitly or implicitly.
Notice who is left out. The Holy Spirit. Paul tells us the Holy Spirit works in all of us, and makes a very interesting metaphor. We’re not a hierarchy. We’re a body. Yes, Jesus is the head. But we, the Church, are to be a body. Gathered together in unity, expressing the diversity of the Spirit who works through all of us in different ways. We too are a unity and diversity. However, we still aren’t comfortable with that. The Trinity doesn’t have sin or ambition. We do. In our gathered communities we still tend to manipulate or seek authority or otherwise intimidate others and try to prove we’re somehow better. This seems worth considering. Not leadership or organization topics. Rather ‘dance’ versus ‘power and manipulation’. Perichoresis versus hierarchy and power. This isn’t only something for those high in the hierarchy to consider. We all face this. We all use the tools at our disposal to gain an advantage, stand out, and sometimes push others down and aside.
When we use the tools at our disposal to engage in power and manipulation to subdue others in our presence … by whatever means, we are negating the power of the Gospel in the very space that the Gospel is to be transcendent. So … how should we dress, act, engage? Well … that’s up to you and your particular dance with the Holy Spirit. See, none of us is the same. The rules are all the same, yet they’re all different. All we can do is ask questions of each other … where do you live? How do your neighbors dress? What is your context? What are the local standards? What is welcoming amongst them? How do you create a welcoming environment in your space, where you are free to proclaim the Good News to people so they will hear it from you?”
Please consider writing, musing, considering music, church liturgy, and other forms of God’s call in our lives that has been distorted by grabbing power rather than dancing with the Trinity. We’d love to have articles, poems, stories, videos, paintings, photos, … anything that you create that speaks about the Dance.
If you feel that that tug on your sleeve calling you to join us, please let me know in the comments and I’ll get in contact with you with more details about the whole process.
This photo is from the on-line gallery of Phillip Toledano (thanks to fellow Scriber, Ben).
Sit with that photo for a minute. Allow your emotions to bubble up and give them names. Let them have their own stories just for a moment or so. See what those stories might be, if you don’t just shove the emotions down or wave them aside or tell them what to do.
Now, think for a moment about how intimidated you feel when standing in the presence of someone who is dressed “to the nines.” How intimidated you feel when you walk into a room or space and suddenly you realize … you are not dressed the same as everyone else there. You’ll never be able to dress like everyone else there.
Now you have the sense of modesty that Paul was trying to instill in Timothy when he wrote, “I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” His concern was not for sexual purity, but that the women would set a tone of hospitality and welcoming.
Our clothes tell people something about us. They tell a story about who we are before people ever get to know us. When we use those clothes to engage in power and manipulation to subdue others in our presence … by whatever means, we are negating the power of the Gospel in the very space that the Gospel is to be transcendent.
So … how should we dress? Well … that’s up to you and your particular dance with the Holy Spirit. See, none of us is the same. The rules are all the same, yet they’re all different. All we can do is ask questions of each other … where do you live? How do your neighbors dress? What are the local standards? What is welcoming amongst them? How do you create a welcoming environment in your space, where you are free to proclaim the Good News to people so they will hear it from you?
Today I got a tree. A cherry tree to be exact. I believe it’s a Montmorency Cherry, but I’m not certain. LightBoy wanted to get an apple tree. But apple trees need to be pollinated in order to bear fruit. He had grand designs of taking our harvest to the farmer’s market. From our one tree.
In our back yard.
He has no shortage of self esteem.
We discovered that cherry trees do not need to be pollinated. We are lazy. So we got a cherry tree. It’s taller too. It got planted in the poop hole. Ships have a poop deck. Our back yard had a poop hole. The former owners had a special hole into which doggie waste was to be disposed of. I think they put special enzymes in there to speed decomposition. It was like a doggie septic system. We never used it. It was just tiresome hole in the back yard. So we put a cherry tree in it.
It’s taken six years. When we moved in there was one tree in the front yard and some horrid boxwood shrubbery out front. I pulled out the boxwood. I’ve been slowly replacing it with hydrangeas and other perennials. On the very shady side of the stoop, I put in a ninja bush. No … I can’t remember what it’s called, but it starts with nin … and it grows delightfully in the shade. There’s lily-of-the-valley in front of it.
We’ve got boatloads of yarrow. If you need some yarrow, I’m your woman. It’s really a weed that I paid good money for I found out later. Oy! Now two lilac bushes grace us with blooms and finally the french lilac that I thought died gave off blooms this year too. I didn’t know that french lilacs are different when I bought it. They are … there’s no scent, but the blossoms are beautiful. My peonies are enormous this year and there are about 20 buds. Who knew?
The willow that we planted out back about 4 years ago is almost big enough to climb. The butterfly bush is looming large over all; tempting butterflies near and far. The tulips are all up and bright.
This is the lilac bush my dad gave me six years ago. It was a runner from one of his bushes in Vermont; so tiny it came in a half pint milk carton and I had to put a fence around it so that LightHusband wouldn’t mow it down. It took six years to bloom, but it was worth the wait.
Now I need to plant the new hydrangea I just bought and the two monarda that are perennials as well. I like watching my garden grow. A little here and a little there. One tree at a time.
