Humble Pie for Breakfast.

So. God got me.

This morning I was drill sargeant momma, "Come on, get up!! Get dressed!! Get your chores done!! You're late!! Come on!!"

Then, in the shower, Christ spoke to me. Do you get up and "Come on?" No. "What do you want to do first thing in the morning?" Sit with you, wake up with you... "So why are you treating them differently?" Because I need to make sure they have "good habits"... (YES!! It sounded weak and lame to me too!!!! How embarrassing!!) "Why don't you let them come and 'sit in My lap with you' before you all start your chores? How about filling up before you work?" But we have to make sure we get to school... "Aren't you doing school at home so that you have the freedom to live in Kingdom rhythmns? How does it work for you? What are you afraid of? Do you do better work when you fill up with Me?" Yes... O.k, o.k. you have a point... you have all the points... "They are no different. Love first and then work together... No more drill sargeant." You're right. Forgive me. I am so embarrassed (which is another word for ashamed!!)

So. I confessed to the kids this conversation and asked them if they thought it might work better to come down to the couch and cuddle and have our "couch time" (Bible and stories), then eat breakfast and then run upstairs to do our "chores".

We start tomorrow. Now I am just trying to salvage today.

Whew... For Eija

I was wondering, "what the heck is this all about..." Then I got to Eija's site, Invisible, and there was my name... O Lord... Eija, you have captured my heart enough for me to do this for you... Here goes:

Getting to Know Me:

5 Things I Would Love to do Before I Die (I don't plan well):
1. Live on a farm with my family
2. Make blankets/quilts like my grandma did
3. Open a used bookstore/library/coffeeshop in a small town
4. Learn to play the accordian and/or guitar
5. Have barn dances

5 Things I can do:
1. Knit
2. Bake (and bake with kids under 8!!)
3. Snuggle in and read to kids for hours
4. Discover nature/explore with 3 kids under 8 and a dog
5. Bike 70 miles a day (when trained up; I could maybe bike 20 if I was asked to tomorrow)

5 Things I can not do:
1. Hide my feelings/fake it
2. sew (I am desperate to learn!!)
3. play accordian or guitar (I am cheating here... I admit it) (also desperate to learn)
4. freak out ("make a scene") in public -- I can barely do it in private
5. Leave tomorrow to spend the month at the lake

5 Things that attract me to my husband:
1. Humility
2. His eyes
3. His hands
4. His chest
5. How he is with kids

5 Things I say most often:
1. "Sweetie" (I just noticed I call my dog this all the time, now I'm calling other things it)
2. "You know?"
3. "Shit"
4. "O God"
5. "Oh, Please..." (irritated, sarcastic tone)

5 Celebrity Crushes (I am approaching this not just from looks but for who they seem to be)
1. Andrew Peterson
2. Mel Gibson
3. Bebo Norman
4. Sara Groves
5. Matt Damon (his is just looks!)

People I want to do this:
1. My husband (I have been pressuring him to blog...)
2. Judith Hougen (maybe if I add my voice, she'll cave in to pressure)
3. H. Jane
4. Sleeping with Bread (when she is rested)
5. I give up... Now I'm tired! I gotta go have tea on the porch!

Two Questions...

My kids and I are trying to find out two things:

1. How many miles is it to Mexico from St. Paul? (or at least Minnesota)

2. How many miles a day could an average person walk?

Anyone know?

p.s. There is a story behind this!!

Deathbirth...

"This wretched Inn, where we scarce stay to bait,
We call our Dwelling-Place:
We call one Step a Race:
But angels in their full enlightened state,
Angels, who Live, and know what 'tis to Be,
Who all the nonsense of our language see,
Who speak things, and our words, their ill-drawn pictures,
scorn,
When we, by a foolish figure say,
Behold an old man dead! then they
Speak properly, and cry, Behold a man-child born!"

Cowley
(I found quoted in George MacDonald's Phantastes)

My Hope is to walk forever...

Excerpt from When the Cold Wind Blows by Waterdeep

"...When you left us last time,
You said You'd return...
And I'm sorry that it takes so long to learn,
That my hope is to walk forever,
In the coolness of the day...
Oh, my hope is to walk forever,
In the coolness of the day...

When no home on earth,
Can be found,
You will still love me, still love me.
When no home on earth,
Can be found,
You will still love me.
When the cold wind blows all around,
You will still love me, still love me.
When the cold wind blows all around,
You will still love me..."

Sometimes You Get the Bullhorn...

Today I opened up Glimpses of Grace by Madeline L'Engle and received an encapsulation... a bringing together all the pieces of bread I have been picking up for awhile, from Dave's sermon yesterday... from blogland... from a friend telling me how our cells work...

So this message is the Bullhorn... the "got it?" in my ear... just being REALLY clear, like Matt's story today about Tom's apartment, sometimes you have days where the bread crumbs lead to an obvious point. (The tracks lead to great destinations, thanks Jan!)

Here's the quote from Madeline:

"In a recent article on astrophysics I came across the beautiful and imaginative concept known as 'the butterfly effect.' If a butterfly winging over the fields around Crosswicks should be hurt, the effect would be felt in galaxies thousands of light years away. (How?? I want to understand!!) The interrelationship of all of Creation is sensitive in a way we are just beginning to understand. If a butterfly is hurt, we are hurt. If the bell tolls, it tolls for us. We can no longer even think of saying, 'In the Name of the Lord will I destroy them.' No wonder Jesus could say that not one sparrow could fall to the ground without the Father's knowledge.

Dr. Paul Brand points out that every cell in the body has its own specific job, in interdependence with every other cell. The only cells which insist on being independent and autonomous are cencer cells.

Surely that should be a lesson to us in the churches. Separation from each other, and from the rest of the world is not only disaster for us, but for everybody from whom we separate ourselves. We must be very careful lest in insisting on our independence we become malignant.

If we take the whole sweep of the story, rather than isolating passages out of context, this is the message of Scripture."

This is one place God is working in me, I am noticing. I am being rooted, re-encapsulated into the Body... the whole.

I realized as I typed this quote that I am think and imagine our little five-some family as a body... that if one of us is not doing its job, the whole family suffers and we live diminished... I have also been praying for our whole little family, not myself, lately... I can not separate myself from my husband and kids anymore... I am not focusing in on me and my view so much... this is reaching/growing/exploring (making tracks!!) to my extended family and (little feelers quivering to wonder/explore) is beginning to extend to Body of Christ (thanks in a big part to blogging) and beyond. "To Infinity and Beyond". -- Buzz Lightyear (Are we bloggers becoming childlike!!??? Hopefully!)

Another Coracle...

So. I have dived back into Phantastes, by George MacDonald. I had bogged down. I picked at the story, listlessly, then finally there was a coracle... my interest picked up...

"I stood one moment and gazed into the heaving abyss beneath me; then plunged headlong into the mounting wave below. A blessing, like the kiss of a mother, seemed to alight on my soul; a calm, deeper than that which accompanies a hope deferred bathed my spirit. I sank far into the waters, and sought not to return. I felt as if once more the great arms of the beech-tree were around me, soothing me after the miseries I had passed through, and telling me, like a little sick child, that I should be better tomorrow. The waters of themselves lifted me, as with loving arms, to the surface. I breathed again, but did not unclose my eyes. I would not look on the wintry sea, and the pitiless gray sky. Thus I floated, till something gently touched me. It was a little boat floating beside me. How it came there I could not tell; but it rose and sank on the waters, and kept touching me in its fall, as if with a human will to let me know that help was by me. It was a little gay-coloured boat, seemingly covered with glistering scales like those of a fish, all of brilliant rainbow hues. I scrambled into it, and lay down in the bottom, with a sense of exquisite repose. Then I drew over me a rich, heavy, purple cloth that was beside me; and, lying still, knew, by the sound of the waters, that my little bark was fleeting rapidly onwards."

Now the story has turned. The narrator has been brought to the island of the "Wise Woman"; MacDonald's typical image of God. Older than old yet younger than young. Now I have hope to read to the end... I was really hungry for God's wisdom... it was so lonely to stumble through Fairy Land without Light or Vision... just self-will and mistakes causing further and further darkness...

This is a multi-layered, intense book. I keep feeling that there are depths I should be getting... but I do not have time to study them out... I am teaching my kids to read and discover nature and reading "The Middle Moffat" on the couch with them. That is more delightful. I have been praying that God causes me to capture what I need from this book... I have a feeling it will stay with me and resonate for a long time to come. The lessons are deeper than words.

I wonder... is this what it feels like to have one's imagination baptised?

For The Beauty of the Earth!

For the beauty of the earth,
For the glory of the skies,
For the love that from our birth,
Over and around us lies...

*Lord of all to Thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise...

For the beauty of each hour,
Of the day and of the night,
Hill and vale, and tree and flower,
Sun and moon, and stars of light.*

For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and mind's delight,
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight.*

For the joy of human love,
Brother, sister, parent, child,
Friends on earth and friends above,
For all gentle thoughts and mild.*

For Thy Church, that evermore
Lifteth holy hands above,
Offering up on every shore,
Her pure sacrifice of love.*

For the martyr's crown of light,
For Thy prophet's eagle eye,
For Thy bold confessors' might,
For the lips of infancy.*

For Thy virgin's robes of snow,
For Thy maiden mother mild,
For Thyself, with hearts aglow,
Jesu, Victim undefiled.*

For each perfect gift of Thine,
To our race so freely given,
Graces human and divine,
Flowers of earth and buds of heaven.*

*Lord of all, to Thee we raise,
This our hymn of grateful praise...

"For the Beauty of the Earth"
Folliot S. Pierpoint

For Tonya!!

Sowing and Reaping

"Sow; -- and look onward, upward,
Where the starry light appears, --
Where, in spite of coward's doubting,
Or your own heart's trembling fears,
You shall reap in joy the harvest
You have sown to-day in tears."

Quoted in the book, "Laddie" by Gene Stratton-Porter

Today is Sept. 11th

I was just realized that today is Sept. 11th. I did not "notice" its' significance until this moment, halfway through the day.

I also was not reminded by anyone (for the first time since it happened) that it is Sept. 11th, or that it was approaching.

Katrina has overshadowed it.

Time keeps marching on...

The Story keeps unfolding...

I am thankful for Dave's message at Open Door today. (Even though we can't see it; God's plan is ALL ABOUT healing/restoring)

A Drink...

Tired mom refueling; filling water balloons for daughters to throw. Who needs million dollar toys when 2 bucks, a hose and a wonderfully sunny, windy day is at hand?

Thank you, God, for pushing me to drop all my chores and fill water balloons.

Economic Stress...

For a long time the raise in fuel prices worried me and I had a LOT of fear around it; probably from seeing end time, scary-to-me movies in church when I was a kid. Now I am beginning to see it as a gift.

I am noticing that it is changing my behaviour in positive ways. It is actually bringing about the lifestyle my heart has yearned for, but has been so hard to acheive...

1. We are staying home more, there is more peace in our home. We are reading together, the kids are playing together...

2. When I drive, I am watching the fuel economy gauge and I am becoming a calmer, less competitive driver... again, more peace.

3. We are walking and biking to do errands, thus are losing weight (and more importantly, becoming stronger!) with minimal effort while supporting local businesses.

4. I am beginning to notice what I am responsible for and am dropping feeling responsible for the whole world and the stars and galaxies too... hence more peace.

5. I am hearing of more and more people moving in together to save money... again, it is happening because of the economic stresses put upon them.

I am thankful for the gifts within this storm and I hope that others find their gifts within it too.

Helping Others...

When I was listening to Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery, I was struck by how simple it was to help people in the past. There was not a lot of government red tape and things to go through to help out when you saw a need. In the story, Rilla comes across a baby whose mother is dead and the father off to WWI. She takes the baby home and raises it until the father comes back. Something in me grieved that it is so difficult, now, to reach out and help where you see need.

I read an article on the Internet about regular people organizing ways to help from all over America and was directed to this (about the New Orleans Tragedy) and was much encouraged. People are using the Internet to connect and mobilize to help. Yeah for the Internet. There is still a process, but people are able to help (more than just with money) that may not live close or be connected with the government or a charity.

There are other things like this one popping up. I read a story last night about a woman showing up at a shelter in Louisiana and taking an evacuated mother and her three kids into her home. That is the kind of thing that will REALLY help, in my opinion. People all over the U.S. taking in whoever they can and helping them where they are at so that those states down there don't have all the burden. America living in community again...

Here we go...

The school year has begun...

Here we go...

Who knows when I'll be able to blog again!!