Good Friday 2014

He was wounded for our transgressions;
He was crushed for our iniquities;
the chastisement for our peace was upon him,
and by his stripes we are healed.
Isaiah 53:5

Maundy Thursday 2014

What shall I render to the Lord
For all his benefits toward me?
I will take the cup of salvation,
And call upon the name of the Lord.
I will offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
And will call upon the name of the Lord.
I will pay my vows to the Lord
Now in the presence of all his people,
In the courts of the Lord's house,
In the midst of you, O Jerusalem.

Psalm 116:12-13; 17-19

Lent 6: Palmarum

Hosanna to the Son of David;
blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
the King of Israel.
Hosanna in the highest!
Matthew 21:9

Tuesday of Lent 5

currents

I spend a lot of energy trying to convince myself notwithstanding all the anonymity, anomie, and rude, mean people, those pics of graduations and ordinations you see actually are real―no one has Photoshopped people into the pics, they really were there, and the events truly happened.

reprise

As I've thrown out snippets of my previous lives, I realize those activities were very different from my here and now. I've obsessed about Brighter City Day Camp, the six-week long annual summer program in City of History. Although I inherited the basic program structure and the name, I don't know what it was like before I arrived. I was grant writer, site director, van driver, treasurer, art teacher (from the second year on. By that second year I owned BCDC! I think of the Release Time Christian Education program I also took over as part of my job description. Again, I do not know what they did before me, but I was (grant writer, site director, van driver), liaise with the elementary school, and wrote an actual lectionary-based curriculum.

there, then, here, now

As I watched the Winter Olympics I remembered how ambitious I was, how hard I worked, and how I've achieved more than I'd ever imagined.

Back in a Former City, a now-deceased friend said to me, "This has been a catastrophic illness—what else do you call something that has cost you your friends and your career?" I replied, "I'm not at all worried. Before I turn around – no, before I blink – my life will be full again." I was very mistaken in terms of the participation I fully expected to find before I'd blinked this many times, yet...

Things – as in "my own things related to my life" – truly are moving and changing, and as I survey these past years, I'm happily amazed at how I've grown my theology, design/art, and music résumés. Despite a true dearth of opps to contribute my gifts locally. For example, when I look at the close to a dozen years I've been blogging here on desert spirit's fire, I remember I've never been much of a reader, and I almost never read anything other than school assignments (did well on most of those, usually completing 80% – 95%) and an occasional copy of Better Homes and Gardens magazine. Yet over this past decade I've read and considered dozens of books of my own choice, under my own steam, become an amazon vine reviewer, and generally lit a fire under myself to accomplish tasks that I trusted would benefit someone somewhere someday.

Lent 5: Judica

Vindicate me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation.
Deliver me from those who are deceitful and unjust, for you are the God in whom I take refuge.
Psalm 43:1-2a

mulberry bush 5

3dogmom hosts an all around the mulberry bush 5 and wonders, "When you need to hold disparate parts of your life in tension, what do you do? Share five things that steady your pace, recharge your batteries and invite peace to your soul."

Like 3dogmom, I usually hanker after whatever I can find to feed my five senses; here are 5 possible quick and usually readily at-hand options. Sorry about no pics—as a creative, I'm becoming even more careful about using pics, and though I could find a few of my own for each of these, I want to play and post at least reasonably on time today:

1. taste: a big classic green salad, minimally including 2 or 3 types of lettuce, tomatoes, onions that don't bite, sweet cukes, and creamy Italian dressing. Add warm, fresh bread and butter, and it's a soul-satisfying feast.

2. smell: vanilla extract!

3. sound: too stressed and whatever to retrieve a CD? One of my almost dozen YouTube playlists will do.

4. vision: look outside myself at the trees, the up and coming spring flowers, the sky... sometimes I enjoy looking at my own print portfolio or my design website that intentionally doesn't have a lot of content, but presents it more coherently than my facebook page does

5. touch: kitteh snuggles

Tuesday of Lent 4

Continuing from Tuesdays of Lent 1, Lent 2, Lent 3....

signed and symbolized

As a de-signer, as a theologian, word (source, immanence), sign, and symbol are my currency, yet I also try to convince myself the symbolism of a lot of this matters not. I also realize we human creatures typically are able to admit, deal with, and work through losses and disappointment when they get something reasonably to take the place of whatever they've lost. It's still Saturday, but I know Sunday's coming!

current location; future location

The city where I've been living generally is rated the seventh largest in the USA, but every single person I've discussed it with agrees it's small town, border town, military town. That truly is consensus, so moving north to Los Angeles sounds like a plan. A very good plan.

Lent 4: Laetare

Rejoice, O Jerusalem, and come together, all you that love her!
Rejoice with joy, you that have been in sorrow, that you may exult and be filled from the breasts of your consolation.
Isaiah 66:10-11

I rejoiced when they said unto me, "we shall go into the house of the Lord!"
Psalm 122:1

springing 5

Today Deb hosts a most welcome signs of spring Friday 5.

1. All spring flowers are faves! But I'll choose crocus, since they tend to be first to pop up into the spring sunshine. I haven't seen any around here yet, so here's one of my crocus portraits.

2. Seriously, I don't have a formal spring cleaning routine, and I recently moved temporarily again, but I'm looking forward to helping housemate / landlady / Pam with some yard work. Pleasure-filled therapy!

3. I'm still working at not being quite so overly conciliatory, and instead occasionally challenging someone or another one on their words or behaviors.

4. I live in southern Alta California, so the experience of spring typically arrives at about the same time as astronomical spring (20, 21, 22 March). Today the sun shines brightly, with ambient temp of 66F / 19C. However, with the chill in the air, today I'm wearing a light coloured, fairly heavy sweater, and I never ever put away all the sweaters, only the darker, heavier ones. Mittens and gloves? Those stay out until the end of our May Grey! This is a coastal desert, so nights are cool all year round.

5. Why not Song of Solomon 2, for a scripture verse or set of verses from Scripture that speaks “new growth” to me?

For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
The fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.

Song of Solomon 2:11-13

Tuesday of Lent 3

Remember! "...a free future must begin with the right to talk freely about the past." George F. Will

On Tuesday of Lent 1 I started some actual story-telling; here's another installment. This autobiographical information would be a better fit on my old testimony blog, but I haven't been posting on it or listing it anywhere, so here it is on my more formal theology blog. And why not? I'm talkin' about the person who writes here, does design there, a little art elsewhere, some keyboards in another location. Or two. Or three.

Recently I read this article... happily I've always had a roof over my head, and haven't been literally homeless.

Although I'm wise enough not to trust my memories of anything, during that year I got recalled (=fired) and into the following years, I don’t remember anyone expressing concern for my unemployment, or trying to find me a job, or contacting me to see if I needed some help or counseling (yeah, I did). Literally no one who had known me was in my life to ask what I wanted to do, what I thought my next step needed to be. I started drifting. The Greenville Online article offered wisdom: "Be prepared to 'be,' rather than 'do.' We ask potential volunteers to attend worship, eat with us, hang out in the art room, attend a Playback Café where the homeless tell their stories. Then they can decide what they might do." I realize people know only what they observe, and most likely (if they think at all) people imagine I have zero ambition... I'm still every bit as ambitious and full of dreams as ever.

During the Winter Olympics they kept showing a Liberty Mutual commercial about setbacks, comebacks. I fully believed I'd finally make a comeback and that again people would be in my life to celebrate with me.

What would I counsel myself? To remember how very inner city Our Saviour's Boston and Our Savior's North Park both dropped out of the sky. Los Angeles sounds like a great plan, if I can get some response and probably visit there, too.

lent 3: oculi

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My eyes are always on the Lord,
for he rescues my feet from the snare.
Turn to me and have mercy upon me,
for I am alone and poor.

To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
O my God, I trust in you, let me know be ashamed.
Psalm 25: 15, 16, 1, 2