no ukes

i read marko's post about the newest dangerous trend amongst teenagers with great interest and actual fear. i have heard of the new craze of teens 'choking' themselves to get high, not the way they used to do it, just choking. or the 'death by dust-off' information that keeps finding my inbox of every concerned aunt that knows we work with teens. i have a friend who is the principal of the local middle school and i would regularly talk with her about these kind of things that the area community youth could be struggling with.

i was prepared for the worst. marko really builds it up, my gut clutches as i read on:

you may not want to read further. it could become painful. those with medical issues or weak stomachs are encouraged to stop here and begin praying for the rest of us, who, because of our calling to love teenagers, are compelled to find a way into and through this latest beelzebubbian lure.

i can hardly type it. i did not even know about it myself until this past weekend, when i spoke to a group of so-called “leaders” — high school perverts who embraced this new vileness.

but i must make you aware. because my calling is to equip youth workers, i am compelled, though i hesitate even now…

it — the evil thing — is…

the casual use of the ukulele — four-stringed baby-guitars of death.

aaaaahhhhh - you got me - i had a good laugh, called liam over after a bit and with all seriousness said 'you've got to read this...' he got caught too - and then spent some time designing this for marko. he has started to put some of his work together at cafe press - you can find his store here.

note about the store: we started this on a lark, the prices/profit are a joke and the free store limits you to one of each of the shirts - if you do see a shirt style that you'd rather have, email me and we can switch it around.

18 years!

this was the most bizzarre image i could come up with to honor our anniversary this year. it made me laugh. i can't tell if it's a candle or just a tacky knick knack - either way i knew it would make liam smile.

we both turn 40 this year, it feels like we're entering the 'next stage' or as stephanie wrote this yesterday it really sang to me:

"So when I read the following quote by Carl Jung "Stages of Life", it grabbed my attention:Wholly unprepared, they embark upon the second half of life. Or are there perhaps colleges for forty-year-olds which prepare them for their coming life and its demands as the ordinary colleges introduce our young people to a knowledge of the world and of life? No, there are none. Thoroughly unprepared we take the step into the afternoon of life; worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and ideas will serve as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the programme of life's morning - for what was great in the morning will be little at evening, and what in the morning was true will at evening have become a lie." pg 9 When the Heart Waits - Sue Monk Kidd"

we are heading into our 'afternoon', our autumn-time - and we are doing it together. i couldn't be more excited and full of anticipation to see what god has for this next stage. i truly am so thrilled to be walking this path with you liam - i can't wait for the next 18! happy anniversary!

too good to be hidden in my comments

If only the black and white thinkers of this world could be swept up in a tesserat and experience some life shaking alternative reality.

Connie Knighton

oh connie - i love you! this made me laugh out loud at 5:30 this morning!

and this needs to be read by more people than just me. she left this in another comment:

What is this feeling like death,
companion to birth,
this emptying,
this flux of blood.
Anxiety?
Excitement?
Expectation?
Fear?
Regret?
This pulse.
This knowing.
Life may yet be snatched from the grave of misunderstandings,
compromise,
willful ignorance,
abandonment,
betrayal.
I die to the past.
I am born into the future.
In between, I hold my breath
and wait for the miracle.

Connie Knighton

this one gave me shivvers, it's so beautiful, thank you! you are a sage indeed!

how many banned books have you read?

will has asked how many banned books have you read?

here's the link to the ALA's 100 most frequently banned books. here's my list:

1. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
2. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
3. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
4. Forever by Judy Blume
5. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
7. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
8. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
9. Blubber by Judy Blume
10. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
11. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
12. Beloved by Toni Morrison
13. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
14. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
15. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
16. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
17. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
18. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
19. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
20. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
21. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
22. Carrie by Stephen King
23. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
24. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
25. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
26. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell

only 74 more to go! (just kidding!) i can't believe the ignorance of fear that makes things like this important. so very sad. i believe that children shouldn't have access to madonna's 'sex' book - there are ways to avoid that kind of thing. but banning 'a wrinkle in time'? just plain ignorance.

red

wilsonian noticed my new 'image' picture i picked out yesterday. i usually do a search on 'red hair' to try to find an image that personifies some part of 'me'. the one i was using was getting old, and they kept moving the url (probably to keep people like me from linking to it...).

yesterday i just did a google image search on 'red' and this was one of the images that came up. i had such a visceral reaction to it that i knew it was the image for 'me' right now. i just feel squeezed, drained and 1/2 empty. please don't fret, i'm not going to injure myself. it just is the emotional equivalent of how this process has left me.

yesterday it poured here - just tons and tons of rain. it was very purifying, it felt like it washed away this long, hot, miserable summer. it feels good to be on the other side of it all. i'm sure you're all so sick and tired of my miserable ramblings, i know i am. i really appreciate your patience. there is a newer blog (to me at least) called 'cheaper than therapy' - that's how this has been for me lately, therapeutic. that's why i haven't claimed this with my real name yet. there is still some junk i need to purge, and it's more likely that i will do so 'anonymously'.

so, for today, i'm a bit 'red', squeeze out and splattered around. but i know that we are on the downside of this mountain, and the sun is in sight. thanks for journeying with me.

yipee, i've been meme-ed!

renee has tagged me for a new meme floating through the blogosphere. it cheered me up immensely as i needed to think about something other than 'here'.

5 things I plan to do before I die:

1. get off this continent and see the world.
2. write books and get them published.
3. plant a community.
4. paint on canvases.
5. become a storyteller.

5 things I can do:

1. speak the truth in love.
2. talk and teach in front of lots of people.
3. own my own junk.
4. spend time alone.
5. explain things so that others can understand them.

5 things I cannot do:

1. keep my mouth shut...
2. tolerate cruelty.
3. fake anything.
4. remember things that fall off my radar without a list or a reminder.
5. absorb information that is not organized well.

5 Things that attract me to the opposite sex:

1. liam's eyes
2. liam's legs (solomon like towers of ivory... sorry, too much information??)
3. liam's laugh and sense of humor
4. liam's giant hands that make my man hands look feminine
5. liam's lips

5 things I say most often:

1. hey babe (what i call him)
2. crap for crap (strongbad...)
3. @#()$ insert swear word here...
4. i am so tired.
5. okay, break's over (cyberschool...)

5 celebrity crushes (characters more than people):

1. charlie brown
2. napoleon dynamite
3. shrek (part 1)
4. colin firth (ala pride and predjudice & bridget jones' diary)
5. ewan mcgregor (ala moulin rouge)

5 people I want to do this next (i'm picking people who i don't know very well) :

1. cheryl
2. elizabeth
3. friar tuck
4. layla
5. wilsonian

i'm more evil than susan!!

thanks susan

you gotta find another Bible Study

tj left this comment on my post yesterday and she is so right. just so you understand a bit about me i need to tell you why i stayed.

i have stopped everything else - it's not at the church and i thought i could handle it, these were the women who sang to me and planned our going away night. i stayed because it was the closest thing to community that i had, and i knew that if i had nothing i would start to isolate myself (that is already happening). this is a big problem for me, it has been all my adult life. it was a problem for my mother and her mother before her.

i truly could be the kind of person who only leaves home to be anonymous. it is because of shame. i know i haven't done anything wrong here - we can hold our head's high in our community - but i just despise running into anyone at the grocery store or in town. too many things to explain - most of which are none of their business. if they really cared they would have called - this seems/feels like mining for information to tell their friends.

the other reason i choose to stay was because they choose to study the beatitudes. i felt like i could really have some input here that wouldn't be the standard, christian 'jesus answers'. i really wanted to challenge that thought, verbalize truth and fight the rich, suburban mindset that fills those women's lives. this study is rocking their world. the truth is making them very uncomfortable. helping them unpack these words of jesus in a way that transforms what they think being a christian is all about. it's very satisfying in some ways - to allow jesus' own words to convict them. to make them think about poverty and loss of power - to understand that 'poor in spirit' doesn't just mean 'oh i feel so blue today'.

so that is why i have stayed - sanity and kingdom life. if either of those two are compromised i'm done. and if i can find anything else to fill that requirement i will step away. these are really the only people (with skin on) that have made any effort to remind me that i meant more to them than my husband's job.

speaking of that, tonight is the business meeting - we have fantasized about showing up - i think we're still members - unless some bylaw states otherwise - but secretly, well not so secretly i want some parents to get up and give them hell. to hold somebody accountable. i know it's not really going to happen - they silence every critic and shame every courageous one - and call it unity - but i just want someone to make them uncomfortable and hold them accountable.

it's like somehow on the calendars in our brain that this was the last date that tied us to the church - getting past today will be a milestone of sorts. yesterday was hard, i shut down. i haven't been sleeping well and it caused stupid things to be important and i found myself scratching at liam when i wanted to be scratching at 'them'... we talked it out, but it was another affect of their stupid power to hurt us still.

off to our new church this a.m. - it's a god send. i'll tell you more about that later. have a good day!

it comes in waves

we are on the crest of another wave of pain hitting right now. both liam and i are just reeling today. it's unbelievable how people have the power to hurt you still even when you're never around them. i know it will receed and we'll be farther along the healing path, but for right now it just hurts.

i was at my bible study and one of the women asked for prayer as she is doing an art piece to celebrate the worship pastor's 5 years of service. the children's pastor caught my eye across the room, acknowledging that she knew it was liam's turn to have been honored in this way (the only real honoring the church ever does - and my girlfriend's art is so beautiful and personal - she truly pours her heart and soul into it). i started to cry, fighting back the tears, biting the inside of my cheek to refrain for feeling such deep emotion in public.

the tears come again, knowing that liam should be preparing to be honored this weekend too, but instead he's reeling and wounded. dwelling in the present means honoring this new wave, but it's so hard not to let the sadness and grief mask itself with anger and resentment, those emotions are there too, but it's harder to just allow ourselves to feel sad.

liam is spending some time away today alone, journalling and working through his 'artists way at work'. the portion he's working through right now is about anger and i know he's been avoiding it, it's been deep and buried. when we met (20 years ago...) he was punching walls and a punk rock slam dancer. when we got serious that anger seemed to go away. there have truly only been less than a dozen times i have seen liam really, really angry since.

i think he's afraid that the level of pain he's feeling will bring that deep level of anger that he used to struggle with after his parent's divorce.

what is taking place deep in our souls, deep in those hard to reach spaces is a level of acknowledgement and ownership - it is healthy and good, but it is also very painful and elemental in a sense. we are finding that hidden wholeness that parker palmer speaks of. it's just been quite a process, and i know it's not over yet.

laughed until i couldn't breathe

you know when you watch something edgy and funny you're afraid to recommend it to anyone because you don't know if they'll be offended? well, this is like that, but i'm going to risk it because i truly haven't laughed that hard, or seen liam laugh that hard in such a very long time.

this is another reason to join netflix, i'm sure you'd never find this in the video store - 'billy connley: live: greatest hits'. okay, he is a master of the f-shot, so this is not for the weak at heart, and some of his glasgow stories are for the home town crowd, but when he get's on a roll i literally could not breathe. again - do not show this to children, it's not filthy like chris rock or profane just for the sake of profanity. it's just his style, but it was just what liam and i needed to lighten up. enjoy!

quote from hannah coulter

Living without expectations is hard but, when you can do it, good. Living without hope is harder, and that is bad. You have got to have hope, and you mustn't shirk it. Love, after all, "hopeth all things." But maybe you must learn, and it is hard learning, not to hope out loud, especially for other people. You must not let your hope turn into expectation.

Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter, pg. 146

peace on earth

will via dwight have reminded me that today is the international day of peace.

"The day," according to Kofi Annan "is meant to be a day of global cease-fire. I call on all countries and all people to stop all hostilities for the entire day. I also urge all people around the world to observe a minute of silence at 12 noon. Let us hold in our hearts the ideal of peace."

i cannot effect world peace, but i can calm my heart, breathe and cease fire with those in my home and community today. setting the alarm for 11:55 to observe that silent time with those around the world (at least in the eastern time zone). may god grant us peace today.

jon bon jovi makes generous choice

Telegraph | Arts | 'I feel I've found my niche': "Instead of producing a video for his forthcoming single, Who Says You Can't Go Home, Bon Jovi is donating the cash that he would have spent to housing charity, Habitat for Humanity.

'That money is going to house four families,' he says. 'I'll be writing a cheque for a good portion of it personally and that's fine. It makes you feel good and you're doing it for the right reasons."

Street Prophets :: Faith and Politics

new blog alert

Street Prophets :: Faith and Politics: "I'm suspicious of manifestos for exactly the reason my friends wanted me to write one. That is, their major use seems to be to say who's in and who's out.

I hate saying who's in and who's out. It doesn't seem like a very Christian thing to do.

So, with all those preliminaries out of the way, here's the manifesto: Street Prophets is a place to talk about faith and politics. That's it. You're welcome to hang around here, on the condition that you're not a jerk or a hater."

raspberries to the new york times

i'm really irritated with the New York Times and their new 'subscription service'. i truly hope it irritates everyone else as much as me and the outcry forces them to open the doors again.

follow the great leadership of salon if you need to generate more revenue - but keeping those of us who faithfully follow the editorials from access is just crummy.

i can't afford it and won't pay it, but will gladly jump through hoops of commercials to have the priveledge to read kristoff and dowd. i can't imagine that the writers are happy about this either. gating off their thoughts behind a wall when open source has become the way of the world.

pppllllllllllllbbbbbbbbbbbbtttttttttttttt NYT!

big week

well, dad's home safe and we had an amazing day at church yesterday. we found a new one in one of the growing suburbs of the major city here and have gone for the past 2 weeks. it meets in the movie theatre and it's 2 years old.

the lead pastor (i don't think he calls himself that) and i have already had a better conversation than i ever had w/ the old sp in the full 5 years we had been at our last church.

yesterday he told, and told is the right word, he didn't preach, he just talked, about his biggest frustration being the questions 'when are we going to build a building?' liam and i sat there and had everything we had been saying for the past 2 years confirmed. our OLD church just went through a 5.4 million $ expansion, they paved paradise to put up their stinking parking lots and are now talking that it's too small and they have to 'grow again'... it sickened us as broader, not deeper growth was their goal. this illusion of the mega church just wearied our souls.

at the new church he spoke of growing people, not building projects, planting new works instead of super-sizing everything. they just celebrated their second anniversary yesterday and are already planting another church on the south side of the city, and have plans to do 3 more in the next 8 years. vibrant, relevant, life-giving churches. it was such a gift to liam and i to know that we aren't crazy.

the best thing about it is that our kids are really enjoying it too. they so needed something to replace all that we have left. this is really good for them too.

so, this week will be filled with things like real talks with my dad about moving, where he'll go if we head to canada, immigration issues and next. i'm tired of big decisions, tired of intense conversations and life changing so very quickly, but i know it's time. we need to get past some of this so we don't fritter away our decisions with indecision.

sunday night is also the OLD church's first business meeting since all of the fall-out. i know it will be on our radar screen all week. getting past the 24th will be a good thing too. i think we secretly want people to raise a big stink and come to our defense... i have to keep praying thy will be done... thy will be done... thy will be done... thy will be done... thy will be done... thy will be done...

have a great day!

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Religion

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Religion: "I'm exploring theology as an art form."

works for me!

You Belong in Rome You're a big city girl with a small town heart Which is why you're attracted to the romance of Rome Strolling down picture perfect streets, cappuccino in hand And gorgeous Italian men - could life get any better? What City Do You Belong in? Take This Quiz :-)

via

liam's lament

My wife got off the phone last night and told me about a friend of ours who's being crushed by our old church. Here's this mom - who's just found out she has a serious medical problem, with a husband who is so over-committed at church they can't get free of their obligations to care for themselves. They are financially strapped because his job doesn't pay him enough to support his family without a strict budget. They are getting by as best they can, dressing their kids in low cost and hand me down clothes, making do, saying no to extras- trying to get just a few more miles out of the car.

I can really sympathize - in fact I wept when I heard the news. I know these people - they are not grand and extravagant - rather sincere and cherish simplicity. The sane among us would say, "Well they need to be doing less for the church - and more for themselves!" and maybe even "How can he let his family live like that?" (Incidentally just a while ago you'd have asked the same questions of me.)

You see my friend WORKS for our old church as the worship pastor. Everyday (and I mean every day not five out of seven) he goes and pours himself out into the lives of this congregation - putting in long hours - both high profile, and wholly unnoticed.. Splitting appointments - trying to help as many people as he can - to do as much as he can - with the required smile.

But the inattentive, the oblivious, the disconnected - the plastic unenthusiastic don't see it. They ignore that most often for the staff, the church is the black hole of need that will just keep draining the staff (or whoever turns up). Since there is no community - nobody knows. The embarrassment keeps them silent and the expectations just linger. If the flock there knew they'd react at once I believe. But since life is not shared - since it is mostly just another division of Jesus Inc. they suffer - a multi-million dollar budget, and staff members that are scraping by to make ends meet. Pray for my friend and the systems both in his head and at his job that hold him frozen. Pray for his wife - she's terrified. Pray that God sends them help - cause I'm not too optimistic about the church coming through for this.

anyone want to make a 7 year old's day?

hey all, my son buck has been nagging me lately to finish something i committed to do. i am ONE offer away from a nintendo game cube for him.

i have received my very own ipod, and got them a nintedo ds already - and i've just got to coerce one more person to complete an offer so he can get his game cube.

you only need to sign up for blockbuster for a month (i'll even paypal you the $$ to do so) or complete one of the other offers on the list. you can cancel most of them before you incur any costs. and they are spam free, but i'll also gladly set you up with a gmail account to sign up with.

it is a great way to get things that we can't really afford any other way. i'll even trade for a referral - i'll do an offer for you on another site if you do one for me!

can you tell i really want to get this 7 year old off my back? :)

here's the link.