Gratitude 2

stamina for the Belsnickel craft show--- well my back gave out yesterday and now aches where it never ached before, but I survived the 15 hours yesterday and the 12 hours today.

success--- We have heard if you make 6-7 times what you pay for the booth, then it is a good show. We did 9.6 X. Yesterday was good. Today was great. 22 of our pieces have new homes.

Diner food after a 15 hour day---



add to that, a huge piece of banana cream pie.

Friends--- nine of those invited showed up, including two who live in my neighborhood.

Bribes--- "I will give you pie, chocolate, and beer..." was the phone message waiting when we got home from the fifteen hour day. message to SK--- We got your stuff, and your marriage is safe for this one sold...



sleep--- last night I slept straight through, 8 hours.

Our neighbor at the craft show --- Kristen Von Hohen and her mom were upbeat and joyful. The ceramics and their smiles made a long time easier to take. And they graciously sold me a vase filled with hope.. "I will fill it with flowers next year," I told Mosaic Woman...

Gratitude 1

There is so much to be grateful for...

There is a young man whom I love. Like myself he has had his ups and downs and I have been worried about him from time to time. Not so long ago he was expelled from an institution as I was about his age. Today we gathered in a historic hotel, family. We feasted for two hours and chatted around one of the best tables they had to offer. We had a grand view. Then when we said good bye, he turned professional, for he was "manager on duty" for the next eight hours.

He did not take the usual route, but who does? He opted out of college. Coming home after the last venture turned sour, he started as a doorman and the promotions have come fast and furious. He will have more ups and downs.

My greatest thanks for the day was that he was happy and doing well.


...

tugged by Christ, some responses

While taking a break from preparing for the Belsnickel craft show, I read a short story while my oil was being changed...

Near the end, a woman decides to help a person who was asking for food in order to feed his dog. She turns and sees a man with an empty tin cup...

He had seen. And I was giving him---- nothing.

How far do you take a thing like this? I think you take it all the way to heart. We give what we can----- that's as far as the heart can go.

from ..Nashville Gone To Ashes by Amy Hempel.

This past Sunday I heard the great Judgment classic sermon on Christ is King.

Over at Quantum Theology, my friend Michelle wrote about trying to see Christ in the poverty poverty one experiences while walking the streets of Philadelphia.

How to respond? I will steal the above... The key is to take it to the heart. The response will arise and we may all respond differently.

donate, volunteer, write, work, play, love, struggle, bring joy, or...

what you can do is respond with music and lyrics...

A plane carrying "deportees" crashes and Woody Guthrie's heart responded, "Is this the best way we can..."

Years later his son Arlo Guthrie and EmmyLou Harris make a video of the song...

Arlo Guthrie and Emmylou Harrris - Deportees

[via FoxyTunes / Nanci Griffith]

tugged

My buddy Jim at Brainwaves speaks about a spirit filled life, centered on being tugged... "Did you do your best to follow His tug on your reins, to commune with him at the well," he wrote at the end of a recent post. I think Saint Ignatius would have agreed.

So here I am one day away from my first day off from teaching since Labor Day, and I will be filling two days getting ready (with a break to feast with family), two days attending, and a Sunday resting... a craft show.

I have been tugged my whole life to draw designs. Glass is relatively new, but I may have made a discernment that it is where I am being tugged.

I have a friend named Bud Hohlfeld, who is a wood worker. A talented one at that. He used to be tugged by glass. He has a lot of stained glass. He has given us a lot of what he calls scraps. I went to his house to check out his glass and he said he wanted to sell all the big pieces. He told me a price. I am being tugged.

For now I am still working on washing the "scraps" he gave us and the old dishwasher as dish rack trick is working out nicely...



When I got to Bud's house, I tried to take a look at his glass pieces, but the sun was setting. One was a large rose. The next "original design" I drew reminded me of it, and I used seven types of Bud's glass in it. Bud's own rose had a greater likeness of a rose but the center reminded me of a Rennie MacIntosh rose. My center does that too but I spiral out differently than Bud did. Here is what I have called Bud's Rose... one up close shows the colors, the other shows a cool sky... well what sky isn't cool????

Of pugs and friends-- at spirit group, work, and flickr

I was the last to arrive for group spiritual direction on Friday night, two trains... one to Philly, one from Philly kept me by a red light for 6 minutes. They are ready to enter into silence when I get there, and so am I.

The rule is this, if the spirit moves, then speak up to 7 minutes... silence... then others can try to guide you closer to God... silence... the spirit moves another to speak our story and the cycle goes on till we have all spoken.

I have a friend, who I know from inside these groups. She may have never gone first before this past Friday. She is a lover of pugs.

In October she spoke of ...

a degenerative disease draining the life force from Molly, the pug.
a cart that brings joy to Molly whose hind legs are no longer supportive.
a woman who fell in love with Molly while watching her for my friend who was out of town.

She breaks the silence. She says, "Molly has died." I listen to her story.

My mind wonders back 5 hours as she speaks. A friend at school was wondering a bit about whether or not it is right to donate money to an organization that provides carts to dogs in need when humans are starving.

I say, "I have this friend... the cart brings joy to the dog who is OK except for those hind legs... my friend is struggling with knowing the right time to bring peace to Molly...

I listen in silence and I hear the struggle leading up to Molly's last trip to a vet...

Calling the woman, who fell in love with Molly, to be part of Molly's passing.
Calling her son to come say goodbye to the first dog he ever had.
Molly's sadness of being unable to be joyful.

When she falls silent. I let the others speak first before I tell her that just that day, my school had made a donation...

Saturday morning, this post is forming in my head. But instead of blogging I go to say hi to some Flickr friends and there I was greeted by ...



All rights reserved

it seems my friend Blamstur has a pug... meet Olive, who if one can believe titles is "Always thinking..."

How did I find this new friend, who has a pug? I remember. A while back, I did a search at Flickr for a small town where I lived while teaching in Massachusetts. Here is what I found...

All rights reserved

There are some things that even I can't forget. Besides that sign I remember autumn in New England and I joyfully watched it happen at Blamstur's site...


All rights reserved (clicking on any of the photos will take you to it's page at Blamstur's site)

My friend who lost her dear pet, speaks of not being able to love as deeply as Molly did. If she heard her voice Friday while I sat in silence, she might have less doubts about her ability to love.

peace, hope, joy, and love...


... keep unfolding

Matthew 25: 1-13

This parable always baffled me.

I think it was in trying to make sense of it as I considered some other parables. What do you mean the door is closed? Since when is the door closed. The lost coin? The prodigal son? The workers who show up at the end of the day? The door to the Kingdom was not shut for them, but you better not be a foolish virgin who didn't buy enough oil. Your outside. You are chastised.

Like I said it baffled me.

A recent sermon at my church pointed out that this was an end of time parable. Now the scientist in me wants to challenge God right here and now to end time. Seems like quite a feat. But even my foolish self thinks that challenging God to stop time could backfire, so for now if time stops, it is not because I put some money against God.

So I start thinking, if time ends and we are... not aware, or in the dark, or separated from the love of God, or lost in our own internal wilderness, or heading back for some oil so that we can find our way to God... The door swings shut.

We can knock but there is no getting in? It makes more sense, but I am baffled.

So let me go to my favorite metaphor... God's creation unfolds with time.

Tonight in my spirit group a friend spoke of meeting a person, who she is so happy to be making friends with. It unfolds. My friend was awake and got the prize, a new friend. What if I had not seen Mosaic Woman? Time would have kept moving. But I would have missed an amazing unfolding of God's creation.

If time stops. If creation stops unfolding. Two days ago I told my students to imagine a world without color, just shades of gray. I counted to 20 as they pondered this life without color. Then I said imagine your favorite food... gray. That was scary. This happens to people. As creation unfolds their color vision goes away.

I am still baffled.

For now, I will be glad to wake to an unfolding creation, and hope I have some oil for the journey.


UPDATE: THE NEXT MORNING.... time moves on and as I searched through photos to add to flickr I found this one from our trip to Rochester in June ...

irreconcilable differences

Mosaic Woman and I have some.

She loves pickles and I can listen to the same piece of music over and over and over. So tonight having our studio space to myself, I went to the song I had left off at, and hit repeat. It played over and over as I cut and ground glass. And it was so so much of what I needed to hear.

There are times at work when we sit as a team to solve problems and we admit that we are failing. It is hard on this man of hope. I want to see the healing that is possible. But sometimes it is not yet the time and place for it to happen.

I recently heard that by your mid 40's you are at your peak in your climb up the career ladder. That is no surprise as I have no gumption to become a principal, but is my energy unlimited to do what I now do?

I sat on a table in my classroom as the parking lot cleared out. Wondering. Maybe it is all those, "old man" comments from my loving but mocking students. Oh, why do they take after me.

Then I came home and told the woman, who I differ from, that I wanted a coffee date before she headed out to a meeting. I walked home alone as she drove off. I hit "repeat."

I so want you to hear this, but I admit defeat. I even remembered the Joan Baez cover, but failed there too.

Here are the lyrics...

You're Aging Well
Dar Williams (© 1993 Burning Field Music, ASCAP, Administered by Bug)
Why is it that as we grow older and stronger
The road signs point us adrift and make us afraid
Saying, "You never can win," "Watch your back," "Where's your husband?"
Oh I don't like the signs that the signmakers made.
So I'm going to steal out with my paint and my brushes
I'll change the directions, I'll hit every street
It's the Tinseltown scandal, the Robin Hood vandal
She goes out and steals the King's English
And in the morning you wake up and the signs point to you
They say,
"I'm so glad that you finally made it here,"
"You thought nobody cared, but I did, I could tell,"
And "This is your year," and "It always starts here,"
And oh, "You're aging well."
Well I know a woman with a collections of sticks
She could fight back the hundreds of voices she heard
And she could poke at the greed, she could fend off her need
And with anger she found she could pound every word.
But one voice got through, caught her up by surprise
It said, "Don't hold us back we're the story you tell,"
And no sooner than spoken, a spell had been broken
And the voices before her were trumpets and tympani
Violins, basses and woodwinds and cellos, singing
"We're so glad that you finally made it here
You thought nobody cared, but we did, we could tell
And now you'll dance through your days while the orchestra plays
And oh, you're aging well."
Now when I was fifteen, oh I knew it was over
The road to enchantment was not mine to take
'Cause lower calf, upper arm should be half what they are
I was breaking the laws that the signmakers made
And all I could eat was the poisonous apple
And that's not a story I was meant to survive
I was all out of choices, but the woman of voices
She turned round the corner with music around her,
She gave me the language that keeps me alive, she said
"I'm so glad that you finally made it here
With the things you know now, that only time could tell
Looking back, seeing far, landing right where we are
And oh, you're aging, oh, and I am aging, oh, aren't we aging well?

I placed the last of the cut and cleaned pieces of glass on the pattern and sat on the stairs to listen one more time. I turned my head and there hanging in my studio... A gift from the woman, who I have so much in common with...

taking on Der Belsnickel

I've been at this blogging stuff for over a year and I have failed to mention that I am a Pennsylvania German. My one grandfather spoke the Dutch to his best friend. Anyway...

My people are given credit for this character, Belsnickel... St Nicholas in furs is what it means and unlike the more modern Santa, this guy showed up earlier, just before bedtime. Treats in one hand, a switch in the other. This guy is said to be a precursor to that naughty or nice stuff. I read that he did give the bad boys and girls a chance at redemption, recite a poem or sing a song and you may not get the switch. Anway...

The 2008 Der Belsnickel Craft Show is happening soon, November 28-29, 2008. Yes, I finally get some time off from teaching (first day off since we started in September) and we will exhaust ourselves. The hours are 11AM to 7 PM on Friday and 10 AM till 4 PM on Saturday.

It is a fundraiser for the Boyertown Area Historical Society, which in our minds is a way cool thing to support. It also gives folk to buy some handmade presents for those who have at least attempted to be nice.





and we still have our ETSY shop ... Nutmeg Designs, for those of you who are not fortunate enough to live in the land of Der Belsnickel.

...

I'll be seeing you... a sentimental post

The two e-mails that greeted me at work were not unexpected, pancreatic cancer will finally take the last breath of those we care for, and services follow...

My friend lasted three times as long as he was given, but in the end he was placed in a comfortable chair and as his family read psalms and encouraged him to let go... he took that last breath. I am in awe of this journey, this end.

Without Ipod to provide jazz, I grab the one CD that is in the car. Finally the last track arrives and the music reaches into my heart... Regina Carter, thank you.

I'll be seeing you, my friend, as I stand by the red and the yellow day lilies you loved so much. The ones I divided to thin out of your wife's garden soon after I heard the news. I transported them from your garden to the school and then students, who cared, placed them into the ground. I will let everyone know to stop by next summer when they bloom. I will remember you.

Last night I read about flowers at graves. The author wondered why.

I say this... they remind us of the beauty in those who have left us.


...

Flickr Sundays-- elize.avery

Here is how she describes herself in her profile... "Grew up in Asia, live in the US rustbelt (where we get an average of only 55 sunny days per year) . I'm an artist, writer, mom, mosaic maker, and great fan of anything silly."

It isn't always silly at her site, but when she is focusing on vintage LP's and magazine ads... I often call mosaic woman over for a laugh.

her stained glass mosaics (which I hope to see more of)... she makes mosaics on clear glass so that the light can sign through... very cool. click on any of them to see her title, her comments, and the comments of those who love visiting her. if you need beauty click the top one, need a laugh go to the bottom.






childrens book illustrations:





and old advertisements: here a recent one from a 1930's Redbook.

Faith of a Child

The field trip ended as the last parent drove off with their child. Since then I have been of two minds of taking students on field trips. I took these minds to my students, my wife, my friends, then last night I took them to God.

It had been a long time since I sat at the end of a day and settled into a space with God, "Here I am..." I took my fears, my desires.

This morning I had breakfast with the man who guided me through the spiritual exercises of Ignatius. I brought up my two minds.

I see these two minds finding some common ground. I see some peace descending.

Mosaic Woman headed out and I went into my studio to finish copper foiling my latest design. The songs of Native American, Bill Miller played. One by one I wanted to share his words and music with the world. This one, Faith of a Child, took me back to the field trip (among other times and places).

As we headed down the gorge trail, (well, once we got back to it after taking an interesting smaller trail which I guided the masses down) the river was far below us to our left. Great outcroppings of red sandstone (formed when Pennsylvania was just below the equator) were to our right. At one place it was eroded away and caught our interest. Off the trail we went and the students got to stand under a red sandstone ceiling (a mini-cave?). We climbed a bit higher.

Going up (even a short distance) is usually easier than coming down and some students needed some help, but I taught how to use the land and trees and ledges... whatever it took to fight gravity. I went first, grabbing a tree, moved a bit, and waited for a student to make the same move.

That day was filled with a billion emotions, at that moment, I felt confident in my ability.


...

if you truly knew me...

... you would know I hate field trips.

and there I was that first week of September promising field trips to my geology class. With fall fading to winter, time was running out, so with the help from another teacher, a trip was organized.

I won't go into the many reasons why this field trip could or should have never taken place, but that promise and this desire made it happen:

I so wanted my students to dance on boulders and to peer into gorges.

and they did.

you have always been soothed by music...

... that's what my mom said, or something like it, a few years ago.

An hour in Gilead is exhausting for this stoic guy. An hour has passed and I repeat what I had said 20 minutes earlier, when I had imagined my six year old self driving home in deep silence...

Why am I doing this?

My dad says... We don't want you to get another infection.

I waited 39 years to hear those words. Finally in my imagination they arrive. Finally I break the silence.

To my same question, my guide to healing says... You desire wholeness.

A fascinating look inside the Obama campaign gets me half way home... Not quite do anything to win, but the man is a politician and that said they have one goal--- win. However, when he was being attacked for saying he would talk to our enemies, his aides began writing a memo to back him away from his comment. He told them to stop and charged them to take a higher road... convince people it is the right thing to do.

Talk to our enemies... Talk to our demons.

I stop at a WAWA and resist the junk food. I am biting into a banana as I run into a co-worker outside the store. A quick hello and I am back in the car in search of soothing, enough news.

It comes randomly through my iPod. A tune from the only CD which I have ever bought, which I had owned in another format.The vinyl version goes back to a music exploration class in college 23 years ago: Blues on Bach by The Modern Jazz Quartet.

It took me a long time to find a place where you can hear it, and so I invite you to listen to some jazz inspired by Bach.

I was so ready to stop before the hour ended ... but the guide takes me deeper and deeper, then as she did twice before, I am invited to bring Jesus into it.

week 1. Jesus rips at the "bubble of pressure."

week 2. Jesus lifts the burden of being overwhelmed and while offering no reassurances except that he will walk with me... and something about a yoke.

week 3 Jesus takes my hand and my dad's hand and we form a triangle. He says ... Peace Be With You.

all that Jesuit training in imaginative prayer has led to this place.

...

shower curtain art, mosaic and mandala

It goes like this...

You get a phone call from your friend who lives down the street.

You tell your wife the woman from Texas is on her way.

She arrives with two things in hand--- her most highly favored shower curtain, and her medicine cabinet door.

She tells mosaic woman to match the colors.

You cut strips of glass that match the colors. You make a pile of the glass in case more strips are needed.

The mosaic....






You draw a mandala and need to pick colors. You see the pile of glass you had made. You could put it away, or you can use it as inspiration. The shower curtain Mandala comes to life...




side notes...

to see our ETSY shop click here.

another glorious trip to Willow Creek Orchards... they still have peppers and tomatoes from PA! we also got Chinese cabbage, radishes, cheddar cheese, milk from pasture fed cows, maple cream, sweet onions, potatoes....

I am going to make bread tomorrow. I've been itching. Mosaic Woman has been craving.

I am going to see The Turtle Island String Quartet tonight play some standards favored and written by John Coltrane. Here is story on NPR about the Love Supreme with links to their music.

Searching for a cassette by The Cure, I found another memory from 1986: a sweet voice that led me down the road of folk music...

The album ends with a song that is sad yet hopeful...

Nanci Griffith: The Wing and The Wheel

The wing and the wheel... they carry things away
Whether it's me that does the leavin' or the love that flies away
The moon outside my window looks so lonely tonight
Oh, there's a chunk out of it's middle... big enough for an old fool to hide

Where are all the dreamers... that I used know?
We used to linger beneath street lamps in the halos and the smoke
The wing and the wheel... came to carry them away
Now they all live out in the suburbs where their dreams
Are in their children at play

There's a pale sky in the east... all the stars are in the west
Oh, here's to all the dreamers... may our open hearts find rest
The wing and the wheel are gonna carry us along
And we'll have memories for company... long after the songs are gone

no longer...

Mosaic Woman and I just watched a music video from the 1980's. We laughed. We remembered. We were scared.

I play lots of jazz in my classroom, you know anything to rile up the masses.

One angry young man used to say..."Why don't you play rock music?"

My answer.... "I am no longer an angry young man."

So what took us to a place of wanting to watch a video by the Cure. It was a rather cool movie called Starter for Ten, which was set in 1986 and the lead was a freshman at university. The soundtrack was a flashback. I graduated from college, toured the Catskills on my bike and ended the year cutting my hair to teach at a military academy. I owned jeans with many holes. Mosaic Woman was beginning her college days in her purple high tops and a pin of a snake with a nuclear missile in its mouth. I think you could say we were angry about a few things and we listened to rock music.

so here is the video: The Cure: A NIGHT LIKE THIS .... not one of the several The Cure songs featured in the movie, but was on an album I owned/own.

where were you in 1986?


By the way... I am still angry at times, I just like jazz these days. However, I see myself digging into my musical past as I spend time in my studio this weekend...

The shower curtain mandala was soldered last night, now I just need some sunlight and my camera.

two minds, where I often am these days

Intelligent Design is a phrase that can explode my mind, but I have two, so the other says, "bring on the mystery."

There are those that look at life on this planet and say that it could only be this way if there was an Intelligent Designer behind it. This phrase is somehow supposed to be scientific. Yet, they mean God.

There are those who say it is all rational and can be explained by science. They then claim that that is proof that God does not exist.

I disagree with both. You cannot prove an existence out of confusion (and it is not science) and you cannot disclaim something out of certainty of something else.

Recently when a student raised his hand and asked if we were going to talk about how life started, I said, "No." Then we talked about it. Briefly.

I told him it will always be a mystery. It goes against thermodynamics to go from simple to complex, to go from dead to alive. Energy had to be involved.

It mystifies me. I like that there are mysteries. It does not prove God exists. But it opens up a place to believe. To imagine that spirit blowing across the waters...

I did not say that last part. I did say, "The more certain someone is about how life started, the more you might want to doubt them." You can't prove anything by certainty either.

I am glad that I am writing about the joy of being uncertain, because it shows I am feeling less overwhelmed and more comfortable with the mystery.

back to grades.... 1/4 of the year has passed by.

tired, but who could guess why

1. maybe it is falling behind watching the World Series
2. maybe it is trying to keep up at work, simply impossible even if you don't do number 1
3. maybe it is pending election
4. maybe it is what happened while telling my story last Tuesday night, maybe it is avoiding and not avoiding what happened
5. maybe it is preparing for a pending craft show
6. maybe it is making strudel all day
7. maybe it is the short days and dying plants
8. maybe it is the off gassing of the wall panels I took out of boxes
9. maybe it is a list of things I could do around this house

but I am feeling overwhelmed, behind everywhere, no chance of ever catching up.

it happens from time to time, doesn't it.

creation unfolds at a rate that I can't keep up.

but do you know they located ...

Genes For Musical Aptitude In Finnish Families

10....... maybe it is wading through more information than I could teach in 1000 lifetimes.

I have ridden these waves before and I have hope to ride this one to where it takes me...

tomorrow.

If I go to sleep I trust God will create a new day, then I move on and do what I can along that cresting wave.

OK, I needed to rant. if you stuck it out, thanks. The shower curtain mandala is all foiled and will be completed Wednesday night. That's the plan... Look for photos and a story after that

to CS and SK... we dealt with the Trinity again tonight so although you were missed, we did not move on. I am filled with hope. Thanks for your hard work

Flickr Sundays-- Atelier Teee's Riverwalk Fountain

Riverwalk Fountain
Originally uploaded by Atelier Teee

Flickr Sundays, a new habit. Sunday mornings before church I have dedicated to my Flickr site. I thank and comment back to folk who have visited my photos, I post new photos, and I visit my friend's new photos where I leave a comment on a photo that speaks to me. I am all about the communication

I want to show of some off these wonderful folk to my blogger friends, so lets start with Atelier Teee. Have you been to Chicago. This man is documenting the city and I think he should be on their pay roll. He has a great eye for architecture. Check him out. The Photo is called Riverwalk Fountain, click it to see it at his site. I commented on this one two months ago.

Mosaic Woman and I lived down state Illinois for two years, but did get a five day weekend in the big city before we headed east. I was introduced to Jerk Chicken at Taste of Chicago. Timing is everything. Maybe I should dig out some of my Chicago photographs and post them, I know one person who would get a kick out of them, just like he knows I will be drawn to his captures of stained glass.

strudelfest 2008

I need Advil. I have a fridge full of strudel. My mom asks if I remember seeing the Phillies win the world series. I say how could I forget and laugh at myself for saying such a thing. My dad and I try to remember some details of that night.

I started at 11:00 am. By 7:30 it was cleaned up. My mom is an amazing cleaner.

I put a bit too much salt in the new strudel... potato leek. If I was a manager for a losing team I would say I have no regrets. I do. It smelled so incredible in the oven. Couldn't the manager be sad for losing and joyful for an incredible season? Are they not allowed more than one emotion at a time? How many did I have today?

I dug into my box of memories and found tickets and a world series program from 1980. My dad remembers the night we sat in a fancy box at a Flyers game. I remember a Monday Night game in which the Eagles got trounced.

My mom even watched the world series this year. To 2:00 am.

I prayed before I started. Thanks Michelle.

All the doughs (7 batches were stretched) were good to great. You can tell as soon as you pick one up to stretch it. Bad ones take forever, well it seems like forever. The joy and relief of feeling a good dough.

The last time my grandmother made me strudel, was the day she taught me how to make it. Soon after a stroke put her in no shape to bake anything let alone strudel. Before I sat down to write this I was in my studio thinking of that day. I dug though old photo albums. There were my grandma's hands stretching dough. How blessed am I?

My sister did not feel well and did not come down. She was missed.

I just feel so groggy. Now that I am filled up on carbs, it is time to hibernate.

How many emotions? good thing I am stoic or I would feel something.

well, I do feel something.... off for some Advil.