car crash and the apocrypha have me thinking about angels and listening to Sarah McLachlan

Needing to do something this coming Monday at church ... when you say you will lead a group of adults into a discussion... you have to do something... I picked up a book about the named and unnamed women in the Bible and found myself heading to Anna's story. Anna was the wife of Tobit. Much of the book is about their son Tobias.

Tobias is sent on a journey by his father. Anna is not happy because it is a dangerous path to travel, but Tobit has asked God to die and desires Tobias to get some wealth he left in another country. Anna does not know an angel of God is traveling with her son. Tobit does not know that the guide is an angel, or that the angel has been sent to heal two people who have made death wishes.

I did not make a death wish last Monday. All I did was move when the light turned green. If I had accelerated a bit faster I would have been missed. A bit slower and I would have felt a greater force. One friend suggested I had an angel with me that day. I always dismiss thoughts like that, for this reason... some one died in a car accident on that day. Where was God's angel? But Tobit gets my head spinning. Surely there were travelers, who set out on dangerous paths on the same day as Tobias. Did they have angels guiding them... not only to return safely, but also to meet the love of their lives.

I have many blessings in this life that continues to unfold in God's creation. Can I imagine an angel guiding me to peace, hope, and joy?

This is not what I was looking for when I went searching for a tune. I used to listen to Sarah McLachlan all the time and the line...

"You are pulled from the wreckage
Of your silent reverie"

resonates...







...

5 thoughts on the color red

1. out of the red... back in November I imagined a number that may pull Nutmeg Designs out of the red. The sales came through. This means three things... money is available to do more shows and buy more glass, our house is not filled up with unsold items, and the IRS will not consider us hobbyists.
2. the red light... OK, so I am blessed. I have lived and I am uninjured to tell a boatload of people the story of how a man went through a red light and into my orange car. I am blessed that a boatload of people have cared and that I am able to tell this story.
3. the red glass... The Wernersville crosses have sold, well all that are to be sold. More will be made. In fact, a pink one is going to be made whenI leave this computer. At the last craft show my parents showed up and expressed interest in a red cross. On Christmas my dad unwrapped a box containing it. The other red cross was never displayed at the shows. It was the second cross I made, and last Sunday I handed it over to the one who goes by...
4. Red... My friend who goes by Red, announced that 2009 calenders should be placed in a bonfire in my backyard... and yes, there are moments that I could have lived without experiencing... but if that fire eliminated the evening Red and her dude were on my porch as the neighbor child crashed into porch steps across the street (over and over again)... and how about the time we met up to listen to jazz, or the time we ran into Red and her dude on the way to the diner and they walked with us, or the conversation after I voted, or the time Red and her dog met up with us, or ... all the times she held the chalice that cleanses me as I kneel at the high alter. And so the second and first red Wernersville cross is ending 2009 in her home, and I find that very cool.
5. Flaming Red... so as I woke up on the 24th and this blog post came into being, who among you will be shocked that a tune came to mind. Here is a woman who can compete with Red's hair color. Patty Griffin:

my life unfolds... like a roller coaster

I went to work on Tuesday and by the time business hours had passed two things remained a big mystery... Mosaic Woman's test results and if the guy who ran the red light had called his insurance company. The day was far from a complete disaster, but even I knew I was an emotional wreck as I entered prayer.

God helped by reminding me that it was only a car and the fact that an SUV moving at 50mph through a red light had not killed me, or even injured me...

But my mind did not go to a soothing place when I imagined Christmas morning after bad test results. It was not a great feeling.

By the time Wednesday lunch had arrived my car had been towed and I was heading to work (a bit late) in a rental vehicle. By the time I left work, Mosaic Woman had called to say the results were negative.

It has been quite a week. My stoic being was pushed to its limits of feeling down and then feeling up. and still my life unfolds...

The Fit Is Not Go

Over the weekend, we put away a few things, well many things. When it was over the chair of contemplation was once again available for my use. So I sat down. At my feet was a red basket. It contains my Bible, journal, and several books. I was looking for one when I found another, a book I had forgotten about.

It is a book of contemplations based on the church year. Joyce Rupp, the author starts with Advent, which starts with thoughts on waiting.

As Mosaic Woman and I wait for her test results, I prayed that my wandering brain could try to remember how hard that is for her.

Last night Joyce Rupp ends the second contemplation with these words...

"you are in my life. I will slow down so I can find you there."

She is speaking of God, but I thought of how it does not have to only apply to heavenly beings.

This morning before work I thought... this is the message I want the world to hear today. so I threw the world those words at Facebook and Twitter. Since then I have gotten a record number of responses at Facebook, but none about those words.

I want to know what Christmas tune was playing as I stopped at the red light. I can't remember. The light did turn green, witnesses agree with me and the other driver admits he didn't see the light... blinded by the rising sun. I remember a horn blaring. I think I remember the jolt and car spinning. A friend commuting to the same school as myself, stopped and took care of me. The first person to whom I spoke, a stranger who said he saw it, told me that he couldn't stick around. I understand.

"you are in my life. I will slow down so I can find you there."

I am getting to know an insurance agent. Maybe that is what this phrase is all about. Being kind to her as she struggled through all the claims that emerged on her desk on the Monday following a weekend snowstorm. She speaks with kindness to me. The process is far behind the pace I want it to be going. But if I slow down...

as for me... I am worried about being sore tomorrow, but as of now I feel fine. However, the Fit is clearly not Go, as the commercials love to say...

remembering music, remembering my past

Most of the Christmas tunes flowing through my iPod these days have little chance to be highlighted on the radio, but there are exceptions.


On the way to work the other day Bruce Springsteen singing about the need to be good for goodness sake came into my presence. Memory is s strange thing. That song could have taken me to festive meals, favorite presents, traditions

Instead it took me to thinking about growing up listening to Philly rock stations in the 70's. Bruce was king around here and I must have heard him before 1978...


But memory is a funny thing and so who knows what is true. Did I discover Bruce Springsteen in the passenger seat of a 76 Monte Carlo as my dad drove me home from the doctor? maybe.

and then there were none...we knew a day like this was coming

There was a time period before the five shows in five weeks. And back in those days Mosaic Woman had it be known to her that a medical test was needed. The doctor was booked through October. In the midst of the craft shows didn't sound so great. So the Monday when there were no more shows, I took a day off from work. As I showered, I wondered if I could seek joy, on a day like this...

The iPod shuffles along as we drive on wet roads just above freezing as the sun breaks the sky open in amazing shades of pink and orange. Is that a sitar? Not really in the mood for the tribute to Miles Davis featuring musicians from India. Wait up ... did Miles write White Christmas. What the heck is this? A moment later I tell Mosaic Woman that studies have shown that post-op recovery goes much better to those that listen to the amazing banjo playing Bela Fleck playing holiday jazz on the way to surgery. The sample size was small, but the study showed definite benefits, on days like this...

I am waiting with others as ABC plays out.. this morning, local news, Rachel Ray, Regis and somebody though Regis isn't there, and two volunteers bound through the room wearing antlers, they are saying it's the Holidays. I turn to the man next to me and say... That excuse won't last forever, just on days like this...

In my lap is a book on animal intelligence. But I draw a design first. It is all about JOY. I have taken my huge JOY off the market. It is staying in our kitchen. The new one is small, simple. It will be affordable to folk who need a reminder that Joy happens, on days like this...

Then I am reading about the anatomy and behavior of the octopus. Humans argue whether or not they are intelligent, but one thing can be said... no invertebrate has a brain to match, and 60% of their neurons aren't even in their brain. Their tentacles are loaded and some believe they all operate on their own until one finds something interesting. As Mosaic Woman emerges back into this world, I tell her about the octopus, on a day like this...

Before that I am saved by the ranting on The View about Tiger Woods and President Obama, when a doctor calls out her name, and I respond as if it is my own, on a day like this...

After the doctor says all went expected, results in a week, then tells me she will be out for another hour. So I walk the streets of Norristown, eating a Mounds bar and my brain, for the first time in a long time, thinks in terms of a blog post. It happened on a day like this...

and later after I buy her pancakes and get her home, I am running around mailing a package to New York, finding videos from the library, replacing the old oil in the car... and a song by Van Morrison pops into my head, yes... There will be Days Like This

To fly solo: Stratoz's stained glass at the Pathway School Craft Show

When a good friend at the Pathway School told me they were considering having a craft show. I responded that Nutmeg Designs was booked through the first weekend of December. She scheduled their show on the 12th. I handed her a check.

Weeks later when Nutmeg Designs met at our corporate headquarters, a booth at the West Main Diner in Lansdale, I suggested to Mosaic Woman, that maybe it was time for me to fly solo. It was her courage that got this business going. In fact, I was on a spiritual retreat when she first filled the car with her mosaics and headed out to do our first show.

Since then most of our exhibits have been together. For the first time ever I have a large enough inventory to do a solo show. This is mainly because of the huge burst of studio energy I had following my most recent retreat.

emerging from Lyme disease...

I wish I always lived in a world that was shades of grays, but I am far from perfect. Thus either I am sick or I am well. Lyme disease or no Lyme disease.

and once it is gone then there are no physical, emotional, spiritual issues. Because I am well.

Well, maybe it isn't quite like that...

so what am I trying to do about a malaise that has set in at work...

I am trying to find joy at work by finding things to be grateful for.

I am trying to push myself more at the gym to get my body back in shape so I am ready to garden come spring time.

I am sharing my story with friends and with Mosaic Woman.

I am trying to emerge and heal the wounds that happened to my being this summer.

while doing five craft shows in five weeks. what a hoot that ride has been...

two to go...