tennis, tropical storms and the ground hog as the prodigal son

 

I was sitting on the steps by the well  (see yesterday's post for cool well photos) because as Tropical Storm Irene approached, I wanted to see a tennis player.  I met her a year ago while on retreat and had thought she was rather graceful with a tennis racket.  I hoped that I would get to see her play.  So I marveled at the speed of the clouds and the tennis when up popped a ground hog.

Ground hogs are near the top of my critters which need to be called varmints list because of the feasting they have done at the school's garden.  The varmint may have sensed my distaste and popped back down out of my evil eye zone.

Then it popped back up.  The tennis player and the clouds were doing their things but my eyes were on the varmint as it approached me.  It passed the well and neared the bottom of the steps, at which point I decided that it was plenty close.  I made my presence known.  Now really it should have fled from one whose heart has been filled with much hatred in the past, but it didn't.  Maybe it sensed I was not in a killing mood.  It eventually turned right and walked away.

and it made me think of the prodigal son walking home and I was the father.  The son and groundhog were brave to approach what could have been a very ugly scene.

as I sit here I think how brave it is for my students, who have less than stellar days, to come back into my classroom.  But they march in like a foolish ground hog, knowing that even though I have no reason to forgive them, I really have no other option if I want to be their teacher. 

I guess that is what the Kingdom of Heaven is like.  

and it is not like the days I hold a grudge against imperfect students or despise hungry groundhogs. 

thoughts on the scraps of faithfulness

This morning I had breakfast under this Blue Dolphin with a flickr friend, who I had never seen or talked to before, but two people who watch each others lives unfold in photos, do get to know each other. Check out her photos.


I had featured some of the projects I had made from left-overs of spelling out Faithfulness on flickr. My friend asked about my use of "scraps" of faithfulness. I agreed with her that scraps is a strange word that brings up positive and negative images. What exactly are the scraps of faithfulness? So I was thinking about it and a Bible passage came to mind.

Matthew 15 from The Message:

^21-22From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, "Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit."

²³Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, "Now she's bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She's driving us crazy."

²⁴Jesus refused, telling them, "I've got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel."

²⁵Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. "Master, help me."

²⁶He said, "It's not right to take bread out of children's mouths and throw it to dogs."

²⁷She was quick: "You're right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master's table."

²⁸Jesus gave in. "Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!" Right then her daughter became well.

So maybe my scrap projects are for those of us who will put God to the test. To stretch the limits of God's love to even us, who don't really deserve it, but if we ask and id we refuse to accept anything but love, we can see the healing power of God.

welcome sign

mandala

and doodle

...

7 for the weekend--- Hope

1. A very special commission.

2. "faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Hebrews 11: 1

3. Those who consider the history of language have suggested a connection to hop as in "leaping into expectation."

4. A recent blog post by my friend Robin: Extension, Strength and Beauty = Hope and Future.

5. Hope for the Earth can be fleeting if one reads environmental news/books/videos. I struggle with this as a teacher. I want my students to be educated about the needs for our planet, but don't want them left in despair. I want them filled with hope. One of my students introduced me to Ted.com and I have found many a great video there related to what the current topic may be. Sometimes when we have an extra moment in the Social Science class we take a chance and stumble into something.

The other week I showed this and by the end I was leaping with the joy that can come when someone offers your spirit hope for this amazing planet. Do you have 13 minutes to lift your spirit?

6. Females seem to have a run on great names in my book: Faith, Joy, Grace (my mom's), and of course Hope. Hope in Spanish is Esperanza. Recently Esperanza Spalding became the first jazz musician to win a Grammy for best new artist. Jazz is not dead and or dieing. As I continue to explore my favorite genre of music, I keep coming across more and more names of people entering the field.

7. And then there is the hope that the past will not be forgotten. My blogger friend Curt introduced me to a trumpet player who died in 1997, Johnny Coles. Something resonated with that post so I explored a bit further and eventually bought a piece of music recorded two years before my birth. Here is the opening track to The Warm Sound:

Peace and Hope be with you


...

Seven on Sunday: Houses

our house photo taken on a warmer day

Yesterday Mosaic Woman and I went to find some glass to cut up and place into the 25 picture frames she was commissioned to make. One source is to find a cheap frame at a thrift store. Yesterday we found one which framed these words:

1.

And if you be unwilling to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

Joshua 24:15


2. I am sure if I read what surrounded this verse it may change my impression, but for now I like the openness of what this one verse expresses. As for me, who or what we choose to serve is not as important as what that decision leads us into and how we respond once we get there.

3. I live in a one bedroom two studio house. We are beginning to wonder why we sleep in the largest of the three.

4. The houses that caught fire last March. Two of the five have been inhabited once again. Finally the other three are being reborn. These construction dudes are showing up when I leave for work and are wrapping things up after I get home. I would be so cold and tired. I hope they have warm houses to go home to when their work is done.

5. The house of our dreams would be a Craftsman with funky paint on the outside and amazing woodwork inside:

photo by roarofthefour

photo by j l t

6. From one of my favorite CD's, jazz singer Jon Hendricks takes on a Gospel classic:

7. House comes to us from an Old English word, hus, meaning dwelling, shelter, house.

Anna and Tobit have conversations

Anna to Tobit, after being accused of stealing the goat which she has brought home ...

"Where are your acts of charity? Where are your righteous deeds? These things are known about you?" Tobit 2: 11-14

Tobit is thrown for a loop by those words. And he lands in despair and the very next thing he does is pray to God. He does not pray to have the strength to ask for the love to treat his wife in a righteous manner. No, he asks to die. Tobit has not had it real easy leading up to this conversation. Maybe he does not want to fall farther away from the righteous person, who before being blinded, would risk his own well being to bury those who had been executed.

Anna will have two conversations with Tobit during which he tries to reassure her. The first time it works and her weeping stops and she has some hope her son will survive a dangerous journey. The second time shows why reassurance is not what mournful people need. And Anna makes it real clear she does not feel better about her son who has not returned in a timely manner when Tobit reassures her that he thinks he is fine, just delayed.

However, after this fight, when she sees her son, she does one thing before running off to greet him. She tells Tobit.

Something is percolating in my brain as I read this, but it is unclear. something did become clear last night...

as I read Tobit this week, I kept thinking, I know this story, so I assumed it was from when I read the Bible several years ago. And it may be, but much more recently (a google search reminded me) I read a novel by one of my favorite authors, which was based upon this story: On the Road with the Archangel by Frederick Buechner.

mandalas with burning bush

For now, preparing for next Monday's adult group has been going to the first verses of Chapter 3 of Exodus. I have been doing this when I sit in the chair of contemplation to reflect upon my day. Now the last three nights has made me see the burning bush in both of my recent mandala designs (how to design a mandala: 1. draw a circle 2. pray 3. fill the circle in).


The first was clear from the beginning, glowing earth, flames arising. I saw the story in the design and chose glass as I saw fit...





I recently spoke about imaginative prayer, but I most often read the Bible looking for a verse, phrase or word that catches my eye. It draws me in. Then I sit and ponder why those words caught my eye. This time it is a most appropriate verse... Exodus 3:3 --- Moses said "I must go across and see this strange sight..." I try to think what sights have drawn me to them. Am I being drawn by God when this happens. Two times in my life come to mind. I saw a woman walking in a library. That night after no conversation, only that sighting, I tell a friend that I saw a woman. I had never said such a thing in my life before. Now you all know her here as Mosaic Woman. I was so drawn that I overcame all the shyness and introverted nature I could to approach her. Was it holy ground I stepped upon to speak.

The second event happened a year earlier. I am walking on a snow covered path in the Pocono Mountains. I am stopped by an urge to be still and turn my head to the left. Often I will see a bird when I do this, but now a dead mouse rests in the branches of a sapling. I grow closer pondering how this came to be. Tears fill my eyes for the first time since who knows when.

The second mandala was drawn to improve upon the design of the first--- more branching and get rid of that mound of earth. I choose green for the branching. going with the complimentary color, red, for the background. Not seen as what it was at first, I now see it as a better representation of that event by the mountain of God. For in the Bible what caught Moses eye was the unburning (yes, I made up that word and I like it!) bush. Here the bush remains green in the midst of a fire storm of God's visiting spirit.




OK, now to get goofy. Before my theological insights, I was going to call this post a toilet with a view, for both of these are hanging in my bathroom window. Even took a lovely photo featuring the toilet and the two stained glass mandalas over the weekend. For now they will hang there unless someone discovers them at our ETSY SHOP. Then in November (unless sold) they will travel to a craft fair, which I will advertise in due time.

an old friend

I revisited Psalm 139 today and it seems like an old friend.

The first section reminded me of how God is everywhere and made me wish for a life where I walked in awareness. Can I keep my senses alive and my mind open to this reality? It is my hope.

The second section reminded me of being part of creation. If God did knit me together, then God missed a stitch here or there and didn't go back to make me perfect. Oh well. I just finished nine months of teaching anatomy and I have decided that my body is as understandable as God is, both can be experienced but not fully understood.

The third part is that part of a friend we may choose to forget about... until we experience it again. The Psalmist speaks of enemies and vengeance and asking for God's assistance in the dirty work. It made me think. Do I have enemies? Should I have enemies?

It made me think of two men standing in line behind Mosaic Woman and myself at the jazz festival. They were being negative about the musicians, the venues, the sound systems... The doors opened late and I stood there wanting to say... "Why are you here? Do you enjoy life at all?"

Then I thought of people I work with who are negative and who I wonder why they work at a place that causes them so much angst?

Are they my enemies? Or are they folk who I can spread joy to if I am aware and stay connected to God?

being pruned

When I brought up the pruned tree I saw at Wernersville, my spiritual director went to John 15. So when I looked up fruit in my concordance to prepare for my Tuesday night gathering at church, it became one of five that I gathered up for the evening. Yes, five passages in an hour was ambitious, but it worked.

we talked about a society that was commanded by God to celebrate and give thanks for harvests and how our own no longer celebrates harvests (Exodus 23: 14-19). We talked about the pastry chef who changes his menu with the seasons and the complaints he gets from customers. We talked about a psalmist (128) whose blessing is for a family that is fruitful. A parable from Jeremiah (17: 7-8) compared a person with God to a fruit tree planted by a stream. Fruitful even in droughts.

Then we went to Jesus being the vine and we being the branches. Yesterday, while teaching a workshop on the spirituality of growing your own food, I read that passage from John again. The man to my left catches two things and holds on.... He is upset that we are commanded to do something and that we will be thrown into a fire if we don't.

So I spoke about being commanded to stay connected to God, to be nourished, to love others and thus to be fruitful. I also said that a plant with dead or diseased branches should be pruned and it is fine practice to burn those branches. God does not want to burn us, God wants to prune us. God can see the things inside our hearts which separates us from loving others and God desires that we stay a branch of the vine so that we can be pruned. Then we moved to Paul.

It is in Galatians (5: 23-25) that we are told what those fruits will be. Once pruned, the spirit will produce the fruits seen as joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control.

So may the love of God prune what is preventing these things from happening, and may we be fruitful. And may we be aware of what is growing in our locality, both the fruits of the labor of gardeners and farmers, and the fruits of the spirit.

Hermeneutics of Discernment.

At this stage the idea of the Bible being a sacred text became a possibility in my thinking. I began to trust it as a place to search for answers. And that brings to mind how the United Church of Christ here in southeast Pennsylvania has hired a woman to be a spiritual leader for the conference. A month ago, she bowed in front of me as we leave a Mexican restaurant and says, "Oh great spiritual master."

I say, "No, taking classes to get a masters in spirituality does not make me your spiritual master."

she bows again and like most times we get together we laugh and smile.

Things started when I began to Walk With God. The PA southeast UCC'ers have a yearly spiritual retreat at a place called Mensch Mill. I have been to most but not all of these annual events. Sadly I will not be there this October because I am expected to be at work that weekend for professional training. I wish I could call out spiritually ill. I do take spiritual health days, but this weekend I can't get out of without major frowns from bosses.

Time with the Bible has led to it sinking from my head to my heart. Lectio Divina has been introduced on my retreats. One Lent I spent Saturdays travelling to be in a group of UCC'ers who took a spiritual journey together reading Joyce Rupp's Cup of Life.

The Bible has many images and names of God and it was during this stage that I let that list grow. The hermeneutics of Antipathy had blacklisted names, now I could begin accepting God in different ways.

I remember reading the Bible one day and coming across Jesus as master. It jumped out at me because it was ready to be considered. Yes, healer was easy, but master for me was not. I had thought of master as one who commands because of a need to exploit and control, not as one who guides through love. To this day some of the commands are difficult, for example I have yet to sell all my possessions to follow Jesus. That is when God, the one who forgives us, comes to mind. The one who celebrates each year as more and more of our money is given to those who feed the hungry, house the poor, and care for the abused. Well, I hope there is celebration.

Hermeneutics of Appreciative

Mountains in the middle of nowhere, Bolivia (Uyuni tour)
Originally uploaded by blueskylimit

When I returned to church ten years ago, I decided that if I would ever leave the church again, I wanted to know what I was leaving. So, I became a lay biblical scholar among other things.

I read the Bible from front to back and discovered a thing or two (thousand) along the way. Psalmists wanting enemy children bashed on rocks comes to mind. At that time , I had many doubts about God and so I think it was read with this lens of hermeneutics between me and the written word.

It carried forth into the time I began to lead adult classes at my church. I would go to commentaries and then talk about the meanings of Hebrew and Greek words. Talk about what was happening when the text was written. Talk about the story being told. If memory serves me as I reflect on this, it was this talk that was primary to my lessons. Reflecting on how the story touched my life was low on the priority. How scholars and authors across time had been touched by it was primary. I was in search of knowing what Christianity was about, not yet open to feeling an emotional response.


The above image of the mountain speaks to me as I think of one class which I taught. With concordance in hand I found fifteen passages from the Bible which mentioned a mountain. Each person in the adult class randomly chose a passage and then read it out loud. It was a whirlwind trip from here to there. Fascinating, but there was no time for reflection. They were read to tell the stories in the Bible, not to tell the stories in our hearts. I am looking at this image of a distant mountain seen through weathered rock. The mountain is framed. I am not seeing the full picture or fully experiencing the mountain.

creation today: it is still good

When I returned to church 10 years ago, I had plenty of doubts and some of them I was sure would stay with me forever. I did not want to touch the first chapter of Genesis, but I did.

It had to compete with my biology degree and interest in evolution. How could the two go together? Wasn't this whole subdue the Earth thing the main reason the planet had environmental issues?

The first break in the fence around my heart happened with the repetitive phrasing of God sensing that creation was good. Who could argue with that? Creation is amazing, if not always gentle and non-violent. The amazement I felt deep inside me that led to my studies in biology seemed to be shared with God. That was good.

Later a minister asked if I would help him with a project. He wanted to rewrite the creation story as if the Hebrews knew what we think we know today. So there we were with Big bangs, and interstellar dust, laws of physics and bacteria, evolution and hominids. But through it all, I wanted those words: and it was good. Pleasing to God.

Talking about cells today in my anatomy class a student said, "all cells come from cells." I agreed, but asked what the problem was with that statement, and soon enough I was asked where the first cell came from.

I said, "It is a mystery. A mystery that can not be explained. No scientist or theologian can tell us with certainty how or why that first cell came into being. But we can be happy that it did."

For it was good.



The images featured here were taken by Margaret. We are at my work place. She played with the camera at night and I watered the flower garden. The Lyng's sunflower I am stretching for once stood over nine feet tall before the weight of the flower bent it over. It took me 18 years to get to six feet, this plant only took 3 months to tower over me.

I am still filled with amazement at what has been created and what has evolved.

Childhood memories

seen at a quilt show, name of  quilter sadly forgotten
photo by Wayne Stratz

   I have few clear memories of my early years and two that I have, my mom told me never happened. It must have been in dreams that I fell down stairs and that I got off the school bus a stop or two early. My childhood is a bit fuzzy, so I may be wrong on this, but I don't think the Bible was read much in my home. I do remember a Bible, the cover was white. I don't know what the translation was. I do remember a picture book of Bible stories, but again the memory is fuzzy.

We went to St John's Evangelical Lutheran church in Bath, PA. This I know. We sat on the right hand side, a few pews from the front. My grandmother sat in the back row with lady friends. Pappy did not come to the church. I know I learned the classic Bible stories in Sunday School. Went through a confirmation class during the 1970's. The Bible was not a huge part of my life outside of Sunday mornings. But when I returned to it in my 30's. It was familiar.

I remember things now, maybe because of repetition. The end of the service was a hymn. When it was over we would stand in silence as the organist played the tune one more time. I would compose lyrics in my head. After church we would drive a short distance to my grandma's house where Pappy would finish meals with a slice of bread smothered with apple butter. After lunch Mamie would bring out the quilts she was working on that week. I can still see Pappy enjoying good food, and Mamie flinging her quilts out into the air for us to see.