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.