Truth

"Truth is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution."
Albus Dumbledore

Thanks, Professor. I'm learning, I trust.

Jesus is a bit more intense when He talks about truth.

Mat. 7:6 Give not that which is holy unto the dogs,
neither cast ye your pearls before swine,
lest they trample them under their feet,
and turn again and rend you.

"Love on 'em"

Gosh, I guess he was only 26 when I started bugging him...
"I want to teach!" "If you ever need me to teach.."
"Can I start a girl's small group?"
What I didn't know was, I needed teaching. Lots of teaching... by example and word from this young, red-bearded man.
He was always supportive and quickly gave me leave to try and start a Bible study with some seventh grade girls.
So I go up to them after church and start a conversation...
"Heard you had a party last night and that you girls were 'freaking' let's get together and study the Bible and I'll tell you why that is a really stupid thing for girls to do."
Well, I wasn't quite that lousy but really close!

But soon I was in a small group with Jamie teaching us 'wanna be' leaders.
I learned that relationships are way more important than preaching;
and spending time with kids is way more important than teaching:
and that our main goal, the real reason we do this at all is to
Love on 'em.
and how do we do that ???
We use a NET, right!
N-know and use their NAME!
E- make Eye contact
T- appropriate Touch (high five, baby or big hug, girl-friend)
We learned to share our lives with these kids and to love; to really love
and that has made all the difference in my life.
I'm scared for Jamie to go because I have learned and grown so much from just being around him. Now my home and heart are continually full of teens!
My ministry, my home, and my life have been changed forever my this young man and I am so thankful for his wonderful, laid-back loving style that has meant all the difference for my boys and me.
Chuck Smith has this saying, "Smooth and of the Spirit" I think that perfectly describes Jamie Nelson. He's been this calm sea where youth have learned and been encouraged to develop and use their gifts and talents to grow in wisdom, faith, and most especially love....
and not just them he's done the same for me.
I really get that verse in Mark 10, where Jesus promises us a whole bunch of brothers, sisters, mothers, and children. Jamie has show me the truth of that kind of abundance and simple faith in Jesus that makes life a beautiful celebration.
Thank you, Jamie Nelson.
We love you, Jamie and we thank God upon every remembrance of you!



Mark 10:29 "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel 30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first."

The Ultimate Scientiste

They're building a sea wall down by the bay. Eric and I walk or ride by it everyday. Most days it looks like there's just nothing getting done. It's a mess of cement and stone and workers and machines. Then one day, sure enough it actually looked like a sea wall. But they weren't finished. It was being made into art.
For weeks there's been a confusing mosaic of flat stones spread out over the street. The workers were cutting them and sanding them and trying to see how they would fit together.
Then yesterday...boom! There's this tapestry of close fitting stones completely covering the wall. It's beautiful and so pleasing. It actually competes with the view of the bay.
I think this world, our lives, our relationships are like that wall. Sometimes, we look like a confusing mess, forgotten and kicked around in the street. But one day, we will all come together and the beauty of our tapestry will teach the torches to burn bright.

Eph. 2:21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: 22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit...

'Fitly framed together' sounds so fulfilling and so comfy.


and the mortar is Love...

Eph 4:15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: 16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Even the guy at the Bible study who I run away from and Eric endures with patience and grace, is being chiseled into a piece of our wall. Okay, so I hope my piece isn't right next to his...that's something God's gotta sand out of my heart. Maybe I'll make him some cookies :)

aeolian harp

John 3: 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. 8 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

'Make sure you have carrots in your pockets!' We were going on another walk. The wind was rising so I was taking my sons to what looked to me like a barren moor but was actually a grassy hill in Galilee.
On the way, we passed a fenced in yard with horses. White, spirited horses. They would dance when they saw us. They knew we had carrots in our pockets and sometimes an apple core.
When our pockets were empty and muzzles were petted, we'd refill them with stones as we walked on.
I can still see the valley below and feel my heart fly out with those stones as my toddlers threw them but I was holding their hands tight.
Oh and if the wind picked up, we could follow them for many heartbeats...
But that wasn't the goal. We kept on and maybe I'd give them a cookie from my backpack or maybe some Bomba...(peanut butter Cheetos, it's the best!)
Oh keep blowing wind, across this abandoned hilltop that looked like it was being used for a dump. But that was good, because that was where the treasure was, in the trash.
Now we could hear it low and warming, a good feeling in your core.
My wind flute... a discarded twenty foot, 10 inch wide pipe. The mouthpiece was made by rust or maybe it had some forgotten purpose but now the wind played it for me and my sons made it their playground.
The sound filled me up.
I want to try and make a wind flute on my roof. Made of old pipe but 'born of the Spirit.'



Romans 5:3 But not only that, let us also boast in our troubles; because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope; 5 and this hope does not let us down, because God's love for us has already been poured out in our hearts through the Ruach HaKodesh who has been given to us.





Here's a passage about a wind harp, I think I was reading this book when I found my flute. Maybe you can make one of these?

"I wonder," said lady Arctura, "what that curious opening in the side of the chimney-stack means! It can't be for smoke to come out at!"
"No," said Donal; "there is not a mark of smoke about it. If it had been meant for that, it would hardly have been put half-way from the top! I can't make it out! A hole like that in any chimney must surely interfere with the draught! I must get a ladder!"
"Let me climb on your shoulders, Mr. Grant," said Davie.
"Come then; up you go!" said Donal.
And up went Davie, and peeped into the horizontal slit.
"It looks very like a chimney," he said, turning his head and thrusting it in sideways. "It goes right down to somewhere," he added, bringing his head out again, "but there is something across it a little way down--to prevent the jackdaws from tumbling in, I suppose."
"What is it?" asked Donal.
"Something like a grating," answered Davie; "--no, not a grating exactly; it is what you might call a grating, but it seems made of wires. I don't think it would keep a strong bird out if he wanted to get in."
"Aha!" said Donal to himself; "what if those wires be tuned! Did you ever see an aeolian harp, my lady?" he asked: "I never did."
"Yes," answered lady Arctura, "--once, when I was a little girl. And now you suggest it, I think the sounds we hear are not unlike those of an aeolian harp! The strings are all the same length, if I remember. But I do not understand the principle. They seem all to play together, and make the strangest, wildest harmonies, when the wind blows across them in a particular way."
"I fancy then we have found the nest of our music-bird!" said Donal. "The wires Davie speaks of may be the strings of an aeolian harp! I wonder if there could be a draught across them! I must get up and see! I must go and get a ladder!"
"But how could there be an aeolian harp up here?" said Arctura.
"It will be time enough to answer that question," replied Donal, "when it changes to, 'How did an aeolian harp get up here?' Something is here that wants accounting for: it may be an aeolian harp!"
"But in a chimney! The soot would spoil the strings!"
"Then perhaps it is not a chimney: is there any sign of soot about, Davie?"
"No, sir; there is nothing but clean stone and lime."
"You see, my lady! We do not even know that it is a chimney!"
"What else can it be, standing with the rest?"
"It may have been built for one; but if it had ever been used for one, the marks of smoke would remain, had it been disused ever so long. .....

He turned to his ladder, set it right, mounted, and peered into the opening. At the length of his arm he could reach the wires Davie had described: they were taut, and free of rust--were therefore not iron or steel. He saw also that a little down the shaft a faint light came in from the opposite side: there was another opening somewhere! Next he saw that each following string--for strings he already counted them--was placed a little lower than that before it, so that their succession was inclined to the other side of the shaft--apparently in a plane between the two openings, that a draught might pass along their plane: this must surely be the instrument whence the music flowed! He descended.
"Do you know, my lady," he asked Arctura, "how the aeolian harp is placed for the wind to wake it?"
"The only one I have seen," she answered, "was made to fit into a window; the lower sash was opened just wide enough to let it in, so that the wind entering must pass across the strings."
Then Donal was all but certain.
"Of course," he said, after describing what he had seen, "we cannot be absolutely sure without having been here with the music, and having experimented by covering and uncovering the opening; and for that we must wait a south-easterly wind."
» George MacDonald » Donal Grant » Chapter XLI. The Music-Nest.

pleasing God

Romans 5:6-21
8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. ..........11 And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJOzdLwvTHA

It must have been May...that's when the Jacaranda trees are covered with multitudes of purple flowers. I'd run up stairs in our 'Jacaranda Tree' house (I name all the places we've lived in) through myself on the big, puffy chaise lounge and lost myself in the branches of purple filling up the floor to ceiling, wall to wall picture window.
Yup, crying again. I'd made a lousy dinner, or lost my temper, or done something and expected some praise, I don't know...something that sparked my feelings of not measuring up, of not pleasing my children or my husband or someOne.
"I just can't please them," broke through my tears as my heart got filled up with the bouquet of purple.
Sometimes we can hear things and they don't really sink in. Maybe that's why God speaks in a still small voice straight to our open spirit-ears.
"It's not your job to 'please' them. It's your job to please Me and I am very pleased with you because of Jesus."
This time I really 'heard' that message. It went into my spirit-ears and filled me up like the window's purple glow. God is pleased with me. It is finished. God is pleased with me.
That unconditional promise of Love and acceptance changes Everything. Done, settled...
Now I was free to grow and produce a multitude of flowers because His Love covered me and filled me up. Now my roots could sink deep and my branches reach up and even when my flowers sometimes turn into and spongy mess (like that dinner) tracked carelessly onto some white carpet, He is pleased with me. He is 'very' pleased with me, because of Jesus. :)





It's like a perfect, grande, nonfat, decaf, no whip, extra hot mocha....and a bear claw.
And a long chat with my friend.
Trusting and giving and loving and laughing and knowing...
He gets me and I trust him completely.

'do Over'

Last night was Jamie's second to the last week, which hurts my heart. Oh I will miss this laid back youth director who has taught me how to love teens. I get to hear his messages twice on Tues. nights and last night, he talked about 'Do Overs.'

The kids were amazed as he listed all the Bible Greats who got 'do overs.' They had to live with the consequences but God forgives and embraces and even says they have hearts 'after His own heart!'
AND I got to be in Jamie's small group, where we went around the circle answering the question, "If you had just one 'do over' in your life where you could actually go back and change what you did, would you have used it yet."
I said, "no"...
George MacDonald wrote a short story called 'The Wise Woman' that's about that...maybe I'll go reread it today, 'cause I'm not really sure why I said, "no."
Something about learning stuff, and being content where I am, and trusting You, God totally (someone pointed out to me that God reads my blog:)...

Hebrews 12:1 Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2 Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. 3 Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

It's cool that all those 'witnesses' listed in Hebrews 11 got 'Do Overs' and thinking of them puts joy in my steps and trust in the Author and Perfecter.
Like one wise 16 year old said, "Everything that's of God is good and I wouldn't want to change anything He's doing."
She stopped by this morning to take me out for my birthday and explained to me that God's always teaching her stuff and she doesn't want to miss any of it.
Thanks wise woman!

Science in Starbucks

Mocha and seven teen age girls listening to me?
What a trip, they want to listen to me..
Got a bunch of funny looks from newpaper readers when I started sharing all the surprises in space in 2008. Orion's nebula, ancient galaxies that are shining like bright, active youngsters, comet tails, and pulsars that just shouldn't be according to current theories... oh I love this stuff.
Theories, even set in stone theories, are still just theories.

Then I gave them a theory to test out, to make it a fact in their lives...

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you."

Seven girls, getting up early to pray and seek God in Starbucks and listen to an old gal who likes to act like a bright, active teen...not just a theory.

His Work of Art

Jesus died for me
Beyond all understanding
Love has set me free

You're Lion and Lamb
Melech, Ozair, Mashiach
Reigning in my heart

Being Your art work
created mitzvot in You
Living sacrifice

Pressing to know You
Your words of Eternal Life
Where else can we go?

art and science

"Art is different than science'
if your song is off key or your painting is a bit shaky or your poem doesn't really rhyme
quite right... it doesn't matter.
It's the feeling behind the art.
The laughter, the love, the expression of some amazing heartfelt truth that matters.

I think we are works of art, not science.

Love is trembling happiness. Kahlil Gibran

Feeling the Healing

Oh yeah, I'm feeling the healing. Trying to trust and bide my time and just take a baby step out onto the water....can't just dive in. It'll come.

All things work together for good for those who Love the Lord and are called according to His Purposes. Romans 8:28

I had that verse on a cast on my leg. He heals. I've still got the scar but He heals. I skied again but I was alot more cautious and careful...no head-spinning runs down a slope beyond my ability to remain on my path.

Jamie our youth minister, my pastor for years is leaving at the end of this month. Oh I just want to fix it and make it so he can stay. But instead I'm just gonna trust and watch what cool thing God will show me. He would show me a thing:)

The youth room got cleaned out and my little lamb is gone. You know the one who watched over my glasses in an earlier post. You know what else is gone? All the blueness of my thumb got ripped off yesterday. I knew it would come with my heart healing.

Moment

A Moment

Capturing a moment when all the furry fuzz of my hair moves to the edge of my perception and I can see. When I was 10, I wanted to paint a scene with my red locks framing the view so that others could really see just what I saw in that moment.
Eric's working on robots with the Coronado team this year and posed a question to me about 'moment' being applied to a surface in space. Would it rotate around the center or around the point where the moment was applied? Funny thing to talk about all curled up in bed :)..

I finally got the answer this morning. Away from the pressures and gravity of the world, the force of that 'moment' will send the touched one rotating around the 'center.' But with the weight of the earthly the rotation will be all around that one moment.

I want to capture moments and be in such an eternal place that each will send me circling more and more closely about the Center.

Language of a Place

What's Mine's Mine by George MacDonald

"There is nothing like this anywhere!" said Ian.

"Do you mean nothing so beautiful?" asked Alister.

"No; I mean just what I say: there is nothing like it. I do not care a straw whether one scene be more or less beautiful than another; what I do care for is--its individual speech to my soul. I feel towards visions of nature as towards writers. If a book or a prospect produces in my mind a mood that no other produces, then I feel it individual, original, real, therefore precious. If a scene or a song play upon the organ of my heart as no other scene or song could, why should I ask at all whether it be beautiful? A bare hill may be more to me than a garden of Damascus, but I love them both.The first question as to any work of art is whether it puts the willing soul into any mood at all peculiar; the second, what that mood is. It matters to me little by whom our Ossian was composed, and it matters nothing whoever may in his ignorance declare that there never was an Ossian any more than a Homer: here is a something that has power over my heart and soul, works upon them as not anything else does. I do not ask whether its power be great or small; it is enough that it is a peculiar power, one by itself; that it puts my spiritual consciousness in a certain individual condition, such in character as nothing else can occasion. Either a man or a nation must have felt to make me so feel."

Psalms 19:1-6
1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. 3 There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. 4 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.

Wolf Moon

Biggest full moon of 2009 tonight!
Don't miss the beautiful

'Wolf Moon' as the Native Americans

call January's full moon.

Just read that on Space.com.

But I shoulda knowed it before.

Went to sleep last night needing comfort and found a quote from George about

the language of a place.

The way a landscape will have a voice unlike any other.

This reminded me of my last night in Yellowstone

and waking up crying with the wolves.
Oh yeah, I get what you are saying, G. MacD.

Oh and then this morning, Eric thinks I need a walk through the zoo. He's brilliant.

We see a llama just snorting and crying and running about...
A few minutes later I see someone walking up with a dog...must be a seeing eye dog, I think.
Nope it's a wolf. Llama knew it was coming, I should have too:)
It's a snow white Arctic wolf...
guess what the other name of tonight's moon is?
The Snow MOON...
Listen, shema at moon rise tonight XOXO

thanks for the picture, DancingWolf.

wide excision

Okay, so I'm convinced that unlike Posh-spice, PASH will just keep on growing. Those two words make me cry...'wide excision.' I know I should be braver and not so vain but I'm not. I like my nice, little breast that lives right over my heart and I don't want it to be widely excised.

I was thinking about 'duck diving' and 'Max facing the Wild Things' this morning on the roof but I am still crying. Watching the moon set helped. It's so big when it's right next to the horizon. When looked at in relation to the trees and buildings, it looks huge. But an hour before with a background of stars, she was small and lovely. My PASH is the same. When I look at it from the eternal background of my Father's beautiful will, it's small and I can trust Him to use this for good in my life.

I'm still crying but that's okay, He's got me.

Here's a quote from my other blog that I found this morning:

'And my goal is to get less of me and more and more of Him. But I'm still His little poem, not Him. I like being His little song that He's working on and added a riff here and there, taking out a chord that doesn't work. He can use me too. Oh, gotta go dance:)'

Pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia

Pseudoangiomatous stromal hyperplasia or PASH for short, but I'm calling it POSH...
(I like the Spice girls.)

What is it? a rare harmless type of breast tumor that I got!

Yeah, thanks for praying and caring and blessing me so much my friends.

Isaiah 38
13 I waited patiently till dawn, .....
I looked to the heavens.
I am troubled; O Lord, come to my aid!"
15 But what can I say? He has spoken to me, and He himself has done this.
I will walk humbly all my years because of this.....
16 Lord, by such things men live; and my spirit finds life in them too.
You restored me to health and let me live.
17 Surely it was for my benefit......
In your love you kept me .....
you have put all my sins behind your back. ......
20 The Lord will save me,
and we will sing with stringed instruments
all the days of our lives in the temple of the Lord.

Ziggy Zig Ahhh :)

Let's get Used

“Be thy heart a well of love, my child,
Flowing, and free, and sure.
For a cistern of love, though undefiled,
Keeps not the spirit pure.”

~George MacDonald, Phantases

What good is love if it sits in a lovely challis ''undefiled'...?
Sometimes my sister and I joke about running away to her cabin and escaping all
the messiness of living mixed up with so many souls. But we don't really mean it.
In a recent letter I used the word, 'perfect' twice. I want to change that.
Being 'perfect' isn't my job.
My job is loving.
Even when Jesus tells us to be perfect it's in the context of overflowing with Love.
Check it!
Mat. 5:44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Be perfect by flowing 'free' and 'sure' a river of Love that just might get a bit muddy but will be gloriously used by Him !

Best day after New Years Day ever

You know it's the best day after New Years ever when you;
have a house full of 7, no 8 teens and
visits, texts, and phone calls, from so many guests that you forget to
change out of your PJ's...
cooked pancakes, brownies, mac n cheese and mochas...
had to make a second pot of coffee...
and now we're ready to go out for sushi!
yeah!
oh and I watched Muppet Christmas Carol again and the 'flying snowman' video
while I swept up pine needles and drank my Peppermint Mocha.
yeah!

Resolution song

I got the perfect resolution for us. And it's sung by muppets and Scrooge transformed!
Here's the link:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1arHlfbdy8A
A Thankful Heart

With a thankful heart, with an endless joy,
with a growing family, every girl and boy,
will be nephew and niece to me,
Will bring love, hope and peace to me
Yes, and every night will end
And every day will start
With a grateful prayer
And a thankful heart.

With an open smile
And with open doors
I will bid you welcome
What is mine is yours
With a glass raised to toast your health
And a promise to share the wealth,
I will sail a friendly course
File a friendly chart
On a sea of love
And a thankful heart.

Life is like a journey
Who knows when it ends,
Yes, and if you need to know
The measure of a man
You simply count his friends.

Stop and look around you
The glory that you see
Is born again each day
don't let it slip away
How precious life can be.

With a thankful heart
That is wide awake
I do make this promise
Every breath I take
Will be used now to sing your praise
And to beg you to share my days,
With a loving guarantee
That even if we part
I will hold you close
In a thankful heart.

I will hold you close
With my thankful heart

Connections

How does He do it? How does God connect me with so much and so many in this amazingly beautiful life? I just want to reach out and hug Everything.

Oh I hope you are experiencing the jolly walk He takes with us everyday.

Follow His footprints. Sometimes they take us to hospitals, sometimes to Hanukkah parties but always He's there and always He cares.

Found a book I HAVE to read this year. Yes, it's by George MacDonald. Yes, I know my New Years resolution is to do something I've never done before each month. But I just have to read this book. It's a book I've had floating around in my brain for years, like, since college. Not that I've wanted to read it since college, I didn't know it existed,. I've wanted to write it since my Shakespeare class at Redlands.

But now I found my favorite author, my soul-echo has already written it. Well, maybe I'll try doing an update of it or something. So amazingly Jolly!