Things that bother me.

What is happening in Haiti. We have abandoned it to Satan along with the French. An hour off our shore.

The fact that we need to have words for genocide and human trafficking.

If we are the church,

we need to be the church.

Getting ready to watch Amazing Grace

Memorial

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.
Then someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!"
"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, "There, she is gone!" there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"
And that is dying.
-Henry Van Dyke

Miracles......... God's Poetry

Embryonic Development
Called an embryo, once it plants itself in the uterus
This happens on day 18- neural plates develop and this is the beginning of the central nervous system
Day 20 – neural groove will close and become the spine
Day 22- heart beats
Day 26 – arm buds begin to develop
Day 30- eyes and brain form
Day 31- nose and mouth form
Day 37- eyes and ears become more developed, feet appear and the baby is 9 mm long, the head is large
Day 39- looks more like a baby
Day 44- has eye lids
Day 51- eyes, nose, fingers and toes are distinguished further
Day 55- looks unmistakably human
Day 58 – fetal period starts. The baby weighs 3 oz. All organs are there.
The Fetal Period is when the baby grows. The fetus will grow 1 ½ mm a day.
At 28 weeks the baby can survive outside the womb with lungs capable of breathing.
97 % of children are fine at birth, born without problems or defect.
God is good.

Disunity in the Chuch

That is an interesting phrase. I have heard it often. But I am not sure how it works. I do understand unity. I know what it feels like, looks like. I have seen it work, I have been there when the Spirit shows up. I know the church can be the church. I have seen it in action.

I can't find the post, but a pastor of a 3000 member church dismissed all the member and requested that they rejoin after considering 5 core commitments. Kind of feeds into some of my thoughts about what is church. What does it look like and what should it look like. What is up with the church. What is it that we are supposed to do and I would like to join a church where everyone was thrown out. I would be a trend setter. My 5 core beliefs.

The Gospel front and center
The Bible inerrant
All men are sinners in need of grace
Give yourself away
Get the Big picture

Reinvent yourself and start over because there isn't really much to hold on to in this life.

Be the church.

Wisdom

My dad asked for some wisdom in his weekly email. So I thought I would share some things I have learned from my dad.
Customer service.
He never meet a stranger, he encourages me to reach out.
He always tells me he loves me. I say it a lot to people I love. I just have to, my heart would burst if I didn’t.
He has the most witty since of humor, I come by it honestly… how much trouble am I in
He survived some of the worst things a person can experience and became as he grew older a very kind and loving person, no bitterness. He was a POW, his father an alcoholic who was abusive and committed suicide. I learned to endure and overcome.
He gave of himself to his community and church. I learned to serve.
He took us on vacation all over the country. I learned to love to travel.
He loves history and good books. I love to learn.
He used to take us sled riding. I learned to love thrills.
He taught me to swim.
He always played with us, I learned to be playful even as an adult.
Whatever he does he does well. I learned how you do something matters.
He loves my mother more than himself. I learned to love.

Life Group

Connections. I meet again the lady who coordinates the Baptist Student Ministries at UTD. Dave my pastor is a former college ministry person and Deb his wife works of Fellowship of Christian Athletes. So, on just that level, this is a good group for me.

Connecting. I went to group and felt comfortable. Afterwards I emailed my family. That may not seem amazing to you, but for me it is another degree of turning from my hurt and reaching out and being open with people. My life had been so full of hurt and fear I have almost been in seclusion. Sometimes I wish I were Georgia O’Keeffe and I could move to New Mexico and paint in isolation for the most part and not deal with much of anything but art. I could do that and probably be relatively happy. I know the artist could. But she really needs some balance here.
This turning and healing is done by degrees. It is like the sun rising slowly day after day lower in the horizon as the season changes. Have you noticed it is getting darker sooner? It is subtle but there is change taking place.

Connected. We talked about money in group. That helped me to hear other people talk. I realized a lot of the fear I had was just fear from never having handled the money and then being responsible. It is in making decisions and having to ask people about things. Slowly I am getting better at that.

We read scripture about God’s role in our lives as far as money goes and it is all good news if you chose to trust and rely on Him.

So in these lean times that is what I am learning. I know I will look back on this one day and be grateful. I need this perspective and I need to see God work on my behalf in this and I think he will. Why? Because of what His word says.

Today

I designed a wedding shower invitation. Went to class, slept in the library in a BIG chair, learned about zygotes, ate honey nut cheerieos, wore brown, finished chapter 3, invited a friend to CR at my church, talked to the person next to me in class, got rained on, walked through the place where God speaks...."know that I am God"

Then Bryant came over and prayed for me again. None of this is in order either.

There was rain today

After work shopping I want to rewrite my poem, I guess. I got to typeset a travel brochure and I enjoyed that. I did an engagement invitation with a western theme that was fun. My presentation went ok and I enjoyed class.

Oh yeah I walked through the place where God speaks and He spoke, He said, “Why are you dismayed?”
I am not sure why. If it isn’t cloudy tomorrow I will take picture of the place where God speaks, it is beautiful with all the flowers are blooming because of the rain.

until the rain
the oleander
withholds its bloom

My weekend in review.

Dinner really did taste good. But the tortilla fell apart when I was dipping them in salsa and rolling them. I had to be very creative. I had salsa and tortilla pieces all over the place. Like between my toes. (the 5 second rule is null and void when food lands between the toes) I wish I had my dog.
I fasted most of the weekend. Did God speak? That is the reason I fast. He did this week in the middle of the week. Said he would deliver me from my distress. That all centers around the job situation. So I am learning to trust.
We talked about money in church. SHOCK. But I was glad because it is on my mind all the time. And I would like to talk openingly about it. I started to tell my parents what is going on with me. I ask for prayer all the time. I get discouraged and upset. I get tired and I can only do so much … so I have to place it in God’s hands.
I worked on my assignments and I taught art then took some photos.

This is what I drew. It is a landscape, abstracted. Looks like a big eye. I may change it. I dunno. There were two new High School girls that are interested in drawing. I had two moms and four little girls and a baby boy in the second class. Crazy but good. They may have learned something.

Angel Pin

December 2004 I wrote my good friend, the most godly woman I know and told her everything. She replied.

He is Lord
Dearest Ruth,
This angel was pinned on me at the hospital after my surgery – the bilateral mastectomy. I asked God to heal me- He spoke to me, “I can use you more this way.”
The angel was a reminder He was with me, and He had angels around me.
This is a heart gift from me to you.
I love you dearly.

A Poem I wrote this Morning as I Sit in Indecision

Still waiting, listening to God speak
Still waiting and healing from all grief
I know people whisper
Judge and fill in the blanks with
Whatever pleases them
To their shame
But I am still waiting, listening to God speak
Still waiting, healing from grief
When every thing around you falls apart
When you retreat to silence in the dark
And God whispers in your ear
Listen to that and draw near
But You will never hear his voice
If you can only see another’s choice
And judge what you don’t know or understand
Whatever happens filters though God’s hands
I am still waiting, listening to God speak
Still waiting, healing from grief

Art as a Person

Title: High Drama Drawin'

This is the first self portrait series for September 2008. I discovered NO file for 2007. That is because a year ago this week... first of September I recieved an email stating that I was being evicted. The rest is a blur. I am still officially moving in.

The bathroom is coming along nicely.

Tonight is Thursday falling into Friday

Poetry or prose… I don’t know?
Reading William Carlos Williams
He likes to rhyme within in the line
Repeats a sound, somewhere
Repeats a word, lines up the syllables
So, I count each one
And find a surprise line at the end of the stanza
They are key, to William Carlos Williams


I separate Yeats and Stein with orange paper a friend of mine carefully designed and then left and no one likes it. Green before my time, I kept it, gave some away and now it separates Shakespeare from Elliot in my black notebook where I scratch my notes in blue ink and wonder why people throw so much away without a thought. Do they do the same to their friends? Do they even know what one is?

My friends compose all the colors of the universe. I think in prismacolor and I have them all.

I am doing a presentation in class next week on William Carlos Williams.


Willow Poem


It is a willow when summer is over,
a willow by the river
from which no leaf has fallen nor
bitten by the sun
turned orange or crimson.
The leaves cling and grow paler,
swing and grow paler
over the swirling waters of the river
as if loth to let go,
they are so cool, so drunk with
the swirl of the wind and of the river --
oblivious to winter,
the last to let go and fall
into the water and on the ground.

William Carlos Williams