To Be 11...

Words of wisdom from Mary last night as she was heading upstairs to her room after a really long day to munch on a snack and relax:

"Ah, I've got all the P's I need -

Pasta (leftovers from our scrumptious picnic),

Potter (Harry Potter #5 - She's devouring them!), and

purple Gatorade.

Perfect!"

:-)

CONTINUE READING...

What is the Bible?

Hope you've had a wonderful Sabbath day, friends! If you're here in the Sandhills of North Carolina, we had an absolutely spectacular day, didn't we? I was happy to spend a few hours outdoors at a local park, walking four miles with a friend, and then having a yummy lunch with our Life Group.

I've spent most of the afternoon working on the first week of a six week study I'm leading beginning this Tuesday. It's called "Unwrapping God's Gift: Understanding the Bible". I'm pretty excited about it. As always, I struggle with how to shrink down and clarify all the goodies I have swimming around in this fishbowl head of mine. Pray for me!

Each week's topic will be a question. This week's is What is the Bible? It's a question that is foundational to the rest of the study.  Putting it a little differently:

• Is the Bible a record of man reaching out to God?
• Or is the Bible a record of God reaching down to man?

Simply, is it man's word or is it God's? The answer is not only crucial to the gals' understanding of the material we'll be covering the remaining weeks, but it's critical to their understanding of themselves, God, and Jesus. 

Since I'm a member of a church belonging to the EFCA, I decided to take their Statement of Faith on the Bible and break it apart:

We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.

I'll leave you with a few facts that I'll be sharing as we get kicked off:

• The Bible contains 66 "books" divided up into two "Testaments", the Old and New.
• It was written by 40 different authors over a span of 1500 years.
• It was written on three different continents - Africa, Asia, and Europe.
• It was written in three different languages - Hebrew (OT), Greek (NT) and Aramaic (NT)
• Amazingly, all the books share a common storyline - the creation, fall, and redemption of God's people. 

I'll be blogging more about our lesson this week! Blessings!

Oh! Part of our homework will be to memorize the first ten books of the Bible. Want to join us?

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel

CONTINUE READING...

Quiet...

Wow. It's Saturday already! I'd like to say that since I haven't written I've been super productive creatively, either writing or drawing, but - alas - that is not the case! And I can't say I've been getting a lot done around the house because that is SURELY not the case as I consider my dirty floors and piled up laundry.

I'm not sure where the week has gone exactly.... But, here are some thoughts that I've had tucked away in the dusty "bloggable" corner of my mind:

1.  I'm getting ready to start leading a new short Bible Study for women who are new to the faith or who have just never really learned much about the Bible. It's going to cover the basics - What is the Bible? How do we know it is true? What's it really all about? What is the Gospel? How are the books of the Old Testament put together? The New Testament? Etc, etc. It's a short six-week study with a smallish group of women (10) in my home on Tuesday  nights. I've been getting prepared... trying not to over-do as I so often end up doing.... yet, still a little overwhelmed with the responsibility of teaching about God's Word. So, praying bloggy friends out there, I covet your prayers if you think of me between now and Tuesday. Above is the cover for the binder I hope to put together to give the ladies to store notes, handouts, etc.

2.  The restaurant where E worked closed last week. While helping the owner clean things out, she managed to come home with some interesting give-aways. Her most favorite is the giant can of ketchup. She loves ketchup! :-) (The photo is a bit blurry, but I still think she's pretty cute!) She started a new job on Tuesday training to be a waitress. I'm sure there will be plenty of bloggable moments coming soon!!

3.  And then there's Mary. My girl has grown a foot in the last month! Changing so fast I can  hardly keep up with her. The latest is my baby is finally outgrowing that phase of having to be forced to take a shower to now taking 30 minute showers nightly without any reminders. :-) Definitely a rite of passage into womanhood... that need for a long, hot, steamy shower to wash away the cares of the day! (The photo is from her school's Night of the Arts. Mary played "a star" and did a bang-up job! So proud of her!!)

4. I spent most of today cleaning my porch. (This is a pre-clean photo, although it's hard to see all the pollen everywhere.) I haven't spent much time in this space lately. I've forgotten how much I love to sit out here and read and write and listen to the wind in the trees. :-)

5.  I'm thinking about ordering these lights for my porch. I'd really like these, but they're a bit too expensive. Hmmm... wonder if I could make my own version??

6.  I am reading this. No fiction at the moment, although I do owe you a book review for this.

7.  That's it for me. Off to bed. Have a wonderful Sabbath day tomorrow!

CONTINUE READING...

Seven on Saturday

Hello! Here's "seven" for you:

1.  Here's a fellow who's trying to draw every building in NYC. Quite a challenge, huh? Here's a short interview with him below...

.

2.  A friend sent this to me this week...truly amazing. It's from the World Shanghai Expo 2010.

3.  And another friend sent this to me - doodled Easter eggs! I think I'll try to make a few of these before Easter. I'm thinking pastel Sharpie's instead of black. 

4.  Ok - the geek in me just loves this pillow from Yellow Bug Boutique!

5.  Good news! Matt informed me today he has about TEN MORE HOURS of work to complete the remodel job on our bathroom. We now officially have water to the new jacuzzi tub and the vanity. The tub has been tiled and so has the floor. Walls have been sheet-rocked, floated, sanded, and painted. Ceramic baseboards are going up. The new mirror is being hung. Trim is being painted. What's left: purchase and install a toilet and light fixtures. Hang shower rod and order curtain and rugs. Hmmm... that's about it. All the girls in the family are soooo excited to almost have a TUB again after... ahem.... a really long time. 

6.  So - I picked up FOUR wheelbarrows full of pine cones today and am only about 1/3 finished. But, guess what? There is a major thunderstorm moving through tonight complete with lightening and hail. How many pine cones do ya think are going to fall tonight?! THIS is why I don't do yard work very often. It's seems pointless!

7.  That's it from NC tonight! Hope you have a blessed Sabbath day tomorrow, bloggy friends!

CONTINUE READING...

Good Questions

I'm behind on April's PAD over at Poetic Asides, but I wrote these lines down from April 3rd's prompt:

"Imagine the world without you"

This is what plopped out of my harried little mind:

Good Questions
 

What if you had never been here?
Had never been born?

What if your particular blueprint
with all your dimensions and specifications,
with all your quirks and peculiarities,
had been tossed in the recycle bin
before production ever started?

Whose day would be darker without your smile?
Whose heart would be colder without your love?

What would the world be missing that you have made?
A child, perhaps?
Maybe a work of art – a painting, a poem, a story?
Or is it a warm hearth and humble home?

These are good things to ask before you start your day.

Because there is someone who needs your smile today.

There is someone who craves your love.

And there is something only you-
with your hands and mind and body -
can give to the world.

So, rise and shine, my lovely!

Smile.

Love.

Create.

You are here.

CONTINUE READING...

Seven on Sunday

Hello, hello! Hope you’ve had a lovely Sabbath Day!  Here’s ‘seven’:

1.  Look what I came across on the internet this morning: My BABY picture!! Weird, huh? My cousin does a lot of family research and has an online family tree going. Apparently she’s started uploading some family photos…. Actually, I was glad to find this. It’s my favorite baby picture of me. I always remembered it being on my grandma’s mantle. I like my pointy little fingers and my hair sticking up on top. Mom pulled my hair up in a ribbon on top of my head so much (apparently because I looked like a boy if she didn’t) that it finally just stuck up on its own. Ha!

2. There was also this photo of my dad. I actually have the original of this one. Handsome, wasn’t he? I think it got him in a lot of trouble…..

3. Speaking of my dad…. Our family – our WHOLE family – will be heading down to Louisiana next month. Shocking, but true! My parents and Matt’s dad haven’t met The Girl, so we’re heading down for a long weekend full of fish fries and bar-b-q’s.

4. New word from Mary at the drive through last week: “I think she misunderheard us.” Great word, I think!

5.  I think I could do this. Anybody got some old shoes they want me to practice on?

6.  I like this pattern from designer jots.

7.  Wouldn’t you like to have a tree house like this? (See more here.)

CONTINUE READING...

Book Review: Dearest Creature

Dearest Creature by Amy Gerstler, Paperback: 96 pages, Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics); Original edition (September 29, 2009), ISBN-10: 0143116355
Rating: 3 of 5 STARS
Source: Random selection at a used book store

I read this little volume of poetry on the way to DC last weekend. Although there were a few poems that I thought were lovely, mostly I found them strange and a bit hard to follow. Could be a failing on my part, so don’t rule this poet out. Here’s the description from the back of the book:

”Hallucinogenic plants chant in chorus. A thoughtful dog grants an interview. A caterpillar offers life advice. Amy Gerstler's newest collection of poetry, Dearest Creature, marries fact and fiction in a menagerie of dramatic monologues, twisted love poems, and epistolary pleadings. Drawing on sources as disparate as Lewis Carroll and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, as well as abnormal psychology, etiquette, and archaeology texts, these darkly imaginative poems probe what it means to be a sentient, temporary, flesh-and- blood beast, to be hopelessly, vividly creaturely.”

My favorite was probably the first – “For My Niece Sidney, Age Six”. You can read it here. I loved that she mentioned Martin Luther:

……………………………………..…Martin Luther
believed we human beings contain the “inpoured
grace of God,” as though grace were lemonade,
and we are tumblers brimful of it. Is grace
what we hold in without spilling a drop,
or is it an outflooding, a gush of messy,
befuddling loves?”

Other lines I liked:

From “Chanson:”
Seriously undermedicated, I waltz
downstairs into the soaked street
during a short storm.
*I just thought “seriously undermedicated” was funny.


From “Birds of America:”
…cavorting by the frilly hem of the foaming ocean…

and
Then fall hurled itself down
with it's customary thud.


From “Mrs. Monster Pens Her Memoirs:”
At my age, memory hiccups and tics.

and

Beauty only divides the world -
ugliness is far more fascinating,
contains infinitely more variation,
its existence crucial to beauty,
therefore all the more precious.

and

If only someone else could slip inside this body
(the soul’s meaty Halloween costume:
sometimes it’s pinkish, or the brackish color of wet wood:
depends on my mood) and look out through these pinhole eyes,
work the opposable thumb, squeeze into the driver’s seat
beside me, they could pilot this rig while I sleep.
I am so tired. And I demand to know:
who stuffed me into this old-lady suit and how
do I burst out now – unzip it and step free?

Oh! And on a ‘poetical’ note – Poetic Asides from Writer’s Digest has started their Poem-A-Day Challenge for April. The first prompt was to write a “What got you here” poem. I did this challenge two (maybe three?) years ago and it got me writing more than most anything else every has. You should try it!
I hope to give it a go this year, too.

CONTINUE READING...

Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon, Paperback: 226 pages, Publisher: Vintage (May 18, 2004), ISBN-10: 1400032717

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: My Fiction TBR List

Ok, so I have picked this book up and put it down I don’t know how many times since it’s been published. I always decided not to buy it because I just didn’t think I could connect with a narrator who was an autistic 15-year-old boy. However, I finally put it on my TBR list after seeing it on so many lists of top modern fiction.

It’s good. Really good. I didn’t find it to be great literature so much as a touching story with insight into the world of an autistic child and his family. The story itself was very entertaining and kept me interested in what was going to happen next. It was a quick, easy, engaging read. 

One note – I’ve read that Haddon describes himself as a “hardline atheist” and that’s pretty obvious from the book: a few snippets belittling belief in God or an afterlife plus Haddon offers no real hope for any of his characters at the conclusion. Even with that, it’s an excellent book and definitely worth the time to read. 

Highly recommend.

CONTINUE READING...

Book Review: A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Paperback: 224 pages, Publisher: New Directions (September 2004), ISBN-10: 9780811216029

Rating: 5 of 5 STARS
Source: E had to read for Senior AP English class

As we were heading out last Friday for DC, Ellen asked if we could stop by a bookstore so she could pick up A Streetcar Named Desire because she needed to have read before she went back to school from Spring Break. I’m always up for a bookstore, so of course we stopped! (She also bought this and this since the Borders we stopped at was going out of business and was having a ginormous sale! She’s told me I should read both so I can have some idea of what’s going on in our country as I am totally oblivious these days. Oh, it’s going to be fun to have a Political Science major in the family!)

When we got back on the road, E started to nap so I began scanning Streetcar just to see if I could remember if I had read it in high school. I was hooked after about ten pages and didn’t want to put it down. E and I shared it back and forth all weekend and discussed it a bit as we went along.

I don’t think I had read this particular play of Tennessee Williams before. I’m pretty sure I read The Glass Menagerie and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. And I’m guessing it’s been since high school that I read a play. I really liked Streetcar and enjoyed the genre. It makes me want to read other plays and this looks like a good list to start with. (By the way, I saw Wit: A Play in movie form years ago and still recall how much it touched me. I didn’t realize it was a Pulitzer Prize winner. See it, if you can.)

I won’t review the actual play except to say by the end of it I felt compassion for Blanche and a good bit of disdain for her sister. The long and the short of it is I really enjoyed Streetcar and look forward to dipping into a new genre. I’ve already put the1951 movie version with Marlon Brando and Vivien Leigh in my Netflix queue. (When I saw Vivien Leigh played Blanche, I couldn’t resist! Scarlett is my favorite literary character and Vivien Leigh will always be may image of her. Can’t wait to see how she pulled off Blanche!)

Sorry for the rambling review. Highly recommend this one!

CONTINUE READING...