I’ve had so much in my head lately and no time to blog it out. Eden got sick. Streph Throat. She coughs all night. We get her medicated and settled down. But by then Cate is awake. She comes in to tell me stuff like, “I love you Mommy an I just wanna seeeeee you.” This is darling…but not at 3am! Since E’s been home from school there’s been no gym and no work all week. Our big cake tasting for Postres de Elena is coming up and I’ve got like, 1,000 emails to get into our database for the invite. Plus, my in laws are coming on Friday. Lent is right around the corner and we only have two … {read more…}

This call for artists thing is long, and it bumped my cool “Eden healed me” story off the page. So, scroll down, will ya?

OnLine Art Meditations for Lent

Hey All. ThPm has it in our head to webhost some meditative art pieces for the Lent. We thought it would be fun to see if we could get submission from across the city and even across the country. So consider yourself a friend of ThPM and join in with us, will ya?

We are looking for six art pieces which reflect on traits of Jesus. We’ll post one each week between March 28th-April 11th. The general idea is to have some visual artwork, accompanied by some text that would either appear at the bottom or be incorporated into the art. If you don’t know how to make this happen technically, we can do that in-house. (I think we’ll have an example up by Wednesday of next week on our site, thursdaypm.org.)

Each week a new piece of art will appear on the website. You can use it as wallpaper on your computer and reflect on it during your day, or just spend some time on the site meditating a bit and grooving on what the artists has given us. In addition to using the pieces for individual reflection, ThPM is also going to use them as the centerpiece of our weekly gathering. We’ll either use them in worship, as an icon for centering prayer, or as a topic for group discussion. Maybe you’d like to use them too? You’ll also be able to share your reaction/insights/observations to the piece on the website either through a comment box or some sort of community blog.

Here’s some ideas to get you started. If you want to try your hand at this, commit soon, okay? Don’t leave us hanging. Hit “reply all” and let everyone know what theme you’re interested in working on. If we get more than one for any given theme, maybe we’ll be able to post more than one for that week? Or maybe we’ll go with first come, first served. I’ll let you know. Then get your art, in digital format, to our webmaster mikelajoie@comcast.net . Please submit digital artwork in jpg format if possible. Digital photos of art are ok. Other formats will be accepted upon approval. Submissions must be received by Feb 20th.

Pretty please….

Don’t say “I’m not good enough”
Don’t say “I don’t know these people well enough”
Don’t restrict yourself to overtly religious images
Do trust your gut.
Do say you’ll play!

Here are the themes and some ideas to give you a jump start. They are like sourdough starter — just to get the ol’ creative juices flowing. They’re in no particular order.

Lover Host Servant Vagabond Mystery Lamb (for more info, read the extended post. There are cool quotes from Anne Lamott and Kahil Gibran and stuff.)
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I’ve had migraines for a long time now. They’ve been regular for about a year. Once I had them every day for two months. I’ve tried traditional treatments and alternative drugs. Right now I’m taking a couple of kinds of epilepsy drugs, swallowing fistfuls of supplements, and my ankles are dotted with tiny bruises from the acupuncture. Then last week I had a three day migraine.

By Saturday I was very discouraged. I mean, what else was I going to do? Amputate my head? We had an hour’s drive to my parents that day, so Paul suggested that I try to practice some relaxation techniques to loosen up my neck and jaw. We needed the girls to be quiet, so Paul asked them to do centering prayer. “Yeah girls,” I said, “ask Jesus what he’s up to today. Eden immediate had something she wanted to share. Here’s what she said:

I see Jesus walking under a purplish pinkish sky. Then I saw a big long table. Jesus was sitting at the head of the table and I was sitting at the foot of the table. Then I ran up to him and gave him a great big hug. Then we raked up all the leaves together and Jesus gave me my own child-sized rake. Then when summer came, we touched all the leaves and made them green and glued them to the trees.

I was thinking, dang, this girl sure has a direct line to God these days. So I thought I’d give something a try. “Eden, why don’t you ask Jesus what he’s doing with Mommy’s head.” Eden closed her eyes and took a breath. This is what she said:
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