(While Vertigo is playing in the van…)

“Mommy can you put on something not so….rowdy?”

“Sure Eden. How about Polyphonic Spree?”

“Yeah.”

(listening to Together We’re Heavy)

“Mommy, PSpree has a lot of energy in their songs…a lot of soul….Well, everybody has a soul, but you know.”

(more listening)

“Mommy? Are Pspree Christians?”

“Well, that’s a good question Eden. I think they definitely get God, don’t you? You can hear it in their music. But I don’t know if they know Jesus or not.”

“Jeez, Mommy. God is Jesus and Jesus is God. So if they know God, they know Jesus!”

“Um. Good point, Eden.”

(P.s. Wanna see PSpree’s soul that’s connected to the big G? Check out the animated version of Light and Day.)

Here is Love vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the flood,
when the Prince of life our ransom, shed for us His precious blood.

On the mount of crucifixion fountains opened deep and wide.
Through the flood gates of God’s mercy, flowed a vast and gracious tide.
Grace and love like mighty rivers poured incessant from above,
Heaven’s peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love.

It is the last week of December. The tsunami struck four days ago. Right now 70,000 people are dead. Tommorow that number will grow. Soon disease will set in and more will follow … {read more…}

This is something I sent out to ThPm’s alias today. I’d be interested in your ideas…in hearing how your communities are responding to this disaster.

________________________________________________________

The death toll exceeded 70,000 today.

What do we do in the face of such a tragedy?

Fiona and I spoke on the phone yesterday and we would like to do something as a community to acknowledge, mourn and respond to this crisis. Here are a few ways we might respond:

1) Story Telling: I think Fiona and Craig might bring some photos of their trip to the India coast. Their stories might help us connect with a global disaster on a more personal level.

2) Interceding: We could pray in two ways…for those who like … {read more…}

One of the realities that captures me most this Advent season is the idea of Emmanuel, God with us. I love God as an infant, God as a fellow traveler, God as our sibling and friend. It’s one of the rare traits of Yahweh, this willingness, even eagerness to be near to us.

Last week ThPM gathered for our last week of Advent worship. Catie had been sick all week and I hadn’t had time to write my “sermon” (again.) But we were a small group, Iz was back after a long semester of night classes, and Lindell was home from Pasadena so we wanted to catch up anyway. We had planned to read an essay by Brennen Manning, but … {read more…}

Bob Carlton over at The Corner had a neato idea to ask bloggers to round up their favorite five posts from 2004. Here’s my little collection. You can link to other bloggers’ lists, or submit your own here. Here’s to the memories, the journey, and all things blogworthy.

Lava, Pele and Namaste
Birdsong
Beautiful Fragile Things
Martini Tales
Advent Week One: I Do Believe in Fairies

I’m really a better pagan than I am a Christian. All of the things I do to express my faith are rather pagan-y. Its popular now in Christian circles to call these kinds of practices Celtic. But really, they are just pagan. Advent wreaths, evergreens, the holly and the ivy…we’ve copped it all from the pagans.

Me, I love building altars out of rocks. I think priestesses are beautiful. As far as I’m concerned lighting a candle with a real match is a thing of beauty. (Please leave those butane candle-lighting thingies at home. Ritual people, rit-tyoo-ahl!) Oh, and there’s nothing I like better than a good celebration of a seasonal change-over. (I call as a witness the 40 some … {read more…}

Last night we went to “A Tranquil Advent Evening” at St. Mark’s Cathedral. The labs were all lit, as were the steps to the altar. There was classical guitar, and peace candles, Gregorian chants, a harp. It was raining outside, as it had been all week. But inside…well…I wasn’t prepared for the sound.

It was as if the wind had decided to roar and sweep only around the cathedral. As if the rest of the city had been abandoned by her touch, that she might rally around this one space, a focal point. Her tendrical arms were weaving and circling only around the deep, quiet nave.

“I am in a ship,” I thought, behind … {read more…}

1) Get all the candles you can lay your hands on and put them in one room.

2)Turn off all the lights, except maybe a candle or two to read by.

3) Read this, slowly.

When the World was Dark.

When the world was dark
and the city was quiet,
you came.

You crept in beside us.

And no one knew.
Only the few
who dared to believe
that God might do something different.

Will you do the same this Christmas, Lord?

Will you come into the darkness of tonight’s world;
not the friendly darkness
as when sleep rescues us from tiredness,
but the fearful darkness,
in which people have stopped believing
that war will end
or that food will come
or … {read more…}

But you Bethlehem, David’s country, the runt of the litter—from you will come the leader who will Shepherd –rule Israel. His family tree is ancient and distinguished. Meanwhile, Israel will be in foster homes until the birth pangs are over and the child is born, and the scattered brothers come back home to the family of Israel. He will stand tall in his shepherd-rule by God’s strength, centered in majesty of GOD-revealed. And the people will have a good and safe home, for the whole world will hold him in respect –peacemaker of the world. Micah 5:2

On the first day of Advent, and I sat on our window seat in my flannel pajamas. My flannel pajamas … {read more…}

The blog has been silent due to 1)migraines, 2)out of town guests, 3)head colds and 4) that thing you do when you’ve had migraines, out of town guests and head colds, so the house becomes one major disaster area, and no one remembers to pay the bills and oh-by-the-way the camping stuff from last summer hasn’t been put away properly and is stacked in front of the Christmas decorations which the kids want to get out right now!

Oh, and also, when I checked on my blog a week or so ago it had a couple thousand (not kidding) p*rn sites in the comments and so I had to make all my previous entries “closed” to comments – and then spend … {read more…}