We decided to read over dinner last night. Sometimes, in our effort to be a neo-monastic order, we like to pretend we are monks and we read over dinner. I was going to read something moody and King James sounding from Kahil Gibran’s Jesus Son of Man, but I went with Ashes to Alvin by Anne Lamott instead. (Did I mention she saved my life by publishing Operating Instructions? I swear to God I would not have made it through my first year of parenting with out her.) After reading, and after a bowl of tomato lentil soup with feta and basalmic vinegar, we lit a candle on our menorah. Yes, our menorah. My parents gave me a tree of life menorah. I can’t seem to get into Chanukah. Too much going on in December, I guess. But I do like my menorah as it looks very much like the gnarled root of a tree. So we use it at Lent, sort of like an Advent wreath, and count down the weeks on it’s wicks. We lit the menorah, and we sang some songs. While we were singing some folks sketched or painted or messed about with craypas. Liz made this brave sketch of the church symbolized by a cross behind bars, but studded with these great 3D dayglow flowers. (Hope in the midst of mistakes). While we sang, we each took a rock from the shrine and put it on the mantle/altar to show that we were going to journey with Jesus these next 40 days. Some of us wrote in our new group journal, one just for Lent, and jotted down thoughts or what we were giving up, or whatever. Then we propped Craig’s piece up on the altar, along with some stones and a silk butterfly and all the candles andwe talked about Jesus and what we liked about him, and what we didn’t. What we got about him and what confused us. There was a lot of good stuff in there. It felt good. I think people were honest. That’s what felt good.

Lindell swang by have way through. You remember Lindell, the guy we said good bye to last week with the jug band party? He was hungry on his was to Cali and came over for a late bowl of soup. It’s so cool that he stopped at our house for soup. “I was on my way to California, and just thought I’d stop by. Got any soup?” Who does that? It rocks. So, we got to get in a big blessing huddle and prayed for him. As usual he stayed up late with us until we had to unfurl our sleeping bag on our sofa (or maybe he ended up on the floor, because I think he is taller than our couch is long.) So this morning, when we woke up, the girls and I had eggs and english muffins with Lindell then sent him on his way to his great adventure at Fuller.