This is the prayer chain Eden made for her friend, Rosie. And here is the way the kid’s use it. (The brown beads are spacer beads.)

Children’s Prayer Chain

The Trinity Beads
Bead One: We welcome you Mama God/Papa God
Bead Two:We welcome you brother Jesus
Bead Three: We welcome you sister Spirit.

The Prayer Beads
Bead Four: Jesus loves me this I know
Bead Five: For my heart’s song tells me so
Bead Six: Little ones to God belong,
Bead Seven: When we’re weak, God is strong

Bead Eight: Yes, Jesus loves me
Bead Nine: Yes, Jesus loves me
Bead Ten: Yes, Jesus loves me

Bead Eleven: He loves me all day/night long.

The Amen Bead: Amen!

Rosie and I are thinking … {read more…}

After an hour and a half at the very patient naturopath’s, I now have a brand new diet to try to manage my migraines. It’s a vegan-plus-eggs diet (actually I can have fish too, but I don’t like fish) that’s high in protien. Bye-bye refined carbs, especially flour and sugar and hello fish oil tablets. (Thank goodness they make those in strawberry flavor now.) The hardest part will be remembering to eating every two hours without over eating. I just portioned out a couple dozen snack bags with 1/3 of a protien bar or a handful of nut-based trail mix in each one. Better stock up my purse and the glove compartment!

I am glad to know that I’m not … {read more…}

Wanna hear something funny?

-I can’t watch Six Feet Under on DVD right before I go to bed or I’m up all night trying to do spiritual direction with the characters.

-I’m depressed because the kids are back in school and I’m realizing that I really hate housework, but that I’m also scared shitless to try and write a book….so without the kids I’m stuck with the housework or doing the scary work of actually writing something.

-Today I got writer’s block and did a bunch of quizilla’s instead. My color is Red; if I were a Saint I’d be Saint Francis of Asissi (or possibly Julian of Norwich) and my life as a John Cusack movie would be “Being John Malcovich” … {read more…}

This Sunday I decided I better get back on the wagon re: teaching my kids about the Bible. I’d given up on our Sunday morning “Bible Story Club” routine when I got disenchanted with the gimmicky curriculum I had bought on line. The girls got a few Bible stories over the Summer, and lots of lessons in gratitude (see our Summer book). But we didn’t do anything formal as far as religious education goes.

This Sunday morning we all sat on the window seat in our jammies. The girls wanted to read the story of Jesus calming the sea, so we did that. Then we tried to make a storm-in-the-bottle thing that came with the aforementioned dorky curriculum. That … {read more…}

I’ve been learning more about cultural biases lately — especially my own. My children’s school is wonderfully diverse. Their friendship’s there have prompted me to check out “Islam for Dummies” from the library, to fast during Ramandan in thanksgiving for the word, and to read articles about cultural bias in the education system.

Here’s a quote for safekeeping from “Seattle Woman” magazine, Sept 2005. This is from and interview with Dr. Caprice Hollins:

“She describes culturally competent professional as one who is actively in the process of becoming aware of his or her own assumptions about human behavior, values, biases, preconceived notions and personal limitations.”

and another:

“When you say that you don’t see color, you don’t see me.”

Last night was our annual Fall Equinox Chili Fest. I shopped, cooked, and hosted for 14 hours …and loved every minute of it! We had about thirty folks or so — monkfishy folks, neighbors, friends from school. The house was full and happy and the trampoline was well occupied by “kids” of all ages. It’s always so satisfying to see my worlds cross pollinate. I loved watching Katie and Miss on the smoking porch, talking travels and tattoos with Rebecca and Paul. We stayed up late visiting with our new-ish neighbor Helene, my aforementioned friend Katie (also a neighbor) and Lindell — who’s always the last monk to make it out the door. (Thank goodness! He and Paul … {read more…}

Okay, I’ve gained ten pounds this Summer. TEN POUNDS! I’ve never been a skinny girl, but this is getting ridiculous. I’m sure part of the problem is that I wasn’t able to go to the gym over the Summer, due to the fact that I had two kids in tow. It feels so good to be back in flow yoga with MJ, even though I can only hold my crow pose for three breaths and have had to revert to “girl” push ups. Still, Summer is the time when you live on cantelope and iced tea, so it’s usually weight loss time. Fall and Winter is the time to fatten up the goose with heavier meals and cozy weekends by … {read more…}

It’s the last day of Summer, I’m sorry to say. Usually by now I’m ready for turtlenecks and season premieres. But we had such a great Summer with the girls this year that I’m not quite ready to let it go.

This was the first Summer that Cate didn’t have to take a mid-day nap. She still needs them sometimes (don’t we all!) but she can skip them at will as well. So we went on a lot of adventures this Summer: exploring parks we’d never been to, swimming in salt water, picking blackberries in back alleys. On a lark I started an art journal called “One Day This Summer…” … {read more…}

These are pictures of the shrine the girls and I made awhile back for Sudan. We’ve been following the extremely sad situation there for about a year now. Sometimes it weighs heavily on us. Sometimes, to be honest, we hardly think of it at all. It’s just somewhere to send money…someway to teach the children about tithing.

At other times the various awful things that are going on in Africa break our hearts. This is one of those times, when the reality of what is happening to God’s children there — and what we as Westerners are causing … {read more…}

Back To School!