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!

Jim has this thing he calls “ordinary attempts.” To him that term means any little thing a Christian does to extend love and attention to someone. I call this “being human.” Sadly, most evangelical Christians I know — maybe even most Christians straight up — need to re-learn how do do just that.

One of the things I’ve been retraining myself to do is to pay extra careful attention to my kid’s school. It’s a public school and I pay for it with my tax dollars, my donations to the annual auction, sand this year a tutiton fee for full day kindgergarten. So hey, I should be … {read more…}

So, my Grandmother called yesterday and she sounded all chipper and clear on the answering machine. When I called her back she was as happy-go-lucky as you can imagine, telling me all about how she’d finally gotten a good night’s sleep and how she was going to upgrade her walker to a newer, spiffier model. After a awhile we had this exchange.

“Grandma, are you being nice to Aunt Judy?”

“Well not when I’m demented! Today is a good day and I’m not demented so I told her I was sorry. I guess I gave her a bad time on Monday but today I’m fine.That’s what it means, dementia. It’s quite complicated. I mean, when you are demented you don’t really know … {read more…}

Up, Chuck!

I’ve had the stomach flu for the past three days. I do not recommend throwing up bean burritos. When I had any-time sickness with my pregnancies I kept a list on the fridge of which foods were easiest to get back up. If you are in danger of worshipping at the porcelain bowl, I recommend that you avoid the entire hot cereal family. Also, chicken corn chowder is not recommended.

When I Really Hate Religion

My grandmother is dying. She’s 82 and a recent stroke-like episode has sent her dementia into full swing. She’s never been a proper Christian. She’s got some distant Native American blood (Blackfoot, I think) and she’s always been pretty connected to the spiritual pull of the … {read more…}

I am having one of those rage-y sorts of days…and no, it’s not “that time of the month.” (Please! Don’t be so cliché!) I started getting pissed after dinner last night and I was pissed again by 8am this morning.

What’s that about?

My therapist says that anger is a secondary emotion. Most the time when she says that I want to throw a book at her head. But then, later, when I’m not paying $50 an hour, I try to figure it out. What she means is that anger points the way to something else — towards some big picture item that is making you nuts, unbalanced, or at least definitely un-shalom like.

Right now, my secondary emotion is totally … {read more…}

Woo Hoo! We got to drive my mom’s convertible for a week! Here’s a picture of Eden and Cate cruising along I-90 on our way to Fall City for a weekend drive in the country and the all-important road trip milkshake.

Which is more important: knowing Jesus loves you, or knowing how to live-out the reality of that love?

Of course even as I write that I know the answer is both/and.

The reason I am thinking about this sort of thing is because of VBS. For those of you who grew up outside the fundamentalist or evangelical bubble, that means Vacation Bible School.

Now, my little post-modern, post- evangelical, post-mainline kiddos don’t go to Sunday school. They know their Bible stories, a fistful of songs, St. Pat’s Breastplate and how to do centering, encircling, and Sabbath prayers – but they do not go to Sunday school. So far Paul and I and our monkfishy friends have managed to be their … {read more…}

June 18th
Solstice Parade! Walk in parade while wearing giant silver lame (women) or bright red biohazard suits (men). Gather several tons of plastic water bottles and aluminum cans in our Suessical Reuseable machines. Hug lots of friendly on-lookers. (Pics in gallery soon.)

Family attempts to watch Solstice Pagent with out of town guests. Plan is aborted when it is discovered that four-year-old is breaking out in chicken pox. Return home and attend to feverish child, thereby missing out on fellow-monk’s fabulous fire-spining, live-band-jamming solstice par-tay. (Sorry Craig!)

June 19th
Amber (Eden’s godmom and our good friend from Regent) comes for a week’s vacation and kicks things off by soaking in the hot tub and … {read more…}

While the kids are jumping around on the sofa cushions, pretending they are bouncy mushrooms, I thought I’d post this…

(or I could pay the bills…naaah, I’ll post this…)

Catie (age 4) drew this for me yesterday.

Paul noticed that there was a step missing in this transaction and added this…

Guess we’d better go break a plate.