Yes, blogging is out of vogue. But after deleting my facebook page I'm finding pleasure in older, slower things, including online expression that isn't focused on cramming an image of me into one sentence. Better yet, my thoughts aren't being forced onto anyone by appearing in their news feed nor are their thoughts/pictures/new relationship assaulting me.

You might call it spring cleaning. I've been deleting numbers from my phone; all those 'friends' I might *someday* need to contact. I've been silencing my texting habit and spending some real face time with the faces I love. And I've been writing letters again. Writing letters can open you.

Maybe I'm trying for a new leaf. I don't know. What I do know is that without all the clutter from facebook filling my brain (do I really need to know how she feels about her job anyway?), I've been doing a lot of thinking.

Also, Mumford&Sons are positively inspired.

so tell me now where was my fault/
in loving you with my whole heart?
...lead me to the truth and I/
will follow you with my whole life

Recalled to Life?

It's been over a year since I posted saying I would start writing again. I'll be real: I'm not promising anything here. But I don't want this blog to die. It has some history, a small readership, and well, it's valuable to me, even if it is neglected by me.

I recently discovered Poets and Writer's Magazine. And I was reminded of something obvious but forgotten: I am a writer. Life has a way of pressing us with short term and shallow issues and somewhere between the gas pump and the grocery store we can forget what we were made for. One of the things I was made for is writing, and I've been neglecting that pursuit. Can a blog satisfy my need to write? I doubt it. But it could get my creative stream started again, and for that purpose it is worthwhile.

Kim Addonizio, one of my favorites in the world of poetry, wrote a book entitled Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within. It is essentially a book about process, but it includes many, many wonderful exercises designed to engage the mind and memory and help us get something on the page. I want to engage those exercises. I want my mind to work again, the way it was meant to work, with words.

So offer me grace as I attempt to recall this blog to life. Maybe it has been in a cocoon and will come out a butterfly. Or maybe it will cease to be worth time and become a catch-all; my notebook of rough drafts in need of revision--or the trash can.

We shall see...

Hello

Say Hello!

I'm starting up again with this blogging thing. I know it's been about a year, but my blog still exists, so as I return to the reflective life I may as well share here again.

How to begin? What about with a link to one of the coolest tv shows of all time. Here's Andy Griffith and the Darlings singing "Dooley"

Wings...

Celebration. Dancing. Pictures. Guests. Cake. Joy.

After many days of preparation (so many people did so much work!) and a few days rejoicing with family and new family, my little sister is married. She is a wife now, and I have a brother. A real brother. Finally, a big brother.



[Boaz] said, "Who are you?" And she answered, "I am Ruth, your servant. Spread your wings over your servant for you are a redeemer." ~ruth3:9

my change jar

$17.83 in pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters
14 guitar picks
2 Canadian pennies
2 safety pins
1 paper clip
1 yellow 20 gauge shotgun shell
1 glass bead
1 button
1 set of keys
1 sliver of wood

Endurance

I bet the frozen pizza industry really understands America's hunger for instant gratification. All the food chains should, actually. We want instant results, instant gratification, now rather than later, and dessert before dinner. Our desires rule our lives, or so it would seem.

And some actions do offer instant results--I'm hungry, so I'm motivated to make supper, which I eat and instantly my motive/desire is satisfied. But what about those goals that are more abstract? What about the realm of character and the spiritual? I understand the seed, the motive that starts an action. What I'm wondering is this:

What is it that keeps us going?

Where do we get endurance from? How do we remain steadfast? "The testing of your faith produces steadfastness" (James 1:3)

I would submit to you this: that the fuel for our endurance IS our faith. As it is tested, it is either proved true or consumed, which produces a faithfulness, an endurance, a steadfastness in our lives. In spite of opposition, we are able to keep going in the good work we have begun. Why? Because He is faithful to create in us that which can withstand the test. And over time, through many trials, we gain character. We begin to see that we are His heirs in more than title.

I think faith is kind of like hope: a looking forward to what we know we already posses. Like the son who has an inheritance but yet looks forward to receiving it. We begin an action in faith, we suffer testing which proves our faith to be true, and we end up where? With hope that doesn't disappoint us.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
Ro5:3-6

At the right time. When we were still weak. Wow. Surely every ounce of our faith, our action, our hope is a gift. I want to enjoy every particle of it. I believe it is mine. Yet I have need of endurance.

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.
Heb 10:35-36

Healing