Also--George Inness. A new favorite painter.
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Saturday, August 22, 2015
Dignity. It's the Family Name.
Look what I just found.
Pops and I a couple of years ago. I had just discovered Photobooth and suckered him into some soberfaced self-portraits.
Pops and I a couple of years ago. I had just discovered Photobooth and suckered him into some soberfaced self-portraits.
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Swimming Hole
I don't like swimming where there are people about, not unless they're my flesh and blood (or nearly). This little qualification has made it very difficult, indeed, to find a place to swim since I've moved to Bainbridge. Town pool? No way. Lake in the state park? Closer, but still no... (there are lifeguards, and I don't like having my life guarded).
Ahem.
I am now part of a secret society of people who know about the Best Swimming Hole Ever. Location? Really?! You seriously think I would tell you?
(Although I might if you're my flesh and blood, or nearly).
I went with two young friends of mine. One of them was staying at my place for a few nights, and we had all sorts of adventures. For this particular adventure, we thought a third musketeer was quite necessary.
I suppose I could give you the smallest peep...
If it's the hot and sticky sort of summertime and you can't find me, now you know where I am.
Well, you kind of know...
When Best Friends Get Married...
...they should always marry someone who becomes a pretty awesome friend himself. (Really well done, Amanda.)
I would like you all to enjoy the loveliness of this bouquet. I just scrounged this picture from my camera; it's been hanging around since my birthday. Why not put it up on ye olde blog so you can all know how splendid Amanda and Kevin are?
Birthday bouquet, compliments of Sir Kevin (bouquet-picker-outer-and-delivery-man for his diligent, college-class-taking-wife who was not available that day):
I would like you all to enjoy the loveliness of this bouquet. I just scrounged this picture from my camera; it's been hanging around since my birthday. Why not put it up on ye olde blog so you can all know how splendid Amanda and Kevin are?
Birthday bouquet, compliments of Sir Kevin (bouquet-picker-outer-and-delivery-man for his diligent, college-class-taking-wife who was not available that day):
This post is basically for Amanda and Kevin. If you're reading this, pat each other on the back. You're wonderful.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
Acquainted with Grief
We are not "acquainted with grief" in the same way our Lord was acquainted with it. We endure it and live through it, but we do not become intimate with it.
There is much in Isaiah that falls with greater weight on my heart than it once did. The truth that Christ bore not only our sin in its entirety, but that our griefs and our sorrows, too, burdened His back. Grief and sin are blood-bound, relatives in a dark family tree. Their guilt-fullness, their God-emptiness was laid on His battered frame.
Grief, when traced back far enough, is always sired by sin.
Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life... If sin rules in me, God's life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that.
Sin will kill the life of God in us.
But thank the good Father and the crucified, buried, risen Christ.
By His wounds we are healed.
{Text in italics taken from My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers}
There is much in Isaiah that falls with greater weight on my heart than it once did. The truth that Christ bore not only our sin in its entirety, but that our griefs and our sorrows, too, burdened His back. Grief and sin are blood-bound, relatives in a dark family tree. Their guilt-fullness, their God-emptiness was laid on His battered frame.
Grief, when traced back far enough, is always sired by sin.
Sin is blatant mutiny against God, and either sin or God must die in my life... If sin rules in me, God's life in me will be killed; if God rules in me, sin in me will be killed. There is nothing more fundamental than that.
Sin will kill the life of God in us.
But thank the good Father and the crucified, buried, risen Christ.
By His wounds we are healed.
{Text in italics taken from My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers}
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
De-Cluttering
The desk in my office-library-for-one becomes chock-full throughout the year while I'm not paying attention. Tax paperwork, paraphernalia from students, cards and letters and drawings from nieces and nephews, missives from far-away friends, bank statements, paystubs, and the like. A jumble of the quirky, the mundane, the humorous, the beautiful.
Come summer, I always set aside a chunk of time to set it to rights once again so that it can re-fill during the upcoming year.
That's what I've been doing for a while now: de-cluttering. It takes a long time, since it is a chore punctuated by long bouts of rereading and reminiscing, chuckling, and--new this time--missing Dad.
I found some birthday cards from he and Mom, mostly written in Mom's tidy script but containing a funny little sketch and a few words from Dad at the bottom. I also found a slip of paper I must've written on while I was riding with Dad, just the two of us, in our old van. The past few years I've really wanted to get to know Dad better, to delve into his childhood memories and know where he came from. When I was feeling particularly ambitious, I thought I might write a book about him someday. On this particular drive I must have been feeling ambitious. I had jotted down some notes to remember later; I don't know if Dad knew I was writing anything down. He was telling me about his own dad, my grandpa. Grandpa was raised Methodist and Grandma was a Polish Catholic. Their marriage caused great consternation among their respective relatives. ["Methodists weren't saved--they were liberal; Catholics weren't saved--they were superstitious."]
I had jotted some notes about Grandpa's business, Johnson Petroleum Products, and how Grandpa had brought oil into a coal town (yep, got the town all fired up and ready for a lynching).
I had written some one-word notes that spoke volumes, like "alcohol." Dad only spoke about Grandpa's alcoholism when I asked. Dad grew up helping Grandpa deliver gas and filling the soda machine (I failed to write what soda machine in my note...). He spoke readily of the Golden Days of the 50's when he was a child--of collecting acorns and going to soda shops, of cheap hamburgers and the Lone Ranger--but much lay buried so deep inside him that I don't think even he ventured there very often. For one of his sisters, all the rawness was near the surface. She escaped to get married at 16.
Dad spoke with fondness of his hobbies and odd jobs when he was young.
"Problem is, I used up all my energy back then."
Come summer, I always set aside a chunk of time to set it to rights once again so that it can re-fill during the upcoming year.
That's what I've been doing for a while now: de-cluttering. It takes a long time, since it is a chore punctuated by long bouts of rereading and reminiscing, chuckling, and--new this time--missing Dad.
I found some birthday cards from he and Mom, mostly written in Mom's tidy script but containing a funny little sketch and a few words from Dad at the bottom. I also found a slip of paper I must've written on while I was riding with Dad, just the two of us, in our old van. The past few years I've really wanted to get to know Dad better, to delve into his childhood memories and know where he came from. When I was feeling particularly ambitious, I thought I might write a book about him someday. On this particular drive I must have been feeling ambitious. I had jotted down some notes to remember later; I don't know if Dad knew I was writing anything down. He was telling me about his own dad, my grandpa. Grandpa was raised Methodist and Grandma was a Polish Catholic. Their marriage caused great consternation among their respective relatives. ["Methodists weren't saved--they were liberal; Catholics weren't saved--they were superstitious."]
I had jotted some notes about Grandpa's business, Johnson Petroleum Products, and how Grandpa had brought oil into a coal town (yep, got the town all fired up and ready for a lynching).
I had written some one-word notes that spoke volumes, like "alcohol." Dad only spoke about Grandpa's alcoholism when I asked. Dad grew up helping Grandpa deliver gas and filling the soda machine (I failed to write what soda machine in my note...). He spoke readily of the Golden Days of the 50's when he was a child--of collecting acorns and going to soda shops, of cheap hamburgers and the Lone Ranger--but much lay buried so deep inside him that I don't think even he ventured there very often. For one of his sisters, all the rawness was near the surface. She escaped to get married at 16.
Dad spoke with fondness of his hobbies and odd jobs when he was young.
"Problem is, I used up all my energy back then."
____________________________________________
I also found one other note in that desk of mine. Just some words of Dad's that I must have wanted to hold onto. I'm glad I wrote them down.
Dad had been flipping through an insect field guide when he suddenly piped up, impassioned.
"The predatory stinkbug is a beautiful little animal!"
It's in moments like these that I remember how much I miss him.
Boy, do I miss him.
Saturday, August 1, 2015
A Second Time
Nine months on the head of pin
(where the angels dance),
nine months of swimming
through the warmest sort of dark
and hearing the muffled sounds
of talk from outer space.
I've never swum like that since--
I had to learn how a second time.
Nine months of feeling
the dexterity of God's fingers
as He gave my heart its beat,
knit together bone and flesh,
gave me a beautiful body
so I would see and hear,
speak, taste, smell,
touch, think, understand,
love.
I've never felt God's hand like that since--
I had to learn how a second time.
There have been so many second times
for me.
What of those small-large souls,
the ones who do not simply fade away,
do not simply slip back soft into the heart of God?
What of the those who rage against the dying of the light?
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