For Carolyn

Carolyn, I had no idea you were still reading my blog...I thot sure now that such a nice young man has captured your time that I and my blog were history, so I was flattered by your comment.

We had a murder mystery dinner at our house last weekend. We took the leap years ago and hosted one for our friends after finding the game at a garage sale. It has become somewhat of a winter tradition now, esp among some of our friends and even our daughter's friends.
Daughter Bethany drove down from college in Seattle and she and her friends put on a delightful evening for all of their parents.
I enjoyed having such a great bunch of young adults in my kitchen all afternoon, chopping, baking and simmering...Chef Blake, you have done it again.
Carolyn's Mom and husband were two of the distinguished guests, her Mom, Linda, dressed her part as a famous actress, husband Don was the carefree fisherman. What fun to look forward and enjoy such an evening...winter needs more of these delightful breaks from the ongoing responsibilities of adulthood. Thanks kids...it was a gift!
Here are some scenes from that evening...the evening did NOT include alcohol...we had a fine time without it don't you think?

Busyness

I read a quote from Eugene Peterson this week that I have been thinking about.
He said, "Busyness is the enemy of spirituality. It is essentially laziness. It is doing the lazy thing instead of the hard thing."
I just finished a short stint teaching the teenagers at church. We have been studying the book of James in the Bible and the first chapter talks about how God's word is like a mirror that reflects back to us what our inside person looks like.
I had each one count up in their head how many mirrors they could think of in their house and cars, purse, etc. (over twenty here at my house) Then I had them count how many Bibles their family owned. Guess what, the mirrors won... but worse yet is how many times a day we check out our physical reflection compared to looking into the Word at our eternal reflection....too busy to examine the eternal but ever checking the temporal, diligently monitoring its decay? This challenges me...you?

Pandora evenings

My new favorite thing on these cold and dark evenings is to close the blinds, build a fire and light a big fat candle for the middle of the dinner table. Then I put out whatever we are cooking or reheating for dinner and put on Pandora on my laptop....a website that lets you create your own "radio stations" custom designed with the music, artists and styles you like. You can sign up free at: http://www.pandora.com/

I am so enjoying listening to songs I have not heard for years and finding new artists that are similar to those I already like. Now I prepare dinner to James Taylor, Carol King, The Carpenters, Olivia Newton John, Roberta Flack, even Huey Lewis and the News! Rod's Pandora is more instrumental with stations like jazz, piano, classical, blue grass and some strange techno stuff that he likes. I will say that his music works better for dinner; mine after dinner.



We also have some good praise music like Hillsong but I am enjoying catching up with some of my old favorites right now. It's nice to have music in the house again, I had given up trying to find music I liked on the radio years ago. What a difference to do the things we do on these cold winter evenings with great music to lift our spirits and add some energy.

This is New Years Eve and we passed on parties to enjoy a relaxing evening with our books and music...maybe we will watch an old movie or play a game before midnight but I know I will be in bed soon after if not before...these days I look forward to waking up rested and enjoying my first cup of coffee on New Years Day more than being out in the cold and on the roads...although last year we did have fun playing games at a party.

Having the kids home for Christmas, including new grandbaby Micah kept me too busy to blog.
How is your post holiday time going? How are you coping with the dark evenings and cold?
Maybe you need one of these Micah guys to cheer you up? :)

Butcher paper thanks

Remember back before Thanksgiving I was musing over my desire to bring the focus of Thanksgiving back to our blessings?
Well, I tried one of the ideas I had read....a poster, butcher paper, on the stairway closet door with a marker attached. Family and guests were invited to write in things throughout the holiday...one I always forget is really quite long...4 days.

The hard part was finding pictures...even of food which I was trying to downplay. I commissioned new son in law Dan to draw the church at the bottom.
It became obvious that Thanksgiving has become a "blip" between Halloween and Christmas, mostly ignored by our commercial world...even Christian publications were strangely vacant of Thanksgiving pictures!

Interesting that we downplay a holiday about being thankful so we get on with a holiday about getting more things? hmmm.

Anyway, it was a good focus and as you can see it caused some good direction of thought.
I hope others will try it next year....maybe put it in the back of your 2007 calendar for Nov 2008?

"When there is no hope, one must invent hope"?

The above drawing is by Ala, Age 13

Like many other children, Ala witnessed conflict between rebel groups and the Janjaweed. This drawing depicts a rebel soldier first shot in the arm, then executed by gunshots to the groin. Ali, a teacher in a refugee camp, said the rebels are killed this way to emasculate them. "They [the Janjaweed] know what they are doing," he said. "They are doing it with purpose."

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Many blog ideas have been circling my head the last few weeks, (oh and I did get my clean clothes all put away...I don't regret giving that time to ME). I want to talk about the effect of winter light deprivation and the depression and lack of energy, and some of the cool things people are doing to combat that...maybe in January I will get to it.

What got me out of my chair and here at the computer today however was what I just read in the paper today. It was in the TV section about the HBO special tonight on the African Sudanese crisis of Darfur that George Clooney will narrate on HBO called "Sand and Sorrow".

It chronicles the genocide of Arabic nomad Africans against non arabic black farmers. These arabs want to drive all the non arabs out and torture, killing innocent women and children , and other heinous acts seem to be perfectly ok from their viewpoint...maybe even fun? I cannot watch this as we do not have cable but a few things caught my eye in the article.

*400,000 people have died in Darfur...met by a giant international shrug

(If this many have died, imagine how many are maimed and/or refugees?)

*The media's response in 2006: ABC: 18 minutes, NBC: 5 minutes, CBS 3 minutes

(Martha Stewart got 130 minutes)

*Researchers who have gone to Africa to document this took paper, crayons, and pencils to "keep the children occupied" while they interviewed adults. The results were graphic drawings of what the children had been through and witnessed...many of these drawings now are on display on a national tour here in the US.

The quote in my title is by a french philosopher Albert Camus...and is used in the article in the context that something must be done to get the world past this passive "yawn" attitude towards such suffering.

I have heard that some evangelical churches are encouraging their congregations to limit Christmas spending on self and family this year and instead as a church, take on projects in places like Africa to provide life sustaining relief such as paying for a well to be drilled for a village without clean water to drink.

We have already taken steps to limit Christmas spending this year and I have already written a check to help orphans in this area of Africa, http://www.lahash.net/ ,but I can and want to do more.

Maybe the question to ask ourselves this Christmas is , "What would Jesus do?"

When did I start living this way?

I have so much I want to blog about but I still have clean laundry in baskets in my room. Actually I can't remember the last time I didn't have them in my room. This is not the way I want to live!
I was able to watch an Oprah today and it was about people who are hoarders and clutter bugs...my space looks pretty normal but it frightens me that I might end up like that when my mind goes (anytime now?)

This week was significant however, I went to Sally's beauty supply and they offered me a discount card, only $2.50 if you are 55 or older. I told them I would be 55 in February so they went ahead and gave me the deal. I was thrilled til I got home and realized I had just received my first "over 55 senior discount"! That was a little sobering. I am not sure I am ready for this.

I hope my future involves a lot of jewelry and travel...to compensate? Actually I probably get more fulfillment from teaching ESL and investing in other people but I like to talk about the travel and jewelry...even tho I wear very little of it.

I bought a really big frozen turkey tonight...I apologized to him as I pushed out the automatic
doors, too bad he had to die for us to feast next week..Daughter Bethany wants to be a vegetarian but she can't figure out how to give up hams, turkey, chicken, and occasional beef?
We both love animals and probably would turn into vegans if we had to kill them ourselves.
Does that make us meat hungry hypocrites? I'm looking forward to a kinder heaven someday.

I would like to mediatate more on what I am thankful for instead of the meal...but the meal takes a lot of planning. Surely Thanksgiving wasn't meant to be about football and food...(interesting that the super bowl is not enough for most Americans) Any of you found ways to bring back Godly thankfulness to this beautiful holiday?

Future commander and chief?

I borrowed this from Betty's blog - It'sboopchile@blogspot.com.

It is apparently several pres. candidates standing for the flag salute. Obama not only did not put his hand over his heart, he also did not recite the pledge.

I am seeing more and more people refusing to honor the flag or pledge. Many of them are younger so I try not to judge them for their IGNORANCE of what we have here and the human suffering that bought it.
But to have a pres candidate in that ignorant group!!
What is he thinking??...he wants to be the future commander and chief?

I will say I support his right here in America to make that choice, maybe that is something one should "salute"?