Uphill idealist

Just when you thought everything was all gray - some sunshine and snow show you different. Photo taken at Strider Field in Jamestown NY/February 2010

Image from gschniderphoto.com There is a bird on my street that sings a song every morning that consists of two short notes tweet-tweet and one long high tweet. I hear her singing every day as I walk or jog with my dog. I've even taken to tweeting back to her every now and then. This morning all was still and she did not sing. I missed her song. I missed our conversation - simple as it is. I missed a sparrow. Sometimes we think our 'song' is to normal, simple and predictable to be sung. Sometimes we stop singing. The silence of my bird friend reminded me to keep on singing and to listen to the songs of those around me. We will miss the music a great deal if we all stop singing our songs. So for today, I stood in for my friend the sparrow and sang out a few calls for her. I hope I hear her again very soon.

Below is a sketch that I've started that is the beginning of a small mural project that will be going up on one of the walls at Infinity Performing Arts of Jamestown, NY. My children both take music lessons there and they are starting some visual arts classes as well. I was honored that they asked me to participate in a combined effort of many local artists to add some color and visual interest to their walls. Here's to another painting adventure!

Image found at Seattlest.com Crunching feet tromp through the well-worn path in footprints of many. It's hard to walk here with all these frozen, melted and re-frozen markers of who was here before. I step off the path into untouched drifts. It feels a little like an adventure movie, to take a few steps away from where I was. Snow flakes drift from a slate sky. The sun tries to press through all the gray, but looks more like the shooter marble than the yellow happy sun I know. Maybe the sun is breaking a new path today as well. No matter, just because the sun looks different today does not change her purpose. She is constant. She is warmth. She is light. Sometimes the world I know feels shaken like a snow globe in the hands of a six-year-old child, with wind and life swirling around at a maddening pace. Other times, it's still, like the globe that's been forgotten on the shelf. Someday, I'd like to do more than wander in snowdrifts in search of adventure. I'd like t...

“ That’s our problem. We just don’t talk about the gospel. If we don’t have that kind of conversation in church, where can we have it?” ( Richard Peace) Welcome to week one of our discussion on the book Holy Conversations. As the quote above suggests, Richard Peace (the author) noticed a great absence of "Christian witness" within church and decided to do a study that eventually produced the text that we are currently discussing. Peace states that "Evangelism is a community activity - not a isolated process." If that is the case,what are some ways you have invited, involved, and drawn people to join in your Church community? If you have been on the receiving end of these kinds of invitations, how were you approached and invited to become a part of a church community? Robert C. Fuller says this: A large number of Americans identify themselves as “spiritual but not religious.” It is likely that perhaps one in every five persons (roughly half of all the unchurched) cou...

Image from Sim1travels . Today there is sunshine, fluffy white cloud and a bright blue winter sky. Sigh. There is color, still cold, but I can see some color today. Blue sky's are a good thing. The last week of January here in my corner of the NE has been gray, foggy and frigid. I write the word "frigid" because that is the actual description I saw on the weather forecast the other day. About this time of year, I begin to contemplate buying one of those "sunlight" lamps people in Alaska have. It's not quite Alaska here, but close enough already! At my husband's office this week, they are having a Superbowl Salad party including time for everyone a turn to sit under the beams of the happy light. See, I'm not the only one feeling the effects of mid-winter! I found myself laughing to the lyrics of "Mr. Blue Sky" one morning in running my kids to school... "Mister blue sky please tell us why You had to hide away for so long Where did we g...

From the poem "People like us" by Robert Bly . "There are more like us. All over the world There are confused people, who can't remember The name of their dog when they wake up, and people Who love God but can't remember where He was when they went to sleep. It's All right. The world cleanses itself this way." There are cracks in my life that I often wish were not there. I will try to camouflage the area's I think are not fitting to show. I will try to make them different than they are. When all along the light seeks out those cracks and crevices, desiring to illuminate whatever it happens to find there, without criticism or dismay. The light simply shines so I don't stumble in the dark. God's light fills the cracks that I used to hide and makes me whole again. John 1:1-3 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing ...