Uphill idealist

This week the True Sisterhood group in Jamestown met and we tested out a art/prayer/project from my friend Lynne . We have also been reading Laura Truax's book "Undone" and had come to a place where this hands on project fit perfectly. We did our best to " Ring the bells that still ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack - a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in." (Anthem by Leonard Cohen) . We broke clay pots. We wrestled with re-gluing the broken pieces. We laughed, encouraged, and cheered one another on. We rebuilt. We painted. Here are some pictures of our project where we embraced brokenness and discovered beauty. Balance Beautiful Mess Beauty from brokeness Works drying Definitely not perfect  Exposed rough spots Peace Rebuild Rest Sharp edges Superman's house - Fortress of Solitude  

The only kind of proverb or wisdom that I’m used to getting in addition to my Chinese food is the tiny paper that comes out of a fortune cookie. At the end of the meal we ceremoniously hold up the tray of cookies and carefully choose the cookie. We bite into the cookie to reveal the fortune that is tucked inside of it. Then we read our fortunes out loud and ponder how they could come true. Often we save each fortune to decorate the bulletin board at home. Wisdom - it seems, is something we all are hungry for. “You can be skinny and you can be pretty, but you have to feed a happy heart.” When I first heard these words, my first reaction was confusion. All I had been trying to do was pick up some Chinese food for dinner, but in addition to my order and fortune cookie, I had been given a personal proverb from the cook.  This conversation with the cook had started when I had asked specific questions about how the dish was prepared. “What sauce is it served with? Can yo...

When I was 12 years old, my college-age brother bought me an amazing gift – a stereo system complete with turntable, cassette deck, radio, speakers and a vinyl album of “Synchronicity” by the Police. The giving of this gift required lots of working overtime and thoughtfulness on my brother’s part but the receiving of this gift was one that still makes me smile years later. The memory of that Christmas is one that makes me feel a sense of home, even though the tangible gift is long gone. We all have a longing for things in life to become whole or complete, but we live with the reality of that tension that things  aren't  quite right.  In recent reading of “Undone” by Laura Sumner Truax with First Lutheran’s True Sisterhood group , I have been learning about the tension of living in-between the spaces of Saint and Sinner.  Laura writes, “(The creation story) framed and ethic and a worldview. These were stories that helped explain why brothers had a hard ti...