Mother Blessing

I'm planning a mother blessing (some say Blessingway, but please don't call it that.) for a dear friend and am thinking about birth--babies--blessings...I'm getting so excited.

I hope tomorrow will be as meaningful and wonderful as I am striving towards.

I'll give you a sneak peek (identifying details changed, of course)

(Isn't that the sweetest baby bummie ever?--It's Aviana's, who just lost her third tooth today; one of her top front ones which definitely makes it look like I'm saying farewell to that baby forever...)

I love bellies and babies and birth (and words that start with B) (and parentheses, apparently). I have a dream of someday being a midwife.

Right now with four small children and one of them very attached (to the breast) is not the stage of life when I am feeling like I can begin that journey, but I love being around expecting women and supporting them, watching their glow and inner growth as they bring a new soul into the world.

In Spanish, one of the ways to say "give birth" is dar la luz, which literally translated into English is "to give light."

Indeed.

I think so too.

I now believe that television itself, the medium of sitting in front of a magic box that pulses images at us endlessly, the act of watching TV per se, is mindcrushing. It is soul-deadening, dehumanizing, soporific in a poisonous way, ultimately brutalizing. It is, simply put so you cannot mistake my meaning, a bad thing. ~ Harlan Ellison, Strange Wine

Changing Church

I just finished an amazing book called Finding Organic Church. I'd never heard the term before, but I was looking into "house church" and came across it in my library's system.

It. Is. an. Amazing. Concept.

Most likely that's because it's from God. :-) It's church like in Acts. It's church with God as the author and designer, when men get themselves out of the way. It's church like the ones Paul planted (and you may have noticed, they were not without their problems). It's not perfect, because anything with us involved never is. It's just more Him, less us. NO one teaching, everyone listening to God's leading. Living close. Living raw. Living Him.

It's hard to describe because we think of church as a place we go. We don't think of church as a way of being. We've completely altered God's plan for church. Googling "Organic Church" will bring you to many places that can tell you about it more eloquently than I, but I'll give it a try (with my notes from the book), since you're here anyway.

Organic church is basically a group of Christians who are living as a shared-life community under the headship of Jesus. Not a Bible study, prayer meeting, song fest, pot luck. No one dominating. No one passive. No one leading.

The church meets to reveal and display Jesus Christ together out of a real, experiential life-giving encounter with the Lord.

I so want that.

I would think that it wouldn't be possible, except the author has been living it for the past 20+ years.

I love my home church, don't get me wrong. But I do think that institutional church isn't what God has in mind for me anymore.

I'm just waiting to find out what exactly His plan is.

A Question of Youth

Alexander the Great inherited his kingdom at the age of 20 and went on to conquer the rest of the civilized world at the time. In fact, he cried when he was told there was no one left to conquer. He must have possessed some amazing leadership skills to have his men fighting for him for 10+ years.

Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were 20 when they inherited their throne. They were given a raw deal to be sure, ill prepared and a kingdom already set up for failure. I'm not sure it could have turned out much differently. But still, to trust 20 year olds to run a kingdom!

Look at the average 20 year old today. What is expected of him?

I think we are failing our youth.

And now for something different...

photo by daisywu1

Purple slides and dances, sways soothingly and silently. It doesn't draw attention to itself as it billows into the room, but everyone notices just the same.

Purple was born on a grey and cloudy spring day, the wind blowing, its eyes closed, the edge of blue straining to find the sun. Purple grew.

Purple takes me to Italy. We go cliff jumping into azure seas. Purple takes me to the desert. The shadows of the canyon are purple as they beacon relief from the squinting heat. Purple takes me to the willow. I lie on a quilt beneath undulating branches as purple and I watch the smoke puffs high in the blue wisp and sigh.

Purple likes dusk. Purple joins pink and red to stand and wave as long as they can, until their arms are decidedly sore and they're out of breath with the exertion of good-bye.

Purple wishes for summer ripe tomatoes. It wants to eat them with cottage cheese or perhaps a bit of salt, but certainly wants to bite solidly into the fresh flesh and try to not let the juice run down its chin.

Most people don't notice the garden gnome hiding behind purple. Purple is a little embarrassed because it likes to have its picture take with gnome wherever it goes.

Clanging, banding trolley cars aren't purple. Nor are bellowing bulls or bleating butting goats. Cawing fighting blackbirds aren't purple either but they wish they were.

Purple is a box of marbles, with a piece of chalk on a string for drawing a perfect circle. Purple wants to win all the shooters and loves to look at the swirly plasticine within and wonder how it got there.

Purple is a song of the evening, a lilting tilting reedy song. A song that desires company by the bonfire crackling , in the patio furniture cicada buzz. A song that rises in the summer waxing to rest a sticky day.

Purple is a peacemaker welcome wherever it goes, enjoying the company of princesses-to-be and those who never received their gilded invitation. Purple invites others in and offers more. Purple draws one to its Creator, shows the world Who made it.

Thanks very much to Karen Burke of Rip the Page! for the writing prompt.

Book Review

I get a lot of offers to review books because, well, I love books. I don't usually take the publishers up on them because I also don't have a lot of free time. I only have time to do what I love, or, as the case may be, read what I love. So unless a book looks really intriguing, I generally just say no, thank you.

This is a book you'll want to say yes to: The Second Messiah by Glenn Meade . It's an archaeological murder mystery action conspiracy book. Thoroughly entertaining. Even better, it's got no bad language, or anything else to negate the enticing plot and characters you'll love to get to know. I'll let you read the plot synopsis at the link, but know that I give it a hearty two thumbs up.