Five Minute Friday :: Long

Being lost is worth the coming home.

Other times I've blogged about home include:

• Almost three years ago I said a lot of what I still need to say today

• Nine years ago an October Freewrite about home with quotes from songs about home


• Five Minute Friday :: Long Linkup

• God brought me out into a spacious place; God delivered me because God delighted in me. Psalm 18:19

It's been a long time and a long distance. Because I can't stop longing for home. Glancing back, I knew I'd come out in a broad place before long. Did I estimate the length of long? Not out loud, but if you'd asked me, I'd have suggested three or four years.

Three or four years earlier, at the invitation of a long time close friend, I'd made my way from the intermountain west to the east coast. After our phone conversations, I believed I'd be starting life over near her. Well, that didn't work out for even a few minutes, but I wistfully remember the feeling of heading for home I had as I drove across prairies and cities and hilly places.

The home we long for can mean returning to a previous town, city, or dwelling, or journeying toward somewhere for the first time ever. Will I know if I'm there? It feels to me that home must include a physical house or apartment, a roof overhead. But isn't homecoming what we really and truly long for? I mean, people who quote Phillip Phillips' song Home, "Just know you're not alone; I'm gonna make this place your home."

Deep in our hearts, we long for the hugs and the smiles. The shared meals. Affirmations of our dreams, our calling, our gifts and preparation. Encouragement for our longing to use our talents and abilities. We long for and we need somewhere and someone to come home to at the end of the day, whether the day has been disappointingly short or agonizingly long.

Home is a spacious place. Space to breathe, to reach out, to grow, and to dream. A location and a people who take away my lostness, who help deliver me, because they delight in me. # # #

Five Minute Friday :: Stuff

• Five Minute Friday :: Stuff Linkup

The snow duck is so cute!

My first take on this week's prompt was memories of cultural anthropology professor Tim searching for the proper word and finally coming up with "stuff" for the topic under discussion. Stuff encompasses a whole lot of tangibles and intangibles. I even have a "life stuff" label or tag for this blog.

Ya know what? I really really enjoy much of life's stuff that tends to collect and pile up (on its own and by itself of course). Some of that stuff, those things, are helpful or utilitarian, but usefulness aside, pieces that excite me tend to be colorful and/or visually appealing. That means quilts, dishes, paintings and other wall art. It means clothes I wear every day or only occasionally. Sweaters, dresses, scarves!

What's my pleasure for blogging today's stuff? Notice my header image features imperfect flowers and the font for STUFF is eroded. But what stuff will I write about? Imperfect life stuff everything, confounded memories, eroded hopes, broken dreams… And unexpected, open-ended futures.

We're again into the quiet season of Advent. Advent in the global North happens as winter moves in, as we anticipate the shortest day, longest night. As we anticipate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God, the light of the world. First-born from the dead.

Jesus' eventual followers never imagined the type of Savior he would be. Religious higher-ups couldn't cope with his faithfulness to Torah that yet turned upside down their stilted interpretations. He confounded governmental leaders. But Jesus' earthly ministry was only the beginning. At least in their heads, most knew the thread of death and resurrection that weaves through the Hebrew scriptures, but the lived reality of new life, revitalized stuff of every kind from the ashes of the old? Memories are short. Comprehension not exactly comprehensive.

Doesn't that sound like us? This isn't the way it needs to be. This isn't how it always will be. Did you know winter is necessary for some flowers to bloom? So necessary that if winter isn't cool enough or dark enough in that location, you need to imitate colder darker days for newness ever to be.

Flowers and veggies and fruits, yes! What about communities, countries, individuals, movements, ideas that need to winter before they spring to life?

Imperfect life stuff everything, confounded memories, eroded hopes, broken dreams… And unexpected futures!

Are you letting the stuff of your hopes and dreams hibernate so it can blossom and bloom? Is your future stuff worth letting this present winter for a while? Whether it's material like quilts and clothing, spiritual like closer connections to the Spirit, career-related like increased opportunities for service and change, all that stuff sometimes needs to be ignored for a season for unexpected, open-ended futures. Wintering is part of practicing resurrection! Really!

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November and Autumn 2024

• September 2024 Summary

• October Rundown

• Urban Wilderness City Paradise Lectionary Blog for November

• As you can see, I'm still blogging some of my favorite art and design here. I like the idea of simplifying, though it's not exactly one single place for everything because I still have the separate lectionary blog and I'll always have design and music websites.

• A lively autumn bouquet from All Saints Sunday at Christ the King in Torrance

• Tuesday 05 November and voting was…well, we're losing the free press but we still have the secret ballot. At least I need to trust we do.

• A few more Sunday trips to West LA; these pictures are from 10 and 17 November.

• Although I joined in spring 2023 with the phone before my current one, I've been getting more active on BlueSky.

• A spectacular bouquet of posies on the kitchen table

• Again this year (as in 2021) I enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at Mount Olive in Santa Monica; here's a greenery group from the venue.

• A thanksgiving dinner on Monday
• A surprise thanksgiving dinner on Tuesday! (first picture)
• Another on Wednesday! (second picture – leftovers from Monday)
• Last picture is from the actual Day of Giving Thanks

• Each table had a bouquet of pink roses and small sunflowers that didn't photograph well because of background noise. But here they are gathered together afterwards!

Five Minute Friday :: Trade

Star of India moored in San Diego Bay

• Five Minute Friday :: Trade Linkup

Trade implies a degree of exchange or reciprocity between parties. I frequently consider how critical free trade is to both global and local economies, yet most of the time we live at the micro level, where we cannot survive unless we can trade services for goods, or maybe use cash or a card to get what we need. (All of this fascinates me (undergrad economics major))!

As of this blogging, the Customs and Border Patrol agency of my country, the USA, has fourteen free trade agreements. USMCA has replaced the easier to pronounce NAFTA arrangement that's central to the ongoing overall friendship amongst Canada, USA, and Mexico.

The European Union has dozens of free trade agreements in place or being negotiated—along with a few on hold for now. Notice the word free or unimpeded, because those covenants have no teeth without some way to transport and receive products or commodities. In addition, excessive tariffs lessen the utility of the agreements. Dockworker strikes interfere with off- and on-loading. When truckers and railroad employees strike, when weather doesn't cooperate, if for any reason that first mile and beyond from the container ship goes on hold, trade slows and sometimes stops.

…they went out together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan Genesis 11:31

Ever since Abram and Sarai left Ur of the Chaldees to pursue God's promise of land and progeny, dissemination of people and goods (and some bads—opium trade? cross border fentanyl crisis?) with the ability to engage outside producers and their products has helped grow civilization in general and been instrumental to achieving higher living standards.

Even in this twenty-first century, even more than rail, air, or roads, ships remain primary to getting the goods where they need to go. But ships – or the people on them – especially trade ideas! Exchange languages. Move people with their embedded cultures from an original or inbetween place to a new location. As delightful as that new goodie from IKEA can be, as much as our work and play require a particular up to date electronic device, learning our neighbors' way of life, their manner of speaking, their culinary delights – as they learn ours – is one of the best ways we connect, become community, and ultimately become friends—not strangers! What a trade!

What's your take on trade today?

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Five Minute Friday :: Fight

• Five Minute Friday :: Fight Linkup

I have fought the good fight
I have finished the race
I have kept the faith

Henceforth there is reserved for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award me at that day:
and not to me only, but unto all who have loved his appearing.

2 Timothy 4:7-8

Summer of Y2K and I'd be returning to the West Coast after another sojourn on the East Coast. At my request, Pastor-Missioner Mike wrote a letter of reference for me. I suggested to him it was a "bit much" (of course I didn't deny any of his accolades) and it might overwhelm strangers reading it and considering my employment or other participation, so he helpfully updated it. I still have that letter grouped with some others from that time period. I haven't looked at any of them for a long while and I don't remember much of what anyone said, but I do remember and I can tell you Mike described me as "faithful." Wow! And by grace I have been faithful.

The crown of righteousness sounds beautiful. My illustration is gold, but I'm thinking instead of precious metal it really will be intertwined fresh green laurel leaves, maybe with accents of colorful wild flowers. All of that possible because humans have been faithfully caring for creation. And those who will receive one alongside me, those I'll join in community?

You probably know the love described as agape that's unconditional, inclusive, divine love, like the love of God. The end of my scripture selection from 2 Timothy is about people who have agape-ed or loved (and longed for and welcomed) Jesus' appearing – the Greek says his epiphany! – with the kind of love we find in the heart of God. As my concluding song stanza says, they will have followed the word and followed the Word because they know all humanity claims kinship of being created in the divine image.

Well, one day soon we all will stand
God's word will be heeded in all the land
All shall know and all shall see
We all are kindred and we all are free
Humankind was made of clay
Each of us in the very same way
Get ready, people, for that day!

Noel Paul Stookey and Peter Yarrow

Today's "fight" prompt is a good fit for what I wrote on my scripture blog this week:

• Reign of Christ 2024

Snowy House

Reign of Christ :: Revelation

We give thanks, O Lord God Almighty
who art, and wast, and art to come
because thou hast taken thy great power
and begun to reign.
Revelation 11:17

Reign of Christ :: Genesis

The scepter shall not depart from Judah
nor the ruler's staff from between his feet
until he comes to Shiloh
and to him shall be
the obedience of the peoples.
Genesis 49:10

Five Minute Friday :: Void

"rewilding." tomatoes tangle in community garden

• Five Minute Friday :: Void Linkup

We think of a void as an empty space, or something that lacks. An empty set. "Devoid of mystery." "Devoid of feeling." Scream or gaze into a void, into somewhere that contains nothing or no one. You might void an invoice or a debt so zero is left to pay—whether they've paid in full or the obligation has been forgiven, that particular void is very good news for the debtor, so some voids are welcome and positive ones.

But I feel as if I exist in a void. None of my output (writing, art, what else is there at this time?) is connected to anything or anyone else. It has no sources of inspiration. It's antiseptic and uncontaminated. Much too clean. Making my own thesaurus: fallow; empty; deserted; sterile; siloed.

Lately many of us have been concerned about rewilding places that have become too civilized, too tame. They've been emptied of their essential biodiversity, which has caused the remaining organisms to be less than they were meant to be, to function less than optimally. In some cases to die! They've become "de-natured!" I even have a t-shirt that reads "Keep It Wild!" Old Navy produced those shirts with the environment in mind, but I bought one with my own situation in mind.

For whatever reason, my days have lost the diversity they once naturally had. I lost people who knew me, who knew my dreams, were acquainted with my history. Music, ideas, and colors that surrounded and inspired me went away, causing me to be less than I was meant to be, to operate far less than my best. Hey, I even lost my own dreams! I lost track of my own history.

So…I'm in the process (talk about a clean concept!) of rewilding my life. Getting tangled up in almost whatever comes my way, and sorting through it as I go. Letting people and ideas get in my way so I need to consider them before I dismiss them. So I'm leaving the void behind, letting life creep and flow into the emptiness, and starting to make everything wild again.

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Sargas

Procyon

Dabih

Canopus

Baham