travel
Whether a walk around the block, a ride across town or a flight to another country, a way of refreshing your viewpoint and enlarging your horizon. I want to and need to do a lot more, locally and globally.
tiramisu
There are lots of other especially fabulous desserts, but this one starts with a "t".
time
One of the essential dimensions we're graced to live in.
PS font color is "siena"
as I'm moving into the home stretch, here's some backtracking about alphabetical thanks-giving for november
Jan at Yearning for God inspired me to blog alphabetical thanks and Mindy, who blogs at Bits and Odd Pieces of Mindy's Kingdom inspired me to try a daily blog for this month of November, so I'm combining them. And how cool is it that for national blog posting month "The theme for November is there is no theme for November?!"
"Thank You" to Tracey Delaney from Pretty Little Things - "life, art & everything else" for the blog month badge.
Sabi Sands
where the WildEarth leopards we ♥ love ♥ so live
scripture
a word of life for all the world
sacraments
paradoxical, mysterious and concrete Divine Self-revelation and Self-giving
sunrise
a fresh start for a new day, especially wonderful with a multicolored sky
sunshine
who can resist splashes of light, hints of light and all the ways a little sun or a lot of it transforms the world
sunset
sun down, whether marking the end of a tumultuous, disappointing or otherwise not great day or a satisfying sigh for a productive time. sunsets are especially fabulous in the desert southwest and over the beach!
Rainbows!
In scripture, a well-known sign of an even better-known covenant between heaven and earth, rainbows also are a sign of inclusiveness, welcome and reconciliation.
Romans,
the epistle to. The apostle Paul's magnum opus, his systematic theology, some relatively tough-to-read and difficult-to-interpret Greek. It heavily inspired the reformer Martin Luther and Anders Nygren calls Romans the "purist gospel." For Paul, the gospel is death and resurrection...
quilts and
I love new and vintage and almost any miscellaneous textiles; as a very little kid I thought I'd become a textile designer. This gloriously flowered comforter that's probably from mid-1970's to 1980's was an ebay find.
more quilts
this smallish patchwork quilt is from a thrift store, was in excellent condition and probably isn't very old.
Paradise!
what the local weather people often call this part of the world
Pumpkins
all sizes, colors, shapes and textures. Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Bread are especially wonderful!
Psalms
prayerful, passionate and practical...
Purpose
What I sometimes have too much of and occasionally too little of, but a great possibility that helps give life meaning.
Originally I typed my notes from the online discussion of chapter 1 of The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy by Thomas Sowell on Saturday, August 29, 2003 and now I'm finally blogging mainly what interested and intrigued me as I read the sample pages online. If I remember correctly we didn't get beyond chapter 1, though the book arrived from Amazon so I might read more later. At UMassBoston we read the author's Race and Economics and I remember it was close to spellbinding, so the possibility of reading and talking about this book interested me.
Chapter 1, "Flattering Unction"
"The vision prevailing among the intellectual and political elite of our time." "It is a prevailing vision… [offering] a special state of grace for those who believe in it." "…those who disagree are seen as being not only in error, but in sin." "People are never more sincere than when they assume their own moral superiority."
Vision, anointed, state of grace and sin all are biblical and theological buzzwords!
Early on our discussion moderator asked what the terms "vision" and "anointed" meant to us and why; she also asked if the author tells us why he chose those words, but since I don't have my book yet I can't answer that question, though possibly someone else can.
To do a brief word-study, in Israel, prophets, priests and kings were anointed into the legitimacy of their call; as the moderator pointed out, "Christos / Messiach" means the "anointed." As I posted on one of our earlier book threads, Jesus was anointed into his death in a most unconventional and unorthodox manner and in an unofficial, non-hierarchical setting outside of the legitimate religious, economic and political establishments. As Christians baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, as we take the name "Christian" we're baptized prophet, priest and king.
Therefore, the "anointing" of those to whom Dr. Sowell refers are anointed into legitimacy. In our Christian tradition we use olive oil, from the olive tree – which arguably is the "Tree of Life" – as the anointing oil in our liturgies. So these anointed in Sowell's book can be imaged as anointed into fullness of life? Bizarre argument maybe, but I'm thinking! But then again, we Christians consider the cross the ultimate tree of life and although our moderator so aptly pointed out that economics is the most theological of disciplines, I've already cautioned against really getting off on a more explicitly theological track, so I'll quit on that particular subject, though not without saying "tree" is a persistent biblical image and concept.
Our moderator already wrote succinctly about "vision," and so many biblical "vision" settings are familiar to all of us, at the moment I'll pass on writing any more about visions. I'm interested in seeing what more he says about grace and sin in subsequent chapters.
Thomas Sowell speaks of the =insulation= of a vision, and he is very correct, because ideas and egos do become "inextricably intertwined," as he expresses it. Our own individual ideas (as if any idea anyone ever had were not at least somewhat derivative) assume the force of dogma and sometimes lives of their own mini-lives within our larger lives and worlds, so "I" need to protect and defend and, yes insulate "my" idea to the exclusion and sometimes the extinction of everyone else's ideas.
"Crusading movements among the intelligentsia usually include": (paraphrased)
His saying "Many are unaware there's any other way of looking at things" comes close to bringing me up short, since very suddenly I'm realizing that despite trying to broaden my "vision" by reading and discussing, all too frequently I become very, very unhappy when my ideas aren't accepted as the best, and of course when people aren't interested in listening to me and hearing me I can be truly devastated.
"Thinking People" vs. "Articulate People!" is an intriguing way of separating and distinguishing people! Seems as if the more articulate folks are the ones who get believed and get their articulations acted upon.
One of our discussion participants asked about Dr. Sowell, "what compels him to swim against the prevailing academic stream of thought."
"academic stream of thought" – because so-called liberal thought indeed does prevail in academic and intellectual groups and troops and is relatively rare outside of the educational and cultural whatever-you-want-to-call-it-complex.
I believe I was the one saying though I'd love to get into a discussion of otherness, Holy Other, Creator/creature and identity, I thought that'd get us off this book's track and into a more specifically theological excursion. But many thanks anyway for mentioning the necessity of something other than that supreme "me" and "I" when it comes not only to visions and dreams but when it just plain simply comes to life itself. None of us is self-generated, so thanks for saying the visionary force begins not inside of us but rather outside of us: the biblical distinction between Creator and created. Was not the very idea of creation a vision of our Creator-God's?
The whole superiority and self-righteous trip – me too, all more often than I care to admit. That's it on this chapter for tonight. Amazon said my book was supposed to ship yesterday (Monday), but I haven't gotten an email saying it has shipped, so I'll look forward to reading more of what everyone else has to say about this chapter.
I'm still keeping the daily blog, daily thanks covenant...
opals
A shimmery and subtle stone with millions of colors.
oryx
Yes, I am trying hard to think of O'things for O'thanks, but the oryx, an African antelope long has intrigued me since someone gave me a stuffed one when I was a little kid and for this letter O oryx can stand in for many of the animals of Africa I love.
oranges
Such a wide variety, and though I love all citrus, when oranges are at their juiciest and most flavorful they are unbeatable and I cannot eat just one!
starting the 2nd half of the alphabet
nachos
quick, tasty, portable fun and can be anything from homespun simple chips 'n' cheese to elegant feasting with chips, cheese, pico de gallo, beans, guacamole, sour cream, olives (for luck, I learned long ago on Sesame Street)... and lots more, too.
nighttime
sun goes down, moon rises in the sky, gonna be time to try to sleep in the soon to be by and by♥
noontime
morning's done, lunch time's on...
TWLOHAD: Friday 13 November 2009, all over the world!
To Write Love On Her Arms describes its mission:
"To Write Love on Her Arms is a non-profit movement dedicated to presenting hope and finding help for people struggling with depression, addiction, self-injury and suicide. TWLOHA exists to encourage, inform, inspire and also to invest directly into treatment and recovery."
more:To Write Love On Her Arms Day is a day where anyone can write the words love on their arms, to support those who are fighting against depression and those who are trying to recovering. On this day, just write love on your arms, and show it off, other people will ask why you have love written on your arms, and you tell them you are supporting to write love on her arms day, and how its benefiting a non profit organization helping stop depression, and make love the movement ♥
some backstory
"what will this achieve?" It will achieve the goal of people knowing that there are other people out there with the same problem, and/or people who are supporting them with love."
The subjects of addiction, self-injury and related are very close to me and to my heart; you could say I've been close to it in various forms most of my life and biologically and environmentally I've probably inherited some of it.
Compulsive, stereotypical, addictive and similar behaviors frequently seem to defy effective treatment and although there often is an underlying biochemical imbalance or other brain dysfunction that's frequently coupled with negative or sometimes positive psychosocial experiences, the behaviors themselves quickly carve deep, indelible neurological paths.
Bearing in mind this is my theology rather than my (currently semi-inert) testimony blog, the side of my biological family I know something about for generations has been captive to diseases, illnesses - "disorders" - of this type. Despite my dislike of labeling, I know Paul insisted on order, not disorder and Martin Luther says the Church isn't really there without order, in other words, when it is disordered (theology blog, remember).
A huge part of reluctance to reveal, discuss and seek intervention for substance abuse/addiction, compulsivities, self-injury and panic is their seeming uncontrollability and the fact insight usually comes quite easily yet barely makes a dent because of brain pathways that have formed. Whether or not they met clinical DSM criteria, most people have experienced an episode that would make them look depressed, but if you haven't been there, done that, from the outside looking in it looks as if the person with OCD or addiction needs to get a little discipline and control though often they're among the most disciplined, productive and accomplished. In the many creatives who struggle with addictions and compulsions, the creativity and productivity essentially emerge from the same source as the undesired behaviors.
TWLOHAD posters
I've illustrated this blog with one of the pair of posters I designed for this special worldwide TWLOHAD. Amidst a flurry of mostly urban, mostly colorful and coastal beach graffiti the eventful day, the website, the purpose and the promise anchors it all with the hope I describe as "To write love on each other's arms" and now I notice spellcheck doesn't like other's but accepts others and others'--but not to stereotype or label (much), remember, it's urban graffiti!
and now...
"incarnational theology" is one of the labels/tags to this post and in all this my prayer for myself and for each of us - addicted, compulsive, mood-disordered, self-injurious, suicidal, simply creatively different and/or differently creative - is a community of embrace that will celebrate our presence and encourage everyone's full participation and that God will allow all of us to become wounded healers, the divine presence of the crucified and risen Christ we were baptized to be. As I was watching and listening to Patrick Kennedy at Ted Kennedy's funeral I realized that even for someone in a large, supportive family that also has sufficient resources of every kind, this kind of illness still takes a huge toll and is costly to society and to the individual.
for every one of us to write love on each other's, others or others' arms...♥ ♥ ♥
music
Along with ice cream for alphabet letter "I", music is such a huge topic it can stand alone for today's letter M--here's my short list:
The rhythms, whispers, songs and thunders of creation, the universe, the cosmos. Summer symphony under a tent or out on the lawn alongside the river or the bay or surrounded by mountains; a blaze of brass or jumping for joy with classic rock... music from "The Fifth Evangelist," Johann Sebastian Bach; a splash of country and a celtic echo and the short list literally is endless!
liturgy!
Holy time in the midst of holy space and I'm blogging today in growing green of ordinary time--actually making it "dark" rather than spring green since it's late in the season.
leopards
Especially the leopards of Sabi Sands Djuma Game Reserve in South Africa and WildEarth - it's in your nature, it's in my nature, it's in our nature and WE love our leopards!
lions
Big Cats.
Ingwe Leopard Project
ILP
Kentucky
"The Bluegrass State" is a place I've visited, driven through and longed for quite a few times. I'm thinking Kentucky could qualify as a state of mind and being, too.
kindness
Kindness seems all too rare these days and trust me, I savor, appreciate and celebrate it whenever it happens and I do everything I can to initiate it whenever possible. As someone observed, "kindness is love in action."
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