Five Minute Friday :: Journey

• Five Minute Friday :: Journey Linkup

It's about the journey, not the destination is a commonplace observation because it rings so true. I even have an Old Navy shirt that announces that reality! Do you think of it as a Journey or a Trip or an Adventure? After observing me for a while, a coworker told me I loved the thrill of the chase. Indeed I do. But is that a chase or is it a pursuit? (Check out last week's Five Minute Friday)! Is a chase or a pursuit an intrinsic part of the journey or is it an added after market component?

Any of us could write or talk forever about their journeys so far and their hopes for the days and moths to come. But right now the church is in the season of Lent.

As we prepare for Easter during this forty day long season, many slow down, become more intentional about study and service, possibly take on a meaningful project or activity and often relinquish a sensual favorite such as meat, wine, or desserts.

In Luke's gospel, the journey to Jerusalem and to the cross is particularly focused and incessant. Jesus first sets his face toward Jerusalem in Luke 9:51. Toward Jerusalem—the cross and the empty grave. Does knowing Jesus' persistence working through his calling and destiny help your Lenten considerations as we anticipate death, resurrection, and the possibility of a new creation?


• About my header picture: When we enjoy a recipe from a different culture or country, when we have tea, coffee, fruit, or condiments that actually originated elsewhere, is that a way of taking a journey, making a trip? As we receive a literal taste of Greece, a hint of the Caribbean, a portion of Southern Soul, it definitely is! The Koreatown Los Angeles coffee and tea stop with its international customers and international bill of fare felt perfect for today's topic.

• I've piggybacked parts of this from my scripture blog for this week: Lent 2 :: Reminiscere

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Ocean Swim

August Three

August Two

August One

Hibiscus Two

Hibiscus One

October

Pomegranate

Summer Apples

California Apples

California Poppies

California Plums

Golden Poppy

Summer Plums

Isabella

Special Event

Salton Sea

Winter Program

Hashtag Café :: Menu Cover

Carmen Browne :: CD Package

Frajorden :: Hangtags

Aki Group :: Packaging

House Party 8

House Party 7

Folk Medicine Revival

Citylist

I like this citylist I created and curated:

Urban Oasis

Special Edition: Some Extras

Limited Edition: Lots of Extras

you can live in ours!!!!!

Sailing through the city: easy living

cloudbreak

…when the Winter's gone…

Urban Daydreams

cityblues…

the kitchen at dawn—takes you back

Cities are Beautiful: a world of real living

Sun Country House | HomeWorks 1, 2, 3

Look this way | It's Summer. | It's about time!

Starshine—Dawn—Sunshine

Summer Breakaway | easy living

Sun Country Living

City Lights!!!!!

Five Minute Friday :: Pursue

As the mountains surround Jerusalem
so the Lord surrounds his people
from this time on and forevermore.
Psalm 125:2

• Five Minute Friday :: Pursue Linkup

Whether it's family, career, comfort, or a longed for yet unknown future, we humans all have our pursuits; at times it feels as if pursuing that goal or dream vacation consumes us. But a full and healthy life mostly is about being with the God who pursues us. The God who chooses us as temples, as a dwelling place, as a place to be at home. And what is homecoming? What is home?

When you love someone you want to be with them. You want to converse with them. You want them to be there for you; you want to be there for them and with them forever. God pursues us now and to the end in order to be with us; so we will be there with God.

In baptism we receive the gift of God's Holy Spirit so that everywhere we go, God is with us, and we will be the presence of Jesus Christ—the presence of God. In 1 Corinthians 3:16 the Apostle Paul reminds us, "Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?" Later in 1 Corinthians 6:19 he tells us, "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own?" That's the essence God's presence now assumes: embodied in a human person, in each of us, just as God became embodied, enfleshed, incarnate in Jesus Christ.

What a gift and what a challenge for God to pursue us and trust us during these turbulent times!

In Alfred Fedak's anthem A Song of Paul, John Bell paraphrases 1 Corinthians 13:10 ("when the perfect comes, the incomplete will disappear") "Love expects tomorrow." In Jesus' death and resurrection, God gifts us with all the tomorrows we can imagine. We live in the here and now and in the not yet, but as God keeps pursuing us, our lives will be complete. Endlessly. Forever. Eternally. God at home with us. Our homecoming with God.

The psalmist sings:

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
Psalm 90:1-2
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February and Winter 2025

• December 2024 Overview

• January 2025 Summary

• Urban Wilderness Lectionary Project for February

• Black History Month 2025

• We've been enjoying fellowship and snack time every Sunday after worship. I had a lot of food pics this month—burger, skillet meals, breakfast for supper-dinner-tea, a lot of subway, and had to curate what I blogged. This group is a bit funky, but I pictured most of the table at an angle, and our conversation's unconventional, too.

• Valentine's Day 2025

• First California Golden Poppy of 2025

Five Minute Friday :: Original

• Five Minute Friday :: Original Linkup

As a creative, I frequently say – I love to observe – nothing is original, everything is derivative, though we may not remember the source that in itself wasn't original, either. But how could the "source" of our project or initiative not be original? "Original" implies at the beginning, the very start of when the idea or product origin(!)ated or began. Was there even a first?

Over my lifetime I've produced a fair amount of art and design. Other people consider me a creative, and I identify as one. However, with about half of the art and design I do, I remember where I first saw a similar layout I wanted to try. A particular color palette that sang to me. A new to me style of sketching. I may or may not have taken a snapshot or saved a hard copy of the menu or flyer, or even done my own quick drawing onsite, but I know mine isn't original. Yet what I've done with that nascent concept does belong to me, so in a limited sense my finished expression is original.

An example like the one Kate gave us of intended scheduled conference plans being changed in some way is a common real-life example of original and an update. In that case, when attendees found out what was going on, they were fine no longer having that part of the original. Are there any or many of those in my everyday journey?

Yes. My breakfast plans happily change if someone offers me something different or asks if I want to go our for breakfast. Ditto lunch. Tasks I needed to do today? Upon revision, all of them don't need to be done for another two or three days. Etc. Many times we discover everything and every way that originally felt so urgent isn't as set in stone as we originally thought.

My header photo is books in what was supposed to be the dining room in the parsonage I lived in for a while in City of History: Someone else took the original that wasn't well focused, and the colors weren't too great. This is one of a couple dozen versions I've made; what you see combines an original picture and some creative photoshopping. The shelves were at least a little lean-to, and the room had no other furniture. All in all, this is one of my all-time favorite edits.

PS There's some of my original art on the two top right hand shelves.

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