Five Minute Friday :: Decision

The breeze at dawn has something to tell you.
Your boundaries are too small. Rumi
• Five Minute Friday :: Decision Linkup

Our days are packed with decisions already made that may include what to have for breakfast, what route to take to work in which conveyance, what time for your lunch break, etc., but Kate's kids especially are deciding about a road that stretches far ahead that's yet a trek they can start any time. To limit today's decision topic, those of us with more chronology already have decided about higher education, a possible profession, career training, a good company to work for. Sometimes when to quit and when to keep on keepin' on.

These are decisions regarding where you'll travel to your future, and the road you'll take to get there. It's about whether or not you'll carefully follow a map, or trust a more random intuitive approach. You already know "It's about the journey, and not the destination."

Although a young recent high school, community college, university, or professional school graduate has what looks like an endless road ahead, at any life stage we have the opportunity to decide the next step, a possible change of profession, workplace location, or type of employment setting. I love the quote from Rumi in my header! Although our dreams often start out boundless, they sometimes don't stay that way.

This has been about the road ahead. What about the miles, the highways, the decisions and their outcomes that lie behind us? William Faulkner reminds us the past never is past; it keeps overtaking us minute by minute. How are you, how am I, going to make the journey that's now in the rear view mirror happily affect your decisions today?

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Five Minute Friday :: Timing

My header poppies are from 22 June 2020 – two days after the solstice –
because the timing of the seasons always is just right.
The peaches square comes from 12 June 2022.

• Five Minute Friday :: Timing Linkup

Theology blog here, right? Greek distinguishes between chronos (ordinary everyday time we usually measure on a clock or calendar, as in "chronology"), and kairos (extraordinary one of a kind time that marks a specific event we may have been awaiting or that happens unexpectedly).

It's super ironic and surprising that the Apostle Paul writes his only birth narrative about chronos and not kairos time. Given that it's one of the most poignant verses in the New Testament, who'd of thunk it?

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law. Galatians 4:4

Which of these timing renderings in English from that verse feels best?

proper time – time came to completion – fulfillment of the time – appointed time – time was right – right time – time had fully come – appropriate time – chosen time – set time had fully come – fulfilling of the time
I'm often grateful I didn't send an email or make a phone call when I'd planned it, and my lack of preparation or another circumstance delayed it. When I finally made the call or sent the email, the timing often felt providential, close to "kairos" even for something relatively small. Then there have been a few times I ended up not contacting the person or organization at all. Has that happened to you?

When I place larger events in the chronology of my life and my relationships with other people, the ways right timing makes seemingly disparate events and people come together often astonishes me. Every time it happens!

There have been times I've instinctively known other people's suggested timings were wrong. Then there were a handful of instances i refused to follow another person's suggested timing and regretted it.

This has been a somewhat abstract five minutes. Is timing an abstract concept? Not usually. Timing most often is about the important stuff and when events that move life forward just happen to happen. And timing is about joys in life that become disappointments when we don't consider the whole timeline—like Kate's hydrangeas.

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Morning Has Broken

City Resist

Morning

Beach Speak

Street Art Tuesday

For this week's Tuesday day off I happened upon a LA Street Art tour in an industrial section of the Boyle Heights East Los Angeles neighborhood. Graff Tours [Graffiti Tours Art Studio] offered it; Mala was my host for the 90 minute walkabout. Mala's website is La Mala Luna.

I won't list all the information I got, but I'll tell you if it's not illegal, it's not graffiti. If you ask anyone casually about street art, graffiti probably would be their first response. Some of the pictures I took are graffiti (illegal because it defaces someone's property) or graffiti-style (legal because the artist has permission), some have elements of fine art, while others combine different styles.

Whenever I present a banner workshop, I remind participants they're doing public art that needs to contain concepts or elements most people understand. In other words, art out in public generally is not an obscure insider pursuit, although if it's specific to a particular culture – like Persian New Year or a new Egyptian restaurant on the block – people may get curious and need to ask questions to find out more.

LA is full of graffiti everywhere and it's a form of public art, yet it still is somewhat of an insider endeavor. I learned a tiny amount and expect to learn more as I look around and when I have a chance to collect a few people and create my own graffiti-style art in one of the workshops Graff Tours offers. Remember, it won't be graffiti because it will be legal.

I hope you enjoy this collection of graffiti and other street art; I trust you'll appreciate the "Museums" tag for this blog post.

For a late afternoon lunch, i had an amazing big Greek salad and a peach lemonade at the new to me Salata: The Next Generation Salad Bar in the Fig At 7th food court. (I'm finally resigned to even that section of DTLA being gruddier than it used to be.) And later a large Mocha Frappe.

Earth Day 2026 :: Our Power • Our Planet

Earth Day 2026 • Our Power • Our Planet

• suntreeriver design

Los Angeles River

Here are pictures of the Los Angeles River that named the city from my Tuesday 14 April day off outing, along with a handful more from 2017, 2018, and 2019. Just as you enjoy a piece of music or a culinary specialty over and over again, visuals are just as good the second, third, and multiple times. The first two groups come from Lewis MacAdams Riverfront Park in the spring. All these photos are from a soft bottom area that supports wildlife and wild plants, and not from a concrete storm drain section.

From Tuesday

From Previous Years

Lewis MacAdams quote: "If it's not impossible, I'm not interested."

Around the Frog Spot in Late September 2017