take 5 friday 5

take 5 friday 5, hosted by deb

1. 5 flowers I'd like in a bouquet or garden:

1. zinnias
2. sunflowers
3. pansies
4. gardenia
5. honeysuckle

2. 5 books I want to read (or re-read):

1. Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals
2. William Stringfellow, An Ethic for Christians and Other Aliens
3. Henry Beston, The Outermost House
4. William Faulkner, Almost Anything by
5. Walter Brueggemann, a couple books in my collection I haven't yet read

3. 5 places I want to visit:

1. Morocco
2. Singapore
3. Hong Kong
4. India
5. Greece

4. 5 people I'd invite for tea/coffee/beer lunch/ pizza, name your own preference:

1. Joanne McGonagle of The Tiniest Tiger ... I'd love to go to her house to meet her new kittehs, or invite her to my house to meet my kittehs.
2. It would be fun to chill with some people I know only from facebook; though I have already met several in real life. Truly fun!
3. Can't think right now.
4. Fill in this blank later.
5. Someone I've yet even to hear about.

5. 5 chores or tasks I'd gladly give to someone else:

1. vacuuming. ugh.
2. washing windows
3. anything that involves going higher than first rung of a ladder
4. scaling and gutting fish
5. cleaning kitteh litter box (although I do it all the time)

bonus: A 5 ingredient recipe!



Tabbouleh
Ingredients

1. cucumber, diced
2. several roma or your choice of tomatoes, diced (remove seeds if you’re not lazy)
3. 1/2 cup bulghur wheat
4. 1 or 2 green onion(s), thinly sliced
5. Olive oil
6. Lemon juice

Pour hot water over the bulghur and let soak until it is soft has absorbed most of the water. Mix diced veggies by hand then add the bulghur and mix some more; add lemon juice and olive oil to get the right flavor and consistency. Refrigerate, eat and enjoy.

When Donkeys Talk

When Donkeys Talk: A Quest to Rediscover the Mystery and Wonder of Christianity by Tyler Blanski on Amazon

I love this book by this Anglican housepainter and musician Tyler Blanski! Someone referred to it as "apologetics..." well, sort of, but not in any systematic way: it's more of a romp through the author's mind, heart, and daily pathways that reveals his passion for scripture, sacraments, Jesus, liturgy, and tradition; it also chronicles a few of his conversations with friends. Not only is it not systematic, the book doesn't seem to have any kind of organizing principle, but that's absolutely fine for a volume of fewer than 200 5" x 8" pages that's set in an easily readable sized font. I could discern no obvious "organizing principle," yet maybe there is one, after all, since according to Tyler, we need to reclaim and celebrate the mysterious, the magical, the miraculous, the unexpected, and the unexplainable, and thus we need to listen to, harken to, and hear the voice of the divine "when donkeys talk," (Balaam's ass in Numbers 22) or whenever various other less credible happenings occur in our midst.

The only real trouble I have is his frequent use of "Christendom," a word most contemporary Christians have obliterated from their consciousness and their vocabulary. Yes, I get it's about the domain of the Christ, but to me Christendom still evokes empire rather than grace, justice, and love. Lately we've been seeing, reading, and hearing "Kingdom" a lot, too... again, the realm ruled by Christ the King, but that one I can live with a little more easily.

Tyler Blanski himself comes alive on these pages! I hope you'll read When Donkeys Talk, so I won't spoil it for you by revealing any more.

You can read more on Tyler Blanski's site.

my amazon review: mystery, magic, miracle...

all kinds of random 5

all kinds of randomness 5 on the RevGals site

Revkjarla has the right idea: "Here are a few fivers to get you ready for whatever is next in your day (or keep you procrastinating for awhile before you do what you need to do.)"

1. If I were a character in a children's storybook, which storybook, or what character, and why? I'll pass on this one…. Sorry. But I wanted to play today, so I will!

2. For this weekend I'm looking forward to going to the beach with the new sketchbook I finally bought, along with a collection of sharpies, coloured markers, graphite and coloured pencils, erasers, triangles, and rulers, to start drawing and creating some again.

3. If I could wear an invisibility cloak for a day, I'd return to Major Academic City for a summer weekday, hover inside familiar classrooms, observe former professors, initiate random conversations with current students…. (ooops, I guess not, since they wouldn't be able to see or hear me), check out some of my fave stores, snack spots, and other haunts. I'd also find a noontime recital, an evening concert, or maybe both.

4. Although there's nothing physical I routinely misplace or lose I seem to have a lot of trouble maintaining the spaces around me, organizing my writing, not misplacing details in my habitat, and for sure it gets crazy-making at time. Does that make sense?

5. To conclude, I'll use these words in a sentence: ladybug, rowing, diner, sloth, and knitting.
The day I returned to Major Academic City in invisible form, I stood by the riverbank wearing – among other things – my ladybug (butterfly and dragonfly) necklace, delighted to find teams from both sides still were rowing on the river, stopped by still-crowded old time diner for lunch, wondered if sloth still was mainly a critter or mostly a sin, as I envied (envy still is majorly a sin!) some gorgeous hand-knit sweaters promenading around on people, amazed and sad I no longer loved knitting the way I did in a former life.

world oceans day 2013

WOD Theme for 2013: "Oceans & People"

World Oceans Day 2013: Promises to the Ocean


Crazy Cris announces her 5^th Ocean Blog-a-thon for World Oceans Day! This year it's also a Facebook Event.


When I decided to go with this year's theme, "Promises to the Ocean," I found I already do all of the site's suggestions and then some—with the exception of a reusable water bottle, because I don't routinely carry a water bottle unless I'm hiking in the desert.

Originally I planned to design a poster for World Oceans Day, but got only as far as a Facebook timeline banner/cover photo that I'm using it as a promises prompt.

I promise to do whatever I possible can to help everything I pictured thrive: sandy beaches; grasses, wooden fences; dunes; places to walk, dream, and tumble. A shore where tides can ebb and flow. A blue, unpolluted sky with clear, clean, easily breathable air. Seas, oceans, rivers, waterways, streams, all healthy enough to house and sustain sea creatures who make their homes in shells.

Won't you join me?



Here are my posts for
• World Oceans Day 2012

and for
• World Oceans Day 2011

Trinitarian Letters

Trinitarian Letters:Your Adoption and Inclusion in the Life of God by Paul Kurts on Amazon

Trinitarian Letters, the site.

Trinitarian Letters on Facebook

I read Trinitarian Letters with echoes of the lectionary texts for Trinity Sunday 2013 still in my head and heart! In 150 letter-length articles, here's the proof-texting grandpa sitting on the front porch lining out some scriptural connections, real or imagined, explaining in casual conversational manner how each of us participates in the perichoretic life of the Triune God. Or in simpler terms, the godhead comprised of Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Author Paul Kurts self-published this book through Thomas Nelson's WestBow Press, and why not? Many folks publish their own books these days. However, he needed a better editor (or an editor, period); he needed to know enough not to type so many sentences in all-caps... even the 4-page table of contents is all-caps! It doesn't take serious theological propensities to realize auto-correct and spell check are not big on theological terminology, but really, Armenianism? Armenian theology? Here's an article about it (the original article on Armenian theology is gone; I updated to one about the Armenian Church). He meant Arminian, and in the end finally got it right.

pages 93, 141, 152: After reading for the third time that the Reformation happened in the 1600s, it finally dawned on me he might not realize "The Reformation of the 16^th Century" refers to "The Reformation in the 1500s." Then again, what church- or history-oriented person does not know the date of 31 October 1517?

"Comparisons are odious" (according to Recovery International?) and it is plain mean of me even to mention how the subtitle immediately evoked the first of Miroslav Volf's books of free church ecclesiology, After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity. But I can fairly say the lack of theological and grammatical coherence in most of this book would have earned me a D or an F in almost any class in almost any school I attended.

Nonetheless, despite its near-complete lack of organization and clarity, it could be helpful to read Trinitarian Letters as a book of devotions, by thoughtfully pondering the many positively reassuring and familiar passages of scripture Paul Kurts quotes—he especially likes Romans, Colossians, Ephesians, and the Gospel of John. Human adoption into and participation in the relational life of the Trinity is all about experiencing God's love, mercy, grace, and inclusion.

Legal note – "Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this product for free from The Speakeasy in hope that I would mention it on my blog, with no requirement to write a positive review. I am disclosing this in accordance with Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR. Part 255: 'Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.'"

my amazon review: disappointing