day 30, 30 nov nablopomo

I'll finish up this month of daily blogs with a month-long facebook status cloud and I almost cannot believe I did the whole entire thing—in fact I blogged a few times more than the requisite 30 in 30 days!

comments about the cloud

I love that both "friends" and "friend" show up in this medium-size cloud for the month of November. My designer and facebook design page name suntreeriver again is prominent, along with fans, design and world, all central to my life and vision. Also, the cloud includes my attempts to help Mi Chele rent the condo next door and my decision to participate some in the virtual Walk For The Cure for cancer.

advent 1: blog month day 29

Advent 1

Jeremiah 33:14-16
¹⁴"The days are surely coming," says the Lord, "when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: 'The Lord is our righteousness.'"

day 28: Knowing You, Jesus

by Graham Kendrick

All I once held dear, built my life upon,
All this world reveres and wars to own;
All I once thought gain I have counted loss,
Spent and worthless now compared to this.

Chorus:
Knowing You, Jesus, knowing You
There is no greater thing.
You're my all, You're the best,
You're my joy, my righteousness,
And I love You Lord.

Now my heart's desire is to know You more,
To be found in You and know as Yours,
To possess by faith what I could not earn
All surpassing gift of righteousness

Chorus

Oh to know the power of Your risen life,
And to know You in Your sufferings;
To become like You in Your death, my Lord,
So with You to live and never die.

Chorus

© 1993 Make Way Music

27 nov nablopomo day 27

day 27 of 30: 1-week facebook status cloud...

thought I'd use a monospaced font to contrast with the typographic variety in my cloud...

What's been going on? The past seven days of (always well-guarded) facebook status topics have included design, images, suntreeriver, fans and friends. "infrastructure" related to Afghanistan, but given my background in urban affairs it could have referred to local streets and roads. With words like central, discount, apartment, rent, move-in and 1200, once again the condo next door was the main topic as again I was trying to help FB friend, real-life friend and former next-door neighbor Mi Chele, now living north of here a piece, rent her vacancy, and a couple days ago new neighbors moved in! Even better, this afternoon Mi Chele herself stopped by for a short chat and a round of hugs.

Three more and I'll have finished this November's round for nablopomo!

Z: thanksgiving day, USA

Letter 26, last in the English alphabet

Zoos

especially the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.

Zion

The City of God, the place of God's promised eternal Presence, not simply or solely a single place but wherever the people of God gather. A well-tended garden naturally grows into a city!

Zion National Park

In Southern Utah... it may be my favorite, but then again, all the national and state parks I've visited are wondrous!

z-coordinates

to indicate a 3rd dimension

giving thanks with letter "X"

only two this time...

X

The Greek letter chi that we use to indicate "Christ," the crucified Man of Sorrows and risen King of Glory, the One Whose reign we celebrated last Sunday.

x-coordinate

it's useful to be able to indicate the exact location of the horizontal coordinate in applications like Adobe InDesign.

Y-thanks

letter 25, next to last in the English alphabet

yellow!

From pale to rich through ultra-saturated, my favorite color of all time, though I'm very particular about my yellows and generally speaking, plain ole spectrum yellow just will not do.

y-coordinate

in some cases an essential way of marking location; in others, a helpful way to get things looking right

YES.

not no, not maybe, not possibly or perhaps, but an unequivocal affirmative.

thanksgivings - letter W

last 4 days and letters of the alphabet makes this the final home stretch

WildEarth!

WE love WildEarth!...it's in our nature.

weather

the climate and ambient environment we live in that sometimes changes and does interesting things and at times remains the same as before

world

the sphere on which we live; the earth we walk upon; the floor of the sky; the stage of nature and of God's covenant with creation and God's transformative, gracious actions in history.

words

we read them, write with them, speak them, interpret them, change them, communicate with them and Where Would We be Without Words?

giving thanks: V

variety:

of weather, geography, flavor, temperature, culture, texture, size, color, shape, style and almost everything else.

[Antonio] Vivaldi

I Quattro Stagioni, a.k.a. "The Four Seasons" and especially the famous Violin Concerto in a minor, Opus 3, No, 6 (RV356). J.S. Bach made two transcriptions for organ of two Vivaldi concerti, and I love those, too, and esp love playing them. One of my Haarlem organ teachers observed, "With these arrangements you're playing two very great composers."

alphabet letter U thanks

letter "U"!

Right now I can't think of anything for today's letter. This list isn't necessarily exclusively about major thanksgivings such as cats, the gospel, and the desert; some include what I called "spices, energizers, cools" a couple of Novembers ago. Stuff that's fun or funky, that adds flavor to any day and that energizes into a new perspective or simply feeling a little better and more optimistic all are reasons for giving thanks. However, despite not having something related to letter U today, since the English alphabet contains 26 letters and the month of November 30 days, there will be four leftover days at the end of the month and on those days I intend to fill in some so far forgotten and neglected thanksgivings.

T-hanksgivings for travel, tiramisu and time

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 by grace we live in.

PS original font color was "siena" before I defaulted most blog text to basic black #000000.

S thanks

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!

giving R-thanks

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; Anders Nygren calls Romans the "purist gospel." For Paul, the gospel is death and resurrection.

Before I updated and defaulted almost all blog text to black, this original post was multi-colours.

Quilts-thanks

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. The gloriously flowered comforter that's probably from mid-1970 to sometime 1980 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.

P-thanks

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.

O'thanks

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!

N thanksgivings

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.

thanksgivings - M

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 endlessly long!

L thanksgivings

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

Ingwe Leopard Project

K thanksgivings

Kentucky

"The Bluegrass State" is a place I've visited, driven through and longed for quite a few times. 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 one-time UCC Massachusetts Conference Minister Avery Post observed, "kindness is love in action."