gifts of ministry 5

For perks of ministry friday 5, today's host, kathrynzj asks, "What are 5 perks/gifts of ministry for you?"

I'll start by disclaiming since I'm no longer serving so-called "professionally" in the church (for many reasons, but mainly because I believed not doing so was far better stewardship of my life, gifts and education) so no longer have some perks of position I took for granted, I still have a pretty severe case of ex-pastor's syndrome despite being able to affirm and rejoice in the fact that as a theologian, artist/designer and performing musician I've accomplished far more than ever I'd imagined I would. Nonetheless, parts of yesterday's ATM truly were about me, but maintaining my usual practice of not saying much in cyberspace cuz it can't be retrieved, still I'll quote from the original post and comments,

• "Someone who was isolated and poorly supported in ways that horrify me even years later"...
• "[try to find] Someone to help you see what is cultural, what are your issues and what is just plain absurd" and
• "What a scar this disaster has left on your heart, soul, and confidence...but that scar is now part of who you are and in fact may in surprising ways become part of what you have to offer"

and I'm still trusting God will let me be a wounded healer to others in similar situations.

1. I've gotten = been gifted with = very well-examined theology!

2. as the witness of scripture and particularly the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of IX show us, I've been discovering for myself that God's most pervasive and transformational presence is not usually found in the Big Steeple Churches of this world or in Mega Music Programs (at least not until and unless they break and disarticulate to some degree) but in the margins, fringes and undersides of the conventionally politically, socially and ecclesiastically powerful where God tends to act in hidden and subversive ways. Not surprising, is it?!

3. yet in all this it has become clear to me that structures of connection and accountability are extremely important as I've looked seriously and a tad askance at renegade and otherwise more independent expressions of the church at the same time remembering the experiences and behaviors of leaders and followers in reformation, restoration and other new, emerging and non-traditional church renewal enterprises and the fact Jesus and Jesus' first followers acted and lived way far outside conventional religious structures as they redefined old norms into new normals.

4. my many many and mostly less than successful attempts to get involved at the local church level in ways somewhat consonant with my background (abilities, etc.) have been unsuccessful although for the most part I've simply responded to program and other announcements and requests in bulletins and newsletters, but I've finally given myself the designation "outsider theologian," which fits my own style and lifelong sense of self very well. The stereotype of the outsider artist is someone completely self-taught with no formal tuition whatsoever, but that's extremely rare and exceptional. Like the more typical outsider artist who has a fair amount of formal training and instruction and often a degree or certificate in fine art or design yet whose creative output generally is not within officially recognized boundaries, I'm well-educated in scripture and theology yet even with my participation in online blogging and theology conversations, I'm functioning outside of the usual ecclesiastical mainline mainstream that still consists a lot of the same usuals as in the past, but that is changing some and I'm part of the newness and renewal.

5. an ongoing appreciation for God's paradoxical Presence in Word and Sacrament... someone quoted theologian Darrell Guder's saying, "God does not limit Godself to the means of grace" and my rejoinder needs to be, "Nonetheless, God does bind Godself to the means of grace..."

bonus: Finally, I've been knowing and living far more of the time than ever before:

It is good to give thanks to the LORD and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High;
To declare Your lovingkindness in the morning and Your faithfulness by night,
With the ten-stringed lute and with the harp, with resounding music upon the lyre.
For You, O LORD, have made me glad by Your work; at the works of Your hands I sing for joy.

Psalm 92:1-4

Thanks and amen, Kathryn!

fave verses friday 5

Today on Rev Gal Blog Pals Songbird hosts a fave verses friday 5; here's my play. What, only 5? Only in the interests of time, I'll limit myself to 5 only.

Beginning with one that's on my blog sidebar—this walk alongside the God of the Covenants is no ascetic path but one that fully savors the fruits and passions of creation, yet daily answers the call to love, justice and righteousness:

Jeremiah 22:15-16

"...Did not your father eat and drink
And do justice and righteousness?
Then it was well with him.
He pled the cause of the afflicted and needy;
Then it was well
Is not that what it means to know Me?"
Declares the LORD.

Colossians 1:17—I love the Cosmic Christ!



2 Corinthians 5:18



1 Timothy 4:10



Isaiah 28:17

I will make justice the measuring line and righteousness the plumb line.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day 2011

I don't have enough energy on any level to blog today for MLK Day, so here are my blogs from 5 years ago:

MLK Day 2006

and from 6 years back:

MLK Day 2005

Christmas Vigil / Baptism of Jesus

Hoc est corpus meum!

Maybe you know the story about Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli debating eucharistic realities at Marburg? It's documented lots of places, but essentially upon the Swiss Reformer's insisting Jesus' presence in Holy Communion was spiritual rather than physical (after all, Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and therefore cannot also be in Zürich, New Zealand, London and/or Baltimore at the same time)—if I remember correctly, Zwingli's point was twofold but right now cannot recall the other part of it but I do know Luther wrote Hoc est corpus meum, "this is my body" on a table because Jesus said the taken, blessed, broken and given bread was his body. Yesterday we celebrated the Baptism of Jesus, the feast that concludes the Christmas season, so it's high time I finished writing and published this Nativity blog.

I found this on Tuesday, 18 January: here's a short explanation of Zwingli's "point" I blogged long ago.

Early Christmas Eve I attended Christmas Vigil Liturgy at Holy Family Church in Linda Vista, super-grateful that Arlain posted an invitation on her Facebook wall. I've attended several Holy Family School events (Arlain's and Mike's three kids go to HFS) and Mike is famous locally as musician Michael David Lewis.

I obsess about, constantly long for and expectantly hope for homecoming, and on Christmas eve for a few minutes I was home at Holy Family, with Arlain and with Mike. When I got there the church was crowded, so I walked to an open space in the second row and realized Mike was right in front of me—Mike and Arlain were in separate places for pageant picture-taking. I often consider how God's eucharistic hospitality forms the model of what ours needs to be, and for sure I'd love and would thrive in a dynamic, multicultural setting like Holy Family's that's a mix of several varieties of Asian, of Hispanic, Caucasian and African-American. Holy Family represents every chronological age, people who are very able in most ways, some with hidden dis-abilities and a few who aren't very mobile at all. A national officer of one of the mainline protestant church bodies commented on a Roman Catholic parish very close to the denom's national ("national church" always sounds ominous to me, but you get what I've saying) office. Like Holy Family, that congregation represented immense variety, a true microcosm of the Kingdom of God, the Reign of Heaven on earth. But as the church officer observed, we're not officially welcome at *their* table and our pastors can't preside—officially or not. I've also obsessed a lot about my current lack of shared history, of "remembering whens" of experiences with friends, events each of us would remember in a mosaic of slightly different ways. Yet I realize I now share a decade's worth of history with Mike and Arlain! The first few years I was back in this city, many Sundays they sat behind me in the PCUSA I started attending almost as soon as I returned to this geographical area. As I've blogged maybe too many times, church, liturgy and sacraments fully represent a reality shared with the people of God in every time and every place, yet of course I need something not only more local but truly more individually mine. Gathered, blessed, broken and given..."This is my Body": hoc est corpus meum!

"Night of Silence," written by Daniel Kantor in 1981 was one of the hymns on Christmas Eve:

"Cold are the people, winter of life,
We tremble in shadows this cold endless night,
Frozen in the snow lie roses sleeping,
Flowers that will echo the sunrise.
Fire of hope is our only warmth.
Weary, its flame will be dying soon.

"Voice in the distance, call in the night,
On wind you enfold us, you speak of the light.
Gentle on the ear you whisper softly,
Rumors of a dawn so embracing,
Breathless love awaits darkened souls,
Soon will we know of the morning.

"Spirit among us, shine like the star,
Your light that guides shepherds and kings from afar.
Shimmer in the sky so empty, lonely,
Rising in the warmth of your Son's love,
Star unknowing of night and day,
Spirit we wait for your loving Son."

Returning to multicultural Linda Vista and HFC, for what it's worth, in high contrast to my emerging realization that my life truly has unraveled and disintegrated in some ways (yet I've achieved far more than I'd ever imagined I would, so it's not about if only, what would have, could have or might have been but about what now is, yet still is not), people in that type of setting usually get who I am quite easily, usually like who I am and usually want me to participate as one of them. Yet the huge irony is that on Christmas Eve they didn't know I wasn't really one of them, and despite their knowing and liking who I am, if they found out, as a non-Roman Catholic Christian they couldn't commune me any more. More irony is in the fact that almost every one of them would agree with me: I am baptized and therefore we belong together. About the taken, blessed, broken and given bread, Jesus told us, "This is my body!" I look around the church and around the world, at the broken people and try to feel my own brokenness that must be ready for giving yet wonder when God will use me in the world. "This is [doubly] my body?

Yesterday the church concluded Christmas with the Baptism of Our Lord and Holy Family School had a Machaco Burrito benefit, so I attended 10:30 liturgy and picked up my burrito on the way back home. One more version of my almost daily burrito, taken, blessed, broken and enjoyed...

this is my body—Amen!!!

RIP Gerry Rafferty

Tuesday, 04 January 2011



from City to City (1978), "The Ark"

See, the dark night has come down on us,
The world is living in its dream,
But now we know that we can wake up from this sleep,
And set out on the journey...
We'll take the road that leads down to the waterside
And set out on the journey
Find a ship to take us on the way...
We'll meet out on the water,
Where all strangers are known
The truth is there to set you free...

the doubly famous "Baker Street"

Winding your way down on Baker Street...
This city desert makes you feel so cold
It's got so many people but it's got no soul
And it's taken you so long to find out you were wrong
When you thought it held everything.

You used to think that it was so easy...
Just one more year and then you'd be happy
But you're cryin', you're cryin' now.

And when you wake up it's a new morning
The sun is shining, it's a new morning
But you're going, you're going home.

from "City to City"

Goodnight train is gonna carry you home.
And the train keeps on rollin', and it just rocks you to sleep.
So goodnight, yeah goodnight
Goodnight train is gonna carry you home.
And you'll be home in an hour...

Good Night, Gerry Rafferty—thanks for some unforgettable music, the friends and fun that went along with it.

new year's eve 5

today Singing Owl hosts new years 5. She tells us,

I'm not a big fan of New Year's resolutions, but it does seem a good time for some reflection and planning. For the last few days I keep thinking of Psalm 90:12

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Among other things, that seems to say that reflection is in order if we want to learn and grow. For some of us, this has been an incredibly difficult year; for others it has been a year of many joys. For all of us, there have been challenges and questions and there have been blessings and—maybe even an answer or two! As we say our goodbyes to 2010 and look towards 2011, share with us five blessings from 2010 along with five hopes or dreams for 2011.

5 blessings:

1. (almost) weekly participation in Word and Sacrament truly have helped sustain me.

2. continued realization that my insight and perception have cost me some, yet as always they've helped me survive, too. I've also been thankful for ways my knowledge of scripture and theology has helped me get through.

3. the easy availability of a multicultural banquet of culinary delights here in southern California! long ago someone advised me to appreciate the little things like freshly falling snow; since I consider myself a Food Groupie, taste and smell are majorly in that category of "little things" I truly appreciate. As an aside, I keep telling myself as long as I don't gain any weight, but losing a few would be a good all-around idea for the coming year.

4. would you believe internet friendships? And I've truly delighted in keeping my Facebook design page active and up to date and loved the guests artist and their art as well as the wonderfully positive reactions to my own art.

5. Roxy, my new kitteh who arrived at SAN on 16 October via DFW and PHX!

I love the light that shines through and reflects from this Carnival Necklace! It's from TamaraLyn Young's Etsy shop, bi-eyed beading named after one of her Husky Dogs. How well it represents the many-coloured facets of life's often chimeric shifts, transitions and surprises—I'm expecting quite a few more of those during 2011!

5 hopeful dreams:

1. to find a place of belonging and embrace where I can participate reasonably to the extent of my gifts, abilities and desires. It may be unreal to expect people immediately to know who I am, but I so want to find a few people who are interested in finding out who I am, rather than feeling threatened or being indifferent. West Side Story is coming to town soon, and I keep recalling "Somewhere": There's a place for us / Somewhere a place for us / There's a time for us / Some day a time for us / We'll find a new way of living / We'll find a way of forgiving / Somewhere...

2. same as #1—yet again I've been wise enough to realize that grief and loss are messy events and in general we humans need something that sort of replaces whatever we've lost in order fully to acknowledge the loss. Part of my longing hope for that elusive community is that God will allow me to be a wounded healer for others in addition to finding a few for myself.

3. this is a replay, repeat or rerun from at least one previous year, but how about learning the rest of the Beethoven piano Sonata cycle? Only 5 more to go.... yet what's the point if I have nowhere to play. For me it's so much about The Performance, but that can't be all that bad!

4. to be more grateful for everything, which means going far beyond the usual acknowledgment of how much worse it could have been, realizing other people are in far worse circumstance, being grateful for what has gone right and not awry—moving closer to a fully Eucharistic lifestyle.

5. a super concrete one for last: more design, more exposure for my design, entering more shows and competitions—possibly the State Fair next summer?!

Thanks, SingingOwl!

A Christmas Keeper!

Christmas on the Border on amazon dot com

...A Spicy Holiday Recipe of Texas Blues, Hot Country, and Mexican Salsa as well as a project and production from the town of Nashville, Tennessee, a place doesn't exactly border Mexico (or Canada, for that matter). "O Holy Night" and "What Child is This" are rocked-up essential classics; I could listen endlessly to a memorably haunting "The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy" or "I Wonder as I Wander." The style of "Joy to the World" and "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentleman," both just enough different from what you're used to that you listen more carefully all make for a CD to play over and over and recommend, too. Except for the definitely secular "Up On the Rooftop" the songs are classic North American (USA and Canada) Christmas worship, church pageant and radio top-40 favorites.

Since I included playlists from my other two Christmas CD reviews, here are the songs on this one:

1. Children Go Where I Send Thee
2. Joy to the World
3. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
4. Go Tell It on the Mountain
5. The Virgin Mary Had a Baby Boy
6. O Holy Night
7. I Wonder as I Wander
8. What Child Is This?

How apt and how fun this is as an example of contextualizing the Gospel and incarnating Christianity with cross-cultural musical styles, a little of this and a little of that, each still in its original idiom yet woven into the other idiom. It reminds me of the C.S. Lewis Dawn Treader quote on my Facebook page: "...said the Lamb, "For you the door into Aslan's country is from your own world." ... "There is a way into my country from all the worlds," said the Lamb...and he was Aslan himself..."

I have the impression the CD title is supposed to reference Tex-Mex style and culture, but cross-culture border styles of Southern California/ Northern Mexico and Southern Arizona/ Northern Mexico I'm familiar with aren't exactly like this CD. "Christmas on the Border" and chili pepper art both suggest songs sung in Spanish or at least partly so—in these here parts we've been known to have macaronic English/Spanish liturgies and many of us speak passable Spanglish. That's simply a passing comment, though, and I predict you'll enjoy the energy, twang, and harmonic color of Christmas on the Border (the CD).

my amazon review: A Christmas Keeper!

Cool Jazz Christmas: CD

Eric Darken and company bring an enjoyable Christmas music collection with another project from Nashville, Tennessee in
Cool Jazz Christmas, Refreshing Holiday Instrumentals."

For the most part the music conveys a sort of New-Agey, cool, casual and offhand sensibility that passes time pleasantly with an occasional sequence or riff that makes you want to listen again because it was unusual, unique and... repeatable. The sound is excellent and over all Cool Jazz Christmas is well-produced, but it's more the kind of performance you have playing in the background instead of sitting down with to savor every sound. However, "O Come, All ye Faithful" with Mark Baldwin on keyboards and sax by Mark Douthit is worth the price of the CD—I wanted to say there was a best out of all of tracks, and happily there is. The playlist is church, mall and radio standards, but even with quite a few newer songs and carols, what would the season be without these?

1. Winter Wonderland
2. Joy to the World
3. Deck the Halls
4. We Three Kings
5. God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen
6. Here We Come a Caroling
7. Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
8. O Little Town of Bethlehem
9. O Come, All Ye Faithful
10. Pat-a-Pan

Front and back cover designs are beautiful enough (almost) to make me want them in LP-album cover size—remember when we used leave our currently best and favorite ones out for show? The credits conclude with, "Above all, thanks to the Creator of such wonderful and meaningful music. Merry Christmas!" Amen!

For a Cool Jazz Christmas: my amazon review

christmasses past 5

For Friday 5 today, Jan hosts Christmases past:

Tell us about five Christmas memories you have.


1. Playing organ for Julotta super early on Christmas morning while the sky still was dark (after playing for very late Christmas Eve liturgy) when I was musician for a congregation whose original heritage was Swedish Lutheran.

2. The relatively simple 10 a.m. macaronic English-Spanish Eucharistic liturgy at the Roman Catholic church in the desert.

3. Celebrating Christmas Eve liturgy with the congregation in whose life of worship, witness and service I participated in the first few years I was back in this geographic area. Worship was timed so we'd receive the sacrament after midnight. They turned the communion table 90 degrees, a.k.a. "Surfboard" and we gathered around in a close circle. One of their traditions was a rose on the communion table whenever a baby was born or adopted in the parish, and for Christmas Eve a rose celebrated Baby Jesus' birth in our midst.

4. In trinitarian terms, the Nativity of Our Lord is the major Creation Festival, and how better to enjoy some fruits of the earth than with southwestern fajita burritos accompanied with all the southwestern USA/northern Mexico fixings and condiments? I also love traditional turkey, etc. and have enjoyed quite a few of both so won't cite particular occasions of either.

5. This isn't a specific event, but I love winter solstice festivities and remembrances and the way the calendaring of Christmas is an example of Christianity as an incarnational way that relates to (at its best embodies itself in) local culture, draws upon and re-interprets what's already there and at the same time brings something surprisingly new, transforming conventional symbols and behaviors into something redemptive for both giver and given-to.

bonus: this far by faith, my testimony blog isn't currently active, but I need to risk sharing this Christmassy Friday 5 from 3 years ago.


just wondering... how wonderful would it be to celebrate Christmas in the southern hemisphere near the time of the summer solstice?

Thanks, Jan!

sounds like...

Community Christmas at the Cathedral!

Released in August 2007 and featuring producer Mark Baldwin's guitar that often sears, sometimes sings and at times laments, Red Hot Christmas Blues reminds us of the frequent messiness of life, the apocalyptic hope of Advent and the surprise of God's Nativitytide appearance in the Bethlehem manger. Except for the introductory "Christmas Blues" vocal bewailing wintry conditions of broken life and broken bank account, playlist titles are Christmas carols you get to sing in church and listen to on radio and MP3 throughout the season. However, in liturgically logical order:

1. Christmas Blues
2. What Child Is This?
3. Silent Night
4. Go Tell It On The Mountain
5. I Wonder As I Wander
6. O Holy Night
7. Angel Shuffle
8. The First Noel

...these jazz illuminations carry a revelatory twist and provocative style you don't often get on the radio or at church. I cannot help but imagine Christmas Eve at the downtown cathedral or tall steeple, or just as easily these offerings could be from a smaller nearby parish with wide-open doors that invite and include all comers.

In 4 minutes and 47 seconds "Angel Shuffle," a wildly improvised version of "Angels we Have Heard on High" probably is my favorite among favorites on this CD. I won't try describing it but can assure you it's worth the price and the storage space—from someone (me!) who doesn't buy many CDs these days and gave away quite a few quite a while ago. Walter Brueggemann says only grief enables newness (something about getting out of denial, maybe?) and "Angel Shuffles" brings together sorrow, regret, loss and anger with the surprise of God's renewing presence in our very midst.
And would you believe, bible specialists Thomas Nelson published this music CD?! Not surprisingly, I love the artwork and package design by Christie Knubel. Finally, you easily can find Red Hot Christmas Blues on eBay and Amazon, so go for it!

my amazon review: sounds like... Community Christmas at the Cathedral!

december survival 5

kathrynzj hosts today's December survival 5: "please let us know five of the things that mark the season for you. and the bonus? Tell us one thing that does absolutely nothing for you."

1. The advent of the new liturgical year with the season of Advent is a tremendous part of my winter sustenance. By early October I begin looking forward to the touch of apocalyptic along with the incessant undercurrent of hope the texts, music, colours and symbols convey. Apocalyptic points toward the hiddenness of God's appearing and of God's persistent presence just as its unconventional imagery reminds us to look for visible, audible and tangible signs of the Divine in our midst. As Martin Luther and scripture remind us, in order to find God's power, look to the manger; look to the cross! The Bethlehem manger reminds us, this incarnation of the Divine in fragile flesh could only be God's idea, because no ordinary human would think of power in such subversive terms.

2. Snow... Where I currently live you need to trek a few miles north to find snow during this season, but I've lived in Snowlands in the northeast and in the Intermountain West and there is nothing like the silent sound and lovely vision of falling snow.

3. Eggnog! The December-January holiday season is the only time of the year you can buy eggnog in retail supermarkets. It's true that I always could make my own, but I've never really loved homemade eggnog as much as I've savored the store-bought kind.

4. Fajita burritos, a Southwestern Christmas favourite and they're another culinary specialty in my list cuz after all, I am a Food Groupie.

5. This is about December Survival, and it long has been beyond my comprehension why so many people wear dark clothes almost exclusively during cooler, shorter months. Almost all year round I wear mostly lighter and brighter colours, so it's not only a wintry ploy, it's one that always feels right to me wherever and whenever.

bonus. This definitely is not unique to me, but although I believe I do well in my attempts to understand Christmas music streaming in the stores and on the radio when it still is early Advent, I cannot abide stores playing it right after Labor Day to match the holiday gift items that started arriving in the store during the middle of August.

unexpected thanks

For 19 November's Friday 5, Jan hosts unexpected thanks 5. She explains, "With the American holiday of Thanksgiving being less than a week away, I tried to think of some questions for Friday Five that could be connected to this, but in a new way. So here is my one try: Name five things that were unexpected in your life that you are now grateful for."

It's now 9 days past the Friday of this unexpected thankfulness 5, yet what better idea than to make this my Thanksgiving Day blog? When I decided to write about winter, darkness and death, I knew Kelli Titus' amazing photographs of winter in Chicago would be perfect—Kelli has been a guest artist on my Facebook design page. By the way, the background image on my thanksgiving banner is one of my own photographs. Last Wednesday at Vespers we chanted Psalm 65 and suddenly I remembered that Psalm 65:8 was my blog header for a while, so that verse seemed inspired for a seasonal banner! On the wayback machine I even serendipitously found an archive from July 2008 that reminded me when.

1. I'd almost expected cracked roads, jagged curbs, unmarked alleys, potholes and the occasional friendly stranger who might become a strange friend, but I never anticipated the sometimes dehumanizing loneliness and lack of community. They say people do their best when and where they find the most support, but amazingly it is over these bleak, lonely years without the friends I'd fully expected to grow older with that I've achieved more than I ever could have imagined as theologian, artist and performing musician. So true an excellent education and broad, varied experience gave me a solid foundation, but who'd of thunk it? Am I thankful for all of it? Of course, at the same time realizing I don't know what otherwise would have happened.

2. Winter! I've lived in the northeastern United States and in northeastern Utah. Both areas have snowy though very different winter seasons; both feature very hot yet very different summers. Walter Brueggemann insists much of life is sabbatarian, spent in the interstitial, liminal time between Good Friday afternoon and Easter Sunday dawn. In my blog and review of Henry Beston's The Outermost House, I essentially said that during winter in four-season places like the Midwest or New England there is a simply being who we've become thus far that has a sense of Sabbath about it. We almost hang suspended in time waiting for gifts of birth, of spring of new life to ready themselves. In that blog I also mentioned living alongside the agricultural cycle helped me learn to trust death.

3. Like many County Fairs and State Fairs, Thanksgiving is a harvest festival. Isn't Easter, the festival of Resurrection the ultimate celebration of the ultimate harvest? Easter's in-breaking of grace and in-gathering of new life happens only after death, darkness, winter, inactivity and somnolence. For the apostle Paul the Gospel is death and resurrection! I've learned how essential death is as finally I've started looking forward to shorter, cooler days and longer nights, no longer trying to rush winter (because winter arrives, stays and leaves in its own time), no longer counting months, weeks and days until spring and summer will be here.

4. Sunsets and sunrises—but why are these surprising? After all, everyone recognizes the phenomenological reality and appreciates the symbolism. I've long loved very early morning and long have preferred to get out of bed before first light, delighting in watching the sky for an hour or more for daybreak, but I've been astonished to discover I now welcome sunsets for their beauty (this isn't quite desert southwestern Utah and New Mexico, but still we get some gorgeous skies as daylight wanes), and also for the way they encourage me to slow down my activity, and for their "rightness" in the scheme of everything.

5. I've listed four only, though may think of more in the unexpected thanks category as soon as I publish this. Thanks, Jan!

5 about pies

...labels are friday 5 and creation...

Songbird hosts a day after Thanksgiving-USA with a very appropriate friday five pie-ola and asks us Please answer these five questions about pie:

1) Pies are an extremely important Holiday Meal Component, especially for cold weather holidays such as Thanksgiving Day in Canada or USA. Christmas/Hanukkah, Valentines' Day. Fruit and cream pies are excellent for spring celebrations and summer picnics, too. In the end, Thanksgiving and Christmas feasts require pie.

2) It seems to me that "men prefer pie; women prefer cake" is in a similar category to "men prefer dogs; women prefer cats" so there's no need to write an essay, esp since I'd like to finish last Friday's 5 and post it as my official Thanksgiving blog before Advent officially begins.

3) Cherries definitely belong in a pie, but preferably tart ones (sorry I can't cite specific varieties) and please don't sweeten them up too much; vanilla or butter pecan ice cream on top will do that just fine.

4) I'm more of a real heavy whipped cream fan than a meringue fanatic, but it's best on lemon and doesn't really suit chocolate cream pie, since that needs to be made with graham cracker crust and Real Whipped Cream.

5) For chicken pie, either ultra-flaky scratch crust or scratch biscuits; the most compatible veggies include green beans, peas, carrots, but never lima beans. As much as I adore potatoes, they don't really belong, either. Ideally chicken pie is served with a simple, classic tossed green salad consisting of 2 or 3 colorful lettuce varieties, red tomatoes, cucumbers and sweet (not bitey!) red onions, blue cheese, Roquefort or creamy italian dressing. Ranch is fine, too, but the creamy part is of the essence.

Reign of Christ: Colossians 1:17

Oh, I so love the cosmic Christ of Colossians! This is one of my favorite texts and also one of my faves of all my graphic art.