Out of the mouths of babes

Zane's quote of the day: "It's my spirit that's making me laugh, I don't know why, but it's been making me laugh all day! " He said this while Hannah was helping him with his school work.

Margins

I took a class at VU entitled "Strangers and Marginals". The focus was individuals who were or would have been seen as weird, bizzare, or strange or crazy by the society on the whole. What intrigued me was that many of these individuals accomplished unique,original deeds but were misunderstood in their lifetime, made to suffer and were cast out emotionally and or physically. Some were gifted artists, musicians, poets, inventors, and authors. Some never came to fame, and spent their lives in solitude in the hills avoiding the towns. Some went mad. Some were put to death because their ideas were threatening. All of this stuck in my processing as I live my life and I find myself looking for and respecting the unique giftings of the people I meet.I really don't expect people to think like me or have the same interests. I enjoy finding common ground or newly discovering something through someone elses areas of interest. I am disturbed by how quickly a non homogenous person is subtley put aside or corrected. How many sensitive souls, gifted in ways they don' t have the confidence to push through, are out there. I watch my own children and am trying to cautiously fan the flames in their areas of interest, let them know their ideas are original to them even if I've heard others express them.
Margins, seem to me to be the unplanned space. We do our thinking and planning and writing of our lives, I like to think the margins are where God's creativity comes in , His planning( of course He has already written His book)His fitting of the puzzle pieces, my seeing His sovereignty at work, His working through the multitudes or individuals to carry out specific connections between people, just the right people, the one who can comfort another, the one who can be strong for another, the specific one who can reach out a hand to lift another up or share a word so another chooses to believe one more day can be good.The margins are where we trust and seek Jesus to reveal to us the 'good deeds He planned in advance for us to walk in"Not just anything I can think of that is good to do, but what He created me to do that is somehow meant to specifically help a specific person. My brain starts to cramp when I even for a minute try to think about how my life interconnects with others which interconnect with others. I remember when my niece asked my sister what focus of ministry (how she worded it I 'm not sure) she should have, as she was newly involved with highschool, Cindy said , the gist of which was, just be yourself, do what interests you, be your own person. This has become more profound to me over the years because it reveals inherent respect for what God put in a person when He created that unique individual . He made that person in a beautiful mix of colors, talents, interests and so on. It sounds too simple and like the worst cliche, but" be yourself" is actually way, way important. As I hear myself saying it to my kids, I know I'll add, 'submit yourself to Jesus, He knows what the work of art is meant to look like....be yourself in light of Him.
This mysteriously,abstract, in-the-image-of-God,creative potential of every human is,I know, what is at the heart of what I find so gut wrenchingly sad about death, a halting end to what God is doing through that person on earth, whether that person has lived a long life or his life had just begun in that "safest place on earth"(unless that mama lives in America).

seeing,savoring

I am, for many years now, hungry for words of hope in scripture. More specifically, I am hungry for any words about God our Heavenly Father or Jesus Christ, God in the flesh.I am inexplicably drawn and comforted at my most wounded and vulnerable level by the very description of His holiness or the greatness of His glory . My failings, smallness, trivial thoughts are carried away and disappear as my heart basks in Him.This is hard to put into words. When I find authors who describe things that my heart feels or thoughts I have known, it is gratifying like a "yes" at the spiritual level. John Piper's Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ and The Passion of Jesus Christ and Oswald Chambers My Utmost For His Highest often speak what I know in my heart. John Piper says ,"We were made to know and treasure the glory of God above all things; and when we trade the treasure for images, everything is disordered. The sun of God's glory was made to shine at the center of the solar system of our soul. And when it does, all the planets of our life are held in their proper orbit. But when the sun is displaced, everything flies apart.The healing of the soul begins by restoring the glory of God to its flaming, all-attracting place at the center...To see it, to savor it, and to show it- that is why we exist ...The physical eye is meant to say to the spiritual eye, " not this, but the Maker of this, is the Desire of your soul."

sayings

What are these sayings called that are maybe unique to a certain region or period in time? Like, "jumpy as a cow at milking time", Grandpa Bebe inMisty of Chincoteague often used them.
I am charmed by them and am compelled to make up some of my own. His also include, "safe as a rabbit in a briar patch", and " the sky is ..as black as the inside of a cow".I'd like to start a list , can you think of more?

haircuts

I've always cut my family's hair. I've nicked a couple ears, got lost in thought and totally buzzed some locks that were supposed to be trimmed just a little. I remember dropping some running clippers during Mick's haircut once, in order to get a package from the FedEx guy. The fall broke them. The package happened to be holding a horse order with the horse clippers I had sent away for. Mick's haircut was completed with these.Today's cuts included a teens long layered cut for Sam, a military buzz for Micah, and a trim for Laura where the ends form a smile curve and layers around her face to frame it. I love the snip , snip sound, and the time to visit with my kids. They make me laugh. Micah was admiring his own chest hair. Then he brushed it off his chest, neck and shoulders and said "thanks for the haircut , Mom." I sweep the locks into a downey pile and fling them out the back door for the birds.

see ya back home

Grandpa Baatz thought of a hike at the park in the snow. While the cousins bombarded uncle Jeff with snow ammo ( he may have started it) Hannah took my arm and we got our walk and talk in,sweet time with my little girl before heading to Connecticut and England. Late packing til 3, fell into bed fully dressed and the next thing I know beep...beep...beep...beep...Mom, it's 6, gotta leave at 6:15. I reply ,"remind me again where we're going?" You're taking me and Steph to Grndma's and Grndpa's". Now, when I'm awakened in the middle of the night by a child crying I know where I'm going, totally and completely oriented. By 7:30 we're saying goodbye, " Ilove you so much.. see you back home." She has always known this means house/home and heaven/home.I know this may sound morbid , but it is a comforting thought to me that should the Lord choose to take one of us, those were our parting words, full of hope really.

See Through

I saw Scott's blog , the match was scratched.... I gotta blog!! Thoughts and ideas speeding around in my head like a messy closet...I guess this is a little like one of my organization projects... now I can put my thoughts in see through storage containers and at the end of a busy day read a coherent thought I once had .