The Most Wonderful Time of the Year To Be Lucy and Ethel

Mama always says, "Don't wear your bedroom slippers to the shopping mall."

But Mama's wisdom doesn't necessarily apply during Christmas. Especially when you've got some brand new jingling elf slippers:

And you're on your way with Ethel to get your annual Santa picture taken:

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First we had to have lunch and exchange gifts. And nothing quite sets the tone for a Christmas gift exchange like a retro diner which serves 26-inch hotdogs:

Over the years, Ethel and I have adorned ourselves for our photos with some fairly ridiculous accessories: reindeer antlers, elf hats, feather boas. This year, after reading an ebook about practicing Advent, we decided to deck ourselves in purple. Yep, all day I was a long, cool, walking Advent pillar, and so was Ethel (although she's not nearly as long). All day we engaged in our own little secret Advent conspiracy.

Because writer Anne Lamott said, "You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. Sometimes you can point with it, too."

So we walked around all day bearing witness to the Source of ridiculous joy. And the amazing thing we discovered was: Once you know what you're looking for, you start seeing evidence of it everywhere:

Ethel gave me the most fantastically amazing handmade gift of love:

She saw a picture in a catalog of a sweater beaded in peacock feather patterns and thought to herself, "I can do that." And so she did. God has gifted my friend with amazing creativity and mad art skills.

I gave Ethel ice cube molds in the shape of false teeth. Because I'm classy like that. And because I know that someday, when we live next door to one another in a nursing home, she's the kind who's always going to be stealing my teeth. And I look forward to growing old and ever more ridiculous with my friend.

Then she opened the elf slippers. And we were on our way:

We like to believe we add a little joy to Santa's life, making the season more merry and bright for everyone:

For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

Happy Advent and Merry Christmas from Lucy and Ethel!

Linking our Advent playdate with Laura @ The Wellspring:

And, even though this may not have been what she had in mind, with Charity @ Wide Open Spaces who is hosting an Advent community writing project for The High Calling:

Chesterton, Lucy, Ethel, and Santa: The story of how our tradition began

Discovering Advent: E-book by Mark D. Roberts

All That Is Within Me

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!

Psalm 103:1, ESV

All? Bless the Lord with all that is within me?

My time, my talents, and all my little quirks: with these you ask me to declare that you are, and that you are good.

You ask me to love you with heart, soul, mind, and strength.

With my body, with all the senses you gave me, you call me to bear witness to your presence in this world.

Let my words be pleasing to you and healing to others. Allow my laughter to reflect your joy. Call songs of joy and lament from my mouth, even if they’re not always on key. Make me glad for the gift of joining my voice with those of others in worship, in affirmation, in questioning, and in confession.

Awake my ears to hear the heavens pouring forth speech. Allow me to recognize the song of the night cricket and of the child crying for comfort. When I hear fingers coaxing music from piano keys, remind me of your voice singing stars into creation.

Open my eyes to see beauty everywhere, in your word and in the world you formed by it; in the bright blue autumn sky and in the sun filtering through yellow leaves, in the geese flying in formation and in the red fox slinking through the yard. Allow me to see the vast, intricate, and varied beauty you have woven throughout all of creation. May I recognize your image in those who create and offer their gifts to the world. And when I see ugliness, remind me that you are making all things new.

Make my heart glad when I step out my front door and breathe in the scent of autumn leaves and of wood smoke ascending. When I catch a whiff of baby powder or the scent of Jergen’s, allow me to revel in the landscape of memory and the gift of those who come to mind.

Allow me to taste your goodness in the bread and the wine, and in the steaming delight of warm apple pie and the comfort of my morning coffee.

Use my hands as instruments of healing, reaching for the shoulder of one who is weary. Allow me to tap out words on a keyboard and text messages that encourage. Whether gripping a steering wheel or immersed in dishwater, use my hands to build your kingdom.

But all, Lord? How can I offer all that is within me when dark and ugly still linger deep, down inside? Fears. Doubts. Insecurity. Anger. Resentment. The baggage of life. How can I bless you with these things?

Give them to me.

Give them to me, because they are of no use to you. You can’t fix them; you can’t heal yourself of them. They will keep you from me, from coming to me and knowing of my deep delight in you.

Give them to me, all of them. Believe that I am the one who crowns your life with compassion, who redeems your life from the pit and heals all your diseases.

Give them to me.

Bless the LORD, O my soul,
   and all that is within me,
   bless his holy name!

Reflection on a scripture reading from The Relevant Conference. Linking with Michelle:

And with Jen and the sisterhood:

This is What a Bosom Friend Looks Like

Yes, I've been on the road forever, and no I haven't written a single sentence in that time. Today I just need to point you over to my friend Jodi @ Curious Acorn. You'll understand.

Heading home to the beloved Swede. Grace and peace to you all.

What Happens In Texas

Is it what you expected?

I was never quite sure how to answer the question. Throughout the weekend, several people asked whether or not the writing retreat was turning out to be what I had expected. Truth was, I hadn’t known what to expect.

I knew what I feared. I feared I would have to sit down in front of a blank piece of paper and try to write something that wouldn’t sound awful. I feared being surrounded by a circle of talented writers who would whip out their pens and bleed red all over my amateur efforts. I feared that the generous gift my husband had given me, investing in me as a writer wannabe, would turn out to be an unwise decision on his part.

So much of what happened at Laity Lodge, however, was neither what I feared nor expected. I didn’t expect that meeting so many for the first time would feel like a reunion of old friends. I was surprised to learn that a lovely, talented photographer from South Africa would, with a glimmer in her eye, dare to flip a colleague into the Frio River. I had no idea that a grown man with a frog puppet could move so many to tears.

Unlike many of the talented photographers present, I hadn’t packed a camera. The snapshots I took, I carried home with me in my head and my heart. With a fistbump, I was given honorary dude status. I was introduced to the best cookies one could make using four simple ingredients. During a workshop, I used the phrase “merry band of crazy.” (and am right here and now, on the internet, forevermore claiming intellectual property rights to those words) I was assigned a roommate who couldn’t promise she wouldn’t try to kill me in the middle of the night. I found people who get me.

We talked together, my writer friends and me, of our lives at home; and we wept and prayed together. I worshiped alongside a woman for whom I had prayed online. I had a meltdown in an art studio. Throughout the weekend, I received small affirmations. Before heading home, I was invited to consider pain as something to steward well.

Not real writer-ly stuff. Or maybe it was.

I’ve been reading all week, posts from others who participated in the retreat, and I keep thinking about how alike and different our experiences were. We shared in many of the same activities and broke bread together, but we’ve each come home with different stories in our back pockets. My kids’ high school youth group leader used to say that each kid who went on a mission trip had the exact trip God intended for him or for her to have. I think something like that happened at Laity Lodge last weekend.

I need to pause here and say, “Thank you,” to the beloved Swede for sending me to Texas last week, for believing enough in me to invest in me as a writer.  Truly, you are the lingonberries to my Swedish pancakes. As for return on investment, I’m not sure I come home to you a better writer. But I believe I’ve come home a better person.

And while what happens in Vegas may stay in Vegas, the lessons of Laity Lodge, I believe, will continue to echo far beyond the walls of the Rio canyon. Even in the airport, as many of us were queuing in security lines, the conversation and the friendship continued. In an airport restaurant I shared a table with David before we went separate ways, he home to steward pain of his own.

Before leaving the restaurant, I happened upon Kathy, the artist-in-residence whose studio I’d fled in tears. She’d been wondering, she told me, what had happened as I sat surrounded by water colors and ink. We shared a table, and I was given the opportunity to fill her in on the rest of the story. I’d had a painful experience, I told her, but one I needed to have.

As it turns out, few things about the retreat were what I expected. And perhaps that’s the greatest lesson I brought home from Texas.

How Art Hurts. And Heals.

Down the hill from the lodge at the retreat center sat an art studio, staffed for the weekend by the artist-in-residence. We were invited, during free time, to come and play in the studio, to learn techniques and dabble with papers and brushes and paint. The artist talked of creating a project for others who had been on retreat; businessmen for whom the world of art supplies and creation was a foreign land. She had invited them, as those who hadn’t seen themselves as artists, to venture into the world of creativity. She called us to come and play as they had.

“I’m a Type-A person,” I told the artist. “I like lists, and schedules, and structure.” I told her of trying to do art with my friend Ethel, she who created beauty with child-like abandon and joy while I carefully counted sequins and beads and double-checked instructions. The artist dared me to be brave, to come down to the studio and play.

I wandered down the hill, found a place at the table, and sat myself on a tall stool. The artist demonstrated dry brush, wet-on-wet, and crayon resist painting. She suggested that we, as writers, add words to our work, inviting us to write using our non-dominant hands. On the wall were posted samples to inspire creativity and the words, “Give yourself permission to play.” Surrounded by every kind of art supply I could imagine, I was free to play and explore, to wander way outside the boundaries of my comfort zone and create.

And I felt like I was in prison.

I watched as others circulated through the room, considering and collecting scraps of paper and supplies, arranging and re-arranging their designs. They tried things, saw possibility, made changes; adapted. Soft music played as laughter filled the studio. I looked at the others and then looked at the paints and papers before me. I tried something. I tried something else. I couldn’t make sense of what was in front of me. I l watched the others at play and tried to imitate. Nothing looked right. I saw no beauty. I had no way to judge my efforts, to tell if anything I was doing was any good.

My heart began pounding; my breathing shallowed. Feeling hot and dizzy and trapped, I began to imagine myself toppling over from my tall stool and doing a face-plant in a puddle of Gesso.  I walked away from the studio leaving my art project behind.

I walked away from this foreign land, this place where I couldn’t make sense of the language and the rhythms and the customs. In that studio, I tasted the life of an artist, a musician, a dreamer; one who had grown up trying to make sense of a world governed by lists, and schedules, and structures.

And it made me want to say, “I’m so sorry.”

Joining Laura @ The Wellspring:

And L.L. Barkat @ Seedlings in Stone:

 

Sarah Louise Loves Art

I have a piece marinating in my head that's not quite ready for imperfect prose this week.  Instead, I'd like to introduce you to a young artist friend of mine.  (I know, I'm probably cheating, so I ask your kind grace this week.)

Sarah Louise loves art and loves Jesus and sometimes wears a tiara when she needs to feel brave.  I met her through my daughter when they were friends together in high school youth group.  Since then, I've gotten to know her and love her so much that I've stolen her from my daughter and, in the words of Napolean Dynamite:

We're pretty much best friends by now.



Her illustration was chosen as the cover design for a chemistry book which was published recently.  (Link to the illustration is here.)  I am so enormously proud of her and her talent that I told her I was going to blog about her today.  Trust me, if you knew the degree of fear and loathing I feel toward the sciences in general and chemistry in particular, you'd understand that it's a pretty big deal for me to devote a blog post to a chemistry book.

I am excited to see, in the years ahead, how God uses Sarah Louise and her gifts to restore beauty in this broken, fallen world.  Friends, won't you stop by her blog, introduce yourselves, encourage her, and welcome her to the imperfect prose on thursdays community?

Extreme Blog Makeover

So, my blog is boring.  Not the content, obviously, rich as it is with thoughtful insights, witty commentary, and punctuation which is more or less accurate.

I'm talking aesthetics.  My blog is ugly and boring.  Those of you who have clicked through it know that I'm still using the freebie blogger template and looking very bush-league.

I get it that if I want people to read my ramblings, I need to step up in the design department and attract their eyes.  Trouble is, I'm aesthetically challenged.  I like rules, structure, timelines, and spreadsheets.  My friend Ethel is an artist.  Whenever we attempt to do artsy-craftsy things together, our styles could not be more different.  I carefully read directions, measure out supplies, and count beads.  Ethel just lets fly--paint, beads, glitter glue--whatever she's working with.  She doesn't rely on the instructions because she can see in her mind what she wants to create.

I appreciate the artists in my life--writers, musicians, painters, craftsmen--the way they reflect and echo gifts of beauty given by the Creator.  Having just heard Eugene Peterson speak at my daughter's graduation, I ran* out and bought his book Practice Resurrection.  In talking about the church, Peterson references Plato's three universals:  the True, the Good, and the Beautiful.  He suggests that the American church tends to focus on the first two by emphasizing teaching and morality, but too often neglects the third.  Without beauty, he suggests, truth and goodness become abstract, bloodless, loveless, and graceless.

Connecting with the Gratitude Community has helped me to slow down and appreciate beauty, to see grace from the hand of the Giver, and to practice the art of giving thanks.

And I do intend to spiff up my blog one of these days.  So far, I've been resisting the temptation to wile away hours surfing web sites looking for nifty template, widgets and gadgets to spruce up my little corner of the internet.  I'm just trying to stay focused on the words and ideas, putting my rather substantial buttocks into a chair on a somewhat consistent basis, practicing the stringing together of subjects and verbs.

But I am open to recommendations for nifty blog improvement tips, suggestions, and web sites any of you have found helpful.

And speaking of Ethel, my writing project for this week is a devotional for her daughter's bridal shower.  Speaking at events like this is something I very much enjoy doing, and this is a piece I've been working on in my head and my heart since Ethel asked me to do it years ago, when the bride-to-be was still skinning her knees on the playground.

*I just made up the part about running.  Running is not a thing I enjoy doing.



Continuing to number the gifts:

299. Bluebirds

300. A job for the new graduate.

301. Friends reaching out to our daughter and blessing her as she settles in a new place and steps into the next stage of her life.

302. Wedding showers, brides-to-be, and the promise of godly marriages.

303. Eugene Peterson’s Practice Resurrection.

304. Time to sit by the pool, listen to birdsong, read, and rest on a beautiful Sabbath afternoon.

305. An encouraging mid-quarter progress report.

306. Grilling the first cheeseburgers of the season.

307. The way my friend fights her cancer with style and grace, laughter, and songs of praise. The way she says, “Stupid cancer.”

308. That damaged cherry furniture can be restored.

309. So can we.