St. Patrick's Breastplate

[via apirecords]

Capturing Many Moments, Seize The Day



(inspired by David Eagleman's book, Sum)

Not Half-Perfect, but Learning...

Are my boots old? Is my coat torn?
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is standing still and learning to be
astonished. {full poem, by Mary Oliver}

[via The Eagle & Child]

Lying about Santa: The Irrelevance of Proof to the Holiday Spirit

[via Religion Dispatches]

(I Wanna Go)Where The Wild Things Are



[via Jonathan Mann at therockcookiebottom or ROCK COOKIE BOTTOM]

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

-C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

A Brief History of Modern Fantasy Literature, p. I

A Brief History of Modern Fantasy Literature, p. II

[via Levellers]

Pentecost Sunday: Different Christian Groups Emphasize Different Aspects

[via Levellers]

Suspend Hesitation

Sometimes life is about shooting blind. You don't really know what you're going to get. You set your face in one direction and trust that you'll capture what you need. Something powerful happens when you suspend hesitation. When you find yourself in a distant place, and trust the opportunities that come. When you pick up a lonely child and spend some time in an embrace. When you wash the feet of a stranger. When you learn that in serving, you become the served.

[via biscotti brain]

Curiosity, Determination, Optimism

Why get worked up over a machine that was slowly shutting down?

It wasn’t the machine itself that we loved: the metals, the mechanisms, the scientific equipment. It was the human spirit that had sent it there, so many miles from our home, not for profit or war or necessity, but simply because there was a chance to discover something we’d never known before. So many people had dreamed, had planned, had worked to put that bit of metal on that frozen surface, and the light of the human spirit shone as bright as any star. The freezing chill of Martian winter may have caused the machine to shut down, but the spirit it embodies is still there, as strong as ever, burning bright with curiosity, determination, and optimism. {full post}

[via Deluded Wine]

Wonder and Space...

Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar 2008

[via The Big Picture, HT: Bene Diction Blogs On]

Those Who Leave Christ and My Own Story (Of Why I Could Not)

[via adventures in mercy]

Spiraling Out



[via Forbidden Closet of Mysteries]

The Complex Christmas

If all the world ever sees is a weak little baby, and a weak man on a cross, it's no wonder they see nothing to save them from fear and hopelessness.

Each year I have become increasingly dissatisfied with the "postmodern" Christmas story. The classic Nativity scene with Joseph as distant, Mary as prayerful, Jesus asleep. The Postmodern Nativity - "social and cultural reality as a human construction."

But the real Christmas story? A story with lies, murder, terror, inconvenience, pain, and human decisions. A story that truly resonates with the human spirit.

[via You saved my life from a colorless one]

No Matter How Carefully You Look...

You can be a specialist or you can be a generalist. There's not enough time to be both.

If you are a generalist, there will be things you will not see no matter how much you travel. If you are a specialist, there will be tiny secrets and truths that will elude you, no matter how carefully you look. {more...}

[via The Christian Century, HT: Real Live Preacher]

Moreover,

My tiny mind and delicate emotions cannot bear even my small thoughts of the universe for more than a few minutes. I relax. Sometimes a shrinking reality can be a comfort. My sins, the things that I have done wrong and the ways that I cannot be what I should be, also shrink. I feel I can forgive myself for them, small man that I am....

Our saintly scientists, single-minded and incredibly committed to the search for truth, draw down amazing pictures from the ancient light in the sky. These pictures help me to know that it is okay to be nothing more or less than what we are.

People. Human beings, strangely warped and trying to understand that. Trying to worship what cannot be known, trying to learn, trying to find our place in the Cosmos.

[via Real Live Preacher]

A Horrific Figure

...the figures are infantalizing. One thing to have small little tear shaped children shaped figurines, but when those tear chaped infants are mining for coal, or dressed in camo, it starts to get creepy. In fact, that particular one struck me as a horrific figure, rather than tribute to our military. Who turns an infant into a soldier?

After viewing a few hundred of the little things, we both felt a sense of sadness, as if these figurines were an expression of deep loss.

[via Streak's Blog]

Wasting time wishing on stars

[via Ramblings of a Redhead]

(Hours of) Labours of Love

But what is worse? The thought that "even if we don't have another baby, I have just given birth to another daughter, which means that 20+ years from now, I'm going to feel so bad for my two daughters who will have to push their own babies out, and I really don't want them to have to go through that pain." And I had visions of myself reading the Psalms and listening to Mozart for Mothers-To-Be (or maybe I'd get them to make a Grandmothers-To-Be cd) every night for the next 20 years, all because I was worried about the hours of labour my daughters may have to go through!

And now, I miss the labour and my time in the hospital.

[via Vandermeander, emphasis mine]

As Below, So Above

In moments when we suffer in our bodies, minds, or relationships, and perhaps especially when we do so as men and as women, we participate in whatever it is that has gone epically wrong with the world. This doesn't give inherent meaning to pain - in fact, that's the whole point. We are pushed beyond what we can bear, we break, and sometimes don't recover, and there's no reason.

I can't connect the dots between specific experiences of suffering and specific transformations or healings, but I do still have hope that epic longing, loss, and pain help me recognize and embrace epic love, joy, kindness and gentleness when they come my way. Some of that is is the responsibility of humans, to work for our own healing and growth, and some of that is sheer, occasional gift -- grace. In the future I hope to not remember precisely what these days are like for me, and not to reflect on them very often, but here in the moment, I'm willing to be aware and see if anything good can happen.

[via The Paris Project]

Darn Floor - Big Bite by Da

1: You touch my hair and cheek sometimes
Feel in yourself this flesh and blood
My poor flesh and blood, my poor flesh and blood

I think I met an angel once
But I cannot really know for sure
Do I know you now? Do I know you now?

2: (Illuminate my muddled heart
Sweep the shadows from my mind)
So I might imagine what you are like
And understand the great design

Darn floor - big bite
You are earth, water and light
3: (Darn floor - big bite
Can I ever hope to get it right, can't get it right)

I believe I've had a vision or two
Could have been a dream
I guess it could have been a dream
Could have been a dream
I saw the wide world crack where you touched down
And bodies wash up on a mythical shore
Will you save me now? Will you save me now?
In not-quite earth, in not-quite heaven
I'll imitate love like lovers do
In not-quite art, in not-quite living
I'll pray that writing it down is part of loving you

4: (Darn floor - big bite
You are twilight, dark and bright
Darn floor - big bite
You are beautiful, terrible terrible sight!)
Repeat 1
Darn floor - big bite
You are love, fire and light
Repeat 3, 4
No I can't get it, no I can't get it right
Repeat 2

Words and Music by Terry Taylor, Tim Chandler, and Greg Flesch
©1987 Broken Songs (ASCAP)

---

Dig by Adam Again

I had big idea
I had a lazy eye
I broke the sacred seal
I told a lazy lie
I've had my conscience bent
I've had my patience tried
I've been up in the desert
And down by the riverside

Will the eagle try
If the sky's untrue?
Do the faithful sigh
Because they are so few?
Remember when I cried?
Remember when you knew?
Remember that look in your eyes?
I know I do

And count the stars to measure tme
The earth is hard, the treasure fine
To the sea I'll crawl on my knees

Feel it coming in
Feel it going out
Water covers sand
Blood covers doubt
So I begin again
Again, the healing bow
There was a time that I might have surrendered
But not now

Consult the cards to measure mine
The earth is hard, but the treasure fine
At the sea, I'll wait on my knees