point me at the sea

[Tired Pony, "Point Me at Lost Islands"]

This song reminds me that I'm in Alaska. It's an arctic song.

blame it on the satellite that beams me home

[Gillian Welch covering Radiohead, "Black Star"]

blame it on a black star
blame it on the falling sky
blame it on the satellite that beams me home

and it wasn't milk or honey, but then neither is this

["Painting Pictures of Egypt" by Sara Groves]

official hot cocoa taster

This is serious stuff.

Lydia's Threads

Still Christmas shopping? Consider Lydia's Threads!

www.lydiasthreads.com

Hear her story at Drew & Rachel's blog!

when your heart is hemorrhaging

"You have to have no answers and also be in joy. You have to be ready to dance when your heart is hemorrhaging; and you have to be ready to sing a dirge when things -- for ONCE! -- are going okay for you, and every last one of your friends is in crisis. To hold the tension between the light and the darkness; pain and joy; life that we love so much and the fact that we all must die is the intersection of the cross."

[Heather King, "Spirituality: 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance...."]

any deliberate leap into chaos, small or large, with an intent to make order, matters.

Every year we call it down upon ourselves,
the chaos of the day before the occasion,
the morning before the meal. Outdoors,
the men cut wood, fueling appetite
in the gray air, as Nana, Arlene, Mary,
Robin—whatever women we amount to—
turn loose from their wrappers the raw,
unmade ingredients. A flour sack leaks,
potatoes wobble down counter tops
tracking dirt like kids, blue hubbard erupts
into shards and sticky pulp when it's whacked
with the big knife, cranberries leap away
rather than be halved. And the bird, poor
blue thing—only we see it in its dead skin—
gives up for good the long, obscene neck, the gizzard,
the liver quivering in my hand, the heart.

So what? What of it? Besides the laughter,
I mean, or the steam that shades the windows
so that the youngest sons must come inside
to see how the smells look. Besides
the piled wood closing over the porch windows,
the pipes the men fill, the beers
they crack, waiting in front of the game.

Any deliberate leap into chaos, small or large,
with an intent to make order, matters. That's what.
A whole day has passed between the first apple
cored for pie, and the last glass polished
and set down. This is a feast we know how to make,
a Day of Feast, a day of thanksgiving
for all we have and all we are and whatever
we've learned to do with it: Dear God, we thank you
for your gifts in this kitchen, the fire,
the food, the wine. That we are together here.
Bless the world that swirls outside these windows—
a room full of gifts seeming raw and disordered,
a great room in which the stoves are cold,
the food scattered, the children locked forever
outside dark windows. Dear God, grant
to the makers and keepers power to save it all.

["Thanksgiving" by Linda McCarriston]
[Hat Tip: The Writer's Almanac]

precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints (Ps. 116:15)

RUTHERFORD, ELMO LUCILLE ADAMS - age 102, of LaFollette passed away Monday, November 21, 2011. A member of East LaFollette Baptist Church. Preceded in death by husband, Mose D. Rutherford; son, Wayne Rutherford; daughter-in-law, Margie; grandsons, Nathan & Scott Rutherford; parents, Lynn & Carrie Prater Adams; sister, Grace Bowman; brother, Samuel Adams. Survivors: daughters: Carrie & Greg Green, Ringgold, GA, Minnie Sue & Wyndall Simmon, Crockern, GA, Judy & Tim Phagan, Winston Salem, NC, Julia Darlene Banister, Somonauk, Ill; sons: Lynn & Louise Rutherford, LaFollette, Dennis & Mickey Rutherford, Dayton, OH; 24 grandchildren; 43 great-grandchildren; 24 great-great-grandchildren; sister: Naomi Creekmore, Jellico. Services 2:00 p.m. Wednesday East LaFollette Baptist Church, Rev. Dennis Rutherford, Rev. Greg Chandler and Rev. Paul D. Banister officiating. Interment Bakers Forge Cemetery. Family will receive friends 6:00 to 8:00 PM Tuesday at Cross-Smith Funeral Home, LaFollette.

 

Nanny being baptized at the age of 98.

 On the day of her baptism, Nanny wouldn't let us get up from our seats to let her sit down, so she sat down on the steps. She always put others before herself.

Nanny playing with my kitten a few years ago. Nanny herself had a poodle named Tom and a Havanese dog named Harvey.

Me, Carrie, and Nanny in January.

I will miss Nanny so much. She is an amazing person, and she is more alive now than ever.

beyond my wants, beyond my fears

Shepherd me, O God,
beyond my wants
beyond my fears
from death into life.

datta. dayadhvam. damyata.

Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.

Give. Sympathize. Control.

taize prayer

The Lord is my light and my salvation

In him I trust

danch with me

I nanny for a family. The other day the two-year-old and I were listening to this song, and then he looked up at me and said, "Danch with me."

So we danced to this in the kitchen.

tired of things that break

You have played,
(I think)
And broke the toys you were fondest of,
And are a little tired now;
Tired of things that break, and—
Just tired.
So am I.

- e. e. cummings

hiking

screw your courage to the sticking-place

"How may a man be born again and a blasted land made to bloom anew? Why, screw your courage to the sticking-place: dare to ask terrifying questions, and you may be answered." - Russell Kirk, from Eliot & His Age: T.S. Eliot's Moral Imagination in the Twentieth Century

camping in the Shenadoah National Park

 bacon & coffee.

 Camp tea is the best tea of all tea. (I know...my hat is goofy.)

 

Photos by the amazing Heather Boerum.

Russian equivalent to "the grass is always greener on the other side"

"Хорошо там где нас нет."

English translation: "It is better where we are not."

send your angels down

[Gillian Welch, "Caleb Meyer"]

辛苦中有幸福

辛苦中有幸福 

happiness in the midst of difficulty

Hat Tip: Rachel

i'm a very lucky girl

["On a Roll" by Over the Rhine]

This oyster is my world 

My oyster’s got a pearl 

This ain’t no dress rehearsal 

I’m a very lucky girl 

I’m on a roll