A new start.....HAPPY NEW YEAR! Sad New Year...love is the answer!.

Happy New Year to my Jewish sisters and brothers celebrating Rosh Hashanah!
Let me join you in assessing my spiritual highs and lows of the year and prepare a clean heart for the year to come....and eat honey apple cake! Yum!

Happy New Year....and Eid to our Muslim friends! Refreshed after Ramadan and hopefully renenergized with a new spirit! Let me join you whilst you eat a lot!

Happy New Year to the Hindus who celebrate their god Ganesh...that elephant head dude...the god of beginnings and science, and art, and creativity! I'll eat with you, too! Probably no meat....

And continuing with the new year theme.....

Both boys got on the iconic yellow school bus with smiles...sort of...that's them in their first day back at the institution! I did not embarrass them with photos and kisses at the bus-stop, but I did make small-talk with everyone present, children and parents alike, which I'm sure they didn't appreciate! Oh well.
Maybe once in this run-up to school I got a twang of remembrance for that back-to-school feeling for the teacher....the organizing the room....the bulletin boards....those tape name-tags with the alphabet on each student's desk... the surreptitious, stolen whiff of the new crayola box ...oh no...wait..that was last year! This year I'm just so happy I'm out of it!!!

On a less frivolous note, R and I woke early for the webcam funeral of Professor Alan Ervine at Glasgow Uni. It was a good celebration. Sad...which is fitting. He was young and had just retired, planning to do missionary work in East Africa. I really didn't know the guy more than to exchange pleasantries, but this last, really tragic month of his blogging has been transforming for me. His honesty, his faith, his anger......he said to his minister the other day, "When I die, I want you to take the service.....and I want you to preach the Gospel!" Well done. It was well done. Onward and upward friends! Keep working until your time's up!
For Alan's family, obviously, I pray. This isn't just a new year...it's a new life that's going to be pretty tough without him.

I know this... Monday, a beautiful day that was a little cooler, marked the 25th anniversary of my mother's death. Strangely, it both feels like yesterday and a lifetime ago.....yet were she to walk into my kitchen just now and make a cup of tea, I probably wouldn't bat an eye...at least at first. Assuming she looked...like normal....not like a zombie or something! That would be freaky. Just kidding.
Every year, on the 6th of September I am stopped in my tracks. This year it was different. Somehow, twenty-five years makes the mourning more...grown....more able to take care of itself. The hole her passing left is still there, the me maybe dances with it rather than is led by it. As I come closer to the age she was when she died, my perspective on how I live changes and that hole helps define me, and obviously makes me question how I spend my time.....which for any of us, is limited. A few months ago, Alan Ervine was planning his future, wasn't he? We need to make the most of what we have whilst we're here.

I wanted somehow to mark the day...I wrote a poem...I'll maybe spend some time today working in the moon garden...it's all a bit hollow this 25th anniversary. Not even a little silver...maybe it's a tarnished silver. I dunno.

The next anniversary coming up this week is that of 9/11.
Regardless of your personal stance on terrorism, politics, the loss of innocent life, your own friends or family lost that day, the memory of that gorgeous, picture-book September day...full of Monarch butterflies and ripening apples... and those towers being hit, and collapsing, changed you...Changed you forever. How you felt on 9/10/01 and how you felt on 9/12/01 were drastically different. This year is super-charged with emotion because of the plan to build a mosque so close to the site.....I hear both sides of this issue constantly, and in both sides I hear fear, but I also hear love.....only I don't hear enough love.
Ouch.
Start with love. Breathe out. Breathe in. Open your heart to God, and make every thing you do be with love.
Put the fear aside.
Yoda said it well, "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to sufferiiiiing." Yoda, a very wise puppet indeed.
Put love first.
...and happy new year!

Hurricane Earl.....anti-climax......

Don't get me wrong.....I don't want any property or people hurt, but if we're going to have a hurricane....well....better not jinx us. There's a few more depressions out at sea just waiting to nail us. The Jersey Shore is overdue for the 100 year storm, so I really shouldn't tempt fate.....but.....it's sort of boring! It's been gray all day, a few very brief showers that steam up. Barely a breeze, but then just when one stirs up, it stops. The pool was hastily covered....as much of the garden flotsam and jetsam cleared to make way for actual flotsam and jetsam.....honestly, that's probably why I'm most annoyed at the lack of storm....at least if we had a storm everyone's back garden would be a tip...now it's just mine! No excuse other than...well....not doing a blinking thing in it all summer.

So. That's the summer done I guess. Blah. Very, very uneventful.

The children and their friends, on one of the last days of freedom, have been arguing over what dvd to watch....looks like they've decided on "Beowulf". A super-violent computer generated film from a few years back with the cartoony characters very much resembling the actors that provide the voice. Grendel's mother is hot....Now the argument is whether it's ok to see a naked, character generated Angelina Jolie, as a hideous monster that shape-shifts into a shapely babe, or not.....the friends are English boys....so I'll just tell their mum it's part of their rich, cultural history! I'm pretty sure they won't be harmed....pretty sure.

The semester has begun for me....This will be a semester of reading and writing to the n-th power...much different from last year. Feels like much more. All I can say is "ouch". The preaching bitis always with me....the images from the lectionary texts like stones in a swift river...I'm jumping from image to image not too sure of where it's taking me! I might add, too, that I'm not feeling great about the swiftness of the river.

I suppose I can't help but remind myself to just go with flow...sorry...that cliche just couldn't be helped.

Wind might be picking up a bit, actually......

I must now supervise the Beowulf.....Grendelesque behavior from the minors with NOT be tolerated!!!!

working in the space between the actual words.....

Right....so.....I've got to finish up my summer of reading James Loder.....and all the other dudes that Loder mentions....that I just had to read...because I just wanted to have to...and now I'm putting it all together in this watercolour poster type thing full of song lyrics and Shakespeare and puppy dog tails....oh yeah....and a very disjointed paper....man! I sometimes think it would be a lot easier if I was normal. Oh...wait....I always think that!

My hope is that the space between the words will help hold the words together....hmmm...

I'm getting happy that summer is nearly over and feeling some guilt over that. I can hear my sainted mother saying, "You'll wish your life away!" But.....this has just been a weird summer. A summer of wrestling with angels, jumping on trampolines with demons, peering into the void, finding the face of God in the craziest of places....not bad.....just hard work. The autumn might not be easier, but for the now, I'm just going to think towards the discipline and schedules with a cleansing breath. Discipline can be a very calming force in the chaos.

In the Celtic year, this is Lughnasa...Christianized to Lammas, or Loaf Mass...the first harvest...not summer any longer even though it still feels quite summery. There is a shift. It slows, you can hear it in the cicadas and the crickets. You see the first tinge of yellow to the leaf. It might be hotter 'n blazes during the day, but there's a tension in it. At night, you might be glad of a blanket! In the old religion, the god of the sun, of craft and poetry, the god Lugh, dies in his prime....I don't really remember why or how....I think it was heroic and unexpected, but the year dies with him. Then he gets reborn at the winter solstice....which is nice....because we get Jesus doing that, too. A convenient way to all celebrate together!
I didn't really mean to talk about Christmas...see how haphazard I am!
I meant to talk of the death of the summer. The death in the prime. The slowing of the system for a new system to be initiated.....

After this project, I'll wake up Thursday and, God willing, start to get my ducks in a row for the school year....I won't rush the season though....I'll appreciate the beauty in Lugh's death throes, the abundance of the harvest....although not in my garden...which ran out of cash and water weeks ago! I'll put in place what needs to happen for the nights to start drawin' in! I'll call on whatever it is that inspires craft and poetry... I'll work in the space between the seasons to draw the seasons together! Or something to that effect.....

synchronicity and all that.....

OK....this'll be a quick blog as I'm ditching Cub Scout camp to get to an air-conditioned haven with wifi....and a latte...and that means Doylestown, Pennsylvania!
Yes, I ditched for completely selfish reasons, but considering the rocky shape I've been in since my visit to Iona....I'm cutting myself some slack!

Bizarrely, or not really, Bucks County was once my home; For nine, long months, five long, long years ago. It was here that I got a job for myself at United Friends' School in Quakertown, and Russell a job at George School in Newtown. This was the nine month stopping off point on our return from the ill fated Scottish Parent/Macaulay Institute endeavour.
We licked our wounds and received other, new wounds. It was a year of hell for me here in Bucks; Too much commuting.....too many round holes into which my square peg jammed....I was evading the inevitable and I knew it.

As I drove down through Bucks County today, I passed through the idyllic, little towns I'd spent driving through that school year...the faces of the folk I knew who lived in them, surfacing in my memory... although the names mostly did not.....a collection of souls who touched me, supported me, inspired me, or kicked me when I was down....all there....such a short time in my life yet such an important one.

It was at a "meeting" at the Friends School, about half the way through my Bucks County stay, that Coll felt moved by the Spirit to speak, and spoke so eloquently for an eight year old on his petrifying fears (mostly stemming from the Egyptian god Enubis, for some reason....the jackal dude....creepy!)....on how Jesus put an arm around him, and stayed with him until the fears passed. As a mother, I was blown away by his honesty, by his faith, by the concise way in which he laid it all on the line, by him. Following this meeting, I was met with laughter and the politically correct ridicule that is allowed to occur towards Christians in this culture. My colleagues never realized I was such a "Bible Pounder", that I was such a "fundamentalist", that I was so "Right-wing", even though I didn't look it! How I had indoctrinated my child with such an outdated belief system. Worst though, was how patronizing they were towards Coll....how sweet they thought it was that he concocted such a cute "coping mechanism".
I was speechless....for like... a micro-second! Because...this was the first time I was really demanded to claim "THIS IS MY GOD!" I stopped them. I told them. This is not a fairytale, coping mechanism, or magical superpower that I or Coll has concocted or bought into.....this is our deity. They could believe what they wanted, worship what they wanted, but it was not ok for them to poke fun at what I in that moment realized, was quite central to how we function.I knew that had my son said Buddha, or Mohammed, or Great Chief Eagle-Feather, they all would be like "Right on! Brother!" By saying Jesus, he was NOT cool.

For us, without God we are without purpose....scared, useless, bits of joined up carbon in a dusty carbon-filled universe.

I didn't quit or anything, and I have no issue with the Society of Friends on the whole, or that tiny collection of Friends/friends, but at that moment we became a little bit more simply Christian. I actually really can think fondly on everyone there....their reality is for them. I needed that nine months. I needed the confrontation. I don't need to be cool in anyone's eyes.

That story now told, as I worked that through my memory I thought on all the great kids I had the pleasure of teaching at UFS.....despite my Waldorfy/Spirit-led style that often rocked the boat. I walk into the bookshop to blog and run straight into Sadie....one of my awesome 5th graders, now a beautiful, strong, confident George School sophomore! Syncronicity......transforming moment......Spirit amongst us.....because that's the lesson in all this really. My time in Bucks was a gift, difficult as it was....and the people I had the pleasure of knowing and working with are still, very much a part of who I am now. Bless them all!

I will celebrate all the way back up Route 611 and join the cubs....who probably haven't even missed me!

A true Star of the County Down

Well....it's only been a month and three days since my last post! Quite sadly, nothing at all exciting has happened in that time...really. You see, blogging on Scotland and the General Assembly is so much more exciting than blogging from home....unless, of course, you live in Scotland, when hearing about the Jersey Shore and the crazy antics and freak-show behaviour that goes with that becomes rather interesting.

I have been reading James Loder, T.F. Torrance, and Soren Kierkegaard all summer...in my typical Attention Deficit Disorder fashion, I don't stick with one book....I jump from one to the other when they refer to each other or when I sit down with a tea and the book is beside me. Clearly, this makes for a stressful time in writing a paper on my reading and pondering....paper due on Wednesday.....and between today (a Wednesday) and the due date, I have Webelo Camp in Bucks County, practice with Nae Breeks....packing Coll for Boy Scout camp in Maryland. (He should be old enough to do this himself......but if left to his own devices he would be in big trouble!)I'm thinking I should panic.....but what would that get me? Probably not a better paper.

Yesterday, I heard the sad news that a colleague of Russell's....who I really barely know...is struggling with an inoperable tumour. Never a thing anyone wants to hear. He always seemed a nice guy. A prof at Glasgow Uni. He had a party one Christmas....must have been 1992 or so. It was fun. We had a meal with him at a conference in San Francisco....must have been 1997 or so....really, for me, he was just an acquaintance, for my husband perhaps a bit of a mentor. He is witty enough, clever and impressive enough. The few times I was with him I thought he was a nice guy. Only when we got the news, and in trying to google him to find a contact, did we come across his blog and see a bit more of what he's like. His blog was created to comment on his Bible reading. I was not aware how involved he was in his church....most Scottish folk being a bit pagan really. Well....he's actually from Northern Ireland...County Down, I think. After his recent diagnosis, the blog became both a commentary on his faith journey...and a commentary on his illness. We see clearly now what an amazing individual this bloke is. He is not only confronting the void, staring death in the face, but finding in his own weakness, the strength to encourage the faith of his readers. Simply. Concisely. Without any pretense of knowing anything but his own experience.
I sat in my sunroom of disarray... sweating... disorganized... unbalanced..par for the Jeanie course, and saw what effect a man in rainy Glasgow.....with hardly any life left in him.....young still, but ravaged with an illness that will be his earthly undoing....encouraging me in my faith. Encouraging me to put God first in my thinking and doing. I had no idea that Alan was so wise.....nor did I really think how much one person's story could reflect God's face so clearly. Yay for Alan....this situation stinks....yet he will not die... really. He died a long time ago with Christ, and his writing proves that he knows that.....beyond the pain he's in, the weakness he feels, the sorrow at leaving his wife and kid and friends.....Alan's in the best of hands. Pray for this Alan guy...this person you will probably never meet, whose research and writings, though pertinent enough, will probably never amount to anything other than effecting the circle of academics with whom he had contact, and the folk in his community that have always loved him. This is a sucky thing that's happening to him... but he is inspired. As I read his blog yesterday, I was so strengthened. We are nothing, yet in God we are everything.
For me.....more coffee....more Kierkegaard.....more Loder....more prayers for Alan. I hope that from his window in Glasgow he sees a rainbow today.

Seeking "the face".....

So....
I'm home and all the realities of the place have slithered back into position.
This is not necessarily a bad thing really....reality is what it is, and isn't what it isn't!
Poverty both sucks and forces us to think creatively. Minding children makes me both incredibly witchy, and beautifully disciplined in the way that i am normally not....well....I'm still not disciplined enough, it maybe just makes me think how fabulous discipline really is. And wouldn't it be nice to have more of it. Gosh. I'll save that for another blog.

I'm thinking a lot on THE FACE. The face that comforts us. The face of God in the face of a loved one....the face of God that we seek and it doesn't go away.
This is all inspired by reading so much James Loder, in case you were wondering.

So...here's today's imaginative leap!
I, ever struggling with my lack of VonWillebrand protein and thereby thin blood, am extra conscious of anything that's going to cause me to bruise or bleed. I worry about my dad, too. He bruises like a banana due to medications....sometimes he has bruises on the back of his hand that look so grisly that my knees go weak. I digress.....anyhow, I try not to bleed. I try not to let him bleed. Stay with me here....
This, in case you are not from The Shore,is "greenhead season". Now, a greenhead (in Scotland, incidentally, it's called a clegg...not a statement on Nick Clegg...I'm prepared to give him a chance), is a horrible, evil, nasty fly that doesn't just bite, it takes a nasty hunk of flesh out of you! And you bleed! Horrible. They're bigger than a house fly, more grey, delta shaped, and rather slow...they land softly, so they can usually bite you before you realize they are on you. Like most biting insects, they have a way of thinning the blood at the site of the bite...Horrible. For most of my life I have thought of these creatures as, well, a mistake of creation....what could they possibly be doing that benefits anything?!
So, the other day, I'm sitting at the table on the porch under the crazy tiki umbrella my dad got me for my birthday... with my dad and a few others who happened by.... and I see a little, greenhead, b*****d land on my dad's elbow! I, with my famed Ninja-like reflexes, whack the little s.o.b. off his elbow, it falls to the floor, on its back. My dad thanks me. The crowd cheers. With exaggerated energy, I raise my foot (sandalled in my lovely, beaded flip-flops) to put the miserable thing out its...well... misery. It sensed my approach, flipped upright, skittered to the crack between the redwood boards. It didn't get there in time. I squished it. Nobody noticed that part but me....and the greenhead.
It's been with me ever since. I'm aware that this might make me seem rather Buddhist or Hindu, but in that micro-second when the greenhead sensed its mortal danger and attempted to save him/herself, I wondered what the Face of God looks like for a clegg. Is it a clegg face? Is the face of God for us a...well....face as we imagine a face to be. What makes a face a face? Why is a face such a comfort? It is. It is the ultimate comfort. To gaze at a loving face that gazes at us lovingly is what makes us tick. It's what makes us try to be funny or clever or industrious....do greenheads seek a face?
There's a chance that greenheads don't think that much....but who am I to say? I squished first and thought on the face after. My scientist friends would/will laugh at this.....but the thinking that went behind the greenhead's attempt to save itself felt familiar. It felt like how I am when protecting myself or my family....and how present the seeking of FACE is in the nurturing act. To nurture is, in a sense, to be nurtured. To create is to sort of be a part of creation.
To seek the face is to look for God......

Weirdly....I'd probably kill the greenhead if the situation happened again. Do I sense a sad face?

Indulge me whilst I have a wee moan.....

This is (hopefully) my only really dreadfully boring posting. The plan to blog from the General Assembly in Minneapolis has bitten the dust. They are happy to have me there blogging....but I have no money to get there. Sadly, were money to magically appear, I also have no baby-sitter...R in North Jersey, Dad in Philly at the Barbershop Convention, Wendy picking up her new camper....reading the signs tells me it's just now going to happen. As Granny might've said, "What's for you, won't go past you!" So, there you go! I'll spend some time with the live feed...but it won't be the same. There's no fire in that. Blah.

Due to my sad financial state I'm watching some of my cub scout buddies for the summer...sounds worse than it is....actually, having other boys at the house keeps my own boys a little busier. And having non-family there makes me less likely to blow my top and be really, really mean. Sad to admit, but at least I'm conscious of it! "Miss Jeanie" is a lot sweeter than "Mum"! Mum can be a right witch!

On a happy note, Hammonton is "Blueberry Central" these days...which doesn't suck!
I'll head out today with the boys to get some organic berries and get the oil changed in the van...in Hammonton you still get a free car wash with it. FREE! I love FREE!