from the ever-delightful Jessica Hagy at Indexed
July 30, 2009
July 29, 2009
Why shouldn’t a wedding be this much fun?
more about “Jill and Kevin video: adorable viral …“, posted with vodpod
Unless you’ve been getting jiggy at your own wedding, I doubt if you haven’t already seen this video of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz’s dynamic entrance to their June 20th wedding in Minnesota.
I’ve watched this video more times than I should admit. Why? It makes me smile. And it makes me feel happy about, not just a wedding, but a marriage. About two people willing to shed the skin of social conventions and externalize their joy. The first time I watched it, I spilled tears on the keyboard watching Jill enter the church. How can you not feel your heart clench when you see a bride walking down the aisle as Chris Brown sings, “I’m releasing my heart and it’s feeling amazing…I’ve been waiting my whole life for this one night…”
The couple, since this video went viral, has appeared on several morning shows and recreated the church entrance with their entire wedding party on The Today Show last Saturday.
This morning, I read the following article in the Washington Post, and I wanted to share it with you.
Enjoy.
Sarah Kaufman a Washington Post staff writer said:
“This was no longer a display of bad posture and dyed-to-match pumps — it was an uplifting swell of celebration with a beat. The bride — unescorted, we note; so independent! — was and wasn’t the center of attention. The true focus was on the unified, wordless but palpable emotions of her whole support system.
It plugs us in to something deeply human. Dancing is how so many cultures have celebrated weddings for eons. Okay, maybe not exactly like this, with the ushers turning their programs into confetti, with one groomsman thrusting a stray flower between his teeth and flinging himself into a handstand, with two of the bridesmaids clasping hands and doing a little riff on swing dancing.
Jill and Kevin claimed to have only had one rehearsal and said the whole group contributed to the choreography. They did an amazing job of it. It builds in force right up until the crowning moment: the pas de deux, where Kevin takes his bride’s arm and they glide in step toward the beaming minister, capturing what Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse knew in their sweet “Dancing in the Dark” number from the film “The Bandwagon.” There’s nothing so intimate as a slow stroll. After everyone’s bouncing, that short walk together was terribly moving.”
(You can read the rest of Sarah’s article HERE.)
What do you think?
July 24, 2009
If you’re going to take time, be sure to put it back where it belongs
This post was written two years before my book sold. Some gifts take longer than others to open, but they’re all the more precious because of it.
My time reading and studying Revelations has been, well, revealing. Not so much in the way of hearing apocalyptic hoof-beats, swatting at hoards of locusts or steeling myself for another trumpet blast.
It’s the magician ( this is an analogy; I do not think God is a magician or David Copperfield, for that matter) swishing the drape off the cage and there’s a pacing lion instead of a lovely assistant kind of way.
The first line I read this morning was, “When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.” (Rev.8:1, NKJV) I just find John’s prophetic specificity as to “about half an hour” intriguing. My notes say it was to indicate a “brief, but significant break” between two events.
Are there clocks in heaven? This gives me an entirely new perspective on the half-hour I get for lunch at school. If God thinks it’s sufficient for resting between disasters, then perhaps, so should I.
I did, though, have this picture of Spielberg God perched in His director’s chair issuing “Quiet on the set” orders and looking over his scrolls for the pending judgments.
The pacing lion (wake up, back to the analogy) in my cage this morning was pride. In my eagerness, anxiety, teensy-tiny bit of obsessive compulsion to publish, I lost sight of for whom and what and why I set out to write in the first place. Instead of singing, “It Had to be You,” I’d replaced it with “It Had to Be Me.”
If I’m going to see writing as my gift, then I’d better remember how “gift” is defined. And, yes, being the word nerd that I am, I looked it up. “Something voluntarily transferred by one person to another without compensation, ” and, most interesting, “often implies special favor by God or nature.”
My prayer was, and God put me in time-out today to remind me “is,” to use my writing to reveal His goodness. To show that ordinary, jumbled, tumbled people who constantly lose their keys and get cranky in traffic and walk away when they should walk toward, can be delighted by and delight in God. To show that we can go to the bottomless pit (Rev 9:1) and return to survive, be blessed by and bless others.
Now, for that thirty minute break.
July 23, 2009
Spiritual vision check
I’ve been rereading John Ortberg’s book, God is Closer Than You Think. Depending on your relationship with God, that could be either caus
e for celebration or fright (not the fact that I’m reading…I mean the book title).
If you’ve never read any of his books, you’re truly missing incredible opportunities for laughter and learning. Ortberg’s titles sucked me in before I ever knew anything about him. Who can pass up books with these titles:
Everybody’s Normal Till You Get To Know Them
If You Want to Walk on Water, You’ve Got to Get Out of the Boat
Well, obviously, not me. (He has quite a few more, plus a new one: When the Game is Over, It All Goes Back in the Box.)
For the record, Ortberg is teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, CA.
I like that he acknowledges Peets Coffee and his wife as inspirations.
I thought I’d share some Ortberg wisdom today since I seem to be fresh out of any of my own. These are from GICTYT:
“…we forget that Jesus never said, ‘I have come so that you might do okay.’ ”
“Thomas Merton once said that if you find God with great ease, perhaps it is not God that you have found.”
“Letting go is not passivity. To let go is not the same thing as simply resigning oneself to whatever circumstances come along.”
“The greatest moment of your life is now. ”
“Spending the day with God does not usually involve doing different things from what we already do. Mostly it involves learning to do what we already do in a new way–with God.”
“It’s possible that what we see as an inconvenient interruption is a divine appointment….What would Jesus’ ministry have looked like if he had never allowed himself to be interrupted? Many of his greatest miracles and most unforgettable encounters were Spirit-prompted interruptions.”
“God’s silence does not mean His absence.”
“…nowhere in the Bible does it say, ‘And then God worried.’ “
July 21, 2009
Good morning
Why I Wake Early by Mary Oliver
Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
Hello, you who made the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and the crotchety –
best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light –
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness.
July 20, 2009
Thinking things when I should be doing things
Things I’m thinking about when I should be writing:
1. When I first saw this picture, I thought someone’s back woods still had been moved inside. But no. This is the broken toilet on
the space station Destiny module. This keg on wheels costs millions of dollars. Thirteen people. Two toilets. And while they’re docked, there’s no ejecting waste water. Wonder what a plumber would charge for this service call?
2. I Binged and Googled myself. Just the fact that people know what that means is both disturbing and astounding. I mean, who ever thought I’d be saying such things in polite company and not be reported to the vice squad?
3. Since my early 20s, I’ve been semi-religiously applying various costly goops to my face to delay the onslaught of wrinkles, crow’s feets, droopy eyelids, and other gravity-induced signs of aging. And, for the record, my fingertips are the softest and smoothest they’ve ever been.
4. South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, the one with the honey in Argentina when he already had a hive at home, said that God will make him better. Newsflash for the gov: God made you better from the beginning. The rest was/is up to you.
5. Do you know all the ways you can recycle used coffee grinds> I didn’t either until I read this:
- Touch up furniture and other wood scratches with grounds and a Q-tip.
- Sprinkle around areas where pesky insects, slugs and snails dwell to drive them away.
- Mix with soil as a natural fertilizer for plants.
- Dye clothing or paper.
- Rub into your dog as an organic flea dip.
- Fill old nylons and hang in your closet or fridge to repel odors.
- Use to fill old pin cushions.
- Scrub away grease and grime from pots and pans.
- Throw on ashes before cleaning out the fireplace to reduce dust from spreading.
- Feed to worms to help with your garden.
- Rub on your hands to eliminate odors.
- Mix ¼ grinds with one egg white and massage onto face like a mud pack.
6. School starts August 5th. Last year I blogged about different ways I thought students and their parents could start the year with success. Well, at least that’s what I intended. Apparently, a few students and parents thought otherwise. So, perhaps this year, I’ll just write what they want to read. Or not.
7. I might have to stop watching the news. Screaming at the newscasters is not having a positive effect on the economy or my blood pressure. Pres. O’s stimulus package should have included a free massage for every taxpayer.
8. Natalie Jost, my talented web designer queen, is creating lovely and useful stationery at Olive Manna. I ordered a set of jotters to use as prayer journals. Just the right size for the purse, the pocket, or even to put inside my Bible.
9. Heidi Bowers is a local photographer who just took pictures of me just in case Oprah might even so much as sneeze out the title of my book and give the cover five seconds of air time. Heidi is adorable and one of my new best friends because she magically made me look like I was half my age.
Generally, I’m annoyed by sites that start playing songs when they load. But Heidi’s site has the such a happy little tune that sometimes I go there just to hear the song. The real reason to visit Heidi’s site, even if you live too far away for her to make you look half your age, is to gaze upon the precious, precious, precious faces that she captures.
So, what are you thinking about today?
July 17, 2009
Video recipe for pop culture
This is such an amazing video. I found it last year, but it truly deserves another go!
1. Pre-heat oven.
2. Add Rubik’s Cubes
and Pick-Up Sticks.
3. Enjoy!
more about “Western Spaghetti by PES“, posted with vodpod. Thanks to veryshortlist.com
July 16, 2009
Source and read the article here: July 15, 2009
Shift Happens: Educational (Technology) Reform
more about “Shift Happens: Educational (Technolog…“, posted with vodpod
THANKS–AS USUAL AND ALWAYS-ANGELA MAIERS
