dancing queen

ok not quite dancing queen but this week I seem to be the movie queen – I think that’s a good thing though – cause movies usually equal rest.

so this one’s for mum and dad …  I remember making up dances while we lived in the former Soviet Union to the Voulez Vous album (I could lip sync all the words) and I remember mum being quite alarmed to discover that Father Christmas had brought me Abba’s Super Trouper cassette instead of her.

Somethings – some words – you never forget.    so here was one of mum and dad’s favorites:

I have a dream, a song to sing
To help me cope with anything
If you see the wonder of a fairy tale
You can take the future even if you fail
I believe in angels
Something good in everything I see
I believe in angels
When I know the time is right for me
I’ll cross the stream – I have a dream

Crazy how music holds us together, even across the canyon called death.

ABBA, thank you for the music, for giving it to me.    what would live be, without a song or a dance what are we? Both Abbas.

thinking about the light and the dark on the 4th day of Xmas

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us… We are all meant to shine as children do. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own lights shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. “

life

Life is just a little opportunity
for you during a few years to say, “I love you, too.”

-Henri Nouwen

the dog ate my homework.

This morning I was reminiscing with some friends at church around tables of greens, candles and styrofoam rings about my beloved four legged friend.   

Just about a year ago he ate the chocolate cake that was about to become a castle for a special little girl’s birthday.   Several christmas’s ago he ate the entire stick of butter, paper and all.   There’s the time he ate the seasoned salmon and so I fed my guests chicken instead;   t he valentine’s day cookies that I had so colorfully decorated;  the french onion dip that he actually removed the lid from the tupperware;  and this summer, the casserole!   He knocked it off the counter, it smashed and he continued to eat it - dish and all until he was caught.  

That’s my Bugs for you.   Apparently the vet was telling me last week it’s a “lab” thing but I don’t know other labs that go to quite the extremes that he does.     And we haven’t touched on all the things he eats while outside on the leash.  

Well tonight he outdid himself.   No he didn’t eat my homework and he didn’t eat anything that I’m baked, cooked or had out.   No it’s better.   Today he ate Jesus.  

No joke, I found him eating this little wooden Jesus that my dear friend had brought back from Ecuador.    Jesus.   Bugs ate Jesus.    It wasn’t even like it was a wafer or communion?  He ate Jesus.  

So trying to put it in a little perspective: I guess he didn’t want to wait for Christmas on any lelve - he thought we, or at least he,  should have Jesus now.

thinking about life and friends

and listening to old tunes. 

when you love you walk on the water
just don’t stumble on the waves
we all want to go there something awful
but to stay there takes some grace
cause we are not as strong as we think we are. 
-Rich Mullins

a different sort of thankfulness today.

Stu

Bunnies are my thing. And not my thing in terms of collecting “bunny” type things (that would be sheep – sheep are my thing in that way). Actually I wouldn’t even say bunnies are my thing – really they are more like “our” thing – “our” being me and God.

Bunnies have been this line of communication for five or more years now, I think. I began discovering them when I got Bugs and began walking a lot outside. I used to find enormous delight in happening upon a bunny on our way. I confess I even began naming some of the local ones. They were so endearing to me: wild and wonderful. I used to see them everytime I would walk.

Somewhere along the way I worked out that it seemed to be that bunnies (in whatever disguise they happened to don: moose, deer, otter, fox, dolphin and most recently elk) seemed to be God’s way of saying I’m here. I’m present. I’m wild and untame but I am good. I see you. You are the apple of my eye. I wait for you. I love you in personal ways not just corporate ways. So ever since, I’ve always looked for the bunnies in all their disguises.

I don’t see them as often as I did those first couple years but when I do — what a treat and a gift. Some times I find myself setting off for Radnor Lake at the right time in the afternoon to broaden my chances of seeing bunnies (that look like deer ). I will confess that I probably don’t look like I used to for them, especially around my home. It’s like I’ve somewhat resigned myself to the fact that they have disappeared (I wonder sometimes if the foxes have had anything to do with that) so I don’t look like I used too.

The other week my assistant was working in the office on a sunday afternoon with his girlfriend when she apparently thought she saw a bunny in the office. Brett told me about this because somehow me and bunnies had come up in one of our conversations. Wild we both thought especially given some of the things that were at play around me that week. The next night, on the eve of my well-needed-retreat to Arizona I was walking Bugs and what do I see in the corner of my eye in the dark: a bunny. Haven’t seen one in months around here. Assurance at it’s best.

So off I went to Arizona to rest, to calm, to talk, to pray, to read with my oldest of friends. I had some anxiety about coming back — retreats, vacations are never long enough — as I knew some of the nonsense I had retreated from would still be here upon my return. It took three planes to get home to Nashville – and totally out of the blue, the last plane had a picture of “stu” on it’s tail wing. My jaw dropped when I saw the sign that said I would be riding with “stu” on this plane: a cottontail rabbit. Because it was dark, I seriously asked the attendant if Stu, the rabbit was really on the tail of “my” plane.

Talk about going home in style. Talk about being carried home. The grand canyon, the red rocks, the peaks, stripping wall paper, the elk, the lava river cave, Cera, Kyle and Christy did serious wonders for me in terms of calming me down, bringing me rest, bathing me in beauty but the picture of Stu on the tail-wing — clearly God had a finale in mind.     I could walk off that plane and be calm amidst any nonsense that awaited me.

Flagstaff, AZ

Dad.

Thinking about Dad today.   I think he would have liked Arizona.   I think he would have liked Flagstaff.  I know he would have loved this house with the mountains surrounding the meadow it sits in.  

He loved the peak district in England.   I’m told as a young adult he spent much time climbing the “peaks.”    Christy was telling me last night as we drove down the road warned as “primitive” on the yellow sign that the big mountain her house faces, are called the “peaks” of Airzona.  The highest height in Arizona.  

So Cheers Daddy.    Cheers to you today as I look out at the peaks!   Altitude, heights nor even your body can hold you back now…  the peaks are all yours.  No matter which peaks they might be. 

my 30th birthday picnic in Castleton of the Derbyshire Peak District.

benefits.

so I checked the mail this evening as usual and in it was the below piece of mail.    Now I’ll preface this and say, I still do receive mail for mum every week – all junk mail but this one left me thinking, seriously? 

Mum died over five years ago why on earth would someone send me the eligible death benefits for “Jane Chambers” in 2009.   Seriously?

Seriously  in this day and age with more modes of storing, offering and exhanging information that would have even seemed fathomable 50 years ago, we are lousy at communicating.  

But alas? This post-modern epidemic?  is not restricted to companies that insist on sending me death benefits for my mum who is now well beyond death.     Nope,  we’ve all forgotten how to use our words and all their benefits.

my salute

I grew up traveling around the world.    Before the age of 10, I had three countries that I had spent significant time in – three countries had been “home.”   And though I’ve spent more time in the US than either of the other two, I still don’t think I’d say that I have ever developed a patriotic spirit -  no offense intended to anyone.   I am highly respectful of any country I happen to be walking but patriotic?  no, not really.   

That being said, I did grow up hearing stories of the war and from the war.   Stories of children evacuated to the north of england from London.  Stories of “bevin boys” and of gas masks.  Stories that described the sound of the “doodlebugs” dropping out of the skies.    Stories of a German parachute hanging in the trees of Chatsworth Park one evening.   And stories of my great uncles fighting in battles like El Alamein in Africa.    In fact I new the stories of war so well that I remember the day the US bombed Afghanistan after 9-11, I went to an older gentleman at the church and asked: does this mean we’re going to get bombed now?   It was the only stories of war I knew.  

Today is veteran’s day.   I’ve never been to a veteran’s day parade before today on either side of the pond.    It was really moving.   I might even say I danced close to being “patriotic” for that half an hour.    I watched a handful of our community at church provide music and salute as they lead the veteran’s down Main St.    I cheered them on.   I gave them my salute as they passed.   What really got me though was watching the ROTC from the high schools dressed in uniform – some even dressed for combat.    What a sight, especially knowing a few of them.  

I know I’ve never been to one before.   I know I’m not particularly “patriotic.”  But I’m not sure I’ll miss another veteran’s day parade – I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to offer my nod and smile to those who have defined duty and service.