when we remember who we are...even if we forgot

When we walked in to Exponential on Tuesday morning, I really thought I was going to be sick. At best I was going to sob uncontrollably from the despair that refluxed from my heart to a rancorous taste in my mouth. At worst, I thought I would just give up trying or hoping or believing for "different" or "more" or "best" and just forge a six-sided chamber with a big ol' padlock around my soul, lock it, and toss out the key.

I was in a full-on death spiral of identity crisis.

Exponential is a conference for church planters. Based on that fact alone comes some explanation of why my spiraling began. My husband Anthony and I aren't church planters, but instead are moving into the seventeenth year of him - which means us - in vocational ministry as a staff pastor. We've served at our current church for the last decade, and it is also the church we essentially grew up in and where my father himself served on staff for several years. If you didn't catch it, that makes me both a pastor's wife and a pastor's kid. I might have issues.

We walked into that first building at Exponential and it was full of a hundred booths containing thousands of resources for fresh-faced, vision-driven men and women to avail themselves of, mostly for free. There was everything from curriculum to books to web hosting to fund-raising resources to music to database management. The air was electrified with a palpable and literal buzz while networking took place and words like "planning phase," "pre-launch" and "launched" were on many lips as they told each other their stories. It was such a clear oasis of refreshment for so many who are trekking into and through the great unknown of church-planting. It was phenomenal and like watching parched sponges soaking up so much water.

And all I wanted to do was run. Away. Far, far away.

Our church "launched" a long time ago. We've tried a lot of things. We've been fresh-faced and full of ideas. We've been "the flavor." But we've also been forgotten. We've been the trend-setter, and we've been the outcast. We've been rich, and we've also been broke. We've been the neighborhood church on the main thoroughfare through town, and we've had the neighborhood bought, scraped, the land abandoned, and the traffic diverted away from us towards a bypass.

Sitting at a table in the middle of that building, with so much purpose and potential swirling around me, I felt completely and undeniably out of place. Maybe even lost. If I can get brave enough to say it, I felt abandoned.

I sent a text to my best friend telling her as much in far less thought-out words that were also way more full of panic, and asked her to pray. Trying to say it in a way that wouldn't squelch his excitement, I confessed it - a little - in broken and abbreviated phrases to Anthony. Having been to considerably more big-venue conferences than me, he tried to encourage me about pushing through the "consumer" side of things; the ten-thousand-and-one "BEST IDEAS" for all things ministry that one can sometimes feel like are being presented or vended by the booths. I knew there was truth in what he said and it gave me a little comfort, but mostly not.

When I paused for a moment I realized that I believed this conference, through absolutely no fault of its own, was going to be used as one more moment when someone - this time God - would point out everything we still aren't as a church, everything we aren't doing right, all that we should've been by now but haven't taken the right steps to become. That he would turn to us and say, "you're all wrong." And it would hurt like hell.

The only thing I did right in that moment was not run away, and maybe then only because we were a seven-hour drive from home.

I shuffled into an auditorium, climbed some stairs to a balcony on the periphery of the main seating, and sat down. With all the despair and certainty of what was to come I went through the motion of pulling out a journal, a pencil, and a laptop, as if prepared to write things down that I heard the speakers say. If nothing else, in my identity crisis I would at least have the notes serve as some sort of reference sheet of what we should be, delivered by men and women from a platform who obviously knew how to "get it right" in all the places we get it wrong. If nothing else, we could at least emulate them and fake knowing who we are in favor of being like someone else.

For twenty hours and through twenty-four speakers, that didn't happen. Not once; not even for a second. Oh, notes happened...nineteen typed pages of them. But with every twenty-minute talk given by another speaker, dread started to literally drain out of me as if someone had pulled the stopper out of a tub. I didn't know what was coming in its place, but I knew despair was leaving.

I wonder why after all these years I still sometimes slip into believing God sees me worthy of being ground to dust. Matthew - a man that walked with Jesus after coming out of a life where he collected the taxes from his own people to pay to the very men that raped and murdered their sisters and brothers - saw things so clearly: "If your child asks you for bread, would any of you give him a stone? Or if your child asks for a fish, would you give him a snake? Even though you’re evil, you know how to give good gifts to your children. So how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him?"

Hope would've been a good gift this week. Peace in my tumultuous soul would've made all the difference. I got those things, utterly and miraculously. But more than those, what I believe I got - what we got, what we carry with us like vessels - is this:
Identity.

In a room full of 5,000+ people, getting lost in the crowd is not hard. But he kept whispering, "I see you." When thirty-plus experts in their fields pour out their insights, feeling amateur is almost automatic. But he kept whispering, "You can do it. You ARE doing it." When the pull to compare and contrast threaten to tear off our limbs, he kept whispering, "You are all ONE body." When awe and envy and the desire to imitate bored into our pysche, he kept whispering, "Be you, completely in Me."

Every woman and man that was given an audience during Exponential spoke with such authority. And to the last, each one wound us up, turned us around, and said, "Now go. Tell your part of the world how lavishly and infinitely they are loved by Jesus in everyday ways by being uniquely YOU!" We were not charged to turn our churches into mini models of theirs. We weren't told to scrap the old churches or try to follow some delusion of being trendy by forming a new, cooler community of faith. Simultaneously, they called out courage in the ones who are stepping into forming new churches from the DNA up, and renewed courage in those of us that come home to established churches.

Our church has existed for 30 years. About twenty years ago she had her name changed. She's now been called by her current name longer than she was ever the name that went before. Sometimes, often times, I still hear her called by her old name in the community. I got to thinking about that and her diverted road and the other churches that have grown up in the area, some of which now contain people who formerly attended. Those things are hard and painful sometimes. There's a lot there that can exacerbate an identity crisis. But after a week like that of Exponential, those things start to burn off in the light of truth.

We are a people that loves God, loves others, and serves the nations. We are a people that reaches out to all kinds of people with the message of God's love and forgiveness. We are ambassadors of love, mercy, grace, and truth willing to set ourselves up as embassies, to say to the hurting, the questioning, and the wandering "come and see!" so they can find refuge and warmth.

He has called us by his name and we are his.

I expected a reprimand. I knew there'd be an agenda and a bullet list of all that's wrong. I prepared for a crumpling up and tossing of our current M.O. and some elaborate multi-step plan to change everything. But that's because I forgot how deeply known we are. That's not what we got. There's refocused vision and insight, and certainly some needed correction and some shifting to take place. But more than anything there is a very real sense that from this day forward our church could know who she is and be herself fully.

This is what the Lord says: Forget what happened in the past, and do not dwell on events from long ago. I am going to do something new. It is already happening. Don’t you recognize it? I will clear a way in the desert. I will make rivers on dry ground. - Isaiah 43:18-19

a 31-day challenge

Some weeks ago I heard a story on a radio show of a man trying to get rid of the weeds in his yard.  It plagued his mind and  made him all sorts of irritated to look out and see the unwelcomed flora taking over his lawn.  Armed with concentrated, heavy-duty, spray-on weed killer in hand, he took to the yard on a mission to beat back the unwanted overgrowth and return once again to a beautiful landscape.  This became his modus operandi for weeks as he diligently and vigilantly wreaked havoc on those pesky weed.  Within a short span of time, however, it became all too clear that he had not only destroyed the unwanted weeds, but entire sections of his lawn in the process.

Ain't that the way?  How many times have I found an unruly weed popping up in some area of my life and fought it back with some huge overcorrection that left the earth beneath my foot very nearly scorched?

When his wife finally convinced him to drop the bottle of liquid destruction, this gentleman realized he needed a new approach.  He asked a pal with deeper and wider knowledge on the topic to come over and help assess the damage and cipher a better equation to both be rid of weeds and have a healthy lawn.  Without much need for a tour of the very apparent damage the friend had only this to say: "If you want to get rid of weeds for the long haul, you plant more good grass."

There it is, folks.  That right there?  Profound.

I've got some lifelong and recent practice at all this, both the over-the-top ulitimately detrimental response, and the calculated casting of new seed to starve the unwanted of a life-supply.  Those weeds, I've definitely got them; in my yard, in my house, in my relationships, in my time, in my mind, in my spirit, in my person.  How I'm going to get rid of them, well, still remains to be seen.

For the month of October I am linking up with the nester and a slew of others as we accept the challenge to write for 31 consecutive days.  The site and comment section is abuzz as everyone works on deciding their 31-day focus and topics, themes and categories.  I could think of nothing more relevant to the me-of-right-now than a month of writing centered on "planting good grass".  As all things are - and few things aren't - it'll be a process.  Nothing would make me more content than you reading along in October.  And would you consider talking back in the comment section below?  Let's think this thing through and work it out together.

 My mind is swirling with ideas and inspiration.  We'll see where 31 days takes us.  Hopefully the grass will be truly greener and more plentiful on the other side.

here's my link image that will show up at thenester.com

Women I Love

I think that my life is, well, amazing.  And for a-thousand-and-one reasons that don't have anything to do with something necessarily "about me" or that I've accomplished.  I just realized this weekend - this Mothers Day of 2013 - how ridiculously rich I am in people to love, and especially the women in my life.  Within the confines of just these last seven days I have been compelled to reflect on the height and depth and width of friendship and relationships that span counties and continents and decades.

I picked strawberries in the warm sunshine with the "Anne" to my "Diana" (or am I "Anne" and she "Diana"?  I don't know, I think we switch off).  We lose each other in this life of routine and chaos and take each other for granted, but this was a "found" moment as we keep learning to love each other holistically . . . . Throughout the weekend I got pictures sent in private messages from my sister knowing that I'm the only person on the planet to whom those pictures would be sent (stop thinking nudey shots...please, people, she's my SISTER).  She then on Saturday took my Brilliant Beauty on a date to the theatre (read: "the-uh-tuh"...go ahead, sound it out loud) in true "Auntie Cher" vim and verve . . . . I sat and heard a beautiful friend who is finding herself grieving a years-old loss in ways that almost feel like it's happening over again, watching her navigate the need to drag the depths of the sadness in order to cut the ropes of despair and come up bouyant again . . . . I texted with a friend as she and I work through what friendship should look like for us after a too-long period of silence, both of us remembering why we were ever friends to begin with as we write back and forth with ease . . . . I picked wildflowers ("side-of-the-road" flowers, as Little Big Man would call them) for a woman I love, who I think know to be one of the truest philosophers in my life, from dissertations to diapers to dinner, for the last twenty-twoish years . . . . I watched the sides of every road I went down this week in search of even more wildflowers to give to my mom. When I took them to her she acted like I had brought her the crown jewels.  But then again, that's my mom, always quick to treat us like WE are the crown jewels . . . . While with Mama, in my hands she placed a book written by a woman that I came to know when I was a scared and lonely 17-year-old girl overseas; a woman who has since survived unthinkable and surreal scenarios and realities that you only ever see in screenplays, excavated the experience to the bedrock and written about.  I had no idea she had put her story on paper and was even more surprised to find a hand-written inscription she thoughtfully obliged to write so my mom could give it to me as a present . . . . Through the odd gift that social media can be, I've watched my dear friend who seems to mother the world as she joyfully (no, blissfully) prepares for the first daughter of her six children to marry next month . . . . I took some time and scrolled through my own pictures to find those just-right shots to tell the women closest to me that I honor them - that I love them in my life - on Mothers Day; grandmothers, mothers, sisters, and friends near and far.

I could go on and on and on.  I mean, I am embarrassingly rich.

Included in that wealth is these girls.  On Saturday I found myself sitting in a room with women (how did we get to be WOMEN?) I literally grew up alongside to celebrate new life.

School chums.  Girls who knew you "when".

When Mr. Merle Gay was your principal and you thought the electric waffle maker on top of the filing cabinet in the office was an electric paddle.

When you were flat-chested (or, ahem, not).

When Ms. Nunnally was too senile to notice during science class Ronnie Frith building cardboard boxes into a house he called the "mofo mansion" (did I really just write that?) in the back of the room.

When you wrote "I [heart] NKOTB" all over your notebooks or paper-sack book covers.
When you formed a girl band.

When you liked that boy and he didn't like you.

When you learned the sign language alphabet so you could "talk" in class.

When one of you - who shall remain nameless, Casey - hit Miss Sheffstall in the head with a tennis racquet.

When we would run our laps in PE so we could sit on the stage in the gym and play spades (and always lose to Regina or Greer).

When high school hit and some of the people you had always known stopped acting like anyone you recognized.

When it was hard to know who your friends are.

When we fell for boys that we shouldn't have.

When we kind of lost ourselves.

And then here we sit.  Almost two decades later; in a room . . . with my friends.  We've married and we've divorced.  We've had babies and been infertile.  We've moved far away from each other and then moved close.  We've been successful and we've failed.  We've stayed connected and forgotten to.  We've shared the details of our lives, and then kept some to ourselves.

Between the peals of laughter, I felt myself wanting to cry.  The tears sat almost at the surface.  I love seeing us where we are, in the lives we are in.  I love looking at the beauty-for-ashes redemption story some of our lives tell.  But I love most that these faces when I look at them still are almost this immediate upload of every memory I have of and with these women.  We, of course, don't share every memory.  In fact, there's a whole section of their collective memories I don't have because of being overseas our senior year.  Sometimes there's a twinge of pain over that.  But then I look up and see their today-faces looking back at me and it's okay.

Ridiculously rich.  My heart is pounding at the realization.

"Make new friends, but keep the old; one is silver but the other gold."

The Shape Of Grace

There's an old Out Of The Grey song called "The Shape of Grace".  That phrase keeps bobbing at the surface of my thoughts.  The shape of grace...the shape of grace...

I can feel it in my feeler and sense it in my intellect that I'm in a learning place;
here to learn
and feel
and experience
and know
and move in
and be still in
and give
God's grace.

I need it.  I want it.  And it's there.

In the cup of cooling water

In the clouds of soothing shade

In the arms of love encircling [her]

[She] saw the shape of grace...

Today it was sitting on a porch swing and holding Anthony's hand between breakfast and handing ourselves over to the magnitude of busyness that our day holds.  It was remembering in that moment to stop, hear and believe the words we were reading of faith and mustard seeds and no worry.  It was exercising the unequivocal privilege of talking to the God of the universe, and knowing that he hears us and knows better in all things than we do, that he'll whisper it to us if we'll listen.  And it was turning dry goods into playdough of varying shades when the house beckons loudly.

Sometimes the shape of grace requires stillness and contemplation.
And sometimes it's a blob and requires a skillet and cream of tartar.

(I snagged the playdough recipe here.)

Tables Turned

Well, it's Monday.  Again.  The weekend was crazy busy.  There's laundry to do, dishes to wash, mouths to feed, groceries to be gotten, bills to pay, schedules to coordinate, homework to be done.

So I painted my kitchen table.

I love our table.  It belonged to my great-grandmother and is beautifully worn and old and sturdy.

Buzz's photo bomb

Countless meals have been had here.  My mom did her homework here.  It's the only table Ma Luffin Mayun and the us-es have ever had.  I think the table is Poppins-esque perfect since my bend is to things that wear their years and can stand up to the beating we'll most likely give them.

But then mom sent me a link and suggested I put the same spin on my own table.  I was down with it.

Two words: chalkboard paint.

after the first coat

It took three coats to cover, and only about an hour and a half from start to finish.  After the paint is dry you cover it in chalk and then wipe it off to sort of set and condition the finish.

And voila.  Done.  An hour and a half, $2-worth of a $10 quart of paint, and a $0.68 paintbrush.

this is my sentiment most days

I also painted the top of the chairs.  You know, in case we ever forget where we're supposed to sit or each other's name.

look at my junky counter
no, don't

So there you have it.  Another project done, another everyday, commonplace to-do list ignored.

Take that, Monday.
Now to actually decide on dinner...

Very Pinteresting

Yeah, I know.  But I'm back.

And I am now in love with Pinterest.  I think it might be the real thing this time.

I repinned this image from CassieVivi's board of a frame that had been repurposed into a kind of momentos keeper/bulletin board/work of art.

I've been holding on to the frame of an old, long-ago-broken mirror Ma Luffin Mayun's grandmother, DorothyLee, gave me.  She is so often my benefactress in all things vintage and fabulously worn.  She has quite the same eye for things as I do.  I love that.  I've kept the frame for years occasionally contemplating what to do with it.  Paint?  Decoupage?  Because of the combination of seeing this on Pinterest and Ma Luffin Mayun returning from Asia with a plethora of dear keepsakes, the idea came.

I took some basic wire that I had recently purchased for a jewelry-making project I've undertaken.  Using the wire, a pair of scissors, and about twenty minutes of my evening, I came up with this...

I kind of love it and look forward to watching the collection on it grow.  It's a perfect answer to the question of where to put things that we find special or important, but that don't necessarily lend themselves to having a particular place for storing or displaying.

A beautiful bag that held souvenirs from the journey, some Korean coins,
and the brochure from the english camp with the team members' pictures

I just used basic paperclips to hold everything onto the wire.  I love the idea of clothespins and will most likely play around with different ways of affixing the items to the frame.

A fan from Korea and one of my favorite things: a flower made out of wool from Scotland
sent to me by my KakiBlack

Hanging in the corner of our bedroom.

So there you have it, my rip-off of someone else's idea.  Now go rip something off of somebody else and have fun while you're at it.

And beware of Pinterest . . .

A Monday Meme

Today's meme - a photo prompt - from Three From Here & There is based on this quote: 

"By acknowledging and owning the limits of our own subjectivity, our soul remains open and limber, available for growth, development and discovery. But when objectivity is taken to the extreme, it erodes both our humanity and our humility." - Shane Hipps, Flickering Pixels 

Maybe it's that we just got back from a week of vacation within which we soaked up new experiences and ventured out into never-been-tried outings (in spite of being in the same spot we have vacationed every summer for a decade - thank you for that constancy, JoCanMax and Harry).  Maybe it's that we are still in the stage of parenting children who are themselves fresh-from-the-market and find so much wonder in so many things.  Maybe it is the change of scenery, of smells, of tastes, of locale that time away from the everyday faces and places brings.  Whatever the culprit, growth and development and discovery was ours.  Souls were opened a little further and limbered up into a more flexible posture.  Vacation can be an education in limiting our subjectivity; dropping our guard and pieces of our biases and spaces in our agendas.  And if we vacate well, perhaps we bring the awareness of our everyday subjectivity home with us and tweak our real world.

But then, too, there was that Thing in a week of vacation and relaxation that shows me where becoming objective to extremes erodes away at my humanity: "celeb-reality TV".  I like it, at least enough to get sucked into it in some measurable amount.  And I know we all know it's contrived and an alteration of reality rather than reality itself.  But maybe that's just it: something peddled as reality mixed, plated, and served up within a culture where one of the highest virtues is open-mindedness - staying completely objective - and where our favorite past time is peeking into the lives of the rich and famous.

Do I want to be me or a copy of a beautiful, sexy, and successful Kardashian?  Are Kim, Khloe, and Kourtney somehow helping set my moral compass?  Do we just keep giving Paris a free pass at engagements and breakups and a platform on which to display them?  Am I even still allowed to feel compassion and sadness for a girl who is 16 And Pregnant, knowing that she cannot know for possibly even decades to come the fullness of the difficulties her life will now hold not only because of mothering so young but also because of splashing it all over television and magazines?  Can I shake my head in disbelief at devastated lives on Celebrity Rehab; people who have gained the whole world but lost their souls?

There are limits to my subjectivity.  At least there better be.  Limber is definitely what I need to be.  But there had also better be limits to my objectivity.  Status or celebrity, fortune or fame - or the complete lack thereof - should not buy anyone a free pass, nor a position chained to stocks in the public square.  My subjectivity must make me love people extravagantly, lavishly, excessively - even celebrity-people.  But my objectivity must make me see through face value - even if the face is the spokesperson for Proactiv and has it's own on-call makeup artist - to the heart of a person.  My subjectivity and my objectivity must march out together waving a banner that God.loves.you.  All the "you"s, and He wants so much more for you.

I'm not preaching.  And I don't even know where I'm headed with all this.  Perhaps I'm just stretching, growing, limbering up.  And trying to remember humanity and humility in the exercise.

"Do we watch reality television for precious insight into the human condition? Please. We watch for those awkward scenes that make us feel a smidge better about our own little unfilmed lives." - Entertainment Weekly

*I love how differently people can read or see the same thing.  Check here and here for some other impressions of this week's quote.  So cool how different the perspectives are.

Cut and Paste

My SisterFriend set a schedule for herself and her kids this June that gave each weekday a theme:
Make-It Monday (making something crafty or from-scratch)
Low-Tech Tuesday (a day with little time spent on technology)
Wet Wednesday (pool time!)
Thoughtful Thursday (doing something for someone else just because)
Free Friday (no big plans)

How creative.  How inventive.  How "I-better-get-a-plan-cause-school's-out-and-I'm-about-to-be-outnumbered".  Whatever the motivation, I think it's brilliant and that our zoo-crew may put a spin on something like this for the remainder of the summer.

If I had thought about it earlier, I would have gotten her to write a guest blog and talk about how this schedule went in the month of June.  Today was her final official June 2011 Make-It Monday.  I wonder what she did today...

Here's what I did.

I have been working to carve out and sharpen up our home office.  Our house has a formal dining room that we use as the library.  This room is definitely at the tippy-top of my list of favorite things about our house.  By no means is it a big room, but there is just something about it.  It is warm and cozy.  We all seem to pile into it on occasion; to read or color or listen to records or watch fish swim or all of the above.  It's a great room.  And it is an ideal space to incorporate a workspace into because of its warmth and comfort, and because the kids can pile in and stay occupied while we work.  That last point is pretty important because no matter what we try, the kids can't be kept away for long.  Where we are, they are there.  How sweet.  How suffocating.  How short-term.  I will enjoy it - or at least make it work - while it lasts.

One of my website regulars over the past few years has been The Unclutterer.  I enjoy the site so much that I bought the ebook about a year ago.  One of the concepts she introduces is having a "landing strip" in the house that is designated as a sort of catch-all for when you come in the door - mail, papers to be filed, keys, electronics charging station, etc.  We have a cut-through from a hallway into our library that is the perfect space for a landing strip.  From the beginning of living here, that is exactly where we have designated the landing strip to be.  The breakdown, however, is that the other elements of organization - a desk in our bedroom and a filing cabinet in our closet - were nowhere near the landing strip.  Even utilizing the landing strip concept, we still had no central "office".  This translates into things landing on the landing strip but never making the way to their final destinations, i.e. papers to be filed never getting filed because nobody wants to lug them from the landing strip to the closet, etc.  Today, I remedied all of that.

The desk and filing cabinet now happily live in the library - this sweet, inspirational, convenient space full of antiquities of our own past and the pasts of others.  Bringing it all together into the room makes too much sense and seemed right from the second the epiphany struck.  I love the idea of sitting in that room and writing, filing, sorting, and keeping order of our personal affairs.  What I didn't love was the eye-sore of a filing cabinet in this room that holds all kinds of unique, sentimental, and nostalgic bits of life.  I want the room to be functional as an office, but I don't want to lose the charm that the room has held for us by filling it up with cold, uncreative pieces.

 

I know it's just a filing cabinet, and a filing cabinet does not necessarily a room make or break.  But we can do better than this, I think.  A little thought later, I pulled out some supplies I already had and got to work transforming the cabinet.

The supplies: decorative paper, glue, scissors, and
paint brushes

 This was nothing more than a decoupage project, really.  I tore paper at my own whim, sort of got an idea where I wanted to paste it, painted glue on the back of the paper, and stuck it to the filing cabinet.

Painting the glue on the paper

The first piece applied

 
I continued tearing and gluing paper, layering it up on the cabinet.  On the top of the cabinet I chose to put a map of Prince Edward Island, one of my favorite I've-never-been-but-you-can-bet-your-booty-I'm-going places.  Once all of the paper was glued into place, I sealed it all with an application of enamel glaze I had left from centuries-old crafting projects.

After I sealed everything, I wanted a slightly more finished look to the cabinet, so I decided to paint the trim of the cabinet in black.  I knew black acrylic paint would easily peel off of the metal cabinet.  I tried a Sharpie but realized quickly that wasn't going to cut it.  Determined not to have to leave the house or purchase anything for this little impromptu project, I got creative and pulled out this...

Yep, black nail polish did the trick.

I couldn't be more pleased with the total finished product.

I remembered I had xeroxed copies of some Athens, Ga. history on
Ma Luffin' Mayun's family.  I added them to the cabinet.

So, once again, everything old is new again.  I love how something so simple can bring change in just the right dose.  And I love this room.  Here's to more time spent within it's walls, reading, writing, laughing, and living.

my helper

...and don't believe everything you read.  I assure you,
it was her.

A Monday Meme

My friend Gingertheginger sent me a link to this blog.  As blogs often do, that blog linked me here.  Then I jumped over to my own blog and decided to keep the rabbit trail going.

What a tangled web we weave, huh? Occasionally it's alright to get tangled.

The meme I thought I might tag along behind is simply images of "morning".  The ones who posted their links showing their participation in the meme have such lovely pictures and reflections on life or where they presently find themselves.  We went camping last week from Thursday to Saturday.  Sunday was Father's Day and today Ma Luffin' Mayun hit the road for a five-day camp with hundreds of teenagers.  And though, by these factors combined, I find myself once again at a place where far too many clothes, dishes, toys, and shoes are scattered to all the wrong places and anything but clean and tidy, I will choose to see my images of "morning" - exactly this morning - as lovely.  They show a life well-lived whether or not it is always superficially well-maintained; the beautiful imperfection of it all.  Thank you, 3 from here & there for the idea.  Thank you, PostmodernPescatarian for being the "in the flesh" friend reminding me even through simple words on a computer screen that who I am is who I want to be.  And thank you God, for this life full of messes.

And now, "Morning" . . .

My bed that called my name to no avail most of the morning.

A kid's-eye view of the living room mayhem

Laundry that's been folded since Wednesday
but not put away.

Camping stuff that's been sitting in this spot since
Saturday.

The view over my sink full of dirty dishes -
my Korea-dwelling KakiBlack and me fifteen years ago.

And my favorite: an unexpected note left for us this morning by
Ma Luffin' Mayun before he left and while we all still slept.

How about you?  What would you think of or use to describe "morning"?

Finding Community In Kombucha

For the first time ever our little town has set up a farmers market every Saturday morning from June to September right on main street.  Um, I love it.  From where we live we can make the round trip walk in just under two miles.  For the past two Saturdays we have gotten the kids up early, had a quick breakfast, and made the short jaunt.  It's already so doggone hot in Georgia that 7:30 or 8:00 in the morning is just about the only time that isn't too scorching to walk, so it becomes a perfect time for some exercise, too.

My friends the PostmodernPescatarian and BigMama have both piqued my interest in the 100-Mile diet challenge for some time.  There is so much good stuff that can come out of eating local foods grown on local farms and harvested by local hands.  Even though it may have a trendy edge to it right now, I love this kind of thing because it feels like a throwback to another era; back before anything I ever dreamed of or wanted could come wrapped in cellophane.  Everything old is new again.

When I found out about the farmers market in our town I decided right then that for the time that the market runs - June through September - our family will buy all of our produce from there and not the grocery store.  If it's in season, we buy it.  If it's not, we won't.  Again, we are only two weeks in, but I already love it.  Here is last week's haul:

Going clockwise starting at "noon": zucchini squash in the background,
kombucha in the foreground, kale greens, fresh ground beef, cucumbers,
crookneck squash, lambsquarters greens, devil's food cupcakes,
boiled peanuts, and local raw honey.

 

The lambsquarters is what's in the bag.  It is very comparable to spinach.
I sauteed it with olive oil and mushrooms this week.  Heavenly.

These cupcakes were so unnecessary . . . and so divine!

 

This kombucha was definitely the most "granola" purchase we made,
but we have enjoyed drinking it this week.  It is a "living" food and full
of probiotics.  You can find out more general information about it here.

Today's market was even better than last week's because of the crops that have come in since last Saturday.  Here is what we found today:

Going clockwise starting at "noon": carrots, swiss chard, kombucha,
kale greens, sauerkraut, red and yellow onions, lambsquarters,
lavender bunches, and zucchini & crookneck squash

 

Little Big Man loved picking out his carrots.

Ruth at BackInTime Farm makes a different flavor kombucha each week.
Last week was blueberry ginger, this week it's grape.

All total between last week and this, we have invested into the farmers market about $70.00.  I knew I would love buying these beautiful, flavorful local products.  What I have been most pleasantly surprised by really is the further discovery of our community.  The faces become more familiar each week.  We live and work and raise our kids side by side with each other, but can move so fast that we never notice.  But when you're all meandering around the same local market, making selections, asking questions, learning about produce or products that may be completely new to you or old favorites, it's slow enough to notice.  I know more names today than I did a week ago.  And more people know mine. 

That is the greatest thing we've found at the farmers market.  And that crop is likely to produce all season long.

A few more pictures to close:

starting out on our walk

Brilliant Beauty samples a boiled peanut.  A Georgia gal, indeed.

She'll have one of everything, please.

And Little Big Man's visit last week even made the front page of the
Sunday Athens Banner-Herald.  Have your people call his people and
maybe you can do lunch.