Leanne Shawler, Artist

(re-posting after edits -- I left out the photos!) Would that there were time to write something meaningful about the past week, but let's just say the theme ended up being discernment and leave it there for now. Besides, I've developed a headache from too much sun this afternoon, I think. 431. cool morning 432. air conditioning 433. the beautiful music from the TV Show "Smash" 434. new green maple leaves 435. booking tickets home 436. horchata (Mexican milk and rice milk drink with cinnamon) 437. camaraderie over breakfast 438. finches 439. great high school orchestra performance 440. peristalsis 441. a decision to be made. 442. Chuao's 443. discerning conversation 444. day out of joint, discombobulated 445.  the heart break of The Scottsboro Boys 446. strolling through Balboa Park (yes, we go to beautiful Balboa Park and I take a photo of mustard "weed".... 447. family together, cleaning out garage 448. bringing crazy stuff ho...

And with this line, we enter the second half of St. Francis' prayer. "Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console..." There is a certain abandonment of self in this, but not total abandonment. When my father-in-law died, any sorrow I had needed to be put aside so that I could be a comfort and a support to my husband and his family. I had done much the same a few years prior when his grandfather had died. That had been easier because I'd only visited him once before. But my father-in-law I'd gotten to know and care for, especially through his last long illness.  So grief was kept at bay until late one night, in bed, in the dark, I cried. There was probably no reason to hold it in for all the time I did but I didn't want my grief to take precedence over my husband's. Of course I wasn't alone in that night and my husband comforted me, consoled me, as I had consoled him leading up to that moment. It is im...

This is the third year my church has held a High Tea. The first one I was too sick to go, last year and this year I've hosted (hostessed?) a table. (You can see last year's tablescape here .) I had grand plans as you might guess by my Pinterest board , but then I agreed to host a group of friends. They were all friends of a parishioner who passed away since the last high tea, and she loved birds, so my table design took a certain focus. You can see that focus change on the same Pinterest board as the pins go from various ideas to a bird theme. I mixed a bunch of elements from different photos together. I also got to reuse certain elements from last year's table too, so the only thing I had to buy were the flowers (and they were from Vons)! Royal Doulton blue & white china, Noritake china, bird's nest chargers from Pottery Barn (might have finally gotten money's worth!) teapot from Ebay, little birds nests from Pottery Barn (eggs bought at an etsy sh...

412. happy exhaustion from Bollywood workout (even if I didn't get close to finishing it) 413. learning more than 1,000 Moms were thanked 414. bloomers! 415. lunch with a friend 416. soft baby hair 417. laughter in the office 418. God's clue by four, just in time 419. enough, with God 420. Sloan River Project 421. holding baby 422. using "Free Candle" app during choir practice. A"Pentecost"al moment. (it was the choir's anthem for Pentecost, geddit?) 423. baby ducks at the elephant exhibit 424. remembering how lucky I am 425. easiest printer set-up. Ever. 426. pretty flower arrangement 427. broken bowl :( 428. nap 429. retrieval of lost pie and card 430. watching "The Choir", season 4, Military Wives Choir. Inspiring. Am linking this up to  Ann Voskamp's  "multitudes on Mondays" (or will as soon as it goes up!)

I am writing this a few weeks earlier because there seems to be this theme emerging in the blogs that I've read over the past week. God is smiling over you , a video post from Jennifer of You Are My Girls You are enough , Rachel Held Evans posts. (Yeah, I've become a bit of a fan.) My "The Way To Enough" , a lesson from my Mum. "Let Us Be Women Who Love"  from She Loves Magazine Joan Chittister writes  for the National Catholic Register: "Silence About the Global Treatment of Women Is Disquieting" When are we going to stop believing the lies that others tell us, that we tell ourselves, that we believe of others? I hope these links help you, as they've helped me, remember that God is enough and it has nothing to do with perfection and everything to do with love.

When I first sat down to write this, I thought: "I got nuthin'." Then I thought maybe I could show that clip from the Mary Tyler Moore Show about Mary laughing through Chuckle the Clown's funeral service. (I shared that here instead.) And then, as part of my preparation of checking in with my spiritual director a couple of weeks ago, I discovered I'd written about "where there is sadness, joy" months ago. Sadness happens with loss: of a person, of a dream, a world drastically changed, for example. I keep forgetting: that in the horror of the holocaust, the victims loved and praised God that, as Jennifer at "Getting Down with Jesus" describes in her trip to Haiti, God is with the broken-hearted. They rejoice to live. They have upheld their faith, or rediscovered it anew amongst loss and disaster -- and living with that day in and day out. that communities come together, offer endless cups of tea and help with donations and willin...

Hey, I know my blog has this new focus of being beloved by God, but I'm feeling a little retro today. So we'll be taking a step into the vintage/creative/mori girl world today. I'm taking the Full Tilt Boogie class and have been doing practice signatures before starting "for real".  Here are the albums I got a super deal on Ebay. Can you guess which one I will find impossible to cut up? inside of bottom album inside top left album inside of top left album inside of top right album inside top right album So, were you able to guess which one I don't think I'll be able to cut up? Let me know in the comments... Also, I have had this pinned to my Pinterest for quite a while.... Source: honestlywtf.com via Leanne on Pinterest ... and made the first one today (forgive horrible iPhone photos, the light was going. The lace is hand sewn onto men's white boxers. Lessons learned: pin vertical, not horizontal...

I don't know if it's the sinus headaches (thanks SoCal weather!) or what, but I kept forgetting to look for God's gifts this week. So the list is a bit short. Also, these purple poppies are all done. The seed heads are huge... 393. sleeping in 394. delayed doctor's appointment 395. 1000 Moms Project 396. heart-shaped buds 397. wriggly baby 398. wearing clothes from home 399. answered prayer 400. birdsog 401. crystalline water ruffled by breeze 402. far off butterfly 403. space in the day 404. cool evening breeze 405. realization of a conversation 406. six consistent days of logging food and exercise 407. British goodies 408. moisturizer that works 409. punching holes in signatures 410. hubby safe to his destination 411. carnations. Am linking this up to  Ann Voskamp's  "multitudes on Mondays" (or will as soon as it goes up!)

I chatted with my Mum last night on the phone. And I learned something new about my Mum: "I have enough." "I have a roof over my head." "I cannot afford to go and buy $100 shoes any more, but I have shoes on my feet." She reminded me that what is fair and right isn't necessarily a 50/50 split -- and I realized part-way through the conversation last night that that was my "good girl" coming forward. My Mum isn't rich. She has just enough money to pay the bills, and have enough food on the table. She serves. She is taken care of. Not just because her kids would ensure it, but because love is the center of her life. And, (she didn't say this so I'm extrapolating) God has shown her that she has enough. Because she has Him. Love. She is showing me the way to enough. Thanks, Mum. [This is part of the 1000 Moms Project . I don't think multiple posts would technically count toward the 1000 Mums, but I hope this enc...

Today's guest blogger is Joe Pote. As a s tudent of the Bible since early childhood, Joe was literally raised in church, attending multiple church services and Bible studies each week. Having also endured the devastation of a failed marriage, Joe combines a sound understanding of biblical principles with personal experience of the issues and concerns of believers who have experienced divorce.  He would like for you to visit his website .  I sat huddled at my desk, face pressed into palms supported by elbows propped on desktop, staring into the darkness of my own hands…feeling the darkness pressing in from all sides.   The work day was ended.  It was time to go home, a brief ten minute walk from the office.  Yet, I lingered, dreading home…knowing the unfixable problems waiting there…praying that God would show me what to do. My four beautiful children waited at home, bright lights in my life, who I was always pleased to see.  But their mother also ...

Or as we say down under "Mums"... Mum, I twittered already with: thank you, Mum, for showing what it is to love #1000gifts #moms bit.ly/JagpZS But thank you also for: finding shirts at your Op Shop, one of which is marked small and yet miraculously fits for sharing with me your love of nature and pretty things (and champagne taste on a beer budget!) for letting one of us kids take the last piece of cake /  shrimp / whatever was on the table for letting us make our mistakes and still loving us for letting me move overseas even though that must've crushed you to see your only daughter go for being the family communicator for being a Mum to whomever needed it at the time for showing what it is like to serve God for accepting those phone calls: "Mum, I'm using Nana's cookbook. What's a gill of milk?" and having patience with basic cooking questions for ironing so I don't have to for loving me even though you were 48 ...

Oi. What a week. Beautiful moments, some hard stuff, and beauty brought in to center me and calm me. I am enjoying taking photos of my garden, but am finding that the iPhone 3GS that I have is really not up to snuff for such things. But it does give a kinda watercolor effect. Poppies, mexican salvia in the front corner of raised bed vege garden in our front yard, watsonia flowering and why yes that is a ton of weedy grass 371. dew on Iceland poppies 372. marine layer 373. aching body, slow, rough, bitter start to the day 374. may day cup 375. holding baby 376. beautiful old vintage albums (photos tomorrow) 377. time to pray 378. calming waterfall in a business park 379. a bee tasting strawberry flowers 380. "only wanted to help" [3 gifts with difficult people] 381. laughing until I cried with my choir buddy over things scatological  382. muffins long hidden in the freezer still taste good [3 gifts before 9am] 383. 2 difficult emails sent [3 gifts be...

Here are some links, some stories that I thought I would share with you this month. my favorite benediction : our rector Chris says it at the end of service when it's his turn to bless us. this moving reflection on faith , by Rachel Held Evans this beautiful prayer shared by Ann Voskamp So, I've been working on the next part I need to write for the Prayer of St. Francis series and at first came up with nothing and then I came up with this: You'll  be pleased to know I did finally come up with something. But enjoy Mary Tyler Moore anyway.

Today's guest post in my Prayer of St. Francis series is my Mum! After reading her story below, I think you'll agree she doesn't need any more of an introduction... Once a week I volunteer at the Court House. I start out helping to serve tea and coffee and then go one on one in the Salvation Army’s Positive Lifestyle Program. The foyer of the Court House is a good place to watch the agony, despair and sometimes joy and relief of the people brought together in this place. You get to hear their stories as they stand waiting, cuppa in hand. The despair of the young girl who had been raped and didn’t feel she could go into court to testify. The tears of her mother were heart breaking. The mother just wanting to take her daughter home: the daughter had lost her baby the night before in the cells, been taken to hospital but was back in the cells awaiting sentencing. And the young man the same age as my youngest son, afraid that he would go back inside, angry with everyone especi...

Because I know you want to see all the pictures I've taken. (Or if nobody else, my Mum does.) All the flowers come from Annie's Annuals . Except for the foxgloves: they're from Home Depot. Papaver rhoeas "Falling in Love" Papaver hybridum "Pink Heirloom" Papaver setigerum "Poppy of Troy" "Black Gem" Bachelor's Button Dianthus "Inchmery" Papaver hybridum "Sugar Plum" foxgloves Nigella "Curiosity" all the poppies -- too bad the yellow tree rose is not in bloom too!