Leanne Shawler, Artist

Clearly, I needed to have gone into this with a plan, not thinking halfway through the Palm Sunday service that this would be a good idea. Because, you know, I could've actually put some thought into this, but noooo.... I took an old Holy Week bulletin from a previous year, glued some cream cardstock, front and back to make the covers, and covered the spine in black bookcloth tape. Then I had to let it dry some, before decorating the cover. (cross image from Ann Voskamp's Easter devotional) I glued the pages to each other inside, which made for a 6 page booklet to cover 8 days (I decided to include Easter). That had to dry. So I went off to research what actually happened between Palm Sunday and Maundy Thursday. For Palm Sunday, I sponged acrylic sponged over the text, added pictures from the internet and doodled some background stuff. For each day, I'm adding the gifts for that day on a "Smash" card, or similar. For Palm Sunday, I wrote down some favo...

Last week, I watched Ann Voskamp 's video series based on her book to prepare to lead the adult Christian education group at my church, starting the Sunday after Easter. In the session we won't watch together until the fall (because I only have three Sundays in April and will have to wait until then to finish it), Ann reminds me why it has been so hard for me to write down gifts lately. Because my soul-eyes are closed when I'm caught up in having something productive to show for my day, especially in job hunting, that I forget to look and see the gifts of that moment. I am letting the days blur by. The gift of God in having a roof over my head, sustenance both physical and spiritual, in my husband, in the silly companionship of dogs, in the quiet conversation with a neighbor. I need to remember to give thanks in every moment, in every breath. Even when I don't feel like it. The gifts for the past week: 213. blissed out and sleepy after yoga 214...

So it's been a while since I've done the 7 Quick Takes, which are quite unlike the seven deadly sins but somehow there seems to be a lot of confessional stuff in the Takes that I read. Hmm. Anyway, here we go: 1. For some reason this week, I've kept thinking its the 18th of March (3 days in a row) and that it's the 4th week of Lent. I feel ready for Holy Week next week ... Almost. 2. I've been enjoying volunteering for the United Campus Ministry -- we hand out free cookies and the volunteers get to eat the broken ones. What's not to love? I hope to get more reflective (less shallow) about this ministry later. 3.  The Les Miz DVD is out today. What a wonderful film that was. Although perhaps they should release a highlights reel, which for me was every moment Ann Hathaway was on the screen, and "Empty Chairs at Empty Tables". 4.  By the way, you don't want to know how many times I've seen Les Miz the play...

Since the events in Newtown, CT, last year, I have been praying for an end to gun violence. This post is a little bit about that, but mostly not. (Just in case you're sick to death of the topic. I promise also to spare you the infographics, statistics, etc.) Yesterday, I read a story about the first American killed this year by a gun. He was about to graduate college when he died--and so the promise of his future years are now lost to us. I found it via Facebook and read a handful of comments that were hate-filled and fear-filled -- from both sides. From both sides. The article and the comments made me realize that the insane rate of gun-related deaths would not be fixed by legislation alone (although I believe still necessary) or by fixing the mental health system, but the problem stemmed from the inability of seeing anyone other than oneself as a human being. Oneself? I remembered a conversation from last night. My husband shared that some people thought t...

Have you heard of Lent Madness ? Chances are, if you're Episcopalian, your answer is yes. It's based on basketball's March Madness, only saints are pitted against each other ... It's a great learning tool about the various saints and saintly people -- but otherwise, isn't remotely rational or logical who gets through to the next round and it gets just a bit silly. Especially when Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and Archbishop John Crysostom debate who is going to win or lose from heaven. So below I mentioned a fried freckle. It was a freckle that had two of the signs of melanoma (dark and irregular shape), so it got frozen off with liquid nitrogen. When the scab eventually falls off, we'll see if that did the trick or not. When you have as many freckles as I do and grow up under the hole in the ozone layer, it pays to be aware. One of the gifts below that I list is the DVD of the One Thousand Gifts book study. I'm excited that I'll be leading this after ch...

a pretty flower photo to make sad Google Reader users smile. I don't normally do tech posts, but perhaps this'll help someone else who needs to make a similar move once Google Reader goes away July 1st. I loved how all the blogs I read were in one place and I didn't have to flit from blog to blog searching for new posts. Fortunately, there are other collating blog readers out there (also known as RSS feed readers). The easiest way seems to be Feedly . You login with your Google account and it transfers everything over for you. When Google Reader goes away, they'll be using a different feed engine. There are migration instructions for Feedly too. If that kind of thing is important -- Feedly has apps for iOS (iPhone/iPad), Android and Kindle. CopyBlogger  (which has been great at providing these links as part of their article) also suggests using Google Takeout to back up your data or if you want to move to a different blog reader that isn't as easy to...

This Lent, I took on the spiritual discipline of meditation. It got off to a rocky start, I did really well last week, and this week, my routine became unstuck: appointments, delayed chores, all have combined to stop me meditating except for a few blissful moments in yoga class today. Yeah, it's blissful, it's something I long for, and yet, if there is an excuse for it not to happen.... And it gets worse. The one thing I struggle with when I do sit down to meditate is keeping my mind still. I live in my brain: it's where I nut out my writing, my battling with scripture, and it is what I feed with books on scripture, spiritual practices and living. Yeah, stilling that is pretty hard. Have you ever been told to give something over to Jesus, to lay it at the foot of His cross? Have you ever wanted to kick them in the shins because it's not as easy as saying it? But of course, we don't kick them because we are nice Christians. We smile and complain how hard th...

Busy day today so haven't had a chance until now to write this blog post. So it's short today! 171. sleep in 172. fresh air 173. good news from the monks 174. where I format the wrong hard drive 175. walking through dewy wet grass in the early morning 176. a skittish Alsatian pup that let itself be herded back into its backyard 177. receiving love, giving love 178. warmth of Reiki 179. whacking long grass 180. big flag 181. eucalypt trunks glowing in the dark 182. dog foraging for crumbs on hubby 183. smell of rain / English weather morning 184. profile of dog sitting in my lap 185. the orange glow in a window across the street. 186. weeding before it rains again (so much easier to do after the rain) 187.  journaling 188. laying paint down (getting back to art journaling) 189. first rose of the year it's a bit squashed looking -- but can you spot the drops of dew? 190. chanting at start of service Joining in Ann Voskamp's: ...

altar rail detail, St. Paul's Cathedral, chapel, San Diego Have you ever had that moment when reading or hearing Scripture (we'll leave interpretation and preaching of said Scripture aside for the moment), and you are shaken to discover God doesn't seem to like you as much as you thought He was supposed to? That the Scripture you are reading demeans women, or ratifies slavery, or reviles the foreigner (hey, most of us are Gentiles, remember). When you read that there are sheep and goats and God will decide which are the sheep who get into heaven and which are the goats who will be cast into hell with much wailing and gnashing of teeth (making my orthodontist quite unhappy). And somewhere, perhaps  not so deep down, you wonder if you're following Christ truly enough to count as a sheep, because after all most of us in the United States are still among the richest people in this world. I am doing the Bible Challenge again this year and this is where stuff like t...

I almost forgot to post today! Yipes. I should be starting dinner, so this'll  be quick in the list department. Oh, but I have to tell you -- I made marmalade this week, with oranges from the tree in our backyard (plus a couple of clementines and lemons). OK, now onto the list of the ways God has gifted me last week: 154. passionfruit vine still. has. passionfruit. on it. 155. extra grocery store trip -- lovely breeze 156. citrus juice in paper cut 157. birdsong 158. sticky jam 159. sweating at yoga 160. garlic burps 161. salted caramel frappe - preparing for a 79degF day 162. eating outside (in the shade) on this beautiful day 163. singing the end of "Ave verum corpus" over and over and... 164. iPhone update ate most of my apps (it's okay, I got them back) 165. lily of the valley blooming 166. blissful moment of shadow on a hot day 167. smell of five-spice pork belly 168. pork belly 169. Archbishop of Burundi at our church 170. runnin...

I keep delaying sending this out, I don't know why. At any rate, here are some blog posts that I found particularly moving and/or inspiring. Why you can really be confident by Holley Gerth at (in)courage ask and it sometimes is not given (from Sayable). Boy, can I relate to this one! the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu have a chat about God (from Huffington Post) I was in tears by t he end of this post of Ann Voskamp's... "Come weary" by Addie Zierman (via Rachel Held Evans' always interesting Sunday Superlatives ) From Vivienne McMaster's annual series on self-care and self-love (just in time for Valentines day), this one on the Self-Love Cleanse by Valerie Tookes. Can you be kind to yourself 21 days in a row? and I have this one that's been sitting in my unread blog posts because it's so beautiful: Can you choose love today? from Liz Lamoreux. May you choose love today. Hunter Valley vineyards, Australia