Theo and the Magic Eight Ball

My son's curiosity would put George the monkey to shame. Heated questions into the night ... " HOW do you make gunpowder, Mom. Is God as small as germs ? How much insulation is in our house ? What happens if it snows on the World Peace Bell ?". Be sure you brush up on NASA rocket launches before you see him next. And what is your favorite element on the Periodic Table of Elements ?? ( His is nitrogen ).

Somehow he recently borrowed a friend's Magic Eight Ball. He has been asking it questions all day. The most priceless moment was when he put the Magic Eight Ball on the piano while he practiced. He ran thru one of his pieces and proceeded to ask the Eight Ball " Did you like that ? ".

He scooped up the ball and read aloud " definitely not ".

" Well, " I heard him reply with indignation. " I liked it. And I know how to play the piano pretty well !! " . So he performed it again for the Eight Ball and asked again ... this continued for a while with various exchanges between Theo Barr and the Eight Ball. I couldn't make this stuff up.

Blue Jordan Coffeehouse History

Last weekend I had the pleasure of playing at the 10 years of Blue Jordan Bash, held at the Rohs Street Cafe in Clifton. It was a great time to hear friends play ... I hadn't heard anyone in such a while. I wrote up some of the history of the Blue Jordan Coffeehouse prior to the event and thought I'd share it with you :

I have wondered for years now what exactly gives people the bug to open a coffeehouse. Something about hosting friends in a warm and inviting living room atmosphere, serving them something wonderful to eat and drink, and listening to good music together … I suppose a person could do this at home, but creating this as a place to get away to somehow becomes a desire of a certain breed of people.

In 1992, friends of mine, Brian and Tibbett Merusi were preparing to work abroad with YWAM. To raise financial support, they put the parable of the 10 talents into practical use. They divided up $1,000 among 20 friends with a letter asking them to invest it creatively or give it back to them at the end of the summer. I put my money together with Tony Escamilla and we ran a coffeehouse in my house at the time, 4660 Howard Avenue in Northside. We took most of the furniture out and set up card tables and chairs, ran a kitchen with desserts and coffee and had a sound system with performing musicians up on the third floor. We charged $5.00 to get in and all the money we made went back to the Merusi’s . ( I think we made 2 or 3 hundred dollars. )
I remember Phyllis Hoke worked the kitchen, various musicians played, little white lights strung up everywhere and all of my furniture stuffed into one room, while we used the rest of the house as a coffeehouse. We called it the Howard House Coffee Hour. So much fun and lots of work. I received many requests to repeat it every week to which I laughed.
Because of so much positive feedback and in an attempt to raise even more money for the Merusi’s, we ran it again in a few months and it was a great success again. About a year later, I started searching for a store front to put it in and found this tiny place near where I lived, abandoned by a caterer who had recently had a stroke. This store front was a few doors down from what is now the Comet in upper Northside. I took an accountant friend of mine, Mary Mallon, and showed her the run down wreck of a space and described all the potential I saw. She later confided to me how crazy it sounded to her at the time. Meanwhile, down in Northside at a junk shop I found a batch of café tables and chairs for cheap … needed new seats on the chairs. Those table bases are around here somewhere … at Vineyard Central or the Speckled Bird Café, I think. Not sure where the chairs are, but I see one here and there. I also found a big batch of white coffee mugs, a coffee maker or two. I had a sound system. Now all we needed was rehab. More later.

Norwood Parade passing by : what was that ?

We went to the Norwood Parade last night. All sorts of Norwood civic groups, schools, bands, churches, poloticians, ... lots of candy for the kids. A good time was had by all. One particular church was pulling a flat bed trailer, on which they had a worship team all singing at top volume. It was a bit frightening to me. More candy. Clowns. Then another local church, this one predominately African American. Their float had a strange cross built on their trailer, covered in some kind of cotton batting. The van that was pulling the trailer was full of women and there were several women walking along side of the trailer and they were all holding out their hands to the crowds and calling out :
"We bless you in the name of Jesus. We bless you in the name of the Lord. We bless you. ". My eyes were immediately filled with tears and soon my face was flooded. At a parade ??? I think it was the Spirit, trying to point out something about these beautiful women and His working in them. I am asking for more insight about this.
After it was over, I spoke to one of the women and told her of my experience. She just hugged me into herself, like a dear daughter, and invited me to church. Now I just have to go.

Brains.

Read some interesting reasearch on the brain recently. Did you know there are 7 or 8 different types of depression and anxiety ? Let's take a quiz and find out which type you are.
Okay, maybe later, but neuroscientist and psychiatrist Daniel Amen has moved the field of psychiatry and brain research ahead several notches by noticing that psychiatry is the only field of medicine where so little is known about the organ being treated. He has really thrown himself into looking at the physical brain with some new imaging, called SPECT imaging ( Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography ). I had forgotten that the brain is approximately a soft custard /tofu consistancy inside a hard unbendable shell. Dr. Amen says he finds head injuries to be so common ... when he interviews patients with depression and/or anxiety, he ends up asking about head injuries several different ways during the course of the interview before people remember that they had one earlier in life. ( note : I was hit by a car at age 3 and broke my collarbone ... I can surmise that my head took impact as well. ).
Anyway, he can see on all the imaging the differences in depressed brains, anxious brains, grouchy brains, sociopath brains, addicted brains, brains who have let their laundry pile up to Pike's Peak etc ... and makes some good treatment recommendations for the various types. His book is called Healing Depression and Anxiety and provides an quick assessment to determine what "type" of anxiety or depression you might have. There is a good deal of information on his website as well.
So, for those of us still fighting off thoughts that Depression is a character flaw, perhaps to be addressed by more time with God and in the Word, as any good Christian should, ... check out what Dr. Amen has great things to say about the ACTUAL structural changes in a brain. And how to help.
Are you walking to the bathroom after you are done reading this ? Strap on your helmet.

Another one for the list of don'ts.

Don't put Splenda in your coffee in front of an oscillating fan, okay?

Something happened and now I'm different.

Something happened at the playground last week. We spent a great hour of lunch and playing and when we left, my son told me that the boy he had been playing with ( 12 years old ) had asked him to do something very wrong for a child.
I won't post it here for all the world to see, but suffice to say my son thought about it and told the boy no and did not do it. This all happened right in front of where I was sitting, but just out of my line of sight. I was focused on the kids and I did not have my nose buried in a book or ear on the phone. How could this happen with me right there ?
My heart was pounding in my ears as I reported the scene to the man who was walking around supervising a small group of kids of which this child was one. I praised my son for saying no and for telling me about it. I reinforced that he had done the right thing. I stayed calm, but after everyone was safely in bed that night I fell apart. I wanted to camp out across the threshold of the front door for the night and to be sure everyone stayed safe all night. I shook and felt sick for the next day as well, waves of thankfulness and fear and anger sweeping over me.
A strange piece of the story is that during the time the kids were playing and this incident happened, while I was sitting there watching and enjoying an incredibly beautiful day, a thought came to my mind : "There is a presence of sexual violation here".
" Janet, you whacko," I thought. " What an inappropriate thought to have here at a playground," and I did my best to brush it aside. Now I think I realize that the Spirit was showing me something that I needed to know.
Mothers out there, listen to your gut. A distinct shift has happened in our world. Referring back to our childhood for how to parent is no longer reliable ... too many things are different.
I feel different inside now.

The Fascinating World of Laundry, Dishes and Diapers.

Ok, Juliebelle. I'll restart this thing. What I was trying to write about on my last post was that famous verse from the Bible, " I can do anything for fifteen minutes through Christ who strengthens me. " This has become my mantra in the midst of piles of laundry that need their own zoning laws, dishes multiplying faster than rabbits, and, of course, a constant supply of dirty diapers. If A isn't making one, Maple the Dog takes over in the back yard. I am just on poop detail and that is that. Thank goodness I have that verse to meditate on.

It is rare that I find a website of information that I recommend, but I have come across one that has made an actual difference in my day to day life. No, it is not The Bible Rewritten By Deranged Mothers.com . It is www.flylady.net . Have you heard of the Fly Lady ? She is Marla Cilley from Brevard, North Carolina who has set up a website of organizing your household for people ( like myself ) who are not born organized. If you are one of the organizationally anointed people ( cough, Ang ), this information does not apply to you and would be like reading the instruction manual on, say, breathing. But, if you are a creative contemplative ( aka artistic weirdo ) like me and are peering over the laundry to see the computer screen*, then the information is insight into the secret club of the Organized. ( So that's how organized people do it ! They think ahead. Must try this sometime ... ) . I have read several books on organization before ... they all have helped to some degree, but Fly Lady lays it out in a way that really clicks for me. And I love that her goal is not for people to have perfectly clean houses, but for their homes and families to run smoothly so they can do more of what they love.

If you happen to look at the website and are thinking about signing up for her mailings, please think twice, because all the information ( and there is a LOT ) is on the website. If you sign up for mailings, they send you LOTS of emails each day, which I found very distracting. I can barely read my other email, not to mention all the Fly Mail. I unsubscribed to the mailings and just enjoy reading the site and listening to her World Talk Radio Program ( also archived on her site ). Still addicted to Talk Radio after all these years.
*( since I started reading Fly Lady, I now have my laundry down to a very easy system and it no longer stresses me out or blocks my view of anything. This is truly remarkable. )
Thinking ahead thought : deep sleep.

I can do anything for 15 minutes

I Can't Hear You.

I am a low talker. Seinfeld episode where the woman keeps speaking too quietly caused dear D to point and cackle. But it was friend and hero-wordsmith, MH who pointed out that my signal was not even being picked up on his radar, the Human Ear. Time to speak up.

Meanwhile, I notice a simalar volume issue with none other than
Lord God Almighty.
Come on now, speak up a bit.
And slower.
Use shorter words, perhaps.
Enunciate, would ya?
A public speaking class would do us both some good.

Or maybe, just maybe there is a problem with my ear.

My youngest child is a KGB agent.

I am finally putting the pieces together. It is beginning to make sense.

My youngest is actually a foreign agent trained in thought control, mind torture and manipulation. Nevermind he is 2 and 1/2 feet tall, sucks his thumb and carries a red blanket with him everywhere. That is just his cover.

If something is up, he wants it down. If it is open, he wants it shut. If it is Mom, he wants Dad. If it is Dad, he wants Mom.

I am not sure what he wants with us. Do we unknowingly hold information critical to his government's takeover ? What could possibly be behind the crying and whining and dissolving into tears every few minutes ? We are holding on by our teeth trying to wait him out. BUT HE IS STRONGER.

Meanwhile, he has D and I writhing in agony and begging for mercy several times a day. But mercy does not come. None. Relief only comes when he turns on his amazing full facial smile ... then the world is set right again and he probably makes a call to Headquarters from his wooden block phone to tell them : " Mission accomplished. Parents are worn down to a nub,". Is this something I report to the FBI ?

Via Crucis 2006

Click here for slide show of Via Crucis 2006 ( thanks Greg Brekke )

It was a thing of beauty. I am sorry if you missed it

but it will be back in 2 years.

Via Crucis was an experiential Stations of the Cross that Vineyard Central put together in collaboration with several other area churches and artists. Each station was beautifully put together and each offered a way to put yourself onto the road to the cross.

( The above piece was done by artist and musician Jesse Mooney ) .

It was cathartic to write my confessions anonymously on a wall. I knelt on the rocky road to pray where Jesus had walked and fell ... the words about how God uses failure and falling in our lives spoke to me. I stumbled down the dark rocky road to the cross, losing my footing into the thorns more than once. I sat, hushed, in the tomb and watched the sheets covering his body begin to lightly rise and fall ... new breath entering his body. I forgot to give up Lent for Lent this year, but visiting Via Crucis was by far my favorite way to celebrate the resurrection.

Spring has Sprung.

Love Spring. Love it.
I love any tree that is flowering. Bare feet in the grass. Opening windows. Cleaning the dregs of winter out of the house. Warm breezes blowing through the curtains and fistfulls of daffodils being brought into the kitchen every hour or so ... " for yoooo Mom, ". It doesn't get better than this.

Spring couldn't be here at a better time. I've recently walked with some friends through some significant losses. Most days I don't feel very connected to their greif or mine. It comes out in other ways ... grouchy cabin feverish trudging around the house, wishing someone else would pickup the slack. Yes, it is a great time for Spring this year.

All winter here in our neighborhood, we hunker down indoors. After so much isolation I begin to forget about our neighbors. But here we all are again, opening windows and doors, sitting on porches, cutting grass and weeding ... it is a time ripe for connection and conversaton. A great time to ask God what He is up to and how I can join in. Hopefully, He will not ask me to do something Odd like get to know them better or let them know me.

I know our neighbors are struggling through life just the same way I do. Anxiety, fear, addictions, depression .. God, let this season be full of Your presence in all of our lives. If there is somthing You want me to say or do, please speak clearly and slowly, because it takes me a long time to catch on. Spring couldn't be here at a better time.