a thousand thoughts

Well, it’s Thursday, as it was when last we met. I’ve blogged a bunch of stuff in my head all week long, but when I found a moment to sit down to the computer and type my thoughts, they just seemed not to matter anymore. Unimportant, hopeless, too personal, irrelevant, blather. I know, that’s never stopped me before, but something seemed different this week and it wasn’t just busyness.
Indeed, free moments haven’t come until late at night, as I’ve been at work until very late every evening. Students are panicked about the semester coming to a close before they’re finished. But mostly, I think, my thoughts have just been about processing, observing and pondering. It hasn’t really seemed expressible. I’ve needed to take in the moment, feel my context and environment and just think on it.
I’ve carried my camera everywhere I’ve been lately. Some folks have even teased me about it. But it has been a bit of metaphor for the clichés of seizing the moment, smelling the roses, and to look outside one’s self. It has also provided a record of the process.
So I’ve posted a bunch of photos on my flickr page that seem to speak more clearly to what I’ve been thinking lately than my malformed sentences can do. I have a lot more photos that speak more deeply from my thoughts, but as in my ramblings, I’ve reserved them for the time being.
You may be interested to take a look at thoughts I haven’t written. If so, you’ll find them here.

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solitude

Silver moonbeam glows.
What it lights in darkest night,
Wisteria knows.

Technorati Tags: about me, emotion, flickr, grief, life, moon, poem, seasons, solitude, thoughts, wisteria

lachrymose

Yesterday afternoon, when I drove to get Jack from track practice, I heard of the shootings at Virginia Tech. At the time there were still many questions and few details. Some details are becoming known, but there will never be answers. There can never be answers.
My love for Wisteria is known to any who've read these pages, but those who read closely know why. It is the purple tears of the melancholy blossom that speak to my soul. This flow of pensive and prayerful color that wells up from the earth tones.



The brilliant pallet of spring brings joy and feels it with us, but the empathic tears of wisteria remind us that even creation moans with us in our struggles.
There are no words to bring comfort midst such devastating loss. Mourners needn't empty words, but friends whose falling tears and lifting prayers water seeds of love and hope.

Kyrie Eleison
Christe Eleison
Kyrie Eleison

Technorati Tags: emotion, grief, life, grief, mourning, resurrection, shooting, shootings, society, tears, thoughts, virginia tech

tax day

So I waited until the EXTREME last minute this year. I actually did everything except one income item on Thursday, with five days to spare. I didn’t finish that night because I couldn’t report dividend income from some stocks we inadvertently were awarded a couple years ago. Yes, it seems that Al and I were duped into a stinky college savings plan when Jack was a baby. A major financial corp tracked us down and talked us into being responsible, forward-thinking ‘rents, so we began to save via a method that as it turns out, wasn’t the wisest thing we could’ve done. But really we’d have a hard time knowing that because we can’t begin to read the pages they send to us periodically. Such was the case with mailing that evidently was different than the others, but we couldn’t know that. This particular one apparently was to inform us that we’d been awarded shares in a class action lawsuit against said major financial corp. We weren’t aware of this until we began receiving checks and called the check writers for info on why we were getting them.
Lo and behold, the company is now in Canada, so every year, we report dividends from Canada and pay Canadian income tax. It’s not a huge deal, except that this year, we didn’t seem to get a 1099 from them.
Ok, that was quite a digression, but tonight I finally got the needed info, and after a few fun-filled hours at go cart heaven, I quickly added it to my tax return forms and set out to E-file them to the IRS.

**sorry, the filing center is too busy now, please try back in one to two hours**

Wha? I will have missed the deadline! So I sat at my computer and continually pressed (“mashed” is the correct South Carolina term) the transmit button until I caught an open window and they went through with minutes to spare.

Things I’ve learned during this tax year:

The older one gets, what with kids and motorcycles and such, the more tax mail needed to file will be mailed to his residence in a trickle-in fashion occurring between January 1, and April 10. Therefore, when the last item arrives, cancel all previously scheduled items and abandon to-do lists, and immediately file taxes. Trying to find a bandwidth window at 11:30 on tax day is not good for the old ticker.

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new moon shine

The Paschal moon waned to darkness tonight to make way for the new flower moon. This is momentous for calendrical beings such as myself. I have been suspended in holy week a week longer and my blog has stood empty like the void of the tomb I’ve been contemplating since last Sunday morning. I behaved in much the same way last year until the last morning I saw the crescent rising before it went dark and the lunar symbol of life after death set late in the evening a day later as a waxing promise of growth and life.
I know, I’m so predictable. Not a soul at church seemed surprised on Palm Sunday morning when I waxed on from the platform about Palm Sunday falling on April Fool’s day.
Last month I rambled about the new Paschal moon on the first day of Spring. It grew with the flowers, bloomed full in holy week and waned as life went on, reborn.
Things like that have meaning to me. I immerse myself in the times of the year, the church calendar. I ramble on about time and my fear of it, my inability to understand it.
I read in Genesis that God put the moon and stars in the sky to mark seasons and days and years. So here I am staring up from the deck deep in the night. Wondering at it all. It’s time to turn in.

Good night deck, good night chair.
Good night Yahweh, everywhere.
Goodnight Paschal moon.

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discipleship

who I am is not yet.

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overcoming

"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "

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on covering bases

"Take a guard," Pilate answered. "Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how." So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.

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on broken barriers

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.
When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"

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tenebrae

For I tell you I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes."
And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.

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health

Lord, may my heart be strengthened with love, my body with exercise, and my spirit, only with You.

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jesus asked

Then Jesus said to them, "How is it that they say the Christ is the Son of David? David himself declares in the Book of Psalms:
" 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." '
David calls him 'Lord.' How then can he be his son?"

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comfort food

Lord, teach me to feed my body with bread, to feed my emotion with love, and to feed my spirit only with Spirit.

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on consumerism

Then he entered the temple area and began driving out those who were selling. "It is written," he said to them, " 'My house will be a house of prayer'; but you have made it 'a den of robbers.'"

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oh, for open eyes

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

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palm sunday and april's fool

Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe…. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

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