ice clinks and water poured
clear liquid cools parched mouths
as i hand out drinks

i reach for another glass for myself
the cupboard yields one with lime deposits
the next has food dried in the bottom
my fingernail bends as i try to scrape it out
this one has smudges and lipstick marks

ahhh a clean one
i pour ice and water into it
only to find thick gray and white sediment
swirling in a tornado spiral

others drink
i watch, glancing at row of dirty vessels
thirsty

—————-

debris

Steamrolled paper thin
gravel biting my back

a gust of wind blows me with the dried leaf herd
scratching Morse code on the asphalt

wedged in an underpass nook
destined for dirty roadway snow piles
to decompose in spring run-off

1. When I went to kindergarten the first day, my mom said, “Have a great day at school.” I responded as i walked down the sidewalk, “They don’t know me now, but they will.”

2. I am a WoW addict. Thanks to friends and work an my nephew. LOL. I am Horde. Didn’t think I would be, but I am. I have two blood elfs…a rogue and a paladin. And if you just understood what I said, you are a WoW nut too.

3. I have 4 cats and 2 dogs. It used to be 6 cats. This borders on ‘catlady’ status. I am NOT allowed in PetSmart on pet adoption day. My heart is way too soft for wayward animals. When I sit on the couch, all the animals come to me to lay around me. One of my dear friends, Mark D. said it is because I am balanced. Hmmm.

4. I used to love to play golf, until I went on the varsity golf team in high school and lettered, but it burned me out. Now I just like the short game or putt-putt.

5. I hate spiders. Spiders like me. It is not a good relationship. Unhealthy is my word. I am an expert at telling the diff between at chigger, mosquito and spider bite. This includes regular spider bites and recluse. Yeah, I have too much XP in that area.

6. I love pizza with crackery crisp, crunchy, crust. I am a crunch girl through and through.

7. I once had a hamster named King. He was HUGE and barely fit through the habitrail. He was the King of the hamster realm. Maybe I should have named him Elvis. LOL

8. Before i die, I want to see Ireland, Scotland, Jerusalem, India, England, Germany, Sudan, Alaska and of course go back to that place in the Caymans. There was an upstairs place called Breezes had the best mojitos on this green earth made with Cuban rum and served by ‘Bon Jovi Pirate’ the bartender.

9. When it snows, it lifts my spirits, which have needed a lot of lifting these days. It is snowing now. I am happier.

10. My brother makes THE BEST smoked stuff. I’ll eat anything he cooks in the smoker with the exception of ribs. Ribs have always grossed me out. I can’t eat them. I don’t know why. Perhaps due to the graphic nature of the rib…ugh. blech.

11. My maiden name is ‘Marrs”. This got my bro and I lots of teasing in our younger years. We fought that battle a lot stop the planet and candy bar references. My niece calls herself marsbars in her email name…freakin’ hilarious…one generation to the next….how viewpoints change.

12. I’m silent these days on my blog. I am in Desolace, spiritually. I wait, I search on the dry plains for rain. I am patient, but it starting to weigh on me with all the stuff happening in my life. For you non-WoW ers… http://www.wowwiki.com/Desolace

13. I like driving little cars. It makes it easy for the directionally challenged folks like me to make U turns to find the right way to go. Plus parking is WAY easier. (And gas is not so crazy)

14. Amazingly, I still keep in touch with a friend from 5-6 yrs old, one I met in Jr. High and one I met in college. Mostly through Facebook these days, but I hope to get together with them again soon. You know who you are.

15. My parents, thankfully, are still alive. This is a blessing, most of the time…unless you are my brother who lives a block from them and has to deal with their computer problems. LMAO.

16. I’m a prairie girl. I need wide open spaces and strong winds. It makes me very happy to hear the wind howling at night. To see in the distance for miles is a comfort. Too many trees or mountains hem me in.

17. I love Clark shoes and own several pair. The are da bomb.

18. I hate malls. I’ve gone years without going to one.

19. I want to go on an international mission trip in 2010. I would prefer Africa, but would be okay with south/central America or through Living Water or my local church. I look to God for guidance on that.

20. I really like Smarties, even after seeing “How they are made.’ Dang they are good.

21. My sinuses are the bane of my winter life. If I could crochet hook them out of my head through my nose like Arnold Schwarzenegger did in ‘Total Recall’ did with the probe, I’d do it in a heart beat.

22. Every year in February, I watch one of my favorite movies, ‘Groundhog Day.’ I love this movie. “Ned! Ned Ryerson! Bing!”

23. I really haven’t spent a lot of quality time in my studio lately. Surprisingly, it isn’t bothering me either. Perhaps the muse is in Desolace with me after all. Perhaps. My site is http://www.chameleonquilts.com

24. I thought I had eclectic tastes in music. I do to a point. Then I talked with someone who is into all kinds of rap and hip hop. I am dumb in that area. I wonder if I can still claim eclectic?

25. I could be anyplace right now it would be Block Island, RI. A little Martha’s Vineyard without the crappy crowds. Shhhh, don’t tell anyone!

Last year, I received a challenge from one of my facebook friends last year to hit the shuffle on my iPod and record what came up.  Interesting exercise that I’ve done quite a few times since then, usually surprised at what comes up. I’m exanding the list and am posting my random dozen songs shuffled from my iPod today.  As those Mp3 geeks know, the shuffle mode can be deep in meaning as the songs come up or mean nothing. I claim no deep thought on these, people.  But I have highlighted ones that seem to apply to my day. Look up the lyrics. Ponder.  Comment if u like.

2009 will be a wild ride for me at work. I imagine this randomness will continue. Stay tuned.

Dozen Random Songs for January 9

1 ) Another Woman by Moby

2 ) Crash into Me by Dave Matthews Band

3 ) Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own by U2

4 ) Philosophy by Ben Folds

5 ) We are Family by Sister Sledge

6 ) X & Y by Coldplay

7 ) Beautiful Day by U2

8 ) Maybe Tomorrow by Stereophonics

9 ) Diggin’ Your Scene by Smash Mouth

10) Stand Up by Dave Matthews Band

11) Rise by Flobots

12) Dirty Laundry by Eagles

You can visit the site Help the Honey Bees.

Here’s an interesting rumor.  The early Christian church was also called ‘the hive.’

Here is a book about the Hive which looks interesting: The Hive

Pass the honey with that roll or biscuit this Thanksgiving?

Word.

Several times in the next few weeks, I took the back roads to and from work. Often I would see a sparrows, grackles, geese or other flock of birds traveling southward to warmer climates, their fluid, amoebic groups in the sunny skies, moving—shifting—dancing an aviary ballet of sorts as they continued on their journey.

Lately, on the Palladia channel I’ve seen the coolest commercial. A flock of animated black birds in flight which then morph into details of birch trees and then the perspective shifts yet again into a forest birches and other trees as the ‘camera’ pulls back. It’s a commercial that stops me in my tracks, transfixing me through completion of the animation. The change in perspective, the change in subject is fascinating.

The images and activities of my aviary friends continued.

A lone hawk sitting atop a fence post, scanning the fields, hunting for dinner as the sun dims on the horizon during my commute home.

A small flock of birds, one early morning, startled into flight from our pear tree in the front yard as I took out the dogs for their ‘constitutional’. The dogs stood, transfixed by the rising mass of birds and muffled sounds of wing flaps. We all watched them rise into the air and depart before moving on to other business.

Birds dotting the lines between telephone posts along the road like Morse Code. I wondered what the words said. SOS?

Empty bird feeders swinging on tree limbs in our windy backyard. No birds in sight. For if the food gone, so are the birds, hunger drives them to look elsewhere.

Birds migrate in cycles including those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Habitat and weather changes are usually irregular or in only one direction. Migration is marked by its annual seasonality. In contrast, birds that are non-migratory are known as resident birds. Migrating birds vary migration travels, some short, some long as they move through this cycle. Some lose their way, most regain direction through the magnetic pull of their migrating pattern.

————————————–

It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged in any sort of thoughtful manner. Part of it was time available to write. A new job and shifts in family life have kept my schedule rather packed, but this has not been the entire reason. I wouldn’t call my current spiritual state ‘a crises,’ but I must admit it has not been peaceful, steady, or void of some serious drama and frustration. For several months, I’ve noticed a steady decline in spiritual direction and desire to pursue it . . .fire dimmed a bit, you might say. I in no way believe following Christ is all ups and blessings. That line of thought has gotten many of us in a state of entitlement within Christianity that has dangerous pathways of disappointment and defeat. I do believe that a spiritual growth ebbs and flows as does the pattern of its pursuit.

I’ve noticed that within a discipleship journey I tend to close off conversation with God when I am under the most duress, thinking I can control my emotion, the situation or some aspect until it is ‘resolved’ to my satisfaction. My instinct is to look to my own ability to interpret and understand why. The worse it gets the more of a control freak I become, the less I turn to God for understanding and guidance. Yeah, counter intuitive, I know.

Do you listen in on God’s council?
Do you limit wisdom to yourself? Job 15:8

It is very easy these days to preoccupy myself with other things. Lately, I’ve found myself driving to soccer or work or the grocery store, listening to books or music. I’ve played single parent for more weeks that I care to admit due to some shifts in Wayne’s job responsibilities. I’ve used online communities, movies, TV–any entertainment at my fingertips, to distract myself often from deep thought as I bounce from place to place, from event or obligation to home and work.

Conversation with God dwindled to almost nothing. Even those conversations seemed one-sided monologues, prayers for others done out of duty and habit. I was talking to God less and less. More importantly, I was not listening either.

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Psalm 25:4-6

But for the past two months, I’ve been subject to these bird whispers, these subtle words of God breaking through the din of everyday life and my insulated turtle shell. Through the amoebic movement of a migrating flock—through the chatter of that flock as I stop for a train. I knew it was God, but I had no gumption to listen. No inclination to ponder why I was seeing all these bird signs of migration, of community, of loners, of transitions. I sat in my misery wondering about everything. As we all know, blind birds don’t really go very far.

My best thinking, you see, is when I write. Focusing on the blank page, talking out my ideas is where revelation comes. So when the chatter of birds drown out the din of my distractions, I sat down to write this. With the tenacity that only God can employ, I now understand the message delivered in the wings of birds, in sky silhouettes traveling to places far away, in the groups and flocks migrating through the cycles of the season.

It’s okay, Deana, I’m still here. Time to move on.

]]> http://themetanoia.wordpress.com/2008/10/27/migration/feed/ 2 deana331 http://themetanoia.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/get-tight-with-christ/ http://themetanoia.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/get-tight-with-christ/#comments Thu, 25 Sep 2008 20:19:41 +0000 deana331 http://themetanoia.wordpress.com/?p=257 ]]> I colleague at work saw these in a window while walking by in Austin, TX and sent out the link to them online.  I immediately had a flashback to the Saved movie.  The design reminds me of the Lady of Guadalupe figurines I studied for a piece of artwork I did for a competition.

Interesting that SPF 18 is all you need to keep you “Tight with Christ.” “Be Worthy!”  “Be Noticed!” “Lookin’ Good for Jesus!” “Look your Sunday Best!” “Protects” “Preserves”…………..Preserves?!?!?

Here is the second one on the site.

I love:

“Monks special reserve” and “Handy Salvation for a sinner on the go” (for all liars, cheaters and wrong-doers)

I humbly add these to the God the Action Figure to begin a  collection titled, Marketing for the Beyond mentioned recently on the Performing the Faith Blog.

Politics and pulpit.“Declaring that clergy have a constitutional right to endorse political candidates from their pulpits, the socially conservative Alliance Defense Fund is recruiting several dozen pastors to do just that on Sept. 28, in defiance of Internal Revenue Service rules.”

This is interesting since I’ve recently finished Jesus for President (Claiborne), and yet even more spooky if you consider a book I’m reading right now… Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile.  In an excerpt today from that book, Golden and Bell talked about the church’s involvement with government and the dangers that shows throughout Biblical times which yields a cycle of greed ($ and power) and the exploitation of others in the process..

“Danger, Will Robinson!” Beware of the ‘rights’ of this sort of action. I am not in favor of endorsements from the puplit. It smells of Rome’s religion of government for the people as might makes peace.  The systemic glorification of a ‘religious government’ has never gotten us where God wants us to be.

Endorsement in the pulpit? Perhaps a mere step in the overall corruption for the sake of religion.  I for one do not see endorsement of a candidate as a good thing…as a ‘right’?  We as the body of Christ are meant to be the counter narrative to mainstream society.  By endorsing a candidate, we are no different than a polical party, a corporation, a special interest group.

We should be less interested in endorsing a candidate or one or two hot button issues. We should be more interested in making sure oppression does not exist in any form. Oppression that starts with our own consumerism, narcissism, and ignorance of the world.  For me it is much more important to learn about where oppression exists, to do something to help and to tell others.

Like here:

http://www.firstgiving.com/waterforall