Good Friday at Union Center (2009)

Make a Smilebox slideshow I am grateful to all the craftsmen, artists, prayers, and helpers who collaborated to learn together, pray together and work together so that our church family and community could remember together Christ's once-and-for-all work for us on the Cross. This year I have been changed again by the experience.

monday mixtape

i made you a mix tape of all my favorites this week!

While I fasted from blog-reading during Lent a lot of my blogging friends were doing some wayyy-fun stuff. I've been having fun catching up and thought you'd enjoy checking a few out for yourself.

My Front Porch

My sister Kaley, with some help from her witty husband Wesley, has been cranking out one compelling post after another. Her posts mix the day-to-day antics of mothering a pre-schooler and an infant with her passion - - nee obsession - - with finding free money and living frugally. Some of my absolute favorite posts from the past couple of months?

• Grieving
• True Confessions of a Tired, Busy, Happy Mom (pure blogging genious, this post!)
• How We Got Here, parts 1, 2 (featuring a lovely pic of yours truly) and 3 (this series tells the story of how Kaley and Wes have been able to live for the past year of Wes' unemployment without having to dip into their savings)

Living large on a limited budget is the motto for Wes and Kaley's newest online venture and TODAY is the grand opening of the new site: Cha-Ching on a Shoestring !!!

Go there, sign up and enter their grand opening contest for free stuff!

GrantDeb.com

I promise this is not some sort of blogging-world-nepotism, but I have to give a shout out to my cousin and his wife Grant and Deb Perry for the highly excellent work they have been doing at their photography site. Check out their blog for photo samples from each of their projects. If nothing else, check out the wedding pictures from Pavrita and Nicholas' wedding. Absolutely. Gorgeous. (makes me want to get married again just so they can take our pictures!)

Culture Making

What a fun surprise to find a feature this week from Ithaca, NY!

I leave you on this rainy Monday with a livingpalm PSA. Loving wives do not allow their husbands to play street ball without protective eyewear.

This is Brian's eye. This is Brian's eye after a giant thumb from a large, beastly man chasing a loose ball tore right in through the upper eyelid.

'Nuff said.

*photos taken by an amateur blackberry user.

no writing, no reading, but lots and lots and lots of things...

Since March 1, I...

• began a new job


• gave a talk, Becoming Secure in the Father's Love, at one of Union Center's small groups


• guest lectured three times at Davis Colleges' creative arts seminar


• attended my mother's retirement open house, a friends' birthday party and a spa facial with my 11-year old Natalie


• planned a mid-Lent prayer service for our Good Friday volunteers and church family


• learned about the Jewish Passover tradition Searching for Chometz from a messianic rabbi


• watched my oldest son's enchanting performance of a cowboy in Oklahoma!


• met the goal I set on January 13 to lose 15 pounds by Easter


• competed for points per time spent exercising each week with Team Buttzilla!


• felt very old


• co-wrote a dramatic sketch for Easter morning with my 17-year-old son


• turned 38 years old with a beautiful birthday evening with friends


• got the flu


• got over the flu


• celebrated my daughter's entrance to the teen years (Kendra is 13!)


• watched - with disbelief - the news all day one evil Friday in Binghamton


• re-planned our Palm Sunday services to become a prayer service for the families of the 14 dead


• grieved with my city at a community-wide prayer vigil


• wrote a 37-page presentation on Worship & the Arts at Union Center


• delivered said presentation like a stammering school girl


• coordinated Union Center's Good Friday events: Road to the Cross and Tenebrae


• helped to coordinate Union Center's Easter morning celebrations


• kept Lent with a Wednesday/Friday meat fast and a 40-day facebook and blog-reading fast


• celebrated Easter with my family


• took a nap a day since Sunday

I'm spent.

(but it's all good)

*picture at top: a really cool random art thing done with flourescent post-it notes by a rogue arts group in some unidentified city. for six weeks my life has been ruled by those two tyrannical words...

Binghamton is grieving

The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.

Psalm 34:18

For the last several weeks my days have been filled with preparation for Union Center's remembrance of Holy Week. I could not have known that the week would be ushered in, not with the waving of palm branches during Palm Sunday services, but with silence, mourning and petition for the God of all comfort to bring healing and peace to Binghamton.

For those of you not from Union Center, I highly recommend you download the audio stream from the prayer service yesterday. For those of you praying for Binghamton, I encourage you to actively participate with the audio stream and pray intentionally for the three areas of focus.

I do not know what to do with my days but to stay with Jesus in His grief for this town. To join him, the Man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief. To experience the tension of a heart at grief and at peace.

Christ suffers until the end of the world.

-- Blaise Pascal