Trinity Sunday: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory

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look

Book of Kells -
Gospel of John,In the beginning was the Word, and in the Word [was with God]
source

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read

Isaiah 6:3: And one called to another and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."

{all readings for the day: Isaiah 6:1-8 and Psalm 29  • Romans 8:12-17  • John 3:1-17 }

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pray  

Almighty and everlasting God, you have given to us your servants grace, by the confession of a true faith, to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of your divine Majesty to worship the Unity: Keep us steadfast in this faith and worship, and bring us at last to see you in your one and eternal glory, O Father; who with the Son and the Holy Spirit live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. source

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listen

O Splendor of God's Glory Bright
Zac Hicks

buy here

Listen to my Pentecost playlist here

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do

Learn to tie a Celtic knot

Learn how to draw a Celtic knot

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From the archive:

• Do you know why the Trinity matters in our worship?

• Meditating the Trinity with Rublev & Sufjan Stevens

• Praying with Saint Patrick

5 favorite reads in May [from the book pile: 2015]

Art of Simple Food 

This book didn't make the list only because I skimmed it rather than read it, but it's a favorite for sure!

5 favorite reads in May

-- 1 --

11  Finding Livelihood: A Progress of Work and Leisure by Nancy J. Nordenson (Kalos Press, 2014.)

Reading challenge category*:  a book by a female author

I wanted this book to tell me -- artfully -- what to do when I grow up.  I am in a floundering season and this title looked promising.  Instead Nancy Nordenson validated -- artfully -- the pain of not quite knowing one's own vocation.  And, if suspecting, trudging up hill to make one's livelihood from that vocation.  Each chapter works together, but can also stand alone as an essay, tying together seemingly mundane daily observations into themes of desire, doubt and calling.  Woven throughout are the threads of Nordenson's own story with her husband, a painful struggle with unemployment and underemployment and goodhearted faithfulness.  As a writer who makes a living writing medical reports (her BA is in biology) while simultaneously pursuing her MFA in Creative Writing, Nordenson's prose manages to be both pragmatic and poetic, a tone which I thoroughly enjoyed.  If you prefer linear storytelling or bullet lists of tips, this book is not for you.

I want to write more about this book.  Hold me to it, please?

A couple of excerpts:

" 'And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.' I know this is the bottom line, the question worth the most points on the final vocational exam, yet the corollary questions remain: how, when, and where? The acting and loving and walking can't be in the abstract, but must be anchored in time and place -- moving arms and legs, fingertips and brain. And hopefully a paycheck is earned in the process."   

..... 

"I have been collecting images, lifting layers, switching between depths of field to catch glimpses of what's really going on here. How does work become more than what it is, and how do we become ourselves in the process? How do we find livelihood even as we are making it? How can an individual body of work contribute to a corporate body of work to participate in a universal, eternal, world-without-end body of work?"   

..... 

"Years ago I copied out words from a Lenten book into my journal, 'Pray to remember that upon you rest both the favor of God and the power of the Spirit.' This is how I think of God's grace coming to us. And these words, 'dedicate with faith your personal lifelong pilgrimage -- regardless of how insignificant it may seem to you -- as an important part of God's liberation of the world!' ...I have felt bread on the tongue and water on the flesh, but I crave signs of grace outside the cloister of the sanctuary and so am drawn to a teacher's recent suggestion to try living all of life as a sacrament, as a physical participation in the flow of grace from God to people and among people and back again. ...The surface view of grace isn't synonymous with the good life; history bears that out. Sometimes the favor and power of God, the share in God's liberation of the world looks like sweaty hard work, failed work even. I have to wonder about my willingness to live sacramentally, my willingness to have headaches and high blood pressure, frustration and exhaustion be visible signs of invisible grace as God works in me and through me."  

..... 

"I returned to work begin again. Breath and blood, flesh and brain, heart and bones. The weeks are holy."  

-- 2 --

12  A Book of Common Prayer by Joan Didion

Reading challenge category*:  a book with a love triangle

Full disclosure: I did not really enjoy this book at all.  The murky existential crisis of the wealthy, agnostic and hedonistic characters drove me a bit mad. It's the same reason I quit watching Mad Men.  I only read the book because it included this sort of writing:

"Three or four things I do know about Charlotte.

As a child of comfortable family in the temperate zone she had been as a matter of course provided with clean sheets, orthodontia, lamb chops, living grandparents, attentive godparents, one brother named Dickie, ballet lessons, and casual timely information about menstruation and the care of flat silver, as well as with a small wooden angel, carved in Austria, to sit on her bed table and listen to her prayers. ... "

-- 3 --

13  The Exact Place: A Memoir by Margie L. Haack (Kalos Press, 2012. 223 pages.)

Reading challenge category*:  a book you can finish in a day

What are the chances I read two books from Kalos Press -- a press I've never noticed before -- in the same month?  And in that same month, discover a blogging, Anglican, Binghamton acquaintance is writing a book for the same press?  Just interesting, don't you think?

I've had Margie Haack's memoir on my to-read list since it was first published.  I kept thinking it would be at my library and it never was.  Last week I received a serendipitous Amazon gift card and spent it immediately on this book.  (The other book I purchased was My Bright Abyss by Christian Wiman which I read last fall and wanted desperately to mark up the library's copy with a highlighter and pen.  Now I can!)

The Exact Place was easy to read in one day, not because it was a "page-turner" in the normal sense of that description but because it was so warm and interesting and loveable.  Ms. Haack manages to tell gently and truthfully the story of her childhood both validating pain and embracing sweetness. Also, the setting of northern Minnesota is clear and winsome. The authentic view of farm life made me want to wave the book in front of Wendell Berry's face and say "See!  This is why rural kids leave home!"  Not because I grew up on a farm, but the Mad Farmer makes me feel a bit contrarian.  As I've mentioned before.

-- 4 --

14 An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace by Tamar Adler (Scribner, NY 2011. 238 pages includes an appendix of recipes)

Reading challenge category*: a book written by an author with your same initials (or, in this case, same first name)

Oh, this book!  I carried it together with my recipe card box around the house with me for weeks. I copied recipes in their traditional form:  

1/4 cup finely chopped onion 

1/8 cup finely chopped carrot 

1 stalk celery, finely chopped and so forth

but also conversational sorts of recipes:

Cook scallions in a very hot, well-oiled pan. Once the bulbs are sweet and tender and their green tops charred, curl them under poached eggs.   

This method of cooking is so foreign to me.  The kind where you look through your cupboard and your fridge and just know what sorts of left-over drizzles and dabs will go together just so to make mouth-watering, clean, comfort food.  As I was reading, I recognized friends and family who have this skill that I do not yet possess, but gosh-darn it plan to figure out before I'm stooped over with a spoon in one hand and cane in the other.

The beauty of this book is the warm prose that combines all my favorite things:  lovely writing, simple instructions, and an expectation for thrift.  Adler tells a story about food preparation that I can imagine myself maybe, just maybe, able to imitate.  

The first chapter is titled "How to Boil Water" and that's all I needed to feel welcome to this table.

"The pot was invented 10,000 years ago, and a simmering one has been a symbol of a well-tended hearth ever since. I don't mean to suggest that now that you have been reminded of the age and gooness of a ot of water, you start boiling everything in you kitchen -- but that instead of trying to figure out what to do about dinner, you put a big pot of water on thes tove, light the burner under it, and only when it's on its way to getting good and hot start looking for things to put in it.
In that act, you will have plopped yourself smack in the middle of cooking a meal. And there you'll be, having retrieved a pot, filled it, and lit a burner, jostled by your own will a few steps farther down the path toward dinner."

-- 5 --

15  Surprised By Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the MIssion of the Church by N.T. Wright (Harper One, 2008. 295 pages)

Reading challenge category*:  a book you started or never finished (more specifically, read but did not read deeply)

This title will end up on my "Life-Changing Books" list, next to The Challenge of Easter.  For some strange reason, in 2009 when I first purchased the book, I got stuck in it for about two years and ended up just browsing through it.  This time around, two of my sisters and my mom and I decided to read together and talk together once a week about what we were learning, wondering and feeling about what -- in some regards -- is a pretty radical re-framing of what we'd come to believe about Heaven and what it means to follow the Resurrected Christ in the here and now.

Our conversations started out a bit jittery as we got to know the former Bishop of Durham's voice, which is occasionally a bit off-putting to the newcomer. 

It takes a lot of courage to reexamine long-held, passionately-held beliefs.  I'm so encouraged by my mom and sisters for their willingness to ask questions whose answers will be mostly wrapped in mystery until the Glorious Day when we are reunited with Christ and living in a new earth where all things have been judged and made right.

Many of our conversations included variations on the question "Since we can't know for sure what it will look like for Jesus to return and what heaven will look like or where our deceased friends and family are right now, does it matter to our everyday lives?"  And with a variety of responses we decided that yes, it does matter.  Not that we can know for sure, but that we can be diligent in understanding and study so that our lives reflect well the hope found in the real-life resurrection power of Christ.  That power that is even now fueling our lives, and through our lives fueling acts of love, hope and justice around us.  To be able to hold onto hope in the tension between fact and mystery is an act of worship.  

Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus.

Some helpful resources for walking through this book:

• Surprised by Hope Participant's Guide (you can choose just the workbook or a workbook/DVD set.)

• Surprised by Hope section summaries from N.T. Wright on YouTube  (We broke up our reading into 6 sessions based on the video and workbook sections.)

• Since I'm a playlist junkie, I collected songs on Spotify that reminded me of all our reading and conversation:  Surprised by Hope

*This year, I'm using a fun challenge checklist with a Facebook group of friends (and sisters!).  You can find the checklist here:  Take Our Ultimate Reading Challenge  If you'd like to join our Reading Challenge 2015 group on Facebook, let me know and I'll send you an invite! *

Go to my Book Pile page to see my reading lists from 2014 and previous years.

What are you reading right now?

*Linking up with Rachel today

{pretty, happy, funny, real}

a weekly capturing the contentment in everyday life 

| pretty |

Pentecost art commission at Christ Church

These photos don't even begin to do justice to Phaedra Taylor's stunning reflection on Psalm 85 for Pentecost.  If I can find a digital version of her Artist's Statement or some better photos to share I'll post again.  

Follow Phaedra on Instagram for studio photos of this commission and so many other beautiful things. 

(also, as lovely as our rented sanctuary is I can't wait for the day to show you Christ Church's new home!) 

| happy |

CSA

I can't remember if I've mentioned yet on the blog, but this is our first experience with a CSA.  We're splitting a weekly basket with our friends (and neighbors!), the Akels.  Last week I got the fun of pick up.  I couldn't help snapping a shot of this beautiful bounty on the porch at our neighborhood hub.  Isn't God magnificent?  Telecote Farm isn't bad either!

So far the experience is sort of like therapy for our weary selves.  First we gather and divide the bounty. Then -- this week -- Brian, Leo and I got to walk the Akel's basket to their front porch.  I experimented with carrying it on my head and totally get why that has worked in other cultures for millenia. When we got to the Akel's, Mike happened to be  home and we spent a happy 15 minutes discussing his current film project.  We brainstormed a bit, and promised to pray over it in the coming months. Then we spent much of the weekend chopping, pickling and roasting veggies. 

If you know me at all, you'll probably recognize the perfection of all of this.  If there were a vocation called "Walk around carrying beautiful things to share with people and talk about art and creative projects and bless the people making all this stuff", that would totally be my calling in life.

Of course, the eating part was pretty great too.  

| funny |

Rained Out Celebration

Trust me, I am not operating this vehicle at the time of the photo. On Saturday we'd planned a fun outdoor dinner at our personal favorite BBQ in Austin.  The idea is that you don't mind waiting for a table because it's BYOB and there are picnic tables and twinkle lights and sometimes live bands.  A couple of problems:  it was UT graduation weekend and it was pouring down rain in sheets.  Picture several hundred people huddled under collapsing tents.  Fortunately, we have friends who don't mind Plan B's.  And we still managed to have brisket and celebration inside about 2 hours after we took this photo.  Providentially, we left Driftwood less than an hour before the storm became something entirely un-funny.

| real |

  

photo credit

I didn't take this photo because, thankfully, I wasn't close enough to any of the tragic flooding that took place in Austin and several small surrounding towns.  I've been over this bridge on several happy occasions, though, and am heartbroken for the lives and homes lost in the flooding.

We are no strangers to flood.  In 2006 our family was flown by Chinook out of our little town in upstate NY.  Thankfully, we didn't lose any property then, either.  But we are very familiar with living in a neighborhood filled with wrecked, waterlogged, and mud-stinking houses.  It's horrible and sad and exhausting for everyone who does the work of clean up.  

You can donate to flood relief efforts through the Austin Disaster Relief Network here.

| Join in at P,H,F,R to see other wonderful people practicing contentment. |

Pentecost Sunday: I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh

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look

Paper Sculptures in the Church of Saint Riquier in France - Peter Gentenaar
source 

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read

Acts 2:1-17: In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 

{all readings for the day: Ezekiel 37:1-14  • Psalm 104: 24-34, 35b • Acts 2:1-21  • John 15:26-27; 16:4b-15}

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pray  

Almighty God, who on this day didst open the way of eternal life to every race and nation by the promised gift of thy Holy Spirit: Shed abroad this gift throughout the world by the preaching of the Gospel, that it may reach to the ends of the earth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. source

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listen

Breath of God
Caroline Cobb
buy here

Two songs this week because I just couldn't decide!  
Listen to my Pentecost playlist here

I Am Because We Are

Aaron Hale

buy here

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do

It's the final week of readings in the 

 Christ Church Eastertide Devotional 2015

download a copy by using this link: 

http://www.christchurchofaustin.org/sites/default/files/cc-eastertide-devotional-2015.pdf

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