January Twenty-Twenty One

 

Prepare me, dear Lord, to start this [year] again. I am ready to keep climbing even through the mountain is steep. I am willing to keep searching even through the fog is thick. I am able to keep praying even through my words sound hollow. Take these offerings, and use them to open my heart to a new song. Remove from me all that is keeping me unwilling or unable to sing so that I can praise the wonder of clouds parting and Love revealed. Amen. -Becca Stevens, Love Heals

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.”

- Minnie Louise Haskins

And so we take the ragged fragments, the patches of darkness, that give shape to the light;
the scraps of desires unslaked or realized; the memories of spaces of blessing, of pain…
And so we lay them at the threshold, God: bid you hold them, bless them, use them;
ask you tend them, mend them, transform them to keep us warm, make us whole, and send us forth. –Jan Richardson, Night Visions

I won’t fear what tomorrow brings. With each morning I’ll rise and sing. My God’s love will lead me through. You are my peace in my troubled sea.  -Rend Collective 

I love the big fresh starts, the clean slates like birthdays and new years, but I also really like the idea that we can get up every morning and start over.
-Kristin Armstrong

Dear Child of God, I write these words because we all experience sadness, we all come at times to despair, and we all lose hope that the suffering in our lives and in the world will ever end. I want to share with you my faith and my understanding that this suffering can be transformed and redeemed. There is no such thing as a totally hopeless case. Our God is an expert at dealing with chaos, with brokenness, with all the worst that we can imagine. God created order out of disorder, cosmos out of chaos, and God can do so always, can do so now—in our personal lives and in our lives as nations, globally… Indeed, God is transforming the world now—through us—because God loves us.  ―Desmond Tutu, God Has a Dream: A Vision of Hope for Our Time

Flying on Wheels

Taylor has really only been into mountain biking since last summer, and I am so impressed at the progress he's making--- not to mention that he loves it! Here are a few photos and a video from his ride with Jason on Wednesday in Renton. This boy is flying on that bike! 

https://youtu.be/F1tuZfrdheU

Little Free Art Gallery

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Abby in North Carolina sent me an article from the Washington Post about a Little Free Art Gallery on Queen Anne. That week, I was meeting a couple of SPU freshmen from my fall class to connect, and I convinced them each to walk up the hill to check it out with me.  Upon finding it for the first time, my student and I happened upon the artist herself being interviewed for a local news show. They wanted to get our impression seeing it for the first time, and so we got to be part of the news clip! When I had my second meeting with another student just an hour later, we walked up the hill again as I was so entranced and wanted to share it with her.  When we got there, the art had changed inside the little art gallery and was totally different. 

Anna and I went up today, and again, we found that there was beautiful brand new art. Apparently, the artist and curator who created the Little Free Art Gallery in front of her house said that she has seen more than 100 pieces of free art change hands in a matter of weeks. We left a few little canvases that we had made with our hand lettering. 

I absolutely love the creativity in this city!

You can find this new little Seattle treasure on the corner of 1st Ave N. and Garfield on Queen Anne. 

art from January 21. 2021 

art an hour later on January 21, 2021 

finishing touches in the car for our contribution today 

art on January 29, 2021 

I added the "breathe" canvas and Anna added the "I love you." 

can't wait to go again soon!! 

Tell me something good

I loved seeing in the news today how Bernie Sanders has used his unexpected fame from the inauguration and turned it into something so very good. (See below for how Taylor even got in on the fun on Snapchat last week). 

Taylor's post on Snapchat last week

(CNN) Sen. Bernie Sanders has raised $1.8 million for charity through the sale of merchandise inspired by the viral photo of him and his mittens on Inauguration Day.

The Vermont senator's team began selling sweatshirts and T-shirts featuring the photo, which inspired countless memes, on his campaign store last Thursday.

The $45 black crewneck sweatshirt seems to be as popular as the meme -- the first run of the product sold out in under 30 minutes on Thursday night, according to a news release from Sanders' office.

"More items were added over the weekend, and sold out by Monday morning," the news release said.

Senator Bernie Sanders is selling this sweatshirt with the inauguration photo that became an internet sensation.

All the money raised will be distributed to several charities in his home state of Vermont, according to the release.

"Jane and I were amazed by all the creativity shown by so many people over the last week, and we're glad we can use my internet fame to help Vermonters in need," Sanders said in the statement.

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"But even this amount of money is no substitute for action by Congress, and I will be doing everything I can in Washington to make sure working people in Vermont and across the country get the relief they need in the middle of the worst crisis we've faced since the Great Depression."

The charities Sanders picked to benefit from the merchandise sales include: Area Agencies on Aging to fund Meals on Wheels throughout Vermont, Vermont Community Action Agencies, Feeding Chittenden, Vermont Parent Child Network, The Chill Foundation, Senior Centers in Vermont through the Area Agencies and Bistate Primary Care for dental care improvements in Vermont.

Age Well, the largest provider of Meals on Wheels in Vermont, said on Twitter that it is "BLOWN AWAY by the support for our Meals on Wheels program" from the sweatshirt sales.

"On behalf of all of the area agencies on aging and our partners in the community who help us provide meal services, this is a tremendous gift and we couldn't be more grateful," Age Well CEO Jane Catton told CNN affiliate WCAX.

Sanders isn't the only one using the viral moment as a chance to raise money for charities.

As part of the licensing agreement to put the famous photo on T-shirts, sweatshirts and stickers, Getty Images will donate its proceeds from the license to Meals on Wheels America, according to the news release.

Burton Snowboards, which makes the coat Sanders wore on Inauguration Day, donated 50 jackets to the Burlington Department for Children and Families in the senator's name.

A crocheted Bernie Sanders doll raised more than $40k for charity in an online auction

Inspired by Sanders' donations, a Texas woman, Tobey King, auctioned off a handmade crochet doll of Sanders and raised over $40,000 for Meals of Wheels America.

"Senator Sanders has long been one of Meals on Wheels' biggest advocates," Jenny Young, vice president of communications for Meals on Wheels America, told CNN before the auction ended, "and it's incredible to see how his unexpected moment in the spotlight is inspiring others to join the fight to address senior hunger and isolation, as well."

half way done!

Today marks the official half way mark for Anna's senior year. To celebrate, Anna and Sarah headed to Wallace Falls for a gorgeous hike. What a fabulous day they had together!!! 

easy to please

For Taylor's 23rd this month, I offered to take him to a bakery to get a chocolate croissant, but the timing did not work out and he had other things going on. So I just grabbed some Oreos for him at the store, and he was beside himself with joy when I brought them to him the other day. He actually said that these were so much better than my original offer of the croissant. He sure is easy to please. Oreos win every time! 

 

My one requirement was that he would not eat them ALL in one day. :) 

Mostly what God does is love you...

"Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that."(Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG)

"Watch what God does." I sat with that phrase for a while and out of the waiting came that famous line from the Gospel of John: God so loves the world.

God loves the world, every blade of grass, every hidden aquifer, every grunt and squeal of creatures, every swirl of snow, every life on Flight 752, every heron sweeping low over the waters, every kid who goes to sleep worried about something, every hunk of bread and glass of wine, every polluted lake, every burning bush, every lullaby that we sing.

All of it, all of us, held in that extravagant sacrificial love. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with Them and learn a life of love.

I wonder if learning to love the world again is part of the call of discipleship we have forgotten. If we need to practice it, like children who learn from their parents, practice loving the world, remember how to love it again and again.

The call to learn to love the world again is a call to engage with all of those Big Things, of course - love never makes us smaller and narrower and lonelier, it never shuts us off and away from longing and hunger. But I wonder what it would be like to love the world again so much that we are unable to ignore climate change because the world is crying out for us to love her again. What would it be like to love the world so much that we see the image of God in one another across aisles and streets and political divides and borders and the one we have been taught to fear and resent?

What would it be like to love the world not in general but in particular?

What would it look like to remember how to love the world again even knowing it will break your heart? After all loving anything, loving anyone, is to consent to having your heart broken eventually. Loving is a risk, a shot in the dark, a radical act of faith and hope.

……

I invite you to it with me this year: remember how to love the world. Not in general but in particular. Pay attention, call to mind, be mindful of loving this particular world and your particular people and your particular place and your particular self. Call it to your mind: love is not cautious but extravagant.

-Sarah Bessey 

Follow the Call of the Disco Ball

               

I ordered a disco ball for a few celebrations coming up, and we hung it above our table on the porch last night. I think we've decided to keep it up all year round. :) 

The disco ball made its debut for a small gathering for Jenn Zubeck's 50th on Saturday night 

Torque and Jenn :) 

and the disco ball sparkled tonight for small group for communion....

Baby Bunnies Visit

We got to visit 8 baby bunnies today!! Jenna, Jodi's sister, lives about 15 minutes north of Seattle and let us come see the new members of their family.  It was too cute to see what Poppy would have looked like as a baby! 

mini rex bunnies