A post pulled out of the January 2005 archives especially for the 6th poetry carnival.
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I realized I loved poetry again a few years ago (the first time was way back in high school, where Mr. Willems made Wordsworth and Shelley come alive). I needed some venue for expressing those metaphors that would suddenly present themselves as perfect comparisons of what I was experiencing, those lines that would inexplicably pop into my head.
I made my first foray into writing free verse poems while reading Writing Personal Poetry by Sheila Bender. It put me on the road to a rewarding and exciting relationship. Since then I’ve written scores of poems, collected binder-fulls by others and increased my collection of poetry books from a mere handful to close to 100 (counting all the slim chapbooks with just a few poems in them - but that too proves my still-novice status, as some of my mentors own whole bookshelf-fulls of poetry books).
One of the most growing things I did as a poet was become a member of a loosely organized poetry community. Utmost Christian Writers came online in November 2003, and when web master Nathan Harms set up a forum, I was one of its first members. There we post our work for comment and critique - and do lots of other chatting too of course. Being a part of that community has done more to keep my interest in and love for poetry alive than anything else.
"Love of Fare" came about through interaction on the forum. One day one of the members posted a poem in which the speaker was using food as a substitute for love. She wasn’t happy with the title she’d chosen and asked for suggestions. In jest I suggested "Love of Fare." One of the other forum members let out a hoot (virtual of course) and asked whether he could write a poem using that as a starting point. Of course I gave permission, but then thought, why don’t I take up that challenge too. Here is the poem that resulted. It still expresses pretty closely my relationship with poetry.
LOVE OF FARE
At the poetry fair
verbiage fills the air
as I sample each poet’s concoction
Haiku-rich canapes
free-form salads, parfaits
of thick verse, sonnets baked to perfection
Wine of symbol and sound
liqueur lyrics abound
I’m becoming an addict of diction
Till I stumble around
very drunk on profound
poems that make my head spin in confusion
But wait, here is a booth
of poetic uncouth
Out of place at this fair, my objection
Then I look at the name
and find mine is the same
it’s my very own poetry section
So where are the trays
and the tasty displays
piping hot and fresh-baked for consumption?
What seemed clever and bold
now tastes cliché and cold
bland and lacking in wise introspection
As I’ve wandered this fair
I have gained, tasting here
a fine palate of discrimination
Now to retain my space
in this prestigious place
I’d best spend some more time in the kitchen
- V. Nesdoly
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(By the way, I have my own poetry chapbook for sale. Check out Calendar here.)
Thursday, November 10, 2005
love of fare
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
book review: Bless the Lord
Book: Bless the Lord - The 103rd Psalm
Illustrator: Johannah Bluedorn
Genre: Children’s picture book
ISBN: 1-933228-02-4
Bless The Lord is a visual feast!
In this 32-page hardcover book, Johanna Bluedorn illustrates each line of the 103rd Psalm (King James Version) with original watercolor paintings - thirty in total. The illustration style reminds me of Victoriana with its attention to detail, its use of borders and its decorative touches. But the picture themes are country – home, community and rural scenes, vibrantly depicted against rich backgrounds of brown, blue, green, purple and yellow. The text is set in calligraphy. The book ends with Psalm 103 in song – four pages of music composed by the artist’s father Harvey Bluedorn*.
What I especially like about this book is the way the illustrations expand on the text. These are the kinds of pictures adults and kids alike would enjoy studying – with their ‘find Waldo"-esque type of detail – opening the door to all kinds of discussion possibilities when the book is shared with a child.
The 11 x 8½ -inch pages are printed on sturdy paper – a good thing too, because most copies will probably get lots of use. I also like the fact that the book doesn’t have a dust jacket. Instead the title graphic is superimposed on a collage of four scenes reproduced from inside the book, with another four on the back. The volume is thus not fussy to handle and is handsome enough to sit on any coffee table. My only regret – I don’t have any wee ones around the house right now with whom to share this book’s delights.
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* Find out more about the Bluedorn family here.
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Disclaimer: The book Bless the Lord was sent to me by Mind & Media as a gift from the publisher who donated the books for reviewers.
watchwoman
They shall never hold their peace day or night
You who make mention of the Lord, do not keep silent
And give Him no rest till He establishes
And till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.
Isaiah 62:6,7
When I came to Isaiah 62 in my quiet time reading a few days ago, I also read the sidebar commentary. In a little piece called "Watchfulness and Restlessness: The True Spirit of Prayer" I found a tidy summary of what watchmen are:
They: 1] "...are positioned high on the walls, prayerfully focused... on activities in the city, among nations as well as developments in heaven itself;" 2] (Are) Alert to the character and ways of God, they review His promises which are unfolding both for Jerusalem and for the nations..." and 3] They take stock with a spirit of urgent restlessness, refusing to keep silent before God."
It’s waking up in the middle of the night and ringing up God: Don’t forget my son, and keep Your hand on my mother and touch my sister.
It’s banging on His door throughout the day and firing off emails any time day or night: I need to talk to You about my friend who has cancer. What’s happening between you and the neighbors? And then there’s my country...I’m seeing a lot of things that concern me – and also in my city.
It’s being high maintenance and knowing He doesn’t mind – like calling up a spouse 50 times a day to talk over whatever is on my mind at the moment.
It’s the feeling of well-being when someone says, "Don’t worry, I’ll take care of that...", and settling down, only to realize a minute later, I forgot to mention....and getting on the phone again.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
the martha in me
...did I ever post this poem in my blog? I can't remember. But just now I read ragamuffin diva - where she talks in her most eloquet prose of this exact same thing.
So, here's my version:
The Martha In Me
She (Martha) had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. Luke 10:39,40a
Too often Martha takes charge --
I schedule service with conditions
workboots clomp on everything
threatening my control
I curse the one who's late
ignore the longing in my daughter's eyes to chat
dismiss the women with Watchtower at my door --
not aware I've stamped out
embers of His presence
--while Mary sits confined to a corner of my heart
shaking her head in sadness and disbelief:
Girl, when will you learn
to serve Him you must first
let Him serve you.
You will not hear His zephyr voice
above the drumbeat of agenda
motion's clatter or ambition's roar
Open yourself to interruption, serendipity
stillness. Be flexible, available
to sit down or jump up
at His impractical bidding.
--V. Nesdoly 2003
...now go read ragamuffin!
fiction celebration - window shopping edition
If you love fiction (reading or writing it), here is your invitation to participate in the next Celebration of the New Christian Fiction Carnival. It will be hosted right here at promptings on Tuesday, November 15th.
With Christmas just around the corner, my thought was that November would be a good month to put the spotlight on books or software that you'd recommend to fellow readers or writers. Tell us about fiction you've found irresistible, or software and how-to books that have led you to the next level in creating such irresistible fiction.
In other words, the November Fiction Celebration will be a fictional craft fair and a place to do a little window shopping, in time to get someone else's favorite on your Christmas list -- and hopefully find it under your tree Christmas day!
Of course posts of or about fiction unrelated to the suggestion above are always more than welcome as well!
To enter, email the following:
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- Name of blog
- URL of blog
- title and URL of the post you're submitting
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to me by Sunday November 13th.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
life's little trials
The movers arrived at 9:10 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The load-up was uneventful and we arrived noonish at Mum’s new home about 5 minutes before the truck did. The unload also went smoothly -- until we noticed the bedrail was missing (this is an extra we bought at the medical supply store, not easy to miss and which we'd left on top of her bed in preparation for the movers to load). The mover boys combed the truck, neither remembered seeing it and so we dropped the matter thinking it must have inadvertently been left in the apartment.
About three hours later while helping Mum unpack, I realized the seat cushion for the La-Z-Boy was also missing. We actually saw the movers take this out of the apartment so knew we wouldn’t find it there.
In due course we phoned the moving company about both things and the very personable lady who answers the phone said she'd have more on this the next morning after she’d seen the movers’ filed report. I must admit, though, that after they’d searched the truck twice to find the bedrail when we first discovered it was missing, and it still hadn’t turned up after later after they delivered a few more pieces of furniture to our house, I wasn’t optimistic.
Now we did have insurance so I knew that the cost of replacing the things would be at least partly covered by the movers. The bedrail would be easy to replace - just go to the medical supply store and get a new one. The cushion was another thing altogether. How do you replace a cushion that is upholstered in the exact same fabric as the rest of the chair?
Tuesday night, tired as I was, I had a hard time sleeping. As I lay staring into the dark, my annoyance over those missing things grew and I struggled with resentment, anger and assigning blame.
I also realized that this felt like a bit of a test. It seemed like a test of whether I actually would live out what I say I believe about things like "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God..." (Romans 8:28). So all night when negative thoughts started burning inside me again, I splashed the cold water of praise and thanksgiving on them..."God I know You're in this. I praise You that nothing is out of your control and that You know exactly where those lost things are. If there is some reason why we would need to replace these things, I accept that. If not, I call them back..."
Early Wednesday morning in my devotions, I came to the passage: "It shall come to pass that before they call I will answer; While they are still speaking, I will hear" (Isaiah 65:24). I hugged that to myself as I went into the day.
As I expected, a call to the movers didn’t turn up anything. I was out doing some errands later when the cell phone rang. It was Ernie calling to say he'd phoned the caretaker in Mum's old building and indeed the two items had been left in the foyer! The caretaker had rescued them, not knowing whose they were and would now put them back in mum's apartment for us to pick up. Nice ending!
But alas, I think I’m being tested on trusting God in the not-so-nice things again. I came home from unpacking at Mum's Tuesday night with a sore left arm, which has blossomed into a case of exquisitely painful bursitis of the shoulder. (And this just before a busy weekend and with still a lot of cleaning to do in the old apartment...) I know – I don’t have to, neither will I ever figure out the whys and wherefores of all these little trials of life. For tonight, though, I have a perfect excuse to indulge in a quiet evening at home.
Meanwhile Mum seems to be settling into her new home quite nicely. Tomorrow we’re doing stuff like going to the bank, changing her address at the post office and shopping for a small table.
Monday, October 31, 2005
booo!
According to an article in today’s Writer’s Almanac,
Halloween:
f is the second most popular holiday of the year in the U.S. after Christmas.
j was first a New Year’s Eve celebration, kept by the Celtic people of Northeast Europe.
d became known as All Hallows Eve after Pope Gregory III (8th Century A.D.) made November 1st All Saint’s Day.
k was first brought to the U.S. by Irish Catholics when they immigrated, after the potato famine in the 1840s.
l was first referred to in connection with children going door to door for candy in The Ladies’ Home Journal, 1920.
p finds 92% of U.S. children trick-or-treating by 1999.
I’m just wondering how many adults now take part. In the past few years I’ve noticed a great many more people in costume, in businesses, restaurants etc. And last year some rather large ‘kids’ joined the approximately 100 wee ones who came to our door for their treat!
This year we’re handing out Skittles, Jujubes and Halloween suckers (a sort of molasses toffee which makes my teeth ache) – stuff of which I’m not overly fond, and if left over, we can stuff in the Christmas boxes to orphans that go overseas (vs. chocolate - which I love and is verboten for those boxes).
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Saturday, October 29, 2005
the arc of a life
Closet after closet, cupboard after cupboard, box after box we’ve been tackling Mum’s apartment. We’ve spent many days there, along with helpful siblings. My sis from South Surrey has helped and another came all the way from Fort St. John with her husband in their farm pickup truck. While there last week, we took a whole truck box-full of stuff to MCC, a 60s style stereo set (serious piece of wood furniture) to Value Village and they left with another truck box-full of stuff – chairs, patio furniture, a vintage Singer sewing machine (in its own wood cabinet of course), a tall wood cabinet, a dresser etc. It was a huge help!
By Monday it felt as if we’d finally made progress. I took down all the pictures, emptied stuff still left in some drawers and closets, tidied up the ends. Yesterday we spent the day boxing things like the Tiffany lamp, the microwave and kettle, taping up boxes already packed etc. etc. (when I write it down, it sounds so insignificant, yet somehow we managed to spend hours, busy the whole time – thus the ‘etc.s’). We’ll go again on Monday, the day before the actual move, to make sure that all the boxes and furniture to be moved are labeled, the diningroom table is taken apart, and generally I’m sure we’ll fill up many hours again with "etc."
Of course, after the move, the work isn’t done. Then we need to help Mum unpack in her new place as well as tie up loose ends in the Abby apartment (which we have for one more month). There is furniture for another brother from out of town to take and we’re hoping he comes with a BIIIIG truck so he can take the furniture plus all the boxes we’ve packed for siblings in Saskatchewan. When that stuff is cleared out, we dispose of what’s left (some appliances, more furniture and a lot of kitchen stuff) as best we know how – MCC, here we come - again!
A couple of things I’ve learned through this time:
1. I think now would a good time for me to start going through my own possessions, while my internal junk-meter is still finely tuned.
2. Going through the process of evaluating the detritus of one person’s lifetime has made me more keenly aware than ever of the arc of a life. I’ve handled, in the past days, stuff from every stage of mum’s life – her childhood, youth, falling in love and marrying a man she still adores, busy motherhood days on the farm, Daddy’s death when she was only 61, the ensuing 30 years spent as a single again, filled with hobbies, travel, friends and service....
I’ve seen how wrenching it has been for her to be forced to relinquish treasures – because things are never just glass, ceramic, paper, cloth. To the one who has lived with them, they embody pieces of oneself.
She has tried to leave each child, grandchild and great-grandchild something of herself. This is hard when the recipients aren’t there to pick a thing they would find significant, and those of us who are there demur when she offers us this thing or that, as we work out in our own minds, where it will fit in our own mess of stuff.
This moving business has brought home to me more forcefully than ever:
- Things don’t last or retain their value.
- Some things have value not for the final produce but because of what the process of getting to the final product does for us. For example, Mum used to collect poems and clever sayings and compile them into scrapbooks. I’m not sure what happened to those scrapbooks, but I know I didn’t want them and I’m not sure if anyone did. But that doesn’t mean the effort expended in putting them together was wasted. Because in the process of doing it, Mum was blessed, fulfilled and nurtured in some way and that too has value.
- We come into this world with nothing; we leave with nothing. In between we may amass houses and apartments, dish sets, furniture sets, closets full of clothes, and cupboards full of appliances, tools and books. But each stage after mid-life demands a paring down till we get to the point of next-to-nothing again.
- If all this stuff doesn’t last, if no one wants the things that we feel embody our significance (the crafts we’ve made, teacups and spoons we’ve collected, diaries, journals and books we’ve written, or whatever), does that mean we’re cancelled out?
Of course not. Our significance, in the end, is wrapped up in the mark we leave on lives. In that department, Mum can be pared down to nothing yet the impact she’s made with her values, her creative way of looking at life, her positive attitude and the set of beliefs by which she’s lived will reverberate in the lives of her dozens and dozens of friends and through the generations of her family. I hope that someday the same thing can be said about me.
Friday, October 28, 2005
Thursday, October 27, 2005
poetry carnival!
...it's coming, on October 30th, hosted by Poetic-Acceptance.
Enter something (but hurry - deadline is October 29th at noon)! Entry instructions are here.
hat tip: Catez
Langley Woods
Langley Woods
Peacock ferns Eden-lush
draw us into the dim, cedar-canopied wood.
Uprooted trunks sprawl, branches arc,
snapped limbs leap in frozen pirouettes.
Slim apparitions forever grope, reach, grasp
a menagerie of many appendaged moon monsters
sculpted from dripping filigree
and moss macrame.
Victim of the spell
in mother's warning
If you frown like that
your face will stay that way!
the forest's pose is fixed.
But time has softened the arboreal grimace
muffled the keening of the wind
with hangings of verdant chenille,
knitted blankets, sweaters
hats and gloves of lime angora
for the slumbering
arms, stumps and claws.
c. Violet Nesdoly 2004
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
blog success? come out of the fog
I have come late, as usual, to an interesting blogosphere discussion.
This one on Catez's blog Allthings2all is on whether one’s blog is successful or not. It specifically asked for comments addressing "What is a successful blog?" and "Are you a successful blogger?"
As is often the case, I left the site (after reading the post and all 28 comments) thinking pretty much everything had been said on the matter. Later though, I realized something was bothering me; something was missing from that discussion. Let me try to tell you what I think it is.
Let’s start by looking at the word ‘success.’ Success is defined "a favorable or desired outcome of something attempted." Successful is: "obtaining what one desires or intends." Both of these definitions contain the idea of something attempted, desired, intended. Implicit in the concept of ‘success,’ then, is aiming at something, attempting to reach a target, intending to realize a purpose.
You can apply this component of what successful means when evaluating your blog and yourself as a blogger. Here’s how in three steps:
1. Start by listing your purpose or purposes for blogging. You may have one or many.
Here, for example, are some common purposes:
- To keep in touch with family.
- To share the good news of Jesus with people who have no Judeo-Christian background.
- To converse with colleagues in an area of interest (e.g. homeschooling, writing, photography, theology etc.)
- To provide a Christian perspective to world events.
And of course, once you get involved in the blogosphere, you probably very quickly realize that in order to achieve any or all of the above, you also want to
- Increase traffic to your blog.
2. Now in order to achieve these purposes, you need to set goals for each purpose you have listed.
What are goals? Dr. Mark Lee, in an old book I pulled off my bookshelf ('How to Set Goals'), describes two main differences between goals and purposes:
i] A goal is a specific action, whereas a purpose is not.
ii] A goal is a measurable action, whereas a purpose is general.
With these two criteria in mind, here are some goals you could set, for example, to realize the purpose of keeping in touch with family:
i] Put up a weekly post about something related to the family.
ii]. Email family members immediately after posting, alerting them to the update and giving them the post url.
iii] Immediately change your email signature to include your blog URL and always use it in family emails.
Now go through the same goal-setting process with each of your purposes – making sure each goal is specific and measurable.
3. Evaluate. Set up a time frame in which you will evaluate whether or not you have lived up to your goals. Dr. Lee says: "A time frame is the clearest factor in measuring success or failure in goals."
For the keeping-in-touch-with-family purpose, after six months of blogging, say, you can go back into your blog archives and see - did you, in fact, post something family-related once weekly. The email to family thing is something you could note at the time you send the emails - if you’re serious about this, and whether or not your email signature includes your blog URL is easy to check.
If you have five blogging purposes and after your six-month evaluation you see you’ve achieved the goals you listed in all bit one of them, there’s nothing foggy or touchy-feely about it – your blog and you are 80% successful.
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
anne tyler
Happy Birthday!
Hat tip to my daily edition of The Writer’s Almanac, which informs me that today is her 64th.
Tyler is one of my favorite writers. She is a master (or would that be ‘mistress’?) of description, especially of people. Two books of hers I own are The Accidental Tourist and Saint Maybe. I've also read Ladder of Years.
I was surprised to read "...she grew up in a series of utopian Quaker communes, where she was home schooled and isolated from the modern world....She first attended public school at the age of 11 (that would be in 1952), and her classmates were amazed that she’d never used a phone. "
The brief bio goes on to say of the present-day Tyler: "...she decided she didn’t want to be a public person. She never goes on book tours or speaks on talk shows, and if she answers any questions form journalists, she only does so in writing."
Also quoted is the beginning paragraph of her novel Back When We Were Grownups:
"Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person. She was fifty-three years old by then—a grandmother. Wide and soft and dimpled, with two short wings of dry, fair hair flaring almost horizontally from a center part. Laugh lines at the corners of her eyes. A loose and colorful style of dress edging dangerously close to Bag Lady. Give her credit. Most people her age would say it was too late to make any changes."
I’ve not read this one, but I think I want to!
Sunday, October 23, 2005
party on!
A short item on the news tonight grabbed my attention. Apparently there’s a new brand of tools out there, designed just for women and being marketed through – you guessed it – parties!!
So if you’ve joined the trend of do-it-yourself women, if you’ve lately fantasized about owning your very own plumbing kit, drywall kit or drill bit set (in beautiful colors, ergonomically designed to fit your smaller hands with lots of rubber grip to assist in ‘torque’ -- and I'll bet to guard against breaking a nail), or if it’s simply a matter of your friends being maxed out in the Tupperware, Mary Kay, Party Lites, Pampered Chef etc. department, check out Tomboy Tools.
Of course, I wouldn’t know much about home renovation – judging by these words. Neither would my husband, judging by the trickling toilet tank and the bathroom faucet that’s been leaking now for about a year. So I’m thinking the description of what they do at these parties (besides pushing tools) – "learn drywall and plaster repair, leaky faucet and toilet repair"– sounds pretty good. Hmm, I wonder if the hostess earns bonus credits when she's the one providing that leaky faucet and toilet for demonstration? (But then, what would I do with those credits anyway!)
Saturday, October 22, 2005
six home remedies?!
1. If you are choking on an ice cube, don't panic. Simply pour a cup of boiling water down your throat and presto. The blockage will be almost instantly removed.
2. Clumsy? Avoid cutting yourself while slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop away.
3. For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer.
4. A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button.
5. Have a bad toothache? Smash your thumb with a hammer and you will forget about the toothache.
6. For life, only two tools are needed: WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape.
(Hat tip: sis-in-law Marilyn for these useful hints.)
Friday, October 21, 2005
chewing on the news
Do you have sense of things on our planet getting increasingly worse? I don’t believe this is just my imagination. In fact Wednesday night on the 6:00 o’clock news (Global version) a sidebar feature they call ‘insight’ was exactly on this topic.
I was not surprised when they explored it by talking to several ‘experts’ - a woman from the Suzuki foundation, a professor from some university. They blamed the usual things: global warming, the fragility of the planet, the imprint of humanity, and how we need to smarten up and change our ways before it’s too late.
Of course, if one studies the science of it, there is a sense in which some of the natural disasters – the hurricanes and tropical storms for example – can be laid at the feet environmental conditions arising (perhaps) out of man’s activity, and resulting in things like global warming. (I have not studied this, just hear the rhetoric of both sides and know that in the popular media, the theory of global warming is definitely winning.)
As a student of the Bible, however, I see this acceleration of cataclysmic events (which includes natural disasters which man’s activity is less likely to precipitate – like earthquakes) in an entirely different way. It is predicted: "For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in place after place; All this is but the beginning – the early pains of the birth pangs – of the intolerable anguish." (Matthew 24:7,8 Amplified).
Which leaves me with a sense of urgency. I have the feeling that the days of living life as I’ve known it, are numbered. I need to be aware of not wasting time. Of not being lulled into indifference or false security because, at this time, my world hasn’t been rocked by an earthquake swept away by a storm surge, or shriveled up in drought.
So keeping in mind this urgency, what, if anything, do I do differently? Here are a few things that come to mind:
1. I need to live with an awareness of the times I’m in, so that I am not surprised or taken off guard by what is happening and will accelerate in the days ahead. I need to expect the times I’m living in to impact me – if not in a natural disaster way, in a societal way.
The Bible tells me that believing in God, Jesus, the words of the Bible will become increasingly unpopular: "Then they will hand you over to suffer affliction and tribulation, and put you to death; and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake...etc. (Matthew 24: 9 and following).
2. I need to live with the awareness that my days on earth are limited. A corollary of that is that I want to maximize the days I have left. In that department, it’s important I have right priorities.
And how do I get right priorities?
One way, I believe, is to make it my mission to discover why I was put on earth and then live that destiny. This thread – of discovering my destiny – has run through much of my life and is perhaps why I chose as my life verse for 2005, Ephesians 2:10: "For we are God’s own handiwork, His workmanship, recreated in Christ Jesus, born anew that we may do those good works which God predestined, planned before hand for us, taking paths which He prepared ahead of time – living the good life which He pre-arranged and made ready for us to live" (Amplified).
I translate the discovering and living of my destiny into shoe leather in several ways:
- I tell God my intention and trust Him to guide me. Here’s a fabulous verse that explains how that can happen: "Roll your works upon the Lord – commit and trust them wholly to Him; [He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will and] so shall your plans be established and succeed." Proverbs 16:3 Amplified.
- As the above verse implies, I may have as part of the ‘works’ that I roll upon God, thoughts which include goals, plans, and strategies. I don’t, after all, live mindlessly, waiting for life to happen to me. But I do constantly remind myself to hang onto those things – those agendas – loosely, ready at a moment’s notice to relinquish what I’d planned, to be as resilient as Philip, who obeyed when "...an angel of the Lord said, 'Go south to the road...'" and after he’d completed his assignment of bringing the message of Jesus to the Ethiopian traveler, found himself ‘suddenly taken away’ (Acts 8:26-40).
Wednesday, October 19, 2005
first blogaversary
Today is my first blogaversary!
Other FIRSTS:
- blog read regularly (before I ever started my blog): The Master’s Artist
- post: about meeting author Jim Coggins at the Fraser Valley Writers Group.
- comment: from John the Stepdad (thanks John! That was such an encouragement.)
- comment from a celebrity - just a few days ago by Bob Bennett (the actual singer-songwriter) on this post. Moral of the story: Always be nice: you never know when your words will come back to bite you!
- Christian carnival entry: "gay nutials: what WOULD Jesus do?"
- trackback - from Dory at Wittenberg Gate (I wasn’t even sure, at the time, what a trackback was!) Thanks Dory!
- most popular picture (like a shrine, it gets visited several times a month – and I wonder by whom, and why...).
post FAVORITES:
- the night my daughter got engaged
- her wedding (1,2)
- our travels this summer (sidebar)
DISCOVERIES in one year of blogging...
About writing a blog:
- it’s a different kind of writing than, say, writing an article for print.
- shorter is usually better (yeah, and will I ever learn?!)
- I really appreciate comments and try to respond to them.
- it’s often still scary to me, even after writing 400+ posts.
About reading others’ blogs:
- There are a lot of really good writers out there.
- Each wonderful blog listed in my blogroll resonates with me in some way (I’d say blogging is at least 80% about voice – too many great voices out there to read them all). Reading blogs is a lot like eating food: on any particular day read what I’m ‘hungry’ for.
- I couldn’t care less if you don’t reciprocate and put me on your sidebar just because you’re on mine. (I understand: It’s not personal, it’s blogging!)
- My blogroll is usually not up-to-date.
- I don’t have time to read blogs every day.
Regrets:
- that I don’t write more about God and my faith. Some of the blogs I read do that and I find myself attracted to them. I’ve thought of giving my blog more of a devotional theme (but I'm too much of a fan of miscellany) or adding a little spiritual tack-on to each post (but though I appreciate when others do that, for me it would feel phony).
So if you haven't picked it up, I want you to know - my relationship with God is the sun around which my life revolves. It is such an integral part of me that perhaps I take it for granted (like my relationship to my husband – which I don’t often talk about but which is foundational to my life and well-being). Also, it is deeply personal and at times I sense myself cringing away from putting it on public display.
However, if there is one thing I want to be aware of in the days of blogging ahead, it is to not squander the opportunity of my blog being a part of obeying my Master’s last words on earth.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
story time!
October's Celebration of Christian Fiction Carnival is up at Christian Fiction Blog - a well-laid-out buffet of twenty-five eight stories in all. Check it out!
