Fiber Arts Friday – Gone to the Dogs
Three weeks ago, I brought a new presence into my life and house. I’d been thinking of adopting another dog for awhile. It’s been over ten years since my dog, Boz, died. I’d fallen in love with Scrubs, my friend Tom Skinner’s PTSD service dog, and began to think that, now that I wasn’t on the road as much as I was in my previous job, it would be good to have doggy energy and companionship in my world again. I began haunting the Eau Claire County Humane Association’s website, looking at dog pictures and reading their stories. I went out one day to see a beautiful year-old black lab. He about took my arm off when we walked and I realized he was too much dog for me at this point in my life. They let me go back into the kennel and get to know the other dogs. Two had come in that weren’t on the website yet, an adorable pug and the little girl on the right. They say she’s Cairn Terrier mixed with who-knows-what. The vet thinks … Continue reading
Fiber Arts Friday – Unfinished Business
My friend Anna at Not Knapping tagged me on Facebook this morning and suggested I jump into the water as part of Fiber Arts Friday, in which a group of people who create with fiber – knitters, crocheters, spinners, dyers, weavers, and so on – blog about their creating. Projects might be in the contemplation stage. They might be just begun, part-way through, or finished. It’s a celebration of creativity, the moment, and shared interest. I’m in. Right now, I have some confusion in my knitting life. Tucked in various corners of my house are a couple of abandoned knitting projects, one in repair, one that feels stuck, one ready to start, and a stash of patterns and yarn waiting to be matched up. I have a gallery of finished projects, most of which I’ve said goodbye to and sent on their way to the people for whom I made them. It’s a metaphor for my life, I think. I’m always running in a few directions at once. There are always so many possibilities, so many interesting and creative things to … Continue reading
If You Were a Building . . .
A fellow coach posted this question in a Facebook group of coaches: “If you were an iconic building, which one would you be and what would that say about your identity in the world?”First off, let me just say that I’m terrible at “If you were a _______, what would you be?” As a Scanner, I have a hard time picking just one thing. I always hear, even if it’s not stated, an implied understanding that I could only ever pick one thing, and that would have to be my choice for all time. I can’t possibly choose between so many fabulous options. This time I gave myself a different permission. Here’s what I wrote:First I have to remember that the question only has to be “Which iconic building would you be right now.” It doesn’t have to be the one I’d pick to be forever and ever. Ok. Permission granted. So what just popped into my head for right now? Lambeau Field. Now, I’ll have to think about what that says. If you’re a Green Bay Packer fan, you might not … Continue reading
You Have to Know So Many Things
“Don’t let them ruin her.” — My kindergarten teacher, talking to my mom. “It’s so hard. You have to know so many things to be a good girl.” — A friend’s three-year-old daughter, after he told her why it wasn’t a good idea to throw books at people. (She’d chucked her book at him after storytime, leaving him with a nice bruise or two on his forehead, but I digress.) Pebbles with cowboyboots. What’s not tolove? This three-year-old has been the source of a huge number of wise, insightful, hilarious, and beyond-her-years quotations since she has been able to talk. Her dad posts them regularly to the internet group which is the only context for our acquaintance. I’ve followed her journey since before she was born. Her parents are marvelous chroniclers, and there have been pictures and stories galore. I feel as though I know her better than some of the children I’ve met in “meatspace.” Joy. Just joy. What I’ve seen in her through all the photos and all the stories and all her amazing quotable quotes is an … Continue reading
Scanners and Divers
I love to scan the wide horizon in Georgian Bay. I read a Facebook exchange the other day in which the participants were mentioning being “scanners” instead of “divers”. I didn’t have much time to look carefully then, but the terms stayed with me and I got curious. A little web searching led me to a book by Barbara Sher called Refuse to Choose. Sher directs her work at those people who say they can never stick to anything, have trouble picking something to focus on, don’t went to choose a major because to do so means you can’t pick all the other things that fascinate you, don’t seem to find the one career path that will keep them happy. She says that many of these people are likely “Scanners”, people who in another age might have been called Renaissance Souls, people who are fascinated by so many things that they can rarely bring themselves to focus on just one. They approach learning about something with great enthusiasm, and then, when they have learned what they want to about that … Continue reading
The Tormentor
I’ve been working out with Dawn the Tormentor fairly consistently for the last four years. Look at her, over there on the right. She looks dangerous, powerful, deadly — right? She’s great, of course, despite her having tried to kill me approximately twice a week for four years. I may be the only person who hired a trainer and then gained weight for two years. Dawn never gave up on me, though. Even through those two years, she called upon me to ask things of my body that I thought were long past it. She adjusted when my feet were killing me because of plantar fasciitis or when my hips or back were out or my neck had a pinched nerve. She never let up on me, but she adjusted my workouts, went with the flow, thought of new things. She pressed me to do more than I thought I could without ever making me do more than I should. There were days when I left the gym after half an hour when I thought my legs had turned to … Continue reading
Risen Christ vs. Zombie Jesus
May 1, 2011 | Second Sunday of Easter Year A 1 Peter 1:3-9, John 20:19-31 I’ll be the first to confess that I have missed a fair number of popular culture memes. I try to stay on top of things, but I’m often pretty much behind the curve. So I was late, for example, on vampires. I read one of Anne Rice’s books, but didn’t really get the appeal. And I never got to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer until after the series was over. I fell in love with it and ended up buying it on DVD. And although some of my online friends were talking about zombies a couple of years ago, and sending pictures of the makeup and costumes they been putting together for zombie parties, I didn’t get it. Apparently, zombies have had a resurgence in popular culture in recent years. I’d seen hints. I’d seen a hint of it in a book called Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, A sort of “Mr. Darcy meets the undead” thing. Now if you are a fan of Jane … Continue reading
A Resurrection Stand for Life and Hope
John 20:1-18 Easter Sunday, Year A This is the day. This is the day that God has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day that for me is the day is essential to Christianity. This is Easter day. Resurrection Day. Years ago I was in discussion with a friend who wasn’t sure it mattered whether the resurrection really happened. She said “It doesn’t affect my faith one way or the other if it was a historical event.” I disagreed. I believed then as I do today that without the resurrection, there would be no Christian faith. Without Easter, there is no reason for Jesus to have been anything other than a preacher, a prophet, a rabble-rouser who was crucified by the Romans. Without Easter, there is no reason for Paul and Peter to take the message of Jesus Christ the world outside Jerusalem and Israel. Without Easter, there is no reason for the church. Easter for me was the day I went to church. When I was a child we went to church a … Continue reading
Starting Over
Several years ago I started a blog with no real focus that almost no one read unless they stumbled across it. And why should they? Months, even years, would go by without a post. As I move into a period of transition in my personal and work life, I hope to use this blog as a way to ponder the work of transformation. Change is inevitable. At its transformative best, it is life-giving. At its worst, it is life-destroying. I prefer to concentrate on the former.
