boy, things have been crazy here. i've never had so many details floating around in my head at once before. i'll list them out for you because i know how fascinating this information is.
1) chris and i tore apart our upstairs hallway and guest bedroom - took down plaster, put up drywall, fixed the wiring, primed, painted, installed new trim, sanded and polyurethaned the floors. (some of that's not done yet but within the next few days it will be)
2) as a result the rest of our house is covered in dust and is in general disarray and must be cleaned because of #3.
3) my (very tidy, some might say "neat freak") g-ma and my mom are coming to visit in one week (which i'm really very excited for - i love those ladies).
4) we leave for PAPA fest in 2 weeks and from there, we start our month long "jesus for president" tour.
5) i'm planning and managing said tour and so am receiving and sending about a million emails a day, organzing supplies for a month long bus ride, figuring out our route, thinking through and keeping track of finances and lots of other boring details. ooh. that reminds me, i need to get a house sitter.
yikes.
so, in the very least of all the things you could do for me, outside of prayer, please visit the website and see if we're coming near you. and if so, come see me and hug me and rub my shoulders.
5/29/08
5/14/08
the business of being born
i have been waiting f o r e v e r to receive the newish documentary "the business of being born" and it came yesterday!!!!
chris and i watched it together - we may or may not be interested in starting a little family ;) so i was looking forward to it. i've been hearing so much about it and the film lived up to its reputation for sure. it was beautiful and heart breaking and enraging... and honestly, a little scary. the maternal mortality and the neonatal mortality rates in the united states are staggering compared to other developed countries - that's because our health care system (and our people) treat pregnancy, labor and delivery as illnesses, as something to be treated, medicated and numbed. other countries allow midwives to attend normal, healthy births as they've done for thousands and thousands of years... we hand mothers over to surgeons - just to have a baby!
as enraging and scary as the material presented is, the movie is also so hopeful. it paints a picture of how birth can be. and birth can be, of course, painful, messy, scary (human) but also empowering, natural, and happy. it paints a whole new picture of the scripture "and women shall find salvation in the pains of childbirth...".
salvation:salve:healing:wholeness - definitely.
bring it back home...
this weekend the community visited the "great outdoors". it was melissa's birthday so we stayed in a yurt in swartswood state park. it was my first time sleeping in a yurt and it was pretty great. what wasn't great was that what should have been a 2 hour drive to this state park became almost 5 hours! with the friday traffic and getting lost a few times we (i) almost gave up and turned around. but in the end we had a wonderful time.
on saturday morning we headed to bellvale community (bruderhof) in new york. they were hosting a day of workshops, conversation, dance, music and food focusing on "bringing it back home". in an increasingly chaotic and disconnected (homeless) world the point was to focus on simple (subversive) things like gardening, weaving, taking care of our children and families, tree tending and caring for animals (chickens, sheep, goats etc) that give us a sense of home - and DIY.
i always feel... well, at home when i'm at one of these communities. yeah, people dress weird and have funny accents (just kidding) but their sense of community, of belonging to a people, is so radical and so comforting that by the end i hate to leave. i cannot stress enough how wonderful and even life changing it is to visit these communities. do it!
church communities international, formerly known as the bruderhof, began in nazi germany and were eventually kicked out because they wouldn't allow themselves to be penetrated by the third reich. they were pacifists and barred the nazi's from the classrooms they taught in. no country would taken them until finally paraguay did. they have since settled all over the world in rural and urban communities. they are anabaptist in denomination and nature and the way they follow jesus is astounding. they would be embarrassed reading this.
anyway, read "homage to a broken man" for their full story and for goodness sake, go visit them!
on saturday morning we headed to bellvale community (bruderhof) in new york. they were hosting a day of workshops, conversation, dance, music and food focusing on "bringing it back home". in an increasingly chaotic and disconnected (homeless) world the point was to focus on simple (subversive) things like gardening, weaving, taking care of our children and families, tree tending and caring for animals (chickens, sheep, goats etc) that give us a sense of home - and DIY.
i always feel... well, at home when i'm at one of these communities. yeah, people dress weird and have funny accents (just kidding) but their sense of community, of belonging to a people, is so radical and so comforting that by the end i hate to leave. i cannot stress enough how wonderful and even life changing it is to visit these communities. do it!
church communities international, formerly known as the bruderhof, began in nazi germany and were eventually kicked out because they wouldn't allow themselves to be penetrated by the third reich. they were pacifists and barred the nazi's from the classrooms they taught in. no country would taken them until finally paraguay did. they have since settled all over the world in rural and urban communities. they are anabaptist in denomination and nature and the way they follow jesus is astounding. they would be embarrassed reading this.
anyway, read "homage to a broken man" for their full story and for goodness sake, go visit them!
5/4/08
our backyard
chris and i are so excited about our little veggies growing in our backyard! we wanted to share some pictures.
we're growing roma tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, radishes, carrots, green beans, broccoli, kale and collards.
this is chris watering our little veggies.
garlic.
this is lucy by our stove. she just got yelled at for walking in our veggie patch.
happy planting.
we're growing roma tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, radishes, carrots, green beans, broccoli, kale and collards.
this is chris watering our little veggies.
garlic.
this is lucy by our stove. she just got yelled at for walking in our veggie patch.
happy planting.
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