Archive for July, 2006

You can move my sky, but you can’t take it away (Raquel)

Yes, I’m mixing metaphors in this post. It’s working for me though, so you’re just going to have to live with it.

Sometime between turning out my light last night and getting up this morning a phrase started percolating in my brain. I’m not sure where it came from, but it got stuck in my head. “You can’t take my dreams from me.”

 Over the course of the day it morphed into “You can’t take my sky from me.” It means the same thing, and that way I got to sing the Firefly theme song repeatedly. :-)  This then merged with the book Who Moved My Cheese? to become, “You can move my sky, but you can’t take it away from me.”

  Alright, so my sky got moved. Yesterday was my last Sunday at Redeemer. It seems as though taking the trouble to be myself, to stop hiding in my corner, and to get know people was wasted effort. Part of me really doesn’t want to try again.

 But somehow it’s different if I’m reaching for the sky than if I’m just muddling around and never getting anywhere.

 You can move my sky. You can tell me that I’ll never reach it no matter how hard I try. You might even be right. But you can’t ever take my sky away from me.

Voice of Truth (Raquel)

 I cried when I heard this song. It’s almost a perfect fit for my life right now… except it feels more like I already got dragged over the side of the boat and I’m desperately trying to just keep my head above water, so of course I’m failing at everything else I should be doing.

 I knew there was something wrong with this train of thought. I just couldn’t quite refute it until I listened to this song.

 

“Voice of Truth”

Oh what I would do to have
The kind of faith it takes
To climb out of this boat I’m in
on to the crashing waves

To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown where Jesus is
And He’s holding out His hand

But the waves are calling out my name
And they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times
I’ve tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
Time and time again. “Boy, you’ll never win!”
“You’ll never win!”

Chorus:
But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story
The Voice of Truth says, “Do not be afraid!”
And the Voice of Truth says, “This is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth

Oh what I would do to have
The kind of strength it takes
to stand before a giant
With just a sling and a stone

Surrounded by the sound of a thousand warriors
Shaking in their armor
Wishing they’d have had the strength to stand

But the giant’s calling out my name
And he laughs at me
Reminding me of all the times
I’ve tried before and failed
The giant keeps on telling me
Time and time again. “Boy you’ll never win!”
“You’ll never win!”

Chorus:
But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story
The Voice of Truth says, “Do not be afraid!”
And the Voice of Truth says, “This is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth

But the stone was just the right size
To put the giant on the ground
And the waves they don’t seem so high
On top of them lookin’ down
I soar with the wings of EAGLES
When I stop and listen to the sound of Jesus
Singing over me

Chorus:
But the Voice of Truth tells me a different story
The Voice of Truth says, “Do not be afraid!”
And the Voice of Truth says, “This is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me (calling out to me)
I will choose to listen and believe-

I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of Truth

I will listen and believe
I will listen and believe the Voice of truth
I will listen and believe
Cause Jesus you are the voice of truth
And I will listen to you, you are-

Casting Crowns– “Voice of Truth” 

Dinner at Lansberry’s (Gabrielle)

Last night we hid from the heat and humidity in the blessedly air conditioned Lansberry dining room. We ate a meat and rice dish that I am pretty sure is called Meat and Rice Dish, applesauce and some of the best cooked carrots I have ever eaten. I never used to like cooked carrots, but lately whenever I have some I can’t get enough of them. Theresa and I kept passing the carrot dish back and forth, though I think I was the one who ended up eating the last one. We talked about Game night, Justice fussed, Seth told a funny story that required several minutes more than it should have due to interruptions and side conversations, and James kept getting confused about whether something had happened that day or the day before. There were no water fights, but James did threaten to put applesauce in Raquel’s hair at one point. It would have been a shame if he had because it was really good applesauce. The children ran off and played, Noah tried to climb out a window and Seth and Crystal had to walk down to our house-to-be to get some paperwork signed. Hopefully, prayerfully, we will soon be just down the street. The countdown has started. Two to three weeks-ish and counting.

A Vase of Duct Tape (Raquel)

 I’ve been looking for something blogworthy for a couple of weeks now. I’ve had a lot of life going on, but most of it was not worth posting for various reasons. Life is feeling calmer this week. Still, I haven’t come up with any really interesting blog post beyond the ones that I’ve had half formed for months on end and may or may not eventually get around to posting. Then last night Jeremy handed me a blog post on a platter. To be more literal, he handed me a blog post in a vase.

 Last night Jeremy brought me duct tape roses. While I was, in fact, quite pleased, I must say this was not a situation I had ever encountered in my life before. No one ever told the procedure for accepting a vase of duct tape roses.

 None of the ettiquette books I’ve read ever mentioned duct tape flowers. I know what violets and daisies are in the language of flowers, but I’ve never seen anyone translate duct tape flowers. Even the courtship stories I’ve read, which are sometimes pretty far off the beaten path, fail to mention duct tape flowers.

 But somehow it seems to fit. My life has taken a very weird turn the past couple of months. We’re leaving Redeemer to join another church. (Just to add to the oddness factor, this other church meets in the old Samaritan building–you know, the one where I used to have to file papers in the filing cabinets just outside the men’s bathroom.) The Ben-Ezra’s are moving soon. And I’m being courted by Jeremy who just kind of showed up out of nowhere a few months ago.

 I knew about some of this when I made my tongue-in-cheek prediction of a very normal summer. Maybe I should have expected life to be even more crazy than I knew it had to be. Maybe I should have known that for this to be a really good summer it was also going to have to be a hard summer. In my first post this year I said, “I’m not actually sure where the stressful leaves off and the good starts.” It still applies.

 Two and half years ago I had a high school graduation that involved eating bologna sandwiches for breakfast. Now here I am in the middle of a crazy, bizzare, stressful, and very, very normal summer, and last night Jeremy brought me duct tape roses. That just about sums it up.

My Very First John Wayne Western (Gabrielle)

Raquel and I were talking about community one day and we agreed that to have a community you all to have some things in common. Specifically, we were talking about shared media because often times when the Lansberry-Mutton-Ben-Ezra clan gets together we end up talking about movies or books or music. Raquel and I have no music in common, a few books and it feels like fewer movies. So Raquel had this idea for us to start exchanging our favorite movies. I would watch one of her movies and she would watch one of mine. So last night I watched my very first John Wayne western.

Rio Bravo was not my first John Wayne movie of all time. I’ve seen The Quiet Man, though I wonder if that really counts because I saw the first half of it and then about eight months later saw the whole thing on St. Patrick’s Day at a nifty little theatre. And it doesn’t count as a John Wayne western because it wasn’t a western. So I will count Rio Bravo as my very first John Wayne western.

What did I think of it?, you ask. Well, I thought it was really funny, though I am not sure how much of it was supposed to be funny. John Wayne just cracks me up because he is so famous and he can’t act. Or maybe he can act, but he’s always acting like John Wayne. In The Quiet Man  he’s a retired boxer returning to his roots in Ireland. In Rio Bravo he’s a county sheriff and yet they both looked, talked, walked and fell in love with the romantic interest like John Wayne. And as for the romantic interest it was really funny watching John Wayne and some famous woman I’ve never heard of interact, but I kept hoping the recovering drunk would get the girl. He couldn’t, of course, because he isn’t John Wayne and John Wayne always gets the girl. I liked the supporting characters very much, but I can’t help feeling that the it would have been a better movie without John Wayne.

I won’t even bother giving it stars. That isn’t the point of this post. I can’t tell if it was a good movie or not or even if by itself it was an enjoyable movie or not. I enjoyed the movie immensely because I watched it with Raquel and we laughed together. And now I can talk about a John Wayne movie with her and that was the whole point of this little adventure. And next time it’s my turn. (evil laugh)

Haiku of the Day (Raquel)

 One of the interesting parts of writing haiku is that they tend to become a lot more broad than I meant them to be. This one started out as a haiku about the Ben-Ezras moving to a new house; now it just sounds like life.

 

time slips away–
make a few last memories here
while we can 

The Things We Take For Granted (Gabrielle)

I find it amazing what people take for granted. And, mind, I’m not talking about things like food, warmth, shelter. I’m talking about things like standing. This morning I woke up, rolled over several times and then stood up. This was not a big deal, there was no fanfare, no cheers. If I had asked for fanfare everyone would have looked at me funny and assumed I was joking. So standing isn’t that big of a deal. But last night Crystal spent several minutes just watching Justice stand. And what’s more she would cheer when he did it. “Yay! Justice is standing!” And he was all proud of himself because now he could chew on the table.

Okay, so it’s a big deal for him because he hasn’t been standing for that long. But when Justice sits down from a standing position even I feel a cheer somewhere inside my cold, callous exterior. See, I’ve heard many times that children can get stuck standing. They know how to get up, but they don’t know how to get down. That makes me laugh every time I think about it. A baby stands and surveys the world. He chews on the crib rail, plots world domination and contemplates how a nice, warm, liquid meal would go down right now. About this point he realizes his legs are getting tired. And then he realizes he’s stuck. The child doesn’t know how to get down. Here is where I chuckle a bit because down is always easier then up. Up you are fighting against the pull of Earth’s gravity, but down is simple. You don’t even have to work for it. Simply let go of what ever you are clinging to for dear life and, boom, you’re down. But a baby can’t seem to grasp this very simple thought. And so I’ve had to go upstairs and rescue Justice. Yes, rescue the child. Was he being attacked? Was he stuck on the roof? No, he was standing. He was standing and got stuck. It still makes me laugh.

So last night I watched Crystal goo over her son standing. And then I watched as he tentatively lower his bum towards the Earth. It would always take him two tries to find Earth because he couldn’t rest his bottom and stand at the same time. About halfway through he would get scared and pop back up. But then the call of our Earth would get too much and he would start lowering his bum again. Eventually he would just let go and, plop, he was sitting. After the cheers and fanfare ended I would see little fingers appear on the table and we would go through the whole routine again.

I think next time I stand up people should cheer. It would help me appreciate this standing thing and keep me from taking it for granted. And if I manage to make it back down to the ground I think we should throw a party.  Okay, ready? I’m about to stand up. I expect cheers.

 

Tales From the Trip (Gabrielle)

Well, I actually survived our trip. For a moment there I wasn’t sure I was going to. And that was when we had only been driving for about two hours on the way to Erie. There is far too much that went on this past week for me to write a blow-by-blow account, but as the week went along I had these moments when I thought, “I have to remember that. That should go into a blog post.” And so I shall now attempt to remember the bulk of these moments.

First, I have to believe now that the children think we adults have this massive interest in garbage. When we first got in the van Crystal told the children to be very careful to pass all of their garbage forward so that we could make sure it got thrown out. To their credit the children were very careful to obey. They would pass forward any stray bit of garbage that came their way with a cheery, “Here Titi Gaby, garbage!” and I would say Thank You and put the garbage in the bag. I would almost laugh sometimes because it was as if they were giving me a gift. It was like that on the way there and more so on the way back.

We stayed the week at my sister Adiel’s house. She and her family live in the house I have spent most of my life in. I was glad to find that staying there wasn’t half as weird as I thought it would be. This was the third time I’ve stayed in the house since it became theirs and it looks different enough inside that I don’t feel like I’m back in my childhood home, but the outside is still very much the same. I walked up the front stairs in my barefeet and felt safe. It felt right on my feet. This was how stairs and sidewalk were supposed to feel. In some backwater part of my head I filed that feeling under the title “Home”.

I think it was on Friday that Adiel mentioned how surprised she was that her house didn’t explode from the combined cuteness of Lily, Malachi, Noah and Justice. Each child is adorable on his own, but when you put them together the cuteness ratio just goes through the roof. Lily, who’s about three, kept running up to me with her curly hair bouncing, pointing at Justice and saying “He’s so cute! So cute!” Noah and Malachi, who’s about two, would stand next to each other and have two year old conversations. Noah would say, “Tigger!” and Malachi would respond “Yeah.” Then they would both nod sagely. At some point on Monday they were both outside and they went to where a pinata had been hung Saturday and Malachi pointed and said, “Up dere.” and Noah looked and said, “Yeah.” And then Monday evening I came into the backporch to find Noah organizing a jailbreak. He was outside holding the door open for Malachi. Malachi was halfway out the door sucking on his thumb when I showed up and dragged them both inside. After breakfast one day Justice was roaming around the living room and he pulled himself up on a stool. When Malachi tried to climb on the stool Adiel told him to be careful because the baby was there. About that point Noah wandered into the living room and Malachi stood between Noah and Justice and yelled, “No!” He put both hands on Noah’s chest and pushed him to make sure Noah couldn’t get to Justice. We got pictures of the two boys together and I am still surprised the camera did not explode trying to hold the cuteness of it all.

Around Saturday I started coughing deep in my chest. By Sunday I was a mess. I was horribly over-tired and my cough was hurting my chest and throat. I took a nap and then we went to my sister Elizabeth’s house. I didn’t really wake up until sometime after dinner when Seth and Crystal took the children home to put the to bed. They were going to come back and then we were all going to watch a movie. While they were gone I curled up on Tom and Elizabeth’s sofa and tried not to cough. After she cleaned up from dinner Bebeth came in and fussed over me. She brought me Vick’s vapor rub, some zinc cough drops and kept making me tea. She sent Olympia, her daughter wo’s about five, to get me a tissue box and then we sat and Tom showed me a really sad episode of an Anime show they both really like. I don’t know the characters well enough to know why it was really sad when one of them died, but when his daughter is standing at his grave demanding to know why they’re burying her daddy I was almost in tears. Bebeth said she can’t stand that part, but Tom had this really evil look on his face as if he was pleased I felt so bad about it. I have really weird brothers-in-law. Seth and Crystal came back and we stayed up to about one in the morning watching a movie and talking. And by the end of the evening most of the cold had been purged from my system.

Adiel had heard I was feeling really tired and sick and so the next day she brought me breakfast in bed. I was curled on the floor thinking about how nice it was to be so quiet and how maybe I should get up now when there’s a knock at the door and in comes my sister with a tray. She even had a little bowl of sugar for my tea. I thought it was very sweet.

Monday we went on a picnic and I must say I was surprised it went so well. I find with picnics that I don’t often expect to have a lot of fun, but this one was a blast. There was a fountain for the kids to play in which was an experience all its own. The three older kids have figured out this water thing and have figured out that they love it. They just jumped right in and had a ball. The younger kids however haven’t quite decided what they think about this water thing. Lily stood next to Adiel or Josh depending on which one was further away from the water at the time. Noah would run and splash and then run back to me and grab my hand. He would stand with me with just his feet in the water for a while and then he would run away again and splash and then he would run back. Malachi just stood. He held onto Adiel’s hand with his feet in the water and sucked his thumb. At one point Adiel had to go take care of something so she let go of Malachi’s hand and he just kept it in the air until I held it. Ever now and then he would bend down and splash his hand in the water, chuckle and then he would stand back up and put his thumb back in his mouth. After the fountain we played basketball. Now, when I say we ‘played’ basketball I mean we each took turns throwing the ball in the general direction of the basket. Everybody who wanted could take a turn so Seth would shoot a basket and then we’d give to ball to Noah who would throw it as hard as he could and then it would be Crystal’s turn, then Lily’s. I’m sure we looked ridiculous with five grownups cheering after each small child threw the ball no where near the basket, but you know I don’t care. After lunch we watched Seth and Josh play. It was a truly funny sight because Seth is about a head taller than Josh and about one and a half Joshes wide. Josh would block and Seth would just reach over or around him. I have no idea who’s side I was one. I just cheered when I felt like it.

Monday and Tuesday nights we played Polaris. The story we played out is nothing at all like any other Polaris I have played. We usually play Polaris with lots of angst and sadness with a heavy emphasis on symbolism and effect. When I tell you that Josh made a character that was a LemmingMaster please understand that this is not a criticism. The entire story was about a massive scrum for power that happened on patrol. We had duels between people sliding down a mountainside and a battle with exploding lemmings. Seth keeps saying how our Polaris sessions are usually all talking and personal actions and how sometimes he just wants a good brawl. He was simply tickled about the amounts of brawls we had in the two nights we played. Adiel said Polaris is probably the best role-playing game she’s played and I know Josh had a lot of fun. It was a fine success.

We spent Wednesday night finishing a movie we had started on Friday and then we just sat talking. The conversation would wind down and someone would realize how late it was and then someone else would start a new conversation. It was a lovely time of quiet and bonding. When we finally went to bed it was almost one o’clock. One in the morning seemed to be the magic number on this trip. The next morning we were all tired, but I am glad we stayed up.

We are taking today to recover from the trip. There will be tomorrow and Sunday and then life begins again in earnest. We’ll be packing, cleaning and then just normal chores on top of that. I feel better equipped to pick my life up now that I put it down for a while. I went to someone else’s house and swept her floors instead of mine and washed her dishes instead of mine. Altogether I spent twenty-eight hours in a van with five children while they kept giving me their garbage and the younger two kept crying and fussing and yet I feel refreshed. I had a vacation right when I felt like I needed one. And now I don’t feel quite so oppressed by my life and I can jump into it again with joy.

Another Squidoo Lens (Raquel)

 I put together another Squidoo Lens, this time on Patternless Sewing.

 When I was twelve, a thirteen year old friend started teaching me to sew. We didn’t get very far because life got in the way, but we did make a nightgown in a way that very much appealed to me. She cut a rectangle for the skirt, gathered it, sewed it to a rectangle for the top, eyed up a neckline, and added sleeves she’d cut using a T-shirt for a pattern.

 This always seemed like a simple, reasonable way to make things. But when I found out that this was the realm of the experienced seamstress and an impressive ability, I was afraid to try it much on my own.

 That is, until a couple of days ago when I decided that was silly and sewing without a pattern would probably suit my sewing style much better than using a pattern. So I did a google search and started a squidoo lens on the subject. One of these days I’ll get around to doing some sewing…

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