A Road Less Travelled

overwhelming beauty
words fail me
‘it’s pretty’

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When we went to Silver Dollar City James was clear that there were two non-negotiables- the blacksmith demonstration and the glassblower demonstration. We were on our way out of the park when James remembered about the blacksmith, but we made sure we saw the glassblower on our first day.

I’d seen a glassblower demonstration once before at a Renaissance fair, but the crowd was bigger and there wasn’t really a chance for questions. When this demonstration started we were the only ones watching, thought that still makes for quite a crowd in most people’s estimation. The glassblower told us that he majored in theater and history in college so he can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time. He was very good about answering our questions and even let the children pick the color of the piece he was making.

I love watching someone do something he loves. I also love watching someone do something he excels at. This man has been making glassware for 32 years and he loves doing it. I watched him manipulate molten glass that was between 2000 and 2400 degrees hot with ease. He made it look so easy I started thinking “Hey, I could do that.” Then I started thinking about the level of heat and care required and I returned to my senses. But watching him was a joy.

Towards the beginning of the demonstration I asked a question I have wondered for years. How, I asked, does one go about making a plate? I’d seen a vase made and understood how cylindrical shapes were made, but I was totally lost as to how a cylinder became flat. The glassblower said that he would make this piece into a plate just so he could show me how it was done. I was flattered. He made a beautiful plate with a wavy edge on a small pedestal. The main color was cranberry red as chosen by Samuel Lansberry and the accent color was blue which was Moriah’s choice. When the plate was finished I asked a question I had been pondering purely for curiosity’s sake. “How much will you sell it for?”, I asked, expecting something in the neighborhood of fifty to sixty dollars. He said that they would probably price it between thirty-five to forty dollars.

I sat back and thought for a bit. I had forty dollars. I had forty dollars that were set aside to spend on this vacation. How many times in my life would I be able to buy a plate made by a master craftsman at my request? So I beat up James and James’s mom and asked the glassblower to hold the plate for me. It had to cool for fifteen hours so I was supposed to come back around noon and buy it.

I was excited for several hours. Well, I would have been, but I got distracted. But whenever I remembered to be I was excited. The next day I went back to the store with Raquel and asked for the cranberry red plate. The glassblower remembered me and signed the bottom of the plate for me. They wrapped it in tissue paper, newspaper, and then bubble wrap. When I paid for the plate they told me it was twenty-three dollars. I was shocked. Twenty-three dollars is not a lot of money to pay for something so pretty. I paid it gladly and talked about it for the rest of the day. When I stopped by the shop at the end of the day to pick my plate up I bought a bright orange vase I’d fallen in love with, too. James’s parents offered to transport my purchases home in their RV so I wouldn’t have to pack it into a van with ten people.

I now have a handcrafted glass plate in my room. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it, but it was made for me and now it’s mine. It is by far the best souvenir I’ve ever bought.

Oh, and the blacksmith demonstration was cool, too.

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Yesterday was the Sunday we specially celebrate the resurrection of our Jesus. Some call it Easter Sunday. Some call it Resurrection Sunday. Some, like me, aren’t sure we like Easter Sunday, but think Resurrection Sunday is too clunky a title. I was thinking about writing a post Saturday that would publish on Sunday that would be all “Hooray! Jesus has risen!”, but then I didn’t. I’m glad I didn’t because I think today I have more to say.

Saturday was a bad night. Justice kept getting up and causing trouble and Seth and Crystal were out so I was dealing with him. By the time Seth was there to take care of it I was so wound up I couldn’t fall asleep. And when I did I woke up not too long after for no apparent reason. Plus I heard my first gunshots of the season. Saturday was a bad night.

This, of course, makes Sunday a really cranky morning. As I was up and doing things my crankiness diminished, but I became emotionally fragile and was kind of out of it for all of worship. After worship we were going to go home, put two kinds of really yummy potatoes in the oven and then go down to the Lansberry’s for Easter dinner coming back for the potatoes when they were done. So we were hanging out together waiting for food to cook and snacking which is usually really fun. But this Sunday I was really out of it, a couple of the other grownups were really out of it and Justice was a horrible screaming mess. Remember how he didn’t sleep well the night before? Yeah, it caught up with him in a big way. So we were looking at not even being able to make it to when the food was done before someone had to leave with a child. I was really bummed. Our Easter dinner was shaping up to be a big bummer of a stressful meal.

But then James mentioned that we could put Justice in Margary’s crib. The potatoes were fetched from our house and were right yummy. And then we sat down to eat and the mood of the day improved drastically. We had a leisurely meal and just sat around the table together for almost three hours. Justice got woken up accidentally, but when he came down he had turned into a happy guy and suffered himself to be fed some of the really yummy potatoes. My bad-bad, cranky, no-good Easter Sunday dinner turned into a joy.

This is redemption. This is why Jesus came and lived and died. Our lives were buzzing along, out of control and painful, full of bummers and crankiness and really bad nights. I have tried to picture what my life would look like apart from Jesus washing me clean and it’s bad, but it’s a very low-grade sort of bad. My life wouldn’t be an evil you could see and point to. It would just be full of bad-bad, cranky, no-good days. Nothing would go how I wanted it to and I would pour my life out being bummed. It is a pathetic picture, like how our dinner was shaping up.

But Jesus did come and He did live a perfect life and He did die a gruesome death. I don’t have to lead that pathetic, cranky life. I can sit around a table with my family and enjoy an afternoon spent in their company even though it didn’t start how I wanted it to. I don’t have to stay in my crankiness. Jesus has come and He has died to save me from my crankiness and He is risen. He rose to go to Heaven and rule over my days and my nights. To redeem them from their cranky beginnings and makes something beautiful out all the ugliness. He is risen! He is risen indeed!

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let it be beautiful
and let that be enough
no matter who sees

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I’ve always been inclined to design my own craft projects. I mean, why follow a pattern when I can just grab some yarn and make it up as I go along? (Intriguingly, this makes me the exact opposite of Theresa who flies by the seat of her pants at most things but plans craft projects meticulously, while I require a plan to function in most of life and prefer to make up on the fly when it comes to crafts.)

Lately, though, I’ve been following patterns. I saw patterns that I particularly liked, and knew I couldn’t duplicate them on my own without an extraordinary amount of effort. So I said, “Hey, I’ll just use this pattern.” and went with it. Here’s the weird part: I’ve really enjoyed following along as someone cleverer explains how it’s done.

At first I was concerned that I was losing my touch. Then I realized that I probably appreciate it so much because I am a designer. For the same reason a musician hears more in beautiful music, a writer savors that perfect flow of words, a game designer likes the ‘crunchy bits’ in others’ games, or a photographer notes excellent composition in a picture, a designer of patterns appreciates a cleverly placed set of decreases.

Which might just mean I’m a designer. And I always thought I just crocheted stuff.

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I have recently discovered that I am a hopeless romantic. I love watching people fall in love; I love watching people who are in love. I like watching the awkward newly-weds and I like watching the sweet old couple. I don’t like the genre of Romance, but I delight in love stories.

Last week I watched a truly great love story movie. The Italian movieThe Tiger and the Snow was co-written, directed and starred in by Roberto Benigni who also co-wrote, directed and starred in Life is Beautiful.

Roberto Benigni plays Attilo de Giovanni a professor of poetry in Rome. He’s vague, scatter-brained and excited about everything he does. Every night he dreams he is getting married to a beautiful woman, the woman of his dreams. And then at a poetry reading he meets this woman, Vittoria who is played by Roberto Benigni’s wife, Nicoletta Braschi. We find out that they have some history, but the movie doesn’t tell us what. He tries to have a romantic evening with Vittoria, but she slips away. He shows up at her house to tell her he won’t bother her anymore, that he’s through with her. Unless she doesn’t want that, of course. She just laughs and then gets on a plane for Baghdad where she’s collaborating on a book with another poet, a mutual friend of hers and Attilo. Attilo’s life goes on without her until he gets a phone call from his friend in Baghdad. The U.S. have just invaded. There was an explosion. Vittoria is dying. Attilo drops everything and rushes to her side.

The rest of the movie is this vague, scatter-brained poet in a war-zone trying to save a dying woman. The hospital doesn’t have the medicine she needs so he has to go hack something together that will work. Then she needs oxygen so he has to go find some while the bombs fall. And then, and then…. He never gives up and he never stops being excited and excitable. She needs him, so he’s there even if she doesn’t love him back. It’s wonderfully romantic. And then there’s a twist at the end.

The movie was delightful. When I saw a preview I thought it looked charming both for the story and the cinematography. The movie takes the time at the beginning to make us know Attilo. We see him with his daughters at a circus, we see him teaching a class, we see him being late to almost everything. He has almost exactly the same dream every single night. So when he gets dropped into a different and difficult setting we feel the harshness and his confusion. We get to see a little bit of how Attilo looks at the world by seeing what he focuses on and how he reacts. And since the main characters are all poets the dialogue is delightfully worded at times. It’s poetic without being flowery.

I give this movie four and a half out of five stars. It doesn’t get five stars because, well, I don’t like saying that things are perfect. I heartily recommend this movie if you, like me, can’t resist a good love story.

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winter rain
clearing the way
for imaginary spring

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So, yesterday we went out shooting. One last post-Thanksgiving shoot at this family’s house before they move to Tennessee. Unfortunately I neglected to double-check that I had my camera, so I didn’t get any pictures, but there are a few here.

After the shooting was winding down I commented on the pretty Christmas colors of the spent shotgun shells on the ground. The idea was batted around a bit, and someone pointed out that it wouldn’t be that hard to poke holes in them to string a wire through. Hm…

I decided I bring a few home to experiment with, and the end result was this–

Not too bad, I think. Afterwards I did a google search to see what other people had done with shotgun shells as Christmas ornaments. I mean, surely this has been done before! Sadly, it seems that beyond strings of shotgun shell Christmas lights, the only shotgun shell Christmas ornaments are these. Don’t you think mine are much prettier?

I did however find a lovely song called Shotgun Shells on the Christmas Tree. I will admit to being slightly tempted to buy the album. I mean, really, what else would you expect from a girl from Possum Kingdom?

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So here I am, the non-musical jargon person, writing another album review. The David Crowder*Band’s new album came out on September 24th and Seth was right there to buy it. I must say it isn’t as artistically put together as the previous album, but the lyrics and music are as good as ever.

The album is called Remedy and true to David Crowder form the title track is the second to last. It is beautiful. The words echo out of a soul that has seen the horrors of this world and that longs for healing, for remedy. And at the end of the song there is the call for us to bring the remedy to our world. It is a call for love in action. And the album wraps up with a song asking “What will you do now?” and supplying a fine answer.

“Surely We Can Change”

And the problem is this
We were bought with a kiss
But the cheek still turned
Even when it wasn’t hit

And I don’t know
What to do with a love like that
And I don’t know
How to be a love like that

When all the love in the world
Is right here among us
And hatred too
And so we must choose
What our hands will do

Where there is pain
Let there be grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Help them be brave
Where there is misery
Bring expectancy
And surely we can change
Surely we can change
Something

And the problem it seems
Is with you and me
Not the Love who came
To repair everything

Where there is pain
Let us bring grace
Where there is suffering
Bring serenity
For those afraid
Let us be brave
Where there is misery
Let us bring them relief
And surely we can change
Surely we can change
Oh surely we can change
Something

Oh, the world’s about to change
The whole world’s about to change

But strangely enough that’s not what I want to talk about. There’s this song towards the beginning of the album. The chorus has a logic that I find troubling and wonderful.

“Everything Glorious”
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
You make everything glorious
And I am Yours
What does that make me?

Anybody who has followed this blog for any length of time knows that I don’t actually like myself very much. My brain is all well and good, but my soul is a besmirched cesspit of filth and misery and my body is really only so-so. The soul my Father is working on, but it’s the body part that I get stuck on. It only works okay and, in my opinion, only looks okay. Really, I should just be an emotional brain floating in decorative orange goo and then I would be all good. But God made me and He made me this way.

There’s a saying I saw on a poster a while back. It says “I know I’m special cause God don’t make no junk.” It’s the same logic as in the song. God has made everything and He has made it all very good. I’m part of that everything. It’s not like God made male and female and it was all good except for Gabrielle. He has made everything and He has made it all very good. That includes me.

So I guess the question now is do I believe Him? Do I believe the Almighty when He tells me that even my body is something glorious? Lord, I do believe. Help my unbelief.

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 ”There are times when it is nourishing to scrub a tub until it sparkles or wax and polish the floors until the smell of wax takes over. Polishing your brass scale until it comes up to a pale yellow shine or caring for your plants or washing a lovely piece of crystal can be a delightful exercise. Even getting ice out of a tray can be rewarding if you’re receptive to the beauty of the crystal clear cubes, more interesting than lucite because they’re alive.”

Style for Living: How to Make Where You Live You, Alexandra Stoddard

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