deep thoughts after a friday afternoon trip to the beach

There are so many incredible particularities about our world.  

Like the beautiful way the waves tenderly drape bright green seaweed on water-smoothed rocks.
In stopping to enjoy this beauty, though, one risks getting wet, as the waves don't pause in the same way.

There are worse things that squishy socks on a beautiful beach.

it can't last

I'm in Atlanta (well, Norcross) at a church meeting.  In a facility that blocks use of Facebook on their internet server.  I suppose this is just right, after I tried blaming my lack of blogging on Facebook.  I can take a message.

So while thinking about this week's lectionary and Transfiguration, my mind turned to the work of Christo and Jeanne-Claude.  Which led me on a delightful internet journey through their work, much of which is about concealing and revealing.  But also much more.  

Pondering the nature of our work in the church, I'm more and more drawn to the idea that our call is less to create things that will last and more to create things that are beautiful.

This temporary wall, built by Christo and Jeanne-Claude on a narrow street of Paris out of used oil barrels in 1962, lasted as a wall for a few hours.  Its statement against the Berlin Wall lasted longer.  I think it speaks pretty loudly today, as we continue to construct walls that interrupt our human living--think Hafrada wall built by Israel, or the border fence in our own community. 

But before I get distracted (ah, the possibilities of following links around the world!), what I meant to say is: perhaps we in the church need to get more enthusiastic about things that don't last.

I know that I've been guilty of the paralysis of over-analysis, wanting to create something perfect and lasting.  And God knows we're guilty of working too hard to save structures in the church.

"I think it takes much greater courage to create things to be gone than to create things that will remain," Christo said in response to critics of his work.  I'm thinking we all need a little more courage, and a little less of the self-centeredness that says, "The things I make should last forever."

I've been reading The World Without Us, a Christmas gift from my brother.  It details what would be likely to happen to the world if humans suddenly disappeared.  I was shocked by his descriptions of how quickly destruction would come to so many of the structures that deceive me as being strong and permanent.

Really, life is shockingly impermanent.  Colleen was telling me about how Heidegger wrote of the critical work of recognizing our mortality--that our being is toward death, and only when we recognize and accept this can we find real meaning and beauty.  (Did I get that right, Colleen?)

It seems to me that resurrection is a pretty beautiful way of getting ourselves out of any despair that might rise up (pun intended) from recognition of our frailty.  After all, we're connected to a God who is way bigger than we can understand.

So, encouraged as well by the collapse of financial markets that deceptively used terms like "securities," I suppose it's a good time to practice some investment in temporary things.  Or, in things we cannot own or control.   Invest in the millenium and plant sequoias, to steal a line from my favorite poet, Wendell Berry.

still growing

Sorry for the long hiatus from the blog.  I guess I just got distracted.  I blame Facebook.  Also that I haven't figured out our rhythm for sharing digital photos now that there are two laptops in the house and the camera's mostly in Matt's possession.  

It's not that I haven't thought of things to share...  Things keep going and growing.

For example, the garden:

With my dear neighbor all moved in, I started a little potato-growing experiment.  For a bit of a hybrid between container growing and in-ground gardening, we planted 5 varieties of potatoes in burlap bags (courtesy a favorite local coffee roaster).  In my yard, I cut out the bottoms of the bags, and dug them into the ground a bit.  I'll add more soil as they grow, and unroll the bags to cover the stems.  Or, so the plan goes.
Some turnips and carrots were ready for harvest this past week.  Well, at least one of the turnips was well past "ready."  It's size skews the sense of proportions in this pic.  Those carrots were not really as small as they seem next to that purple giant.

I'm also dreaming with seed catalogues these days.  

Matt tried a little garden experiment of his own, too.  (And, oddly, it sounds more like something I'd come up with.  He's usually the one who wants to do things the "right" way, and I'm all about the quicky crazy way.  I think he hit some kind of breaking point with my ability to accumulate seed packets and his desire for a less-cluttered house.)  He took a whole bunch of flower seed packets and threw them all in an area of the garden, mixed up together.  In another section, he threw an assortment of herbs.  Happily, it's been awfully rainy for San Diego, and little seedlings are popping up.  It remains to be seen how many are weeds...

I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I hope your Friday doesn't feel like the 13th!