critical mass

As I was sitting home tonight, just after a friend had left and before my roommate returned, I heard a bunch of yelling in the street. Cautiously, I went to the window to subtly see what was going on. And, much to my surprise, I saw hundreds of happy bicyclists streaming by. Yelling, playing music, and generally having a good time.

Turns out, San Diego has a Critical Mass biking community, and, by my best guess, they came by my house tonight. It was lovely and happy.

Maybe I'll post a bit of video, if I get a computer that can do such things soon.

In other good news, I've been picking and giving strawberries out to little people passing by with their moms, which is pretty fun.

And, I can see the bananas forming on the lovely banana flower in the backyard.

Sweet.

what a long strange trip

Since I posted last (sorry for the delay) it's been a bit of a wild ride. I was away at our annual gathering of clergy and lay leaders from UM churches in the area, sweltering in Redlands' heat. I love Annual Conference; despite the frustrations that come with it, I deeply treasure the time together with friends. This year, I definitely noticed the absence of two way-cool folks who had been my roommates in years past (Krista in Germany and Erika in pregnancy-land). But, of course, I'm quite grateful for the new and deeper connections I made with others. This time together is a wonderland for an extrovert like me.

And, I'm feeling good about my place in the church--deeply honored, even. The Reconciling Ministries folks gave me their annual award for my role at General Conference, advocating for a more full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered folks. That's a deep and unexpected honor. And, I'm now the Chair of our Order of Elders. Plus, my name got lifted up with a few others as a potential person to be endorsed as a candidate for election of Bishop. A crazy idea, which I've decided to read as lovely affirmation of my leadership. It's nice to feel valued, especially by a group of people I respect and look up to so much.

Riding high on all that, I came home to a nice visit from my brother, who's passing through in his summer travels. We don't get nearly enough time together these days, as he's all the way in Pennsylvania.

Unfortunately, while we were having dinner at my in-laws home, someone broke into our house again, this time stealing a bunch of stuff, including laptops belonging to each of us: my brother, my roommate and me. This time, it feels less like a disturbing personal violation, but more frustrating. I'm tired of this.

I'm trying to decide if my lack of a sense of violation speaks well of my reaching a place where possessions are not the most important thing, or whether I'm just numb from having too much to deal with. Happily, I got a call from Iraq today; talking with Matt certainly adds more comfort and assurance.

Plus, the banana tree in the backyard flowered, which means it's fixin' to make real bananas. And tomatoes are forming all over, growing and tempting us with hints of yellowy color as they promise to turn red.

friday five: beach edition

I'm a little blog-post-crazy this morning, but, after posting my other two, found I couldn't resist this week's Friday Five on RevGalBlogPals.

Here goes:

1. Ocean rocks, lake limps? Vice versa? Or "it's all beautiful in its own way"?
It's all beautiful in its own way.  Oceans pretty much rock, but there's also little that can beat a pristine lake, high in the mountains.    Being a good Nebraskan, I'm also quite fond of rivers.  the Platte in particular.  (Bonus points if it's March and it's covered with migrating sandhills cranes.)  Being a southern Californian by choice, I'm drawn to the beach.

however: polluted oceans and lakes, industrial seaports, and contaminated rivers are lame.

2. Year round beach living: Heaven...or the Other Place?
Heaven.  When I first moved to San Diego, I felt like it was my duty to live by the beach.  I rented a little beach house two blocks from Ocean Beach, and loved it (except the parking and the loud parties on Saturday nights).  On still nights, I could hear the waves from my bed.  I suppose that was helped by my living in a rickety old 20's cottage, but it was still lovely.

3. Any beach plans for this summer?
Nothing dramatic, but I did got for a lovely walk on a pier yesterday.  (See 2 posts below)

4. Best beach memory ever?
Wow.  I have trouble with superlatives, 'cause there are just many good possibilities.  A pretty darn spectacular one was staying in a high-end yurt on the Big Sur coast with Matt before his last deployment--it was far-removed from development, and beautiful.

Driving the bit of the "lost coast" in northern California that is accessible by road, with my brother many years ago, was pretty fun, too.  Really, that was a pretty fun trip: I remember waking once in Oregon, to find that my brother had driven my car ONTO the beach, and we were headed directly for the water.  It was a startling wake-up vision.  He assures me he was going to stop, whether or not I woke up.

Then there's all the fun memories with friends: spring breaks past in Florida and South Carolina, bits of beach in Rhode Island and Texas, first visits in childhood...  Fantasies of beach living while walking the streets of Boston, eating ice cream.

Oh, but what can compare to snorkeling in Hawaii??!?

Geez.  Too hard a question.

5. Fantasy beach trip?

I have two primary sorts of beach trip fantasies:

one involving a long, relaxing vacation with my husband (who, in this fantasy, is also not in Iraq and out of the Army) somewhere beautiful and secluded

and

one involving a big beach house with lots of friends and plenty of time to hang out together

Bonus: Share a piece of music/poetry/film/book that expresses something about what the beach means to you.

Here's a picture from my North Carolina visit to Matt in April; I like that it feels like an invitation to future possibilities.

garden progress: june 14

Not that you asked, here's what the front yard garden is looking like this weekend.  :)

I'm quite pleased that the daisies I started from seed last year are blooming.  Mom and I have a long and lovely history of daisy-growing, and of transporting them from house to house at moves.  Maybe these particular plants will have such an illustrious story to share, one day.  (Not that I'm planning to move anytime soon.  I'm just thinking long-long term.)

lovely days

I spent a lovely day yesterday with my good friend, Erika.  (And, happily, a good bit of it with Joel, too; besides being exquisitely fun to hang out with, he taught me useful skills like how to play lego video games and wii bowling...)

Er and I build our friendship over shared ice cream cones (with occasional enchilada parties thrown in, but, really, that came later).  She walked with me through my own sense of call to ministry and through a variety of other college adventures; I like to think that I was a decent companion to her, too, as she journeyed through seminary and ministry internships and associated challenges.  And, almost always, there was ice cream.  I anchor our friendship into JP Licks, on Newbury Street in Boston, sitting in the teacup.

Now, in Southern California for the last 10 years, the ice cream more often comes with a walk on the beach or a pier.  (Not that the ice cream sharing is as frequent as I'd like, but you work with what you can get...)  I count it as sacrament.

Martin Luther, I'm told, did theology with a beer in hand.  I'll do it with a cone.  

I have no illusions of unraveling the mysteries of why it is so wonderful.  I only testify to my experience: that, when contemplated with the cool, smooth, usually-chocolate, creamy sweetness of ice cream, theological challenges always seem more approachable. 

Yesterday, contemplating how it might ever be possible to cultivate leadership in a system as diverse and wacky as our church, contemplating how we're called to teach people the openness of our theological tradition and how that can work when we're set in the midst of a culture that makes a whole lot of unhelpful assumptions about what "right" Christian theology is, I felt hope.  Talking about our own lives and hopes for the future, I felt assurance. 

I also suspect that friendships make ice cream better, and ice cream deepens friendships.

I think I need to take my problems for a walk in the sun, ice cream in hand and good companion at my side, more often.

I also felt new enthusiasm for this work of opening an ice cream shop in my neighborhood.  Perhaps its sacred possibilities will be accessible to many who gather there.

May it be so.

flickr meme: all about me

I am unable to resist this meme, which invites folks to answer some simple questions, and then search flickr with those words as the search string. From the first page of search results, here are my picks:

flickr meme all about me, originally uploaded by mali's just west of niger.

1. Little Painter Molly, 2. Chicken Enchilada Stack, 3. bulldog bus!, 4. Cute Tiger Moth Caterpillar, 5. Right before Jon shook my hand., 6. WIRED, 7. New York, NY, 8. Isaac tries a ice cream, 9. Word Clash _0722, 10. 133: SOTTS will make you jump!, 11. Bliss, 12. Transport


Name: Molly
Favorite Food: enchiladas
High School: North Platte High
Favorite Color: orange
Celebrity Crush: Jon Bon Jovi
Favorite Drink: coffee
Dream Vacation: New York City (at least, it's my dream vacation for today. with Matt.)
Favorite Dessert: JP Licks ice cream
What I want to be when I grow up: spoken word poetry queen
What I love most in life: grace
One word to describe me: brilliant (and humble?)
My flickr name: Mali's just west of Niger (I had to search for just mali, west and niger, 'cause my whole name turned up nothing)

made with this cool flickr tool

garden hoes

Friday, while I was working in the garden with my neighbors (ages 10, 12 and 14), I asked one of them to carry the hoe.  There was a moment of awkward silence.  Then the oldest said something about having just learned that there's a tool called a hoe, used for digging.  And I realized in a moment of startling sadness that my neighbors learned what it means to be called a ho long before they knew to use a garden hoe.   

projects

I thought I'd share a few projects I've been working on lately.  Perhaps my sharing them will encourage me to continue on finishing some of the things I've started...

My quest to eat more locally continues.  This week, happily, it means making jam out of tasty youngberries from my wonderful inlaws' house.  Yum.  

I will not, however, post the picture of the front of my shirt by the end of jam-making. It turns out that people wear aprons for a reason.

I spent a bit of time this afternoon making new friends--with two sixth-graders who live across the street (next to the house that the police raided last week...) and who (as it turns out) like to garden.  Along with a neighbor from my side of the street, we planted beets and okra and cucumbers and some flowers.  And ate squash together.

This garden stuff is pretty cool.

All of which also helped push me to *finally* make myself a shirt featuring a picture of broccoli from my garden.  My first experiment with creating a cloth applique by running fabric through my laser printer.  We'll see how it lasts.  Half of the websites warned me IN ALL CAPS that running fabric through my laser printer was a HORRIBLE idea.  The other half said it was simple and easy.  So far, it's been simple and easy.  Here's hoping...
Do you think the broccoli-shirt movement will catch on?  Or, perhaps, it's a wear-what-you-grow movement.  Hmmm.
In other clothing-creating fun, I've been playing with quick and easy appliques using Wonder-Under.  Inspired, again, by my garden.  And babies.  Hooray for friends who are having babies.
The baby clothes pinnacle for today, though, has to be this attempt at wonder twins fun for a friend with new (you guessed it) twins.  I hope she doesn't read my blog.  Here's to Zan and Jayna!
And, on a less wacky note, I finally made myself some kitchen curtains from a vintage tablecloth I got in Nebraska.  I also dug my grommeter thingy out of the attic in the hopes that I might actually, finally, finish my living room curtains.

Now that I've written it in blog, maybe I'll have to follow through.

Tomorrow, though, much of my day will be spent in new excitement: I'm volunteering at our *new* City Heights Farmers Market in the morning, and helping with a workshop for some women who want to start a crafting co-op to help create a financial safety net as they seek to get out of poverty in the afternoon.  Good stuff.  

Oh, and still dreaming about my church's plan to open a coffeehouse in my neighborhood.  It seems it may be becoming an ice cream shop.  Which, in my book, is pretty darn wonderful.  But more about that later.  I've got to get to bed now, so I can be fresh for the morning market!

outside

It's Sunday evening, and I have no deep theme to weave through this series of thoughts, except that they're all outside:

1.  I had fun making some preparations for a baby shower for rad friends who are having a baby, preparations which including dyeing some baby clothes for later decoration.  I love dye baths.  And color! 

2.  My passionfruit vine is blooming crazy now.  I'm anxious to see when it will make fruit.  I still think it's a most outrageous bloom.
3.  I'm still a bit stressed about fuzzy green-ness in the aquarium, and grateful that part of my attempt at being proactive about reducing algae involves going to the la jolla to get ocean water out of a swell spigot by the scripps pier.  I like living near the ocean, and think it's pretty lame that it takes a water-gathering errand to get me there.
4.  The sunflowers have started blooming, and bear many, many signs of exciting bloom to come.

Perhaps these are all good reminders to counterbalance the temptation to play with the Wii my new roommate brought to the house...  ;)

I'm also enjoying ponder what it looks like to create digital puppets, thanks to tantalizing explanations from a friend at the above-mentioned baby shower.  He's working on Sid the Science Kid, which just looks pretty darn rad.  Real puppeteers and computer generated puppets.  WILD!!!!  

growth report

Things are definitely growing taller in my garden these days!  The sunflowers are crazy tall--some of 'em are taller than me.  I'm looking forward to their blooms.

A bunch of my seeds seem to have gotten rearranged when the mischievous gnomes snuck into my garden just after planting--this is my only explanation for the three sunflowers growing at the end of the row where I thought I'd planted carrots.  I haven't seen any carrots yet, either, which is a bit discouraging.  But my little yellow squash plant is making up for it by growing jumbo-size.
The flowers are getting a little crazy, too; I think it's time for a bit of pruning.  But, in the midst of all the flowers, I found that my artichoke had a treat or two waiting for me:
I planted the corn and beans together, hoping the cornstalks would become living stakes for the beans.  They are, and so are the sunflowers and the fence!
Here's the crazy sunflower patch.  My friend (little) Ryan planted them.  I think they're twice as tall as he is now.
Good fun.

my current musical infatuation

is with the Flobots.  Every since I heard that sickeningly catchy song, "Handlebars," on KROQ as I was driving to Erika and Joel's house last month, it's stuck in my head.  Now our radio stations seem to be playing it all the time.  So I downloaded the whole album, and I'm quite taken with it.    They're gonna change the world.

I like the verbal rhythms of it.  Like spoken word poetry (another hobby I mean to get into).  Maybe that hip-hop stuff deserves more of my time.

I mean, really:

Stand up

We shall not be moved

except by a child with no socks or shoes

It sings with a confidence that preaches the uncompromising love of God.  And there's a viola in the group.  Not a violin.  A viola.  And violas play in their own darn clef.

I think violas are gonna be my new metaphor for being "in the world but not of the world."  

good food

There are many good things to say about my trip back to Nebraska last week, to celebrate my cousin's wedding and to rest a bit, but I just keep getting distracted.  I blame that, at least in part, on Facebook.  Those word games are addictive.  But officiating at a wedding with my dad was more fun than I'd imagined.  A cool way to spend some time with him just before his 60th birthday.  (Happy Birthday, Dad.)

It was good to spend time with my mom, too, hanging at home and digging through antique stores in Grand Island.  I capture a photo of her in her most comfortable native habitat: in front of her computer with the email program open, in her bathrobe.  But, it occurred to me, posting a picture of your mom in her bathrobe is not a good way to honor her on her 60th Birthday.  So, instead, you get to see us at the big wedding dinner.   (Happy Birthday, Mom.)
Which, as it turns out, was a darn fine wedding dinner.  Of course, that some of the food--including the beef--was raised on the family farm my cousin grew up on didn't hurt.  It was so wonderfully flavor-ful and delicious.  After we ate, we noted that it was so good it would be nice to have a picture to remember it by, but, alas, this is all that remained on the table.
What do you think it means that she sat us at the "prairie chicken" table?

In other happy food news, Marian shared some of her grass-fed bison with me the other night, as she was offering the consoling ministry of solidarity with spouses of the deployed.  Wayne's not been far away lately, but away on enough little excursions in his ship to make such a dinner a really helpful thing.  At least for me.

We tried grilling beets, too--lovely, red-and-white striped beets.  They were pretty yummy--and with a little salt and vinegar, a bit like pickled beets, only with the nice addition of that smoky grill taste.  Mmm.  The squash is the first abundant crop of my garden this year.

What a cruel twist that our garden is bearing squash in abundance this year, when Matt, our family's chief squash enthusiast, is far, far away in the deserts of Iraq.

But let's not get distracted: that food was darn good, and for it, I am grateful. 

vacation destination of the day: fruitlandia

Since my blog is already a schizophrenic blend of personal sharing, craft blog, gardening and ministry stuff, I thought I'd throw in a restaurant review.  All in the name of being local.  There's some good stuff here in City Heights, little of which has fame beyond.

And, today was hot.  After a delightful haircut ('cause what's nicer than having your hair shampooed and cut?) and a run through my favorite thrift store (the Rescue Mission Thrift Store on University just east of 30th) for some bargains and crafty possibilities, I stopped to get a medium fruit salad at Fruitlandia.

A whole world of fruit, on the south side of University between the 805 and 15.

The ambiance is, well, not what draws me in (though I am fond of the plastic fruits on the rack behind the counter).
It's the wild and wonderful combination of good stuff in their fruit salad.
Everything you could want: melons, mangoes, strawberries, pineapple, apple, papaya and banana, topped with cottage cheese, honey, granola and raisins.  A delicious and decadent balance of cool, crisp, creamy and sweet.  Perfect for a hot afternoon.  Yum.

And, for the adventurously crafty, I'm told you can make shrinky-dinks out of the plastic in the container.  That's all hearsay at this point.

After getting the fruit salad, I made it home in time to meet my mailcarrier, who's been trying in vain to deliver the mail I'd been holding since, well, mid-April.  It was a whole lot of mail.  I'm appalled at the number of credit card applications we received.  Unbelievable.

Now it's almost all in the recycle bin, though, which leaves me ready to tackle the rest of cleaning out my closet for a new roommate!

a circle of sorts

I started writing this blog the same time my husband, Matt, returned to the US after his first deployment to Iraq.  Now, I feel like I've come around the turning of a cycle as he returns to Iraq again.  Today, he called to say that he's there, at Al Asad air base.  It looks like he's going to be somewhere other than where he'd though, way out west near the border with Syria, doing his best to stay sane and live in a way that is good, even in the midst of a bad war.

It feels different this time around.  Although the oddest things still make me weepy (and I sobbed at the video story of two college softball players who carried their opponent around the bases after she broke her leg during a home run), I feel a little less raw, and a little more generally sad.  I still struggle with how to make sense of being a loving spouse in the midst of deployment to such an awful war.  I guess it gives me more reasons to work for peace, however it comes.

Maybe I'd better go work in the garden.

Really, I need to clean my closet.  I'm moving my clothes into our bedroom, to make room in our extra room for my sister-in-law, who's moving in sometime in the next week.  I'm looking forward to having someone else around here, even if I'm a little scared of how to fit another person into a little house with too much clutter I just can't bear to get rid of...  Wish us luck.

Oh, and if you know what to do with lots of fuzzy green algae in a salt water aquarium, let me know.

meanwhile, back at the ranch

the garden just keeps growing.  Flowers are filling into open spots, and vegetables are beginning to look possible!

(Just in case you'd thought I abandoned my garden pursuits, I wanted to assure you that I'm trying to stay rooted...)

I'm particularly excited to see the tomatoes growing stronger, and the squash, too.  The corn and beans I planted together along the fence are gonna be fun...
Here are my first fruits of the season!
I am enchanted by foxgloves, and started these guys from seeds just after moving in, nearly 2 years ago.  Finally, they're lovely.
The columbine is looking good, too--graceful and tall.

And, I just today noticed some Flanders Poppies growing up in the Bachelors Buttons.  Lovely.

upon reflection

Now that I've started getting more than 5 hours of sleep per night, some of the craziness of General Conference seems, well, crazier.

Take, for instance, the fear-mongering arguments floated for why we should preserve a pastor's right to deny membership to particular people (in recent times, a gay man...).  Folks suggested that, unless we preserved this right, we might have Klan members in our churches.  (As if we haven't already.)

I've been imagining this possibility, and it seems to me that this is exactly what church is for.  For sinners and all those who need help being made perfect in love.  For people who want to claim new identity in the body of Christ--membership in the sense of belonging together, flaws and all, as we seek to live into our calling from God.  What better place is there for us sinners and folk who carry hatred and prejudice in our hearts?

(I should also say, incidentally, that I don't label homosexuality as sin, so their arguments seem especially absurd.  But, just for the sake of argument, let's run with them...)

Denying membership to people seems to me to make church into an "irrelevant social club."  That is, if we have to have things figured out and straightened out in order to join, we become like a club of folks who've earned membership by good behavior.

I prefer to think of church as a place where we belong from the beginning, whose welcome comes from the God of infinite grace, who has power to transform us all into something more loving and beautiful than we've been on our own.

The "irrelevant social club" argument was given on the floor as the scary image of what we might become if we open up the possibility of redefining marriage to include same-gendered couples.  But I think we had it in totally the wrong place!  We're like an irrelevant social club when we suggest that God's including love and transforming grace aren't big enough for some people--that we need to keep them outside of the church community or we might be destroyed.

That's absurd.

So, here for your viewing pleasure is a picture of me on the big screen at GC, looking a bit like a trouble-identifier, I think.  My new friend Steve from NC emailed it to me.  ;)

how do we get there from here?

I'm back from my trip to General Conference and to see Matt before his deployment, and I'm wishing I knew how to get to somewhere else: away from this horrible war in Iraq, and toward a church that gets over its homophobia and finally, fully includes and affirms gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered folks.

Both seem too often driven by fear--fear we've been tricked into.  And now we have to live in this meantime, trying to get to a better way.

more moments from general conference

Yesterday, our votes to retain existing language about homosexuality were depressing.  It would be hard to choreograph a more wrenching moment that we had on the floor: after the vote, as reconciling folks stood in the balconies, the conference business went on to a report from the judicial council.  As the Secretary read the long report, people slowing began standing on the floor in solidarity.  And then voices from the balcony began singing "Jesus Loves Me," and it moved around the hall.  The layers of sound were incredible--the drone of a church mired in long technicalities, detailing out the ways in which its bodies would protect their own power, layered over voices from the margins, singing an affirmation of God's love.  Powerful.

Another powerful moment was when Ellen Johnson Sirleaf spoke.  It was truly beautiful, hopeful and a wonderful symbol of the best fruits of good mission and ministry, empowering people like her to be about the work of transforming the world.  As she leads Liberia in the wake of too many years of violent rule, she's building hope.
Here's our friend JJ getting interviewed by UMNews.  It's a good thing they interviewed today, after some healing and hopeful actions by Reconciling folks and by our Bishops.  We all had much better things to say today.
And, I ought to say thanks to Ken, who's been helping me start my days with a Texas waffle.  Who knew: they have waffle makers here that make state-shaped waffles.  Incredible.  

at the end of the day

It all looks a little fuzzy and confusing.

My question of the night is: why haven't we come up with a better way of moving through legislative proposals than Roberts Rules of Order?  There's gotta be something better.

Anyhow...here's a shot of one of my favorite passages in the book of proposed legislation.  It's a little blurry, but maybe that adds to the effect.  I took the shot around 10:30 tonight, before we spent another hour slogging on.
Here's the bus ride back to my distant hotel.

Now, sleep.

But first: a happy birthday shout-out to ForeverKC.  (Recognizing that, technically, it's not her b-day anymore, at least in Texas.  The party in California could still be going on.  But it would have to be without her, since she's partyin' down here at the ol' General Conference, too.)

My little bright moment of the day was the 10 minutes in which we took a "recess" from our formal meeting for the purpose of genuine discussion.  The tone of the meeting changed in our little sub-committee.  My desires that we would create more space in our definition of marriage and of what healthy, holy sexual relationships might be didn't come true, but the conversation was much better.  

I'll take what I can get...

Here's hoping for the Spirit's movement tomorrow!

some good moments

Just a couple pictures of fun folks I've found in Fort Worth.  (That's a lot of "f's.")  I haven't perfected how to aim my phone's camera, as you can see.  I did, however, enjoy being with all these good people today.

And I'm too tired to reflect any more meaningfully on the work of General Conference yet...

Keep praying for us!