where are you now?

Playing Favourites - seeya there!

same difference?

What looks like snarled threads is actually a lovely dessert prepared by an Iraqi family for an information seminar we attended over the weekend. We explored a culture and religion unlike ours. Amazing, isn't it? Out of the same ingredients - love, life, family, perspective, spirituality - et voilà, life of a different flavour.

keep it real

[Hey L, Sorry this is awfully blurry, but thought you'd get a kick out of this. After spring picnic at Jordan Lake, we wandered into the nearby college town of Chapel Hill. As we strolled along the main street we got drawn to this church by the music. Talk about raising the roof! Even right at the back where we were, you could not escape the power and intensity of the voices and their message. This was definitely no sanitised singsong performance, and it just reminded me of our old favourite:

If our praises cease
If we hold our peace
The rocks will cry out instead

It was the honesty in their emotions and joy in their offering that moved me. They certainly didn't let any rock outpraise them!

*See ya real soon! Listen to Ron Kenoly and this great song based on Luke 19.40, April 2008]

Jordan Lake

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

[fragments of famous words by william butler yeats, lake isle of innisfree; famed man-made lake of chatham county, offering summertime homes to the bald eagle - april 2008]

spring picnic

[love and marriage has always been topical but recently we received, within a few days of each other, news from friends world-wide: peace discovered in being single, great joy in finding love unexpectedly, the thrill and celebration of engagement, weddings and anniversaries... then also, grief in separation and divorce.

when craig and i first attended our local church, there was a special gathering for the newlyweds and elderly couples who have seen through many years of marriage. i do not say blissful because they all mentioned hurdles they have had to work through to stay together. listening to their stories however and observing the closeness of the elderly couples with each other filled me with a sense of wonder, and i pray craig and i would be granted to see the rest of our days lived out together.

but we know, marriage is no picnic! whether it is in a loving word or a kind and sacrificial deed for the other, whether it is in practicing humility or forgiveness, whether we seek wise counsel of a mentor or the Third Party In Our Love Triangle (Christ) ...we daily commit to make it work.


thanks for the photo, arturo! spring picnic at jordan lake, april 2008]