Week 1 Day 4

Today I want to share some pictures I found.  I was thinking about Mary and the anticipation she must have felt.
How do these pictures impact your thoughts about anticipation?
Do you have any pictures to add to the collection?

This is Chinese, not Japanese, but I still found it
fascinating, especially the Holy Spirit descending.

I like the colors and the hallway on this one, the long hallway leading...

I like the posture in which Mary is portrayed in this one.

I like the soft, almost abstract, feel of this one, as well as the light in it.

Week 1 Day 3

Today's devotional comes from God is in the Manger by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Waiting is an Art

Celebrating Advent means being able to wait.  Waiting is an art that our impatient age has forgotten.  It wants to break open the ripe fruit when it has hardly finished planting the shoot.  But all too often the greedy eyes are only deceived; the fruit that seemed so precious is still green on the inside, and disrespectful hands ungratefully toss aside what has so disappointed them.  Whoever does not know the austere blessedness of waiting-that is, of hopefully doing without-will never experience the full blessing of fulfillment.

Those who do not know how it feels to struggle anxiously with the deepest questions of life, of their life, and to patiently look forward with anticipation until the truth is revealed, cannot even dream of the splendor of the moment in which clarity is illuminated for them.  And for those who do not want to win the friendship and love of another person-who do not expectantly open up their soul to the soul of the other person, until friendship and love come, until they make their entrance-for such people the deepest blessing of the one life of two intertwined souls will remain forever hidden.

For the greatest, the most profound, the tenderest things in the world, we must wait.  It happens not here in a storm but according to the divine laws of sprouting, growing and becoming.

***
Excerpt from a letter to his fiancee, Maria von Wedemeyer, which he wrote from prison, December 13, 1943

Be brave for my sake, dearest Maria, even if this letter is your only token of my love this Christmas-tide.  We shall both experience a few dark hours-why should we disguise that from each other?  We shall ponder the incomprehensibility of our lot and be assailed by the question of why, over and above the darkness already enshrouding humanity, we should be subjected to the bitter anguish of a separation whose purpose we fail to understand... And then, just when everything is bearing down on us to such an extent that we can scarcely withstand it, the Christmas message comes to tell us that all our ideas are wrong, and that what we take to be evil and dark is really good and light because it comes from God.  Our eyes are at fault, that is all.  God is in the manger, wealth in poverty, light in darkness, succor in abandonment.  No evil can befall us; whatever men may do to us, they cannot but serve the God who is secretly revealed as love and rules the world and our lives.

Week 1 Day 2

Scripture:
Isaiah 11:1-4a
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;
from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.
The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him-
the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,
the Spirit of counsel and of power,
the Spirt of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord-
and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he will judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.


Seven hundred years.  The people of the earth waited seven hundred years.

To us it is understandable that the people of Israel got tired of waiting.
I can hardly wait a minute and a half in the line at the supermarket!

Yet, imagine the anticipation of the faithful.
The ones who believed God's words spoken through Isaiah and the other prophets.
The ones who believed God would send Messiah to save His people.

Anticipation!
Waiting with expectation.
Come, Lord Jesus.  Come.

Week1 Day 1

This week's word is anticipation.

As I sit drinking my first cup of advent tea and eating my first advent chocolate, I feel like a little child.  The anticipation is almost too much to handle!

Over the next four weeks:

I look forward to seeing who shows up for all of the events we have planned at church.  I look forward to hearing the responses of those who encounter the true meaning of Christmas for the first time.

I look forward to what God has to teach me about His Son as I teach others about His amazing gift.

I wonder if I will be able to keep up this blog throughout the busy-ness of the season.

I wonder if anyone will even read this blog.  I wonder if anyone will respond; if these ideas, words, pictures, and songs will be a point of encouragement or just something else on the internet posted by someone who wants to drone on and on.

Mostly, I am anticipating God showing up, reminding me of His love, joy, peace, and kindness.

Emmanuel, God with us.

The Waiting Begins

It is time for Advent to begin!  I am going to attempt something new this year during Advent.  During Lent when I was participating in the photo a day challenge, a friend of mine mentioned that I should write something for Lent or Advent.  Most of what I have been doing for these seasons is from other places, I just cut and paste.

So, I am trying to be a bit more organized in my cutting and pasting and am going to share it here.  Please leave comments with your thoughts and ideas, photos and songs!


This is going to be my basic schedule:
Sunday - word for the week
Monday - Bible passage
Tuesday - Devotion/Meditation/Thoughts
Wednesday - artwork
Thursday - photo
Friday - Song/Carol
Saturday - Prayer

Here is the beginning my list of resources (in no particular order!):
Spark Your Joy, by Margaret Feinberg
Finding the Messiah, by Jane Rubietta
Women of Christmas, by Liz Curtis Higgs
God is in the Manger, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
The Purpose of Christmas, by Rick Warren
The Book of Common Prayer

Websites:
Greentrees.net - Handel's Messiah Readings
Hillsong.com - blogs and songs
onlineministries.creighton.edu - advent prayers
youtube.com - songs

Sabbath Adventures

Last Monday for my Sabbath I went on a little adventure back to the beach I had visited in May when I last posted.  (If anyone has figured out how to stop time, let me know.  Lots of life has happened since my last post, but trying to catch up is overwhelming, so I am just going to plod on from here.)

So, I went to the beach again.  But, before going to the beach I thought I should try to find something new in the area.  The night before I left I studied my online map of the area looking for parks or other beaches or landmarks or anything that might be interesting.

I found...

A little cove where I could climb on the rocks, sit in the sun, watch the fishing boats go by

 And, not pictured, the kind lady at the hotel who allowed me to park my car for a while as I went exploring through the neighborhood.

The rocks went right out into the water- or the water came right up over the rocks...

Beautiful views from...

The lighthouse!  (I had taken a picture of the whole thing from below, but that pic has disappeared!)

A little cafe on the hill looking down over the bay

 The interior of the cafe was all train themed with signs from old train cars and stations and a model train running around the perimeter of the cafe.  The lady working there told me about the birds soaring around the hills, the quiet life on this little hill, and told me to park my car in their parking lot next time I wanted to come exploring the hills!

The sun was sparkling on the water so beautifully!

There were so many fishing boats out on the water, even people fishing right from the shore.  I am not sure what kind of fish they were catching, but it was obviously a good day for it because I have never seen that many boats and people fishing when I have been to this beach before.

On my last trip to the beach- between May and now!- I found this lovely tea shop in a mall.

Last time I went to the beach I stopped at this mall because I heard they had a nice Starbucks with a terrace.  There is a nice Starbucks, but the terrace is in the food court.  However, as I walked around before going into Starbucks, I found this tea shop with the walls lined with bookshelves.  As much as I love SB, I could not resist this shop!  It was a lovely place to read and reflect.

What adventures does my next Sabbath hold?!

Almost!

Well, I have almost successfully, inadvertently, made it through the month of May with only one post. This was not intentional.  It's just that when I finally sat down in the evenings this month, I just stared for a while and then went to bed.  Stared at the computer.  Started at the TV.  Stared at the sky.  I'm not sure what I was staring at.  Maybe the piles of dishes in my sink.  (Tonight I am avoiding them and writing!)

This has been a long month.  Many great things going on, though... Bible studies, preaching, teaching, music, visits with friends, etc.

Today I took a Sabbath day.  I was doing pretty well at doing this weekly.  However, the past couple of weeks have found me doing too much, and sometimes not prioritizing well.

I went to the beach today.  It was a beautiful day.  I put on sunscreen, sat down with the little lunch I had packed, and started reading my one-day spiritual retreat book.  It was a great lesson on happiness and joy.  I started to write in my journal and remembered that my pen had run out of ink.  I did not have any other pens with me!  So, after a few minutes of prayer, I headed to the water to walk and enjoy spending time in my 'happy place.'

After a couple of steps into the water I noticed this...

And after looking around, saw more!

I don't know much about jellyfish, but was fascinated by them.  I didn't touch any of them, just in case!

Can you see the clear one in the water?

On my way home I stopped by the outlet mall to eat at the Hawaiian hamburger place.  I was too tired by then to do any shopping.  So tired, in fact, that I forgot to get my change out of the vending machine when I bought a water for the drive home!  Guess I got to make someone else's day!

I arrived home to see this...

and this...

I love Sabbath!