Da Jesus Book.

I was introduced to 'Da Jesus Book' this week.  It's a translation of the Bible into 'Hawaii Pidgin' dialect. I find it amazing that there are people who spend their entire adult lives immersed in culture and language so the Bible can be translated.

So anyway.... my favorite verse (John 10:10) in Hawaii Pidgin:

 

Da steala guy, he ony come fo steal, kill, and bus up da place. But I wen come so da peopo can come alive inside, an live to da max.

 

 

So... this day... go live to da max.

Tagged faith

Da Jesus Book.

I was introduced to 'Da Jesus Book' this week.  It's a translation of the Bible into 'Hawaii Pidgin' dialect. I find it amazing that there are people who spend their entire adult lives immersed in culture and language so the Bible can be translated.

My favorite verse (John 10:10) in Hawaii Pidgin:

Da steala guy, he ony come fo steal, kill, and bus up da place. But I wen come so da peopo can come alive inside, an live to da max.

 

So... this day... go live to da max.

Tagged faith

The salad that made me like tomatoes.

I have had a lifelong battle with tomatoes. I try every year to like them, and every year I have failed.  This year, we grew tomatoes in order to make lots and lots of salsa.  Because I like tomatoes as an ingredient, just not as a, you know, main thing. 

Then I found this salad. It's an adaptation of a recipe by Rachel Ray. 

Arrange avocado wedges, sliced cucumbers, and tomato wedges on a plate. Sprinkle a few tablespoons of fresh, chopped cilantro and a pinch of kosher salt over vegetables. Drizzle with lime juice. 

The cucumbers are optional. Everything else is a necessity. And even I will eat the tomatoes.

Yum.

Tagged Favorites food

Listening... again... ugh

I've been working hard at really trying to listen to God's voice.

 

I'm not good at this. 

 

Seriously. I know that God can speak any way he wants.  I know it's not confined to me sitting by myself with a journal in a meditative-y sort of mood. I know God speaks through people, through nature, through the experience of driving on a busy highway. But I also know I need there to be times of silence in solitude, and I need to ask the question "what are you saying?" And I need to keep my mind quieted for the answer.

 

Did I mention? I am not good at this. 

 

God, how can I serve you and really love other people today?

(ouch my foot hurts. wonder if that's from.... wait, I didn't actually DO anything yesterday to my foot. Wow I was such a slug, actually. I really need to get into the habit of exercising. Did I remember to send that permission slip to school? Dang it. I forgot to talk to so-and-so about what we're going to do for communion 3 Sundays from now.  I really wish someone else could make those arrangements now and then. It would be so great to have a couple of Sundays off.  What kind of job would I want if I didn't have this one? But no, wait, I know... this was a 'calling'. I can't ignore that. God called me to....ohhh no... )

God, I'm so sorry! I don't know how you can stand it! Please help me listen to you and quiet my own frantic voice! ugh...... 

 

This is what happens when I attempt to really tune in to what God might be saying.  Over and over. So every day I try to put my own whirly brain-voice in the 'time out chair' to allow God's voice to be heard. I know from experience that when I stick with this, it gets easier over time. I am more tuned in to what God is saying and what He's doing throughout the day.  Just like any discipline, it's this first stage that is killer.

 

So I'm sticking it out and I'm forcing myself to quiet down. And I'm listening. Perhaps I'll tell you sometime what I hear....

 

Tagged faith God

On not being a selfish clod.

I'm currently reading Crazy Love by Francis Chan. It's very good, and it's making me be honest with myself about a few things.  This isn't easy, but it's good and necessary.

In the book, Chan quotes George Bernard Shaw: 

"This is true joy in life, the being used up for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."  

 

I don't want to be a feverish, selfish little clod.  But I know I am sometimes because I totally get that description.

I think the hard part, besides the inertia of our clod-ness, is making sure we've found something that we recognize to be a 'mighty purpose'. 

Have you found such a purpose?

Tagged faith real life

fresh peach pureé + vanilla ice cream = ....

Yum.

Tagged favorites food

Look, mom, we grew food.

I grew up on a farm.

There were cows and corn fields and all manner of farm implements.

We had a huge garden at our house, and every summer we weeded and picked and processed lots of different kinds of vegetables.  This was just normal life, the endless snapping of beans and shelling of peas.  I vowed I would never, ever, grow green beans when I was a grown-up.

Turns out, I have never felt compelled to have a garden of my own. The whole idea was intimidating because my memory of 'having a garden' was wrapped around this huge expanse of rows of plants that did. not. end.  Then I started making this salsa all the time and got annoyed at the price of fresh cilantro and a friend asked me why I didn't just grow it myself?  After all I have a big yard and a few empty flowerbeds and everything is already irrigated.

Hmmm. Hard to argue with that.

So this summer, we planted food. What started as an effort to grow our own salsa expanded to include tomatoes, jalepeno peppers, banana peppers, cantaloupe, honeydew, lettuce, basil, parsley, cilantro, oregano, and mint. No green beans.

The least successful crop on the list was cilantro, of course, because turns out it's finicky about temperature. But we have a HUGE crop of tomatoes and all the herbs are growing like crazy. 

What amazes me more than anything is that all this food grows from little tiny seeds. I know, this is not a new concept. It seems like I've always known plants grow from seeds... it's something every kid learns early in preschool or Sunday School with little seeds in paper cups. Farming was all around me, for goodness sake, and everything was about the seeds and the growing.

But seriously.  We planted 7 cantaloupe seeds and now we have 12 miles of vines and 3 actual cantaloupes.  That's amazing!!  Isn't that amazing? Like, who thought of that? 

Somebody really smart.

So, I've learned stuff this time around and we'll do it better next year (next year!). We're eating lots of salsa and I have a plan to conquer the moody cilantro. 

But don't count on any green beans.

Tagged food home

welcome to my new blog! (kind of)

Welcome to my new blog home!  This is a site that I've used for a while for pictures & video.  But now it's The Place where all my stuff will land, including all my writing to come.

(If you've read my blog before, you know that 'all my writing to come' implies a seriously underwhelming volume of posts. I'm hoping to increase my commitment to posting.  Maybe you can help. More on that later.)

So... a few things you can do while you're here... in tangerine.
Because it's whimsical.  
 Find posts by topic using tags in the right sidebar.  
Read posts about worship ministry, book & music reviews through the list in the left sidebar.  
Subscribe to each of the blogs (main blog, worship, and reviews), or look for links on twitter and facebook.
Comment on posts. Which is highly encouraged. 

Thanks so much for being here.  So tell me.... what should I write about?
Tagged writing

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy

So I spent a little time with a good friend last week and she made some of the Best Lemonade Ever. 

I can't believe I haven't ever done this.  Seriously. 

Ingredients:
1 cup Splenda (or similar product)
1 cup lemon juice (from a bottle)
juice of one lemon (for the texture)

Mix everything together, and add enough ice and water to make 2 quarts. Adjust amounts of lemon juice & sweetener next time to make it perfect for your taste.

Yum.

Tagged Favorites food

I'm not getting better at this.

Balance. The successful holding up of many things at once. Without falling.

I have, somehow, in my mind four distinct pictures:  what a responsible mother looks like, what a loving wife looks like, what an effective worship leader looks like, and what a sincere Christian looks like. Each picture is a rosy-cheeked idealist. When combined and held together in one hand, these pictures are nothing but chaos.  I cannot live up to my own expectations for each of these roles.

So what to do? How to balance out a life?  How to balance my time with my family with my time with God. Or my work.  Or my husband.  I once heard it said that trying to 'balance' God with the rest of our lives is an incomplete image of God's interaction with us.  We should instead think about God as the center of our lives, like the hub of a wheel.  He is the center around which everything else turns.

But holding Jesus in the center creates a 'drive by high five' situation.  'Hey, Jesus!', I shout as I blaze from one thing to the other. He's there, in the center, but I never am.  I need a better paradigm.

Maybe it's about soaking.  Maybe if I think about soaking each part of my life in God's presence, things will seem to glide along more easily.  Not that 'easy' is the goal, of course. (Except who am I kidding, I hate it when my plans are thwarted).

All I know is... the balancing thing?  I'm not getting better at it. And this load of expecations? I don't think this is what God had in mind when he spoke about abundant life. Nevertheless.... here I am with plates a-spinning.  So I pray for wisdom and I pray for peace.  At least, that's where I'm starting.  We'll see what happens. 
Tagged faith real life