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Drama at Borders

Today I took the day off, being the second day after Christmas. We went to the bookstore since it seems to have something for everyone. I was with Tallie, Caleb, and Karina in the kids book and toy section. Then Karina needed to go piddle and Tallie piped up saying she knew where to go and could take her there. I thought it would be good for Tallie to take some responsibility for her sister and help her out….so off they go to the little girls’ room. I stand outside a few yards reading a magazine.

Next thing I hear Tallie hollering in the bathroom, “I need help…dad, help.” And Karina is yelling in a distressed voice, “help, I did a poopie.” “She pooped on the ground.”
     “Well, help her out,” I said. “I can’t do it” Tallie yells in a distressed voice. By now she is feeling overwhelmed with the grave burden of it all. So I tell her to come to the door and ask her if there is anyone else in there. It’s clear so I move in. Poor Karina is squatting on the floor by the toilet. Crap is smeared on the lid of the toilet seat and down the side and a nice pile is sitting on the floor at it’s base. It took a few minutes of scrubbing amidst distressed explanations in gurgled English of what happened. I finished cleaning up the floor, toilet and my daughter while reassuring her over and over that everything was just fine, everything normal. I mean what could be more natural?

Meanwhile the door opens and someone else comes in. I hear Tallie explaining to a woman that her dad is in there helping her little sister in the bathroom. We wait til we’re alone and walk out, wash hands and carry on with an uneventful day.

Quotes about art

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.
Pablo Picasso

-Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.

-Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.

-Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.

-Everything you can imagine is real.

-God is really only another artist. He invented the giraffe, the elephant and the cat. He has no real style, He just goes on trying other things.

-I don’t own any of my own paintings because a Picasso original costs several thousand dollars and that’s a luxury I cannot afford.

-No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.

-Painting is a blind man’s profession. He paints not what he sees, but what he feels, what he tells himself about what he has seen.

-The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.

-We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth.
Pablo Picasso

When I was the age of these children could draw like Raphael: it took me many years to learn how to draw like these children.
Pablo Picasso

Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen.
Robert Bresson

To Be is To Do

copied from http://www.abarim-publications.com/ToBeIsToDo.html

A dynamic language

The Hebrew language works different from ours. That makes it very
difficult to translate, and that causes translations to be often poor
and lacking. One of the differences is that the Hebrew language is much
more dynamic than ours. Hebrew is all about action. Something is
reckoned after what it does, not after how it looks. This principle is
quite fundamental in Scriptures; it is applied all over. Probably most
drastic in the Second Commandment where the Lord prohibits the making of
graven images. A graven image after all does not move, and a statue
that, for instance, tries to display a calf is not showing typical
calf-behavior but static appearance.

The principle even occurs in the New Testament, which is
written in Greek but with a Hebrew way of thinking. The second chapter
of James, for instance, explains that a believer is not someone who
looks like one, or even says she’s one, but rather someone who acts
like one. To be is to do.

Hold that thought (15)

In Hebrew Scriptures, and all models derived thereof,
entities are reckoned solely after their behavior and not after their
appearance.

An entity is a behavior, not that which executes the
behavior.

It is crucial that the reader takes a firm hold of this
principle. If a modern Westerner would see a picture of a lion, she
would say, “That is a lion.”
If an ancient Hebrew would see someone gather and devour
food, she would say, “That is a lion.”

horsecowspacerspacerspacer swallow

Imagine: you’re on a farm. In a field ahead you notice a
cow, a horse, and overhead flies a swallow. Question: of the horse, the
cow and the swallow, which two are most alike?

In our modern, Western way of thinking we are prone to
define something after the way it looks. Both horse and cow are large
mammals and are more alike than a cow and a swallow or a horse and a
swallow. Our answer: the cow and the horse are most alike.

But a Hebrew minds looks at activity, not appearance. And
it’s when these animals begin to move around that their characteristics
show. Cows graze or lay down and chew the cud. Horses however can be
seen racing along the hills, in tight packs or alone. Horses are swift,
may turn abruptly, shear the meadows like… swallows in flight.

The Hebrew verb sus means to be swift or to flash
by, and the noun derived from this verb indicates both the horse and the
swallow. A swallow would probably be known as something like ‘one who
is swift and flies with wings’. A horse would probably be deemed ‘one
who is swift and strong and vigorous.’
For the next paragraph it is important that we understand
that in Biblical times a horse was not seen as a giddy cousin of the
cow, but rather as a big, strong version of a swallow.

Significance of the First-Born

some insight from Rabbi David Fohrman at rabbifohrman.com in his series on the exodus on the significance of the “firstborn”. God called Pharoah to give to him his firstborn so that they could worship him. As we know from scripture you cannot serve two masters and as long as they were slaves to Pharoah they could not serve God wholeheartedly. He needed his people free, but not just any people, he was after his firstborn. Looking at our natural families helps us understand the purpose or role of the firstborn. We might say the firstborn is a leader…but why is a leader needed among siblings when the parents are adequate for the role of leadership?

The problem always has been and still is today that there is a span of many years between parents and offspring we know as the generation gap. This gap makes it difficult for children to see how the values of the parents are to be lived out in their own context. It raises the question of whether they are even still relevant as the contexts change. Never truer than today. Rabbi David’s statement of interest was that the firstborn is given a special responsibility to be that bridge between the values of the parents and those of the children. He shows them how to live out those values in the different context that they live in and demonstrates that they are relevant and timeless. When the others look at him they are able to say, “hey, I can act that way or live that way too.” Now apply that role to Israel and we begin to see that God chose them not because he loved them more than the other nations but because he needed to build a bridge to demonstrate how the values of the high and lofty God could be lived out in the context of a lowly and fallen creation.

Karina’s Tigger disappointment

Karina was all dressed up in her Tigger outfit earlier in the day for Halloween that evening. In the thrill of the moment she begins to jump and bounce around in her usual fashion, as she is naturally quite a tiggery kind of girl. But then she walks over slowly with her shoulders slightly drooping and face downcast. “What’s wrong honey?” I ask her.
“Tail not woking.”
   “really, it’s not working?”
“No, it doesn’t bounce. It not woking.”
I try my best to look sad for her. I remember the times as a child facing the disappointment that “real life” wasn’t quite like what was depicted in movies or cartoons.

Wess Stafford’s “Too Small to Ignore”

a deeper look into God’s heart for children in America…

“…children are not tomorrow’s church in waiting or in training. They are an important part of today’s church. In today’s selfish, “it’s all about me” mentality, we may have passed the point of no return in our ability to welcome children back into our sanctuaries to worship with us. Or to let them actually lead us in worship.”

“The real integration of children into our lives is happening all across the world-just not very much in Western society. Here we have forgotten that there really is no higher calling than to raise a child. We tend to do a lot FOR our children but not nearly enough WITH our children. In many of today’s dual-income households, parents hire others to do most of the privilege of child raising.”

prayer for a dear friend

Up late last night asking God about a dear friend who’s fallen in love. I feel both delighted for him (as we’ve been praying for this area of his life and even tried to help set him up with someone) and burdened about something. It’s odd how you can feel both things at the same time even though they would seem to be mutually exclusive. The funny thing is that Kendra and I were both up until 2 in the morning thinking and praying about the same things…our 4 children and this friend. Somewhere in my mind ran this phrase “I want you to stand up for the one I have chosen for him”, or maybe it was “someone needs to…” I’m not sure what that means exactly but all of it has led me to a general sense that perhaps God is advising things to slow down to make sure that a proper and firm foundation is built for future relationship to this woman and to her whole family.

Book of my Calligraphy…wohoo!

I just got my calligraphy book in the mail yesterday. Gotta admit it looks pretty cool to see a bound book of your own work if full color. didn’t even think about this until I got a promo email offering a free 8″x8″ book. I was thinking, “now what would I put in a book in such short order? I don’t have pictures of the kids organized.” This will be a great gift idea for family.

Click here to view this photo book larger