I read her bio on wikipedia. Pretty amazing rags to riches story. A black woman in the 50's singing a German rendition of this song in Berlin. Crazy cool.
I stayed home with my ailing oldest today instead of going to church. I really don't go to church anymore. I say I go to church because it's too much to explain. But really I get to hang with other redeemed-ones for an hour or so, let truth renew my mind, center-down, let the world fade away, renew my mind in Christ, and plant truth-seeds in eager children's ears. I always walk away breathing again. Not as soul-anemic as I was before I walked into that gathering place.
But today, I got to stay home and plant not only those good-news seeds but also my fix-breakfast-rub-back-listen-to-your-feelings-hug-a-child life in Connor, who's got some kind of bacterial infection. I thought it was strep, but yesterday he had a strep test and a mono test that both came back negative. He's had 3 weeks of sore throat, headache and stomach ache that come and go with fever popping up once a week. His fevers on Friday night and Saturday morning were the last straw. No more chalking it up to a avoiding work or psychosomatic complaints. Fevers are fever. Fevers of unknown origin, when they keep popping up, need to be investigated.
Connor doesn't do well when illness forces him to lay down and rest. To Connor there is no life if it doesn't involve fast movements and expressions of physical prowess. Being still is not in his vocabulary of comprehensible concepts. It's like a foreign language. He's learning to do it, because that's what everyone expects of him, but it's not his mother tongue.
I've been doing quite a bit of food blogging over at my other blog. I'm really excited about the cooking I've been doing at home and my new-found love of paleo-style eating. There are at least 100 other excellent paleo food blogs out there that already have a cookbook to go with the blog and thousands of recipes and followers. I doubt my food blog will go there, but it's a venue to share my cooking expression of affection- which my husband is all about supporting. His support means a lot.
My inspiration to write a re-telling of the scriptures to my boys via blog is still flickering, but just barely. I need to give it some dedicated time.
I've given up Facebooking for Lent for Ryland. Let me explain. I don't observe Lent in a traditional since. I didn't grow up in a church that observed Lent and the church I meet with now doesn't observe Lent either. I place no special spiritual kudos on observing Lent. I do think the concept of "fasting" from something (food, technology, etc.) for a period of time to replace that activity with the intentional, concentrated focus on Gospel truth feeding and Christ-in-me living is a worthwhile discipline. It's a discipline many disciples of Christ before me have practiced in an effort induce a hunger for what one really needs: Christ. It's hard to hunger for Christ when you're stuffed on every pleasure you can grasp.
Ryland mentioned Lent to me telling me his friend at school told him she was giving up candy and soda for Lent and asking me if I knew what Ash Wednesday was. We talked. It was a good two-way conversation. I explained, he asked more questions and suggested that I give up Facebook for Lent. Smile. I listened.
If there's an appetite I need to curb it's my insatiable appetite for what others think, mostly of me and/or my endeavors. I hate hearing myself say it, but it's the ugly truth. I am too concerned with the approval of others and not concerned enough that I am well pleasing to the Lord. If I am that to Him, why does what anyone else thinks matter? I want to live for an audience of One. That unhealthy appetite of mine needs to be dealt with. Hence a period of abstinence from Facebook and a feeding on His Book.
This Devotions for Lent book has scripture readings for each week and some writings from other Christians. This week I was struck by how fallen we are. So fallen because we are endowed with so high a design: Imago Dei. We were made to glorify God. We were made to be reflectors of His beauty. But we all fall short. Oh so short. And we're so deluded. We think we're so good.
"There is no one righteous. No not one. There is none who understands; none who seeks after God... For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." - Romans 3:10,11,23
We shovel in pleasure and are so stuffed on thoughtless indulgence we can't see how starved, how fallen we truly are.
Oh boy, I hear asthma-like coughs coming from the well child. Breathing trumps blogging.
Quieted,
Sheila
