I was talking to a dear friend the other day of my reservations with the church and of religion. At times, I have felt very strongly the absence of God because in turn, I have truly felt God. All to easily, I find myself falling into the habitual pattern of focusing on my separation from God rather than the reunion that I have here with fellow believers and the promise of being made whole. Christian Wiman, a brilliant poet, writes and speaks in a way that is raw and telling. He reminds me that it is a choice everyday to focus on moving forward in my faith where I am.

"So now I bow my head and try to pray in the mornings, not because I don’t doubt the reality of what I have experienced, but because I do, and with an intensity that, because to once feel the presence of God is to feel His absence all the more acutely, is actually more anguishing and difficult than any “existential anxiety” I have ever known. I go to church on Sundays, not to dispel this doubt but to expend its energy, because faith is not a state of mind but an action in the world, a movement toward the world. How charged this one hour of the week is for me, and how I cherish it, though not one whit more than the hours I have with my wife, with friends, or in solitude, trying to learn how to inhabit time so completely that there might be no distinction between life and belief, attention and devotion. And out of all these efforts at faith and love, out of my own inevitable failures at both, I have begun to write poems again. But the language I have now to call on God is not only language, and the wall on which I make my taps and scratches is no longer a cell but this whole prodigal and all too perishable world in which I find myself, very much alive, and not at all alone. As I approach the first anniversary of my diagnosis, as I approach whatever pain is ahead of me, I am trying to get as close to this wall as possible. And I am listening with all I am." -Christian Wiman

God goes, belonging to every riven thing he's made

sing his being simply by being

the thing it is:

stone and tree and sky, man who sees and sings and wonders why

God goes. Belonging, to every riven thing he's made,

means a storm of peace.

Think of the atoms inside the stone.

Think of the man who sits alone

trying to will himself into a stillness where

God goes belonging. To every riven thing he's made

there is given one shade

shaped exactly to the thing itself:

under the tree a darker tree;

under the man the only man to see

God goes belonging to every riven thing. He's made

the things that bring him near,

made the ming that makes him go.

A part of what man knows,

apart from what man knows,

God goes belonging to every riven thing he's made.

I could read this a million times over and it would never get old.

My new stationary I made this week.

Cake Pops Mastered!

A couple of weeks ago, I tried to make cake balls. As you can see, (from the picture directly above) things really failed- failed big time. Yesterday, we attempted to make cake pops for a Master Gardener Luncheon of my mom's. Again, as you can see, they (all 200 of them) turned out to be beautiful!

The End Result!!!!

Adventure is a path. Real adventure- self-determined, self motivated, often risky- forces you to have first hand encounters with the world. The world, the it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of mankind- and perhaps realized that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be "black and white."

- Mark Jenkins

August 5th

At 2 o'clock on August 5th, I will be getting my wisdom teeth out.

I might look like these guys... scary.

grain, intaglio, 2009

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

The other day after having a conversation about why girls can't do as great of things as guys (i.e. golf at Preston Trails, have an impromptu camping trip, fly fish, etc) something great happened! It was decided that we (Ellie Turner, Jeff Turner, and I) would make a special trip to experience the true glory of fly fishing. Yup. That's right. We are going to Basalt, CO at the very end of the month and we are fly fishing for two full days. Supposedly, girls are more natural fly fishers. So, we will see.

Wandering

Yesterday I had the great privilege of exploring and going on an adventure with my dear friend Margaret. With squinty eyes, we woke up at five in the morning to allow adequate time to get ready, grab coffee, drive to our destination, and watch the sunrise. Our destination- Turnpike Distribution Center (off of 30). This center is a wonderful mix of crushed cars and their rusted parts smashed into little boxes along with big bold machinery and falling dirt. It is a beauty! seriously. Think Doctor T.J. Eckelburg's Valley of Ashes from The Great Gatsby or the junk lot from The Brave Little Toaster (I know you know what I am talking about). Sadly, there were workers at that time in the morning and a barbed wire fence. They would not let us in because it was "dangerous"- PAH!!! We looked onto the beautiful scene and vowed that we would be standing in Turnpike Distribution Center within the next two weeks. So, that is our plan. For now, here are some pictures.

Kate MccGwire

Kate MccGwire's practice probes the beauty inherent in duality, exploring the play of opposites - at an aesthetic, intellectual and visceral level - that characterises the way we conceive the world. She does this by appealing to our essential duality as human beings, to our senses and our reason, and by drawing on materials capable of embodying a dichotomous way of seeing, feeling and thinking. The finished work has a consistent 'otherness' to it that places it beyond our experience of the world, poised on a threshold between the parameters that define everyday reality.

Sarah Moli Newton Applebaum (winner)

uhhhhhh what. I want to be Sarah Applebaum.

brilliant. absolutely brilliant.

AND I SAID TO MY SOUL, BE LOUD.

Madden me back to an afternoon

I carry in me

not like a wound

but like a will against a wound

Give me again enough man

to be the child

choosing my own annihilations

To make of this severed limb

a wand to conjure

a weapon to shatter

dark matter of the dirt daubers' nests

galaxies of glass

Whacking glints

bash-dancing on the cellar's fire

I am the sound the sun would make

if the sun could make a sound

and the gasp of rot

stabbed from the compost's lumpen living death

is me

O my life my war in a jar

I shake you and shake you

and may the best ant win

For I am come a whirlwind of wasted things

and I will ride this tantrum back to God

until my fixed self, my fluorescent self

my grief-nibbling, unbewildered, wall-to-wall self

withers in me like a salted slug

-every riven thing, Christian Wiman

Creativity Needs Time

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have.

We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

-Ira Glass