Church sketch 5

Sometimes I think people expect everyone to use a particular mouth filter — certain things are acceptable or not acceptable to feel, think, or say. It’s not quite voicelessness — you’re allowed to speak — as long as you speak within the accepted parameters. Sometimes it feels like being silent would be better.

Jesus said that out of the heart the mouth speaks. I don’t want or need a heart filter — my heart is what it is, and filtering changes nothing. I trust him that my heart is a new creation, made righteous, clean, blameless — and that he will complete that work.

(These were thoughts on the way to church, that I sketched once we’d sat down.)

Our current sermon series is about heaven, and today’s focus was on relationships.

(I’d started randomly drawing a chorister, and then as Scott joked about how some in the congregation might wish they could still be married in heaven, others were glad they wouldn’t be, I thought of that Meat Loaf song… “And now I’m praying for the end of time, so I can end my time with you.”)

Church sketch 4

Some days it seems the songs evoke more images than the rest of the service does. This one should also have “If this life I lose” between “Where you go I’ll go” and “I will follow you.”

Daniel faithfully praying is a thread uniting the book.

Church sketch 2 and 3

These first two were from last week. We were looking at Ezra, and the folks already living in the land were telling the returned exiles that they also sought God and sacrificed to him and wanted to help with the work. Perhaps they were lying, and were mostly motivated to take over, to gain some kind of upper hand. Perhaps they had adopted God along with their own pantheon, instead of worshiping him alone. For whatever reason, the returned exiles said the existing folks had no part in God and no part in the work.

A stylized portrait of friends, and of Amy and me held in God’s invisible hand, and some of the lyrics to one of the songs we sang that morning.

Amy loves Sunday school. She’s learning some Bible verses and stories. She gets to do some fun crafts and games. They’re pretty creative with it all. They encourage the kids to bring their Bible to Sunday school — it’s one of several things they can do that earns them the right to put a marble in the jar. When the jar is full, all the kids get a little prize. Really, not a big deal. I’m just not a big fan of reward systems — when the reward is external, it’s empty — it may jumpstart a good habit, but it doesn’t help sustain a good habit (at least not longer than the reward system is in place) and it can interfere with intrinsic motivation. Think about how grades derail the joy and purpose of learning. Things worth doing have their own reward built in. The intrinsic reward of having a Bible is being able to read it and refer to it, and thereby to gain knowledge and wisdom of God and of people.

Today was Parent – Child Dedication day — several families came forward with their babies to show their intention to raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and the congregation gets to show their commitment to help these families in that task. It’s like baptism — and totally unlike it at the same time. The church gave each family a parenting book. From a previous conversation with the pastor about parenting resources, I’m guessing the book is Shepherding a Child’s Heart, which admittedly has some good points, such as a big emphasis on relationship, but has some big problems, too, such as claiming (against good exegesis) that the Bible mandates spanking, and assuming rebellion where it’s highly unlikely to exist. It actually doesn’t advocate paddling — instead it describes in great detail how spanking with the hand is to be executed. I just drew a paddle because it’s easier and conveys the point more obviously.

I want to add that I really appreciated the emphasis, throughout the sermon, on relationship-building in the home. When authentic and warm relationship is really and truly the aim, I think it can sort of redeem the spanking and such. At least I hope so, and it seems that way in at least some families.

A little one with her parents and the congregation, in the hand of God.

Church sketch

Recently a friend linked to Makoto Fujimura’s essay on Visual Theology, which led me to John Hendrix’s Drawings in church. I have no idea how Hendrix can create something so comprehensive and cohesive during a sermon, without knowing all the bits ahead of time. Anyway, I decided to swap my usual knitting for my sketchbook this week, and here is the sum total of my churchy doodling from today.

A few lines from a song:

A newcomer’s lunch was announced… along with some form of the word “assimilation;” they of course meant it as helping folks fit in, feel welcome, get a sense of belonging, but I was thinking of the Borg.

The sermon text was Daniel 9:20-27, in which archangel Gabriel interrupts Daniel’s prayer of repentance — personal and on behalf of his nation — to tell him that God will act, that there will be an end to sin and an end to the exile — Jesus himself is both.

Scott (our pastor) interprets this passage from the perspective of Dispensationalism. We’re more on the Covenant Theology side of things, but we’re also quite interested in N. T. Wright’s historical perspective.

Mamatography Week 1

I’ve joined Luschka at Diary of a First Child for this year’s Mamatography challenge — a picture a day, posted weekly.

I forgot to take any pictures yesterday — oops! — but here are the pictures from the rest of this first partial week.

Amy (5) has had tea parties at a friend’s house, and I thought she might like her own tea set. We ordered one that turned out to be too small, and then found this one at an antique store. The size is really perfect — big enough that it’s worth using for real tea, but small enough for her to manage most of the pieces herself. She’s enjoyed playing very carefully with it at the table with her dolls, and we’ve had a whole family tea party complete with cookies, too.

One of Amy’s presents from her grandparents was this little butterfly box to decorate. She had a grand time painting it and applying glitter and a jewel. She keeps her money in it now — theoretically. Last I looked, there was a plastic Mardi Gras coin in there.

This is the original set we ordered. Look how tiny it is! If I’d known, I would never have asked for it. I’m not much for keeping tiny things that need to be dusted and can’t be used, and while you could serve a swallow of tea with it, it doesn’t seem worth the effort. Beautiful, though, isn’t it? I just listed it on Ebay, and the name only shows on one side…

(Pssst… don’t tell Amy about this little set — she has no idea it ever existed.)

What we’ve been up to

Amy has been drawing some new things lately. For a long time it’s been all people, mostly girls, and now sometimes there’s a sun, or a horse, or these cats (two on the bottom row) or a house. It’s interesting how it seems to be correlated with her expanding writing and reading skills. That’s right — reading — she can read simple words now, and has read two whole Bob Books to us in the last two days, things like “Dot has a hat” and the like. It’s so neat to watch her in process.

She’s also been doing a lot with writing — half the time she writes backwards, and some letters bear little resemblance to their intended form, but there is clearly progress and great interest. She spends a lot of time with the movable alphabet at school. This is a divided box of many letters, which she can use to spell words. Today her teacher said she spelled out “Mama and Daddy and Amy and Miss Ann and Miss Natalia,” with her own spelling, of course — I think she said Natalia came out something like Nutoua. She’s constantly chattering, trying out and listening to words and sound combinations and asking things like “What does ‘ppy’ spell? Can you sound it out?”

I’ve finished all of this block for our quilt — eighteen blocks, twenty-five squares each, including eight squares made of half-square triangles.

This is the block I’m working on now — I need twenty. I’ve been using strip-piecing for part of it, which means I sewed strips of the white paisley and the green paisley together and then cut them to make the center five-square row and the three-square bit in the rows above and below the center row. It’s much more efficient.

Amy’s school has generously allowed me some space in a basement room that is rarely used; it’s wonderful to be able to stay at the school instead of having to drive off to the library or something, and wonderful to be able to do something productive while there.

Amy tore a button out of the back of this dress — it’s relatively new and a great favorite, so after several unsuccessful efforts, I came up with this floral patch. She wishes they were on the front instead… I may have more work to do.

On paper

She’s also starting to do letters. She can write “THE END” and her name.

The one on the bottom left is a horse.

And so is the one on the far right.

Yesterday she drew a horse with all four legs. She explained that these had two legs showing because there wasn’t enough room to draw the other two legs.

Protected: Drawing

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Advent calendar

Today, on the first day of December, I finished the Advent calendar. I’ve been wanting to get or make a reusable one for several years and just haven’t made up my mind about it until now.

Inspired by several on Etsy, I decided to go for a muffin tin version — you use magnets to cover the 24 openings on a mini-muffin tin.

I made the circles with cardstock and scrapbooking paper, plastic holly leaves, wooden stars, and stickers. Used adhesive magnet sheets for the backings.

My Creative Memories circle cutter made the work easier and more consistent, although I need a new red blade after cutting the magnets.

Inside, smaller circles have a little picture and Scripture references on the back for Advent readings — each one has an OT passage and a related NT passage. Here’s Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:18-23.

Next is “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news,” and the bit in Mark 1 about Jesus beginning to preach the gospel — gospel means “good news.”

Three coats of Mod-Podge matte on the magnets. I didn’t bother coating the readings because I might want to use different ones each year.

Protected: The artist at work

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