Music Monday

Announcing: March 6th Fundraising Dinner for The SOLD Project

Hello all San Francisco Friends!

Next Sunday March 6th at 6 pm I will be serving up a fabulous farm fresh feast to raise money to support human trafficking prevention in Thailand. Let me know if you are interested in attending!

Check them out and make a donation here!

Love Wins

LOVE WINS. from Rob Bell on Vimeo.

I cannot wait to read this book.

At some point a few years ago I kind of forgot to believe in hell, and for years now I have been trying to figure out my faith post believing in the fire and brimstone. Now, to be clear I am not saying I don't think there is a hell, I just don't have a good theology about it any more.

You see, I think that if you love God for fear of hell, you don't love God. So what is the point in being concerned with hell? Furthermore, God wants to love us: to be in relationship with us. Therefore, I don't think he wants to set us on fire. If any of us was in a relationship where our options were make the other person happy or hurt forever, we would not call that love, we would call it something much more horrific, and God is love.

I am not saying this book will agree with me, but I like that it will take the subject on. I have not read this book, and I am not sure I will agree with it. Nonetheless, I forgot to believe in hell a while back, and I can't find many people that are taking on the conversation in a way that feels approachable to me. I am hopeful that this book will at least help me think about how on earth to deal an idea that has been so central to my faith for so long.

Honestly my relationship with God has been better in the years that I haven't thought much about hell, but if God is burning people up forever and I am just ignoring it, that isn't really much of a relationship. I am just pretending that God is the God I want God to be, and you can't be in true relationship while pretending someone is someone they aren't.

Happy Weekend

Source: marieardenpinkliving.blogspot.com via Cassandra on Pinterest

Source: poppytalk.blogspot.com via Anna on Pinterest

Rumors are there was in fact snow in the city. I however did not see it; nonetheless I am going to Tahoe in 5 hours. I will be on a retreat with my community group and I am very excited about it.

Happy Friday

Can I please find an excuse to do my makeup like that? and I love the shoes...

Snow and Grace

(Found on Pinterest)

Snow makes the world white and new again, than we walk in it, muck it up, bring the dirt to the surface, it gets ugly, a new layer falls and it is beautiful again, until spring, than the world is green and growing.

Years ago, living in upstate New York we would talk about snow as an image of grace. It covers us, we make it dirty, and it still it returns to cover us, until the time has come for the earth to give way to new life, life that has been waiting under the layers of dirt and snow.

San Francisco might have snow this weekend. I want to see snow here. I want to see the city I love covered in an image of grace.

My heart has needed a bit of a reminder of what grace looks like these days, and snow or no snow I am grateful to see that no matter where I live, I can still remember how grace works: it covers us, we muck it up, it covers us again, and in the right time new life emerges from it.

Truth

(This is painted by the Civic Center in my lovely city. I want context for it, but I like it even without context.)

"The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it." ~Flannery O'Connor~

Our federal government is proposing catastrophic budget cuts that will hurt employment programs across the country.

Please tell your reps why this is a terrible idea.

The truth is our systems in the US are currently designed to keep the poor poor. We need to change the systems and employment programs do that.

Monday

(Melody's Instagram of me at Brenda's)

Today was remarkably simple: I ate breakfast at Brenda's (my new favorite brunch place) with my dear friend Melody that flew up from LA for the weekend; I sat in my room and accomplished nothing aside from catching up on 3 weeks of Grey's Anatomy; I went to the gym; I stopped in to the hospital to visit a wonderful young woman that is in labor as I type (I left because it seemed that too many visitors really had to be overwhelming); and I finished the day with community group, where I listened to a good man tell his life story.

Days like today are simply fantastic. They are refreshing in the perspective they provide, and generally wonderful. Like I said yesterday- I am blessed. I just need to slow down long enough to be aware of it.

Being Blessed

(image found here)

The problem of modern living is that we are too busy to notice we are being blessed. ~Henri J.M. Nouwen, Life of the Beloved

I canceled most of my plans for the weekend, and just let others not happen by default. I have slowed down and sat in my room for more hours than is my usual, watching hours of Gilmore Girls, chatting a bit on the phone and processing the chaos that is my life. Mocked for how popular I am when I realize that I have three simultaneous commitments tonight, and I can only follow through with one. I could have tried to do two, but I would have ended up being neither here nor there, in other words absent from the blessing of being with either group. I chose the third of my three over-committed options, because it was the place of established blessing. The others were opportunities to be with amazing people and establish new relationships, but I needed the third. I need the slower option, the trusted option: time with two women who have walked with me in a thousand moments like this one, where I am asking myself where this chaos is going and if it will ever be any different.

I am being blessed, in all areas of my life, not in that they are going well (though so many of them are) but in that I have amazing people to walk with me in them. Nonetheless, it seems at times I am missing the blessing. The discipline of slowness (not an official discipline but an important one in my book) seems to be crucial to develop a sense of gratefulness and recognition that I am blessed and beloved. Running around in chaos I get lost in the feeling that I might miss out on something, my life might not be full enough, but when I am slow, and in solitude for some time, I am able to see that I have friends that have astounding patience with me, deep love for me and find joy in simply being with me. They find my adventures amusing, grieve my hurts and celebrate my success. I am blessed. Still, I need desperately to take the time to be still with those blessings or I forget that just 6 days ago I had a friend here visiting me from the other end of the country. When I am rushed, distracted and over committed all I can think about are the things I long for, when I am still I am able to celebrate the life I have.

Saturday Evening Post

How cute are they? And how appropriate for a rainy Saturday?

Happy Friday

I kind of desperately wish all men still dressed like this, and I could listen to music like this for ages.

Rain

(click on image for source)

The rain pelting the windows and sky lights of my office have been a beautiful sound track to this week. The sunshine and warm weather have made their exit, my hunter green rain boots are back in action and my bubble umbrella is bringing joy to my heart.

Happy Friday

Piano Phone: Alison Sudol & Rue Magazine from Shark Pig on Vimeo.

Friend Time

(Taylor and I in Greece, 4 year ago!!)

My dear friend Taylor is in town. So I don't have time to blog this week. LOVE

Music Monday

Thanks to Modcloth for introducing me to this artist.

Faith

(Pidgin Point Light House, a place that helps me believe, photo by me)

"Faith is what someone knows to be true, whether they believe it or not."
Flannery O'Connor

I have, many times, had a really hard time believing what I knew to be true, and just because I believe it today doesn't make me convinced I will believe it tomorrow, but somehow, I am confident that I will always know it to be true, and sometimes I think that is enough, it has to be, it is all I have got.

Saturday Evening Post

(Note the date Feb 3, 1923! Amazing!)

Waking up this morning I stayed in bed as late as I could and missed my buss to brunch. I managed to get to the TL without making my friend wait and found my desired brunch location by looking for the hipsters. I spotted one [a tall guy with skinny jeans, a plaid shirt, and a news boy hat] and walked over to Brenda's French Soul Food. At 9:15 I had beat the wait and only had 3 names before me. Brunch included a goat cheese and shrimp omelet with grits and community coffee. The menu reminded me of the summer I spent in Alabama, and trips to New Orleans. It was a splendid start to a beautiful San Francisco Saturday.

Later in the day I sat in the park at the civic center, sipped coffee in Cole Valley, road my bike through Golden Gate Park, hung my feet over the cement wall at Sunset beach and lazed about my house planning to clean my room at some point. There are photos but my phone is refusing to load them... so instead I am posting an image from the Saturday evening post in 1923. I think it is kind of awesome, much like my Saturday.

Happy Friday

and


To my Favorite Older Sister. I love you way more than peanut butter.

Cake Plates

(All images found on etsy. Click on the image to link to the etsy site.)

These are my new random obsession. I still have not found perfect mugs; clearly I am easily distracted when it comes to items used for hospitality.

Wednesday

Yesterday morning I had the joy of sitting on this cute little couch and discussing some plans for the year with a coworker. I love coffee on couches and orange with blue. The End.