A Walk At Sunset

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The cooler air arrived, and I wanted to go for an evening stroll.

I put in my earbuds and hit the 'Makers and Mystics' podcast, picking up in the middle of a roundtable discussion and started down the hill.

Then I noticed the sky.

And I turned around and went all the way back to the front porch to get a picture.

The textures in the sky were glorious.  I took the pic and then headed back down the street with every intention of doing the Usual Route...maybe a bit shortened, since it was getting on for dark.

I took another picture as I started down the hill again.

The lighting was already changing when I got to the curve at the bottom of the hill

I went around the corner and, coming up on the intersection where I typically would go straight, a couple with a little dog came  up from the main road and turned that way.

Suddenly, I decided I wanted to head to the main road and follow the sunset.

There's just one house between the neighborhood street and the main road through the valley; one little bit of road heading west.  I planned to turn south at the main road and look for open sky.

But just a bit south I decided to cross the road and walk through the park as the light was still changing.

There's a creek that runs along the back of the park, with a foot bridge to the greenway on the other side.  

I got a bit of the reflection in the water.

The athletic fields at the middle school on the other side let me get underneath the power lines and get an unobstructed view.

It's amazing how much the color intensifies when zoomed in a bit.

But the power lines do, after all, add a bit of context/ texture.

I turned around and started back home.  The sky off to the southeast was lit up as well.

I looked back over my shoulder and couldn't resist another shot zoomed in on the fabulousness.

There's something rather metaphorical about looking at the sunset through chain links.

The last look back before I left the park:

Heading back up from the main road the streetlight was just barely strong enough to cast a shadow in the twilight

And finally, took one last picture from the end of the porch...where I took the first one.

Had I taken the normal walk, I'd've been mostly on tree-lined streets where I would barely get a glimpse of the sky now and then.

I'm so glad I followed the sunset.

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day, they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.  - Ps. 19:1 - 3, NIV84

A Little Exercise in Creativity...

 posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

We are having once-a-month ladies' leadership meetings to prepare for the 2023 Women's conference; we are going through the book It's Not Supposed to Be This Way by Lysa Terkeurst, and in chapter 5, Lysa writes about her mother taking her to painting events to do some therapeutic painting on a canvas.

Lysa protests that she is not a painter, but no matter to her mom.  They took the painting classes.

So tonight in our meeting, canvases and paint were distributed and...we painted.

I will honestly say that my best artistic medium is not visual arts, lol.  And we only had about 40 minutes to paint, after the devo.

That ain't much time...specially if you want to layer paint.  Can't wait for it to completely dry between layers.

Most of the ladies painted flowers or trees or butterflies or sea/landscapes.

I am not most ladies, lol.

I can point out about 20 different things in that which could have been done better.  But I felt like I expressed the thought I had and that, my friends, is what it's about.  Not perfection. As a non-painter, I am kinda surprised it turned out at all.

Eight years ago I wrote a song taken from Ezekiel 37...which periodically gets stuck in my head.  It's kinda been there for a bit now.  Probably why that painting came to be.

Oh- Oh- Oh

Can these dry bones live? Can these dry bones live?

It's such a dismal sight; bones all bleached and white

But the question comes to light...can they live?

Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know....

We prophesy to the dry bones, we prophesy to the dry bones, 

We prophesy, we prophesy - 'Live!  In Jesus' Name!

Live! In Jesus' Name!  Live! In Jesus' Name!'

Oh - Oh- Oh

Can these dead dreams breathe?  Can these dead dreams breathe?

The spark has long gone cold, they're all stale and old

We have not been told - can they breathe?

Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know...

We prophesy to the dead dreams, We prophesy to the dead dreams, 

We prophesy, we prophesy - 'Breathe! In Jesus' Name!

Breathe!  In Jesus' Name!  Breathe! In Jesus' Name!"

Oh - Oh- Oh

Can this mute hope sing?  Can this mute hope sing?

Its voice has long been gone, shutters closed and drawn,

Forgotten every song -- can it sing?

Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord, you know....

We prophesy to the mute hope, We prophesy to the mute hope

We prophesy, We prophesy - 'Sing!  In Jesus' Name!

Sing! In Jesus' Name!  Sing! In Jesus' Name!

Oh- Oh- Oh

We will live, we will breathe, we will hope in you, 

With your life, your breath, your song!

We will live we will breathe we will hope in you, 

With your life,  your breath, your song!

Oh- Oh-Oh

 

Jet Lag is a Thing.

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The Eastern Gate from the Mount of Olives.  

I've been good during the day...but about 8:30 at night, boom, I hit a wall and can do nothing but crawl into bed, where I dream I'm still in Israel and wake up disoriented.

I assume this will go away soon and I'll be back to normal; likely wondering if it really happened, lol.

We had an amazing trip. Several folks have asked me what my favorite site was; I really can't answer that, although I can say that I learned the most at Masada.  (I looked it up on Wikipedia; the details there don't *quite* match up to what our very learned guide told us.)  I only had a vague notion of a battle there, and I thought it had to do with the Maccabees, so I was in the wrong historical period all together. 

I had a lot of incorrect assumptions about many things; seeing how it really is was...amazing.  The Sea of Galilee is much, much smaller than I had expected; the Dead Sea is much bigger, for all that is is evaporating at a rate of about 3 feet per year (plans are being made to bring in water from the Red Sea to stabilize the water levels).  The desert is rocky...and looks almost Martian.  Jerusalem's hills are very steep and the valleys are narrow.

I've been posting pictures in batches to my Facebook feed; putting notes on them as I go.  But I can only do short batches in the evening before the jet lag hits and I lose my ability to spell at all, along with my ability to compose a coherent sentence with all the words in it.

The travel itself...the flights in and out of New York, and the 11+ hour flights between New York and Tel Aviv...was a test of endurance.  I had long layovers in New York both coming and going, and the last one was especially rough because every time I sat down, I started to nod off to sleep.  I was afraid I'd fall sound asleep and miss my boarding call for the flight back to Nashville, so I spent a lot of time just walking around the terminal and telling myself I could sleep on the plane once we boarded.  But, once I finally got on board that last plane, I got afflicted with what my grandma called 'the heebie-jeebies' in my legs...the muscles were twitching and spasming in a very itchy and irritating way.  I had a window seat, which would have been good had I been able to lean against the cabin wall and snooze, but with my restless legs I was bordering on claustrophobia.  It was an exercise in self talk  "It's only 2 hours... it's only an hour and 45 minutes....it's only 90 minutes...' etc.

I was really glad to stand up when we got to Nashville.  I told My Sweet Baboo that if I go again with him...we are going to upgrade the seats! 

I have to admit, I am a terrible skeptic.  I know that there were unscrupulous folks in the  middle ages who took advantage of folks on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, selling them bogus relics.  I wondered if those same shysters had created semblances of holy sites, insisting that, for instance, that particular slope was where Jesus taught the Beatitudes.  But there's  no doubt that Jesus taught on the southern steps of the Temple, which have been excavated. And the Garden of Gethsemane is still there, with its 2,000 year-old olive trees that could tell us of Jesus's prayers, if they could talk.  Capernaum is excavated...and maybe the house identified as belonging to Peter didn't really belong to Peter, but it was there at the right time; someone lived in it who would have been known to Jesus.

And the caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were found are there to be seen, having sheltered the incredible texts that prove that the Old Testament scripture we have today is fundamentally unchanged from the texts of Jesus' day.

 I have a lot of personal processing to do still; I came home Saturday night, pretty well zonked, and have just managed to do what I need to do in the daylight before getting zonked again, so the only processing I've done so far is to write the little blurbs for the Facebook posts.  

It was an amazing trip and I'm ever so glad I went.

Oh, the Poor Neglected Beer Blog....

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi



I have thought often of posting in the past...month, gulp...but I have so many irons in the fire at the moment that I just couldn't capture the thoughts at the moment.

So I thought I'd give you a little update on something that started well over a year ago...

I am going to Israel at the end of next month.

Can I just pause a moment and let that sink in?  It just doesn't...compute....

It's another DIVE trip.  I went to the DIVE School back in 2014, when I was in a rather limbo spot.  It was an amazing week and was the first time I'd been away from home for that long without really feeling like I'd been gone forever. It went by so fast and I was getting so much poured into me that it felt like it existed outside of time.  And I got encouraged that I had songs to write.

So I came home with a personal challenge...there was a DIVE songwriting conference happening  about a year later, so I told myself if I could come up with one song a month in the next year I could go to that conference.

And I did it.  I had twelve songs on paper by the end of September 2015.  Some were pretty lame...er, needed more work...but there were two or three that I really thought had potential.  I went to the conference, shared the last song I wrote, really badly as 1)it's nearly outside of my vocal ability anyway and 2) it was a cappela and I need help staying in the same key and 3) I'm not accustomed to singing solo.  And the song, which I had such belief in, was judged 'dated'; someone said it sounded like an 80's rock opera.  ONE solitary person said she could imagine Jesus Culture doing it.  So it wasn't entirely shot down, lol, and there was an acknowledgement that there were some good phrases and word pictures in it.  But overall the result was, well, I can't sing good enough to share a song and I don't play an instrument and so, I need help.

I was encouraged to pick a few of the songs...maybe even just one...and share them with some folks on our ministry team at church.  Maybe even purchase some time from one of them in order to get a good critique on the song and some solid help in developing it.

But I'm not after writing songs for the Christian music industry; I wanted to write songs for our house.  What would be the point of investing money in a song that I'm not going to peddle elsewhere?  But I did share some of the songs with folks on our ministry team.

Crickets, y'all.  Crickets.

The songwriting, lacking any kind of demand on it, has kind of faded, although I have written one or two more and have bits and pieces of potential songs in my notebook.

But I was writing this thing on the blog about Transitions...and found myself wandering off into fictionalized versions of the stories.  I edited that out, well edited MOST of it out, of the posts and put it into files on the computer.

Then I started writing a piece about Sarah and Hagar.  I saw it as a two-woman play, with them each relating bits of their story in turn, but the rough story arc took on its own life and I'm not sure I have a play now.

And that's what I was working on in fall of 2017, when Rita announced she would take a tour group to Israel in May 2018.  I watched the promo video and thought, oh, in my dreams... and promptly forgot about it.  About 6 weeks later, in the choir room between services, one of the young ladies who had also been to Dive caught me. 'Are you going with Rita?' she asked.

Well, our head intercessor's first name is also Rita, so my immediate thought was that she was taking a group somewhere...maybe IHOP or something...but I hadn't heard about it.  Seeing my puzzled expression, my young friend added, 'To Israel?'

Oh, yeah.  That.  Ha, ha, I wish.

But it made me think and I came home and watched the promo video again.  And this time, when I watched it, Rita's vision of doing creative things rather than just jumping on the bus to go to the next spot hit me.  What if...I could stand where Abram stood looking over the Jordan Valley when he saw it full of sulpherous  smoke, wondering if Lot made it out alive?  Something jumped inside of me and I thought...this is my trip. And I signed up.

Well, it got postponed from last year to this year...but it's paid off, I have all my plane tickets and...it's going to happen.  The night before I purchased my tickets to get from the Rocket City to our departure point at JFK, I went through my DIVE cards again...the results of the prophetic exercise all DIVE classes do on Sunday.  I had forgotten the details of them, but there was one that had made us all laugh when I got it.

I quipped, 'Oh, maybe that's a date night w/ my hubby at PF Chang's,'  but the young lady that wrote that card caught me later and said, 'No.  I saw feet on the tarmac.  It's a trip.'

So after I booked the tickets I looked to see which continent Israel is considered to be in; the Middle East is 'Intracontinental' and is in Europe, Asia and Africa.  But Israel is considered to be in ...you guessed it...Asia.

So.  I'm going with no agenda, really, except to re-ignight the creative, which has fallen kind of asleep. And this is my prayer, which are the lyrics from the song I sang so badly at the songwriter's conference:

Can these dry bones live?  Can these dry bones live?
It's such a dismal sight -- bones all bleached and white
But the question comes to light, can they live?
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.

We prophesy to the dry bones, we prophesy to the dry bones
We prophesy, we prophesy, 
'Live, in Jesus' name! Live, in Jesus' name!  Live in Jesus' name!'
 Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.

Can these dead dreams breathe?  Can these dead dreams breathe?
The spark has long grown cold, they're all stale and old
We have not been told, can they breathe?
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.

We prophesy to the dead dreams, We prophesy to the dead dreams
We prophesy, we prophesy, 
'Breathe, in Jesus' name!  Breathe, in Jesus' name!  Breathe, in Jesus' name!'
 Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.

Can this mute hope sing?  Can this mute hope sing?
Its voice has long been gone, shutters closed and drawn
Forgotten every song, can it sing? 
Lord you know, Lord you know, Lord you know.

We prophesy to the mute hope, we prophesy to the mute hope
We prophesy, we prophesy,
'Sing, in Jesus' name!  Sing, in Jesus' name!  Sing, in Jesus' name!'
Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh.

We will live, we will breathe, we will hope in You
With Your life, Your breath, Your song!   (repeat ad lib)

Oh, oh, oh -- oh, oh, oh- oh, oh, oh, oh. 

What's My Motive?

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

(The back cover of the journal I customized at DIVE in 2014...that I use to record original song lyrics and other poetic stuff...)

One of my Blogging Buddies (and former BSF Teaching Leader), Suzanne Matthews, recently posted a question:

What Bible verse or quote impacted your life in 2017?

When I first read that, I paused, but came up with a blank.  I couldn't really think of one that stood out.

But, as these things go, one verse that caught my attention last year has resurfaced again and again in the time since I first read that question.

How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?  - Jn 5:44

I've just started reading David Binon's book The Invisible Worshiper, and, even though he hasn't mentioned that verse (at least not in the first two chapters, lol), I keep hearing that question over and over again.

Am I making an effort to obtain the praise that comes only from God...or am I looking for approval/praise from other people?

See, at the turning of the year I have become keenly aware that my creative self has all but shut down.  Oh, I'm puttering away here and there, but there's nothing consistent.  The urgency that had me writing even just three years ago has pretty much evaporated.  I sit down to write and...nothing.

I'll be honest; a lot of the reason I found myself floundering to write/create is...it went nowhere.  I began to feel like I was spending a lot of energy...not just creating, but anticipating and hoping that the work was worth doing, could make a difference...and, by and large, it was met with a 'Oh, that's nice.'...and then, nothing.

Case in point...not meant to be a complaint or a whine, just a statement of fact...I went back and counted the comments I've gotten on the blog in the past year.  Not counting my own...seven.

I shouldn't have counted.    Am I trying to gain the praise that comes from God...or praise from people?

I pulled out my songwriting notebook and read through some of the lyrics.  And I honestly think at least some of them are good.  But my attempts to turn them into something have just hit brick wall after brick wall.  So I'm pretty sure turning them into something isn't my calling.

That's trying to get praise from people, right?

Then... the Passion and Purpose post challenged me...I realized that another reason my creative unction had failed was that I failed to spend time in the presence of the Creator.  He is the SOURCE.

A wee bit squeezed in here and there ain't gonna cut it.  Not if I want to move forward.

I had given up on writing because it was going nowhere.  And I'd stopped spending quality time with God because the creativity that came from those meetings drove me to write...but the writing was going nowhere.

Looking for praise from people ultimately shuts down not only the output of creative but closes off the source of creative.

Ya'll, I am having my clock cleaned good at the start of the year.

So here's a paradigm shift...a challenge for 2018...become a person who seeks to please God...

Putting a demand on it...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

I didn't make new year's resolutions, as such, but I did give myself a challenge.

I wanted to see if I could put a demand on the writing anointing; after DIVE, which proved to me I could write a song...even if it isn't a brilliant song...I wanted to work that pump and see if there's good water there.

And we were told that writing is like digging a well...you have to pump out a bunch of mud before you get to the good water.

So, well, I thought I'd start pumping.

My goal is one song a month.

I came up with a song in January; not brilliant, but not bad.  I'm pretty happy with it, although it has no musical accompaniment at all and the bridge may change if I actually put music with it.

So, on to February.

Driving home from work last night, I got a flash of inspiration about remixing a classic hymn (think Cornerstone if you don't know what I mean).

All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name is the one that hit me...with a rather celtic-sounding melody line.

When I got home, I pulled out one of my old Baptist-choir era hymnals and jotted down what I had in mind.

But I don't sing well a capella.  And I had no idea how to capture the melody before I forgot it.

I had an old toyish battery-operated  keyboard that had belonged to my grandmother years ago; I thought I could noodle something out of that.

But I couldn't find it.  I looked all over.  Nothing.  I kinda panicked.

I finally pulled out my classical guitar, that is played with more than played, and managed to pick out a melody line that I recorded fa-so-la style on my lyric sheet.  Because who knows WHAT key that thing is tuned to.  I suspect it's at least a step and a half low.

 Ugly and not really complete, but enough to remind me of what I was thinking.

Then, when I got home from work tonight, I happened to ask The Actor if he had seen Grandma's keyboard.

'Why do you want it?' He asked.

Sheesh.  I have to explain???

He had it.  Now I can get it properly transcribed...

Y'know, I *might* want to invest in a slightly more uptown piece of equipment if I really do much of this...lol...

I will find myself...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Back in September, I wrote about a song that just undid me in worship...

As it happened, the worship teams from all campuses came together last fall to do some music videos and 'All Is Lost' was one of the songs that we recorded that night.


All is Lost from The Rock Family Worship Center on Vimeo.

Worth a listen...

Because that song continues to minister to me.  Just this past week, in fact, I was puzzling over one area that was still not really quite healed, still painful, still awkward.  Not knowing if I needed to take a step towards a conversation about it or if I needed to still follow the word that I had from the beginning to keep silent and let God work for me.

And after listening to a timely message, the chorus to this song came back to me... 'When all is lost, I will find myself in You.'....  and I realized that I didn't need to look for the answer to my questions by trying to fix something on my own.  It is IN HIM that I will find myself...find my peace...find my answers and find my closure.

I will find myself in Him...

Songwriting

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

Dive is a worship school; we had classes on songwriting...structure, thinking out of the box...guitar and the Nashville Number system...and piano, with a side trip down current recording/electronic music software.

But the big emphasis is songwriting.  We each were to present an original song to a board comprised of worship leaders (all instructors in the school for the week) on Thursday morning.

Now, I knew it was coming before I applied.  As one of my friends who has attended Dive in the past commented, 'You dig down into who you are and get rid of a bunch of junk, then you write a song about it.'

Well, in the weeks leading up to Dive, I decided that would not be my story.  No angsty song about being so beaten down and broken and waiting for Jesus to come and fix it.  I was going to write an up beat declaration.

So, the week before I left, I sat down with my notebook and got a chorus and a bridge in a snappy 4/4 about the Rock that is Higher.  All I needed to write at Dive was two verses and I had a song.

Then Saturday night in the hotel room, I got a wild hair about the widow and the oil in 2 Kings and, before I knew it, I had a page and a half of potential lyrics about being broken and empty and waiting for the oil of the the Spirit to come and fill and heal.  In 6/8.  In spite of myself.

It needed a serious edit, but it was real and honest and, most importantly, it was written while at Dive, which is not a requirement but I took that as a personal challenge.  So I kinda shelved the Rock song and decided to work on the Oil song.

Sunday was a late night after a long and intense day, so I didn't work on the song again until Monday evening.

I cut, I pasted, I moved pieces around, tried different combos and got two verses and a chorus that I was reasonably happy with.  It was going on Midnight when I began to work on the bridge...and when I found that I worked myself into the last line 'Let it flow, let it flow'... I knew it was time to put away and start fresh in the morning.

But...I did do one thing after we shut the lights off.  I prayed for inspiration and good lyrics.

The next morning, I got up and went early to breakfast and took my notebook with me. With just a wee bit of rearranging of what I had,  and adding a line or two, the bridge fell into place.  I had a song.

One of the other ladies agreed to play piano for me, and we met that evening and she polished up my rough melody and put chords with it.  I whacked off half the bridge...once we put music to it, part of it just didn't seem to fit...and after our work session, realized I was repeating the chorus too much and taking the song too fast.

I got one more quick practice with her the next day, with those changes, and got through it.  It wasn't flashy, it wasn't deep, it was just a simple little statement of need and expectation.  And it was ok.

So, when Thursday came, I'd only sung it with music about twice.  I figured I'd go first or second...I was just waiting for that awkward moment when no one wanted to get up.  But everyone was determined to get up and do it, so I waited and listened and waited and listened...and I became more and more convinced that my Oil song was just kind of lame and cheesy.  But it was what I had.

I actually went 3rd from the end; for whatever reason Rita decided it was my turn and called me up. Now, I'm an alto.  Melody is not generally what I sing.  And I'm just part of the choir.  Alone is something I just DON'T sing.  And we'd only rehearsed twice.  So...I kinda forgot the melody line in a couple of spots, and I miscounted the break between the chorus and the bridge and had to stop and start again there.

But despite my goofs, the panel (Rita, Kallie Hieligenthal and Kristene DiMarco) actually liked the song and said very nice things about it.  I was flabbergasted.

 I don't necessarily take that as a sign that I should quit the day job and start writing songs.  But it was a confirmation that there is more in me than just  keeping the data base clean.

And I have a song to share next time the church songwriter's life group meets.  Actually, I have two...I did get two verses for the Rock song on Wednesday afternoon, while the rest of the group got their practice time w/the piano.

If I can remember the melody lines. :-)

The Creative Journal

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

When Rita told us we would be doing 'creative journaling' on Saturday, I envisioned some exercises in writing in the journal that I brought with me.  But I was mistaken.  We were making a creative journal.

This is an exercise that we have done at various girl's events at church...shoot, we did this for the project for the 'Holy Spirit' unit in Friends Club...take an ordinary composition book, cut photos/words/etc from magazines and such, and make a collage to cover the front and back of the composition book to make a unique custom journal.   When we've done it at church, we covered the collage w/clear contact paper; Rita had Modge Podge to use to seal it (confession:  my experience w/ Modge Podge has been that it's ALWAYS sticky, so I carefully packed my journal up and brought it home and covered it w/ clear contact paper).

This is a common first day exercise at the Dive school, to get the creative process cranking. Rita had TONS of magazines, as well as some old Bibles and dictionaries, rubber stamps and ink, stickers, bits of interesting fabric, silk flowers, craft jewels...all KINDS of stuff. It was interesting to see those who made true works of art, with sparklies and stickers and flowers, those who just put things on they liked and then found what they had done revealed something in them they had not paid attention to before they saw it on their journals.

Now,  as I said, I've done this a couple of times before and normally I've been late to the party, looking for significant things in magazines that have already been culled once or twice.

But Saturday, I got a brand spanking new 'In Style' magazine.  I laughed, wondering what of spiritual significance I could find in a fashion magazine.

Y'know, if you pull stuff in a fashion mag out of that context...it can be...well, interesting.  I just started at the front and pulled out anything that caught my eye.  This is something that needs to be done from the gut...not over thought (overthinking was a common snare throughout the whole week for many of us...it's hard to just let go and trust that God will use the creative process).

I ended up with a lot of pictures of gems and jewelry...and words that went with them, so I decided to put them on the front cover.  Then I found that no one had yet cut out the definitions of 'jewel' and 'gem' from the dictionary, so I helped myself to those and added those...and the definition of 'gem' included something prized for its beauty or worth, while the definition of 'jewel' included a thing or person of great worth or excellence. 

I'm not sure just exactly how I chose the things that went on the back, other than they were the things that seemed most significant of the rest of my 'cut outs'.  I put the cat on just for fun, 'cause you know I love me some kitties, but after it was all finished I found that the cat really did have something to say to me.

One of the things I wanted to work through at Dive was my tendency to worry over much (overthink?) how what I said and did would appear to other folks.  What would they think?  How would that affect their opinion of me?

Cats don't care about that.

I also thought it was interesting that the words on the front were almost totally adjectives, while the words on the back were, by and large, instructions. 

'BE' then 'DO'...in that order.


And I did not set out to instruct myself....but I got instructed just the same.

I will go and look...

I am soooo not an artist; never could get what I saw in my head to come out of my crayons or charcoal or paintbrush or whatever.

Yet spontaneous painting is often used as a form of worship, particularly in girl's/women's events at our church.  I really struggled with the last time I participated in one of the painting sessions (and I still need to put some tail feathers on that poor bird!)

And tonight I found myself at another mother/daughter event at which the paints were out.  We were encouraged to paint graphics reflecting 'Big Dreams'.

I pulled out the little NKJV Bible I'd tossed in my bag before I left the house, thinking I'd do something with the most recent SSMT verse...y'know, the one I'm supposed to be memorizing.

Could NOT remember the reference.  Wasn't sure I had the verse good enough.  Looked and looked through Psalms, but, since I'm using one of the auxiliary Bibles, I couldn't find it.  It was, after all, a different translation.

But the clock was ticking (we only had about 30 minutes to paint) and a plate with four blobs of paint....hot pink, royal blue, neon green and bright yellow...appeared at my table, along with a sheet of 'canvassy' paper.

I mixed some of the pink and yellow together and swirled some onto the page, not really sure what would happen or where I was going.

Back in the day, we used to watch Bob Ross paint a fabulous picture in 30 minutes every Saturday (he was back-to-back w/ 'Sewing with Nancy').  I was amazed at how he just made the picture appear.  "The bushes live in your brush,' he'd say.  It looked like magic to me.

But as I swirled that bit of paint onto the page, suddenly I saw a whole picture.  And instead of struggling as I did last time, the picture...well, graphic...seemed to leap off my brush.

I had to bring it home to finish it, as I couldn't put the words on until it was dry, but, yeah, talk abut a big God dream...

  Moses had given up on the dream of freeing his people.  But there, at the burning bush, it was revived.

Part of the prayer my pastor friend prayed over me Saturday was that God would bring about the dreams I'd given up on.

I can't revive a dead dream.  But I can take off my shoes and listen when He begins to speak of it.

Lovin' the Technology

The times, they are truly wondrous...

Our church youth camp was this week; the kids are heading home today. We sponsor an event...'camp' really doesn't fit...that, between our church and about 8 other churches hailing from Florida to North Carolina to North Alabama, packs in about 400 kids to a resort in Sandestin, Florida (where, thankfully, the currents have been kind and there is no oil).

But- here's the cool thing - they live streamed the sessions on the church website.

So, do you know what that means?

It means there are a BUNCH of parents who sat up glued to their computer screens until midnight or better all week (if you're curious, the services are archived here). All four of my kids went; the two older ones were working in different capacities; the two younger ones were campers.

And, with all the things I planned to do with my quiet house, I was one of the glued-to-the-computer parents.

But I don't feel like I wasted my time; I honestly believe that, 20 years from now, a huge number of those kids will look back on this week and say 'that's when my life changed.'

But I *am* playing catch up today, and the dryer just buzzed... ;)

Peace in the Storm

I finally got to try my hand at painting...something I've never really done before.
During our 'night of worship' services, we frequently have a group of folks doing artwork over to the side, as part of an expression of worship. Some of the paintings produced have been quite powerful...they're always amazing.

'Course, the folks who do that actually have some artistic talent. Me, not so much. But I thought it looked like it would be a fun thing to do. And, today we had a 'mother daughter pre-SHE paint party' after church...with worship music playing and paint and canvases available for moms and junior high girls to experiment with letting the Spirit flow with creativity and painting.

This started out to be a picture of flowers. But, when I was painting the background, I saw stormclouds in the brushstrokes...and flipped the painting 180 degrees and started working with that idea. Then I had a rock in the sea...waves crashing against it...and finally, a bird sitting on a nest on the rock.

Peaceful in the midst of the storm's fury.

'Course, not everyone saw that...at least, not right off the bat.

I attempted a second painting, but, well, I was not competent enough to express what I was reaching for and that mess will probably go in the trash can.

It was interesting...and surprisingly difficult. Painting is not my gift.

But I'm glad I did it.

Indulge Me...for Grandma

One of the techies in Huntsville Masters Commission has posted a few video clips from the service they did at church a couple of weeks ago. They began with their version of 'Stomp', which they use as a ministry tool to grab folk's attention. They'd just returned from doing outreach in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, hence the beat-up state of some of the, um, 'drums'.

The Artist is the one on the far right in the red shirt. You don't wanna know what he's done to his hands/fingers in the course of playing this since the first of the year...he actually posted bloody pictures on Facebook, which makes his mamma shudder.

Anyway, hope you enjoy it, Mom! (If you double click, it should take you to Youtube, where you can enlarge the picture and you can see the other video clips on the sidebar there).

A Microwaved Drama

One of my personal favorite ministry things is doing dramas/skits/etc in order to provoke an audience to consider spiritual truths. But, for several reasons, our little drama troupe at church has been kinda dormant for a while.

This morning, however, we got to do a little skit. The drama team had a slight misunderstanding somewhere along the way and thought it was supposed to be presented next week...at least we found our error on Wednesday instead of, say, this morning...

So we were scrambling to get something to work.

And, to add spice to the challenge, we had to get the point across in less than 5 minutes (preferably between 3 and 4 minutes). Since we now have three Sunday morning services, time constraints just don't allow anything longer.

The consensus on the skit, just looking at the script, was that it was too long. So it was trimmed a bit. We went into rehearsal with a script that I *thought*, upon reading it aloud at home, would come in at less than 5 minutes.

When we went through it with the blocking, it was NOT under five minutes. And it didn't seem to get the point across.

So, the three of us in the skit took a literary scalpel to it and began whacking some more. One husband arrived to pick up his actress wife, and we performed it for him, hoping for some objective thoughts. Did the point come across? Was it too wordy? Was it funny? He liked it, but said it needed a bit of punch at the end.

Inspired, our 'Angel' character came up with exactly the right line for that punch. Time on the final run through: three and a half minutes.

So, we were on this morning...three times. And, let me just say, God is very good! It was well received, and well complimented. Put together quickly, and quickly performed.

And it was fun.

It's an indescribable feeling to be part of a message. And, given the time constraints we had, it's pretty obvious that the success of it wasn't due to the people involved! Only God could put something like that together.

Which is why it's indescribable! ;)

Retreat Report

posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
This was my reward for rising early for a little QT on the balcony of our lodge:
It's a pity the swirling of the mist can't be seen; it was a gorgeous, peaceful, satisfying few moments before I had to wake the girls up.

There is a story behind the ribbons; a story of God's grace. The red ribbons represent second place in the human video competition. Now, this group of girls is VERY sanguine; practices were almost like trying to corral and coordinate a bunch of puppies. We had a couple of run-throughs before we left church Thursday morning; none of them were really satisfactory. It wasn't that it was so difficult; the girls just didn't seem to see the need to focus on what they were doing. It had been the same at the competition at our local level, but because they were the only ones competing in their age group they advanced to the state level. I had no idea how they would do on stage at the retreat.

But they walked on grace, and pulled together to do the best presentation they'd ever done. First place went to a graduating high school senior who did an amazing presentation about an old man who looked back over wrong decisions in his life and just rejoiced that he had finally learned that God was trustworthy; it was on a whole 'nother level than any of the rest of the entries (the 'rest' were two other groups plus our girls). I was tickled that they placed second, but to be truthful, I really was mostly proud of them for finally getting it and focusing on what they had to do.

They will get to do the video at least one more time; our end-of-the-year advancement program for all the girls ministries will be August 6, so all the girls in the class will get a chance to be part of it. It's a Barlow Girl song, Mirror, Mirror, and participation in the video was the project for our unit of study on Peer Pressure; the point of the video as they presented it is about not using your peers as the reflection of who you want to be. It's a great lesson for junior high girls...shoot, that's a great lesson for anybody!

Leftover Art

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
Because I want to reference this on this week's lesson on Ruth, I'm posting a bit of artwork:



During our monthly Night of Worship services at church, we have one corner dedicated to spontaneous artwork (I wrote a bit about it on the sewing blog: see Poured Out). One of the artists who works is a gentleman who is a potter; he brings in his wheel and some molds and works with clay.

Youngest DD, who is 11, was fascinated with this from the start, and began by watching and making suggestions, then the next month she helped make a pot, then she began making some things under the artist's supervision.

Last month, she made a pot, and, after she was done with the pot, she took the scrap pieces of clay and pushed them together and made that plaque at the top of today's post.

The pieces were glazed and fired last weekend and this piece, because it was made of scraps pushed together, cracked apart when it was cooling after being fired. My Sweet Baboo found some strong glue and mended the split.

Things to note and remember: It was made of leftovers; it cracked when fired; it was mended by her Father. ;)