Joy Dare - Feb 27

Today's Joy Dare Prompt:
3 Gifts Seen as Reflections
3 Ugly-Beautiful Gifts

My list (picking up from the last list - and often adding more than just the prompt):
587. When J. rides in the back of my car, and I smile at her through the rearview mirror
588. Any sunset over water
589. Candles on mirrors
590. That minivan
591. Scar from a good-news bone marrow biopsy
592. Winter in MN
593. The MN orchestra is back!
594. Recognizing the orchestra guest, Sedra Bistodeau, as someone I'd seen perform with her family many years prior! What a treat!
595. A busy day that went off without a hitch...minus the naughty little boy at the orchestra ;~) But he was so cute and funny it was hard to think of it as a hitch
596. Vespera coming home today!

Joy Dare, Shabbat, and Slowing Time

Last week we talked about how slowing down enough to notice the gifts in our lives may actually make us feel like we have MORE time. We constantly feel like we don't have the time to stop, notice, and give thanks. And, yet, when we do, we feel somehow as though we've done more, lived more...in fact, had more time. 

Ecclesiastes 4:6 says, "Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and a striving after wind."

Abraham Joshua Heschel said,

"One who wants to enter the holiness of the day must first lay down the profanity of clattering commerce, of being yoked to toil. He must go away from the screech of dissonant days, from the nervousness and fury of acquisitiveness and the betrayal of embezzling his own life. He must say farewell to manual work and learn to understand that the world has already been created and will survive without the help of man."

"The world has already been created..." I cracked a smile at this. Do we really somehow think that everything will cease if we cease our toil? "Better is a handful of quietness..." Why?

I think that when we stop we recognize who we are and who God is. We see that our work will never be done, and yet, that is just fine because God created this whole world for us, and the world is held in existence by God. It is all held together by God. Our work matters, yes. But our connection with God and with each other matters more. When we are quiet, we see God...in creation, in the people around us, in the gifts we have dared to count. And then we can go about our work, mindful of those things.

This practice of quiet, of mindfulness, of ceasing toil isn't easy, I think. So, God made it mandatory. Among the ten commandments we find, "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." (Exodus 20:8) Holy means set apart. We set this day aside. "...the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it, you shall not do any work..." (Exodus 20:10)

The Sabbath Manifesto project (a non-sectarian project, by the way) says it this way:

"Way back when, God said, 'On the seventh day thou shalt rest.'  The meaning behind it was simple: Take a break. Call a timeout. Find some balance. Recharge."

"Somewhere along the line, however, this mantra for living faded from modern consciousness. The idea of unplugging every seventh day now feels tragically close to impossible. Who has time to take time off? We need eight days a week to get tasks accomplished, not six."

Blogger and former YWAM missionary, Andrew Odom, puts it this way,

"We are destroying every sense of our being by not observing a day of rest. Remember the tortoise and the hair? There is a reason we run faster and work harder, but only fall farther behind. Our lives are too hurried, too full, and subsequently too out of balance."

We are not very good at stopping, but it is only in the stopping that we are restored. In the words of Rabbi Wolpe:

"Shabbat means stopping. Pursuit slows and ceases; grasping and getting are no longer our aim. The world still spins but we do not. Balance is restored. We give ourselves a day to celebrate God's giving us a world. Flash and dazzle dim. Meaning slowly ripens. As the poet wrote, peace comes dropping slow. Shabbat Shalom."

Strangely enough, the practice of Shabbat seems to free me all week long. Yes, my work is more productive when I have rested. But, somehow, greater productivity does not equal more frazzled and hurried. Stepping out of the toil once a week teaches me to step into the moments of daily life. And there I can count my thousands of gifts...

Joy Dare - House That Mercy Built

Today's Joy Dare Prompt: A Gift Worn Out, New, Made Do

My list (picking up from the last list - and often adding more than just the prompt):
571. Mango's big brown teddy bear that we gave to him in college. It's been loved and snuggled by both our kids since then.
572. Mane so happy about the NEW doll she found at the thrift store.
573. Stainless camping plates as extra baking pans
574. Storing the baking pan in the oven...reminds me of my mom
575. Remembering my mom's storage solutions - coffee mugs in a cake pan in the oven, extra blankets under the mattress...
576. Mane's knitting laid out on top of the picnic basket in the corner of the living room
577. Finding a way to clean the couch
578. Mango's video recording gig on Thursday night
579. Wooden xylophone from Romania hanging by the fireplace
580. Finding instructions on how to care for the houseplants on pinterest
581. African violet looking revived after following those instructions
582. Pothos plant putting out new shoots - also after following pruning instructions found on pinterest
583. Thinking of all these gifts from the big green chair in my living room!
584. Constant comments from others about how comfy and cozy our living room is
585. Remembering the song House That Mercy Built and how that's been our mission
586. The pleasure I get from thinking about and pondering how to make out home that way (Now how am I going to get an extra bedroom back?!)

 The House That Mercy Built by Point of Grace

A light in the distance
Welcomes those wayfaring souls
Come this far
A heart grows tired, faith grows cold
Wandering down the winding road
Just simply knock, the door will open

There is a house that mercy built
There is a place where brokenness is healed
There is a voice saying peace be still
There is a house that mercy built

Mercy will find you
Though you've given up
In the middle of what seems like nowhere
He'll shelter you beneath His wing
His love will cover every need
Just simply seek and you will find

There is a house that mercy built
There is a place where emptiness is filled
There is a voice saying peace be still
There is a house that mercy built

There is a house that mercy built
With blood and tears
We've nothing left to fear
We live in grace
Here in the safe embrace of God
The mercy of God

There is a house that mercy built
There is a place where grace has
Been revealed
There is a voice saying peace be still
There is a house that mercy built
Rest in the hope
Rest in the peace
There is a house that mercy built

Joy Dare - Feb 24

Today's Joy Dare Prompt: 3 Gifts Before 11am

My list (picking up from the last list - and often adding more than just the prompt):
563.Chocolates from my secret santa at work (yes, before 11am)
564. Sunrise over the snowy trees
565. Croissant & coffee breakfast
566. Olympic closing ceremony
567. Beautiful story about an Olympic athlete finding her birth family
568. Speakers are all installed in Vespera & Niteo's apartment downstairs!
569. Grocery shopping with Niteo
570. It is a gift to know and experience the seasons!

Joy Dare - Feb 23

Today's Joy Dare Prompt: A Gift of Tin, Glass, Wood


My list (picking up from the last list):
560. Cans of coconut milk from Trader Joe's
561. Glass butterfly plant stake
562. Round wooden pieces my dad made to make Vespera's speakers fit

Joy Dare - Feb 22

Today's Joy Dare Prompt: 3 Gifts That Changed Today

My list (picking up from the last list):
557. Sleeping in
558. This American Life podcast over breakfast
559. Waking up to find that it's Saturday, though yesterday felt like Saturday, too, with Mango's snow day!

Joy Dare - Feb 21

Today's Joy Dare Prompt: 3 Things White

Bwaaaaahahahahahahaha!!! 8 inches of snow in MN is definitely something white. I suppose it's a gift since school got cancelled and Mango can spend the day at home...and we have a fireplace...and plenty of food in the house...and warm blankets...

My list (picking up from the last list):
554. SNOW DAY!
555. My wedding veil hanging in my closet
556. Little white underdress in the cedar chest from Mane's dedication