THE SOCIAL NET's WORTH

... am I Checking-in or Checking-out?

I am NOT an avatar

I am NOT a job title

I am neither the words you WANT to hear

... nor am I a _Profile Status_.

Who am I?
Possibly, at this moment

I am a mirror poised to reflect each of us

I've been that iDad...

way too plugged-in

STILL searching for _An App4that_

So immersed with capturing iPleasures

that i'd managed to screen out the lives around me

AN IMAGING PROFESSIONAL

so willing to impress others by focusing my lens on you

that i'd abandoned an entire family

So NOW my prayer is to become like THAT Man

Sweeping EACH child up into His arms so...

... THUM - THUMP - THUMP - THUMP...

they would know A heart reverberates with pure love

passion, contentment and commitment

I am NOT a TO DO List

Nor a HONEY DO list

... i'm no A-Lister

I am neither UnEMPLOYED - Self/iEMPLOYED nor UnderEMPLOYED

I am not a 2010 Census figure or a Neilsen Demographic

Not a Boomer or a GenX'r or an xBox'r

Nor a Targeted Mass Consumer

While I am NOT who I was... 

AM I WHO I SHOULD BE?

... but what is Good?

- to do justice

- to love kindness

- and to walk humbly with Your God

I Pray we may each perpetuate His Truth

a fellowship acknowledging that our LIVES and SALVATION

we owe to Christ.

Host Celebration

An immigrant son
born to this Christian nation
... a journey pre-destined - Your will my intention.

Borders unbounded
through truth and wisdom
when missions align
to expand the Kingdom
... gratefully accept His grace and salvation.

Set upon this earthly path
- temptations
- complications
... overcomers opposed to His wrath

--

Affect in brokenness
no greater than Cause
... a season beholden we must simply pause

Our time here
... so brief  - know only by You 

I worship through prose
and lay before you the fruit of our life
Crowns for your Glory
Deserving our best
I deliver His Story
... from a most favored guest

Found this .txt file while executing a

L O N G  O V E R D U E hard drive backup... 

John's such a H U G E SF Giants fan... i know he's gotta lotta happy right now!!!

DEVINE INSTANT


In that moment
 when our eyes met
you've since said
  a plan was set


Two spirits
  Kindred
Chaos
  Survived
a Coupleship entered
  our lives collide


Vows shared
  Tender
Wedding rings
  Exchanged
Trials
  Prevailed
True Love
  Remains


Grace
  Understanding
Patient
  Kind
Passion then contentment
  Loving You
Sublime


Outside ourselves
  beat hearts
a Daughter
  and Son

Two Devine Instants
  Weld our souls into one


Happy Birthday Kitten!

uRloved

DELUGE OF GRACE


Befitting the celebratory nature of any birthday, today's post honors another year of sobriety.


I listen in silence
My mind matured, now disciplined to hear
Blocking out the auditory graffiti of urban sprawl
Bending ears inward I feel this boy's fear

On this sidewalk a young mother's anger boils
He stumbles upon legs weary
Shifting her daughter to the other hip she drag him only steps further

Facing long past failures and possible rejection
I'm uncertain how to proceed
I ask how to surrender to Your will...

As she reaches for a branch
to spread her wrath across his skin
Your compassion draws me near

Tiny fingers anchored to a chain link fence
His voice cries out from injustice

At that moment Lord you lift him up
His arms circle my neck and tears fall down my shoulder
Above his breathlessness I whisper
Si Mijo, You Are Loved...

And as the four of us walk
separated by cultural boundaries
You guide us to safety
Translating Your unspoken language of grace and forgiveness
And bestowing upon each of us mercy, love and healing

Celebrating the Christ Child's bDay!

I'm so grateful for His blessings...
so here's 2009's final post as a gift:
_________________________


Pre-dawn dreams stirred
Thoughts unrelenting
Day begins anew
My conscious enlightened

His will for this moment in rhyme
Like a door shut
I've not crossed that line

In prayer I will seek
Truth eventually I'll find
But only in
His Perfect Time

On this life threshold
For my heart to give voice
I see Christ revealed
My only choice

And His anointing is gifted
When His Throne is lifted
May His Glory be All we rejoice!

Our Fathers' Son and His likeness
I strive to be near
Head uplifted - Look beyond any fear
Until then we go humbly forward
In-service, helping those we hold dear

Examined Beauty - Art and Hospitality in Hidden Valley

On average twice a year, amidst the pine tree forests, rock strewn creeks and deep blue lakes of Middletown California we find sanctuary. A dormant volcano towering in a cobalt blue sky lends the backdrop to a natural canvas of expansive meadows punctuated with deer grazing lazily on golden and green grasses.

Relaxing on the front deck at Inez's home, away from the tumult and bustle of our urban existence I can reflect upon this design. Underlying the serenity of this composition potential energy gathers, patiently forming during a brief interlude. I'm at last able to recognize the beauty in God's gift, this present, while remaining mindful of the recurrent chaos symbolized by St. Helena's jagged ends outlined on the horizon.

Moving inside Inez's muraled art studio an awareness of her life-story unfolds. An ensemble of hints, clues and relics provide insight and lend reason. I begin deciphering the depth of her expression and the soulfulness of the pieces surrounding me. Amidst this clutter, as an intruder upon her safe haven I suddenly hear the truth - The Media is the Message. It's abundantly clear now; Inez the artist, mother and friend finds beauty in brokenness.

The skillful integration of discarded objects in her work may be driven by a lifetime of reclaimation and re-invention. Born into and inculturated to a lifestyle of privilege and opportunity Inez's recalls a youth filled with books, music and tennis and swim lessons in a colonial Dutch influenced Indonesia. Her idyllic plantation lifestyle was lost to the invasion, occupation and eventual institutionalization as a POW by the Japanese during WWII. Immigration to the US via The Hague, Netherlands encompassed a journey by sea, air and land across the globe that paved an appreciation for travel, art and adventure she nourishes daily.

You see, year after year an abandoned and battered chair may accumulate rust and cobwebs, unnoticed by antique hunters shopping for bargains. Yet to Inez, this piece has a potentiality that resonates at a frequency only she detects. "Teddy Bear Reading a Book" painted onto this long empty seat may entice a hyper-kinetic child to notice its vacancy, to possibly slow down. And by getting this little one to sit down long enough for even just one book, she's helped conjure up his next great adventure, if only in their still growing imagination.

Atop one as yet unfinished chair languishes a drab colored gourd. Oblong and misshapen, what initially is uninteresting and fallow blooms again under her direction. Streaking across it's surface is a disfiguring crack, like a facial scar it makes others turn away in disgust. Yet Inez allows this imperfection. She sees it lending structure to an opening and she bust it open even further. The hollowed interior, filled with nutrition consumed once long ago, may now give purchase to a diorama. Her graphic storyline beginning on the outer surface, concludes inside the gourd. Inez enables us to feed our conscious hunger for proportionality and symmetria into perpetuity.

Inez has a wisdom that allows the sum of the parts to become greater than the whole. Evidence comes from broken shards of tile, glinting with pain on impact. Pressed into service upon backerboard topped with glue the patternless fragments are given new measure and rhythm. Rendering ceramic, clay, glass and stone pixels from her palet the surface is transformed. Now seated at this backyard coffee table she transports you from suburbia to a seaside cafe near Montpellier France.

Inez moved to Hidden Valley Lake to reclaim independence from a life season as Wife, Manager, Mom. I now see how the conversion of a rustic mountain cabin integrates each unique chapter. Using the broad strokes of her life to create her Estate I now see how this home is simply an extension of her art.

Inez has a ceremonial Batik Wedding Sarong hanging from a traditional Indonesian teak hanger. It speaks to her ability to reclaim love late in life. She's availed herself to a man who grieved from loss. She's sought laughter and beauty to replace solitude and stillness. Adjacent walls and shelves display Delft Blauwe plates and tiles, expounding Dutch colloquialisms, verses of insight passed from generation on down.

And contrasting all of Inez's possessions are photographs. People framed to define a precise moment and emotion. These photos are of all of us broken people. Some, speaking personally, like myself - are more broken than others but each of us made whole again when gathered around her. Individuals who when re-assembled as a family certainly become greater than the sum of our parts. Individuals whom, when fed the delicious left-overs Inez has remade into comfort food become whole again. Made whole again by an woman who's love, beauty, laughter, passion and home define true artistry.