We will give him a family because Everyone needs a place at the table.
Friends, the entire world is our parish. Pull up a chair around the biggest table, one for each person you encounter and provide a hearty meal and facilitate conversation laced in love. Help give a voice to the vulnerable and those who can't speak for themselves and be concerned with others' pain. Shout justice and kindness from the mountaintops and the deepest valleys. How is it even possible to find it in ourselves to treat God's people as less than human? Jesus himself was a refugee. Love your neighbors, the strangers, those who look like you and those who don't. Pull up the chairs.
I think a lot of us have grown numb towards the horrible stories we watch on the news because inhumane things are happening so frequently. Feeling nothing and doing nothing will solve nothing. Our hearts need to break every day with the humans who are hurting around this world that seems to be falling apart — both near and very far away from our homes.
We have to look at our hearts and decide whether we’re going to treat living, breathing humans with love or with fear. There are certainly bad people but they are a small handful separated from those who are good.
We have to figure out how we can mend this world’s injustice with love.
Regain compassion.
Tear down prejudice and fear.
Be a helper and a healer.
Look at children and learn from them.
"[The words in the letter] are the words of a six-year-old boy — a young child who has not learned to be cynical or suspicious or fearful of other people because of where they come from, how they look, or how they pray."
Currently: September 20, 2016
I found some fabulous things to peak your interest on this nice Tuesday afternoon! Anyone else feel like the fall weather is playing tricks on us? Still wearing a cozy sweater, even though it's 90 degrees in Omaha. Regrets are slim. Click the headings for more info!
Bravery
The word "bravery" has been tugging at my heart the last few days, especially because it keeps showing up in actions or things I stumble across. I'm reading "Let's All Be Brave" by Annie Downs and the words above are a few of many that I've underlined with my favorite pen. My study on bravery is kind of changing my life, so stay with me as I'm planning to write up a blog post on the subject in the next couple of days!
Dallas Clayton on Fame
It's not about the fame, it's all about the human experience. Dallas Clayton is massively inspiring me with the way he relates art to the world. Follow him on Instagram and check in occasionally to see if he's posted a story — his quirky musings as he colors in ghosts with crayons provoke thought in my corner.
Bundle Dyeing
I'm kind of obsessed with textile and woven work — I have an unfinished project from a few months ago that's a ceiling high column of knotted drop cloth strips. Thinkin' about finishing it off with some natural dyeing as shown in this beautiful Design*Sponge demo!
Nostalgic travel posters of extinct animals.
Also featuring the Stellar's Sea Cow, dodo, moa, thylacine, the giant galliwasp, and the golden toad. This is Unknown Tourism's project of vintage-style travel posters to commemorate some of the earth's extinct animals.
Hedgehog in the Fog (Yuriy Norshtyen, 1975)
My camp roommate showed me this Russian existential stop motion in the office one night during the summer. The hedgehog decides to explore the fog because he's curious if a horse will choke if he lies down to sleep in the fog — all the while, he's trying to bring raspberry jam to his bear cub friend so they can watch the stars as they do every night.
Currently: September 13, 2016
Hi friends! I fell asleep to a thunderstorm and it served as my alarm clock this morning too. How that made me wish I was back at camp in an A-Frame cabin. The sound the rain makes drumming against the green tin roof is my absolute favorite. Speaking of camp...
Here's Currently: September 13, 2016! Click the headings for more info on everything.
Camp Fontanelle's Corn Maze & Pumpkin Patch — Nickerson, Nebraska
Okay, so I'm biased because I've worked at camp for four summers but I promise it's great. The annual BBQ is this Sunday and that marks the start of the fall season — which offers a ton of affordable weekend options... zipline, corn maze laser tag, jumping pillows, a barn of animals, delicious snacks, dang good people and TONS more. Click the italicized headline for details and location! There's a reason Camp Fontanelle is my favorite place. You'll have to visit to find out why. (Also, I'm working there on the fall weekends, so come by and say hello!)
Roald Dahl Day
Fantastic Mr. Fox, Matilda, The BFG, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, so many whimsical childhood favorites... Explore the stories, characters and more on the Roald Dahl website! It would have been the author's 100th birthday today.
Why jerks show up in your life...
Danielle LaPorte has a way of speaking truth in a tough love sort of way that is also incredibly empowering. Her library of articles tend to shove me down a rabbit hole of wisdom. "We attract jerks so that we can take back our power and heal." Yes.
Nerdwax
I guess this stuff is essentially a glue stick for your nose so your glasses don't always slide down. I haven't tried it myself but maybe it's worth the $10 so I don't have to adjust my glasses 24/7.
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Ohhio Instagram: Anna Mo. Chunky Knits
It's 60 degrees and rainy outside in Nebraska right now and all I want to do is curl up with a book in one of this Ukrainian knitter's chunky blankets. How cozy do these look?? The artist uses giant knitting needles and there are some process videos on her Instagram.
Rules to Live By — written in my journal in 2014 and posted on my bedroom wall since.
Be kind and sweet to everyone you come across. Walk and breathe with grace, purpose, and empowerment. Attempt to slow down on over thinking Wear soft clothing. Listen intently to the words others say. Listen to God. Pray not for things, but for wisdom and courage. Be tough minded but tender hearted. Treat your body as a temple for your spirit. Allow balance between work and rest. Be comfortable in your situation and imperfections.
The more I give my heart to God, the less I'm running towards my own plans.
I could sit at this table in my mom's house, coffee in hand, and try to draw out the blueprints of my life's next ten years. My brain could over think and let anxiety build a structure of a million possibilities, with step by step directions on how I could potentially do that but here's what could go wrong.......
And then the structure I'm trying to build will collapse into messy shambles of defeat.
Friends, it's impossible to write our own stories when we're also fighting to make big picture plans. It's not even our job to write our own story, anyways. I think God's been weaving the most beautiful tapestry for each of our lives since before the day we were born.
I've started to simply breathe in and out, figure out the first steps to make things happen. I've found that when I do this, my soul begins easing into this freely calm and wildly trusting state. The more I give my heart to God, the less I'm hastily writing my own plans that never seem to work out in the end.
I'm making myself be still and listen. It's in the silence that I'm figuring out my core motivations and desires for the "why" I want to do specific things. I pray for intentional opportunities to come at the golden moment, that God moves my heart away from my own hasty planning. I pray the same for you too.
Can any one of you add a single hour to your life by worrying? Matthew 6:27
Bravery.
Real talk: I attempted the “no art” thing for nearly four months. My hands and soul needed to rest after a beast as large as thesis to fall in love again, to be able to work without pangs of anxiety wrenching my chest with every knot I tied against a flower’s stem.
But here’s what sometimes happens after you hiatus from your passion for nearly four months: you get scared. It seems far away, foreign. Creative thoughts ravaged my brain while I worked at camp and the few weeks following but my hands didn’t connect. I remembered how much my hands hurt sometimes in the process of tying thousands of flowers together. I remembered not being able to breathe in the studio some days because the burden on my shoulders was heavy.
But when something’s a part of your soul, when something used to be so familiar, you cannot be scared. Last night I felt bravery knocking from the inside, I let it out and bravery tore all of those thorny lies out of my body and stomped them into the dirt. And I made something.
It feels like I’m home again. No anxiety, no stress, no fear of failure like I felt with thesis anymore — just bravery. I was upset with myself all summer for neglecting art but I think I needed to give myself time away to fall in love again. And oh, how it’s so much sweeter now. My arms are elbow deep into the mess. I remember why I love making. I remember why I was created to create.