Happy Birthday

OK, boys, I'm sorry but my internet has been down for EVER. 

I hopped over to Jean's to send you out a quick birthday blog beijo.  XXOO.

So look for your Birthday post on Saturday. 

I'm sure Corabells is keeping you way too busy to check my blog anyway.

I wish I were there to celebrate with you.

Miss you both.

B

PS. It's the only picture of a kiss from me I could find.
But it kind of reminds me of kissing Randy...hmmm we'll not go into detail.

Love

Sarah & Branches

Photo by Bgrace

Love Letters

What is love that is not possessive?

That seeks only to give in a way that is good, right, and fitting

Without thought of what will be returned

Without regard for loss

Without need for permanence

The desire to belong consumes us to be knit so intimately

Until we can’t tell where one begins and another ends

Where there exists such harmony in spirit

That in giving to the other we experience the full blessing of receiving

Yet our love of self so deftly taints that which could be

It becomes wildly possessive and keeps its object constrained

To protect?

Or to avoid loss

Is there a difference between the bounds of covenant and the bounds of love?

God’s love knows no bounds

He is Spirit and in Him we live and move and have our being

Can we know boundless love in Spirit?

Not if we are bound to love in return for love

His covenant to us is always extended unconditionally

Yet we are free to accept it or reject it

Do we love God unconditionally?

He ordains blessing for one and suffering for another

Grace and punishment, healing and sickness, life and death

His love manifests itself in variably perfect ways because our life is about glory to Him

He loves us enough to guide us to a place where our lives can reflect His glory

I long to learn

To love in a way that will not harm

With truth and purity and abandon

With regard only for the soul and spirit of another

Not my own gain

To be willing to move my soul into my actions

So that God’s love may be known in every breath and movement

To be willing to suffer loss, to be humbled, to face rejection

As I die to having my own needs met as payment for all that I lay down

I turn my eyes to heaven

And wait expectantly for love to fall upon me like the rain

In those moments, my love is safe,

In those moments, my love is His love.

Compiled notes from my journal 11-24-05

Love Letters Originally Posted on Deep Calls

November 19, 2006

Time For Everything

On Wood & Sand

Photo by Matt

Chains & Sand

Photo by Bgrace

Driftwood

Photo by Bgrace

Photo by Bgrace

Sand Dollar

Photo by Bgrace

Exploring

Photo by Bgrace

B in Wood Shack on Sand

Photo by Matt

*Can't wait to go back.  Matt and I will be heading to Seattle the second week in November to celebrate our Anniversary.  Counting the days AND making the days count.

The Threshing Floor

Photo by Bgrace

“But they do not know the thoughts of the Lord; they do not understand His plan, he who gathers them like sheaves to the threshing floor.” Micah 4:12

Sometimes I feel like I’ve been exiled to Babylon. I’m an Israelite saying, "God promised Jerusalem would not fall, and yet here I am—taken to a foreign land, among foreign people, and now I’ve got a whole lot of questions for God."

Did I do something wrong?
Am I here because I got lost?
Will I ever get out of here and if I do, will I get to go home?
What if home isn’t like home anymore?

I’m starting to realize that most of my questions are about me. Its so easy to be wrapped up in our own little story that we forget we are a part of well...God’s story. Maybe, just maybe there is something going on here that is a whole lot bigger than me. And maybe there’s still more ink in the pen. See, God is alive and working even in Babylon. In fact, God is known for taking the most dire situations and not just making them OK, but bringing overwhelming blessing from them.

“Rise and thresh, O Daughter of Zion, for I will give you horns of iron; I will give you hoofs of bronze and you will break to pieces many nations. You will devote their ill-gotten gains to the Lord. Their wealth to the Lord of all the earth.” Micah 4:13

In early OT times, at harvest season, wheat was reaped by a sickle or pulled out by the roots and then bound in sheaves. These sheaves or heaps of grain were carted to the threshing floor—a circular spot of hard ground. There the oxen trampled out the grain. (Smith’s Bible Dictionary)
When God calls his Daughter to the threshing floor—He’s talking about blessing, not destruction. God calls her out not to destroy, but to bring in the harvest. He likens her to the ox who goes to the place where He’s gathered all the wheat for her. And he says—I’m gonna make you really powerful in the midst of all the decadence, confusion, and chaos. You are not exiled, you are sent! You are going to stomp on the sheaves until you separate the grain from the fodder. That grain will be the Lord’s harvest.
This is written to Israel, but I believe there are personal implications here. And you know what? I really struggle with this. Because sometimes I feel more like a Babylonian than an Israelite. Or more like fodder than grain.
Why would God use me with all my junk?
And what if I don’t do it just right? I mean, I’m a big heavy ox, and what if I crush some of the grain in the process?
Then I get frustrated because I think well, if God made me to be an ox how does He expect me to tiptoe around like a ballerina?

“He will teach us His ways so that we may walk in his paths.” Micah 4:2

God, have patience with me...and help me to have patience with myself. I am willing to be sent. Help me to be a good ox. And lead me to the threshing floor of your choosing.

Photo by Matt

 

Originally Posted on Deep Calls

Nov. 14, 2006

 

*I have been on an assignment for a year and a half.  It has been really tough at times and I have often wanted to quit.  I wondered if there would ever be any grain to show.  But this week the harvest came.  I mean BIG--once in a lifetime BIG.  But then again, maybe this is just the beginning.  I woke up this morning and the awe had not quite worn off.  I thought about trying to write about it all, but found it too overwhelming of a task for today.  Instead, I found this old post and thought it quite perfect.  God has brought me to the place of His bidding, the place of His blessing.  The song that keeps going through my head is How Great Thou Art. 

How little I believed you at times God, but today I can bear witness, How Great Thou Art. 

A couple weeks ago I took out my Bible when I was sitting alone on the living room floor and read Psalm 104.  The first two verses turned themselves into a song.  My second song.  The last line of the song is "You are very great."  And I kept singing it over and over again, feeling the reverance in it. 

Thank you Lord, for showing me what that looks like, for allowing me to experience a glimpse of Your greatness in my life.

Ballet Lessons Part Two

Before the evening performance of the NYCB last Thursday night, Grace and I went to a pre-performance interview with Tyler Angle.  He is a Principal Dancer for the NYCB and is a wonderful dancer, but known to be especially good in partnering.  The woman who was interviewing him seemed a bit smitten with him and after cooing about how all the best ballerinas in the world were hoping he would be their partner, she asked him what he thought was the most important quality to have to be good in partnering.  "So is it strength or flexibility?" she said fairly coyly.  I found his answer incredibly refreshing and insightful.  "Actually," he responded, "It's neither of those.  I would say it is humility." 
"Really?" she said, visibly impressed.  "How so?"
He explained that when you are doing a series of steps/ lifts/ jumps etc., that you may land and find your position and be really happy with it, but the female partner may be a bit behind or ahead or over to the side, not exactly in sync with you.  So it's really an art to learn to move to her movement so that it is always seamless.  The male role in partnering is largely presenting the female.  In order to be willing to do that, you have to embrace the idea of humility.
She asked him then what he thought made a really good partnership.
Tyler was so insightful again.  He said the most important thing is for the dancer to trust him completely.  So that his female partner can move past performing the steps into complete abandon. That is the only way they can really dance together.
He went on to explain how he actually took a partnering class before he ever took a ballet class.  He was young and most of the girls were bigger than him, so he ended up having to learn to use his body correctly to perform most of the lifts, and how that was much more important than just plain muscle mass.  And he talked about empathy being incredibly important between the dancers.  Whether it's that you are sensitive because she's on point or she is understanding because you are the one lifting her, there has to be an empathy between you for what the other is dealing with. 
I was truly impressed by him, and thought that the things he had to say were so true about any kind of partnership.
The clip below features Tyler Angle in a partnering role.  It's a bit dim and is slow to start, but stick with it because the dance evolves into something really beautiful. 

Dancing With Shadows

Sunset on Cayuga

Photo by Brgrace

A deep ache presses forth

From this sore and tender core

It scrapes the lining of my soul

A rising, voiceless cry echoes

To the one who pulls me

By the reins of my pain

To his blood-sweated cheek

And we move through the darkness as one

Lamenting the cost of coming undone

We dance in the dirge of the slow-setting sun

Praying Father, Your will alone be done

Deep Calls
March 16,2008

After the Rain, Ballet Lessons Part 1

I wish I could find the whole ballet for you, unfortunately, you will have to go see it.  I did manage to find a few clips for you to see, though it isn't the same as being there.  When Wendy Whelan and Craig Hall danced the pas de deux (they are not the dancers pictured above) you could have heard a pin drop among the hundreds of people watching.  Everyone was mesmerized.
Earlier in the afternoon, Grace and I had the priviledge of hearing Christopher Wheeldon talk about choreographing this piece.  At the time, he had just separated from his partner of 7 years, who was also one of the two dancers he created this piece on.  He said that it just sort of flowed out of him--and that perhaps it was a good-bye. The first time he saw the piece with music and in costume (same as first clip), they were all in a rehearsal room, and some of the other company members had quietly joined to watch.  He said he looked over at them as they watched the pair, and they were crying.  He joked that he wasn't sure if they hated it or loved it.  But really then he knew he had created something very special.
I appreciated his transparency.  He was acknowledging that talent is only part of what makes art. There are times when our experiences, our emotions, our thoughts--our deepest selves are deeply touched and out of that place can come a creative expression that moves itself out from our soul and into a piece that we never could have formed any other way.  I find something sacred about the human experience in that.  His piece was one of the highest expressions of beauty I have ever witnessed.  The only thing above that in the creative process, is a work of worship--when we create beauty in sync, in a partnership with the Creator.
I wonder what it would be like to see Wheeldon choreograph that kind of a work.
It's definitely a ballet I'd like to see.

For more pics of our trip see The B Girls Blog