Good Friday 2012

This was the fourth year that the Way of the Cross as a Journey has taken place at the Nappanee First Brethren Church. It's an adaption of stations of the cross. The stations are more commonly represented by statues, paintings or tapestries. Four years ago I found a blog entry where each stage was represented with a photograph of Unites States servicemen. 

It started with the senior pastor asking me to see what I can come up with for the church to have this representation. My first reaction was, "Say What?" He then explained it a little and pointed out we could even have an actual "tomb" for our purposes of a 9th station where Jesus is buried. As I stated in the previous blog - Good Friday was a day I usually didn't get off work to "celebrate" and it must be a Catholic thing like Ash Wednesday. I am ignorant, I know. Easter however I think even has a child I liked more than Christmas.

God has given me creative talent and when used for His glory and His purpose it's truly a beautiful thing. I was given verses for each station. I am one that loves research. I totally love a good library and a reason to google. In 4th grade for recess I would hide in the library. I mean if I was going to be left out and alone why not be in place where I found comfort. And a total nerd, am I.

The images in my head that God gave me for this "journey" I can't put into reality unless suddenly Speilberg or Lucas became members of our church. Pause ... How cool would that be?! God however did give me ideas that have been put into practice. 

 

We have a whole room dedicated to each station. Each station has the verses printed out. Each station has a dedicated color and the colors weren't chosen without thought. I looked up color theory and decided on what color best represented the thought and feel of the room. Each room has a song and the lyrics are written in the devotional. Some rooms have an activity. Some rooms have a scented candle. Some rooms have photographs of people who attend the church, to make the room that much more personal. It's to point out that what happened is not something that happened centuries ago but that picking up the cross is a daily thing, it's a NOW thing. In essence the rooms are to activate the senses.

Each year I walk the journey. I read the devotional, I read the verses, I do the activity and each year even though I know what's in each room I'm moved to tears and each year a different room makes a more profound impression on me. 

Two things stood out this year... Jesus CHOSE the cross. He could have ran for the hills but he didn't. There are certain people I would quickly die for, there are even fewer I would suffer for but I certainly would not choose to suffer and die for ALL. I wouldn't even do it for myself - I'm under the impression that what I get, I deserve even less of the good or more of the bad whatever the case may be. 

The second thing is "why hast Thou forsaken Me?". I can't tell you how many times I think that God has forgotten me, or delayed an answer, or merely I am not "hearing" what God wants. My reasoning is that I'm not being "Christian" enough. That because I'm not reading my bible enough or praying enough or thinking good things enough that God is waiting to answer me till I do these things enough ... But even Jesus had to wait ... he suffered, he was pierced, he forgave, he took care that his earthly mother was cared for and yet he breathed. He was on no fast track that day. I hope I can remember this when I pray for an end to what ever tribulation I'm going through at the time.

What joy there is knowing that it is finished. That this is just temporary. That He has Risen and Lives!

Happy Resurrection day!

Whats Been Going On

The things that have been going on that keep going through my head ...

JJL was put into the hospital for cellulitis since he is diabetic it can get bad and then worse pretty quick.

 

I stopped selling Longaberger and moved on to Avon. Hopefully, I will be more successful.

We (the church) have finished up "not a fan". It's rocked my world. It's partly responsible for my melancholy mood. It might have been better to do when there were more sunny days. But I understand there are some things you just can't help. Rocked my world in that I mostly felt guilty the whole time. You name it I felt guilty about it, yo!

I'm preparing to teach Jr. High Sunday school. I did the suggested curriculum the first year I taught and not that it's not good or needed I saw the youth lacking in other areas. The next year I took them through the books of the Bible. Learning who wrote it and when it was written and basically putting it into context. This year well since it's not started I don't want to ruin the surprise but it should be entertaining in the least :) It is requiring me to rely on other people to be prepared and so maybe this lesson in the end will be more for me than the youth.

I am also mentally preparing myself for our church's Journey to the Cross on Good Friday, April 6th, 1:30 - 7pm. This is the 4th year for it. I ask people to come and check it out and I get blah, blah answers. I guess before I was a tool used by God I was blah, blah about Good Friday too. And true it is during Spring break but I don't recall no Spring break for Jesus in the Bible. It shouldn't matter about the turn out because if one person has a better understanding what happened that many Good Fridays ago then it's all worth it right? 

I also started water exercise every Tuesday and Thursday at Wawasee High School. I got my friend that I met freshman year doing it with me. This is the type of friend that we can not talk to each other for months even years, we get back together and it's like a day hasn't passed. There's none of that where have you been. Because really we know the other is still there. This the friend that I can tell anything to. You know there are certain things you don't talk about with certain friends and the reason is to either avoid the drama, eye roll or spare them having to hear about "it" again, or to avoid a response you think they'll give. With this friend there is none of that. I hear of women talking about their "bestie" and I get tinges of jealousy. I hear this friend talk about her other female friends and I get the enemy whispering I'm not her bestie. I gently shake it out and remember we have a deeper relationship than that.

While waiting for the water exercise class to begin it came up that I won Best of Show in the school's Annual Art Show when I was Junior (most who win this usually win it their Senior year). When the BOS has been won it gets hung between the school's auditorium doors. It's on a 8 year cycle. Then its placed somewhere in the school. New construction new rules. It is now placed by the art rooms. The friend and I went to take a look.

 
What I want to say about this I won't here in this forum. So, to quote a movie, "Thats's all I got to say about that."

And some Indiana trivia to brighten your day:

Frank Sinatra, one of the most popular of all American singers, got his start as a "lounge singer" in Indiana.

Ferry Ride

I'm going to finish the blogging on the vacation to Williamsburg just so I can say I finished it and get on with the mundane. The longer I wait the more the entry is more pictures than words. Side note it's no wonder God hasn't opened doors to more graphic design freelance with my penchant (I used this word in my last entry, I may try using it in every entry but probably not) for not finishing things.  

Friday in Williamsburg ... It's a day of no real plans, the last day to see things that didn't make the cut earlier in the week. It's the day we turn in tokens we got at the cigar store when we just so happened to show up on token day  - spend so much and get tokens. It's the day I've been waiting to go through the big gift shop at the welcome center to get our souvenirs like a Christmas ornament, a magnet for the fridge, perhaps some Christmas gifts to let the ones we love know we were thinking of them. But just because we didn't get you something don't think we don't love you. It's just I didn't find anything that I liked to get you. I swear I did look.

But first a FREE ride (provided by the Department of Transportation) on a ferry near Jamestown. In fact we'll get a similar view as those that first traveled to this land. History is awesome I don't care what you say. You can't convince me otherwise!

On the trip from Jamestown to the other side we met up with a Purdue grad! He's a retired pharmacist living in Californ I A. And he was in a fraternity so other than attending Purdue we had nothing in common. He asked when I graduated and instead of feeling the need to excuse why I never actually graduated from Purdue ... I lied. JJL of course called me on it later and I explained it's not like he needs to know the truth and the lie is more uhm whats the word ... lazy.

On the other side John Smith built an alternative "fort". You know just in case. At any rate it was not open so we turned around. While we waited JJL took some photos. When it was about time to drive onto the ferry we got asked if our vehicle could be searched, we were randomly picked (the only out of state vehicle and JJL was out taking pictures while we waited, but what EV) and if we chose to decline we would have to find an alternate route. If you wondering we were clean. I waved at the guys at we drove on to the ferry and the one with the gun didn't return the gesture but the one with the dog did. Which just goes to prove people with animals are more friendly than those with guns. Just sayin'.

Well, that was the ferry ride ... Maybe I should have broken all the days up like this because I don't like to read long blogs so what am I doing writing them?
Next up ... The Printer

Forty

I turned Forty. There I said it. It's not as scary as I once thought. It's not even close to how I felt at ... (thirty).

Thirty was an all day cryfestival. I was told it wasn't as bad as being newly divorced rocking a baby to sleep. My response, "At least you've been asked {to be married}."  And then 40 - is only ten years away!

But what a ten years it's been ... I moved back to Indiana, bought a house, got engaged, and somewhere in there started to fix my relationship with God ... that took all of a year or so.

In the next 9 or so ... I got married, regretted buying the house, glad I bought the house, maybe I shouldn't have bought the house, the God relationship always a work in progress.

Definitely feel better about myself and I think that's still a work in progress but also just in time to start loosing it! I had a MAJOR meltdown ... It wasn't pretty ... in fact it was enough to scare JJL to call his mother because he was at work and couldn't snap me out of it. I cried my soul out. It was a cry that felt so good because everything that built up to that cry was being released out in a great rush of tears. I wasn't sure what was going on. It is/was like wires are stripped and not making a full connection. Some would ask how's that different from any other day. It's different in that it's not a facade to hide my brilliance from being used for evil.

Some positives ...  I don't particularly have to color my hair. I have grey/gray but it's not out of control.

Speaking of grey/gray ... how do you spell it? To me grey should be used for evil or depressing things and gray is a happy spelling. Then there is of course warm grey and cool grays ... I know the package has them spelled the same (maybe you can't read that - it's there all the same) but to me that's how I would do it.

and 2 there's still a lot people that didn't realize I was over 30.

I'm not sure if the shock ... seriously they were shocked by my age is due to how I act or if I look the way I do because of how I act. Acting young is not a bad thing I guess as long as it doesn't go into the pathetic ... where people know how old I am and whisper, "that's just wrong".

I remember when my mother turned forty ... 3 kids with the oldest saying "hey, this will be the only time I will be half your age." I have penchant for math.

I would like to go somewhere, where a passport is essential and I'm not talking into Canada cause Canada has never counted as going international especially if you can pick up a radio station.

I read somewhere ... 40 is like the old decade of being young and 50 is the young of the old. I can live with that image.

My birthday was on a Thursday and it turned into an all weekend extravaganza! My movie ticket for One for the Money was a birthday present but it came out on the 26th so JJL argues the birthday actually lasted all month ... whatEV!

The whole month I have been out of sorts and once told by 2 different people that I could be under spiritual attack it's been better. It was just getting my figurative hands on the thing that kept shorting out my thoughts. The enemy only has the power for which you give him and he ain't got no power here.

Interesting thing happened on the way into work one morning ... I was cautioned that the parking lot was slippery by a guy running around in ONLY his boxer briefs ... Forty the year I was semi-streaked.

 Indiana trivia: Indiana's shoreline with Lake Michigan is only 40 miles long, but Indiana is still considered a Great Lakes State.

Crawfordsville is the home of the only known working rotary jail in the United States. The jail with its rotating cellblock was built in 1882 and served as the Montgomery County jail until 1972. It is now a museum. 

Indiana University's greatest swimmer was Mark Spitz, who won 7 gold medals in the 1972 Olympic games. No other athlete has won so many gold medals in a single year. Well, until Michael Phelps came along ...

 

Thursday in VA

Today was an exciting day. 

       (So, exciting it's taken over several months to write!)

Today was the day to have a conversation with Thomas Jefferson. Now, JJL was told when he got reserved tickets for Washington that you can only get them on the day of the "conversation". So we were off bright and early to get in line and while in line are told they were sold out! JJL literally looked like someone took his computer and shot it. I pushed us to go to the ticket booth where JJL was told the misinformation. Now you have to understand JJL has been studying James Leland and his contribution to ratifying the constitution, which includes correspondence with TJ. Before we the left the condo JJL studied!! And prepared his questions. He wanted the audience to be aware that TJ meant that the Church should be a separation OF the state but not FROM the state.

From that ticket office we went up the ranks. I was going to get us standing in the back if we had to but we were going to see Jefferson! Well, in the end we got tickets secured. Once that was done we were off to the palace! 

While we waited for the next tour we visited the kitchen.

Then we entered ... one intimidating room!

The VERY bright saturated colors is what impressed me - aquas, pinks, greens ... theses pictures do not convey how bright these colors were! I asked how that process was done and was told the Weaver is the place to go so that was put on our list of places to visit! 

We started to do the hedge maze in the palace gardens and realized this might take longer than we were willing to give considering we wanted to make sure we arrived early to get our tickets for TJ. Plus I'm pretty sure I was getting bit by bugs.

How different T.J. is to G.W.  - He is so much more open and wordy than G.W.

JJL Got to ask his question  - And the question involved knowing personal correspondence between T.J. and Leland. The actor played the part that JJL must be personal friends of Leland to know the subject matter of such personal correspondence.

And like with G.W. I took a quick sketch of T.J. and JJL together.

Now I had planned to go back to the condo for lunch but sometimes time warrants other plans. JJL really didn't like the deli from a couple of days ago and we also didn't want to go crazy expensive, so we broke our rule and had pizza. And well it was worth it! In the process we meandered through the candy store and browsed other little shops that I hear are all lit up for Christmas.

And our afternoon wasn't planned but there were certain things we wanted to see such as the Weaver! I took lots of photos that you can see on Facebook.

The weaver was fantastic! To make red they use bugs and is the hardest color to make. Blue is only colored on the outside of the fibers. That's why a person can wear away the color and it turns white.

The patterns and how to string the loom it takes a master - this particular weaver had to put on gloves to look at the book where an 18th century weaver had written for lack of a better word his "recipes". The tradesmen are so informative and so personable! This may turn into my retirement plan.

 

We now are off to church! This is cool because this church is still having service and has been since 1715. JJL didn't get to stand in the pulpit at this church. They have a statue as a podium and she is standing on a globe with one foot on America and the other on England. They also have pews with the names George Washington on them and of course near the front with cushions. In the back no names - no cushions.

 

 

We are now off to hear again the talk of Rebellion and the Declaration of Independence.

We talked to one of the "characters" and got the impression it was no big deal. That he had already heard of other - districts or states - I forget what he said - and I probably forgot if I would have written this that night - that had declared their independence already. Once again I'm struck how well history is known and the perspective that we get in school books but almost first hand accounts.

Well that must be all that happened that was exciting due to no more pictures to trigger what happened. There is still one more day that we walked the streets of Colonial Williamsburg!