My weekend

Here's what I did this Sunday:

On my way to the Visual Story Network Summitt I retreated to Vero Beach for some monastic beach prayer time.










Here's what my husband did this weekend: http://ruthhubbard.blogspot.com/2008/05/long-days-journey-into-night.html

the beauty of the body

This is the picture Tim Gulick sent me.
This is the song I am singing because of this picture:


The glory of the blood
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness
The glory of His perfect love
Is the heart of the story
The glory of the blood
--Avalon



In this picture I see the Body -- Sacrifice & communion, Love and connection, His People and His Powerful Presence. There it is on the tray, the bread and the wine in crackers and short glass. I see the Body gathered along the bottom of the computer -- little icons representing people worshiping Christ all over the globe. I see the Body of Christ on the table of Tim & Annette who are in Argentina serving God by loving each other and being themselves. I see the beauty of the body that I am, via a picture, in the Argentine living room of Annette & Tim. I see the Christ in the necklace I am wearing; a chunky stone necklace I dreamt of and my father bought this one, from one of the Princeton House Galas -- more evidence of the Body. The beauty of the Body in the green poncho bought at one of our quarterly girl gatherings at J.Jill followed by dinner at Brio.

I see the Body broken for our forgiveness. I see the Body, given for all. I see the Body connecting all those who take and eat and taste and see that God is good. I see the Body reflected in the fibers of the green poncho, off the screen of the computer, and on the smoothness of the table in the house of Annette and Tim. I see the Body living and active in the lives of those who know the glory of the blood.





I have tried to find salvation on my own
In a search for something real
There's a guilty heart inside this flesh and bone
I fall upon his grace
And I begin to feel

The glory of the blood
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness
The glory of His perfect love
Is the heart of the story
The glory of the blood

And when I close my eyes I can see Him
hanging there
Oh the precious wounded Lamb of God
And all the majesty in this world can not compare
to the glory
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness

The glory of the blood
The beauty of the body
That was broken for our forgiveness
The glory of His perfect love
Is the heart of the story
The glory of the blood

The Road well travelled

He lay in the leaves holding the trembling child. Clutching the revolver. All through the long dusk and into the dark. Cold and starless. Blessed. He began to believe they had a chance.
-- Cormac McCarthy, The Road

I'm reading this again. I read it last summer and I'm reading it again. Then I'll watch I Am Legend. Because apocalyptic literature from this era is full of this kind of horror and hope. Not like the terrifyingly cold blooded visions of the future from the '80s when we were all doing so well financially. The '80s apocalyptic visions were all blue and steely and heartless.
Everything now is all dust and grit and dirt and spans of empty, and God.

It's Essential

I haven't had a day off since April 7. So what is getting me through?
Things like this -- my cyber-friend Mark Lee's band's new album Revelation. Hearing the certainty of Christ in the questions and the crying out in song.

Things like seeing the aerial artists who led us in worship (yes, that's right, we had gymnasts in church)and seeing their arms climbing up 2 white scarves towards heaven to dance in the sky.

When she was fantastic

I've been watching and re-watching Tommy Tiernan's appearance on Letterman to start my day. He's such a delight -- a great storyteller. Of course I love his stories of his kids (how the clip starts out) but his story of how women react to each other is true genius.

We gals are about to celebrate Lisa who just graduated and now instead of just getting our massages and energy work from her as part of her finals, we get the pleasure of paying her what she is worth. I hope to pay her more than what she's worth, because her worth is beyond pay. So in honor of that I keep quoting Tiernan (which only works with the accent) "Someone is brushing her hair, someone else is showing her a photograph of when she was fan-tastic." I can hardly wait to brush Lisa's hair and share stories of her fan-tastic-ness.

God I'm a dancer, a dancer dances

Twenty years ago I was a dance minor. Mostly because my room-mate was an actual dancer. Being a Theatre Major with a dance minor made sense. Except that I took every class and never declared. (I'm a rebellious pain) but I did do it. For those of you that have seen me you could accurately say that I'm an Actress-Singer-Who Moves. But I love dance. I took ballet when I was a small child and I loved it. I loved taking jazz from my friend and mentor Bob Sherry. I loved learning Modern from Sondra Vaughn and Ellie Potts. I loved it all. I loved watching my room-mate really dance, and I loved trying to dance. I was never going to be in a dance piece that didn't include theater, but I did learn to move well enough to take advanced classes in New York when I was at Circle in the Square Summer, and to attend musical theater auditions.

One Easter in the '90s I didn't have a church, but I did go to see Alvin Ailey's company and worshiped God through their dance. After I joined my church and we dreamed of bringing art back into the church, I dreamed of dance. I was still young enough to secretly dream that I would dance or choreograph.Sometime after I turned 30I stopped thinking about dance in terms of what I could offer it. I went to dance concerts and loved watching it, but it never occurred to me to think of using dance in anything I was doing.

This week, I will be in a dance piece. I'm the music, although I will be reading a Psalm and my new best friend Glynn will be dancing. He's a real dancer. He teaches ballet at Orlando Ballet. He and I will be doing a piece on Psalm 68. I will read it and he will dance. He won't act out the psalm nor will he create tableaux or poses, he will dance. We talked Martha Graham and contract and lift and release and breathe and pull and push and Paul Taylor.

Because we are not using music, we needed to create a rhythm together. In order to find our rhythm together we decided that he should lead me through his warm-up and I'll lead him through mine. So we did his ballet warm-up first. And it was amazing to me! Amazing to me to move this way again, to see my body had retained this information, though a roll of fat impeded my extension and an atrophied joint refused to turn out. But I did it all. The only thing I could absolutely not do was a grand plie in fifth position. I did everything else!!!!!

And then we read and moved. We breathed together. We talked about our dreams. I shadowed his movement and danced. I followed him. I sat in the audience and read to him. We found our way and created our piece.

I was so grateful to God that I had this moment in time to share this love of mine, a love barely anyone remembers that I have. A tiny pocket in my heart and mind devoted to dance got to be opened and used. I did a releve coupe. I did a grand plie in first. I moved my arms from first to second to third to fourth. It was only later, after the Epsom salt bath that evening and the next day of stretching and still not being able to walk down a staircase that I actually acknowledged what my body already knew -- it's been 20 years since I danced.

But this weekend, in church, Glynn and I will perform, using dance. I don't know what the church will think or how they will respond. We hope they worship God. We certainly will, in this lovely deep language of time and tick marks and shapes and movement and rhythm and breath. It may be decided, on Monday by the Elders, that this was the worst moment in our church history while for me, it will remain a dream fulfilled.

Holy Spirit Joy

For the past 2 weeks I've been praying Romans 15:13, adapted as a personal prayer, and I am growing in joy. I'm feeling joy, pressed down from above, filling me. Joy not from circumstances or events, but pure joy, poured out from heaven above. Two days ago I was backstage at Epcot, in the heat and very, very tired and all I could think about was how the smell of the grill from the American pavilion (the burgers & the thick fries) reminded me of being at the Army Navy Country Club near D.C. as a child. Summers spent watching Dad play tennis, watching men usually in khaki wear tennis whites, swimming in the pool, eating a cheeseburger and slathering on Coppertone. And I was flooded with joy.

May the God of hope fill me with all joy and peace as I trust in him, so that I may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.