Subversive Legos, First Real Snow, Water Speaking, Tracing Changes, and more
So today is a bit more of a grabbag of various photos from the last week or so along with some brief reflections and also some links to some online posts that have been speaking to me this week. Before we dive in…a couple of quick things…
First, there’s probably about a week left for calendar orders to arrive before Christmas. So if you want to order Psalms With Scout, Expansiveness, or Herons (or all three), click on over to my Square Shop.
Second, MaryAnn McKibben Dana and I had a wonderful conversation about the Charlie Brown Christmas Special this past Thursday. Our next is at 11a ET next Thursday (12/11) as we do a grabbag of “Will it Preach?” with Christmas/Holiday shows, songs, and movies!
Speaking of grabbags, here’s a bit of a grabbag of a post - Subversive legos, first snow, water speaking, tracing changes, links, and Scout…So let’s dive in.
Lego’s Subversive Message About Non-violence?
At Thanksgiving last week, we did one of those gift exchanges where gifts are opened and then can be “stolen” etc. One rule for this one was that the gifts had to be things that others might legitimately want. Someones in the family brought two Lego Botanicals sets! Suffice to say those were a hit in our family. I ended up with the Lego succulents set. After getting home, I set into building the little florals and came across something really beautiful and subversive.
These are six Lego guns. I was a bit surprised to see them show up in the set as they didn’t obviously seem to “fit.” Well, here’s how they were used
They were placed into this central piece of this one particular flower. I don’t know if it was anything more than that those pieces just seemed to be the right way to connect the petals but it felt like a beautifully subversive message about taking tools of violence and turning them into something that can be beautiful. Swords into plowshares, lego guns into flowers!!! ResoundingJoy Church folks...you’re going to hear more about this on Sunday with the Advent Sunday of Peace... Yay Lego!
Our First Legit Snow
We got our first legit snow this past week as well - about 3-4” depending on where it was measured. I always love snow and cold but I was a bit grouchy about it this year because, as I continue to rehab my shoulder, shoveling snow wasn’t quite as I am used to it being. But it still resulted in a lot of beauty. So even with the grouchiness about the shoudler, I am grateful for what it brought to the look of the world around us.
Winter Water Speaking
The water at Winton Lake has also been speaking to me this week. This first photo felt like a bit of a black and white Bob Ross blurry reflection. I also find that there’s something about cloudy winter snowy scenes that lend to a black and white conversion.
This next photo is just around the bend from the one above but what was interesting to me is how this part of the lake is starting to freeze over while the rest of the lake hasn’t gotten there yet. There’a a lot that goes into why that’s the case - this is a narrower and shallower part of the lake. But it also spoke something to me about how, when we are willing to be wider in what we take in from the world and to go deeper rather than staying in the shallows, we stay open to much more and do not “freeze up.” Spoke to me of the power of how going deep in our selves, in theology, in expeirences, in so much results in us being more open to the movement of the Spirit in the world.
Tracing the Changes
I don’t think these are going to turn into another book like the bench photos from 2024 but I have loved seeing the progression of this one viewpoint near our house in just the span of a few weeks. I’ve shared the first three of these photos already but adding a fourth today.
What’s Also Been Speaking to Me
Courageous Vulnerability - Rachel Held Evans (posted on CAC.org) - I so miss Rachel’s wisdom and prophetic voice in the world. But it is always a gift to hear her still speaking through what she left with us - these words about Mary’s “yes”... here’s how she starts the reflection...
I am more aware than ever of the startling and profound reality that I am a Christian not because of anything I’ve done but because a teenage girl living in occupied Palestine at one of the most dangerous moments in history said yes—yes to God, yes to a wholehearted call she could not possibly understand, yes to vulnerability in the face of societal judgment, yes to the considerable risk of pregnancy and childbirth… yes to a vision for herself and her little boy of a mission that would bring down rulers and lift up the humble, that would turn away the rich and fill the hungry with good things, that would scatter the proud and gather the lowly [see Luke 1:51–53], yes to a life that came with no guarantee of her safety or her son’s.
Monday Manna - Advent Hope and Finding Drishti - Arianne Braithwaite Lehn - such a beautiful and rich reflection on how we can center on hope in this season. Soak this quote in and then click through to the rest of the post..
Sometimes, the word “hope” can feel kind of nebulous or squishy — maybe put in the same container as a “wish.” But I like to think of hope as the deepest, oldest, most beautifully worn granite that’s endured millions of years, or the grit and determination of spirit that holds a singularity of focus nothing can dissipate.
The Heresy of a God Who Hates Empathy - William Barber II and Jonathan Hargrove - a reflection upon the context of the writing of A Christmas Carol and how it still speaks prophetically and convictingly to us today.
A Midlife Reckoning - Dr Vicky Connop - While this is speaking from a female perspective on midlife there’s some big resonances for me about my own mid-life time (shoulder issues that I’m working through as well as working with young people and the questions they are facing in their 20s). I am grateful for Dr. Connop’s vulnerability and openness in sharing what she does here
Advent for the Troubled Soul - Winn Collier - My friend Jeff Gephart shared this post and wow it spoke so deeply to me and it helped to shape MaryAnn and my conversation about the Charlie Brown Christmas special. But even more than that, I love the way that Winn helps to get at how to resist the commercialism of not only Christmas but Advent as well. Advent Bougie is now in my lexicon. Here’s how Winn’s reflection begins - Bonhoeffer and then Winn...
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. {Dietrich Bonhoeffer}
How can it be that Advent—these sparse days given to grieving prophets and a hard reckoning with our dire predicament—has taken on a measure of kitsch alongside Elf on the Shelf? Advent is ache and silence.
Our Reality Has Become Reality TV - Diego Luna - Diego is the actor who portrayed Cassian Andor in the amazing (and so powerfully contemporary) Star Wars show, Andor. He reflects here on the parallels between the show and what we are seeing in the world around us today. I am grateful to my son for pointing this out to us on Friday morning. Here’s how Luna begins:
One of the great pleasures of fiction is that it lets us explore the mystery that shrouds reality. That crack you can just barely see through is a space that fiction can imagine and represent in infinite ways.
But if you are interested in that elusive space — in the mystery surrounding human behavior and experience — you face a particular challenge in today’s world, where reality has become so extreme that fiction runs the risk of coming up short.
And of course, Scout…
She loves the snow and especially loves digging her snoot in deep...However, I will say that one of the challenges of walking a hunting dog on cold and snow covered trails is that the pee-mail (as we call it) left by other dogs freezes and so is nearly irresistable to Scout to check out what other doggos have left…Life with Scout!
Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed
Thanks so much for including my piece here 🙏 And I love your snowy winter images. I'm here in the Southern Hemisphere where we're coasting into summer, but my roots are in the Northern Hemisphere, and it always feels so wrong to celebrate Christmas in the sun.
Exceptionally meaningful post Ed. Thank you. Val Putnam