I am trying to do a little more with my photography. Cee has given me some awesome ideas here:
Walls:
I wanted to give you all a little better glimpse of my recent trip to PA to visit with my son.
A few years back God told me I would be doing some travelling. He told me with every journey I was to seek His purpose in it.
The girls and I left the frosted state of MA
This week my daughters and I traveled to PA to visit my son.
Our purpose was to reconnect with each other…and to catch up on some long neglected reading. I think I read about a hundred blogs!
We arrived late Sunday night; So after a good night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast the girls and I met up with Joe at his campus and headed out to…
The Shady Maple! My son was soooo happy to see my daughters.
Joe has become quite a young man. I am proud of him! Part of our reconnect on this brief journey was to find out his plans after graduation. It is hard to believe he is just short months away from that date and from the title Pastor Joe.
Here are some of our other pictures from that trip:
This post was inspired my good friend Lady Barefoot Baroness at http://barefootbaroness.org/. If you have not read her blog check it out today. She has lots of inspiration for you!
The premise here is to describe your life in 4 or 5 musical choices. Here is my musical description:
My childhood was filled with encouragement to imagine and think. My father often said “I don’t care what you believe but I won’t let you just regurgitate someone else’s beliefs. If your going to believe something,J, know why you believe it!”
While Dad wasn’t completely truthful with his statement about caring (he wasn’t thrilled with my choice to become a practicing Christian) I will forever be thankful that he required me to be able to defend what I believed.
Charlie Brown was my first musical role if you don’t count playing Joseph in school pageants (that was back in the day when the birth of Christ was still allowed in public school). I was in eighth grade. I didn’t realize how this one song would set my course for the remainder of my school days.
I was the “Wimpy Kid” through most of my high school career. I was labeled “Jesus Boy” and “the Band Fag” (that last one was a name all instrument players got from our good friends on the football team). For the most part I didn’t mind the labels. I took the comments as persecution for doing and being something that few others had the guts to do or be. I determined to just keep running kite in hand until I graduated. Then I hit my stride.
I learned about “The Piano Guys” just a week ago from Deb, another blogger friend of mine. Check out her work at http://theforkintheroad.wordpress.com/ and http://twominutesofgrace.wordpress.com/. Since I heard them I have been listening incessantly to their beautifully complicated arrangements.
The last twenty-five years have gone by in such a rush. I can’t point to one thing that I would say is THE BLESSING of those years. So much has happened: marriage, children, four or five different career paths, ministry and miracles galore! God has done so many wonderful things for me and each blessing has played its part in making life a beautiful song for the world to hear Jesus through.
I have learned that the river of life cuts deep wounds into all of our lives. No one is exempt from the cutting. It has happened to you and it has happened to me. While we have no choice about receiving the wounds, we can choose what fills them.The gorges of our pain can run with the waters of bitterness or blessing. God has helped me to keep my eyes fixed on Him in praise through it all.
I don’t know exactly where my life is going to take me. I don’t know what adventure lies beyond this morning’s sunrise. But I’m secure in the knowledge that my ultimate end is Heaven. Between here and there and beyond even that this eternal life promises to be a great adventure!
Please! Please! Please! share your Grace notes in a post and link back to this site so I can read them!
Have you ever had one of those months?
I think I have just come through one of the busiest falls of my entire life! I finally hit the writer’s- block -wall this last weekend and got thrown right out of the blogging truck. You know it’s bad when you can’t even come up with a decent photo blog on the theme “green”.
Anyway, as I was laying there on the literary pavement trying desperately to come up with something witty to say to y’all, I realized I was going to miss a few days. I can’t tell you how hard it was to just stay silent so my thoughts could catch up with me. I hate setting goals (like daily blogging) and not meeting them but now I am resurfacing!
I think this song says it all!
Have you ever been here?
Oh BTW how do you like the new look?
The Cheese Race Alkmaar, Holland
I Amsterdam sign on Museumplein, Amsterdam
So this has been a big week of discovery for Pastor Wrinkles. There have been so many epiphanies I hardly know where to begin. I was sitting at lunch this week with the church staff eating my Greek yogurt. It was a new kind that just went on sale at the market. It is very tasty. My only objection is that they put the yogurt and the fruit in adjoining containers. Well all week long I have been scooping the fruit into the yogurt with a spoon…making a mess of myself, the table and anyone bold enough to get close to my “lunch mess”.
The youth pastor’s wife joined us for lunch the other day and upon observing my yogurt issue she offered, “You know the container folds in half so that you don’t make such a mess.”
the angels in Heaven sang as I discovered the best invention ever! Folding yogurt containers! What genius thought that up?
But Jesus wasn’t finished with me yet! For years I have been having a daily argument with the office coffee pot.
When the coffee is made it won’t come out! You have to turn the top and if you don’t turn it right the top comes off and you end up with a coffee mess. So I usually just take the top off altogether and pour sans top. Usually I over pour and end up with that nasty coffee ring that travels with you everywhere you put your cup down (of course I never think to wipe the bottom of the cup with a napkin that would be too brilliant).
One of the secretaries noticed me pouring out the other day and remarked “You know you don’t have to take the top off to pour. It will stay on and pour perfectly if you just line up the arrows.”
The angels sang and the people rejoiced!
Of course I have taken a bit of ribbing over these discoveries. To all this I say “My elevator may not go all the way to the top. I may be a few ants short of a picnic. Yes I may be dumb, but I am a nice kind o’ dumb!” 😉
I am late this week sorry Cee!! But what fun the questions will be this week. Thanks Cee for picking my ice breaker out of the bunch I am so honored! 🙂
While Amanda’s birthday
was in April she opted for delayed gratification so that Tina and I could give her a night of Ireland. So last Saturday, after our September artist’s gathering, the three of us headed off to Boston for that evening of celtic wonder.
We started with dinner just off Government Center, at Kinsale’s Irish Pub.
After the Fenian Pasta, a huge piece of chocolate guiness cake and a strong cup of Irish Joe (to refresh me after the early morning and a busy day with artists and musicians), we headed up Tremont Street to see Celtic Thunder perform their one night in the city! I am a die-hard Thunderhead. It turns out so is the dean of student life at my daughter’s college. The dean ended up
standing next to us in line as we waited for our section to open up!…Small world! Amanda was really glad she was in dress code. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgtx1Er4OuM&feature=player_detailpage
A good time was had by all and I even managed to snap a few shots of the city while we were at it.
Lights in the city By JE Lillie
Celtic Pillars by JE Lillie
Boston Tea Party by JE Lillie
Neon Lobby by JE Lillie
Faces Looking Down by JE Lillie
Lights at the Wang by JE LIllie
City Scape by JE Lillie
gods of the mezzinine by Je LIllie
So my son, JE the 6th, has been posting some thoughts and I thought this might be worth a gander for everyone.
I would like to start off this note by asking ourselves do we really believe what we say we do? Do we believe in God? Do we actually believe in heaven and hell? This is a tough subject to deal with. What do we actually believe.
When I think about what I believe it brings me great joy! For I know I shall once again be reunited with my Creator, and when does man experience the most pleasure? I can imagine all the different answers I am getting. When he is eating dinner some might say. Some will say when travelling the world. There are dozens of different answers you may give, but when you are doing what you know you are made to do and discover your purpose is not that the greatest pleasure? What is man’s ultimate purpose? Is it not to bring God glory, and to live in relationship with Him? I look forward to this joy with great anticipation. Why then are we so focussed on the vain things this world offers us and why are we so easily distracted from that which we are meant to do wholeheartidly? I am not saying money does not matter, nor am I suggesting that finding a helpmate is useless, nor am I saying watching TV is bad but we must put evrything in its proper place. I will ask again do we really believe as we say we do?
Also, thinking about what I believe brings be great sorrow, and I even sometimes get down when I see the world in the shape I see it. So I will share this with you as well. I will begin by asking what is more disturbing to you, seeing a friend fall away from the faith, or seeing a world where so many have never heard of christianity? This said in either case why do we not do more as believers? Do we really believe what we say we do? So why does the church as a whole ecspecially in the past couple generation do such a poor job if we believe both heaven and hell, and do you not think that more christians would be depressed if they see the great need. It is a huge burden I feel the ENTIRE church is called to, but only FEW of us bear it this should not be. Population is growing, and the church is losing ground. There are definitely some denominations growing, however not necessarily as quickly as the population is increasing.
What do we believe? Why do we believe it? Do we truly believe it?
In closing I would like to state I have joy because I know what lay ahead for me. But I have more sorrow than some because I see the world in desperate need. I want to take this time just to be an advocate. When you see that homeless child, widowed woman, or handicapped man remember the joy you have looking ahead and be the best example of Christ you can whether it is in deed, and if the opportunity is there in word as well.
Reinventing the We'll 