g-funk will always be home.

coming back to my ultimate home sweet home is just.so.good.
something about it fits juuust right.
much like the old pair of birkenstocks
that i haven't worn for nearly a year.
when i slipped my feet into them this morning,
the shape still fit like a glove. a glove for my toes.
it felt like, aha! -- this is what i've been missing.

.deep gratitude for stateside travel.
.and brothers and sisters throughout my lil' u.s. tour.
.but also deep gratitude to be back in colorado.
.even if just for a week.
.i will treasure this fit.

food for thought. pun intended.

today i woke up at 6:30am with no alarm. but this is actually an improvement from waking up at 4:30am yesterday and 5:00am the day before. oh the joys of jet-lag. actually, i kinda' like jet lag at this time of day when i feel super energized in the wee morning hours; my dad is already off to work, but the rest of the house is still asleep...

once i'm awake, it's hard for me to go back to sleep, so yesterday i enjoyed a colorado sunrise with my favorite morning treat: vanilla soy milk and 'special k fruit & yogurt'. the simple pleasures of life. today i warmed up (colorado has been rainy and cold so far -- not the july i was expecting after leaving the same rain and cold in the büs) to green tea and one of my favorite reads from last summer: 'take this bread' by sara miles. ahhh, so good. after i read a chapter or even just a page or paragraph or single sentence, i have to pause and reflect. her story woven into the greater story of sacrament and action gets me excited about life. about calling. about people. about food. about bodies. about sharing. about learning. about faith.

there are too many excerpts i would choose to include in this post, but here's one to savor for now, from the prologue (xv-xvi):

"...at the heart of Christianity is a power that continues to speak to and transform us. As I found to my surprise and alarm, it could speak even to me: not in the sappy, Jesus-and-cookies tone of mild-mannered liberal Christianity, or the blustering, blaming hellfire of the religious right. What I heard, and continue to hear, is a voice that can crack religious and political convictions open, that advocates for the least qualified, least official, least likely, that upsets established order and makes a joke of certainty. It proclaims against reason that the hungry will be fed, that those cast down will be raised up, and that all things, including my own failures, are being made new. It offers food without exception to the worthy and unworthy, the screwed-up and pious, and then commands everyone to do the same. It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, the despised or frightening or unintelligible other, we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: God's.

This theology isn't mine alone. It comes from conversation with other believers, tradition, and Scripture; books and prayer and liturgy. It comes, even more, from my years outside church: from unbelieving and unbelievers, from doubt, from questions that still echo unanswered for me. Faith, for me, isn't an argument, a catechism, a philosophical "proof." It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to act."

whew. such good stuff. i affirm so much of this. i want to eat it up. and i presently am. miles' book centers on Eucharist: on food as gift. thanksgiving. of broken bread and poured wine. after walking into a church and joining in communion, miles' own life became embedded in the breaking of bread as well as the sharing of bread with her neighbor. in her mind and experience, the elements were inextricably linked to feeding people. She writes,

"The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a symbolic wafer at all but actual food--indeed, the bread of life. In that shocking moment of communion, filled with a deep desire to reach for and become a part of a body, I realized that what I'd been doing with my life all along was what I was meant to do: feed people," (prologue, xi).

along the same thought-track, i've been researching everything i can about the 1987 danish film babettes gæstebud (known as babette's feast to english speakers). while enjoying npr in the car on tuesday, i caught a story titled food on film: the famished and the feasts. npr describes this film by saying,

"It's a French cook's extravagant "thank you" to a tiny church congregation that has sheltered her as a refugee in frigid Denmark for years. The problem is, the elderly congregation believes in self-denial — believes that pleasure must be reserved for the hereafter. So while they agree to eat the meal so as not to hurt Babette's feelings, they vow to each other that they will not enjoy the meal, or even talk about it.

This is much to the astonishment of a visitor, who can't believe what he's tasting — genuine turtle soup, great wine, and all around him, the congregation is silent. From the embarrassment in their expressions it's clear the others, despite their best efforts, are enjoying the meal, but no one in the congregation will admit it...."

... it's "all tied up in the spiritual: food as a gift, specifically Eucharistic in nature, for a religious community that has denied itself pleasure for decades.

And it is transformative: old loves are rekindled, long-simmering feuds are forgotten, redemption has a seat at the table."

npr says 'fabulous' and i agree. so has anyone seen babette's feast? tell me if you have. i can't wait to watch it soon and to keep thinking about food and the sharing of it as well as the savoring of it... with it all wrapped up in gift, gift, gift.

shoo-fly

Like many Rocky Mountain people, I too, am getting pretty worried about the pine-beetle situation that's been happening in Colorado over the past few years, and the projections are looking pretty grim.  I've heard scary statistics about how these lil' guys could potentially wipe out Colorado forests, and it really does worry me.  The NYTimes has a video story on the mountain pine-beetle right now.  It looks like scientists, beetle experts, and forest rangers are looking at creative ways of addressing the problem, but they gotta' act FAST, and for many trees and forests, it just might be too late.  Watch the story by clicking below:

America's Disappearing Forests

Published: 08

The mountain pine beetle, an insect pest, is destroying massive swaths of American lodgepole pine.

hometown politik

Colorado is supposedly purple right now.  My home state is one of the 'swing states' in the election this year.  In the past, Colorado has been a red state, voting for the Republican nominee for President.  But this year, this square-shaped state might be turning a new color: blau...azul...you get the picture.  I am sure that it helped that Denver was the host city for the Democratic National Convention back in August. [Which, by the way, I am still pretty bummed that I missed out on Stevie at the warm-up concert before Obama's big speech at Invesco -- because ya'll should know, for me, Stevie is where it's at.]

Everyone is eager to see what will happen on November 4^th – which is a little over a week away now, but I am particularly interested to see how Colorado will vote this year.  Will it be blue?

My hometown, good ol' Greeley, Colorado -- let's go with G-to-the-funk -- has quite an interesting political climate.  Recently, I was surprised to see that I am not the only who finds Greeley's political vibe quite interesting to follow.  The New York Times (nytimes.com is the home page on my browser - make it yours, and you'll be more in touch with what's happening in the world every time you get online) recently featured Greeley in their "Road to November" video series, and both sides of the political spectrum are presented in these interviews.  It is fascinating to analyze some of the statements that are made in this video - leave me a comment with your thoughts.  Check out the video by following the link below: 

The Road to November: Greeley, Colorado

Oh, and as you can see in this video, I also missed out on Kal Penn (I love him in The Namesake) when he visited UNC on behalf of the Obama campaign.  Although not as tragic as missing out on Stevie Wonder at Invesco, it's still a bit of a bummer.

Well, we're in countdown mode now... this election will finally come to an end.  In the meantime, keep watching SNL where you can laugh about how crazy this whole race has shaped up.  And now you can laugh on Saturdays AND Thursdays with an extra skit and Weekend Update thrown into the mix.  SNL writers don't even have to try that hard to make any of the current political scenarios funny; all of their material is being handed right to them from the candidates themselves... and some candidates are certainly more amusing (that's putting it nicely) than others... and that's all I am going to say about that.