Colors All Around Me

Have you ever noticed that when you are getting enough oxygen (a.k.a when you are breathing deeply) and allow the stress to drain from your body that colors are so much more vibrant?  Logically it makes sense, that if you are getting enough oxygen, allowing your body to exist free of stress, anxiety and fear that each individual part of your body works better.  Even the tiny parts of your eyes that work together to allow you to see color.  Take a deep breath.  And another.  Now look around.  Notice that not only are the colors more vibrant, but you are able to distinguish the subtle differences in shades of color.

Why is it that we allow ourselves to go so many moments or hours without proper air and hence circulation?  Why do we wait, some of us until we are in a spiritual group of one sort or another?  Take another deep breath, enjoying every feeling in your body that goes along with the in-breath.  Hold it a moment.  Now release, enjoying every feeling in your body that goes along with the out-breath.

 

Maybe it was my growing up with Rainbow Brite and the Color Kids that did it for me, but I am most aware of my stress level by the brilliance of the colors around me.  Even on a rainy or cloudy day... have you ever noticed the particular yellow of drying pine needles?  Or the shimmer of silver that comes from every raindrop?

Yes.  Life is messy and at times incoherent, when it is impossible to know what to expect.  But then again - so is finger painting.  Think of how much fun is it to enjoy that color-filled "mess."  Breath deep and enjoy the all the colors life has to offer.  Breath deep and know the beauty that is creation.

This photo from a school of photography advertisement was my inspiration for this post.

Countdown to Family Reunion!

As I sit in my office, off the quiet administrative hall, I find myself day dreaming about my upcoming week of vacation at the Halstead Family Reunion!  Dreams about fiction novels, time to cross-stitch, S'mores (in moderation of course), and hours of sing around the campfire make it very difficult to focus on church e-mails.

I am someone for whom smells are the strongest memory trigger.  My favorite smell is Amusement Park.  However right now, I am longing for campfire, state park bathrooms, dirt, and bug spray.

I need the "front porch" communion more and more, as our culture spins farther away from it towards a "view-screen" community.  I keep having visions of Wall-E, even as I sit here in front of my own screen, blogging.  And so, even as I finish e-mails for the day, I create space in my heart for the longing of sitting by a campfire circle to take hold.

Passion for eye-contact relations is not about wasting time, it is a heart declaration that God's time means more to me than a tick-tock-clock.

Ordination!

After three years in seminary and a year of finishing ordination requirements, complete with the Search and Call process:  I was ordained into the Philadelphia Association of the United Church of Christ (UCC).  This joyous occasion happened on June 19th (Father's Day) 2011. Click here to see photos of my ordination service.  Scroll down half the page to view the photo gallery.

Within the UCC, in order to be ordained, one must have a "call" to a church.  My calling church is the Dover Church in Dover, MA.  I did my canidating sermon on May 1st and was voted into the Associate Minister position that day.

My first day as the Assoc. Minister at the Dover Church was June 1st!