The Birds of my own

The pages of the book are open, the pen's ink ready, my hand a willing accomplice, but insightful words aren't forming.

Now, Back to Parris Island

I know... I'm not in chronological order - again! Agh! But I thought it was time to get some of Cael's USMC graduation shots up for you. I have been stuck because all of my photos are in the other computer and it has no internet right now. So tonight I worked on transferring pics from webshots to photobucket. Blech! Big pain. For now, here is a sampling of the sights (also not in chronological order... help... what's happening to me?) from Parris Island Recruit Depot.

Cael, the United States Marine Corps bootcamp graduate and Casey

The Traditional Pre-Easter Egg Hunt

Okay, I got a little out of order, I put the Easter morning sunrise photos before these... oh well... I should get some stills off of my video to show you some of the action during the hunt, but no time for now. Maybe later...


As it is, our numbers dwindled significantly this year with Cael in the Marines, Cally away at college, Joel in Tennessee and Daniel in New York, Ben in Atlanta and Katie just plain MIA. Oh... and Tommy was in Mexico...


Zach cooked some great burgers and hotdogs for us

and Casey was the egg stuffer. Shannan hosted us and

she and I were the lone egg hiders this year. She and I

along with Casey, spectated the furniture refinishing.

Mom was very tired and laid low. I'm rambling on and on,

and adding space here in order to push the picture below

down past the white side bar that is covering it up on my aol

browser. The archive sidebar doesn't show up on safari,

go figure...just in case the archive sidebar is blocking your view,

I am rambling. You're welcome.


But anyway, the rest of the cast; David, Bethany, Sarah,

Paul, Zach and Casey carried on the Kiedis egg

hunting tradition with style and had lots of fun.


Our time began with some furniture refinishing

by Bethany and Sarah. They found this coffee table

for $30 at Goodwill and spent much of the time sanding

and staining it. We were their audience and Paul helped

them with the staining. Everyone was impressed by the outcome.






The Easter basketheads have grown up, but old habits die hard...





The cousins with their spoils... and their dirty feet...


Fun with eggs...


David and Casey...


The ladies lounge awhile after all the excitement...

A New Day, A New Life... New Hope

It's Easter... and Casey and I went to the Sunrise service at Currie Park overlooking Palm Beach this morning. We enjoyed the beauty of a cool South Florida morning at sunrise on the intracoastal. Nothing quite like it, especially with donuts and coffee at hand. I wanted to share the photographs because the scene was so beautiful, so evident of God's presence. These pictures make me feel like I felt very early this morning as I sat thinking about what God has done for me through the resurrection...

He descended upon my life... filled it up with His comfort... peace... joy... forgiveness... and His hope... He envelopes my life with His goodness, wrapping me up in the warm light His presence brings into my life each day, available for any and every moment.

Happy Easter! Happy day of HOPE!

My Cuties

One day soon I will post something really new. For now, here is the Christmas photo. I love it because it was the last good shot we got before Cael went into the Marines. I won't see him with so much hair for a long, long time. Plus, who knows when all the kids will be home at once again... times are certainly changing... (sigh) Won't be long and Cally will head back to school and I will be without the errand runner she has been for me while she was here. Gotta love a girl who doesn't mind getting in the car to make food runs for you. She even said she would go and get the oil changed in my car this week. I know! It's my lucky moment, and I am enjoying it fully while it lasts. I think she was appalled when she saw the little oil change sticker they put in the window eons ago. The mileage on it was some number so many digits away from what the odometer reads now that she probably felt she just had to intervene. Works for me!

Words of Wisdom

"Isn't there anyone who can tell me what Christmas is all about?"

"Sure Charlie Brown. I can tell you what Christmas is all about."

...For unto us is born this day, in the city of David, a Savior which is Christ, the Lord."

Letters Home

It's been quite a journey already since Cael enlisted in the Marine Corps, and it's barely begun. He left on the 27th of November and is now a Marine recruit entrenched in a new way of life... and so then are we. Each day there is a lot to think about. A lot to pray about. A lot to hope for. And a whole lot to figure out. I am just happy that he has been able to experience this. After his 3 months of training in boot camp, after he has been strengthened as well as humbled, I look forward to seeing Cael receive the honor that he will have earned, the honor that comes with the title, Marine.

Oh my gosh! I just went to the mailbox and there was an envelope with a Marine logo in Cael's handwriting. It is a page and a half on Marine notepaper. I yelled out loud, I was so excited! It begins... "Well hello, holy crap this stuff is insane..." Maybe that gives you an idea of how it's going there. I can't explain how exciting it is to hear from him. When you don't know, you imagine all sorts of stuff good and bad. Apparently the Drill Instructors are as demanding as you might expect, but he says he respects that they are trying to train he and his platoon. That's good news. So there it is for today - and now... I'm going to go and read my letter a couple dozen more times...

Just for fun

I know, I know, you've already seen these photos and just last month at that, but I wanted to add snowflakes to update them for winter. After all, winter may be nearly a month away but we turned off the AC and turned on the space heaters this week right before thanksgiving, which tripped a breaker and everything. It's been downright chilly in here. And besides these kids are so darn cute, I can't get enough of them whether you can or not. So until I get my latest roll of film developed, I'm showing reruns.

A few moments in the driveway

We had only a few moments together in the driveway in passing before the cousins and Tommy and Shannan headed to Daytona for Thanksgiving. Here is what you get when you hand the camera to the kids for a few minutes:

Why Am I Here?

Why am I here blogging, I mean. I can only figure that I'm blogging because I don't have any other diversions from my work that I can fall back on legitimately at the moment. Last night I managed to divert myself with hours and hours of photoshop work. I had taken pictures of the kids while they were all still here together (see above) since they probably won't be again until who knows when, what with Cally going back to college and Cael planning to go into the Marines any day now. Out of the 24 or so I took, I took three photos (all similar) of the kids together on the front porch step. Each of the kids looked best in a separate shot... of course. Once I got started trying to blend each of their best pictures together into one photo and had a bit of success... there was no stopping me. It became an obsession (and what doesn't, you might ask?). This went on into the early morning hours and became a sort of contest with myself. The good news is, I WON! Oh... which one of me won? That's the beauty of competing with yourself... whichever you that you want always wins. The me who did an incredible work of photoshop magic really did make the most impressive showing. I would include the photo to prove it, but at this point, after putting that much time into something so frivilous, I must save it for the Christmas card. To give it away so soon would be premature, for sure. Plus then you would see how much time a person can waste in an evening on something of such little consequence. So in order to make the most of my wasted time, I will wait on sharing it. I give you the above group of other photos I took, however... These I didn't do any photoshop magic on. These are our untouched reality.

Good New/Bad News

The bad news is someone tried to steal my car last night.
The good news is we think that Cael happened to go out to his car while the attempt was in progress, thereby thwarting the thief, causing him to slither out one of the back car doors.
Bad news is the steering column is broken and the ignition jammed, the wiper lever broken off and the wires cut = I'm out of a car.
Good news is my insurance will cover it.
Bad news is it'll cost me a $500 deductible.
Good news is I have free car rental.
Bad news is the car alarm on the rental (a Ford Escape) has gone off once an hour for 9 hours since we got it. This has left me as wound up as a 5 year old boy on koolaid and red dye number 4 (or is it 5, or 8?) You get the picture.
Can we just admit it? I am an electromagnetic force of nature! There can be no doubt now.
Worse news... the rental place closed right when the alarm problem began.
Good news is there is very cold air conditioning in rental cars and the window goes up and down freely.
For now, I'll leave it at that.

On another note, the happy day of the free tree being moved to the back yard suddenly turned sour. The tree seems to have died a quick death. It's gray and somewhat crispy today. Okay, brittle even. I feel a little like Charlie Brown sometimes. You know how when they touched the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, the needles all fell off with that little clinking sound. The free tree's leaves do that now. Is the doctor in?

But some other good news is that Cael pressure cleaned the awnings that have been down since tropical storm Ernesto, plus he did the back patio and other areas. Soon I will be able to open the awnings again and see the light.
Bad news is that now I have to paint EVERYTHING... worse, I have to decide on paint colors. What was I thinking! I should have been laboring over this for months. Paint color is not a one day decision. I know... I'll stall by priming first.

That's all for now. My nerves are shot. I'm gonna have to sleep with the car clicker in hand. My neighbors have been listening to the alarm go off all day. Introducing the dagger sounds of loud honking into the darkness of night as well isn't going to make me real popular.

Silly Free Tree Video

Once upon a time, about 3 or 4 years ago, a tree popped up out of nowhere and grew in our front yard. It was considered a "bad" tree by Florida standards. It was a carrotwood or carrothead, or something related to carrots. I can never remember. Anyway, during the hurricanes of '04 it toppled and we had to chop it down. A sad day. Despite the fact that it was a "bad" tree, it had grown very quickly and gave lots of shade and I found it to be rather beautiful. I lamented its demise.

Then one day out of the blue, another free tree popped up in the exact same place, growing right at the base of the oleander bush. Only this was a completely different type that I like to think is some sort of Florida Oak, but you can tell that I make these things up because I'm too lazy to look them up. Anyway, this puppy of a tree grew very quickly and within the past two years has grow quite a bit. Since our backyard was stripped of the orange and grapefruit trees recently, I decided we should transplant the free tree to the back yard and let the oleander have it's space (and perhaps this will give it room to produce a new one for me). So today, Cael finally moved the free tree for me, and so I share with you the joy of having a new tree in the back yard... shade and all. Waalaa!

Math in a New Light

Just caught part of the NOVA film, Einstein's Big Idea, tonight, which apparently debuted last year. It expounds upon some of Einstein’s brilliant observations that revolutionized physics, in particular, e=mc2. This film captured a moment I never grasped by way of a text book. It was the producer, Gary Johnstone’s, take on Einstein’s creative observation and insight which translated into a sort of creative comprehension of Einstein’s theories on light, matter and energy in me. It is amazing how much more interesting something so flat-lined like math or physics can be when someone points to the story surrounding the facts. In the film, attention to the details of observation, supported by a peek into the cast of supporting characters in Einstein’s world, whom we would never meet in the same way in a classroom, makes the story behind the facts come to life. What a difference to be captivated by learning through art rather than to be taught a lesson. As a kid you have seemingly unending facts crammed into your head. Surprising the ones that stick, maybe even more so that any do. For me, the ones that did certainly weren’t about e=mc2. Yet in another moment, craftsmen and artists can spin all those facts into something personal and meaningful.

Gary Johnstone, the director and producer of Einstein’s Big Idea took some flack for playing out the drama of the story, but how else would you captivate those for whom math and science has always been painfully alien. I found it completely fascinating the way in which the math of creativity came into play in Einstein’s life. You know, I think I actually enjoyed math tonight! I must have as I found myself sitting forward, chin in hands, watching and listening for more. Bravo Gary Johnstone! This is a huge accomplishment. But then the film did mention electromagnetic fields too and we all know that there has been a recent interest on my part in that subject.

My imagination and interest were especially sparked during the scene when Einstein began to grasp that light is the constant in the universe. This thought and those surrounding it were fascinating to me. I will have to watch this again as the story moved on while I was contemplating all of this.

It appeared from the portrayal in this film that Einstein found himself in an intense observational niche that seemed to build for a time, as often happens with creative people. Once the creative’s eyes are opened to what God has placed within the range of their senses, their insight goes into overdrive and it’s nearly impossible for them to stop “seeing”.

"The whole of science is nothing more than a refinement of everyday life"
-This quote has been attributed to a number of people including Albert Einstein. I'll have to look into it further.

But whomever said it, perhaps if we all spent a little more time refining everyday life and being a bit more observant, who knows what any of us might come up with.


"After a certain high level of technical skill is achieved, science and art tend to coalesce in esthetics, plasticity, and form. The greatest scientists are always artists as well."
—Albert Einstein

Cool stuff.

Casey's soccer & The Post-Game "Girl Fight"

ImageReCap

Something has gone painfully wrong with my photobucket upload capabilities and I've wasted my day on it. So I figured out how to do this with some of my favorite black and white photos, which was some consolation. However, I, of course, can't view it with my aol browser and that just stinks. And what am I gonna do without a way to upload video? Someday maybe all the computers and browsers and software will learn to just get along and the "electromagnetic phenomenon" that plagues me will be a thing of the past. A girl can dream...

Everyday is a winding road...

The craziness didn’t end after the trunk popping phenomenon I told you about on my last post, instead it manifested itself anew the next day. I had to stop no less than 25 times the next day and evening due to continual trunk popping. The drive home from work was completely freaky and my nerves were shot and of course it was raining on top of it. At one point, the trunk began closing itself too. That was about all I could take. Later that night Cael was outside on the phone in the front yard and said the trunk popped twice while parked in the driveway when he was out there. Then as he closed it, it just kept popping. It was really bizarre (like Herbie the Love Bug gone whacked) but thankfully it has once again taken to remaining as it should. It must have been caused by some sort of intense barometric pressure or something scientific or mathematic which would, of course, elude me. Now that the tropical storm is over, so is the popping. I feel almost sane again. I know, the thought of me and "sane" in the same sentence is sort of funny.

But one odd event isn’t enough. This week on an afternoon drive to pick Casey up from school, I was sitting at the light at Prosperity and Lighthouse when I saw in my rearview mirror, three really cute mylar birthday balloons making their way down the street toward me past the SUV in line behind me. They seemed to be making a flying run for it but in sort of a flowy, balloon-in-the-wind way, and I watched to see where they would go, wondering if they had come untied from someone’s mailbox nearby or floated out of a car window. They sidled right up to my open windows as if having chosen me to catch a ride with and latched onto the passenger sideview mirror. Their brightly colored ribbons and plastic tie down thingys at the ends wound themselves around the mirror while the balloons themselves continued on and tried to pass in front of my windshield. I had been at the light a while and figured I’d better get the strings detangled from my mirror quickly so they could be on their way because I couldn’t see past them to drive once the light changed. But they wouldn’t come undone. With no time to spare, I threw it in park, undid my seatbelt, leaned over the passenger seat and began to reel them in from my awkward position. I sensed that the light had changed and I was still reeling, but thankfully those behind me were enjoying the unfolding scenario and the resulting fishing expedition, wondering what would become of the gypsy balloons. I managed to snag them without undue hassle, threw the car back in drive and realized I had been sitting at the green light with lots of empty road in front of me for at least 10 seconds. You ARE aware that 10 static seconds in a car at a green light is enough to create road insanity in fellow drivers. It also brings a certain level of fear to the driver sitting in park, I might add. So I took off as fast as I could, feeling sort of like I had just robbed a bank and was making off with the goods. I was wondering if perchance the people behind me had lost the three pretty balloons and whether they might have a manic three year old in the back screaming for her lost treasure and were thinking me a thief. But when that car turned off to another street a while later, I relaxed and began wishing I had a birthday to celebrate to make use of my little gift from heaven, though none came to mind. I pulled into the school parking lot and Casey walked over with that scrunched up look on her face, where the left side of her mouth curls up and the left eye squints in quizzical fashion. She wanted to know what was with the balloons. I gave her a quick recap about the gift from heaven and asked her if any of her friends were having a birthday that day. She smiled slowly and she looked off and told me it was her friend Chelsey’s birthday the day before, so the balloons changed hands and off they went to their new owner. Perfect. I loved it. This is what it's like to be me while driving.

But it doesn’t end there. Now Mary, I had a sighting this morning while on my way to work that reminded me of our life back in the day. Remember PSSSSSSSSSSSTTTT or however it was spelled. I remember you using it when I was probably in elementary or Jr. High. It was powdery stuff to put in one's hair that made the accumulated greasiness less apparent. It was billed at the time in a positive light as something like dry shampoo, just a way to clean your hair without water. Right, whatever. More like soaking up grease with baking soda. But people weren’t as shower conscious in those days and there were only like three other brands of shampoo back then, Prell, Clairol and No More Tears. Okay, there was also Herbal Essence and Suave, but not much else. Needless to say, self-perceptions were different, hair care was not the art it has become.

So this morning, I had just pulled up to the light at Military while on PGA and there to my left and across a lane was this pretty blond woman using the rearview like she was in the bathroom at home. She was brushing up sections of hair at a time and sprinkling baby powder in her hair, then floofing and brushing and primping each part like she was stylist to the stars, only to do another section and another and another without skipping a beat. She chose her red lights well, as this particular light is the second longest in the PBG area by my standards, so she had plenty of time to change her clothes as well, had she so desired. She didn’t do that as far as I could tell, and she didn't look trashy or unkempt. She was a very attractive young business-looking woman who apparently has poor hygiene and is short on time but finds hair degreasing a necessity and feels dousing her head in baby powder while at stoplights a socially acceptable practice... well, now everyone on the street knows her secret. Come on ladies! Where is the mystery? So maybe it’s a great quick-fix she learned from some fashion magazine, but are no beauty secrets sacred and left to the privacy of home anymore? I was staring, and I mean hard to see if she would notice and be embarrassed... and she didn’t bat an eye. She had a lot to do at that light let me tell you. I dared her in my mind to even look around nervously to see if she’d been busted, but no! She didn’t even give so much as a sideways glance in any direction. Didn’t care. How did she not feel me boring my eyes into her head? This isn’t the 70’s and I haven’t seen PSSSSSSSSTTTT since Farrah hair was the rage (and I think Farrah is like 60 now... yeah.) I am so continually amazed by people. But more so, I am always amazed by what goes on when I'm on the road.

today's phenomenon

I’ve always thought I have some weird electromagnetic field going because I used to stop at intersections at night and the street lights near me would go out all the time. It was freaky. I also have some sort of bizarre effect on cars where the air conditioners don’t want to run cold when I am at the wheel. Then there is the power window that will go down but not up unless it is near 90 degrees and sunny. Oh yeah, we can't forget back when the TV used to randomly turn off or on over the course of about a year, like someone was outside with a remote. Now that was electromagnetic weirdness.

But today was ridiculous. On top of all the usual stuff which I have adjusted to, I got in the car to pull out of my driveway and I thought I heard the trunk pop open randomly. At first I figured it was my imagination because I knew I hadn’t pushed the button on the key ring. Yet I was pretty sure I heard a sound that only a trunk popper makes, so I got out to check. Sure enough, it was open. I slammed it back down and drove on wondering a faint sort of wonder about it. I got to PGA and Military and while I was sitting at the light “clunk!” the trunk popped up again like my electromagnetism was back on the loose. I tilted my head like a perplexed dog. I could have yelled out loud about it too because frankly I'm prone to talking out loud while I drive. It seems to quell bad drivers if I talk them down from their erratic driving as they enter my field of vision. Of course they never hear me, I just annoy my passengers. But this trunk popping just weirded me out. My hand had definitely been no where near the trunk button this time; the keys were there dangling in the ignition quietly on their own. There I was, in the front of the line of traffic and I had to get out while at the light, run to the back of my car to slam the thing down. I couldn’t take a chance that it might pop all the way up while I was driving and have all that junk in there flying around for other drivers to see. Yes, Heaven knows I need to clean it out and have needed to for about 15 years. How embarrassing it suddenly seemed. Usually a trunk is a great place to use as a holding tank. Of course, that was when trunk lids stayed shut until opened on purpose. I still think it’s a great storage space for the most part, except during weekly trips to the grocery store when I pop the trunk to put the groceries in and there before the bag boy’s eyes I have to exclaim in feigned amazement... like where did all this come from and why didn’t those kids of mine remember to take all this stuff out... like it’s some bizarre anomaly outside of my normal realm.

So then today, after a full day of work, I got in my car to come home, and “clunk” it popped AGAIN while driving in mad traffic. Do you know what this does to a person’s level of control when at the wheel? I’m high strung enough, do I really need a random popping-trunk phenomenon to deal with? It put me so on edge. I think the fact that it popped again, and this time in the evening, rules out any Candid Camera stuff. Who’d want to wait around all day following me just to pop it on me again? It was just another in a wide range of true flukes that grace my life, my crazy electromagnetic life. Could it have something to do with the barometric pressure from the storm? Have trunks been popping all over South Florida and I just haven’t heard about it yet? Well, if it suddenly becomes all the rage, just remember you heard it here first.

I had to do it

It just seemed right considering...

Unearthing the past

I just looked out the front window and was amazed to see the whole street ablaze with the wattage from my front porch light. And I'm lighting up my neighbor's house across the street like we're about to film some late night reality TV. Nobody on the block really needs a front porch light if mine is on. I think I need to pay a little more attention to the bulbs I'm buying. I tend to be a one-bulb-fits-all person. I'm surprised no one on my block has complained about insomnia recently, and I'm just wondering what this Hollywood glow is gonna do to the electric bill. If needed, I could spot a burglar three houses down from between the slats of my blinds at 2 am thanks to the light projecting from just outside my front door. The coverage is that good.

But that's not the reason I was writing. I'm writing because I've been going through some sort of super funky minimalist phase lately and the need to clear ugly and superfluous junk from my surroundings has been after me to the point of distraction. I keep finding myself at the cusp of every great idea pointed first backwards to deal with the rather un-fun, underlying stuff in order to get things ready for change. So in an attempt to head in new directions and make an area like my kitchen more wonderful, it became obvious I had to clean out the cabinets first. I thought a day would do it. That thought wasn't on target with reality.

Aside from unearthing many items I could sell, toss or give away, I began to discover a lot of memories crammed in with the kitchen junk. I’ve kept old calendars and a few old address books from back in the early 90's, and while they take up space and make a mess, I just can’t throw them away. Once in a while I go back and see what I was doing on a nondescript day "back when" and see who I was in touch with. I rarely look at them except on the very off chance I'm cleaning out the kitchen once a decade or so. I had barely begun looking through one of the address books when I found all sorts of enticing little scraps of paper of various size, color and shape. Long forgotten names and numbers from what now seems a different culture altogether were slipping from between the pages. It's almost like I dreamed those days and those people. I conjured up the old faces as best I could from their names and then found other names I had actually been trying to remember just last week. I was reminded of how many lives it seems we lead over the course of our time and how many people come and go only to be a part of our world for a relatively short time, though it seemed like forever at the time. Funny what I remember of some of the people. What do they remember of me? Do they have odd little pictures and quaint memories of specific things I said, like I do of them? Do they remember much more than I remember of those days or nothing at all because they didn’t keep their calendars and address books scrunched up in kitchen drawers?

Then I began to read the notations on the pages of the calendars. It was like sneaking a look into a past that belongs to someone else. The things I was doing seem odd and out of place now, yet were all a part of my very life and who I am today. So much daily stuff that I can now clearly see was creating a way for me to get to here. I would have very little recollection of so many of the details if it wasn't scrawled out there in my scrappy handwriting. I saw month after month of notations indicating things that had to be done because of painful circumstance when the world was upside down. Weekly events and consistent friendships were right there spelled out with ink. And I saw the evidence of time with friends and family. In those everyday events and in the names of constant friends who were our life, many of whom still are, I saw evidence of how God was taking us through to who we were to become. Pivotal days and events that would appear at the time to be just another thing to do or a reminder of where to be and when, was really much more. Each stroke of the pen signifies the moments of my life ticking by... my one and only life, the markings there are really anything but insignificant calendar notations. They tell me in part why I made it through and when I should have done more or less, where my focus was on target and where I slipped up. Looking back at our lives like that is like finding something hidden and new despite the fact that it's old and done. It's like unearthing our own history from an outsider's viewpoint, because we are outsiders to that time and place now. It’s all somewhat odd in light of today. And it’s treasure. Those were moments just like this one. It's a hard lesson to remember because even now I tend to forget that the moments today are forging who I’ll be tomorrow and who I’ll be another 20-some years down the road. What did I do today that would make an interesting archeological dig during some other kitchen cleaning in the future? I wonder. What patterns will I find in looking back one day? If the calendars of the past are any indication of what it was that defined me, then I’d better include the people of my day, the moments we shared and not just the cleaning I did. That said, it would be important to add that Casey assisted my efforts today by going online to look up the value of items I found buried there in the deep. She would try to give me an idea of whether we had anything valuable on our hands. Cally and I spent some time together shopping for college items later in the afternoon, and then we met up with some new friends who passed on a mini fridge for her to take to school. Just being together, which so rarely happens lately, we were moving one step closer to the next moment, making choices together and seeing God provide. Cally and I stopped for a smoothie, because we were within range of Tropical Smoothie. I’m starting to understand the pattern now. I guess we are required to stop there if we come within a half a mile. It was good to share a smoothie. It was good too, to drive to Paul and Lynette’s and have Paul hand over the keys to his red convertible so we could have a second car for the next two weeks. I mean it was good that they would allow God to use them yet again to meet a need of ours. As far as Cally being behind the wheel of a red convertible for the next two weeks, hmmm... well then, that could be another story altogether...

Who Rules

I’m an image junkie - I don’t deny this. With years of conviction behind me and a spiritual sticking point that usually fends off most of the blatant blows, it still happens that sneaky voices and enticing images slither in and make themselves at home. It usually happens unnoticed and I’d say they most often come in disguise, brought to me by the talent and cunning of the image weavers. There have been magic moments too, the kind where a window into something incredible is played out in a way that seems meant just for me. I know... we think we are self-directed, thoughtful people, independent and astute, but we’re not. I hate to be the one to break the news, but we are weak-willed and gullible in the hands of the creative. Storytellers rule the culture.

Something happened last night while we watched the imperceptible blending of images or as we bathed in the words and rhythms. We were drawn into a story, as we often are, sitting in the dark, holding hands with the remote, mesmerized by the lives of the characters we cozy up to. Their behavior “became” us, maybe repulsed us, maybe intrigued or attacked us. Maybe it humored or even inspired us. Their language spoke to a place in there that always seems to be crying out to be spoken to. What was said echoes in our heads still today. Which place did it speak to this time? Did we hear what we needed, or was it simply like a salty snack and a can of coke, something that hit the spot of the moment?

We turn it off, we turn it on, it’s neither here nor there really. It’s just a show, just a movie, just advertisement, just diversion of course. But it isn’t just a show or a movie or an advertisement... of course. Someone tweaked and planned, spent fantastic sums of money, consulted and rehearsed to create flatscreen images that would be reborn 3-D in our lives, whether with one well-placed line, or episode by episode solidifying a premise, and sometimes culminating years down the road, a testament to patient, painstaking effort. Someone’s on the other side hoping their voice will be remade inside of us tomorrow. And it WAS remade the minute we ourselves, our hands-on selves, began repeating the lines, the moment we did or maybe even didn’t realize that we were conveying a tone of voice invoked by the spin of “the creative”, or when we retold that joke or adopted a mannerism or a way of thinking, or when we allowed what we've spectated to become a personal reality that we now play out with our own voices, what we now consider to be our “personal” thoughts. It all became 3-D after all, at our own hands.

Seems some of the fantasy stays behind. Some of it’s been staying behind since the first time we lay on a Saturday morning floor as close to the box as we could get to watch Looney Tunes. That’s a lot of time, a lot of influence. The sway of the music and tones of voice, classic lines and attitudes about the world and our place in it - what to accept, what to reject, who to love and hate; it has “become” us, in essence made us, formed us, and it shows up even imperceptibly and unnoticed. And we are the ones who give it permission. Someone we don’t even know has decided more than we’d care to give them credit for. Someone has colored many of our thoughts in shades we’d probably rather not have allowed onto our color palate had we really given it any thought. Often even carelessly, and with a strong desire to be entertained, we meld and transform under the guiding hand - of whom? Who are these “guides” we’ve given our hearts permission to follow?

I know how moving images can be. At any given moment you can find me nearly obsessed and completely absorbed in them, ignoring food, people and the the common sense of the hour hand. I know from the “other side” how images incite deep heart change because I am an image weaver myself. Can’t fool me about it; I’m in on the whole thing. Words and pictures carefully placed to sway to the sounds and the mood will mesmerize us into a deliberate thought or feeling, even move us to action - sometimes nurturing, sometimes suffocating both our character and our future - and always challenging who we would become. In the moment, aroused by feeling, incited by image, we will move. One way or another, chances are we won’t sit still. Which way we move depends on which voice and which image we grant an ear and an eye to. Which way today?

“Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them...

...Fix these words of mine in your hearts and minds; tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates, so that your days and the days of your children may be many in the land that the Lord swore to give your forefathers, as many as the days that the heavens are above the earth.” Deuteronomy 11:16-21