Blooming Art

We took advantage of fine weather and a long lunch break and made two trips to the Minneapolis Institute of Art this past week.

Our lunch date was all about Matisse. I learned a lot and appreciated his stamina and creativity even when wheel-chair bound and elderly.

Our second outing, a ladies afternoon, was all about flowers. We explored the third floor of the MIA on a day when all of Minneapolis and half of St. Paul had the same idea. Meandering through the crowds, sometimes up on tiptoe to peer over heads at famous works, was totally worth it.

This is the one weekend of the year when people create floral arrangements inspired by masterpieces. Some are more literal interpretations, others give more of an impression or suggestion of elements of the painting or sculpture.

Here are the side by side shots we managed to capture. Turns out one camera was not enough for one mom and three daughters. We kept jockeying for turns and positions in front of the works hoping to capture our favorite pieces. (I learned later that afternoon that Churchill Downs would also be home to this behavior. The Kentucky Derby, the fastest two minutes in all of sports, was set to run that day.)

Loved this one. Check out the drapery, the gorgeous fabric on this woman. Even the little dog got a nod from the florist/artist.

Taken by one of the girls. I love this shot.

The Magi - stunning.

Not sure what happened with this photo, but I like it.

Ahhhh. Van Gogh.

This painting we thought was kind of funny. The dove, the Holy Spirit, seems to shoot the baby, Jesus, straight at Mary's head. 

We liked how the scene was imagined and represented in this arrangement. The yellow orchid traveling down the vine towards "Mary".

Being afraid of heights, it was hard to get this shot but I somehow wanted to capture the space. Two floors below a string quartet was playing and it was lovely to listen to the sound ring through the hall.

My youngest insisted that we couldn't leave without seeing the "big white dog".

I can see what she means. He was big and white and a dog. The floral arrangement was just as simple, but impressive, I thought. His little nose, a red gerbera. Cute. See the partial view of that guy's face? More on that later.

Heading back to our car I stopped to take this picture.

It reminded me of the image as the backdrop for this blog. Minus the fake flowers.

Good times in Minneapolis!

Friday Evening Art Crawl

Our Friday family night was glorious - the weather, the scenery, the creativity, the spontaneity.

We visited two locations where local artists are displaying their creations in our hometown city as part of the weekend's Saint Paul Art Crawl.

First we stopped in at the Grand Hill Gallery to check out cousin Josh's paintings.

Here's the artist himself (on the right) and a couple of his paintings we admired.

Other artists displayed their works here too. I think our collective favorite was this sculpture - Dancers. Simply made with two forks. Brilliant.

Upon leaving the Grand Hill location we took a quick detour to this tiny park near our beloved first house.

Then we headed to the newly renovated Schmidt brewery artist lofts to check out cousin David's paintings.

 It's a talented artistic family I married into. Here's a shot from David's studio.

And this building and lofts are amazing. I just couldn't get enough. A gorgeous blend of the old and new.

Here are the shots our eldest captured as she meandered through the building.

Sunset on the way home was a perfect end to our evening excursion.

Enriching Dinner Conversation

Here is the second part of the sharing I gave at a recent retreat for women in the People of Praise.

Secondly (and on a somewhat lighter note), I'd like to share one way we have enriched our family dinners together.

One of the points of attraction for me to this life is that I have brothers and sisters in Christ all over the country with whom I can share a Lord's day with, or pray for from a distance, or celebrate a wedding with and it seems completely natural and normal to do so. I have been fortunate to visit branches and form friendships over the years.

One desire I have as a mom is to help my daughters see more of the richness of our life and the breadth of the body. So, if they choose to live this particular life as adults, they'll at least have some more knowledge of it beyond what they see at our area and overall gatherings and what they experience in youth group and at Servant Camp.

Along with that, Ben and I have been thinking about what it takes to have good conversation together. We make it a priority to eat together every night. Yes, we are entering that phase of life where extra-curricular activities compete with dinner time, but we limit those extra activities so we can spend quality time together around our table most nights of the week.

Typical conversation tends to fall back on reports from the day. These conversations are sometimes lively and fruitful. One cool thing about these last two years is that all our girls are studying the same period in their history class. It has been a gift to hear them respond to each other and recognize what the others are talking about. But, these conversations can also be stale and sometimes we just need to break up the routine.

So, to create another starting point for conversation I talked with Ben about us reading aloud some of the articles from Vine and Branches while we ate. Vine and Branches is a People of Praise magazine published a few times each year and distributed to all members of the community.

I have taken it for granted that leaving the magazine out in plain sight will be picked up and read by all of us. It just doesn't happen. Occasionally we also receive an email with a special news item or announcement from the central office….but these aren't visible to our kids. There are many amazing stories our girls just aren't aware of that are happening all over in POP.

So on a weekly basis, I bring an issue to the table and read an article as we eat. The storytelling and pictures bring a vividness to the lives of others and a familiarity with all the people and works of all the branches. It awakens the imagination of our girls – Look what God is up to across the country!

What we appreciate about V&B is the articles are short and easy to read aloud, they are well written, there are pictures, they are Christ-centered, and they cover a variety of topics (art, music, evangelism, technology, summer camps, caring for the sick and elderly, etc.)

Even the tributes to people who have died is inspiring and gives us something to talk more about.

We've enjoyed learning about:

• “writing” icons from Kati Ritchie. In fact, we are making a trip to Colorado this summer and I hope we can see some of her work up close at a church in Denver.

• Kay Keller her life-long ordeal with cerebral palsy; amazingly, she lived to be 72 because brothers and sisters in the Appleton branch loved her and cared for her. Kay was even blessed to have teenage girls from the Appleton branch worked with her in her home. What a witness to us!

One evening I brought my Samsung tablet to the table to read the email news item of Peter Smith's appointment as auxiliary bishop to Portland. My daughter remarked, “He's from Africa? He doesn't look African.” This led to a discussion about South Africa.

The stories from V&B have brought a new spark and life to our quality family time together. They inspire storytelling, like me sharing memories of Kati living with me when I was growing up. They have opened our eyes to some of the real issues in our neighborhoods and the world and how members of the POP are responding and laying down their lives. There is both an enjoyment in reading V&B and a seriousness that we can't ignore. Our girls are poised to know and see one way how God is moving in the world.

We don't intend to keep this effort just related to community topics, but it has been a good place to start. I can see this spilling over into world events as someone may bring an article or story from another source to the table. For now, this is what works. It's not too structured or with too lofty expectations. Like our family prayer, it's us. The motivation comes from recognizing what is important to us and what is a good way to live it out in our home.

In these areas of family life we've just decided to dive in and our home life is the better for it.

To read a recent issue, of Vine and Branches, click on a cover image below.

                         

A Family That Prays Together...

Yesterday my oldest daughter and myself attended a People of Praise women's retreat. The theme of the day was Joy.

I was asked to give a sharing about "Family Life in A Complex World". I chose to relate two stories from the past year as the substance of my talk.

This is the first:

The first topic related to family life that I would like to share with you explains how our family got started with praying more together. Secondly, I'd like to share one initiative that has enriched our meal times together. Both of these stories are from this last year and still “works in progress.” I find that embracing the complexity of family life is first and foremost accepting the evolving process of learning and growing together; it involves some trial and error and tweaking our methods as we enter new “phases” of life. We are now 15 years into family life and have three girls between the ages of 8 and 14.

First, our prayer life: It was a Tuesday evening in September and Ben, his head Tom, and myself were sitting in our back porch having a difficult, but good conversation – sorting through some issues, expressing hurts and the need for reconciliation - all good things.

One of the areas of family life that we brought up was praying together. Praying together as a family has always been a desire of mine and over the years we have experienced it in one form or another, but it never developed into a habit. I've admired the families who wake up the household early, gather everyone around and sing, pray, intercede, share, etc. The picture I have in mind always involved a guitar, boisterous praise, sincere intercession, and a joyful send off to face the day.

This picture never seemed quite attainable for us. I am a morning person. Ben is not. We don't have instrument talent in our family. Fitting in personal prayer was challenging enough, family prayer? That seemed like adding one more thing that would take a great amount of effort.

As we talked with Tom that evening we kicked around some ideas for prayer. What format should we use? How long should we pray? On which days? At which time? Etc. We seemed to be at a crossroads, no clear plan in sight when it occurred to me to say, “Well, why don't we just start with something that is really important to us now? I'm pregnant. I'm sick. Let's just gather to pray over me and the baby and see what comes of that. Let's keep it simple. I think we can handle that.”

I was 16 weeks along and spending most of my time on the couch since moving around made me nauseous. We all agreed that my approach would work and chose to pray on Monday mornings just before the kids headed off to school and Ben to work.

It was a simple plan, but one that seemed doable and more importantly, one we thought we could be faithful to because it started with something that really mattered to us. It was relevant to our family.

I told Tom that it would probably be a good idea if he periodically checked in with us to see how it was going. Building accountability into our life helps. A lot. Knowing we had Tom to support us was helpful in moving forward with our plan.

So, Monday morning rolls around, but sitting together praying as a family was the last thing I wanted to do. Two days before, on Saturday, at about 9 in the morning, Ben and I found ourselves in the ER and heard the doctor say (for the third time in our marriage and the second time in nine months), “All your levels look good. But your baby does not have a heartbeat and there is no fetal movement.”

Now I had lost my dad to cancer two months before this. Losing a parent was really hard to live through. I am still sad that my dad is gone, I miss him a lot. But I had 14 years to adjust to the fact that he probably wouldn't live to be an old man. And I have 39 years of great memories of him.

But this news on this day was devastating. My world came crashing down around me. The grief that comes with hopes and dreams unfulfilled is really hard to bear. My heart hurt deeply for my loss, but I also had to watch a husband grieve for the son he would never raise and to comfort and pastor three daughters who had prayed for years for another sibling and were now experiencing the pain of losing that again in an instant.

So here we were. On Monday morning. Our intention to pray over me and for the baby was completely flipped upside down. How could we possibly proceed now with our reality being what it was? This was a nightmare for me. I felt abandoned by the Lord and his promises to me. I was struggling to face Ben and the girls, much less wanting to face the Lord.

But, we said we would pray and we did. We had made a commitment to each other and to the Lord. Somehow Ben called us together and we sat around our coffee table. Only by the grace of God, I believe, did he have the strength to lead us in prayer. He picked up the devotional he uses for personal

prayer and the psalm for the day was 126. Admitting this was going to be hard to read, Ben started,

“When the Lord brought back the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream.

Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing.

Then they said among the nations, 'The Lord has done great things for them.'

The Lord has done great things for us, And we are glad.

Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing,

Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing...”

While there are many things that I can look back to as the Lord caring for us through that time: Amy Root coming over one morning just to do my dishes; I needed someone to just feel the freedom to pop over and do something; Beth Bulger reaching out to me and tenderly saying, “I just love how you loved your little boy”; I needed someone to affirm my motherhood of that child; Jeanne Stauble dropping off a meal immediately after she heard our news; the Trinity faculty donating a generous amount of money so we could have a nice meal together and the girls could attend a Cirque du Soliel performance.....the list goes on.

But, I also needed Ben to lead us through the next days and weeks and it started with that morning prayer.

I believe that the truth of the Scripture Ben read was also the Lord gently reminding us that this is not the end for us. When the ugliness of Satan's whispers, doubts and despair entered my mind and pain and loss gripped my heart, I needed the Truth of Scripture to cling to. We all needed the word of God to ring throughout our home. And I believe it was important that it come from us. Ben's leadership that morning, sitting us down, reading from the Bible, then saying a simple prayer for all of us set us on a path of healing that continues today.

Since that first Monday morning family prayer together, we have continued to pray. As December approached, we again asked ourselves, “What is important to us? Well, the season of Advent is.” So, we used the book of Advent reflections provided by our church as the framework for prayer that month. In fact, we prayed almost daily those few weeks rather than just once a week. I can honestly say that the effort has become a habit. This season of Lent has been much the same. Recently we even prayed together over Google Hangouts while Ben was on a business trip. It was funny to watch Izzy try to “hold Ben's hand” virtually as we closed our prayer with the “Our Father”.

I can't say we have a perfect record. We're human. Occasionally we have forgotten or there just wasn't time to sit together as a family, but for the most part, we've done it. Following through with our initial intention to pray for a specific need, the baby, and having that need drastically change, but staying faithful, was life changing for us.

Top O' The Mornin' to Ya

Been up since 2am. I've already had two cups of coffee, written a sharing for a retreat and folded laundry. 

No, I am not crazy. Just a weird early early early morning person on this particular day. 

And this particular day is one of my favorites - The day of the Irish! It's a wonderful day and the whole mood was set on Saturday night.

While many of my O'Reilly relatives are celebrating good ol St. Paddy's day in Montana complete with my cousins, the bagpipers...

....we gathered at the Druffner home/hobby farm in Hudson for an evening complete with poetry recitations, dancing, singing, Irish trivia, laughter, food and drink and meeting more Trinity families.

This is the type of party I love.There was good company, the biggest container of Irish stew I had ever seen, and incredible hosts who greeted us warmly and invited us in to share our talents and enthusiasm for this day,

Their Great Room was grand - large, open, huge fireplace, looked like a room from the Austen era where you would dine and dance. And we did. Dined and danced and listened as guest after guest shared his/her talents during an open mic time.

I nearly swooned as one guy played an Irish jig and then a farewell song on his fiddle. And it wasn't the Bailey's Irish cream I was sipping. I just love the fiddle. Could have listened to that all night.

But I was treated to more:

One couple's acapella duet was tender and moving. Thigpen's Wedding song moves me every time I hear it. (You can hear it below. Although I don't particularly like the video, the music and words are beautiful.)

A husband read and dedicated Seamus Heaney's The Skylight to his wife and hostess Molly. (Poem is included below)

A mother sang an Irish farewell song to her son who was returning to college the next day.

A father beamed as his young daughter recited "Ooey Gooey" with perfect poise and confidence.

Corny jokes followed - "The cornier, the better", Molly says, "It's the Irish way."

The Irish way was indeed alive and well on this evening - one that I will never forget.

Erin go Bragh!

That's "Ireland Forever!" as I learned during our trivia game. Which our team lost by the way.

But I am not bitter. The memory of the rest of the evening makes me smile and not care about not winning.

The Bailey's helped too.

The Skylight

You were the one for skylights. I opposed
Cutting into the seasoned tongue-and-groove
Of pitch pine. I liked it low and closed,
Its claustrophobic, nest-up-in-the-roof
Effect. I liked the snuff-dry feeling,
The perfect, trunk-lid fit of the old ceiling.
Under there, it was all hutch and hatch.
The blue slates kept the heat like midnight thatch.

But when the slates came off, extravagant
Sky entered and held surprise wide open.
For days I felt like an inhabitant
Of that house where the man sick of the palsy
Was lowered through the roof, had his sins forgiven,
Was healed, took up his bed and walked away.

Dishes with Jerry

One of the blessings about not having a dishwasher.....

Who am I kidding? The ONLY blessing about not having a dishwasher is that we have built-in quality time with each other every day of the week right after dinner. We have a rotating schedule of chores and one lucky girl gets to spend some time with dad each night as they wash, dry, and put away the dishes by hand.

In order to make the time go by easily and to distract from the actual chore part of the chore, we've taken to listening to comedy routines via our "Jerry Seinfeld" Pandora station.

Here's a favorite one from Mr. Seinfeld. I know the Olympics are already a distant memory, but I think we can all get a chuckle out of this.



Let me tell you - some of our funniest family moments are generated by these sketches. Laughter over dishes works wonders.

And what's more, Kate seems to have a knack for memorizing this stuff and just pulls it out of her brain at the right moments to lighten the mood around her.

Maybe that's the Second Blessing of not having a dishwasher.

It will take me a looooooong time to think of a third. So I won't.