box set

Ever wonder how your beautiful vinyl box set was assembled? No, neither did I until I volunteered to help. Yesterday and today a bunch of friends lent a helping hand to mewithoutyou et. all to get their limited addition box sets together. I  folded posters, and stuffed 7 inch vinyl into their special sleeves. If you got one of these puppies you will not be disappointed! And plus they were assembled with love! Here are some of my crappy shots of the happy helpers.

End of the line...packing the extras and boxing them up.

The guys signing posters. 

tops just waiting to be reunited with their bottoms

The assembly line was more of a U shape.

One thing I gotta say is that I am so glad we had air conditioning! The Philly heat today is over 100 degrees! If you haven't heard their new album Ten Stories order it or get a listen on spotify.

pinch pot

At Circle of Hope, we often create things together in solidarity, in worship, and in joyful expression.  This season is Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit filled the members of the early church. Here is how one member named Luke described it in the book of Acts:

Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.


We created pinch pots two weeks ago out of clay. They were fired in a kiln and this week we placed a lit candle in them to give to another person. We were passing the flame onto someone else. I'd like to think that it represented how the early church received this gift and freely passed it to others so that everyone could have the Holy Spirit.


Here is the pinch pot that I received:

Sometimes I feel like the art that we do can be cheesy, but this spoke to me. I love how the point of this art direction was not to make something to take home for ourselves. The point was to make something with our hands to give away.

Gasland

I am part of a compassion team at Circle of Hope church called Marcellus Shale Keepers. Wednesday we showed the documentary Gasland to sixty of our friends. It was so amazing to see how a documentary about hydraulic fracturing could span the entire country and bring such a diverse group of people together fighting for the same cause, but it is happening.

Then today I saw this picture of the the wells drilled near my home town. So sad...

It feels like suffering when you can see something so tragic happening and you cannot do anything about it- but wait you can! Call your representative like now and tell them to say hell the frack no!

you should do this...

With this art, band, and message, why not go?

quilting- spoiler alert for the recipients!

I have been working on a quilt for the new babies in my family due to arrive in the summer. I used an easy pattern I found online. I looked in my stash of fabric and saw that I had enough to do a rainbow fish theme which is great since it is gender neutral. All I had to do was buy batting (found some really cheap on Joanne.com) and backing fabric (found a sheet at Circle Thrift.) I have one done and I am still hand quilting the other.

Back Detail

Fishy Detail

Front

snowed in

I am not quite snowed in, but I like that mentality. You feel like you can do so much with the time, or just have time to chill. This snow storm DJ and I did the former. We went to cell leader training, ate lunch at El Cafeito, traded out a broken futon for a borrowed one, and went over to Lois and Jesse Keenan's house for some dinner and fun. All together, an awesome day!

love jesus style

I took off Saturday from work many weeks ago to prepare for the arrival of my in-laws and for a cell leader training for Circle of Hope. I forgot about it until yesterday so it was nice to not go to Applebees. I spent the morning loving and learning to love

The topic was on healthy sexuality focusing on Luke 17:11-19 when Jesus heals 10 lepers and 1 came back to acknowledge him as God. Four points were made: Jesus made the connection, He pitied the lepers and reached out to connect with them; 1 out of 10 ain't bad, its okay that the result wasn't 100% and you cannot expect it to be; Jesus lived the commitment, he didn't look for the opportunity to heal he just did it; and its okay to expect praise, love is a grace exchange.

Love is so much more than sex, although the world burns it down to that. We use our sexuality to connect with people in the intimate sense. Because I am married, I look to my relationship with my husband as an example of how I relate sexually. I can see healthy and unhealthy instances, but overall I am really happy where we are right now. I hope that we will continue to grow in our intimate relationship and love the way Jesus loved.