The taste of the cup … a reminder of your blood for me.

Communion and betrayal.

Oneness and separation.

Wholeness and brokenness.

All these thing were part of a single day in your life, Lord, but aren’t they all part of our lives over time?

One day we feel we have it all together. The next is as if it has all fallen apart.

The thing to remember, though, is the light of hope.

You did not stay in the grave.

You rose again.

Even now you usher is into the presence of God.

Lots of metaphor in there, eh?

Thankfully, a creative soul among those 45,000 captured the moment in this short video.

Just then, a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.”

Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter,” he said, “your faith has healed you.” And the woman was healed from that moment.

— Matthew 9:20-23

I say this not to be arrogant, but as a simple statement of an observation I have made over the course of …. well, let’s just say my lifetime and not worry too much about how many years that may be. That is that it takes a pretty serious illness to make me stop what I am doing or plan to do. Stuffy nose, nasty cough, chest congestion — you know, stereotypical winter cold symptoms — do little to slow me down. Migraines can do it, but only if its not a particularly busy day at work. If it is, I go to work and head home when the absolute necessities are finished.

But, when I do get sick, look out! The last time I was for real sick — pukey, tired, achey, stuffy, the works — I admit that the only time I wasn’t whining about feeling like crap was when I was asleep. Fortunately for everyone around me, I was asleep most of the time.

Knowing how I react to a real sickness makes me admire the woman in the Scripture passage above all the more. She put up with her illness for twelve long years. It was an illness that carried a stigma for in the Jewish culture an illness that involved bleeding would have made her ‘unclean’ and prohibited her from temple activities and required those around her to treat her differently.

More inspiring than her endurance, however, is the sheer faith she held in the healing power of Jesus. She believed that he didn’t have to turn. He didn’t have to look at her. He didn’t even have to touch her. All she would have to do is get close enough to him to reach out to him and touch the hem of his robe.

When we’re sick, we have it a little easier. We don’t have to fight through a crowd. Jesus is as near as a prayer. We don’t reach out physically, we reach out with a request for healing. We ask knowing that Jesus has the power to heal us, but acknowledging that not our will but his is to be done even in the midst of our illness.

And, in all things, we ask that God may be glorified, even in our sickness.

1. We all need love
I saw this painted on the side of a factory when I started riding my bike to work this spring. I must have rode past it for a month or two before finally deciding to stop and take a photo. I’m glad I did because they painted the whole wall of the factory, covering the drawing.

2. Snow at Relevant
The only snow we’ve had this year in Central PA was the six or so inches that arrived on the Saturday of the Relevant Conference. These little flowers were still in bloom outside the hotel.

3. Saved in an old Bible
I was writing a post about an old Bible on my Grammy’s bookshelf. Inside, I found this flower or clover or something, carefully pressed between the pages. I played with it in one of the nine apps on my iPhone. {Seriously need to get that addiction under control!}

Words can’t express how amazing the week was, but maybe these images can offer a glimpse …

If you want to see more photos, I posted a few from the road on my Posterous site.

It seems hard for me to believe, but it’s been four years since I last met with a group of high school seniors at the local Starbucks on Tuesday nights for a totally unscripted evening of talking about the Bible, their upcoming high school graduation, what it means to be a believer, their college plans and who knows what else.

We’d order coffee, tea and frappucinos and laugh at the people who would come up to the stop sign out front, thinking there was an exit to the strip mall there. But, there wasn’t. So they backed up. Sometimes several cars a night.

Some nights someone would come with a specific question. Soon we would be paging through a Bible and discussing the verses that offered answers to the question – or at least brought us slightly closer to an answer.

On warmer nights, we’d sit at the tables on the sidewalk so that we could keep talking while the employees started their cleaning as closing time approached.

I cherish these memories, but realize that it doesn’t – and can’t – happen in some parts of the world.

Maybe there’s no youth leader. That’s OK. For centuries, the church managed to disciple the next generation without this thing we call youth ministry.

Maybe there’s no Starbucks. That’s OK. Any comfortable gathering place would do.

Maybe there’s no Bible.

I’m not OK with that.

Yet, it is the reality for 340 million people around the world who speak one of the more than 2,000 languages that don’t have a single verse of the Bible in the language they know best.

I’m SO not OK with that.

Neither are an amazing group of bloggers.

Today, these women are banding together to support OneVerse. As OneVerse bloggers, they are committing to raise awareness for the need for Bible translation. They’re also working hard to raise money to support the Vidunda translation project in Tanzania.

They’ll be linking up their posts today on the Seed Company blog.

Won’t you click over and join them?

Read their posts.

See why they’re not OK with the idea of 340 people living without the Word of God in their language.

Join them in support the project. You can click the OneVerse button on my sidebar to go directly to a page that will allow you to make a donation.

And, I’m more than OK with that.

Every year I make such a list and it always contains the caveat that the music may not have been released in the previous year. It’s just the music that I seemed want to hear.

Until this year it was highly subjective. Whatever I remembered listening to the most ended up on this list. This year, I got creative. I reset the play count on my iTunes to zero on January 1, 2011. That way, whatever was at the top of the list at the end of the year would be the “for real” music I listened to the most.

Here it is:

Now, a few things to note about this:

1. I didn’t buy a lot of music this year and I listened to Pandora or the single best public radio station around (WXPN!) more often than not. As a result, the newer music I loved didn’t make it to the list. The Civil Wars, for example. Or Adele. Or Foster the People. Or the new Passion CD. All the same, I can’t disagree with what made the list. I definitely stop hitting the next button every time they come on.

2. Clearly I had a British thing going this year. Mumford & Sons. David Bowie. Manic Street Preachers. Coldplay.

Anyway. It’s time to hit the reset button. Let’s see what 2012 brings. In the meantime, enjoy Sigh No More, the first song by Mumford & Sons that I ever heard.

1 & 2. Pete Yorn in concert

When you see my list of top songs for the year, you’ll notice the recurring theme. I’ve always been a big fan, but this year I gave myself a birthday present and went to see Pete Yorn in concert. I had no idea when I picked up my little point-and-shoot camera that I would end up literally leaning on the stage at the general admission show. There were a handful of good shots from the concert, but these two are my favorites.

I love the graininess of the one above and the angle and light in the one below – not to mention the smile. He obviously loves what he does!

3. A walk around the lake …

This one isn’t anything to write home about if you’re looking at composition or lighting or anything artsy. What makes it memorable to me is the story. Near the front of the crowd is the executive director of the food ministry at which I work. In 2007, she was nearly killed in a car accident. The road to recovery has been long and hard. Just this year, she was able to walk again. To celebrate her birthday this summer, she invited the Project SHARE community to join her as she walked her longest distance yet around a lake in a nearby town. It’s not just her determination that makes this photo memorable. It’s also the number of people who joined her in the celebration.

4. Flowers

I just like the way the light looks. That is all.

So there you have it. With a little luck and determination, maybe I’ll have more to offer in 2012!

Linking up with a couple of bloggy friends to share images from 2011. Won’t you join us?

The quest to ease the tension led Carlson to explore the monastic communities across the United States in an effort to find out how these men and women who had devoted their lives to prayer and contemplation had initially responded to the attacks and how they continued to respond to a world filled with terrorism and violence. His travels took him from desert to city to college campus, ultimately arriving back home with the acute understanding that peace comes when we recognize the humanity of our enemies and offer healing through grace and forgiveness.

Don’t think, though, that this is a fast read or that it’s conclusions are drawn out after a point by point, detailed account of each interview. Rather, the book reads like Carlson’s journey itself with each encounter adding to the final realization that continued violence and hatred of our enemies leaves Christ on the cross. Yet, there is wisdom to be gleaned from the pages of Carlson’s book as he recounts his conversations.

It’s took me quite some time to read this book. That’s partially my fault and partially because the slow revelation was frustrating at times. For example, Thomas Merton’s vision of the unity of the human race and his influence on the Gethsemani Abbey may be central to Carlson’s thought, but its extensive treatment slowed my reading to a snail’s pace. Of much more interest were the interviews with the monks themselves.

Nearing the end of his journey, Carlson realized that God, the Father, could have chosen to destroy humanity after humanity destroyed his Son. He writes, “God could have responded as we did to 9/11: with vengeance. But God had chosen another path. he had raised Jesus not for His own sake, but for ours.”

This insight completed Carlson’s journey. May it be the foundation of a new journey for those who seek a different path in the light of uncertain times.

I’m not who I’m supposed to be.

I’m on a journey to become the woman God made me to be. It’s a twisting, turning road full of dark corners and scary side streets, but it’s my road.

Along the road, there are helpers, guides and friends who point me in the right direction, who guard my steps, who call me back when I wander off course.

And, oh, how I’m prone to wander. The writer of the hymn, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, knew me hundreds of years before I was born when he penned he words, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the Lord I love …”

But I hold to the great request and inherent promise of the next line, “Here’s my heart, Lord, take and seal it.”

God will do just that. He will seal my heart for a future day when I will at last have made it through the becoming to simply be.

Be in the light.

Be in his presence.