Creative Frenzy

I didn’t get much response to my blog about Connecting the Dots, but that’s okay; I managed to get me thinking to the point that I’ve gone 180 and counter-pointed myself. (It’s exhausting being inside my head sometimes). In that blog, I suggested that America is, indeed, losing it’s creative spark, and that this is connected with the sad rumor that our Christian light has dimmed, or is hidden under the proverbial bushel. I don’t exactly disagree with myself, mind you, but I have noticed another angle. I wrote from this new perspective in a column for Power Source magazine that will be coming out in the September issue. This article does not address the religious aspect, only the creative one, but I thought it was worth sharing with you. I love hearing your responses. Thanks for conversing.

 Creative Frenzy

(From the column “UNCOMMON SENSE: God’s Gift of Creativity” )

    I’ve heard that creativity is on the decline in this country. Some say we have been lulled into a sleepy slumber, sold out to a commercialized, force fed, cookie cutter mentality, motivated and perpetuated by gross consumerism. I hear generalized statements about people. “People don’t want to think too hard.”  “People are basically shallow, not deep or poetic.” “People are gullible to whatever the market sells them.” No, no, no, no, no. I say, “People have hearts, people need art.”

     Art has a new cyberspace playground these days. It’s exciting. Remember Captain Kirk’s handle: Space, the final frontier? Well, it’s not. For the visionary, there are worlds beyond the worlds beyond this one, and they’re all God’s. God has a way of turning sure finality into promising eternity. These are exciting times for innovative minds. If we’ve ever been in an age when everything is “new every morning,” as the writer of Lamentations so eloquently penned, it is now. Can you see God’s blessing in these changing times?

     Of course, for the organic artist, the potter molding the clay, the painter brushing the canvas, or the songwriter crafting a melody, some things never change. The qualities that make a song great, for example, are timeless, whether that song is rendered digitally or on an old phonograph with a little white dog with a black eye watching it spin.

     From Bach to the Kings of Leon, what keeps a melody interesting is movement, and contour, the dynamics of high and lows, and the variation of intervals and note values. From Handel to Gaither, a great lyric communicates the universal heart of humanity, is honest, and is constructed carefully to make every word count.

     These days, everything is faster, easier, allegedly time saving, that is, until your battery dies and you can’t find your charger. But sometimes I think we miss the point of all this efficiency. Creating more time means you can create more. It means you can sit still long enough to get that book written, or get that second verse exactly right.

      I use to hate writing second verses. By then, the lightning bolt impulse had waned, and it actually became work to make sure the payoff was exactly right. By then, there was a temptation, not to make every word count, but to make every word functional and hope no one was listening closely enough to know that it could be better. Guess what? They are always listening.

     The fun part of God’s gift of creativity is the inspiration, the paying attention, the cupping of the hands while the Holy Spirit pours out the epiphany. The not so fun part is the waiting, and the moment when God seems to be whispering, “I don’t know, what do you think?” Co-writing with God, which is the only way to go, is a fearful and wonderful process.  With God, every word counts. He’s a great lyricist. Just think of the power of those four little words, “Let there be light.” Even if you didn’t know the Judeo-Christian story behind that phrase, you would be compelled to wonder who has the authority to make such a command, why, and what was there before light? Sometimes we can say more with fewer words. For the lyricist, fewer words means more work. I’ve spent entire afternoons on long walks or biking just to get away and find the one right word or image for a line or a chorus. If you finish a song and your lyric sheet looks like a short story, you may have been too wordy. Ah but it’s so easy to ramble on…

     No doubt life is fast paced, and schedules monitored to the millisecond. I say if this crazy world’s gone manic, let’s turn all that hyperactivity into a creative frenzy.

Creative Frenzy

I didn’t get much response to my blog about Connecting the Dots, but that’s okay; I managed to get me thinking to the point that I’ve gone 180 and counter-pointed myself. (It’s exhausting being inside my head sometimes). In that blog, I suggested that America is, indeed, losing it’s creative spark, and that this is connected with the sad rumor that our Christian light has dimmed, or is hidden under the proverbial bushel. I don’t exactly disagree with myself, mind you, but I have noticed another angle. I wrote from this new perspective in a column for Power Source magazine that will be coming out in the September issue. This article does not address the religious aspect, only the creative one, but I thought it was worth sharing with you. I love hearing your responses. Thanks for conversing.

 Creative Frenzy

(From the column “UNCOMMON SENSE: God’s Gift of Creativity” )

    I’ve heard that creativity is on the decline in this country. Some say we have been lulled into a sleepy slumber, sold out to a commercialized, force fed, cookie cutter mentality, motivated and perpetuated by gross consumerism. I hear generalized statements about people. “People don’t want to think too hard.”  “People are basically shallow, not deep or poetic.” “People are gullible to whatever the market sells them.” No, no, no, no, no. I say, “People have hearts, people need art.”

     Art has a new cyberspace playground these days. It’s exciting. Remember Captain Kirk’s handle: Space, the final frontier? Well, it’s not. For the visionary, there are worlds beyond the worlds beyond this one, and they’re all God’s. God has a way of turning sure finality into promising eternity. These are exciting times for innovative minds. If we’ve ever been in an age when everything is “new every morning,” as the writer of Lamentations so eloquently penned, it is now. Can you see God’s blessing in these changing times?

     Of course, for the organic artist, the potter molding the clay, the painter brushing the canvas, or the songwriter crafting a melody, some things never change. The qualities that make a song great, for example, are timeless, whether that song is rendered digitally or on an old phonograph with a little white dog with a black eye watching it spin.

     From Bach to the Kings of Leon, what keeps a melody interesting is movement, and contour, the dynamics of high and lows, and the variation of intervals and note values. From Handle to Gloria Gaither, a great lyric communicates the universal heart of humanity, is honest, and is constructed carefully to make every word count.

     These days, everything is faster, easier, allegedly time saving, that is, until your battery dies and you can’t find your charger. But sometimes I think we miss the point of all this efficiency. Creating more time means you can create more. It means you can sit still long enough to get that book written, or get that second verse exactly right.

      I use to hate writing second verses. By then, the lightning bolt impulse had waned, and it actually became work to make sure the payoff was exactly right. By then, there was a temptation, not to make every word count, but to make every word functional and hope no one was listening closely enough to know that it could be better. Guess what? They are always listening.

     The fun part of God’s gift of creativity is the inspiration, the paying attention, the cupping of the hands while the Holy Spirit pours out the epiphany. The not so fun part is the waiting, and the moment when God seems to be whispering, “I don’t know, what do you think?” Co-writing with God, which is the only way to go, is a fearful and wonderful process.  With God, every word counts. He’s a great lyricist. Just think of the power of those four little words, “Let there be light.” Even if you didn’t know the Judeo-Christian story behind that phrase, you would be compelled to wonder who has the authority to make such a command, why, and what was there before light? Sometimes we can say more with fewer words. For the lyricist, fewer words means more work. I’ve spent entire afternoons on long walks or biking just to get away and find the one right word or image for a line or a chorus. If you finish a song and your lyric sheet looks like a short story, you may have been too wordy. Ah but it’s so easy to ramble on…

     No doubt life is fast paced, and schedules monitored to the millisecond. I say if this crazy world’s gone manic, let’s turn all that hyperactivity into a creative frenzy.

CONNECTING THE DOTS: The Decline of Creativity and Christianity in America

Dot # 1: They say that creativity is on the decline in America. There was an interesting article in Newsweek about it recently. I don’t doubt it. I’d noticed this long ago. At first I thought it was me, that I was being the usual social misfit, never fitting in, always being left of center. Even in a place where creativity thrives, the creatives are going to be in the minority.

I suspect that God, in God’s infinite wisdom, knew that if everyone had the creative jones, then civilization would be a disaster, or maybe even impossible. There would be plenty of ideas, inventions, and soul food, without a way to make any of it useful or available to anyone. It’s not that we’re impractical; it’s that once you create something out of nothing, you have to do something with it. The mad scientist has to comb his hair back into place, step back out of the real world, the one he sees that nobody else does, and make a convincing presentation. Then someone has to build a platform, a stage, or a business.

I have a sad tendency to run back into my cave before I can get to the presentation part. I have, however, peeked my nose around that virtual corner enough times, shaking in my shoes, and found acceptance and appreciation. But you know what I find even more? I find people who are inspired by my courage to create, who want to find their voice, too. There may be a decline in creativity, a sleepy trance cast by the glare of gigabytes and the phenomenon of incommunicable communication, but there is no decline in the need for creativity. Hearts don’t change.

They’ve placed some of the blame for our diminished afflatus (divine creative impulse) upon video games. I’m not sure why. I don’t play video games, but from what I can see they are one of the more creative aspects of our daily chillax time these days. It’s certainly no worse than the couch potato syndrome so popular among the baby boomers. At least now there’s a reasonably healthy aspect of tactility. You can’t snarf down as many chips when your hands are occupied on a keypad.

What exactly is creativity, anyway? The dictionary calls it “the use of the imagination or original ideas.” The thesaurus names it synonymously with “inventiveness, imagination, innovation, originality, individuality, artistry, inspiration, vision, and initiative.” No wonder we need it. Creativity registers a culture’s vital signs.

According to the Newsweek article, the gravest concern regarding creativity’s decline is for the very young and what will become of them, and of future generations. There is a breakdown in the educational systems. Art is secondary. This misplaced priority is taking quite a toll. It is the soul of humanity that concerns them. A reasonable concern for any generation, wouldn’t you say?

Dot # 2: There’s a connection I see in all this. They say (they have a lot to say, don’t they?) that Christianity is on the decline in America, too. Newsweek did an article on that last year, as well. It almost made me tremble, and then I just cried. The president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said there is a  “post-Christian narrative animating large portions of this society.” My heart is racing at the thought of this, racing as though a monster is waiting around the corner to grab me; or maybe it’s a red tailed long horned devil. (A little Southern superstition lingers in my imagination and mingles with my faith). Yet, I don’t think the “post-Christian narrative” is animating anything. Numbing society, perhaps, turning hearts to stone.

But here’s the line I’m drawing from dot to dot. Is there a connection between loss of creativity and loss of Christianity? You see, for me, my religion is not an institution or a set of rules. My religion is an art form. I use the word “religion” synonymously with the word “faith,” but I know that is politically incorrect these days. I am comfortable without the mincing of words. I like the word “religion.” It is not my opiate, it is my heart-felt expression, like a song. I keep it in my private thesaurus synonymous with “spirituality,” “art,” and “faith.” My religion is a palette full of colors from which a canvas is filled with  a beautiful portrait of life and praise. My religion gives me a language, albeit limited, and a community, albeit flawed, where I can pour out my heart in gratitude and trust. My religion is a story and I am participating in it. It is only an expression of a deeper spirituality. It is not political, elitist, exclusive, or empty. It is both personal and corporate, a celebration of our individual uniqueness and our unified love for our Creator.

My faith plugs me into the source of my creativity. I co-create with God. This is why I cannot separate creativity and my faith.

But why Christianity? What if our country becomes Muslim? Or pluralistic? We’re already pluralistic, but it doesn’t seem to want to stay that way. We humans tend to take sides. Will this change our creative trend more? For the better or for the worse? I have only known a Christian United States of America, whether or not we were good Christians. Some things go without saying. “God bless America, land that I love” spoke to the Christian God, the One true and living thou shalt  have no other gods before me God.

If we lose our faith, we lose our creative spark.

I remember when the main proof we had that there is one true and living God who sent His son Jesus to save and bless the world, was the Bible. The Judeo-Christian Bible. Now, it only seems to hold weight in certain circles. To some it is nothing more than a cliquish bunch of narrow-minded backwoods jargon, or at best, something that used to mean something to somebody’s grandma.

I’m hoping the Bible will make a comeback. It was my first inspiration for my writing.

I read the Bible as a creative work first, never as a manual. Yes, I am guided by those life-giving words. I see a world in those texts more flamboyant than Harry Potter’s, more real than Brave Heart’s, and more mysterious than Narnia’s. The Bible is first and foremost, story. Vital, true, relevant, story.

I must admit, though, that I do not see so much creativity in the Christian church these days. Maybe stained-glass and statues don’t get us to God, but those Byzantium artists sure had a way with icons. Images throughout history that I have never even seen have spoken to my heart, such as Michelangelo’s “The Creation of Adam” in the Sistine Chapel or his Pieta, which has inspired a song or two for me.

Christianity began to lose ground in this country when it got stupid and greedy. Greed is cold-hearted. People may respond to marketing plans and choreographed worship for a season, but whether they know it or not, they have a higher standard set for church. It is, indeed, a matter of the heart, of healing, of peace of mind, and of caring. Caring for every person. Christianity is about the Light of the World, not the spotlight.

 Christianity distracts itself with issues of politics and power around it’s self-imposed round table. It’s concave agendas alchemize it into something dark, something Jesus Himself disdained. Read the book of Matthew lately?

It isn’t just money and politics that has quenched the Spirit and brought decline to the faith of our fathers and mothers. It is also fear, too much worrying over who’s wearing the right thing or who’s keeping all the rules. But the answer is not Hawaiian shirts and flip-flops in the pulpits. It’s like Aunt Bea deciding to get a tattoo and some go-go boots and calling herself “hip.” If you’re “churchy,” be churchy; if you’re a hippie for Jesus, be a hippie. Just be real, and do it out of a sincere heart after God and love for His world and all the people in it.

Forcing Christian prayer out of schools was a bad step for this culture. Taking art out may have been even worse. Maybe the answer begins with being alarmed over both of these tragedies. Then, go buy a box of Crayolas and color the sky green and the grass blue. Open up your heart to new possibilities. Write a song. Doodle a prayer. Is there room in cyberspace for another Rembrandt, or Chopin, or Hemmingway? Is there room in the church for unabashed miracle working faith? Is there room in this nation for a little more faith and poetry, and the intangibles that keep laboring humanity alive?

Contexts may change, but hearts never do.

Life 101

Those of us who have come to make regular use of prayer

Would no more do without it than we would refuse air, food, or sunshine.

And for the same reason.

When we turn away from meditation and prayer,

We likewise deprive our minds, our emotions, and our intuitions

Of vitally needed support.

As the body can fail its purpose

For lack of nourishment,

So can the soul.

We all need the light of God's reality,

The nourishment of His strength,

And the atmosphere of His grace.

                                

                              

DON'T PREACH AT THE PREACHER

Guess I don’t worry about what God thinks of me as much as I worry about what other people think. I am convinced of God’s unconditional love of everyone, bold in my presumptions about God’s opinion of me. I am perfectly comfortable discussing any idea with God, the most risky thoughts, the most dangerous emotions, and that thing which is most foolish to share with people, my soul.

It is not the voice of demons that bombard me when I am alone. It is people. I fight for solitude, and they find me there. I tell myself I have permission to listen to God, to create and write, to sing freely, but they censor me. They say I am not noteworthy, have nothing to say that the world wants to hear, and worse, they disagree with me in a way that sometimes stops me in my tracks. Today, I won’t let it.

It’s not that I can’t handle disagreement. A writer’s job is to make people think, and feel, and inspire them to look at themselves and their world and form an opinion. But the people who spit the poison darts that became the little voices inside my head do not take issue with me to make us both better. They wrangle with me out of their own disappointment in their own lives. Or maybe they’re just mean.

Funny thing about disagreement from critics is that if you disagree with their disagreement, you are “narrow minded and incapable of expanding your point of view.” The thing is, we all must take sides. You can’t believe in everything. There are those who tell me that I should not be “preachy” or tell people there is a right way to live. I am, of course, a preacher via pen and pulpit, so this is like telling a carpenter he must not build. It is nonsense. I think the word “preach” has become the problem. It doesn’t seem to bother anyone that the commercials are telling us how to live by selling us their products, that the doctors are telling us how to live with their prescriptions, that the talk shows are telling us how to manage our relationships. “Ah, but the choice is mine,” they suggest. Is it? Sometimes I think we all look like a bunch of cattle being herded along thinking that because we are “informed” we have control; but the subversive ways of man have not changed, and the free thinkers are still few.

Granted, many preachers have abused their platform. Must we all be punished for this travesty? I have a message. I want to tell everyone how to live. “Love one another.” I guess my message is the same as my child’s kindergarten teacher. It is the same as the Dalai Lama’s. It is the same as the chief of police. The law enforcers shoot for a lowest common denominator of love – just don’t kill each other, don’t steal, don’t cheat the speed limit - they carry the stone tablets, the Thou Shalt Nots, and I am an idealist. So is the kindergarten teacher. She thinks that if she tells the children they can be good, or that they can be whatever they want when they grow up, that at least a small percentage of them will. A very small percentage.  Frankly, Barney the dinosaur gives me more hope for the human race than the suits driving us by our own greed. Remember when fireflies in a mason jar made a perfect flashlight, and dandelions danced away with a thousand wishes?

I think we, as a human race should be capable of attaining the kind of love for humanity and creation that Jesus did. Of course, Jesus was God incarnate. I am only God’s temple.

So, I love by infusion. I took a drink of the living water that had been purified by the grace of God. I live in a light stream of guidance, peace, and empowerment, of miracles and  impossible possibilities. I believe everyone can and should.

Do I sound like a crazed preacher? A sappy Christian writer? Mary Poppins meets Billy Graham. How is my discovery about life more outlandish than E=MC2?  Energy, mass, and the speed of light combined before we ever knew the equation to cause and affect this temporal world by invisible means. This universal reality was there all along. Knowing about it changed the world. Maybe it’s time to change it again.

The Arrogance of Religion

I keep a wish list of books I want to read, and one that has been in my purview is Karl Barth's commentary on the book of Romans. I finally ordered it and am having a blast pouring over the pages as I also read and re-read the Biblical text to keep things in perspective.


This book was first published in 1933. I love reading literature from this period, albeit this is a translation from German. English prose was so beautiful, but the words seem big and lofty now - or so I'm told. How sad. Granted, writers in the early 1900's would have never wrapped around txtg.


Barth speaks boldly, at least I would imagine he would seem bold in religious circles. He says things like "The question 'Is there then a God?' is [] entirely relevant and indeed inevitable!" Shushhhh! Barth! You're going to get us all in trouble! 21st century Christians never doubt! In this culture we tend to start above the reasonable doubts with our arguments for our faith, as though it was our place to create the set point of ground zero. But guess what? That's God's job! Honesty works better than religion, and let's face it, the concept of God that we Christians present sounds strange to those who have not "had a revelation." Invisible, intangible, three-in-one, all powerful and all loving but doesn't stop suffering. Things just don't add up. Yet, my heart believes and has dragged the rest of me along with it!


I love this thing Barth says: "[] it is evident that, just as genuine coins are open to suspicion so long as false coins are in circulation, so the perception which proceeds outwards from God cannot have free course until the arrogance of religion be done away."


What he means is, honesty works better than religion! Well, I can honestly tell you that my religion is not false. I am not putting on airs or making things up. I am a scientist of the soul and my faith is my venue. Sometimes I like to say that my religion is an art-form, just another expression of my love for God and creation. I think for me, the "arrogance of religion" has been "done away" because what I perceive to proceed outward from God to all of us is love and grace.

Garden of Tears

Oh, ow, my heart hurts today. Many tears. A deluge of emotion I have held inside came rushing through this week like a furious flood. I didn't hold it all in on purpose, mind you. I don't seem to know how NOT to hold things in. I prefer to hide.

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit seems to know when it's cryin' time again. My friend Daisy Mae always said tears hint at the presence of the Spirit. No doubt. I am healed through my tears. They never happen on cue for me, and are usually inconvenient, but are always right on time.

I've been in such a creative place lately, and the creative existence has a way of opening up my heart. It is such an honest place, pure and raw.

It's funny how the crazier I feel, the more sane I am - I hope. Emotions are a gift from God, and I guess that's what this amounts to, emotions. Emotions are there, whether you know it or accept it or acknowledge it or not. It takes great effort to stuff uncomfortable emotions. It makes you crazy, makes you act out, or take things out on the wrong people.

We women are known for our emotions. We artistic types are excused in our eccentricities by them. How ironic, since no human is exempt.   Well, anyway, where was I? Oh yes, I'm crying over everything today. Maybe my heart is getting ready for another Gethsemane. I feel so aware. I feel so connected. I feel so devastated by the pain and sorrow in this world. I feel.

I'm sure looking forward to Easter Sunday. Lord Jesus, give me the strength to stay and pray with you until then.

Matthew 26:36-46

Much love,
Kim

                                          

Do You Think We Need Heroes?

I thought this was an interesting post: 

Brain food: the psychology of heroism (The Guardian) psychotherapy: Of all the virtues, heroism is now the most remote. Heroes are either mythic or historical characters (Achilles or Gandhi) or they are superhuman (Spider-Man, or even 9/11 firefighters). What they are not is one of us. Our age has role models and it has celebrities, but it has no room for heroes. Fighting to revive heroism is Philip Zimbardo, the septuagenarian who is probably the most famous living psychologist in the world…
So,do you think we need heroes? Maybe we've become a culture full of that evil little character in the animated movie, THE INCREDIBLES, too jealous of Superman to thank him. Trouble is, if everyone is a hero, nobody is.

I suspect we're just hungry for viable heroes.

I miss them. But if it's up to us all to be heroes, we'd better get busy. The world should be back to it's beautiful self again soon!

Check out 2 Peter 1:3 for a little food for thought on this subject.
Much Love,
Kim

The Ant and the Question

Evil, that which some personify as Satan, wants no questions asked. You would think he, it, would like our tough unanswerable questions. You would think it would be a leg up for evil that God has left so many things in the mystery. Faith is full of gaping holes. Intellectually, emotionally, biologically, every -ly there is only goes so far with sure answers before you have to shrug your shoulders and say, "I don't know."

It is God who loves questions.

"Bring it on!" the Bible declares on God's behalf from start to finish. "Bring on the questions." Of course, there is always a bottomless bottom line you discover but can't reach with every interrogation of the Holy. "I will be that which I will be," God says. "I AM that I AM."

Sometimes I AM not satisfied with that answer and I feel brave like Job, loved enough to get dangerous. To me questions are risky; to God I must look like a tiny ant trying to sneak off with a loaf of bread a trillion times bigger than me.

I think this little ant will never stop asking and seeking. Life is one big inquisitive picnic.

How about this one? Why are we here? The answer? To love. I think for today I'll just try to keep it that simple.

A Little Poetic Thought or Two about Motherhood

I don't know why there are so many dividing lines.
I, for example, am supposed to be "the mom." This in and of itself is a dividing line. I was supposed to step back when they were old enough to have new heros. Don't hurt, don't think, don't feel.
Sorry, I do all those things. I still remember day one.
I had expectations of sentimentality. I did not ruin them. Neither did my children. It was the ones who wanted what we had. The childless mothers, the angry ones, the greedy ones, the ones who perceived our vulnerabilities and came in for the kill.
They didn't win, though, and we are not ruined. I may not be a hero, but my love has not changed. It will never change. Neither did my children's.

I know way too much. Mom's always do.

The Pay-off of Forgiveness

Those who are forgiven much, love much.

The key to this is knowing you're forgiven. I think the hardest part of forgiveness is accepting it. We have hearts full of "I don't deserve this" or heads full of "this can't be real" and maybe even attitudes full of "I've done nothing wrong."

Something happens to you when you're "forgiven much." If you really embrace this idea, and know that you needed forgiveness, and were granted forgiveness, then you have it to give. You have to love yourself to let forgiveness in, you know, in a Godly sort of way. And if you love yourself like God loves you, you're not too threatened to love others with that same love and forgiveness.

I heard about forgiveness first from a Lutheran pastor who told me that those who are forgiven much, love much. It's in Luke chapter 7. He was paraphrasing. It worked. I got it.

Forgiveness pays off with love.

I've been forgiven much and I hope it's beginning to show.

Much love,
Kim

This Makes my Heart Sing

Many waters cannot quench love.

Rivers

     cannot

         wash it away.

Big Pill, Send Water

German theologian-pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed for opposing the Nazi regime. Here is what he had to say about his enemy:

"Nothing that we despise in the other man is entirely absent from ourselves. We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or don't do, and more in the light of what they suffer."

I don't want these words to be true, but something about looking in the mirror tells me they are. AND I have this weird tendency to WANT my enemies to suffer. At least he said that what I despise in another is not "entirely absent" in me, as though I am bad, too, but not THAT bad.  Of course, he could have left us with an even worse pill to swallow, like Jesus did, and reminded us to actually LOVE our enemies. Something about "regard" seems easier than "love" but I guess it's a start.


Warm regards...just kidding, Much LOVE,
Kim

PS - I'd love to hear your inspiration on this subject.

Gene Autry and the Big Black Bear

I grew up in North Carolina with an ocean to the east, and mountains to the west. I love both, but in my heart of hearts I'm a mountain girl. My family went to Tweetsie Railroad, Blowing Rock, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Gatlinberg, and I've hiked the Chimney Tops and even chased a bear or two.

The most recent bear chase was this December when I took my son, WillMcJ to see my beloved Smokeys. Okay, we didn't chase the bear, we ran from the bear, but it was a really big bear, and I know you're not supposed to run, but we couldn't seem to get that message to go from our brains to our feet before we were high-tailing it back to the river. We tried to run like we weren't running, you know, the way kids do when you tell them not to run in the house.

We had a Gene Autry souvenir pocket knife with us. Fortunately, the bear did not feel threatened by it in the least. A guitar would have been as helpful, maybe more so. You know what they say about music calming the savage beast.

My friend Dawn tells me they're blasting the tops off of MY mountains, leveling some of them. I'm sure they have good reasons, that there is big money and there are valuable resources involved, but my heart is breaking over it. The means is certainly not worth the end of the many lifetimes cradled by that blue Appalachian glory.

We saw a devastated mountain on our way home from Gatlinberg this December. We were devastated, too. I'm so sorry, WillMcJ, that your children and grandchildren will be left with this horrible lesson in greed and lack of respect for God's creation. I'm going to write to my government officials and ask them to please help. There IS a better way. I promise you, Will, I care enough to learn more about this and do whatever I can to help. Let's check it out together:

Google search: LEAF-mountaintop removal and you can read all about it.

Much Love for ALL of God's creation,
Kim

The Gift That Keeps Giving

In a scratched up wooden frame behind a broken piece of glass these words are written in beautiful calligraphy and hanging on my music room wall:  "I press on toward the mark for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus." It was a gift when I was a teenager from someone at my church in N.C., someone whose kindness I remember but whose name I have forgotten. This little plaque has moved with me many times; that's how it got broken. The words are from the Bible, Philippians 3:14. I have felt like that little broken frame carrying God's word around in my heart, trying to live by it. I was never quite sure what the goal was that I was suppose to be pressing toward, I just tried to press on in God's direction and hoped it would take me to the right place. I have learned that sometimes simply pressing on is enough. Press on for more of God, and I promise He will meet you more than halfway.

You're going to love the prize.

Much love,
Kim

Forgive and ForWHAT?

When I was a kid, 9 or 10 years old, I was riding in the back seat, unseen, unheard,  and unbuckled, listening to a conversation between the two grown-ups in the front:

"...and she should never...and she's so this and so that...and she ALWAYS does this to us...and furthermore, and so forth...well, I'll forgive, but I WON'T forget," he declared.

"No, of course not," she replied. "That would be foolish. I don't forget, but that doesn't mean I haven't forgiven."

To which he responded, "People never change. Forgiving is NOT forgetting; after all, we can't help it if we remember. "

They nodded. They agreed. They grew old. They forgot, but not the wrongs done them. By the look of them now it seems they forgot that they had ever promised to forgive.

Much Love,

Kim

Hello, My name is Kim and I'm a blogger.

Here I go, blogging. When I first heard that word a few years ago I thought it was a joke. It sounds like "blah" as in "blah, blah, blah," a direct quote from Charlie Brown's teacher. Blog. It's the sound my shoe makes when I pull my foot out of slimy mud. Enough. I give up. I'm blogging. I hope this connects me with more people to care about, who might care what I have to say.

I follow some blogs. I've read books that were blogs first. My favorite so far is Ignore Everybody, by Hugh MacLeod. I guess writers blog. Actually, writers write, and if they handed me a pink crayon and a cinder block and told me it was the new format, I'd peel myself a crayola and start scratching out some lines.

So, thanks for checking out my blog. This should be fun.... Much Love, Kim