Selah

"Cars break down and people break down and other things break down, too, so let's go down together." ~The Refreshments This week's five minute friday prompt - Broken - doesn't bring to mind cars or material items or even promises. It brings to mind people.  The world is broken. It is shattered into a million (billion) pieces, and all I want with my heart and soul right now is to put it back together again. Like the ever present egg, though, I'm afraid that if all the king's horses and all the king's men can't do it - well, how could I?  But I need to begin. I need to wash out some wounds with water and peroxide. I need to put on a soothing salve and bandage. Even if it's just a paper cut on the finger of this world, it's something.   Because there is one thing I know about this word - Broken. It didn't make me think of myself, and there was a time, not so long ago, when it would have. I am not broken, not any more.  ...

Remember. Remember things you never knew. Remember what's deep inside the Universal Consciousness, those primal things that we know before we can know. Reflexes. Crawling to our mother's breast to eat. Crying, breathing, sucking. Is there something spiritual in there to be remembered? Should we remember those things? Do we have a choice? Remember. Remember these moments. You always hear people talk about how happy they were when they were young, and they didn't know it. I know it. And I need to remember. This is why I take pictures, why I blog, why I Facebook the funny things my kids say and the sweet things they do. I heard  someone complain recently about how fake their friends' Facebook pages are - how they only ever post the good, happy, cheerful moments, and never the real, raw ones. Well, who the hell wants to remember those?!  Granted, sometimes I think it would be nice if grandmothers and mothers and mothers-in-law would remember more about how...

When we officially return to homeschooling next fall, Quentin (my 8 year old) will begin reading age-appropriate translations of The Iliad and The Odyssey . Despite a few attempts, I have never read these myself, but was hoping to learn along with or a little ahead of my son. So when the opportunity presented itself to take a free online course through HarvardX this semester, entitled " The Ancient Greek Hero " and largely composed of the study of those two Homeric epics (come join me if you like, the class only started today, and is semi self-paced), I jumped at the chance. The introduction to the course involves some discussion of the Ancient Greek world, political structures, and civilization in general. As I read, my brain was quick to make associations between the writing and the topics marinating deeper in my brain (about religion and Unitarian Universalism, in particular). In The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours  Professor Gregory Nagy begins to explain the Greek ...

Lately, I've taken to tagging many of my Instagram pictures with #homeschoolersatheart . After all, we didn't  stop  being life-learners just because  Quentin started attending public school . Both boys continue to ask fascinating questions, and we keep helping them learn to find answers. This morning, around 7:45, after Luke had left for work but before it was time for Quentin to walk to school, Jude and I started talking about sex and gender. He has taken to calling boys "XY" and girls "XX" lately, after having watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy episode about genetics (or was it probability?). Jude, who sometimes decides he's a girl, thought that maybe his chromosomes change periodically. Quentin wondered what would happen if someone had two Y chromosomes, either together with an X or without any X. Then he wondered about having three Xs or just one. Ask me how much I know about genetics. The answer is only the most basic jr. high leve...

Like Baby in Dirty Dancing, I so often feel like I'm afraid of everything . Not afraid of losing the love of my life, but afraid of losing myself, or never finding the me that has been sitting inside waiting for me to discover her my whole life, or maybe the me I could be if I looked hard enough. I'm afraid of being worthless. I'm afraid that being "just" a mom is not enough. I usually feel like a pretty good mom - except when I don't - but I'm a terrible housewife. I'm lazy. I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of STUFF that is supposed to be done, and who has the energy to even begin when the task is so very unconquerable? I'm afraid to take time for myself. Because usually what that means in another bath, or another hour or two on the computer, doing absolutely nothing - or working - neither of which really feed my soul. That's something I realized today - that "me time" doesn't just mean time to do whatever you please. I...

When I started this blog, I thought it would be a typical photographer's blog, with samples of my work and my commentary on that work. But then I thought, "why not make this blog that is named after me BE about me?" This is my art. This is my religion. This is my family. This is my SELF. I hope you've been enjoying it, even though I tend to go on tangents, even though I tend to post again and again about a subject for awhile, even though I have three photo sessions I haven't yet blogged and another to shoot tomorrow that will be added to the queue. I have something for you today that is a combination of my photography, some design work (what?!) - FB banners and photos, and my faith, my spirituality, my religion. All but the last two are made with my own photos. Enjoy. edited to add: All of these designs are free to use for noncommerical purposes. They can shared on Facebook from the UU Media Collaborative Works FB page (lots of other great work there...

If you've been reading this blog, you know I volunteer as an escort at a local women's health clinic that twice a week provides abortions. My job is to shepherd women into the clinic -- walking them from their cars to the door and making small talk to help drown out the shouts of the protestors. On this 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision which led to the right of women to a safe and legal abortion, I've written a guest post for a fantastic new Unitarian Universalist blog, Raising Faith . Graphic by Mandie McGlynn photo used with Creative Commons licensing from Flickr user M. Angel Herrero The story begins like this: One cold Saturday morning, I arrived at the clinic before the doors were unlocked. The protesters were already setting up with their thermoses full of coffee and rosaries at the ready. Idling in the pull-up driveway was an old, boxy sedan full of people. In the front seat were a man and woman looking to be in their 40s, ...