Monster Movie Mania

One of the things I used to look forward to every Halloween was the chance to get yet another look at some of the great horror movies of yesteryear. As a kid, I could expect the whole week preceding Halloween to be filled with scary delights. But today all the 4 o'clock movie shows have been replaced with newscasts, and you're more likely to bump into infomercials on Saturday afternoons than an actual movie. Even American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies have had pretty poor Halloween programming this year. The former has eschewed the classics for a diet of modern flicks while the latter seems to have ignored the holiday entirely. I know this will make me sound like an old fart, but I miss the days when the words "horror movie" conjured up images of Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman and the Mummy rather than Freddy, Jason, Michael and Chucky. I guess it was a more innocent time. Thank God for DVDs -- I'm watching Son of the Blob right now on my iBook as I pass out candy. Now that's entertainment!

Grumpkins

Some artists work in oils. Others chip away at granite. My friend Pat prefers pumpkins. While most people carve a jack 'o lantern as a pleasant diversion for one evening, he's raised the whole process to an art form. He's even been to Hong Kong to demonstrate his art. Pat will tackle the fifth largest pumpkin on record later this week -- over 1400 lbs.

For those of you not fortunate enough to live in Jamestown, NY to admire his work in person, check out his website by clicking here.

Remember, they're not pumpkins, they're grumpkins!

Images of Prayer

Struggle, burden, dizzy and never ending.
Companionship comes with misunderstanding, maybe resistance to love - swingings fists and stiff head lock. Abandonment. Worry in an unknown territory.
Withdrawn because of lonliness or failure.
Understanding and acceptance bring dancing smiles, steady feet and hope on the journey.
Fallen but not alone.
Sometimes trapped in rage but trust can break through untill you can see uninhibited joy.

Christ lead me

Christ lead me

Christ above me
Christ below me
to my left and to my right

Christ within me
Christ without me
lead me only by your light

Understand my tender heart
weary from a world of care
your wisdom, please impart

keep your spirit heavy on me,
in me,
even to the dark

Fill the cold of the corners
Warm all -
not just the part

Give me thankful words upon my lips
to guide hardened ears in and around me

Till up the clay of my soul
as I journey through these tears

Rule my heart
lead and hold me

The curtain is dead

I have these really cool curtains in my laundry room. They have tabs on the top so the decrative metal rod peeks through. I bought them at Ikea a few years ago when I first painted my laundry room.
I repainted the laundry room about a month ago and I still like the curtains so well that I dyed them to match the new colors. Indigo blue with sky blue abstract circles that showed up very pretty when the sun shone thru the glass door.
The degus that are in a new cage in the laundry room must have noticed the lovely blue shade behind their habitat and thought it would be nicer to eat than to look at.
The 2 pet degus (that had plenty of chew toys in their cage) methodically pulled the fabric through the 1/2 squares ot the power coat metal cage with thier tiny razor tipped paws and proceeded to chew a 2 1/2 foot hole in my beloved blue curtain.At least they were kind enough to eat away the fabric in a circular pattern to match the curtain.
I almost opened the door and let our family dog have at them... but I didn't.
At least not yet.

So much for exotic pets. Degus especially like the color blue. So did I.

Halloween Memories From the 1970s

I know I'm going to sound like the biggest geek* but -- I LOVE HALLOWEEN!

The first Halloween I can remember I dressed up as Bullwinkle. I had a sore throat and had to stay home with my mom while my brother and sister went out on the great candy hunt. (Yes, they shared.) I watched Mad Monster Party on TV, which terrified me! The leering Peter Lorre puppet... The tentacles that came up out of the boiling cauldron... It was the stuff nightmares were made of -- at least if one was only three or four years old.

I also have very fuzzy memories of my parents taking me to my grandma's house to let her "guess" who the person in the costume was; but the Halloween didn't really click with me until I was in Kindergarten. Three big events happened:

1. My mom bought me a Batman costume at Jamesway. It was like putting on the mantle of a god! (I actually ended up wearing a Batman costume every year thereafter.)


2. We had a Halloween party at Market Street Elementary School in Warren, PA. I got shivers when I saw hundreds of classmates all dressed up in costume. I didn't know what was going to happen next, but I knew it was going to be good!


3. I got to go trick or treating with the kids from the neighborhood. I was no economist, but Knocking on someone's door and getting a piece of candy seemed like a pretty efficient distribution system to me!

The rapid approach of October 31st is putting me in a nostalgic mood, so I thought I'd post a few weblinks for fellow travelers who remember the Halloweens of yesteryear:

1. Retrocrush - The World's Greatest Halloween Costumes
   Re-live the joy of cheap plastic masks and flame-retardant costumes.


2. Monstermags!
   I wish I still had all my issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy and Eerie! (Note: These were all published by Warren Magazines, and since we lived in Warren, Pennsylvania, my friends and I were all convinced that the magazines were made somewhere in our home town!)


3. The Gallery of Monster Toys
   How many of these did you own?


4. The Candy Wrapper Museum
   Ever lose a filling to one of these? This site makes me pine for a good old Wonka Scrunch Bar.

Halloween has changed quite a bit since Ford was President... I've traded in my Ben Cooper Batman costume for a beret and sunglasses ala Off Beat Cinema, and I'm the one giving the candy away. But I still love it! Happy Halloween!

*As if my postings about Dr. Who aren't enough.

Hair Color Wonder

I colored my hair on Monday. I had a box of dark brown box color in my cupboard. I mixed it up. Put the color in my rather red highlighed (but grown out) hair. My hair is almost black now. I miss the red. I want the red. The question is... Can I go back? Should I? Red has always been my favorite color... Sigh.

Back Home - NYWC

I've been home from Pittsburgh for a week and the time has just flown... Here are the top ten best memories from my trip:

1. Arriving early so I could relax for an afternoon.
   
2. Being able to attend my Uncle Bud's military funeral and seeing family I've not seen in 10 years.


3. Spiritual Direction from a Godly mentor.


4. Bubbles


5. Journaling


6. Labyrinth from UK


7. One life walking exposition... I'll never forget Timothy's story. (HIV positive child in Africa)


8. Meeting kindred spirits Liesa and Betty Jo.


9. Starbucks


10. Meeting Jeff Johnson... All the great speakers and musicians!

Thanks.

Eureka!

I installed my new printer at work today. Since the cheapskates at Hewlett-Packard are too cheap to include a printer cable, I had to purchase one from Quill. Don't you just hate opening the plastic packaging those accessories come in? Why is it necessary to encase a USB cable in a layer of plastic so hard that it almost takes a direct rifle hit to release it? Well, the geniuses at Quill had a big surprise for me today: The back of the package came with a convenient pull-tab that allowed me to remove the plastic in one quick stroke. How cool is that?

I am now officially adding pull-tab plastic packaging to my list of the Greatest Inventions Ever Made, which includes:

• Star Wars Action Figures


• Pre-moistened towelettes


• Rice Crispy Treats


• The Push Up Bra

I don't know if anyone in management at Quill reads this blog, but in my humble opinion, somebody over there deserves a big fat raise.

Just As I Graham

I saw an advertisement tonight for the new Billy Graham TV special... The announcer rattled off a who's who of gospel music and then ended the spot with "--and a message of hope from Franklin Graham!" I'm sure I'll eventually get used to his son being the new "face" of the organization, but right now it kind of strikes me as if the announcer just said, "And now, The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson starring Jay Leno!"

Funday School

I filled in at the last minute for my absent Sunday School teacher yesterday. I had luckily -- or maybe providentially -- stashed some old lessons from my emerging church days in my briefcase that very morning. I pulled a lesson on the Beatitudes that worked really well at my last church, glanced it over in the ten minutes I had to spare before other people arrived, and waited for my small group magic to begin.

There are two different ways of thinking about the Beatitudes. One is to break each sentence down one by one. In other words, discuss blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted and then move on to the next verse. The other way is to look at the passage as a whole, looking for meaning while keeping in mind history and what else surrounds it in the text. The conclusions a class would draw from these two approaches can be very different. Using the first example, a person could say something like, "When I'm sad, Jesus will make me feel better." (Which demonstrates how ingrained is our consumer mentality.) Using the second example, it would become clear that Jesus is announcing His kingdom to his disciples who are mourning over the state of the world and their own sins. The comfort is found because the kingdom of heaven is here!

I chose the second way to approach this lesson. I no sooner got started before a classmate said, "These verses aren't connected because that's not they way I learned it in Vacation Bible School." I tried to get her to play along for fun, but she made it clear there was going to be no budging.

Since my entire lesson was based on using approach two, I was left hanging out there with nothing. I ad-libbed the best I could, but I can safely say this was:

The. Longest. Sunday. School. Class. Ever.

My Visit to the North Pole & The End of the World

I didn't get any writing accomplished on Thursday. I had a really good plan to make me a mean, lean, wordsmithin' machine -- namely, hide at my mom's house where no one could disturb me. Ironically, it was my mother who convinced me to abandon the productivity plan by inviting me to America's First Christmas Store in Smethport, PA. The thought of a scenic ride through the Kinzua area convinced me that the literary world could get along without me for one day and I was in that SUV faster than a group of Baptists on a tureen dinner.

Why is it that every Christmas-themed store always lays claim to being "the first"? Do they think it's a race or something? It really doesn't mean a hill of beans to me if a Christmas store is the first, second, or two-hundred and twenty-fourth anymore than it would at any other business. Just show me the Santa and get on with it I say.

And did they ever show me the Santa... Not just the traditional "American" Santa, but Santas from around the world, and Santas for every taste and inclination... Santa in a rocketship, Santa and baby Jesus (!), a Spiderman Santa with a web sack of toys, and even a Santa in camouflage battle fatigues holding an M-16 -- presumably for when he visits the DMZ this Christmas. One of the characteristics of postmodernism is an atomizing of society and culture. I would point philosophers towards America's First Christmas Store for Exhibit A. Santas for everyone!

Kitchyness aside, I did enjoy my visit to the store. The carols and holiday songs piped through the PA system soothed me. I stood mesmerized by the model town displays, where magnetized skaters continuously careened their way around the village pond, carolers sang in the town square, and every cafe and tavern held a picture perfect celebration.

I'm told that these Christmas villages come in modular pieces. A glance at the price tags showed me that it would cost a small fortune to assemble the whole village. But I guess people are willing to pay any price to recapture what has been lost in our real villages and towns -- a sense of community, fun activities, tradition, and joy.

It's a consumer's ultimate solution to alienation. Most likely, a group of carolers won't come to your door this Christmas, but you can buy a set of plastic ones to put in a display case. How will Christmas 2005 be remembered? Will future generations buy a plastic Wal-Mart with magnetized black Friday shoppers scurrying around the aisles for iPods and DVD players? Are we satisfied with that legacy?

Afterwards we drove to Mt. Jewett to see the remains of the Kinzua Bridge. This used to be one of my favorite places on earth. The bridge rose about 300 feet from the valley at its center, and was around 2100 feet long. A person could walk out onto the middle of the trestle and be rewarded by a magnificent view of the forest for miles around. This view was particularly breathtaking in the autumn. Heck, it was almost a religious experience. But it's all different now. Back in 2003, a tornado devastated some of the surrounding forest and blew down half of the bridge. I hadn't been there since the disaster.

There were a few hikers and sightseers in the park. But everyone seemed strangely hushed and reverent when confronted with the evidence of nature's power... Whole hills which should have been brilliant with the colors of leaves, left brown and bald... Downed trees... and big, black girders of metal laying in the valley below.

I miss this place. Or more precisely, the place that once was. I want my children to know it. I want to bring the youth group there on a field trip. I want to build memories there. But it's all gone and there's no going back.

I pondered as I trekked back up to the SUV if the belonging and community we so desperately reach out for at Christmas time is still within our grasp, or if its twisted remains already lie in the valley below.

Don't Spend It All In One Place

I'm back from my conference in the Lehigh Valley. It was definitely time well spent. I don't usually look forward to taking a five-hour road trip by myself, but Pennsylvania is so lovely in the autumn. Plus I loaded up my mp3 player with all the Adam Again albums, which provided a cool soundtrack to make the time pass quickly. It's strange. It's strange and it's wonderful...

You know those stories where a person goes to the mailbox and finds out some relative they never knew left them a million bucks? I just had something similar happen to me. I got a letter from the Spann Settlement Administrator. I could tell there was a check inside. Turns out a corporation I used to work for got sued over the way it handled retirement funds. And even though I haven't worked there for over six years I'm still entitled to my share of the booty! I unfolded the check made out for -- $3.72!

This experience can serve as a good illustration about pretty much my whole life.

The Contemplative Life - Update

I wanted to jot down a few notes on how my experiment in hesychasm is going. In a relatively short period of time I have found that the daily meditation has really helped me make the scripture (Psalm 51:10) my "own" prayer. There have been a few times that its words have popped into my mind when I've had to make a choice. For instance, I held my tongue during a conversation when it would have been so easy to criticize. And anything that can get me to keep my mouth shut for awhile must be a good thing!

I use a set of prayer beads that I made last year, slowly repeating the prayer as I move my fingers to the next bead. I keep my eyes closed. Some days I'm more focused than others, but then again, I bet Saint John of the Ladder didn't ever have the cell phone in his pocket go off when he was praying. But in general I experience very little distraction when I meditate, and what I do have settles down quickly.

I guess my biggest challenge right now is being consistent as I have missed a few days entirely. It's not easy to make the time as I hold down the fort while Lamont is away at the National Youthworkers Convention in Pittsburgh. I'll have to give her a pay raise when she gets back.

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for the justCommunity conference in Allentown, PA. I'm really looking forward to the workshops and hearing Dr. Peter L. Benson of The Search Institute speak. I'm also interested to see the effect the change of pace has on my practice of meditation.

Ask an Expert

Man, am I bushed today! Last night I was awoken about 2 am with a loud beeping sound. That got me up fast! A quick investigation around Experiment House revealed that the source wasn't my obvious guess -- smoke detector -- but our ancient electric range stovetop. My daughter, H--, had made dinner earlier in the evening and must have been playing with the timer. So I did all the obvious things to try and stop the beeping. A scan of the stovetop revealed that there were only four buttons associated with the timer: hour, minute, timer and clock. So how hard could this be?

I pressed the timer button. BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

I pressed the clock button. BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

I held down the timer button. BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

I held down the clock button. BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

I set the timer to 0:00. BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

Getting desperate, I pressed every combination of the buttons imaginable. BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

It was now 3 am. I decided a change in strategy was in order. I went to the world wide web and looked up the Frigidaire website. (Am I the only person who thinks it's weird to have a stove by Frigidaire?) Great -- you could download manuals. Not so great -- you had to type the model number into the search box.

BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

So I go into the kitchen to get the model number off my stove. There's not one in the front. So I move the beast away from the wall, and wipe the cobwebs and grease away to get a better look. I'm screwed because there's no model number on the back, either.

BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

I head back to my iBook and enter some random numbers in the search box. I do find some ranges, but they are newer and different models. By now it's 4 am.

BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

I consider calling Lamont, who is at the National Youthworkers Convention in Pittsburgh, and decide against it.

BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

I go back and repeat step one (pressing buttons at random) for awhile.

BEEP -- BEEP -- BEEP...

At 4:30 am I wake up my twelve-year old daughter and order her to the kitchen. Still 3/4 asleep, she shuffles into the kitchen and immediately shuts off the timer. She does it so quickly that I don't even see what she did.

Blessed silence.

Laundry, Driving Directions, and A Long Drive

Getting ready for the trip is the hardest part of going away. It gets harder after you are married and have kids... the family needs a little more caring for than a cat. Fill the fridge... o the laundry... send all the notes to the teachers... line up sitters... PRINT YOUR DRIVING DIRECTIONS... and try to get a good night's sleep. HA! It's 2:45am and the washer is still going strong.

But then I think for a minute... I'm getting away for 5 DAYS! I can drink coffee while I'm driving and chat on the cell with my best friend who moved to DC. I get to sit and listen - reflect and absorb -- and bring it all home. To share my 5 days with my family, friends and church folks. This trip may never end! In encouragement and enrichment anyway.

Go ahead and sleep - my holiday is just beginning...

The Contemplative Life

Lamont and I have been hosting a monthly spiritual formation group at Experiment House. Last Saturday night was the second session. We talked about the prayer-filled life and discussed many different traditions in the life of Christ and church history. At the end of the evening we all picked a different exercise to practice over the next month. I chose the hesychastic tradition, which means I'm going to pray the same prayer for fifteen minutes every day. I'm using Psalm 51:10: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." The purpose isn't to create a chant or anything -- it's to really allow oneself to live within the prayer, to experience Christ in the words. I'll let you know how it goes.

Feeling Blue

I'm feeling so blue tonight. My Uncle Bud passed away in his sleep late Saturday night and I learned about it late last night. Uncle Bud was the Uncle with twinkling blue eyes, the comfortable lived -in house I always felt at home in, married to artsy Aunt Dolly (she spray painted a mural of Arizona on the inside of her pool privacy wall, let me ride horses from her barn, and took care of me when my sister was dying.), and Bud always told me how beautiful I was. I'll miss him so much. Those times spent at this house were some of my fondest childhood memories.

There is no money for a funeral - so he's being cremated and the memorial isn't scheduled yet.

Uncle Bud, thanks for taking me out for my first fried ice-cream.

Read This

I have had this book on my shelf for a long time and had forgotten about ir till' my husband started reading it a while ago. If you hven't read it you should, it's called "The Search for Signifigance". Maybe it's where I'm at right now, but the whole idea of having my life centered on God's grace and not my striving, fretting and desire to be "perfect" - really hits home with me. Consider picking it up - you'll want you own copy as you'll need space to write in the journal and quiz parts provided. They also mke a journal I picked up too - but you'll want to read the book first.

Sabbath Day

It is wonderful to have a day off to read, sleep, go grocery shopping, and get a haircut. I've need a day like today for a while - with no schedule or appointments. Days like today are what I like to call my "Sabbath Days".

Later this week I'm going to a conference for work and I'm excited to go and be around all those people and see some new things - but that time wouldn't seem so good without today.

Thank you God for Sabbath Days.

Thank You. Period.

Saint Paul instructed the Roman Christians to "...not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you."

So how do you take a compliment? Do you quickly blurt out a quick it was no big deal to get the attention off yourself? Or do you keep milking the moment until you're the only one left applauding? I'm teaching my kids right now how to humbly accept a compliment. Usually saying thank you is a graceful enough response. It allows one to feel good about a job well done without becoming prideful.

As I have discovered with most of my parent-to-child imparted wisdom, I should heed the advice myself. When complimented I still alternate between getting red faced or feeling the need to point out every minute effort that it took to complete the good job. Although they seem like polar-opposite responses I think they're both rooted in poor self-worth.

Think about it. Isn't downplaying a compliment really saying that I'm not worthy of it? Similarly, fishing around for additional compliments indicates a definite lack of self-worth. I hope that someday I will be able to strike the healthy balance that gets missed between these two unhealthy extremes.

Welcome to the Family

Today was the day that myself, Lamont and our daughter transferred our memberships into our "new" church. (That's kind of a joke because we've been attending there for nearly a year.) So did seven of our friends. I'm not really big on ceremony or anything, but it really occurred to me today as I stood there in the chapel that I'm really happy to be part of this group. Even more so, I feel like I belong someone for the first time in a long time.