streets with dwellings

invisible children...far and near

Link: lilly's pad: invisible children...far and near.

I don't think we can begin to imagine the horrors a lot of children in Africa face.  Read Lilly's comments after seeing the movie Invisible Children.  I tried to click on the link to buy the film and arrange a showing here at Third Street House, but it wasn't working.  Or they're out of product.

even better than we thought!

Link: BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | New species found in Papua 'Eden'.

A new patch of earth, complete with lots of new creatures, has been discovered in New Guinea.  I hope we don't screw it up.  How exciting.  New butterflies.  I love butterflies.  Some of the animals weren't afraid to be picked up because they'd never before seen men.

A summary of the team's main discoveries:

* A new species of honeyeater, the first new bird species discovered on the island of New Guinea since 1939

* The formerly unknown breeding grounds of a "lost" bird of paradise - the six-wired bird of paradise (Parotia berlepschi)

* First photographs of the golden-fronted bowerbird displaying at its bower.

* A new large mammal for Indonesia, the golden-mantled tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus)

* More than 20 new species of frogs, including a tiny microhylid frog less than 14mm long

* A series of previously undescribed plant species, including five new species of palms

* A remarkable white-flowered rhododendron with flower about 15cm across

* Four new butterfly species.

Way cool and thanks to Geoff for pointing it out at The Ashram.

pax Christi,

lisa

working together to lower the bills

Okay, so last month I opened the utilities bill and it was a whopping 668.00!  I about melted into a puddle on the floor right then and there.  Now, this is a big old, drafty house to be sure; a lot of the windows are original to the house, there are fireplaces in every room, most of which are stopped up, but still, step near a wall or a window and you're sure to feel a draft.

So we hunkered down, lowering the thermostat to 60.

I hate being cold.

When I was little, my father would lower the thermostat to 55 at  night.  And every morning we'd wake up and I'd freeze my tookas off getting ready for school.  Mom would turn on the oven and crack open the door and let me stand there to warm up. 

I said to myself I'll have a warm house when I grow up.

And I always did.  Until this year.

It's amazing what you'll do when something hits your pocketbook hard enough, isn't it?

Well, turning down the thermostat demands communal participation.  We were ALL cold!  All of us took shorter showers, and some of us less of them.  (I know, right?  But honestly, winter isn't exactly a sweaty season.)  And in the living room, we shut the French doors leading to the kitchen and the set leading into the entry way, and we plugged in a space heater. 

This is called . . . the "warm room".

Needless to say, the kids and I are ALWAYS together these days.

My biggest fear in all of this was that our efforts were not going to pay off.  Despite the lower thermostat it seemed the furnace was always running, sometimes blowing cold air!  I kept thinking, "Yeah, right.  This will all have been for nothing.  I'll bet that bill will be just as high."  The utilities kept running ads on the radio about how pleasantly surprised you'll be when your next bill arrives if you turn your heat down a few degrees.  I didn't believe them.

I opened this month's bill yesterday.

246.00.

So I jumped up and down and absolutely had to tell somebody.  It was the same feeling I had when I found out I was getting my first book contract, or was nominated for the Christy award, or heck, expecting another baby!

It paid off.  All the chill-blains, the shivering in bed until the covers warmed up, the cold feet and hands.  And we all did it together.  I think that's the coolest part of all.  It illustrates beautifully what living in community is all about.  You work together because you have to, because there's only one thermostat and it affects us all.

until the next bill,

lisa

learning from Josiah

I've been on The Overachiever's Bible Reading Plan since the beginning of the year.  The whole shebang in 90 days.

I'd forgotten how utterly wild, confusing, amazing and just downright horrifying the Old Testament can be.  All I can say is, I'm glad we follow Jesus.  He's much easier to understand.  Not that he's easy to understand, mind you, or easy to obey, but when God's zapping 70 people for something David did (the census debacle) you can give me all the explaining in the world, and I'm just not going to get my mind wrapped around that.

So when Jesus said, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father," I just have to take his word for it and trust that somehow Jesus and Jehovah mesh in a way beyond my understanding, because the scriptures do anything but make the way clear.

Ooops!  Did I actually say that?

Last night I read in II Kings about Josiah.  Now Josiah was the breathing space in an utterly toxic string of kings in Judah.  God was angry at the foul doings of Manasseh, one of Josiah's predecessors who built altars to pagan gods right in the temple and sacrificed his own son to the fire.  Josiah got busy: tearing down altars and idols and Ashera poles all over the nation.  He cleaned house!  He found the old book of the law in the temple and returned to them. 

But this passage in particular struck me:

23:25 + 26: 

Neither before nor after Josiah was there a king like him who turned to the LORD as he did—with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his strength, in accordance with all the Law of Moses. Nevertheless, the LORD did not turn away from the heat of his fierce anger, which burned against Judah because of all that Manasseh had done to provoke him to anger.

Naturally this passage disturbed me.  So much so that it woke me up in the middle of the night and I thought, "How could this be?  The king did the right thing, returned Israel to the laws of God, abolished the idols and the places of pagan sacrifice.  So why did God promise to take away his name from Jerusalem anyway?

And this is the answer that came to me.

Because God sees what's in people's hearts.  And the hearts of the people were wicked.

Jehoahaz became king after Josiah.  He was just as wicked as his predecessors, was put in chains by the King of Egypt and led away.  Follow Jehoiakim, King of Judah, and Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar himself, enters the picture.  It isn't much longer before Israel is in captivity, just as God promised.

God judges a nation by the hearts of its people.  If the heart is wicked, God knows. 

Will and I had a discussion about the abortion issue, something I'm very passionate about.  He had been talking to a friend and he said, "Do you really think we will have 'won' if the laws are overturned?" 

His friend replied, "Yes."

"No.  We will have won when nobody would ever dream of having an abortion."

Racism is much the same way.  We can legislate until we're all ready to scream.  But until people wouldn't dream of mocking and discriminating against people of different races, have we really moved forward?

Hearts are far less easily turned than the power of the legislature.  We have come to see the government as the place where these battles will be lost and won.  We rely on it to keep us safe so we can continue our way of life here in the US.  But what is in our hearts?

lisa

food and community

Food plays a big part of our lives here at Third Street House.  A few years back, Will and I realized it was okay for our kids not to have many outside activities and so we don't encourage them to play sports or take lessons if they don't want to.  The drawback to that?  We feel like slacker parents who just haven't decided to get with the program of busy American life.  The upside?  We have lots of time with our kids, and not just in the car.  Another upside?  They've learned to develop their own interests, which is delightful to watch. 

Jake joined the school band and is excelling on the trumpet, he draws . . . a LOT, and enjoys archery out back.  Gwynnie starts Highland Dancing, here at the house, soon, and is teaching herself how to play the recorder.  Ty is teaching herself how to play the piano and is always educating herself on the principles and history of Modern design, and she's quite knowledgeable about jazz.  See?  I feel the need to prove the worth of our decision.  What a culture in which we find ourselves.

We eat a lot of meals together, Will being the chief cook and bottle washer.  And twice a week, all the inhabitants of Third Street House sit down at the table for dinner:  Ryan and Jodie--who live in the upstairs apartment, and Jared--who's in the back bedroom.  We cook on Mondays.  Ryan and Jodie fix Thursday dinner.

Last night we started a new tradition.  Ty found an empty notebook and we began recording our meals together as future reminder of our little community and the meals we shared.  Someday, we'll pick up the book and find loads of ideas for mealtime choices, and we'll remember the bond we felt as we ate.

We'll remember the jar of home grown sprouts Ryan sometimes brings, the wine shared, the chocolate and coffee enjoyed at the end.  We'll remember the great spinach and broccoli quiches Jodie made last night.

There's something holy and good, something that reconnects us to our Creator, the maker and sustainer of life, that eating brings to us.  I, for one, am blessed to be able to share the table with others, and to see our family as part of a wider, more nourishing picture than we could ever be on our own.

pax Christi,

lisa