Christmas afternoon

Every year some adaptation is required.  This year has required more adaptation than usual, what with the kitchen renovation still underway.  My new snowy owl puppet has a head that turns all the way around,  He can look at things in back of him.  He is an inspiration.

Christmas afternoon:

The tiny Walgreens tree

In the corner of the family room

Made do

With its twelve twinkly lights.

We listened to

Pandora classical Christmas music

Once we figured out

Pandora traditional Christmas music

Was anything but

Our tradition.

My husband figured out

Eggs in the microwave.

The trick is to

Break the yolks

Ahead of time.

I am wearing the plumb bob necklace.

It is perfect,

Absolutely perfect,

As are the clothes

The books

The snowy owl puppet.

Soon we will go out

To dinner.

We will be especially nice

To the waitstaff.

Holding counsel

I am grateful for morning time to write and consider things and pray, watch the plumb bob swing until it lines up straight.  I am grateful for this time to watch yesterday, consider what may be on the docket for today; time to let my vision clear so I can see straight again, so I can see at least in part what lines up plumb with Jesus.  I know it is a dim mirror.  I wait for the time I will see more clearly, and do the best with what I have been given today.

Today I will hold my counsel.

I will speak the parts that line up

Plumb

With Jesus.

Today I will lend out the parts that measure the horizontal

Exactly perpendicular

To the line which hangs straight

To the center of everything,

Offer the parts that line up

With God.

Today I will watch the bob swing

On the plumb line.

It will be meet and right to speak

When it stops moving.

I will keep my counsel

Until it hangs

Straight

And

Still.

Finding plumb at the halfway house

Jesus* parables show us the possibility of plumb, as they up-end our understanding of the way things should be, the way things are.  Yesterday, when I used experiences as the halfway house as examples of the Holy, I realized afterwards I am watching the enactment of a parable there every day.  I watch the men line up, then go off plumb, then back on plumb, as we all tend to do.  Perhaps they are spinning a bit more, but I go into spin on a regular basis too.  I got a note from a friend (thanks, Keith!) saying my plumb bob fit into his sermon yesterday.  I*m glad it was used Somewhere.

The plumb line,

Its bob spinning at the end

Was important,

But not the exact metaphor

I needed yesterday

To demonstrate how Jesus

Was the line that showed

Direct vertical

To the center of the earth.

Instead of a plumb bob,

A plumb line,

I needed

The halfway house,

The guys lined up at dinner,

The guys

Talking gratefulness ,

The guys

Lined up in group,

Sharing their proudest moment.

They filled the room

With laughter and praise,

Pride reigned,

The good honest kind of pride

Anyone could share.

I saw them line up

With Jesus

Right there in front of me.

I saw them

Completely plumb for a moment

Lined up with Jesus.

Really just like me,

For a moment

Lined up with Jesus.

Plumb bobs

So I woke up this AM with plumb bobs and plumb lines on the brain.  Thought it would fit into the sermon.  No.  I think I would still like to use it as sermon illustration at one point.  For now I*ll hang it in the office.  It*s really quite a cool thing.  

I learned more about plumb bobs

Today

Than I ever knew before,

Enough to know it is apt

To consider Jesus

The best ever plumbline

There is

or was

or ever will be,

Not just leave it all

Back with Amos

And the others.

I am now the proud owner

Of a stainless steel bob,

Strung and knotted with ordinary string,

Threaded by the hardware guy

The way I do a needle:

With spit and eyeball.

All that plumb research

But it didn*t line up

With the sermon.

I think I will hang it

Next to the bookshelf

So I will see it coming

And going.

One can never have too many

Metaphors.