A Nation of Devout Consumers

The Long Lost Silent Night
by Bill McKibbon...read the rest of the article here and visit my hundred dollar holiday website here...

But that’s not the real culprit. Much more, it’s the way all the noises that we choose to listen to have infiltrated our minds. We’re caffeinated, buzzed, wired, plugged-in. In one recent survey, only 19 percent of Americans said they wanted a "more exciting, faster-paced life." Excitement can’t excite us anymore.

What can excite us – what can make us salivate the way a circus could make some Kansas farm boy salivate – is the prospect of a lull, an interlude. Stillness scares us (that’s why the TV goes on when we walk in the hotel room) but it attracts us, too. If there’s one thing we’d really like from Christmas, I think, it’s a little of that "season of peace" that the greeting card writers are always promising. It’s one of the reasons "Silent Night" is the all-time favorite carol. There’s a moment when we sing it each year at the end of the Christmas Eve service, with the lights out and everyone holding a candle that frames their face with soft light, and that marks for me the absolute height of Christmas.

If there’s one way in which the world has changed more than any other since 1840, one thing that’s truly different about our lives, it’s that we’ve become such devout consumers. That consumption carries with it certain blessings (our lives are long and easy by any historical standard) and certain costs (first and foremost the damage it causes to the rest of creation). But the greatest cost may be the way it’s changed us, the way it has managed to confuse us about what we really want from the world. We weren’t built just for this life we find ourselves leading – we were built for silence and solitude, built for connection with each other and the natural world, built for so much more than we now settle for. Christmas is the moment to sense that, the moment to reach for the real joys.

I am challenging myself and others to create A Hundred Dollar Holiday this year...read the following post for details...

A Hundred Dollar Holiday

A Hundred Dollar Holiday - How To Create a Homemade Christmas

I have joined the ranks of Squidoo...it is a fun place to voice your opinion...click the above link to get tons of information on creating a beautiful holiday celebration for less than $100.

You want to make a memorable Christmas holiday for your family but you have no idea how to do it! We will explore ways to make a beautiful Christmas memory without spending a lot of money.

I have always been a make it, take it kind of person. There will be how-to's, ideas, recipies, videos, and much more. New stuff will be added daily...so chack back often!

Please share a favorite homemade idea, your family holiday traditions, or special things you do on Christmas Eve or Christmas day in the guestbook at the bottom of the page!

angel art by Rebecca E. Parsons (Cre8Tiva)

"So the reason to change Christmas is not because it damages the earth around us, though surely it does. (Visit a landfill the week after Christmas.) The reason to change Christmas is not because it represents shameful excess in a world of poverty, though perhaps it does. The reason to change Christmas - the reason it might be useful to change Christmas - is because it might help us to get at some of the underlying discontent in our lives. Because it might help us see how to change every other day of the year, in ways that really would make our whole lives, and maybe our entire 365-days-a-year culture, healthier in the long run." Bill McKibbon - see his book below...read the rest of the article here...

I have been in California for a week now...getting some much needed rest and recuperation...it rained for the first few days...so much for it never rains in California...it does...I will upload some pictures when I figure out how on my sons' computer...

Yes, Virginia...There is a Recession...DUH!!!

US Economy In Recession Since December 2007
Yesterday, Monday, December 1st 2008,

"The National Bureau of Economic Research said that the U.S. has been in a recession since December 2007, making official what most Americans have already believed about the state of the economy .

The NBER is a private group of leading economists charged with dating the start and end of economic downturns. It typically takes a long time after the start of a recession to declare its start because of the need to look at final readings of various economic measures.

Achuthan's research firm tracks weekly leading economic indicators that are supposed to signal a change in direction for the economy four or five months ahead of time. Those indicators are continuing to fall at a record pace."

Those of us in the trenches, fighting for our lives, have known this for a long time now. I suppose next year they will release the news that we are in a depression since December 2008...

so much for our economists...

The good news: 55 percent of economists surveyed in a new poll don't believe the U.S. will fall into a full-blown recession.

images from:
NY Times.com
Public Radio.com

Thanks & Giving...Blessings I Have...

A Happy Thanksgiving to All...

During the past few days I have been very thoughtful about all I have to be thankful for...the regular things like family, loved ones, friends, and my life come to mind of course...but there is so much more that I, and probably you, have to be thankful for on this, my favorite of holidays...

I woke up this morning with more health than illness...so I am more blessed than the million who won't survive the week...

I have food in my kitchen today, clothes on my back, a roof over my head, and a place to sleep...so I am more blessed than 75% of the people in this world who do not...

I have never had the pangs of starvation...so I am more blessed than the 20 million people who are hungry today...

I have never experienced the danger of battle or the loneliness of imprisonment...so I am more blessed than the 20 million people who are experiencing it today...

I can go to my little church in California today without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death...so I am more blessed than the 3 billion people who cannot...

I have money in the bank, a little in my wallet, and spare change in a container somewhere......so I am among the top 8% of the world's wealthy...

If you can read this today...you are more blessed than the 2 billion people who cannot read anything at all...

I am blessed in ways I may never know...yet I give thanks for them all...known and unknown...May the Lord shower you with many blessings today... Leaving you filled with memories of joy and love...Be a blessing to someone today...visit the Conspiracy of Blessings for ideas...

Please continue reading below...it is for you, my beloved blogging frineds...

thankful...for you...

This is how I feel about those sisters and brothers that I have been blessed to connect with through my blog...I am more than thankful...for you...

"trio" - 2007 - acrylic, watercolor and marmarino plaster on heavy paper

Thou art my sister and brother, because we were born of the same great spirit; conceived from the same mound of earth; slept quietly together in the cradle of unknowing until He in his gentleness set us in the midst of humanity...you are my sister, I love you.

You and I are destined to be companions on the highway of life; together or apart, you are my sister I love you....if the color of my skin is different from yours it mattereth not, only let the beauty of our souls be kindred.

I will honor your wisdom and understanding, as you will mine, together we shall seek the seeds of truth in the distant rooms of the Great Spirit; the reflection of inner knowledge shall wear as beauty upon our faces...you are my sister I love you.

I will be human and fall down in rough places; but thy hand is near mine, I will reach for it. I shall not be alone. I will embrace you when the rains of sorrow visit you, I will visit your soul as if it were my own....you are my sister and brother, I love you.

If death takes me from the lamp of life, and the veil of sleep falls across my eyes before yours, I will wait for you। I will come to lead you across the bridge of night into the meadows of the Great Spirit....you are my sister and brother I love you.

adapted from a poem by Jean Humphrey Chaille

Sunday Spirit...

What are You Full Of?

Are you full of Spirit and light...are you full of joy and happiness...are you full of love and good cheer...or are you full of yourself???

Oh my Rebecca...where are you coming from today...self...self-centeredness...self-concern...selfhood...Yep...I am in the middle of a selfishness campaign...and I want you to come with me...of course!

Now it would be really selfish if I wanted you to go on MY journey...that's not the idea...I want you to go on YOUR journey...into YOUR self...

Self Realization is the culmination of all things spiritual. I love the following video in which Fr. Keating shares an illustration of stream of thought...and how we can go deeper into our soul...

Thoughts - Thomas Keating on the Method of Centering Prayer

Reaching the stage of Self Realization means...reaching True Self "which is our participation in the Divine Life" ...

I have listed all the self words and phrases I know or could dig up...

self     selfs      itself      myself      selfed      herself      himself        hisself      nonself      oneself      ourself      selfdom      selfing         selfish      thyself      selfdoms      selfheal      selfhood      selfless      selfness      selfsame      selfward      yourself      selfheals      selfhoods      selfishly unselfish      selflessly      selfnesses      selfishness      unselfishly      damselfish      selflessness       selfishnesses      unselfishness         selflessnesses      selfsamenesses         unselfishnesses
self portrait      self selection      self denial      self study      
self motivation      self help      self defeating      self employed    
self absorbed         self critical      self denial         self defense      enlightened self      interest      self interest      self importtance      self image      self obsessed      self ritcheous      self indulgent      self interest      self portrait      in defense of self    
self fulfilling prophecy    self-flagellation      self reflection      
self reliant      self involved      self deusion    
is self-explanatory      self-appointed expert      
self-congratulatory cleverness 
paint your self into a corner
history repeating itself
to thine own self be true

it's my birthday...

this was dawn at the beach at 6:30 AM this morning...enjoy...

i love to go down to the sea in the pre-dawn hours and wait for the sun to rise...it is a time to pray and a time to heal for me...i am most centered when i am here...

these photos and other just like them will be available for purchase on my etsy shop....