7 Quick Takes: sad saga of broken china, good blog reading this week, and more!

--- 1 ---

It's been a while since I bragged on my husband around here. I'm pretty sure he doesn't keep track. But, just in case, let me tell y'all how within 24 hours this past week he rescued me three times: when I accidentally threw my favorite silver necklace and ring in the kitchen garbage (don't ask how) and didn't realize it till the next day and he had already taken out the garbage and he waded through it until he found my jewellry. If that weren't enough, he also rescued my chicken enchiladas from burning when all I could do was stand at the oven and cuss.

THEN he edited the blog post I'd been stuck on for three weeks.

He's my hero.

--- 2 ---

Two nights later I accidentally dropped a china teacup and saucer onto our concrete floor at the same exact moment Brian was walking in the door from a thirteen hour work-day. Poor guy came home to a sobbing wife. He just put his bag down, hugged me and swept up the mess while I bawled away.

My aunt received the teacup from her sisters (including my mom) after battling breast cancer. The purple pansies represented strength. Aunt Sharon -- a ridiculously generous giver of perfect gifts -- passed the treasure to us on our twentieth wedding anniversary (china is the gift for 20 years, did you know that?). The teacup and saucer made it in a giant moving truck across the country and through another move in May without a chip or scratch. I dropped it rearranging my shelves. UGH!

Brian's still my hero, Aunt Sharon is my hero and I'm grateful for photographs because this is all we have left to remember the gorgeous gift.

November 2010 Aunt Sharon gives us the same china teacup and saucer
her sisters gave her during her fight with breast cancer.
Pansies for strength, china for twenty years, perfect gifts from family.

--- 3 ---

The Sign of the Cross: Participatory Aesthetics, via Transpositions: We've been attending Christ Church Anglican for over a year, long enough to become familiar with the Anglican liturgy. The who, what, where, when, why and how to making the sign of the cross several times each service took us the a while to figure out. This blog post by Dr. Holly Ordway at Transpositions would have come in pretty handy. I especially love the title she chose, "Participatory Aesthetics." Perfect description.

--- 4 ---

I've mentioned before the urban garden Christ Church installed and maintains to provide food for the homeless ministry Mobile Loaves and Fishes. The Austin Statesman published a brief article last weekend: What's In Your Garden: Church Grows Food for the Homeless.

Also, if you've never clicked through the links to see the blog Matt Evans (our stellar head gardener) writes to keep us posted on the garden, you really should. It's always a fun read. Check out his most recent post and pass it on: How To Start Your Own Church Garden.

Tomorrow our youth group is covering the Saturday work session. Hopefully we'll get some good work done and some fun photos to share.

--- 5 ---

One of my most favorite daily email subscriptions is to the daily asterisk at *culture is not optional (*cino). Each day I receive a usually-brief and always-meaningful excerpt to ponder throughout the day. I wished I'd received this one before I published the last Parenting Unrehearsed post. (How to Keep Your Kids From Reading Too Many Bible Verses).

Don't you agree it'd have been a good fit??

The whole person

The followers of Christ are engaged in the world with their whole being. Engagement is not a matter of either speaking or doing; not a matter of either offering a compelling intellectual vision or embodying a set of alternative practices; not a matter of either merely making manifest the richness and depth of interior life or merely working to change the institutions of society; not a matter of either only displaying alternative politics as gathered in Eucharistic celebrations or merely working for change as the dispersed people of God. It is all these things and more. The whole person in all aspects of her life is engaged in fostering human flourishing and serving the common good.

Miroslav Volf

A Public Faith

--- 6 ---

Did you watch the presidential debate this week? We had a ministry commitment and weren't home. I have to confess that I've watched the West Wing series too many times and it's ruined me for real-life political campaigns.

For example, I want my debates to sound something like this -- and they never do...