the unlikely orange

i'll be out of pocket until the new year, so have a blessed end of the 2006 edition of time's unfolding, and i will step with you into whatever comes next. see you next year! greg.

merry christmas i found this photo on a found photography site. found photography, obviously, deals with the pictures that are found in the garbage, at flea markets, along the side of the road, etc. i love found photos because there are stories in them, but only you can tell the story! and speaking of telling the story, it is Christmas, a time when we tell and re-tell a story that has been told for many years now. its a story of hope. its a story about the beginning and ending of everything. its really a story about a baby, but everything else hinges on this story, so its no insignificant story, this one. its everything. its fragile. its unbelievable angels in the sky, singing songs i'm not sure we can understand. its the smell of animal dung. its the aching of the centuries, the hope of everything broken. its the shame of sin, and the fear of being dismissed quietly. its the audicity of hope, that you indeed won't be let go of quietly, that you are accepted, loved even, and ...

Welcome to the 2006 Holiday Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends! 1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? i've never had egg nog, but, as some of you know, i have issues with the names of food (meatloaf, anyone?) and i think i might have some trouble drinking something called "nog" unless i was a prisoner of war and hadn't had anything to drink for several excruciating days, and it was a question of survival. even then, i might just pretend to drink it, keeping it hidden in my cheeks so i could then spit it in the face of one of the people guarding me. so, i'll say hot chocolate. but i prefer coffee. not seasonal enough? add some peppermint syrup, or, better yet, schnapps. 2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Santa definitely wraps the gifts. 3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? white all around. i would like to go back to the old school giant multi-colored glass bulbs. those were the best. 4. Do you hang mistletoe? interestingly, someone just...

hung i've hung it on some tree or other twenty-something times. i remember. its rite and ritual. that's right, its more than glass or brass or hallmark sentimentality. its more than the sum of its weight, more than the way it hangs on the tree. its more than it appears to be, this ornament. "each year at this time we come close to Christmas," the preacher said every december. and each december, as Christmas looms, hangs on the horizon, i open up that blood red box, excitedly, like santa left it for me. and i pull out all those memories marked with years like time capsules, encapsulating Christmases past. and i hang them like hopes, on that stark tree. i feel like a child, again, and birth (life) suddenly feels a whole lot closer, a whole lot more possible. greg.

their songs are poems if there was music that i could eat, that i could inhale, that i could ingest into my very being, chewing on it and swallowing it deep into me, this would be it: over the rhine. i know, i know, i can get carried away with praise (see the post on derek jeter), but i am not fooling around here. there are many musicians out there, most of them NOT on your FM dials, who are artists. and among that group, their are a few who are absolutely exceptional at doing what they do. over the rhine fit into that category. linford and karin aren't going to hook you with tricks and gimmicks, but will woo you with words and music put together in ways that are so simple and so profound and so magical and so...perfect. shannon and i got to go see them at the theater of living arts on south street in philadelphia on friday night (sorry its been so long since i've posted--advent is kind of a busy time for those of us who work in the Church). we didn't clap to the beat or ...

browns are black and blue! my dad and sister mary got to go the steelers game in heinz field last night, to see the steelers demolish the browns 27-7. i wish i could have been there, but here are a couple of pictures that my dad took.

on a recent post, someone commented that derek jeter was really full of himself. i feel absolutely compelled to follow this up. the firm and complete rebuttal follows: so, i realize that its december, not exactly baseball season. but, the truth does not descriminate about times or seasons. and, at such a time as this, the truth must be told. i have been an avid baseball fan since about 1987, minus a couple years in the 90's after the strike when i was disappointed and frustrated. but, like the rest of the world, i returned in 98 to see the steroid slammers pound baseball back into our hearts. over the course of the last almost 20 years, i have followed many baseball players and kept up on their stats. i used to study the back of baseball cards like i would find words of life there. i knew whether players were better hitters in daylight or under the lights. i could tell you certain players birthdays. i say all this to say that i have been a huge baseball fan. and in all that time, ...

his glorious sanctuary this post and the next two are some collages i have made in the last few weeks. i thought i would just show you a little bit of what i've been working on. this one i made on a block of wood, the following two are simply on paper. i love making collages, as many of you know. these are scanned images, and they aren't as clear as seeing them in real life. also, the last one is much bigger than the surface area of my scanner, so you are only seeing a portion of the whole collage. anyway, here they are... random notes of absolutely no interest: the gators are going to play for the national championship in january. they have been my favorite college football team since high school. i hope they show the world how superior the SEC is by crushing the buckeyes. what kind of a mascot is a buckeye, by the way? isn't it a nut? are we supposed to be intimadated by a team of mixed nuts? like, "look out, there's a nut rolling towards you!" that's j...

marvelous unity

reborn this is a collage i made today. the text reads: i am flown free straight-stitched to eternity these wings, like azure flame, beating out the rhythm of your name 'til this cocoon falls, crumpled and torn, from earth and sea and honeycomb reborn.

expecting. as you may (or may not) know, shannon and i are expecting. so this is a post about the last few days of my life, and how they have been full of expectations. wednesday night, shannon and i drove into manhattan to attend a worship service at the marble collegiate church on 6th and 29th. norman vincent peale was the pastor of that church for many years. i had heard that they were doing a wednesday night worship service that was (quote unquote) emergent, and i wanted to check it out. i also happen to know that guy that is in charge of the music for this wednesday night service, and i wanted to hear what he was doing. so, we drove up the nj turnpike, through the lincoln tunnel and into the city. i love the city so much. it is so alive and awake. i feel my pulse rise to match the rhythm of the footsteps and flashing lights. the worship service was really moving, and reminded us of the apocalyptic nature of the beginning of advent: that although we are waiting in expectation for a...