Bestest

Congratulations goes to my youngest nephew Craig, first for completing his "Master of Science, Civil Engineering, with concentrations in Structural and Geotechnical Engineering" from South Dakota School of Mining and Technology.....and shortly thereafter landing a job with Stanley Consultants, an international engineering consulting firm headquartered in Muscatine, Iowa (about a half hour from Davenport). http://www.stanleyconsultants.com/

Now, excuse me while I brag a bit, but indeed all his hard work and smarts deserve some accolades.

Only another engineer can fully understand/appreciate all the technical qualifications described in his resume, but its plain to see he likes to be productive. In his college years he worked four summer internships with Kokosing Construction in the heavy industrial division. In between undergraduate and graduate school he spent a year volunteering with Habitat for Humanity/Americorps as a construction staff member for the Metro Jackson Habitat for Humanity, in the Hurricane Katrina rebuilding efforts. In his final summer before graduate school he worked for the city of Grand Haven creating a "GIS Geodatabase for public utilities," GIS = geographic information systems. For anyone who understands engineering qualifications here are all the letters behind his name: LEED AP, EIT, LSIT

In the few months between graduation and securing a job he finished a significant remodeling job at their home (partnering with his Dad), did more remodeling at a friend's house, dug a water line from the house to the garden (not good at judging distance but in my mind's eye its at least enough for a game of touch football), installed irrigation tubing in the garden, started some seedlings for several different vegetables all of which are enjoying a good start under a home-made green-house box, cut down a tree ready to fall (and prepared it for firewood) and finally (still in process) constructing a raised bed for raising blueberries. Whew! All that and keeping up a job search as well.

Word has it that his starting salary is more than his older brother, Brian who also has a Masters in civil engineering and has been working in the field awhile. So, stay tuned for another blog post about him, whose example, support and good-natured brotherly competition helped to pave the way. The summer that Brian was participating in the cross-country Habitat for Humanity Bike and Build trip, he challenged Craig to complete a one-day's leg of the trip, 100 miles and of course he met the challenge.

Now for the title of this blog. One time when Craig stopped at my parents' house and didn't find them home, he left a note and signed it "your bestest grandson." So the nickname has stuck, but as far as anyone in our family is concerned all three of my nephews are the "bestest."

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Here is Craig as a toddler looking out the front window to the wide expanse of fields beyond his front yard. Today he looks to a bright future.

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Congratulations, Craig!

Emblepo

The hours must have drug on that night in the courtyard outside the home of the high priest where Jesus had been taken after his arrest. Peter, one of the twelve, was there gathered by the fireside with the servants and guards, waiting to see what would happen. Just hours earlier he had vowed that he would follow Jesus to the death but now his heart was filled with fear and confusion. By day break when the rooster crowed he had three times denied that he even knew Jesus.

"But Peter said, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. At that moment the Lord turned and looked at Peter. Suddenly, the Lord’s words flashed through Peter’s mind: “Before the rooster crows tomorrow morning, you will deny three times that you even know me.” Luke 22: 60 NLT

Tucked away in a this centuries-old story is a treasure in the word "looked," translated emblepo in Greek. The same Greek word is used by John to describe how Jesus looked at him when they first met:

Then Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, son of John—but you will be called Cephas” (which means “Peter”). John 1: 42 NLT. (Cephas is an Aramaic word and Peter a Greek word, and both mean “rock.” This had great significance in an age when people were named or re-named as a description of who they were or would become. )

From the day they first met until the dawning of that horrific day of crucifixion, Jesus always looked at Peter in the context of the "big picture." He knew that Peter would fail miserably, but He also knew that Peter would become the rock of the first century church. That morning as Jesus looked across the courtyard at Peter, it was with a loving, grace-filled gaze.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes..... So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. Ephesians 4: 6-7 NLT.

There is freedom to be found in emblepo, that I am looked upon with grace in spite of my failures and more so, I am looked upon as a child of God who is being conformed to His image. (Romans 8:29).

But as any soldier will tell you, freedom isn't free, it comes with the highest price tag, the shedding of blood. "It is finished," Jesus said from the Cross, and that marked the turning point of all history. Millions have looked to the cross as the turning point, the center point in their own lives. And the invitation still stands.

Winter blooms

There's a light coating of snow covering lawns, enough to transform the neighborhood's assorted plastic Easter bunnies and eggs into rounded shapes of white. So perhaps now is as good a time as any to reflect back on a wintry visit to the Botanical Gardens with my brother and sister-in-law. It was the last week in December, but it was just this past week that I finished that roll of film and took it in for processing. Though we spent most of our time in the glass houses, we did stroll the grounds and amazingly found some flowering plants, I kid you not. These photos are for proof, rather than aesthetics. The first I presume to be pansies and the second some flowering cabbage.
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Here's my brother Bob and I enjoying the vibrancy and warmth of Costa Rica under glass:

Words, The Word

It just dawned on me that as of last Tuesday my blog is 1 year old. So I mark this anniversary with some thoughts from some favorite writers...

Frederick Beuchner on words (from his book, Beyond Words, 2004)
Something that lay hidden in the heart is irrevocably released through speech into time, is given substance and tossed like a stone into the pool of history...

God never seems to get weary of trying to get across to us. Word after word, God tries in search of the right word. When the creation itself doesn't seem to say it right....God tries flesh and blood....

The apostle John says of Jesus in the opening words of his book:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning......He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1: 1-2, 10-14 NIV).

Michael Card, one verse of his song, Final Word
You and me we use so very many clumsy words.
The noise of what we often say is not worth being heard.
When the Father’s Wisdom wanted to communicate His love,
He spoke it in one final perfect Word.

Letters, traces of life

Every now and then in the rush of daily activity, my forward momentum is pleasantly interrupted with an invitation to travel in my thoughts back to another time and place. After spending 9 hours in a human services conference in the bowels of the Cleveland Convention Center Friday I detoured back to the parking lot via City Hall.

There on the back wall of the City Hall rotunda was my invitation, portraits of famous Clevelanders. I recognized many of the names but one in particular caught my attention. Rebecca Rouse, and the inscription below the portrait indicated she had organized the Soldiers' Aid Society during the Civil War. That portrait was as a door to walk through and that evening I started the journey, finding an entry in the online Encyclopedia of Cleveland: http://ech.case.edu/ech-cgi/article.pl?id=RRC1

But my primary interest in this historical character had more to do with linking her story to that of many in my family tree who were profoundly impacted by the Civil War. I thought first of my great-great Aunt, Eliza Savage, sister to my great-great grandfather Martin M. Hester. I thought of her because in our family collection we have a great many letters, perhaps 50 that she wrote to her brother during the Civil War, with three sons in the front lines of battle. We have transcribed about a dozen thinking that would be a good sample, but who knows what thread of thought lies buried within those thin lines of faded ink, lines that get smaller and closer together near the end of the page when there is more to tell than there is room to write and paper is scarce and ink is home-made.

Take a quick view back to March 5th, 1864 with this excerpt....

...we received a letter from James last evening, he left here Friday morning and reached Nashville Sunday evening about 6 o'clock.... they would start the next morning for Chatanooga. Watson has enlisted in the 1st Ohio Battery. We will be left quite lonely. Elisha has some thoughts of selling out [the farm] and renting a house in Berea for the present. He cannot do much on the farm alone, help is scarce and high....

Could she have imagined that these words would be read nearly 150 years later.... Could she have imagined the value they are to us now in capturing our imagination for the otherwise unimaginable tragedy of Civil War? And can we imagine how our own written words will be read in years to come...?

The essence of hope

The snow shovel has been idle for quite some time now and it looks like I probably won't need to purchase any more rock salt this season. The commute to and from work these last couple weeks has been a breeze, not having to contend with icy roads. On my neighborhood walk Thursday night people were lingering outside, chatting with neighbors and two boys had struck up a basketball game in their driveway. A guy just down the street had hauled out the hose and was washing a layer of salt from his car. The smell of Murphy's soap in my house is evident that the urge for spring cleaning overtook me today.

Signs for lenten fish frys have been popping up all over town. Department store racks are flush with fresh spring colors and the clearance racks of winter duds are pretty well picked over. Tax preparation offices are lit up at night and people are talking about plans for their refunds.

It's only one week into March but it's warm enough today to have the windows open to get some fresh air circulating through the house. For the first time in many months today I heard the sound of the male cardinal's song, which seems all the more delightful after its long absence.

But the calendar says it's still winter and no one is putting away their snow shovels or windshield scrapers. The tilt of the earth on its axis and its yearly journey around the sun make it a certainty that spring will arrive in due time. But that's just the science of it. The certainty of spring following winter is the essence of hope. And hope has the power to sustain life even in the darkest, wintry seasons of our lives.

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see. Hebrews 11: 1 NLT
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=65&chapter=11&version=51

Weavers' handshake

Of course one expects to see art displayed on the walls of art galleries but at the opening reception of a new exhibit at Heights Arts Friday night, virtually every one of the dozen artists were wearing a beautifully handcrafted item, a work of art.... whether a vest, jacket, scarf, jewelry or purse. But of course, since all the artists use textiles in their art work.

I was talking with one of the artists and admiring her hand-woven jacket. It had a wonderful soft sheen that invited to be touched, so I did. She called that touch, the "weavers' handshake," and its that feel of texture that must draw these artists into their work.

I distinctly recall that when I was first learning digital imaging and desktop design at Cuyahoga Community College I just wanted to be able to reach into the computer monitor and manipulate the "objects" with my hands. I am much more proficient with technology now, particularly since I spend so much time on the computer for my work, but I still enjoy the "hands-on" experiences, particularly with interesting textures. That's a big part of the reason I enjoy knitting and exploring the use of interesting yarns.

What I saw was an exhibit of the Textile Arts Alliance which is associated with Cleveland Museum of Art. For an overview of their programs: http://www.taacleveland.org/program.html. For this particular exhibit each of the artists in this organization were offered the opportunity to select a textile object from the museum's collection of items no longer being used for exhibits. They either used that item for inspiration for creating their own piece or incorporated all or part of the original piece in their own work. The exhibit is on until April 4th. For more info: http://www.heightsarts.org/

One artist "Sigrid", had with her a notebook showing the steps she took in designing/creating her piece. She first studied the textile artifact from the museum under 40x magnification. She told me that in studying this 18th century artifact that she learned something new about weaving that she had not come across in her 32 years of weaving. That's saying something about the 18th century artist since Sigrid is widely known for her expertise: www.artsstudio.org/magic.htm.

There's still time this Sunday evening for a little knitting, accompanied by a audio book, a fiction with a central theme of quiltmaking. And that's a subject for another time.