It's so strange to be restricting meetings again. We're in Stage 3 lockdown - omicron is here.
Monday
It's a delight to lunch outside at Triptych Cafe and Gallery with DrWuri and Laura. The air is fresh and the breeze ripples our hair and cools our food.
The art gallery is as beautiful as ever.
Some of the plants grow in antique pots. Such vases are no longer available.
The featured artist is a potter. Look at these $3000 teapots! The first is my favorite. Each grain of rice is glazed and shaped individually. The little frog on the lid makes me smile.
Each lid, spout, and handle is unique.
Look at this one!
Another has splendid detail on every leaf, frog, and fastener.
I love this clay-sculptured bull and child, displayed on a pedestal. I remember it from the last time we ate in the hotel across the street.
Arrangements from the garden draw the eye into corners and emphasize the artist's great gift. There's elegance without fussiness in this modern collection.
His clay birds are expressive. "It's harder to create simple forms with individual movement and personality," remarks the gallery owner. "Much harder than the teapots, in my opinion."
For lunch, I choose one of my local favorites, rendang, hot and spicy stewed beef. Instead of eating chunks of meat with potato as in the West, you flake off pieces of beef and flavor rice with it.
The gardens are peaceful. Ordered. Meditative.
There are places to sit and rest the eyes and the soul.
After home chores, we breakfast at Nara. Our server asks for W's phone and snaps our picture.
After, time to get to work and make calls. At the office, I take art markers and an art journal outside with my computer, a duet of supplies to process the calendar and emotions.
Seeds plucked from weeds along the street have grown into thriving plants on the office balcony.
These plants reproduce easily. I roll the round seeds off before they can fall, tossing them into other pots along the balcony.
A friend and I have lunch at Miss Bee. After another stint in the office, I walk home in mid-afternoon.
The flowers in the house's arrangement have faded, but it remains beautiful with its leaves and fern fronds.
The shelf W put up over the mural is coming alive as it acquires books, paintings, and special objects. There's a slab of wood picked up on a walk. Prints, hand-carved candlesticks, porcelain birds from Mom's china cabinet, and vases share the space.
The past months, I've been reading 3 books on spiritual formation. I keep renewing them from the online library. The first offers questions to consider as we seek to walk close to God.
The second, a monastic's view of reflecting on God, gives me great pause. I ponder whether I have ever thought as deeply as he does about God's interest in humanity and my relationship with Him.
And the final one, which I finally finished, is about the love God offers us. All are satisfying. And convicting.
At night, it's peaceful and quiet in a corner of our room. Sometimes we read; sometimes we catch up on social media, pausing before the last light goes off.
An uncle-in-law died last weekend and his family reflects on his step away from them, into eternity. It's revealing to see what each child and grandchild writes or says about his impact and influence.
We moved away from the city where our tribe was centered when I was a preteen. I most clearly remember his extreme teasing when I was a child and my fascination with his 5-gallon aquarium, squirming with guppies. It was my introduction to tropical fish-keeping: the bright fluttering tails hooked me on the hobby.
My "best uncle" my whole life is Uncle Erich. He's been constant warmth and a second-father since I was a small child. His guffaws, his warm hugs, his fervent prayers, and his certainty about the world are a comfort. As a youngster, I stayed with him and Auntie Molly on weekend sleepovers, along with my cousin Elaine. He still means the world to me, though my mom's the one who relays messages via telephone. He's not on social media and my voice is pitched at a timbre he can't understand, even with hearing aids.
This week, Uncle Erich falls in his apartment, breaks some ribs, and has a concussion. At 91, it's no laughing matter. He will spend the week in hospital.
"Give him my love," I beg Mom, as I pass along his hospital phone number. I miss hearing his voice. Outside of my family, I've loved him most. And the longest.
Read more:
*His dominion shall be from sea to sea, and to the ends of the earth. Zechariah 9:10
*In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.
I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Acts 2:17-21
*God gave Jesus the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. Philippians 2:9-10
Moravian Prayer: Lord God, your son is the savior of the world, your eternal word, by whom and for whom all things were made, and for this we praise you! May all that we do glorify you as we go through each day. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
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