One Lord and Savior

Mary & Jesus,
originally uploaded by Martin LaBar (going on hiatus).

Merry Christmas everyone! Over the next twelve days I'm going to have my own twelve days of Christmas here on the blog, sharing some of my adventures and creations for this Christmas (I'm a little too excited at my own cleverness, actually).

For me, it's important to acknowledge the whole reason we celebrate this season. This morning at church we were asked to bring up the gifts, and for me it was a powerful reminder that the most important gift we have to give is the offering of ourselves, and the most important gift we receive is the offering of Himself for us.

May you have a wonderful day full of His love and spirit, whether you're celebrating with family of in your own way.

I like all the colors

On Christmas Eve, there was quite a discussion about favorite colors. My father-in-law maintains that the whole concept is silly. What does favorite color mean? Just because your favorite color is yellow doesn't mean you think the world would be better if everything were yellow, does it?

I think when I was younger, I said my favorite color was blue. But now I've maintained for several years now that I don't have any favorite colors--I pretty much like them all. But I think when I was younger that always seemed like a cop-out. It is, but it's true. Which is why I laughed the other day when I looked down into my purse.



What can I say? What about you? Do you have a favorite color? Do you think you would have a favorite color if your aunt/kindergarten teacher/elderly neighbor hadn't asked you which one was your favorite? Is it your favorite color to wear? Favorite color to look at?

1 year

One year ago, I sat in the law school, locked out of my house, and started a blog. Well. Looks like a failure. Kinds of feels like a failure too. I can't tell you how many blogs I've been to where their hundredth post proceeds their blog's birthday by a mile. And mine...not so much.

To tell the truth, I've thought about this blog several times since I last posted. And then, sometime, probably a month ago decided that part of my problem was that I lacked focus. I don't really have an interesting enough life (at least the parts that I feel like sharing) to keep this blog personal. And yet, I'm not sure I'm a witty enough writer, or one with strong enough opinions, to write about current events or anything of the sort. Not knowledgeable enough to have a single subject blog.

But I don't really want to give it up. Even though I haven't participated much in the blog world, I've been an active consumer. And in some senses, even though the web is replete with wittier, more interesting, and smarter people than myself, I still feel the tug to "Produce before you consume, serve before you seek entertainment" (Josh Harris).

Another thing I've realized (okay, I realized it before too), but I'm realizing it anew--I like to make stuff. I need a little bit of creativity. So. I'm going to try to get more on top of using my camera and recording these projects. And this is going to be my "making things better by making stuff" blog. With maybe a couple of "making things better in a grander and less selfish sense" ideas or opinions thrown in here and there. But mostly, I think I gotta start small.

I'm writing this post, and hopefully a couple of extras in advance, so maybe that will make me feel like a good blogger and allow me to post more frequently. Maybe. Just maybe.

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picture by flickr user pasotraspaso

On Appreciation*

This weekend, Adam and I decided we wanted to go on an outing. What with houseguests and holidays, and upcoming exams and the like, it's been a while since we've done something like that for the weekend. Tossed around some ideas of places we'd like to go (we're compiling a road trip wishlist...if you're within weekend trip distance of Nashville and want to show us around your area, we'd love to hear). Ended up driving down to the Jack Daniel's Distillery in Lynchburg, TN.


Lynchburg is this tiny, tiny town. Their sign says population 361, though the tour guide said they're probably at 450-500 now. And this distillery makes all of the Jack Daniel's sold. All of it.

Now, I'm not a super-huge fan of the alcohols. Adam thinks I was scarred by accidentally drinking my grandfather's martini at the age of 7 (I thought it was my water glass and I took a big sip. Not cool.). But I love me a good factory tour. Seeing how something is made makes me appreciate the labor that goes into a product, from the people actually running the lines, to the people who designed all the machinery and packaging. It makes me realize how many things can go wrong in the process.

Tennessee whiskey is made by mixing corn, barley, rye, and the water from an underground spring (Daniel discovered the spring and decided it made perfect whiskey. Now they say that's because the water has no iron in it). Add some yeast, and let the whole thing ferment for 6 days. They showed us a batch that had been working for 6 hours, and it looked like a witches cauldron a-brewing and a-boiling. And if you got your nose close, and got a whiff of all that carbon dioxide, well, in the words of our tourguide, "that stuff'll untie your shoelaces". This fermented stuff is called brewer's beer. They distill that (boil off the alcohol), and then drip the resulting alcohol through big tunnels of charcoal (made by burning big bundles of sugar maple wood). Then it gets put into handmade barrels and stored for about six years. The changing temperature opens and closes the pores of the wood of the barrel, and the whiskey gets sucked in and forced back out as time goes by. (Can I mention how cool barrel-making is? You can make something to hold liquid with just a bunch of wood, and something to hold the pieces of wood together. I would totally learn to be a cooper.). And that's it. They have tasters who go try the barrels that might be ready since they all age at slightly different rates.

The whole of the valley smells a little bit like a loaf of bread (it's all that yeast and all those grains). And you can almost smell it in the finished product. So I tried it again after we got home (Moore County is a dry county. So they can give their employees a pint once a month, but they can't sell any to the visitors that come through town), and...

I still don't really like it. But I think it's much cooler than I used to.

I think it's a lesson I need to learn in general: how to appreciate things I don't really like. Appreciating all people as God's children, appreciating why people might have opinions different from my own, appreciating attempts to aid that don't necessarily help (whether it's attempts to help me, or attempts to help the world).


*Okay, so it's been a long time since I've posted. I have a couple of draft posts, but I realized before publishing that they were a little whinier than I really wanted to put out there. Plus, I guess I'm still trying to find that balance of being vague enough to protect myself and some of the other people in my life, and being specific enough to make sense to someone other than myself.

A wrinkly day

I know I said the previous post was enough for one day. And it probably is. But I don't want to be one of the many single-entry blog stumps all over the internet.

I was going to write about my post-Christmas travel day yesterday (which was a little bit...not so hot). But now I don't think I'm going to do that. I'll just say here that A and I now have a list of things to take care of while he's in beginning-of-the-semester ease.

Plans were changed by an email from a friend asking for prayers for the situation in Kenya. She was there not long ago, and taken by the people and the place. Apparently racial tensions were exacerbated by elections last week, and it has turned violent. And since it is known for being one of the most politically stable countries in Africa, that's saying something.

I don't know what to do (that's often the case for me...that's why I'm aspiring), other than pray, and spread knowledge. This has made me realize that one of my resolutions for this year again needs to be following the news more. It's easy for me to say that I'll read the news online, saving myself a newspaper subscription fee. But I don't often do it. So maybe it's time to invest in the physical media, and rely on the internet for more information.

What does that mean?

I decided I would like a forum for my stories and thoughts. "Ameliorant" is a noun form of ameliorate, and while I am not always good at following through, I would like to think that one of my callings is to make things better--improve life, improve the world.

Part of that is thinking about ways to improve processes whether it be working out a recipe or a pattern, but I want to remember that part of that is also thinking about how to serve the least of these.

And the last four letters, which led me to settle on the word, may be more or less important. I do hope, however, that my rants will be more or less constructive.

All right, that's self-reflective enough for this New Year's Day.