The Tool of Process

Part of our mission at SoulPerSuit is to help unpack some of the creative process. While putting together a SoulPerSuit card is a highly individual act, there are a few tools one can keep on hand to make the process less intimidating.

One "tool" to bring with you is an understanding that just as much can be accomplished in the process of creating a SoulPerSuit card as is accomplished in the finished product of a SoulPerSuit card. If we get hung up on producing a museum quality piece of artwork, we'll become just that-- hung up. A person who is willing to embrace a mistake and either learn from it or incorporate it into their card design is going to sleep better at night and probably enjoy their SoulPerSuit experience more than one who can't let go.

Here's a personal example. For our recent SoulPerSuit group in Premium Roast with Ruth, I had an idea for a card that would represent the groaning and duress that is common to all of creation. Each of us endures our specific losses and our individual griefs, but decay and loss in general are something that this entire planet shares. We are all hurting in some way, all mourning the loss of something, disappointed by the decay of one thing or another. To communicate this idea I was going to make a picture of the Earth caught up in a giant tear.
Well, I was.
Until...

My daughter's finger paints proved that it is impossible to achieve a high level of detail with any artistic medium touting itself as, "Ideal for Preschoolers." All my carefully sketched continents and bodies of water became...
... greenish blue globs and smears.
(Certainly not the concept I'd started out with.)

At the point I realized finger paints were not the right medium for map making I was faced with the decision to either scrap this first attempt and start again, or to see what might become of these greenish blue globs of paint. I was also forced to re-examine the concept behind this particular SoulPerSuit card. Was a detailed image of the world vital to communicating my message? Were there any other elements in my card that might be able to communicate the message just as clearly?

Since I had several written portions to this SoulPerSuit card that said what I needed to say, with or without a recognizable globe, I decided to press on with my finger painted "mistake."

"The whole creation groans and suffers... even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for the redemption of our body." Romans 8: 22-23

Pushing the fingerpaint around, writing out the things I mourn, looking up a Scripture verse to capture the fallen state of creation, and taking a step back to deliberate on how to best use my "mistake" were, for me, all a part of the discovery process. They all worked into my conversation with God. And it's all a vital part of SoulPerSuit. My SoulPerSuit card doesn't have a pristine rendition of our planet, but it definitely gave voice to my feelings and thoughts. And in that respect this card is a success.

New Church Part 2

Part 1, Part 3

The first time I wrote to you about our new church was last year in May. I think it's time for a little update on what we've been up to.

From my perspective, it didn't seem like we were making any strides. I'd envisioned us doing some sort of service in the community but we've never come together in agreement on anything. I thought that we'd find a common passion that we could explore and claim as our own like prayer or Bible study. Our membership has also dropped. I claim that's not a sign that things are going wrong but that things are going exactly right. But you tend to see affirmation in what you're doing by seeing others clamoring to join you. No one's clamoring.

I was slightly disheartened by all this until last week's meeting.

It was like any other meeting. Currently we're discussing Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. This is sort of a biography of one guys spiritual journey and ruminations. It evaluates the idea of God, faith, and responsibility from various perspectives in spiritual growth. It asks all the hard questions that our group really relishes chewing on.

Last Friday we discussed chapters nine through twelve. A couple of days later, MyGeek asked me what I thought about the discussion. As we talked about it I realized we, as a group, had come to some solid observations in that meeting. Theories or suppositions, if you will. And it wasn't the result of the one meeting but of weeks and weeks of discussion - discussions that have included Velvet Elvis, Premium Roast with Ruth, Espresso with Esther, Mocha on the Mount, and countless on-line resources. As we've considered several view points, our lives, our culture, and the Word, we're forming our own observations about church in the postmodern culture.

It's sort of thrilling to think about, really. We've got our own little think tank going on. It's like discussions that might have gone on between C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the other members of the Inklings on pub night or the students in the mountain community, L’Abri, founded by Francis Schaeffer in the 70s.

Well, sort of.

In future "New Church" posts, I'll talk more about our observations, such as:

As a group

• Everyone is involved in service.
• We are doing what we're passionate about.

Think Tank Observations:

• Church is not in one place.
• Stories are not in one person
• We are finding unusual, unexpected moments of worship
• Everyone has a story

Are you involved in a discussion group or think tank? What have you observed?

Meaning-Full Gift

Paula, who participated in our last SPS Coffee Cup study in the Book of Ruth, wrote this after making these coffee cuffs to raise money for clean water:

Between shopping for the shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child and the Samaritan's Purse catalog that sits in the basket in the bathroom, [my five-year-old] just hasn't understood why we would give toys to the kids but nothing to the moms. Wouldn't the moms and dads feel bad if they didn't get anything? If she wouldn't have held onto this idea of giving something to the whole family, I would never have followed through beyond the shoeboxes.

Last night as I sat sewing, she made tiny pictures of families to put on the backs of the cards all the while chattering away about how excited these kids are going to be to have clean water just like we do! My heart has been pricked - by the Holy Spirit moving in my daughter's life and by thinking about those moms, who are more tired than I, who really need a cool drink of water.

What I've been thinking about is that my part in the "rest of the story" is to just do the next thing. Am I willing to do my part in God's big picture when I can't see the end result. I don't know how taking care of a needy family will impact my children. I can't see if a water system will really make a difference in another family's life. Who knows if this family will ever get to hear about God because we sent money for water. But, my part is to just do my part and let God take care of my children's hearts as well as the physical and spiritual needs of another family. Ruth followed Naomi, Boaz took care of a desperate woman, I work on a simple project with my
family and send money to another family that is in need of water - living water. Today that is my role in the rest of the story.

I Am Not God

That may not come as a shock to you but it was a revelation to me today.

I began Week 4 of Premium Roast with Ruth during lunch. After reading chapters 3 and 4, Sandi asks: What details in the Book of Ruth encourage you to trust God more fully?

I had to really work through this question because, at first, I really didn't see anything encouraging.

Ruth is wonder woman! She's young, she's strong, she's healthy. There's no information about her thoughts or feelings. She doesn't appear stressed, tired, lonely, discouraged, home sick, depressed, resentful, or angry. I'm not Ruth and I don't ever foresee being like her. Who can, is what I want to know. This is not encouraging.

There are a lot of "coincidences" in Ruth. God's timing and handy work is obvious. The conflict appears to be that Naomi says she's empty. Then in four short little chapters, Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz's lives are turned happily ever after. Naomi is no longer in fear of starvation, Ruth has security, and Boaz has a hot wife. Full. But the message isn’t that things always turn out happily ever after because sometimes they just don't. Will I see a happy ending to my conflicts?

• I read one time where a woman prayed everyday for years so that a relative might be saved and they were. I haven’t prayed everyday for my father. I’ve gone through periods of discouragement and given up. Now I have guilt.
  


• I’m waiting for approval from the insurance company to have some surgery. There are dozens of factors involved. Will the approval come through and in time? If I don’t call the doctor’s office and insurance company every week it won’t move forward.

Do you see my god-complex?

It appears that not only can I save marriages and souls, but I can also speed up insurance claims!

I seem to believe that if I do the exact right thing I generate sovereign power. By doing or saying the exact right thing I can manipulate the universe to heal disease, reconcile relationships, and unite you with the Creator.

How’s this working out for me? Not so much.

So how does the Book of Ruth encourage me to trust God?

Ruth, Naomi, and Boaz didn’t try to make anything happen. They just did what was within their power to do. They loved, learned, and lived.

Today I invoke heaven and earth as a witness against you that I have set life and death, blessing and curse, before you. Therefore choose life so that you and your descendants may live! I also call on you to love the Lord your God, to obey him and be loyal to him, for he gives you life and enables you to live continually in the land the Lord promised to give to your ancestors Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. –Deuteronomy 30:19-20

God is the one with the plan. And you know what? It’s working out perfectly.

That’s encouraging.

COFFEE CUFF WINNERS!

My three prize-drawing assistants just pulled these names out of the batch:

Jenny
Heather Diane Tipton
Carla Stewart

Please E-mail me at soulpererin@yahoo.com to select your coffee cuff style and arrange shipping details.



CONGRATULATIONS!

Beginning at the Ending

Ruth 1:3–5 Sometime later Naomi’s husband Elimelech died, so she and her two sons were left alone. So her sons married Moabite women. (One was named Orpah and the other Ruth.) And they continued to live there about ten years. Then Naomi’s two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, also died. So the woman was left all alone—bereaved of her two children as well as her husband!

A friend asked me, “If you could write a novel on any subject, what would it be?” I told her I would someday love to know enough about the ancient Near East to write a fictionalized account of the life of Ruth of Moab. I’d start with her childhood in Chemosh-worshipping* territory, cover her interracial and interfaith marriage, her ten years of infertility, the loss of her husband and his relatives, her conversion, her struggles with an initially ungrateful mother-in-law, her marriage to old-guy Boaz, relations with her new ex-hooker mother-in-law (Rahab), the coronation of her great grandson, David, and her relationship with his wife, Bathsheba. But, I told my friend I’m afraid it might not have enough drama.

You don’t actually have to be an expert in ancient Near Eastern history and customs to get a handle on Ruth’s story. In Ebony Moon, Dallas Seminary professor Dr. Reg Grant reset the story in modern West Texas. When I picked up Reg’s book, I didn’t know he was telling Ruth’s story. So I read away about this family of couples, and just about the time I grew to care for all the characters, Reg killed off the father-in-law and both of his sons. I thought perhaps Reg needed some help learning to craft a novel. Nobody starts a book by having half the main characters die! What if Little Women started with Beth and Meg croaking? If "Star Wars" began with the deaths of Princess Leia and Obi-Wan Kenobi? Not a chance.

Yet about the time the sister-in-law caught a Greyhound out of town in Reg’s tale, I slapped my forehead. He’s recast the story of Ruth! I realized I’d shoved Reg into a novel-writers’ box. Sometimes good stories—the best stories—start with authors breaking the rules. The story recorded in the Book of Ruth starts with loss upon loss. Consider what we find in the first few verses of chapter one. There was a famine in the land of Judah. This couple leaves “the house of bread” (Beth-lehem) to find bread elsewhere. The irony! Imagine walking into the grocery story and finding every aisle empty. It’s hard for most in the West to imagine the fear and pain of going hungry with no prospect of a full stomach.

A man from Bethlehem in Judah went to live as a resident foreigner. How desperate would we have to be to move to another land to quell our hunger?

His two sons were Mahlon and Kilion. We may find it difficult to see the loss here until we know “Mahlon” means unhealthy or sickly and “Chilion” means puny or weakly.

Sometime later Naomi’s husband Elimelech died. Easy to see the loss there.

Her sons married Moabite women. Naomi’s sons married outside of the faith. How would you feel if that happened to you?

They continued to live there about ten years. Though Naomi waited a decade, her sickly sons never announced “You’re going to be a grandma!”

Naomi’s two sons, Mahlon and Kilion, also died. Losing spouse and children, plunging you into abject poverty? Does it get any worse than that?

T. S. Eliot, the Nobel-Prize-winning poet wrote, “The end is where we start from.” Naomi’s life looks like it has ended, for all intents and purposes. What does she have to live for? Yet if you’ve read the story you know that her ending is only her beginning. Certainly, these “ends” at the beginning of the story paint a backdrop against which to view Ruth and Naomi getting a new start. And by chapter four we have a happy ending.

What difficulties are you or your loved ones facing? What heartbreak haunts you? It may look as if all hope is lost, as though God has abandoned you, like the Almighty One has plotted to ruin you. Yet with God such hopeless-looking circumstances can mark the start of beginnings that are far beyond what we can imagine.

Can you trust that what looks to you like an ending may be the beginning of something great?

*Chemosh: god of the Moabites.

Excerpted from Premium Roast with Ruth, by Sandra Glahn. Used by permission of AMG Publishers, © June 2007. All rights to this material are reserved.

Giveaway: Coffee Cuffs

Christmas Coffee, EuroChic, Raspberry Ice

We at SoulPerSuit like to give away a little something every once in a while to kick off a new on-line Bible Study group. I missed our group kick-off for Premium Roast with Ruth, and now we're halfway through an interesting look at Ruth, Boaz and Naomi, but I'm here and ready to gift you faithful blog readers and SoulPerSuiters.

Above, you will see one of the projects that has kept my fingers busy and out of trouble all summer long. Welcome to my creative outlet... coffee cuffs.

Of course, you are automatically thinking to yourself, "Hey, those coffee cuffs remind me of the Sandra Glahn Bible Study series that SoulPerSuit uses in their on-line groups- the Coffee Cup Series." Coffee cuff. Coffee cup. You're automatically thinking it. Like automatic drip coffee.

This is your opportunity to win yourself (or someone you love- Christmas is coming up ya know) one of said coffee cuffs. If you don't like coffee, think of these as herbal tea cozies, or hot chocolate snugglies. Any cup of piping hot steaminess would taste soooo much more chic and fun with one of these. And, they're also a perfect compliment to Sandi's great books.

We'll have THREE winners on this one. And (bonus) each of the winners will get to choose from the following cuff styles:
-Christmas Coffee: I made this from some 1970's era Christmas fabric my mom gave me. Santas, holly, wreaths, bells... Paired with gold thread and accenting green fabric.
-Euro-chic: Black and white. High contrast. Citified and sleek. Sometimes there's a touch of pink, sometimes it's just ebony and ivory. Each cuff in this series has some kind of cool action up around the top- fancy yarn, beading, some kind of little touch that just screams "STYLE."
-Raspberry Ice: I took the scraps of raspberry colored snowflake fabric (which I fell in love with and used to make my daughter's Christmas stocking 7 years ago) and worked all the other fabrics around the raspberry color. Light blue flannel from a baby blanket, blue gingham my grandmother gave me before she passed away, kitchen curtains from the 40's. These cuffs are cozy and homey. I love 'em.


All you have to do to win one is this: leave a comment describing your perfect cold weather drink. What nectar of the gods will you be wrapping this cuff around, should you win?

My own Ruth, Naomi and Orpah will draw three names and we'll post the winners here on 10/22. That's one week. Tell your friends. Or... don't tell 'em. More coffee cuffs for you. ;)

Mechanic Man

This just in... for the men out there, and for the women that have men in their lives, I also have these Mechanic Man coffee cuffs to choose from. (Don't let all the girl-yness above to scare you off.)
These cuffs are made with black denim and a complimenting red, gray and black swoosh fabric. Looks like someone squealed their tires all over the thing. And it reverses to a completely jet black cuff for no nosense. No beads on these tough guys, just a cool ragged edge all the way around. Because, of course, that's what happens when race cars squeal their tires all over something. If you have- or are related to- testosterone, enter this giveaway.

*For the record, I'm a Mocha lover.

More Ruth Resources

As our online discussion/art group gets going in the Book of Ruth, we continue to accumulate a wealth of resources that tap into both sides of the brain. Here are some faves:

Bible.org has wonderful textual notes on Ruth.

Heather Goodman has written a nice, brainy Literary Analysis of the Book of Ruth.

InterVarsity has an interesting online Bible study in the book.

Dr. Tom Constable, prof at Dallas Seminary, freely provides his notes (.pdf) on The Book of Ruth.

For online searches of biblical art, follow this link: Biblical art. You can view Naomi and Her Daughter-in-Law by Gustave Doré, and Rembrandt's Boaz and Ruth.

Select The Story of Ruth (1960) with Gregory Peck for your Netflix queue. And read this review of it.

If you're into animation, try this version: Animated story of Ruth (1966)

Or to read the Book of Ruth placed in a modern setting read Dr. Reg Grant's Ebony Moon.

A self-described unobservant Jewish man/writer for Slate blogs as he reads the Bible. Here's the link to what he said about the Book of Ruth.

Or listen instead of read, when you check out the audio book of Ruth.

What are your favorite resources? Any others we should add?

Ruth Resources

Our on-line group begins studying Premium Roast with Ruth this week. In Week 1 we look at the history of two nations: Israel, Naomi's nationality and Moab, Ruth's nationality.

In studying Week 1 I was drawn to visuals. I wanted to see maps, time lines and genealogies so that I could put everything in context. It's just the way I think. I like to know how far apart the cities are, how everyone is related and when it all happened in reference to other events in the Bible.

If this is the way you study or you think these things might be helpful, I have provided links to what I found below. You can also find these same links in the right hand column on each of the Ruth pages on the web site. *Respect Copyright.

• Maps - PreceptAustin.org is a site FULL of Bible study resources. The map I found most useful for this study is here.


• Genealogy - Jim Belote, cultural anthropologist, put together a great genealogy of the Old Testament. You may just want to bookmark this link because the chart is about 43" long.


• One page genealogy - To insert in your books, I put together a one page PDF of the genealogy from Noah to Solomon.


• Timeline - Available on WordSight.org, this is a textual time line from Genesis to Revelation. Bookmark this page and use it to search for specific events and/or people in your browser using "Find in this Page..." under the "Edit" option.


• Color Timeline - SundaySchoolResources has a great color coded time line. You can reference it on-line or send e-mail to request a PDF print version for free.

You will notice that an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper, folded in half, fits perfectly in the back of the Coffee Cup Bible Study books. Use permanent or temporary adhesive to adhere 1/2 of a folded sheet to the inside back cover to keep from losing it. You could also glue a pocket or envelope (A-7 fits perfectly) on the back cover if you want to keep several resources and your SPS art cards in your study book.

*Always remember to respect copyright. These folks are freely making available the fruits of their hard work. You may print this information for your personal use or link to it from your web sites and blogs but don't redistribute it as your own, sell it, or copy it in part or in whole onto your web site or blog.

Ready to Talk about Ruth?

September 19 marks the last day to register for the Yahoo discussion group for Premium Roast with Ruth. Click on the purple box to the right to get yourself registered before it's too late.

Premium Roast with Ruth

We've scheduled our next SoulPerSuit using Premium Roast with Ruth.

We'll have Shuffle the Deck, Group Discussion questions and Play Your Hand questions all on the web site. You will need to purchase the book (from Amazon, from CBD), though, to do the study because it will not be on the web site like Esther was. You'll need to get your books by Sept 23 to get started with the on-line group but, of course, you can jump in whenever you can.

Sept 9 Registration begins for Yahoo Groups.
Sept 19 Registration closes for the Yahoo Groups.
Sept 23 Discussion begins on Yahoo Groups.

On Sept 9 there will be links here and on the web site to join the Yahoo group. The web site will also be updated with the schedule for the study.

Stay tuned.

The Invisible Star

If you're a female, when you were a child, did you ever spin around in a long dress pretending to be Cinderella? Perhaps you watched Cinderella on TV or video. Was it a cartoon version? Maybe a parent or sibling read it to you. Or perhaps you saw Rogers and Hammerstein’s 1965 production starring Lesley Ann Warren. Maybe you watched the 1997 show with Brandy, Paola Montalban, and Whitney Houston. If you’re a big Cinderella fan, perhaps you saw and read all of these and more.

What about My Fair Lady—did you ever imitate Eliza Dolittle singing about the rain in Spain (or the rine in spine)? Did you mentally protest against Henry Higgins when he asked “Why can’t a woman be more like a man?”?

Many cultures have their rags-to-riches stories like Cinderella and My Fair Lady. The details differ, but the general plotline is the same: a poor, plain girl of questionable pedigree rises from poverty to become rich and beautiful, perhaps even the queen of a vast empire.

The Book of Esther is like a Hebrew Cinderella story. Yet some significant differences set this drama apart from fictional stories such as those mentioned above. For one thing, Esther’s story actually happened. The book begins with the same Hebrew word (“wyhy”) that introduces the historical books of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, Ezekiel, and Jonah. We are supposed to read Esther as fact, not fancy.

Another key difference is that in Esther, the villain (Haman) is far worse than any evil stepmother or chauvinistic linguistics coach. Haman is out to commit genocide, and the king approves his plan without hesitation.

Yet there’s an even more significant difference: the main character in this Cinderella story is someone other than the woman at the center of the drama. In fact this story’s main character is never explicitly mentioned by name, nor does He appear. An accurate Playbill for this drama would have to have an empty space next to the photo of the one playing the lead. He is invisible, yet we trace His hand through every turn in the plot as the seeming coincidences add up.

William Temple, the ninety-eighth archbishop of Canterbury, was known to have said, “When I pray, coincidences happen; and when I don’t pray, they don’t happen.” The author of the Book of Esther stacks together a long string of “coincidences,” while never mentioning anything religious such as the temple, prayer, or even God’s name. Yet readers without being told know better than to think all the events in the book merely happened due to chance. We are left instead with one conclusion: The only way all these “coincidences” could have happened is if God directed every last detail.

Consider some of the “coincidences” in Esther’s story:

. The king wants his wife to appear, which just happens to set in motion events that will lead to the survival of an entire people group.
. The queen refuses, which just happens to provide the opportunity for Esther to become queen.
. Esther just happens to be beautiful enough to enter (and win) the king’s beauty contest.
. Esther just happens to be received favorably, both by the eunuch over the harem and by the king himself.
. Mordecai just happens to be in a position in the palace that allows him both access to Esther and to overhear a plot to kill the king.
. Mordecai’s revelation of the plot is recorded in the king’s annals (which just happen to be read on the most opportune night some years later).
. The dice or “lots” thrown to determine when the Jews are to be killed just happen to indicate the twelfth month, allowing eleven months for the Jews to seek a means of deliverance.
. Esther’s unexplained delay in having a second banquet just happens to allow the king a chance to have the insomnia that will motivate him to listen to his chronicles.
. The section read to him just happens to be the part about how Mordecai saved his life.
. Haman just happens to arrive at the palace with Mordecai on his mind at the very moment when the king is thinking about how to honor Mordecai.
. The very “gallows” (or pole) Haman installed for having Mordecai impaled (they would “spike” people after killing them) just happens to be the means of Haman’s own destruction.
. The king’s entry into Esther’s room at the exact moment when Haman falls on her couch just happens to make him misinterpret events, resulting in Haman’s death.
. Not one Jew is listed as killed while 75,800 of their enemies just happen to be destroyed—on the very day when the Jews were to face destruction.

This Cinderella story has ramifications that far exceed an “if the shoe fits” scenario. Much more is at stake than a glass slipper and love that ends “happily ever after.” Ultimately, Esther just happens to be in the right place at the right time and of the right nationality to intervene for hundreds of thousands if not millions of people and save them from certain genocide. God uses Esther to make a way, to keep His promise, to triumph over evil in one grand reversal.

And He is still sovereign over every event of our lives today.


Excerpted from Espresso with Esther.

Esther, Part One

Tonight I was searching the web for Esther-related things and found this cartoon. It's almost as old as I am!

Announcements: Ta Da!

First things first: The winners of Erin's...what's that? Yes, I said winners. Plural. Yes. Erin got generous and made two sets. Okay, as I was saying, the winners of Erin's two SPS kits are patricia a. boutilier and Kellyn. All taxes are the responsibility of the winners. Void where prohibited. Tax, title and license extra. If the winners will email their snail addresses to sglahn at aspire2.com, Erin will get your stuff in the mail pronto. Thanks, everyone, for participating!

Today marks the official start of the online study in the Book of Esther. If you didn't sign up for the Yahoo group discussion, it's too late for this go-round. But you can follow along with us anyway starting Sunday. Here's how. The instructions for the week begin here or by going to http://www.soulpersuit.com/ and hunting down the Esther study, week one. If you do the artsy assignment for Sunday, feel free to email a .pdf to the email address cleverly disguised above, and we'll get it posted to the SPS site for others to enjoy.

We always love hearing from you, so thanks to all who posted comments.