quantum leap day

Mine beloved! Today is a day of celebration that has been a long time coming and worth everything it's meant to get here. Nearly 3 years ago, sitting across from Uncle Bob lamenting through a last supper of sorts, Rob received a meta good butt kicking that in no uncertain terms propelled him leaps and bounds toward stepping into his calling. Oh yes it would require much of him; but so much more was on the line....his heart.

Up till now there have been many smaller steps of faith. One could trace the ripple effects and decisions back to Adam but in the realm of a reasonable timeline, you see Rob stepping onto the plane (insert baby crying nonstop to LA) destined for Master Prac in Cali (where said butt kicking took place) then enrolling in grad school, tieing the knot, nailing the practicum at N.I.P. ~ all divine movements toward this blissful day of kissing that day job goodbye! WOO HOO! IHS aka Integrated MCG Wamberg Healthcare Phynque Bardes Compensation Strategies Clark Group Inc. been bury bury good to me and will continue to make rich people richer...that's what they do and they do it well...which pretty much suffocates the life out of a heart that beats for the hurting, underprivileged, wounded and brokenhearted of this world. No more working on computer hard drives for this called out one. Arriba! Human hard drives, here he comes. Living out of your truest heart means counting the cost...and finding that you cannot afford not to any longer. "If you do what you've always done, you get what you always got." It's a new day!

For the Kingdom!

memories rock like agates

Ever since I was a little girl I’ve loved looking for agates. Back then a favorite place to search for those pretty rocks was at an office building with miles and miles (seemed like to me then) of river rock in a double perimeter around the building with an outer edge surrounding the parking lot. Thinking back now I realize those were times of really connecting with God and still are…like looking for that one precious stone and being so thankful to have my agate eyes to find such little treasures. My nephew Joey loved it when I took him to look for agates…it just slows you down and connects you at the heart. love it. Some I’ve found and polished for you to see here. With Joey when he was 4 or 5 he’d find some “pretty rock” and ask “is this an agate” and I’d say "no but it’s a very pretty rock you can keep it too!" and he did for a while; eventually when he got that response he’d toss it down like “no way” and then he got his agate eyes.

Agates are to me a metaphor of learning, searching for good things, finding beauty, layer upon layer of meaning. Often times you’ll find one you cannot see any lines but you know inside they’re there and if you crack it open or just use some grit and polish, the true beauty is revealed.

Oh Joey’s eyes when something so ordinary on the outside was nothing but extraordinary on the inside! lines and colors and crystals...he loved the hammer time too : )

Joey is 15 now … it’s been awhile since those agate days …

I have one rock, slate like, nothing special except that when Joey found it on Easter morning probably 10 years ago now, it was in two pieces already…and he gave me half and kept the other and said “hey auntie di this can be our agate hunting rock and when we can we'll put them together whenever we look for agates.” I still have that rock. *tears.of.joy*

As we continued our little journey of gathering rocks worth keeping his small voice sang “You came from heaven to earth to show the way from the earth to the cross my debt to pay from the cross to the grave from the grave to the sky Lord I lift your name on high...”

That memory rocks like an agate...or even just a pretty rock.

eenie meenie mine-y-our MEME

Guidelines:

1) share a thought-provoking dialectical idea
(i.e., tension or opposition between two interacting forces or elements)

2) comment here about mine and/or share one of your own favorite dialectics

3) then...your turn again! make up your own meme of choice on your blog

4) all inclusive tagging ~ ALL blogaholics, beaus and beauties invited AND let's call out a few called out ones still on the proverbial fence of blog. . .CALLING OUT RK JC MD DG ... you know who you are ; )

MINE

Solitude and Silence
by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community.
Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.

Definitely a terrific quote. Wherever you are, be wary of yourself.

bloggushing on... from p.77 of Life Together

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and give an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refuse to be alone you are rejecting Christ's call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called. "The challenge of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Everyone must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone . . . I will not be with you then, nor you with me" (Luther).

But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the bretheren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you. "If I die, then I am not alone in death; if I suffer they [the fellowship] suffer with me" (Luther).

We recognize, then, that only as we are within the fellowship can we be alone, and only he that is alone can live in the fellowship. Only in the fellowship do we learn to be rightly alone and only in aloneness do we learn to live rightly in fellowship. It is not as though the one preceded the other; both begin at the same time, namely, with the call of Jesus Christ.

random retelling 4.5 a piece of the puzzle

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! From: Bobby G. Bodenhamer
To: Di Kistler
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 11:10:06 AM
Subject: New Article

Di,
Well, now, I didn’t know you had a Catholic background. That gives you a unique perspective on the evangelical movement. Do you agree? Bob

From: Di Kistler
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 12:48 PM
To: Bobby G. Bodenhamer
Subject: Re: New Article

Indeed ... although Rob thinks I have a pretty limited evangelical frame of reference having been blessed to get plugged into Woodland right from the beginning of my protestant-ism.

I both appreciate my Catholic roots and have felt a little deceived by them but God works it all together for good. The only two churches I've ever really belonged to are Guardian Angels Catholic Church from about birth to 35 and then after rebirth 12/15/95 I found Woodland Hills Church which was meeting at the highschool just up from my house...so after teetering back and forth between churches, trying not to disappoint my mom and dad too abruptly, I joined Woodland Hills early in 1997 and have been there ever since.

It was cool actually, I had been attending Woodland and loving Pastor Boyd's teaching, but it was one weekend where I was debating whether to go to Guardian Angels or Woodland ... Woodland won out, and at first to my dismay Greg wasn't preaching but this other pastor was. Well....the Lord taught me that day it's about HIM and not Pastor Boyd or Pastor Jass. Pastor Jass preached about "being a piece of the puzzle" and that "you are here today because God has called you" and that sealed the deal for me : )

Blessed to be in Him!

The above was a recent e-xchange with good friend and Christian NLP author
Dr. Bobby Bodenhamer, another of the heaven on earth teachers God has so blessed me with. He has had an incredible impact on my Christian walk second only to author-pastor-friend Dr. Gregory Boyd. I'm telling you, I've hit the cosmic jackpot more than once in my life! Along with my beloved husband Rob and our equally cherished friends and pastors Kevin Callaghan, and Mike Davis, these are among God's most humble and gifted teachers, generous lovers of people, incredible men following hard after God who have, by example, been leaders worth following on a path to becoming more Christlike. And while ultimately none of this is really about them, they'd be the first to point you to Jesus, and my response is nothing less than meta amen knowing that when they see Him face to face, they will hear, well done, good and faithful one. Enter my Father's house.... and see the many lives you have touched. Well done. I am one eternally grateful soul that can truly and respectfully say you matter to Him and are mighty dangerous for good!

Hearts of Clay

THE WORD which came to Jeremiah from the Lord:
Arise and go down to the potter's house, and there I will cause you to hear My words. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold, he was working at the wheel. But the vessel he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over.

Then the word of the Lord came to me:
O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does? says the Lord.
Behold, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel. Jeremiah 18:1-6


Happy Valentine's Day to all...in the hands of a creative and recreative God!

my Valentine rocks!

the sweetest EVER!

As Rob and I sat together,

laptop and coffee in my space,

Sunday paper in his,

he rips out and hands me this...

"here ya go honey"....

and completely sweeps me off my feet all over again.

to be seen and known and loved~no stone left unturned~no stone thrown

Honey, you rock my world!

a time for carrying

please visit...a heavy burden

random retelling 11

having learned all about 8 and now connecting a few free association dots...i respectfully submit pic 11 as my first choice for a nonsequential retelling of the do bee di story. my 11+8 = ∞ comment may also seem childish but it's ok if it sounds infinitely different and equally similar. welcome to life outside the meaning matrix box.

i could start at the beginning but somehow that just doesn't always work for me. i could start at the end but i'm not there yet although that does bring me to always and above all else guard your heart~that is pretty much all i have to say about that.




now here we are. testing the waters. still. but let me back up just a little. once upon a time...in a land far far away...

just kidding. a few months ago amy and jen shared their hearts with rob and me about wanting to bring some kind of a captivating thing to mn. being all of us had been to colorado each having our own unique experiences and connections with wild at heart revolution (long story short at least for now) this was a time of straining to hear through some rough rapids (reminds me a little of marlin and dory exiting the EAC--grab some fin! here comes the swirling vortex of terror!) but suddenly there we were in calm cool waters having discovered so much and ready to listen still beside the salty turning tides. Being still and knowing a bit more of what it means to learn to be content in all circumstances and just keep listening and learning.

for a while i was....still tentative about what my involvement may be with all of this and wanting to be transparent about that. I can certainly be a resource and idea-bouncer-offer now and as long as it's helpful. Maybe I can jump in more at some point.

sometime later....you have encouraged me to take another step up toward this and it feels very good and right. God has whispered through your words a message I was hoping to hear. I am delighted to know your perspectives and it feels a little like my eyes are seeing beyond the murky waters I've been wading through under the surface. A light pierces through and beckons upward to a glimmering horizon! Recalling Seth's sermon again, to use another analogy, I'll just bask here on my raft just a while longer and soak up the rays as my sails get ready to lift and catch a fresh wind of the Spirit with you.

The wind has been blowing ever since. Through an amazing trail some distant yet kindred paths have crossed and lines of sharing openly are bridging gaps of inquiry with love, respect, humility and grace. It hints of being among those things that are larger than what we think.

Bottom line...

I've teamed up with a couple women in a ministry we are calling Rubio-Restoring Ultimate Beauty Inside Out... loosely based on Captivating and whatever else God intends for it to be for us and those whosoever will be touched through God's creative beauty. We intend to honor those who have gone before us while allowing space for whatever lay ahead with wild abandon putting no limits on God to accomplish what He desires through us.

stay tuned... (and danny i have a big favor to ask you...)

p.s. now you might be able to connect with how my wheels have been turning around a blogging reunion in mn around about August 2009...or June? May? April? October? a lot of unknowns and lots more possibilities!

a Generous meme

and the directions are:

1) Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2) Open the book to page 123.
3) Find the fifth sentence.
4) Post the next three sentences.
5) Tag five people.

Being a good little do bee I will comply with most of Nathan's rules, but since he possibly scored higher than me, we understand rules to be more like "guidelines." I'm glad we're not too picky.

"The road to the right leads west towards Naples. The third road leads south toward Key West, through the Everglades. None of the roads leads in the general direction of Los Angeles."

Apparently we are lost on a metaphorical journey west from New York to Los Angeles. What do you do? This is how Brian D. McLaren feels when offered a choice between the roads of exclusivism, universalism, inclusivism...none of which is the road of his missional calling: blessed in this life to be a blessing to everyone on earth.

Speaking earlier of not following all the rules to a T, we wouldn't want to miss the road sign on page 122 nor forget to entertain strangers along the way.

"Industrialists would realize that God cares for the sparrows and wildflowers-so their industries should respect, not rape, the environment. The homeless would be invited in for a hot meal. The kingdom of God would come--not everywhere at once, not suddenly, but gradually like a seed growing in a field, like yeast spreading in a lump of bread dough, like light spreading across the sky at dawn."

This little scenic detour brought to you by a Generous Orthodoxy.

No time to tag for now...I need to keep my eye on the road and get to work. I'll be in that vehicle flashing a virtual bumper sticker "I'd rather be blogging!"