Tis the season

After I plug in my Christmas tree lights, make some Chai Tea "Nog" and sit down on my comfy couch, I decide to check in with one of my favorite missionaries- and see how he is faring in West Africa.

It seems like when you have been removed from a situation or place, you kind of become self centered (maybe not you, but I tend to) and think that here and now is what is of dire importance. The floods we've been having, the house needing to be cleaned, shopping to do (which I have boycotted this year, fyi.) etc. But whenever I read Kerry's blog, I am ALWAYS encouraged to see how God is working. Not only does it make me thankful that I got to take part in such an insurmountable task as sharing the gospel to Muslims in Africa, but that it does not hinge upon me to continue it. (Do my Calvin-like tendancies show in that last comment?)

Anyway, I am thankful for his pictures and constant testimony of how God is working in the "jungle" and the desert in W. Africa... That there is a need to know Christ and people are leaving their comfy lives and responding to that need constantly- working in the orphanages, living amongst the people in the villages, helping give aid in aspects of sanitary wells...

We had planned a trip to Burkina for our church in April/March of this next year. However, with baby Jackson only being a few months old, it kind of put the "kabosh" on that plan. I take great solace and encouragement when I read Kerry's blog to know that even though I can't be there right now- as passionate as I am about these wonderful people, that God still works.

Christmas is not known amongst the village people and these precious people in remote places... This is the case for much of the world (as Kerry also pointed out) and I appreciate that when and if they do come to know the definition of Christmas and all the hubub surrounding it, they will know it truly. None of it will be about Wal-Mart, Snowmen that sing and dance, krinkle ribbon, santa printed Saran wrap, malls, traffic, etc... But they will know that God came into the world as a human to live amongst a world that needed Him desprately.

Visit Kerry's blog for some more Burkina Faso "news".

Peace.

Stealing Kerry's Chesterton quote:

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?
~ G.K Chesterton

Tacoma Fashion Carnival

Our friends: Martha & Aaron- aka, the genuises behind Sound Playback Productions released this great video they did of the Tacoma Fashion Carnival.

Go HERE to see it.

(Martha is amazing with the 8MM)

Paris Je T'aime (toujours)

I took this picture below from one of "mon favourite" Paris blogs- PDP(paris daily photo) where Eric posts random Paris pics for the day. I am using an older one of his- from Nov 17 during Paris' transportation strike. Looks so calm here in black and white and one bicyclist on the Place de la Concorde. Contrast to my pics below of the hustle and bustle of the traffic and commotion.


I thought of pulling out some old Paris pictures today when my friend Jaimie told me last night that she was going to rent Paris Je T'aime... she asked my thoughts on it.
Couldn't quite express my passion to her for this film. Not only does it allow me to reminisce on the specific arrondissements, but the cast (Juilette Binoche, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Steve Buscemi, Natalie Portman, Gérard Depardieu... to name a few) is exceptional in their 5 minute stories of love. Some are heartbreaking, some are so visually sweet, (think Amelie or Big Fish-esque) that I will never, never erase the emotions or images from my mind. (Dirk's favorite is the mime "skit"- and you will see what I mean about the visual sweetness)

Rent Paris Je T'aime. you won't regret it~

Flight of the Conchords

You have to admit, Flight of the Conchords can be pretty hilarious at times~

Proust Questionaire, Chaos Theory and a playpen

This time in my life is and will be like no other. The song lyric that continues to permeate through my brain is tom petty's line "The waiting is the hardest part"...
In case you are wondering what I am waiting for, it is the arrival of our baby boy- most likely to be named Reed Paul Jackson. With over a week of pre labor signs and trips to the hospital in vain, I have succumbed to the thought that I will be forever pregnant.
Of course this isn't true, but it's a much easier (pessimistically) thought to embrace rather than the opposite: "Is it now?" "Maybe this is it." "Maybe he'll be a Thanksgiving baby!"...
As we all know, Thanksgiving has come and gone, along with my hopes of expelling this child in an early fashion.

Please do not mistake my cynicism as- well, as cynicism! He'll come in due time.

In the meantime, I have enjoyed these days of quiet "knowing-ness" of my husband and I. As we both bitterly await the delivery, we also covet these peaceful mornings that we mull around. This morning we enjoyed a breakfast of freshly baked orange cinnamon rolls, d'ajou pears and wonderfully made coffee. Sitting at the "cafe" table we discussed last night's revelations of the Proust Questionnaire and the authors mentioned in it. One of them being Alain de Botton- the writer of Status Anxiety. A book that I had bought at Powell's in Portland a few years back on a "getaway" Dirk and I relished when we really had no reason to "get away"...
(Sometimes I think the place and time you buy a book are as much pivitol in the consumption of the book itself. Take my copy of the Idiot by Dostoevsky, for example. I bought it in the Left Bank, American bookstore in Paris- Shakespeare & Co. on the last day we had there. I love to flip to the back of the book and find that Shakespeare & Co. stamp)
This book refers to many mainstream "success" philosophies and contrasts them in the background of art, religion, and community. Taking Thoreau's Walden as almost the antithesis of this society's striving for the upper hand. One of the great quotes Dirk pointed out was along the lines of- "to give up pretentions is every bit as gratifying as to receive them..." meaning that we strive for THINGS far too much, but to not have them at all is far more beneficial... to want what you have, and have what you want...etc.

I could write much more about the books we've consumed and theories we've discussed (Chaos, Butterfly, String, Synchronicity...) in reminiscence of Dirk's college psychology days at Western... but that might bore you. We're going to walk down by the marina and possibly scour the library bookshelves for a few morsels of goodness. ( I hate the word morsel, by the way)

I Heart Harper's

Some little tidbits from an old Harper's Index:

-Percentage of Americans who cannot say in which
year the September 11 attacks occurred:

30

-Average number of books written by each French
president since World War II:

8

-Average by U.S. presidents: 4

-Number written by Jimmy Carter:
20

-Number of congressional resolutions proposed
since 1989 that have contained the word "delicious":

5

Some little bits from the back page- "Findings":

Chinese scientists were attempting to grow cosmically enhanced fruits and vegetables, and people who eat large quantities of cured meats were found to have a 3 percent reduction of lung function. An Israeli study found that women are more easily impregnated if they are amused. Scientists concluded that teenagers are physically incapable of being considerate; British cattle have regional accents; elephants mourn their dead; and nicotine sobers drunk rats.

For recent news- a must read?

Their Men in Washington: Undercover With D.C.'s Lobbyists for Hire

by Ken Silverstein.....

he "Punk'ed" some of the top Lobbyists in Washington

If you don't feel like forking over $7 for a copy of July issue of Harper's:

Look for NPR's recorded "Talk Of The Nation"- hosting Ken Silverstein,

Go to his blog http://harpers.org/subjects/WashingtonBabylon

or maybe try and "youtube" the PBS special:

(http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06222007/profile2.html)

I guarantee, it offers up some interesting points of how our media, policies and overall emotion is manipulated by some of these guys...

Today is not Friday

Friday usually seems to be the day that things wind down, we all take a deep breath and welcome the weekend with open arms- letting the anxiety of the week pass over our heads and duck into the "weekend mode" for a few days... However it seems rather impossible to do that, as this morning, I feel the constant tugg (I like two 'g's for that word right now) of nauseating morning sickness- I have been bombarded with a stream of rather surprising items of news... News dealing with life and death, as I sit here blurry-eyed at my desk, begging the workday to fly by.

On a "must read now" myspace email, I hear the news that a close friend of the family attempted suicide last night. This jolted me in my sip of tea as I tried to make sense of this...
Another close friend welcomed their new baby into the world on Tuesday morning- announcing the news on Grit City- Tacoma's News Tribune Blog. (the father is a writer for that blog, and the mother is an editor of the TNT).
Lastly, I hear news in a relatively light email from my "Janet" (technically my step-grandmother, but she is way to close to us to call "step" and also way to young and vivacious to call "grandma"...) to thank us for attending her retirement party last weekend. And "oh, by the way", your Papa has Prostate Cancer and will begin surgery soon @ Swedish... The Cape Cod visit has been put on hold until this is "taken care of".

I can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of- ???? give me all of the emotions in the book and I could tell you I feel them all, but also feel none of them. Not to get all extetential on you, but I am just left with almost a feeling of apathy. Maybe it is due to weeks of mood swings and extreme emotion- and now to come down and hear this news, I feel a jolt to my core, but what is left lingering is ___. In anticipation of meeting with one of my friends later (I have cut my social life down to almost nil..) I wonder if I will act "upbeat and lively"- to put away my cynical and depressed duldrum. It is sometimes hard to be transparent with someone who is far from understanding what you are currently going through.

I was about to apologize for this depressing blog, but I thought better of it.

I was made for Paris

Thank goodness I am happily married to the love of my life... Otherwise I would think this gaping hole inside of me was left to be filled by a man. I love God, so that couldn't be it. No- this "something is missing hole" is the long lost love of Paris. It has been instilled in my heart ever since I was a child, with my grandma's French Vouge magazines that I would pour over at my dollhood childish stage. My dolls were to be named with french accents and observers were strongly chastized when they dared call her Chrisina in a bland american tone. It was silly to think that my five day bout in Paris would quelch or sustain my love- to return to the states and go happily on, as I live my life and they live theirs. No, my admiration and appreciation has only grown. Random pictures of the Eiffel seem trite and cliche. The hidden streets leading to the Sacre Coeur in Montmartre are left to be discovered and relished for those who have been, or those who have watched Amelie. The subjects I have already taken aside to teach my child are not left with simply reading, writing & arithmatic. C'est ne pas le fin. French will be spoken, love will be abounding, life will be unhurried, art will be celebrated and we will thank the Lord in both english and in french.

Celebrating Dirk's birthday tonight, we will go to a relaxed dinner- maybe staying local or even drifting to Silverdale or Tacoma. Tomorrow, I had on the agenda to go to the relaxed, almost Cannon Beach like town of Bainbridge to sip coffee and pour over books. Me- some classics that I have been meaning to finish: Kafka, The Idiot- of which I only have 60 pages left, and maybe a little Bonhoeffer. Dirk will find some local poet- ala Billy Collins (who we had gone to a reading at the Bainbridge High School a few months ago) he will look maybe for some commentaries. The most exciting portion of our lazy Saturday will be the movie that I had also missed at the SIFF- next to La Vie En Rose, with a stacked cast, and perfect premise: Paris Je'taime... Complete with Maggie Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, Gerard Depardieu, Juliette Binoche, music by Feist- this movie is focused on brief encounters in Paris, love, and relationships.. Highlighting small, hidden areas of Paris. (One of the shorts titled: "Montmartre"!!!) I can't contain my excitement and expectation.
See the link: http://www.firstlookstudios.com/pjt/.

Here's a little fun morsel for your Friday: Feist's Mushaboom.

She Can't Stop (but apparently I can)

Here are a few shots of a somewhat recent mixed media canvas:

I got tired, so I will upload some other new paintings later~

"she can't stop"- original size (26x18)

Mixed Media 2006, Ashley Jackson

she can't stop- zoom top right


















she can't stop- zoom left

The Unrest is Relentless

It seems like redundancy, to continue hearing about Sudanese rebels, or Somailia's capital, Mogadishu racked with yet another slaughter attack.
Looking at the little ticker at the bottom of CNN, we begin to tune out reports on the ongoing situation in Iraq, Anna Nicole's autopsy, and Somalia's peacekeeping issues. Minus the nation's facination with the absurd pop star's death, these issues press on as our minds stay numbed.

After seeing films like Hotel Rwanda or Blood Diamonds- we imagine that such horrific issues are a thing of the (recent) past. We must be thankful for up-to-the-minute broadcasts, web tickers, elevator TVs, news in every venue- even the family scoping an HDTV at Best Buy can easily see the recent stories of the day. Just because these issues seem to repeat day after day, the response should never be to simply gloss over the global issues with a dismissal wave of the hand and say "That's life.." and walk away with a tsking head nod.

Sadly as it is, news stories like the one below, involving children usually halts us dead in our tracks- regardless of how war-torn their nation is currently.

BBC Report:
Sixty-six children were killed in eastern Uganda during an army operation against suspected cattle rustlers, UK charity Save the Children says.

They were shot by soldiers, run over by armoured vehicles or crushed by stampeding animals last month.
The aid group said it had not found physical evidence of the alleged deaths in Karamoja, but had consistent reports after interviewing some 200 people.
The army denied the allegations, saying only adults were killed in the raids.
Save the Children has called for an independent investigation into the events at Kaputh.
"Reports of children being killed in indiscriminate, illegal and inhumane ways is absolutely devastating. Such allegations must be fully investigated and those involved brought to account," Save the Children's Valter Tinderholt said, Reuters news agency reports.