banjos make any day brighter

the comforting and familiar taste of hot cinnamon spiced applebutter made by the people of FCoB, Over the Rhine, grocery shopping, the smell of freshly ground coffee beans, peppermint lattes, my sister walking in my back door, meghan in the Commonwealth, the way that banjo and fiddle-playing make it physically impossible to keep myself still, moms and dads swinging their kids around and around in the back of the concert hall, Old Crow Medicine Show, and watching people come alive as they play or sing or dance or just tap their toes.

dona nobis pacem

knowing someone else is awake when 3 am insomnia kicks in, beth's inappropriate etsy suggestions, the pleasure of sinking into a dense and victorian novel, pretty dresses, split pea soup with bacon, eating together, and sitting in xavier's candlelit chapel chanting songs from taize and praying for peace.

tikkun olam

walking the streets of walnut hills, fried green beans, long discussions with laura, people who spend their lives serving others, coloring sidewalks and brick buildings with chalk, playing ashka with a bunch of wild kids, rocking a crying girl, the resiliency of toddlers (even when its limits get severely tested), spending an afternoon with a couple dozen homeless kids whose bodies whirled around the jungle gym almost as fast as their emotions, ben and kristen and their loud and crazy household full of kids and dogs and life and love, and the fact that doing all this stuff and seeing all these things and being a part of all these efforts at restoring the world...is my JOB.

BVSers Ben, Anne, Katie and Laura, the Ohio River, and Kentucky.

ruach

midwestern carry-in lunches (no match for the southern potluck, but you take what you can get), long laughing conversations with Fern and Jess and Beth all within a 24 hour period, Kmrod's intense commitment to making healthcare happen, ben bear naming every strange tree along our walk up Mt. Adams, podcasted sermons full of passion and scholarship and PREACHing, and Fern E's 28 years of life.

the lord and giver of life

eating breakfast on the back porch, autumn winds rustling through bright yellow leaves, the enormous findlay market: homemade soap, local eggs, fair-trade coffee, the crush of people around the meat counters, huge bags of rice in the asian market, feta and spices in the meditteranean market...70 degree fall days, photo shoot by the river with the cincy vols, walking and talking with katie, smoothies at the top of Mt. Adams, neighborhood kids greeting us on the front porch, and diving into some pneumatology.

...and i am an abstract, primary-colored blob.

a morning coffee routine, the daily changes in the trees and leaves outside the window, a random groundhog rooting around the house while i work, walking around and around and around mirror lake in eden park, my mom filling the freezer and vacuuming the floors at my empty house, long conversations with dan - who is possibly more excited about this work than even i am, and faith journey images: ben with wings, laura as a big red ball of fire, katie in the mirror swathed in yellow light, and anne juggling all her opened and yet unopened gifts.

art! for free!

roses growing outside the window where i work, homemade buttermilk pie, crisp fall air, walking up and down cincy's hills, mummies and grave sculptures and folk art and the damascus room at the cincinnati art museum, directional signs inscribed unexpectedly on the floor, views of the city stretching out across the hills and the river, neighborhood kids baking in the kitchen, homemade mango salsa, and falling asleep at 9.