brain connections

A woman in our church recently received her second radical brain surgery to control her epileptic surgeries. She was having around 28 seizures a day, and now they are reduced to about 14 this week – huge progress. Her language abilities have been damaged, so she comprehends but it’s difficult for her to find words and form sentences in reply. Even so, her mother reports that when J sings, the language is all there. Amazing.

My friend Chelle, professor of theology at Mars Hill Graduate School, recently posted this video that explains the interconnections within the brain and touches on creativity.

We are all creatives …

You may know that through Siretona Creative, I empower women in the arts. That’s pretty specific and pretty broad at the same time. Somewhere in a box – probably in storage at my parents’ place – I have a book called God the Worker by Dorothy Sayers, in which she links our work and creativity to God’s creativity: we are made in his image, therefore we reflect his character. Even those who are “unregenerate” (i.e. not redeemed in, sanctified by, and submitted to Jesus Christ) innately reflect God’s glory in our creatureliness. Those who walk in darkness still get flashes of illumination, like lightning, once in a while.

Recently I was pondering the question again, what does it mean to be creative? And how can I facilitate other women’s creativity? Enter the Gifted For Leadership newsletter, with this month’s downloadable resource, “Creativity & Leadership.”

I leave you with a letter from a Gifted For Leadership editor:

As leaders in the church we underestimate the crucial role creativity plays in communicating God's truth. And because I often feel like the gift of creativity is confined only to the artist types among us, I fail to develop this aspect of my life.

A friend of mine once said, "There's no such thing as a 'creative' type. We are all made in God's image, the ultimate Creator. We are all creatives." If you need some help believing that, check out this week's download, Creativity and Leadership. In it, you'll find inspiration to breathe life and freshness into your ministry as well as practical tools to make it happen.

…

Also new on GiftedForLeadership.com:

• Creativity is often born out of curiosity. Read about "The Gift of Curiosity."
• Top 5 Reasons Churches End Up In Court—quick video every church leader needs to see
• "God and the News"—Kyria editor Ginger Kolbaba on how to use the Good news to combat all the bad news.
• One year Bible study track for seniors—New resources for leading older adults

Here's to imagination,
Nicole Unice
Contributing Editor, Gifted for Leadership

by the way: I got married

Colleen Taylor & Kevin McCubbin

December 30, 2010

First photo album: AH Photography.

And I’ve been blogging over here.

guiding a girl

I sat beside a young girl on Sunday morning. Her dad was teaching Sunday School and wanted her to sit in the main service, so we sat together taking notes. Her amazement at my copious writing led to a beautiful conversation, which I wrote about here.

The conversation filled me with wonder. I loved telling her dad about it later, feeling as if I was a real partner in the work of raising this child. The night before, the girl and I had been doing crafts. Crafts can be delightful bonding times, but ultimately the bonding reinforces trust that leads to conversations that really matter.

Sometimes those conversations need to happen with a woman. There is nothing like guidance and love from a devoted, attentive dad. Females need healthy input from stable men. But girls and young women also need the companionship and instruction from older women. And I'm to grateful I got to be there for one of those conversations on this week.

Sabbaths

In June I emerged from a long, dark, difficult winter. Creativity had been present, yet somewhat forced. I was waiting, hoping, grieving, and underemployed. But in June, suddenly hope became sight as I suddenly found good work that covers the bottom line and frees me in so many ways.

Steady, gainful work gives new definition to my schedule and new meaning to rest. Sundays have been particularly enjoyable as I (usually) leave the computer off and spend the day with my boyfriend, first at church then with anyone else who crosses our path. Our Sundays are like Wendell Berry's Sabbaths, which poem I discovered on my friend Chelle's teaching blog.

Sabbaths (IV)

The woods and pastures are joyous
in their abundance now
in a season of warmth and much rain.
We walk amidst foliage, amidst
song. The sheep and cattle graze
like souls in bliss (except for flies)
and lie down satisfied. Who now
can believe in winter? In winter
who could have hoped for this?

by Wendell Berry from Given (2005)

Southern Alberta's woods and pastures would be even more "joyous in their abundance" if it would stop raining long enough for the crops to ripen and the farmers to harvest them! Please God, stop the rain.

Martha Mondays: Up or Down?

Do you agree with Martha's conclusions?

Post a comment to win a copy of Notes from Over the Hill.

Draw date and winner announced next Monday.

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A source of family discord that I suspect has been around ever since the invention of indoor plumbing has come to the fore again, this time in the form of email jokes. I refer to that bone of contention, the toilet seat. Should it be up or down? Some men see no reason why it should not be left permanently up, while most women feel this is the ultimate in grossness. Both sexes seem to regard the issue as an attempt to dominate. He: “What difference does it make whether it’s up or down?” She: “If you loved me you’d put it down.” While the connection between a toilet seat and marital devotion may not be clear to a man, to a woman it is entirely logical to rate any and all behaviour in terms of how much she is loved or not loved.

Of course toilet seats should be down. I do not express this opinion out of loyalty to other women or to put down men, but rather because it is the only position that makes sense. We have come a long way since the only attempt at decor in the biffy was the crescent moon on the door. Nowadays we go to considerable expense to have everything coordinated in the modern bathroom. The soap dish, toothbrush holder, and drinking receptacle must match. The toilet paper that replaces the Eaton’s catalogue of yore must unroll from a holder that blends with the register in the floor, and the clothes hamper must not clash with the medicine cabinet. Above all, great care is given to choosing colour-coordinated shower curtains, towels, face cloths, bathmat, tank cover, and toilet lid cover.

Why go to all this trouble and then hide the elegant lid cover? It is impossible to appreciate the beauty of a colour-coordinated lid cover when the lid is up, and since the lid by its very nature is on top of the seat, there is no way it can be down if the seat is up. The whole matter thus becomes academic. This logical reasoning is an attempt on my part to end the controversy once and for all. Whether it is successful remains to be seen.

~ Notes from Over the Hill, pages 18-19

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Do you agree with Martha's conclusions?

Post a comment to win a copy of Notes from Over the Hill.

Draw date and winner announced next Monday.

______________________________________________

Martha Mondays are a weekly feature at the Siretona blog. Siretona Creative is a publishing and production company that empowers women in the arts to build community among generations and nations. Martha’s book was one of our first major projects: a collection of Martha’s articles that “offer a dose of humour and insights to ease doubts as the golden years approach” (Dr. Lynda Haverstock). Sounds pretty intergenerational to us. So we crafted it carefully, including a specially commissioned and researched typeface that would both beautiful and easy to read.

For more information about Martha’s book, visit www.marthamorgan.ca.

Order with Credit Card or PayPal

Notes from Over the Hill $16.99 Notes from Over the Hill - with shipping $21.99

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Martha Mondays: Elevators

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about elevators, but the last time I rode in one it suddenly occurred to me that nobody under the age of 50 would be likely to remember when they were not automatic but were run by real, live people. My daughter thinks she probably saw one of the last of those, with a metal grillwork door and a white-gloved operator at the controls, at the Banff Springs Hotel when she worked summers in Banff in the late 1960s.

Those doors were scary. As you stood waiting for the elevator to come, you could see through them to the empty shaft with cables dangling into the void below, and you hoped they would support the elevator while you were on it. An arrow on an overhead dial indicated its slow ascent as it rose with grunts and groans and metallic clangs of gates opening and closing at every floor. You could peer down and see the roof rising up, but arrival on your floor did not necessarily mean you could step aboard. First, the elevator had to be manoeuvred into position so that it would be level with the floor, a procedure that often required several jerky attempts, and if these were not quite successful the operator would caution: “Watch your step, please.”

In hotels and office buildings the operator was usually an old man, and in department stores a young woman who would sing out: “Second floor: housewares, bedding, towels, curtains, and yardgoods,” while manipulating levers sticking up here and there and turning a kind of wheel with a knob on it that was attached to the wall. It all looked terribly complicated to the unenlightened. I thought they must have to take an intensive training course–at least I hoped they did.

Remember the piped-in music when automatic elevators first came into use? Perhaps it was felt that we would be lonely in there without an operator. My daughter claimed she could tell elevator music from dentist office music, and elevator music was worse. Be that as it may, I’m glad I can now ride up and down in silence. Probably nobody under age 20 remembers that music either.

~ Notes from Over the Hill, pages 16-17

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Martha Mondays are feature at the Siretona blog. Siretona Creative is a publishing and production company that empowers women in the arts to build community among generations and nations. Martha’s book was one of our first major projects: a collection of Martha’s articles that “offer a dose of humour and insights to ease doubts as the golden years approach” (Dr. Lynda Haverstock). Sounds pretty intergenerational to us. So we crafted it carefully, including a specially commissioned and researched typeface that would both beautiful and easy to read.

For more information about Martha’s book, visit www.marthamorgan.ca.

Order with Credit Card or PayPal

Notes from Over the Hill $16.99 Notes from Over the Hill - with shipping $21.99

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