Via Creativa: No Place Like Home
You can bring home the bacon till the cows come home because a man’s home is his castle, which may be nothing to write home about unless you go home for the holidays. And though you can never really go home again, you can feel at home or even make yourself at home. Be it ever so humble, of course, there’s no place like home; and we all know that it takes a lot of living in a house to make it home because home is where the heart is.
You’ve got your home base, home plate and home cooking. You can have a home office, a home game or an advantage in playing on your home field. You can clean your home, furnish your home, decorate your home, open your home, fumigate your home, trash your home or even sell your home (unless it’s 2008). And we all know that there are plenty of times when the lights are on, but nobody’s at home.
Home - like everything else according to Senor Einstein - is relative. Home might be where you lived as a child. It might be your first apartment when you leave the nest. It could be the place you and your lover set up shop. Home might be birthplace or the place you’ve lived the longest. In whatever form it takes, home usually involves a bed and a kitchen of some sort close by: a place to lie down and a place to chow down.
Seldom do college dormitories get called “home.” You may have a bed; but microwaves do not a kitchen make; and every dorm dweller knows that their residence and roommates are fleeting. (Though some don’t fleet as quickly as you’d like them to.) Likewise, restaurants, diners, fast-food emporiums and truck stops rarely are called “home.” Home requires both: a place to snooze-and-snore along with a place to gobble-and-gorge.
But home, as we well know, is not necessarily a place. There are homes that cannot be located with a GPS. You can feel at home by a mountain stream, on a beach or almost anywhere with a good friend. You can feel at home with a good book, a piece of art, a moonlit night. A dinner with good friends around the table can be home; and just the right song at just the right time can bring you home. Again and again, when people walk into a JUBILEE! celebration, we hear them say, “I feel like I’ve come home.”
But it all boils down to two things: Home is where you find rest. Home is where you are fed. The relaxation that comes at home can be physical, emotional, mental, spiritual or any combination. You know you’ve been home when you go away feeling somehow refreshed – somehow more awake and alive. Likewise, with the food: home slaps a feed-bag around your sweet neck - the neck of your emotions, your brain, your spirit, your body and allows you to munch and slurp to your heart’s content.
Which is finally, of course, the toast that home offers each time you show up. Picture Home (in whatever form you find Her) lifting a toast to you as you walk in, saying, “To your heart’s content!” One way to find your way home, of course, is to offer home to another. Love does that of course. Simple love. Simple acceptance. When it comes to home – like love and acceptance - lavish is not the operating word. The most uncomplicated, undemanding and unpretentious acts of kindness and love can offer food and rest like nothing else – can turn a sense of coming unglued to a feeling of coming home.
We’re all, of course, trying to find our way home. Bumbling and stumbling, we want to feel at home in this body – in this life – on this planet. We want to feel fed and rested. So, it doesn’t hurt to remember that home can be anywhere at any time; and that one of the best ways to get yourself home is to offer a little love and acceptance.
One way or the other, you’ve gotta admit, there’s no place like it.
- Howard
Sunday Celebrations at Jubilee!
VIA CREATIVA: NO PLACE LIKE HOME
January 11, 2009: “Where Delight Is”
Isaiah 42: 1-7
…my chosen in whom my soul delights…
Matthew 3: 13-17
He saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
Celebration Leader: Howard Hanger
VIA CREATIVA: NO PLACE LIKE HOME
January 18, 2009: “Where You Know Your Name”
Isaiah 49: 1-6
While I was in my mother’s womb, God named me.
John 1: 35-42
What are you looking for?... Come and see.
Celebration Leader: Howard Hanger
VIA CREATIVA: NO PLACE LIKE HOME
January 25, 2009: “Where You See the Big Picture”
Isaiah 9: 2-4
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.
Matthew 4: 12-17
The kingdom of heaven has come near.
Celebration Leader: Paul Muller & Genevieve Hanger Fortuna Questions about calendar? Call 252-5335 or go to: Calendar
Giving Is an Opportunity for Spiritual Growth - If you have not had an opportunity to turn in your Commitment Card indicating your desire to support the ministries of Jubilee! Community in 2009 with your time and with your dollars, today would be a good day. Don’t have a card? We have extras in the Hospitality Room and on the Communion Table.
Here’s where we stand. As of last Sunday, December 28th, we have received 247 pledges totaling $280,000. This is about 20 pledges and $10,000 less than last year. We set our budget and how much we can share with people in need based on these commitment cards. If you can help us, please fill out a card and place it in the offering basket on a Sunday morning by January 11, 2009.
The B.E.A.R. Closet Is In Need - B.E.A.R stands for Baby Equipment and Resource Closet and is a ministry that loans baby equipment and provides resources to those in our community who are in need. The closet needs “gently used” cribs and mattresses, strollers, high chairs, cups, bottles, diaper bags, swings and clothing (Infant to 6 years). The also need NEW car/booster seats, newborn kits and batteries of all sizes. As you begin the new year and are cleaning out your closets, think of donating to the B.E.A.R. Closet. The project is sponsored by the Snow Hill United Methodist Church located at 84 Snow Hill Church Road in Candler. During the month of January, we will have a box in the Entry Area at Jubilee! where you can leave items.
RAW -- Let's Talk About Drugs - JacKie Bowman will be facilitating a 3-session workshop on drugs for teens—brain effects, behavioral impact, and making healthy choices. Addiction and the Human Brain, published by Human Relations Media, is specifically geared to teens and was recommended by a local drug abuse counselor. Sundays January 18, 25, and February 1 from 12:30 to 2 pm in the Creation Room. Snacks will be provided. Teens ages 13 to 18 are invited. Please plan to attend all three sessions. Contact Vicki (nurturecoor@ jubileecommunity.org) or JacKie (myfriendjackie@yahoo.com) with questions or to register.
Foundations for Meditation Series - In our human experience, we each reside in two worlds – an outer world and an inner world. As we learn to find stillness in the inner world, we find peace, stability and joy, even as the outer world spins around us. A meditation practice is the vessel for the journey to uncover these gifts. Starting or continuing a meditation practice often requires support. The “Foundation for Meditation” series will introduce techniques that lay the ground work to ease us into stillness. Students will learn gentle movement exercises to help us ground, time honored relaxation techniques to help us unwind and specific breathing techniques to help us focus. Each class will end with simple meditation techniques that will be easy to incorporate into daily life. This five-week series of classes will be held on Tuesday evenings starting on January 13 from 6 to 7 pm here at Jubilee! The cost is $65 and scholarships are available. Contact Jackie Dobrinska at jldobrinska@yahoo.com to sign up. This series is brought to you by the Spiritual Journey Team.
Relationship Repair: Self Accountability and Responsibility - The Jubilee! Spiritual Journey Team is pleased to offer a workshop by Pripo Teplitsky entitled “Relationship Repair: Self Accountability and Responsibility.” Pripo is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Asheville, specializing in relationship issues. This workshop will focus on learning and practicing new skills of connection in order to feel empowered when moments of repair are needed with your partner and other people in your life. The workshop will be held at Jubilee! from 6 pm to 9 pm on Thursday January 15th. It is open to individuals, couples and family members. The cost is $20 per person or $35 per couple to be collected at the door. No registration is required, and you may call Pripo at 687-6571 for further information. Pripo will be offering relationship workshops every other month throughout 2009 at Jubilee! focusing on different relationship topics.
Selected as “Best of New York” by the New York Magazine...Gustafer Yellowgold Makes Asheville Debut - The critically acclaimed multimedia “musical moving book GUSTAFER YELLOWGOLD’S SHOW,” makes its Asheville debut in a performance for all ages at 3 pm on Sunday, January 18th at Jubilee!
Brainchild of illustrator/songwriter/performer Morgan Taylor (named “Best Kids’ Performer” in its 2008 “Best of New York” issue by New York Magazine), Gustafer Yellowgold concerts are a one-of-a-kind blend of live music and moving image, projected in vivid color onto a large screen. The minimally animated illustrations are accompanied by Taylor’s catchy and original story-songs, for a truly different multimedia experience that entrances children and adults alike. The show will introduce Asheville audiences to such Gustafer classics as I’m from the Sun and Pterodactyl Tuxedo, as well as offering a sneak peek at new songs from the upcoming DVD/CD set, Gustafer Yellowgold’s Mellow Fever.
Tickets for folks ages 3 years and up are $6 each at the door.
And on Saturday, January 17 from 10 am to 11 am a Gustafer Yellowgold cartooning workshop with cartoonist, illustrator and musician Morgan Taylor will be offered. This event is free to the public, but is limited to 10 children ages 7 to 12 years. Both of these events are brought to you by the Jubilee! Arts Team. For more information or to sign up for the Saturday workshop, contact Tim Arem at tbonerun@hotmail.com.
$7200 and Still Counting - The 2008 Jubilee! Talent Project has multiplied $1,000 to $7,200 and not all the money is in. What a great return on our investment! By the time you read this Vision, all the money that we have received will be shared with three different helping agencies who provide heating assistance of all kinds. The agencies are the Swannanoa Valley Christian Ministries, the Eblen Foundation and the “Furnace Repair Fund” of Mountain Housing Opportunities. Thank you for all you do.
Soup Supplies! - Soup on Sunday proceeds provide major financial support for the summer trips taken by our middle-schoolers and teens. We could use a few supplies to make our events even better.
1) Sharp Knives—that can actually cut. If it can't cut a carrot, we don't want it. We've got plenty of those.
2) Jars (with or without lids) -Given up on that canning project? We'll take the jars (and lids if you have them) to store leftover soup.
3) Crock Pots - Got an unused crock pot from your first marriage? We'd be happy to give it a new home. Thanks for your help! Vicki (nurturecoor@ jubileecommunity.org)
Jubilee! 101 - Do you have questions about Jubilee!? Then attend Jubilee! 101— a Q & A session about our community. Bring your questions for a “Cliff Notes” event on Jubilee!’s history & structure, plus a brief overview of Creation Centered Spirituality, Teams and how to get more involved. Join us on Sunday, January 25 from 12:30 to 2:30 pm. A light lunch will be available for a charge of $5 per person. Sign up at the Welcome Table in our Entry Area.
What a Benefit! - The “Heat Is On” benefit was a great success, raising almost $1800 for our heating assistance fund. We want to express our appreciation to the “coordinating team” who put the event together. The team included Paula Hanke, Kent Joines, Joan D’Entremont, Al Schlimm, James and Patti Vandenberg, Tracy Munn and Susie Davis.
In the Gallery…The artwork of Sherry Berman is featured in the Hospitality Room Gallery during the month of January. Sherry writes, “I worked as a textile designer in my native Manhattan, New York for a number of years. Then as a massage therapist in Florida. Three years ago I came to Asheville to devote the rest of my life to art. When I start a drawing I do not plan it, but let it reveal itself. The result is expressive and personal, both for me and the viewer. What interests me is form—composition, color, content, and technique. I work in a variety of media. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as it’s the right color and provides the line I want. The finished piece is always a surprise. It keeps me spontaneous and alive. Please come, look and enjoy.”
Looking for a Job?- Be a part of the 2010 Census Team. You can earn from $9 to $12 per hour, work flexible hours, receive paid training and be reimbursed for authorized mileage and expenses. Positions include census taker, crew leader, crew leader assistant, census clerk and recruiting assistant. Call 1-866-861-2010 for more information. You will need to take a test and apply for a position. Locally, you may contact James Sheeler for more details. Email him at sheeler@main.nc.us or call him at 255-8637. You may also want to pick up a brochure about the work. You will find them on the counter in the Hospitality Room.
Seeds Available - Seeds for Celebration for the Winter quarter, the Via Creativa, are now available on the counter in the Hospitality Room. The theme for the quarter is “No Place Like Home.” The Seeds will tell you everything you might want to know about each of our celebrations for the next 12 weeks. And, if you have a song, story, poem or dance you might want to contribute, be sure to check out the seeds to see which Sunday would work the best. Call Howard ASAP.
Winter Project - Want a winter project that will keep you cozy during the long winter nights? Participate in the “Knit for Kids” project. Easy patterns/samples of sweaters for children will be available in the Hospitality Room on Sunday, January 11th between the celebrations. Over 500,000 sweaters have be made with love and sent to children across the world who are in need. If you have any questions or need more information, call Carol Greenspan.
Compassion Needed
The following persons need your compassion. Maybe prayers, phone calls, or ? Use your imagination!
Jubilant Becky Polonsky’s brother-in-law, Tom, died from a blood clot late last month. Tom is survived by his wife and two children who live in Winston-Salem.
Three year old Shayla Garrett and her family are in Chapel Hill for surgery. Jennifer says, “Shayla has come through her surgery with flying colors! The doctor says that they were able to remove all of the tumor and that although they did take the lymph nodes, the kidney was saved. All in all, the doctors are saying the operation was a huge success.”
Angels Explained By Children
I only know the names of two angels, Hark and Harold. - Gregory, 5
Everybody's got it all wrong. Angels don't wear halos anymore. I forget why, but scientists are working on it. - Olive, 9
It's not easy to become an angel! First, you die. Then you go to Heaven, and then there's still the flight training to go through. And then you got to agree to wear those angel clothes. - Matthew, 9
Angels work for God and watch over kids when God has to go do something else.—Mitchell, 7
My guardian angel helps me with math, but he's not much good for science. - Henry, 8
Angels don't eat, but they drink milk from Holy Cows! - Jack, 6
Angels talk all the way while they're flying you up to heaven. The main subject is where you went wrong before you got dead. - Daniel, 9
Angels have a lot to do and they keep very busy. If you lose a tooth, an angel comes in through your window and leaves money under your pillow. Then when it gets cold, angels go south for the winter. —Sara, 6
|
