Man-Made Music, September Edition

Yes, I have remained faithful to my blogger-promise and now offer Part Deux of man-made music. I'm trying to stretch myself a bit in this hobby of mine, so please bear with me in my experimentation, and please feel free to offer your thoughts or critique. I really enjoy writing music but don't have much at stake in it (album sales aren't really an issue), so I won't be offended by disapproval, dislike, or honest criticism. I also won't be angry if you'd rather just listen to the homemade song and not comment at all (though it will certainly make me feel less special).

Here are the lyrics.

Poros and Penia

I still have the night

When you stood in the door and lingered

And both of us seemed right

When you opened up your eyes

I still have your stare

When I looked in your heart

And we both knew from the start

That both of us were wrong about something

And one of us knew but wouldn't say

That he stood on the stairs

As I reached for your hands

He watched and he waited

And love is all you wanted

To forget when pleasure showed his face

And you turned and walked your other way

And distance offered empty space

I still have the night

When you stood on the stairs and lingered

And both of us were right

About standing still in want about something

And, oh, the words in your mouth

Were lying in the folds of your dress

And waiting for the winds of the evening

To blow them away

or breathe into me

And only one of us knew

That he waited in your room

To guide you to your tomb

And show you how to cover up something

And show you love was only for something

And love is all you wanted

To forget when pleasure showed his face

And he laughed and let down your hair

Took off your clothes and dressed you in disgrace

And love is all you wanted

To forget when pleasure showed his face

And you laughed when he let down your hair

And distance offered empty space

Note: I decided on Poros and Penia because they were, as Socrates is told in Plato's Symposium, the parents of Love. The former is representative of abundance, the latter of need or poverty. The song isn't about the story from Plato, but the idea of Love having such parentage is what I'm trying to get at.

Ellie sings the ABC's....sort of

August Happenings...

1.) Some new decorations in our NEW apartment!

2.) Ellie has learned to smile and say, "cheese"

3.) Ellie in an outfit from Aunt Karen (with "dada's" shoe):

4.) An older grandma Merrilee outfit:

5.) New Grandma Merrilee outfits (and playing with her new train and train-book):

6.) Dada being creative:

Thank-you Grandma Merrilee and Grandpa Steve!

This is a video for Grandma Merrilee. Thank-you for the clothes and Thomas the Train stuff! Ellie loves it! :)

Man-made Music

Amazingly, I think this is the first time I (Joey) have posted on our Blogger blog! It seems one of us is more responsible when it comes to keeping in touch... Anyway, I was going to title this entry Monthly Music, but Kim laughed at me and told me it was a silly idea because I would never follow through with it. I was planning on writing that I would try to write and post a song once a month this year for your listening enjoyment and because writing music is selfishly therapeutic for me. But Kim's probably right, so I'll just post one song now and then maybe one or two more some time in the distant future. I can't figure out how to just upload a song, so I made a video (sneaky sneaky) with a picture of a cloister in Norwich, England, where we visited with Jesse and Kelly. Also, I recorded this on the wonderful Mac software of GarageBand (which I actually really love), so apologies for the rough recording (and the occasionally flat and/or weird backup vocals).

The lyrics, as requested by Mom:

In dawns and breeze

and summer streams

We wake our means

We shake our dreams

In moons and leaves

and fallen trees

We rest our heads

We make our beds

And down the sun will go

and east the wind will blow

and streams will flow toward

the ocean indistinguishable

We drown, we drown

It's hope, belief

It's fantasy

You lift your head

As moons turn red

And death, she's free

and broken knees

Will fill like trees

Will tumble like leaves

We walk down her streets unseen

We feign invincibility

And laugh out loud as if we'd

never know her crushing defeats

We drown, we drown

I plead for relief

In death is peace

My God is inextinguishable

My heart stops beating

And down the sun will go

and east the wind will blow

and streams will flow toward

the ocean indistinguishable

We drown, we drown

And down my sun will go

and east my wind will blow

and streams will flow toward

my ocean indistinguishable

I drown, I drown

In other news, things are going well for us. I'm just winding up with my summer classes and getting mentally ready to get back into the swing of things with school. I'm teaching Western Civ still and am excited about Round 2! I'm also coaching 9th grade volleyball in the fall, which should be interesting considering I know next to nothing about coaching volleyball. Good thing I took a volleyball class in college!

Navajo vacation bible school-Hardrock, Arizona

Here are a few pictures from our missions trip we took as a family to Hardrock, Arizona.  We stayed on Navajo mission compound on a Navajo reservation for a week and helped run a VBS for the Navajo kids and adults.  My job was babysitter of Ellie, Gabe and another little girl, Addy (occasionally) so their parents could help run the VBS.  They were very nice to me and gave me an easy job as I am quite pregnant these days! :)

Joey was in charge of one of the adult bible studies which included about 12-15 adults between 20 and 30 years old with a few older than that.  Our pictures are somewhat sparse as the camera was in our trailer (which was air-conditioned unlike many of the other houses on the compound other workers from our church stayed at) most of the time, but hopefully you can get the idea.

Here we are on our way (our day started at 4:45am and we went to bed at about 11pm that night):

The Tao's sat across from us on the plane ride over.  We tried to keep the babies together for entertainment sake and so that screaming babies would be limited to one area! :)  Though I must say both babies did extremely well!

This is the cafeteria where we ate all of our meals:

Here are a few pictures of the compound we stayed on.  It currently acts as a church.  I believe almost everyone who works for the church lives on the compound.  This VBS we did has been run by our church from St. Louis and another church from California for about 10 years now.

The cafeteria and multi-purpose building-yes, that's a horse running through there:

The Chapel:

The compound and some of the housing:

The area surrounding the compound was pretty deserted:

This is what Ellie did most of the trip:

And this is Joey's class working on their final project:

They studied Nehemiah and this was their wall:

Joey's class also made baskets the entire week for the second half of class.  Here are some of the older women making their baskets (they're from the older adult class which was completely translated into their tribal language from English):

Here are some of the kids on the last day during lunch:

We usually had most of the afternoon off after lunch, so one afternoon the three of us took a trip across the street to the water hole.  This is where many of the Navajo who don't get running water to their homes come for water:

As you can see from Ellie's face it was extremely hot there.  Ellie and I would usually get comments that we looked sunburnt after being outside for only seconds because we both get flushed easily in the heat.

On Saturday morning at 5am Joey and some others from our church along with a few Navajo from the church went hunting! Yes, hunting...with real guns which kinda made me nervous (can you tell I'm from the city?)

We were going to go to the Grand Canyon later that day but they were experiencing record highs of 115 degrees, so we didn't end up going.  I was actually quite thankful for that! :)

And finally Sunday, bright and early again we were on our way home!

It was a great trip overall with great experiences.  I must say I was quite exhausted most of the trip, but was happy to experience a missions trip with my family.  I know Joey had an amazing time and I know Ellie loved it too!  It did take some adjusting for Ellie to not spend every waking moment with Gabe, but I think she's learning to adjust. ;)  We had a great turn-out of Navajo kids.  Many of whom our church group have gotten to know over the years because they keep coming back.  What we loved about the trip was that the relationships that we made and the conversations we had with some of these kids about Jesus will be followed up by the people that go to that church and live on the compound.  These kids come from all different backgrounds.  Some of their parents are active members in Christian churches and some of are active in Navajo traditions which includes the worship of gods other than The God.  So pray for these kids and their families!