thanksgiving chain

this year, all through the month of november, our family worked on a thanksgiving chain.  each night after dinner, each of us would write one thing we are thankful for on a small slip of paper, which we would then glue and add to the chain in our dining room.  by the end of the month it was pretty long, and even included links made by different guests we had over for dinner during the month. 

it was a great exercise in gratitude, not only for the children, but also for shannon and i.  and now it is fun to take a look back and see the different things we've been thankful for over the month, like this one, which is Jackson's.  why not be thankful for batman?  he stops such awful villains as mr. freeze, the riddler, and the wildly grotesque killer croc.  i'm thankful, too!

i particularly enjoy this one, which is caedmon's.  it says "magical pencils," and is how he says "mechanical pencils," which i suppose is something he is thankful for.  hey, might as well be grateful for the little things, you know?

shannon is thankful for laughter. 

i am thankful for hope, among other things.  and i am hopeful that even as we put away the thanksgiving chain for another year, we won't pack away the underlying necessary attitude.  we need to foster gratitude in the midst of a culture of greed in which people spray each other with pepper spray in order to get a good deal on a waffle iron which will probably end up in the back of a cupboard in a couple of months.  we are a people who are very sick with affluenza, and as much as i want my kids to have things, i also really want them to be filled with a sustaining kind of gratitude.  and it starts with me, and my own willingness to be content with the abundant life i am living.  i hope to leave that legacy for my kids.  and i'm thankful for that hope. 

8-3 (barely)

well, somehow, the steelers were able to do just enough to grind out a win on sunday night against the reeling chiefs led by backup quarterback shane falco (i mean tyler palko).   it was ugly in just about every sense of the word, and it was anything but electrifying, but it is still a win, and we still keep pace with the ravens in the division.  sometimes a team needs a loss to wake them up, but i'm thinking that this supremely ugly win might just do the trick for the steelers.  maybe, just maybe, barely winning against a hapless chiefs team will light a fire under their black and gold butts.  the season is just about to the end of the third quarter, so the final stretch is coming, and it's time to be great.  here we go, steelers!

happy thanksgiving!

we finally got caedmon's school pics back yesterday, so i thought i'd share his preschool pic (above) and jack's 1st grade pic (below).  then i felt bad that there wasn't a picture of quin, so i started playing with some photos, and, well, the rest are just for fun.  we hope you all have a blessed thanksgiving and that, along with us, you'll be intentional about making sure it isn't just about stuffing yourself, but giving yourself away in thanks. 

giving thanks: a poem of appreciating each moment

all these moments, falling by,
latent with unspoken treasure:
precious, precious.
gratitude gives me grace
to enjoy this life-rich river,
flowing by, abundant
and teeming with the limitless now
and joy and hope and
the very heartbeat of it all.

but busyness, or looking forward
and looking back, or
discontent, or longing,
or all that speaks lies into my life,
untruths of wanting or needing or uncompleteness -
all these ungraceful urges
breed forgetfulness. 
i am numb with pleasure,
over stimulated and under appreciating.
i am ungrateful. 
i am blessed but broken. 

yet even now
i am repenting for my relentless restlessness.
i am dipping my toes in the water. 
i am trying to lean in close,
to listen to the heartbeat of it all,
to tap in time. 
i am giving thanks,
even as the moments move by.

saturday song: the gratitude song

be thankful. 

potions, breathing, and deus ex machina

well, we've put away the halloween decorations for the year, but i thought i'd show you one of my highlights from this year.  shannon found a website that had vintage looking "potion" labels featuring many of the potions and powders from the harry potter stories.  you just print them out, cut them out, and then affix them to old bottles (which i happen to have many of sitting around {can you say "hoarder?}).  we filled them with various colored liquids (mostly water and food coloring, with some oils and other secrets thrown in), and capped them off with corks and wax.  they turned out pretty cool, and were a fun contribution to our "magical" halloween decor. 

-in other randomness, it is the steelers bye week this week, so i feel like i can breathe again.  first time since september.  feels good.

-or maybe the breathing is a result of the fact that church conference is over and went well.  that is a major stressor for me each fall, and it is a huge relief for it to be in the rearview mirror for another year.  this breathing thing is nice.

-yesterday the boys and i were taking turns making up stories.  mine were pure ripoffs, in that i retold classic stories in which my children's toys come alive when they aren't looking; the dog talks to me when they aren't around, and i took a spaceship to cybertron (okay, maybe not classic).  but jackson's and caedmon's stories all included some kind of conflict (usually involving ghosts, bad guys, king cobra's, etc) and then, without fail, a deus ex machina, literally.  i mean, in each story, right after the bad guy punched caedmon, or the cobra was poised to strike jackson, Jesus showed up and took care of it, punching or wrangling or doing whatever needed to be done to restore peace.  i'm not sure, but for a 4 and a 6 year old, i feel like this is fairly decent theology.  at least, i'm okay with it for now. 

"...and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people...." - matthew 1:21 

collage: debt

"debt"

mixed media collage on hardcover bookboard

october, 2011

gregory a. milinovich

here is a collage i made a few weeks ago, just a simple little peice about chaos and order and consumerism.  "more and more" is one way of phrasing the american dream, and i wanted to just make a visual comparison between "more and more" and chaos. 

i know for me, as i suffer from that great american disease 'affluenza,' i constantly want more and more.  as soon as i get what i want, my affluenza kicks in and tries to convince me that i need something else.  this goes on and on.  it does for all of us.  and so we get phones that can be our phonebooks and our calculators and our cameras and our music players and so forth.  we get more clothes but we also get better ways to store and organize them.  we get computers that can help organize all our documents and work.  we get tv's which will store the shows we want to watch until we're able to watch them.  and, with all of this, one might think that the goal is to make life simpler, easier and more manageable.  indeed, comfort and pleasure seem to be major selling points for products on the market in our culture.  but the reality is, at least for me, life doesn't get any simpler or smoother.  on the contrary, it seems to get more and more complicated.  i need to remember what cord charges what and how to connect each of the 17 different devices to my television.  i need to remember 35 passwords, and the password to the program that remembers my passwords for me.  now, i do a pretty good job at managing this, i think, but the reality is that "more and more" seems to lead not so much to happiness and contentment as to chaos and complexity. 

that's at least true for me.  and that's what this collage is about. 

terrible towelishness

have you seen this commercial? 



how awesome is that?  as you see at the end of the commerical, you can go the website here and see others' contributions to the global mashup of terrible towelishness.  did i go to the website and upload some of my own photo's?  you bet. 

and so, in the spirit of steeler nation, and feeling connected to my steelers kin around the world, i share the following with you: 

jerusalem, israel

tegucigalpa, honduras

at my sister's wedding in central, pa

baby quinton

a snowman i made this winter

7-3

big divisional win over the bungles yesterday.  it wasn't pretty, at least not for a full 60 minutes, but it steelers football rarely is.  it was, however, effective.  ben was efficient, and wouldn't have had that interception on his stat sheet if it wasn't for heath miller bobbling a pass that hit him in the chest (although i will say that ben threw one long pass that should've been intercepted and wasn't).  ben has been really good recently, and we are where we are in large part because of him. 

the defense looked good yesterday.  i was a little concerned with the long (7 or 8 yards) running plays the bungles were able to maintain, but i liked the play of the secondary, other than the touchdown to aj green (what was troy doing on that play?).  willie gay had a great game, breaking up a few passes, causing an interception and picking off one himself.  he is such an enigma as a player...do we love him or hate him?  who knows?  this week we love him.  nice to see this defense get a couple of takeaways. 

and the end result is that we are 7-3 going into our bye week.  we are technically in first place in our division, since the incredibly inconsistent ravens lost to the seahawks.  wow.  i have to think that the ravens rely too much on emotion, which can't be maintained week-in and week-out.  so they play well against the good teams, but have a huge let down against lesser opponents, and this loss to the seahawks has got to be humbling.  in any case, it puts the steelers in a half-game lead for first place in the division, and if the ravens stumble again down the stretch....the steelers could still end up winning this division.  it could get interesting. 

here we go steelers!  here we go!

saturday song: poison and wine

for your saturday song today i bring you something to make you think.  sometimes i give you ear candy, but today, this is like a gourmet meal: beautiful presentation and attention to detail, along with enigmatic combinations of flavors that will challenge how you see the world.   yes, it's that good.

i've been listening to the civil wars a great deal of late, and i thought i would share with you a "love song" from their album 'barton hollow."  this is the official video for the song, so it doesn't include the lyrics, but they are very easy to hear and understand, so all you really need to do is listen to the song.  and i encourage you to really listen to it.  it is a love song, for sure, but not your typical fare.  it isn't just about how much 'i love you and want to be with you forever,' as much as that is a wonderful sentiment.  we've all felt that way.  but we've also felt other ways about those we love.  sometimes we feel things like, "i can't stand you,' or, 'i can't believe you would hurt me so badly," or even, "i don't know if i still love you."  all of those emotions may be part of the recipe that, in the end, adds up to make a lifetime of love or a broken relationship, depending on how things go.  either way, it's always complicated.  this song, a deeply emotional love song, touches on that reality, that love isn't always neat and clean, but is often full of contradictions and difficult choices.  this song, in my opinion, is really good art, and makes me want to hold shannon close to me and make sure we are doing what we need to be doing to keep our relationship full of life and hope. 

enjoy: poison & wine by the civil wars. 

an early surprise

anyone in the northeast will remember that we had quite the unusual weather on october 29th of this year, involving several inches of snow.  it was a saturday, and the saturday before halloween, so we carved our jack-o-lanterns, wiped the pumpkin guts off our hands, and went out to play in the snow.  here are a couple of pictures of the strange experience, including one of our gerber daisies, who wasn't too sure about her icy hat. 

legend is that you take the day of the month of the first snowstorm, and that indicates how many more snowstorms you'll have.  so, since ours occurred on the 29th of the month, we will have 29 more snowstorms this winter.  yippee. 

actually, i love snow.  i just wish it would stay white for like 24 hours, and then instantly melt away.  it's brown slush i don't like.  actually, come to think of it, i don't like slush of any kind, unless of course it is followed by several e's.  unless mother nature starts dropping blue raspberry or mango madness on us, she can keep her slush to herself. 

prisoners of hope

"prisoners of hope"

paper collage on hardcover book board

september, 2011

gregory a. milinovich

i haven't been as prolific with my collaging recently.  i'll have to blame that on quin and the new zone defense.  still, i've had a few minutes to make a few things from time to time, and thought i'd share one of them today.  this is a new one i made called "prisoners of hope," which is a reference to zechariah 9:12, in which God tells the prisoners to return to Jerusalem, or to the city of safety, for they will be doubly blessed.  God calls them "prisoners of hope," rather than prisoners of the enemies. 

the phrase compels me:  prisoners of hope.  when we are suffering at the hands of some situation or some circumstance, we may think of ourselves as captives.  captives to stress.  to fear.  to anxiety.  captives to our financial hardships.  captives to our career situations.  prisoners of our circumstances.  surely we all suffer in some ways. 

but God may have a different way of framing our situation.  it just might be what led paul to write that the early Christians should rejoice even in their sufferings.  God doesn't call us prisoners of suffering, or prisoners of exile, or prisoners of our unfortunate circumstances.  no, God calls us prisoners of hope.  for it is hope that holds us in the midst of every trial and tribulation.  it is hope that sustains in the mdist of whatever prison we may find ourselves in, whether it be the very real bars of an institution, or the equally powerful chains of guilt or shame.  whatever it is that holds you in it's iron grip, God has a different way of looking at it.  hold onto your hope.  hold onto the idea that it doesn't have to be like this...that things can - and will! - change.  hold onto the reality that everything that is broken will, in time, be redeemed and made right.  even the situation you are in.  even the exile that you are experiencing.  even the anxiety that is costing you sleep.  yes, this too, will be made right.  believe it.  hope for it.  and be prisoners of that hope 

the jack-o-lantern game

a couple of weeks ago, right after dinner, we played a family game in which we had to roll dice.  depending on what number you rolled, you got to draw a part of a jack-o-lantern.  each number corresponded to an added element that you could add to yours - or someone else's - drawing, including hair, accessories, teeth, and even naming the pumpkin.  we had alot of fun with this, and i thought i'd share the final products with you.  first, cade came up with a pumpkin named "mad lady."  i think she went a little heavy on the eye makeup. 

jack decided to name his "name," and made his look like a possessed apple with hair.  that's terrifying. 

this one is mine.  i went with a vampire jack-o-lantern named virgil.  watch out, he vants to drink your pumpkin juice.

finally, shannon's was a bit fat, so in homage to the great bill cosby cartoon, she named him albert.  one of cade's roll of the dice allowed him to draw something on hers, hence the tiny little t-rex arms that albert has. 

quin was disqualified when he spit up on his, then fell asleep on it.  that was clearly a violation of the rules. 

as parents, it is fun for us to find ways to inject some fun and excitement - however simple - into the regular activities of life.  Shannon is particularly good at being intentional about this, and i believe it is stuff like this  - maybe not the activity itself - but the investment in time and energy that the activity reflects - that will be really important in helping our boys know that they are deeply loved. 

hope you are having a fun fall, and that you, too, know that you are deeply loved!

saturday song (sort of)

 okay, i know it's supposed to be saturday song day, but, seeing as how it's ravens week and all, i couldn't resist sharing this black-n-gold photos of our little man taken about a month ago.  i've been waiting for the right time to bust these out, and with the huge divisional game on tap for tomorrow night, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.  i mean, c'mon.  how cute is he? 

and now for some steelers songs for this saturday:

i loathe them

it's hard to type with this much adrenaline coursing through your bloodstream. 

oh man.  it's ravens week again.  and this time it's HUGE (is it ever less than monumental?).  the ravens already beat the steelers in butt-o-more, in dominant fashion.  they whipped the steelers all over the field on opening day, and then celebrated during the 4th quarter like it was a homecoming game.  i guess they forgot that they had a full season in front of them, not to mention another matchup against these steelers in heinz field. 

but they shall forget nevermore, because this sunday terrell suggs -

and the rest of the ravens - will arrive at heinz field for an epic matchup between these division rivals.  nothing in all football gets me as worked up; as emotional; as willing to toss aside my usual decorum and instead embrace violent chest-thumping and generally just jumping about the house breaking things; as full of sports-induced rage, as steelers-ratbirds. 

they are the worst team in sports.  ever.  my mom taught me not to say a certain word, so i can say this:

i loathe them. 

if that isn't evident by now, you haven't been reading.  or you're new here.  if so, welcome to the blog of dead black birds. 

hey, at least i'm not alone in my disdain.  have you heard what the ravens have been saying this week?  terrell suggs has said that he own's ben's roethlisberger's (butt), that he keeps it in a fridge in his basement where he gets it out from time to time to look at it.  who is he, jeffrey dahmer?   he called heinz field his own personal madison square garden, as if he's the villainous star of the show. 

it's pretty clear that the ravens have a steeler complex, as evidenced by the celebrations during their week 1 win over the steelers, as if they had collectively just shaken a 600-pound monkey off their shoulders.  only problem is, depending on what happens this week, the monkey might just crawl right back on their purple shoulders. 

and if anyone will help give that monkey a hand during his climb back to his usual perch, it will probably be the wildly inconsistent and consistently disappointing joe flacco, quarterback of the purple browns, and his maddening unibrow. 

i'm hoping - predicting - that flacco will serve up one of these: 



the atmosphere at this game will be unbelievable.  the steelers will be playing their throwback uniforms....the stadium will be blaring renegade...the crowd will be screaming their throats into oblivion.  it will be:

and i am hoping that by the end of the game, this will be the scene:

the steelers must win this game, for the universe is yearning to be set back to rights.  good must be restored to its proper place in the cosmic order, and by that i mean simply that the steelers must win this football game (just to go ahead and define my exaggeration). 

we have only two very simple sports rules here as we raise three boys.  you are free to cheer for whatever team you'd like, but you may not, under ANY circumstances, root for the boston red sox or the baltimore ravens.  it is the unforgivable sin.  i know i share this on every ravens week, but here again is evidence of how the ravens are having a terrible effect on our nation's youth, and how at least one youngster (my son) is taking a stand against all that is evil.  go steelers!