ABC and FOX reject Lane Bryant commercial

Hum…ladies, this is one to discuss. Apparently ABC and FOX both rejected this ad from Lane Bryant – due to the model’s cleavage being too prominent. Really? So it’s ok for Victoria’s Secret, but not for the normal, curvy girls?

Apparently Fox is ok with is – as long as it doesn’t air during the prime time early family hour time slot….but guessing this should start some good conversation….

Maybe if it featured an American Apparel waify pre-teen, it would have been ok? Thoughts?

Garage Sales

I love garage sales. It’s no lie, or surprise. Aaah the treasures that await as you dig through tables of old VHS tapes, candleholders and minimally used exercise equipment. Perusing through the top layer of goods, I first wonder if we have some of the same relatives. I glance over at the couple. Hipsters. Early 30s. And I see a table full of ceramic cats and flowery pictures frames and want to question their life transformation from grandmother to hipster couple.

You can tell a lot about someone through a garage sale. The stations of their life. Seasons of hobbies that didn’t stick. Leftovers from parties. Tragic gifts that you just look back on and laugh. Things we’re not sure we can part with. Things we’re desperate to part with.

So we spend a day downsizing and tagging. Another day sitting outside watching our neighbors pick through our lives. A few hours trying to decide if the remnants get to come back in the house, or just get put in a big box that says “free” on the side.

I haven’t had a garage sale in years, partially because I don’t have a garage. And partially because my neighbors are crazy.

I also believe in the idea that maybe donating these things to good will and getting a tax write off is a better deal than sitting outside for a day, wondering why anyone would actually want to buy a pencil box with a moose on the front touting a decades ago trip someone took to the grand canyon.

I bought a sweater.

Easter Morning

A most amazing thing just occurred.

It’s 6:08am on Easter morning, and 10 minutes ago I was sleeping…until I heard a gentle noise outside my window growing louder and louder.  It was like a simple prodding —

Wake up.  Wake up.  Something big is happening and you don’t want to miss it.

It was the loudest chorus of birds I have ever heard in my neighborhood.

Granted, there are a lot of mature trees around my house, and yes, there are a lot of birds.  But today was different.

I almost ignored it and closed my eyes again for an additional hour of sleep, but then realized just what the song outside my window was saying:

Wake up!  This is important.  The night is over.  The new day has arrived.

So I jumped out of bed and threw on some sweats, started the coffee and headed to the deck.

The morning is breaking in full, simple splendor.  The tree next to my deck has exploded in a flurry of leaves since yesterday’s morning rain.  The bird chorus is a bit heavy on the top end, but some low-pitched feathered friend seemed to be holding down the bass on his own.  The flowers across my deck are blooming in the chilly air.  A plane is taking off.   I wonder how many of the passengers are checking out the beauty just outside their metal transport.

It seemed like an appropriate time to read the story that today celebrates from 2000 years ago.  Everything changed.  Light cut through the darkness.  Winter was over.  The promised Spring arrived.   Resurrection.

It was beautiful.

I think I might need to listen to birds a bit more…

Happy Easter

Good Saturday Sabbath

Good Friday…so little to say is good about it.  Hope is gone.  A friend and savior has died.  There was a terrible storm, and something happened to the curtain in the temple.

And it says in Luke that Joseph of Arimathea – a rich follower of Jesus – went to Pilate and asked to give Jesus a proper resting place.  He, Nicodemus and the women, including Mary and Martha, gathered the body and with the military guards buried Jesus in the tomb, and then they all went to their homes.

Continuing on Mary and Martha…Luke 23:56 “Then they went home and prepared spices ad perfumes.  But they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment.” (TNIV)  The Message Bible says “Then they went back to prepare burial spices and perfumes.  They rested quietly on the Sabbath as commanded.”

Quietly?

I realize this is a different time and a different culture, but it’s hard for me to wrap my head around the discipline that states that even though your future is suddenly in turmoil, all that you thought was true might not be as you believed, this personal – spiritual – political power that you had dedicated your heart to has suddenly been taken away.  You were along to watch as the body was placed in the tomb, the stone rolled in front of the doorway, and the guards were standing in their formation.   Even though all of this just occurred…

For the next 30 hours, you are commanded to be quiet – Sabbath.

Though the world is in upheaval – Sabbath.

Though you may not have prepared food for the day, as the day was spent burying your friend – Sabbath.

Though you want to scream and hit something – Sabbath.

I like to think I’m a modern woman.  And thanks to some circumstances, I do have to be in control of my own life.  I have to own my issues, my faults.  I don’t have a partner in this whole thing.  So when my world falls apart, I have had to become wired to learn to fix it.  To take matters into my own hands.  To stay up all night working and striving and re-planning my next steps.  I also get off on endorphins, so when the world starts caving in, I go for a jog, or to the gym, or I kick the crap out of a pillow.

But no.  Sabbath.  It’s not about you.  When the world is caving in and it looks as if all you strived for, all you believed in, all you needed is gone.  Sabbath.

When I want to scream, “it’s not fair” or “this isn’t what I signed up for” or “what the hell was that all about.”  Sabbath.

When I most feel compelled to let my adrenaline kick in and go take on the world Braveheart (or I guess more Joan of Arc) style.  Sabbath.

This concept is so foreign to me. The essential of quiet, of realizing that I’m not in control.  It’s so against my American mindset.  All my friends know that for me to disconnect from my MacBook, Blackberry and iPod is virtually impossible.  I use the excuse that I’m self-employed and need to stay connected.  But if I truly believe that God is in control and I need to listen and trust and hear his heart, then I have to Sabbath.

If I don’t turn off the noise, how am I supposed to hear?

What did the women do on this particular Sabbath?  Sit in stunned silence?  Pray?  Sleep?  Listen to their heartbeat as the seconds turn into minutes and a day feels like eternity?  I would think they might have hoped that Sabbath would last forever so they wouldn’t have to face the unknown days to come.

But if I listen hard enough on the Sabbath for a still small voice to lead me, I think it would take me on Sunday at daybreak to see an empty tomb and hope rising again.  And I did nothing to earn this hope, I just had to believe his path is true.

Shabbat Shalom.