Day 349: Sanctuary

(For Sunday August 10)

Sanctuary. Even the very word I feel grateful for. Perhaps because just the meaning brings peace to me, not to mention the actual space of a sanctuary. There is something about a church sanctuary that sets my soul to rest. I feel like my soul takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. Maybe it is the smell of the wood used for the pews, the light shining through the stained glass, the sacred silence. Clearly I am talking of sanctuaries in days gone by and not today's warehouse, industrial spaces. Ick. I'm sorry (well I'm actually not but you know what I mean) but today's sanctuaries are anything but what the purpose of one is. I am grateful for the safety that sanctuary provides, both in literal sense and emotional sense. I could sit in one all day long and be content to be. It is just about the only thing I miss in traditional church, although truth is I haven't sat in a real sanctuary in years, not since I was in early elementary. Lord, give me sanctuary.

Comments

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

A dime a dozen

"It's said that in the year 1796, the first U.S. dimes were produced for circulation. Hence, it would make sense for this phrase to originate sometime after." Read more here . Today the phrase carries the meaning that something is cheap or without value if it can be lumped in with other similar or exactly-like things. It's more of an insult than anything.

Life according to van Gogh...sort of

There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little color; how not to do it -- with much color and little drawing. Vincent van Gogh in a l etter to Theo van Gogh, April 1882 Life is a little bit like today's quote from van Gogh. Some of us live life focusing on the drawing - the details - and have very little color. Others of us go for the color and forsake, to a degree, the drawing - the details. Unlike painting, according to van Gogh, one is not wrong over the other but somewhere in between the two would be the best I would think. If you look at some of van Gogh's paintings I feel like you can see where he might have struggled between the "how to do it" and the " how not to do it" (as he admittedly loved color so much but knew he had to focus more on the drawing) and that seems to be reflected in his life as well. In the end he wasn't able to find the ...

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