welcome to the digital age!

dear friends & family,
it is true that we have not been as good at keeping in touch with you as we would have liked. well, in recent days, our last remaining excuse for not maintaining proper correspondence has disappeared...

yes folks, thanks to a parcel from this fine & friendly lad & lassie,

we have now been ushered into an exciting & strange new era.....

we've gone digital!

so long public libraries....the talstra's have their very own [new-to-them] computer.

[maybe now daniel will start posting]

abundance: n. a great or plentiful amount. fullness to overflowing

this word, abundance has been rolling around in my head recently. our dear friend, & housemate lowell recently had a birthday gathering (hosted by another dear friend, sylvia, our pastor here in nyc) & after dinner we had a time of blessing & prayer. we passed around a "cup of blessing", each saying the blessings we had received recently & blessings we wished for lowell, then taking a sip & passing it on. the word that sprung to my mind was "abundance". our lives here, since we arrived in september, have been filled to the brim with laughter, friendship, evenings full of food & much love, with learning & growing, with the amazing generosity of others, and with more abundance than we could have ever imagined. our cup truly does overfloweth & we are humbled & amazed.

Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord. -2 Peter 1:2

some snapshots from late spring/early summer....




our bi-weekly soup/bread/wine potluck with taylor alumni friends. these photos are from little davis' first soup night & a few weeks before baby adam's arrival into the world.

some photos from our visit to the museum of modern art with jamie & norm













summer saturday brunch at a peruvian resturant with leigh anna, adriana, & scott. plus, scott
with a sweet red horned car.

























the hastings family at blaine's graduation from college in virginia.

i recently got derek webb's new album mockingbird from the library & have been listening to it while i work. its a biting & cynical-yet-hopeful venture from the voice that brings such quick reminiscence of my high school caedmon's call days.

here are some lyrics from the song "new law" track #2 off the album

don’t teach me about politics and government
just tell me who to vote for

don’t teach me about truth and beauty
just label my music

don’t teach me how to live like a free man
just give me a new law

i don’t wanna know if the answers aren’'t easy
so just bring it down from the mountain to me

don’t teach me about moderation and liberty
i prefer a shot of grape juice

don’t teach me about loving my enemies

don’t teach me how to listen to the Spirit
just give me a new law

the high life

daniel works for the horticultural society of new york. usually that means he spends his time creating & maintaining gardens & public green space in low income neighborhoods around the city. last month however, it meant that we attended the horticultural society's annual gala event.
we were out of our element...
we enjoyed mingling while different waiters approached us with hors d'oeuvres to try... we drank champagne from fluted glasses... we ate a multi-course meal that involved goat cheese, lamb & chocolate covered strawberries. ..several tables sold for $25,000 a piece....so you can imagine how decked out everyone was.
we tried our best, but we didn't even dress up for our own wedding.

anyway, the coolest part was that several well-renowned flower design artists made flower arrangements for the centers of the tables. they were huge & beautiful & way more creative than i would have guessed flower arrangements could be....my favorite were the watermelons carved like pumpkins.

i [heart] page france

today i have spent the day listening to ‘hello, dear wind’, by page france, the band I have been dizzyingly smitten with for the past year. they play a sparkling folk-pop that taps on my heart and leaves me with a small smile. you can listen to them here

i like how this guys describes them…” such a joy. it's indie folky pop like a million cloudchanges condensed into minutes. It's great…"jesus" is a song full of promise and zing. it's that greengrassy place where ben Gibbard dances with neutral milk hotel, both of them in flower-garland crowns. There are rings of melody and harmony - voice, acoustic guitar, electric, tambourine, - and one by one these rings are laid on top of each other. one by one until there's a stack of golden rings, which you can put on like a big bracelet. … it's also, admittedly, a song about Jesus. but it's a song about jesus in the same way that "mrs robinson" is about missus r. it's a song about the cool stuff jesus might do, the ways he might surprise us. It's about the party he brings with him…"

and Jesus will come through the ground so dirty / with worms in his hair and a hand so sturdy

and the bears and bees and banana trees will play kazoos and tambourines. And Jesus will dance as we drink his wine / with soldiers and thieves and a sword in his side

[& they are coming to Brooklyn next week... come one, come all!]

community

we live in a community called menno house. the house was started by the local mennonite church in the 1970's for conscientious objectors to the draft. now that there is no draft (& hopefully there will never be another one), our house is teeming with social workers, volunteers, & students. there are twelve of us & every tuesday we eat dinner together. here are pictures from our most recent 'soup tuesday'. we ate in our charming backyard & had tasty tomato bleu cheese soup & asparagus.

welcome to our new blog!

in the spirit of egalitarianism, we've created a new blog where we can both be equal contributors. (here is the old one)

stay tuned for more...

d & a