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For hardworking, disciplined folks, I've composed a list of my favorite tools of procrastination, all in the name of creativity.

For example:

2. Start your exercise program by trying out that new zumba/spinning/yoga class at the gym (dancing on a bicycle with one leg behind your back)

6. Clean out your fridge (what is that substance in the Tupperware container anyway?)

15. Troll YouTube for funny videos

Read the list in its entirety.

When I moved back to the suburbs six years ago, I mourned the loss of the ministry for which I'd been preparing, namely church-planting in Italy.

I mean, come on. I was headed for Trieste, Italy and landed in a Dallas suburb. The grieving period was necessary and long.

Two things happened before I could fully embrace ministry in the burbs: First, I had to accept that God could and will redeem the suburbs. Romans 8 says that all creation groans for our future glorification. I had to listen to hear I wasn't the only one groaning in my neck of the woods. Second, I had to be joyful in this circumstance. When we think of contentment, we often think of endurance or dealing with the circumstance despite our preferences. But I think Paul had a fuller picture in mind. He tells us to rejoice always. 

Can I rejoice in the suburbs?

The question goes against the romantic picture of an artist, who should either be out in the woods somewhere or in some closet apartment he can't afford in New York. An artist in the burbs? She simply doesn't exist. An artist can conceivably be born in suburbia, but she ought to move out, according to the popular artist story, on her eighteenth birthday.

But why can't I be an artist where I am? Why can't I write stories that reflect the angst, stress, and loneliness of the typical suburbian dweller? Why should I let popular images from Hollywood and New York dictate my art? (Here's where my rebel-without-a-cause nature, as my husband calls it, comes in handy.) Art reflects life, and life is lived in the suburbs as well as in the rural and urban areas. The more I get to to know the people in my neighborhood, the more I find people with lived-out dreams, hidden desires, hurts, and triumphs. It's not all Stepford Wives here, but you have to dig beneath the stereotypes to discover that.

So I've found community here and life rich with potential. Which brings me back around to God's kingdom work in suburbia and, specifically, how I can live out his mission here.

The Bible gives us several pictures of redemption, or, to put it another way, of Christ's victory over sin and death. It affects the individual and the community, the physical and the spiritual, the country, the city, and the suburbs. In Revelation, we see the presence of God descending upon earth, bringing with it the fullness of healing, peace and joy. The nations react with worship and reconciled living. In Ephesians, we glimpse a communal life that embraces diversity and unity. James gives us the contrary--a warning to rich hoarders, gossipers, and slanderers, in other words, those who cause division.

From these cues, I can form a life that embodies these elements in the suburbs by building community, offering healing to those hurting, encouraging and embracing diversity, and living generously. 

Which means it comes down to making choices toward these things and away from other things, like inviting my neighbors to a backyard barbecue instead of only inviting the friends I already have, getting to know the couple down the street who immigrated from Russia or Korea or South Africa, volunteering at my library's ESL program, taking cookies to my neighbors, refusing to keep up with the Jones's and instead enjoying (and sharing) the material possessions God's given us, being aware of where my clothes, technology, and water comes from and making decisions based on that, supporting local restaurants and arts rather than driving into Dallas for a date night, shopping at my local farmer's market and dairy farm even if that means several trips to buy everything on my grocery list, going to events where I might be the minority, such as an Asian festival at the local Chinese church, serving at the orphanage down the street or at the new homeless program.

These are not without disappointment. How many cookies and breads have I taken unacknowledged? How many invitations have I issued unheeded? I may never have a great ministry story like urban monastic life. I may never have the glamorous life of ministering to artists in Brooklyn. But God has called me to minister where I live, despite the opportunity (or lack thereof) for a spotlight in Christianity Today.

As I get to know those around me, I can hear their groanings--their longings and hurts, their loneliness and angst, their hopes and dreams. And perhaps one day, I'll see a beautiful community emerge to overcome the pain and live out the hopes.

Read part one of Redeeming Suburbia.

As an artist, confidence is a tricky thing. It means being able to take criticism, knowing when to change your work based on that criticism and when to smile and ignore it. It means knowing when to hold back and polish and when to risk the public eye. It means knowing when to trash a piece and when to hold on to it for dear life. It means pressing on in the midst of rejections. And more rejections. Sometimes it means knowing when to compose silences and rest from your art.

Find more photos portraying confidence here.

Also, my piano's name is Claire. 

This has been a topic floating in my mind for the past five years. Christians talk often about rebuilding the city or reclaiming a simple country life, but for the most part, we seem to have little good to say about the suburbs or the possibility for the suburbs.

We consider them detached places where people commute to their work, their grocery stores, their lives. They come home, pull their cars into their garages without the inconvenience of greeting neighbors, plant themselves in front of the boob tube or perhaps play with their children for a few minutes in the backyard, which is well protected by privacy fences, go to bed, and restart everything in the mornings.

Suburbs are the places of sameness, of boxed lives. Or so goes Little Boxes, the theme song to Weeds.

The suburbs arose in the 1950s, partly because of the massive and sudden expansion of families post-WWII. Those families needed someplace to go and fast. I also suspect that after the fears and harshness of war, new parents wanted to protect their new children. Can we blame them after what they saw?

So can the suburbs be redeemed?

Some fun facts about the suburb in which I happen to live:

- There's as much ethnic diversity in this neighborhood than where I lived in downtown Dallas. Some of this is true cultural diversity, meaning immigrants from Asian and South American countries settled in here. Some of it is superficial, which means you may see different color faces, but their backgrounds aren't much different than mine.

- Though we'd like to think of ourselves as untouched by poverty, that's simply not true. A local Samaritan Inn, a "comprehensive homeless program that helps willing people gain dignity and independence," filled up with residents from my city. They're building a new one closer a few miles from my house. There are also two orphanages (that I know of), where the residents come mostly from either abusive homes or homes where their parents didn't have the means to provide for them anymore.

- I can get to a local farmer's market in five minutes and a local dairy farm (for unpasteurized milk, fresh butter, cheese, and yogurt, and eggs) in ten minutes.

- About two miles from my house is a lot with lamas and alpacas. Next to that is a field that looks like it's been recently tilled to handle some sort of crop. (Confession: the people who own this field may have been growing plants since I've lived here. For some reason, I've only recently noticed it. Ah, yes, the powers of observation run strong in my family.)

- Several people have vegetable gardens. In some ways, I taste the juxtoposition of the garden and the city in the end of Revelation in these gardens.

- The downtown area of my suburbian city (about 5 minutes from my home) has an art gallery and a theater (as well as some fun restaurants). Neither of these are cutting edge. But they represent local art.

- We do have public transportation, but I admit, I rarely use it. Nor do I walk or ride a bike to the grocery store or to run other errands. So, yes, I'm more concerned with my own convenience, even in my 5-mile radius. Especially in the Texas heat.

All this to say that perhaps the suburbs aren't as bad as I initially thought when I moved here six years ago. Or at least this particular one isn't. This is not to say that the problems don't exist. I don't know many of my neighbors well. But I've built my life in this five-mile radius. (For Chris, he goes a little further for work, although not much further.) I guess to move forward, I want to play with the idea that God can redeem the suburbs. We don't all have to move back to the city or to the country (an impossible idea, anyway). 

Though Revelation doesn't specifically mention suburbs (because they didn't exist at the time of writing; for that matter "city" was an entirely different idea to John, the writer of Revelation), I believe we can still look toward God's future for us to get an idea of how we can redeem the suburbs.

Which I'll have to do on another day.

Thoughts?

Or, the end of the world as we know it.

Or, why I haven't been blogging as much: explained.

At the High Calling Blogs, Claire challenged us to submit photos freeze-framing a particular stage in life. I can't hold my secret any longer.

In a follow-up post to my previous (and ever-popular) post on The Master's Artist, The Artist Priest, this week, I wax (eloquently, no less) on The Artist Prophet.

A free sample:

Throughout history, artists have not only served as priests but as prophets--voices in their respective cultures decrying the evils of their societies. Our rich heritage includes artists such as Goya, Charles Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Stravinsky, and Keith Green. They have worked subversively sometimes. Other times, they've slapped their patrons in the face.

Ah, heck. I'm in a giving mood. You can try the whole thing for free.

(Aka, click here to read the post in its entirety.)

Sometimes I amuse myself.

Check out other Popinjay photos on this week's Breathtaking theme.

I came across author Joshilyn Jackson at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing this past spring. She made me laugh, and, dear reader, you know how much I love to laugh. (You may also remember how she inspired a private session of jocularity among fellow writers.) Then I read Gods in Alabama, and I was a goner.

So I put her most recent release, Backseat Saints (which is different from Backstreet Saints, for the record), on my book club's fall reading list.

Why do I tell you this? Because I just found out that you can win a free copy of an audio version (read by Joshilyn herself). Click here for details.

Speaking of free audio books, my mom pointed me to this site chocked full of free audio books. And we're talking stellar books here for both kids and adults.

I have English blood in me. A lot of it. And with that comes the tradition of afternoon tea. I remember when I was growing up going to my grandmother's house almost daily with my mom for tea time.

My mom and I carry on that tradition, albeit in an unconventional way. Since we live 3 hours apart, we call each other for tea time almost every day.

Now I have three sets to choose from for my picture today, but the decision was easy. My grandmother's tea cups and my tea set from Czech are packed in a closet. This miniature set, however, resides on my coffee table (funny that the tea set sits on the coffee table).

So any time you crave a cup of tea (my mom prefers chai; I prefer either Irish or English breakfast tea), feel free to join us.

More Popinjay photos on dainty

Today at The Master's Artist I consider how we as believers offer our art as a sacrament.

A taste:

We kneel at the altar, our hands cupped, palms up to receive the sacrament. The priest presses a wafer onto my fingers.

"The body of Christ, the bread of heaven," he says.

I lift the wafer to my tongue, crack it between my teeth.

A white-clad chalice bearer follows the priest. She dips the cup to my lips. "The blood of Christ, the cup of salvation."

The wine rinses the bits of wafer from my mouth, washes down my throat. With bowed head, I cross myself, lingering for a moment before returning to my pew.

In this way, with a community of believers (and, most likely, unbelievers), I experience the presence of God. This, in essence, is what the sacraments are: the presence of God. In turn, as a member of the Body of Christ, I am called to live sacramentally so as to incarnate Christ's presence in the world around me.

Read the rest here.