Sleeping Place

Day 83 of Kim Klassen's Beyond Layers e-course was a challenge to make a random mosaic using images, brushes and fonts.

I went through my archives wanting to use photos from earlier in the year...don't ask me why...probably to make it even more random.

I was drawn to these photos I had taken this past Easter weekend...

So a voice in me said, "Go for it!"

Do you know where the word cemetery comes from?  Some random trivia here ~ from the Greek word koimeterion meaning sleeping place.  How nice compared to "boneyard" or "burial ground."

This is Glendale Cemetery...in Downtown Akron.  It is home to Akron's old money...and American history...

such as:

F. A. and Gertrude Seiberling - Founder of the Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company...

whose daughter-in-law, Henrietta, introduced an Akron surgeon and an unemployed stockbroker from New York visiting Akron, on Mother's Day, 1935.  Both drunks.  The surgeon agreed to give 15 minutes to the New Yorker...which resulted in 6 hours.  Alcoholics Anonymous was born.  This story from her own words is nothing more than amazing.

F. A.'s grandson, Henrietta's son, John...was an 8-term Congressman for Akron...a staunch environmentalist who was the catalyst to the government establishing Ohio's only national park.

One of  the approximately 1,200 Teddy Roosevelt's Rought Riders is buried here.

And Jason Brown, son of abolitionist John Brown is also buried here.  Present with his father at the Potawatomie massacre in Kansas, the first blood shed in the war against slavery in the United States.  Jason wrote his account in the Akron newspaper in 1880, 20 years after his father was hanged after the raid at Harper's Ferry.

And...moving on to the 21st century... the funeral scene in the movie based on James Patterson's novel, I, Alex Cross, (currnetly in theaters) was filmed here!

Yes...that's Ed Burns! (movie photos courtesy of Akron Beacoun Journal) where you can also read their story.)

Wow...I had no idea where I was going when I started this Mosaic this morning...wasn't expecting to end up with a rather violent Hollywood movie...

But I do have a point...

Cemeteries are amazing places!  You never know what you will find, what stories are there, plus the beauty, serenity, and natural oasis they provide.  Not convinced?  This wonderful 56 minute documentary, A Cemetery Special, available on Netflix, will change your mind.

And yes, even though it reminds us of our own mortality...doesn't  that cause us to embrace and relish each moment that remains?

It does me!

Happy 10th Birthday and a List of Gifts!

This is a HUGE day in my world and for many others who have been part of this frontier endeavor that began in 2002...beginning the Hasingler Family Pediatric Palliative Care Center at Akron Children's Hospital...

This was a conceived at a time when there were only a scarce, single-digit few in this country...and our center is now considered one of the premiere centers in the world.

Here's what we do:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R1ZVRCWqzU]

We have rented the 3,000 seat Akron Civic Theater, doors open at 6 pm, TONIGHT!

So I  thought I would LIST the mercies God has given by allowing me to be a part of this work and this team:

1. Having the privilege of being invited into the most intimate parts of families' lives as a guest and a presence.


2. The gift of PERSPECTIVE!


3. Being able to walk the journey with some of the most resilient, incredible children/young adults and families I have ever known.


4. Seeing God use the weak to teach me incredible lifelong lessons.


5. Being able to work with such wonderful, gifted colleagues and a phenomenal Director.


6. Being able to give back to the community from which I received so much.


7. The knowledge at the end of the day that I have made a difference.


8. Being able to work for an incredible hospital...one of the best 99 employers in northeast Ohio.


9. No long commute...


10. Seeing God's hand in the common, unnoticed places time and time again.


11. The opportunity to see what to most is invisible.

I think of how important children were to Jesus while he was on earth and think of the words of this old song, as sung by Alison Krauss with The Cox Family...Jewels
 [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmSbC17u4-s]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HASLINGER PEDIATRIC PALLIATIVE CARE CENTER!



With gratitude,

Walk About Town - Part II

Continuing yesterday's post, along my photowalk, fire escapes were not the only architecture I saw, nor was Mike's art the only art I saw.

There was art on an old over pass...



Seeing the City through Lock 3...



The hospital where I work...



Including Air Bear...Ohio's only dedicated pediatric life flight.





And did I mention the canal?

Where there's water...there's ducks...
Juvenile Mallard Ducks, to be exact...



And of course, God poured down mercies through flowers...















And as is written in James, every good and every perfect gift comes from God!

With gratitude,

Walk About Town - Part I

Well, let's lighten things up...shall we?  My online e-course has challenged me to take a photowalk as content for a blog entry...actually the Beyond Layers course also challenged us to take photos of the area where we live...

So I chose to walk along the downtown area of the towpath, along the Ohio & Erie Canal, which is in the area where I work every day and about 20 minutes from home...there's no way on my walk I would not see God's mercies...

Now I was tempted to do a storyboard, but I couldn't narrow down all the photos...and then I thought one for each category of photos I took...but that would take more time and I wanted to get this out...



This fine gent (who appeared to be living on the streets, dirty, and had the dental work of someone addicted to methamphetamine)  met the three of us ("Edster", Bruno and I) early in the walk.  Friendly and engaging - Bruno did not seem to see him any differently.  And I wondered from where his choices had taken him...and I heard the words "and such were some of you."  Later I saw these homeless lads with a laptop (using an outside outlet) and getting internet service from a cell phone.  Moving on...

That was not the only talent I saw on our walk...





There was Mike...



Mike was humble...chatted for quite a while on a break.  He said he had been commissioned by the City to do a jazz mural.  This was the largest one he had ever done!  Today he was working on Duke Ellington...and he had the pants to prove it!



But given what I saw he had already done...I'm sure the Duke will turn out just great!



Then I found myself attracted to these fire escapes...



and these...



And definitely these...



But that was not the only architectural or fine art gifts given on our walk...but that will have to wait until  next time...

With gratitude,