‘onward christian soldiers,’ it ain’t

during the school year when
free-time is in short supply,
i stash away certain projects
so that i can do them on
‘colorado time.’

the excess free time
(massive-thanks to my parents) +
the ease of having a car to zip
to and fro to gather supplies =

a happy project place

and i am so-super-excited about how
Goofy Project No. 1
turned out.

the scoop:
four yrs ago stacy gave me the tip
to teach my kids a hymn
for every letter of the alphabet.

so i made these awesomely daft-looking
song books that we use
in family devotions at the
breakfast table every morning.

(yes, they’re crinkly + covered with
dried cream-of-wheat smudges
and you probably wouldn’t want to hold them,
but we don’t mind)

then two yrs ago,
i made a second song book
(same alphabet, diff. hymns for every letter)
to increase our hymn-cabulary.

now, you know how much
we adore our brilliant 5pm redeemer service +
especially the music.
the old hymns,
the new arrangements,
the original songs,
all of it.

and it’s so special to have
nathan + henry in the worship
service with us.

well, the hymns that we sing at home
just don’t match
the songs we sing at church.

i mean,
what are the chances that
tom is going to have us singing,
‘victory in jesus,’
‘go, tell it on the mountain’
or
‘nothing but the blood’
?

ain’t gonna happen.

so, since december i’ve been
hoarding saving our bulletins
with all of the church songs in them
and stashing them away
so that i could make
brandspankin’new
songbooks
while in my
happyprojectplace.

for six months, i’ve been nurturing the fantasy
that the kids will be standing in church this fall,
they’ll hear the music
and think,
‘now, waitjustaminute, i know this song!’

they’ll look over at me
standing by cory
and they’ll smile that knowing smile,
‘mom loves me +
does everything she can think of
to help me in life…’

*poof*

whoops, just snapped out of
a little dream world there.

of course they wouldn’t think that
but they might think,
‘dude, i think i’ve heard this before’
and that’s all
i’m looking for here.

so after copying+sorting+pasting+whatnot,
voila!

the front cover-art is a color copy of
a huge weirdo-space-alien
that nathan drew on the
front of one of the bulletins
(while paying attention in church?)
and the back cover-art is a random doodle i
made on one of my bulletins,
(again, while paying attention in church.)
and following the 40-odd hymns
are the unison prayers + creeds we
recite in church.
sweet.

ps – i’m not going to mention
what Goofy Project No. 2 is
in case i don’t get it done.

i might just save it for next summer.