Coldplay’s music speaks to my soul.  The Coldplay song, “Fix You” is what started the ball rolling on this blog.  So when the opportunity to combine an Ocean Soul trip to the Oregon Coast with a Coldplay concert arose…we seized it!  If you aren’t familiar with Coldplay, well, here are a few notable stats for the group:

• although they are a British alternative rock band, they are classically trained musicians
• the lead singer, Chris Martin does not drink alcohol or smoke and named his children, Apple and Moses.
• the band has an agreement in place that they will steer clear of hard drugs
• the band gives one tenth of all their profits to charities (hmmmmm, kind of sounds biblical, doesn’t it?)
• They have supported Mercy Corps, Cancer Active, Amnesty International, Make Poverty History, Oxfam, Red Cross, War Child, Make Trade Fair and many more

A wise man once said you can tell a tree by its fruit.

And here’s a sample of their lyrics…

“Don’t want to see another generation drop

I’d rather be a comma than a full stop

Maybe I’m in the black,

maybe I’m on my knees

Maybe I’m in the gap between the two trapezes

But my heart is beating and my pulses start

Cathedrals in my heart” – Coldplay (Every Teardrop is a Waterfall)

So imagine you have been given a special thick wristband to wear and you are in a dark arena with 30,000 other people, waiting for something big…and then some epic “Back to the Future” music starts playing, heralding that the band will soon be taking to the stage and then….well all I can say it was an experience that I think was a tiny glimpse of how awesome it will be one day as we all gather around the throne in heaven and are in awe of our Creator God, all of us singing together, a corporate worship experience for sure…

I don’t know if you noticed, but the stage, the instruments, the backdrop is all covered in graffiti art and it is one of the keys to the theme of Coldplays latest album, Mylo Xyloto.  Chris Martin said in an interview,

“If you start looking for street art, it’s all over the place and you realize it’s sort of the voice of not the voiceless, but people expressing themselves often on quite ugly surfaces and turning them into beautiful colored murals. So I think we just really loved the freedom of expression, we just responded to the idea that you can paint anything yourself, you don’t have to be a grandmaster. Graffiti has its critics, but often it changes something that’s really drab and oppressive into something else. That’s the idea of the record, too, trying to find colour within darkness and depression and all the terrible things in the world, trying to find the light. That’s what I think a lot of graffiti does, put some light into darkness.”

So you can love ‘em or leave ‘em, either way their music rocks my world, it gets my soul singing to God and “I don’t want to see another generation drop…I want to be a comma, not a full stop”!!!  Oh yeah baby!

but since we are using ocean metaphors…I look like something that was washed up on shore after the storm!

I have successfully survived major surgery…with a ton of prayers and probably the same amount of morphine…

and with tons of love from my family and friends…

I don’t know what I would have done without my sister and my mom coming to look after  us.  I do know that my husband took this picture of the girls in the kitchen while I was in the hospital…

Oh yeah baby, my girls now own the kitchen!  They will have to be the rockstars at supper time!  I won’t be lifting anything for the next 6-8 weeks, including pots and pans.

And as we wait for for the pathology results,  here is my message in a bottle for all of us…

“But as for me, I will always have HOPE; I will praise you more and more” – Psalm 71:14

Happy mother’s day to all you amazing women out there, who sacrifice so much every day, and love so much!! Be blessed today! XXOO Jukavo

“When you look into your mother’s eyes, you know that is the purest love you can find on this earth.”
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

“A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine desert us; when trouble thickens around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.”
- Washington Irving

Washington Irving

Today we went to a familiar spot to say goodbye. This was the place where we last went as a family, (At Christmas) to find a tree…where Jackson ran free and wild in the snow, beneath the tall trees. It was our last day with our eldest daughter whom we flew in last minute from school in Hawaii, for this week, to be with us. We walked through the forest to find a tree, appropriate for the crude cross which I had made earlier. We also brought his red leash (which he has worn since we first got him) and a photograph, some candles and his favourite dog treats. This is our story…

Jackson…August 2003 – May 2012

taken in our last hours together

Thanks everyone for understanding our lack of postings lately…both Karen and I have been dealing with lots on our personal front-lines (or as we call them…the trenches)…we promise to post more from our trip to the coast at a later date…for now, live, laugh and love lots!! XXOO Jukavo

Horizon is the line at which the sky and the Earth’s surface appear to meet.

I became fascinated by the horizon line on our recent trip to Oregon. I thought I would do a photographic series of it. It reminds me of the line between hope and despair, where the sun rises and sets… XXOO Jukavo

Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon’s verge.
Lord Byron

A dream is the bearer of a new possibility, the enlarged horizon, the great hope.
Howard Thurman