tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3382241840995739132024-03-05T01:00:35.999-06:00Meaning and AuthenticityKatherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.comBlogger319125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-60814012750418058422009-05-31T13:04:00.006-06:002010-03-28T19:34:08.299-06:00VoiceMy daughter-in-law has a lovely voice, a rich alto that reminds me of...well, as I'm trying to think here, strangely enough perhaps, it reminds me of reality. I like soprano voices, too, but rich deep alto voices remind me of the kind of reality that just grabs me and makes me want to pay attention to the world with all its angst and beauty and substance. She, my daughter-in-law, has a great <a href="http://intpanentheist.blogspot.com/2009/05/words.html">post </a>today about "voice"--not the singing kind, although that's a means of expression, too--but more on the fear of claiming the power of our voices, something lots of people can relate to, I think, and a subject that interests me greatly.<br /><br />Her words remind me of how difficult it is to sift through the cacophony of "voices" we have in this culture to find those that make sense to us, that provide meaning for our lives, or offer comfort and hope. We have so many idiotic cowards on the national scene who daily scream their vitriolic hubbub. I heard Senator Lindsay Graham on NPR today saying how disturbed he was that Supreme Court Justice nominee Sonia Sotomayor said "her voice was better than a white male's voice." I found this on <em>Politico:</em><br /><blockquote><p>She should apologize for a comment she made positing that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.” </p><p>“It is troubling. It’s inappropriate, and I hope she’ll apologize,” Graham told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. “If I had said something like that – or someone with my background and profile [had] – we wouldn’t be talking about this nomination going forward…. she’s got to prove to me that if I find myself in court with a Latina woman, in front of her, I’d get a fair shake, and that’s up to her to do.”<br /></p></blockquote><br />Yep. Leave it up to a white male to use his voice for something like that -- a white male who obviously has NO CLUE how his own privileged social location as a white male can blind and deafen him. Out of his blindness and deafness comes his call to silence the voice of a woman who has experienced life in a way that he, apparently/obviously, could not even imagine. All else being equal, YES, with the <em>richness </em>of that experience her decisions would <em>obviously</em> be better.<br /><br />Honestly. Get real. There are days when the way we privilege these dishonest, un-thoughtful voices, like Graham's, makes me crazy. I have to turn the radio off.<br /><br />Existentialist that I am, it's when I hear people speaking with or about <strong>authenticity </strong>that my ears perk up. The voices I love to hear are those I recognize as coming from a place of genuineness. I want to hear them. I want to know: <em>how have they faced their inner obstacles to self-knowledge? what has their life journey been like? what did they learn? what gives them courage? how does their story of claiming their voice match my own? </em>That's why I loved Obama's <em>Dreams from My Father. </em><br /><br />Someone I know was telling me recently about the new minister at his church and how he could tell that this man was a bit nervous in preaching his "try-out" sermon at this huge church. <em>And who wouldn't be nervous, right? </em>The sermon started rather weakly but gained in strength, I was told, when the minister opened up and revealed to the congregation something genuine about himself. That's always a real tightrope...how much to say about oneself in a sermon without making the sermon about you... But this new minister was appropriate in his self-disclosure and that helped the congregants really like and appreciate what he said.<br /><br />The metaphor of voice is so powerful, isn't it? I spent most of my academic career in silence, listening carefully to the teachers but rarely contributing to the dialogue myself. It's different now. When I have something to contribute, I do, and when I don't have anything to say, I don't worry about it. What freedom!<br /><br />I wrote something once about "voice" and how important it is for the <strong>church</strong> to pay attention to this issue. Carol Lakey Hess wrote a great book about it. In the chapter "Rebuilding Our Mothers' House," Hess writes about <strong>how pastors can move toward the empowerment of girls and women:<br /></strong><blockquote><p>If a leader wishes to create an environment that encourages women as well as men to participate in the conversations of the community, there are a number of small but very significant ways to start, especially in the area of leading discussions.<br /><br />Leaders often inadvertently reinforce women's invisibility by missing women's cues. Watch for signs -- eye movements and slight body gestures -- indicating interest in joining a discussion and thwarted attempts to enter a fast-moving conversation. Notice these signs and then create a space for her contribution.<br /><br />A woman's "pause time" may be longer than a man's, and therefore she may wait too long between comments and be unable to insert a comment before another speaker begins. A sensitive leader will watch for this, and will moderate a discussion so that slow pausers who become silenced will have opportunity for re-gaining the floor.<br /><br />Be aware that the "tentative language" (hedging, qualifying, tag questions) women sometimes use may prompt discussion leaders to tune them out or cut them off prematurely. A leader who recognizes that tentative language may have little relation to a person's grasp of the subject matter is better able to support women's contributions.<br /><br />Exclusive language contributes to a feeling of invisibility. While using the generic "he" and "mankind" can reduce women's participation, the problem goes beyond that. I've been in countless numbers of lectures where the speaker will say to the audience something like "suppose your wife says to you . . .," which makes women (not to mention single persons) feel as if they are not included. Additionally, it is liberating for leaders to provide examples that do not "mark" women as deviant. I feel that general humanity includes women when I hear someone say "according to biblical scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza," rather than "according to female biblical scholar Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza." </p></blockquote><br />I loved her recognition of "pausers." !! I'm someone who will pause a long time between sentences/thoughts in order to think about what to say next. I've never had the "gift of gab," able to just spew out word after word after word in any kind of coherent way. My synapses just don't work that way! Reading Hess awakened me to this issue in a new way. I listen now for how different people use different styles or modes of speaking in a conversation, and I'm usually quick to go back to someone who was interrupted and ask them if they'd like to continue their thought. And when I'm interrupted repeatedly it makes me angry, angry enough that I have to take action to stop it--or else be angry with myself!<br /><br />Reminds me also of an article a friend sent to me years ago. It was a Harvard study of the phenomenon of women "feeling like fakes" both in the academic and business worlds. The culture is so anti-women that even when we are perfectly qualified, we still end up thinking we're just faking it, and wondering when someone, someone Who "Really" Knows, is going to pull the curtain back on our "Wizard of Oz" act.<br /><br />This same article mentioned also what Hess calls "tentative language" and how women are more apt to begin their contributions to a dialogue with "<em>I'm not sure about this, but...."</em> or "<em>You may not think this is right, but.....</em>" or "<em>This probably lacks (whatever qualifier), but....." </em><br /><br />And of course I was influenced, as many of us were, by the groundbreaking research Carol Gilligan did about girls typically losing their voice after grade school. That's powerful stuff. And Belenky, et. al. and "Women's Ways of Knowing." And Mary Pipher's "Reviving Ophelia: Saving the Selves of Adolescent Girls." Oh, such great books. So formative for me on this issue.<br /><br />It's just such a perfect metaphor. VOICE. Finding it. Claiming it. Holding it firmly, with love and openness. When we do that, unlike what we get from "newsmakers" on Fox News, our voices are authentic.<br /><br />And, for me anyway (oops-there's a hedging qualifier for ya!), that's <em><u>worth</u></em> hearing.<br /><br /><div align="right">Let me write that again:</div><br />Holding our voices firmly, with love and openness. When we do that, unlike what we get from "newsmakers" on Fox News, our voices are authentic.<br /><br />And that's <u><em>worth</em></u> hearing.Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-59050644512208747432009-05-26T14:47:00.005-06:002009-05-26T14:56:23.381-06:00"The Bible does not close discussions; it seeks to open them"From William Sloan Coffin in <em>The Courage to Love:</em><br /><blockquote><strong><span style="color:#ffff00;">The opposite of love is not hate but fear. If we are to broaden our vision and enlarge our hearts, we must allow risk to enter our lives, permit doubt to walk hand in hand with belief. It is a mistake to sharpen our minds by narrowing them. It is a mistake to look at the Bible to close a discussion--the Bible seeks to open one....<br />The Bible is no oracle to be consulted for specific advice on specific problems; rather, it is a wellspring of wisdom about the ambiguity, inevitability, and the insolubility of the human situation. It sings praises to God who...provides minimum protection but maximum support....<br />Finally, the Bible is a signpost, not a hitching post. It points beyond itself, saying "Pay attention to God, not me." And if, as the Bible claims, "God is love, and she who abides in loves abides in God, and God abides in her," then revelation is in the relationship. In all Scripture there is no injunction more fundamental than that contained in these simple words: "Love one another."</span></strong><br /></blockquote><br /><div align="right">by William Sloan Coffin</div>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-54450798929992440362009-05-25T07:16:00.007-06:002010-03-28T19:25:47.263-06:00Vacation in the Ozarks<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrUV1IhtAh9ndfq5bXIBJ2-K31ihzRIPnux0TV6u-vOshK4dHx7JnoYe69aVMgMQgGPTXpx9cMEa-NZhxfKJ4lOGhZQG16Ubbl_42q_u5HbiYKajXpR-uP4HMGOSSFQFFuAVJsiKvazs8/s1600-h/Beaver+Lake+2009+05+21+about+730+pm.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5339754538216840914" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrUV1IhtAh9ndfq5bXIBJ2-K31ihzRIPnux0TV6u-vOshK4dHx7JnoYe69aVMgMQgGPTXpx9cMEa-NZhxfKJ4lOGhZQG16Ubbl_42q_u5HbiYKajXpR-uP4HMGOSSFQFFuAVJsiKvazs8/s400/Beaver+Lake+2009+05+21+about+730+pm.JPG" border="0" /></a> <span style="font-size:85%;">View from our front porch...<br /><br /></span><br /><div align="left">Vacation was wonderful. Very relaxing....the condo turned out to be everything (and more) that we'd hoped. When David and I first saw it and walked up to the front door, we were both a bit stunned by the beauty of the setting. It was perfect.<br /><br /><br /></div><div><div align="left">We did little touristy things near Eureka Springs in the mornings. Afternoons and evenings were spent reading and relaxing together. David is a fabulous cook--we didn't eat in a restaurant a single time. Sat out on the front porch watching the lake, the birds, keeping an eye out for deer and other wildlife, listening to the wind and the silence. Ahhhhh!</div><div align="left"><br /></div><div align="left">Here are a few more pics:</div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5339753435922148114" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 299px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjixwKm6b9y1u8gH9CvRmx90I-qgDty8AC44nrjOgl-BN3-dSZqSnTwp2MGts8NyEQ-McC4q-3llfFn-pKoKlEML9hf0dXbZFsBFau33CuP8D95pFdA5xR-8lKTCep6l3vwLd8-HMflR8g/s400/n684658139_2665909_6570060.jpg" border="0" />David on the trail...<br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqYJr8nZq5uGp6_P7GA4n2fbuz5y64-d3hYJSmB5KT0VsjG5_NtHFGBdCEabn7BdOAcHfdboRLfVpjhlbTFmt19CvyaqtzowKsnzhHwi2fnpQOiQMz8f74AYbiBlig2gKZ0NLtZKr6FWY/s1600-h/At+the+top!+(our+hike+near+Beaver+Dam).jpg"></a><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5339754546140486242" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhio3Qj32Fg-jrr1M8jGHnzYvqdmmaD5RDwhyphenhyphenUly7euueBfVaWeILRZsqO64K7mIo9RQ9SXffXj7BHTrbNaKbQwYfKNRXawB24ccgjkXp9uAdf5ayg_pM88gifLJTA5-s-gazhfpvtdO7A/s400/Heritage+Park+rhodedendrums+or+blueberries.JPG" border="0" /><span style="font-size:85%;">I don't know what these are...any ideas? They looked like blueberries...</span></div><div></div><div><br /><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5339754537445654290" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 373px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg8fgAFkkROTQ2C_DXkj7W2VX8zptjTvUqXnvCaQGcBQvplCeLUw0Gz8WcJyIPMaD0uJHa5MFTAZdB4OSyuw51hVAwceMCfQsFzwt9yXQPLQZmTYjE0tOQS4ufHSNYe3ir6-xTM_m3wcs/s400/At+the+top!+(our+hike+near+Beaver+Dam).jpg" border="0" /><span style="font-size:85%;">I'm hamming it up at the top of our HIKE near Beaver Lake Dam.</span> <div><br /><br /><br /><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5339754544238026322" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgan976WM4R0hrRqYLEmimBdDArvwVbjjpzAGPjqb5HmV-r0U5Im4xDae6KOGhLjc24LbMETJ0X4shNiQI5ncJNmVuhchTy-Um-JEbnmN0YhwXYHvR1LM8ti-gA6Irv8Z0VmMDuY8zRyFQ/s400/Blue+Spring+(5).JPG" border="0" /></div></div><br /></div><p><span style="font-size:85%;">This is Blue Springs (in Heritage Park...really lovely) </span></p><p> </p><p>And the best part of all? I still don't have to go back to work until Sunday! A whole week (well, most of it...I do have a couple of clients to see) to do with what I want! Yippee!!!</p>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-41086182831815006212009-05-17T18:29:00.005-06:002009-05-18T05:42:06.143-06:00...And this is miracle....<span style="color:#ffff99;"><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">I'm alive. I'm here. I was born. I'm living. I will die.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;">Who can explain it? This is miracle.</span></strong><br /><strong><span style="font-size:130%;"></span></strong><br /></span><br /><br /><em><span style="color:#ffff66;">Sitting in the majestic sanctuary of Broadway Baptist church this afternoon, this is what came to me. And I was filled with joy.</span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#ffff66;"></span></em><br /><em><span style="color:#ffff66;">The service at Broadway was a special one. People gathered to pray for the new senior minister about to be called, for the search committee, for the congregants...the service was deep and rich and stunningly beautiful. It was in the midst of my awareness of that soul-searing beauty that this thought/prayer came to me. </span></em>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-62334690604784810042009-05-14T20:29:00.006-06:002010-03-28T19:21:41.251-06:00Workshop for survivors of "childhood sexual abuse," and for those who care for the survivorsI chair the Advisory Board for the Pastoral Care Center at the seminary where I was trained. We work to 'get the word out' about the high quality pastoral care & counseling that is available there on a sliding scale. The board met tonight, and I was struck again with how important this work is. The acting director told us that the <em>AVERAGE </em>fee paid there is $25.00 per session. It's such a wonderful resource for folks without insurance who need good counseling.<br /><br />Our project for this year, in conjunction with the Wellness Team at my church and our local area Community of Churches, is to sponsor a workshop/conference on childhood sexual abuse. We are attempting to bring in <strong><a href="http://www.maryshope.org/index.php5">Mary's Hope</a></strong>, an organization based in Colorado that specializes in the spiritual healing of those who have survived childhood sexual abuse. The event is targeted at<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVewFVIX9khGnqjZnYivuBJPZkHbrOFuYVCzITb5drct-IgvDlDSnwa_pw1rFA5LA_a06NniiAQNkgZhkT5DyRuxzevUi7Z4J6EhdRNYKXVSk1_SvzxFsYE3g5jjRWKxpUlLjZTK-e2RA/s1600-h/header.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335877202205256818" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 326px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 106px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVewFVIX9khGnqjZnYivuBJPZkHbrOFuYVCzITb5drct-IgvDlDSnwa_pw1rFA5LA_a06NniiAQNkgZhkT5DyRuxzevUi7Z4J6EhdRNYKXVSk1_SvzxFsYE3g5jjRWKxpUlLjZTK-e2RA/s400/header.jpg" border="0" /></a> survivors AND those who care for them--mental health providers, chaplains, pastoral care workers, foster and adoptive families, first responders, etc. We hope to have lots of local therapists get interested in this, not only so that they can offer better care for their clients, but also so that they will know that the Pastoral Care Center is there for clients who cannot afford to pay <em>them. </em>(The average therapy session in this area is something like $120-140/hour.)<br /><br />Mary's Hope provides wonderful resources for both survivors and for therapists. We hope to attract 80 people or so to this event on Oct. 10 (and Oct. 8 which will be an introductory Q&A session led by Mary's Hope). Please keep us in your prayers!Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-49272001442796584142009-05-09T17:27:00.023-06:002010-04-17T10:18:15.671-06:00Mother's Day...and Children Everywhere, It Seems!Diane has such a beautiful post, "<a href="http://faithincommunity.blogspot.com/2009/05/mothers-day-reflections-from-non-mother.html">Mother's Day Reflections from a Non-Mother.</a>" She expresses so eloquently much of my own feelings. Thank you, Diane.<br /><br /><div><div><div><div><br /><div>I blogged last year about the grief I finally was able to experience at not being a mother. (See: <a href="http://meaningandauthenticity.blogspot.com/2007/06/two-souls.html">Two Souls</a>) And I was so blessed to receive comments from dear Lovely Passionate Feminist and from blogging friends that, to this day, have stayed with me and given me such solace. LPF, GannetGirl, Linda, Jan, thank you. (GG, I am holding you in prayer, holding you in prayer, holding you in prayer...)<br /><br />This past year I have seen mothering in new ways. Although I am childless, children are playing an increasing role in my life. The children at my church, to whom I am "Pastor Katherine," are amazing. I'm with them for a couple of hours once a week, but many have revealed their hearts to me. It's probably the best thing about my "job," relating to these children, loving them. This picture shows some of them underneath our communion table, being the kids they are!!!</div><br /><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div><div></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333990587770834114" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 240px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikmxmZ_2awd6qNoB80pv7a1AUjY9lPxAFySX9qxWVSCYlvWtg05YAb6zUguGynBsR5Y6E7-xOlv1w0fzMcBQ9Q2Gyc1RliCOPcmASXC0d4e0j5ZDbipGYvbMKOvXqTA5rKhYJM8gbFFoA/s320/childrensCommunion+fun+May+4+08.jpg" border="0" /> </div><div><br /></div><div>And Little M, our granddaughter. Oh, what joy she brings us. David and I are always talking about her and miss her so much when we don't see her on the weekend. She calls me "KK," and she wants to "nuggle with KK," which means sit it my recliner with me and "snuggle." Oh, I live for it!!!! The photo is when I babysat her at my church--she took my reading glasses and tried them on for size! <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVtc8NHfUoAX0XQ5bhQWLkelgiV7bSq-im3zd6DNmFeeUBC0RfQXo9RedNHsjGLDPG409KSEcaGChQpi5YiXXUhfRe2eXApij9yss5_zVJn1WEvqJBeUNTFk7NBvyPmfuTIfb-doY_jSk/s1600-h/Morgan,+rickel+part,+2009+05+05.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334011384376278786" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 193px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 148px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVtc8NHfUoAX0XQ5bhQWLkelgiV7bSq-im3zd6DNmFeeUBC0RfQXo9RedNHsjGLDPG409KSEcaGChQpi5YiXXUhfRe2eXApij9yss5_zVJn1WEvqJBeUNTFk7NBvyPmfuTIfb-doY_jSk/s200/Morgan,+rickel+part,+2009+05+05.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUGj8MGbsUgWDdLoGVONm81Mg7RHk8AbWJh7VqIiOM5QpQm6nrJ3VjZd4Eyd-0JZth9gHGcTdvWdErS5B9lSgRup8niHndc5lp4z90FyvyjizFL84Cfy1WvTBr19a4ZkXgq3nW7fdav94/s1600-h/Morgan,+small+childhood+exemplified+2009+04+30+rickel+part.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334011460756109714" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUGj8MGbsUgWDdLoGVONm81Mg7RHk8AbWJh7VqIiOM5QpQm6nrJ3VjZd4Eyd-0JZth9gHGcTdvWdErS5B9lSgRup8niHndc5lp4z90FyvyjizFL84Cfy1WvTBr19a4ZkXgq3nW7fdav94/s200/Morgan,+small+childhood+exemplified+2009+04+30+rickel+part.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUGj8MGbsUgWDdLoGVONm81Mg7RHk8AbWJh7VqIiOM5QpQm6nrJ3VjZd4Eyd-0JZth9gHGcTdvWdErS5B9lSgRup8niHndc5lp4z90FyvyjizFL84Cfy1WvTBr19a4ZkXgq3nW7fdav94/s1600-h/Morgan,+small+childhood+exemplified+2009+04+30+rickel+part.jpg"></a></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333988515555835058" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 231px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 167px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHetBp4W_ZbwnC5RO9fr24S5mlVMtwMe1CdP41ox0vXwGJmm4cEwLRmtWjTA7dOcm95HDvbk4sLXJ6KVkFDY6CHOqVU7OFLAUmZ5hCEQdms7TxOz0iHX7ROAK0pxbVG5rlMckL_aQCzpc/s320/Morgan+in+my+glasses,+nursery,+2009+04.JPG" border="0" /></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333988519094794738" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 251px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 212px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmMsN8dwpo8xn9sg8fyrUtUsOk9u81XM6mC9rcpW2HZQu8EkkBz8DN4f7mmUUZ3wNocBT7B2I3VtxMmSUyWiDWp-3XWmsEkTcSOqfaOTODDNv2tOoriKfRxShWLep_27ej2QLhnncoOBI/s320/Morgan+and+Julia+playing,+2009+02.JPG" border="0" /></div><div>And here she is with Little Julia, my friend Life Giving One's 3 year old. She and Little M are friends now, since we love to babysit them along with Julia's little baby brother, Miles. <em>What fun</em>! Their imaginations just mesmerize me, how they create little worlds all their own.<br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I've always loved being around children. My niece Ashley and nephew Keith are grown now and in South Carolina, where they've been since, gosh...1991, I think. Long, long time. Oh, what fun we had when they were children. This picture is from one of our many trips, this one to a little central Texas town where we dressed up like ol'-timers!<br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333990123838767842" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 255px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 320px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPUh_7QPfIgYEU4h_0Ki4njm2XmNQPPl56z8qDFS0qBwwe5Lq6jwlnBw6RfOe8kVpfC0NMn6U_dBVBoXloSylMjJnByMxE0Nhyphenhyphen3NergdwHxgFjg0lzGu5XF08Yq0avlQVSNTbaYZaUlVQ/s320/San+Marcos+Mar+20+1991.jpg" border="0" /> And of course I have always, and continue to this day, believed that it is the inherent right of ALL children to jump on beds....<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2CU2yBFDuZEzl5SPF-58Nm4Af3mEy3wOTVAyKMMKQxPypU9rdIsBDa1LmUkZYmUHOvwcNvG0ODB_JPx1SFmco8aWBE3J5jYBv5FkIhXqmSUaQHksu2RRFSDf2ZWov_lbOJACAg2D30U/s1600-h/1991+SanAntonio+trip,+more+jumping!.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333991301667002258" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 196px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2CU2yBFDuZEzl5SPF-58Nm4Af3mEy3wOTVAyKMMKQxPypU9rdIsBDa1LmUkZYmUHOvwcNvG0ODB_JPx1SFmco8aWBE3J5jYBv5FkIhXqmSUaQHksu2RRFSDf2ZWov_lbOJACAg2D30U/s200/1991+SanAntonio+trip,+more+jumping!.jpg" border="0" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtheBRjvSTY9zLhvWe6imlzaO4Y0KrN62e2Yz8Iv32_Z8G3opZXCV4_oWt7I5GMLW43T1H8qkBsm6speKcfnXZewdbLzPT1KAJuzv9_dWPGRa1FUNjra4OUy54FeZn2TCqgCVIR7L_mz4/s1600-h/1991+SanAntonio+trip,+Keith+jumping+on+bed.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333991196917781714" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 183px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtheBRjvSTY9zLhvWe6imlzaO4Y0KrN62e2Yz8Iv32_Z8G3opZXCV4_oWt7I5GMLW43T1H8qkBsm6speKcfnXZewdbLzPT1KAJuzv9_dWPGRa1FUNjra4OUy54FeZn2TCqgCVIR7L_mz4/s200/1991+SanAntonio+trip,+Keith+jumping+on+bed.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><br /><br /><div>As I wrote last year, I love my three children-by-marriage as if they were my own. At least I think I do, not having borne them. I miss them when they're not here. I want only the best for them. I burst with pride at their accomplishments and happiness. I'd give them anything they asked for. (Well, ... you know.) Oh, and I felt incredible, just <em>incredible</em> joy at the privilege of officiating at YMI and IR's wedding last month. What a day that was! Here are some pics--<br /></div><br /><br /><div></div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwe2dN0p6YSuhivfJDG6hET4R3jPpe8XWcenbI3qYOZ0qD8_C4oR9G8i8n8_WT_xviXqDK7TkWUfQhzn00_q1g3I5ZIySZkKowLupQWH7VLg38tP46U5uLE5TOl12KpeFPoozJA0Pvuo/s1600-h/Performing+the+ceremony+2.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333995512528821906" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGwe2dN0p6YSuhivfJDG6hET4R3jPpe8XWcenbI3qYOZ0qD8_C4oR9G8i8n8_WT_xviXqDK7TkWUfQhzn00_q1g3I5ZIySZkKowLupQWH7VLg38tP46U5uLE5TOl12KpeFPoozJA0Pvuo/s200/Performing+the+ceremony+2.jpg" border="0" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-B5Ev3gsNfno7jAqK38lGQ-LlW7vy6AUJulppZsW6HFbwQ-74vp2VgzSIr0T9HXq5Yg26adAEvkAnnXa9P__3m-rwcl7vCO7YFpgIjRfyX824d1EdzFjIzwZySXJC35WYgyERd4ahq8/s1600-h/Marriage+on+our+patio+2009+04+(2).JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334000630875917778" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 194px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu-B5Ev3gsNfno7jAqK38lGQ-LlW7vy6AUJulppZsW6HFbwQ-74vp2VgzSIr0T9HXq5Yg26adAEvkAnnXa9P__3m-rwcl7vCO7YFpgIjRfyX824d1EdzFjIzwZySXJC35WYgyERd4ahq8/s200/Marriage+on+our+patio+2009+04+(2).JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji-V4TTY5zCnex8ksrJMt2cLJZXeeGuAbjOpoDNWyZUzVXOVNOE8WFjUhcLxoFDLNGeNcAy7VtvgbtB8kfdA1MaEleRQxL-wG6wE6HQWfDwmmBxw6gmPXIJZFVrPAJkTNL164lx0I1YGU/s1600-h/Performing+the+ceremony+2009+04+11.jpg"></a><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkBJiww1A_AYQ6q0Zjp2UWm6zQXtMtH9G-tEERcBcv63Ib8zQnDJTuy2wmsmjXjabsyr4qmdvxoN-XYUj25PUg8ePs5HKaVolwMuzLThhBFuG7NKKqyl6OoooZXFs0D6nXqWfAt1h0ZcU/s1600-h/Marriage+on+tohe+patio,+Jen,+Rob+and+David+2009+04+11.JPG"></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35jKfTC6Qe4Ks_GUHspE51woT-3uEDC4CqZG1KOk3Og8Tvj6w7IT9rq5t3CDniBEEqPU2GBrqEVkJYYjUVvzE5wKVowEz23Rs-RKiStlhqdHRiSPwjNW7Ffn8pdez9k6PhQeWAkA7P6Y/s1600-h/Marriage+on+our+patio,+Laughter!++2009+04.JPG"></a></div><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35jKfTC6Qe4Ks_GUHspE51woT-3uEDC4CqZG1KOk3Og8Tvj6w7IT9rq5t3CDniBEEqPU2GBrqEVkJYYjUVvzE5wKVowEz23Rs-RKiStlhqdHRiSPwjNW7Ffn8pdez9k6PhQeWAkA7P6Y/s1600-h/Marriage+on+our+patio,+Laughter!++2009+04.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333995820428198162" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 220px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj35jKfTC6Qe4Ks_GUHspE51woT-3uEDC4CqZG1KOk3Og8Tvj6w7IT9rq5t3CDniBEEqPU2GBrqEVkJYYjUVvzE5wKVowEz23Rs-RKiStlhqdHRiSPwjNW7Ffn8pdez9k6PhQeWAkA7P6Y/s320/Marriage+on+our+patio,+Laughter!++2009+04.JPG" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div>I LOVE this picture! So much fun and laughter that day...</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333996069919003362" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 234px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitoHM78bfGyrIaiuLUbCv0XW5A5CxnicKOLapnfwcM7w9Y7yLWHeoQxzZAYH1C28ZVCmJwlCvv1FaNAxu6PoQMFxmD5yh9axTCa27JhY-YTMeIdo5fHXtrgYfGMU1xao6fMBb99bZrEp8/s320/Marriage+on+our+patio+2009+04.JPG" border="0" /></div><div><br /><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJNubKHU96ZBjbBsUgCSFHnVLv5kA4LGQUWQ8Rwyhv9yFOXGTWxTps6pqBjQLhewSMwF5KARG8jeph5mjRCo6iwkjnniHQLz6vhDtg1J91LDpKMCNCBQzjpMgpicx9Z2DbQud0b8LxULQ/s1600-h/Morgan+Easter+Egg+Hunt,+Marriage+on+the+patio,+20099+04.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333996611314583554" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 160px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJNubKHU96ZBjbBsUgCSFHnVLv5kA4LGQUWQ8Rwyhv9yFOXGTWxTps6pqBjQLhewSMwF5KARG8jeph5mjRCo6iwkjnniHQLz6vhDtg1J91LDpKMCNCBQzjpMgpicx9Z2DbQud0b8LxULQ/s200/Morgan+Easter+Egg+Hunt,+Marriage+on+the+patio,+20099+04.JPG" border="0" /></a></div></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>And Little M had an Easter egg hunt that day, too!</div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>Young Man with Integrity is proving the name I gave him. :-) He's working now to support a family. He's the kind of employee that business loves--dependable, smart, and hard working. Irrational Rational has written of how he accepts her, all of her, and what a gift that is. (Oh, so true, IR.) It's joy beyond belief to see the way he loves IR and Little M. He's a <strong>good</strong> father and husband. David and I talk a lot about his gifts, his way of being in this world, his growing sense of himself--all of which just evoke these feelings of deep gratitude and satisfaction somehow.</div><br /><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxDBVtOXu18PkwmsofcFkISZcRETEzL4LQ0K56zp28TGY2qRVGxWX7cFMd5DCxvAnPuFmKroxSzWpq3Rsv39MUdx8CZwiJO4YgF6Imkci4_l67WB9QHAeBbHSUGfa1DmWLx7hmMOSxNFM/s1600-h/Christmas+2008,+Rob+and+Jen+embracing.+Lovely+-+Copy.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333992703508098866" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 188px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxDBVtOXu18PkwmsofcFkISZcRETEzL4LQ0K56zp28TGY2qRVGxWX7cFMd5DCxvAnPuFmKroxSzWpq3Rsv39MUdx8CZwiJO4YgF6Imkci4_l67WB9QHAeBbHSUGfa1DmWLx7hmMOSxNFM/s200/Christmas+2008,+Rob+and+Jen+embracing.+Lovely+-+Copy.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFF2PgMNBmhZGf7lohuvJaZwBYYSqMn4Ssp6bN5clytcPEnxlF3U2g6kmmCjGGgm09lopBkRnfjTr7V7xQFNoLrjx5KsgrWBHVZtvZrMk79QCRmeDITiVmIiFsqwJhQepBiePi4qTurP0/s1600-h/Rob+and+Jen+2008+11+27.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333992548257175874" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 150px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFF2PgMNBmhZGf7lohuvJaZwBYYSqMn4Ssp6bN5clytcPEnxlF3U2g6kmmCjGGgm09lopBkRnfjTr7V7xQFNoLrjx5KsgrWBHVZtvZrMk79QCRmeDITiVmIiFsqwJhQepBiePi4qTurP0/s200/Rob+and+Jen+2008+11+27.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><div>And <a href="http://intpanentheist.blogspot.com/2009/05/in-which-i-am-unfailingly-negative.html">Irrational Rational </a>is the most amazing person. Super-smart (unbelievaly HIGH score on the SAT), gorgeous alto voice, most definitely her own person, and her blog is <em>so moving</em>...she is one of those persons whose writing can envelop you in her world. Such a gift.</div><br /><br /><div></div><div><br /><div>Lovely Passionate Feminist is finished with school, except for one semester of student teaching. O<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPCgZfh82DdpoJf01d9qaQyIOYESY99xpb2g0pRmzsKmC_FNQdOhpBABfjMdmCoX2WDbBZ8GsxixhN3-GajcRXWgVfSrc1kvd-uKM1lQaenRL9ZfMpJrYhbq0mBkqOXEGQ_0jZ7r3yCs/s1600-h/Deb+at+Monologues+Feb+08.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334001770049214178" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; WIDTH: 132px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcPCgZfh82DdpoJf01d9qaQyIOYESY99xpb2g0pRmzsKmC_FNQdOhpBABfjMdmCoX2WDbBZ8GsxixhN3-GajcRXWgVfSrc1kvd-uKM1lQaenRL9ZfMpJrYhbq0mBkqOXEGQ_0jZ7r3yCs/s200/Deb+at+Monologues+Feb+08.JPG" border="0" /></a>h my. It's pure joy to watch her move into the new life she is creating for herself. I'm going with her sometime soon to put a deposit down on an apartment, one she'll move into (her first!)in August. (<span style="font-size:85%;">My first apartment was government rent-controlled, not very nice--but I didn't even know it! When I think about everything I didn't know...ohhhh...only by the grace of God did I survive, I'm sure.)</span> She works so hard, is brilliant, thoughtful toward others, and so articulate. She'll be the best history teacher in the State of Texas.</div><br /><br /><br /><div>This photo is LPF with Julia and Miles, on one of our many babysitting days...<em>I'm always SO thankful when she can be here to help me!</em><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333988763109255634" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 240px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 193px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWc4ZH1FyiMAsOWwF4jEQJFBi8-PUkAVKcJM3zRSo_f1WHO50Jz0FtDEYbpFd-CFjRrg6XW1q6WFLZ63NVvCPEZ-0PhHwsJRedVWV0Lua8yncpfn7pNG8hq8AS5KCMFGja9eCMlbmHKws/s320/Deb,+Miles+and+Julia+2008+11+26.jpg" border="0" /><br /><div></div><br /><div>And the youngest, Beautiful Genuine Girl, has changed her major to political science. Oh<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUoBbmXgjUmVnapwCiXDGuWKawEND5plRQZ1yZ2vl86jeUXyEUth-UYtnCcUIy8vHWn7IIPICGwnU0WsZmghAmQXsIS70K10a6p5HWlS0McuCmrbm911x7WlQ_pEQEki001YunnIua1bs/s1600-h/Katie+and+D+April+08.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5334002123051859458" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 192px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUoBbmXgjUmVnapwCiXDGuWKawEND5plRQZ1yZ2vl86jeUXyEUth-UYtnCcUIy8vHWn7IIPICGwnU0WsZmghAmQXsIS70K10a6p5HWlS0McuCmrbm911x7WlQ_pEQEki001YunnIua1bs/s200/Katie+and+D+April+08.jpg" border="0" /></a>, I love it. Like her siblings she is blessed with <em>passionate </em>compassion and a towering sense of social justice. She also has a sensitivity that astounds me. Such a generous and good heart. And an intellect of which I think she's only begun to plumb the depths. <em>Watch out, world, here she comes!</em> Here is Beautiful Genuine Girl with David -- isn't her smile beautiful? (and his ain't so bad, either!) </div><br /><br /><div></div><div><br /><div>And with Little M....<img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333988525355029954" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 248px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 202px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1G4So4wGgZXOF4RVY6xp1euShSHgu_ku_KB2fAJCt66udZo-yRa6otkVbhRNKoehQ6QEu75szfxQytV1PsUhznRygoa8xzbBygTBQZbXoUhmczi_XSiXUyYuCruJXdDVDS4ykSzzBTeM/s320/Morgan+and+Katie,+2009+02+-+Copy.JPG" border="0" />I remain aware of what an overflowing <strong><em>gift</em></strong> these children, no matter how old they are!, are in my life.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-47360794226679313812009-05-02T15:15:00.005-06:002010-04-17T10:18:15.672-06:00Rainy Day, Memory, A Little BreakIt's raining here in north Texas. About 30 minutes ago it was a "gully washer," as they say, but now that's finished and it's just dripping.<br /><br /><div><div><div>I brought my chair out here to the our backyard, (the covered part), just to listen to the birds (amazing!), watch the squirrels jump from tree branch to tree branch, and enjoy the coolness of day.</div><br /><div>I've been working on my class for the Fall, <em>Spirituality and Psychotherapy. </em>Somehow it feels important to me to start with our embodiment, so I've been rereading, and taking notes on, James Ashbrook and Carol Rausch's <em>The Humanizing Brain: Where Religion and Neuroscience Meet. </em>It's a little old, 1999, but I think most of it still applies. I'm thinking that I might show Jill Bolte Taylor's video about her stroke, and then have students read certain chapters from this book. </div><br /><div>Taylor is a neuroanatomist, so for her to have a stroke (and survive it) allowed her to understand something of the brain from the inside out. I read a couple of critiques saying that her scholarship on the right brain/left brain dichotomy is out of date, but I'm not sure I trust those critiques. I'll have to do some further research in this area, obviously. </div><br /><div>Anyway, I've been doing that for three days now. Yep. I'm basically typing that book into a Word document on my computer so that I'll be able to have it online and can search it. I know that sounds like going overboard, but I've always studied that way. It sinks in better for me. <em>Better for my brain, if not for my aching fingers! </em>This little break is much needed.</div><br /><div>It's such a luxury to have three days straight to just work like this. I got exposed to the flu (<span style="font-size:85%;">swine, supposedly, although that's not yet verified</span>) when I spent so much time with the little girl at my church who contracted it. The incubation period for this thing is 7 days, so I still have one day to possibly get sick. David has urged me to stay put, just in case, so I cancelled my appointments on Thursday and Friday, and today we told our kids <em>not </em>to come visit, so we're missing out on seeing our little granddaughter, son, and daughter-in-law. That's a real bummer. Kinda nice, though, to have a free Sunday tomorrow!--we have cancelled church for tomorrow since our location is right in the heart of the schools with verified cases of H1N1. </div><br /><div>That makes <em>four </em>straight days to work, huh? wow.</div><br /><div>Glad my aching fingers enticed me to come here outside, just to relax for a moment. I hear some thunder, although it's still just dripping here. Oh, I love thunder. It's like God speaking ..... BOOM! :-) </div><br /><div>The air smells so clean--sweet, even, from some of the bushes that are blooming around here. Makes me feel <em>wistful. Memories close at hand now. </em></div><br /><div>Here's a wonderful quote from St. Augustine on memory. </div><div><br /><blockquote><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:85%;color:#ff99ff;"><strong>Great is the power of memory, an awe-inspiring mystery, my God, a power of profound and infinite multiplicity! And this is mind, and this is I myself. What then, am I, my God? What is my nature? It is characterized by diversity, by life of many forms, utterly immeasurable. See the broad plains and caves and caverns of my memory. The varieties there cannot be counted, and are, beyond any reckoning, full of innumerable things. Some are there through images, as in the case of all physical objects, some by immediate presence like intellectual skills, some by indefinable notions or recorded impressions, as in the case of the mind’s emotions, which the memory retains even when the mind is not experiencing them, although whatever is in the memory is in the mind. I run through all these things. I fly here and there, and penetrate their working as far as I can. But I never reach the end. So great is the power of memory, so great is the force of life in a human being whose life is mortal. </strong></span></blockquote></div><div>Isn't that beautiful? I'm sorry that his ideas led to such a dark and rigid view of sin, but oh, Augustine does have such a magnificent way of beaming into the human psyche. Here, as he writes about memory; also some of his writing on temporality is stunning; and, of course, <span style="color:#ff99ff;"><em><strong>our hearts are restless until we rest in Thee, O God</strong></em>.</span> He was so right about so many things.</div><br /><br /><div>.......</div><div></div><div>Well, the thunder, with its attendant lightning, has chased me inside, but I'm refreshed now and ready to get back to work. Here are some pictures I took from my little break:</div><br /><div></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5331372605568487602" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgjg7Yl53r780DyptG56OVqCBJq7AIKLBe40bXVnnmEfrUdri72c-wCE22_HL2iclN4sy9Qe-8Oyh6alp06mNz83gcIV9_jymmJ2drUGe2fJHiZ9iQJIKHKQjiWvmKoOSY7RAvEoNTlrU/s400/Patio+after+a+rain,+2009+05+02+(2).JPG" border="0" /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5331372609498582418" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhOi4kOV6Tsl41bt93yhfUWccHkeRdQn4UcvE-JmwpUqHhTiFnBiDvgPJPS5sr37gxTMllP_F9UmxT1oW1Evclzd1WV8PeyKM4xo_ifEiR3E5Qe5YmbL_rDm-0dMrrASLU6l8xi1NmR7w/s400/Patio+after+rain+2009+05+02.JPG" border="0" /><br /><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5331372611232661922" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 300px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3TjyWWBi4Vud67FytkqTF0scxNtFqxTr8xKe9LLu6j8IQRtbMebP3nGOYebosnYBxUD6J75tUNL5v9qfP6Ut-kYvUtRFbE_07JiJjErXHX6-lGqStI6990qfiFQO1d1T4rv9s5_WwxbU/s400/Patio+after+a+rain,+2009+05+02.JPG" border="0" /><br /><div></div></div></div>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-65069904295585796702009-04-29T18:36:00.005-06:002009-04-30T09:53:47.134-06:00H1N1We have a little girl from our church sick with the flu. Not sure yet whether it's the swine flu but I heard today that her whole elementary school has been shut down until May 11. Goodness!<br /><br />I guess the 'authorities' are just being extra cautious.<br /><br />The senior minister at my church has been reading a book about the Flu Epidemic of 1918, and he's saying that one of the worst mistakes made then was that officials continued letting people congregate.Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-81898042032868433242009-04-26T17:35:00.005-06:002010-03-28T19:17:09.890-06:00"Foundational" Moral ImpulsesEnd of a long week. I preached at both services today. Seemed well-received, but oh, boy, I'm exhausted. (I don't preach regularly anymore. When I preached every week, or even every six weeks on a schedule, it didn't take this much out of me. <em>Whew.</em>)<br /><br />A friend sent an interesting article from AlterNet this afternoon concerning the moral reasoning of liberals and conservatives. According to this article, Jonathan Haidt has come up with five foundational moral impulses:<br /><blockquote>1. <strong><span style="color:#33ffff;">Harm/care</span></strong>. It's wrong to hurt people; it's good to relieve suffering.<br />2. <strong><span style="color:#33ffff;">Fairness/reciprocity</span></strong>. Justice and fairness are good. People have certain rights that need to be upheld in social interactions.<br />3. <strong><span style="color:#33ffff;">In-group loyalty</span></strong>. People should be true to their group and be wary of threats from the outside. Allegiance, loyalty are virtues. Betrayal is bad.<br />4. <strong><span style="color:#33ffff;">Authority/respect</span></strong>. People should respect social hierarchy. Social order is necessary for human life.<br />5. <strong><span style="color:#33ffff;">Purity/sanctity</span></strong>. The body and certain aspects of life are sacred. Cleanliness and health, as well as their derivatives of chastity and piety, are all good. Pollution, contamination and the associated character traits of lust and greed are all bad.</blockquote><br />Liberals feels strongly about the first two--preventing harm and ensuring fairness--but often feel little, or even negatively, about the other three. Conservatives generally rank loyalty, authority, and purity over harm prevention and fairness (which they do acknowledge are important, but not <em>as </em>important, in their view.)<br /><br />That pretty much squares with me, a die-hard liberal. I'm always supporting stands that relieve suffering, that see everyone as valuable with an inherent dignity, that support basic fairness (I often bitterly rail against ridiculously high corporate executive salaries, for instance, and would support a law limiting those kinds of salaries).<br /><br />My faith helps me see some things are sacred, though (#5).<br /><br />Yes, authority is necessary (#4)--without some order life would be unbearable. But the regular <em>questioning of authority</em> also seems like a pretty good idea to me.<br /><br />And loyalty? Well yes, but <em>blind loyalty</em> is such a problem that I tend to hold #3 rather lightly.<br /><br /><em>What about you?</em>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-46512824555248277062009-04-23T06:46:00.007-06:002009-04-23T11:07:19.317-06:00A Little Respite<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadn0Kf4a0FAUz4YpNaVsWOxStIHfsGiLDSuvUPtSVCKndbQO19M4EUhy62769G842n_zZ_OuI9s1YYX026UQmkJOAsJ5n6IMns8AoWGxYdh6druNdGaQWeivYyKi-UDQwdgsoSghUYbM/s1600-h/deck+south+side+June+08.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327868378938590962" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 336px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgadn0Kf4a0FAUz4YpNaVsWOxStIHfsGiLDSuvUPtSVCKndbQO19M4EUhy62769G842n_zZ_OuI9s1YYX026UQmkJOAsJ5n6IMns8AoWGxYdh6druNdGaQWeivYyKi-UDQwdgsoSghUYbM/s400/deck+south+side+June+08.jpg" border="0" /></a> Oh, a day off! Yummy!<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNGaYOBoF7TEBOg_JxnyBK30MEnt2PUBG32EebVyhgmYaOWRMcDw6V9wXKWhF_sBTF1-b-GW6zszFf3YHKCrWomh5Xa2zt-Rmzv-cRXgWwN7FZg5DbsCx7HUuAViWnZZLwA_O0FXcG5rM/s1600-h/Beautiful+American+Elm+4+26+08.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327868378188141122" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 294px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNGaYOBoF7TEBOg_JxnyBK30MEnt2PUBG32EebVyhgmYaOWRMcDw6V9wXKWhF_sBTF1-b-GW6zszFf3YHKCrWomh5Xa2zt-Rmzv-cRXgWwN7FZg5DbsCx7HUuAViWnZZLwA_O0FXcG5rM/s400/Beautiful+American+Elm+4+26+08.jpg" border="0" /></a> <div><div>Except it's not really. I have to write a sermon and put together two services for Sunday. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div>Still, it's so nice to be at home. I'm sitting now on our back porch at our little patio table and chairs, sipping coffee, listening to the wind through our cathedral of trees. Oh, and although it will get to the 90's today, this morning the breeze it so nice and cool. I almost need a jacket.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div>I was at one of our local hospitals yesterday at 6:30 am to pray with one of our parishioners. Although I felt how afraid she was, I was also aware of how deeply fulfilling it is to me to be a minister, to be with someone, praying, at a time like that. <em>Thank you, God. </em></div><div><em></em> </div><div><em></em> </div><div></div><div>The morning before that -- Tuesday, that would be--I was at my church at 6:45 a.m. getting ready for what some friends and I are calling our <strong>Fullness of Life Group</strong>. This was our initial meeting. Eight of us. I knew all but two of the people--no one there knew everyone else, which made it kind of nice. New people. We are folks who felt the need to gather for community, a safe place in which to talk about the issue of vocation and spirituality. I'm not looking to change, but with FOUR jobs I do need all the help I can get from people who can keep me looking within and asking the deeper questions of me. That's what this group will do. Several of those who gathered are in new jobs; others want to change or deepen their work; others are seeking a group to hold them accountable to various promises they are making to themselves about their work. </div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div>As we all sat down together, my friend who came up with the idea spoke a few words and then asked me to lead us in a time of <em>breathing. </em></div><div><em></em> </div><div><em></em> </div><div></div><div></div><div>That pretty much describes this group. !! I love it.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div></div><div></div><div>Anyway, I've had a week of very long days, and it feels so lovely to just sit here this morning before I take my computer back inside and begin writing and planning. <em>Thank you, </em>God.</div></div>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-65594819853257062952009-04-14T21:04:00.005-06:002010-03-28T19:29:37.038-06:00Life from Death: Yes, Jesus, I BelieveWhat an awesome experience tonight at my <em>lectio divina </em>group. I've been meeting with this group for over 10 years now, and it's nearly always amazing.<br />It's as if God's Spirit just manifests and we are all suddenly AWAKE and AWARE, in our "God spot," as someone described it this evening.<br /><br />We take turns leading the group, and tonight was my turn. I chose the passage in John 11 about Jesus raising Lazarus, but we only read verses 17 through 26 which ends with Jesus asking Martha, "Do you believe this?"<br /><blockquote><strong><span style="color:#ffff66;">I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies;26.and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"<br /></span></strong></blockquote><br />I spoke about my struggle with death...the idea of my own, and seeing my mother die in 1994. One moment "she" (my mom) was there, occupying the body lying there in the hospital bed, and the next moment, "she" was no longer there. Whatever it is that animates us as humans was simply gone. <em>AND</em> <em>WHERE DID IT GO?</em> Existentialist that I am, that question came to me within just a few moments of losing my mother, seeing her take her very last breath on this earth. <em>Where is she? Where did she go? </em>And that question has never really been far from my conscious awareness ever since.<br /><br />I said something about feeling more comfortable with <strong><em>death</em></strong> in recent years only as I've become more aware of the utter mystery of <strong><em>life</em></strong>.<br /><strong><em></em></strong><br />At that point someone else began talking about the <strong><em>soul </em></strong>and about how we are all connected, which led to conversation about quantum physics and the scientific evidence supporting our actual connectedness at the subatomic particle level. And how when we are in our "God spot" we are aware of the truth of all this.<br /><br />Someone else spoke of how she began to understand the meaning of "grounded," and how she feels that rootedness and groundedness, not so much in her family of origin, but in her "tribe," meaning us, her spiritual family. She said "tribe," I think, because someone else had mentioned that recent PBS show tracing the origins of humanity through DNA, and how scientists can show how humanity migrated across the continents, evolving facial features and body types slowly through the centuries as the different climates dictated. <strong><em>We are all one! </em></strong><br /><br />And then someone else spoke of an "I AM" experience she's had in a spiritual therapy group. This was something with which I resonated deeply. Growing up feeling disconnected, not belonging...we experience something so foundational that it gives us a sense of boundaried self, the "I AM." I am me. I am here. I am of some kind of substance, even if it's only a kind of energy. I am.<br /><br />The evening's sharing/witnessing-- all together it reminded me of how I believe so deeply that all human beings are created in the <em>image of God, </em>and how, for me, that means we all have something <em>indestructible </em>of God in us -- the soul. Something of us continues after death because something of us IS the lifeforce of the whole cosmos.<br /><br />"Do you believe this?" Jesus asks me tonight.<br /><br />Yes, Jesus, I believe.Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-90642802940270447942009-04-11T01:44:00.011-06:002009-04-11T02:08:12.383-06:00"The wrath and whisper of the dove..."It is 2:44 a.m. As part of our Easter Vigil, I promised to pray in the middle of the night.<br /><br />Since keeping my eyes open is a definite problem, I thought I'd share with the blogosphere something of the <em>beautiful </em>Good Friday Service I experienced at Broadway Baptist, my husband's church, and the church in which we were married.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9owMWM5nQ0t_EcaPqNo6CJwb1oJGLb2iD5BIO4geH75AsZP_WzxKYeIZ5mpHl0PGqDTbCdpAQCQMS0nmwhSV7DAjvnKgaKnErTlgeeva5kXxcihtylR0qwsRBa2mmkZ0eNQrofo85pko/s1600-h/church++Broadway+Baptist.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323338044586206786" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 156px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 198px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9owMWM5nQ0t_EcaPqNo6CJwb1oJGLb2iD5BIO4geH75AsZP_WzxKYeIZ5mpHl0PGqDTbCdpAQCQMS0nmwhSV7DAjvnKgaKnErTlgeeva5kXxcihtylR0qwsRBa2mmkZ0eNQrofo85pko/s400/church++Broadway+Baptist.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><div><div><div>Here's a photo of it, which of course does not do it justice. It is a grand, majestic place. I sat there feeling swallowed up in God, eager to be filled.</div><br /><div></div><div>Broadway always publishes some beautiful quotes in the Order of Worship in order to enhance the service in general and also to use during the silence which is always built into its worship. Here are a couple of lovely ones concerning Good Friday.</div><br /><div></div><div></div><div><blockquote><br /><p>"This liturgy that Christ enacted on the cross represents the culmination of precisely <em>this </em>liturgy, the 'liturgy of the world.' This is the liturgy which reveals, ultimately, God's plan for human history, which shows the world not as some 'evil, godless realm,' but as a holy space permeated by grace, as a "Neighborhood' where God may be known and named. In the world's depth, at the center of each person, God's grace glows, burns, illumines, hallows, pleads, reproves, invites, emboldens, subverts and enlivens." (Nathan Mitchell)<br /><br />"And on this day Christ died. It was for love and was his only pride: it was the rock he struck and traveled to, on this day he did what he meant to do. It was the wrath and whisper of the dove: the pure and original spring of love."<br />(Peter Levi)<br /></p></blockquote></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5323342296436622882" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 322px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 400px; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgd9EmJK2AJsKXemBYXz4QZqFHV-OrnXknUZJIGLDWN24dt123j3q1IQoC5ylRNyAjrUPM8Kl0ZToX4S6nn-AoynqT1XA_P4FYLIM-QJRq6bxr2maWNe5oikzuXZeFwTJC8eeyJX_P_wOs/s400/Jesus+on+the+Cross+granite.bmp" border="0" /><br /><div></div>I pray...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbsMyc6IRtmnAoU6YaVCUa9v3zjOoD015chaDWa2xMSR9L4UwYYACFbgu4P4Bm6YDx5kEVzs2_mnWSHn0uyl9_uPVK5O7WnMVDlxIoTozLA_CkZ9iaCoVt4aiHHOsVrNmsQ27qU7lFnsY/s1600-h/church++Broadway+Baptist.jpg"></a></div></div>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-31308192678732734112009-04-08T21:08:00.004-06:002009-04-09T05:09:44.283-06:00Tillich's Love, Power, and Justice (installment 1)Notes from Paul Tillich's <u><strong>Love, Power, and Justice</strong></u><br /><br />"Ontology: <em>What does it mean that something </em><strong>is</strong>? <em>What are the characteristics of everything that participates in being? What does it mean to </em><strong>be</strong>?<br /><br />"Ontology characterizes the texture of being itself...One cannot escape ontology if one wants to know! For knowing means recognizing something as being. And being is an infinitely involved texture, to be described by the never-ending task of ontology.<br /><br />"Early philosophers, when they tried to speak in terms of the <em>logos </em>about the nature of being, could not do it without using words like love, power, and justice. Metaphysically speaking, love, power, and justice cannot be derived from anything that is. They have ontological dignity.<br /><br />"In Plato, we find the doctrine of <em>eros </em>as the power which drives to the union with the true and the good itself. In his interpretation of the ideas as the essences of everything, he sees them as the 'powers of being.' And justice for Plato is not a special virtue, but the uniting form of the individual and the social body....<br /><br />"Hegel started...as a philosopher of love, and his dialectical scheme is an abstraction from his concrete intuition into the nature of love as separation and reunion...<br /><br />"It should also be mentioned that in psychotherapeutic literature the relation between power-drive and love is in the foreground of interest. Love has been more and more acknowledged as the answer to the question implied in anxiety and neurosis.<br /><br /><strong><em>An Ontology of Love</em><br /></strong>"All problems concerning the relation of love to power and justice...become insoluble if love is understood as emotion....<br /><br />"Life is being in actuality, and love is the moving power of life. In these two sentences the ontological nature of love is expressed. They say that being is not actual without the love which drives everything that <em>is</em> towards everything else that is. In humanity's experience of love, the nature of life becomes manifest. Love is the drive toward the unity of the separated...<br /><br />"Love can be described as the reunion of the estranged. Estrangement presupposes original oneness. Love manifests its greatest power there where it overcomes the greatest separation. And the greatest separation is the separation of self from self. Every self is self-related and a complete self is completely self-related. It is an independent <em>center, </em>indivisible and impenetrable, and therefore is rightly called an individual.<br /><br />"The separation of a completely individualized being from any other completely individualized being is itself complete. The center of a completely individualized being cannot be entered by any other individualized being, and it cannot be made into a mere part of a higher unity. Even as a part it is indivisible and it is as such more than a part. Love reunites that which is self-centered and individual. The power of love is not something which is added to an otherwise finished process, but life has love in itself as one of its constitutive elements. It is the fulfillment and the triumph of love that it is able to reunite the most radially separated beings, namely individual persons. The individual person is both most separated and the bearer of the most powerful love. <span style="font-size:78%;">[<span style="font-family:verdana;">K: we are fragmented.]</span></span><br /><br />"We have rejected the attempt to restrict love to its emotional element. But there is no love without the emotional element, and it would be a poor analysis of love whichdid not take this element into consideration. The question is only how to relate it to the ontological definition of love. One can say that love as an emotion is the anticipation of the reunion which takes place in every love-relation. Lobev, like all emotions, is an expredssion of the total participation of the being which is in an emotional state. In the moment in which one is in love the fulfiloment of the desire for reunion is anticvipted and the happiness of this reunion is experienced in the imagination. This means that the emotional element in lobve does not precede the others ontologicallhy but that the ontologically founded movement to the other person expresses itself in emotional ways. Love is a passion; this assertion implies that there is a passive element in love, namely the state of being driven towards reunion. Infinite passion for God as described by Kierkegaard is, no less than the sexual passion, a consequence of the objective situation, namely of the state of separation of whose who belong together and are driven toward each other in love. <span style="font-family:times new roman;font-size:78%;">[K: We belong together, God and me.]</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span >"The ontology of love is tested by the experience of love fulfilled. There is a profound ambiguity about this experience. Fulfilled love is, at the same time, extreme happiness and the end of happiness. The separation is overcome. But without the separation there is no love and no life. <span style="font-size:78%;">[K: We are always separated in this life.]</span> It is the superiority of the person-to-person relationship that it preserves the separation of the self-centered self, and nevertheless actualizes their reunion in love. <span style="font-size:78%;">[K: How we remain individuals in a love relationship.]</span> The highest form of love ... is both the subject and the object of love. <span style="font-size:78%;">[K: Appropriate love of self and other.]</span></span><br /><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;font-size:130%;"></span><br /><span >"If love in all its forms is the drive towards the reunion of the separated, the different qualities of the one nature of love become understandable. ...</span><br /><br /><div align="right"><em>...to be continued...</em></div>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-86246839660956879412009-04-01T20:32:00.005-06:002009-04-10T08:38:32.968-06:00Grateful for the passage of timeI'm 53 years old. Who would ever have thought I'd be this OLD! That's the thing about getting older and the passage of time, it just creeps up, and suddenly I'm definitely no longer young. I have certainly felt <em>old </em>during Lent this year...every week I've been working my rear end off, 15 hour days, trying to get done everything I set out for myself to do. I'm SO glad it's over. Next week I can look forward to getting back to my normal routine and not coming home <em>exhausted</em>. Seriously, tonight I came in and could barely walk to the bedroom, my feet were hurting so badly. (The good thing about that, though, is that David felt sorry for me and gave me a foot rub!)<br /><br />Time just passes so quickly.<br /><br />I remember my mother reflecting on this once--when she was in her late 50's or early 60s, probably. She said she still felt she was the same person she was in her twenties. I guess she meant that her <em>sense of self </em>had not changed.<br /><br />I know I'm the same person, too, and yet I think back and realize how drastically different I am from the person I was in my twenties. So many situations ~ life itself ~ frightened me. I lived in an almost constant state of fear, but I didn't realize it until years later.<br /><br />Fear and unhappiness. I'm pretty sure I was clinically depresssed as a teenager.<br /><br />I had my little areas of competence, areas where I felt confident. That allowed me to get hired at a company that paid me extremely well when I was only 25. And I always did well at my work. But even there, I was so afraid. My performance reviews were always excellent, which meant after a while that I was asked to be on special task forces appointed by people way above my boss. There I was out of my element and always felt I wasn't up to par. So full of self-doubt, second guessing myself, beating myself up, unable to find my voice <em>(any </em>voice, oftentimes)<em>.</em> When I think about the level of underlying stress...Yikes. How did I survive?<br /><br />For some reason, I sought help. Not until my father died ~ that was the trigger-enough for me to see a counselor for the first time. I was 31 then. Around the same time I joined a church for the first time, too, and I began to really find glimpses of a truly meaningful life.<br /><br />Through those twin portals, therapy and spirituality, I slowly found the <em>courage</em> within me (the courage we all have, I believe). Over time, with that courage, I began to face those ubiquitous fears. Years and years. Mountains and valleys. And even HUGE leaps of faith.<br /><br />At 53 I can look back now and be so very grateful for the passage of time.<br /><br />Wonder who I'll be at 73? :-)Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-60499699332017373292009-03-31T21:01:00.004-06:002009-04-01T20:29:05.090-06:00what an interesting guyI've been thinking recently about what an <em>interesting </em>man I married. Here's why. Recently David....<br /><ul><li>Performed in a huge musical review. He sang four solos and did the soliloquy from <em>Mutiny on the Bounty. </em>He stole the show. I mean it -- and it was a great show.</li><li>Read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Resurrecting-Empire-Footprints-Americas-Perilous/dp/0807002356/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238555006&sr=1-3">Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East</a> by Rashid Khalidi </li><li>Built a deck for our backyard. He'd never done anything like this before. Taught himself.</li><li>Read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dirt-Civilizations-David-R-Montgomery/dp/0520258061/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238555104&sr=1-1">Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations</a> by paleoarcheologist David R. Montgomery.</li><li>Built a raised garden in our backyard. The tomatoes, onions, and heirloom beans are doing great--soon we'll have "farm fresh" produce to eat!</li><li>Read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/After-Ice-Global-History-000-5000/dp/0674019997/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238555184&sr=1-1">After the Ice: A Global Human History 20,000-5000 BC</a> by Steven Mithen.</li><li>Brought me flowers almost every week.</li><li>Read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Worst-Hard-Time-Survived-American/dp/0618773479/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238555232&sr=1-1">The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl</a> by Timothy Egan.</li><li>Diagnosed the problem with my computer. Turns out it was fatal, so we bought a new one. He had it all set up for me in no time. Wow. </li><li>Is running for the national presidency of his professional organization. Right now it's looking like he'll run unopposed.</li><li>Read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Crucified-God-scm-classics/dp/0334028353/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238555330&sr=1-5">The Crucified God </a>by Jurgen Moltmann.</li><li>Repaired the fence in our backyard.</li><li>Was accepted at the <em>Engagement Academy for University Leadership. </em>That'll be a week in June.</li><li>Stopped by my church tonight and brought me dinner, then he stayed and helped me set up for our Lenten Activity tomorrow.</li><li>Right now he's reading <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Coldest-Winter-America-Korean-War/dp/0786888628/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1238555069&sr=1-3">Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War</a> by David Halberstam.</li></ul><p>All that, and the guy still won't fold his own clothes! <em>Sheesh!</em></p>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-39953416493874174052009-03-24T21:51:00.002-06:002009-04-01T20:29:31.447-06:00the broad view of spiritualityMany people don’t consider themselves to be “spiritual.” We hear it all the time, don't we?—<em>Oh, I’m not a spiritual person. </em>Well, news flash! No one is not spiritual, or to put it in the positive: <em>We all have a spiritual dimension to our existence</em>. The difference is in the use of the word, I think. “Spiritual” conjures up a limited set of images—images of people who dedicate some time each day to prayer, people who can talk about their relationship with God, people who seem to be more aware of God than others, etc.<br /><br />I take a much broader view, especially after reading Ron Rolheiser's book <em>The Holy Longing </em>several years ago. <strong>Spirit</strong> is the life-force within us—it is that which animates and energizes us. And “spiritual” is simply what we do with that life-force, all that energy and passion within us. We can focus it in healthy (and difficult) ways, ways that help us as Christians move ever more toward the <em>imago Christi</em>, the image of Christ within us. Or we can focus it in unhealthy (and probably easier) ways, like being a couch potato, avoiding intimacy, or giving in to addictive temptations like alcohol, sex, food, shopping, drugs, etc.<br /><br />Make no mistake: healthy spirituality, the kind that really transforms us, takes a heavy dose of courage. More about that below. My main point here is that spirituality is more than our culturally limited view of it. You don’t have to be introvert, or an intuitive, or a ‘feeling’ person to have a healthy, robust spiritual life. I know people who spend time with God while riding bicycles...One friend of mine expresses her devotion to God by living a good life, behaving in ways that are upright and moral...Other folks have transformative experiences of the Divine through the life of the mind—intellectual development, reading and learning, attending lectures, etc.... And then there are those who are more suited to meditation and specific times set aside for prayer each day......Much of my own spirituality comes through intimate relationships—soul friends. I can’t tell you how many times Christ has been incarnated for me through other people, people who have simply been there for me when I was hurting, people who somehow how found the right words to say, people who care.<br /><br />Let me return for a moment to the difficulty inherent in a healthy spirituality. It’s not that God’s influence can’t come upon us suddenly—many people have surprisingly abrupt experiences that transform them forever. But God is always influencing us, always there calling us toward that which is good, just, true, kind, beautiful, peaceful, etc. Unless we are working to remove the obstacles to God’s influence, then more often than not we ignore that influence and go about our lives as if we are in control! :-) Working at some kind of spiritual discipline—one that makes sense for our personality type and life experience—makes it more likely that we’ll be able to sense God’s influence in our lives, hear that “still small voice,” see the Divine in other people, know which way to turn when we have a major decision facing us, bear with grace whatever suffering life might throw our way…Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-70021929149048086362009-03-24T21:22:00.004-06:002009-04-01T20:29:52.462-06:00Lenten activitiesHard to believe that Lent is almost over. Having missed a week of it (attending a Five Day Academy), it seems like it just began.<br /><br />All my Lenten activities at church have been good, but attendance has been light. I remarked to our youth minister today that I wasn't sure I'd try anything like this again next year, but her response was to pass along a compliment from one of our parishioners who was telling her how much she appreciated all the emphasis on spiritual formation that I'm bringing to the church. That was nice to hear...the parishioner said she couldn't come to everything I've offered, but she likes it that it's available. And that's true. It's available, and I suppose that counts for something.<br /><br />Tonight I spent a couple of hours shopping for the Lenten activity we're doing tomorrow. After Evening Prayer then a soup supper, we'll be filling 60 "TAAS Survival Bags" for the 3rd graders at the elementary school next door to our church. TAAS is the standardized test that children have to pass here in Texas, and there is always much angst surrounding it. In fact, as I was standing in line at Party City this evening, a woman in front of me, eyeing everything in my shopping cart, asked whether I was a teacher. I said no, I'm a minister, and I told her about the Survival Bags we're doing tomorrow. Turns out she's a 3rd grade teacher herself, and she actually got all teary-eyed as I told her what we're doing. She says it's awful how much stress and pressure these little children feel about this testing.<br /><br />That helped me feel good about what I'm doing. ~~Sixty bags, and we're going to fill them with a pencil, a fun little eraser, piece of peppermint, fun stickers, a Hershey's Kiss, lots and lots of little gold stars (confetti type things), little package of Kleenex, and a little card that I just finished making (using MSPublisher and then laminating) that says "<em>You can do it! Yes! Go for it! Your friends next door at First Congregational Believe in YOU!"</em> Pretty cute, huh? <br /><br />Next week we're writing letters for our Lenten Activity. It'll take me hours and hours to get all that ready...I want to have letters ready for folks to just sign if they want to...letters on behalf of prisoners of conscience identified by Amnesty International, letters in support of Obama's budget proposal (and some not in support of it, I suppose, but most of our congregation would be in favor of it), things like that.<br /><br />And then after that, Lent is pretty much over and it's on to Easter. Hooray!Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-11556753260008629732009-03-21T19:11:00.003-06:002009-04-01T20:31:34.540-06:00Battlestar Galactica and the Mystery of HumanityWell, we're watching the final episode of <em>Battlestar Galactica. </em>Believe me, my family is going to miss this television show. David downloads it on Friday from somewhere on the internet (HuLu, I think), then Young Man with Integrity, J and Little M come over on Saturday and watch it with us that evening, although today they are in City to the South celebrating his birthday with his mom and stepdad, and Lovely Passionate Feminist is watching it with us tonight. She goes back to her university tomorrow.<br /><br />It's a terrific show, <em>Battlestar.</em> I remember the first season I was enthralled with the music--those DRUMS! WOW.<br /><br />Then the character development began to grab me. The father/son tension between Adama and Apollo. The sexual tension between Kara and Apollo. The strange behavior of Sharon a.k.a. Boomer a.k.a. Athena a.k.a. Eight.<br /><br />Of course, as the years have gone on, the plot go so complicated that it's been hard to follow. David and the others watch the episodes more than once, so they can usually explain to me what's going on!<br /><br />So now the Cylons (machines) are attacking <em>Galactica</em> in an epic last battle. Of course, the reason the Cylons have a chance to attack <em>Galactica</em> is because Adama has thrown in with the "good" Cylons (who had a civil war) and is after the Cylon homebase. It's a kind of sacrificial last act, after have learned the ultimate lesson that <strong><em>what it means to be human is nothing if not mysterious. </em></strong>We all have something of the 'machine' in us, after all.Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-65473447512647780562009-03-15T13:46:00.001-06:002009-04-01T20:30:16.199-06:00God feels so closeIt’s wonderful how centered one feels after a retreat like The Five Day Academy for Spiritual Formation. <br /><br />God feels so close. <br /><br />Nothing seems to bother. <br /><br />I’m aware of my desire for the Divine.Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-85424038208598088292009-03-14T09:30:00.003-06:002009-04-01T20:30:16.199-06:00Knowing God through Spiritual FriendsI'm back from a wonderful Five-Day Academy for Spiritual Formation (an Upper Room ministry).<br /><br />Although they have all been good, including the Two-Year, I think this might have been the best one I've ever attended. The topic was <strong>Spiritual Friendship</strong>, and the faculty was Dr. Loyd Allen and Sister Kathleen Floyd. Wow. Both were excellent. <br /><br />The local team that put the week together was excellent. We worship three times a day at Academies, and each time we entered the worship space, the team had created something of exquisite beauty. I just love that. So enriching.<br /><br />Plus I just felt good being there. I was so ready for a break.<br /><br />What made the week so outstanding, though, was how events served as a living testimony to the topic of spiritual friendship! I've been to so many Academies that I know a lot of attendees, and this week I had some special friends there, including The Author. Tuesday morning started out with a bang. I woke up from a terrible dream--the kind that it took a moment or two for me to realize it was <em>just </em>a dream, and then to feel this incredible <em>relief. </em>It was jarring, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. As I left my room that morning, CB was in the hall about to knock on my door--she wanted to let me know that The Author had taken a bad fall and was at the Emergency Room. Another jarring event. (She returned from the ER around lunch time and was okay, but on crutches the rest of the week.)<br /><br />I told CB about my dream and her comment helped put to words the <em>feeling </em>of the dream.<br /><br />Wednesday night is always a Healing and Wholeness Service at the Academy. I considered not going at all, but decided to make an appearance and then find a way to slip out. I just didn't want to be there...I wanted to be back in my room by myself. As the service began, I sat there, trying to devise my escape, when I suddenly rose and walked over to one of the healing stations, staffed by two other dear friends, DB and SW. I have NO IDEA why I did that. Honestly, I was sitting there thinking about how to leave when suddenly I found my feet heading in a direction I did not attend. Strange.<br /><br />I sat down and started crying. I could barely talk, I was so confused, but managed to say something about this awful dream I'd had. SW prayed for me. They both hugged me tight and said we'd talk more tomorrow.<br /><br />Which we did. And both affirmed what needed to be affirmed in me the next day. And they did that through sharing with me their own painful experiences. Oh, talk about powerful, and helpful.<br /><br />By that day The Author was doing pretty well, and she and I decided to find a place to talk after lunch. She, too, said exactly what I needed to hear...profound balm for my troubled soul.<br /><br />And each of these friends could not have spoken to me as they did without a firm foundation of love and trust. Without that, I could not have heard them--I would have rejected their words. <br /><br />I spent some time during the week trying to think about what spiritual friendship really means. This is a work in progress, but it seems to me that it includes:<br /><ul><li><strong>Trust</strong>. An ability to be vulnerable, to self-reveal, to get angry and talk it through, to bear the friend's confrontations/critiques in love.</li><li><strong>Equality</strong>. At our core we are all children of God and equal. But equality is not sameness. These friends are wiser than I in different areas. They have different gifts.</li><li><strong>Love</strong>. This is where respect lives. And I also realized that spiritual friends have given part of themselves to each other. When The Author fell and, upon her return, needed extra help, I wasn't "doing a good deed" when I brought her lunch to her, etc., for she is part of me. And love also includes commitment: I am committed to my spiritual friends' well being, to their flourishing.</li></ul><p>Finally, though, a spiritual friendship means a <strong>Mysterious Connection</strong> that cannot be explained. When I sit with a spiritual friend talking, or in silence, or laughing hysterically (that's another story), there are moments in which, in some mysterious way, we touch the Divine. </p><p>Dr. Allen said that "Some people are given to know God through their friends." </p><p>Oh, yes.</p>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-87088075630608392902009-03-05T08:59:00.003-06:002009-04-01T20:30:54.065-06:00Goodness will prevail--I know it."Ministers need a well thought-out view of what it means to be human."<br /><br />This <em>simple</em> sentence came to me while I was talking to our youth director and student assistant pastor this week (who also reminded me that assigning 150 pages to read each week is too much! Thank you, M.). Simple, yes, but it gave me a foundation upon which to hang "Spirituality and Psychotherapy," my class in the Fall. Funny how, with something so simple, lots of disparate thoughts can fall into place.<br /><br />At least I think they'll fall into place. I HOPE they'll fall into place. After I finish this post I'm going to work on the Prospectus again and hopefully get it into shape to send to the associate dean. This is such a huge subject--I've had some difficulty winnowing everything down. Another friend who is currntly getting her Ph.D. in this field also gave me some sage advice: <em>Just teach what you know, Katherine. Teach what you know. </em>I'm thinking that a lot of what I know is out of date and the faculty will want me to do some new research, but I'm not sure, so I think I'll just let them tell me that after I submit this prospectus. I probably will use some of Ken Wilber's stuff, though--I've always been interested in his thinking but have never read him. Other than that, I'm going with what I already know.<br /><br />I'm loving this work! It's reminding me of why I loved being in that Ph.D. program. It's just SO gall-darned fascinating!!! Woo-Hoo!<br /><br />In other news of the week in Katherine's world: only my minister colleague and his wife came to Morning Prayer yesterday. Disappointing, but also understandable. It takes me an hour to set up the sanctuary the way I want it, so I definitely need to "market" this service more than I have! ... The other Lenten activities went very well. We had about 16 people in Evening Prayer (which is a lot for this little church), even more--about 20--for our Soup Supper, and 8 stayed for <em>Praying with Mandalas. </em>(The others dispersed to other meetings going on.)<br /><br />I need to remind myself, of course, that this work is not about numbers. As I sat there yesterday morning, realizing that no one else was going to show up after all my hard work, part of me felt like I'd thrown a party and no one showed! Ugh. But then it didn't take long for another feeling to arise within me....I sat there and just looked at the breathtakingly beautiful light from all those candles, and the stained glass of Jesus kneeling in the Garden of Gethsemane, and I decided it was all okay. <em>Heck! I set this up for myself! Because I needed to pray and be there for God! </em>That thought/feeling was in tension with the disappointment all day, but as I type this, I'm smiling. I think the tension has broken into that which is more creative and good.<br /><br />Next week, while I'm away, they are going to dedicate the new Welcome Garden (with a labyrinth and an oak tree <em>filled </em>with wind chimes in the center) on Wednesday evening. Really sorry to miss that.<br /><br />I have a picture in my mind of M.S., one of our members, with his shovel and wheelbarrel, yesterday, working in the Welcome Garden, getting it ready for this dedication next week. MS is the one who has done the vast majority of work on this thing. It's truly a labor of love for him. It amazes me---his <span style="font-size:85%;">(and so many others, including myself, although mine is not physical labor)</span> <strong><em>willingness</em></strong> to <em>do </em>for others. To work so hard and so long <em>for other people. </em>Not solely for others, of course, but mostly. And it's endemic. All over the world. Every moment of every day. People are laboring for other people.<br /><br /><strong>There's a goodness in this world that will not die,</strong> as <a href="http://www.carrienewcomer.com/">Carrie Newcomer </a>sings. <strong>And that goodness, I know, is stronger than hate--any kind of hate. The Holy Spirit that motivates all this goodness will prevail. I know it.</strong>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-67606763072879789382009-03-04T11:45:00.002-06:002009-03-04T11:55:58.672-06:00Five Day Academy -- SOON!!!!It's Five-Day Academy time again. Next week I'm off to Prothro Retreat Center near Lake Texoma.<br /><br />Thank <em>goodness!</em><br /><em></em><br />I'm so ready for a change of scenery, to be able to take long walks, naps in the afternoon, sit and look at the lovely lake, walk the labyrinth, be with some dear soul-friends, learn something new about Christian history and Christian spiritual discernment, worship three times a day. Oh, I am <em><strong>ready</strong>!</em><br /><em></em><br />Feeling pretty grateful that we have the money for me to do this. I wish everyone did. This economy just keeps getting worse and worse. <br />Feel like I need to fast from NPR for a while.Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-73703646029704468292009-03-01T15:56:00.003-06:002009-03-01T16:49:41.910-06:00Saying Yes to a Cat's LifeI'm trying to do a Lenten study with this book, <em>40-Day Journey with Parker Palmer. </em>Today's entry began with the Loren Eiseley story called "The Star Thrower." It seems that Eiseley once spent some time in a seaside town.<br /><br /><blockquote>Insomnia drove him in the early morning hours to walk along the beach where he saw townspeople killing starfish that had washed up on the shore overnight. They killed them every day for commercial purposes. One morning, he woke up even earlier than usual, and this time as he walked the beach he noticed a solitary figure. This man was gathering starfish as well, but each time he found one alive, he'd pick it up and throw it as far as he could out beyond the breaking surf, back to the ocean where it could live. Eiseley named this man 'the star thrower.' He realized that the star thrower's predawn work contradicted everything Eiseley had been taught about evolution and the survival of the fittest. Here on the beach the strong reached down to save, not crush, the weak. And Eisely wonders: <em>Is there a star thrower at work in the universe, a God who contradicts death, a God whose nature is 'mercy within mercy within mercy?'</em> <span style="font-size:85%;">(to quote Thomas Merton). </span></blockquote><br /><br />The lesson made me think of a couple of things. Carrie Newcomer's song, <em>There's a Mean Kind of Justice Coming Down </em>floated in my mind, especially that part where she sings <em><span style="color:#ffff99;">"There's a goodness on this earth that will not die. It bares all; it's seen it all, and still it survives. I know we have failed, but I've seen that we can fly. There' a goodness on this earth that will not die."</span></em><br /><br />That "goodness on the earth that will not die" is the goodness of saying Yes to life. <br />Like my friend Seeker Executive who continues to say Yes to life despite having lost her mother and several dear friends in the recent past. Blows, all. People hugely important in her life, and now they're gone. But she's responded by going to meditation and renewing her efforts to live in the present. She says Yes to life every day. I thought of her his morning and gave thanks for her energy on this earth.<br /><br />And I thought of Hobbes, the cat that came with David when we married. My exact thought was "Hobbes is Life as well, and I should say Yes to that Life." <br /><br />Lately this cat, who was fixed years ago, has been driving me crazy. After two years of being married to David, and two years of living here in our home, Hobbes started to pee on the carpet. We've tried everything. Locking him up in the laundry room. Making sure his litter box is clean. David finally took him to the vet who pronounced him in good health and gave us some female hormones to give him weekly. Didn't help. He's still peeing on the carpet. Not every day, not even every week, but enough so that it stresses me out. Every time I come home and we let him out, I keep thinking, <em>OK, where is he? is he behaving himself? </em>When I get up in the morning I think, <em>OK, did he pee in the laundry room again? </em>(He likes to pee on the door to the garage, not in his litter box which is inches away.) I don't know. I really don't want to live with this cat anymore, but no one else would take him, and David loves him like a child. Ugh. <br /><br /><strong>I know there are some real cat lovers out there: What is your advice?</strong><br /><br />I want to say Yes to life, to reach down and say Yes to a life weaker than my own, but this cat is making it difficult for me!!Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-44098723429758675232009-02-26T11:12:00.004-06:002010-03-28T19:25:47.264-06:00Four Jobs. Lots of Work. I'm Loving It!Whew! My life is at warp-speed again. So much to do. I'm grateful, though, that I seem to be sailing through it all. Last year, if I'd had all this in front of me, I think I'd have been stressed out.<br /><br />Perhaps the working-out is helping. Plus, I'm taking Juice-Plus, which also seems to be giving me more energy (I've never really liked veggies, and this stuff is suppose to be freeze-dried immediately after it's picked off the vine so it retains its nutrients.) Plus, I'm seeing an acupuncturist, mostly for the carpal tunnel on my right hand, but she's also treating me for weight loss, same price. We'll see.<br /><br />I've been planning Lent for about a month, and now here it is! Brochures are made--I did one for all the activities, one for Centering Prayer, and one for Walking the Labyrinth. Love the creativity involved in making these brochures. Publisher makes it easy and almost fullproof, but gives enough variety that I feel the brochures are really something I've created.<br /><br />Ministry is such a difficult thing. I hear it from many of my clients and of course I've witnessed and experienced it myself. So many who are called to ministry are feeling-types who'll just give and give and give and give until there's nothing left. Their efforts often go unappreciated (or at least the appreciation is unexpressed), they often have no friends outside the church /seminary / hospital, and they have big demands and responsibilities at home as well. Then it's so easy to feel overwhelmed, then you're close to burnout.<br /><br />But the rewards are so incredible. I look out my office window and see this b<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFuZ12BJE1vT4OzOBswxUBO8pivawtN3FZrPy7TppcJKwpQs8hyphenhyphenrQxcPIFSLa6EBeQOGe1hgf4cgbC_PPLIy0V551VVu94nuLzGe-PBn7wrDTgJQmD_B6kvFYb_d_3z3EnSt0M5HlVGDI/s1600-h/Labyrinth+2009+Feb.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307281396803656514" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 335px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 243px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFuZ12BJE1vT4OzOBswxUBO8pivawtN3FZrPy7TppcJKwpQs8hyphenhyphenrQxcPIFSLa6EBeQOGe1hgf4cgbC_PPLIy0V551VVu94nuLzGe-PBn7wrDTgJQmD_B6kvFYb_d_3z3EnSt0M5HlVGDI/s400/Labyrinth+2009+Feb.jpg" border="0" /></a>eautiful Welcome Garden. We have a labyrinth in it, an oak tree in the middle filled with wind chimes, new plants and flowers that will soon burst into colorful bloom, lovely benches for just meditating. It's truly lovely.<br /><br />Yesterday morning I spent a couple of hours meeting with two women who are directors of church-related agencies in town. I've known both of them for two or three years now. We are planning a series of events--we're calling them <em>Elephant in the Room</em> Events<em>--</em>which will hopefully be held at my church through our Wellness Ministry, that will address some of the most difficult issues in our culture today: <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7PsT1C3v_y7R9Uf5a6ftX-X8pGAak4opqvCnav00LrtAqERon2j71om-Fo6hEajpf6plWHV19nKGGoTSr7FYm2rrNjnpZiFELm9uzKTA288a7eOHqEbZt3WV5gTPEVU8QWdCVCjWxa3M/s1600-h/Labyrinth+2009+Feb+(3).jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5307280122864317506" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 201px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 307px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7PsT1C3v_y7R9Uf5a6ftX-X8pGAak4opqvCnav00LrtAqERon2j71om-Fo6hEajpf6plWHV19nKGGoTSr7FYm2rrNjnpZiFELm9uzKTA288a7eOHqEbZt3WV5gTPEVU8QWdCVCjWxa3M/s400/Labyrinth+2009+Feb+(3).jpg" border="0" /></a>childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, childhood grief and grief from suicide. As the three of us sat and planned yesterday, we all started to feel the excitement of it. Palpable. It is truly exciting to be able to work toward something so good, and so important. I love it.<br /><br />Yesterday afternoon I spent an hour doing some premarital counseling. Again, what an incredile joy! This couple is especially fun because they have a good level of self-awareness going on already. <em>Imagine that! At 24 years old</em>! :-) I'm impressed and just feel so privileged to help them engage their awarenesses in an even deeper way.<br /><br />Last night we had a Cabinet meeting before our Lenten Ash Wednesday service. And it was a fun meeting! <em>Imagine THAT!</em> :-) We're all concerned about whether we'll have to cut salaries again, but in the midst of that, these folks were lighthearted and not making it a doom-and-gloom thing. And I think they all <em>wanted </em>to be there; they didn't come out of duty but because their church is important to them and they love it. Wow.<br /><br />Today I get a little break (I could be working on the prospectus for my class, but I'll do that tomorrow and Saturday), before seeing a couple of clients at my satellite office. And then tomorrow I get to be at HeartPaths, the organization that trains spiritual directors and at which I'm adjunct 'faculty.' I'll love that as well.<br /><br />Four jobs. Lots and lots of work to do. I'm loving it!Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-338224184099573913.post-84350710565234477792009-02-22T06:34:00.004-06:002010-04-17T10:18:15.673-06:00Dual StandingIt's official: I now have dual standing in the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).<br /><div></div><br /><div>I spent yesterday morning being "examined" by the Church & Ministry Committee. They "approved" me after asking me questions mostly about UCC polity, some of which I really flubbed, but the committee passed me anyway! <em>Thank goodness!</em></div><br /><div>I spent the afternoon at church as well, participating in our church's Planning Retreat which lasted from 1:00 until about 5:00.</div><br /><div>Then I was off to friend Life Giving One's house to pick up little Julia for an<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXI0uHHa_-mvP75jfbb-tQN6u6qrGcCB2KpYg8phUebMkKbL1wAdRBMjqwulu3TDNkJWybdiRqh-LtiyzIAiGSGtqNqq6yDBFhsEFK_z8VUySfhAL9SuIoOSOCLUiyFJdJGaxWD1BkCUM/s1600-h/Morgan+and+Julia+playing+2009+01.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5305601675205654114" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 298px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXI0uHHa_-mvP75jfbb-tQN6u6qrGcCB2KpYg8phUebMkKbL1wAdRBMjqwulu3TDNkJWybdiRqh-LtiyzIAiGSGtqNqq6yDBFhsEFK_z8VUySfhAL9SuIoOSOCLUiyFJdJGaxWD1BkCUM/s400/Morgan+and+Julia+playing+2009+01.jpg" border="0" /></a> overnight at our house--a sleep-over which included my granddaughter M as well. J is 3 and M is 2. For the most part, they managed to have a great time together. I think it helped to have them both here at the same time. For one thing, little M fell asleep without a fuss, having J in the bed next to hers. <em>Whew!</em></div><div><em></em> </div><div>They are such delights to have around!</div>Katherine E.http://www.blogger.com/profile/06322364633534297714noreply@blogger.com6