Meaning and Authenticity

D and I are both pretty good with money. I mean, we both came into the marriage with zero debt. We kept our separate banking accounts, but we put the other person on the account, so we both have access to all the money--but his check goes to his bank, and my check (such as it is) goes to mine. Well, anyway--that's more than you wanted to know, huh? I started with that in order to say that we are both experiencing some guilt because of our over-spending (?) this week. We bought ourselves iPhones from Apple. WOWEE! As we walked into the AT&T store, D said, "We'll just talk to someone today and get the numbers, then decide later. We don't need to buy anything today." "Right," says I. "Good," says he. The young salesman let us hold one--to test it out. Not 10 second after the demo, D turns to me and says,"Well, should we go ahead?" "Why not?" I say. And away we went! Totally indulgent behavior, huh? But, oh, are they ever ...

My husband and I wake up every morning to the radio and NPR's Morning Edition. I've been getting up at 5 am for the last few days, but this morning, I slept in a bit. As I lay there, still mostly asleep, I had this thought, which I assume came from a story on the radio that some teensy bit of my brain was listening to: Hillary. You go girl. Wow. You're so strong. No matter what happens, you keep at it. You refuse to give up. You are amazing. And now the songs from Helen Reddy's song are coming to me: I am woman, hear me roar, with numbers too big to ignore, and I know too much to go back and pretend. YOU CAN BEND BUT NEVER BREAK ME, AND IT ONLY SERVES TO MAKE ME MORE DETERMINED TO ACHIEVE MY FINAL GOAL. I AM WOMAN. I AM INVINCIBLE. WOW.

My husband and I have both been pretty creative lately. I've put together a brochure for my church--the best and most sophisticated I've ever done. I'm getting pretty good with Publisher and photos and line drawings, if I do say so myself. And I love doing it! It occurs to me to put together some examples and try to market my services to churches~see if I can't make some moola!! But my husband has been creative in a different way. He's building a deck! I think that 's just pretty amazing. He's never done one before, but he has experience from when he was young...his father is a person who's always been good with a hammer and saw. D has been an intellectual who loves to read (and, unlike me, actually retains most of what he reads), but now, as he says, he is 'channeling' his father! And all to our benefit! I'm so impressed with what he's done and how quickly it's come together. Wow. While I'm at it, here's a picture of the beau...

Barack Obama....he speaks my language. Read this from his speech in Indiana last night. I listened to it in its entirity on NPR and I was spellbound: After fourteen long months, it's easy to forget this from time to time – to lose sight of the fierce urgency of this moment. It's easy to get caught up in the distractions and the silliness and the tit-for-tat that consumes our politics; the bickering that none of us are immune to, and that trivializes the profound issues – two wars, an economy in recession, a planet in peril. But that kind of politics is not why we're here. It's not why I'm here and it's not why you're here. ... We're not here to talk about change for change's sake, but because our families, our communities, and our country desperately need it. We're here because we can't afford to keep doing what we've been doing for another four years. We can't afford to play the same Washington games with the same Washington pla...

Wednesday Dawn, from Thomas Merton's Book of Hours: Our souls rise up from our earth like Jacob waking from his dream and exclaiming: "Truly God is in this place and I knew it not"! God becomes the only reality, in Whom all other reality takes its proper place--and falls into insignificance. May our Loving God be our only reality this day....

I'm reading a book called "What the Body Wants," written by the founder of Interplay. There's one little paragraph that brought back a memory for me. She writes about her middle-school daughter who complained about the way she, the author and mother, woke her up every morning for school. "Mom, could you cool it with the sing-song?" Apparently the mother/author knocked on her daughter's door and said, "Wake uuuuuuup. It's time for schoooooool." Her point was that the body knows its rhythms and what works best for it as it awakens from sleep. I remembered how my sister and I once got together and decided we were going to confront our mom about the way she woke us up--which was basically with a screech: "Get up! It's time for school!" We went into her room and said we needed to talk to her. (I can only imagine where her mind went at that point.) We said, "Mom, could you please try to wake us up more gently, without the yell...

For this early Sunday morning, Thomas Merton: There is in all things an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessnss, a hidden wholeness. This mysterious Unity and Integrity is Wisdom, the Mother of all. There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity; a silence that is a fount of action and joy. It rises up in wordless gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being, welcoming me tenderly, saluting me with indescribable humility. This is at once my own being, my own nature, and the Gift of my Creator's Thought and Art within me, speaking as Hagia Sophia, speaking as my sister, Wisdom. I am awakened, I am born again at the voice of this my Sister, sent to me from the depths of the divine fecundity. May we all be awakened to Wisdom this day.

We had a wonderful night out yesterday. Went to City to the East to hear a concert by Carrie Newcomer. What a voice. And her songs are meaningful...she's worked with Parker Palmer and put some of his poems to song. Check her out !

My sweet husband surprised me yesterday. He'd read my blog where I said I wished I still had a copy of Atlantic High by Wm. F. Buckley, so he ordered it for me from Powell Books! How thoughtful! Is he the sweetest husband on earth? I joked with him that night--After reading a few pages and not remembering anything about it so far, I said, "You know, I think it was my friend Roberta who liked this. And she just told me about it." Ha! (trouble is, I really wasn't joking!) (D's still sweet, though!!!!)

I'm listening to Bishop Gene Robinson on Fresh Air. Terry Gross asked him about how the church is changing. He pointed out how Jesus said " there are many more things I want to teach you, but you are not able to hear them now, so I will send to you the Holy Spirit." He said that full inclusion of women and GLBT people in the church is the Holy Spirit leading us to a fuller understanding of God's love. He said that in Jesus' day people might have said, OK Jesus this is all good, but you know, we really have to the draw the line with lepers...or with prostitutes. For countless generations various groups of people have been told that they are not loved by God. Jesus countered that, always, within the culture in which he lived. We are called to do the same. I think that's so true. I feel such heartache, even pain, whenever the subject of Episcopalians in my part of the country comes up. Women cannot be ordained around here if they are Episcopalians. Wh...

Mother Laura writes: We are right in the middle of a move--only twenty minutes away, but we're still a mix of busy, excited, nervous and surprisingly full of grief about what we're leaving, for me at least. So this week's Friday Five asks about your experience of the marvels and madness of moving... 1. How many times have you moved? When was the last time? Oh gosh. We moved at least 9 times before I finished high school. Three times in 7th grade. (Yes, it was traumatic.) I won't count college, but after that I have moved...well, as it turns out, I've also moved 9 times since then. (I'm 52, so that's quite a slow down) 2. What do you love and hate about moving? I hated moving when I was growing up. Since then, it's depended on the circumstances. I didn't want to give up my beautiful home to move to a rental place to go to seminary, although going to seminary was something I loved, so overall it was worth it. But I had some grief work to do about leavi...

Here's my latest article for Feminist Theology in an Age of Fear and Hope . I'm taking a break from writing for it for a while, but I urge you to read the lectionary-based essays written by a variety of folks. Wednesday, April 9, 2008 Easter 4 A Reflection on Abundant Life, John 10: 1-10, In John 10:10 Jesus says “I came that they might have life, and have it more abundantly.” What amazingly powerful words. Jesus came, he lived and he died, and he lived again so that we might have life. But not just any life—abundant life. In a spiritual direction group about a year ago, a woman suddenly stood up, threw her arms open wide, and shouted up to God: “I WANT IT ALL, LORD! I WANT IT ALL! YES! I. WANT. IT. AAAALL!” Oh, what an image she created in my mind. She was without a hint of self-consciousness. Her action was completely spontaneous and completely beautiful. I knew—indeed, everyone in that group knew—that the abundant life was already hers. The abundant life can be thought of i...

I never cared for William Buckley's conservative view of things--his privilege blinded him. But there was something engaging about him. He wrote a book back in the 80's about sailing called "Atlantic High" that I remember as utterly delightful. I wish I still had a copy of that book. Arts & Letters Daily has a link to this article about Buckley's view of the Iraq War. Here's the beginning of the article: Right at the End William F. Buckley’s last gift to conservatism may have been his opposition to the Iraq War. by Jeffrey Hart Soon after Bill Buckley died, William Kristol published a column called “The Indispensable Man” in the New York Times. He celebrated Buckley as the founder of the conservative movement, and his tone was not only celebratory but affectionate. And surely Kristol was right: Buckley was indispensable. Without his leadership there would have been no conservative movement. Yet at the end of his life, Buckley believed the movement he ma...

Sally at RevGalBlogPals Friday Five: " With this Sunday's gospel reading in mind, that wonderful revelation of Christ to the companions on the Emmaus road. I wonder where you might have been surprised by God's revelation recently. So with no further waffle I offer you this weeks Friday 5: How has God revealed him/herself to you in a: 1. Book. Oh, so many choices here. One of the most recent was a novel by Stephanie Kallos called Broken for You. I cried. Cried some more. Then used a portion of the book in a Communion Meditation. 2.Film. As I've written, I love movies ! I'll say Dead Poet's Society in which God's self was revealed to me through the courage of the character played by Ethan Hawke. Although his best friend had committed suicide and his favorite teacher had suffered betrayal, banishment and gross injustice, I saw God's redeeming power displayed in how Hawke's character found himself through this terrible tragedy. Found himself and was thu...

Here is the sermon I preached at both services last Sunday: Conviction Arising from Mystery John 20: 19-31 “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe!” So said Thomas, one of the Twelve disciples, upon hearing from his friends that Jesus--crucified and buried—was alive. “Jesus appeared to us, Thomas,” they told him. “In this room..." “No. Unless I put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will never believe that,” responds Thomas. One week later, same thing happens. This time Thomas is there and Jesus invites him to “reach out your hand and put it in my side.” He does. He then responds with perhaps the most powerful confession in the Gospel: My Lord and my God! Jesus gave Thomas what he needed to believe. Actually, if we read this passage carefully in vs. 20 we see that it’s the same thing he gave the other disciples. And in vs. 29 Jesus gives us all, these many ce...

Today is really my first "free" Wednesdsay morning since I worked myself out of that little $15/hour clerical job. That was about a month ago, but since then I've either been out of town or had some big "to do" hanging over me. Oh, this feels good. I have lots of options for what to do with my free time...do a little more marketing of my pastoral counseling/spiritual direction practice, research what I want to write (I've decided to try to write some essays for publication), organize my workspace, do a load of clothes, just read and/or journal, walk down to my aunt & uncle's house for a little visit -- Oh! the list is endless!!! Yippee!!! If I decide to read and journal, I'll post some more this morning. Otherwise, Happy Wednesday to you all!