Yes, I know... I'm a geek when it comes to church stuff. So I'll start with the everyday news. We finally have a break in the heat. It's been hot and humid the past four days. Yesterday several schools had early release because of the heat - they don't have central cooling in the schools up here as they do in Texas. Last night a storm blew through. Our town only got the wind, not the rain. I was out at 1am protecting my plants and taking down the wind chime.
Last night I ordered a pizza for the girls - a Final Exams week treat. We haven't ordered out pizza since... well... about a year I think. A slice from Papa Gino's back in September, but other than that we made our own.
It made my mouth water. It tasted great. But I forgot my own musings about "listening to your body". This morning my body is clearly saying "you don't NEED the pizza. There is no nutrition in the pizza. Don't eat the pizza." ~sigh~
Now, on to Annual Conference thoughts.
Monday night worship – choir from Cote d’Ivoire and Bishop Peter Storey from Methodist Church of Southern Africa – marvelous challenge to the church in the United States. Wish I could remember everything he said now. I should have been taking notes! But I was enjoying worshipping with my husband for the first time since Christmas eve. A small happiness perhaps, but sitting next to my husband and holding his hand during prayers is one of life’s greatest joys.
Tuesday morning – Bible study with Dr. John Holbert. Lovely, deep, rich voice. Told the story of Jonah as “risk taking mission” in such a way that it was convicting and convincing. I will never read the book of Jonah again the same way. Jonah means “dove” but his attitude and behavior were anything but peaceful. He was selfish and stingy with the word of the Lord. Not exactly a model for risk taking mission! So – the question that comes to me is – in what way has the word of the Lord come to me and I haven’t acted on it? Where is my Tarshish? Who are the pagan sailors in my life, those who are convicted of the truth of God, who offer sacrifices while I sit in the belly of the whale and complain? Who are those who hear a tiny (seven words!) sermon and repent, while I go off and complain? Next time I start complaining to God with all my selfish and petty concerns, may the voice of John Holbert rise up in my ears and stop me.
Tuesday evening – Perkins Alumni and Friends dinner – work on the new building, new faculty, and endowments for student scholarships. Great leadership from Dean Lawrence, newly elected to the Judicial Council. If his leadership at Perkins is any indication, we can expect dedicated, energetic and well informed service from him on Judicial Council.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Poetry and Writers
One of my favorite things is Garrison Keillor's Writer's Almanac. http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/
Today is the birthday of Maurice Sendak who wrote Where the Wild Things Are, one of my most favorite books ever. That book is what got me reading to Celia's kindergarten class, and reading to other children as she grew up and didn't need me reading her to sleep any more. One of my favorite sermons is reading Where the Wild Things Are to the congregation, all of them thinking they are adults, but really just children of God, who need to be told the story again... and again.
Today is the birthday of Maurice Sendak who wrote Where the Wild Things Are, one of my most favorite books ever. That book is what got me reading to Celia's kindergarten class, and reading to other children as she grew up and didn't need me reading her to sleep any more. One of my favorite sermons is reading Where the Wild Things Are to the congregation, all of them thinking they are adults, but really just children of God, who need to be told the story again... and again.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
But I Was Only Walking!
Today was supposed to be a run day. Didn't happen.
Mary Grace wasn't feeling well, so after class and a mandatory graduation meeting, I rushed home. Rush is a relative term.
Took the green line, but knew before we got to Park Street Station that I wouldn't make the 1:30 commuter rail train, so I got off and hopped on the Orange Line instead. When I got to the station, I had just ~by this much~ (imagine your thumb and finger pretty close together) missed the bus that would take me the rest of the way. Since it was middle of the day, everything was slow. I walked instead. Just a quick 15 minute walk or so, right?
Ugh. 20 minute walk, with heavy computer bag including books in it, plus the wind. Sheesh. We had 40 mph gusts today! Coming AT me, of course.
Then I stopped at the grocery store on the way home, because my poor kiddo was out of apple juice. And what kind of mother would I be to let me poor pitiful baby go without apple juice? (with the voice of the doctor in my ear, force fluids, water, apple juice...) So the second half of the way home was with the ever-heavier (or so it seemed) computer bag plus two big bottles of juice (and bagels and the local weekly paper).
On the last block home, I decided that this would count for my run for the day, even without running. Those cute ankle boots with inch and a half heels were giving me a workout, as was the load I was carrying and the wind, right?? Right?
Once home and having caught my breath, I thought better of it and when the sun came out, I knew I'd go running instead. First I'd finish the cleaning project I was doing. That's when it happened....
I was cleaning dust bunnies (ha, Easter joke) out from a neglected corner of the room and must have been leaning funny or something because when I stood up, the back of my right leg complained. No *pop* or *twang* or anything scary like that, just ... ouch.
It really hurts. James says I've strained my hamstring, the exact same location that he struggled to overcome after his knee surgery a few years back. He gave me a few exercises to do and said nice comforting encouraging things. ~sigh~
You know, I might have made an excuse for today's run, but I really was enjoying the exercise and all. I sure hope the ibuprofen works and it all feels better in the morning. That and the sensible hiking boots I'm planning to wear are sure to help, right?
I have to wonder though - after the discussion in class today about the Holocaust, genocides and suffering, to which I found no satisfactory answer to the question about God "allowing" suffering - is it possible that my own pain is in some small way helping me to experience rather than think about suffering? Hmmm....
Well, either way, my hamstring hurts and it will have to get better soon. I've got a paper to write about running!
Mary Grace wasn't feeling well, so after class and a mandatory graduation meeting, I rushed home. Rush is a relative term.
Took the green line, but knew before we got to Park Street Station that I wouldn't make the 1:30 commuter rail train, so I got off and hopped on the Orange Line instead. When I got to the station, I had just ~by this much~ (imagine your thumb and finger pretty close together) missed the bus that would take me the rest of the way. Since it was middle of the day, everything was slow. I walked instead. Just a quick 15 minute walk or so, right?
Ugh. 20 minute walk, with heavy computer bag including books in it, plus the wind. Sheesh. We had 40 mph gusts today! Coming AT me, of course.
Then I stopped at the grocery store on the way home, because my poor kiddo was out of apple juice. And what kind of mother would I be to let me poor pitiful baby go without apple juice? (with the voice of the doctor in my ear, force fluids, water, apple juice...) So the second half of the way home was with the ever-heavier (or so it seemed) computer bag plus two big bottles of juice (and bagels and the local weekly paper).
On the last block home, I decided that this would count for my run for the day, even without running. Those cute ankle boots with inch and a half heels were giving me a workout, as was the load I was carrying and the wind, right?? Right?
Once home and having caught my breath, I thought better of it and when the sun came out, I knew I'd go running instead. First I'd finish the cleaning project I was doing. That's when it happened....
I was cleaning dust bunnies (ha, Easter joke) out from a neglected corner of the room and must have been leaning funny or something because when I stood up, the back of my right leg complained. No *pop* or *twang* or anything scary like that, just ... ouch.
It really hurts. James says I've strained my hamstring, the exact same location that he struggled to overcome after his knee surgery a few years back. He gave me a few exercises to do and said nice comforting encouraging things. ~sigh~
You know, I might have made an excuse for today's run, but I really was enjoying the exercise and all. I sure hope the ibuprofen works and it all feels better in the morning. That and the sensible hiking boots I'm planning to wear are sure to help, right?
I have to wonder though - after the discussion in class today about the Holocaust, genocides and suffering, to which I found no satisfactory answer to the question about God "allowing" suffering - is it possible that my own pain is in some small way helping me to experience rather than think about suffering? Hmmm....
Well, either way, my hamstring hurts and it will have to get better soon. I've got a paper to write about running!
Friday, December 7, 2007
October 6, 2007
Daily scripture one day this week was Psalm 139 -
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
As I unpacked more books today, I came across Freerick Buechner's Telling Secrets. In his introduction, he writes:
*I have called this book Telling Secrets because I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are - even if we tell it only to ourselves - because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.*
One of my classes is studying trauma and how it affects both the body and the soul. Some times trauma (or extended suffering) is too difficult to put in words. The secrets of the soul are so hard to bear that they are beyond words. How can we share our secrets, tell our secrets, when there aren't words for them? When telling our secrets would put our lives, our fragile hearts and hopes, in danger of falling apart?
Buechner again: *Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.*
If there are no words, we can take comfort in knowing that the One who created us will understand our silence, our dance, our breathing, our movement, our stillness.
I know that for James, his trees and his fishing are his wordless ways. I suppose cooking is one of my ways, but there are others I've lost along the journey, silent ways of speaking my secrets.
The trauma class is helping me to find those ways, remember those silent ways of telling my secrets to the One who knows me best, no matter where I am.
O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
As I unpacked more books today, I came across Freerick Buechner's Telling Secrets. In his introduction, he writes:
*I have called this book Telling Secrets because I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are - even if we tell it only to ourselves - because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope that the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing.*
One of my classes is studying trauma and how it affects both the body and the soul. Some times trauma (or extended suffering) is too difficult to put in words. The secrets of the soul are so hard to bear that they are beyond words. How can we share our secrets, tell our secrets, when there aren't words for them? When telling our secrets would put our lives, our fragile hearts and hopes, in danger of falling apart?
Buechner again: *Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell.*
If there are no words, we can take comfort in knowing that the One who created us will understand our silence, our dance, our breathing, our movement, our stillness.
I know that for James, his trees and his fishing are his wordless ways. I suppose cooking is one of my ways, but there are others I've lost along the journey, silent ways of speaking my secrets.
The trauma class is helping me to find those ways, remember those silent ways of telling my secrets to the One who knows me best, no matter where I am.
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