A Year to Remember

I just realized that I had a blogiversary yesterday! One year as an active blogger, wow. I had actually started the blog in February of 2005 with one lonely post but it took being introduced to RevGals to motivate me to come out of the lurking shadows and actually start writing, first comments on other people's posts, then posting on my own.

It has been quite a year, and I thought it might be fun to do what some people did at New Year's and recap the first lines of the first post of each month of the last year. So here we go....

May....If I were still into shame in a big way, I'd be hanging my head as I look at the date of my first (and only) post!
June...It has come and gone.
July...I found myself tearing up in church today.
August...The bridge was there and then it was not.
September...In a conversation with a therapist colleague yesterday about this teaching stress thing I had one of those aha moments.
October...Five years ago today my life changed when I left behind everything I had known for over twenty years to relocate across the state.
November...I ran into NaBloPoMo over at Tandaina's blog, which has been a source of many interesting things, blog and other.
December...Maggie, my sweet companion, needs your prayers for patience in healing.
January....I am hanging out today.
February...I am still gnawing away on this whole idea of Lenten disciplines.
March...It's amazing to me how many of the RevGals are in some kind of transition.
April...I'm home, a day later than planned, but this too is part of the grace story.

Oh, my. Talk about taking a quick jog through the last year of life. So many things this year has held... The whole teaching adventure, all of the wonderful things I gained from the NaBloPoMo experiment during November, the joys of Adventing and the harder lessons of Lent. As I popped back and forth to grab first lines my eye was caught by so many other posts that triggered other memories. The two trips to the yurt, the learning curve of "post-ordination formation," the great adventure of the BE, the hard lessons of the last months coupled with the wonderful support of the blog community. It really has been an adventure worth celebrating being a blogger, particularly in this community. There are a whole group of absolutely wonderful people in my life that I would never have known in any other way. Some of you I have actually "met" in the so-called real world, some of you I will be meeting soon, and some, God willing I will meet in the future. Some of us, I imagine may never meet face to face. But it really does not matter. You are all very real and dear to me. I care about you and pray for you as I know you do for me. I feel the net of care and prayer holding me as I move through this challenging time in my life, This community manifests God to me. I have changed as a result of being part of this community. I experience myself differently in ways that I can't even entirely explain.

I do believe some things about this though. I believe that by experiencing myself writing in the presence of a circle of compassionate witnesses I was able to awaken more compassion for myself within me and quiet, at least some of the time, the critical and shameful voices that so often kept me feeling isolated and separated from others. I believe that in writing here I found my voice and found the courage to call myself a writer. Without this blog I would never have had the confidence to step forward and volunteer to be the diocesan storyteller for the MDGs, or to say yes to Mompriest when she asked me to be a contributor to the Feminist Blog. I talked at the BE about how important this “writer identity” is to me, as it was something that was nascent in me as a girl that was snuffed out by the criticism and disparaging comments of some of the adults in my life. I believe that I am more authentic in my daily life as a result of feeling safe to be “real” in this one. I believe that the act of being intentionally grateful for a month altered my stance on the world, not only for that month, but for always. I believe in the power of prayer and carrying one another in a new and visceral way. I have experienced this from both the giving and receiving end and I will go to the mat with anyone who dares to suggest that there is no power there. We do indeed bear one another’s burdens. I have also laughed more with the people on this blog ring than I have ever laughed with any group of people in my life. We laugh at the world, we laugh at “stuff” and we laugh at ourselves. It has lightened me up and that is a good thing!

So happy one year to me, and thank you to all of you. Especially to St. Casserole and Songbird and the other “Founding Mothers” of RevGals, and all of you on the board and the others who do all the behind the scenes stuff to keep us up and running. This is a good thing you do here!