Advent Word Day 6: House

When I first saw today’s word, I read it as “house” the noun, as in the place you live, or “go up to” the Lord’s in the Scriptural sense. But then as I sat with it, the word started to morph in my mind to the verb, house, as in to provide a living space for, make room for. This in turn made me think about the Nativity story, where there is no place to house Joseph and the very pregnant Mary, as well as all of those in our day who, for whatever reason are not housed. It’s easy for most of us to not attend to the fact of the numbers of people for whom homelessness is the norm either temporarily or permanently. We can move past them in the busyness of our lives and not even see them. But in Advent we are asked to slow down, to see things as they are, and when the state of things is not as it should be, we are commended to repent, to stop, to turn and go another way. While perhaps we can’t literally provide space for someone, what is our part in making a way for there to be a place, a home to house even a small percentage of those who lack adequate, safe and affordable housing?

Advent Words Day 5: Raise

As I reflect on today’s word, the thing that occurs to me is that anything we might raise, as in grow, cultivate, or, as the meditation mentioned, “make stronger, better or more noticeable,” requires work and effort as well as a certain amount of faith and willingness to risk.



I think about raising crops – prepare the soil, plant the seed, provide the water and nutrients, prevent or eliminate the weeds and pests that might threaten the crop – all a lot of work. And even so, crops fail. Nature comes along and throws a curve, hail, a windstorm, a drought, and all the efforts toward raising that crop can be thwarted. Or raising a child. We do everything in our power to protect them and to nurture their bodies, minds and spirits. We hope, we pray, we worry as we raise them, and far beyond into their adult lives. We know that there are things that can happen that are out of our control, but we work hard and hold faith.



Crops and kids and anything else we might wish to raise or raise up require our best efforts and also an ability to let go. At some point, when we have done our part, we have to let go. We’ve heard the story about the person who kept digging up their carrots to see how they were growing and ended up without a crop. And many of us know people who could not let go of the raising of their children enough to let them try things and perhaps fail, and in doing so prevented them from blossoming into their fullest selves.



Work, effort, faith, trust and letting go. All good practices for Advent and beyond.

Advent Words Day 4 Humble

I had my annual one-on-one reflection and goal-setting meeting with the founder and owner or our practice this week. One of the questions on my self-reflection questionnaire asked me to rate my level of humility and vulnerability in the practice group. My response was that it had been a big opportunity for me to do this particular spiritual practice this year. I am new to this place, these people. There is a new computer system for me to learn, new protocols for how to document and bill my patient visits. I moved from a corporate healthcare setting where I was an employee who knew the ropes, the written and unwritten rules, how to act and interact, to a small, integrative healthcare practice that is operated on a collective model. The culture is very different, as are the “rules” and expectations. As in all settings, some of those are stated and obvious and some are more subtle. I joined the practice the same week we moved into our new, larger (and at that time, not-quite-finished) space. The leadership team and my peers were all just a little stretched and tense. There was a LOT going on. And in the midst of this was me, the new kid who did not even know what I did not know, trying to navigate all the newness and feelings of incompetence. I had to ask questions, a lot of questions. I had to ask for help. And I had to ask it of people whom I knew were very busy with a lot of important stuff. To say it was humbling was an understatement.

In the midst of all of this change, I have also had to adjust from being the primary breadwinner in my house while my husband was a full-time student, to being a person who made exactly NO income for several months. I was amazed by the power of my beliefs about my value being related to whether or not I was the one who needed and took from the pot instead of being the one who put in. I was amazed by how vulnerable and humble this felt, not for any good or real reasons, as I was reminded often by my spouse that “we are a team here,” but simply because I had to deal with my value being simply in who I was, not what I did.

So some of my most comfortable and reliable identity markers – that I am productive and independent and competent all were challenged at the same time. It required humility in the sense of truth, neither overvaluing or undervaluing my worth, and vulnerability in being able to admit that I did not know, did not have, could not contribute in the same way that I was used to and comfortable with. In the end, not a bad practice. I am, as we all are, beloved of God. Our value and worth lies in our very being, nothing more, nothing less.

Advent 2019 Words for Reflecting

As I thought about Advent this year, I really wanted to find a way to “observe” it, in every sense of the word; to be curious and quiet and reflective, to take time to stop and really see what this time of waiting and expectation is about. I knew I wanted to put my thoughts in writing, but I felt like I needed some kind of a framework. Then the Advent words showed up and I knew immediately that this was the perfect prompt for my reflections. Wooden stars and a little tree provided another piece of the “how” of this. My plan is to write on the word every day, and when each set of four is complete, to hang the star on the tree.  The final piece is to put it all up on my long-neglected blog, and to share it as others are doing. Because the plan has been brewing and life has been busy, I’m a little late to the party, so  days 1-3 are all arriving at once. 

Day 1 Word: Unexpected  The unexpected tends to make me anxious. I want a plan, some warning – I want to be in control! And yet, unexpected things can be wonderful and fun, spontaneous and in the moment gifts that bring wonderful things that all my planning could not create. I think about a wonderful “find” of something beautiful in nature, that perfect gift that I wasn’t planning on getting but it was just too good to pass up, something my granddaughter does or says that could not have been anticipated. T

here is a fine line between anxious and excited. Maybe a good practice for me would be to see if I can find the latter in the unexpected events and moments in my days this Advent.

Our priest talked in his Advent 1 sermon about the now and not yet of being Christian, especially notable in this season. Another reading held up mindfullness and anticipation. It occurs to me that those two are really the same. Mindfulness of this moment, this now, right there in the cupped hands with anticipation, the not yet. Noticing God at work in the world can only happen if I am present in and to the world. And yet there is also the tension that this is not all, is not complete. Jesus is still coming, God’s kingdom is still coming. Can I be present to the whole of it, the here and now and the not yet without getting so anxious I bolt on the former and foreclose on the latter?

Day 2 Word: Visit The mediation this morning talked about being ready for the unexpected visit, noting that in the Middle East, visitors don’t call ahead but just come, and that because of this custom, there is always a space and provisions ready, just assuming that indeed they will come. I think about how we tend to live in our space, not necessarily always ready for a “visit” but scrambling if we know someone is coming, to straighten up and get something together to offer. This applies to more than just a visit from an actual guest, but also to all those “unexpected” things that throw me into a spin. I wonder how it would be to live in the trust and expectation that the guests might just come, and they might be Rumi’s guests at the Guesthouse, sweeping me out and preparing me for some new thing? To always be ready in healthy anticipation and curiosity, to be prepared, but not in a rigid or controlling kind of way, but with a kind of fluid grace based in trust that holds me both to a standard of living as if the guest arrives soon (or treating myself as the guest!) and relaxing into the expected unexpected.

Day 3 Word: Time
The reflection this morning made mention of time slipping into the future, which of course gave me a Steve Miller earworm. Time, however, rather than slipping, slipping, slipping into the future, seems more to be racing. I remember my mother telling me that the older you get the faster it goes. At the time, of course, I thought that was just another one of those things that grown-ups say. It turned out, however, that as in so many other things, she was right about this one, too! I’m reminded by this daily as I do my morning and evening routines. “Didn’t I just do this, like minutes ago?” is often the thought in my head. Nope, not minutes but hours. Twenty-four of them. Where did they go, and how is another whole day later already?

All those hours, gone! And how did I spend them? Some, of course, were productive. I went to work and did try to be truly present there. Time was spent as it is every day, doing those required tasks of life like laundry, cleaning, tending to the cat, preparing, eating and clearing up from meals, personal care and tending…all routines that I can and do perform mindlessly most of the time. And then there is the truly mindless time, mostly spent meandering around the rabbit trails of social media and the interwebs. So much time there some days that could truly be used in better ways. So much of that time slips away without my awareness, without my intent. Much of the time I seem to behave there as if time is infinite and I can squander it in mindless pursuits without consequence. As truly, I would like to believe. Who ever wants to think about the alternative? Especially the reality that more of my life is gone than is yet to come, the fact that there will be an end to time as I know it in this life. I could get caught in anxiety about what is to come, I could get lost in regret about wasted time and chances. But that just uses up more time! The important thing I need to remember that the only time I really have is now. This is the day, the time that matters.

Sermon for February 5, 2017 Salt and Light

If today’s Gospel reading had a title it could be called “The Sermon on the Mount: Beatitudes Continued.” It is literally the continuation of the teaching from last week – there is no pause, no new chapter heading, it simply continues Jesus’ teaching his disciples (and us) about who they are and are to be as his followers.

As we heard last week, the essence of his message to the disciples was not to present instruction on how to obtain God’s blessing as much as it was to remind them (and us) that  we are already blessed by God and as such, called to be poor in spirit, relying on God; to be people who ”hunger and thirst for righteousness” longing for the peace and justice of God’s world to come on this earth,  who are merciful to others, “pure in heart, ” being ethical authentic and congruent in dealings with others, to be peacemakers, and to be willing to act on our convictions no matter the cost. 

So in today’s Gospel, this call to know and manifest our identity as followers of Jesus continues. “You ARE Salt and light”  he says– not as some kind of after-market add-on but as part of our very being and essential nature created in God’s image; a nature shared with Jesus who is defined as the “light of the world” and the “light the darkness cannot extinguish.”

Why salt and light? Well first the obvious - Salt flavors things. Even sweet things are better with a pinch of salt. It was the secret of my mother’s fabulous fudge, not to even think about salted Carmel, and we all know that not having some salt on food can leave it tasting kind of bland and flat. And light of course illuminates. Think about a time when you have been in that complete dark we rarely experience in our urban lives, maybe at camp or out in the country at night, we know that it is VERY dark, and in that situation it can be hard see the way forward or to navigate around obstacles in our path. It’s easy to trip and fall.

In addition to these obvious qualities salt and light both have another interesting quality. They purify and preserve things, and they both do it by acting as change agents on the substance and fundamentally altering the environments so that the harmful things that are present are either destroyed or cannot flourish!  Ultraviolet (UV) light rays (those just below visible light on the spectrum) can penetrate harmful pathogens in water and destroy illness-causing microorganisms by attacking their DNA, and salt purifies and cleanses by dehydrating the environment so that there is nothing to feed the pathogens.

Salt and light - Jesus says, this  is who YOU are as my followers, called to not only liven things up and make them visible, but to be fundamental agents of change in YOUR environments,  cleansing them and purifying them by making them places that are inhospitable to the growth of things that are harmful.  This, he says, is your true nature, what you were designed for, blessed for, called to by the God who wants you to be co-creators in God’s kingdom of peace, love and justice in this world. Called, he says, to cleanse and fundamentally change the structure of the environments in which dis-ease can flourish and grow.

The question then, of course, becomes how we might fully embody this identity, respond to this call and manifest this in our own lives and contexts; to be the agents of change and transformation that God calls us to and that the world, especially now, so desperately needs? How do we find ways to illuminate and purify the flat, dark places in our world? How do we create environments where healthy growth and life can flourish, where what is corrupt and decayed cannot live because there is simply nothing there that feeds it?

One thing I am pretty sure of is that we cannot do it alone. While we are each individually called to live out our baptismal promises, at least in our tradition, this call comes to us in and as part of a community. Just like one little grain of salt can’t really add flavor or beat back the growth of bacteria and one little flame cannot illuminate great darkness or purify very much, one of us alone, while we can do something, cannot do as much as many gathered and committed as one. I think about the power we saw manifested at Standing Rock, the energy that was generated and reinforced when peaceful warriors gathered supported by faith and constant prayer toward a single aim. In our own context, when we gather to do things like Harvest Packs, we can easily see how in a few hours, many people working together with one goal can make a difference. We can think of these as focused beams of light that shine from those gathered and that illuminate not only the unjust and concerning things that are happening in our world, but also light up the positive power of peaceful engagement and focused action.

Just like every point of light and grain of salt, each of us is unique, each of us called and gifted by God to participate in co-creating God’s kingdom here on earth. Each of us is issued the commission by Jesus himself – be salt, be light. Don’t get stale, don’t hide or cover your brightness. Use your gifted blessedness to Illumine, enliven, purify and transform this broken world to one that more closely resembles God’s kingdom.  Engage in whatever way you can in that work to which we  are called in the words of Isiah: “…to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke… to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin….and then, he says,…your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly; your vindicator shall go before you, the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.”          

The world needs us and God calls us to transform the world from dis-ease and darkness to God’s kingdom of love, peace and justice with every bit of salt and light that is in us. Can we? Will we? Our answer:  We will, with God's help.

 

 

 

 

 

A Review of the CEB Women's Bible

I have to begin by saying that I am not generally a fan of "specialty" bibles; women's Bibles, men's Bibles, teen bibles, recovery Bibles, even Precious Moments Bibles. Often these seem to be simply a repackaging of some translation or another with a pretty cover or some cosmetic additions intended to appeal to a particular niche in the Bible-buying market. So it was with only moderate expectations that I began my exploration of the CEB Women's Bible. 

I am pleased to report that my expectations have been far surpassed. The Common English Bible translation itself is solid in its scholarship as well as being accessible and highly readable. To this foundation, the editorial board and contributors of the Women's Bible have brought a wealth of additional information and commentary that truly fulfills what the promotional material offers, that this is a Bible that "celebrates the fact that people engage scripture from their own perspectives."

The editorial board and all of the contributors to the Women's Bible are women. They come from a variety of denominational and theological backgrounds, and bring their unique voices and perspectives to the many resources in this bible which are introduced in the Preface. These include an introduction to each of the books in the Bible as well as reflections in every chapter. These are thoughtful writings that help the writer engage with the text and that could be useful, as the writers suggest, in a variety of worship and study settings. The Bible also includes sidebar articles throughout the book. These articles are wide-ranging and cover topics of interest to women.Another feature of the Women's Bible are the character sketches of over one hundred women in scripture, named and unnamed, and every single woman in the bible is indexed with a reference to where she appears.

I decided to test-drive the Women's Bible by reading selections from both the Old and New Testaments. In the Old Testament, I chose the Book of Esther. In addition to a very readable translation of the story, I found a thoughtful introduction to the story and its context, ten reflections on various aspects of the text, portraits of Esther, Vashti and Zeresh, and sidebar articles exploring how such things as appearance, race, eunuchs, and the confluence of race and religion impact not only the writing of scripture, but our reading of it as well.

In the New Testament I chose to read Luke's story about Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-41). In this short lection, the Women's Bible provides a reflection on how responses to a shared experience can differ, a portrait of Martha, and a sidebar on sisterhood. Again, resources that added to my reading and reflection on the text.

I found the layout as well as the content of each of these elements added to my reading in both of these instances, and I could see how they could easily be used in  a group study, worship or private reading of this Bible. The women of the Bible, named and unnamed, are all indexed by where they appear, and the sidebar articles are indexed both alphabetically and canonically, making it easy to locate both women and topics in the text.

In addition to all of these riches, the CEB Women's Bible includes a section of discussion and reflection questions arranged according to the three-year lectionary cycle. I checked out the questions on the readings for this coming Sunday (Luke 19:1-10) and found food for thought there as well.
The volume concludes with three different bible reading plans and sixteen color maps, all of which are indexed by the places named in the Bible.

In summary, I would recommend the CEB Women's Bible as a useful, well-designed and accessible resource for anyone who is interested in a deeper reading of the text, and especially from a context and perspective that includes and highlights the voices of the women who inhabit, infuse and enrich the scriptures.   



















I received a hardcover review copy of the CEB Women's Bible from the publisher and was not compensated for this review.

A Mend

 "There is no future without forgiveness." Desmond Tutu

I sent off a little note to my brother today. Yeah, so what? People send off notes to siblings and other people all the time. Other people maybe, but siblings? In my history, that was another thing. In fact I once started a sentence with a group of women on a boat, "My brother, whom I do not know is dead or alive...."

He is, I am happy to report, alive. He is retired and living in a warm, sunny place. He has grown kids, and grands and great-grands. A whole passel of them. He has had sadness too. In the almost twenty years since we last spoke he has lost a son and a son-in-law.

I knew about the son, my nephew. In these connected days you can learn things about people and their lives without having to be "in contact" of course, and every now and again I would search the inter-webs for family names just to see what might be there. A few months ago I was on such an expedition, and I read on another nephew's Facebook page that his brother had died. I followed the trail to his obituary and found he was 57 when he died, and reading between the lines, I think there may have been some circumstances that made his early passing even sadder.

It hit me hard, that little piece of information about my nephew dying. I was kind of amazed by how strongly I felt the sadness and grief for someone I have not seen or had contact with since he was in his twenties, and for a whole piece of my family that I had been disconnected from since the 90's.

That disconnect had not settled easily in my soul for many years. Randomly, I would find my brother on my mind. In the early years it was anger I felt. Righteous anger and indignation towards him for his "bad behavior" concerning our mother. Our opinions about where and how she should be living and cared for in her later years had differed and I of course was right and he was wrong. It got horribly out of control, as these things do, words were said, feelings were hurt, and all contact ceased. In some ways I had "won" the thing, she came here to live, I had wonderful and precious time with her until her death. But it came at a very high price. We both lost my brother.

As time passed my anger and indignation had moved to an uneasy sense that this was probably not as clear cut as it seemed at the time, and that he was not the only person who had engaged in some "bad behavior" at that time. Perhaps there had been a little revisionist history on my part, and I was not quite as innocent, nor were my motives as pure as I had liked to believe.  I thought about trying to reach out to him many times, but then I would let fear creep in, or retreat behind the "fact" that I was, of course, right! And justified! Wasn't I? After all, I was not defending myself, but protecting my beloved mother.

But over time, even that began to grow pretty thin and I could see it for the excuse it was. Now time (a LOT of time) was passing and neither of us were getting any younger. And then I saw that obituary. He has lost a son, just like my mom had ultimately ended up losing both of hers at the time this whole nasty thing had started.

I started to notice that finally, my compassion was becoming bigger than my anger and fear. But still, I hesitated. At this point I still did not know if my brother was even still alive. What if I searched for him only to find that he, too, was gone? Would that guilt just be too much to bear? That final resistance was finally overcome largely because I was called to preach on forgiveness at my church's women's retreat. In preparing, along with the Scripture reading (Matt  6:5-15), I revisited the book Amish Grace and read Desmond Tutu's powerful book on forgiveness. At the retreat we talked about forgiveness, I heard other's stories of things forgiven and unforgiven and pondered my own. A few weeks after the retreat I asked my husband, the search-engine genius, to see if he could find an address for my brother. He did, and after I carried it around for a few days, I wrote a short letter of amends to him, admitting that I had felt justified at the time of our disconnect, and owning that I now saw that this was hurtful, that I regretted my actions and was sorry for that and the all that resulted. I sent it off with hope but no real expectation of a response.

About two weeks later, there appeared an envelope in the mail with a return address that I recognized as his. I took a deep breath and opened it to find a short but gracious note from him. He noted the saying that we grow "too soon old and too late smart" and commented that this accounts for a lot of the mistakes we make when we are young. He shared a little news with me, the grands and greats, and the losses. I wept with joy and relief to hear from him, to be forgiven with those simple words, that little note. It has been a long time coming.

So I dropped my brother a little note yesterday. I shared a little more about my life, marriage, a lovely step-daughter, no grands yet, but hoping someday, my job. I expressed my sadness that he had lost those two young men in his life and wished him and the rest of his family, my family, well.

NaBloPoMo #5 Listening

Some days it is really hard to know what to say and what not to say. I had a patient today who had a lot to say. She had a need to talk, to get things out, and that certainly is one thing that people do in the therapist's office. Sometimes I feel a need to direçt that flow, or respond in some way, sometimes people sem to be needing that. Other times they seem to just need to hear themselves say things, to verbally process something, work it through, digest it out loud until it makes more sense than it did simply chading itself around inside their own heads. And sometimes it is important to do this with someone elao rather than alone, and in that case often my job is simply to be there and listen as a witness to the process .And sometimes, they just need to vent, and in that case, my job is just to sit and listen as well.

It was venting time today for my person. She didn't really need to process, and I don't think she needed a witness, or anyone to help her direct the flow, or make sense of things. I think she just had some things she wanted to say that maybe she really dodn't have anyplace to say. A lot of the thingss he things she had to say were really hard for me to hear, hard for me to simply sit quietly and listen to. Her beliefs are not mine, in fact her thoughts about life and the world and just about everything in it are about as far from mine as one could get. She told me about her political beliefs, her thoughts on immigration, her thuoghts on a friend's niece who converted to Islam She shared at some length her own Christian beliefs (fundamental, literal, creationist). I sat quietly, just listening. It was not what I wanted to do. But this is my role in this place. There were things I wanted to say, and in other situations, other roles might have said, but here the point was to let it be and let her talk.

Because in the end, after she was done with her venting she got to talking about her feelings,  her sadness about too many losses, her fears about too much change (and some of those differences I had to wonder) And the only thing I really could say was "It sounds like this has been a hard few weeks, I am glad you could talk about it here."

NaBloPoMo #4 Food and Mood

This may be short as it's been a long day and I'm typing on a tablet simply because I am too tired to make the trip upstairs to get the laptop.

I was painfully aware of the food-mood connection tonight as I drove home at least an hour into a blood sugar low that left me cranky and foggy. This has been something I have been giving some thought to since I have been in this process, wondering not just for myself but for my patients, too, how what I/they eat (or don't) contributes to ongoing struggles with anxiety and depression. I know from some of our conversations that many of them do not eat well. sometimes this is because of habit or preference, sometimes because of a lack of good information about nutrition, and sometimesit is about economic circumstance.  It really does cost more to eat all this grass fed, organic stuff. But lately I have been asking a few different questions. Like  "do you ever notice a connection between your anxiety attacks and how long it's been since you have last eaten?" Or asking my really anxious folks about how much caffiene they really do consume, or if they see any connections between sugar and how they feel. It seems kind of simple now that I think about it, but it wasn't really on my radar before.

NaBloPoMo #3 Making Friends

"Our bodies are not our enemies, and we are not fighting a battle. Instead, we are investing our love and attention into the care and support of a beautiful creation—our selves." That was some wisdom this morning from Madisyn Taylor on the Daily Om. 

I spent a lot of my life not really living in my body. I clothed it, fed it and tended it after a fashion, but I don't think anyone was really home, and to a great extent I pretty much ignored my physical self for much of my adult life. This was, at least in part, how a chubby little girl became a seriously overweight woman who, until well into midlife had never seriously made an attempt at weight loss, or honestly even given it much thought.

It's also why when I finally did start "the decade of the diet" I think things went a little off the rails, and I was willing to do some pretty wonky things in the name of weight loss, that "battle" with myself, including being willing to "just not eat" if that was what it took. That is easier with a little help from chemistry to suppress your appetite, so I added that to my arsenal in the war against myself.

And I have won some of the skirmishes. From a high weight of near 300# I have been all the way down to 150, once, briefly. But it was not sustainable, and I bounced up again (though not all the way), and back down to a "happy place" in between-that I maintained for a while-this time through lots and lots and lots of exercise. And then I ran out of time for that, and up.....again to a weight that is more than I want to be and where I had been stuck and feeling really like I was in a constant war with myself, again willing to do whatever it took to "rid" myself of that weight-including restricting calories at a ridiculous level-and proud of it. 

So these, my nutritionist tells me, are the things that must be healed. These are the reasons that all the good things I see happening with my new way of eating have not included significant weight loss as yet. my body is a calorie hoarder, afraid to let them go as she doesn't trust that I will keep feeding her, nourishing her. She is making good use of what I am providing these days, building healthier skin and nails and, I'm sure cells that I cannot see. So I am trying to trust that this other healing will take me where I want to go in other ways as well. That we will eventually be friends and allies in the process, my body and I. That my body will believe that the nurturing calories will keep coming and she can release the stores as they will no longer be needed.

NaBloPoMo #2 The Food and I Today

So having decided to write something about the "food relationship" the question is, where to start? The history? The context? The current situation? Any one could be a good jumping off place, and any one could give me pages and pages of things to say. I think for today I'm going to stay in the here and now and talk about why I'm thinking so much about my this whole thing right now in the first place.

In July of this year I started a 12-week program to learn about a new and healthier way of eating. Over the last year or so I'd been feeling kind of crummy on lots of levels. I was noticing more and more aches and pains, my energy was low, I wasn't sleeping well, and worst of all I was anxious pretty much all the time about pretty much everything, and nothing. It was just a low, grumbling, free-floating sort of thing, a kind of "doom is immanent" sense that infected just about every corner of my life. On a good day it hovered at a about a two, and it could get kicked into high gear, ramping to a seven or eight by just about anything - having to drive in bad weather, feeling I had done something upsetting to someone, worry about a job issue, random thoughts about things done and undone. And yes, it was definitely affecting my spiritual life as well as everything else.

Because of all this "meh" I had become pretty insular, isolating myself and narrowing life down to the "have-tos" pretty much. Work, errands, the occasional outing with Rick or a friend, the Sunday routine of church and breakfast at our usual spot, and otherwise you could find me on the couch with a book or a screen just passing time.

Sounds pretty dull, right? It was! And it got to a point that it even bored me. So bit by bit over the summer I started looking at ways I might start creeping back toward some kind of activity again, and I started at a place that felt pretty safe, with some yoga. I went back to some classes at the studio I liked, taking mostly restorative and yin classes, and then signing up for some individual consultations with a teacher I like to talk about her take on my situation from an Ayurvedic perspective. She was really helpful and gave me hope that there might be some answers in changes in diet if I was patient and persistent.

Right about that time I "happened" on the announcement that a local nutrition program was opening a branch in the very same yoga studio where I was going to class.  They were starting a 12 week program focusing on nutrition to level out blood sugar and heal metabolism for weight loss by eating real healthy food, and it started in a couple weeks, so I signed up.

So here's what's been going on. Since July 28th:
I have had no soda, diet or otherwise. I have eaten  almost no processed food (on purpose anyway). I have had very little sugar, no white flour, and since August no gluten to speak of. I am trying to limit oils to olive, coconut, or if others, to cold or expeller pressed if I have a choice, I AM eating grass fed beef, free range chicken, eggs, organic butter, lard, cream, lots and lots of vegetables and occasional whole grains in limited servings. I eat three meals and two to three snacks (the idea is to eat every three to four hours to keep a level blood sugar), I am never hungry, have had very few cravings and really don't miss the stuff I used to eat and thought I could not live without. I have been to a Mexican restaurant and watched people drink margaritas and eat nachos without a qualm, I've been to parties and not even been tempted by the cake and cookies (my former nemesis). One ounce of dark chocolate is a permitted treat so that is a go-to if there is a need for something that feels "treat-y." I have fallen off the program a total of three times in three months, once with an overindulgence in ice cream (which in itself is not off limits as a once in a while treat as long as it's the "good stuff" made only with cream, eggs, sugar and no chemicals and eaten in a very moderate serving) and twice with wine (which, well, has few redeeming qualities on a program whose goal is to regulate your blood sugar!) Otherwise my main struggle has been to eat enough protein (4 oz per meal and 2 per snack).

As a result of all of this, these are the things that have happened since July:
My aches and pains are reduced by a LOT!
I have way more energy than I used to.
My hair is growing and it's thicker and shinier than it has been in years.
My skin looks better.
Cuts heal faster.
I am not cold all the time and I even generate heat (for those who know me this is nothing short of a miracle!)
I am sleeping again. Almost every night for a good six or seven hours without even waking up! And then going right back for a couple more. When I wake up I am ready to get up and go.
The anxiety is almost negligible. And when it crops up I can use coping skills to deal with it.
My husband tells me that in general I am a much nicer person to be around. (That is BIG!)
I have lost two pounds and two inches. Yep that's all. In three months And yes this was a weight loss program. Am I disappointed in that part? Oh yeah, most definitely. I wanted the usual results one gets when "dieting," you know 1-2 pounds a week! Well, my nutritionist tells me to be patient, it will come, that I have a lot of "healing" to do. That was kind of a shocker to me. Healing? Yep, healing from the mean and nasty way I had been treating my body in the name of losing weight for the last several years.  I think I'll save that chapter for another day.

Right now, I need to make sure I have everything packed up for my week's lunches, have the fruit thawing for my smoothie snacks and generally have myself organized. That's been the biggest change in this whole thing-I have to THINK about food a lot, but not in the same way that I used to think about food when I was obsessing about having some. It's a mind shift that at first I wasn't sure I liked. I had to shift into thinking about all of this as a way of  nurturing myself, taking care of me at least as well as I took care of everyone else. And that, too, is probably a whole other blog post for another day. This is enough for today.

NaBloPoMo 2014 #1 Another Story: Prologue

This little blog tells so many stories of the last seven years of my life. The demise and fall of my relationship with XDO, the glorious tale of meeting, dating and falling in love with Rick, all of the wonderful, mundane, silly and glorious stuff that went on back in the day when I wore all the hats and tore around like the energizer bunny keeping all those balls in the air; the stories of L, our finding one another, and sadly my, in the end, losing him to systems that were too much for both of us to fight. The whole little saga of life in my little prairie church, and all the moves, changes and transitions life has brought since then. Although, sadly, the storytelling since then has gotten a lot sparser, as least as far as the blog is concerned, and unfortunately, writing in general, and maybe it's time to change that again.

A lot of the stories in my life are about relationships of one sort or another. It has occurred to me recently that one I haven't blogged about much is my relationship with food, and that is certainly not because there is nothing to say about it. There is certainly history, drama, rises and falls, success and failure, and LOTS of emotion! And it's something that I have been paying a lot more attention to over the last three months. Since July I have taking some intentional steps, with help to revamp my nutritional life in a pretty big way, and seeing some pretty interesting changes as a results (more about that to come). So that, at least in part, is something I am going to  write about in November. I want to do this because I know that writing, especially public writing, is a good way to hold myself accountable to my commitments, and I also want to tell this story, so like many of the other important chapters in my life, this one will be recorded here, too.

Food Nostalgia

While driving back from getting my oil changed this morning, I was listening to a local MPR show  on the topic of "food nostalgia." The host was asking her guests and listeners what foods from the past brought back memories for them. Some remembered terrific and tasty dishes made by (usually) mom or grandma, while others recalled some things that were really not all that great but still had warm and wonderful connections simply because they were made and presented with love, or because they were attached to significant events. Driving along, I flashed on a food nostalgia memory of my own - Frosting Hotdogs.

When I was little, once a week my mom would take me to dance class after school, and while we were gone, my dad would get our evening meal, then known as "supper" ready, to have when we got back. On this particular night, he was going to fry up some hot dogs, using lard, as we did back in the day before we all lived in fear of the fat. The lard we used came from the butcher and was simply kept in a dish in the refrigerator with one of those little plastic hats on it that look like shower caps. We stored our leftovers in the same fashion, and that day beneath a hat, in addition to the lard, there was also some vanilla frosting left from something or another, and dad, moving fast to get those dogs on the table for the hungry dancer, grabbed the frosting dish and fried the hotdogs up in that instead of the lard.

Once we got over the surprise we realized we liked them, in fact, they were really good! They were crisp and sweet, kind of like a glazed ham, and definitely an upgrade over your plain hotdog. I'm sure they were not very high on the health scale with the extra sugar and all, but then we are talking hot dogs fried in lard here! So the frosted hotdogs went into our family cooking roster as a now and again treat. When there would be a need for frosting, sometimes mom would make a little extra on purpose so we could have them. I've made them a few times as an adult, but they are not as good somehow.

When it comes to what feeds us, whether in nostalgia or the here and now, maybe it has more to do with the who, when, and where as much as the what of it.

The Instructive Din of My Quiet Mind

What is it about lying on a yoga mat and being told to "quiet your mind" that makes mine do anything but?!? I have been going to a lovely restorative yoga class on Sunday afternoons that really consists of nothing much more than assembling oneself in a supported pose and just hanging out for about fifteen minutes doing, at least theoretically, nothing but allowing the ground and the props to hold and support the body while the mind becomes more and more quiet. Mmmm-hmmmm. Let's see, on today's menu we had everything from earworm fragments of several different songs - a little Queen, a couple hymns and a few bars of Kenny G that drifted up from an MPR story I heard about him the other day, I think - the usual distraction of the "what I have to do after class" and the thing that seems to drift in mostly these days when my mind has nothing better to do, my "big questions" about the alignment of my life, work, vocation and all that jazz.

I avoided yoga for a good stretch of time. Avoiding all that quiet space for all that head noise that tells me how much I am not paying attention to how much I need to pay attention. But it's due and overdue. Just like the writing and the singing....all leading back to something (someone?) I'm missing.

Lost in Transition?

I kind of knew in the back of my head that it had "been a while" since I blogged. Um...yeah, like a year and change apparently. That's a lot longer than I thought,  so when the postings about NaBloPoMo started popping up on FaceBook it seemed like a good little push in the right direction, and reaffirmed the idea I had lately that this might be something (along with some other somethings) that I really should be considering putting back into my repertoire of daily life.

I find myself wanting to argue with Blogger about that last posting date....September of LAST year? Really? No, it can't be THAT long....can it? Thirteen months and some days since I have recorded more than a post or a tweet about my daily comings and goings? Well, there have been a few journal entries here and there I think, a couple of long-ish e-mails of the more reflective type to friends, and one lonely sermon, but that's it. I wonder where they are going, all those thoughts that used to commit themselves to words on the screen?

Maybe they are hanging out in the same place with the music. I just realized the other day that I don't sing much anymore. Another thing that  I once would have told you was a pretty essential part of my identity that just kind of faded away.....

So, you ask, what DO you do with yourself these days? Well, there's work-four long days and a commute-tired at the end with not much left of me, my sweetie and I have dinner (together on a good day when our schedules collide), try for some good adult conversation, a little screen time and it's off to bed. Fridays I have off, sometimes I play but often that is the day of the appointments and errands- car to the oil change, dog to the vet sort of things. Weekends are catch-up time, we shop and cook for the week, and I do try to squeeze in a yoga class before the week takes off again.

I know that in there there is time, probably lots of it if I look, that I could be spending better than I am. I used to be much, much busier when I wore all those hats and was the energizer bunny. I worked full-time, plus pastored and preached  and served on COM and diocesan committees and the local ministerial association and walked a mile a day with my friend and her dog, wrote on my blog, went to yoga twice a week, and seemed to have time for it all.

It's been over three years now since we moved back to "the big city" and while in some ways it has been good for us, it has also been hard, and I don"t think I am still really settled. Certainly not in the way I was settled into my little life on the prairie. This still comes as kind of a shock to me, as I (somewhat naively I now suspect) expected that I would find things much easier to come "home" to than I did on so many levels. Of course there were things I could not know. And perhaps there were things I should have known and did not. But at any rate, what I expected and what came to be are not at all the same and there are days when I find myself wondering "what if?" But as my very wise husband reminds me "we live with what is not with what if...." and so my challenge now is to make life here and now. And I think maybe some of that is to re-connect with those parts of me that have somehow gone missing. Like things that get misplaced in a move, left in boxes in the back of closets, "until there is time" I need to unearth them, gently dust them off and get them back in plain sight to remind me of what feeds me and brings me mostly deeply to who I am.

Friday Five: If it Ain't Broke....

Martha is bemoaning the loss of a favorite app format in the new iOS 7 update, and asks, in this F5 a reflection on things that need no improvement. This little reflection comes at a good time.  I have already been in one of those spaces where life puts your sometimes. You know, where things happen that make you stop and take a deep breath? A little stunned by the absolute fragility of it all, by just how quickly it all can turn, by how good my life is, by how little I take time to notice and be grateful...yeah all that this week.

So, what needs no fixing?
My beloved husband and all that comes with the gift of the marriage I never dare dream of, and was and is pure gift and blessing. Every day.

A career that feeds me. Yes I grouse about it. The execution in the current job is not perfect. What is? But I get to do something vocationally that matters, that I seem to be good at and that offers us enough income that Rick can go to school to create a future that he, too, will enjoy.

My sweet new car. No fixes for a LOOONG time!

Praise God, I seem to not need fixing, physically at this time.

Really, when I stop and think about it....there is nothing, right here, right now in my life that is broke that needs fixing. So perhaps I ought to get my attention back on the broken places elsewhere, where I might be of some use.

To Cruise or Not to Cruise

I am really not a very decisive person. Ask my husband. Ask my friends. Ask the voice of waver and waffle that wakes me in the night and makes the butterflies in my stomach do the macarena. And in the last few years, there have been WAY too many of those little buggers for this decision-averse person.  Decisions of significance such as "Shall we stay or shall we go?" That one has been asked and answered more than a few times since the big one that brought us across the state from life as we knew it, and has led to other ones like..."keep the job that seemed like fit but after a year is clearly not, or take a chance on something that might be better?" Move house (again) as this town is so clearly not a fit and we seem to be always going somewhere else for pretty much everything of significance?" Yes, no, yes, no....decisions, decisions, decisions! We made them, well some of them, anyway, and they seem to be working out. We are settled in a new place, finding community at church and discovering places and things that "work" for fun and the practical stuff of daily life. The job stuff is still kind of hanging, but I am trying to be patient (which is right up there with "decisive" as "things Kate is not so good at") and see if I can find what is good there, at least for a time.

So, having said all that, I'm looking at my flyer and thinking about a BE. The deadline is approaching FAST. Who knows, maybe it's already too late. I haven't checked, perhaps it's full and this is a moot point. It's a funny thing, me and this cruise.  Ever since the first one, I have yet to sign on early in the game.  Sometimes it's been deliberate, as now, but mostly it's been due to life and its uncertainties making me unsure if I can go. This time, though, it seems to be simply about not being able to decide. The last cruise was hard for me in some ways. I did not enjoy the motion of the ocean! It was a little more than I was comfortable with, and the fact that our cabin window leaked some of those waves right in on my bed didn't ramp up my comfort level much. Not functioning as clergy in any significant fashion also had something to do with my feeling a little meh, too, I think. Being with people who were doing what I often long to, and am pretty sure for all sorts of complicated reasons, don't believe I will be, is hard and sad, and stirs up the grief that most of the time I keep neatly tucked away.

So I haven't sent in my form and my deposit. And I don't have a cabin mate. Some friends are already bunked in with other folks, some are not going this year. A new local clergy friend who is thinking about going would only want a single cabin. So I don't even have the "slumber party factor" as motivation at this point.

It feels sort of weird to be blogging this back-to-back with the "Galship" post about the amazing and wonderful connections of BE 1. But, as all experiences are, that was its own moment, never to come again. And to say I do or don't want to go on the next cruise has less to do with prior experiences than just where I am today in this place in my life personally and professionally. But tick, tick, tick. Must. Decide. And I HATE making decisions! 

Thoughts on Galship (on ship and off)

Once upon an April, long, long ago (or so it feels from five plus years and much life later), there was a boat, and on the boat there were some very special people. That is how a very important chapter in the story of my galship life begins.  I had come to blogging and RevGals by way of Celeste (at that time known to all only as C) who was one of my Soul Sisters and life savers in small town ministry. Ordained less than a year at the time, I was struggling to figure it all out, to balance my bivocational life as a priest and therapist in a small town. C suggested that this "blogring" she encountered might be something I'd enjoy.  The first time I read it, I have to admit being a bit scandalized. It was FoH weekend, and the remnant was going on during the Preacher Party about pedis and drinks from handsome hunks. I was still rather in the flush of righteous prigishness that seemed to accompany my ordination (gotten over it nicely, thanks), and I thought y'all were just a tad unseemly for clergy women). Fortunately I got over myself and stayed on! I blogged my three months and was so excited when I, too could qualify to belong to the ring!

I'd been part of RevGals for about a year when my relationship, which had been floundering for a long while began its final descent, and was doing so in the full view of our congregation and community.It was during one of those dark days when one morning, as I sat blogging at my desk before work, that  little sidebar caught my eye. I sighed. The BE 1. How lovely it would be to join them, I thought. To take a cruise with these lovely women whom I had come to know over the last year or so; who had already been so sweet and supportive, so wise and funny. But, no, I thought. It was happening practically tomorrow! It would cost too much. It was not practical, I did not deserve it, I did not have it arranged....blah, blah, blah.  But suddenly, some small voice in my head spoke out loud and clear and said, YOU NEED TO GO ON THIS TRIP! YOU CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN! Huh? Wha? It was almost as if God had just interrupted the usual programming. And fo a change I listened up.  The next thing I knew I was e-mailing Martha, checking flights, talking to my boss (begging a bit) and  tentatively arranging for a sitter for Maggie - just in case it worked out. And as these things go sometimes, it did. Someone had just cancelled, there was a space at this last moment on the cruise, the flights were reasonable, the dog could be managed, and my lovely boss said, yes, she thought maybe I needed a break. So before I could change my mind, I was on my way to NOLA.

Then of course,I was fraught with anxiety! Would they like me? Could I STAND being out there in that vast ocean with water on all sides and below? Would I get seasick and disgrace myself? Could I manage sharing a room with a stranger? And most of all, could I be real....really, really, really real?  Tell the whole truth?  Tell my honest  story and find acceptance from these women? The answer to all of my anxious questions was yes! They did and I could and did! Not only acceptance but warmth and love. Resonance. They got it.  They got me. And responded with laughter. Tears. Hugs. A quiet conversation...."You know, I wanted to make sure to tell you...." "Kate, just so you know, you are not the only one who...." "Yes, there was a time when I, too...."

I came back to the stuff I left. It was still there, it was still hard. We ended the relationship. It was public. It was painful. And after that there was the potentially career-ending charge against my practice (spurious though it was) that put me through another year and a half of hell, known on the blog as the "falling shoes." And there was the grace and love and pain that was my ministry with L, now MIA from my life.  And of course there was the meeting and falling in love with my sweet Rick, shared with Revgals via blog, and by some, IRL on the Great Honeymoon Roadtrip meetup! More recently, though less blogged, have been the seemingly unending transitions of location and job, as well as adjusting to not being in a regular church ministry presently (or knowing if that is ever going to be part of my future).

And through all of it I was prayed for and supported, sent hugs and encouragement. The comments, e-mails, phone calls, texts, and now and then IRL meet-ups have been and continue to be such blessing in my life.

So that, in a nutshell is the Galship bond for me. People who have been there in the good times and bad times. A blessing and answer to prayer. People who make God and God's love real and tangible.

Friday Five: Dogs or Cats or What?

1. Are you a DOG or a CAT person? Or OTHER?
As in most things I would have to say that in this, too, I am a both/and.  In the past I have been a keeper of cats.  At some points there were many cats, even too many cats when the fostering life got a little out of hand, and there was a "number that could not be named." But eventually the cats went on to new homes and off to be with Jesus until there was only my Bridget cat. When she was gone, I officially became a dog-only person.  My sweet husband has pet allergies, and while he is allergic to all of them, the cats set him off worse than the dog, and so we compromise.

2. Who were the pets of your childhood and what were they like?
My mother was not a lover of pets. But being a child, I begged and begged, and being a mom, she eventually gave in, to a point.  I got a little bowl of goldfish.  Sadly, they did not live very long. One died of unknown causes and was found very soon in his life with us floating belly up in the bowl.  The second one did the fish leap out of the bowl, slid across the kitchen floor and under the stove where he even could not be reached for a decent burial at sea.

3. What pets do you have now?
We are still the proud parents of Maggie the Peke, contemplative Episcopuppy.  

4. Have you ever had any unusual pets in your household or visit your home?
Only if you count the one eyed, tailless, three-legged cat whom we sat for now and again in our former home.  He had the bad fortune of having a close encounter with a car fanbelt, but the good fortune to have it happen where someone cared enough to save him and give him a good home.

5. What have you learned from your pets? Give one recent example, if possible.
We used to foster some pretty abused and beat up little critters that life  (and humans)had not treated very well. And yet, with time, patience and gentleness, almost all of them would come around to trust again at least at some level. It seemed as if they were willing to give a second chance to these big and powerful creatures who had been so hurtful, to try again for love. Not a bad plan, maybe?

BONUS: Pictures or anything else related to animals you love.

Top: The Late and Lovely Bridget Cat and Below: The very much alive Maggie the Peke

Who Am I?

Ever since I was ordained, I have happily claimed my status as the Reverend Dr. Kate, a happily bivocational person, who, at least in a previous life balanced the two hats of priest and psychologist in some sort of equilibrium.  I had a church life and a day job life and the two intersected at times. Mostly that was good thing, at times it was challenging, but it was all part of a whole that made a life I realize in retrospect that I simply took for granted, and assumed would just always be part of my reality.

Well, life moves forward and times change, and the transitions and shifts of the last two years have shown me that my assumptions and "taken for gran teds" just ain't necessarily so.  When we first moved back I had "just assumed" that of course it would all work out.  Kind of like true love....there would be a church with a Kate-sized need and we would find each other and live happily ever after. And for a while it looked like that might be happening.  There was a short assisting gig that never quite got off the ground. And then there was another plan that sounded promising enough for a relocation to a town down the road. We "met and dated" for a while, but somehow I guess the spark was just not there. The little frission of interest fizzled, we stopped seeing one another. I moved on.

So today, my "professional" church life and my day job life are, for the most part, non-intersecting. Rev. Kate and Dr. Kate do not travel in the same circles at all. Sometimes that leaves me feeling a little dis-integrated, a little sad. Clergywise, I am doing some supply and some writing. I am seeing a spiritual director and trying to discern if there is something else I might/could/should do now in that realm. We are part of a lovely congregation where we are feeling more and more at home.  The rector is welcoming and inclusive and I know if I came up with something I thought I might want to do there, she would very likely be open and encouraging.

I am also trying to consciously vision my day job as ministry. To see this as my little altar in the world where the congregation comes and sits before me in the chairs in my office and I am given the chance to bring into their lives the compassion of God's healing love.