Friday Five: Vacations

Mary Beth at RevGalBlogPals is excited about vacations and writes:


I'm showing my age...this was an anthem of my high school years. Wanna hear it? Give this link a try.

While you're bopping along to that (or perhaps holding your ears...?), let's think about VACATIONS! I certainly am!

1) What did your family do for vacations when you were a child? Or did you have stay-cations at home?
Growing up in a military family (Marine Corps), we would only go somewhere when my dad was being transferred. And then we would always go to Arkansas, where his family was, or Washington State, where my mother's family was.

In a way, my family repeated this when we had children at home. With both my husband and me having our parents living in Bellingham, WA, we would always go there for awhile in the summer. It was always a welcome change to go to cool, beautiful weather from hot and humid south Texas.

2) Tell us about your favorite vacation ever:
One of our nicest vacations was when the children were young and we traveled down the Oregon coast. We love staying at Gold Beach, OR. It was also a lot of fun when CB and I drove to and from Albuquerque in January of this year.

And I am hoping our 2009 vacation will be a favorite. In August our entire family is coming together up in Washington State. AE and KA already live in Seattle, while CB's parents and siblings still live in Bellingham. It is wonderful and amazing that our TX working children are able to come with us this year. Also coming along is MJ's boyfriend CS. We'll have 9 together.

At first we wanted to go to Alaska, but that fell through. Then there were plans to go up the Inside Passage in BC, Canada, but there would be too much sitting time on ferries and in cars. So last night we came up with the idea to rent a big house in the San Juan Islands for three nights.

This vacation will entail many more posts in the future. . . .

3) What do you do for a one-day or afternoon getaway...is there a place nearby that you escape to on a Saturday afternoon/other day off?
Not really.

4) What's your best recommendation for a full-on vacation near you...what would you suggest to someone coming to your area? (Near - may be defined any way you wish!)
Come to Corpus Christi in the winter. Winters are why there are "Winter Texans." It is usually like Bellingham, WA summer days in the winter. The beach is fun, and there are pretty good restaurants around. There is an aquarium, a few small museums, and the beach.

5) What's your DREAM VACATION?
I'd love to have a week or two at a house on the beach, probably in Oregon or somewhere along the Pacific coast) with no agendas at all.

Bonus: Any particularly awful vacation stories that you just have to tell? ("We'll laugh about this later..." maybe that time is now!)

The worst vacation was when we drove up to Maine when we were living in RI with our four kids. After a dinner of spaghetti, six-year-old BJ vomited all over 12-year-old DC in bed. We'd rented two rooms, so three boys (including dad CB) and three girls were in each room. Poor BJ kept getting sick all the way home to RI. He was really a sick little boy.

May 27 Anniversary Surprise

May 27th is a week from today, and it is the 40th anniversary of when CB and I started dating, which I wrote about last year.

Fran is the reason I started writing about this today. She started blogging on May 27, 2007, which is four days before I started blogging that same year. Today she proclaimed that her two year blogiversary is coming up! She has cute pictures there, too.

Another reason that this is coming to mind is that at today's lectio divina group, I had to tell everyone I would not be here next week. For some time, there has been a thick black line through the days of the calendar from Wednesday to Saturday starting with May 27. Scrawled next to it is "no meetings."

I didn't know what that meant until CB told me that we are going on a surprise trip on May 27. He won't tell me where, but says he will inform me of what to pack that day. So where would we go for four days?

This is very romantic and totally surprising from CB.

So I think May 27 was, is, and will be a good day.

Jose Hobday

Father John Dear writes about "The Simple Life Of Jose Hobday" for his weekly column in the online National Catholic Reporter.

He wrote:

"Sister José was one of the great spiritual teachers of our times. Born in Texas to a Seneca-Iroquois mother and a Southern Baptist father, José was both a Seneca elder and a Franciscan nun. She became a full time lecturer and for decades gave workshops across the country on prayer and spirituality."

The last time he spoke with her on the telephone (before she died on April 5, 2009), she told him this:

“I’ve been thinking of you,” she said, “and I have something for you to do. About twenty times a day, I want you to stop what you’re doing, and empty yourself completely. Let go of everything inside you that is not of God, that is not the Holy Spirit, that is not loving and peaceful. Then, ask the Holy Spirit to fill you from head to toe. Do that twenty times a day and you will be filled with peace and joy. Gotta go.”

Think of what would happen to each of us if we followed her advice and "let go of everything inside you that is not of God, that is not the Holy Spirit, that is not loving and peaceful" 20 times each day! What would happen in our family, our community, our nation, our world??

Jose Hobday was an amazing woman, and I've only just learned about her! There's much to learn, which starts with reading John Dear's column about her.

Weavings Magazine

Most of my friends at All Saints Episcopal Church are unaware of Weavings magazine, which I've subscribed to since 1995. It is published by the (United Methodist) Upper Room and is edited by John Mogabgab, whose wife is Marjorie Thompson, author of Soul Feast.

"Weavings journal is a quarterly publication that promotes a pattern of faithful living marked by prayer, community, and engagement. Such living, to which laity and clergy alike are called, embraces all those expressions of discipline and discipleship that mark the Christian's response to God's work of weaving together the torn fabric of life." Each publication is dedicated to a topic, such as "Security," "Lonely Places, and "Faithful Friends."

A list of back publications is here, so that you can get an idea of various subjects covered, as well as which past magazines may still be ordered.

If you want to subscribe go here.

Interview with MomPriest as a form of procrastination

Over at Choralgirl's I found the following questions for an "interview" from Mompriest at RevGalBlogPals:

1. Where do you blog?
Right here at Yearning for God, which is how I usually feel. Back when I was going to Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, I had a professor who was an expert on Karl Rahner and said that he (KR) wrote about any desire/yearning for God BEING the PRESENCE of God.

2. What are your favorite non-revgal blog pal blogs?
Too many to list, so you can look at my blog roll. Here are a few: The Quaker Agitator, Meditation Matters, and Zen Habits.

3. What gives you joy?
My family, babies, puppies, hugs

4. What is your favorite sound?
The ocean

5. What do you hope to hear once you enter the pearly gates?
Welcome home.

6. You have up to 15 words, what would you put on your tombstone?
Beloved

7. Write the first sentence of your own great American novel.
??

8. What color do you prefer your pen?
Black

9. What magazines do you subscribe too?
Weavings, The Christian Century, Sojourners, Newsweek

10. What is something you want to achieve in this decade?
Finally finish my scholarly papers

11. Why are you cool?
I'm not. I vividly recall my teenage daughter AE telling me when were going to move back to Corpus Christi from NJ that my TX friends Becky and Daryl were cool, but I wasn't. I remember I replied, "I know."

12. What is one of your favorite memories?
Individually, having and holding each one of my (four) babies.

13. Anything else you've always wanted to be asked?
Would you lead a retreat?

The Lord's Prayer

I am really liking Karen Oberst's book about the Beatitudes, But I Tell You: Jesus Introduces a Better Way to Live. The way she translates The Lord's Prayer (Matthew 6: 9-13) from the Greek in an expanded way is eye-opening in her chapter entitled "Teaching on Prayer, " pp. 132-138:

"Without further ado, pray like this:
Our heavenly Parent, may you be reverenced because of who you are.
May your kingdom come into being through us, as citizens of the kingdom.
May your will be carried out by human beings as it is all over the created universe.
Give us what we need for today, both physically and spiritually.
Don't hold us accountable for our moral lapses, even as we also don't hold others accountable when they don't treat us as they should.
Don't bring us into a place where we are tempted to do wrong, but protect us from the one intending evil."

Then Oberst adds:

"The Authorized or King James Version adds, 'For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.' This version of the Bible was translated in the 1600's when only a single Greek manuscript of the Bible existed, The Tischendorf manuscript. Other, older manuscripts that do not contain this phrase have since been found. Scholars believe this phrase was not originally part of the Lord's Prayer, and was likely added when these verses were used in the corporate prayer life of the early church." (138)

I also appreciate Oberst's writing from her Quaker perspective.

Pictures, plus thoughts of next weekend

Here's another picture from the wedding we went to a couple weeks ago in Austin. Here are my son DC and his wife AA. They are coming here for a visit this coming weekend for another wedding, which will be here in Corpus Christi.

Here are AA and MJ in DC and AA's kitchen in their home in Austin. It was such a coincidence that the two girls had on peach colored shirts at the same time.

MJ is returning home tomorrow and will be here for a week before she returns to Trinity University in San Antonio, where she has a summer job doing chemistry research.

An un-pictured child who is coming home is BJ with his infamous hyper Brittany Spaniel Troy. BJ is renting a house on the beach for Memorial Day weekend with friends and it is uncertain whether Troy will be with BJ or us. That is still to be learned. . . .

Which Perspective?

I have just started reading a new book, while reading several others. On the first page of Karen Oberst's book on the Beatitudes was a paragraph that immediately connected me with a movie I saw last week, which was very much about how preconceptions shape the way we view someone. The movie was "The Closet," but first I am going to copy the paragraph from Oberst's book:

"In a Chinese folktale called 'The Neighbor's Shifty Son,' a farmer's ax disappears. Believing his neighbor's son to have stolen it, the farmer keeps watch all day, noticing how guilty both his neighbor and his neighbor's son appear. On the following day, however, he finds his ax in the field where he left it. When he next looks at his neighbor, he sees a perfectly normal person with his perfectly innocent son. Learning the truth changed the way he saw his neighbor." (1)

Oberst, Karen L. But I Tell You: Jesus Introduces a Better Way to Live. Newberg, OR: Barclay Press, 2007.

"The Closet" is a light-hearted French movie from 2001 that I watched while I was ironing clothes last Saturday. CB doesn't like subtitles, so I saw it while he was working at Habitat for Humanity. It's about a boring accountant who loses his job of many years, but regains it when doctored photos of him in male relationships are sent to the rubber corporation. When he returns everyone interprets his continued ordinary actions as "gay." He seems interesting now, while before he was not.

How expectations predispose us to see things and people in specific ways. I recently posted a quote from Gerald May's book The Awakened Heart about the difference between expectation and hope. Expectations (not "expectations" as "goals") limit us in a rigid way, while hope expands the situation. The movie and the Oberst quote point out how we have tainted vision when we have preconceived ideas of someone.

In fact, a friend and I were talking about this last Sunday when we walked in the humid, windy night. KK said someone on the church staff where she works was shocked that KK laughed a joke about an email that played various farting sounds. The secretary had an image of KK that limited who she thought KK to be. In a similar fashion, when I went to Zambia with four RC religious in 2006, one of the young men (who will soon be ordained an OMI priest), was shocked when I experienced "gas." He told me that his mother NEVER had flatulence and so he had thought mothers never did that!! Wow, did I open his mind (and senses)!

Unless we become more aware/awake, we'll never know we are restricting our views. No one is totally one way or another, but too often we assume they are. How little we know of ourselves, others, and God when we have automatic/reactive judgments that come from our childhood, family, and culture.

I am interested in this new book by Oberst, who is 'following the Greek where it leads, supplemented by research on customs of the times." (2) She says she is no theologian or expert, but was a Greek major in college. The book looks interesting, especially as I believe translations and semantics make big differences in our understanding.

And to end, I have to take part of a poem I read at Fran's (Go read the rest of the poem!):

Help me, O Mysterious God,
to understand the riddles you've hidden
inside your answers to my prayers.
~~Ed Hays

Friday Five: Friends

From RevGalBlogPals:
Ever since I found out I could be the hostess for the third Friday Five of each month, I have not been able to get the thought of friends out of my mind. Being an only child (all growed up) who moved around a lot in my lifetime, friends have always been very important to me. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote: "The way to have a friend is to be a friend."

So today let's write about the different kinds of friends we have, like childhood friends, lost friends, tennis friends, work friends, and the list goes on. List 5 different types of friends you have had in your life and what they were/are like.

1. Eating friends: From high school in Bellingham, WA, I have two friends who have always been eating friends. Both Jennifer and Terry live in Seattle, and we love to go out together and eat, especially desserts. In high school I remember going with Jennifer to have pie at a now-defunct hotel. Of course, talking goes along with the eating. . . . and sharing recipes.

2. Singing friend: In 4th and 5th grades in California, I had a friend I sang with on the telephone. My patient mother never told me to stop, so picture me singing on the black telephone after school on various afternoons. This friend is lost to me; both our fathers were in the Marine Corps so in successive moves we lost touch with each other.

And now I don't think I can sing. A few times in the past my husband would ask me NOT to sing in church!

3. Walking friend: Almost every Saturday morning at 7 am, DH and I walk at the mall. She is a teacher, and we rarely talk on the phone or see each other any other times. For over 12 years, we have been meeting and walking. We are also spiritual friends and 12-Step friends (which is where we first met).

4. Telephone friend: I am not one to call people on the phone and chat; in fact, I am known for not calling people. But when my friend JT moved from Corpus Christi to Fort Worth about ten years ago, we started calling each other each week to talk for an hour. Sometimes we travel or miss a week or two, but we always get back to this routine. It is oddly synchronistic that we go through many of the same spiritual or emotional struggles at the same time.

5. Co-dependent friend: When I was going to Al-Anon and therapy regularly in the mid-1990's, while I was suffering with depression and anxiety, I had a friend who was very supportive. I even called her, and she would encourage me. LW called and helped me for several years, but as soon as I grew less needy, she stopped contacting me. We were friends for a season. Now I never even see her around, as she lives on the other side of town.

Bonus: My newest blogging friend is Nancy, who is also the friend of longest time. She and I met in junior high when we both lived on a the Naval Base in Yokosuka, Japan. We corresponded faithfully with written letters until the advent of computers and email. We were both in each other's weddings and both became La Leche League leaders. She has a new blog called Nancy's Garden, in which she posts pictures of plants.

Rumi poem

Over at my friend TK's house today, TK showed me a beautifully illustrated book another friend had given her, Rumi: Hidden Music, translated by Maryam Mafi. I see now that it is out of print. The poem that caught my eye is this one:

O Friend, you made me lovingly
You clothed me in a robe of skin and blood
then planted deep inside me
a seed from your heart.
You turned the whole world
into a sanctuary where
You are the only One.

~~Rumi
1207-1273

What makes happiness?

"Happiness" was the theme of an editorial in today's newspaper by David Brooks, though it was published two days ago in the New York Times. Go here to read it. It's about a longitudinal study of 268 young men going to Harvard University in the early 1940s.

"The results from the study, known as the Grant Study, have surfaced periodically in the years since. But they’ve never been so brilliantly captured as they are in an essay called 'What Makes Us Happy?' by Joshua Wolf Shenk in the forthcoming issue of The Atlantic. (The essay is available online today.)"



Brooks' editorial whet my appetite for the much longer article, that is very interesting. A few quotes from that piece:

"The story gets to the heart of Vaillant’s angle on the Grant Study. His central question is not how much or how little trouble these men met, but rather precisely how—and to what effect—they responded to that trouble. His main interpretive lens has been the psychoanalytic metaphor of 'adaptations,' or unconscious responses to pain, conflict, or uncertainty. Formalized by Anna Freud on the basis of her father’s work, adaptations (also called 'defense mechanisms') are unconscious thoughts and behaviors that you could say either shape or distort—depending on whether you approve or disapprove—a person’s reality." (2)

"Whereas clinicians focus on treating a problem at any given time, Vaillant is more like a biographer, looking to make sense of a whole life—or, to take an even broader view, like an anthropologist or naturalist looking to capture an era. The good news, he argues, is that diseases—and people, too—have a 'natural history.' After all, many of the 'psychotic' adaptations are common in toddlers, and the 'immature' adaptations are essential in later childhood, and they often fade with maturity. As adolescents, the Grant Study men were twice as likely to use immature defenses as mature ones, but in middle life they were four times as likely to use mature defenses—and the progress continued into old age. When they were between 50 and 75, Vaillant found, altruism and humor grew more prevalent, while all the immature defenses grew more rare." (2)

As I am in my late 50's, I am glad to hear that--hope in growing older!

"Vaillant’s other main interest is the power of relationships. 'It is social aptitude,' he writes, 'not intellectual brilliance or parental social class, that leads to successful aging.' Warm connections are necessary—and if not found in a mother or father, they can come from siblings, uncles, friends, mentors. The men’s relationships at age 47, he found, predicted late-life adjustment better than any other variable, except defenses. Good sibling relationships seem especially powerful: 93 percent of the men who were thriving at age 65 had been close to a brother or sister when younger. In an interview in the March 2008 newsletter to the Grant Study subjects, Vaillant was asked, 'What have you learned from the Grant Study men?' Vaillant’s response: 'That the only thing that really matters in life are your relationships to other people.'" (3)

Another point that I find unmentioned but seemingly relevant, at least to me, is the spiritual component of their lives. In my 40s, I became newly aware of the Divine, which is told in my Faith Story, especially in the earlier posts. I am much happier believing and having faith in God.

This goes along with our lectio divina scripture today from John 15:9-11 :

15:9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.

15:10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love.

15:11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.

Here, Jesus tells us that our joy is incomplete until his joy joins ours. Our joy has to be made complete by his joy, which encompasses love. Along with this, is the image from last week's lectio meditation in the post below this that helps me to remember that our wholeness is in God, which exists always no matter how we feel or look.

It is a never-ending circle, which I do not know how to make on the computer, so imagine the sequence as:

happiness = God = joy = love = life = relationship

I am glad this is the reality I know.

Between/Out of the Cracks!

Last week husband CB bought these flood lights for the kitchen, but accidentally dropped the package as he got out of his truck. Look what happened: the outside broke, but the actual fluorescent light inside remained whole.

In my meditation time and later in Lectio Divina, I realized that this is what we are all like--cracked and broken (as in the post below) but whole within. In fact, within each of us is the Divine Light that always shines. Sometimes the Light cannot be seen unless there are cracks and broken places.

The Lectio Divina selection for the day was I John 4:11-13:

4:11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.

4:12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

4:13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

Whether we feel broken, cracked or not, Love abides in us. Always.

Today let us look further than the exterior, which may be too beautiful or too flawed for comfort. Beneath is much, much more.

Friends

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day for mothers, sons, and daughters!

Now Mother's Day is not sad for me; I think of my mother with love but not sadness even though she is not here anymore. She died in 1992. I was her only child, so I am the only one who remembers her on Mother's Day, because I believe my children think of me, which makes me happy.

I am grateful that I have four children. I am glad they are such good people.

Last week's wedding reception

At the reception at Serrano's Restaurant in Austin last Saturday night:
Here are the bride and groom. The groom is the son of my good friend LT.

Later in the evening at the reception:
Jan with son DC and his wife AA

Daughter MJ and CB

Mother of the groom, LT and Jan

LT and I met at a La Leche League meeting when we were pregnant with our first children (DC was my first). That started a friendship that goes on until this day. She was my first friend in TX. Her children are like my children's cousins and my nieces and nephews. And I'm sorry I did not get a picture of the father of the groom, but dad and son look a lot alike.

In fact, I took care of LT's oldest child while the man pictured above was born at home. So I've known the groom since he was one hour old.

LT's three children and my first three children are about the same age. We all grew up together (as moms and children). Without a fourth child, LT was MJ's classroom teacher both in pre-school and in first grade!

Friday Five: A Bug's Life

Sophia at RevGalBlogPals suggested a Friday Five about bugs. Thank you for such fun! I needed such squirmy distractions.

Mantis and Ant by Lou Romano

As I was walking the beach today, I was surprised and delighted to find it swarming with ladybugs. The sweet little red beetles are one of my favorite insects and also my daughter's blogname--though as of this morning she was thinking of changing it to Butterfly. I'll keep you posted.

This got me thinking about spiritual insect trivia: Did you know that medieval mystics and theologians esteemed the bee for its dedicated work and transformation of ordinary ingredients into sweetness? That Spider Woman is an important creator Goddess to many Native American tribes? Or that Francis of Assisi was reminded of Jesus not only by lambs being led to slaughter, but also by worms (think "I am a worm and no man" from the Psalms)-- so he picked them up and took them out of stomping-vulnerable spots?!

In that spirit, this week's Friday Five is a magical mystery tour through God's garden of creepy crawlies!

1. Ladybugs or ladybirds? Pillbugs or roly-polys? Jesus bugs or water skeeters? Any other interesting regional or familial name variations?
Ladybugs; roly-polys; nothing else. WA State is famous for slugs, but I don't see them here, oddly enough since TX is a humid greenhouse for all kinds of insects.

2. Stomp on spiders, carry them outside, or peacefully co-exist?
Depends on the size. I think I have been affected by seeing a man at a plumbing store way back in 1979, with a hugely swollen arm because of a bite from a brown recluse spider. Just having moved from WA State to TX, this frightened me!

3. Favorite insect?
Probably ladybugs, which are rarely seen here.

4. Least favorite?
I'm wavering between cockroaches and mosquitoes. All sorts of varieties of each live way down here in sub-tropical south TX. The most uncomfortable is when the 200+ varieties of mosquitoes hatch out, and it feels like this, especially when I go outside to hang clothes on the clothesline.

5. Got any good bug stories to share?
When I had a new baby back in 1979 and was nursing him in the middle of the night, I always had a large glass of water on the table next to the bed. A memorable early-morning event was when I reached for the glass, found a big waterbug cockroach in it, screamed and threw the glass up with water going all over the bed--little DC was crying and husband CB was wondering what all the wet, noisy ruckus was about.Waterbugs live outside but come inside sometimes--and they fly! They are sometimes 3 inches long. Yuck.

Bonus question: share a poem, song, quotation, etc. about insects.

By Ogden Nash:

God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.

Sorry

I am not visiting blogs much and/or commenting. . .

(Due to this.)

Two new books today

I have two new books today; one bought at the church and one received from Amazon:

When a Congregation Is Betrayed: Responding to Clergy Misconduct which was edited by Beth Ann Gaede. I have only read the first few chapters, which are helping me to better understand the abuse of power that takes place when a priest/pastor has a sexual affair with a parishioner. There is a link on Amazon.com for another book that might be better than this one, though I am not sure that I need more than one book dealing with this subject: Understanding Clergy Misconduct in Religious Systems: Scapegoating, Family Secrets, and the Abuse of Power by Candace Benyei.

The other book I received in my mailbox is one written by Tobias Stanislas Haller, Vicar of Saints James Episcopal Church in Fordam, NY and fellow blogger at In a Godward Direction. I am excited to receive a copy of his newly published book Reasonable and Holy: Engaging Same-Sexuality.

Sleep apnea?

I am so grateful that at long last my husband is going to a sleep clinic tonight to be tested for sleep apnea. He is renowned in our family for snoring so loudly that someone in the next room cannot sleep. CB has slept so poorly for years that we have all wondered how he functions. Worries about strokes or heart attacks have plagued us all, but seemingly not him.

It is a miracle that he made an appointment to ask the doctor about this, which happened last week without any of us knowing it. Now the insurance company approved the sleeping test, and they called him today with an opening TONIGHT!

How to live

I know more or less
how to live through my life now.
But I want to know how to live what’s left
with my eyes open and my hands open;
I want to stand at the door in the rain
listening, sniffing, gaping.
Fearful and joyous,
like an idiot before God.

~ Kerrie Hardie ~

(Cry for the Hot Belly)

To subscribe to Panhala for such poems, send a blank email to
Panhala-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Advice of My Hero

Brother Lawrence has always been a hero saint of mine. As stories and rumors circulate about our former priest, the woman involved, and even our new priest, I keep thinking of Brother Lawrence's advice about giving everything to God. I don't know the exact words, but this is how I remember his way of life in surrendering all to God:

• When I do something good, I thank God and give it to God.

• When I do something wrong, I ask for forgiveness from God and give it to God.

Only one side of the story is being told, which does not excuse a priest from crossing this professional, ethical, and spiritual boundary that resulted in his deposition. Too many people are suffering from those past actions, which continue to bear fruit in dissension, sorrow, and pain.

I dislike the various judgments that are being declared in different directions, and so for myself am trying to surrender all to God so that I will not be swayed by all the opinions circulating.

Brother Lawrence gives concrete advice for growing in awareness of God. By giving all my actions to God, I may avoid, or at least lessen, pride and shame--and increase my knowledge of my dependence upon the Holy One.

Expectation vs Hope

Expectation

by Olivia Jeffries

"Expectation refuses to permit wonderings or doubt, and so it is closed off, final, and frozen. When an expectation is not met, it dies. Sometimes, with grace, hope is born from the rubble of dashed expectations. More often, the death is simply denied, reality is ignored, and another expectation--just as rigid and just as impossible--is forged. Without some birth of hope, each remanufactured expectation is covered with a thicker coat of cynicism and paranoia. Expectation is brittle and can only be shored up by delusion, but hope is soft and willing to suffer pain.

"Hope is flexible, willing to change or even to be given up if need be."

May, Gerald G. The Awakened Heart. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991. 80-81.

In great sadness

A certain brother came to Abbot Poemen and said: What ought I to do, father? I am in great sadness. The elder said to him: Never despise anybody, never condemn anybody, never speak evil of anyone, and the Lord will give you peace.

--Verba Seniorum [Words of the Elders], written in Greek about the early Christian hermits of the Middle East, translated into Latin in the mid-500s. From Wisdom of the Desert (pub.1960), tr. by Thomas Merton (1915-1968).

I am in great sadness, too, because we have officially been told at our church that our former priest, who had served for 17 years here, has renounced his orders in the Episcopal Church and has been deposed by the Bishop of Atlanta. A better writer than I eloquently described the situation on his blog.

It is a complicated story, which is still being revealed. I was privileged to hear the story this afternoon in a group setting. I am grieved to hear what went on. I am very sad. Even as I realize that this priest served our parish, community, and more specifically me in many healing, teaching, and preaching ways, I see that he was more flawed than we ever saw. He really helped me learn to trust men, and now I am wrestling with the contradictions of that connected to this.

This weekend starts the healing and full-disclosure. On Saturday our bishop will have a meeting with all the church that comes to the gathering, for questions, remarks, and any thing that arises. Another bishop will preach on Sunday.

Unfortunately (or maybe serendipitously), I will be not in attendance at any of these events. Tomorrow I am going to San Antonio to hear Richard Rohr and Joan Chittister speak. I am going with a friend, because on Saturday my husband has to pick me up so we can drive on to Austin for an afternoon wedding.

Believing in ourselves

" We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."

~~e.e. cummings

Thanks to Catherine for sending this quote to me. Plus, e.e. cummings is one of my favorite poets.

Cell phone confusion

For the past hour or more husband CB has been changing and learning about the new family cell phone plan that our two daughters and he and I have together. Getting five "favorites" is a new and risky experience for us older people!

Construction Layoffs (personal)

On Feb. 17, I started to write about my son DC's job as an assistant construction supervisor of a large apartment complex in Austin, TX, but I never finished it. That was the day that they learned that their large company was closing down all construction projects in Austin and Houston. DC learned that he would lose his job this September, when the project would be finished. (If you go back here, you can see a picture of an example of what he builds.)

Today he learned that their last day of work will be JUNE 24, whether the construction is done or not. (Totally unrelated to this is that the date was my dad's birthday.) Luckily, DC's wife AA has a good job that looks secure.

Rumors and fears are circulating: A friend told me about a luxury condo project being built on Broadway in San Antonio--it has gone up 14 floors, with the goal of 33. All construction is now stopped. The building will be sealed off until the economy improves. Mike in TX set me straight on this project, but told of another one that is failing in SA in the comments here.

It has taken awhile for the effects of the economic downturn to get to Texas.

Plus, there have been four cases of swine flu in our county (Nueces). We're not far from Mexico! There are six confirmed cases in the state of Texas.

Doubt

Doubt has come to mind, which caused me to remember Frederick Buechner's writings on doubt. I always loved him saying, "Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith." I think that's true, though doubts are sometimes even more uncomfortable than that.I think doubt is part of faith. Faith doesn't grow unless there are doubts. I still have them and can if I stay in my head intellectualizing; but in my heart, I know there is God. It is a knowing beyond explanation and makes my life better. The title of my blog tells how I feel regarding all this--"yearning for God." (If you want to read my faith story, go here.)

So here are Buechner's words about doubt from his collection of readings, Beyond Words:

"Whether your faith is that there is a God or that there is not a God, if you don't have any doubts, you are either kidding yourself or asleep. Doubts are the ants in the pants of faith. They keep it awake and moving.

"There are two principal kinds of doubt, one of the head and the other of the stomach.

"In my head there is almost nothing I can't doubt when the fit is upon me--the divinity of Christ, the efficacy of the sacraments, the significance of the church, the existence of God. But even when I am at my most skeptical, I go on with my life as though untoward has happened.

"I have never experienced stomach doubt, but I think Jesus did. When he cried, 'My God, my God, why has though forsaken me!' I don't think he was raising a theological issue any more than he was quoting Psalm 22. I think he had looked into the abyss itself and found there a darkness that spiritually, viscerally, totally engulfed him. I think God allows that kind of darkness to happen only to God's saints. The rest of us aren't up to doubting that way--or maybe believing that way either.

"When our faith is strongest, we believe with our hearts as well as with our heads, but only at a few rare moments, I think, do we feel in our stomachs what it must be like to be engulfed by light." (85-86)

Buechener, Frederick. Beyond Words: Daily Readings in the ABC's of Faith. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004.

I love the way he expresses himself. All of the above tells about doubts I've had in the past and which I'll probably have in the future, too. Still, I go on "walking the walk" with friends and rediscovering the Holy is HERE more often than not.

Bury me in the library!

Please bury me in the library

In the clean, well-lighted stacks

Of Novels, History, Poetry,

Right next to the Paperbacks.

Where the Kids' Books dance

With True Romance

And the Dictionary dozes.

Please bury me in the library

With a dozen long-stemmed proses.

Way back by a rack of Magazines,

I won't be sad too often

If they bury me in the library

With Book worms in my coffin.

J. Patrick Lewis

Thank you to Diane Vogel Ferri at Coexist.

Friday Five: Bucket List

Singing Owl at RevGalBlogPals writes:

I wrote this Friday Five a while back but was unable to post it. Just saying, so you know I am not ill! :-) Actually I am heading out of town and will not be able to read your posts till sometime early next week, but I'll do so then. Have fun, and don't think too hard about this one. I figured we were due for some fun after Lent and Good Friday and Easter and all that churchy stuff!

Four days of being mostly in bed with a really bad case of flu (do not worry--I will give no detail) has me pondering the fragility of life. LOL! Death, however, has been cheated in my case and I am up and taking nourishment. In that vein of thought, do you have a "Bucket List"? In other words, from the movie of the same name, five things you want to see, do, accomplish, etc. before you kick the bucket?

1. Spend summers in Bellingham, WA and the rest of the year here in Corpus Christi, TX.

I own my parents' home in Bellingham, which has been rented out since 2002 when my dad died. Since my husband is also from Bellingham, we talk about doing this but do nothing more. To do that, we'd probably have to sell our home here and get a much smaller domicile or a condo. . . .

2. I'd love to go on the National Geographic tour of Antarctica. Probably other expeditions, too!

3. More within my means, would be Elderhostel trips, which I'm not sure that CB would like at all. Maybe I can do this with friends someday! (Can't you tell that in 1 1/2 years I'll be 60??) And I've also always wanted to go to Pendle Hill.

4. Take art classes and discover where creativity lurks within me!

5. Research and record about my ancestors; learn more about my family, which is somewhat difficult since I'm an only child and my parents are dead. (And my dad was also an only child, and my mother had only one sibling.)

Is he imprisoned or are we?

Christ of Maryknoll
by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM

"The icon does not make clear which side of the fence Christ is on. Is he imprisoned or are we? Through our cultural institutions and personal lives we all place barriers between ourselves and true happiness. We and our institutions also try to imprison Christ in various ways, to tame him and the dangerous memories he would bring us of our goals and ideals. on does not make clear which side of the fence Christ is on. Is he imprisoned or are we? Through our cultural institutions and personal lives we all place barriers between ourselves and true happiness. We and our institutions also try to imprison Christ in various ways, to tame him and the dangerous memories he would bring us of our goals and ideals."

I first saw this icon at a Shalem gathering. It has not left my mind, especially after reading what the artist, Br. Robert Lentz, wrote about it (above). The question haunts me: Is he imprisoned or are we?

There is a book with many of his icons entitled Christ in the Margins, which is by Edwina Gately and Robert Lentz. It is a beautiful book and has the Christ with barbed wire on its cover.

Record High Today

Corpus Christi, TX had a record high temperature of 96 degrees F. today. Supposedly the "normal" high temperature for this date is 82 degrees F. I would much prefer the latter temp. Yuck, and it is till April. This does not bode well for our "spring" here--or the SUMMER either.

Two friends were at Lebh Shomea for a few days and said that it is brown and dry there. Father Kelly told them that the wild animals, such as javelinas, deer, and turkeys, are dying from lack of water and malnutrition. There really is a drought in Texas.

**There is the U. S. Drought Monitor here. The map shows the drought (or not) conditions in all parts of the USA.

Surprise!

This is when Beverly, the creator of my quilt, gave it to me in the church library yesterday.

Prayer for Earth Day (and every day)

You are the One who has brought our Lord Jesus Christ
again to life from the dead;
You are the One who by your summoning imperative
has caused the worlds to be;
You are the One who by your faithfulness
has given a son to our vexed mother Hannah;
You are the One who has the will and power to begin again,
to start anew.

You are the only self-starter whose name we know.
And so we bid you, start again,
start here, start now,
start with us and with our school (church, city, country. .),
start with your mercy,
and with your justice,
and with your compassion,
and with your peace.
Make the world new again, and young again, and innocent again. . .
Start. . . before it is too late.
Amen.
On reading I Samuel 1 on Feb. 4, 1999

Brueggemann, Walter. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Ed. Edwin Searcy. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. 111.

My Quilt!

Today in the Wisdom Class, our church office administrator and my friend, Beverly, came into the church library where we were meeting with a quilt. She unfolded it and told us the story of its creation, and how it grew before her very eyes. Beverly is renown for her quilts; she creates them for her family and for each new rector of All Saints Episcopal Church.

Another friend MB ordered one from Beverly, which turned out vibrantly beautiful. MB has it hanging on a wall in her home. That got me wishing for one of my own, but they're very expensive! So back in January, I decided to start saving all my $5 bills so that in a few years I could get my own quilt.

But today Beverly presented me with this African one! She said that months ago she decided to do this and called and asked husband CB what my favorite color is (green) and something about me--that I went to Zambia in 2006. And this was the result. You can see that the back is as beautiful as the front!

That was such a huge surprise! I never suspected anything while Beverly was talking about it in our class for Walter Wink's book The Powers That Be. Suddenly she handed it to me and gave me an invoice for $5!!

Someone in the class said it should be called "Jan's Joy," but Beverly named it "Rain Dance." On the label she wrote from the Australian Yearly Meeting:

"Even in times of drought, the wellspring of the spirit knows no restrictions."

We are in a drought here, so we need rain. Plus, we're getting to summer weather: 80-90F/78 F each day. The title of the quilt reminded me of the scripture I chose as the theme of the Emmaus Walk I was Lay Director for in JULY 2001:

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
and its leaves shall stay green;
In the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit.
~~Jeremiah 17:7-8

This quilt will remind me of friendship, the Wisdom Class, how I love rain (I'm from WA State, after all), the Emmaus Walk when I was Lay Director, and my trip to Zambia. What a celebration!

Creativity or not?

I remember how excited I was to learn about perspective in drawing in fourth grade (when I was in third grade in a combination 3/4 class, but in reality I skipped fourth grade). That's probably the last time I was given any form of an art lesson. Sometime in the intervening years, I came to believe that I was (and am) totally uncreative.

In the past few years people have come into my life who have been gently encouraging me to try something in art, though I have not. The same friend who recommended the book Autumn Gospel gave me a book on creativity several years ago, which I keep putting off for a "better time": The Creativity Book: A Year's Worth of Inspiration and Guidance. MJF said that that book helped her to find her own creativity. Just recently, she suggested that she could show me what she knows about photography. . . .

Today at our local HEB supermarket, I met an Emmaus Walk friend from years ago. We barely recognized each other, since both of us have whiter hair now. She retired since I last saw her and is taking care of her ill daughter and 6-year-old grandson. In her spare time she is taking a watercolor class at the local community college. That interested me, and then she told me she had to take many elementary courses before this one--that were required first. And she told me that the art community at the junior college is nurturing and caring. WOW--sounds wonderful! She also told me that she needed courses with deadlines so she'd do the projects, and that is how I work best.

And friend TK has made a place for me at her art table to help me explore art. She paints and sculpts. She is actually ready for me to try.

Looking at the daffodil Ruth drew and posted at her blog Ruth's Visions and Revisions, I was connected with her creative drive in work (writing) and in her personal life (The Artist's Way) to see that it might also be a possibility for me. Doxy wrote in the comments that her grandfather always promised "to do that" when he retired, but then was unable to because he had dementia. Doesn't this somehow speak about living in the present moment??

So maybe I need to take a hint and accept one of these invitations. It's a little scary, as I feel totally inept. . . .and need to write those papers I mention in my profile. . . . But this is more of a possibility than I thought before. . . .

by Bob Seal

Be our primary disease

Be our primary disease,
and infect us with your justice;
Be our night visitor,
and haunt us with your peace;
Be our moth that consumes,
and eat away at our unfreedom.
Be our primary disease,
our night visitor,
our moth
infect, haunt, eat away. . .
Until we are toward you and with you and for you,
away from our injustice,
our anti-peace,
our unfreedom.
More like you and less like your resistance.
In the name of the one most like you,
most with you,
most for you. . . even Jesus.
Amen.

~~Walter Brueggemann, Prayer in Class: January 20, 1998

Brueggemann, Walter. Ed. Edwin Searcy. Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003. 99.

Age

Yesterday was my third child BJ's birthday. He is now 24.

My oldest son DC will be 30 this summer, and my youngest child MJ will be 20 in November. (So as not to leave out a child, AE is 27.)

I remember when I was 24, my husband and I moved from VA to OR so that CB could go to graduate school at Oregon State University in Corvallis. We lived in married student housing, and I taught 2nd and 2nd-3rd grades in Eddyville, where the entire school had 250 kids for grades K-12. It was a happy time. And now BJ is that same age.

Then I wonder if I'll even be alive in 24 years. Neither of my parents lived to be 80 years old. Will I? In 24 years I would/could be almost 82.

I'm not really worried about dying. It just seems closer as I edge nearer to the age of 60. Maybe I am also more aware of it as I stopped dyeing my hair (last year) and it is going whiter. (See in the Easter pictures.)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've also been reading Autumn Gospel: Women in the Second Half of Life by Kathleen Fischer. I had been averse to reading it, probably due to its title, until a friend called me up and read some quotes from it. Then I had to get the book!

Here is how I so often feel these days:

"The novelist Isabel Allende explains this shift after turning fifty: 'I don't have any time to waste. I don't have time for gossip or greed or revenge or undirected anger.' She says she is concentrating on the basics, which have to do with love." (32)

We're called to "Come Home"

Today my dear friend TK read to me something our new priest Sandy sang to us at a Lenten service, which is in her book The Lessons:

"Clothed in brilliant white, face unseen yet known.
Tall in splendor knowing, He says to me,
'Come home.'
From deep within His being, He gently beckons me,
'Let go of all your sorrows. Come in me and find your peace.'
One moment, Lord. I close my eyes, I need to go within.
A second to reflect, I thought, before I can begin.
Time then stopped in stillness. How long I cannot say.
Lost somewhere within His love my Lord in me did pray.
What of our encounter, Lord?
You know we never had our chat.
'Hush, my child. Be still. Can't you see? It's over just like that.'
But Lord, it was too easy, to forget myself in thee.
I wanted to tell you all there was.
But you only wanted me."

Casey-Martus, Sandy and Carla R. Mancari. The Lessons: How to Understand Spiritual Principles, Spiritual Activities, and Rising Emotions. Tucson, Arizona: Wheatmark, 2008. 161.

This was the essence of a mystical experience Sandy had, which she writes more about in this book. This is what she teaches us about prayer--letting go to God, with no expectations of oneself or of the Holy One.

Friday Five: Household Appliances

Sally at RevGalBlogPals wrote about household appliances, maybe because those of us not on the BIG trip of RevGals are in the kitchen or household more than desired.
So being in a domestic frame of mind I thought I'd ask;
1. What is the one appliance you simply couldn't be without?
Microwave or dishwasher.

When we used to visit my grandmother in Arkansas, it would take SO long to heat up any leftovers without a microwave. I love leftovers, and so the microwave is very handy. (Most recently for the ham bone and vegetable soup I made on Wednesday, which we're still warming up in the microwave.)

2. What if anything would you happily give up?
It was fun at first, but now seems like too much trouble to take the panini maker out of the cupboard.

3. What is the most strangest household appliance you own?
Probably our garbage disposal, because hardly anything can be put down it! Because of a bend in the pipes below the house, stuff gets stuck there so the gunk backs up into the sink. So most debris has to be thrown into the trash can instead of the sink. I'm always amazed when I visit people who put eggs, lettuce, and carrot ends into the disposal, because I cannot.

4. What is the most luxurious household appliance you own?
Probably the breadmaker that I never use. After looking at Sally's Friday Five, I realize I need to be using it!

My problem is that I love homemade bread with lots of butter on it.

5. Tell us about your dream kitchen- the sky is the limit here....
Yesterday I visited a friend whose entire house was remodeled. Her kitchen with granite counters and streamlined stainless steel appliances was beautiful.

My husband CB is remodeling his second house on our street. His kitchens have granite counter tops, stainless steel appliances, and light maple cupboards. I'd like one of them.

However, I got a new kitchen way back when we moved into this house in 1994, and I cannot complain. I have white appliances and a corian counter top, with a granite baking center. The cabinets are medium stained oak. It's still very nice.

Christianity in America

by David Horsey of the Seattle P-I

My daughter in Seattle sent me a link to this cartoon a few days ago. I guess I like it because of what the Episcopalian says; I'm sure my daughter thought of me being that mother back when we went to the Methodist Church.

How crazy it is in Texas!

I had to have my daughter in Seattle point out that Rick Perry, the TX governor with BIG hair, babbled about seceding from the union. He is ridiculous.

"Texas Gov. Rick Perry riled up the “anti-government protesters” at an Austin “tea party” rally Wednesday, said Michael Landauer in The Dallas Morning News. But later he uncorked some truly “over-the-top radicalism,” calmly suggesting to reporters that Texas might secede from the United States. People are angry, but stirring up the “Republic of Texas nuts” to potentially “dangerous levels” won't help."

And this shows Perry's clarity and eloquence:

"There's a lot of different scenarios," Perry said. "We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that."

The rest of the article is here.