A Random Friday Five

Today's questions come from revkjarla:

1. Tell us a moment of blessing that you have experienced in the past week.

That would have to be the emphatic responses in the communion liturgy coming from the mouth of an elderly man who never leaves his home (except for doctor appointments) as he and I and his wife sat together around their dining room table after the World Communion Sunday service.

2. Share the first thing/story that comes to mind when you read "When I was a child..."

When I was a child, I was surrounded by natural beauty and immersed in a life of simplicity and a loving family.

3, 4, and 5. If you were the host of a t.v. talk show, what three people would you like to interview on your first show, and what would you ask them.

OK, well, I came up with three pairs:

Mary Ward (1585-1645), an English Catholic religious sister who wanted to move women out of cloistered religious life and into service in the world, following the "contemplative in action" example of Ignatius and the Jesuits, and her predecessor, the Italian Angela Merici (1474-1540), who founded the order of Ursuline sisters with the same objectives in mind.  The Ursulines were my teachers from 7th-9th grade.

Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama, both lawyers, both boxed into the [albeit changing] role of First Lady and First Mother, one of them released from those boundaries into worldwide national service and the other whose future remains to be seen.

My neighbor Susan, whose life on the whole appears to have gone exceptionally well and brought her tremendous joy and satisfaction, and my friend Jane, whose last twenty years have been decades of the sort of challenges that would have brought most of us to our knees.

My questions are always the same: How have you countered the challenges, visible and invisible, that have presented themselves in your lives?  What are you learning from your counterpart?  Who are your best friends and mentors?  How does, or does not, faith enter into the woman you are/have been/are becoming?

Thanks, Rev, for the chance to think through these questions!