Fragments of Grace: New Blog Name

 

So many permutations over the years.

 

Midlife Matters ~ yes, a play on words ~ begun over eleven years ago, in the hope of exploring the adventures of a midlife wife, mother, lawyer-turned-teacher, spiritual explorer, traveler, and photographer.  An AOL journal enmeshed in a hesitant but hopeful community of writers suddenly offered a public platform.

 

Search the Sea ~ the blog that emerged from the AOL crash. By that time, the spiritual search had become paramount in my life, and at first I imagined myself as a gannet (my screen name back in those days of online anonymity was Gannet Girl), a seabird soaring across the waters of the ocean, always seeking and never landing for good.

 

Desert Year ~ the place in which I began to deposit the writing pertaining to my son Josh's death by suicide, writing too dark to be supported by any gannet sailing through the sky.

 

Metanoia ~ the name upon which I settled when I concluded that, like it or not I was in the throes of  Deep Change, and might as well try to embrace reality.

 

Beautiful and Terrible ~ that's been the name of this blog for quite a while.  It comes from a Frederick Buechner quote, and represented a form of hope: that I would somehow manage to see both, even when the terrible seemed to overtake all else.  Buechner is a Presbyterian pastor who lost his father to suicide, so we share a couple of experiences in common, albeit no doubt also differently.

 

Fragments of Grace is my take on the title of Mary Doria Russell's novel A Thread of Grace (about the Italian resistance during World War II, not about Jesuits in space), one of my very favorite books.  Her title comes from an old Jewish quote: No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there's always a thread of grace.

 

I am willing to admit that it takes a better, or at least a different sort, of person than I to see a thread of grace.  I belong to a faith tradition in which people are comfortable talking about "God's plan."  I hear it all the time from elderly Presbyterians in hospital rooms and from young Catholic college students responding to life crises.  I am a good deal less sanguine than most of them are about the details of this plan.

 

But I am willing to acknowledge fragments of grace.  I am even willing to celebrate fragments of grace. 

 

For seven years now, I have lived the experience of walking across a sea of fragments of glass, of metal, of ice.  Sharp, jagged, shifting fragments.  These days, it seems that they glisten with light from above more than they reflect the darkness of the depths below.  

 

Who knows?  Perhaps they are connected by a glowing filament invisible to me.

For now, though: Fragments of Grace.

The Unblogger

I haven't blogged regularly in soooooo long.

 

Most of my life seems to fall into unbloggable categories these days.  The stories belong to other people, or are too sensitive, or simply constitute more than I want to say.   

 

Consequently, I am out of practice.  And I don't want my writing gears to rust into scrap metal.

 

I'm going to work on this. As of last month, I've been blogging for ten or eleven years.  That's a long portion of life recorded in bits and pieces of writing published for other people to read. 

 

I think I might want to hang onto the next decade as well.

Picking Up a Pen . . .

OK, not a pen.

 

But I've blogged very little this year, and I do think that I'll pick that up again.

 

What am I wondering about these days?

 

Ministry, the church, the world, of course.  What are we doing??? Yesterday, I took some time to write out my thoughts about what my call to ministry entails and then a job description based on what I actually do on a daily basis.  Few points of intersection ~ much to consider there.

 

What happens to relationships in the wake of earth-shaking loss?  The picture isn't a pretty one.

 

Spiritual direction ~ what's that all about?  I mean, I know what it's about; perhaps it's where I want to focus my life much more completely?  I am accompanying someone through the Spiritual Exercises ~ fifth time, which isn't a lot for five years, but it's such a huge commitment that I can't manage it with more than one person at a time.  As always, though, I am in awe.

 

Preaching ~ what's that all about?  How much I wish I had had a series of decent preaching courses in seminary! 

 

I am a bit envious of my son as he begins his new law practice.  He's in court nearly every day, and learning quickly that the practice of law is about far more than advocating for folks in adversarial contexts.  It's about being present to them, about letting them know that they are heard, and about helping to quell the fears arising from uncertainty and lack of control. 

 

Suicide prevention.  Is there such a thing, really?  I spend a lot of time and effort on projects in the hope that there is. 

 

Aging.  Sixty-one next month.  Thinking a lot about what I would do if I had less than a decade left.  Not in a morose kind of way, but in a priority-setting kind of way.  I really don't have my act together at all.

 

Grief.  Learning to live alongside it.  I guess it gets better, in the sense that I am more functional all the time.  Clarity of thought has become a reasonable expectation on most days.  But the pain of it -- oh, God. 

 

Intentional solitude.  I need a lot more of that.  I have LOTS of time alone, but I am making a poor showing where taking advantage of it is concerned. 

 

Books.  I have been reading.  A lot.

 

So, yeah.  More writing.  In shorter gusts, I think.

 

Ten Years?

Yep, I've been blogging for ten years.

And I think I've about exhausted what I have to say, at least for the time being.

During those ten years, one of my three children finished high school, they all finished college, one died, and two earned graduate degrees.

I've been to Iona and Paris, the Pacific Northwest (multiple times, thanks to a college student), canoeing in Canada, lobbying in Columbus and Washington, D.C., and up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer and broke my ankle.

I completed seminary and a certificate in spiritual direction, was ordained to ministry, taught some college classes, and have served two churches as pastor.

I'm, just back from a much needed week of silence and spiritual direction at Georgetown University, where I stayed in the Jesuit Community's residence, did a disappointingly small bit of exploration (that ankle!), dealt with a car breakdown, and read a lot of Brian Doyle.  (How have I not read all of his books before ???)

Mostly I stretched luxuriously into prayer as my cat stretches across the bed, sinking into a fleece blanket, retracting her claws, and closing her eyes.

 

At least twice on my retreat, deep into the contemplation of passages of scripture, I related to my spiritual director what seemed to me to be striking insights, and he told me to look into what the early church fathers had to say about them when I got home.

 

I have nothing original whatever to offer! ~ be it on the church, bereavement, ministry, parenting, suicide, prayer, or any of the other topics which have absorbed me this past decade.

 

I have concluded that I am in need of much more silence in my life, much more time for listening and reading and absorbing. 

 

So . . .  if you've been reading, thank you.  If you've been commenting, thank you even more.  I might return, someday ~ but for now, I think that my online presence will be a small and quiet one.

AMDG.





Image: Holy Trinity Church near the Georgetown University Campus.

Out and About ~ Oops!

The first time I ever made an eight-day silent retreat, I started to get restless around the fourth day. 

 

"Isn't it about time for a movie night?" I asked my director.  "Couldn't we all get together for some popcorn and a film and some conversation?"

 

She was a humorless woman, and she gave me a horrified look as she said, "No!"

 

"Just kidding," I said.

 

This morning I forgot all about my internet sabbatical, and posted a few things on FB.  I've noticed many posts, on FB and in blogs, on which I've wanted to comment, but I've restrained myself.  Such a habit, though!  Open laptop and start talking!

 

Going back to my bunker now.

Sabbatical

A WEEK'S SABBATICAL

 

 

 

 

 

I'll be reading, but . . .

 

No blog posts or comments ~

 

No FB posts or comments ~

 

No responses to email beyond the absolutely necessary ~

 

I think the world can live without my commentary for a week ~

 

Except, let me go out with this one:  I like Skyler.  A LOT.

Galship!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over at RevGalsBlogPals, the blogging community for women in ministry and those who support women in ministry, we're hosting a July Blog Carnival to celebrate some changes and expansion in the blog site!

 

From the site: This week's blog carnival topic is: What does Galship mean to you? The phrase was originally coined to refer to RevGal Fellowship--all the ways we build community, share our lives, support each other, and have fun. So blog about Galship--have you had an experience of galship in person or online? Has galshipping changed your life or ministry? what's your favorite part of our galship? Or whatever way you understand the question--there are no wrong answers! What does Galship mean to you?

 

The Big One: Support

 

I'm not sure when I connected with RevGals, but the first post I could easily find this afternoon was a Friday Five from August 29, 2008.  Such energy and anticipation and hope in my life, reflected in my answer to the fifth question, and such joy radiating from the answer to the bonus:

 

"5. What will change regarding your work as summer morphs into fall? Are you anticipating or dreading?

Back to seminary, back to spiritual direction program, onward to church internship. Mostly anticipating, but a little apprehensive about my ability to pull off this balancing act for yet another year.

Bonus question: For the gals who are mothers, do you have an interesting story about labor and delivery (LOL)? If you are a guy pal, not a mom, or you choose not to answer the above, is there a song, a book, a play, that says "workplace" to you?

My twin boys were born on Labor Day week-end 24 years ago! Bullet points: overdue, induction over Friday and Saturday, c-section, and by Saturday night I was a nursing mother of two! OR photos show one baby settled peacefully into a satisfied sleep and another baby wide-eyed and frantic about the new turn of events. Nothing much has changed."

 

Four days later one of those twenty-four year olds would die of suicide, and I discovered that, unknown to me, everything had in fact been changing dramatically. When I made the announcement a few days later, 85 condolence comments appeared, most of them from RevGals I did not know.   The friendships which have evolved over the past five years have been a remarkable gift of support and love.

 

Resources

 

The RevGals are my go-to group for all sorts of questions related to ministry.  No matter the issue, someone somewhere has lived it and survived to flourish. 

 

Encouragement

 

Thanks to RevGals, I've gained the confidence to experiment with my approach to ministry, had the opportunity to lead an ecumenical women's retreat, and been published in the Huffington Post.  Thanks to RevGals, we all get to discuss our preaching every single week ~ and we get to read amazing sermons, and play games, and lift one another up in prayer, and be . . .

 

Friends!

 

 

 

 

Online

 With a change of format, I'm hosting the RevGals' Wednesday Festival today, so amble on over and peruse some great links!

And, after much procrastination, many unexpected delays, and quite a bit of frustration on my part, my church has a new website.  I find Wordpress to be a good deal more cumbersome than Blogger, and with many fewer free options, but I think that in the long run it offers more for a professional or organizational site, so that's the way I went. For now,our site is pretty basic.  Perhaps my WP blogging friends will weigh in on the many options with which I have yet to experiment.

As for long run, we'll see.  I start training our secretary today; she's enthusiastic.  But most of my congregation spends little time online; for many, that time is zero.  And for some, access out here in rural Ohio is a problem.  All very frustrating for me.  One of the reasons I was optimistic about taking on a call a considerable distance from  my home is the ease of internet communication  -- but it turns out to be not so easy in this community.

Anyway, the site is up and needs some work; comments and suggestions are welcome!

A Request for Jennifer

If you are the Jennifer who was so kind as to send me an email with attachments today, would you please resend it?

The one engineering deficiency in the iphone is that the delete mail button is just above the close button.  I'm afraid that I frequently miss.

Actually, there is a second deficiency: when you delete mail from an iphone, it is really gone.  If there is a way to retrieve it, I have no idea what that might be.

Thanks!

Blogging (Friday Five)

Well, the Friday Five is up, and I have a couple of major projects to complete, so I am in procrastination overdrive.  Hence, another post!  Jan writes:

Blogging at Google's Blogger, I recently was boondoggled by the new designs of the site, which includes my blog. I felt like I had lost track of all the blogs I daily check so that I asked for help both at my blog and on Facebook! Still trying to learn the ways of these new ways of blogging, I am turning our minds to blogging for this Friday Five.

1. When did you start blogging? What/who prompted you?

I started blogging on AOL  journals in March of 2004.  I had some kind of idea that I would get healthier (read: lose weight)  if I engaged my struggles in writing, in public.  That didn't happen, but I had a lot of fun, and I think that my writing improved, thanks to the daily discipline of putting something out there.  Those were great days -- pre-automatic readers, it wasn't unusual for a post to garner 15-25 comments, and a little community began to grow.  Two friends from those days are still blogging, and we remain faithful readers of one another.

2. How often do you post? How often do you visit blogging friends and/or other blogs?

I post most days, and there are several blogs which I read every day.  And several more which I read on occasion.

3. Why do you keep on blogging?

Beats me.  No, seriously, many of the things which have happened in my life are not all that usual, which is to say that among my circles of local friends, I have few who share the same experiences.  Blogging broadens the possibilities considerably.  None of my close friends at home have lost a child, but I have developed several deep friendships with other bereaved mothers through blogging.  None of my close friends here have had breast cancer, but a RevGal came to the rescue with emails and a phone call when I was at my lowest.  I could offer several more examples; they boil down to: I enjoy being connected to  a bigger world than the one within my physical grasp. 

4. What do you like to write about?

Whatever.

5. Have your blogging habits changed--or are they changing?

I used to both write and read more about politics (a little), travel, and photography.  After Josh died, I lost interest in pretty much everything, although I could force myself to deal with what was right in front of my nose.  I'd like to think that that's beginning to change.

Bonus: Recommend a blog or two.

You'll have to go to today's previous post for that!

Miscellany

No Friday Five yet, so I think I'll take a cue from my friend Jan and post seven random things. 

1.  I am feeling extremely restless.  I have way too much to do, a problem exacerbated by the fact that I have jury duty next week.  I am just this morning recognizing that I am going to have to complete many of my usual tasks in the evenings when I am tired and cranky. 

2. An excellent read: my friend Karen's post on her response to a well-intended but ultimately heartless remark in a church context.  I have to admit, though, that while I am sympathetic, having been the beneficiary of countless hurtful comments that were intended to help, I am also reminded of my own multiple failures in this regard.

3.  One of Christianity's most basic tenets is that God is unchanging.  It's not one that I have ever particularly believed.  I have no idea, really, why people find it to be comforting or reassuring or whatever they find it to be, to imagine or believe or hope that God is unchanging.  But this morning I woke up wondering whether it might be true, and what it might be like to know, in the core of my being, that God does not change.  And then I thought of Teresa of Avila's prayer:  

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

So, you know, I wonder.

4. Another excellent read: this one, from Law and Gospel.  I think that she must be an extraordinarily fine pastor.  I love being a pastor, and a spiritual director, but lately I have been thinking that I'm not very good at either.

5.  I am supposed to have my annual mammogram next week.  I suppose that I will have to change that appointment, due to jury duty.  I am trying not to think about it.  I tend to forget, most of the time, but last week I happened to be getting dressed in front of the bathroom mirror, and I happened to glance up, and I reacted as follows: "Oh my GOD!"

6. We are going to have our garage largely rebuilt.  It is, like our house, a nearly 100-year old brick building.  It has taken my husband and a friend six months to find matching bricks and guys who can do the work.  One of the walls was damaged by a tree planted much too close to it by the original owners; we removed the tree long ago, but the wall did not regenerate itself,  The front overhang was destroyed by carpenter ants a few summers ago. Our kitchen is a shambles, but we are going to get a garage.  I'm sure that says something.  

7.  I had a dream about Josh the other night.  He was standing on the steps in the breezeway of his high school, wearing his red and white soccer uniform, and talking to me about something mundane.  And then I woke up.  I am sure that that dream of a few seconds is why I am so unsettled and so desperately sad.  I hope that, unlike Karen, I manage to avoid people with fixing in mind.

Where I (Sometimes) Work

People for Others' Paul Campbell has put up a couple of slideshows of his office, and invited his readers to participate.  I don't have any pictures of my entire tiny office, so I'll go with the outside view and what's on some of the walls:

The church (those two windows above the tower doorway are my office windows):

The Woman at the Well, a gift from an artist/teacher friend, hangs above my desk because that's the story for me: 

A cross, a gift from Margaret Almon and Wayne Straz of Nutmeg Designs, was the first thing I hung on the wall:

My son brought this Christ Pantocrator back from Russia last summer:

A card from  Michelle Francl of Quantum Theology (yes, the small print credits the quote to "St. Ignatius of Loyola"):

A soon-to-be Presby pastor honored me with her first attempt at pottery:

Stoles and robes (yes, that's a gannet on the one on your left ~ for those of you who remember my blogging pseudonym Gannet Girl)(the others in this picture were (1) brought as a gift from Guatemala by my daughter and (2) made by pastor friend Maggie :

I see that I'm missing some important items!  I'll have to take some more pictures next week, and you'll have to suffer through those as well..

Just Call Me Lopez ~ Book Giveaway!

How is it that we discover and pursue an experience that transforms our lives?  For most of us, an introduction is made by someone we respect or admire, someone who transmits to us a deep passion for something of significance in their own lives.  Certainly in the context of faith, it is often a beloved teacher or pastor or writer who conveys to us a depth of commitment that inspires in us a deep longing for a similar engagement ~ be it with Scripture, or liturgy, or theology, or a form of spirituality.  Ignatian spirituality, for instance.

Perhaps Margaret Silf is about to become such a person for you. In her new book, Just Call Me Lopez, this well-known expert on Ignatian spirituality offers an easily accessible introduction to the 16th-century life of Catholic saint Ignatius of Loyola and to the major themes that dominate his work.  The book is a combination of time-travel fiction and introduction to Ignatian principles.  Ignatius himself, dressed in garb reflective of the various ages and stages of his life, appears sporadically to the narrator, a contemporary woman who, providentially, makes her professional living by helping others narrate and interpret their spiritual stories. Her experience enables her to help Ignatius articulate his.  She is at the same time personally contending with real life dilemmas familiar to many of us, so that she in turn gives Ignatius the opportunity to suggest ways in which she might address her own challenges.

When Ignatius drops in to visit, their conversations range across the many adventures, false starts, and challenges that formed one of the great spiritual masters of Christian history. At the same time, they delve into the multitude of insights which we now think of as distinctly Ignatian.  Imaginative prayer?  We learned it from Ignatius.  Principles of discernment?  Almost everything addressing the topic of discernment today has an Ignatian origin, whether recognized or not.  An understanding of spiritual consolation and desolation?  Ignatius is the man.

For the past several days, Margaret Silf and Paul Campbell, S.J. have been engaged in a blogalogue conversation over at People for Others.  On Friday, Paul asked Margaret, "If you had to identify one crucial insight of Ignatian spirituality, what would it be?"  Margaret suggests a number of possibilities; allow me to share one of my favorites:

I was introduced to Ignatius by someone who conveys the Ignatian narrative and spirituality with deep reverence and great good humor, and I began to make the Spiritual Exercises with that then-professor of mine while I was also taking a graduate course from him on Ignatian spirituality.  

What blew me away, lured me in, and completely altered my direction in life was the discovery that my own life experience was of value, that it was ~ and is ~ the raw material with which God works, and that it is the venue through which Jesus reaches out to me.  

I chuckled when we began to read Ignatius' autobiography in class, observing his many mishaps and missteps, and then, thanks to the care of a spiritual director who listened to mine as though they were of some import, began to understand what Ignatius was saying: experience matters.  We can learn to interpret and understand our experience and our feelings about it as among the ways in which God speaks to us.  We can learn to understand how our desires reflect God's desires for us.  "What do you want?" asks Jesus.  "Important question!" insists Ignatius.

There's a lovely passage fairly early in Just Call Me Lopez in which the narrator reflects upon the bond that she has discovered with Ignatius:

"Its strength and invincibility came from the Spirit of God flowing through it.  Its fragility and its tenderness came from our own humanity.  Together, these can draw the human spirit back from the brink of destruction to the threshold of new understanding" (79).  Indeed: the value of the human experience of friendship in the Lord when understood in light of the activity of the Holy Spirit.

*****

If you'd like to read more about the book, it's being celebrated on various Loyola Press blogs this coming week.  If you'd like to read a personal reflection by another reader, you'll find it at Quantum Theology.  If you'd like to purchase the book, Loyola Press is offering a 30% discount through August 31; use code word LOPEZ.  

And if you'd like a free copy, I've got one to give away!  (Actually, Loyola Press will send it to you, which means that you're a good deal more likely to receive it than you might if you had to depend upon me.) Just leave a comment and, while you're at it, tell us what you like or what makes you curious about Ignatian spirituality. I'll pull a name out of a magic hat on Sunday.  And there's a giveaway at Quantum Theology as well.

*****

Full disclosure: I received a copy of the book and an invitation to give another one away from Loyola Press, with no further obligation on my part.  I also gained an enjoyable read and the re-activiation of some wonderful memories.  The second image above is a photograph (July 2006) of the restored Church of St. Denis in Monmartre (Paris), where Ignatius and his first companions made their first vows to God and to one another, thus initiating the formation of the Society of Jesus.  You can read about it on page 170 of Just Call Me Lopez.

Invisible Children

  

The Dads, and the view from which Karen writes.

Karen Gerstenberger and I did not fall into one another's arms in tears. We spent a couple of hours together wandering her hometown and the beautiful beach on which she lives, chatting as any two women and their husbands might.  Well, almost any two women and their husbands. I suppose that we were on such easy terms because we both know intimately the deep sorrow that forms the backdrop of our lives, and have no need to explain ourselves to one another.

At one point, we talked about how grateful we are to have been able to give our children wonderful lives for the very short time that they were with us. I mentioned that a friend once criticized me for the time and money we invested in family travel when the kids were small.  "They won't remember it," she said.  My criteria had more to do with the joy of exploration and family cohesion in the then-present than with memory.  It would be beyond my capacity for words to express my gratitude for those trip and times together, now that I am left with some memories that are mine alone.  

Karen nodded and spoke fiercely when she said that she has told her husband, "She had the BEST childhood!  No regrets on that count."

A few minutes later, she noted how alike our families had been in our closeness.  "It's difficult to keep that alive when one of the members has become invisible," she added.

"I hadn't thought of them that way," I responded.  "But I suppose that that's what they are. Invisible."

A couple of years ago, while I was on retreat at Wernersville, I told BSSJ, my spiritual director, about a dream I had had in which the rest of us encountered Josh at a construction site on a Cleveland street corner.  He pushed back his hardhat, which revealed how very sunburned his fair skin was, jangled the work belt of tools that hung on his hips, and said he needed to get going.  Josh was always fascinated by architecture and building construction; the dream was so real that I spent several minutes after I woke up trying to get back to sleep, and to him.

B smiled and said, "Perhaps he's at work on some of those many mansions."

And I have to admit that, in that gentle response, he offered me the smallest sliver of hope concerning the continued life and activities of my invisible child.

Go back another year.  I was over at the Jesuit residence in Cleveland, talking to HGSG, spiritual director emeritus, and as I was leaving I asked if he would pray with me.  Among his words in response was a prayer for Josh, and a prayer that "Josh pray for his mother."  Now that would be a Catholic prayer.  Protestants tend to be leery of intercessory prayer by or for The Invisible Ones. Perhaps to a Catholic such words would be unremarkable, but  I thought, and still think, that it was one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard.  A quiet expression of confident hope that my invisible child lives to pray for and with me.

I suppose that many of my conversations have, in fact, veered out of the realm of ordinary. On the beach, at a retreat house, in a Jesuit sunroom: the Invisible Children are almost tangible.

Intrepid Gerstenberger Beach Kitty

Life Unexpected

Trying out an iPhone post:

Yesterday morning The Quiet Husband and I and Karen West and her husband walked a quiet beach encrusted with barnacles and concealing clams that squirt upward through the sand when you step on their territory, an experience we would not have had but for friendships created across cyberspace between parents who have children who, as Karen put it, have become invisible.

In the late afternoon, we visited the gracefully contemporary chapel at Seattle University where, as happens more often than you might think, the Presbyterian pastor found herself explaining The Spiritual Exercises to some other folks. (Hey, they asked.) None of that would have been within the scope of my imagination seven or eight years ago.

This afternoon we'll celebrate Father's Day with The Lovely Daughter's friends from Bellingham, thanks to her years at Willamette University, which were a direct consequence of Hurricane Katrina.

And in a couple of days, Gregarious Son is boarding a French naval surveillance ship in the Indian Ocean to observe an anti-piracy exercise.

I'm not sure which of all these events would have been the least predictable a decade ago.

Musings on Ministry

This morning The Questing Parson writes about an encounter with a young almost-pastor and his counsel to her with respect to her first assignment, for which she has grand hopes of growth in numbers.  “Slow the decline and then work on increasing the membership.”

Last Sunday, as occasionally happens, a visitor new to our church made a complimentary remark as to the accuracy of what she had heard about me.  As I thanked her, I looked around wondering, "So where is everyone?"  Word of mouth has not translated into numbers.  Not, I realize, that the numbers are about me.  And I'm trying to focus on depth rather than breadth, something which has been noticed (without prodding from me) by our leadership ~ but, naturally, I am aware of the quantitative element.

Meanwhile, my friend Michelle, who is chemistry professor and contemplative, and a published writer on both, is developing a writer's website.  I've just posted a comment on her FB page, stating that "I love the juxtaposition of the worn and battered composition books with the technology of the site -- reflective of your unique personal blend of contemplative and chemist. It evokes both Marie Curie and Thomas Merton gone contemporary in venue. (And you may recall that my 11th grade writing teacher instructed us that we were forbidden to use the word "unique" unless it applied, which situation was highly unlikely to occur. Here, finally, it does.)"

And now I ponder the connection, a matter which I've begun to process only recently.

Back in my Methodist (Questing Parson's milieu) days, I was a young attorney, struggling to make sense of the demands of my profession  in the context of a new and wobbly Christian faith.   In retrospect, it's clear that I had embarked, determinedly but without guidance, on a path toward a contemplative orientation.  Even when I asked as directly as I could (and I hasten to clarify that I did not know how to articulate the questions I had  or what it was that I was seeking), no assistance was forthcoming from pastors or congregational leaders.

I find myself wondering more and more frequently whether, if someone had been able to point the way, I would still be both a Methodist and a practicing attorney.  If I had been able to integrate both dimensions of my life, would I now be sharing my legal expertise as a leader in the United Methodist Church,  as does a Presbyterian friend with great generosity and care, and offering retreats and spiritual direction to my professional colleagues, as does a Catholic lawyer I know?

And what, exactly, is the connection between depth versus breadth and offering a doorway into the contemplative life in the context of the everyday?  I know; it seems obvious.  But in practice, a good deal more difficult than it looks.

I have been ordained exactly seven months today.  I suppose I am not required to have it all figured out yet.

On To New Adventures!

There she goes, Ms. Master of Science in Social Administration. The Lovely Daughter started her first all-grown-up job last week, at the Trumbull Neighborhood Partnership.  She'll be working on housing issues in a city that has seen hard times as industry has vanished.  As we looked for an apartment and moved her in last week, we saw a lot of the city ~ a typical courthouse-centered town square and outlying edges that in some areas are well-maintained and heavily populated and in others are filled with run-down and vacant houses.

I'm making some changes of my own.  The blogs are about to undergo some major housekeeping, this one mostly via the coming and going of links.  I still read all kinds of blogs (if you could see my google reader!), but as blogging has changed, so have I.  I'm abandoning the effort to comment on blogs whose writers seldom or never reciprocate, whether by blog, FB, and/or email.  I am often guilty of the same, so I'm going to refocus on actual blogging relationships that go both ways.

I've left Well of Hope pretty much alone, but I think it's going to become a topical blog, focused on suicide survivorship.  A lot of people have little interest in that topic, understandably enough, but those who do are often famished ~ desperate for companionship, knowledge, or simply someone who is willing and able to articulate their deepest thoughts.  So I'm going to play hostess to a small  space for us.

Stay tuned!

Eight Years of Blogging . . .

. . . and I might be trying something new (the mosaic is from Wayne and Margaret at Nutmeg Designs):

Yes, It's a Virus or a Hacker

Yes, everyone in my contacts list is receiving weird emails.  

I will try to rectify the situation tonight, when I have access to what I might need to do so.  In the meantime, I haven't seen any evidence of the evil emails for about eleven hours, so I'm hoping . . . 

Way too much of my life, including this blog, is connected to that email account, and google has got itself so tangled up in knots that I can't just change the email associated with the blog.

So . . . practice good online stewardship and don't open anything that makes no sense!

Sabbatical

It's not much fun to blog when so many people are prevented from leaving comments  by some Blogger glitch.

I'm going to take that as a sign that it's time for a break.  I'm working on a number of other writing projects right now, so maybe this lull is just the nudge I need to focus elsewhere for awhile. 

This photograph is captioned in my files as Last Sunrise.  I know that it's from St. Augustine; I'm guessing that the year was 2008, when none of the kids were available and The Quiet Husband and I went down for a week on our own.

Enjoy!