brain too full... can't fit any more in...

okay, it's official. i am overwhelmed. too much reading. too much to fit together. too much unknown. i'd love to have the posts i wrote in my head on the way to and from the dentist the other day. they were beautiful. now? zip. nothing... nadda.

maybe just typing will clear away some of the haze. maybe not...

classes begin on monday. monday. it's real. really, really real. of course i just found out on sunday that my two kids have PD days on monday and tuesday. so instead of having some gallivanting time with my kiddos i have classes and they have NOTHING. getting childcare lined up is one of the things i loathe about parenting. it's probably why i didn't re-enter the work world. i hate asking people for help. my kids are 9 & 11 and other than a week in the year i or liam look after them. sure there are baby sitters from time to time, or they spend a weekend with friends occasionally - but really this is pathetic. it's not that i don't trust other people with my kids, it's just because i hate asking for help. it feels like i'm shirking my duties as a mom. i know that's not true and this is important and finally i am doing something for me - but dang i hate asking.

i have called the after school club and found out it's just $6.00/day/per kid and $18.00 for the full day. they make all meals and give the kids snacks so it's a very reasonable alternative (and saves me from having to do the dreaded ask). but of course this is the least popular alternative with pink and buck. i've told them a couple of times to just suck it up, but that isn't seeming to help. (well, not in those exact words...)

speaking of buck. i just got a phone call from the principle. seems my non-violent son who rarely gives us a minute of trouble picked a book off of a girl's desk today at school and it was apparently a bad idea. she grabbed his ear and took him to the floor. in retaliation he grabbed hers back and eventually kicked her (he said probably to get her to let go). the principle said buck admitted it and apologized but he'll still be spending the whole day in the resource room... i explained that there is no greater way to punish buck than to deprive him of people. it will be a torturous day for him being alone. i can imagine he will never make this choice again. poor kid.

so i'm doing all i can to avoid all of the reading i have to do. there is no possible way i can have it all done in time for classes as we signed up very late in the game. this is fine with all of the faculty, they know us well and we have a whole year before our next actual module because the spring module is a travel one. we won't be traveling until spring 2010, so we'll have lots of time to catch up, but i definitely would get much more out of the classes if i put my nose back into a book. i just hate the deadline. there are so many things i am loving reading - but have to skim because i can't read and relish the thoughts because i have to actually move on to the next thing. and then there are those dinosaurs that i loathe reading and am trying to plow through just to get them done.

and then of course i can't even enjoy the lovely fiction i can't live without because i feel so guilty reading it instead of assigned reading that it's screwing with everything. and then i think... dang. i'm paying for this. shut up, stop whinging and suck it up.

speaking of paying for this... the financial aid director advised us to apply because she felt we were good candidates for grants. the provincial office said that we should have figures tomorrow. it would be amazing if there were funds available to us that weren't loans. if you are a praying sort any lifted for governmental generosity would be amazing. back to the books... oh and i don't mean facebook...

trading my inheritance for a bowl of stew

my friend here not knowing anything about the place i am in writing on this blog lent me a book yesterday to read a chapter on sabbath & food - she knows of my struggle, but did not know her timing was so perfect. it's called The Rest of God: Restoring Your Soul by Restoring Sabbath by Mark Buchanan and in chapter eleven, "Feast - Stopping to Taste the Kingdom" he makes some profound points about our relationship to food as Christ followers.

he begins by telling a story about watching girls on a ride called "the mad hatter", three enjoying it and one turning greener and more ill with every go-round. she eventually was sick. he writes:

"That happened a long time ago, but I've never forgotten it. I wish I could. It's become a kind of metaphor for me, that Whirligig, that Mad Hatter. It's become a symbol of the power of amusement to make us sick. Pleasure can be like that: a thing that spins you round and round, faster and faster. Some people enjoy it immensely, at least for short bursts.

They lean into it.

Others aren't doing so well.

Of all the ways our culture spins us dizzy, its obsession with food is one of the most glaring."

he then quotes Dorothy Bass, "Without a fast, It's hard to recognize a feast."

it is his contention that the sabbath was made for feasting, and because we feast continually in our culture we are rarely able to celebrate the sabbath because we are so stuffed all of the time that we are never truly hungry. he then unpacks about 4-5 stories about food and people, some of them biblical. the conclusion he draws from the story about the jesus and the women at the well and his solution to this is off for me. i was really tracking with him up to that point, but i don't believe that when jesus tells the disciples after his interaction at the well that 'he has food they know nothing of and it's to do the work of his father' that work is the solution to over-eating. i have seen work abused and traded for eating, even the good work of god - my own husband stands as evidence for this, and i too can loose myself in the work of god much to the abandonment of the present i am called to.

but it did broaden the breadth of my thinking on this. buchanan ends each chapter with a sabbath litury and in this one he uses the story of esau and jacob and what he wrote didn't pull at me as much as just thinking about that story in the context of my own story. what am i trading for my inheritance? how is food becoming more important to me than what is truly precious? how can being hungry and doing without teach me more than being full and stuffed to the gills? i know that i have "misplaced hunger" and an "appetite gone awry" - so today i am thinking about my "mess of pottage" and what i'm trading it for.

summer reading meme

found this in the achieves over at julie's blog - one hand clapping - i remember reading her blog when she mentioned a science fiction/fantasy series (outlander - by diana gabaldon) that i have been meaning to read - and as i'm headed to the library with a need of good summer reading i did a search and found this - whan to play? here's the rules:

* Bold the ones you’ve read.
* Italicize the ones you want to read.
* Leave in normal text the ones that don’t interest you.
* Put in ALL CAPS those you haven’t heard of.
* Put a couple of asterisks by the ones you recommend.

(UPDATE - I liked Julie's/Erik's suggestion of putting (++) next to the ones you've seen the movie or TV show of, so I added that too)

(UPDATE 2 - bold & italicized don't show up in bloglines, so you'll have to click through if you care to see what i've read)

1. The DaVinci Code (Dan Brown)**++
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)++
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)++
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)++
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) **++
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) **++
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) **++
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)++
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A FINE BALANCE (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)++
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)**
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)** (will be seeing it soon!)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving) - one of my favorite books of all time!
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)++
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone(Rowling)**++
17. FALL ON YOUR KNEES (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)++
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)++
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)**
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)**
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)++
24. THE LOVELY BONES (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)** (can't wait to see the movie - hope they do it justice as it's one of my favorites!)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)**++
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)++
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH (Ken Follett)
37. THE POWER OF ONE (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much Is True (Wally Lamb)*****
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)*****
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)*****
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)**
43. CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. The Bible **
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)++
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)++
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)**++
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)***
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)*** (just finished it - no one should go to africa without reading this!)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. ENDER'S GAME (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)++
56. THE STONE ANGEL (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)++
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment(Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. FIFTH BUSINESS (Robertson Davies)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)**++
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones's Diary (Helen Fielding)++
72. LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)++
75. The Secret Garden(Frances Hodgson)++
76. THE SUMMER TREE (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows In Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According to Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)++
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)++
81. NOT WANTED ON THE VOYAGE (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. REBECCA (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. WIZARD'S FIRST RULE (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)++
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. THE STONE DIARIES (Carol Shields)
89. BLINDNESS (Jose Saramago)
90. KANE AND ABEL (Jeffrey Archer)
91. IN THE SKIN OF A LION (Michael Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (William Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)++
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)++
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. ULYSSES (James Joyce)

anyone read any of these that i've missed? please if you have recommends i'd love to hear them. a couple i'd add that i just finished are 'prodigal summer' by kingsolver and water for elephants (can't remember author) - both are intense, deep stories with rich characters - loved them - and i can't say enough about the poisonwood bible - i would make it mandatory reading for every christian and especially those looking to do mission work. kingsolver always teaches me so much as i read her books - she is a master weaver and storyteller.

THE ragamuffin diva

claudia mair hawthorne-burney you astound me!

did you know i once told this lovely woman that her writing skills would be wasted on fiction. forgive me dear friend.

i have just finished "Murder, Mahem and a Fine Man" and how wrong i was. Claudia Mair pours herself into her writing like marie belle hot chocolate in a big, warm mug on a cold, frosty day. she holds nothing back and leaves it all on the pages. you see, i said those words to my diva friend because her own story has moved me so deeply in the years i've been reading her amazing blog - ragamuffin diva.

no fiction could come close to the trials this woman has endured. you just can't make this stuff up. her life has been a journey toward redemption and each chapter is so rich. but she does it ya'll! she does it. she weaves her own story right into the pages of this book. it is extraordinary and courageous. she is one of the bravest women i know (whom i've not had the honor of meeting - yet).

this book is funny, the dialog is tight as a drum and you will fall in love with the rich, deep characters as they are drawn together to solve this mystery. i enjoyed every page. as lisa samson says on the cover "sign me up for the fan club" - i can't wait for the second in the series, Death, Deceit and Some Smooth Jazz, to hit the shelves!

this is who i long to be

The way I see it, a mystic takes a peek at God and then does her best to show the rest of us what she saw. She'll use image-language, not discourse. Giving an image is the giving of gold, the biggest things she's got... Hurling and wielding the best stuff she can imagine, ...she agrees to the quiet morning hour in front of God in exchange for a bit of revelation. She doesn't ditch tradition as much as take it for its word and peer inside its cavernous shell. There must still be something worth saying, worth pointing to.

Jessie Harriman van Eerden

i have no idea who jessie harriman (this was all i could find by googling the name) is or where this quote was lifted from. i am reading "God Laughs & Plays" by David James Duncan and he quotes it on page 4. i just LOVE this concept. it is truly who i long to be. giving gold, getting a glimpse and finding the things worth pointing to. (i did remove a line from the quote - but it was already where the ellipses existed as i wasn't sure what 'the way of wakefullness' signified and couldn't find anything online regarding it)

UPDATE: I was contacted by the author of the quote and she is published in Best American Spiritual Writing 2006:

Harriman, Jessie van Ferden. “This Soul Has Six Wings.” Best American Spiritual Writing 2006. Ed. Philip Zaleski. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.

Thanks Jessie!

Literature-Map - The tourist map of literature

this is the COOLEST web tool EVER!!

Literature-Map - The tourist map of literature

ht to neatorama (link to come, honest!)

Blog Tour for Contemplative Youth Ministry

CONTEMPLATIVE YOUTH MINISTRY
Practicing the Presence of Jesus, Mark Yaconelli

oh to hold in my hand a book with the name yaconelli on the spine - it thrills my heart indeed! please everyone not associated with youth ministry - keep reading - this book is for ALL OF US! it's an incredible resource for all who long for the bridge to the contemplative life. it's heartfelt, honoring and a joy to read. mark has truly taken his time and this book has the taste of fine, aged wine. oh, and the forward by the high-priestess anne lamott is a wonderful surprise and insight into her church and their ministry to their youth (including her son).

first off I LOVE the book, it has been so validating to read as liam and i left a youth pastor position at a fairly large evangelical church within the past 12 months because of our deep desire to have a contemplative youth ministry and the church's desire for him to indoctrinate the youth colliding. i can't wait for him to have the opportunity to read it.

DISCLOSURE: this book was provided to me free of charge by zondervan as christian bookstores are few and far between on this edge of the ocean! i am not being paid or otherwise compensated for this review.

i had a wonderful opportunity to supply mark with questions - many others on the tour have taken the scholastic and vocational perspective on the book - my blog isn't really that kind of place, so my questions are a bit more personal:

First, let me say how much I appreciated the introductions to each chapter - the quotes - from such amazing contemplatives married with quotes from youth and youth workers - it was so honoring. Were these extraordinary people, mystics of some sort, or normal people who had spent time alone with God?

For seven years I worked with very average, normal, in some cases dying congregations, seeking to try and form them in contemplative awareness. The quotes in the book come from people from these churches. They are accountants, electrical linemen, receptionists, part-time and full time youth workers who innocently participated in my work and were introduced to contemplative prayer and practice. To be a mystic is to experience God. We are all mystics. These people were just given the time to notice it, to notice God, to notice the thin, frail, thread of eternity that runs through each and every moment.

My husband and I attempted to bring contemplative ministry to an evangelical church and found so much resistance. Your book was incredibly affirming for me to read because of this. Is there hope for helping that style of church to receive this type of ministry, or are they destined (doomed) to indoctrination only? We found the youth incredibly receptive, but the leadership of the church we were in was threatened and abrasive to our work. We made our great share of mistakes along the way, and I was wondering if you had any advice for youth workers who find themselves in our situation to navigate this in a better way than we did?

It's difficult to work in the church. There are so many egos and insecurities. So many ways that the church has absorbed the values and mores of the culture (sigh). I don't know what the specific "resistance" is that you experienced. Most churches are simply secular institutions with a religious veneer. There's a driveness to succeed, to produce results, to grow numbers, to be productive and efficient--just like any American profit-making institution. Unfortunately, this is all in contrast to the Spirit, message, and life of Jesus. Jesus, to be truthful, is unproductive (in the world's terms), inefficient and the "results" of his ministry are ambiguous (the disciples flee, misunderstand his identity and intentions, etc.).

"Success is not a name for God" Martin Buber once said, nor is it a name for Jesus. And yet most churches and pastors want to succeed. If not success, then what is it we're after? Faithfulness. Transparency to God. Obedience (which etymologically means "to listen"). Our job is to be faithful, Mother Teresa once said, not successful. We don't need churches speaking spiritual truth we need churches that know how to embody the spirit.

To embody the Spirit, we need to slow down. We need patience. We need to pray and wait and trust and listen and then respond. We need to stop running ahead of grace. How do you do this when you have a leadership "driven to succeed?" You speak the truth in love. You find others within the church who will slow down, pray and then move intentionally. Most of all you pray and listen for what God is really asking of you...and then you trust and respond.

As a follow up do you think you can pull a Stormie Omartian and follow up with "Contemplative Senior Pastoring" and "Contemplative Parenting"? You really could make a full career out of this one book title! On a more serious note - how do we get this book into the hands (and hearts) of those in church leadership?

Actually, I am thinking about writing a "contemplative parenting" book. Mostly based on my wife as the positive examples and my own parenting methods as the worst case scenarios. My wife is a natural contemplative...where as I struggle to be engaged and attentive. That's why contemplation is interesting to me...it's something I need. In terms of how to get it to the leadership...give them the book and ask them to read it. Or, for senior pastor types who might dis-regard it...give them Eugene Peterson's "The Contemplative Pastor" or Gerald May's "The Awakened Heart."

On page 74 you write "To stop and surrender is to repent" - it is a small thought that isn't fully developed, but it made me gasp when I read it - in our work-aholic, fast-paced world I can think of nothing that the church needs more than to repent of this kind of lifestyle - I loved the idea that taking time to be silent is a form of repentance - could you expand on that thought please?

More and more I'm convinced that the root of our brokenness, as North Americans, is our inability to be present to God and others. The reason we're unable to be present to others is because we're moving too fast, multi-tasking, moving from one activity to another without absorbing/feeling what we're doing. It's difficult to pay attention when there is great suffering and pain in the world. It's much easier to stay distracted and busy when slowing down often means feeling pain, or helplessness or acknowledging the ways in which we are hurting ourselves, our children or our world.

One month after the United States began the 2003 bombing and invasion of Iraq, a neighbor of mine began to post pictures of the civilian dead. She collected these images from European and Middle Eastern news services, then pinned them to the large sycamore tree that grew along the sidewalk in front of her house. Each photograph was covered by a white piece of paper. Above the images was a sign that read, If you are willing, look and see the suffering and death we're causing in Iraq. One day I took the time to look. The images were horrific. Most of them of mothers and fathers grieving over young children whose bodies had been torn apart from the bombing.

For the next two years my neighbor continued to post pictures on top of pictures until the sycamore became covered in sheets of white paper. I had many occasions over those two years to observe people walking along the busy sidewalk in front of my neighbor's house, not once did I see someone stop and look at these images. More frequently, what I observed was people turning their head to avoid the invitation to look and witness the pain and suffering.

The truth is that slowing down and being present to life is hard and painful. Who wants to slow down and notice a world that is increasingly becoming, what former President Jimmy Carter recently labeled a culture of death. Who wants to slow down and recognize the pain and violence that so many youth are forced to live with. Who wants to pray and become vulnerable to bleeding and brokenness within so many families? Who can really stand to look and see the devastation that is occurring in our natural world? Who wants to be aware of the ways in which our faith, our churches, our ministries seem so inadequate at inviting any real change or hope within people? It's difficult to be present. It's difficult to see and hear. It's also difficult to be vulnerable and aware. And yet, as Biblical scholar Walter Brueggeman reminds us, our central task in ministry is making people aware.

We trust the truth, we trust the stories of faith passed down from generation to generation and most of all we trust God. We trust God that our sins, our brokenness, our fears and mediocre attempts at loving are not the last word. We trust that God is on a mission of love and that love, like Jesus, always comes vulnerable, undefended in weakness and trust. Can we believe that our weakness and helplessness makes us more available to God's love and presence? How do we begin to repent? We slow down. We stop. We look. We listen. We feel.

Your father was/is one of my mentors, I know he would be/is so proud of you and your book. I had a parent, my mother, die early in her life and I wondered if it gives you comfort to know that your dad was able to experience the contemplative life before he died?

My spiritual life is deeply connected to my dad's. I kind of began where he was leaving off. He started reading Henri Nouwen in his mid forties, I read him in my early twenties. So much of my spiritual life was in dialogue with my dad. We were reading similar books and both of us felt excited that we were on to something new and life-giving.

I realized, a couple of years before he died, that much of my motivation in doing contemplative retreats was to provide a place and setting for my dad to experience the contemplative life. In many ways I got to go out and get the formation and training that my dad was looking for and I wanted to share it with him. My dad was a busy man. It was hard to get him to slow down...even harder to get him to do something for himself.

When I started leading Sabbath retreats (five day contemplative retreats for youth workers) I asked him to come and be the speaker....knowing that he would only come if there was work to do. Once he arrived I made him join a small group, see a spiritual director, do the prayer exercises, keep silence, and do everything else the participants were required to do. He did it and loved it and I think his best writing and speaking came out of these weeks of prayer and retreat. I cherish the times that he and I had together sharing our gifts side-by-side. It was nurturing to both of us.

While everyone else was jumping on the publishing bandwagon as soon as the 'ancient/future' scent entered the radar screen of the church I was always so amazed with your patience in writing this book. How did you maintain your time schedule and not bust out of it? Your book is so much better for it. Cut could you tell wanna-be writers like me what it was like for you along the patient process?

You're one of the few people to notice this. When I first started exploring the integration of Christian spirituality, spiritual direction, contemplative prayer and youth ministry I could tell immediately that the Christian marketing forces would want to exploit it (after all, I am the son of a publisher...). When I wrote an article on contemplative youth ministry in 1998 in the Christian Century I was contacted by six publishers and a big time publishing agent. Everyone wanted to do a book. Two different publishers offered me a book line and one publisher offered to hire ghost writers to write under my name.

My feeling, at the time, was that people needed to experience contemplative prayer...not read about it. So I refused to write anything. I then bullied and pleaded with my dad not to produce any books on the subject...he held out for three years. I also called friends at the upper room publishing and other publishing houses and asked them not to publish any books on the subject.

I wanted people to come to Sabbath and other contemplative retreats and experience it first. Of course this was unrealistic and soon books began to come out. Most of them are what I feared...they're written as journalistic books (sort of a tour of contemplative practices) or cut and paste together like any other educational curriculum. Contemplation is about the spirit and attitude or disposition by which we approach life. It's a certain awareness, openess, transparency.

People receive a book from the same place from which a person writes a book. If you have people writing about contemplative prayer...but not experiencing contemplative prayer then the book can be clever or informational...but never transformational. I wasn't ready to write a book from my heart eight years ago. It took ten years of struggling with prayer. Ten years of praying through doubt, grief, disillusionment, struggle, breakthroughs, etc....before I felt ready to write. I'm glad I waited....even though I often wanted to write much earlier.

And this was the question I always asked your dad - who are you reading? Who are the new contemplatives we need to know about?

I love Richard Rohr. He's a radical, Jesus-loving, truth telling itinerant Franciscan. I read all of his stuff.

Gerald May's "The Awakened Heart" is one of my touch stones.

I'm going through Elie Wiesel's works right now...trying to see how he brings together suffering and mysticism and Fredrick Buechner ("The Eyes of the Heart" and his collection of sermons).

And last, but not least - could I please have the recipe for the Famous Yaconelli Fried Spaghetti?

This is actually something I used to have for breakfast growing up and ate it almost every week in college. You chop up one onion a few cloves of garlic and fry it up with plenty of olive oil. Then you throw in spaghetti...already cooked and cooled in the refrigerator. You add lots of fresh black pepper and then top it with fresh Parmesan cheese (in college I used the canned stuff). Now days I also add broccoli or asparagus.

ah, the breakfast of champions! thank you mark! i so enjoyed reading your responses and look forward to what the future holds for you! you carry the yaconelli name so well!

here are the other previous & future stops on the grid-blog tour:

May 8 Jonny Baker
May 9 Gavin Richardson
May 10 Sarah Dylan Breuer she never posted a review
May 11 Jennifer Roach
May 12 Mark Oestreicher
May 15 Dixon Kinser
May 17 Jonathon Norman
May 19 Adam Cleaveland
May 22 Steve Case
May 24 Tim Van Meter
May 26 Lucas Land
May 29 Andy Jack
May 31 me
June 2 Darren Wright
June 5 Kester Brewin
June 7 Lilly Lewin
June 9 Mike King

all i know is that i am honored to be listed with such an amazing group of bloggers and have the opportunity to interact with mark as i blame he and his father for awakening my soul to the voice of god. you can read what i wrote about that here:

god i miss him

i remember

tears of joy

blog tour for contemplative youth ministry

i have been asked to blog on mark yaconelli's new book "contemplative youth ministry" as part of a grid-blog this month. i am honored and excited. the book just arrived in the mail today and i can't wait to have some time to sink my brain and soul into it.

my official day isn't until may 31, but i wanted to make sure you were reading what everyone else had to say too. bob carlton at 'the corner' is the master of the grid-blog and this is what he had to say:

For the next month, Mark will be touring a group of blogs, sharing his story in ways that are unique to that blog and the community that reads it. I invite you to journey along with us, to offer your voice and experience integrating Christian spirituality and ministry.

May 8 Jonny Baker
May 9 Gavin Richardson
May 10 Sarah Dylan Breuer cannot find the link/post
May 11 Jennifer Roach
May 12 Mark Oestreicher
May 15 Dixon Kinser
May 17 Jonathon Norman
May 19 Adam Cleaveland
May 22 Steve Case
May 24 Tim Van Meter
May 26 Lucas Land
May 29 Andy Jack
May 31 me
June 2 Darren Wright
June 5 Kester Brewin
June 7 Lilly Lewin
June 9 Mike King

all i know is that i am honored to be listed with such an amazing group of bloggers and have the opportunity to interact with mark as i blame he and his father for awakening my soul to the voice of god. you can read what i wrote about that here:

god i miss him

i remember

tears of joy

my book report

i was tagged quite a long time ago by susie, and it slipped my mind until i read mike's post and thought, 'oh yeah, i was supposed to do that wasn't i?' so here is my book report:

1. total number of books i own:

hundreds (i love to give away books - i buy them used and pass them on - i figure the price 1/2's every time someone else reads it!)

2. the last book i bought:

a tree full of angels, macrina wiederkeihr (recommended by amy loves books)

3. the last book i read:

the hawk and the dove trilogy, by penelope wilcock (recommended by elizabeth), and now by me. it is a story in a story - a mother passing down the heritage of the family to her daughters. a heritage of benedictine monks and a window into a world of truth, beauty, repentance and redemption. wonderful!

4. five books that mean alot to me:

the first ones that cracked the door were a trilogy by henry fosdick, he was the pastor of riverside church in ny and he was very friendly to the AA movement. i'm counting his 3 little OOP books as one - the meaning of prayer, the meaning of faith, and the meaning of service (also in one collection called the three meanings)- these books started a wedge into the rigid theology of my former years.

the next would have to be a pair (see, i can't do anything easy...) the jesus i never knew and what's so amazing about grace - phillip yancy. finally someone begins to write critically about what 'the church' has been feeding us for years. it chips away, piece by piece all of the pre-conceived, easy, fill-in-the-blank answers i had kept myself safe with for so long.

when when the heart waits by sue monk kidd. this was on yac's recommend list and i picked it up at nywc before he died. i had read little non-fiction written by women and i was intrigued. as i read her butterfly metaphor i was given a gift i had never had before - wings. a process of awakening and growth, and living in the tension that took the process from my brain, to my soul.

during the last books i was also working through a gentle path through the 12 steps by patrick carnes. this book gave me my life back. it took me years to finish it, but each exercise was transforming and redeemed a lot of the broken-ness of my past.

and finally the book that i just can't seem to put down, i'm constantly referring to again and again; as it has been the keystone to giving me a 180* perspective change - let your life speak, parker palmer. if you've read my blog for long you know how he has integrated each and every one of the above movements of my life in to a harmony that makes sense of it all. don't tell anyone, but if palmer started a cult i think i'd join it...

5. two major books i read when i was a kid:

madeline l'engle - sorry, don't make me pick. her time quartet and the austin series were some of my best friends as a tween. meg and vicky were everything i longed to be. it was through their eyes and the windows into their families that i began to realize how very broken my own was. they weren't judgemental and didn't leave me feeling awkward or alone.

the chronicles of narnia & the lord of the rings - again - can't pick... these men (and l'engle) taught me that people of god didn't have to be rigid, joyless automatons - imagination, story and vast new worlds were mine to explore - truth was told in such deep ways - i knew i would never be the same. they taught me more about god and truth than any bible study or sunday school class.

oh, and i need to tag: (sorry if you've been tagged and i forgot, or if i missed you because i thought you were already tagged!!)

susan
claudia
renee
kristin
natala

power and authority

today's post from wes about the recent nouwen daily meditations and an email sent out by stephanie have been weaving together my thoughts on power and authority.

stephanie and i both come from a background (although her's was far more severe than mine) where male power and authority was unquestioned and god-like in it's influence in our lives. so unpacking and redeeming thoughts on these topics are very important to me. the authority and power we experienced is nothing like the thoughts i've been reading these past couple days.

stephanie's quote from the wounded healer

The (one) who can articulate the movements of (their) inner life, who can give names to (their) varied experiences, need no longer be a victim of (oneself), but is able slowly and consistently to remove the obstacles that prevent the spirit from entering. S/He is able to create space for Him whose heart is great than (their's), whose eyes see more than (their's), and whose hands can heal more than (their's).

This articulation, I believe, is the basis for a spiritual leadership of the future, because only (one) who is able to articulate (one's) own experience can offer (themself) to others as a source of clarficiation. The Christian leader is, therefore, first of all, (one) who is willing to put (their) own articulated faith at the disposal of those who ask (their) help. In this sense s/he is a servant of servants, because s/he is the first to enter the promised but dangerous land, the first to tell those who are afraid what s/he has seen, heard and touched.

i kept stumbling on the 'he' and 'man' so i unisexed it, as i'm sure henri, now that he is in heaven totally would do himself! :)

wes quotes the meditation from the 12th:

The Authority of Compassion

Mostly we think of people with great authority as higher up, far away, hard to reach. But spiritual authority comes from compassion and emerges from deep inner solidarity with those who are "subject" to authority. The one who is fully like us, who deeply understands our joys and pains or hopes and desires, and who is willing and able to walk with us, that is the one to whom we gladly give authority and whose "subjects" we are willing to be.

It is the compassionate authority that empowers, encourages, calls forth hidden gifts, and enables great things to happen. True spiritual authorities are located in the point of an upside-down triangle, supporting and holding into the light everyone they offer their leadership to.

in re-reading it on his blog i recalled a part of parker palmer's definition of authority from a hidden wholeness, pg. 76-77:

"The authority such a leader needs is not the same as power. Power comes to anyone who controls the tools of coercion, which range from grades to guns. But authority comes only to those who are granted it by others. And what leads us to grant someone authority? The word itself contains a clue: we grant authority to people we perceive as "authoring" their own words and actions, people who do not speak from a script or behave in preprogrammed ways.

In other words, we grant authority to people we perceive as living undivided lives."

oh, the undivided life. palmer speaks of life on the mobius strip, it is the image below - where the inner and outer ring are both visible and open to the self and the surrounding community. there is no divide between the two.




these are the people i grant true authority in my life. all others are suspect.

sexuality was immediate endowment of authority in the first 30 years of my life. if you were male you were given authority by god in my life. it didn't matter if you spoke truth, spoke love, had god's or my best interests at heart, you had authority. much confusion, and consequently much destruction and anger stemmed from that distortion of scripture in my life.

i still struggle to this day to distinguish truth from falsehood if spoken by someone in authority. the tapes in my brain kick in and i am left with much confusion until the truth is distinguished from the lies. it is a process of untangling. i'm getting better at it, but it still brings me a lot of anxiety.

that is why what nouwen writes about compassionate authority almost brings me to tears. what would the church, better yet, the kingdom be like if those 'in power' lead with compassionate authority? my husband liam is one of those men. it's suprising that many are threatened by this. many of the students who are raised to respect 'powerful authority' don't respond to his teaching and shy away from his ministry.

people living out true authority and compassion call us to a higher plane - call us to live lives of authenticity and compassion ourselves. my friend wes is that kind of leader too. liam and i are reading his book reclaiming god's original intent for the church together each morning. it is so refreshing to hear of the hopeful call to restore what has been lost, to reclaim those things that have been stolen. to redeem those places that the locust have eaten in the church.

these are the kind of people i grant authority to. people who live those undivided lives. who practice what they preach. who own their own junk, and do it in a way that makes me want to own mine. i love these men. they restore those places deep in my soul that have been wounded, strip mined and abused. they restore my faith in humanity, and the divine. thank you!

true confessions

i LOVE books. i spend any free money i have on them, surround myself with them and hunt for them in 2nd hand stores and garage sales. i love the way they smell, feel and open my world to everything possible.

i have a horrible habit. i love to start a new book. it's like meeting a new friend. i'm almost (well probably really) compulsive about it. to receive a new book and not open it's lovely well seems almost sacrilegious to me. i love books.

i have updated my sidebar, i hadn't changed it since i first installed it, so it was definitely time. but if i was honest there would be WAY more than 4 books that i am in process with right now. it's a horrible habit. i leave them scattered about my house, guiltily stealing a minute with a couple pages where ever i go. i tuck them into my purse in case there is a moment to spare waiting. i love waiting, it's a guilty pleasure, because i always have a book.

i am horrible at finishing books. it's like saying goodbye to a friend. i plow through fiction, that's never a problem, but non-fiction really feels like a deep conversation with a calibre of people that i rarely have in my life, so i cherish each moment (page) with them.

i guess i shouldn't feel so guilty, i do eventually get around to finishing them, but it can take up to a year because i have so many on the go. but that time spent with my author friends is sacred to me. it fills me up with knowledge, information and encouragement just at the right time i need it. it never fails.

when i pick up a book that i have set aside, or misplaced under a stack of other books and papers, it re-engages me at exactly the right place. i probably wouldn't have been ready for that gem if i had plowed through it non-stop. sometimes it's only a paragraph, but it's exactly the RIGHT paragraph, at exactly the RIGHT time.

so, i confess, i'm a messy reader. i regret the sad parting of a finished book like the wave to a friend i don't know if i'll ever see again. i know i can go back and re-read, but it's just not the same. i love books.

jeep - you made my day and it's only 5:26!

mike over at a jeep in summer has posted the following:

March Will Come

Plan B: Further Thoughts On Faith
by Anne Lamott

List Price:
$23.95

Price:
$16.29

You Save:
$7.66 (32%)

Availability: This item has not yet been released. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives from Amazon.com.

i can't think of anything i'd rather read! woo hoo! i was hoping her next work wasn't going to be fiction, i love her, but her best work (imho) is her everyday struggle and outlook on life.

you can find it on amazon here. (no image or i would have added it in my excitement!)

ps - mike, your comments don't work for me or i would have told you of my joy on your blog, and that there is a protestant monastery in the works - if you go to tallskinnykiwi you will see that andrew and his wife are in the process of locating a site for one in the orkney islands in northern scotland! (was going to leave that comment yesterday!)

loathing fear

i have no idea where the term 'fear and loathing' came from, google is not very helpful at this point in the morning. liam's restlessness drove me from our bed, maybe with me out he will sleep more fully. i know i wasn't.

but i awoke with those words running through my brain. i tried to curl up on the sofa and exorcise them from my mind, to no avail, so here i am at 3:00 a.m. using this keyboard to process them so i may find some elusive rest before dawn.

i truly loathe fear. i hate it's powerlessness. i abhor the way it weakens every part of me. to sit with fear seems foolish to me, overpowering, childlike. to sit with fear reduces me to that six year old who's nightmares of the cowardly lion, the tin man and the scarecrow hovering over my bed would reduce me to a puddle of wet sheets and shaking shivers.

it seems insane to me, to sit with fear. fear brings powerlessness. anger empowers me, sadness comforts me - fear? fear removes every corner that holds the roof over my head. it kicks at the structures of everything i've built. it terrorizes me.

i cannot fathom those to whom fear is the primary emotion that they filter every negative feeling through. who chooses to feel so inadequate to face the day? i'd rather have the curl into a ball kind of sadness that withdraws me from the world, or the snorting, stamping empowerment anger brings. but this frozen state of fear, no thank you. in our conversations recently liam and i have found that he is this person. he hides it so well, so far from anyone's view. i've known him for 20 years and i am only seeing the edges of it now. my heart aches for his journey.

we are both walking through our own shadows of death in our own way. i hate that. buck and pink deserve to have one parent right now who isn't paralyzed by fear. it isn't evident, yet, but isn't that what fear is all about? those horrible free floating anxieties that loom spectre like in the backs of our minds. what if.... when will... how can...

in just over a month i will celebrate my five year sobriety/abstinence anniversary. i am terrified that walking this path will shatter that peace, that the fear will drive back my addictions to comfort me as i feel these feelings and long to numb the pain they bring.

i just finished the book blankets by craig thompson, because of the recommendation of jeremy. it is a graphic novel (ie. comic book style), but don't be fooled. the truth it holds is shocking and bold. graphic in the true sense of the word. two brothers raised in a cold wisconsin farm house, so very similar to my own. the main character's journey into his teen years is filled with miscommunicated 'truth', looming terror and subjection to the whims of those more powerful than he. it laid bare my own past in a way that i was unprepared for. the imagery gave illustration to my own coming of age.

i had no raina though, no savior figure to carry me from my pain. to blanket me with love. i quilted my own blankets of comfort instead. my addictions.

it is those blankets that create the deepest loathing of fear within me today. i no longer desire their false comfort or want their costly warmth. but they are so familiar, and i am shaking with fear and shivering from the cold that this terror now brings to my life.

where are my new blankets? what are those things that can create the warmth i need to comfort me through these shadowed nights?