And they’re off!

Got up at 4:30 AM to get my two kids, daughter 20, son 19 to the airport.  They are both in their first year of college back East.  My daughter started in the Fall, my son is starting this semester.  So I got used to her being gone, and the changes in my life.  It is different with a son because since he hit teenagerhood he doesn’t want much to do with mom.  But it will be strange to have the house to ourselves.  I think in some ways I’m ready, it seems like kids make it natural for parents to be ready for them to leave in some ways:)  I won’t miss having a bunch of kids hanging out in my living room at all hours, eating TONS of food, starting movies at 11 pm, leaving messes everywhere they go…etc…. Maybe I’m in denial and only trying to cope.

Of course I’ve had my sad and poignant moments of remembering them when younger and dependent.  I had dreams for a week about them as young kids, I even woke up one night crying!  But it’s time, it’s time for them to have their adventures away from mom and dad.  It helps in some ways that they are at the same school, to look out for each other and hopefully not crowd each other.  It helps to think that maybe this will bring them closer.

I want to try some art projects, but so far I haven’t had time or money to get supplies, or clear a space to do it!

Can I do it everyday??

Ok, so I’ve tried to blog different times.  I tried Blogspot but it was too complicated to try to change things.  I love to write, but I’m a totally right brain person so why is blogging so set up for left brain geeky, techie types??  I need the discipline of writing every day, and I don’t know why I think so, but it would be nice to have people actually read my blog.  Although maybe not, because if no one’s reading then it doesn’t matter what I write.

This weekend my kids will both leave for college on the other side of the country.   My daughter went in the Fall, but my son will start this semester.  It’s weird to think about being an “empty nester.”  Sometimes I think how nice it will be to clean something and have it stay that way, to have a quiet house and listen to the music I want, or watch the shows I want, when I want!  But I know I will miss my kids and their friends coming over, walking in the door and heading to the fridge.  I haven’t had to worry about chips, candy or soda being around the house because it’s gone in a day.

It won’t be so different to have my son gone since he hangs out in the basement playing video games and only comes upstairs for food.  It felt like more of a void when my daughter left.  We walked together and she would talk to me about her life and friends.  My son…not so much!  Our conversations consist of my questions and his grunts.  I hold out hope that he’ll learn to communicate in complete sentences in college!

And what about my husband and I?  We aren’t the kind who have wrapped up our entire lives in our kids and their lives.  We both have pretty full lives, mostly with work though.  Our relationship has gone through a rocky time the last 5 years or so…so we’ll see if the kids being gone brings us closer or if we continue on our separate trajectories.

Stand Strong Against Hate | Southern Poverty Law Center

Stand Strong Against Hate | Southern Poverty Law Center.

I have been a loyal follower and supporter of the Southern Poverty Law Center for many years.  They do a lot of great work in addressing hate and intolerance throughout the U.S.  I hope that you will take a moment to check out their website and make a stand against hate.

Butterflies during Lent

I moved to Hawaii to begin a new ministry the end of December.  As we move deeper into Lent I realize how much I tie certain seasons into the corresponding weather.  Having lived in the Northwest for much of my life, I typically associate Lent with gray, rainy, cold days.  The other day as I looked out my window I saw two butterflies and I realize how odd that felt for me, to see butterflies in March.  It is forcing me to re-think my common Lenten and Easter themes!  I usually reflect on winter’s barrenness and the future hope of spring and new life during Lent.  But how do you re-think and re-image these seasons when you live in almost perpetual spring/summer?  This time of year in Hawaii is more rainy and windy, but there are still flowers in bloom, the trees are green, and there’s greenery everywhere.  I know eventually we’ll move into the hotter, dryer days of summer, but for now, Lent feels like spring and I’m reminded that resurrection is always happening.

Thoughts on grandparents

It has been so rainy and cold.  It doesn’t often get to me, I’ve lived in the NW for much of my life.  But when it rains for days on end, or just drizzles, I get tired of it.  It would be nice to have some warm sunshine.  It was good to be with my family back in AR.  My grandmother died a few weeks ago.  She was in her late 80′s.  She had been fortunate to be able to live at home for quite a while, but had moved in with my aunt, and then into a nursing home just the last few months of her life.  My grandfather died almost 10 years ago, and I know she missed him.  She loved to read, and she walked several miles a day well into her 80′s, so when she lost the ability to do those things, she was pretty unhappy. 

I love being with my family.  It’s fun to be with people who share a similar outlook on life and humor.  There’s something grounding about being with people who have known one all one’s life.  Of course it was good to share stories and memories of my grandmother, and to have a few good cries.  I had a strange realization that I’m no longer anyone’s grand-daughter.  I feel very lucky and blessed in life to have had 4 loving and wonderful grandparents.  My grandfathers were fun and funny, my grandmothers were loving and thought I was so special.  My parents and family may have been fucked up, but my grandparents were always there for me, and for my family.

Christianity-Money-Prosperity-achievement-fulfilment

So I copy and pasted this from the tags that showed up when I searched for “spirituality” blogs.  I find it interesting that these things have somehow been glommed together.  Interesting that Christianity in America has become more about self-fulfillment, prosperity, money, achievement etc…I read a blurb someone had written about why they were drawn to “The Center for Spiritual Living” and was struck by how it was all about the self.

When I read about Jesus’ ministry he wasn’t so interested in money, prosperity, acheivement or fulfillement.  He was consistently calling his would be followers to self denial, sacrifice, and to be ready to be rejected.  Now I know that sounds like a bit of a downer.  But Jesus also showed that he was more interested in fulfillment for the hurting, the outcast, the down and out.  As for wealth, when he encountered wealthy people he was usually asking them to give it up or at least be willing to give it up.

Maybe I’m hung up on this because I struggle sometimes with feeling unsuccessful in ministry.  I haven’t grown a church from 50 to 500 like a Saddleback or Willow Creek.  I can’t point to a lot of “achievements” either.  I mean, how do you measure that?  “Oh, someone in Bible study had an aha moment, let me keep a record of that for my annual review??”  Or “someone shared a private struggle with recovery, let me chalk that up as a success?”

I think a lot of people probably saw Jesus, his ministry and his followers as a bunch of losers who lost in a bad way after their leader was executed, but God was at work and through that seeming defeat, God continues to work.

My sticktoitiveness

Ok, so I started out this blog with the lofty intentions of writing every day.  Then life happens and pffft…so my sporadic posts.  I need a theme.  Serious religious/theological musings of a liberal pastor?  ugh, that doesn’t even sound interesting to me.  Motherly musings on the joys and challenges of family life with my husband and children?  Totally cliché.  But in the midst of these seemingly cliché things there is the reality that this is my life, and I like to think my life is unique and I have my story and history that aren’t cliché.

Do I write to aim at an audience?  Or just write for myself?  Do I try to find a niche?  Is there possibly any niche left in the blogging universe?  There’s been a book and movie about a somewhat annoying woman, at least in the movie, cooking her way through Julia Child’s cookbook! I didn’t blame Julia C. at all for not being interested in her or her project because I was watching the movie and wasn’t.  I was more interested in Julia Child’s life and thought the movie of her life would be by far more charming and interesting.

Maybe I’ll read some blogs and see what I think is interesting…I really don’t read blogs, I prefer books.  I think I’m biased.  I figure that people who write books, including fiction and novels, actually have some literary merit.  Whereas I tend to think blogs are the ramblings and musings of who knows who?  Although there are some authors out there who stink and I suppose just being “published” doesn’t mean one is knowledgeable or well worded (is that a real phrase)?  I don’t think so.

I need to really figure out this wordpress thing.  I don’t understand how to do anything like insert a pic. or links or make this an interesting blog.

Scary people, i.e. Glen Beck, with large venues and small minds

A friend posted a funny preacher moment from You Tube on Facebook.  This led to me browsing through various You Tube vids. of funny preachers, famous preachers, and of course, crazy preachers.  One is this guy in Arizona.  He’s proud that he doesn’t have any formal training, Biblical, theological, or ministerial.  He doesn’t seem to even have a rudimentary understanding of basic Biblical scholarship, and is proud of that.  He basically spouts off these odd misconstructions of the meaning of snippets of scripture, which of course he gets from the “original” Bible, the King James Version, which according to him is straight from the mouth of God. 

Enough about this guy who has a wife who blogs, and thousands of hits on You Tube.  Now to Glen Beck.  Because people believe Fox to be a network that delivers news or informed content, they watch this man.  From what I can see, he also spouts off about things which he obviously knows very little about.  He throws in lines like “people say,” “history shows,” etc…but they are unproven, unsubstantiated.  Now he has urged Christians to leave their church and report their pastor if they see or hear the words “social justice.”  Now this is the ultimate ignorance.  Anyone who has any basic understanding of the Hebrew or Christian scriptures would know that scripture is filled with God’s message of compassion for the poor, the vulnerable of society, like the orphans and widows.  The people today who are powerless, who are victims of greed and capitalism.  Who cannot make a way within an oppressive economic system. 

Wake up Christians and quit letting people like these speak for us!  Make it known that Christianity is to follow the call of a radical, of many radicals who looked at the way of the world and envisioned something different where the last are first, the weak are strong, the poor are rich, and to lose one’s life is to gain it.

Time to give up! What will you give up?

Today is Shrove Tuesday, and even though I pastor a Protestant congregation I like the idea of filling up on foods full of floury, sugary goodness before the days of Lent.  Traditionally Lent is a time of focusing on themes of repentance, of sacrifice, of self examination.

I generally don’t emphasize sacrifice much because I feel most women don’t have a problem with sacrificing.  It’s all too easy for me, and many women I know to sacrifice their own self, their self-hood, their wants, dreams, needs for parents, children, strangers on the street…

But as a Christian and  a disciple of Christ-what does need to be sacrificed?  Lent is a good time to examine my life, my way of living in the world and ask myself what do I need to give up?  Maybe it’s not the traditional things like chocolate or sugar.  Maybe I need to give up being so worried about what other people want me to be, or trying to please others at the expense of my own health.  Maybe it’s time for me to give up the idea that I have to appear competent and capable in every situation.  Maybe I  need to give up worry and anxiety about money.  I can think of a lot of things I can work on giving up.

What do you need to give up?

Tomorrow we will think about things we can take on for Lent.  May God grant you grace as you continue on your journey.

Where are the interesting blogs??

So I have checked out the “top blogs of the day” to see what’s up and it’s all things like celebrity photos, celebrity baby photos, and lolcats?? Here I thought the blogosphere was full of witty, erudite people who like to discuss books and politics, religion and philosophy.  Instead blogs seem to be a forum for more pablem!  Maybe I need to explore some more, really, it’s sort of disheartening to see what are considered the top blogs!  It makes me feel downright inspiring, except that no one’s reading my blog!  Maybe if I post some baby pics. and just say their celebrity baby pics…hmmm….

I’m taking the Reagan Arthur Books Challenge.

Sign up to take the Reagan Arthur Books Challenge, read some great books AND a chance to win prizes! What could be better?  The first book I’m going to read is Doors Open by Ian Rankin.  I haven’t read any of his books but I love mysteries and I’m not in the mood for a book, real or fiction about marriage…