"Life is Difficult.
This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. It is a great truth because once we truly see this truth, we transcend it. Once we truly know that life is difficult—once we truly understand and accept it—then life is no longer difficult. Because once it is accepted, the fact that life is difficult no longer matters.
Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, that their difficulties represent a unique kind of affliction that should not be and that has somehow been especially visted upon them, or else upon their families, their tribe, their class, their nation, their race or even their species, and not upon others. I know about this moaning because I have done my share."
M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
It's Been 6 Months
yes, it's been 6 months since i posted anything on this site.......good grief.....i just read the few previous posts and realized i'm not that person anymore. actually i'm not the same person i was when i started this sentence! we are always in the process of change, arent' we?
since that last post i've started the discernment process at St. Paul's in Port Townsend, and i've joined the Vestry....one of the other things i do every day is send out quotes and prayers and i've decided to start putting them on here.........today's is the Lord's Prayer from the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer. Gene Holly used it at yesterday morning's Healing service with Eucharist.....it's lovely:
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope
and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power, that is love, now and forever. Amen.
since that last post i've started the discernment process at St. Paul's in Port Townsend, and i've joined the Vestry....one of the other things i do every day is send out quotes and prayers and i've decided to start putting them on here.........today's is the Lord's Prayer from the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer. Gene Holly used it at yesterday morning's Healing service with Eucharist.....it's lovely:
Eternal Spirit, Earth-maker, Pain-bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all, Loving God, in whom is heaven:
The hallowing of your name echoes through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom sustain our hope
and come on earth.
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another, forgive us.
In times of temptation and test, strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power, that is love, now and forever. Amen.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Goodbye to Summer
On my way home yesterday i sat on the Kingston/Edmonds ferry reading my book when i looked up and saw a woman and her child standing outside on the deck, enjoying the sunshine. I felt compelled to put the book away (rarity) and take the stairs to the top of the boat.....so glad i did.......it was a perfect summer day - sunshine, little wind and calm water...i tend to be a bit melancholy at this point in the season - i want to savor the last bit of summer but i don't want it to leave. i don't want change, even though i love autumn. Maybe it's because there was so little summer to be had this year for us Northwesterners........but whatever the reason i'm glad i crawled out of my head where i spend way too much of my time for that half hour of heaven onboard the walla walla!
Monday, August 6, 2007
Dominus Vobiscum
In the catholic church of my youth the mass was always celebrated in Latin. I can still recall some of the phrases used by the priest who had his back to us. "Kyrie Eleison" and "In nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spiritus Sancti. Amen." are two that i remember but the most familiar would be "dominus vobiscum" to which we would reply, "et cum spiritu tuo"...as a kid i thought we were saying etcum spirit 2-2-0!!!! ("the lord be with you" & "and also with you")...
So why am i writing about this? because i long for fresh views of what these prayers mean that we find in the liturgy. As a child they were rote and spoken in a dead language but in my new home of the Episcopal church the collect is read by the celebrant before the readings of the day. I recently picked up a book of collect prayers in a used bookstore and was amazed by how beautiful they were and read that "collective prayer is an inclusive event". I'm still learning what that might mean but i found it interesting that there is more than one translation for the exchange that occurs before the collect. In the catholic church which used latin, DOMINUS VOBISCUM did sound a bit like a spell out of a harry potter book! Besides "the Lord be with you" which connotes something that will happen in the future i discovered that it can be translated as "the Lord IS with you" or better yet "the Lord is HERE, His Spirit is with us." And i need to know that God is here, right now, in this place...and when the celebrant ends with "let us pray" before the reading of the collect i will be thinking "collective prayer"...we're all in this together!
So why am i writing about this? because i long for fresh views of what these prayers mean that we find in the liturgy. As a child they were rote and spoken in a dead language but in my new home of the Episcopal church the collect is read by the celebrant before the readings of the day. I recently picked up a book of collect prayers in a used bookstore and was amazed by how beautiful they were and read that "collective prayer is an inclusive event". I'm still learning what that might mean but i found it interesting that there is more than one translation for the exchange that occurs before the collect. In the catholic church which used latin, DOMINUS VOBISCUM did sound a bit like a spell out of a harry potter book! Besides "the Lord be with you" which connotes something that will happen in the future i discovered that it can be translated as "the Lord IS with you" or better yet "the Lord is HERE, His Spirit is with us." And i need to know that God is here, right now, in this place...and when the celebrant ends with "let us pray" before the reading of the collect i will be thinking "collective prayer"...we're all in this together!
Friday, July 27, 2007
It is Finished
at approximately 3:45pm today, july 27th, i finished Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows. what can i say except that i loved every one of the 759 pages! i kept away from internet news, tv news and websites that held even a whiff of telling me how the book ended. so for the last 3 days i've lived in harry's world and am now trying to return to the muggle world.....thank you JKRowling! well done!
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Lydia Joy
my five year old granddaughter, Lydia Joy, has become a vacation bible school junkie this summer. she's had her first bus ride from the baptist church, her first foot washing from the lutherans and i haven't heard from her yet what the episcopalians are offering! she has loved every minute of her time with all the wonderful & caring women who have been busy planting little seeds in her inquisitive little head...she has especially liked the family day presentations for she is an actress at heart who has informed her mother that someday she will be moving to new york!lydia has told me how much she loves jesus and has serenaded me and her mom and dad with her renditions of jesus loves me, & we are fishers of men!
as i perused my favorite blogs this morning i came across another VBS story from jan edmiston's site which is worth a view!!!!:A Church for Starving Artists: What Presbyterians Always Talk About (the picture is of Lydia and Blake)
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Luke and Harry
It’s been over a week since I last posted. Harry Potter is finally out, I’m on page 46 and reading very slowly because it’s the last book and the last time I’ll be able to spend such quality time with his story. Sigh............today KP preached on Martha and Mary and she was very good but before I go there I have to say a word or two about last week’s sermon on the Good Samaritan.....how many sermons have I heard on Luke 10 over the years? Countless.....and almost always the same....don’t be like the Priest or the Levite but be like the Good Samaritan who it turns out was never even referred to as “good” by Jesus.....that was added!
So E+ turned this parable upside down for me..........I learned that “in most of Jesus’s parables, the way they’re constructed, the really central character is the one everyone else comes in contact with.” And she focused on the wounded and powerless victim who was lying in the ditch. Looking at this story from the victim’s point of view made everything new. We can all identify with that point of view as we’ve all been wounded at some point in our lives....His/Her dilemma centered on being able to accept help from someone that would have been considered to be an outcast, or someone who might be unclean or a social reject. E+ stated that “the mercy and healing of God came not only from an unexpected source, it came from a despised source.”..........what if God comes toward me as someone or something I fear? Will I be able to accept such help? Such grace? Such love? Lots to ponder there.
And then today KP preached from Luke 10 & Genesis 18 on hospitality - which is showing love to strangers. My experience of this passage has been the age old question of “are you a Martha or a Mary?”..........as if all women can be categorized into only one of these categories (not to mention where men fit in here.)...Just as Abraham had invited the 3 men in for calf and cakes, Martha followed suit by inviting Jesus and his followers in for a meal. Jesus of course told her that her sister Mary had chosen the better part by sitting at his feet which must have been confusing to say the least. But KP said that “Jesus is telling her to stop and be hospitable to herself, to love the stranger in herself.”.....thus exhibiting a new form of hospitality......one in which we start with our own hearts, making way for a new creation - in order to love our neighbors as our selves.........I like that. But I also like to stick with what I know and God never seems to allow that.....which is why we are hopefully, with God’s help, always becoming a new creation..........
So E+ turned this parable upside down for me..........I learned that “in most of Jesus’s parables, the way they’re constructed, the really central character is the one everyone else comes in contact with.” And she focused on the wounded and powerless victim who was lying in the ditch. Looking at this story from the victim’s point of view made everything new. We can all identify with that point of view as we’ve all been wounded at some point in our lives....His/Her dilemma centered on being able to accept help from someone that would have been considered to be an outcast, or someone who might be unclean or a social reject. E+ stated that “the mercy and healing of God came not only from an unexpected source, it came from a despised source.”..........what if God comes toward me as someone or something I fear? Will I be able to accept such help? Such grace? Such love? Lots to ponder there.
And then today KP preached from Luke 10 & Genesis 18 on hospitality - which is showing love to strangers. My experience of this passage has been the age old question of “are you a Martha or a Mary?”..........as if all women can be categorized into only one of these categories (not to mention where men fit in here.)...Just as Abraham had invited the 3 men in for calf and cakes, Martha followed suit by inviting Jesus and his followers in for a meal. Jesus of course told her that her sister Mary had chosen the better part by sitting at his feet which must have been confusing to say the least. But KP said that “Jesus is telling her to stop and be hospitable to herself, to love the stranger in herself.”.....thus exhibiting a new form of hospitality......one in which we start with our own hearts, making way for a new creation - in order to love our neighbors as our selves.........I like that. But I also like to stick with what I know and God never seems to allow that.....which is why we are hopefully, with God’s help, always becoming a new creation..........
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