Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from July, 2006

Thank You, Adam Walker Cleaveland

A while back, when I was looking into prayer stations for worship, I found Adam Walker Cleaveland's blog, pomomusings . I loved the worship images, and eventually subscribed for the content as a whole. This past week, Adam ran a 'contest' to give away copies of a new book, How (Not) to Speak of God , by Peter Rollins . I managed to get a copy. Then, Adam ran another 'contest' (generous blogger, no?) to give away invites to ebible.com . I managed to snag one of those as well. (I now have three of my own to give away, if you're interested.) And finally, after weeks of reading his reviews , I ended up watching So You Think You Can Dance? on Fox . Like I need another TV show (I'm a LOST addict) to watch. Of course, unlike Adam, who was rooting for Allison, I prefer Heidi, Benji, and Travis. In his most recent post about the show, Adam actually got criticized because his post wasn't about Lebanon . Geez. The conflict breaks my heart, and I think about it

Relaxation - need ideas!

This week I'm teaching a workshop on relaxation for a gathering of youth. If you read my blog regularly, you may have gathered that relaxation and managing stress are not my strong suits. I wasn't originally supposed to teach this workshop though, but circumstances have left me in charge. Do you have inspiring ideas, creative and fun ideas for talking about relaxation with youth? Let me know!

Briefly

Briefly: Why is it that meat-eaters have such a problem with vegetarians? I rarely talk about my vegetarianism, or try to 'convert' folks unless they ask me about it, but sometimes when meat-eaters notice I'm a vegetarian, they act like I'm insulting them somehow. I don't get it. I really don't. (My brother has written on the topic as well, back around Thanksgiving time.) This week I had the experience of being too late, twice, to provide the pastoral care I was hoping/needing to do in a certain context. Ugh. But in the same week, I found myself perfectly placed as the perfect person to provide pastoral care in an unexpected situation. Funny how that works. Now if I could only get the good feelings about the later to match the bad feelings about the former. from cnn.com , other world news: " Food emergencies in Africa are occurring three times more often now than in the mid-1980s, but the global response to famine continues to be "too little, too late

Perspective.

When I was little, we usually had one of those 20 inch deep wading pools, or, in more desperate times, just a sprinkler. We played a lot in the sprinkler, which was never used for the silly purpose of watering grass. It was our pseudo-beach-swimming-pool-oasis. We had great fun with it. For super fun, a sprinkler/wading pool combination was a treat. In summers when we could afford the fee, we might also get a pass to state parks , where we could swim in the local lake . But, park passes weren't always in the budget either. This summer, my mother installed an above-ground swimming pool. As a life-long camper and once-upon-a-time lifeguard, I love swimming. I love the pool. And with the heat wave this week, and my hot swampy-smelling parsonage , I've been spending a lot of evenings in Rome (to Mom's delight of course.) It has been so warm this week that the pool water, without solar cover help, has been 85 or 86 degrees some days. It is actually almost too warm, we complain

Tunnel Vision

When I was little, used to imagine that it would be great fun to have things happen that adults said weren't actually fun. For instance, I always thought it would be great to break a bone and be on crutches. Maybe that sounds silly, but it seemed like having a cast that people could sign would be fun. Walking on crutches - fun! Right? I have managed to so far escape from any bone breakage, but I have been on crutches - not so fun, as it turns out. Perspective. Maturity. Reality. Another thing I wanted to happen: I wanted my town to experience a flood. I pictured in my mind rowing down the streets in boats. Floating around town. Swimming in the house. Great fun. Well, tonight I spent hours trying to pack up my finished parsonage basement so that the cleaners could come tomorrow to check out the water damage from heavy rains after heavy rains here in New York. The carpets, less than three years old, are probably going to have to go. Most of my stuff is fine, but a few things here and

RevGals Friday Five: Pet Peeves

I don't usually answer the RevGals Friday Five , but who doesn't want to list their pet peeves? Here goes. 1. Grammatical pet peeve - Incorrect use of apostrophes. In my hometown, a sign hung every summer: Apply Here For Summer Job's. This year, finally, the sign has been corrected. Someone clued them in, I guess. Another? Unnecessary use of quotation marks on signs and ads. "On Sale Now!" "Thank you!" "Please watch your step!" Why the random punctuation? 2. Household pet peeve - Hmm. I dislike chores in general. Not sure this counts as a pet peeve. Cat hair and litter boxes? Literal pet peeves? My cats are currently my only housemates. 3. Arts & Entertainment pet peeve (movie theaters, restaurants, concerts) - People who hoot and holler at theatrical performances and ballets as if they were at a football game. Junior high kids at movies in general. 4. Liturgical pet peeve - Overused phrases like "who we are and whose we are." 5.

This and that...

A little bit of this and that: Check out my brother's post on the recent NYState decision on gay marriage. Hilarious. I was grocery shopping last night and saw two new items - crackers with grooves, better to hold toppings on, apparently, and Oreo cookies specially shaped for dunking. Seriously? How have we eaten Oreos all this time without this new breakthrough? I love keeping track of all the countries I've had blog or website visits from. This week, I had a visitor from Brunei Darussalam . I will admit I'd never heard of such a place, and had to look it up. Huh. Just finished reading Elements of Style by Wendy Wasserstein. (#15) I picked up the book after seeing my little brother perform in her An American Daughter earlier this year , an excellent production. The book was ok, but nothing great or unique, hence not getting a lengthy review. It seemed to similar to everything 'chick lit' that is out these days, but trying to be a bit more than that, and not q

United Methodist Nerds: Annual Conference 2006 Reports

For all of you United Methodist Nerds (like me - I spent an hour reading these things) the 2006 Annual Conference Reports can be found here . I personally find it interesting to read the reports and to look at the membership/worship/Sunday School statistics. Some items of note: I don't find any annual conference in the United States that reported gains in all three areas - worship, membership, and Sunday School, except the Troy Annual Conference. However, Troy's numbers are not 'on' in that apparently, in previous years, some 20% of churches in the conference were not reporting statistics. So their actual change in numbers is hard to discern! Other items - noting every conference that did not have across the board losses (not all include Sunday School stats in their reports): Alaska Missionary - Worship up, Sunday School up North Carolina - Membership up Tennessee - Membership and Sunday School up North Georgia - Membership up Memphis - Sunday School up Red Bird Mission

Time and Stuff

I'm in a hurry to get things done, Oh I rush and rush until life's no fun. All I really gotta do is live and die but I'm in a hurry and don't know why. --Alabama I just finished reading Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping , (#14) by Judith Levine. (Hey, I didn't buy it - I put it on my birthday list and had it bought for me as a present!) I saw it on Barbara Ehrenreich's blog (who wrote Nickel and Dimed) and thought it looked interesting. I really enjoyed the read. Levine, after a frustrating Christmas-shopping experience where she's realizes she's just spent huge amounts of money in a matter of a couple hours, decides with her partner Paul to attempt to go a year without buying anything that isn't necessary. The book chronicles their year, month by month, of not buying, and the struggles, benefits, and challenges they face. First struggle, for instance, is defining what is necessary to buy. For example, obviously food is a necessity, but what k