At long last....Blogger Meet-up!

One of the great fringe benefits of our trip to Phoenix, Arizona this year (and there were many, believe me) was the opportunity finally to meet my friend Mompriest from Seeking Authentic Voice. I believe that she was one of the two or three first bloggers to find me after I joined Revgalblogpals back in May of 2007. I loved her honest and insightful reflections on faith, life and ministry and was sure that someday we would meet. After all, we do get to visit family in Chicago occasionally.

Then she moved south. Waaaaay South. I have family there too, but not as far south as she is. Still, I thought, someday we just might meet.

Tuesday, we did. We shared tea and conversation at Tempe's Changing Hands Bookstore and Wildflower Bread Company (my sister, who has lived in Arizona for almost 30 years, recommended this place).

I hope she enjoyed the opportunity as much as I did. Now, I am plotting to find a way to the Big Event 2 in Scottsdale this spring. We'll see....

Things I'm Thinking About....

• It has become clear during the last few days that we've been here that I have gained back all of the 20+ pounds that I lost two years ago. Needless to say, I am disappointed in myself, and thinking about what I can do differently in order to increase my fitness again. I'm also thinking that blogging might have had something to do with it (if anyone here has figured out a way to exercise and blog, please raise your hand).
• On the other hand, I feel that I have begun a very good reading discipline in the week we have been here. I'm already on my 5th book for January (more on that later), and hope that I can discipline myself to read 50 books in 2009.
• We leave early Monday morning. On the one hand, it's been too short. I need a vacation. On the other hand, I feel that I will be behind before we land.
• I'm trying really hard not to make lists of things to do -- at least on paper -- while I'm here.
• I think I've stopped dreaming "church dreams" -- just in time.
• We spent the afternoon knocking around in the desert east of Florence, Arizona this afternoon. It's barren, wild, beautiful and empty -- all at the same time.
• A former pastor of mine, Sharon Betcher, wrote a book recently. It was reviewed in Christian Century. I'm thinking about this for several reasons. Pastor Betcher is probably one of the reasons I became a pastor; she started me thinking about many things in different ways. However, I think it is safe to say that our pastoral styles are very different. Just the fact that she wrote a book is intriguing to me. I almost bought it before we left on vacation. When I get back, the book goes on my reading list.
• I realized today, spending the afternoon with my sister, how much I miss her, since she lives several states away and has a very busy life.
• I wonder what the title of my first book should be?
• coming soon: look for "blogger meet up", desert pictures, etc.

Fine Tuning

It's been an potpouri of a vacation so far. We've been up to small-town Prescott and back, over to the Desert Botanical Garden and done some moderate antique-shopping. Plus, I met a blog-friend who lives in a nearby town (I will say more about this later). Husband has been listening to Alan Hovhaness' Mysterious Mountain; he says it's perfect for driving around here. I've been reading Clyde Edgerton's novel The Bible Salesman.

On the way over to the Botanical Gardens today my husband gave me a mini-overview of 20th century music. This was in response to my question regarding Hovhaness, about whom I knew very little, except that I love his piece, And God Created Great Whales. (Our dog, Scout, seems to like this piece, too.) It seems that 20th Century composers felt that they had a dilemma; what could they do that was new and different? After Wagner, everyone felt that "you couldn't get any bigger." Wagner had taken the genre about as far as it could go. So the 20th century "new thing" was to be atonal, and "not pretty", at least in the way music had been "pretty" before. Composers like Hovhaness and Vaughn Williams are considered less serious composers by some because they composed pleasing music. (I realize that many music scholars may disagree with this.)

On the way to the Desert Botanical Gardens, then, we were listening to Mysterious Mountain, and I was reading The Bible Salesman, a wonderful little novel about a young man who in the early 1950s South who is an unwitting accomplice to a criminal. He also is selling Bibles, and, coincidentally, really reading them, as if for the first time. This Bible-reading theme is a background, a curious counterpoint to the story of the naive and earnest young man and how he grows up. He's asking questions about the Bible that he has never asked before, and wondering about whether it is true, and how it can be true. In the end, he finds comfort in different truths that he discovers in the Bible, and in his life.

I thought about how our ears need fine tuning so that, in each age, we can hear God's word -- in the strange words of the Testaments, Old and New, in our words to one another, in the soft or loud voices of those on the mountains or on the margins, speaking a counterpoint to the big and brash news of the day. I thought about how my eyes need fine tuning so that I can see the beauty in the desert, where, the land is big and barren, and it takes a sharp eye to capture a quail walking through the brush, or fairy dusters, small bright red spots among muted browns and greens. Some beauty is loud and brash, and takes my breath away; some beauty skirts along the edges, or even hides; I need to fine-tune my eyes to see it, just as I need to fine-tune my ears to really hear the truth.

In a few days we'll leave the warm and barren land to come back to the frozen north where we live. I hope I can fine tune my eyes and ears again to see the beauty, and to hear the truth of the strange and familiar place where I live.

On the Road Again

I'm up; I should be sleeping. We're leaving in just a few hours for our annual trip to see family and experience warmness in Phoenix, Arizona.

The house is quiet; Scout has already been delivered to her dog sitter's. I miss her already. However, she ran up their steps and down the steps of their split level when we arrived yesterday. We know she's having a good time.

I don't have a big agenda for the week, except:

• if it's sunny, get some sun.
• try to meet Mompriest on Tuesday
• spend time with family
• go to the Desert Botanical Gardens.
• read and exercise
• spend time with my husband (who might have an agenda of his own, ya think?)

I don't know if I will be on line too much in the next week. I may post some pictures.

There's no such thing As an Average Saturday

I awoke this morning from dreams that Scout was chasing rabbits in the back yard. As I watched, she chased and never caught a rabbit; they cleverly found their way through the slats in the fence by the front gate. In my dream, though, suddenly Scout herself found a hole so that she could escape the fence and continue to chase a rabbit. In real life, I would be anxious about this; in my dream, I continued to find pleasure in watching her run, with a certain grace and abandon.

I woke early to prepare for my Breakfast Bible Study. We're studying John, and these guys are good. They've been studying together for over twenty years, so I'm reading a little bit of Kittel on the word "doxa" as it pertains to John. I thought they might be interested in this. They're Bible scholars, after all. One of them professes to be a "Kiekegaardian existentialist"; another calls himself a "confessional Lutheran."

I ordered my regular oatmeal and toast with peanut butter and drank plenty of coffee. After the Bible study I for some reason did not stop to buy a Saturday newspaper, as is my habit. Instead, I headed straight to the church, where I have a lot to accomplish before I go on vacation.

• write prayers (I discover that I didn't really have to do this)
• put together list of contemporary songs we know for music minister
• contact several shut ins and make appointments; reorganize my shut-in list for 2008
• get ahead on journal reading
• make sure appropriate people have my itinerary for next week
• check up several times on Revgals "preacher party"
• return library book
• buy present for my sister!

I have been trying to save money (and shelf space) by getting books out of the library instead of buying them. It's working moderately well, except that I don't always get the book read by the due date (I need to pace myself), and I really have to work to get the books back on time. Otherwise, I think the library is a great idea. I like libraries.

I finished my work day by going to visit a parish member on hospice care, and bringing home my new "Feasting on the Word" study book, with every intention of reading and studying this very evening. Somehow, though, it didn't happen. Instead we:

• looked for car keys
• found car keys
• took a trip to a local used book store (where I got a few good deals)
• knitted a couple of rows; realized that I really don't know what I'm doing on the braided cable thing, and hoping that eventually it will look ok
• went out for burgers
• let the dog out; stood in the door for several minutes calling her to come in; finally got her food bowl and a few kibble, after which she bolted in the door.
• read a few pages of Abigail Thomas'book Thinking About Memoir
• starting packing the big suitcase

The rabbits are dancing in the yard; as I get ready for bed, I'm thinking again about the fence and the gate, and the holes in the fence. I'm thinking about the joy I felt when my dog was able to keep chasing the rabbits with grace and abandon.

There's a purpose for fences, I know; but there's a purpose in living with abandon, too, to find a way out of the ordinary -- if only in our dreams.

That's what I'm thinking about tonight, anyway.

New Beginnings Friday Five

Sally from over at Revgalblogpals gives us this Friday Five:

As we look back we may come to understand how God has worked in and through us in joy and saddness. how we have grown against what may seem impossible odds. As we look forward we may do so with expectation, and we may do so with fear and trembling. As we look back and forward in New Years liminality I offer you this simple yet I hope profound Friday Five in two parts:

First list five things that you remember/ treasure from 2008

1. The bloggers I got to meet in 2008: Pastor Eric from The Heart of a Pastor, Jan from Yearning for God, Auntie Knickers from Exile's Return, Jennifer from Possible Water (and the many Revgals I met at the Festival of Homiletics), Jodi at Choral Reef, Jennifer from An Orientation of Heart. I never realized when I started blogging how many people I would meet.

2. My Ten Year Anniversary at my current call. It was a good time to reflect back; I received lots of good comments.

3. Our trip to Paris. I had never been to Europe before last summer. Those three days were like a dream to me.

4. The Education Forum held in our congregation in September, and the things I learned about the Achievement Gap. The facts we learned were sobering (Minnesota has the highest achievement gap in the nation), but the relationships and commitments we are forming is hopeful.

5.Welcoming a new minister of music to our congregation in September. He has his own voice, his own style, and I am appreciating that.

Then list five things that you are looking forward to in 2009

1. New Leadership. I suspect that 2009 is going to be a hard year for our country. But I am hoping that, in the midst of it all, many of us will be inspired to find our own voice and that new leaders will emerge.

2. Improved relationships. Today, I don't want to say more about that....

3. Very immediately .... a trip to Phoenix next week. It's warm there (at least I hope), and I have family there as well.

4. Finishing things. Yesterday I took out two very old knitting projects (I mean very old), and am resolving to finish them this year. I might need help, though. Here is one of them:

5. Continuing to find and express my own voice: in my community, in my congregation, in my family.

As you read one anothers blogs today I challenge you to leave a word of encouragement and pause to pray for each member of Revgals as we step into a New Year.

The Year in Blogging

I saw this review meme over at Jane 's(Acts of Hope) and Paul's (Buddhapalian), and thought I'd give it a whirl:

The first sentences of the first post of every month. I cheated on three -- they were friday fives, and I decided to print the question and the beginning of my answer. Also I still think I need to learn to write better ledes.

Finally, I am interspering links to a few favorite posts of the year.

January: I don't have a story for this, but I have random foggy memories of a few New Years in Japan.

I don't think I'll ever have a better New Year's post than this one, about opening the New Year in Japan. Akemashite Omedeto!

The Lutheran Cable Network

February: Transfiguration Year A
Matthew 17:1-9/2 Peter 1:16-21
Long ago, a wise old rabbi lay on his deathbed.

March: This is a music video dedicated to a victim of domestic violence.

April: We are now entering my birthday month (woo-hoo!)

Easter Vigil Reflections

May: (Friday Five) 1. How do you pray best, alone or with others?
I think I'm much better at praying with others, whether in hospital rooms, in my office, or in another person's home.

June: I'm typing this at church right now because we have not had electricity since about 7:00 last night.

Who Wants to Start a Movement?

Reflections on my Ten Year Anniversary

July: Marsha over at Just Some Thoughts has given me a very lovely award called You Make My Day. It is pretty, isn't it?

August: 1) How do you amuse yourself when road construction blocks your travel?
I don't know that I amuse myself.

My new desk came in (Almost) A Million Little Pieces

September: I was sitting at my new desk on Sunday, still organizing some things (ok, many things), and feeling like the chair I was sitting in was not quite the right height.

October: 1. Saint Francis experienced a life changing call, has anything in your journey so far challenged you to alter your lifestyle?
When I quit my job and went to seminary, I often half-joked that I was becoming downwardly mobile.

November: Yesterday afternoon we had #2 stepson over (he was in town for the weekend) to celebrate his 21st birthday.

What We See

December: I started blogging in April of 2007, just about the same time I turned 50 (give or take a couple of days).