I've been accepted into the Doctor of Ministry program at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur GA. It took much longer to receive this word than I had anticipated, and by the time I did get the email saying "congratulations", I had moved past the excitement of being a doctoral student, and am in a much more balanced place of excitement for the learning.
This will impact my next 4 years, mightily.
asgr
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Mothers Day.....Ack......
I've been a mother for 16 years now. I've read all of the trite and sentimental mush that gets circulated at mothers day. It is easy for me to continue in my disdain for overrated holidays, because my two boys make it easy.
The cooey emails about the toughness, gentleness, stalwartness....and other "nesses" of motherhood are all true. But reading them does not validate my parenting. Nor does it assure that just because I am a Mother, that I am any good at it.
So, this year, someone sent me a Mother's Day piece written by Anna Quindlan, one of my favorite writers. She is an author but is best known for her essays twice a month on the last page of Newsweek. Ms Quindlan bring intelligence to every topic she touches, knowledge and a cutting edge to everything she writes.
She did not cover new ground with this piece. In fact, it was much of the same old same old that has gone around before. A reminder to live now, in the moment, with one's children....because they will soon be gone. She just says it in a way that I can hear.
I thought about that. Almost every morning, I head to work 45 minutes early (when I could be sleeping in...which I love to do), just so that I can drop my 16 year old son off at choir and get to say "love ya" in that flippant way that a teenage boy can hear, but that conveys the depths of my love. My son has never said "love ya, too".....instead he says "have a good day". Often twice. There is deep abiding love that is transmitted in those 15 seconds that I would not trade for anything.
Our 13 year old son is a bit more pliable when it comes to daily loving expressions. He won't say the love words either.....I'm way over needing that.........but he lets me say them to him. He waits for me to say them to him. And he nods in my direction.
Daily. Everyday. My children hear that they are loved every single day of their lives. Sometimes twice. Sometimes I'm the only one who hears me say it, but I say it anyway. Why? Because I do love them. But more importantly, I know that a child's understanding of the Divine is often seated in their parental interaction. I want them to instinctively know that God loves them every day, all day, so that when it comes time to question their faith, the bible, God's existence, living moral lives, loving neighbor and enemy, that they have a foundation of knowing what it is like to be loved, simply because they exist in this world.
Simply because they exist.
They are loved.
By me.
Their Mom.
asgr
The cooey emails about the toughness, gentleness, stalwartness....and other "nesses" of motherhood are all true. But reading them does not validate my parenting. Nor does it assure that just because I am a Mother, that I am any good at it.
So, this year, someone sent me a Mother's Day piece written by Anna Quindlan, one of my favorite writers. She is an author but is best known for her essays twice a month on the last page of Newsweek. Ms Quindlan bring intelligence to every topic she touches, knowledge and a cutting edge to everything she writes.
She did not cover new ground with this piece. In fact, it was much of the same old same old that has gone around before. A reminder to live now, in the moment, with one's children....because they will soon be gone. She just says it in a way that I can hear.
I thought about that. Almost every morning, I head to work 45 minutes early (when I could be sleeping in...which I love to do), just so that I can drop my 16 year old son off at choir and get to say "love ya" in that flippant way that a teenage boy can hear, but that conveys the depths of my love. My son has never said "love ya, too".....instead he says "have a good day". Often twice. There is deep abiding love that is transmitted in those 15 seconds that I would not trade for anything.
Our 13 year old son is a bit more pliable when it comes to daily loving expressions. He won't say the love words either.....I'm way over needing that.........but he lets me say them to him. He waits for me to say them to him. And he nods in my direction.
Daily. Everyday. My children hear that they are loved every single day of their lives. Sometimes twice. Sometimes I'm the only one who hears me say it, but I say it anyway. Why? Because I do love them. But more importantly, I know that a child's understanding of the Divine is often seated in their parental interaction. I want them to instinctively know that God loves them every day, all day, so that when it comes time to question their faith, the bible, God's existence, living moral lives, loving neighbor and enemy, that they have a foundation of knowing what it is like to be loved, simply because they exist in this world.
Simply because they exist.
They are loved.
By me.
Their Mom.
asgr
Thursday, May 3, 2007
May Day and Cedar Trees
(this meditation was written by asgr for an evening meal gathering of women in our seminary community)
Hear the poetry of Harris Loewen........
O God great womb of wondrous love,
your spirit moving on the deep did wake the world within yourself
a pulsing lighted world from sleep
O Hearth O heartbeat of the whole
your dark light dance began the times, the days and seasons, seconds, years
the ages rhythms and the rhymes.
O fire, O firmament and sea
your seething ferment’s energy called forth a whirling waltz of life
each plant and creature and its seed.
Sisters. It is May day. It is a day of ancient memory. A creation day of dancing around May Poles and finding love. A day of joy. A day to celebrate the fertile garden that is the earth. The fertile soil that we each hold within us. A day to claim God’s holy fertility as the creator of all that is.
May Day falls midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It falls midway in the year, across from the midpoint of the vernal Equinox and winter solstice, which marks the beginning of the dormant and shadowed time of year, when things go quiet and deep.....in preparation. May day, in its Mid-ness..... lifts high the banner of the sun, throwing off the veil of winter........urging us to move forward and into the fresh greening of the world.
How easy it is to revel in the planting, the sowing, the dreaming of fresh vegetables and fruits that are to come. How easy it is today, to think of culminations....culminations of classes, ministry settings, papers, first years, other years...... propelling us into time that is yet to come but is so near ripeness. The sap, deep in the trees has flowed its sweet treasures to entice us for months to come. The peonies tease us with their buds waiting to burst....needing yet another month of preparation. The soil hits our nostrils with the earthy scent of compost, dew, rich dirt and hope. A sight of anticipation for our eyes.
You.
Each you that sits in this circle.
Each one who sits here in exhaustion or doneness or still need to do-ness........you are precious and prized like first fruits of the season. You are God’s.
The book of the prophet Ezekiel brings us an image of creating abundance and Godly gardening.......an image that is purposefully stated in the face of those who have chosen to follow not God, but to make subcontracts with human authorities, selling their people, selling their heritage, selling their promise. Trading life for death. But lets put aside the actual context of this image. For the image itself is bursting with seasonal awakenings...greening of God’s calling, midway-ness of what has been and what is to be. Hear now from the prophet, the images from God.
God, our creator, says, “I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow putting out branches and fruit - a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They’ll build nests in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will recognize that I, God, made the great tree small, and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, God said it - and I did it.”
We are the birds of every sort and kind, living within the branches of the majestic cedar. As the many hued ribbons of the May Pole, our sacred gifts and talents flow and invite others into God’s dance of creative life. Our faith is the nest that holds our soul’s home, safe in the cool shade of the tree that God brings forth from the solid mountainscape.
It is God who calls. God who transplants. God who sows with fertile faithfulness. It is the creator who restores the cold wintry season to a green landscape of bloom and abundance. It is the Creator who determines what lowly tree will prevail, and what stately tree will be brought low, what will be green and what will be dry.
Oh, you women of Creative, Fertile Faith. Oh we women of God. We are in the mid point of being transplanted, nourished. Always midway between this or that....moving with rhythms that we establish, and with those that we join. Be strong in your season of relationships with sisters and brothers that surround you to receive learning from you or to bring support to you. Be strong in your season of relationship with the One who assumes a majestic landscape of your ministry. ...the many sorts and kinds of ministries that pulsate with Holy Life. Lift your joyful spirits unto the Holy One, who is creating with you.
Hear the poetry of Harris Loewen........
O God great womb of wondrous love,
your spirit moving on the deep did wake the world within yourself
a pulsing lighted world from sleep
O Hearth O heartbeat of the whole
your dark light dance began the times, the days and seasons, seconds, years
the ages rhythms and the rhymes.
O fire, O firmament and sea
your seething ferment’s energy called forth a whirling waltz of life
each plant and creature and its seed.
Sisters. It is May day. It is a day of ancient memory. A creation day of dancing around May Poles and finding love. A day of joy. A day to celebrate the fertile garden that is the earth. The fertile soil that we each hold within us. A day to claim God’s holy fertility as the creator of all that is.
May Day falls midway between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice. It falls midway in the year, across from the midpoint of the vernal Equinox and winter solstice, which marks the beginning of the dormant and shadowed time of year, when things go quiet and deep.....in preparation. May day, in its Mid-ness..... lifts high the banner of the sun, throwing off the veil of winter........urging us to move forward and into the fresh greening of the world.
How easy it is to revel in the planting, the sowing, the dreaming of fresh vegetables and fruits that are to come. How easy it is today, to think of culminations....culminations of classes, ministry settings, papers, first years, other years...... propelling us into time that is yet to come but is so near ripeness. The sap, deep in the trees has flowed its sweet treasures to entice us for months to come. The peonies tease us with their buds waiting to burst....needing yet another month of preparation. The soil hits our nostrils with the earthy scent of compost, dew, rich dirt and hope. A sight of anticipation for our eyes.
You.
Each you that sits in this circle.
Each one who sits here in exhaustion or doneness or still need to do-ness........you are precious and prized like first fruits of the season. You are God’s.
The book of the prophet Ezekiel brings us an image of creating abundance and Godly gardening.......an image that is purposefully stated in the face of those who have chosen to follow not God, but to make subcontracts with human authorities, selling their people, selling their heritage, selling their promise. Trading life for death. But lets put aside the actual context of this image. For the image itself is bursting with seasonal awakenings...greening of God’s calling, midway-ness of what has been and what is to be. Hear now from the prophet, the images from God.
God, our creator, says, “I personally will take a shoot from the top of the towering cedar, a cutting from the crown of the tree, and plant it on a high and towering mountain on the high mountain of Israel. It will grow putting out branches and fruit - a majestic cedar. Birds of every sort and kind will live under it. They’ll build nests in the shade of its branches. All the trees of the field will recognize that I, God, made the great tree small, and the small tree great, made the green tree turn dry and the dry tree sprout green branches. I, God said it - and I did it.”
We are the birds of every sort and kind, living within the branches of the majestic cedar. As the many hued ribbons of the May Pole, our sacred gifts and talents flow and invite others into God’s dance of creative life. Our faith is the nest that holds our soul’s home, safe in the cool shade of the tree that God brings forth from the solid mountainscape.
It is God who calls. God who transplants. God who sows with fertile faithfulness. It is the creator who restores the cold wintry season to a green landscape of bloom and abundance. It is the Creator who determines what lowly tree will prevail, and what stately tree will be brought low, what will be green and what will be dry.
Oh, you women of Creative, Fertile Faith. Oh we women of God. We are in the mid point of being transplanted, nourished. Always midway between this or that....moving with rhythms that we establish, and with those that we join. Be strong in your season of relationships with sisters and brothers that surround you to receive learning from you or to bring support to you. Be strong in your season of relationship with the One who assumes a majestic landscape of your ministry. ...the many sorts and kinds of ministries that pulsate with Holy Life. Lift your joyful spirits unto the Holy One, who is creating with you.
Monday, April 30, 2007
Collaborators
Yesterday, our retiring seminary president spoke eloquent words that are a vision that we can all live by.
He shared that 15 years ago, when he became president, a former president said this to him, "If it isn't broken, it doesn't come across the president's desk."
Our now retiring president interpreted this statement to us this way.......
The president must look up from her/his desk to see all that ISN'T broken. If they keep their gaze only on what is before them, they will think that the whole system is broken. When in fact, all these gifted people are doing what is their's to do and making it all work.
Amy's spin.........
We must continually look up from our own work, to see how and if we are still relevant to our surroundings. We must continually look up from our own work to see that others are are making the bigger picture work as well. It doesn't all rest on the shoulders of one or two, or the bosses or the administrative team.
The good of the whole rests in the workings of each of us .....connected.....collaborative.......accountable.......joyful.......... doing what is ours to do.
And doing it well.
asgr
He shared that 15 years ago, when he became president, a former president said this to him, "If it isn't broken, it doesn't come across the president's desk."
Our now retiring president interpreted this statement to us this way.......
The president must look up from her/his desk to see all that ISN'T broken. If they keep their gaze only on what is before them, they will think that the whole system is broken. When in fact, all these gifted people are doing what is their's to do and making it all work.
Amy's spin.........
We must continually look up from our own work, to see how and if we are still relevant to our surroundings. We must continually look up from our own work to see that others are are making the bigger picture work as well. It doesn't all rest on the shoulders of one or two, or the bosses or the administrative team.
The good of the whole rests in the workings of each of us .....connected.....collaborative.......accountable.......joyful.......... doing what is ours to do.
And doing it well.
asgr
Servant Leadership redux
At a recent conference in Toronto (lovely, wonderfully diverse Toronto!)....I heard Eddie Gibbs speak. He is a Brit, raised in post WWII Anglican England....and is a current authority on the emerging church and church growth. He is on faculty at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Immediately upon returning home, I had to buy his two books ChurchNext, and LeadershipNext. Excellent books.....and I'm only into the first couple of chapters of each. I'm a new Eddie Gibbs devotee.
One of the eye jolting awakenings that has come through his writing....is so simple. Yet, so right for what I'm needing to hear. He talks about how the church has gotten "servant leadership" all wrong, when we try to put that paradigm onto Jesus, in the way that we live it out today. He says that in today's culture, Servant Leadership is really Doormat Leadership. An attempt to meet the needs of all, putting our (ministering persons) own needs to the side. This leads to burnout and to leaving ministry altogether.
Gibbs says that Jesus never did servant leadership in that model. He was never a servant to the masses, in that he put everyone elses needs first. Jesus was a servant to God and God's call for his life. That is the statement that got me. Gibbs goes on to say that through Jesus' faithfulness to God's call through being a servant to God, Jesus did all that he was to do.
Now, we are not Jesus. I am not. You, dear reader, are not. We are not God incarnate. But, we are called to sacred work. The thing that we MUST see, is that we must stay fast to serving God....and sometimes that will be at odds with what the world AND the church sees as Christian ministry. We are not to be swerved. If we are all faithful to what God is claiming within us to do and be, then it will all get covered. We are to be collaborators, and not lone rangers. None of us can do it all, nor should we. What we should do (and this is a JOYFUL should) is to claim our part and do it well. Then, looking around, we can claim what others have been called to and find joy in their faithfulness.....even when it is something different that our own call.
Yes indeed. I'm jazzed.
asgr
Immediately upon returning home, I had to buy his two books ChurchNext, and LeadershipNext. Excellent books.....and I'm only into the first couple of chapters of each. I'm a new Eddie Gibbs devotee.
One of the eye jolting awakenings that has come through his writing....is so simple. Yet, so right for what I'm needing to hear. He talks about how the church has gotten "servant leadership" all wrong, when we try to put that paradigm onto Jesus, in the way that we live it out today. He says that in today's culture, Servant Leadership is really Doormat Leadership. An attempt to meet the needs of all, putting our (ministering persons) own needs to the side. This leads to burnout and to leaving ministry altogether.
Gibbs says that Jesus never did servant leadership in that model. He was never a servant to the masses, in that he put everyone elses needs first. Jesus was a servant to God and God's call for his life. That is the statement that got me. Gibbs goes on to say that through Jesus' faithfulness to God's call through being a servant to God, Jesus did all that he was to do.
Now, we are not Jesus. I am not. You, dear reader, are not. We are not God incarnate. But, we are called to sacred work. The thing that we MUST see, is that we must stay fast to serving God....and sometimes that will be at odds with what the world AND the church sees as Christian ministry. We are not to be swerved. If we are all faithful to what God is claiming within us to do and be, then it will all get covered. We are to be collaborators, and not lone rangers. None of us can do it all, nor should we. What we should do (and this is a JOYFUL should) is to claim our part and do it well. Then, looking around, we can claim what others have been called to and find joy in their faithfulness.....even when it is something different that our own call.
Yes indeed. I'm jazzed.
asgr
Friday, April 27, 2007
FSBO Richmond Indiana
Ok, shameless promotion here.....but its my blog and my house and a family dream.
We are selling our lovely, traditionally classic four square, two story home for $119,000. It has tile and hardwood floors, ceramic tile kitchen counters, lots of cooking and storage space in kitchen (room for two cooks), LR, DR, FR, main floor laundry, 1.5 baths, 3 bedrooms plus extra bedroom or office in basement (unfinished but quite usable), high efficiency furnace and central air on BOTH floors......with programmable thermostats.......energy saving/money saving. perennial beds, front porch, back deck, large fenced in back yard, two car detached garage and asphalt drive, established neighborhood with long time residents, mature trees, near beautiful Glen Miller Park, Golf course, Rose Garden, east side shops and restaurants. Stove, fridge and dishwasher (older model) stay.
We can help pay up to $2000 of buyer's closing costs if no realtor is part of the transaction.....this allows us to keep the price low and still meet our financial goals. We ask for one day notice for showing. Email us today!
We are selling our lovely, traditionally classic four square, two story home for $119,000. It has tile and hardwood floors, ceramic tile kitchen counters, lots of cooking and storage space in kitchen (room for two cooks), LR, DR, FR, main floor laundry, 1.5 baths, 3 bedrooms plus extra bedroom or office in basement (unfinished but quite usable), high efficiency furnace and central air on BOTH floors......with programmable thermostats.......energy saving/money saving. perennial beds, front porch, back deck, large fenced in back yard, two car detached garage and asphalt drive, established neighborhood with long time residents, mature trees, near beautiful Glen Miller Park, Golf course, Rose Garden, east side shops and restaurants. Stove, fridge and dishwasher (older model) stay.
We can help pay up to $2000 of buyer's closing costs if no realtor is part of the transaction.....this allows us to keep the price low and still meet our financial goals. We ask for one day notice for showing. Email us today!
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
outer courts
The outer courts
......its Sunday so I heard a good sermon.
I’m lucky that way. Many people do not hear good sermons. No, I’m not talking about those who don’t go to church. I’m talking about those who DO go to church. Too many sermons are written with a good heart and heartfelt intentions....but they lack scholarship and craft.
Today’s sermon was at the Monroeville Church of the Brethren near Pittsburgh. A colleague and I traveled for the weekend (I for fun with other friends, and he for work....poor guy), and this church was on our way home. The preacher was Scott Holland. Scott happens to be Professor of Public Theology and Peace Studies where I work.
The text was the palm Sunday text from Luke. But the kicker came at the end. Scott riffed on pluralism and openness and a a most interesting political season ahead. Then, he said that Jesus himself anticipated a church that was open and inviting to all. Maybe you know the story. Jesus comes into the temple in Jerusalem. His anger is ignited because of the commerce happening in the court. We have ALWAYS heard that Jesus’ anger was due to the lack of respect for God’s house. That they had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves.
But, says Scott, the outer court was indeed the place for moneychangers, sellers of pigeons, doves and other sacrificial livestock....that was part of the deal in the temple. What incited his anger was the disrespect in the outer court. This was a place for the stranger. It was a place for the traveler. It was the place for the non Jews, the Gentiles, to be welcomed. The sellers and buyers and moneychangers had taken over the whole of this space, putting business before hospitality, moneymaking before the spirit of God;’s kingdom. He threw them out in anger because they did not keep safe a place for all.
Jesus creates space for all. The stranger, the traveler, the one outside of our own faith tradition and expression. This is the gospel. This is God’s realm.
I sit with this. For this is how I read the gospel. The Good News. It is not about “my” salvation.....but the making and saving of place for all. And I am one among many. Special in the living of my own life, yet part of the choir of faith. I like that.
And the outer court? Well, thats where the prodigal son’s father still waits with the willful son.....where God sits with us all.
Live well, Live Large
amysgr
......its Sunday so I heard a good sermon.
I’m lucky that way. Many people do not hear good sermons. No, I’m not talking about those who don’t go to church. I’m talking about those who DO go to church. Too many sermons are written with a good heart and heartfelt intentions....but they lack scholarship and craft.
Today’s sermon was at the Monroeville Church of the Brethren near Pittsburgh. A colleague and I traveled for the weekend (I for fun with other friends, and he for work....poor guy), and this church was on our way home. The preacher was Scott Holland. Scott happens to be Professor of Public Theology and Peace Studies where I work.
The text was the palm Sunday text from Luke. But the kicker came at the end. Scott riffed on pluralism and openness and a a most interesting political season ahead. Then, he said that Jesus himself anticipated a church that was open and inviting to all. Maybe you know the story. Jesus comes into the temple in Jerusalem. His anger is ignited because of the commerce happening in the court. We have ALWAYS heard that Jesus’ anger was due to the lack of respect for God’s house. That they had turned the house of prayer into a den of thieves.
But, says Scott, the outer court was indeed the place for moneychangers, sellers of pigeons, doves and other sacrificial livestock....that was part of the deal in the temple. What incited his anger was the disrespect in the outer court. This was a place for the stranger. It was a place for the traveler. It was the place for the non Jews, the Gentiles, to be welcomed. The sellers and buyers and moneychangers had taken over the whole of this space, putting business before hospitality, moneymaking before the spirit of God;’s kingdom. He threw them out in anger because they did not keep safe a place for all.
Jesus creates space for all. The stranger, the traveler, the one outside of our own faith tradition and expression. This is the gospel. This is God’s realm.
I sit with this. For this is how I read the gospel. The Good News. It is not about “my” salvation.....but the making and saving of place for all. And I am one among many. Special in the living of my own life, yet part of the choir of faith. I like that.
And the outer court? Well, thats where the prodigal son’s father still waits with the willful son.....where God sits with us all.
Live well, Live Large
amysgr
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