Peace- When life keeps coming at you 100 miles an hour

(The dates I wrote  and the dates on the bolg are going to be different. I actually got relaxed enought to think and reflect and write on the boat so I kept my blog in a word document. I am beginning  to publish the posts now)

JULY 11, 2011

Wow the Blog has gone by the way side for quite a while! The last one was December. I guess that I have had a bit life happening in the mean time. I really hate those 100 mile an hour days and weeks that seem to come at you like a runaway truck!


It is sad to think that I have not had enough time to think about or reflect on my comings and goings.

Lets see, during December I was trying to get a handle on my mom’s financial situation, had just finished one of two on line classes for my Library endorsement and was trying to have a little bit of vacation too. The vacation part I think was optional it was really wrought with frustrations and stress. So I am now trying to have a few days of true vacation before going back home to my last 3 days of work at school, which I have not yet finished, and fight with my mother’s long-term care insurance company.

At any rate here I am now, sitting at Rosario in the San Juan Islands (Orcas Island to be exact) and I have read Pastor James’ Blog and Katelyn’s Blog and Christina Klaus’s Blog and I am more than motivated to write again. Blogging to me is sort of a journaling/ reflection exercise. I need to take stock.

Pastor James was recently blogging about his feelings about not wanting to give up on the Presbyterian Church USA even though General Assembly has said that homosexuals may now be ordained. He does not agree with it and he is not for it himself, but, he also knows there are many other issues that we as a denomination need to be addressing as a church. One of them, I think, is why our denomination as a whole doesn’t have more 20-45 year olds. Why is our denomination shrinking and not growing? Why is it we can’t seem to be relevant to younger folks? Sometimes, I think, too much tradition, too much history, or too much “it’s the way we have always done it” stands in the way of reaching out to the unchurched. In my own family, some of my adult children work on Sunday morning. They were raised in the church and would like to be at services but it really doesn’t accommodate their time frame, and they like a totally contemporary service. Church on Saturday Night? Wednesday night? Sunday night? Who knows? Why does church have to be accommodating you ask? Well, I truly believe in this world we do need to meet the masses where they are, and a lot of them are working on Sundays in the morning. Something to ponder.

Peace...Of Christ be with you..and everyone with burdens...

I want to know why it is, that when life seems the most overwhelming and the most frustrating and we feel like there is one one to talk to we forget to pray?


Life has it's way of overwhelming me  and I am always forgetting to pray or if I do pray I find that it is one of those fleeting "help me"  kind  of prayers. It is so hard to for me to focus and really concentrate on prayer.. and yet I am always begging people to pray for me or someone else I know who needs help.

Why do I get so surprised and and almost shocked when out of  no where some thought or worry that has been heavy on my mind is suddenly resolved with an amazing perfectness? People are praying for me and God hears them. And I think he must know the deepest part of my longings and desires before he answers my prayers because they are always answered so perfectly.

I have been taking over my mother's financial and medical affairs. This is not an easy task. She has dementia. Not terrible yet but still terrible for me. She doesn't remember I am her child. It is like being an orphan before your parent is gone. I am having to figure out all of her Medicare and I am searching tor ways to help stimulate her brain to stay here just a little longer. I am sad and yet I am fierce too. this woman who raised two kids for a while in the 50's...doing all the right things for us to the best of her ability.. I want her to have everything she deserves. I want her to be happy.

God has given me angels who watch over her and me and who pray for us. Pastor James, Patsy, Ian and Kate they all pray. I see things happening in positive directions and I am encouraged!

Emmanuel.. "God with us" it is here ...Now...

Peace in Getting Ready for the School Year

It's funny, I LOVE the fall and the getting ready for school part of my life. fall has always excited me!(is it the "Ancient Ones" coming up inside my phyche that had all the Harvest festivals and Dances to the Gods  for the harvest...? Who Knows?) I always have a fond sense anticipation about fall and the start of a new school year and how to do things better and more efficiently. I always feel like September is the new beginning,  not January. Kinda  crazy but just me.

 I am working in the library trying to get ready for my students and my teachers. Passing out equipment and  help.
 I feel more confident as the libraian this year. I want to share some of my ideas with the teachers.
I am at peace with myself in this realm.

Pax!

Peace on a Late August Sunday

It is a pleasent day not HOT by ant means but pleasent. I am trying to put together a little bit of help and fun for my son and his wife, and I am also thinking about how much I love to putter around at home occasionally. I think Alan is sort of depressed and is sleeping at the moment. He wanted to go out and hike or ?? but I was not enthused at all and I think it was just so we could both spend a little down time.
There is a  peacefulnesss to the quiet of the office and the sounds of the red squirrels out the window and the birds I can hear.
I am sort of in slow motion myself and just want to feel the lazy rhythm of the Sunday wash over me.
 In relationship with nature and with God, listening to the tune of his creation and relaxing in its melody.

Peace in the Midst of your Family

So it is August. I have had classes all summer. I am winding down and I have two more books to read for my wrap up. I am finally on vacation and I have had to time to read the blogs of my wonderful daughter -in-law Katelyn. She is an amazing writer! I am sitting in the midst of the family reunion. It's noisey and yet gets really quiet at times. Everyone is tired. Health issues for the grandparents, kid issues for the mid-lifers, and work stress issues for the young adults. We are here and comfortable with our siblings and parents and love to be WITH each other. Building community within a family.  I am blessed by my family. I hope that any time we can build relationships we will. God has plans for the world it has to do with the  caring for and taking care of each other. It also has to do with the intent in which we do the taking care. Not out of duty but out of the Love for each other and for God.

Ideas about Hospitality..

Since last blog I was thinking about Hospitality and the whole idea of it, I came across this thought from Matt Mahre on his blog site:


Noted author Henri Nouwen once said, "the greatest sign of a Christian was their sense of hospitality" Well, of course it would be extremely inhospitable to "force" an agenda on someone, without their willing permission. This is the "grave" sin that God speaks of - when one knowingly and willingly compromises the sanctity and dignity of another human person for personal gain (of any kind). The opposite of love isn't hate, as Pope John Paul 2 spoke in the Theology of the Body, it's use. To use someone for personal gain (whether it be emotional, psychological or physical) is a terrible sin against God
 (From Matt Mahre's blog)



It was what I was trying to say...Someone else always seems to get it "righter" than me!

Peace after the storm?

So it has been forever since I have sat down and thought,about something other than school work or playing on the Internet for my library website, or figuring out new web2.0 apps for my classes. I have met some wonderful people and have learned a BUNCH about Libraries and Librarian work. I am still feeling overwhelmed however!
I spent an amazing week in Guatemala and jumped in with both feet to classes after having had some time to gain some perspective.
Peaceful perspective. Go to a country where there is no electricity where you are staying and the people you are with are loving people with no advantages whatsoever except their family ties, and this makes for some quiet contemplation. I was very happy here. we worked literally from sun up to sundown on building stoves for the village of   Nuevo Santiago Esperenza Maya.
The village is not much but it does have PEOPLE in it. They laugh and cry and  are gregarious or shy happy sad, healthy and ill just like all of us. They welcomed us and showed us such gracious hospitality..Could we do the same for strangers from a far away country, who do not speak our language? Would we welcome them into our homes with open arms as they tried to improve our quality of life?.. God puts it on the hearts of people to go on short term 3rd world missions  (I think) in hopes of showing them the ways he wants us to respond to his call to be a community of believers. When you go far away and see the community the people have with each other  it is very humbling. We who have beeen blessed with much, need to be able to know we can share and need to share what we have: talents, time, money,whatever it is to better the world in God's name and for His glory.I think that, thinking about Life  as your mission field would be a start.. So think about that.
 Here is a related passage from The Message: Judges 19:15-21

15-17 The Levite went and sat down in the town square, but no one invited them in to spend the night. Then, late in the evening, an old man came in from his day's work in the fields. He was from the hill country of Ephraim and lived temporarily in Gibeah where all the local citizens were Benjaminites. When the old man looked up and saw the traveler in the town square, he said, "Where are you going? And where are you from?"


18-19 The Levite said, "We're just passing through. We're coming from Bethlehem on our way to a remote spot in the hills of Ephraim. I come from there. I've just made a trip to Bethlehem in Judah and I'm on my way back home, but no one has invited us in for the night. We wouldn't be any trouble: We have food and straw for the donkeys, and bread and wine for the woman, the young man, and me—we don't need anything."

20-21 The old man said, "It's going to be all right; I'll take care of you. You aren't going to spend the night in the town square." He took them home and fed the donkeys. They washed up and sat down to a good meal.

So strangers can provide for each other and we should all be hospitable to everyone we encounter. We should also learn how to accept graciously the hospitality that is shown to us in different situations. Just some thoughts on peaceful times spent as a stranger in another land.