I had lunch with Laidback Clergypal today. We meet in little ‘burg between our two cities a few times a year. He has been at his church four years and is having some conversations with other congregations. One is a 1,000 member church in search of a head of staff. Ay caramba!
He is a great […]

A sermon adapted from article #1 from Denominational Magazine:

Psalm 90
1Lord, you have been our dwelling-place
in all generations.
2Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
3You turn us back to dust,
and say, […]

Mamala and little she-who-is are stuck in the airport, where they have been waiting for six+ hours for their plane to arrive from Boston so they can take off for Florida. Poor little bean. They have at least two hours still to wait. If they end up canceling their flight after all this time I […]

I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday. We have already had some of those tearful epiphany moments that are usually reserved for the end of a conference like this. Professor/Mentor is sharing a lot of poems with us, which is bringing back fond memories of my favorite class at Crusty ol’ Theological Seminary, the people in […]

Enjoying the conference a lot. I have been to this conference center many times and am always the youngest person. (Almost always? thinking No, I think it’s always!) And the women are often the minority. So it’s cool to hear the voices of so many females echoing off these stone walls, and to be more […]

Good weekend.
I had a brief moment yesterday evening when the post-pilgrimage bliss dissipated—I’m not even sure why—but I am better today.
One of the people on the pilgrimage was a lovely quiet man who works for the government as some kind of statistician/analyst. The morning we left Iona, he said to me, “I couldn’t sleep last […]

As you well know, I am just back from a lovely time of pilgrimage in the isle of Iona, “cradle of Scottish Christianity.” It has provided much food for thought, to say the least, and so, to keep the pilgrim mojo going:
1. Have you ever been on a pilgrimage? (however you choose to define the […]

unrevised
i’m home, but
i don’t want the pilgrimage to end,
so in the plod of rush hour,
i look around and see not
minivans adorned with little league stickers, not
hummers that make me furious, not
steel machines inhaling their fossil fuels and
blowing code orange smoke rings,
but the people inside, pilgrims on the way
to their sacred everyday places,
they are modest as […]

See you on the Hogwarts Express! I’ll buy the first round of chocolate frogs and Bertie Botts.

You know that “pondering” is one of my favorite words.
One of my Writing Revs shared a piece about a recent vision quest experience she had, and how people would ask her about it by saying, “So didja have a great time?” How do you answer such a question? About a vision quest?
As ChaplainMom will attest […]