things I've done

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Picked this up on 'Processing Counselor's blog'
Green is my color

Want to play? Copy and paste. Pick a color for the things that you have done.
I HAVE...

1. Started my own blog

2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than I can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis,not - but have caught grasshoppers.
10. Sung a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched lightening at sea
14. Taught myself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown my own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitchhiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon (and have no desire to!)
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run - not within my competency
32. Been on a cruise if 4 hours to the Apostle Islands counts!
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person - lots 0f times!
34. Visited the birthplace of my ancestors - Does Iowa count?
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught myself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had my portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business - made money on e-bay for a few years.
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
65. Gone sky diving
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma - I've started again after 10 years
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy - not my toy, but I've saved other peoples!
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar- ugh!
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle

79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had my picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous - depends of definition of famous? Henri Nouwen?
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Ridden an elephant

Got 52 - with some stretching I could tag a few more.
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Friday Five

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From Rev. Gal Blog Pals -

Phillipians 1:3 Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God.

"I'm musing about giving thanks for people today, partly because Americans celebrated our annual Thanksgiving holiday yesterday (I try not to just make this holiday "turkey day" even though its main feature seems to be eating till one is nearly comatose) and partly because I read the above verse this morning. It started me thinking about individuals in my life for whom I give thanks. For this post-Thanksgiving Day Friday Five, share with us "Five People For Whom You Give Thanks to God" and maybe tell us why they are significant. "

My Five:

1. Roger - he was the best for me at a time when I really, really needed it. A father-figure and a mentor, challenging and counseling and showing the way. My own Priscilla (Acts 18:26) who taught and even better showed how Christ lives in a life. His marriage has been a model for mine.

2. Ministry Partner - I am just blessed to be working out this example of working together in ministry. I know very few people who have really experienced this kind of respect and trust in their working situations in ministry. I suspect we were separated at birth - the brother I should've had.

3. Little Sister - wow, that mind goes places I can't even fathom, and she's always present for me. Love it that she's only 4 hours away now. She's the one who doesn't see me as a pastor but just as me. We are aging well together.

4. Dear Son - this is a hard one because we have such a history - and I continue to worry and be hurt at times. But I am thankful that he's in our lives. Being his mom has forced me to grow and to grow up. I've had to learn patience and letting go, protection and vulnerability. I work on the love thing - how to love without allowing that love to be manipulated. I work on the pride/legacy/hope thing - how to lean into the future without assurance of how things will turn out.

5. Aquila - the eagle. He's still there for me. He has lived through so many changes and new versions of me, and still hangs in there. I know his sadnesses and hold them gently. He is like that eagle - very solitary and stern and unique. It's been quite a journey - this marriage. May we have many more years.

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little things and thankfulness

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I could grouse about the continued series of little things that have gone wrong, that end up being something I have to explain. Since I do not throw others under the bus, I hem and haw while protecting my staff. But I am so tired of finding something new everyday.

At the same time I had the Thanksgiving services and my sermon had the point that one can find thankfulness where 'the world' sees only complaint.

so. . .
I am thankful my attachments are being stripped off my e-mail messages, because it means I have a computer.
I am thankful that the mistakes made are only for this week, because next week is a new set of problems.
I am thankful that I have someone else to protect, because it means I have others working with me.

I am thankful I have a 5 hour drive tomorrow, because it means that my in-laws still want to get together and include the outlaws, too.

I am thankful that my husband takes off once a month on the weekends, because it means my husband still can visit his mother.

I am glad that my son is grumpy with me, because it means we're still talking.
I am thankful that we argue about his plans and job-hunting and all that, for the same reason.

I am thankful for:

• Public libraries
• days above freezing
• my partner in ministry
• Little sister and the good work she does in a field that is so esosteric I can't come close to understanding it
• velour sweat pants

Have a blessed Thanksgiving
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are you a . . .

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this is interesting . . .

Your result for Are You a Jackie or a Marilyn? Or Someone Else? Mad Men-era Female Icon Quiz...

You Are a Marilyn!

Hmm?

It's about responsibility, I swear! I was sure I'd be a sensitive Ingrid.
Now, along with Cheesehead in Paradise, I'll really have to worry about my pjs.

I can't get back to the site to copy the rest of the results.
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jangly today

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I'm feeling jangly today - if that's a word. Like my nerves are too sensitive. It's in part because I've been listening a lot, been professionally present, so to speak, and now I'm just stretched out. I'm an introvert, and I've been in those places which took much out of me.

Sometimes being the pastor is okay, and more and more I can roll with the demands. Today it was hard. Not in major ways, but today's issues took me back to CPE (ick!) and the demand of being with someone without answers.

And I can feel it physically, dry eyes and upset tummy and gut and tight muscles. I think it is not just today, but the last few weeks.

Right now I'm at the quiet place an hour or so before the last late worship service of the weekend. Tomorrow the calendar is clear. Maybe I should not say that - because something will happen!

When you know people know you too well. Someone showed up with foot all bandaged up. "What happened?" I asked. "Bunion surgery," she said. "Ooh, " I said, "My doctor has hinted at that for me." Foot-surgery-husband "look at her feet, she's got them on both sides!, both sides of one foot!' A new hazard of being the one in dress shoes - people can see and comment on your feet, on your bunions!

And I'm going to avoid bunion surgery if I can!
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a principle

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I believe I heard this from preaching professor Gaylord Noyce. (that places and dates me, for those of you who recognize the reference!)

'Every sermon is heretical'

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the sheep and the sheep

the original core of my message for Sunday - I'm leaving out the borrowed stories

Yes, the title of this sermon is “the sheep and the sheep”. I wasn’t going to call anyone a goat. In fact, that’s one of the sticking points for me about this story of Jesus’. Who, really, should be called the goats – the folks on the left? Is it for me or you to say? Well, today, let’s think about the sheep. Let’s think about the right hand.

. . . a story or two about seeing Christ in neighbor.


Now us Lutherans, we worry about whether we’re getting convinced that our works will save us. Works don’t save – only Jesus can save. That’s our mantra. And that’s still true, even in this story about the sheep – those who will inherit the kingdom. They are blessed, not because they did the charitable thing (and were proud of it) but because they loved, because they had mercy, because they followed the lowly path of their Lord.

They aren’t inheriting the kingdom because of what they did as much as because of what they saw, how they saw the world around them – especially other people – they saw them as fellow sheep.


The sheep see differently than the goats. Those in need are not a nuisance, but a question. Good things in their own lives are not seen as something to be kept, but as resources to be shared. Their own identity is not about doing the ‘right thing’, it is about being merciful, being open, always relying upon the surprising wideness of God’s mercy, learning daily that they are stewards, not owner, of all they possess.

In these days we are learning a new/old lesson. We have relied, for a time, on the easy ways to be charitable – we have given from our bounty, quite rightly – an example of this has been the interest from endowment funding all sorts of great endeavors. All the sudden that bounty isn’t abounding any more.
Here is the challenge – can we still practice ‘seeing like sheep’ even when our own resources seem smaller? Can we remember our neighbors, our ministry, our outreach, our call to see Christ in the least of these – even in these days when we are anxious and troubled?

. . . another story about sacrificial love for neighbor

Followers of Christ have a heart for those in need. We see Christ in the poor and in the suffering of the world. We see fellow sheep and enter into their need and try to serve them, and something extraordinary happens.


They also see Christ in us! Surprise! “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came too visit me. . . . Just as you did it to these least of these, you did it to me.”

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The ending needs to be improved.

Surprising - after this busy, busy week, sucked into the less significant details and petty feeling-traps of day to day administration - I'm feeling the Spirit in this reflection. This text has always been a difficult one for me - I sense it is so significant for Matthew - really the high point and conclusion, but I have not know what to 'do' with it.

For this time, for this place, this is something they need to hear.

Thank you Lord, for being present for me today.

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