We decided to read over dinner last night. Sometimes, in our effort to be a neo-monastic order, we like to pretend we are monks and we read over dinner. I was going to read something moody and King James sounding from Kahil Gibran’s Jesus Son of Man, but I went with Ashes to Alvin by Anne Lamott instead. (Did I mention she saved my life by publishing Operating Instructions? I swear to God I would not have made it through my first year of parenting with out her.) After reading, and after a bowl of tomato lentil soup with feta and basalmic vinegar, we lit a candle on our menorah. Yes, our menorah. My parents gave … {read more…}

For those few who asked, here’s a picture of our shrine. I wrote about it in We Be Primitive People. Iz and Em went to India last year and they totally dug that every house had a shrine. Even the Christian houses had Jesus shrines. So one of the first things we did as a crew together at ThPM was to make this dresser-drawer shrine. We think it’s cool.

Plus we just like see the expressions we get when we use the word shrine.

Our first Lenten Meditation is on line. (Thank you Mike LaJoie, webmaster, and Craig Morrsion, artist.) Give us a pause and let us know what comes to you….

After 16 hours at the Off the Map Coaching Clinic and Road Show, I feel like I’ve been hit by a tank. So many amazing people to talk to! Some of the conversation around the table was less “meaty” than I had hoped. But a lot of it was really helpful, and I had GREAT one-one-one conversations all day and throughout the evening, so it was totally worth the $200 I spent in babysitting money that day. Oh, and what fun music! Harp 46 sounded the best I’ve ever heard them, delighting the crowd with this totally unique syncopated percussion rift; and Jim ripped it up with his blues band. Who knew the guy had those pipes? … {read more…}

At our cake tasting this weekend Aleece booked 5 cakes and got a fist full of great leads. Just got off the phone with my awesome pal-and-web-guy Mike LaJoie and he’s going to to get our Lenten Meditations up on line by Wednesday. My five year old daughter woke me up this weekend by kissing each of my finger tips and saying, “You’re my treasure Mama.” Tomorrow I get to meet a bunch of new people at the Off the Map Road Show. My husband just bought me tons of tulips and irises and roses so that there is at least one flower in every room of my house and it smells like roses when I go to sleep.

Life … {read more…}

I’m trying not to get angry these days, but I’m not doing a very good job at it. (I’ve already apologized to Andrew.) So I thought, instead of ranting I might start a sort of ongoing education campaign. Here’s the first edition.

1. We don’t like being called girls. At least not in public settings. It’s usually passable if we’re just hanging out, you know, having a beer. But from the pulpit, or in a workshop, or in an article, or even on a blog, you should probably go with “women.” (I have a friend who uses “chicks.” When we’re having a Guiness together, I find it totally endearing. But I’d hate to see what would happen to him if … {read more…}

“The first altar around which primitive people worshipped was the hearth, whose open-fire burned in the center of the home. The next altar-shrine was the family table where meals were celebrated and great events in the personal history of the family were remembered. The priest and priestessess of these first rituals were the fathers and mothers of families…Each home had a shrine, its special sacred spot, where family members gathered in times of trouble and in times of rejoicing and in remembering, there to bless their God with song and praise.” Prayers for the Domestic Church, Edward Hays (via Circle of Grace: Praying with and For your Children, Gregory and Suzanne Wolfe)

Did I mentione that we have a shrine? our … {read more…}

Last week at ThPM was an in between week. We had finished our New Year’s examen (looking at our greatest area of consolation and desolation in 2003), and we weren’t quite at Lent yet. I had a few topics bouncing around in my head and figured I’d develop one of them sometime during the week.

Then my kids got sick. Both of them. With strep throat. There was NO working last week.

So I did what any emerging pastor would do. I punted. I literally threw all of my ideas into a pot, plus a few others that I culled from the group while we cleaned the kitchen after dinner. The result? Sort of an extended “Friday Five.” Here were our … {read more…}

Someone in my house has been sick for the past two weeks. Today (and for the past few days) it has been me. We have not slept through the night without someone coughing since ….. a week ago Monday?

I feel beat down.

This always happens when my family gets sick. I used to tell my staff I thought we were “under attack.” Then someone on staff (Michael?) said, “You say that every winter.” So now I think it’s not a demon, it’s just flu season.

Anyway, I miss work and and feel like I’m forgetting stuff. My in-laws are here, and it’s no fun for them to be in a house of people who are carrying the plauge. Eden is … {read more…}

Last week, as folks were leaving ThPM, Sean mentioned how most pomo churches or house groups or whatever tended to place an emphasis on contemplative practices. Lots of them pray the hours. Friends of ThPM are into the labyrinth. We talk about and practice forms of centering prayer and meditation. Most art-based events that we host of visit have some form of meditation incorporated into them. He was wondering about where that connection comes from. And he (and I) were wondering about what to do for those folks for whom cotemplative practice don’t scratch where it’s itching.

I’ve got some ideas about the former (ancient/future connections and all that stuff) but not the latter. Anyone out there in cyberland what … {read more…}