Hey Jason C!

Did you guys see that Jason Clark asked me how I thought emergent should proceed in the future? He did, just check it out in the comments below. So nice! Thanks Jase.

I should say too, that I have been invited to be a part of the Emergent planning group. (Thanks Bob Carlton.) I just couldn’t afford the travel…and truthfully, I don’t know how much energy I can/should give to the organization because I know organizing the emergent types out there is not my primary call. I’m listening though, to see if and how I should be inovled as things move foward towards the 07 gathering.

Anyway, I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I have a … {read more…}

Last week, Catie, who is five, came running in from school saying: “Mommy! Do you know what? It was NOT Martin Luthe King Jr. who got the slaves free! It was a GIRL! It was Harriet Tubman!”

Ah….my little feminist.

I caught Catie up on the difference between the underground railroad in the late 1800’s and the civil rights movement of the mid 1900’s. She’s only in kindergarten — time is sort of relative. But I think she get’s it now.

The next day Eden came home and narrarated the life of Dr. King to me. She didn’t stop talking the whole time we walked from our house to the library (10 blocks) and back.

Apparently it’s time for MLK lessons … {read more…}

Emerging Women You Should Know:
(off the top of my head, in no particular order at 1am)

Claudia Burney
(beautiful black woman with plenty of chutzpha becomes an eastern orthodox convert — who wouldn’t want to read?)

Liz Rios
(sassifrass jones with a good education and a wicked key pad)

Kelly Bean
(alas, she doesn’t have a blog. but she does have a community that she’s been hosting — unpaid, unordained, and unrecoginzed — for 7+ years)

Deborah Lloyd
(mama bear of a church for street youth in portland, plus a big ole’ fat degree from a seminary that doesn’t think women should be ordained — plus great platnium dread locks and grandkids.)

Maggi Dawn http://maggidawn.typepad.com/maggidawn/
(the godmother of bloggers, highly educated british brain with … {read more…}

I get several emails a week from folks wanting to know about the Emergent Church, postmodernity, Monkfish Abbey, and what-the-hell-is-an-Abbess. A while back I got an query from a fellow, Scott Collins, who was working on a paper on “Women and the Emergent Church.” I finally got around to answering the poor guy, who’s email had gotten lost in the shuffle. My delayed answer is probably not going to do him one iota of academic good, but it I did spend quite a bit of time typing it, and it’s not a bad assessment, if I do say so myself.

As regular readers know, I do get tired of debating these things on line, but every once in awhile … {read more…}

You know, I was going to write this great post about being a priest and a prophet in the post-modern reformation, complete with quotes from Peterson, scripture references from Jeremiah, and some back up from the lessons of history. But you know what? I don’t want to spend the next two days debating my point.

Instead, I think I’ll just celebrate actual stuff that happened in kingdom today…at least in the tiny part I live in. ‘Cuz all that theory, sure, it’s important, but it’s where the rubber meets the road that it really matters. So here’s what happened today in the kingdom that lies on the edge of Fremont and Wallingford…

…a friend stood in her own power and made … {read more…}

Tonya meme’d me yesterday. I have no idea what that word means, but I get that I’m supposed to answer questions. So here they go:

Seven Things to Do Before I Die:

1. learn to surf
2. write a book
3. be with someone at their passing
4. be that mentor-y type person who changed someone’s life
5. prep my girls for a successful relationship-and-sex life
6. live in another country temporarily
7. do right by the people I love

Seven Things I Cannot Do:

1. anything requiring precision
2. percentages
3. stuff involving computer snafus
4. learn new technical processes quickly
5. focus on one passion at a time
6. keep a clean house
7. sew

Seven Things that Attract Me to My Husband [romantic interest, best friend, whomever]:
1. political and theological ballsyness
2. … {read more…}

Way back when, I started what I said was going to be a series on all the little altars we’ve built–mostly unententionally–around the house. You can read about Recovering She, and the Backyard Mad/Sad Altar, and our altar for Sudan. This little altar is about to be put away, so I thought I’d memorialize it before it goes. I think these things sort of have a life cycle and this one has come to an end –maybe forever, maybe just for awhile

A couple of months ago we did the Artist’s Way at Monkfish. It took a bit of focus, the AW, and … {read more…}

By this light shall I come to know that you,
Eternal Trinity,
Are table
And food
And water to us.

-Catherine of Sienna

October 31, 2005

Last night I was very sad. It was my birthday and I wanted to be petted and celebrated. But for the past couple of decades I’ve been telling people that I don’t need a big deal made out of my birthday, that it doesn’t really matter. So they didn’t. But it does.

In the midst of my sadness I decided that I needed a date with a holy place. So I came to the chapel of St. Ignatius–serene, artfully serene in a way that only taste and money can accomplish. The only thing that disturbs me about this beautiful place is the … {read more…}

When teaching a session on missional church at, say, Generous Orthodoxy East, avoid using the term “goddess.” As in: I can’t wait to go to the Solstice Feast this Winter because I’m going to get to be a blessing goddess.

This does not go over well.

At least one person is bound to be slightly shaky with concern. “Would you actually be a goddess? Would people understand that the blessing was coming from GOD or would they think it was coming from a goddess? Aren’t you worried about misrepresenting yourself? ”

It will be very difficult to extricate yourself from this situation, and you will most likely not realize in time that all you really need to do is clarify your … {read more…}

I just went and looked at some office space in a building near my home. It’s in an old schoolhouse called the Wallingford Center. It’s a small space with no natural light, but it has big windows and doors opening into the interior courtyard, and enough room for an office and some classroom/studio space. It’s been empty six months. I have no idea what the leasing price is, but I called the agent and left a message.

It would be nice, wouldn’t it, to have a place to teach classes on art journaling for the soul? A place to see my friends play music while people ate my neighbor’s chocolates. A place for Helene to offer dance lessons, and for … {read more…}