A GtNG meme

File under: meme

FIVE PLACES YOU HAVE LIVED:
1. Philadelphia, PA
2. Middletown, VA
3. Colonial Heights, VA
4. Narberth, PA
5. Fairfax, VA

FIVE THINGS YOU WERE DOING TEN YEARS AGO:
1. Living with Justin in Charlottesville
2. Getting a divorce
3. Driving buses for a living
4. Majoring in Anthropology at UVA
5. Fighting for custody of my son

FIVE THINGS YOU LIKE TO SNACK ON:
1. ice cream
2. cedar’s hummus and pita chips
3. pie
4. chips and pico de gallo
5. pizza

FIVE SONGS YOU KNOW THE WORDS TO:
1. The entire catalog of pre-1992 U2
2. Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran)
3. Kids in America (Kim Wilde)
4. The Mummer’s Dance (Loreena McKennitt)
5. Talk To Me (Peter Gabriel)

FIVE THINGS YOU WOULD DO WITH A MILLION DOLLARS:
1. buy a house
2. send future mister to college
3. send DS to college
4. fix up house
5. fix up car

FIVE THINGS YOU WOULD NEVER WEAR AGAIN:
1. black lipstick
2. size 6
3. a drugstore brand of foundation
4. large-gauge earrings
5. platform boots, alas

FIVE BAD HABITS:
1. stacking stuff on horizontal surfaces
2. not putting my clothes in the laundry basket
3. accumulating handbags
4. futzing with my cat’s paws
5. procrastinating

FIVE THINGS YOU ENJOY DOING:
1. knitting
2. driving on country roads
3. photography
4. baking
5. blogsurfing

FIVE FAVORITE TOYS:
1. the borrowed iBook
2. library card
3. the dvd player
4. a kitchenaid stand mixer, which will be the first thing on my wedding registry since I don’t have one right now
5. knitting needles

WNC: Event Video Archives

WNC: Event Video Archives

Well, well. All the nifty events I’ve missed at the National Cathedral are right here. Future mister, in particular, you’ll want to take a look at this:

Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat-Zinn and Thomas Keating, with Lynn Neary
Meditation on the Move: From Monastery to Lab to Main Street
November 11, 2005

RevGalBlogPals: RevGal Friday Five: So Long, Farewell

File under: friday-five, meme

RevGalBlogPals: RevGal Friday Five: So Long, Farewell:

1. How do you say goodbye to someone you will see again soon?
Depends on who it is. With the future mister and ds, it tends to be “love you!” and for ds, “see you this/next weekend” tends to go with it. “See ya!” or “Talk to you soon!” for just about everyone else, I think.

2. What is your favorite foreign word for ‘goodbye?’

3. Have you ever planned a special farewell for someone, or had one planned for you?
When I left Temple University, they had a going away party for me that touched me deeply just.. because.

4. What is the hardest goodbye you have had to say?
Not involving a death? It was a metaphorical goodbye, in a way. To Justin, an ex-boyfriend I still love dearly, when I realized I had to let him go.

Involving a death? Saying goodbye to my grandmother at her 1999 funeral.

5. What is the most romantic goodbye you have seen in a movie?
Gosh, I dunno. I mostly watch science fiction-y stuff, so it’s likely I’ll say something kinda Joss Whedon-oriented, but that’s technically television. And I honestly am drawing a complete blank, because romance, for me, is tension, and so goodbyes tend to be unhappy ones.

And a Bonus question for Musical Theatre geeks: Which Von Trapp child would you like to be in ‘So Long, Farewell?'”

I want to be the director, so… Maria!

The Listening Files.

An ongoing theme in my work lately—my vocational work, that is—is that of listening. It came up last night while I filled Fr. Jim in on all the directions I feel pulled, including toward ministry. There was so much to talk about, largely because I had never had a chance to talk to him about, well, me, and the more self-absorbed side of me enjoys nothing more.

As a result, I have to be conscious of listening, even to listen. I’m one of those people whose ability to empathize rests solely in my ability to connect your experience to something I’ve experienced, and if you’re not savvy in the ways of dealing with people like me you’d mistake us for being utterly self-absorbed because we always have to make everything about us. But no, that just our way of connecting, and while it might be a bit graceless, it doesn’t lack grace.

I struggle to listen. Sometimes it’s struggling to listen to, and sometimes it’s struggling to listen for. It doesn’t help that I’m going deaf. (Children, wear your earplugs at loud rock shows. Every time. Like brushing and flossing.)

I stopped by the library on the way home and picked up a book by Phyllis Tickle. She is one of those folks who, as I suspect and Jim confirmed, lives out her vocation in much the same way that I think I am called to do. He also recommended Nora Gallagher, whose work I have not read, and Anne Lamott, whose “Plan B” was probably not what I should have started with. But I don’t know that he was recommending that I read them; he was just identifying how I might live out my call.

Here are the things I have to remember from last night’s meeting:
1. Pray.
1a. Listen.
2. Meditate.
2a. Listen.
3. Keep writing.
3a. Listen.
4. Develop circles of trust.
4a. Listen.
5. Listen.
5a. Discern.

I have a whole lotta listening to go on. I have never been terribly good at it, but getting good takes practice, right?

I like the Revealer.

I find myself reading the Revealer more and more often, and one of the things I feel I should draw attention to is that regardless of what is happening in the ECUSA, I will always sit on the left of the fundie camp.

Sam Brownback Is A Fruit
02 February 2006

On biblical literacy, bigotry, the price of grain, real estate in Tbilisi, free market cheetahs, and the secret work of committees.

By Jeff Sharlet

Although he’s firmly opposed to both homosexuality and crude slurs such as “fruit,” Senator Sam Brownback won’t mind me saying he is one. That’s because the senator uses the word in the biblical sense — as in the results by which you shall know the merit of an idea or the character of a person. Brownback, the most ambitious — and maybe most powerful — religious conservative in U.S. politics, is one of the fruits by which we can evaluate the health of democracy in America.

Read the whole thing:
The Revealer: Sam Brownback Is A Fruit

I see my shadow

Gallycat’s Abbey – February 2nd 2003

Candlemas has a very special meaning to me, because it happens to be the day I came back to faith. It was very wobbly and shaky at first.

I thought to write a reflection, but I feel like what I wrote on the day it happened is enough.

Happy third birthday, little light of mine.

Update: I’ll be at the Candlemas service at St. Paul’s, K St. tonight. Also, I’ve started a blog for DC events that I find interesting over at progfaithdc.