THE OWL'S SONG: Odds and Ends (via Mowser)

Showing posts with label Odds and Ends. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

A Pensive Kind of Day

This morning was just one of those kind of days. I awoke to a glimpse of sunny blue sky and clouds--and to prolonged, insistent meyowling from the cat. Yawn...where is the coffee...oh, no coffee creamer. Well, it's a beautiful day outside.I decided to stop off at church and check the phone and the email and then drive to the town that is three miles away for a cup of McDonald's coffee. I like Ronald's coffee. I dressed and stepped out back to decide if the day called for a sweater. Fall is most definitely arriving in Wisconsin, but no sweater today. Long sleeves will do.

I gave the flowers a quick drink from the hose. Some look all right, but the petunias are getting scraggly. Well, look what popped up right in the middle of them! Where did he come from?

I drove the short distance to the church building.

The sky was wonderful. These are the kind of days that make Cheeseheads glad they live here. It was about 62 degrees or so.

This photo, snapped from my church's back driveway, shows the cornfield across the street, and a corner of the high school. We are as far west as it is possible to be and still be in town. I instantly decided, there was no way I'd stay inside today. I went in the building and checked my messages, took a call from the district superintendent, and grabbed my Bible, a notebook and a pen.

Here is a closer view of the cornfield. I really wasn't taking pictures of the corn stalks. I was trying to get a picture of the sky.

Hopping back in my van, I kicked up a bit of dust exiting our dirt parking lot. Truth be told, I didn't want to see anyone. It was that kind of day.

I drove around McDonald's in the drive-thru circle and then on to a nearby park. I sipped my coffee and sat at the park for a long time, trying to make sense of my life. And failing. And also working on some letters and my sermon, and partly succeeding.

There are roadblocks in front of me that I do not even begin to know how to overcome.
I'm feeling uncertain and a bit powerless. There is so much more I want to do, and time is short.

It seems I am much more aware of time passing, of changes in my face and my body, and my life and those in it, of lost opportunities....that sort of thing...than usual. I don't know if that is good or bad. I suppose it depends on what I do about it.

Monday, September 08, 2008

Meet Sally, My New GPS

My brother in law, Larry, loves his Global Positioning System (GPS). Last year in California he made my husband, Ken, a little crazy by turning the GPS on even when we already knew where we were going. Ken is one of those manly men who never stops to ask for directions. He also has an uncanny ability to find places, and he almost never gets lost. Almost.

I suspect Ken considered it was a sorry state of affairs that a fellow guy took directions from a little box. That's even worse than stopping at a gas station and asking a real live person. Larry was undaunted, and told us he had named his GPS Sophelia, which sounded kind of exotic.

I instantly got a bad case of GPS envy. Those who know me in real life know that I can get lost coming home from the grocery store. I once did that, actually, but it should be said in my defense that we had just moved to a new apartment in a suburb of Washington D.C. I coveted Sophelia, even though she made my man grumpy.

Our son Josh, knowing his mother's uncanny ability to get lost (and probably with a little hint from his long-suffering dad) bought me a GPS for Christmas. I don't know why it took me so long to plug it in. A few weeks ago we planned a short road trip. Ah, a good time to break out the new GPS!

The GPS has a battery but also plugs in to a cigarette lighter. In went the cord, I held the on button down--ta daaa--and Sally came to life for the first time. We named her Sally because it is much easier to say "Where is Sally?" or "What does Sally say?" than to consantly say, "the GPS." Sally is not as exotic as Sophelia. But "Sally says" has a certain rythm, like Simon says. Sally says turn right. Sally says make a legal U turn. Sally thinks taking the country roads is shorter.

Sally has a lovely, well-modulated voice. It's an amazing voice, for a computer. She also never gets rattled or frustrated or cross. I asked my beloved what he thinks Sally looks like. I mean, what is the face that goes with that voice? He shook his head and he left the room without answering.

Well, Sally has a face. It looks rather like this one. She is very professional, attractive but not sleazy, calm, assured, unruffled. Not like me when I am trying to find my way around unfamiliar places. Not at all.

It is amazing that Sally knows where I am anytime I push the on button. Also kind of frightening. Big Brother (uh, Sister?) is up there in the sky, you know?

But Sally sounds helpful but harmless. Reassuring. Even when I ignore her directions and go the way I choose instead, she just calmly tells me she is recalculating my route.

Much 2 Ponder and I are known for getting lost when in the same vehicle. She may have even a worse sense of direction than I do. No more! We have Sally!

ROAD TRIP!

Remember Psalm 32:8? "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye."

You know what I think? I think Sally might be a tool of the Holy Spirit in my life!
;-).

Monday, August 11, 2008

August Wildflowers

This time of year reminds us of how people manage to put up with Wisconsin winters. August has been beautiful so far with mild days of mostly low humidity and cool nights. The corn that did not get washed out in the spring rain is tall and tasseling. The farmers who did get flooded out planted soybeans, one of the lovliest crops in the country. A close look at this field will reveal corn stalks sticking up in the soybean plants. Well, I guess not every corn stalk was killed by over watering!

If you look closely between the tree branches you will see the doe and fawn in the meadow.

We decided to try to get some seed pods from the abundance of wildflowers that are lining our roadsides and blooming in ditches. Queen Anne's Lace (I love the stuff) is everywhere, and alongside are purple and yellow blossoms I can't identify.

When we came home we tossed seeds down the hill towards our little creek. We will see if any grew when next summer comes around.

Thursday, July 31, 2008

One of the "Pals" in RevGalBlogPals

As one who has been affected many times over by family members diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease, and especially because of my beloved late sister, Darlaine, I'm asking a favor. Please visit Confesions of a Lutheran Husker. Read the post, say a prayer for him and his sweet mom, and then help him out. Thank you.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The Owl's Kitchen

I forgot to mention that I started a new blog. Partly it is for me to keep my favorite recipes easy to find. Partly it is to share. I'm always looking for a good recipe! You are welcome to visit, make a comment, try a recipe--or share one of your own.

Here is where you will find it: THE OWL'S KITCHEN.

The picture is of my daughter and me (and Trinity, about a month before she saw the light of day) in my kitchen.

IF you tried the link and it was broken, try again. I fixed it.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

We are back from MO. Our rear ends are a bit sore from long hours driving home. All in all, it was a really good conference.We heard from several of our AG leaders, all good, and Alton Garrison (our new assistant general superintendent) was terrific and very funny (to my surprise). I am so happy with our present leadership and have great hope for needed fresh perspective and change. One might not think so, considering that our leadership is not young--but their vision, passion, and insight was so refreshing. We were encouraged and challenged. We ate too much southern food. We heard and we sang lots of good music. We did not sleep all that well. Oh yeah, we hung out with chaplains and their spouses. It is always interesting to do that.

The crowd at the AG chaplain's conference is unusual in terms of both genders being represented among the ministers present, racial diversity (black, white, Asian, Pakistani, Hispanic and others), and the banquet is always fun in terms of dress. The military chaplains turn out in their dress uniforms, the rodeo chaplains wear cowboy hats, the biker chaplains wear leather vests and boots--the only ordinary-looking chaplains are usually the health care or corrections people. It is a rather remarkable group of unusual, wonderful, dedicated folks who often are isolated, unheralded and unknown (except to God).

The first night, Ken wore my favorite tee shirt. Hee hee!

We have heard some very interesting comments about this shirt. Just for fun, here are two from a while back--and they are remarkable in how they demonstrate that a woman minister is apparently an impossibility in some minds:

Two young men stood behind us in a restaurant line. They did not realize we could hear them as they discussed the shirt at length. Eventually one said, "Well, I'm just completely confused. Do you think he is saying he's gay?" (This in spite of the fact that the two of us were holding hands.)

A realtor was showing us a model home and she kept glancing at the shirt with obvious puzzlement and curiosity. Finally she asked, 'Uh, so which one of you is the preacher?" I managed not to say, "Did you READ the shirt?"

This trip, someone came up behind Ken and said, "So I take it you aren't Baptist?" LOL! At least that made some sense. (Sorry, all my wonderful egalitarian Baptist buds.)

This picture is me (the round one with her eyes almost closed) and Amy Maxwell (the tiny, young one): wife, mommy of two, seminarian at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, blogger, fellow REV GAL, and Army chaplain in the making. Isn't she cute? We ate (sorta) Mexican food at Chipotle and talked for over two hours. We could have talked longer. It was so nice to meet you, Amy! You can visit her at Gentle Whisper.com.

This morning I visited my mom in the nursing home. I took along a vanilla shake, knowing she loves sweets and also knowing that she is growing dangerously thin. She drank the whole thing, but it took about an hour of help and coaxing. I am frightned to see that swallowing is getting almost impossible for her. I'm not really sure she knew who I was. Then I was off to my church office to open mail and answer phone messages. While I was away a single mom and her baby were in a horrific auto accident that could well have been fatal. She blacked out, hit a post, rolled over once or twice and then hit a culvert and flipped end over end three times! The car is totalled, but mom and baby are all right. I hear that yesterday fourteen teenagers headed off to camp, and a phone call today let me know that good things are already happening there.

Thanks be to God--life goes on and among all of it we are assured of the presence of the Holy Spirit.

Oh, I almost forgot! I LOVE my new GPS! Much2Ponder, we will never be lost again! Woo Hoooo!

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Heading to MO

Today I'm cleaning, taking the cat to the vet, taking my mom (and her broken glasses) to the ey doc, finishing laundry and packing a suitcase. Ken and I are leaving early tomorrow to drive to Springfield, MO (know as "Mecca" by AG preachers) to attend the Assemblies of God Chaplain's Convention. This year's agenda looks good. I may post some from Springfield, but not certain, so I'll post when I get back.

I have not forgotten about the "Husband as Head" series.

Have a good week, everyone.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Rev Gal Blog Pals is Three Years Old Today

Three years ago today, a group of women preachers began a webring, opened a cafepress store with t shirts and mouse pads and stuff (the mouse pad is shown above), and started a communal blog. In honor of this auspicious occasion I have taken the liberty of penning ~~an ode, a sonnet, a poem~~ okay I'll call it a limerick to celebrate Rev Gal Blog Pals. I've met preachers and their friends from many denominations and walks of life. I've shared joy and heartache (both mine and others) rethought some of my assumptions (some I discarded and some I kept), and found friends.

Three years ago today,
RevGals was on it's way,
The preachin' gals,
And preacher's pals,
Made history that day!

The blogs are fun to do,
The Preacher's Party too,
And Friday Five and all that jive,
Give us a place to play!

We gripe and pray and blog,
And sometimes go whole hog,
With cyber parties, real ones too,
There's always something new!

So Happy Birthday, Gals,
And Happy Birthday, Pals,
Three years today--Hip hip hurray!
It is a party day!

Friday, July 11, 2008

"She's So Artistic" Award

To my great surprise, Diane at "Faith in Community" gave me an award for being artistic. Isn't it a thing of beauty?? Thank you, Diane. I'd better get moving on awarding my own statues, because a pick or two that I had in mine got snagged by someone else first.

This coveted award comes with responsibility (figures, doesn't it? ;-) )! I must post and adhere to the following rules.

1) Pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte Y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award -- which is here: Arte Y Pico.

My picks are in no particular order of preference:

My first pick is "Much 2 Ponder" someone I know well in my real life. Our church building has lettering and artwork on several walls that she created for us. A pencil drawing of the two of us hangs on the wall behind me. Her blog, "In Case You Were Wondering" is mostly about her journey with God, and she manages to find the most wonderful images to add to her posts. I don't know what she uses for search words, but the visual illustrations she finds are always powerful.

Late to Life is Jules' blog. Jules has an amazing and powerful testimony--and I just realized that she doesn't link to it on this (a new) blog . Well, her words are thoughtful and truthful and down-to-earth and her photographs of nature are simply astounding. She posts many of them with her blog posts, but if you click on "Who is Jules" you can then click on the link to her photography blog. Her photography is absolutely not to be missed!

Sally blogs at Eternal Echoes. I suspect someone may have given her this award already, but she deserves to get it twice! She lives in the UK, so my chances of meeting her in person are slim, but this is a woman I'd love to sit and walk with for hours. She is wise, honest, open about her struggles, and a deeply spiritual woman, IMO. Along with blog posts, Sally posts great music and pictures and poems and reflections. Some are from others and some are her own.

Presbyterian Gal should be published, and I hope that one day she will be. Her blog is funny and interesting, and if you go there you can click on her story emporium and read some of her stuff! P.G. can write!

If any of you folks have already been awarded this lovely statue, my apologies. If you have two, however, you can use them as bookends!

UPDATE: I don't know what happened, but Proclaiming Softly fell off the post. I intended to give her an award for her "other" blog, Lady of Imaginative Sewing, where she shows us some wonderful odds and ends of creativity. I love her quilts. Check out the nasturtiums!

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

On the Lighter Side--Books, Books, Books! Okay, some are Heavy!

I copied this from Iris. This is from something called 'The Big Read' from the NEA. They came up with a list of their top 100 books, and they estimate that the average adult has only read 6 of these books. I will highlight the ones I've read. Cut and paste into your blog and let us know which you've read. And then maybe hop over to Amazon or take a trip to Barnes and Noble for some summer reading material.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks1
8 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Forty four for me. Not bad! Still, some of these I've always wanted to read and haven't. Some I tried to read and couldn't get into. Some I've never heard of. Some I read, and they were good, but not even close to being what I'd considerworthy of inclusion in the the top 100. About five absolutely do NOT belong on a list of the 100 best books. (Dan Brown? Who are they kidding? That's a bad joke.) And some are not included that absolutely should be. (What? No Mark Twain?) Absolutely not to be missed book from this list? Watership Down.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Scott McKnight's Hermeneutics Quiz

Long ago and far away at Trintiy Bible College, on the windswept praries of North Dakota, Hermeneutics was my favorite class...taught by Dr. James Hernando...and I got a B and I was not happy about it...and...well:

Here is a quiz that might shed a bit of light on your view of scriptural interpretation. I scored a 56 which puts me in the "moderate" camp.

No surprise! Middle of the road....on everything...to a fault...that's me. I have no idea if that is good or bad.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

A Little Bit of Spring

Earlier it was raining and I heard a clap of thunder. Now the sun is out and it is almost 70. However, I am expecting an ice storm any time now. That is because this morning I started my winter clothes annual migragion from my closet to the basement.

It was a brash move, but life is not worth living without some risk in it, don't you agree?

Here are a few indications that spring has indeed sprung at last here in Wisconsin.

My Christmas cactus (which actually bloomed at Thanksgiving, as usual) got confused. I guess it was so joyful at the sun coming through its window that it managed to push out one flower in celebration of spring's return.

I picked the pussy willow branches to add to a spring boquet on the altar table.

Here is a close up.

And outside my office window the daffodills and the tulips are FINALLY about to pop!

Friday, April 18, 2008

Banging Away at Nothing

I had a disconcerting thought this morning. My husband came in the bedroom and said, "You have got to come outside and see this."

An across-the-street neighbor has an older car that is decorated with a wide chrome strip that extends the length of both front and rear doors. A robin stood next to the car, very still, eyeing the chrome, and then us as we watched from a distance. Then he went back to gazing at his image in the chrome.

"Clink!" Up he hopped, wings flapping, to give the intruder a hard peck on the noggin. He fell back to the ground. More eyeing..."Clink!" Back to the ground.

Mr. Robin must have been a little confused, because (after a head shake) he stoodl very still and quiet for about a minute.

Flap flap flap! "Clink!"

We grinned at the foolish and feisty Mr. Robin, and then grinned at each other as we exchanged a few comments about the nature of animals (and people) who are "twitterpated" in the spring.

Later the thought came to me that perhaps I sometimes look like that to God. Does God watch me as I foolishly waste time and anger and defensiveness and energy on some false image of what is real? Do I hop and look important and peck -- only to get a dizzy head?

All too often, I am afraid this is so.

God must wonder at me sometimes, seeing how I don't notice that what I'm fighting is just a shadow of the real enemy.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Celtic Woman

Last night a friend and I went to see Celtic Woman (I always thought it was women, but it's woman.)

It was beautiful. Beautiful lighting, costumes, voices, dancing, instruments, arrangements, settings. Any word I use to describe the show will sound campy and cliche, but I will just say it was wonderful, earthy, ethereal, transporting, graceful, uplifting, moving, stirring....oh, I'll stop. If you love or even vaguely like Celtic music, or you like amazing vocals, lighting, drumming....well, if this show comes to your area, you do not want to miss it.

They were great. Go see them.

Monday, June 27, 2005

Bah!

I don't like anonymous notes. I throw them in the trash, and I like to pretend that they don't bother me. I've received two or three over the last five years.

One particularly uncomplimentary one addressed to me was left on an offering envelope for the ushers to see as they counted money. Wow!

Today I found one on my desk. "Pastor, don't wait till they are ready. Set a standard. They need to be fed." Hmmm. What does that mean, I wonder? They? Not we. Perhaps the note writer feels disconnected from the rest of us.

Or perhaps he or she, being spirituality fat already, does not need to be fed? Oooh, pride. Bleech. The implication is that no one is being fed spiritually by the sermons, I suppose.

Perhaps the person thought I would strike my forehead and say, "Aha! I need to feed them? Why didn't someone tell me? Thank GOD and hallelujah for the wisdom of the brief words on this anonymous slip of paper!"

Phooey! Anonymous notes usually come from cowards. And they never make me change what I'm doing. But they sure do make me crabby.

Wednesday, May 25, 2005

I've done it!

I've joined the ranks of bloggers. Now I'll have to think of something to say! Hmmm....never been a problem so far.

THE OWL'S SONG