The funny thing with these projects (and I swear I need to actually just start planning on them) is that something else big ussually goes kablooie while we are in the midst of the big project.  Last time our stove died AND our bathroom wall fell down.  This time, our kitchen cabinets fell apart.  So we are getting a new kitchen too... although we will have plywood instead of counters and no upper cabinets.  Those will have to come later.

This whole thing would have been really fun if it were not for me getting a sinus infection and the husband having the mail server die at work, resulting in a 70 hr work week.  Thank goodness fro friends and family!!!

www.creativeprayer.com is still my ginormous catalog of contemplative prayer stations for others to use.

www.tangledlifestudios.com is now the home for all my art work, including some prints of my collages that are available for sale.

This site is now the home of my blog.  I moved over some of my stuff from my old LiveJournal account for my own records.  I hope to use this site as a place to park my musings, rants, and random moments of wonder (as stated above) as well as keeping track of cool things I see and hear.

Here are some of my thoughts so far:

In our culture is seems Marriage is a process, not an event. There are many things that play a part in people becoming married. Shared life, shared economics, shared bodies, shared commitment, covenant (a deeper level of shared commitment?), legal contracts, communal acknowledgment/celebration. Any one of these alone is not a marriage. But the more of these you add into a relationship, the more married the couple becomes.

People coming to a pastor to "get married" may already be married in every aspect save one. Others may be barely married at all. For some the marriage process is very quick, and others it takes much longer. It also seems to be the cultural norm to not complete this process (what ever that may mean) until a couple is in their late twenties and early thirties. Furthermore, many who have gone through divorce tend to opt out of some of these parts (most often ceremonies and the legal contract... especially since the legal contract happens automatically to some degree once a couple has been co-habitating for more than 7 years) when entering into a new "marriage relationship". You can pick and choose which pieces suit your relationship best.

This is just how it is.... it is the cultural norm. But at what point does a couple move from becoming married to actually married? And does it matter in what order it all happens? Or if something I listed is missing? Or how fast or slow it all comes together? So what is the job of the pastor? What is the purpose of pre-marriage counseling (if there is such a thing if marriage is process rather than an event)?

As to the first question, I think the larger culture would say it is the legal contract that makes it official... but that answer seems to confuse the church. And for good reason. Maybe it is not so much about the order in which people intertwine themselves but that all the vital pieces eventually get added int the mix to make the marriage healthy and whole.

Perhaps it is the pastors job to call people deeper into the reality of marriage that God intended for us, as a reflection of the trinity (perfect love in community), and a sacrament of Grace and Love.... even in our brokenness and failure.

I also am thinking that this will be a messy issue for the church to deal with as culture slowly continues to remove itself from Christendom. Once again the church is needing to let go of more power... power to forbid people from behaving a certain way (and having it socially backed up), power to deem who is married and who is not (and having it legally backed up), power to say how people should order their relationships.... and the list goes on. Its messy and complicated and anything but obvious.

But there is one thing that does seems obvious to me: Disciples of Jesus (Christians) will need to wrestle with what intimacy, promise, commitment, covenant and marriage actually mean and what it looks like on an every day level. Marriage betwene Christians may be radically counter cultural... which will then require that we figure out how to be that way without judging and condemning others. It may end up that the larger cultural norm is not necessarily un-biblical (read: evil *snicker*) and therefor we just have to let go of some old ways of thinking that are more cultural than they are actually christian. I don't know, maybe its a little of both.

I didn't have a clue why God had me in Seminary when I started. I was just along for the ride, loving the deep conversations with others and the wonder that kept coming as I studied.

Then last summer, I started getting a clue. God is being gentle with me though, even though my reactions are anything but. It started last summer while at a conference (for a class) that I picked only because one of the speakers is one of my favorite teachers of all time. At the end of the conference there was this profound moment when they asked us to stand and extend our open hands. Anything we needed to let go of, release, submit, etc... we were invited to release to God.

Now, up until this time, when anyone would ask me what I would do with a Masters of Divinity I would answer; "I don't know yet, but I probably won't be a Pastor/Reverend/Minister or anything." At that moment as I was standing up, I knew I was supposed to let go of the second part of that explanation. I lifted my hands and imagined letting that phrase drop. Enter my first temper-tantrum. After the communion ritual I crawled under my folding seat (a spot ridiculously too small) and I bawled.

I spent the following few weeks reasoning to myself that just because I have to stop saying I won't be a Preacher doesn't mean I automatically will be a Preacher. In fact, maybe the only reason I was to let that second part go was because I was trying to control something that I don't have a clue about.... the future! That's it. Moving on.

The fall semester went by with out a hick-up. But first thing this spring, in my reconciliation class, I get waylaid. Its amazing how a gentle whisper can open a ginormous can of worms. I promptly implode. The short of it is that for an assignment I was asked to do a prayer meditation with art concerning something in myself that I was not reconciled with. I sat, staring at the drawing of the chair (don't ask) and I knew what I had to write across the top of it in big bold letters. "Why I can't be a Pastor." I don't know why that came to mind... well, I do, in that I believe God's Spirit works from the inside out sometimes... but seriously! Can we say left field!!! But the second I wrote it down the reasons came flooding out of me. Some of them legit, some not so much. Some just plain stupid. But sometimes you can't help stupid.

Thus began my very mature reaction to the why of Seminary... I promptly stuck my fingers in my ears and started singing Lah... Lah... Lah... I CAN"T HEAR ANYTHING!!! at the top of my lungs. This has been going on for the last 4 months. Its exhausting. Funny things is the war is with myself, not God. Truth be told, I would LOVE to be a Preacher! To study and put together a teaching on the amazing, hope filled, wonder inducing, redemption stories in the Bible set my soul on fire. I can't help but tell others about what I learn! Its feels right in my bones. Worse still, I don't' know that I could NOT teach. I find it leaking out of me in the random-est places too. To be able to stand up once a week in front of people and be like; "Dude! Did you know...." or "You won't believe how many layers this story has!" would so totally rock!

Other things have happened too. Personal growth that deals with the ugly and fear in my deepest parts. Things that were all tangled up (and still are, and may always be) with what "I am going to be when I grow up." I know God is calling me into something that is perfect for who I am and who I am becoming. But its another thing to ruthlessly trust and to step into that.

So, I am beginning to practice saying out loud that I might become a pastor. Its really hard. Ridiculously hard. As in, I insert more mights, maybes and perhaps' then anything else when talking about it. I break out in a sweat from how hard it is not to hedge around it all.  And I can't look people in the eye when I say it either.

Now, I really can't say that is what I will do.... become a pastor. But I have to admit that it is a huge possibility. A good, and exciting possibility. But then, there is also the possibility that I end up working at a shoe store (or some other awful place) and never really understand why God sent me to Seminary... which although is far less scary would also be pathetically boring. I don't like boring.

I have been doing some very difficult, very deep, soul work for a little while now.... so focused that I really haven't been to aware of the world around me. Easter came and went with no significance, no joy, no meaning. We didn't even go worship with our community this year (although that had more to do with the weather and a visiting friend). And then yesterday, I went for some massage therapy (this is the kind of massage that leaves you sore and achy afterward... not all pampered) and the woman giving me the massage said something that just washed over me.

We were talking about the soul work I am doing and a few other things and then she busts this out: "Well! It is resurrection season after all!" Now, this is coming from someone whom I am guessing is Buddhist.... err, maybe, because she seems rather eclectic in her religious interests. Regardless, it surprised me and it was wonderful. It is resurrection time. It is the season of new and intense growth! And its good. Perhaps I will survive, and maybe even thrive. Yeay Jesus.

Way back at the beginning of all this I took the Myers and Briggs test for one of my classes and the teacher was actually trained and knowledgeable about the test and everything behind it. I am an ENTJ, and even though I don't see some of it, the husband (and most my friends) say it nails me. It is able to describe how I am wired and sheds a lot of light on why I interact with other personalty types the way I do. It also explains some of my neurosis!

The most common negative issue that the ENTJ has is a tendency to hypersensitivity (more than your average person). For the project in my current spiritual formation class I am having to look at that very carefully, try to understand that part of me, and try and learn how to curb it, or at least recognize when it is happening. Again, its hard.

I think this year in general is going to be defined by the words "difficult" and "hard" and perhaps "painful". This isn't a bad thing, it builds character and health and strength. But at the same time, it is tempting to wish for things to be easier and just happy all the time. I don't know entirely why I think this year will be hard, its just a feeling I get, and I think it will be hard in more ways than one. I know I have a lot of inner turmoil right now and it may only get worse(more on that below).

It doesn't help that I am already starting to try and figure out my next step after graduating to boot. (I know what I want to do for the most part, but can't for the life of me see that happening.)

I have been questioning some core things about who I am. Some of this is because of a silly class assignment where we had to give a homily in class and be critiqued on how we can improve our speaking abilities. Those critiques, even though I got lots of positives, bit me hard. It bothers me that now, because of something others said, I have a little war going on inside of me. So yes, this year will probably be a hard one. But I am glad I recognize that now because if anything I am determined and now I can put my shoulder to the plow and get to work. God can see me/us through to the other side, this I know and put my trust into.

Starting last weekend our family has entered into a season of rest. Its late in coming but couldn't be helped. Micah is having a hard time with school. Silas has been asking to go to sleep at 7:30pm often enough. We just need to mellow. So, momma is done going away on trips for a while, daddy is done spending every other weekend helping other people for a while, we put the veggie garden to bed (mostly... I am attempting a few greens), we are finishing soccer (only 2 more games), we put the toys outside away for the winter and we are hunkering down. Husband and I are going to bed as early as 8:30 on some nights. Not because our days are over full right now, but because they were over full for all of September and October!

Now we are just allowing ourselves, body and soul, to recover.

Introspective moment: It just occurred to me that we have taken a 2 month sabbath around this time of year for the last 4 years. In the past its been just me and Shaun, but this year it includes the boys. It started with taking time off from volunteering for a while each year. Of course, God moves us around in life and we are in a very different place than we were when we first took a sabbath in our yearly cycle, but we still need this time. I think there is something intuitive about resting at the same time the earth around us in going into a season of rest. It takes an insane amount of energy to grow and flourish and serve and play.