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There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
What would you say to the person you were five years ago? What will you say to the person you’ll be in five years?
(Author: Corbett Barr)
Dear Me 5 years ago: Guess what? You are human after all. You cannot, in fact, live on 3 hours of sleep a night forever. You do need sabbath and recreation and a social life. You do need regular vacations. Your body is not invincible and you can get elevated blood pressure, gall stones, and have 5 lbs. that you can't seem to lose no matter how much you starve yourself. You don't have to be everything to everyone, and you can delegate, let someone else do the work, and allow tasks to go undone. The world will go on.
Dear Me 5 years from now: Guess what? You did put on the brakes in time. You can enjoy your family and friends. You have honored God by observing a sabbath every week and understanding that you, alone, do not have to save the world. I'm glad you are reading more for pleasure. I'm proud of you for saying "No" sometimes and setting boundaries between work and personal life. I love that you are traveling more, delegating more, and pacing yourself. I know this will extend your life and see that you are happier, healthier, and more productive now that you have some balance in your life.
Some of us place such high expectations on ourselves that we risk burning out. 5 years ago I thought, no I knew, I was Superwoman. I was different that everyone else. I was "unique." This year I have learned that while I am, a bit unique (clears throat), that no one can sprint forever. I have to pace myself. I have to slow down long enough to have a life outside of my job. I don't have to do it all but more importantly I can't do it all.
In the next 5 years, I will work fewer hours, but still work very hard. I will say no to a lot of things that add work to my plate and yes to more things that are fun, restful, exciting, and feed my body and spirit. I will let phone calls go unanswered, emails go unopened, and spend more time enjoying my friends and family. I will continue to study, learn, write, explore, and be as good a minister as I can be, but that won't mean I'm available 24/7 as I have been for the last 5 years, because if I continue to sprint rather than jog, I know I will burn out.
And I think this wisdom will make me a better pastor, mate, mother, daughter, friend, advocate, and child of God.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Saturday, June 4, 2011
Broadening our view
If we live truly, we shall see truly. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?
(Author: Chris Guillebeau)
Timely. I leave tomorrow for a mission trip with a group of teenagers. When we think about traveling, and I'm big on travel, we usually think about exotic locations, or places of great cultural or historical significance, but there is more...
The first place I ever went alone was to El Salvador. I was 18, and I went alone. My family felt it was a critical part of my education to travel, and to experience other cultures. It was an eye-opening trip for an innocent white girl from Knoxville Tennessee. It changed my life. It changed the way I see the world. It changed me on the inside. I befriended a Salvadorean family, the Delgados. I would discover many years later that many of them were killed in the civil turbulence that ensued in the 1980s. I learned that they were a lot like my own family back in Tennessee. I learned that I can make my way around a country that speaks a language I do not know, and that most people are kind and generous and willing to help I learned (the hard way) not to eat from street vendors or drink the water. I learned that we are all God's children.
This week, as I take a group of privileged youth to a disadvantaged neighborhood to do a VBS, as I think back on all the places I've been...Europe, Egypt, the Caribbean, South America, and all the places in between, as I think about the question posed....where is one place in the world you want to visit before you die and what will you do to get there...as I think about how travel is maybe my most favorite hobby...as I contemplate Bali and the Middle East and Morocco and all the places I still want to go, and there are many, it occurs to me that what Emerson says is true...If we live truly, we shall see truly...
...and I want to see truly, the good, the bad, and the ugly, the beautiful, the breathtaking, and the heartbreaking, and I want these youth to see it too, because in truly seeing, they will truly live.
With eyes wide open.
Teresa
Not everyone wants to travel the world, but most people can identify at least one place in the world they’d like to visit before they die. Where is that place for you, and what will you do to make sure you get there?
(Author: Chris Guillebeau)
Timely. I leave tomorrow for a mission trip with a group of teenagers. When we think about traveling, and I'm big on travel, we usually think about exotic locations, or places of great cultural or historical significance, but there is more...
The first place I ever went alone was to El Salvador. I was 18, and I went alone. My family felt it was a critical part of my education to travel, and to experience other cultures. It was an eye-opening trip for an innocent white girl from Knoxville Tennessee. It changed my life. It changed the way I see the world. It changed me on the inside. I befriended a Salvadorean family, the Delgados. I would discover many years later that many of them were killed in the civil turbulence that ensued in the 1980s. I learned that they were a lot like my own family back in Tennessee. I learned that I can make my way around a country that speaks a language I do not know, and that most people are kind and generous and willing to help I learned (the hard way) not to eat from street vendors or drink the water. I learned that we are all God's children.
This week, as I take a group of privileged youth to a disadvantaged neighborhood to do a VBS, as I think back on all the places I've been...Europe, Egypt, the Caribbean, South America, and all the places in between, as I think about the question posed....where is one place in the world you want to visit before you die and what will you do to get there...as I think about how travel is maybe my most favorite hobby...as I contemplate Bali and the Middle East and Morocco and all the places I still want to go, and there are many, it occurs to me that what Emerson says is true...If we live truly, we shall see truly...
...and I want to see truly, the good, the bad, and the ugly, the beautiful, the breathtaking, and the heartbreaking, and I want these youth to see it too, because in truly seeing, they will truly live.
With eyes wide open.
Teresa
Friday, June 3, 2011
Purpose
As you probably know by now, I am participating in a writing challenge, and the topics are being assigned by someone else. Today's assignment hit me right where I live. It is:
That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.
Bonus: tweet or blog a photo of your post-it.
(Author: Jenny Blake)
This very thing has actually consumed me for weeks...how can I do what I do better? Am I doing exactly what God designed me to do, and am I doing it as well as I can? I believe this is a question we must all ask ourselves. The tricky part, I think, is that the first part of that question may have more than one answer depending on where you are in life.
Like most of you, I am facing a challenge, right here, right now, in my life. I will do this challenge and put a post it on my bathroom mirror, and we'll see what comes up in my journal on Monday morning.
What is your current challenge? Is it work related? Relationship? Financial? I urge you to take Emerson's words to heart and seek to discover what God has created you to do and be. Once you figure that our, like Emerson, I believe there is no limit.
TAY
That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.
Bonus: tweet or blog a photo of your post-it.
(Author: Jenny Blake)
This very thing has actually consumed me for weeks...how can I do what I do better? Am I doing exactly what God designed me to do, and am I doing it as well as I can? I believe this is a question we must all ask ourselves. The tricky part, I think, is that the first part of that question may have more than one answer depending on where you are in life.
Like most of you, I am facing a challenge, right here, right now, in my life. I will do this challenge and put a post it on my bathroom mirror, and we'll see what comes up in my journal on Monday morning.
What is your current challenge? Is it work related? Relationship? Financial? I urge you to take Emerson's words to heart and seek to discover what God has created you to do and be. Once you figure that our, like Emerson, I believe there is no limit.
TAY
Thursday, June 2, 2011
What is reality?
It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?
I believe in the impermanence of the present, and by that I mean that I believe the things and places that we live in are, to some extent, illusions. Now, before I get too lofty, philosophical, and immersed in physics, let me just say that the bottom line is that I believe our reality lies within, not in the physical realm in which we often live. Consequently, after the initial thrill wears off, I often become bored.
That manifests in several ways. I like to move. I can't imagine living in one place my entire life. Even within the same city, I get the urge to sell the house and find a "fresh palette." I love to travel but rarely want to visit the same place twice. I enjoy new challenges, fresh faces.
That's not to say I do not love the familiar. I don't want a new husband and I could look into the faces of my children every day for the rest of my life! This is not about instability in relationships. It's about a sort of restlessness in the physical world. I don't sit still well. I like to be on the move. I like to see new vistas. I like innovation.
I believe the world in which we dwell is vastly richer than most people experience, not only in physical location (not everyone has my wanderlust) but also in dimension. I understand that many people find security and comfort in staying put. I guess there is something charming, for some, about returning to the same place year after year for vacation, but that would make me want to scream. I've just never been attached to place. I'm not sentimental about places. I would be bored beyond measure returning again and again to the same place. I do not need a touchstone...I'm not a hoarder of stuff...furniture is just furniture...why walk down the same street twice...why revisit the same classroom. But I am a hoarder of experiences.
My reality resides inside of myself, and in the connection I have to those I love. Where I am matters not. My spirit longs to engage with a broader reality that is not bound by time or space.
Bring on the new!
The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?
I believe in the impermanence of the present, and by that I mean that I believe the things and places that we live in are, to some extent, illusions. Now, before I get too lofty, philosophical, and immersed in physics, let me just say that the bottom line is that I believe our reality lies within, not in the physical realm in which we often live. Consequently, after the initial thrill wears off, I often become bored.
That manifests in several ways. I like to move. I can't imagine living in one place my entire life. Even within the same city, I get the urge to sell the house and find a "fresh palette." I love to travel but rarely want to visit the same place twice. I enjoy new challenges, fresh faces.
That's not to say I do not love the familiar. I don't want a new husband and I could look into the faces of my children every day for the rest of my life! This is not about instability in relationships. It's about a sort of restlessness in the physical world. I don't sit still well. I like to be on the move. I like to see new vistas. I like innovation.
I believe the world in which we dwell is vastly richer than most people experience, not only in physical location (not everyone has my wanderlust) but also in dimension. I understand that many people find security and comfort in staying put. I guess there is something charming, for some, about returning to the same place year after year for vacation, but that would make me want to scream. I've just never been attached to place. I'm not sentimental about places. I would be bored beyond measure returning again and again to the same place. I do not need a touchstone...I'm not a hoarder of stuff...furniture is just furniture...why walk down the same street twice...why revisit the same classroom. But I am a hoarder of experiences.
My reality resides inside of myself, and in the connection I have to those I love. Where I am matters not. My spirit longs to engage with a broader reality that is not bound by time or space.
Bring on the new!
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. The force of character is cumulative. – Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.
Today's writing challenge.
Over the next 24 hours, you are trading in a day of your life for whatever you choose to do, so choose wisely and show love, compassion, and kindness.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Fear
We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.
1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.
2. Write the story that has to be written.
That is my writing assignment for today.
I have fought fear almost all my life. I just hide it well. I've been afraid of heights, afraid of my own anger, afraid of loneliness, afraid that something bad might happen to one of my children, afraid of looking foolish, afraid of speaking my mind, afraid of the anger of others.
Right now the most pressing fear I have concerns the financial health of Sacred Tapestry, this amazing, innovative, healing, holy ministry that I serve. I'm afraid that unless the hearts of the congregation open in a big way our future may not be what we hope. No...that's letting my fear speak. Here is the real truth, I'm afraid that we won't make it. There. I said it. I have kept my tongue and put on a smile and a brave front mainly because I didn't want anyone jumping ship for fear the ship is sinking, but the truth is, we are taking on water, fast. For the first time since opening in February of 2007, we cannot pay our bills this month.
No one wants to hear the church talk about money. I get that. No one feels they have too much and are just looking for a place to put their extra dollars. I get that too. But my fear is unless there is a real, serious, ongoing financial commitment to Sacred Tapestry on the part of all involved, this vibrant, special community may end.
The challenge for today is to "write the story that has to be written" without letting fear stop me, so I have. It's right out there, ugly, visible, and honest. But my need to be transparent is greater than my fear that any mention of money will drive folks out of church.
My hope and prayer is that many will look into their hearts, and bank accounts, and decide that keeping Sacred Tapestry open and thriving is more important than eating out and vacations and jewelry and all the other "stuff" we spend money on, that community and having a safe place to come and express doubt, fear, and pain is more important than vacations and salons. My hope is that you will take your own 15 minutes and write something true in your own life that may make you feel vulnerable and a little scared, because I know that it's in those places of vulnerability and fear that we find God.
With a vulnerable heart,
Teresa
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Ash Wednesday
Hello friends. This is a re-run (with no commercial breaks!) of my blog post from 2008. A few of you are from traditions that do not observe Lent, so my hope is that this will give you a basic understanding of what today is about. Blessings for a holy Lent!
Teresa
Today is the first day of the season of Lent. There is a good bit of confusion about what Lent is, so over the next 40 days leading up to Easter, I will share with you some of the history of Lent, but more importantly, I will offer you some suggestions about how to observe Lent and why I think it's important. I will make these musings brief, and encourage you to send me any questions you may have.
Lent originated in the 4th century, and was initially a time for people who were to be baptized at Easter to prepare for their baptism. Since baptism is an act of introduction into a community of faith, (more on this when I do my series on baptism!), the entire community was called to this "time of preparation." Additionally, those people who had been removed from the fellowship of the church (for a number of reasons that are not particularly important for us to get into at this time) were also called to this time of self-examination, prayer, fasting, and introspection before their re-introduction to the church.
Many of you know that today is Ash Wednesday, and you may see people walking around with black marks on their foreheads! Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, and the ashes symbolize our humility before God, and our recognition that we are mortal. It is a time when we reflect on what we need to change in our lives in order to be the person that God intends us to be, to live responsibly and lovingly as a member of the created world. I hope you'll join me as we look more deeply at the observance of Lent over the next 40 days, take a fearless moral inventory of our lives, and look for ways to find more love, peace, and fulfillment in our lives. I look forward to making this journey with each of you.
Teresa
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Lent-Ash Wednesday
Lent originated in the 4th century, and was initially a time for people who were to be baptized at Easter to prepare for their baptism. Since baptism is an act of introduction into a community of faith, (more on this when I do my series on baptism!), the entire community was called to this "time of preparation." Additionally, those people who had been removed from the fellowship of the church (for a number of reasons that are not particularly important for us to get into at this time) were also called to this time of self-examination, prayer, fasting, and introspection before their re-introduction to the church.
Many of you know that today is Ash Wednesday, and you may see people walking around with black marks on their foreheads! Ash Wednesday is the first day of Lent, and the ashes symbolize our humility before God, and our recognition that we are mortal. It is a time when we reflect on what we need to change in our lives in order to be the person that God intends us to be, to live responsibly and lovingly as a member of the created world. I hope you'll join me as we look more deeply at the observance of Lent over the next 40 days, take a fearless moral inventory of our lives, and look for ways to find more love, peace, and fulfillment in our lives. I look forward to making this journey with each of you.
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