Darlingest readers,
PeaceBang is having technical difficulties accessing her blogs from her home computer, so if you want your daily ministry of PB, visit me on Facebook and Twitter for the time being.
I’ve had some fantabulous letters that I can’t wait to post about, including one from a rabbi who doesn’t want to look frumpy for high holy days, a Bible professor who just looks smashingly gorgeous and whose photos I can’t wait to share, because she RAWKS, and several other inspirations to share with you.
This was Homecoming Sunday or Ingathering Sunday for many congregations in my own tradition and so we’re very busy with start-up season, where we go into high gear with our leadership and visions for ministry. Now that I am done with my doctoral degree I find myself psychically freed up in a way I hadn’t anticipated and am voraciously reading, musing, praying (how can one voraciously pray? Well, it’s more that I’m allowing myself to spend long hours in prayer, which for me looks like my dog when he spots a deer in the woods. My ears get very perky and I can stay in one spot forever, just focused on that distant rustling. I couldn’t tell you what happens, exactly, but I’m God’s little beagle and I know it’s a good thing to do) and planning.
I started reading like a fiend in August and I haven’t stopped and it’s simply wonderful. I’m reading all my recent issues of Christian Century from cover to cover, and some Annie Dillard (For the Time Being), and lots of books on the 19th century Aesthetic Movement in England, and a PB reader just sent me Caleb’s Crossing as a gift and I can’t WAIT to get to that on my next day off (next Friday).
I am wearing black pants, tan boots, a black cami and a leopard print cardigan, onyx necklace and small silver hoop earrings today. This black clothing uniform thing is sticking: it feels very much who I am and where I’m at right now. I wore a black suit with a bright aqua teal blouse and onyx beads (short strand, not my long strand) and platform wedges to church on Sunday. It was a very intense morning and I admit to not being able to sing the final hymn for my tears but it was so good to be with my community for the anniversary of 9/11.
And how are you, pigeons? Please be patient if your comments don’t show up right away, as it might take me a day or two to moderate them for new posters.
Thinking of you and praying for your vibrant ministries, as ever,
*MWAH!*
pb
Thank you for that image of prayer as an attentive, exptectant beagle, waiting for Something. That seems exactly right.
Yes! “God’s little beagle” is an awesome image! I pray that we can all be okay with who we are with God – be it beagle or gazelle or flower or whatever metaphor fits. At my best, I see myself as a dancer (metaphorically speaking that is, I don’t actually dance at all).
Just had a somewhat sad small group where one member confessed that she didn’t feel like she’d be accepted into heaven ‘cos she wasn’t good enough. I felt like yelling ‘God loves you just how you are!’ but you can’t convince people just by saying things. For deep stuff like that, they need to come to their own realisations. I pray that she can come to be content being “God’s little whatever she’s called to be”.