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PeaceBang Preparing For Seminary Talk

I leave for The Big Apple tomorrow afternoon and am con much gusto looking forward to conversing with the Powder Pigeons at Union Theological Seminary.

What will we be talking about? Here is a weensie list of some of the things I intend to cover:

1. Taxes
2. The economy
3. The war in Iraq

…oops! I got confused for a moment! But you can betcha that, just like Sarah Palin, no matter what topics come up I will STICK TO MY TALKING POINTS.
And you know what they are, don’t you, PeaceBangers?

I. You can project an image consciously or you will most certainly project one unconsciously: what kind of image do you want to project?

II. Grooming matters. Details matter. Taking care with your appearance and making sure that you look like someone who lives in 2008 matters. These are not frivolous issues. Just as any leader in any public profession attends carefully to their appearance, so should we.

III. If your mouth is saying love, justice, holy, etc. and your body is saying schlep, unkempt, drab, dated (eg, “Woodstock refugee”) scraggly, neglected or just downright sick, people will read that unspoken message just as strongly as they hear your words.

Some of the questions I will be bringing to UTS

> How do you take care of yourself?
> What role does joy/humor/fun play in your life and in your ministry with your religious community?
> What visual images go along with your leadership style?
> What fears or anxieties do you have about becoming a religious leader in your context and at this point in history?
> What are your basic questions about dress, decorum, vestments, protocol, that I may be able to address?

See you there! I’ll have my camera so expect lots of fun photos soon!

Cripes, what am I gonna wear!!?? 🙂

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Like Your Mother Told You

Remember how your mom would say, “Honey, you’d feel better if you just combed your hair and put on a little lipstick?”

Well, I tried just that as an experiment last month while visiting my friend Tim and here are the results:
Summer 2008 023Summer 2008 024

No, I don’t have an evil twin. And don’t you think the second photo is a major improvement, even though I forgot my brush and hair dryer and had no way of keeping my hair from being a flat flop? Turn out that our Moms were right — a little lippy keeps you zippy.
Boys can get the same effect by combing their hair, washing their face and trimming any facial scragglies.

P.S. I find it interesting that the light was not altered in any way whatsoever between the Before and After photo, which were taken about one minute apart. They were both flash photos. So what gives? Did the flash reflect off the shiny lip gloss or something?

P.P.S. Now you know why I use eyebrow powder: one eyebrow grows much thicker than the other — that’s not a plucking error. I like the thicker brow so I fill in the other one to match.

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Beauty Tips Will Be Back!

I know you’ve missed me, pigeons, and likewise.

BTFM will be back on September 1st. Get your questions ready, send ’em in, and let’s face the fall beautifully together.

Mexico Abortion
“Sister Rosalita, Beauty Tips For Ministers is coming back!! Hallelujah!”

(These are not actual clergypersons. They are Mexican laypeople protesting for reproductive choice in Mexico City. And they are very cute)

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Shhhh…. She’s Wighting!

Dearest pigeons of my heart,

If your noodgy stage mother PeaceBang does not get down to some disciplined writing this summer she will be very disappointed in herself. She has two big projects to work on: first, she needs to make some progress on her doctoral dissertation on the relevance of covenant in the 21st century church.

Second on PeaceBang’s big Writing Projects List is to get this blog into some kind of book form and to send something decent to publishers before September 1st or thereabouts.

These are big goals that will require me to focus, focus, focus, which means that I will not be contributing many — or perhaps any — more posts to this blog for awhile. There’s a treasure trove of information in the archives for you to peruse in the meanwhile, and I hope that you will.

Your prayers for my productivity are most welcome.

Kiss of peace, PB

Vicki At Work
[seen here outlining sermon topics for the coming year while on vacation in Provincetown, MA during the summer of 2006. Yes, that’s an Officially Unapproved Amount of Cleavage, but I was on vacation; in fact, in my jammies. — photo by Michael Hammond]

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PeaceBang Festivaling In Minneapolis

Hello my darlings!

What a mini-sabbatical whirlwind it has been! I concluded my intensive course on the spiritual practice of discernment last night (I have two papers to write for the class, though, so can’t officially rejoice that I’ve finished all the coursework for my Doctor of Ministry degree…although I am definitely done with the being-at-school-in-class part, which both saddens and relieves me) and after one day to catch up, will be packing tomorrow for a week in Minneapolis.

I hope to see many of you at the Festival of Homiletics. You know what I look like — don’t be a stranger!! If you want to hook up for a consultation, e-mail me at victoria-dot-weinstein-at-gmail-dot-com and we can trade cell phone numbers.

Kiss of peace, PB