some minor remodeling

Hey y'all

Updated the template for the blog which should make it easier to add links, dates of interests, etc.

Also goofy things like Survey Questions!!! Got one? Avoiding sermon writing? Feel free to add stuff.

Click on Templates while posting or perhaps on the little tool symbol by the thing you want to change. Add another question or change it or send me your idea. We can have lots of options to each question.

I'm becoming bored by the color scheme. I may play with that too. Or not.

A Post from the (East) Coast

Greetings all -

Here is your post from Heather on the East Coast. I am in Washington DC at the National Cathedral attending a conference at The Cathedral College of Preachers. (Continuing Ed anyone?) It is 101 degrees in DC today and the humidity is outrageous. How do you southern/eastern folks deal with this. Get me back to hot and dry!!!!

So far it has been an interesting conference. It is a conference for young clergy women. Everyone here is ordained and serving in churches although most are associates. I have met some women like me though, who are out in the world doing it on their own. Anna Carter Florence is the featured speaker and she is mostly presenting material from her new book "Preaching as Testimony". I highly recommend it, if only for the sermon starter ideas in the back. She really encourages you to be creative with the text. The whole idea is basically that you can get into the text and find your own meaning and your own sermon without having to dig into the greek, various translations, and all the commentary ever written. Its surprisingly freeing.

I have really enjoyed meeting other young women in ministry. There are Episcopals, PCUSA, Disciples, Baptists, Lutherans, and Methodists but pretty much we are all in the same boat. Its easy to feel isolated in ministry and it has been exciting to meet so many people. Most everyone is liberal as well which is such a breath of fresh air for me.

It has been neat to just hang out at the Cathedral. We have worship in one of the small lower chapels which is cool. Today I spent a few hours walking around and taking the audio tour which I really enjoyed. It was like my own private devotional time.

So, it has been a good visit. They are talking about more conferences like this so there should be opportunities for others later on. Also, there is a lot going on at the college of preachers so check it out. It is a fun way to do continuing ed.

That's all for now - blessings!

The west side of the pond

Hello everyone! I'm back in the Pacific time zone once again, having completed (and passed the defense of) my thesis with the faculty of the University of Geneva, cleared customs at Heathrow, and recovered from some serious jet lag. June was a crazy last month in Switzerland - I successfully preached in Calvin's auditorium, as previously trailed; spent a week in Italy relaxing in Florence and Siena; and stopped in London to see friends on my way home (hauling my incredibly heavy luggage through the crowded tube stations!). Overall, I had a mixed year in Switzerland - great in some ways, disappointing in others - and I'm glad to be home.

For the time being, I'm at my dad's house in Portland, beginning the slow process of job hunting and finishing up odds and ends from my Swiss adventure. Returning to the States in the summer - having left last summer - makes the whole year a bit surreal, as if I just had a long, strange dream and then woke up in Portland again.

Shouts out to everyone, and particular greetings to:

- Jenn - congrats!!! Can't wait to hear all about the new call...
- Heather and Alexis - I think I saw you at the Portland airport about 10 days ago, but you were too far away for me to catch up...
- Heather and Lars - lovely garden, and wanted to let you know I also waited for my British version of HP - did you order the children or adult version?
- Steph - saw the stage version of Wicked in London, having read the book previously, and I liked the nuances of the book better than the more straightforward musical...what did you think?

Looking forward to catching up with you all soon...
Best from your no-longer-in-Swiss-exile classmate,
Aimee

How to get into Hogworths

With a special tip of the hat to PureChristianIThink & everyone else who sometimes wonder if we went to the wrong seminary

(if you can't see the video on the screen, try this link:

back to work

Heather and I just returned from vacation, although I've decided it doesn't count as a vacation if it includes your in-laws and 5 nieces and nephews waking you up at 7 am every morning. But the start of our vacation was stressful but ultimately celebratory because Heather took and passed her worship exam in Portland. Now all she has to do is preach, write her PIF, and find a job in a Presbyterian Church-wait that sounds like a lot. One of the graders, who is a grader of the written tests, (Heather took her test orally) told Heather that she had a very strong pastoral presence, was very good at what she does, and was extremely pastoral and she said that Heather's actual gifts probably would not have come across in a written exam. Go figure..

I went to the Chase family reunion in St. Helen's Oregon for the first time. I had the pleasure of meeting 44 members of Heather's extended family, almost all of which were really nice to me. Of course who doesn't have the crazy family members that no one likes? I know I do, and Heather will never meet them.
We then flew to Florida to be with my family, and the 5 children under 7 years old who thought we were their personal entertainment units. We biked, swam, canoed, ran around, and had a good time hanging out with the family. We also got to celebrate my father's 65th birthday as a family, which was a big deal. We also got to spend the week with the brand new addition to the family, our niece Kai, who is now almost 2 months old, she is of course perfect. Our 7 year old niece already has the hip jut, hands on hips, eye roll thing down, where in the world do they learn that stuff? It was a good time, we are both exhausted. Now back to work. Heather is gearing up for Sunday school and Bible study to start again and I'm currently sitting at my desk trying to juggle water bottles, I'm a model employee.
Hope all is well. Here in Atlanta it's 95 degrees outside by 8 am and we are looking forward to fall.

In Celebration of the Resurrection

Doug Adams, pioneering professor in religion and the arts,
dies on July 24

Doug Adams, professor of Christianity and the arts at Pacific School of Religion for 31 years, died at the home of friends in Jackson, CA on July 24, 2007. As a scholar and teacher, Adams played a leading role internationally in the field of religion and the arts, and was beloved by generations of students. Adams also headed the doctoral faculty in Art and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union (GTU), a consortium of nine seminaries, including Pacific School of Religion (PSR), in Berkeley, CA.

To read the full PSR News Release, click here - to read the Mercery News Story, click here.

To stop and remember and celebrate and grieve and be pissed off and thankful and grateful and in awe for this amazing explosion of life and art and theology and humor and all very human I suspect and yet able to say Look, Look - over here is God... There is nothing to click. Go make art or look at art or write a funny skit for worship or write a poem or pour a glass of wine and munch some yummy cheese. Dance.

Pacific School of Religion will hold a memorial service on campus this fall, scheduled for Oct. 14 from 2 to 5 p.m.

We Are Here

So I'm sitting at my desk trying to figure out how to write a Prayer of Confession and have managed to kill the last hour playing with the do-it-yourself feature of Google map.

I've posted markers for where everyone is - everyone that i know where they are - more or less. Let me know if there are more/better locations to post. Or if you have a good prayer of confession. Somehow Hey God, sorry 'bout that which is actually pretty comprehensive if you think about it probably won't go so well in a full on worship service.

click here - hope it works! My next plan to kill a few more hours is getting Jen's dates of ordination up on the upcoming dates list.

more info :)

I forgot to ask for your prayers on August 11th, when I go before the Plains and Peaks Presbytery. As that date draws closer and plans become more concrete, I seem to be more and more nervous. So, your prayers would be much appreciated :)

As I said, ordination will be on Sunday, August 26th. The following Sunday, September 2nd is my first Sunday in Wray. Nothing like being on the fast track! I am moving my stuff to Wray on the 29th and hopefully settling in by Sunday.

If you are ever in the high plains, please stop by! The manse has 4 bedrooms, so I have plenty of space. Plus, Megan, Harold and the boys are just down the highway about 30 miles. We can have a reunion!

Take care and have a great day!

Love, Jenn :)

Ordination!

Hello everyone! I wanted to pass on some good news...I have accepted a call at a small church in Wray, CO.

My ordination will be August 26th at 4pm in Cleveland, OK. If you happen to be driving through OK, you are all invited! I would love to see you :)

Take care and have a great evening!

Love, Jenn :)

Greetings from Wilbur

Hello all -

Lars and I are keeping busy during our summer in Wilbur. The days have been hot and we splurged on two small air-conditioning units and spend most of the days indoors. My brother Will visited earlier this week and we spent several days just north of here at Lake Roosevelt. Beautfiul weather for sunning and swimming, though I have one of the worst sunburns in recent memory. We also picked a huge amount of Raspberries at one of my parishoner's homesteads and I am still working my way through them. Plus we went to see the Crop Circles outside of town - life in Wilbur is far from dull!

We have been busy in our garden (see pictures above). We have had a few squash and some peas before it got to hot for them. Today was the first tomato harvest and the vines are heavy with the promise of more to come. I am really eager to enjoy them!

We have a busy schedule in the fall. I am going to Washington DC for a confrence at the Catherdral College there. It is called Preaching as Testimony and is a confrence specifically for ordained young women preachers. The guest speaker is Anna Carter Florence. I am nervous about the travel but it should be fun. Then later in the month Lars and I will be visiting the Bay Area as some of you already know. That should be a nice break. Other than that the schedule is full with visiting family and the normal church work.

Things continue to go well at the church. They are remodeling my office and I will have to post a photo when they are done. New paint, carpet, blinds, desk, shelves, and wing back chairs. It is a dream. Hard to believe we are coming up on one year in the ministry. Hurrah! I am planning a harp concert for October as my anniversary gift to the community.

Well - thats all for now. Enjoy your summer everyone and I wish you were here to help eat tomatoes and raspberries!

- Love - Heather

Now I understand

I have turned the last page, I have closed the book from the right side of the cover.

what a great ride!

Interesting day

As the church secretary I led my first funeral today, I know seems insane right? The pastor at my church is in the hospital and a member of the church passed away a couple days ago, leaving me as the only person on staff here at the church. After finding a retired clergy person to do all of the stuff required of an ordained person during the service, I was privileged enough to act as pastor to the family. I got sit with the family, organize a service, pray with them, and lead the service (which I did not think I was going to have to do until the visiting pastor looked at me 5 minutes before we started and said "so I just follow your lead then?"). I talked to the pastor of this church earlier today on the phone and he said "what other church has a secretary that can not only redesign the web-site but also do a funeral?" I'm thankful for the opportunity to do all of this and have learned a ton, and I'm asking for a raise.

Heather and I have started training for a marathon in February and are currently free from injury, which is a miracle. Roux is doing much better. We have gotten her to lose some weight and it has alleviated her hip problems enough that we can postpone surgery indefinitely.

Also Braves tickets are only $6 so we have spent a lot of time at the ballpark this summer. Still not a Braves fan, Go Red Sox, but nothing beats a good game, some beer, and a hot dog on a sunny summer day.

We head to Oregon on Thursday for Heather's family reunion up in Sisters as well as her worship exam, we shall see how it all goes. Then on Tuesday we head to Florida for my family reunion where 5 nieces and nephews and my copy of the new Potter book awaits. I don't expect to get much rest.

bit o' this & that (anyone else want to play?)

I'm reading a web site called Decently and In Order which is something of a emergent/web 2.0 thing and links to lots of stuff roughly related to Presbyterianism. Here is a great link to another web site which has lots of entertaining stuff but at the moment holds the Seven Deadly Sins Combo Chart. For example: Glutteny + Pride = fat men in speedo swimsuits. On the same site at the card chart is an amazing remake of M Jackson's Thriller

I'm about 100 pages away from the end of the last Potter book. My elder step son is currently reading to completion and I'm fighting the urge to rip it out of his hands. =sigh= (argg, now he's laughing. why? whats going on? Soon I'll know too....)

A local Interplay group has started up here in Santa Rosa and the isolation for me breaks down just a bit. Heather and Alexis: I miss you!

You know - you don't have to have a lot going on to post on this blog. What is going on out there? Which chapter are you on in H. Potter? Or did you already finish it? What? Elder Step Son is now done, "What am I going to do with my life now," he asks as he hands it over....

Anitra

More Questions

This neighbor is currently running up and down my street - has been for the last hour or so. At least he is wearing a helmet. On an all too regular basis someone is scrapping the body parts of teen drivers off the payment and out of wrecked cars here in Sonoma county. Just a few nights ago some teens were racing through a near-by neighborhood at speeds up to 70 mph (news story) when they crashed into some cars and caused serious damage to themselves. I don't know if there is anything particularly unique to this place - we have a lot of old farming roads with blind curves and a lot of folks who seem to need to drive as fast as possible on those roads. I'm a fast driver and yet more often then not I've got some large pick up truck (my new favorite car to hate now that I'm out of Marin) trying to drive up my exhaust pipe. I want a sign I can turn on - say mounted in my rear view mirror that says: I can't go any faster than the car in front of me just to drive down River Road.

There seems like there is a lot of anger on the road around here.

A few months ago, Bill & I were in a casual upscale bar in Windsor with a friend from Windsor Presbyterian Church on a Friday night. It was singles night - but the desperation in the room was odd to figure out. Am I older now and can see it better? It seemed like folks were in some form of a dead-end desperation - and were drinking, trying to hook up, as a way to cover over the pain. Is this the new economy? Where is the hope?

Maybe I'm too naive. Maybe I'm too protected. Maybe I'm too old. Maybe there is a need for speed just to feel like you're getting someplace - anyplace - even if its the same old place.

Living in Whine Country

This is my neighbor directly across the street from us. He seems to be a perfectly nice guy, with lots of friends and family in the neighborhood - all of whom seem to drive large, diesel powered trucks and SUV and who seem to have a need to stop and idle for up to an hour in the middle of the street while talking about - well whatever they talk about.

In addition to the bright red powerboat, he also owns a large RV, about as big as a local delivery truck. The normal other car in the drive way is also a pure white SUV. He has recently added about 2 or 3 little four wheel dirt bikes or something and lately I'm noticing a motorcycle running around the front. Furthermore, in spite of there being a major water shortage and daily urging to do the right thing, this man has suddenly produced a gas powered water washing thing so he can keep all his toys very pretty. If we run out of gas in this world early, I'm sorely tempted to hold this man personally responsible.

But it would hardly be fair because look at the rest of the Stepford-Wife Subdivision:

My neighbor to the left - count the SUVs

A view down the street: all suv and/or who-the-hell-needs-a-muffler-american-pick-ups. I should have taken a pix in the evening when everyone was home. There are RV and boats and motorcycles galore. My neighbor on the other side has two SUV - and the middle son has recently acquired one of those damn lawn mower powered scooter things which he enjoys riding up and down the street, helmet be damned.

Has anyone in this neighborhood heard about global warming?

What the heck are they going to do when the oil runs out?

And why does this bug me so much?

Always a good question to ask, in spite of its deep annoying call to self-examination. Its much more fun when its someone else's fault but I've been reading the line about splinters vs logs way too long to not do this.

1) I'm still pretty isolated. I work out of the home and I don't get out much. Its been tough to identify groups that I might get involved with and I use the family as an excuse not to try too much. I did attempt to attend a local evening Jazzercise class but after a year of showing up and not having folks talk to me it was getting rather dreary. The core group had been working out together for nearly 20 years so I could hardly blame them. It just that there I was, still lonely, when standing around in a group of 30 women. Also I was irritating my shoulder rotator cuff and when I went to see an orthopedist he started sharpening up the surgery blades and I'm sooo very against extra holes in my body that I decided that maybe I should pursue another form of exercise instead. Plus, it was a class that meet at 6 pm, tough on family dinner when the boys were around and hard to show up for cuz other events in my life rolled through so I'd pay but not go and that seemed stupid.

But how stupid is it to sit here at my desk and not do anything at all?

2) I don't know my neighbors. I'm pretty sure they do not deserve my judgment. They are just people trying to get by in this world. I'm pretty sure I'm using this as a way to protect myself from - what? My own demons of negativity? I should get out more. I should practice humility. These people deserve mercy, God's love, Christ's reconciling presence. Who the hell am I to be tossing these stones?

Maybe its eating me - my own insecurities about if I'm good enough, if I'm ever going to be ordained, my own decisions that seem decent enough at the time but now, here are the consequences and maybe I was stupid or afraid or selfish or something. So I want to resist being where I am.

A couple of weeks ago I was informed that Covenant Network is downsizing which means: me. This wasn't news actually. I could see it coming from a long way off and I was frustrated that no one else could. And its not like I wanted to be with CovNet forever - its just that I have no idea about what comes next or when. I've recently had cause to encounter written and verbal affirmations of my call to ministry which make this unfulfilled ache within ever more intense. (I can only begin to imagine how this must feel to our brothers and sisters who face significant barriers to ordination)

Ah well.

God is good.
God does not abandon.
If this is where I am to be, then help me, O Lord, to see what needs to be done here
If this is not where I am to remain, O Lord, then help me to see where it is I should go

Rain Anyone?

Okay, so for 4 years I whined and complained about no real thunderstorms and not enough summer rains and for 4 years God didn't listen. However, God has decided to make up for it now! There have been only 2 days without significant rain during the month of June. I am beginning to have flashes of Noah :)

Anyway, I am doing pretty well in OK. I have been doing a lot of pulpit supply and my job is going well. That's about it from here.

If anyone wants to join Facebook, there is a SFTS Alum group. I have become kinda addicted to the Facebook phenomenon :)

Take care and have a great day!

Love, Jenn :)

random news

News #1:

From the UMC California/Nevada Conference website:

Mahoney, Kathy

Change Date: 7/1/2007

From: Kernville UMC
To: Windsor UMC

This is a significant congregation in the community - way to go Kathy!

(google view - campus on the left of the main road)

News #2

Sharon LaTour is serving as Commissioned Lay Pastor at Garberville Presbyterian Church. I was in the area camping (Richardson Grove) last weekend and went up to worship with her and the congregation. Sharon was great- the congregation is dedicated - the food spread afterwards is a full on lunch - the sanctuary is beautiful in its simplicity and use of redwood - and she has great musicians. I look forward to hearing how her ministry will grow and serve that community. Ginny Rose was also there and serving as lay reader. Ginny is living in the parish house in Scotia. (google view - church is to the north of the arrow)

News #3

Robert Hattle is back on the Northern Californian Coast - working at the hospital in Arcata for the summer. Ghost Ranch needed to gear up for its summer program and the nursing money is very good at Mad River Community Hospital. Robert stopped by at the Richardson Grove campsite on the way up from a great program on Process Theology at Claremont in LA. It was good to see him.

Got News? Time to post! camping? travels to exotic locations? picnics in the local park?

Anitra

Kai Emily

Just to let you know Heather and I have a healthy new niece in our family. She came this morning at 7:15 am and is 8 pounds 1 ounce. Mother and baby are doing great, especially since mother got an epidural the second she rolled into the hospital this morning at 3:00 am. My sister is aware that Kai means "and" in Greek, but keeps ignoring me when I say it and then she reminds me that it also means ocean in Hawaiian and Willow Tree in Navajo. With a 2 and a half year old and a brand new baby around, please pray that at some point my sister and brother-in-law get some rest.
It also looks like Roux, the dog, may not need to have surgery. We are taking her to have an Orthopedic consult this week, yes we are taking our dog to an orthopedic surgeon (yes I know, good lord).
Also the Red Sox are in town playing the Braves, we are going to two of the three games, just to let you know that makes this the best week ever.

Peace and light,
Alexis
aem-kmcg.blogspot.com

Doug Adams

Bobbie Dykema, a grad student at GTU, sent out an email today indicating that Professor Doug Adams is seriously ill and she is requesting prayers for his healing and strength.

Armstrong Houshold

We had a graduation in our house as Silas graduated from pre-school.

Here is receiving his certificate from the School's Superintendant.

It is also baseball season and the boys are both playing in the city league. They each had there first games this week and had a great time. Did you see Silas smile. He fell this spring on the back stairs and knocked his two front teath loose. The dentist had to pull them. He's pretty cute without them.

Megan and I are doing well. She is on vacation with her mom in Ireland and Scotland before we take our High School students to St. Louis, MO on our mission trip. We would ask for your prayers over the next month as our schedule is packed full. We pray everyone is doing well.