It's been a very sad month. Heard the other day that another friend from the past had died suddenly. Maddie Sherman was a Rutland, Vermont friend who had babies the same time I had mine. She and her husband Jake, were very supportive after my first husband Paul died. I remember her fondly for her wonderful cooking and great, open hospitality. Though I didn't visit her every year, I often dropped in while in Vermont. These last few years I have stayed away maybe because she still didn't have any grandchildren. Seems hard to talk about mine in htat situation - I can't seem to keep my mouth shut about them, especially when we are all together in Vermont.
That's two friends my age who have died this month, one from a bike accident, Maddie from heart failure after surgery (she did have some other health problems). Makes me very sad.
Otherwise, I am experimenting with doing an annual time budget. It's helping to keep me on track though certain tasks are still taking longer than I estimated. I'll keep working on it.
Only a few days and I will begin my trip across country, solo, to see Gail in DC first and then on to the grandchildren in Massachusetts. There we will all attend New England Yearly Meeting. I hope to use this blog to keep up with my writing when I can. No one seems to reading yet but I will keep writing.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Back from the FGC Gathering
Gathering this year was so much less pressured than the last ten. Facilitating a workshop is lots of work, some of it during the Gathering but most before. I loved doing it but need to discern if I have the time next year.
Discovered Nadine Hoover's wonderful article on Time and Ministry while preparing for the workshop so I have a new tool. Am preparing to start using it 7/15. Still recording my hours but a time calendar will help as well.
Bonnie Tinker's death in a bike accident really hit me. But others took care of me.
Too late now to write much more. I hope to get back to this very soon.
Discovered Nadine Hoover's wonderful article on Time and Ministry while preparing for the workshop so I have a new tool. Am preparing to start using it 7/15. Still recording my hours but a time calendar will help as well.
Bonnie Tinker's death in a bike accident really hit me. But others took care of me.
Too late now to write much more. I hope to get back to this very soon.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Story will be central to my workshop on discerning leadings. I will tell at least twelve stories of following a spiritual leading, some from biblical and historical people and some from contemporary life.
It's been really a growth process for me to prepare for this workshop. I've realized how "love was the first motion" has worked in my own times of way opening and how much the Spirit has been active in the lives of those I know personally. I'm ready to testify to that but feel still confused about how to get all the stuff organized and presented.
Tomorrow is another day.
It's been really a growth process for me to prepare for this workshop. I've realized how "love was the first motion" has worked in my own times of way opening and how much the Spirit has been active in the lives of those I know personally. I'm ready to testify to that but feel still confused about how to get all the stuff organized and presented.
Tomorrow is another day.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Lucretia Mott and discerning call and leading
This seems an odd way to start a blog but I needed to extract the quote below, Google books said I could send it to a blog, and so I guess I was led to start down this path.
I'm preparing for a workshop called "Discerning and Supporting Our True Leadings" a the FGC Gathering in a few weeks and so have been doing lots of thinking about Quaker practice in that area - what did Friends do historically. Lucretia Mott is a favorite historical Friend of mine so here goes.
"For God had called her while she was a child as He did Samuel to do His work and to bear message to the people. And surely Samuel's work among his own self-willed people was not greater than her's in this land where braggarts shouted for liberty and slavery in the same breath and cruelty and Sodom-like blasphemously called for the blessing of the Father Christ upon their horrible deeds."
James and Lucretia Mott Life and letters By Anna Davis Hallowell:
This was written about Lucretia Mott upon her death by a niece. Lucretia herself does not talk much in her letters or writing about being "called" or "led." She didn't seem to spend much time mulling things over, discerning her actions or at least, again, she didn't write about it. She did say about herself:
"At twenty-five years of age, surrounded with a little family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life of devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in our Society, receiving every encouragement from those in authority, until a separation among us, in 1827, when my convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on truth as authority, rather than ‘taking authority for truth.’ The popular doctrine of human depravity never commended itself to my reason or conscience. I ‘searched the Scriptures daily,’ finding a construction of the text wholly different from that which was pressed upon our acceptance."
While this quote says much about "authority" and the rejection of it, Lucretia did use the scriptures daily as a way to her Inner Guide. She lived through some very difficult times within the RSOF in America where meeting support for her work was denied to her often. But few today would say she outran her Guide though she certainly didn't procrastinate, get muddled up in so much discernment, as I often do, that she missed much chance to act her truth.
I'm preparing for a workshop called "Discerning and Supporting Our True Leadings" a the FGC Gathering in a few weeks and so have been doing lots of thinking about Quaker practice in that area - what did Friends do historically. Lucretia Mott is a favorite historical Friend of mine so here goes.
"For God had called her while she was a child as He did Samuel to do His work and to bear message to the people. And surely Samuel's work among his own self-willed people was not greater than her's in this land where braggarts shouted for liberty and slavery in the same breath and cruelty and Sodom-like blasphemously called for the blessing of the Father Christ upon their horrible deeds."
James and Lucretia Mott Life and letters By Anna Davis Hallowell:
This was written about Lucretia Mott upon her death by a niece. Lucretia herself does not talk much in her letters or writing about being "called" or "led." She didn't seem to spend much time mulling things over, discerning her actions or at least, again, she didn't write about it. She did say about herself:
"At twenty-five years of age, surrounded with a little family and many cares, I felt called to a more public life of devotion to duty, and engaged in the ministry in our Society, receiving every encouragement from those in authority, until a separation among us, in 1827, when my convictions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on truth as authority, rather than ‘taking authority for truth.’ The popular doctrine of human depravity never commended itself to my reason or conscience. I ‘searched the Scriptures daily,’ finding a construction of the text wholly different from that which was pressed upon our acceptance."
While this quote says much about "authority" and the rejection of it, Lucretia did use the scriptures daily as a way to her Inner Guide. She lived through some very difficult times within the RSOF in America where meeting support for her work was denied to her often. But few today would say she outran her Guide though she certainly didn't procrastinate, get muddled up in so much discernment, as I often do, that she missed much chance to act her truth.
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