Star Trek and Dr. Who

katyandtheword's avatarkatyandtheword

Having written about Parables and Fairy Tales and the importance they play in defining the universality of the human condition for every particular human–and hence why they are awesome. I feel you are ready for the truth.

Star Trek and Dr. Who are Parables

Not only are they like most science fiction which discusses how the human race will interact with and respond to technological changes in the future (which is a little different than fantasy which explores humanity-exactly-as-it-is-except-there-happens-to-be-magic)…but these are characters whose stories are literally written and re-written from different perspective…

I mean at the end of Season 6 (yes I’m on netflix so I’m behind a season) when time has stopped, a villain offhandedly remarks that Rory is “the one who won’t die” which is so true, (WARNING: SPOILERS, Skip to next paragraph if you care) because Amy and Rory go through 5 different versions of reality to…

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Funny thing abo…

Funny thing about pastoring, a way to make your job easier is to be emotionally calibrated to the season…i.e if you are “feelin” Thanksgivingy around Thanksgiving, you will be a better pastor, ditto with Easter, Christmas, etc…..I love my job. I am in essence paid to “do the holiday thing”!!!!

YAY

Going from A to C in Pastor

YAY Co-Pastors ALL the WAY! Co-Pastors, the modern, Biblical model of leadership (Jesus sent them by two)

Theresa Cho's avatarStill Waters

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Have no regard for his appearance or stature, because I haven’t selected him. God doesn’t look at things like humans do. Humans see only what is visible to the eyes, but the Lord sees into the heart.” (1 Samuel 16.7)

I recently wrote a post about my personal journey in discerning my call. A part of that journey is moving from associate pastor to co-pastor. December 15, 2013, we will be installed, which coincidentally marks John Anderson’s 22nd year at St. John’s (started December 24, 1991) and my 10th year of ordained ministry and time at St. John’s (started November 17, 2003).

Reflecting on my time as an associate pastor, I am extremely grateful for the example and legacy that John Anderson has set, not only as a pastor, friend, and colleague, but more importantly as a Head of Staff. He has greatly affected, influenced, and shaped my role…

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Transgender Day of Rememberance

 

A Prayer for Transgender Day of Remembrance 2013

God,
of all the vast varieties of humankind,

Help us to move beyond
the exclusiveness
of an either / or mentality
to the inclusiveness
of an all and every
way of thinking.

Move us beyond binary definitions
to the mystery and complexity of
Your infinite creativity
and creation.

As we pause to remember those
senselessly
Murdered
because of their
all encompassing humanity
open hearts that need to hear
souls that need to know
and minds that need to see
that there are
no limits
to You
nor Your creation.

A Prayer by Vickey Gibbs.

 

Nanowriting and other musing

Culturally I am very interested in how the arts are playing out for millennials. 

I mean we’re mostly broke, so maybe creativity will abound? (this is my hope)

Let’s review

Couch Surfers

Open Source Computer Programs

Etsy

Carshares

and now I’ve re-discovered nanowriMo: National Novel Writing Month(which I’ve heard of briefly last year): in which you set yourself a goal to write a novel through writing about 50,000 words by the end of November

What I love is, you are really doing it for you….the website is (to me) like a self-determined excercise program where you count calories…no wait I mean words 🙂 on your own time and set goals for yourself.

I probably won’t keep up with the word count…but (partially inspired by avidly reading Robin McKinley’s KES) I’ve decided to give it a try…..I will definitely be farther along than I have been so far, I’m four short chapters in already 🙂

GO CREATIVITY! 

YAY BOOKS!

 

Talia: Chapter 4 #nanowriMo

“I don’t know if I’d call this a sword mother…it looks more like a…knife, a curvy-knife”

My mother shrugged, “All I know is its yours. Someone gave it to me about three years ago, you know, when everything……started, and it whispered your name…so I’m giving it to you” at this my mother grinned impishly, completely belying her age.

So I set off, trudging determinedly towards the unknown…

And it got pretty boring. I tried to spot pixies in the trees, but the glitter I caught was too fast to be identifiable. I walked a steady pace, but soon found it to be…..too quiet.

One day from home, and I already miss conversation, I’m not used to being quiet. My mother and I can talk as merrily as the day is long (as the poet says). Plus, I don’t limit my conversation to just my mother. The cat and I often have long in depth observations together….Ripp never says anything out loud, but of course I know better than to believe that she is not participating in the conversation…..in her own cat way.

Then of course there are the childlings, most of whom can outtalk me, but still the oft chatter of the young ones does fill the space around us pleasantly.

I think the real problem is I’m always talking. Its just sometimes I talking in my head, sometimes I’m talking to the text I am reading, and sometimes I’m talking out loud! But I’m always talking.

Towards the end of the day I find a brook, which, although it doesn’t talk, does burble loudly, with pink bubbles mysteriously rising out of the depths of the places where its almost still. This confuses me as I meditate on it, wouldn’t magic work like ripples or splashes off the stream? Conversely, does the very running of the water serve to break apart the magic…making it more likely to need a release in its more still areas.

Liking my completely unschooled opinion, I decide this must be it. I am nothing if not confident, true I didn’t have magical training, but I figure that common sense and the willingness to do hard work will serve in almost any situation, so I don’t tend to dither or worry the way other girls might. (Although, sometimes I wonder if the dithering is because a lot of girls can use it as an excuse to get a male opinion on something. How boring would that be to always have your opinion told to you!).

Moonrise comes (so to speak, as I said before the moon is no longer visible, but it doesn’t change the time of day it is, so we in my village at least, continue to call it moonrise). I decide that I have spent too many nights awake, and that I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep if stop anyway. So on I go.

Alone.

Fools

“Christianity is, by its core nature, more akin to folly than it is to the Pope’s massive corporation. The central dictate of Christian doctrine is humility, in imitation of Christ’s ultimate self-humbling. Christians are mocked, persecuted and small: the powerful so-called Christian empires are the real perversion of the Gospel, not the Holy Fool.” p. 127 to Play the Fool by Laurie R. King

Millennials and Achievement

This is a great video about the overemphasis on quantity over quality in education…but it also points to, what I think is a CRUX of the cultural issue of Millennials

Are we lazy?
Is it the economy?
Do millennials have too high expectations?
Who raised these millennials to think this way?
Did we give too many trophies?
Why do millennials have to show off everything via social media anyway, isn’t that just being self-centered?

I think the millennials are an achievement based generation. One in which achievement is the highest value. And that culturally, we have hit a time where unacknowledged achievement feels worthless.

Boomers (mostly) valued themselves on their own achievements and so they encourage millennials to be high-achieving.
High Expectations: because (we) are encouraged to achieve..although mine are fairly reasonable due current conditions https://katyandtheword.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/one-millennials-expectations/
Social Media; To acknowledge achievement…I have a joke that big events (babies, marriages, etc) aren’t real until they are noted on facebook, I don’t think its just self-centered, I think its culturally about achieving the next goal
Trophies: Those were merely acknowledgments of our achievements, to me (and most people I know) the achievement was reward enough, but the acknowledgement was part of the “reality” that the world recognition makes it more real…
Laziness; I am still not convinced that laziness exists, most people I know who don’t reach their “achievements” are clinically depressed, or have ADHD or have severe home issues that get in their way of getting things done. What most people mean when they say “I was too lazy and didn’t do the laundry” is that emotionally they didn’t have the oomph/gumption to get behind doing that work that day, because life was just too overwhelming….which can be easily confused with laziness but shouldn’t be….

I have a friend who told me “your fairly ambitious….which I gggguessss is a good thing” It brought me up short. How can being ambitious be a bad thing? I mean I know I’m ambitious in what I consider a GOOD way, I don’t value money really (all I want is to be able to afford food and rent for me and mine)…I don’t want public recognition, but I do want to be effective, to be useful, to make a difference in the world…..

Successful church’s are helping people to belong and do hands on work, my generation is one of the greatest for volunteering, creativity is being valued over money and small/creative/homemade items are being more and more valued as real achievements…
because the achievements we hoped for: steady jobs, families, to buy a house, are so often out of reach.

But sharing your couch (couch surfers), opensourcing (Firefox/linux), carsharing (relayrides), farming (CSA, community gardening) and personalized crafts (Etsy) can be https://katyandtheword.wordpress.com/2013/05/10/open-sourcing-and-laziness-2/

I am fairly ambitious
I am achievement oriented
These can be good or bad things

But no matter what, they are definitely DEFINING for me and my generation