Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times.

Pour Out Your Soul cw: pregnancy & birth

God, I confess that sometimes I don’t have it in me to pour myself out in front of you.

It’s hard to find the time, or the place or the emotiona energy.

And I confess, God, that I don’t want this to be intergral to the advent season. Why must I empty myself before you?

How can I empty myself for your?

But I know, that before I breathed my first tremolous breath, before I screamed out my first cry, before I even was formed in the womb–you made room for me.

You emptied yourself enough to make room for every single person in the world.

Mary made room for God, she cleared a space to become a magnification of God’s work in the world. A beautifully, justice screaming, baby carrying, patriarchy challenging woman who fully embraced it all and poured herself out to make room for the magnificat dreams.

So as I try to pour out, and I can’t, or I won’t or I only half-ass it….If I find myself stuttering over justice, or acquiencing to hetereo-normative white colonial Cis-Patriacrchies as I tumble through advent to do lists and forget what it was I was supposed to do next…

I pray that in those moments you will hold space for me. I pray that you will send dark and beautiful time and space and room upon the wings of the Holy Spirit.

I pray that it will sing to my soul, and sound through my body, and tremor in the stillness before me.

I’m praying for holding space, and pouring out, and stillness all to find pockets within the mess (after all we women love pockets).

I am praying for all of this, because I am convicted and convinced that this is how Christmas will come.

Alleluia to the stillness and the space-i-ness and the dark.

Alleluia for the mess to, for you were born in the mess of things, so alleluia anyway.

Amen.

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Tenterhooks

God, can we just say, tension is present

I’m wound really taught, and at this point even waiting for the good things feels impossible.

The social media reminders to unclench your jaw and roll your shoulders are so so necessary right now Jesus.

Jesus, how did you do this? How did you live in the tension–stepping into the gap between healthy and sick. Balancing the reality of being human and divine. Calling out hypocrisy and yet not shaming those in need.

How did you do that?

Holy Spirit, I could use some wisdom, if you are ready to supply.

Because the waiting for life to change, for the pandemic to change for the world to change as a result of ::gestures wildly:: all of this, is truly putting me on tenterhooks.

I looks at tenterhook today, God, I felt called to google the etymology and realized it was the hook that holds the tight tent, tight. So simple, so important.

But it also is what is holding things tight, while they dry out so that they are more flexible and able to take their proper shape.

If this means I’m a wet blanket. I’d believe it God. The days are short, the winter is long and the sort-of/kind-of quarantining we are trying to do is never ending.

How do I live into this tension? How to I do enough to survive, but not cut off the essential?

Jesus, the reality is that we all live in-between, it’s just our little human brains can’t handle it.

It’s like waiting for a baby to be born–perfect for advent–full of hope and trepidation. A time that is messy and where your whole body is stretched and changed, and your baby is between healthy and not because they haven’t even been born yet!

So help me, as I wait, as I’m no longer soaked but not quite dry either. Help me as this time of trial stretches me to my limit and pins me to the earth with an uncomfortable but necessary hooks.

And help all of my siblings on earth, because we all seem to be in the same place God.

Help us all, I pray.

Amen.

What Does It Mean to Be 'On Tenterhooks?' | Merriam-Webster

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy 

Read about my journey towards a doctorate in ministry in creative writing and give a small donation towards my tuition! About Me: My Story & My Writing

More Pandemic Prayers and Mundane Prayer to Survive the Day to Day

Typically my prayers and resources get hundreds of views a week. If everyone who regularly used my resources put forth $20, math says (yay math) I only need 100 people at that level to reach my first goal. Any help $5-$25 is greatly appreciated. As always all resources can be used and adapted with credit to Katy Stenta 

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Donate to PayPal https://paypal.me/KatyStenta?locale.x=en_USVenmo www.venmo.com/Katy-Stenta or Google Pay to Katyandtheword at gmail

For All the Beauty*

Sing to the Lord a new song, praise God’s Holy Name.

For another child has claimed their name and identity!

Sing with thanksgiving and pray for protection! For every single person who has to defend and define and redefine on a regular basis. May they feel protected and loved.

Send out the birth announcement, for God’s beloved has found more beauty in themselves to rejoice in!

God, we know you are beyond binary. Black and white are but human lines drawn in the sand. He, she, they, xi, ze, zir, hir, co and ey; You know and recognize and use all of the pronouns! Your name is a pronoun! You are the great I am, the we, the they that is God!

Whenever we discover the complexity, mystery and variety of gender and attraction, we will rejoice.

We will say–we have a God whose image is reflected in the beauty of both Laverne and Elliot. Mighty and Bounteous God, you are the right God for us.

For you created them…

….and they are wonderfully and fiercely made.

God who calls each and every one of us by our living name,

We give thanks for all the beauty* of the earth,

especially that beauty* that is encapsulated in the uniqueness an plurality that is the queer+ community.

We praise you God for this creative work of your hands, today and everyday.

Amen.

Feel free to use/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Support me and my Phd in Divinity in Creative Writing

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