I firmly believe that humanity is no better or worse that it used to be….I think humans like to believe the myths of “human progress” or “the world ending” because its hard to find purpose if we aren’t running towards or away from something. Of course, what we should be running towards is God and what we should be running away from is evil. Also, we tend to look a “the world” from our own individual perceptive and judge it accordingly (when we’re up the world is better, when we’re down the world is ending) However, I think that we are human, we have ups, and downs. We have flaws and we have gifts. It may be easier to believe in a change, but I think that that truth is humanity will always remain human, and part of humanity is that need for relationship, the need for love in our lives.
Category: Love
Huffington Post article disappoints (takes fairy tales at face value)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-carl/once-upon-a-time_1_b_2214370.html?utm_hp_ref=books
and
and my comment for said article…
I agree fairy tales are important and told early. However, I feel it is flawed to say “who wants to hear the tale again.” The whole point of fairy tales is their oral nature (short, not many details so we are able to fill in). That’s why we tell the story over and over again. When we retell these stories we are doing what the genre begs us to do…so please don’t discount the power of the fairy tale
Sigh…seriously they are SO missing the point
…what I read..in high school
Have you ever listened to, read or watched something so much that you have internalized it, and its become a part of your very being?
That is another way to describe what “Reading out” a book is
in highschool I discovered fantasy as a genre
The first “fantasy” book I read was Robin McKinley “A Hero and the Crown” very quickly it and all the McKinley books I could find Beauty, Deerskin and the Blue Sword) became my go to books.
As well as the Tamora Pierce quartets (High School involved reading Alanna and then awaiting as Daine slowly came out) 
And there was Patricia C. Wrede’s Enchanted Forest series which I discovered in the school library in 6th grade. This series maybe, perhaps, if I had to say, my favorite books ever (although I hate t o pic k because I love so many)
I never did read fantasy to escape. I always read it theologically. I read it to affirm the goodness of humanity and the human irrepressible & irrational endurance. I read it to see the abundance and presence of hope no matter how hard things get. I read it because I wanted to see people suffer challenges & loss and to know that it is all worth it, to see good triumph over evil. To me the happy-ever-after is guaranteed, but the work that is done to get there is what is truly important.
Soul Beauty
Embracing God and self identity, that’s what is about folks!
In a world where too much ugliness happens every day–much of it on the internet for millions of eyes to see–let’s take a moment and celebrate how one young woman has transformed a moment of ugliness into one of beauty.
It all started when this photo, taken without the subject’s knowledge, was posted on a website that invited mocking and cruel comments.
Then this happened:
“Hey, guys. This is Balpreet Kaur, the girl from the picture. I actually didn’t know about this until one of my friends told on facebook. If the OP wanted a picture, they could have just asked and I could have smiled 🙂 However, I’m not embarrased or even humiliated by the attention [negative and positve] that this picture is getting because, it’s who I am. Yes, I’m a baptized Sikh woman with facial hair. Yes, I realize that my gender is often confused and I…
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Me: “Who does Westley (m…
Me: “Who does Westley (my 2yr old) say hi to?”
Congregation: “Everybody”
Me: In fact he’s quite militant about it. If you say hi once, you are doomed to continue to say hi to him all day!
Best synopsis of my sermon about welcome today. Text: Mark 9:30-37
30They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
Me: “Who does Westley (my 2yr old) say hi to?”
Congregation: “Everybody”
Me: In fact he’s quite militant about it. If you say hi once, you are doomed to continue to say hi to him all day!
Best synopsis of my sermon about welcome today. Text: Mark 9:30-37
30They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him.
33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
A Prayer
Dear Claymaker,
Please mold me so that those thin lines I see in me are not me cracking at the seems, but instead are the growing edges by which I grow into a newer and better version of myself.
Your Potty Daughter
Katy
Don’t be Nice…
This is a Public Service Announcement
Please note: Jesus (while saying nothing about homosexuality) was crystal clear that our primary purposes as Christian were to love our neighbor as our selves, care for the sick, help the poor and empower the marginal…the next company/church/protestor/athlete etc. who claims to be Christian really should show how they are following Jesus’ many life changing commands, that’s what real Christianity is, and if anyone tells you differently, they need to spend some time in deep conversation with God (prayer). Please stop fooling yourself and pretending that Jesus was about politics, money and grandstanding (that would be your humanity showing)…that is all…
PS what is the most “Christian” thing you have ever witnessed?
A Post about being Post…well Post-Everything
I am a graduate of Oberlin (yay Oberlin), and I loved (almost) every minute of it. But one of the things Obies love to do is take things apart. (Any other Obies feel free to chime in about this). In fact, sometimes we would move to “deconstructing” things so fast that I would feel like I didn’t even know how the thing was constructed in the first place (as an English Major my high school was highly lacking in Shakespeare, and I wanted to round my education out with him, however the only classes offered were about deconstructing what we supposedly had learned in high school).
Now as I get into ministry I hear a lot of talk about what this post-culture is going to do? Author Ross Douthat wrote an article about Can Liberal Christianity be saved? (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/opinion/sunday/douthat-can-liberal-christianity-be-saved.html) His conclusion was that” Today, by contrast, the leaders of the Episcopal Church and similar bodies often don’t seem to be offering anything you can’t already get from a purely secular liberalism. Which suggests that perhaps they should pause, amid their frantic renovations, and consider not just what they would change about historic Christianity, but what they would defend and offer uncompromisingly to the world.Absent such a reconsideration, their fate is nearly certain: they will change, and change, and die. (PS for a good response to this read http://www.patheos.com/blogs/livingaholyadventure/2012/07/can-liberal-christianity-be-saved-a-response-to-ross-douthat/)
However as I look at this world, I see that we are trying to construct a Post-Religious world (i.e. Spiritual not religious viewpoint that is so oft referenced). So the question comes, what does a post-church, post-christian, post-denominational (I am told by a good friend this is a move that the Bible belt is especially making) world. How do we post about our Post-world? (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postchristianity)
Going forward I have to say that to me a post-religious world would look like the following
1) Where individuals ultimately choose to uphold each other as people, even when beliefs differ (perhaps what our Moderator and Vice Moderator were trying to model at GA before our Vice had to step down). Allowing Spiritual Practices to bring people together–>at least I think this is what some of the Spiritual people are trying to get at…
2) Where church isn’t made up of the “shoulds” of religion: church should have pews, church should include hymns, church should have Sunday School, but is instead moved by Holy Spirit to BE a faith community whenever and however that comes together….
3) Where the Faith of a group of people is ultimately used to empower those individuals who are powerless. What happens when powerless people come together? that’s right they become empowered If the church functions as a community builder grounded in the love of God, then we cannot help but support and empower each other to do new and wonderful things….
Places where this is overlooked today=basically everyone who is assigned an associate pastor (that is a rant yet to come)
The Young
Recently, these interactive boards have moved from the back of the broken pews to the corner of the sanctuary that we designated as a toddler area. (from a fellow pastor http://theresaecho.com/2011/04/18/interactive-toddler-boards/)
The Elderly
The College Age
The Young Adult (i.e. those in there 20s and 30s)
(you know those with young families who need babysitting or those who are still single and constantly on the move to find a job in the tough economy)
The Minorities: Racial, Ethnic and of course the poor
Thats right if your not a white middle class, middle aged American in many denominations your power is significantly less not only in society but in the church itself. Plus if you are not well-educated and don’t love words (say you learn by practice or are a visual learner) you probably won’t fit in well to the traditional Presbyterian service. (Does anyone else see something wrong with this?)
What would a service look like if it was regularly handed to these groups? What would faith look like if we went to where these people were?
You know what I think? I think that Ministry, True Ministry is to make FAITH ACCESSIBLE (that’s right, I put it in caps, that’s how serious I am). 
How do we make, not only our building, our worship and our activities accessible, How do we make our Faith Accessible. What does it mean that people identify Spirituality over religion or faith? I think its because Spirituality feels accessible. You can use what is comfortable to you, you can learn about it at your own pace, and your can connect with different people over different aspects of it even if you don’t agree completely with them (for the record I have both liberal and conservative friends).
So how can we do that for Faith?
I don’t know,
But let me remind you friends, that there is no resurrection without death!
Whether you consider this time the denominational pregnancy http://vimeo.com/25360983
or even if you think we are dying….http://treymorgan.net/17-signs-your-church-might-be-dying/
Either way, there is a rebirth a coming, the question is how will we access it?
(P.S. Giving Access is not the same as watering down faith, just so I’m clear on that!)
LOL Pastor
I have been an LOL person before it was cool, before LOL was conceived (almost) I was living it out. If you have ever been to one of my services, be warned, LOL will happen. In fact I am very likely to LOL at myself (and if you don’t know what LOL please google it immediately)
Now here is the interesting thing, my willingness to laugh has gotten me into a lot of trouble. (For why I laugh please read https://katyandtheword.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/pastor-with-a-sense-of-humor/)
a. People think I’m an airhead (I think this has to do with me being female). People assume because I laugh, I don’t care, when actually its the opposite. I laugh because I do care. I tend to take life very seriously. And when I say seriously, I don’t mean in a holier-than-thou or everything-is-sacred kind of way I mean the, life-is-God’s-gift, We-only-get-one-shot-at-it, so I pay attention way! I pay attention, so I don’t miss the happy moments. I pay attention because I have found that laughter is rare, and humor is a hard commodity to find. I pay attention because it is SO important to find Joy in life, and I don’t want any ounces of it that I can catch to slip through my fingers. 
b. People think I devalue God, ministry, etc. by laughing. Last I check the Book of Order (the Presbyterian Constitution) says W-1.1000 i.e. the very, very, very first thing said about worship is “Christian worship joyfully ascribes all praise and honor, glory and power to the triune God.” We are supposed to have fun, I don’t know why we forget that (p.s. when is having fun not holy?)
Plus-we are currently striving under Openness to be more open to joy (bet you didn’t even know that). In F-1.0404, our first Openness statement is “a new openness to the sovereign activity of God in the Church and in the world, to a more radical obedience to Christ, and to a more joyous celebration in worship and work;”
What does this mean? It means the more obedience we find, the closer we are to God, the more joyous our celebration has become. My most recent example of this is the Farmer’s Market, which most of us find “fun.” This doesn’t mean we aren’t working, to the contrary, it means we are doing the right kind of work.
Which brings me to the third problem I often encounter.
3. People think I don’t work hard enough. I seriously think because I enjoy my job, people think I’m not “working.” I have tried to give more voice to the work I am doing, but I have found it difficult to do this without gogguzomen (grumbling, muttering, complaining in Greek–I love that word, doesn’t it sound just like what it means?). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbhnRuJBHLs Anyway, so if I don’t complain like the rest of the world, I must not be doing my job properly, but in actuality I am obsessed with my job. I am, in truth a workaholic, and it takes a lot for me to put down the reins and take the days/hours/minutes off that I need. However, it is hard for people to see this, because I love my job. I truly love my job. I love that when I do well I can laugh, I love that when I make mistakes I can laugh at myself, and I love how God turns everything upsidedown on me, so what I thought I was doing completely changes (rather like a King in a manger, Salvation on the cross, Great Epistles written by a tax collector), when these surprises come I like to laugh. It doesn’t mean I am taking things lightly. It just means that I am game for God’s jokes. I am ready to be surprised, I am ready to be happy, and I’m ready to find happiness, even in what seems like mistakes at the time. It doesn’t mean that I don’t internalize those mistakes, it doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty, or work on them. What it means is that I am able to find the humor in things. I am able to understand that I don’t understand. I see the mystery in God’s face, and I laugh.
So I admit it. In the face of a faltering denomination tearing apart on issues of acceptance no less (talk about the ultimate irony!!!), despite a disappointing GA where the Youth/Younger people were ignored (even as people wondered how to get young people into the church), in a place where Vice Moderators are threatened and feel the need to step down (http://www.pcusa.org/news/2012/7/4/mccabe-resigns-vice-moderator-220th-ga/). Times seem to be tough. However, I refuse to give in. It is easier to pick-a-little and talk-a-little than to find the good. It is easier to dwell on the bad, and it is human to try to rip things apart rather than to laugh and move on together. So in light of all this….I’m going to continue to be a LOL pastor.
katyandtheword 