How to Dress Like a Female Pastor (and other absurd questions with no good answer)

Thoughts on dressing like a “pastor” as a female I can say people who don’t like me find it much easier to critique my clothing than to provide substantive feedback

reverendfem's avatarReverend Fem

Roughly three years ago, I woke up one morning and decided to be fashionable. This sudden conviction came after an entire lifetime of commitment to a steady diet of t-shirts, hoodies, and flare jeans. It didn’t derive from a desire to please potential lovers, or because of societal pressure to be beautiful (at least not consciously). What actually happened is that I somehow stumbled into a genuine love for my body and it made the idea of developing a style identity seem like fun rather than exhausting self-torture.

I observed people around me whose sense of style I admired, and then I started shopping and thrifting and putting together my own outfits. I bought dresses and blazers and chunky jewelry. When I came out as queer in seminary, I felt free to explore other fashion impulses. I embraced androgynous and traditionally masculine clothing, and of course, vests. I kept wearing…

View original post 1,150 more words

The Maintenance of DVDs: Who tried bananas? (I didn’t)

Blankbook19's avatarA Blankbook with Information

Children, the young ones, like to be helpful.  I like to hand you the disk (throw it at you as hard as possible), or removing and forcing the disc into the player over and over.  One time my youngest placed a “shoots and ladders” person piece (cardboard) into the PS3, and when turned on the disc that currently resided there had circle of scraping.  Scratches, and love can make any DVD not useable.

All rights reserved, and use common sense. Image 1. All rights reserved, and use common sense.

Storage (See Last Blog)

Scratches, Smudges, and Fingerprints

The DVD or a CD are sturdy, especially the ones that you do not record, and most scratches will not screw up the laser that will read the DVD.  The older the DVD player and poorly built players will have a harder time, so it’s not always the DVD, but the player as well.

There is an error-correcting coding…

View original post 773 more words

#fantasy #ebook I reccommend

Hey all,

   Patricia C. Wrede’s “The Raven Ring” is on sale today for $1.99. http://amzn.to/1oGiT5y

 

A fantasy story with several nods to high fantasy, this about a girl in search of herself. Especially good are the portrayal of clash of cultures, the mythical landscape and the presence of several strong females include the heroine. A few more books happen in this same land which might also be fun to check out. A great way to start into Patricia C. Wrede’s tales, then look at her witty Enchanted Forest Series and her Young Adult Thirteenth Child series.

 

I am not receiving anything for this promotion, its just me recommending 😉

Job Ch 1: “What a Setup” or Biblical Fairy Tale

The beginning of Job is a total setup.

Once Upon a Time there’s Job: upright and blameless was he. Job was one who had plenty of sons and not too many daughters–sons whose hospitality was great (they really knew how to party people into the kingdom), and they hosted their sisters often.

Job’s hospitality was even greater, making sacrifices and worshipping on his children’s behalf, praying for them, asking for forgiveness if ever they wronged God (because Job admits he may not have been the perfect parent)

God and all the heavenly beings gathered together, and God asks Satan (otherwise known as the accuser/challenger) what he had been up to…

“The usual” Satan answers “Wondering around, looking at earth and earthlings?”

“Oh, did you notice my servant Job?” asks God.”Because he’s pretty much everything I could hope for, upright, honest and true (i.e. he fears God and turns away from evil)

“Why” asks Satan, “You know he only likes you because you take such good care of him, he is well blessed, he has every reason to be good. If you ruined him, all that would change”

“hmmm….” God says, “We shall see…tell you what do what you want to Job’s family, friends and possessions, as long as you leave Job alone, you can do what you want….”

Job is sure set up here. First he is set up to have everything, and then its what’s the phrase? “too good to be true” he is almost “too blessed” and as a result he becomes tested. Here God gives Satan, the tester, rights to do whatever he wants to Job (Excepting touching Job himself) to see just how faithful Job can be….

What a setup!

Don’t we pray for God NOT to lead us into temptation, what is with this? This doesn’t seem fair, how is it that evil can happen to Job and what does it all mean?

Here’s the setup, we are in for a good story, one where evil exists, but not without good, one where suffering is not greater than God, one where temptations and tests are less about who God is and more about who we are……

How will this work?

Plus, this happens in the mythical land of Uz, you know
a-long-time-ago

In fact the “Satan” character could be named “challenger” instead of Satan, because its unclear if the character is evil or just throwing challenges up….

So why does this perfect guy get setup in this way?
Because we’ve all experienced this, the question of why do bad thing happen to good people, theodicy, Why does evil exist, we all have experienced this reality in our lives.

And we all talk about God, its a human thing to talk about God and the role of evil in our lives, It doesn’t matter who you are or what you believe in this is a topic of conversation. So here we are, in a Biblical fairy tale (yay fairy tales!)

Asking the good questions, starting with
Once Upon a Time….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMzQCaRR_wk

Worship, Church, Buildings and Mission

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong, tell me which of these things are not like the other, by the time I finish my song

 

Worship, Church, Building, Mission
 
My church is very lucky to have a building: it has a good location and is not crumbling (although it needs upkeep)
 
Here is my question, how much is ministry defined by the building? How much to we decide who we are and what are capabilities by our building.
 
If we are looking to grow spiritually, then we probably should plan to OUTGROW our building.
This idea is some (I hope) of what is behind the new One Thousand and One Worshiping Communities. The idea isn’t just that church should go to the community, its the idea that church should be exuberantly overflowing into all parts of your lives.
Overflowing, Abundance, Exuberance: These should be the words that you associate with worship, church and mission.
 
I want monthly Mission projects, theater and arts. I want to be a place where children come to play, communities come to eat, and lonely people come to socialize. I want it to be a place to go when people are new to then neighborhood, or need a new connection in their lives. To do all this, I think we need to be more than outreach, more than in the community, but be lively, engaging and overflowing with Love.
 
This means Hands on activities, short & clear messages, uplifting conversations and empowering ministries!
 
Go! Mission! Go!
 

My Sister

My youngest sister is undergoing transgender operation at the end of July. I’m praying for her, I wish I could do more in sharing about her situation<–I’m working on it.

Luckily I’ve found some great support thru twitter #yesallwomen and #cisgaze which I discovered through it (yay).

One person is saving for an operation.

I have had lots of great conversation with this person

Highlight 1

Ealperin….when my mom says “Why change what God has given you?” When, in fact, my God says, “Oh, no! I’m not finished making you, yet.””

Highlight 2

Ealperin, “Even in different faiths, Love is Love. :)”

me “I know what the God I believe in is like, and definitely Love is grace in motion”

Go theology Go!

 

 

#pastoral #ministry, visits and growing edges

The truth is no pastor ever makes enough visit. If we can start with that as a given, then this conversation will go a lot smoother.

I always want to make a lot more visits. But I have a feeling that a lot of the things I end up doing….like planning the entire session retreat by myself, creating a couple of youth group activities, doing the children’s sermon (although really, I’d never give that up), meeting with the children, and most importantly filling in for any ipso facto committee that used to exist (write a budget? sure, create a new set of bylaws: hmmm if you give me a week to do nothing else, find all the information to get a loan) etc. etc.

I say this, because I always worry that I am not visiting enough. I always know that I should be fitting it in more, but between all the meetings, all the daily tasks and then that thing called personal spirituality and care I barely have time to breathe. And yet the visits are few and far between.

And calls just aren’t the same.

Recently our deacons have not been as together as usual (they do visits too) which means practically no one is getting visited 😦

Of course I’ve had 3 business trips in the last 8 weeks i.e. post Easter and 3 funerals to do in the last month, but I still feel the disconnect. I want to visit. I want to be able to spend time with those who can’t get out. I want to have to freedom to spend the time needed. I thought at this point (about 4 years in) I’d have mastered how it is I go about it. Sometimes I fear I’m getting worse instead of better though!

Here is what I have learned

1. Visits have to be scheduled

2. Visits  can last anywhere from 10minutes to 3hrs, which means I need a large chunk of time prearranged to visit.

3. They can use up emotional juice or be rewarding, its hard to tell what will happen til you go in.

I tend not to know what the schedule is for the week until my husband gets his work schedule a day or two before Sunday, and to set aside a large chunk of time is really difficult, but…..I’m working on it. I continue to try to arrange for care so I can get out and see people, I try to be clear about how long I’m available to visit, I will get back to calling people.

But honestly I wish we could meet over coffee hour and catch up….and I’m sure that they do too!

In the meantime, hopefully its never too late to visit!