I am trying to get donors for my next year of Doctoral work in Creative Writing! This is a working theologian’s degree at Pittsburgh Seminary where I continue to work 32+ hrs a week (less in the summer) and try to put my degree to immediate use!
The way we are funding is 1/3rd from my family, 1/3rd from continuing Ed funds, and 1/3rd fundraised. As you know I offer prayers, liturgies and more all for free here at WordPress. My next class is in January in Fantasy and Christianity which is my area of specialty and I can’t wait! We are centering on C S Lewis and comparing him to other authors.
I’ve had 107 views today (Giving Tues Nov 30 2021) on katyandtheword.com. If everyone gave $25 today I’d be done https://gofund.me/aaeb4910 I have 3000 views a month which means if everyone gives – couple of bucks say $2-$5 over the next month I’ll def be done in 2 weeks. Please consider giving what you can. As you can see any amount would help!!
Katy at Katyandtheword
Thanks! For your support and thanks for Praying with me!
Praise the Lord from the heavens and in the heights
Praise God, all his anger, all his host!
Praise God, sun and moon and all of the shining stars!
Let us praise the name of the Lord, for God commanded and they were created!
Let us praise God, men and women, young and old together!
Come, Let us praise the name of the Lord together!
Prayer of Confession: God we confess that we sometimes are searching for wholeness, sometimes we want to build a temple or find a special spot, when the truth is, you are with us the whole way. Show us how you have the whole world in you hands we pray . (Silent Confession) Amen.
Assurance of Pardon: God is with us, guiding us and forgiving us. Let us proclaim the truth to one another: In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Amen.
Prayer of Dedication: God, that you are always holy, and that holiness does not need to be trapped or contained. Help us to share your holiness with the world we pray. Amen.
Hymns: Holy, Holy, Holy, Immortal Invisible God Only Wise, Jesus Thy Boundless Love to Me O Christ the Great Foundation
Children: Here is the church, Here is the Steeple Open the door and see all the people but change it to Here is the church, here is the church here is the church
If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing! I have already Successfully funded year 1, and am now working on Year 2!
If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing! I have already Successfully funded year 1, and am now working on Year 2!
If you find these resources useful please consider contributing to my Doctorate in Ministry in Creative Writing! I have already Successfully funded year 1, and am now working on Year 2!s
God, No one told me that apocalyptic events were going to go one for so long.
I had never considered, when I watched the floods and fires in movies,
when havoc of the post apocalypse was depicted in my novels–too often it was skated over about just how long the chaos ensued.
So here we are
After years of warnings and castrophic governances–
a pandemic of, as I used to say as teen, totally epic portions, did not strike me as such a long term event.
I know, I knew that recovery would take forever.
Thank God, that I have it drilled into me, that recovery takes longer than the actual event, and I am aware and girded, appropriately, to start healing.
But I didn’t know
That my kids will be entering their third year of pandemic schooling.
That I would be jostling back and forth between regulations and meeting the needs of so many differing circumstances of ministry from 2019 til the year of our Lord two thousand and twenty one.
and a multi year timeframe to just have the apocalyptic event itself, was not quite on my schedule Lord.
I thought catastrophes were sudden, and fast.
Where is my cut scene?
I hear we hit the economic depressive climax (lowmax?) in April 2020?
Just goes to show that money is a human made thing, don’t it God?
Lord, as we face this ongoing apocalyptic event,
As we minister in these times.
Give us what it is we need.
(Whatever that might be, because, I’m not sure what that is right now)
Because this story isn’t even in the the rearview mirror yet, and we are not yet ready to know how to tell it yet.
A colleague said it feels like we are Ron Weasley, working with a broken Wand,
doing the best we can–
No magic wand, no program, no methodology to “fix things” just presence and patience and prayer.
and maybe sitting down and reading Revelation again, or John, or Acts,
or Frederick Buechner, or Elie Wiesel or Martin Luther King Jr or J. R. R. Tolkien or Ursula K. Le Guin or Toni Morrison or Langston Hughes or Madeline L’engle or Octavia Butler or N. K. Jemison or….or….
Because God knows,
We’ve had to Chaplain Apocalypses before,
and we will have to do it again.
Be with us as we do, we pray.
Amen.
Feel free to share/adapt/use with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
God, this is the week that never ends, in the year that never ends.
Always, towards the end of the school year there is an impossible week.
Where spring and summer activities collide in their not quite done, and just getting started-ness.
Always there is a week where the schedule doesn’t work, every day has triple obligations, and on top of that everyone is cranky.
And then, someone doesn’t sleep, and someone else doesn’t feel well or the car has trouble or the pet has to go to the vet or the computer quits working or a something else impossible happens.
God, timing is everything.
And this year, when I have spent more time with parts of my family than ever, and seen other parts and my friends almost not all…
This year when vacations and retreats are just gasps of breath in the midst of survival mode…
This year when all the “fun things” I thought I was doing to have fun turned out to be coping mechanisms essential to surviving, as they have fallen by the wayside and the to do list somehow continues while these other things don’t..
God Almighty, You know, how this year has been never-ending.
Like a song that is stuck in your head, nagging at you day in and day out, that’s how the pandemic works–always in the background, giving your headaches and heartaches. Always on the calendar as you figure out what to do and how to do it.
The stress presses down, on my head, on my heart, on my soul.
God, I have been praying without ceasing this year. I have cried and sighed and laughed and zoomed and emailed and turned on cameras and turned off camera, have put on masks and then then washed the masks, every single day of this never ending year.
I have examined every ache and sniffed and listened to every lonely heartache of my friends and family…..and taken-just-a-moment-to-center-myself all in prayer.
I am living into the rhythm of prayer Lord–one that is both structured and spontaneous, one that has been out loud and quiet, one where I’ve known exactly what to say and one where I’ve murmured nonsense to the Holy Spirit.
It’s the longest week, in the longest year I’ve ever lived.
So I will continue to pray, and live.
Thank God you are eternal, thank God that prayers do not cease, and are picked up by friends and families and churches and strangers when mine falter.
Thank God you are the song that never ends God.
Amen.
Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
About love and tradition and cultural differences. I asked (rather timidly even) if race played a part to our reactions.
And soon I found myself hip deep in a quagmire of pain.
People were triggered. They felt they needed to defend their pain.
And it was hard God, and part of me wanted to take it all back. Because I don’t want to create heartache.
But then I remembered two weeks ago when someone asked me hard questions about love and inclusion and the brokenness of the system that I perpetuated.
And although that was embarrassing and hard. I lived through it.
And in reflecting this experience I remembered that part of why I asked the hard questions this week was because as of last week I was tired of us: me, the church, consumer culture, ignoring hard issues and perpetuating whatever was comfortable for us.
Did you ever notice Jesus really likes to answer a question with a harder question?
You deconstructed me Lord. And I confess I need you to bless this mess today, because I’m going to be in the deconstructed zone for a while.
Because once God starts to deconstruct you, it becomes easier for you to see other places where the threads of normal need to be pulled apart.
And you can choose to continue the work God started, but it’s up to you.
So I guess I’ve reached a new level of maturity, where I stay in the muck longer than is comfortable, and I feel the anguish of racism on top of the anguish of those in pain.
And as my heart aches, I am thankful for all the times I was able to say:
“I don’t know. “
And “I hear you.”
As I sat with the pain and let go of the reasons and the arguments.
Do you sometimes say I don’t know God?
I don’t know
But thank you for helping me to brave the muck; and help me to muddle through, or sit, or cry. Help me to do this hard questioning thing I pray.
Amen.
Feel free to use/share/adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta
katyandtheword 