Friday Five: Blogroll Spotlight

This week's Friday Five is all about sharing the love - and I think my only problem will be limiting myself to five other blogs I love to read.

So, here goes, in no particular order:

1.Go Fug Yourself - my very favorite distraction/procrastination/otherwise-wasting-time-in-a-hilarious-manner technique. The annual March Madness of Fug pits horribly-dressed celebrities against one another, and it's more fun than I can describe. Besides the great humor, this blog has what I need in any blog I read regularly: great writing.

Seriously. Click on Jennifer Lopez's link on the right side and read any of the dialogues which follow. Awesome.

2. Choral Reef: Music Under the Surface continues to be among my favorite RevGal blogs. Again, and always, great writing - and a ton of thoughtful, fascinating, and downright funny posts. If I ever get to work with a musician as thoughtful as this writer, I'll be the luckiest pastor on earth.

3. In addition to my regular visits to The Text This Week, my newest Happy Preacher Place is Working Preacher. I'm not sure if this counts as a 'blog,' technically, but it's become a great resource for preaching tidbits - especially the "Sermon Brainwave" podcast, which is fun and insightful. Without a weekly text study, I'm particularly thankful for the opportunity even to listen in on a conversation about the lectionary assignments for the week.

4. Winner for Best Name: Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. As RevGals provides me a great resource for support and encouragement of the female pastoral life, so Stirrup Queens is my resource for surviving infertility. Lots of great blogs here, and a daily update (I cannot imagine how much work this is for the blog writer!) on who especially needs a kind word. Illness of any kind can be tremendously isolating, and I'm thankful for a blogging community which helps me feel less so.

5. Desert Year, a fairly new blog with a heartbreaking reason for existence, from Gannet Girl, at Search the Sea. Those who read this will know how hard it is to describe. If you don't, I highly encourage you to start. Gannet Girl is writing about the death of her son last year. Sometimes I still feel as if I am eavesdropping on things which were never intended to be public - except that, obviously, that's not the case. My own knowledge of grief is quite limited. And so I am deeply thankful for someone who can so eloquently write of her own painful journey. I love this blog. And I wish every day that it did not need to exist.

Happy reading to all, and thanks to each of the authors (not to mention all those others I read regularly) whose words enrich my life.

Friday Five: Signs of Hope

After a Lent-induced break from the Friday Five for a few weeks, I'm jumping back in with this one...

Over at RevGals, Songbird writes:

My beloved speaks and says to me: “Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away; for now the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of singing has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land. The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom; they give forth fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away. Song of Solomon 2:10-13

In the late, late winter, as the snow begins to recede here in Maine, we begin to look almost desperately for signs of spring, signs of hope that the weather has turned and a new day is on the horizon. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, Easter and Spring twine inextricably, the crocuses and daffodils peeking through the Earth as we await the risen Christ.

Share with us five signs of hope that you can see today or have experienced in the past.

1. The Sanctuary Window Tree
In our fairly modern sanctuary, we have a very large skylight running down the entire length of the roof right over the altar and pulpit. Outside this skylight is a tree - deciduous of some kind, though I'm not sure exactly what it is. Part of what I love about this tree is the way it announces the seasons as you watch it week after week; it's lush green in the summer, yellow in the fall, bare in the winter, and now, in these days, it's beginning to show the first signs of leaf-growth again. Of course, all the trees are doing the same thing, but that one is a sort of mine-canary for me. In a good way.

2. Lenten midweek services
I almost always love midweek Lenten services, for a variety of reasons: there's opportunity for creativity in worship planning (there always is, of course, but somehow it's easier to pull off in a short series like these); I love evening worship in general; it's a more quiet, contemplative service; no lectionary constraints (although I like the lectionary as a general rule). This year, the Lenten midweek services were my first 'solo flight' in the new parish: the first time I've been completely in charge of a worship opportunity. We're doing a Taize-inspired service ("Taize with training wheels" is my theme), and it's been exceptionally well-received. And we get to end every service with one of my favorites - even though it's not technically Taize:

Take, o take me as I am;
summon out what I shall be.
Set your seal upon my heart

and live in me.

I could sing that all night.

3. This poem.

I blogged it once before, but it's been such a perfect piece for me this Lent that I'm going to do it again: Breakthrough, by J. Barrie Shepherd.

This lenting
is a longing, looking,
isolating and locating process,
a passing of the time between
what has to be, what may become,
a late, last, solitary lingering
among the soiled and crusted snowbanks
of deep-drifted hurt and disappointment
seeking out those tender-tough new shoots
that pierce the calloused surface
of all losing with the agony
of life becoming green again.

4. New steps on the baby quest.
I've kept mostly quiet on the baby-quest front for awhile on this blog, for several reasons. We're holding things closely right now. But there are many signs of hope, and have been, for the past several months. Although that's all I'd like to say (and, to be clear, no - I'm not pregnant), it's a more hopeful place than it's been for a long time. For which I am profoundly grateful.

5. Chocolate. EVERYWHERE.
Yes, I get that the Easter Bunny is some kind of pagan fertility symbol co-opted by a consumerist culture hell bent on unhealthy snacks, sugar obsessions, and a complete disregard for the true scandal of the gospel of resurrection.

And you know what? I don't really care. I love me some chocolate. And Easter is a tiny peek of heaven for all chocoholics. Bring on the pagans. I'm ready.

No, seriously! I'm working! I swear!

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook.

Love: catching up with friends, reading fun status updates, seeing photos, joining random and entertaining groups, wasting a bit of time while still feeling semi-connected to real people.

Hate: feeling awkward about the whole 'should I or shouldn't I be friends with parishioners' question, the new layout (HATE), not having control of other people's posts which might include me, being asked to be friends with someone I don't really want to be friends with but then I feel bad about ignoring them, the new layout (did I mention that?).

I've decided that I can't be anonymous on Facebook, so I'll just accept friend invitations from parishioners (I do not, ever, request to be a friend to same), and keep my status updates church-appropriate. This is fine. I get most of my anonymity needs met on this blog. Someday that might have to change too, but for now, I think we're alright.

But here's a new, completely unforeseen, reason to be on Facebook: this weekend, I am doing a funeral for a young woman who died of cancer. Her friends have created a FB group, and they are posting all their memories and stories about her. I got an invitation to this group, and it is funeral-homily GOLD. What an amazing resource for a preacher! I never met this woman, and those funeral sermons are always the hardest: and now, from the most unexpected source, there's a ton of help.

I guess I'll stick with Facebook awhile longer. Even with the new format.

scene from a sunday morning

I am standing at the altar this past Sunday, preparing to offer the prayer of the day.

You know how pastors usually (we hope) look like they are concentrating on the liturgy, in all sincerity, trying their best to offer hopeful and helpful words, to conduct themselves in keeping with the holy nature of the moment?

Yeah. Sometimes this is what actually happens:

“Holy God, [oh, crap. There’s a spider on the altar. Crawling toward the soon-to-be-location of the chalice. Can’t be good.] through your Son you have called us to live faithfully [I think I have a Kleenex in my pocket. Or did I just get rid of all of them when I took my alb home to wash it after the coffee-spillage incident a few weeks ago?] and act courageously. [Oops. That’s a cough drop.] Keep us steadfast in your covenant of grace [OH! There it is. Now I’ll just slip it out of my pocket…] and teach us the wisdom [and slide my hand carefully across the altar…] that comes only through Jesus Christ [SQUISH! Got him. Dead.], our Savior and Lord [now slide carcass carefully back toward me…] who lives and reigns with you [oops, left little spot on altar. Too bad. Better than dead spider.] and the Holy Spirit, one God [slide Kleenex back in pocket, and remind self NOT TO USE THIS KLEENEX FOR NOSE-BLOWING LATER], now and forever. Amen.”

Just so you know.

we now interrupt your regular Lent schedule to bring you a fun meme.

Chorus has nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award - thanks! (Also, you should head over to her blog to check out her super cool bathroom renovation.) Here are the rules:

List 7 things that you love and then pass the award on to 7 people...tagging them and letting them know they won! You can copy the picture of the award and put it on your sideboard letting the whole wide world know you are KReATIV!

Seven Things I Love:

(Sidebar: I am taking the Sean-Penn-Oscar-Acceptance-Speech approach to this and not naming Beloved. Because he knows anyway.)

1. The sound of rain on the roof when I go to bed at night.

2. Tuna noodle casserole with peas.

3. My four-month old niece's smile.

4. Samoa Girl Scout Cookies. "Addicted" might be a more accurate term than "love."

5. "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR.

6. The public library.

7. Laughing until you hiccup and then cry.

I am passing this on to:
Choralgirl (at Choral Reef)
i are a writer
Nachfolge
The Kitchen Door
The Swandive
Cheesehead in Paradise
Seeking to Build a Bridge

Have fun!