With many thanks to Mary Beth for her faithfully wonderful Wednesday Festival posts, and with hopes that her well-deserved break will lead to new forms of creativity, we're taking a new (or an old? I'm not sure!) tack. There will be four of us now rotating Wednesday Festival duties, and we'll be highlighting several posts for your reading pleasure each week.
As a bit of an intro, let me add that I'm a PC(USA) pastor of a federated Methodist-Presbyterian church, just coming up on my one-year anniversary of ordination and service to my congregation. I'm also a spiritual director and a long-married mom of three.
Without further ado, a look around RevGals for posts in which we ponder the challenges of life:
Suzanne, a chaplain in hospital and assisted living settings, fills her blog with artistic creations, but at the end of September she wrote lovingly about the intersection of her many roles with the hospitalization of her little son.
Wayne, a stained-glass artist, teaches horticulture to young people whose challenges are often best met in garden and greenhouse, and has been wondering how to write rules that reflect his vision AND satisfy the powers-that-be.
In a blog devoted entirely to her passion for books, retired Methodist pastor Bonnie reviews a volume which explores the essential spiritual practice of savoring. We often forget to take the time in our life of prayer, or in our other spiritual practices, to savor our experience of God, which Ignatius suggests that we do when we review our days. Bonnie seems to have found a gem of a book on this delightful topic.
Having had to make a long drive in dense fog this morning, I know what a challenge that can be. But Marcia, pastor and photographer, captured an exquisite image of spiderwebs this past week, thanks to fog!
And finally, one of Mary Beth's great finds: liberal rev writes movingly and candidly about the complex topic of forgiveness. The challenge is to forgive with authenticity, which is a good deal more challenging than Christian faith often seems to imply. If we do not forgive, have we failed to love? Are there things we should not forgive with undue haste, lest we cheapen the transaction?
Enjoy your own reading and pondering!
Thanks for the shout-out, though what I found was not a book, but a website on spiritual practices called Spirituality & Practice. If you click on that link, you will eventually get to a book review, but it was the quote on savoring from the website that I shared on my book blog.
ReplyDeleteI was looking for spiritual practices because my online book club (on another of my blogs) is starting to read and discuss (as we go) Diana Butler Bass's Christianity for the Rest of Us, published in 2006. The middle section of her book covers ten practices that "point Christians in the right direction, toward the wisdom of God, toward love, toward home" (p. 74).
Some of you read this book in 2007 and discussed it here on RevGalBlogPals before I got here. If you've read it -- or want to read it now -- come discuss it with my Book Buddies. (Jan @ Yearning for God is searching for her copy and plans to join us.)
Wonderful! Thanks so much, Robin! I'm off to find new creative horizons...? though not sure what direction that's in. Blessings on the new team!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Robin for being part of this team.
ReplyDeleteMay I just say how much I LOVE (or as the kids say LERRRRRVVVEEE) the RevGals.
ReplyDeleteRobin - these are wonderful posts! thank you!
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