You Should Get a PhD in Liberal Arts (like political science, literature, or philosophy)

You're a great thinker and a true philosopher. You'd make a talented professor or writer.

What Advanced Degree Should You Get?

Jesus Meme

1. Those tagged will share 5 Things They Dig About Jesus.
2. Those tagged will tag 5 people.
3. Those tagged will leave a link to their meme in the comments section of this post so everyone can keep track of what’s being posted..

Well, I’ve been tagged by Eileen and by Janis ; so I guess I’ll have to play, but it’s difficult. I’ve not been very spiritual lately.

1. After more than 2000 years, Jesus is still a primary leader in the world. Dead men don’t often lead.
2. Even though the world changes, Jesus’ message is still current and available – although not always doable.
3. The Incarnation is uniquely important because Jesus becomes as we are instead of remaining The Word, The Other. Humanity and Divinity are linked. That means that we can be linked to divinity through our humanity.
4. Jesus was a storyteller, and I like stories, especially stories with multiple layers of meaning.
5. Jesus’ words can be used to prove almost anything, but, when they are taken as a whole, the message is clearly one of love.

I’m not tagging anyone ‘cause this has been going round my blogsphere for a while. If you haven’t been tagged and you want to participate, I think it’s definitely interesting and thoughtful.

Saturday Cat Blogging

Cliff and Heath enjoy the morning on the porch. Bird feeders are outside to the right so they have entertainment.

Mindless stereotyping fun

Your Power Element is Earth

Your power color: yellow Your energy: balancing Your season: changing of seasons Dedicated and responsible, you are a rock to your friends. You are skilled at working out even the most difficult problems. Low key and calm, you are happiest when you are around loved ones. Ambitious and goal oriented, you have long term plans to be successful.

What's Your Power Element?

First Woman Bishop in Latin America

On June 10th, a woman was consecrated as suffragan bishop in Cuba. See the full story here.

The Rev. Canon Nerva Cot Aguilera was a secondary school teacher and one of the first three Episcopal women priests ordained in Cuba in 1987, and now she has become the first woman bishop in Latin America.

Attending the consecration were not only bishops from all over the Americas but also representatives from many other churches in Cuba. "It was a very important day for the church in Cuba," said Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, who participated in the rites. "The presence of so many members of other parts of Communion was a gift."

Amen. Alleluia.

visitors- no chosen family

My friend, Gin, is here from Colorado with her friend Mindi. They arrived last night, and I may have already gotten Gin hooked on blogs; she was up late reading.

Even with hot weather here, I predict that our jet skis will get a good workout...and Weight Watchers will get harder. We've promised ourselves at least one feast at a good restaurant and lots of fun together.

So, I may not get back to this blog much for a week. Then, I want to talk about how God heals - ordinary and supernatural and eveyrthing in betweeen.

Oh, yeah, Eileen led me to a wonderful spiritual site, Songs of Unforgetting - made me realize that I tend to be pantheistic rather than monotheistic. If we are co-creators with God, why is not the rest of the world?

my friend Gin

You are Ocean Blue

You're both warm and practical. You're very driven, but you're also very well rounded. You tend to see both sides to every issue, and people consider you a natural diplomat.

What Color Blue Are You?

The Hole In Me

Be warned. This is a personal, self-psychologizing essay. Yesterday in a discussion about saving money and our budget, we segued into talking about the hole in me that I’m trying to fill with food and with buying things. I eat to ease my pain – literally and figuratively. When I hurt I eat and my pain is less. When I am upset, I eat, I calm down. When I have been through or in the process of going through something very stressful, I wind down with shopping. When I lived among good thrift shops, I spent hours there – until my feet and legs hurt, trying to distance myself from whatever was stressing me. And, it worked.

So, I know that there is a hole, and that it can be temporarily filled with food, clothes, bright colored junk, towels, etc. But, the hole consumes everything I put in and is still there.

Most spiritually astute people suggest that God could/should fill that hole. Well, I’ve been working with God for some 25 years, and the hole is still there. Fortunately, the hole has not consumed God for me; nonetheless, I keep trying to fill that hole with something.

Scientists have long known that black holes consume all matter that comes near them. But, until they began analyzing the holes, figuring out what they were, they had no idea why. So, yesterday, we began working on what the hole is in me that I keep trying to fill with food and shopping.

And, I think we’ve hit on something. (I will add here, tongue in cheek, that it’s easy to blame the dead because they can’t defend themselves, and everyone I mention here is dead.) When I was born, Mom said, I was a beautiful child and most wanted. I was loved and cherished beyond imagining, she said. But, some of my first memories are of having to sit and listen to my Dad preach/rant while he was drunk so that Mom could get things done. Inconsistency. If I am beloved child, why is Mom letting Dad abuse me verbally and emotionally? The words they spoke didn’t match their actions. I think that was the beginning of the holed.

Then, Dad went back into the Navy (had served in WW2), and our family consisted of Mom, David (my brother, 6 years older than me), and me. Suddenly all efforts were focused on David; he became the man of the house at age 13. He got to drive the tractor – never mind that it was devilishly hard work. And, he got to drive to school even though he didn’t even have a driver’s license when I had to ride the school bus. Mom and David had jokes that they didn’t share with me. If I was the beloved daughter, why was I left out? Where did I fit in the family relationship.

I was often sent to my grandmother’s, just down the road, to stay until Mom got off work. My grandmother had a hard life. My Mom had loved and discarded my Dad, the oldest son, several times before they finally married. So, my grandmother was not fond of her. And, she let me know every thing that Mom did of which she did not approve. But, I was her beloved granddaughter. Yet, I was subjected to vitriol about the Mom I loved.

We lived out in the country and did not have much contact with the social groups in town – unlike the times when Mom was growing up in an even smaller town where she was a star, a beauty and the “leader of the pack”. I had few friends and no one with whom to play. We were poor, and Mom did not want the rest of the world to know that we were poor; so we skimped on food to have me wear pretty dresses (that I hated) and be in beauty contests (which I hated even more) and be an attendant to my aunt’s Eastern Star installations (which were very uncomfortable since I knew only my aunt). Appearances were everything. Who we really were was hidden; we were ashamed of our poverty, ashamed of my Dad (the town drunk), we were ashamed of the fact that my Mom worked. But, we had to dress as well and act perfectly; so that no one would think we were poor white trash. If I was the beloved child, the smartest one in the class, then why did we have to do such uncomfortable things? Why wasn’t I good enough already?

When my brother died, Mom had no choice but to transfer the responsibility of making choices from him to me. She was incapable of making choices; she wanted someone else to choose so she wouldn’t have to blame herself. (We talked about this near the end of her life, and she pinpointed this trait.) Some choices I made were good, but something was always wrong. She was seriously ill; so I rented an apartment near the college I was attending and used the bit of inheritance from my brother to pay the rent. I got a job. Mom was getting well. Then she found a job which she held for 35 years. But, my choice of a place to live was wrong; so she moved us into the projects to save money. I gave up my job and began drinking.

The hole kept growing, and I had no way of filling it. As I grew into my 20s, I tried to fill the hole with sex. Thank God I could not have children or the tragedy would have grown. My behavior only made the hole grow bigger because people (Mom, aunt, grandmother, friends, etc.) would tell me what a wonderful person I was and then attack my lifestyle and career choices.

Until I was 50 years old, that hole kept growing. A friend named Bill and a good therapist stopped the growth of the hole. Because it was not consuming me any longer, I thought it had gone; I ignored it.

Now, I know that I still have this hole, this gap between what is said and what happens in the past, present and future. I project ways in which this hole is never filled. And, this scares me. I love my partner, and I want my words and my actions to be consistent with that love. But, I need to make the gaping hole inside me smaller in order to maintain that consistency. To do that, I need to more understanding, maybe have some ritual cleansing, maybe writing more essays, certainly awareness of times when the hole gobbles up not only food and shopping but also my love.

I need my therapist to help me do this. I need my partner as an ally. I need God to be with me. And, as I pray for my friends, I need their prayers, their love, and their guidance. Together we can make the hole in me, and the hole in others, smaller and smaller. I think that real love and real peace are connected here.

Blue

You are Ocean Blue

You're both warm and practical. You're very driven, but you're also very well rounded. You tend to see both sides to every issue, and people consider you a natural diplomat.

What Color Blue Are You?

Okay, so I'm not very creative or thinking lately. I'm just copying. This one from Eileen. Company coming for a week, staring Sunday. I'm not thinking or writing much - just cleaning and straightening and putting things where they belong.

Later, group

Nerdy

Tagged Again

Nina has tagged me for the Favorite flowers meme

In the interests of alliteration, you are allowed up to five favorite flowers. You may say something about why you love each, or a memory attached to each.

Old smelly roses - preferably dark red or the little ones that grew all along the sides of the roads in Mississippi years ago.

Illiums - garlic, onions, that bloom with balls of flowers on tall stalks

Begonias - particularly angel wings, but I've kept the semper florens kind alive for years - some in pots from last year sprouted again and are blooming even though they're only two inches tall.

Pansies - Johnny-Jump-Ups - I love the way they just spring up anywhere. Of course some people consider them weeds, but I love them.

Jasmines - all kinds from the bushes to the vines - I don't want them in the house, but I love them outside my window - have a small one on my porch now.

And, I like peonies, daffodils, hyacinths and narcissi. I know that's cheating, but gosh, there are so many out there.

I'll tag some people tomorrow - bedtime now - dreaming of all the smell good flowers.

I've been tagged

I have been tagged by Saint Pat for this, but she blames Padre Mickey.

1.I have to post these rules before I give you the facts.
2. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1.I was once an over-the-road truck driver. I thought I could keep an eye on my husband that way, but it didn’t work; he fell in love with cocaine and became my ex-husband.
2.I collect miniature Christmas ornaments, began in 1988 when Hallmark first began their program. Now I have seven miniature trees. Some ornaments are mementos of the past like half of a pair of earrings that Dad brought back from French Morroco while he was in the Navy.
3.I watch Mei Lan, the panda cub at Zoo Atlanta every weekday – even just to see her sleeping, and I keep up with Knut, the polar bear cub at the Berlin Zoo.
4.I have probably 60 pair of shoes and boots that I wear.
5.I talk big, but I’m a sucker...see the flashing light on my forehead. But, I can be tough when I have to. I carried a small handgun in my purse when I was a teenager, and my brother made me learn how to shoot it and take it apart and clean it and all that stuff.
6.The only living blood relatives I have are one first cousin and one 87 year old uncle.
7.I have seen or experienced ghosts on several occasions. Once in our family home after everyone was in bed, we heard footsteps – high-heeled shoes – walk from the kitchen across the living room and we heard the front door and screen open and close and the footsteps walk across the porch and down the steps onto the grass. I was sleeping in the living room and I could plainly see that no human person was there. But four of us hear her.
8.I will read almost anything that is in front of me – box labels, magazine ads, directions for a project, knitting instructions (I don’t knit), order forms of catalogs in detail, even directions for things that I am doing. And, because I spent a number of years in printing, I can read upside down and backwards; so I read everything on people’s desks when I am sitting in front of them. I’m not so much nosy as I’m just habited to reading any words near me.

Gosh, finding eight people to tag will be difficult. I tag:

1.Missy of Missy’s Big Fish Stories

2.Janis at Juanuchi’s Way

3.Nina at Dancing Through Doorways

4.Mary Sue at Order of Saint Ignora

5.Scott of Mad Hare

6.Cynthia at Reverend Mom

7.Klady at Lady of Silences

8.Judith at Mystical Midget

Health update

Stress test today - new technology - tentative results good - more on Wednesday. Tired. More here later.

Life is Good

Hmmm. I don’t have much to say. All the poor people in my life are getting poorer. I don’t know any rich people; so I don’t know if they are getting richer, but I think they may be. Services are terrible. Doctors are too busy to listen. Clothes cost more and fit worse. Restaurants are inconsistent with the quality of their food. Eating healthily is expensive. Heat triggers asthma attacks. The water is warm for swimming and dangling your feet. The osprey has babies. The Easter lilies are blooming. I made a chair cushion today without a pattern. I think the one I make tomorrow will take a little less time and anxiety and ripping out. Celebrex works for pain. Life is good.

Demythologizing

Demythologize -to reveal and understand the true character, nature, or meaning of something by ridding it of all mythical or mysterious aspects (Encarta Dictionary North America)

I remembered those two years in Bermuda as being idyllic and the rest of life as being horrible. And, that is not the true character of either. Indeed, Bermuda was the scene of much growth in my life, some of which would have occurred wherever I was when puberty hit and some of which could have happened nowhere else. Each person is shaped not only by the people and circumstances but also by place. I would have grown up anyway; being in Bermuda changed what that growing up was like.

The island is tiny; the roads are narrow; cars are much wider now than in 1957-59; driving is dangerous. Somerset, my end of the island, has deteriorated as the cruise ships have gotten larger and can only dock in Hamilton and, if the wind is right, at the Dockyard and at St. George’s. The wind was not right while we were there; so we did not get to see St. George’s.

House 1957
House - 50 years later

However, our tour driver recognized the location of each picture I had brought from my previous years. He took me to each of them and let me take new photos. He showed me my school and how it had changed (good upgrade). He showed me where I had danced with the gombey dancers in a low income area (now a very fancy resort). He showed me the house where we had lived (see picture). And, he took us to lots of bays and places where I had ridden my bicycle (I didn’t see a single non-motorized bike). I even took a picture of my best friend’s house (now with a wall and tall oleander bushes). In three short hours after landing in Bermuda I had seen every place I really wanted to see.

The rain began that night and continued until late the next afternoon. Lisa took off in the rain the following morning to swim with the dolphins – a dream experience that we had missed on our trip to Central America. She got to tickle the dolphin’s nose, and her delight was evident in the pictures.

Corvette of container freight

The following day we were set to transfer to St. George’s, but high winds prevented that. We were moved backward to an industrial dock and had to use tenders to transport all of the 1500 passengers who wanted to go ashore on this very beautiful day. We finally got ashore at 1:30 pm. We visited Marks and Spencer and a music store. We were on our way to a thrift shop that might have had the vinyl records that her son Jon requested when we discovered that it was not open on that day.

We also discovered that a large (and this was the smallest of the line) cruise ship was not a great vacation for us. The largest ship we had been on previously held 125 passengers and activities focused on the area in which we were traveling.

We had a nice suite with its own balcony/deck. I slept in a lounge chair on the deck for much of the first night at sea and fell in love with the ocean all over again. The casino, the bars, the nightclub, the bridge tables did not appeal to us. And, so many people were everywhere on board, but becoming acquainted with them was difficult. We did have a very good dinner table crowd, and the food was good – well presented.

So, the trip was good, but we won’t go back to Bermuda, and we probably won’t sail on a large ship again. I’m hoping for a polar bear trip next time or maybe a South American adventure, but I think I’ll avoid the tourist spots.

First Week Minus Three Pounds

No one was surprised but me that I had actually lost weight this past week - my first week in Weight Watchers. But, I lost three pounds.

My first day was horrible. I couldn't imagine what I was going to eat; the material is not arranged according to my logic; I didn't know if the foods I usually eat fit in the point system. So, I had hysterics part of the first day and a lot of anxiety the second day. By then, I had figured out the on-line point keeper and things were looking up.

I did go over my allotted points and bonus points but only by one point. And, although I felt hungry a couple of times, I distracted myself by doing things that absorbed me and getting away from the kitchen. I drank lots of water and suffered through a couple of abominable lunches and dinners that we created with few points. I'll know better next time. Now I know how to fix the things we like and keep our points down.

Lisa lost 3.2 pounds and our other friend who joined with us lost 8.8 pounds - of course, she did it the hard way with an intestinal infection.

The second week may be the hardest for me as I figure out different foods and try to avoid all the wonderful lures of food on a cruise ship.

This will be my last post until June 3rd or 4th. We are on our way to Bermuda.

Blessings to all of you.

An ocean of memories

We are taking a week-long cruise to Bermuda...guess I’ve already said that. I’m a clothes horse; so I’ve been shopping a lot. And, Weight Watchers has not been easy; more on that on Thursday night. So, I’ve been lurking and commenting, but not blogging.

Going back to Bermuda on the 50th anniversary of my first being there as a kid with my Dad stationed at the US Naval Air Station there has brought back lots of great memories of my time there. I’ve found slides and converted them to pictures; I found an autograph book and wrote down the names of my native friends from there. So I’ve been traveling in the happy past a lot.

Having grown up on that 23 acres of black dirt in Mississippi, my life was small, and, with Dad being the town drunk, my life was often painful. We were poor and pitied. Mom worked as a clerk in the Ben Franklin store, as I did when I was old enough.

Going to Bermuda was a dream. My brother had graduated from high school and entered the Navy; so I was the center of attention – good attention. We arrived in Bermuda on June 4, 1957, the first time my Mom and Dad had lived together except for his very brief leaves since he went back in the service in 1952. My Dad was still an alcoholic; he drank 40 ounces of vodka every day. But, so were many of the other Navy guys there. And, he couldn’t drive; so wrecking a car never became a problem. He rode the bus or got rides with other sailors on the motorcycles.

1958 That's me on the right

Mom and Dad didn’t fight there. No screaming, no hushed seething words, no passing out at the kitchen table. And, I had a room – my own room. And, I had the freedom of all 19 square miles of the island. I roamed most of it repeatedly on my bicycle. As long as I was home by dark, all was well. I had a record player and I didn’t have to worry about being quiet so I wouldn’t wake Dad. And, I was not a poor, farm girl whose father was a failure; I was just another Navy brat, who teased the Marines, who went to local school, who attended her first semi-formal dance, who joined the Teen Club. I was made Proctor at my school. I rode the Navy bus to church on Sunday and enjoyed church without the fear that Dad would forget to pick us up when we lived out in the country in Mississippi.

The church had services of many denominations, and I attended most of them. The tract rack was near the door, and one day, I picked up a mimeographed sheet that had a prayer for accepting Jesus as your personal savior. You could sign and date it. I was so moved by the love of the chaplains and the volunteers at church – and by my friends – that I signed it. I didn’t give it to anyone; I kept it. I still have it. That piece of paper reminds me how long ago I gave my life to God.

So, living in Bermuda for two years when I was 11-13 was a wonderful experience – freeing, enriching. I have been reliving those memories since we booked the cruise six months ago.

What I didn’t expect was that I would also reclaim some of the very painful memories from times prior to Bermuda. I have an almost totally blank memory of my life until I was 10 years old. Of course, episodes have been repeated by the family until I don’t know if I really remember them or if I only remember being told about them.

One day my partner mentioned someone she volunteered with named Mikelson – an unusual name and one that turned on a faucet drip of memories from my blank years. The librarian was Mrs. Mikelson, and when I was in the first and second grade, Mom worked for the Welfare Department next door to the library. I was occasionally allowed to walk from school to her work and then spend my time in the library. Mrs. Mikelson was a short stocky woman, who seemed very old to me, but she always found me good books to read, and I remember feeling welcome and safe there.

I also remembered a very embarrassing episode of the back door to Mom’s office being locked and I needed to go to the bathroom and ruined my clothes before she heard my crying. And, I remember being clean up and allowed to play in the give-away clothing room at the Welfare Office. My therapist thought this might have brought shame, but I had a ball. I remember trying on almost every article of clothing in there – men’s and women’s. I think my love of thrift shops began then.

The painful memories are dripping slowly in also. Feeling abandoned, humiliated. Having to stop the school bus and pull my Dad out of his car in a ditch. The bus driver took me to the nearest farm on the way, and the farmer and I rode back on his tractor and pulled the car out of the ditch. I got Dad inside and drove the four miles to our house. And, thank God, the car would still run.

Needless to say, this trip to Bermuda has become a lot more emotional than I expected. And, I find myself comparing (excuse the jargon) the disconnect between my experiences in Mississippi and my experiences in Bermuda with the disconnect that my brother experienced and trying to make sense of it all. He never had time to mature, died at age 22; so I’ll never know what kind of man he might have become. I know how far it is from where I am today to those days in Mississippi, and I marvel at the wondrous hand of God that has held mine all this while.

Doxy writes about Love

Not having much to say lately, I refer you to Wormword Doxy's post on Love.

Rationality dragging emotional being along

I have agreed to begin Weight Watchers tomorrow at noon, along with my partner and my friend. I’ve been online and my BMI is in the obese range. In addition, my legs and lower back hurt some and I get tired very easily.

But, I’m not terribly happy about this; I’ve always been a non-joiner, a do-it-yourselfer. So going to a meeting every week is not my idea of happiness. However, I’m not looking for happiness at these meetings. I’m looking for happiness in better health.

Still, I confess that I don’t want to go, I don’t want to watch my caloric intake, I don’t want to give up my quantity of breads and replace them with vegetables or protein. It’s just not what I want to do.

My rational self is dragging my emotional self along on this trip. I confess that I expect to be like people who pick up a white chip at AA, last a few weeks, and then drink again. For this to succeed, I must really want it to succeed. While I really want to lose weight, I don’t want to work at it.

Sigh. I want to be well. I want to be healthy. I want not to hurt. My weight has gotten out of hand; my life is now unmanageable in respect to food. I don’t know when I am full until I am stuffed – even if I wait that 20 minutes before having seconds. I cannot do it. So, I’m turning to a program with lots of endorsement and some proven success. And, I’m turning to God because I know I won’t last more than two days without some help...even with the support of my partner and my friend.

I’ll give a monthly report on this – not going to talk about it for a while – just going to do it and see what happens. Bleah.

Ndugane's understanding

Those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. In my last post I examined the wars that have resulted from religious conflicts and likened them to the current affliction within our Anglican Communion. Now comes this for clarity. Archbishop Ndungane's speech at the Bishop's Forum in South Africa has an excellent history of the polity of the Anglican Communion and how it has and is changing. I commend this article for a better understanding of what is happening with the current demands of the Communique and the draft of the Covenant.