a few tidbits...

busy...busy... terribly busy.. as Madame Blueberry would say ;)  (the theology of Veggie Tales is right on the money at times ;)

Just a few tidbits to help catch you and me up!  I have the privilege of being part of  planning an event that focuses on the issues of Race and Diversity in the Emerging Church.  Many of you may have read the recent emergent/c where Tony Jones referenced this upcoming event.  It will be a theological discussion, far more than it will be a how to get a token ethnic family involved in your church or ministry.  It will be a place to confront our own prejudices and presuppositions and a forum to listen and to learn from others.  I am so excited about being part of this event!  If you are passionate about the issues of race: of inclusion and embrace then please email me!  or join the discussion on the blog that Jay Vorhees has set up and help shape the unfolding of this event!

I have been involved in some advocacy issue regarding the Lost Boys of Sudan; humbled at their courage and desire to return to their country in order to help with the rebuilding.  One of  my new friends, Angelo, is planning to return to Sudan in December and is seeking financial support for his trip.  If you are interested in supporting his courageous venture, please email me. 

I have been talking with Natala about the lack of writing that has plague me of late... since hurricane Katrina, when i struggled to find words, i have remained tongue tied and finger twisted. i love to write and yet i have found little solace in the written word.  i have done a lot of collaging of late...as the visual and tactile seem to be more cathartic. what i do write these days is profoundly inward and private... it is odd to not blog, to have lost the therapeutic and cathartic nature of this forum. 

if you have read any of my posts, you know that i do not post news, updates, FYI's or bullet points very often.  instead, i blog, for the most part, about the wrestlings of my heart, the ponderings of my mind and the theological and life questions that haunt me.  therefore, given that i have written little in my own writing life, i have had even less to say in this forum of late...

i am sorry for that.  i have felt guilty for that.  i have tried to be different in this reality.  i cannot force it.  the daily-ness of life has gotten the better of me recently. 

i wonder if surrender is just allowing "what is" to "be"

does that make sense?  equating surrender with acceptance of what i didn't plan on, may not like, would choose to change...

for example...the fact that my kids are in need of more attention, my high-schoolers are needing quantity time?  that my work has taken on new dimensions and requires more of my attention?  that my health has required me to cut back in every arena of my life, and thus put a number of my dreams on the back burner...

in younger days, i think i would fight, trying to make what i wanted to be true, come to be... now, in my middle years, i am wise enough to know that i cannot beat the reality of my daily-ness.  so i am joining it.  i am doing that which i know i am called to, taking care of the small circle of the world that is mine, and waiting... quietly.

i am becoming convinced that growth , that maturity in Christ is a willingness to surrender to what is real, what is true, whether i like it or not...

don't give up on me, i will be back... and i the meantime, every so often, i will be here...

Comments

[Connie Knighton]

I, too, have been absent recently. Not reading much. Not writing much. Blogged down. The human mind can only take so much, and my mind becomes a little manic with too much stimulation. I pick up a book, read a few pages, put it down. Can't watch the news. The world is much too big a place.

But God did challenge me about my neighbours, those tolerant souls who suffer our dog to wander their properties. I think I should take them some homemade cookies this Christmas, and introduce myself and make an honest attempt to learn and remember their names.

May little be much.