god box update

the other day i was thinking about how worried and stressed i'd been in the weeks before and how i was so stressed i got sick and ended up in the e.r. and i was trying to remembe what it was i was so worried about to begin with. do you know i couldn't think of all those things and i had to go to the god box and take out my index cards that i had written everything down on and go look at them to remember! as i looked at each card i thought, "well, that one's under control now. this one is not a problem anymore. this one is still something i have to deal with but i'm not so nervous about it now." that god, she's wonderful! she took all those worries off my shoulders (and out of my sinuses which is how the worry manifested itself in me). phew! hope next time i get this worked up i remember the god box a bit quicker.

god box

i have been so stressed out about all these responsibilities in my life that i got sick and ended up missing several days of work and had to go to the e.r.
last night i hit bottom on freaking out. i'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired.
last night i took myself to my bed, read some spiritual literature, prayed (help me, help me, help me), meditated. then i took some index cards and a sharpie and wrote down all the things i'm worried about: work stuff, grad school stuff, homework i'm backed up on, exams, church duties, money, money, money problems. i wrote each down on a card and then put those cards in my god box.
a god box is a container that i put my worries into and hand them over to god. i turn over my worries and trust god to transform them into opportunities for me to grow, to expand my spirit and trust in god. i find a lot of my spiritual work consists of precedents. i try something different, just to see what will happen. instead of worrying, i try putting my concerns in god's hands. i usually don't do this until i'm totally desperate and on my knees. then, god transmogriphies my BIG PANIC issue into little, surmountable steps and i take one at a time. god makes my life more manageable. when i next come up against a monster, i remember back to that time i turned it over and how that worked out. i'm ready to try turning it over again, and again.

frazzled in new york

i'm a full-time teacher.
i'm in grad school and go two nights per week.
i am on the vestry of my church.
i'm a co-chair of my church's street fair coming up in may.
i'm the literature person for two al-anon meetings.
i'm freaking out about money, as in, i don't really make enough.

well, looking at the above list, the word that stands out for me is "i" i i i i i i
i'd like to get away from i.
i'm feeling burned out and with a sinus infection on top of it all, i'm not at my best.
so, this is lent and while this lent is not as focused for me as in years past when i haven't had all this going on in my life, i can still look to lenten practice to quiet down, slow down, listen. god is not in the earthquake. she is not in the roaring wind. she's the still small voice. i am bottoming out and need to be still and listen.
i can do this any time, but lent, in it's dark, cold way, is a special time for me to be still and quiet and listen. in the mornings (esp. in winter) i hate to get out of my warm, cozy bed and go out into the cold. i pull the covers over my head and say, "five more minutes." i love to be drowsy powsy and cozy wozy for those few minutes of warm silence, fending off the cold. i love lent because it's my time of "five more minutes" with god.

one week into lent and i'm still a b!t(h

i've been meditating every morning this week and usually when i meditate, i am a much nicer teacher and i do not yell at my students and scare them. howsoever, today i meditated and everything, but was a screaming mimi first thing in the morning. of course, i will say that trying to get field trip permission slips and money, signed half-day notice slips, parent-teacher conference appointment time slips from 22 7 and 8 year olds, half of whom are calling out, ms. goodnow! ms. goodnow! could make anyone a screaming mimi. it's like herding cats.
i've taken to reading al-anon daily meditations during my lunch time, that helps.
i've heard it takes five years to really get teaching down. i'm in year two so i forgive myself when i get frazzled. although, i will say that while i struggle with a concept of sin in this post-modern world, i do believe it is a sin to yell at children. big time sin. i can see their faces turn stony but their shoulders leap up. ugh. if i had a teaching assistant (yes, i'm all alone with 22 7 and 8 year olds), it would be easier. but, i don't so i accept reality and strive to meditate more, pray, pray, pray to be more patient, patient, patient.
and i want to be more patient and less like sr. frances, my 5th grade math teacher and personal nightmare, because these are among god's most delicate creatures. they are as vulnerables as little fairies. they spend more time with me than at home with mom and dad. some of them are experiencing pure hell at home. i can't save them necessarily, but i can make my classroom safe, serene. i can offer them love and compassion, which i have loads of for them but whoosh, they are so exhausting!
please pray for me that i do not become sr. frances ... or sr. elizabeth (another math teacher and personal nightmare who had really flabby upper arms and when she wore short sleeved blouses in june and wrote on the board it was like watching a car crash, i couldn't stand watching that arm flab flippity flop while she wrote and i couldn't take my eyes off of it either, i don't want to be sr. elizabeth.)
the patience prayer
god, grant me patience.
RIGHT NOW!

lent for episcogeeks

i love lent. it's my favorite liturgical season. i love that it's once a year, i couldn't handle it more than that (so far i do not treat advent like lent). i love that it is at the end of winter, when it seems the coldest because the end is in sight. winter seems so much less bearable when the days start getting longer and there are a few warmish days sprinkled in.
i hate winter and one of my reactions to it is to sleep more. i have very little energy when it's so cold out and i love to snuggle under the covers for 5 more minutes on winter mornings. lent feels to me like the spiritual version of "5 more minutes" of quiet; cold outside, warm inside; winter light; cozy time with god. it's like snuggling down with god to pray and meditate. oooooh, i love it!
i tend not to give something up for lent, rather, i take on a spiritual practice. one year i went to 40 al-anon meetings in 40 days. another year i bought a tibetan buddhist meditation video and did that every day. this year i have some spiritual readings for each day and i really want to concentrate on my prayer and meditation practice, as well as exercise my body, which needs it badly.
i wish everyone a wonderful, meaningful lenten season.

if mohamad won't come to the mountain ...

i have a student in my second grade class, mohammad. he is from pakistan and has been living both here and there for the last few years, being pulled out of school here to go live there for several months. he left last may and came back in november.
mohammad did not come to class on time, and refused to come into the classroom of his own volition. instead, he would have an entire posse of school psychologists, counsellors, parent volunteers, teachers, the security guard all clucking around him and encouraging him into the classroom. he would squat down on the floor outside the classroom and put his head in his arms. it would take around 45 minutes to get him to come into the room and sit at his table. then he would sit with his head on his desk and not do any work. but, after lunch, he would come to life and return to the classroom and do his work with no problem, raising his hand to answer questions and working independently and in groups. he's very clever and never lost any of his english skills while away in pakistan.
after a few days i asked him why he had such a hard time in the mornings. he told me that he misses his mom and dad (who are at work while he's in school) and he's so sad he can't work. he then told me that when he does start working, he doesn't think about them and doesn't miss them so much. i told him that it stands to reason that the sooner he gets to work, the less he'll think about his mother. i also told him that when i'm sad about something, i let myself feel good and sorry for myself for three days. i really wallow in it. and even if i want to stop after a couple of days, i still give myself that third day to really sit in my sorrow and pity. then, i move on and work with what i have. i told him he could have three days to feel sorry for himself and not come into the classroom until he was ready and he didn't have to work, he could sit at his table. but then after that three days, he had to get to work.
i also told the teachers and counsellors that had been bringing him to the classroom that i wanted to try having him brought to the doorway of the classroom, and then left on his own to enter when he was ready. the next day, a parent volunteer brought him to the entrance to the classroom, i told them to leave. i told mohammad i simply needed him to stand in the doorway so i could see him, and he could come into the room whenever he was ready. i also made sure that the rest of the class was doing something fun at that time so mohammad would both get bored out there on his own and be really curious about what everyone was doing in the classroom.
by the third day, he was coming in immediately on entering the school (still late). i told him how proud i was of this and after a few days i told him that i felt he was ready to come to the rug with his books when he entered the classroom, and do the work that everyone else was doing. i promised him stickers galore if he could do that.
once we got that down for a few days, i told him that now he was ready to come to the auditorium at the beginning of the day and come to the classroom with everyone else. he's just started doing that this week.
the first day he came into the classroom with everyone else, he then sat down at his table and refused to come to the rug and work. he put his head down and wouldn't respond to me or anyone. the first day that happened, i said that i could not teach until the whole class was on the rug. i said we would sit in silence until everyone was on the rug. it's not class 2cr3 and then mohammad, it's all of us together. we sat for 20 minutes in silence. it was excruciating.
the next day he did it again. i knew we couldn't sit there in silence again, i needed to come up with something else. i sent up a quick "S.O.S.!" prayer to god, asking for divine inspiration and i mean now! the expression, "if mohamed will not come to the mountain, the mountain will come to mohamed." popped into my head. i taught the children that epxression and then told them to stand up. i moved my white board easel (no one uses a blackboard by the way) across the room so it was in front of mohammad. i had all the children sit at desks or on the floor so they could see the board. i told mohammad to take out his notebook and a pencil and start copying what i was writing on the board. he looked completely shocked, but did it. the kids copied some notes, we talked about some ideas, and then i told mohammad that for the next part of the lesson i really needed everyone on the rug and was he ready? he said yes and off we went!
by spending time with nuns over the last few years i have learned to be comfortable in silence and i have learned patience. i also know that i have real gifts in working with children. i see christ's presence in each and every one of these children. i'm so grateful to be working in one of my two vocations and i really hope to continue working with children as a religious. there don't seem to be many teaching orders in the anglican tradition these days, but i am looking at orders in africa that work with aids orphans.
keep mohammad in your prayers ... and me too!

new year's resolution - be more nunlike

or is it nunesque? resolved - that i will spend more time with religious, meditate more, work up the guts to tithe the full whammy. and resolve to do this all very gently throughout year and not beat self up if i fail to meditate more but do lose 15 lbs.

i am so glad that crummy 2005 is over. what a rough year it was for me. i feel like i'm starting to come out of a fog and i am moved to build a new life for myself. i sometimes think, what would i do if i found out i had 6 months left to live? this being because i now know so many people who have or had cancer that i'm wondering when i will get it. anyway, if i had 6 months to live i would ask to move into the convent of the community of the holy spirit.

when hippies become nuns ...

these sisters are seriously alternative - far out. if they were not in the northern hemisphere and worked more with children, i would seriously want to enter that order.

merry christmas

this is my first christmas without my mom. i was lucky enough to be invited to spend it with my half-brother (from my father's first marriage) and his family in north carolina. i had a nice time, they are a really nice family. i grew up ... i suppose "alternatively" being a new yorker, so it's always interesting for me to see how people live in america.
my brother's family go to the methodist church and i have been with them during a prior visit. we went to church on christmas day but there was no communion! i have to say i feel pretty weirded out about not receiving communion on christmas. i know it's not like easter or anything, but still. i guess i'll have to wait till this coming sunday, new year's day.
the first anniversary of my mother's death is coming up on jan. 8 and i'm finding that this whole first year i have felt mostly relief and that's pretty much it. taking care of her was difficult. before she got ill she was really difficult. alcoholism is such a devestating disease.
now that this first year is winding down, i'm starting to separate the person from the disease of alcoholism and i'm starting to miss her, the person, my mother. she was so entrenched in her disease it's taking me a long time to remember her apart from it.
i think that god has completely transformed her, removing her soul from her body, which truly was a prison, she is completely god's light.

confession dread

i'm an associate of the community of the holy spirit, an episcopal convent, which means that i'm a lay person (although there are ordained associates) who follows a rules of prayer, goes on retreats, and goes to confession twice a year. i hate confession. it ties in with my confusion over the concept of sin, redemption, salvation. i was told as a child that i am bad and i have so tied that in with my concept of sin that i think of confession as a chance for the priest to hear how bad i am. it's an internalized message that no amount of intellectual understanding will erase.
so, i've been making this a focus of my prayer and meditation. one thing i heard today in an al-anon meeting helped me look at it in a new light. the meeting i went to was on the first step, "we admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable." the reading was about how we may not have an issue with alcohol, or may not have an active alcoholic in our lives at present, but we can sustitute the word alcohol for other words like people, places, things. what i heard at the meeting is that when i think i can control other people, places, or things, i get far away from the one who really does have that power, god, and my life becomes unmanageable. i suddenly thought that maybe one definition of sin that i can relate to is that when i think i'm the one in charge, that i have control, that i am powerful, that is sin.
i am just starting to get a concept of how far i have to go yet. i feel like plato's man in the cave.
fortunately, i'm not the one in charge. there is a god and i'm not it.

katrina dog for adoption

isn't he adorable folks? his name is foxy and he is from new orleans. i am fostering him through the companion animal network, who sent volunteers down there to rescue him. he is 1 and a half years old, friendly, gets along well with children and other dogs. there are hundreds or even thousands of dogs completely on their own in the areas devestated by hurricaine katrina. god alone knows what he did to survive, but survive he did. and now he's living in luxury on the upper east side, lounging on the sofa, playing with my dog, waiting for a permanent home.
it's so easy to associate foxy with mary and joseph during the advent season. joseph and mary, like foxy, feared for their lives, had no place to stay, were watched over by god. which is dog spelled backwards. it reminds me that god watches over us all, the holy family, dogs in trouble, lillies of the field, birds of the air, you and me.
if you or anyone you know is interested in adopting a dog who needs a home like no other dog before, email episcogeek@yahoo.com

somebody special is coming!!!!!

someone is coming ...

who could it be???

i LOVE SURPRISES!!!

it's ... JESUS!!!!!!!!!!

yeah!!!!!

he's so cool! i'm so glad he's coming.

get ready!!!

happy advent,
love,
sr. m.a.

music, my golden retriever, and rocco, the neighbor's dog.

turn it over to god

i have heard that there are basically two prayers. one is "help me, help me, help me" and the other is "thank you, thank you, thank you." yesterday i had one of those "help me" moments.
there are new print ads in nyc for the aspca which show a picure of a brick, and underneath that a sack, and underneath that a puppy. the slogan is "whatever you can imagine, we've seen worse." it really freaks me out and i plan on adopting an older dog as soon as i'm done babysittin my neighbor's dog, rocco.
i saw that ad in the subway on my way home yesterday and started to freak out. earlier i had heard on the radio a story of a 7 year old girl in foster care who was given back to her biological father who then beat her to death. i focused in on that and soon went down the path to my own childhood abuse. i felt really vulnerable and alone. i got scared and couldn't "think" my way out of it. i asked god to help me, help me, help me.
i have episodes like this maybe a handful of times per year now. i once heard someone at an al-anon meeting say, "i've worked damn hard to feel this pain." that holds true for me. i was out of my body until i was 30 years old.
this morning, i took my dog, music, and rocco for a walk in the park. it was a beautiful fall morning with bright yellow and red leaves and warm sun and other dogs to play with. i felt much lighter. on the way home, i stopped by my church for a sit down with god.
i sat down and read the prayers in the book of common prayer from pages 814 - 841, my favorites. when i finished, i looked at the stained glass windows and meditated. i didn't think about the experience of the day before too much, just sat with god and was open. then, i heard that voice in my head that is familiar, but not my own. she said, "your childhood is over. now you are working with children, some of whom are in turmoil."
sometimes i feel like i'm living a very sheltered existence. i'm a very optomistic person, generally, so when evidence of torture and evil are made clear to me, i almost can't take it in. yesterday i felt like my optomism was really naivite, which is what pessimists always tell me.
yes, there is repellent behavior in the world. horrible acts are done all the time. but, i can "let it begin with me." i can create peace in my heart and in my classroom. i have students that i suspect are being abused in some way, shape, or form. the statistics alone say that it is so. there is one girl in particular who is totally not in her body. she is not just daydreaming, she's simply not present in her life. she bought a book at our school bookfair recently that, i swear i am not making this up, had Barbie, as a princess, figure skating and RIDING ON PEGASUS, THE FLYING HORSE!!!! this book was like romance novels, escapist literture for second graders. this kid is living in la-la land. i know, i used to live there too. it sure beat where i was living in reality.
the best i can do is to make my classroom a safe place, to be present for my students, to make it clear that i love them. i know i can't "save" any of them, that's not my job, that's god's job. but, i can be kind. i remember my kind teachers. they had a real impact on me.

heaven on earth

last week my boyfriend and i were "having a lie in" as the irish call it, sleeping late. my dog, music, the golden retriever, waited patiently for us to wake up. i am babysitting my neighbor's boston terrier, rocco. he's not so patient. he stands up at the edge of the bed and stares at us with big googly eyes and snorts. we told music to "hop up, pup" and she crawled in between the two of us on the bed and snuggled in for petting. rocco started to whimper and cry (sounds like whale song, i swear) so we pulled him into bed with us. music doesn't think much of this but tolerated it. we all lay down for dozing and snoring and i said to john, "this is like heaven."
i have a visual meditation i like to do when i am feeling stressed. i imagine myself as an adult, resuing the three year old me. i go to her, wrap her in a warm, soft blanket, and take her away to a big, white, soft, warm bed with flannel sheets and we have on flannel pyjamas. every dog i've ever had in my entire life is in the bed. it's one BIG bed. three year old jenny and i climb in and eat cocoa pebbles cereal and watch cartoons. then i imagine god is holding that bed in her arms, surrounding us in an embrace.
i spent most of my life terrified of men. the fact that i have a boyfriend right now is a miracle and due entirely to surrendering my will and life to god and then working my ass off with god's help for several years. to feel safe with john, cozy and warm in the bed with all the dogs is a blessing and a gift. it's like a salvation from perpetual victimhood and prejudice against men.

sin and the postmodern girl

i'm still working through my concepts on sin and salvation. i think i need to see my spiritual director. i have been getting some really great insights since i opened up to this contemplation though. i went to an al-anon meeting yesterday that's on the third step (made a decision to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of god as we understood him) and the speaker talked about searching for parents who would take care of her (unlike the actual parents she had growing up) and how that puts her in the position of being a little girl, being a victim. that really hit home for me.
i have meshed in my mind the concept of sin as being bad and i can't "think" my way out of that. part of the reading from yesterday's meeting included a quote from Aurelius Augustinus which said, "understanding is the reward of faith. therefore, seek not to understand that thou mayest believe, but believe that thou mayest understand." i have been trying to intellecutalize or analyze my way out of this stinking thinking and it's not going to work.
this is where my trust in god really has to come in play. i used to know a priest who said, "how big is your god?" is my god big enough for this? to write on my heart a new understanding of sin and salvation?
the speaker from the meeting yesterday said that she's no longer looking for surrogate parents, but she is looking for a god of her understanding. sounds like this is a good opportunity for me to look at how big my god is and let her be bigger.

theology quiz

theology quiz

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this.

Emergent/Postmodern 79%
Roman Catholic 64%
Neo orthodox 61%
Modern Liberal 54%
Classical Liberal 50%
Charismatic/Pentecostal 50%
Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 39%
Reformed Evangelical 7%
Fundamentalist 0%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com


it's fun. i had to wikipedia some of the things they referred to in the quiz but it was neat. and now it's official, i'm an emergent church/postmodern.

Sr. M.A.

salvation contemplation

i have been thinking a lot this week about my understanding of salvation. i met with my rector yesterday and talked with him about it. i need to schedule an appointment with my spiritual director as well, an 80-something year old nun from the community of the holy spirit.
my priest had some interesting insights about looking more to the small "s" salvations that happen during a lifetime, al-anon being one for me, that certainly saved my life. i've had other experiences of small "s" salvation as well.
in talking with him i articulated my two understandings about sin. intellectually, i understand sin to be the delusional belief that we are separated from god and then we act out in that belief and that f's things up really amazingly. i believe that christ and other religious or spiritual traditions work to help us get past that fallacy. through al-anon, i turn my will and my life over to god on a daily basis, several times a day in fact.
i get to talk about god and my personal experience of god in al-anon, in ways that i can't do at church. i get to act out that experience of god in church, which i can't do in al-anon as it's a spiritual program, not a religious one. in monastic orders you get to do both.
in my heart of hearts though, i can't get past my belief that sin is bad, a part of me that's bad. i go to confession once a year at holy week and it's always a gut-wrenching experience because it's so tied up in this belief that there is something bad in me. on a personal level, this comes from messages i got from a very crazy family member when i was really young and they are so internalized, i don't know that in my whole lifetime i will really get completely though that. but, there's something traditional and archetypal about it as well. the church kept people under control by selling them the idea that we were intrinsically bad and needed saving and only jesus does that and you need to go through the church to get that salvation. and of course, women are lower than men and "worse" and need salvation big time, salvation according to the european, patriarchal church. my church is not like that, i am not like that but the hangover of that ancient idea exists in chrisitianity today.
i am turning this all over to god. i'm working with god to loosen up these historical hysterical beliefs and get to peel a layer off the onion and get to know god in a closer way.

"doing church"

i just went to a conference at the cathedral ofst. john the divine which is for clergy and regular episcogeeks like me in the laity. the topic headings were admin and finance, altar guild, church growth, communications, life-long learning, mission, music and liturgy, parish dynamics, stewardship, just to name a few! it was a good day and got me really thinking about stuff i hadn't expected to think about.
the first panel i went to was on the church's 2020 movement pertaining to people in their 20's and 30's specifically. the panel consisted of several cradle episcopalians and two or three converts from other christian traditions. an older priest asked why the panel didn't include any 20's/30's people who are unchurched - people who grew up with no faith tradition or practice at all. the answer was that the people in parishes that the panel members knew who were unchurched were not firm enough or confident enough in their place in the episcopal church to speak on a panel.
i mentioned that the first two to three weeks after sept. 11, 2001, our church was packed to the gills with people from the neighborhood - mostly in their 20's and 30's. after those intial two to three weeks they just didn't return.
if you go to starbucks or barnes and noble cafe or a yoga class on sundays at 11 a.m. you will find them packed with people in their 20's and 30's - both churched and unchurched! i do believe that everyone is a spiritual being and that many people are wandering around on their own, looking for a spiritual home. in what ways is the episcopal church not providing that? how can we provide that?
i talked for a bit with the older priest who had attended the panel about the point he made during the q & a part. he said he became involved with the church when he was young because he it met his idealism, it gave him a place to act that out. he also wanted something bigger than himself. it made me think of the episcopal church during the civil rights movement. that was a church where an idealistic young man could really plug in. i told this priest afterwards that i'm not so sure this generation (x and y?) is idealistic. i think we're cynical and mistrusting of large institutions. i talked to him a bit about episcopal blogging and the emerging church and post-modernism and - i totally lost him.
hmmmmm.......
one thing he said really has been buzzing in my brain - i mentioned that i think this generation is searching for spirituality and self-improvement, that we are focused on ourselves but not in a "me generation" totally selfish way, in a "how can i become a better human being?" way. the priest said, "yeah, but that's what salvation is for." ah. now i get caught on the sticky concept of salvation.
this is where i put the alternative in sr. mary alternative.
what am i being saved from? what is the resurrection about? what is sin? i am so not clear on these concepts. i am not looking for pat answers, or i'd be a pentecostal and check my brain at the door. rather i am an episcopalian looking for new ways to approach these concepts. or maybe they are old ways that seem new to me. or different ways.
how does jesus dying on the cross absorb my sins? what is the real message of my faith tradition? that christ died for my sins? that god is love? that i can be redeemed and/or saved by pledging myself to christ. who do i worship for that matter? christ or god? i believe in the trinity but when i pray, i gotta tell you, i pray to god. i may ask god to send her holy spirit into me or a situation, but i pray to god.
i'm still trying to figure out all this stuff about post-modernism and the emerging church, it's still a little confusing to me. maybe that's where i'm heading with all this. i don't know. i really would appreciate your comments and esp. refer any books, magazines, websites, media that relate to any of these topics i have mentioned.
thanks.

"th" words

i teach 2nd grade esl in queens and i gave a homework assignment - write 5 words that start with "th." most kids wrote words like, "the, that, this, they ..."
one kid wrote, "theology."

st. francis day

we celebrated st. francis day at my church, holy trinity this past sunday. we have a special tradition of blessing animals. people from all over the neighborhood bring their pets to be blessed. people always think that nyc is no place for a dog. apartments are small. most people are at work all day and a dog needs to be outdoors a lot. i once heard a stand-up wondering why he chooses to live in a way not fit for a dog!
but for every third new yorker, there is a dog. and in the upper east side it's an even higher ratio. i think here there are two dogs for every human! when i'm not home, my dog sleeps. that's it. i once moved from a two bedroom to a studio and i had two big dogs. i thought, how will they manage in a small space? and then i realized, dogs are always in the same room with their human. it's not like they're off wandering around the east wing or something. it worked out just fine.
i can't tell you how packed our church is on st. francis day with all those upper east siders and their pets. dogs, cats, turtles, birds, ferrets, pictures of pets who either can't leave home or have died. it's amazing. and you know, they all quiet down after the initial hub-bub of the procession. animals really like church. our church is kind of dark, so that's soothing for former cave dwelling dogs and for the birds.
i brought my dog, music. normally my mother would be with music in the pews and i would acolyte. there's a run on teens at my church so acolytes are mostly adults. i've been acolyting since i was 12. it got my interested in church (i get to wear a costume and look like an angel and everyone is looking at me! cool!) and i've enjoyed being an active part of the liturgy ever since. now that my mother is gone, i thought i would bring music to acolyte with me. after all, we have dog ushers on st. francis day and now that music is a dog of a certain age, she is mellow enough to handle it. she's certainly used to church. we are allowed to bring our dogs to church any sunday, for most services, so i bring her a lot.
soon as i get the one picture someone took for me ( i forgot my own camera!) i'll post it. i found a child's cotta (sp?) and put it over music's head and pulled her paws through the arm holes so she could be "vested". she looked so freakin' cute! i always thought i'd have kids who would become acolytes at holy trinity so this is the next best thing. mommy's little acolyte! i'm so proud.
st. francis is such a cool saint. i don't know much about him, i know there are st. francis fans out there who know him backwards and forwards. i just dig what he said about preach the gospels, use words if necessary. and the st. francis prayer kicks butt.
Lord, make us instruments
of your peace.
Where there is hatred
let us sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not
so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood
as to understand;
To be loved as to love.

For it is in giving
that we receive;
It is in pardoning
that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are
born to eternal life.

Amen