Disconcerting

I don't know if you see the time I post things or not. But I do and I know my post timer is on Pacific Standard Time--there hours earlier than when I really post stuff. I don't know why and can't figure it out and don't care anymore.

But Friday I'm going to San Francisco for three days and plan to take my laptop which I haven't used since September at the beach but believe will let me post while I'm at the Mastery Foundation board retreat in San Meteo. So, for a few days, the time my computer tells you I posted something will be accurate. The rest of the time it will be three hours before I wrote it. (That's a disconcerting thought, that you might read something three hours before I wrote it....There's a short story, if not a novel, in there somewhere....)

I've been a part of the Mastery Foundation for, as closely as I can remember, about 26 years now.

I went to a workshop called "Making a Difference"in 87 or 88 of the last century (I don't know about you, but having lived most of my life in "the last century" is a tad disconcerting....) I went with the 'intention', which we were asked to come with, of renouncing my priestly vows and moving on with my life. What I got from that workshop was my priesthood Transformed, made new, giving me life and joy instead of tension and anxiety.

So, why wouldn't I have spent the last quarter century of my life paying back a bit of what I got from them.

I was a pain in the ass for several years because back then things were horribly formal and deathly designed. But over the years, we realized "the workshop works" and stopped having so many rules and protocols.

I am, by process of aging, now the Senior Leader of the workshop except for Ann, who is the Executive Director of the Foundation and has been there from the beginning. I have met so many remarkable, astonishing people in this work that there is no way I could ever deserve what I've been given by the Mastery Foundation or even begin to pay it back.

I help lead a couple of workshops a year--one annually in Ireland, except my role in the past couple of years has been to help train the Irish to lead their own workshops. They are almost there, which pisses me off a tad since it means they won't need me and I'll lose my annual trip to that lovely, magic island.

The Foundation has gone far beyond the Making a Difference workshops to do work in Mississippi, Ireland and Israel in community building and conflict intervention. We also have a School for Leadership which is beginning its third iteration, training folks from the US, Ireland and Israel in the leadership tools for transformation that are at the core of the Foundation.

I'll stop. Someday I'll blog for a week about the Making a Difference workshop and the other work of the Mastery Foundation. Maybe starting Friday since I'll be at the Board retreat.

I can't say enough about the Foundation and its work. It gave me back my priesthood in a transformed and empowered way and it has enabled me to give transformation to hundreds of people in ministry over the years.

Did I say I was humbled by it all? If so, I'll say it again.

Google The Mastery Foundation to find out more.

Be talkin' with you....