It's 4:36 p.m. and the temperature never got above 8 F today, according to the thermometer on our back porch. My computer tells me it's 13 F but my computer isn't on my back porch.
While I walked the dog (begging him to poop!) Bern cleaned off the cars and cleared our walkways. The cotton candy snow was easy to move but when she came in she felt faint for 5 minutes or so and kept her head down. Since you don't breathe as deeply when it's this cold, I think she got a little oxygen depleted from working outside.
It's really cold, but not nearly so Cold as Joshua Black, a man running for the Florida State Senate who, in a Tweet, said that President Obama should be 'tried for treason and hanged....' Black is a Republican (bet you guessed!) and a black man (did you see that coming?)
The Secret Service has had words with Black and though they didn't believe he posed a physical threat to the President, they probably came away wondering how anyone that crazy could be running for political office. (Just check out the Congress to see that brilliance isn't a requirement for being elected....)
Obviously, given my Luddite nature, I don't tweet or read them. But it seems to me that Twitter encourages rash, can't-take-it-back stupidity even more than e-mail. Type it on your phone and hit SEND and it is out there for all the world to see. I've never typed on a phone (bet that's not surprising to you) but I imagine it is a one or two finger exercise that doesn't require sitting down or taking out a laptop or even thinking. 140 characters and the Secret Service is on your doorstep.
There are understandable calls from even Florida Republicans for Black to withdraw from the election but he's standing firm. He is in a crowded primary field and most likely will lose but the comedic element he would bring to office ('comedic' but a tad terrifying too) might make it worthwhile to elect him.
I probably have wished some people dead. But I don't think I've ever said it out loud and certainly not on social media of any sort. And to anyone who is on Twitter (Lord help you) always make Sweet Tweets...OK?
Wednesday, January 22, 2014
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Snow Angels
Cathy Chen, our daughter-in-law, emailed a picture of 'the girls' (Morgan and Emma 7 and Tegan 4) standing in the middle of a normally busy street in the snow that blanketed Baltimore this morning and afternoon. They are my snow angels.
It started here just before noon and has been falling for over 6 hours.
It is a strange snow--like spun sugar and full of ice sparkles. Certainly not snowball or snowman snow but beautiful and ethereal. Our Puli, Bela, loves the snow--frolics through it and eats copious amounts of it. When he comes in, his mouth coated in white, his black hair (Puli's actually have 'hair' rather than 'fur' and continually grows like our hair) sparkles with the ice crystals.
The Estimates of the final amount keep fluctuating on the radio and TV--anywhere from 6 inches to over a foot. And the temperature plummets.
The next week promises to stay below freezing for most of the time.
There is a sense in me of being 'snowed-in'. I have books to read and Hearts to play on my computer and food enough and more and a good supply of wine.
So, let it snow...
I wish 'the girls' were here to frolic in the back yard with Bela and come in exhausted and chilled to the bone for hot chocolate and hugs....
Gotta go fix dinner....later....
It started here just before noon and has been falling for over 6 hours.
It is a strange snow--like spun sugar and full of ice sparkles. Certainly not snowball or snowman snow but beautiful and ethereal. Our Puli, Bela, loves the snow--frolics through it and eats copious amounts of it. When he comes in, his mouth coated in white, his black hair (Puli's actually have 'hair' rather than 'fur' and continually grows like our hair) sparkles with the ice crystals.
The Estimates of the final amount keep fluctuating on the radio and TV--anywhere from 6 inches to over a foot. And the temperature plummets.
The next week promises to stay below freezing for most of the time.
There is a sense in me of being 'snowed-in'. I have books to read and Hearts to play on my computer and food enough and more and a good supply of wine.
So, let it snow...
I wish 'the girls' were here to frolic in the back yard with Bela and come in exhausted and chilled to the bone for hot chocolate and hugs....
Gotta go fix dinner....later....
Monday, January 20, 2014
Stuff that weirds me out and then enlivens me....
I noticed that several times this weekend in conversations with folks I remarked on 'things that weirds me me out' often come back to enrich or enliven me.
Like saints, for example.
With Mastery Foundation workshops and stuff we often find ourselves in Roman Catholic retreat centers with lots of Madonnas and Bleeding Hearts and Crucifixes and stuff almost everywhere. Having grown up Pilgrim Holiness in the mountains of West Virgina and then becoming a Methodist after that and then an Episcopalian in college, Madonnas and Bleeding Hearts and Crucifixes and Saints and all that tend to weird me out.
Episcopalians have a Saints-Lite view of it all. Our "Book of Saints" is called "Holy Men/Holy Women". I mean their are hundreds of them, including writers and poets and musicians and folks like that who aren't necessarily 'religious folk' in the traditional sense. From Bach to Mary Magdalene to Space Explorers to Francis of Assissi to James Weldon Johnson to St. Peter to Martin Luther King, we Episcopalians love to celebrate Holy Men and Holy Women. We just don't have a process to go through or require verifiable miracles. We even have a Feast Day for the Book of Common Prayer, the only Holy Day I know of that celebrates a book!
But Roman Catholic saints are writ large. There was a half-life-size statue of St. Roco (or Rock or Rocco) in the place we were this weekend.
He's the patron saint of dogs, not because he healed them but because he had a wound on his leg healed by a dog licking it. More than a tad 'weird', but astonishingly compelling. He, along with St. Amand, the patron of beer and wine makers (Bern gave me a statue of him for Christmas holding a bunch of grapes and hops and looking about the third-quarter into the Super Bowl) God love him. Bless me St. Rocco and St. Amand and thank you for the endlessly wondrous gift of dogs and wine and beer.
That's all pretty weird in some way--but it enlivens me in many ways.
(When I used to do pre-baptism classes for 6 to 12 families at a time, I would give them each one of the symbols of baptism--water, oil, bread, a scallop shell, wine--and ask them to talk about the symbol and tell me why it is vital to baptism. Not once did the group with wine come back and say, "it makes you feel really good". Our culture, even among Episcopalians, is so Puritan about wine.
It's not an accident they call alcohol "spirits"--the Spirit can be called forth with wine.
I believe you can tell the ultimate Value of something by how badly it can be abused. By that distinction 'religion' and 'alcohol' are of profound and Holy Value since they can be so horribly and murderously abused.)
Bless us St. Amand to know the wonders of 'spirits' and avoid the dangers....
Like saints, for example.
With Mastery Foundation workshops and stuff we often find ourselves in Roman Catholic retreat centers with lots of Madonnas and Bleeding Hearts and Crucifixes and stuff almost everywhere. Having grown up Pilgrim Holiness in the mountains of West Virgina and then becoming a Methodist after that and then an Episcopalian in college, Madonnas and Bleeding Hearts and Crucifixes and Saints and all that tend to weird me out.
Episcopalians have a Saints-Lite view of it all. Our "Book of Saints" is called "Holy Men/Holy Women". I mean their are hundreds of them, including writers and poets and musicians and folks like that who aren't necessarily 'religious folk' in the traditional sense. From Bach to Mary Magdalene to Space Explorers to Francis of Assissi to James Weldon Johnson to St. Peter to Martin Luther King, we Episcopalians love to celebrate Holy Men and Holy Women. We just don't have a process to go through or require verifiable miracles. We even have a Feast Day for the Book of Common Prayer, the only Holy Day I know of that celebrates a book!
But Roman Catholic saints are writ large. There was a half-life-size statue of St. Roco (or Rock or Rocco) in the place we were this weekend.
He's the patron saint of dogs, not because he healed them but because he had a wound on his leg healed by a dog licking it. More than a tad 'weird', but astonishingly compelling. He, along with St. Amand, the patron of beer and wine makers (Bern gave me a statue of him for Christmas holding a bunch of grapes and hops and looking about the third-quarter into the Super Bowl) God love him. Bless me St. Rocco and St. Amand and thank you for the endlessly wondrous gift of dogs and wine and beer.
That's all pretty weird in some way--but it enlivens me in many ways.
(When I used to do pre-baptism classes for 6 to 12 families at a time, I would give them each one of the symbols of baptism--water, oil, bread, a scallop shell, wine--and ask them to talk about the symbol and tell me why it is vital to baptism. Not once did the group with wine come back and say, "it makes you feel really good". Our culture, even among Episcopalians, is so Puritan about wine.
It's not an accident they call alcohol "spirits"--the Spirit can be called forth with wine.
I believe you can tell the ultimate Value of something by how badly it can be abused. By that distinction 'religion' and 'alcohol' are of profound and Holy Value since they can be so horribly and murderously abused.)
Bless us St. Amand to know the wonders of 'spirits' and avoid the dangers....
Home from 'home'
I spent the last three days in California at the Mastery Foundation Board Meeting.
Going to Mastery Board Meetings reminds me of how I used to feel about going 3 times a month to do Eucharists in three different nursing homes--I really don't want to go, but once I'm there it's full of joy and wonder!
The meeting was in Menlo Park, 15 or so miles south of the San Francisco Airport, at a Retreat Center called Vallombrosa Center, ran by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. I've been to lots of retreat centers and Vallombrosa is in the upper half (the top 5 are all in Ireland!) It was a good place made special by the fact that they have tame bunnies on the grounds that you can walk right up to and pet. A drawback for me (though not for most people) is the smoking area is in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. A hike from either my room or where we met.
(Imagine this: what if a retreat center made any other group: women, blacks, gays, Hispanics, Asians--take their breaks only in a small area in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. There would be insurrection and federal discrimination suits against the place!)
People, as you might think--and 'as you might...', give me great grief about smoking at all. But it doesn't faze me. I have developed high-minded 'moral' reasons and human rights and egalitarian reasons for smoking even if I hated it (which I don't). First of all, I am a priest of the Church, called to stand with the 'oppressed' of the planet and few groups are as 'oppressed' as smokers. Secondly, by smoking, I call into question the whole liberal/progressive commitment to 'equality'. There's nothing remotely 'equal' about being shamed to the parking lot near the trash dumpsters (even if their are two chairs and a shaded table beside the Grecian Urn sized ash tray). Finally, smoking keeps me in touch with 'the real people' instead of hiding out in the midst of the privileged and well-off. In the three days I was there the only person I ever smoked with that wasn't one of the mostly Hispanic and Black kitchen and cleaning staff was Alan, who joined me twice to have one of his little Cubans. If Jesus came again and, as he did the first time round, mixed with the marginalized and the outcasts, one of the places he would be in Menlo Park was in the parking lot of the Vallombrosa Center with the cooks and waiters and cleaners and me and Alan.
So, don't go trying to make me feel bad about smoking! (Plus, I really enjoy it....)
There are two things about Mastery Board Meetings that make them joyful and wondrous. First and foremost are the people on the Board: the Board is made up of a dozen or so extremely gifted, humorous and smart people and me. (That's my only use in this post of the "Appalachian Pity Party" stance....) They are an incredible group and I've known and loved many of them for years. I met two I'd never met before and after three days I felt like I'd known and loved them for years!
Secondly, it is an opportunity to be immersed for a few days in a life-giving and transforming conversation. The vehicle of the Foundations work is 'conversation' that empowers and transforms. Hanging around that--as odd as the 'language-ing' of the conversation is (and it IS odd by most any standard)--is exhilarating.
I've written before and doubtless will again about 'the work of Being' that Mastery is (to throw out a little piece of odd language-ing). I just wanted to ponder for a few moments how few things in my life form who I 'be' more than that conversation.
We went to dinner together in a private dining room of a local restaurant on Saturday night. Ann, the executive director of the Foundation had invited us to bring a poem to share at dinner (that, in and of itself, is a rather odd thing to do at dinner!) I planned to read a poem by Billy Collins but forgot to take the book and don't own (or want to) a smart phone, which was the page from which most people read.
So, Saturday morning, I wrote a poem before breakfast to share with those dear friends of mine. I'll share it with you as well.
EPIPHANIES
{Epiphany: a sudden, intuitive insight into the deep down meaning of things, usually caused by what is ordinary, common place and day-to-day)
Once, years ago,
I was wandering around
the grounds
of a huge convent
in Holyoke, Massachuttes.
(As professions came fewer
and farther between,
the convent became
a conference center and
a home for aging nuns.)
Wandering,
I happened on the Convent's
graveyard.
Simple to the extreme,
the grave stones
said only three things:
the nun's chosen name,
the date of her final vows
and the date of her death.
Yet, I couldn't help notice
how many years
those nuns had been
in religious life.
I lost count at around 2064.
Two millennia of service
to their God
buried on a
New England hillside.
For days, I pondered
the wonder of those centuries.
I stared, open-eyed,
into the deep-down meaning
of loving your God.
Last night, sitting at those tables,
listening to the dozen or so of you
talk,
that sudden, intuitive insight
came flooding back.
All the decades of commitment
in that room
opened my eyes
to this:
how many years altogether,
we, seated there--
just ordinary people--
had spent longing
to create a future
where everyone
(not just us but 'everyone')
can BE....
I thank you so much for that.
So
very
much....
Going to Mastery Board Meetings reminds me of how I used to feel about going 3 times a month to do Eucharists in three different nursing homes--I really don't want to go, but once I'm there it's full of joy and wonder!
The meeting was in Menlo Park, 15 or so miles south of the San Francisco Airport, at a Retreat Center called Vallombrosa Center, ran by the Archdiocese of San Francisco. I've been to lots of retreat centers and Vallombrosa is in the upper half (the top 5 are all in Ireland!) It was a good place made special by the fact that they have tame bunnies on the grounds that you can walk right up to and pet. A drawback for me (though not for most people) is the smoking area is in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. A hike from either my room or where we met.
(Imagine this: what if a retreat center made any other group: women, blacks, gays, Hispanics, Asians--take their breaks only in a small area in the parking lot near the trash dumpsters. There would be insurrection and federal discrimination suits against the place!)
People, as you might think--and 'as you might...', give me great grief about smoking at all. But it doesn't faze me. I have developed high-minded 'moral' reasons and human rights and egalitarian reasons for smoking even if I hated it (which I don't). First of all, I am a priest of the Church, called to stand with the 'oppressed' of the planet and few groups are as 'oppressed' as smokers. Secondly, by smoking, I call into question the whole liberal/progressive commitment to 'equality'. There's nothing remotely 'equal' about being shamed to the parking lot near the trash dumpsters (even if their are two chairs and a shaded table beside the Grecian Urn sized ash tray). Finally, smoking keeps me in touch with 'the real people' instead of hiding out in the midst of the privileged and well-off. In the three days I was there the only person I ever smoked with that wasn't one of the mostly Hispanic and Black kitchen and cleaning staff was Alan, who joined me twice to have one of his little Cubans. If Jesus came again and, as he did the first time round, mixed with the marginalized and the outcasts, one of the places he would be in Menlo Park was in the parking lot of the Vallombrosa Center with the cooks and waiters and cleaners and me and Alan.
So, don't go trying to make me feel bad about smoking! (Plus, I really enjoy it....)
There are two things about Mastery Board Meetings that make them joyful and wondrous. First and foremost are the people on the Board: the Board is made up of a dozen or so extremely gifted, humorous and smart people and me. (That's my only use in this post of the "Appalachian Pity Party" stance....) They are an incredible group and I've known and loved many of them for years. I met two I'd never met before and after three days I felt like I'd known and loved them for years!
Secondly, it is an opportunity to be immersed for a few days in a life-giving and transforming conversation. The vehicle of the Foundations work is 'conversation' that empowers and transforms. Hanging around that--as odd as the 'language-ing' of the conversation is (and it IS odd by most any standard)--is exhilarating.
I've written before and doubtless will again about 'the work of Being' that Mastery is (to throw out a little piece of odd language-ing). I just wanted to ponder for a few moments how few things in my life form who I 'be' more than that conversation.
We went to dinner together in a private dining room of a local restaurant on Saturday night. Ann, the executive director of the Foundation had invited us to bring a poem to share at dinner (that, in and of itself, is a rather odd thing to do at dinner!) I planned to read a poem by Billy Collins but forgot to take the book and don't own (or want to) a smart phone, which was the page from which most people read.
So, Saturday morning, I wrote a poem before breakfast to share with those dear friends of mine. I'll share it with you as well.
EPIPHANIES
{Epiphany: a sudden, intuitive insight into the deep down meaning of things, usually caused by what is ordinary, common place and day-to-day)
Once, years ago,
I was wandering around
the grounds
of a huge convent
in Holyoke, Massachuttes.
(As professions came fewer
and farther between,
the convent became
a conference center and
a home for aging nuns.)
Wandering,
I happened on the Convent's
graveyard.
Simple to the extreme,
the grave stones
said only three things:
the nun's chosen name,
the date of her final vows
and the date of her death.
Yet, I couldn't help notice
how many years
those nuns had been
in religious life.
I lost count at around 2064.
Two millennia of service
to their God
buried on a
New England hillside.
For days, I pondered
the wonder of those centuries.
I stared, open-eyed,
into the deep-down meaning
of loving your God.
Last night, sitting at those tables,
listening to the dozen or so of you
talk,
that sudden, intuitive insight
came flooding back.
All the decades of commitment
in that room
opened my eyes
to this:
how many years altogether,
we, seated there--
just ordinary people--
had spent longing
to create a future
where everyone
(not just us but 'everyone')
can BE....
I thank you so much for that.
So
very
much....
Thursday, January 16, 2014
no blood
The last time I was all set to go to San Francisco for a Mastery Foundation Board Meeting, I got up to find significant blood in my urine.
I've had prostate cancer surgery and weeks of radiation. The radiation scars the bladder which causes, from time to time scar tissue to tear off and cause blood clots which leave your body the only way they can causing you to cover vast expanses of bathrooms with blood. Not a pretty thing--I should have included a warning at the beginning to alert the faint of heart.
I called my urologist and he said, most definitively, not to get on an airplane. 24 hours later after drinking more water than a horse would need in a day, I was fine. But I didn't get to go to San Francisco. Unfortunately, I didn't have flight insurance (because I'm cheap) and lost the money for the tickets.
This time I got flight insurance, wondering if 'going to San Francisco caused the blood. So (cheap me) spent a little more money and though I waited all day, no issue of blood happened.
Maybe I'll get there tomorrow. Hope so.
Won't be taking my laptop--too much trouble. So I'll be back on Monday.
Be well and stay well.
I've had prostate cancer surgery and weeks of radiation. The radiation scars the bladder which causes, from time to time scar tissue to tear off and cause blood clots which leave your body the only way they can causing you to cover vast expanses of bathrooms with blood. Not a pretty thing--I should have included a warning at the beginning to alert the faint of heart.
I called my urologist and he said, most definitively, not to get on an airplane. 24 hours later after drinking more water than a horse would need in a day, I was fine. But I didn't get to go to San Francisco. Unfortunately, I didn't have flight insurance (because I'm cheap) and lost the money for the tickets.
This time I got flight insurance, wondering if 'going to San Francisco caused the blood. So (cheap me) spent a little more money and though I waited all day, no issue of blood happened.
Maybe I'll get there tomorrow. Hope so.
Won't be taking my laptop--too much trouble. So I'll be back on Monday.
Be well and stay well.
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
4 days, little sleep
So, my friend Fred, who is going with me to JFK on Friday so I can catch my flight and drive my car back to Cheshire and then come get me on Monday after I ride what people call "the red eye" back from San Francisco told me I should pick him up around 6 a.m.
He's right, I know, since my flight is at 10:30 am and we need to fight the rush hour in NYC. But I don't recall the last time I was up that early. I'm retired, you know, and sometimes sleep until 10:30 am or so, because I can.
I actually overslept on Saturday and missed the Cluster Council Officers meeting. I forgot to set my alarm. My alarm is only set on Tuesdays and Sundays so I can make it to my Clericus meeting and to whichever of the three Cluster Churches I'm scheduled to serve. Otherwise, if my alarm isn't set, I wake up when I do and take the dog out (he likes to sleep in as well) and make breakfast and read whatever book I'm reading and sometimes go to the gym (not much lately) and then do whatever I want to do.
That's retirement--and I'm so good at it I should have done it years ago!
But I forgot to set my alarm on Friday night and when I woke up when I woke up, the breakfast meeting wasn't in my head. I started my breakfast--ham and home fries that eventually I planned to break an egg over--and took the dog out.
When I came back, my cell phone had a message from Jean Anderson, the chair of the Cluster Council, wondering where I was since I'm almost always the first person at a meeting.
I almost killed myself driving through the rain to get to Durham after Jean and Nancy and Ann had finished breakfast and done all that needed to be done to make sure the Cluster Council meeting the next Tuesday would happen without incident.
What an idiot I am.
But then, I am 'retired' and not expected to be more than forgetful and a tad vague and always a little sleepy.
So, I'm leaving to San Francisco on Friday at 6 and I'm coming back on the red eye which means I won't sleep much on Thursday/Friday and not at all on Sunday/Monday.
So, don't expect a lot of me next week. I'll be napping.....
He's right, I know, since my flight is at 10:30 am and we need to fight the rush hour in NYC. But I don't recall the last time I was up that early. I'm retired, you know, and sometimes sleep until 10:30 am or so, because I can.
I actually overslept on Saturday and missed the Cluster Council Officers meeting. I forgot to set my alarm. My alarm is only set on Tuesdays and Sundays so I can make it to my Clericus meeting and to whichever of the three Cluster Churches I'm scheduled to serve. Otherwise, if my alarm isn't set, I wake up when I do and take the dog out (he likes to sleep in as well) and make breakfast and read whatever book I'm reading and sometimes go to the gym (not much lately) and then do whatever I want to do.
That's retirement--and I'm so good at it I should have done it years ago!
But I forgot to set my alarm on Friday night and when I woke up when I woke up, the breakfast meeting wasn't in my head. I started my breakfast--ham and home fries that eventually I planned to break an egg over--and took the dog out.
When I came back, my cell phone had a message from Jean Anderson, the chair of the Cluster Council, wondering where I was since I'm almost always the first person at a meeting.
I almost killed myself driving through the rain to get to Durham after Jean and Nancy and Ann had finished breakfast and done all that needed to be done to make sure the Cluster Council meeting the next Tuesday would happen without incident.
What an idiot I am.
But then, I am 'retired' and not expected to be more than forgetful and a tad vague and always a little sleepy.
So, I'm leaving to San Francisco on Friday at 6 and I'm coming back on the red eye which means I won't sleep much on Thursday/Friday and not at all on Sunday/Monday.
So, don't expect a lot of me next week. I'll be napping.....
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....
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....
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