December 31st, 2008. Another year is gone. And what a good year it has been.
Youngest daughter, Alley, graduated this year, eldest daughter, Jessie started her first year of music studies at college, son Eli took some steps towards stabilizing his life in Victoria, my relationships at work and at church carried me through some challenging times and over and through it all the Spirit guided me. A very good year.
Not being much of a socializer on New Year's Eve I have spent the last few hours reading, A Wing and a Prayer, by Katharine Jefferts Schori. An amazing and inspiring woman. The scope of her vision as a bishop and her ability to articulate that vision in examples drawing from folks who's lives have intersected with her lifeline, from you and me, is quite breathtaking.
As I read this book two thoughts kept running through my head...first that a bishop is truly a servant of the servants of the people of God and also that for one who thinks as Ms. Schori does to be elected bishop must only be possible through the intervention of the Holy Spirit. She is neither conventional nor orthodox. We, Christians, have been liberated from the vicissitudes of the fates by the message of hope and that hope is so well presented in the life of Katharine Schori.
In one of my earliest posts I said that this journey that I am on had no sign posts and no mileage markers. I see now that such is not the case. Whether in the form of Kent Haruf, or Robert Frost or Anna Akhmatova or Katharine Schori, whether in the music of Alan Jackson or Anton Dvoric or Leonard Cohen, whether in the Bible or the Koran or in the Vedas, the sign posts that guide me on this journey are everywhere. Especially in the hearts of those who come into my life.
I wish all who may read this a new year filled with challenges and trials such that who you are capable of being is forged not in the complacency of everyday predictability by in the crucible of change charged by the diversity and wonder of this beautiful world. Happy New Year.
Youngest daughter, Alley, graduated this year, eldest daughter, Jessie started her first year of music studies at college, son Eli took some steps towards stabilizing his life in Victoria, my relationships at work and at church carried me through some challenging times and over and through it all the Spirit guided me. A very good year.
Not being much of a socializer on New Year's Eve I have spent the last few hours reading, A Wing and a Prayer, by Katharine Jefferts Schori. An amazing and inspiring woman. The scope of her vision as a bishop and her ability to articulate that vision in examples drawing from folks who's lives have intersected with her lifeline, from you and me, is quite breathtaking.
As I read this book two thoughts kept running through my head...first that a bishop is truly a servant of the servants of the people of God and also that for one who thinks as Ms. Schori does to be elected bishop must only be possible through the intervention of the Holy Spirit. She is neither conventional nor orthodox. We, Christians, have been liberated from the vicissitudes of the fates by the message of hope and that hope is so well presented in the life of Katharine Schori.
In one of my earliest posts I said that this journey that I am on had no sign posts and no mileage markers. I see now that such is not the case. Whether in the form of Kent Haruf, or Robert Frost or Anna Akhmatova or Katharine Schori, whether in the music of Alan Jackson or Anton Dvoric or Leonard Cohen, whether in the Bible or the Koran or in the Vedas, the sign posts that guide me on this journey are everywhere. Especially in the hearts of those who come into my life.
I wish all who may read this a new year filled with challenges and trials such that who you are capable of being is forged not in the complacency of everyday predictability by in the crucible of change charged by the diversity and wonder of this beautiful world. Happy New Year.
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