Overheard

Last week I was sitting in my local Starbucks, studying. This song came on the radio. My heart swooned. It's just that kind of song. 

That night there were two young women who were working the coffee bar. This song came on the radio. This conversation followed:

I don't like this song.

Me either.

What's it even suppose to be about?

Yeah, no kidding. 

That night there was a middle aged gentleman who was buying a cup of coffee and reading the newspaper on his iPad. This song came on the radio. This conversation followed. He looked up and made this simple reply:

This song is about love. 

The redemptive power of love.

Last week I was setting in my local Starbucks, studying. This song came on the radio. My hear swooned. This conversation followed. A simple reply was made. It's just that kind of song. 

Labyrinth Walk

Walking from the busy street through the gate to the garden labyrinth on Saturday I was struck with a sense of the sacred. The grey bench outlining the center of the hedge-lined path danced before my eyes.  I breathed easily as my mind suddenly took a back seat. I was in the mist of the Divine surrounded by fellow travelers.

We formed a line beside the labyrinth. Silently reciting a prayer for each person who entered before me, my mind was ever focused on the bench, waiting in the center.

I stepped to the entrance, made the sign of the cross, and wanted nothing more than to jump over the hedges. My first steps along the path were quick and filled with anticipation, but the labyrinth is a path to be walked, not an obstacle to cross. Soon my feet found the rhythm of the journey, pausing to dwell in each turn.

When I arrived in the center I marveled at the space. Far from a small, cramped circle I had entered an oasis. I sat on the bench and almost for the first time, my eyes fell on the tree. The strong old oak had beautiful spreading boughs, as though it was embracing the entire labyrinth.

I closed my eyes and centered in prayer. I did not seek to experience a sudden moment of clarity. I had not come to the labyrinth that day with a particular problem to work out. I sought, and experienced with profound clarity, God’s holy presence.

I carried that sense of presence with me as I left the labyrinth and that ‘holy’ place. I also carried with me a challenge. The next day I saw this challenge perfectly laid out in a line from the comic, Calvin & Hobbes. “We’re so busy watching out for what’s just ahead of us that we don’t take time to enjoy where we are.” I am challenged to enjoy my time on this path towards ministry.

Invitation of Joy

Early morning Sun
nudges my eyes open.

I look out my window,
that has been open all night
to invite in the breeze,
and see the tops of winter trees.
Naked. No leaves.

The Son nudges
my soul open.
Naked. No expectation.

I invite Joy to enter.

New Year, New Skills

I begin the new year with a new skill. I can give myself injections. It isn't something I ever thought I would do. I'm afraid of needles. Meaning I don't like looking at needles that are just sitting on a table never mind ones that are going into my arm, or stomach as the case maybe.

You stand at the bathroom sink. You take a deep breath and settle into your skin, your knees wobble, your palms sweating, and you feel a twinge of panic. You think of the sharp prick of the needle, of how the liquid will burn. You think, I can't do this. No, no, no, no, no. And then you think of all the people surrounding you in prayer. Their calm is calming to you, their spirits cheer you up. We are a team, and for the sake of the team I will stick it out. And of course the pill for nausea helps. And the promise of a Reese Peanut Butter cup.

I'm back

I completely enjoyed the season of Advent.

For the first time in what seemed like a life time, I my schedule was open and free. When I was at home I could just be at home. Our house had one rule: No Multitasking. It was fabulous.

Christmas morning when Alex and I stumbled out of bed we opened the smattering of presents under the tree and watched the Disney Parks Commercial Parade. It was fabulous.

Christmas night the dull pain that had been nagging on the right side of my back all day turned into a sharp stabbing pain and I was up all night. In pain and sick. Long story short I ended up in the ER the next morning. Longer story short it turns out, I[probably] have "sticky blood." In other words blood is prone to clotting. Probably. This [probably] explains the odd shooting pains that I have been experiencing over the past several months.

I'm now on blood thinning medication. A shot. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend who is also a nurse. Because while the Hematologist was confident I could inject myself with the "short" needle. He didn't take into account how much I hate needles. Hopefully I he puts me on a pill form of the medicine soon. I don't don't if Nurse Curly Locks can inject me every day for the rest of my life. Needles aside, the medicine has worked. I feel better. I'm not in pain. The clot that was in my kidney is probably gone.  They will follow me closely for the next six months to a year and see if this really is what they think it is. And figure out long term treatment options. Apparently once a person has sticky blood they always have sticky blood. [insert gratuitous call for healthcare reform here].

So today, since I was feeling 100 percent normal again I called my sister, the yuppie lawyer, and demanded she take me to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to see the incredibly wonderful documentary, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. See this movie. Bring a box of tissues. Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who created and portrays Elmo is an amazing human being. Inspiring.

And since today is New Years Eve, I have to add that I am incredibly grateful for all of the people that have walked across my path this year. The opportunities I have been given have been amazing and challenging. I have gained new knowledge and I have gained a better understanding of who it is I am in God. I look forward to continuing my journey, to continuing to learn how to move over so that God can walk this path with me.

First Sunday in Advent

Oh, Holy Mother, Divine Creator of All, we are your children, the sons and daughters of your flesh and your heart. Our very waiting for you in Advent is itself our confession.

We are waiting for you, Emmanuel, to remember your touch and the fragrance of your essence, we long for you; hear our call.

We are waiting for you, Messiah, while the proud are still powerful, the mighty are still exalted, and the hungry stand unheard at the door.

We are still waiting for your son Jesus, your incarnation in human form, because we have not known you in our siste; we have not loved you in our brother; we have not served you in our neighbor.

In this time of great meaning, in the stillness of Advent love and light, enlighten us with your presence. Draw back the veils that we might see, and harken the doors to open, that beauty and ecstasy may live in our homes and hearts more fully.

This is our hour of greatest need. Hear our deepest confession; heal us and make us new through the good tidings of your presence in our lives. Amen.

Something to keep in mind when Christmas Shopping...

Upon Further Reflextion

Thanks to the encouragement of friends, I took a deep breath and wrote words, sentences and paragraphs inside a notebook this afternoon. One can be that heroic voice shouting out the injustice of quantifying the work of the soul feeling brilliant and unappreciated. Or one can stop putzing around in the shallows. The sheer waste of time — years spent dragging around personal measure of what is worthy of effort and meanwhile nothing is gained. Perhaps the situation is not ideal, but this is still an excuse to push aside distractions and be attentive to God's presence. No ruffles and flourishes of pure intention needed.

Flash Back

So I'm in this class. Is it a class? Its a pass or fail thing and you get one hour of graduate work credit and its called Spiritual Formation. Its odd. Being in a class called Spiritual Formation where participation is required. Every session we are given a different spiritual practice to practice. Every session we have to write a paper about our experience. If we don't complete every assignment or attend every session you fail.

Participation is mandatory. You can actually fail at Spiritual Formation.

I get it. I do. One should not go through seminary without being spiritually formed. Still, how helpful is it to compel a person to journal? Maybe I'm just whining because I'm not in a place in my journey right now where I don't feel like journaling. Its not that I doubt the worth of the practice. I have kept faithful journals in the past. I'm just not there right now. I'm not there and yet, because I don't want to fail I feel almost blackmailed into writing in a notebook. I don't think that's spiritually forming. Or particularly helpful.

It very much feels like my days as an undergraduate at a Baptist university. We were required to have 120 spiritual life points in order to graduate. You could earn points for your soul if you attended Convocation or volunteered your time at an approved religiously affiliated charity. Looking back years later, I don't think those things were particularly helpful or spiritually forming.

But that could just be me.

Art and Prayer

Set us fee, God

free to try new ways of living;

free to forgive ourselves and other;

free to love and laugh and sing;

free to lay our burden of security;

free to join the battle for justice and peace;

free to see and listen and wonder again

at the gracious mystery of things and persons;

free to be,

to give,

to receive

to rejoice as a child of your Spirit.

Finding the Heart of Gustav Mahler

Its been the driest of Mays in my little world. The swamp has fallen into drought. I shudder to think of how my daughter's grades have fallen. In the middle of the night, my kitchen and living room flood and I shudder to think of all that is still not mended. A move-out date is looming on my calender and festering in every unpacked corner of my apartment while a clouded air of insipid vacations, unpaid debts, and uncertain relationships loom.

In the midst of these ominous ramblings, I went to a lovely performance of the Houston Symphony on Sunday afternoon which is notable because my mother and I usually only attend three of four concerts a year. Classical music is a bond we have had since I was child who played the double bass quite well and she was a devoted mother who drove me across the universe to attend private lessons, orchestra rehearsals and various performances. My mother gave me a lot of her time and a lot of herself.  She taught me how to walk away from an unreasonable argument, to appreciate artist expression even when you don't understand it, and to love classic movies. I like to think that my short lived career as a child musician helped my mother appreciate classical music, even if she doesn't fully understand it.

Symphonic music at its best expands our capacity to feel, to enter the compassion and the pain of being human.  Classic music holds joy deeply, and for the time we are experiencing a composer's work we borrow his passions and make them our own.

Such was the case of Sunday's performance of Mahler's 10th, and unfinished Symphony. When Mahler wrote the sketch for his final symphony he was a man living on borrowed time. Doctors had discovered he suffered from an incurable heart condition and it was uncertain how long he would live. He had learned too that his wife, Alma - an insatiable flirt - was having an affair. As unfinished works go, the sketch Mahler left behind was quite complete. Mahler wrote out all his basic melodies and cords and filled the margins with his notations of regret for the life he would not live and the heartache brought on by a cheating wife. When he died in 1911, two years after starting his final work, Mahler left us not only the bones of a symphony, but a memoir of human suffering.

And yet, despite the shrinking high A of his trumpeter and funeral march of his bass drum, the final movement of Mahler's final symphony leaves us with an uplifting melody. The kitchen floods, the grades slide, the good man is gone, the lawn turns brown, but with Mahler you come back to basics: Do I regret this life? Is it, despite all our brave words, a cheat and a waste? Does it make any slight difference to the universe that we are present?

Spending an afternoon with the Symphony simply is an extravagant gift from the heart of the performers to the hearts of whoever is sitting nearby. Life is good, no matter the disappointments — O God the disappointments. Just square your shoulders and give them your utter best. As the late great Marilyn Monroe said, "I don't want to make money, I just want to be wonderful." Life is insurmountable, but we mount up every morning and ride forward.

The Railway Children

When we climbed the slopes of the cutting
We were eye-level with the white cups
Of the telegraph poles and the sizzling wires.

Like lovely freehand they curved for miles
East and miles west beyond us, sagging
Under their burden of swallows.
We were small and thought we knew nothing
Worth knowing. We thought words traveled the wires

In the shiny pouches of raindrops,

Each one seeded full with the light
Of the sky, the gleam of the lines, and ourselves
So infinitesimally scaled

We could stream through the eye of a needle.

-by Sheamus Heaney



As I laid awake in bed last night the words of this poem, among other things haunted me. Lately I have caught myself in the act of trying to live a large life. Trying to prove that I can think big thoughts. Insisting that I am wise enough to be of some worth to someone.

To be small and know nothing is hard.

Rich and Mysterious Vanilla

At 28 it seems rather useless to continue to insist that I am not an adult. Yesterday I found myself on the floor of the file room, digging through boxes. I got up, dropped something and then bent down to pick it up again. Effortless. It gave me pause to wonder how much longer I will have this freedom of movement. How old can a person get before they have to stop sitting cross legged in their office chair? I'm realizing now that I've turned toward a modest, pragmatic view of life and those dull virtues that I ran from in my youth — don't run in the dark, don't be a jerk, get over yourself, do your work, avoid self-pity, pay attention, know that the law of gravity applies to you too, and hang onto your old friends because there may come a day when there's no good reason for people to like you except out of habit. These are sensible virtues of people that strike me in adulthood as vital to the preservation of life. One doesn't have to be so smart to make your way through adult life, but one should know the basic rules.

My church has recently hired a new organist who plays with a lot of flash and pulls out the trumpet stops and he makes me appreciate our old, now retired, organist who isn't that good and knows it. As a teenager I dated boys who were brilliant and unreliable and I amused myself with them and then I met a sweet guy who has those little virtues cited above and is be a good father and caring boyfriend, a steady reliable man who will dispose of deceased rats and will open doors and is capable of astonishing things.
The young and the restless are dismissive of the sensible virtues, on the basis of poor information, as vanilla, but you wouldn't dismiss vanilla if you'd ever tasted real vanilla, which is as rich and mysterious as chocolate. They only know the artificial vanilla that McDonald's sells, which is completely artificial. The blandness is in them, not in the vanilla, and their dismissiveness is pure horse hockey. Which is itself rich and mysterious, but not as good as vanilla.

Spring Lunchon in the Park

Daylight Savings Time has come and stolen my chance to arrive at work with the sun and so my walk to work is still in darkness and yet early spring weather has arrived. Along the gulf coast our summer carries oppressive heat and humidity and so in spring we enjoy the outdoors with wildly nervous abandon. Yesterday, under the spell of spring I took my lunch outdoors, and enjoyed my sandwich in front of city hall. On the new benches by the reflection pool and green patches of grass I ate carrot sticks and read a book on my new Color Nook. Two children played tag as I read and a gang of skate boarders rushed by.

I wasn’t the only one taking my lunch in the park, on a bench placed there to honor our former Mayor who, apparently, “loved the city parks.” There were others. Men with knapsacks and trash bags filled with more than just a sandwich, but I suspect, everything they own. No one bothered me. Or talked to me. I don’t think anyone ever even looked at me, and yet I couldn’t help but feel their presence as I sat there and read on my Nook. I felt like a schmuck, sitting there with my Vera Bradley lunch tote and reading the philosophical meanderings of a guy chasing rubber duckys lost at sea by way of a luxury electronic device.

Like most good capitalist I didn’t do anything about this feeling of schmuckiness. I simply read and ate and then walked back to my job in the nearby skyscraper. I sat and ate with people who have nothing and did almost nothing. As I left I offered the man beside me my uneaten apple, which he took with a smile after sniffing it for passions. That made the schmuckiness seem to ooze out of me even more. The act felt wholly inadequate and I felt unwise and unsure and humbled.

I suppose if I were a minister writing a sermon this would be the place where I would insert a story from the bible or a lame antidote about something magical I heard God saying to me that day in the park. If I were a feature story on NPR this would be the opening line to explain the revolutionary way I’ve begun to serve the homeless population. But I’m not a minister and I didn’t receive a divine revelation; this isn’t NPR and I’m certain I won’t be opening a homeless shelter any time soon. I have no bow to tie around yesterday’s lunch. I just offer it, humbly and covered in schmuck to the universe. Maybe God, in time, will tie around this for me, but maybe not.

Wednesday of Quiet Love and Ashes

Today is Ash Wednesday. My evening will end with a service in which a United Methodist Minister will ask the congregation to come to the altar. People will go to the altar and kneel and the minister will dip the side of his thumb in ashes. He will take the purported ashes of last year’s palm branches and spread them on congregants’ foreheads in the form of the cross. The gathering of unholy sinners will leave the red carpet and stained glass windows of the sanctuary with ashes emblazoned on their foreheads and feeling just a little holier and just a little subconscious about flipping the bird at the guy who cuts them off in traffic. You can’t flip someone off if you are holy.

I do not start this day a holy person. I woke up well rested having fallen asleep at 9:30. Being a secretary is exhausting. Handling ten tasks at once for eight hours is exhausting, but soaking in a hot bath for thirty minutes proves restorative so I soaked. I soaked and talked on the phone and went to bed and slept soundly. Waking up at five o’clock in the morning is easy when you have slept soundly and so this morning I woke up and was ready for the day to begin. I anticipate lunch with an old friend as I eat my Honey Nut Cheerios for breakfast and marvel at the quiet darkness as I drive through the neighborhood, depositing my daughter safely with her grandparents. The road out of town was quiet and soft in the early morning glow of street lamps. My car drives itself as I listen to James Naughton read the words of Earnest Hemingway's Moveable Feast in his deep baritone voice. Heading east into town I am hypnotized by this baritone and I listen even if I did not care for Hemingway’s words and I wonder how many people in their twenties even know who Gertrude Stein was or why his portrait of her is so stunning.

This trance is broken when I finally slip out the door of the downtown garage and onto the street that is full of people and the air that is full of garbage and bus fumes. These streets are not quiet. Cleaning women are making their way home and typing women are making their way to work. The only men I see are wearing hard hates and blue jeans. Men in suites don’t come to work this early or else they never walk on the street.

And so this day begins. This day, the first of the holy season of reflection and preparation, begins like any other with simple peace. In the quiet God’s simple assurance of unconditional love speaks volumes. In placing ashes on our foreheads we wear the grace of God and Her love feels absolute and forever. So what happens between the quiet and the ashes? What happens when I walk through air that is full of garbage and bus fumes? God's love is total, unconditional, absolute and forever. The state of grace—God's attitude toward us—is eternal. I am the one who changes with fumes. To receive the love of God is to recognize it is all around us, above us and beneath us; speaking to us through every person, every flower, every bag of trash, every trial and situation.

For the next forty days I give myself the challenge to remember this simple statement once written by the Franciscan monk Richard Rohr - Stop knocking on the door: You’re already inside!

The Duck in a Chiken Coop

It's the birthday of Thomas Merton, born in Prades, France (1915). Merton was a Trappist monk, but he was also the author of more than 50 books, 2,000 poems and a personal diary that spanned much of his lifetime.

Merton was educated in France and the United States before beginning his university career at Cambridge University. But he left after only one year and returned to America to attend Columbia University and live with his grandparents. Merton decided to write his master's thesis on William Blake, and he found himself deeply influenced by Blake. He converted to Christianity, and in 1941 he entered a Trappist abbey in Kentucky, where he remained for most of his life. In his diary from this time, Merton wrote, "Going to the Trappists is exciting. I return to the idea again and again: 'Give up everything, give up everything!'" Merton had become well-known throughout the world, in part because of his writing, in particular his autobiography The Seven Story Mountain (1948).

He said, "An author in a Trappist monastery is like a duck in a chicken coop. And he would give anything in the world to be a chicken instead of a duck."

Merton was also known for his dialogue with other faiths, and for advocating non-violence during race riots and the Vietnam War. Merton was encouraged to write at the abbey, but he was not allowed to leave. And so a new abbot allowed Merton to leave the abbey in 1968 for a tour of Asia, where he met the Dalai Lama, and where he died accidentally, touching an electric fan as he stepped from his bath.


The Everlasting Gospel (excerpt)
by William Blake

The Vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my Visions Greatest Enemy
Thine has a great hook nose like thine
Mine has a snub nose like to mine
Thine is the Friend of All Mankind
Mine speaks in parables to the Blind
Thine loves the same world that mine hates

Thy Heaven doors are my Hell Gates
Socrates taught that Melitus
Loathd as a Nations bitterest Curse
And Caiphus was in his own Mind
A benefactor of Mankind
Both read the Bible day & night
But thou readst black where I read white

Because my workday begins...

Because my workday begins early, it begins, in winter, in the huge, tense blackness of the world. I slip out of bed before the sun slips into the sky and the house is hard cold so I move purposely in silence. I lack the confidence to move quickly, I fear the skate board that could be waiting in the middle of the hall. I dress in the dark and shuffle to the coffee pot. The sleepy dog walks with me a few strides then he disappears. The coffee maker hisses then gurgles. I listen intently, as though it is a language the coffee grounds are speaking. There are no stars, nor a moon. I can see a little from the street lamps and finally I turn on the light that sits on the side of my desk. I lean on the winged back of my green chair by the amber light and my purple desk. Now the dog comes back, his happy feet finding a new bed by my side. I sit and read, think, write, stare by the light of my desk.
This is the beginning of every day.

Check your ego for the Greater Good

Republicans used their second day in charge of the House to read the Constitution to each other. This is good. Holding the majority of one chamber of Congress will require both political parties to decide who they are. Are Democrats really interested in unemployment, health care, banking regulation and the long-term health of the planet? Are Republicans still just angry that a non-citizen and practicing Muslim got elected president so he could send death panels around to enslave us in the chains of Mexican Marxists?

Nobody looks on the marathon health-care debate and the latest stimulus bill as a noble chapter in political science. No legislator is going to have a hospital or school named for him in honor of his heroic work. (Maybe a parking ramp.) Meanwhile, one-sixth of our population is without health insurance, and over ten percent are unemployed while the wealth gap gross and the middle class disappears.

If our nation is to learn anything from the shooting rampage that took place at a gathering for political dialogue in Arizona this weekend, both parties will have to wake up and realize that running on anger is not such a great idea. For one thing, it's hard to sustain. Government does not change when you yell at it. The world doesn't run on slogans and ideology, it runs on compromise and paperwork. Government can not be run on Blue or Red ideals alone, there being so many purple people occupying flyover country. One has to wonder if our Congressmen realize that our Constitution was written in order to form a more perfect UNION and not simply a cluster of warring ideologues. The remarkable thing about great Statesmen are not their high ideals, that at some point differences and ego are set aside for the greater good.

My heart was gladdened by an official-looking sign in the Bush airport when I went to pick up Alex the other day. Just beyond the TSA checkpoint, hanging over where you put your shoes and coat back on and stuff your laptop back in the case: The sign said, "Recombobulation Area." The English language gains a new word. Recombobulate, America. Pull yourself together, tie your shoelaces, and check your over sized ego before boarding.

I will know everything when I know nothing

So 1,000 birds simultaneously fall out of the Arkansas sky and the state government's answer to that oddity is "fireworks". True story. I was listening to NPR this morning when the segment turned to the freak dead bird story that has been the "water cooler" news de jur. They interviewed Arkansas State Veterinarian George Badley who is convinced that these birds were just all "discombobulated. Black birds were frightened by fireworks and the entire group of 5,000 simply got confused and began crashing into solid objects, like houses and trees. The idea that they were sick or otherwise affected by some mysterious toxin is "non sense" according to Badley. Look, I don't know what happened to the birds and the 100,000 drum fish that went belly up around the same time just over 100 miles away in the Arkansas river, but if it wasn't a various or some mysterious environmental toxin, as the Arkansas state fish guy seems to believe possible, then I'm going with Aliens or an apocalyptic sign from God.

Back in the day, I attended a Church of Christ elementary school. Such fundamentalists didn't mess with angels, sensing that Catholics owned the angel franchise, part of their dim smoky world of bead-rattling and hocus-pocus and lugubrious statuary, so instead in school we focused on the Holy Spirit who dwelt in all of us true believers and told us what to do and what to say, which is convenient for people with plenty of self-confidence. You read some Scripture and work up a sweat over it and stand up in the sunlit sanctuary, no dinging or chanting, no costumes or choreography, and you open your mouth and out comes Truth, such as the doctrine of Separation from the World, which was appealing to those of us with no social skills - if people didn't like you, it was proof of your righteousness.

The idea that I was right and most other people were wrong stuck with me through my cocksure youth, but then comes the perilous passage of life when a woman lies awake in intensive care thinking about breathing forever with one lung and if you will ever bare another child, and your interest in Truth fades a little compared to your interest in winged beings who might come and rescue people in serious trouble. Nowadays I think more about angels. And sometimes I slip into a silent church to sit and commune with any resident angels and to light a few candles. Because if I know anything, it is that too often this world defies all scientific knowledge and human logic and that more often than not, the best answer to the question is "I don't know."

Update:

After reading the above, I feel compelled to add that I have no idea, nor do I pretend to guess the religious leanings of Mr. George Badley. I just see two sets of people who are completely sure of their answers and I stand in awe struck wonder of their certainty.

Red Shoes Go With Everything

This fall I quiet haphazardly bought a pair of new red shoes at half off. I bought them not sure when of if I would ever wear them, but they were cute. Cute and half off. The longer I owned these particular shoes, I began to realize something magical. That red shoes go with everything.
I know that it is said that things can't make you happy and perhaps that saying is often true, but I draw the line at my red shoes. I am happier when I wear them. They bring an extra spark to any day, and I'm happy when I think about the fact that God made me the type of person who dares to own a pair of red slippers, Hans Christian Anderson's ghastly tale not with standing.

So it was that last night I slipped on my shoes to join the New Years count down with friends old and new. We ate too much food and had just the right amount of wine. We laughed and joked and pushed each other on to stay at the party until midnight. There is nothing quite like celebrating New Years in the middle of Bum-Fucked-Egypt. In the city they have things like laws that keep hooligans from shooting bottle rocks at each other in a misguided attempt at celebration. In BFE every one's a hooligan and there are no laws against setting off fireworks in your back yard, right next to that huge oak tree. The mayhem starts at midnight and we old battle axes drag ourselves out to the front porch in equal amazement and fright because even unsafe fireworks are magical and I'd rather be outside when the roof goes up in flames.

A lot happened in 2010. The Olympics and Jo at A Majority of Two introduced me to Vancouver, CA. And I feel head over heals for that beautiful city and the not a mascot Muk Muk. I also learned about vuvuzelas, cheered for Spain's World Cup win, and said fair well to Paul the Octopus.

This year I didn't listen to a lot of new music, or the new music I listened to all sounded the same, but I did see a lot of movies. I saw the Lisbeth Salander trilogy and loved it. The final Harry Potter, Part I was spot on. The Twilight movie I was sucked into seeing sucked more than I thought it would. Disney Animation's Tangled was good, but Disney/Pixar's Toy Story 3 was better. If we are talking best film I saw this year I would have to hand it to The King's Speech. Not because I just saw it or it stars the ever sexy Colin Firth, but because it was the first movie I left, having paid nearly $10 for and wanted to turn right around and pay another $10 to see it again.

In 2010 I discovered E.L. Koningsburg's wonderful stories and Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. Finished reading Stieg Larrson's Lisbeth Salander Trilogy and finally read Harper Lee's magnum opus, To Kill a Mockingbird. My favorite non-fiction works include Neal Gabler's telling of Walt Disney's life story, Karen Armstrong's A Case for God and Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

I was laid off in October which was great because I had the chance to do some random things I normally would have passed on like visiting the Menial Collection and eating lunch in all kinds of trendy restaurants with my not so trendy friends. I found joy and courage in relaxation, art, journaling, prayer and loved every minute of being a stay at home mom. Still, if one is to buy red shoes, one must have an income so I was grateful to Elaine for retiring and to the people at the French oil company for hiring me on as her replacement. I finally responded to God's nudging and turned in my application for seminary and sat through necessary interviews with key Church people about pursuing a path towards ordination. That all sounds like I've worked out what I'm doing, but this is still just the preface. God is still preparing me for this journey. Ask me next January if we've reached the exposition.

So here we are. We lost a lot of good people in 2010, but you and I didn't die. Reason enough to celebrate. You and I go on. We dance our little dance and pursue the circuit of our dreams insofar as the hours of daylight permit. Love, courage, justice, faith, hope, charity. God bless you all.