Daily Connector | Screeching to a halt | Julie Hart
I recently returned from two demanding months of service/volunteer work with asylum seekers in San Antonio, TX. Phil and I arrived home the day before the national State of Emergency for the coronavirus. It’s been an abrupt change of pace, a kind of screeching to a halt of life as I know it but perhaps because I was not teaching this semester, it’s becoming a welcome time of healing and renewal. I decided to retire last May because I yearn for a more mindful way of being, a pace that allows me to take in each moment, each meal, each conversation. So, while I have no worries about losing my job or paycheck or even business as many do, this time remains a significant adjustment. How do I spend my unscheduled days? Where should I invest myself and what should I let go of? Is this the time to start
Daily Connector | A new kinda hustle | Jenny Campagna
I am counseling from home via telehealth exclusively which means I get to see my clients’ spaces and meet their dogs and cats like I used to do when I was an intensive home based therapist. I am also spending time in the virtual world with loved ones. Included is a FaceTime snap of my sister Heather and I rivaling for #bestpandemichairdo. There is also one of my nine-month old grandbaby bouncing while I grate carrots for a carrot cake. There is a third one of my eldest, Noah trying to work but not wanting to hang up on me. Multitasking, all of us, even baby Anthony. There is still so much to do! My clients and I have been musing about the frenetic creation of goals. For some reason we plan to know a lot of new things in two weeks. Maybe have
Building a fence, and a door
This past weekend Abbie and I put up a garden fence. It’s pretty big: 50 x 50 feet, 7 ½ feet tall. The goal is to keep the deer and other critters out. Inside the fence we’re hoping to grow what we can: some perennials – rhubarb, asparagus, berries and herbs; along with the standard assortment of sugar snap peas, green beans, tomatoes, bell peppers, potatoes, and squash. The structure inside the fence is an old well-loved playhouse we’ll be converting into a chicken coop. The chickens will have their own smaller rotation of areas within the larger fence, eating food and garden scraps, bugs, worms, and feed; discharging natural fertilizer. I’m more the builder and chicken farmer. Abbie is more the gardener. I still need to build the door/gate for the entry. Once it’s up it will theoretically be an extension of the fence when closed, the only way
This Lenten fast
Although the world has change drastically in the last three weeks, it’s still Lent. The season began on Ash Wednesday when we gathered in the sanctuary – in-person! – and shared in the imposition of ashes on one another’s foreheads. We recited the ancient words: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you will return.” It’s an annual reminder of our mortality, our smallness in the grand story in which we participate. A reassurance that the cosmic unfolding preceded our arrival and continues after we are gone. These words do what our baptism invites us to do: to die before we die. To let it all go as if it were not. Then everything we have, every breath, every grain of dust bonded to another that composes our bodies and others’, is recognized as a gift. Fasting invites a similar spiritual journey. But we didn’t anticipate, now three weeks
“Deepening relationships” and “Social distancing”
These past few days have been characterized by a couple different phrases potentially, but not necessarily, at odds with each other. On Saturday the CMC Leadership Team met for our annual visioning retreat (once you do it a second year it becomes annual, right?). After some reflection on the past year and pondering future possibilities, we found ourselves wordsmithing a vision for ministry for the coming year that turned out like this: “We will cultivate beloved community by deepening relationships within and beyond our congregation.” Much of the impetus for this came out of comments we have heard in our Open Questions discussions around church growth. As the congregation grows wider with more participants, it’s important that we also grow deeper in our faith journeys and relationships with one another. For the next year+ we’ll have a congregational focus on cultivating beloved community (more about that phrase later) and
