Imagination

“Creativity, story-telling, dream work, imagery exercises, music, brushwork, writing, divination to connect with inner wisdom.”

Agh! What to write about?!?

When I feel challenged with “imagination-work” I freeze, I get anxious, I feel inadequate.

I’m not a very creative person. I don’t paint, draw, knit, create new recipes (I even am challenged following proofed recipes). I don’t write music; I can’t even play music. Make those cute crafty items we can find from now through Easter…the Halloween, the Thanksgiving, the Christmas, the Valentine’s Day, the Easter trinkets/displays/crafts? Nothing comes from my hands. When my kids were young, I’d joke that a teacher could never tell if I helped them with a project. More than once, W, L or K would gently suggest I stop helping them!

Though I’ve worked with people to do imagination exercises, I have difficulty seeing a story in my own mind’s eye.

Yet, I can write a sermon, week after week – sometimes two, even three sermons a week if needed.

I can hear a person share an incident and help them tease it out into a full blown story, with meaning and insight for them.

I dream, can wake up and see the way my sub-conscious has worked on issues that I’d ignored or struggled with during daylight.

So, I’m not creative using my hands, but God has gifted me to use words, to use ideas. Thank God we are gifted differently, so that our expressions, our uses of those gifts might create a rich tapestry in the world. A tapestry that is to God’s glory, a tapestry that expresses the grace – the freely given, abundant love we receive from God.

How do you use your gift of imagination?

Black Friday Bargains

This morning  our two cats have spent most of their time curled up, napping by the window.  Occasionally one opens her eyes to notice the blowing pine boughs outside the window; we are experiencing strong windows today.  I’ve been sitting, resting too, enjoying a second cup of coffee on a slow morning.

Hearing the wind blow, watching the cats nap, sitting in a comfy chair, enjoying warm, fragrant coffee…these are bargains enough for my Black Friday.  Years ago, when my grandma was still alive and I’d be home from college, I’d take Grandma out shopping the day after Thanksgiving.  Back then, it wasn’t called Black Friday.  The day did represent the opening of the Christmas shopping season.  Department stores surprised us with carols and cascading bells and ribbons and shimmering trees.  We didn’t see sales until the day after Christmas.

Maybe because I am reaching an age where we are reducing our ‘stuff’ instead of adding to; maybe because our children are grown and moved out or are looking to move out into their next great adventure, I’m not inclined to shop much anymore.  Oh, there was a time, a time I’d try to find just the right toy or sweater or gadget to make a loved one happy.   A time when the house had to be decorated just so.  A time when I’d work and work to make the mood just right, but way too often I’d be too stressed out or too worn out to enjoy it.

As we move into Advent, a season of preparation in the church, preparing for Christmas and for Christ in our hearts, I know my life will be busy.  This morning is a blessing, a gift.  I am reminded of the most wonderful Advent I’ve experienced, almost ten years ago during seminary.  We had short, experiential classes in December and that year I signed up to study meditation, sitting and breathing.   The class bundled into two cars and traveled from Ohio through a road closing blizzard to a Buddhist retreat in Vermont.

Walking alone in freshly fallen New England snow, sitting in silence, eating simple meals in fellowship, away from internet and phones and the Midwest busyness of mid December was a gift, a breath of life I will never forget.  I remember returning home, I remember being assaulted by sounds and lights and seasonal activity.  When my life becomes too much, I go back to those memories of sitting and breathing; I recall and reclaim them.

This  Black Friday, I wish you the gift of time, the gift of reflecting on the blessings of life, the gift of joy that comes from simple pleasures, like watching cats nap on a windy day.

As I begin…

As I begin this blogging journey, a bit about me – to know my perspective (my post-modern awareness that one’s perspective colors/influences everything).

I am demographically a ‘middle aged, white mid-west American.’ I have been married 30 years to the same man and mother of three: two boys/men and a 17 year old daughter.   I am a college graduate with over 20 years of account executive experience.  I am an ordained ELCA pastor; I was ordained 7 years ago this month, after an over 20 year struggle with God about my call.

I wasn’t raised in the church, in fact I was baptized about 6 months before I was married to a Lutheran raised in the pew, Lutheran High School educated man.

Though I wasn’t raised in the church, as a child I went on occasions, usually Girl Scout Sunday, when I read the lessons and served coffee during fellowship hour.  Sometimes my older sister took me to Sunday School.  I went through a short stint of singing in the choir; ironic as I can’t carry a tune.  The older church people appreciated, I think, the presence of me and my jr high age girlfriend more than they appreciated our voices.

As a child I was aware of a presence of God, but didn’t have a language to help me understand that presence.  Jesus Christ was a vague understanding of someone who was ‘always there.’  I remember playing outdoor games of tag or hide and seek in the summer evenings, and quickly turning to see Jesus who was always there.

So, now seven years as an ordained ELCA pastor, I am very much both religious and spiritual.  It’s not a dichotomy!  The Lutheran understanding of faith is very much ___ and___, not ___ or___.  I am both saint and sinner.  I believe and I have doubt.  I see shades and shades and shades of grey.  I am open to exploring and incorporating new to me faith practices into my own existing understanding of God.  This blog will be my effort to both share my religious understandings and practices as well as explore new spiritual practices.