Last night I made pumpkin rolls for what I hope is the last time this season and I had my first major screw-up...which was almost much worse than it ended up...when I poured the batter into the pans, I noticed that there wasn't enough for the third pan, so I had to pour it back... and add the sugar. It runs in the family. My mom has made pumpkin bread twice, leaving out the 6 2/3 cups of flour. She baked it like that (big smiles just remembering her telling me that it would have to stay my duty because hers didn't come out right). So my mistake was relatively minor, but one of the rolls just wouldn't roll after the filling had been put on--so I folded it in half and then rolled it. It's a reject, but will taste fine for family.
I have been awake since 3:30. I moved a heater to Noah's room. I made coffee (and drank most of the pot, so will have to make anew). I have a quiche in the oven for breakfast. The dogs have been let out.
The image in my head that tells me I need a break is there almost always these days. Everything that happens during the day has that as a backdrop. I'm sitting on a big rock at a beach. It is a beautiful isolated beach. Sand, water, trees. I'm sitting on the rock and it is misty. Sky is grey with a touch of warmth at sunrise. In my mind this beach is on a river somewhere...my brain doesn't read it as ocean. So, I'm just sitting there. I'm wearing an old wool sweater and crappy jeans. A few gulls dart over head. There is another rock a few paces away with another thinker sitting on it. I don't know who this person is...just a misty shape on the rock next to mine. We don't speak, but I somehow feel comforted by the presence of another and I really feel that deeply. And that is all it is. The image never changes.
I started seeing all this in my head sometime last year. It's comforting, but I can't help wondering why the beach isn't tropical, why am I dressed for winter weather, why can't I figure out who the other person is. And the image is quite bizarre with these two side by side boulders. It reminds me of that stupid Cialis commercial with the two side by side bathtubs on the beach. I'll never get what message they are trying to send...I always think that a better image would be two people in the same tub. I'm losing my mind, I think...or I just got up too early.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
Youth Homelessness
This is in part a repeat of a post I wrote much earlier in the year, but I wanted to post it again as the weather gets cold. Its 58 degrees in my house as I write this...and it is cold enough. I hate even the thought of youth homelessness. The larger words are today's.
I get stuck on things sometimes. The brain just refuses to let go. This is one of those times.
How did I get there? It probably has something to do with the fact that we are really cold at my house some days. There are times when the temperature hovers in the mid forties. I tend to operate from the "it could always be worse" perspective. I like to think of it as chilly, not cold. We survive. We do have some heat, and we can get a few rooms alot warmer. We have heated mattress pads that wake me in a full sweat in the middle of the night when I forget to lower the temp. It isn't so bad.
I began to think of others who endure much colder weather. It isn't much of a leap. I work with kids daily. So runs the movie in my brain.
Homeless youth. If those two words don't make you cry, read them again. Homeless youth. Homeless youth.
There are an estimated 2 million homeless young people in America. 2 million. If you have a hard time visualizing that number, try this: the seating capacity at FedEx stadium is 91, 655. Nearly 22 stadiums filled to capacity, not with Redskins fans, but with our sons and daughters. It is unimaginable.
Unfathomable. Insane.
Eight homeless young people burned in a fire over the holidays in an abandoned warehouse in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. If it made national news, I certainly missed it. Burned beyond recognition, beyond even the identification of gender. If you don't believe it, google it.
I want to do something about homelessness. I want everyone to do something to end homelessness for our nation's youth. If a mosque and a synagogue can work together in Toronto to be part of a solution for homeless Canadian youth, can we not do the same?
Yes, there are organizations who are leading the way. Check out Dry Bones in Denver, and StandUp for Kids across the country. But, in these terrible, harrowing economic times that are putting families and kids on the streets daily, funding to support outreach also drys up. Staffed centers vanish.
2 million homeless youth. 2 million. Homeless Youth.
It isn't right.
Those homeless kids are not nameless. They are not faceless. They are part of Our family.
Peace and Love, K
I checked into Seton Youth Shelters in VA Beach today while doing some research on how to designate my charitable contribution with the Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign. They've had amazing impact. What follows is a brief follow-up to my email.
Last year 31,766 youth were served through our two shelters, street outreach, mentoring and school based counseling programs!
Our two shelters provide a safe environment with intensive counseling for runaway and homeless youth ages 12 to 18 – 4,500 Days of shelter & counseling.
Street Outreach – 28,296 contacts with youth were provided via our mobile van and our drop-in center.
Mentors were matched with 103 children of prisoners – the average match is lasting 18 months and many have been sustained for more than 3 years.
StandUp for Kids-Hampton Roads Chapter is also doing some great work and is keeping the Crow's Nest at Seton Shelter open on Saturday nights for drop-ins in need of some pretty basic living supplies. StandUp Hampton Roads is all volunteer with no paid staff. If you could help out with donations, visit them on facebook.
Avalon in Williamsburg is also providing support to youth. They're also on fb, so check them out if you can. Noah and I are participating next weekend in the One Night Without a Home event and will be sleeping in a box alongside a bunch of other caring box sleepers to both learn about and draw attention to this issue...which really should rock all of us to the core.
Peace and Love, K.
I get stuck on things sometimes. The brain just refuses to let go. This is one of those times.
How did I get there? It probably has something to do with the fact that we are really cold at my house some days. There are times when the temperature hovers in the mid forties. I tend to operate from the "it could always be worse" perspective. I like to think of it as chilly, not cold. We survive. We do have some heat, and we can get a few rooms alot warmer. We have heated mattress pads that wake me in a full sweat in the middle of the night when I forget to lower the temp. It isn't so bad.
I began to think of others who endure much colder weather. It isn't much of a leap. I work with kids daily. So runs the movie in my brain.
Homeless youth. If those two words don't make you cry, read them again. Homeless youth. Homeless youth.
There are an estimated 2 million homeless young people in America. 2 million. If you have a hard time visualizing that number, try this: the seating capacity at FedEx stadium is 91, 655. Nearly 22 stadiums filled to capacity, not with Redskins fans, but with our sons and daughters. It is unimaginable.
Unfathomable. Insane.
Eight homeless young people burned in a fire over the holidays in an abandoned warehouse in New Orleans' Ninth Ward. If it made national news, I certainly missed it. Burned beyond recognition, beyond even the identification of gender. If you don't believe it, google it.
I want to do something about homelessness. I want everyone to do something to end homelessness for our nation's youth. If a mosque and a synagogue can work together in Toronto to be part of a solution for homeless Canadian youth, can we not do the same?
Yes, there are organizations who are leading the way. Check out Dry Bones in Denver, and StandUp for Kids across the country. But, in these terrible, harrowing economic times that are putting families and kids on the streets daily, funding to support outreach also drys up. Staffed centers vanish.
2 million homeless youth. 2 million. Homeless Youth.
It isn't right.
Those homeless kids are not nameless. They are not faceless. They are part of Our family.
Peace and Love, K
I checked into Seton Youth Shelters in VA Beach today while doing some research on how to designate my charitable contribution with the Commonwealth of Virginia Campaign. They've had amazing impact. What follows is a brief follow-up to my email.
Last year 31,766 youth were served through our two shelters, street outreach, mentoring and school based counseling programs!
Our two shelters provide a safe environment with intensive counseling for runaway and homeless youth ages 12 to 18 – 4,500 Days of shelter & counseling.
Street Outreach – 28,296 contacts with youth were provided via our mobile van and our drop-in center.
Mentors were matched with 103 children of prisoners – the average match is lasting 18 months and many have been sustained for more than 3 years.
StandUp for Kids-Hampton Roads Chapter is also doing some great work and is keeping the Crow's Nest at Seton Shelter open on Saturday nights for drop-ins in need of some pretty basic living supplies. StandUp Hampton Roads is all volunteer with no paid staff. If you could help out with donations, visit them on facebook.
Avalon in Williamsburg is also providing support to youth. They're also on fb, so check them out if you can. Noah and I are participating next weekend in the One Night Without a Home event and will be sleeping in a box alongside a bunch of other caring box sleepers to both learn about and draw attention to this issue...which really should rock all of us to the core.
Peace and Love, K.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Falling into Grace
A beautiful, thought inspiring passage from Adyashanti's Falling into Grace.
of ideas.
The capacity to think and utilize language has a shadow
side that, if left unattended and used in an unwise way, can
cause us to suffer and experience unnecessary conflict with
one other. Because after all, that’s what thought does: It
separates. It classifies. It names. It divides. It explains. Again,
thought and language have a very useful aspect and they are
therefore very necessary things to develop. Evolution has
worked very hard to make sure that we have the capacity to
think coherently and rationally, or, in other words, to think
in ways that will ensure our survival. But when we look back
upon the world, we see that the very thing that has evolved
to help us survive has also become a form of imprisonment
for us. We’ve become trapped in a world of dreams, a world
in which we live primarily in our minds.
This is the dream world that is addressed by many
ancient spiritual teachings. When many of the old saints
and sages say, “Your world is a dream. You’re living in an
illusion,” they’re referring to this world of the mind and
the way we believe our thoughts about reality. When we
see the world through our thoughts, we stop experiencing
life as it really is and others as they really are. When I have
a thought about you, that’s something I’ve created. I’ve
turned you into an idea. In a certain sense, if I have an
idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made
you into something very small. This is the way of human
beings, this is what we do to each other.
Wow...
Peace and love, Krista
The great spiritual teacher
Krishnamurti once said,
“When you teach a child that a bird
is named ‘bird,’ the
child will never see the bird again.”
What they’ll see is the
word “bird.” That’s what they’ll see
and feel, and when
they look up in the sky and see that
strange, winged being
take flight, they’ll forget that
what is actually there is a
great mystery. They’ll forget that
they really don’t know
what it is. They’ll forget that that
thing flying through
the sky is beyond all words, that it’s
an expression of the
immensity of life. It’s actually an
extraordinary and wondrous
thing that flies through the sky.
But as soon as we
name it, we think we know what it
is. We see “bird,” and
we almost discount it. A “bird,” “cat,”
“dog,” “human,”
“cup,” “chair,” “house,” “forest”—all
of these things have
been given names, and all of these
things lose some of
their natural aliveness once we name
them. Of course
we need to learn these names and
form concepts around
them, but if we start to believe
that these names and all
of the concepts we form around them
are real, then we’ve
begun the journey of becoming
entranced by the world
of ideas.
The capacity to think and utilize language has a shadow
side that, if left unattended and used in an unwise way, can
cause us to suffer and experience unnecessary conflict with
one other. Because after all, that’s what thought does: It
separates. It classifies. It names. It divides. It explains. Again,
thought and language have a very useful aspect and they are
therefore very necessary things to develop. Evolution has
worked very hard to make sure that we have the capacity to
think coherently and rationally, or, in other words, to think
in ways that will ensure our survival. But when we look back
upon the world, we see that the very thing that has evolved
to help us survive has also become a form of imprisonment
for us. We’ve become trapped in a world of dreams, a world
in which we live primarily in our minds.
This is the dream world that is addressed by many
ancient spiritual teachings. When many of the old saints
and sages say, “Your world is a dream. You’re living in an
illusion,” they’re referring to this world of the mind and
the way we believe our thoughts about reality. When we
see the world through our thoughts, we stop experiencing
life as it really is and others as they really are. When I have
a thought about you, that’s something I’ve created. I’ve
turned you into an idea. In a certain sense, if I have an
idea about you that I believe, I’ve degraded you. I’ve made
you into something very small. This is the way of human
beings, this is what we do to each other.
Wow...
Peace and love, Krista
Friday, October 14, 2011
Grace
I awoke around 2 am, shoes still on my feet, glasses snarled in my hair, and my face pressed into the book I was reading when the long nights of baking pumpkin rolls finaly caught up with me. All is Grace. Brennan Manning's poignant memoir and most recent book. If you don't know Brennan Manning, go read The Ragamuffin Gospel, and then any of his others you might find. I am not going to give a full-blown review here. I'll just say his words have given me courage to live in grace more often than I could begin to detail.
In the last few months I have struggled so much with the honest expression of self that I've not been able to put a single meaningful word to print. One case of self-doubt after another, worried I'd offend or embarrass people who care about me, people I love very much, people who are embedded in my heart. But living unexpressed creates it own sense of shame, and that isn't the life I want to live.
So, for those about to read this, I want you to know from the start that I love you very much-just as you are-and I don't need you to embrace my spiritual or political views to walk in that love with me. I do need the wide open space to walk my own spiritual path, to be free to express it, and to be honest about who I am.
This will just have to be the feeble beginings of my story.
On Easter Sunday I awoke prepared to go to the church I had been attending regularly for a little more than a year. In less time than it took to get dressed, I undressed, pulled shorts over a swimsuit, grabbed my eleven year old son, Noah, and our dog, Ariel, and headed to Bethel Beach, our little bit of heaven in rural Mathews County, Virginia. My husband, David, attended service without us.
If we had started that morning looking for God, I think I'd have to say that we found him everywhere--in the sunspeckled rippled water at low tide, in the call of the seagulls, in the sweet smell of the saltmarsh and in the sparkle of Noah's eyes as we danced and laughed and splashed. I felt blessed. I felt renewed. I felt loved.
What a beautiful Easter Sunday. I have yet to return to church.
David has never asked why I stopped attending, and I am profoundly thankful that he hasn't. I still can't quite articulate the response. It has something to do with too many rules and rigidity, with the expectation that we all come to church for a singular truth. It has something to do with the views that there exists only one true interpretation of the Bible, that the Jesus club and heaven is exclusive beyond measure, and it has something to do with the idea that those of us who express faith differently will spend an eternity in hell. I don't even believe in the hell of the eternal fire and gnashing of teeth, but this line of thinking has a tendancy to get under my skin despite.
My core beliefs can be summed up in two short phrases: Grace is everything. Love wins. Beyond that, I believe that the Jesus message is bigger than the customary literal Biblical interpretation allows. I believe my best life is one lived out of compassion. Love first; understand later. I believe we are our brother's keepers and that loving our neighbors should have global implications and transcend race, religion, politics, cultural heritage and economy. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it well "My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together."
Leaving church also has something to do with too much fundamentalist-bent religion at home. To say that it has been difficult building a life with such opposing viewpoints is an understatement. But it is not without its tender moments and laughter at the insanity of it all. David is also a political conservative and I would have to say my political leanings are to the far left...so just imagine. We don't have many dull moments, but there are often long pauses when we dare not speak. Grace gets me through the tough times.
Life finds me at a time when I am unsure of where the path next turns. There are times when I imagine finding the church with those wide open spaces where I would be free to journey and discover, where it is okay to be different, where there are neither rules nor boxes; where Noah could learn from multiple perspectives and feel loved and at home and at peace, wrapped in the blanket of grace, knowing, always knowing, that he is loved unconditionally.
There are also times when I feel an intense need to go on a long walkabout-- just pack up the Thoreau and go. But, I am a mother and an insulin dependant diabetic. I will stay at the job and the health insurance plan for now (and the job involves working with some amazing kids... it isn't half bad). Grace will find me where I am.
One piece of the puzzle for internal peace and happiness came suddenly into place on a drive home from work a few months ago. On the radio someone was talking about retirement savings. This is the point when my gut reaction is to turn the radio abpruptly off -- I have always thought "retirement" was far beyond my wallet. Suddenly a new plan came into focus. A blessing. I share this skeleton of a plan for the first time ever: A time will come when Noah is off at college and finding his own way in the world, and I will begin again to find mine... in poverty. And I am excited about it! A sell-all and a move to a place where I can be of service to someone who needs a hand, a chance to care for "the least of these." When the time comes, I feel confident that I will find just the right place/s. A long walkabout of service, perhaps. This is is the piece that I am missing now. It is the "more" I think I've been needing all along. Grace will get me there.
In the meantime, I read, I contemplate, I learn, I teach, I do. Life is beautiful. There are many people who through their writing have helped me feel less crazy than I did awhile back: Brennan Manning whose sermons on grace and God's unconditional love sustain me, facebook friends and Divine Nobodies Jim Palmer and Donna Pratt Ridge who inspire honest self-expression (my apologies for not yet making the Divine Nobody call), Brian McLaren who always has something to teach me thru his wisdom packed books and daily blog, and my friend Bert White who writes so eloquently on Extravagant Grace and provided an awesome reading list when it was really needed.
So this is just the begining. More to come. :)
Peace and love, K
In the last few months I have struggled so much with the honest expression of self that I've not been able to put a single meaningful word to print. One case of self-doubt after another, worried I'd offend or embarrass people who care about me, people I love very much, people who are embedded in my heart. But living unexpressed creates it own sense of shame, and that isn't the life I want to live.
So, for those about to read this, I want you to know from the start that I love you very much-just as you are-and I don't need you to embrace my spiritual or political views to walk in that love with me. I do need the wide open space to walk my own spiritual path, to be free to express it, and to be honest about who I am.
This will just have to be the feeble beginings of my story.
On Easter Sunday I awoke prepared to go to the church I had been attending regularly for a little more than a year. In less time than it took to get dressed, I undressed, pulled shorts over a swimsuit, grabbed my eleven year old son, Noah, and our dog, Ariel, and headed to Bethel Beach, our little bit of heaven in rural Mathews County, Virginia. My husband, David, attended service without us.
If we had started that morning looking for God, I think I'd have to say that we found him everywhere--in the sunspeckled rippled water at low tide, in the call of the seagulls, in the sweet smell of the saltmarsh and in the sparkle of Noah's eyes as we danced and laughed and splashed. I felt blessed. I felt renewed. I felt loved.
What a beautiful Easter Sunday. I have yet to return to church.
David has never asked why I stopped attending, and I am profoundly thankful that he hasn't. I still can't quite articulate the response. It has something to do with too many rules and rigidity, with the expectation that we all come to church for a singular truth. It has something to do with the views that there exists only one true interpretation of the Bible, that the Jesus club and heaven is exclusive beyond measure, and it has something to do with the idea that those of us who express faith differently will spend an eternity in hell. I don't even believe in the hell of the eternal fire and gnashing of teeth, but this line of thinking has a tendancy to get under my skin despite.
My core beliefs can be summed up in two short phrases: Grace is everything. Love wins. Beyond that, I believe that the Jesus message is bigger than the customary literal Biblical interpretation allows. I believe my best life is one lived out of compassion. Love first; understand later. I believe we are our brother's keepers and that loving our neighbors should have global implications and transcend race, religion, politics, cultural heritage and economy. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said it well "My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together."
Leaving church also has something to do with too much fundamentalist-bent religion at home. To say that it has been difficult building a life with such opposing viewpoints is an understatement. But it is not without its tender moments and laughter at the insanity of it all. David is also a political conservative and I would have to say my political leanings are to the far left...so just imagine. We don't have many dull moments, but there are often long pauses when we dare not speak. Grace gets me through the tough times.
Life finds me at a time when I am unsure of where the path next turns. There are times when I imagine finding the church with those wide open spaces where I would be free to journey and discover, where it is okay to be different, where there are neither rules nor boxes; where Noah could learn from multiple perspectives and feel loved and at home and at peace, wrapped in the blanket of grace, knowing, always knowing, that he is loved unconditionally.
There are also times when I feel an intense need to go on a long walkabout-- just pack up the Thoreau and go. But, I am a mother and an insulin dependant diabetic. I will stay at the job and the health insurance plan for now (and the job involves working with some amazing kids... it isn't half bad). Grace will find me where I am.
One piece of the puzzle for internal peace and happiness came suddenly into place on a drive home from work a few months ago. On the radio someone was talking about retirement savings. This is the point when my gut reaction is to turn the radio abpruptly off -- I have always thought "retirement" was far beyond my wallet. Suddenly a new plan came into focus. A blessing. I share this skeleton of a plan for the first time ever: A time will come when Noah is off at college and finding his own way in the world, and I will begin again to find mine... in poverty. And I am excited about it! A sell-all and a move to a place where I can be of service to someone who needs a hand, a chance to care for "the least of these." When the time comes, I feel confident that I will find just the right place/s. A long walkabout of service, perhaps. This is is the piece that I am missing now. It is the "more" I think I've been needing all along. Grace will get me there.
In the meantime, I read, I contemplate, I learn, I teach, I do. Life is beautiful. There are many people who through their writing have helped me feel less crazy than I did awhile back: Brennan Manning whose sermons on grace and God's unconditional love sustain me, facebook friends and Divine Nobodies Jim Palmer and Donna Pratt Ridge who inspire honest self-expression (my apologies for not yet making the Divine Nobody call), Brian McLaren who always has something to teach me thru his wisdom packed books and daily blog, and my friend Bert White who writes so eloquently on Extravagant Grace and provided an awesome reading list when it was really needed.
So this is just the begining. More to come. :)
Peace and love, K
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