Spiritual Thursday: Delivering the message of delivery.

It is time once again for Spiritual Thursday and I am hosting today.  Today I have some ruminations on the church.  But before I ruminate away, I have some questions you might want to reflect on and answer.  Of course these are just ideas and you are free to write about anything you  like.  

First, is there a physical place that has deep spiritual meaning to you?  Secondly, are there people  who have invested in, walked alongside, or that you have walked along side of in your journey?  How have they encouraged you on the way? Has your spiritual journey given your life purpose?  Does your journey have a way?  In other words, what has been your path on that journey?   In my mind the answers to those questions help constitute what church is to so many of us. 

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I am going to Greece in less than a week and I am super excited!!! We will be spending time in Athens and Corinth, but mostly be on the islands of Sifnos and Paros.  The island of Sifnos boasts 360 churches, the most if any island in the Cyclades.  Including this one which we hope to travel to.  

 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Church_of_Epta_Martyres_,Kastro_on_Sifnos,_153398.jpg#/media/File:Church_of_Epta_Martyres_,Kastro_on_Sifnos,_153398.jpg

While preparing for our trip we have found many churches that we can visit as tourists but have had more difficulty finding churches we can attend as practitioners.  This is what gave me my idea for today's post.

Oftentimes when we think of a church, we think of a structure.  Just in the same way when we think of the post office, we think of a building or perhaps a mail box.  Perhaps we might think of a person when we think of the church, perhaps a  priest, pastor or parishioner. Thinking of the post office, we might picture  our mail deliverer.  Sometimes when we think about the church, we might focus on the negative, the scandals, the abuse, the hypocrisy.  Again, at the post office, we might think about lost mail or someone going, well, postal.

I would say that the church and the post office are really about one thing, the same thing, and that thing is delivery.

There are 2 meanings of the word deliver and they work in concert with each other.  First, you deliver a message, second you deliver something from one place to another.  In the post office context, the message that gets delivered is separate than the place it was delivered from and where it's going. So if I send a letter from where I live in Illinois to where my sister lives in Virginia,   the route that the message is taking does not change the meaning of the message.

But the church is also delivering a message and being delivered at the same moment.  I will give an Old Testament and New Testament example, but there are countless  examples that don't derive from the scriptures.  In the Old Testament the Hebrews are literally being delivered from bondage in Egypt and being delivered to the promised land. One example from the New Testament is I Peter 2:9,

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

In this example, the message that is being delivered is that people are being delivered from darkness into light.

I guess what I'm saying is that when I think of the church, I think of the message being delivered and the journey from where you've been to where you are now, to where you are headed.  The two types of delivery message and journey are intertwined together.  

For me my spiritual journey is centered around Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has delivered me from slavery and is leading me to the promised land and is preparing a place for me there.  It is Jesus who has called me out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Before Jesus church was just a place and a practice.  Now the church is His body here on earth.  He is the message that we deliver and the Messiah who has is delivering us.  

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Wordless Wednesday: New Camera At Night

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My Daughter Memes Well

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Reason To Be (Somewhat) Optimistic On The South Side

 Happy Monday Baseball Fans.

The White Sox are 19-29 after 48 games and are in 4th place in the A.L central 6.5 games out of first place.  This is not great news for a team that was expected to compete for the division this year and possibly cash in on their World Series window.  

But if you look at the stats there are some gleams of optimism shining through an otherwise storm start to the year.

The White Sox are 10 games below .500 but they were also 10 games below .500 (an unimpressive 7-17) 24 games ago. This means that the White Sox have gone 12-12 in their last 24 games.  They have also won 6 of their last 8 games.  In essence they have stopped the bleeding and perhaps have made themselves a stepping stone for success.

After their successful homestand the Sox are just one game below 500 at the former U.S. Cellular Field which used to be called Comiskey Park prior to that.  They now go on a very important road trip with 7 games against the 2nd and 3rd place teams in their division (Cleveland Guardians and Detroit Tigers ).  The Sox are a lowly 7-16 on the road and only 9-7 against their division so they have their work cut out for them if they want to inch their way back into contention.  

Don't Cross The Snakes

Amy was reading to me about our upcoming trip to Greece. We are doing some hiking and she was reading about the two poisinous snakes that are in Greece. It summed it up by saying "don't put your feet or hands in crevices without looking first". And all I could think of to say was ...

If you are not familiar with that scene in Ghostbusters you can see it by clicking here.

Poetry Friday - The Poet That Lives Inside of Me

 Last week I shared how in our poetry writers group we were asked to write two poems about the writing process:1 serious and the other humorous.  I shared the serious one last week, and now the humorous attempt. 

The Poet That Lives Inside of Me

There's a poet living inside of me

We sometimes don't agree

My life sometimes gets in the way 

Don't write a thing from March to May

But the poet living inside of me

Is writing every day

He stores these poems somewhere

He doesn't say; I do not care

But when I need to write a poem 

He lets me know they're there

The poet living inside of me

It seems we're in a fight

But rather than we disagree

We know that we're both right.

Poetry Friday is hosted this week at Salt City Verse. Join in, by clicking here.

Wordless Wednesday: Russian Roommates Reunited

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A to Z Roadtrip

The A to Z Road Trip is here. This is a chance to give anyone who wants to regardless of whether they participated in this years A to Z challenge a chance to take a deeper dive into the blogs that did participate.

Here is the link to the road trip.  Here is the spreadsheet of those who are so far entering their blogs into the roadtrip.

Today I picked up a book from my library, a biography of Jim Henson.  In the prologue he describes a  Sesame  Street sketch where a little girl is reciting the alphabet to Kermit.  I reemebering watching this scene as a kid, and again with my kids when I bought the Sesame Street Old School DVD set,  I pulled up the scene from YouTube because it has an a-z vibe to it.  

   

56th anniversary of Mickey Mantles 500th home runs.

Poetry Friday: Questions and Answers on My Method

 

I attend a poetry workshop on the first Monday of the month at my local library.  Each month our facilitator gives us the opportunity to share a poem we have written, shares poems on the theme she has chosen for the month. and then gives us time to write a poem or two based on the theme, again giving us the opportunity to share those poems as well.

Last month the theme was the writing process and we were invited to write one serious poem and one humorous poem on any aspect of the writing process that we wanted to.  Recently on Poetry Friday's when I have particpated I have included poems that were not of recent vintage.  After returning to Poetry Friday last week after finishing the A to Z Challenge, I decided to at least for the time being, eschew the wayback machine, and share poems I have written this year.  

Today, I am going to share the serious poem about my writing method, which is title simply, Questions and Answers on My Method.

Questions and Answers on My Method

Why do I write?

Cause I want to?

Cause I have to?

Cause I need to?

Why do I write?

I write because 

Words are my life blood

They invade my sleep

They are my canvas

And my palette

How do I write?

Does it matter ...

Whether it's poem or prose?

fiction or non fiction?

Do I have a process?

Or am I just opening Pandora's box?

How do I write?

Sometimes ...

My poems write themselves

and then I sign my name

Sometimes ...

When I write,

I get an idea.

Then,

For 30 minutes:

I 

Write

Erase

Repeat

Throwing spaghetti

On the wall

Until something sticks.

Why do I write?

Because I can.

How do I write?

By any means necessary.

Poetry Friday is being hosted by Robyn Hood Black you can get there by clicking here.

My last 500 days of 50

Last 500 Days of My Fifties

5/12/2023 - 9/22/1964

 I'm in my late 50's.  I was born in 1964, the last year of the Baby Boomers.  

The year before  I turned 50, I wanted to do something special to commemorate my last year in my 40's.  On or about my 49th birthday I was with my family visiting the  elks in Elk Grove Village.  Elk Grove Village is a suburb of Chicago located near O'Hare airport, It is where I grew up and where my parents lived until very recently.  There is a forest preserve in Elk Grove that extends into neighboring towns like Schaumburg.  Ever since I was a kid there has been a herd of Elk maintained by the Forest Preserve in Elk Grove.  

As my family watched the elk,  an idea came to me.  I could write a limerick, and  post it on Facebook every day until I turned 50.  I wasn't completely successful in my quest, but I do believe that I wrote and posted over 300 limericks over that time period.  Why limericks? I never did figure that one out, but I think I owe a lot of the personal poetry renaissance I have been going through the last 15 months due to my year of limericks.

As my mid 50's turned into my late 50's I have been thinking how to celebrate the last part of my 6th decade.  No "elks" moment has hit me and I'm not sure my FB friends want a year of haikus or anything like that.

A couple of months ago an idea came to me that instead of having some special activity, I could just be more purposely reflective during the time.  I decided since my 50's were ending that I could perhaps extend the year   to 500 days.  So starting tomorrow I find myself in the last 500 days of my 50's.

Today is May 11th so that means that there are 20 full days left in the month.  There are 30 days in June, 31 in July and August and 22 days before my birthday in September.  That's 134 days before my birthday. There are usually 365 days in a year, but 2024 is a leap year so there are 366 days from  September 23rd, 2023 and September 22nd 2024. Some may wonder why I don't count until September 23rd, my birthday.  The answer, of course, is because that will be the first day of my 60's.

So, what do I plan to do with this time period that 1150% greater than Lent? First of all, give it up for Lent, it's a great religious observance, and it doesn't get nearly the credit it deserves.  I'm not sure really.  I think what I'll do is when I'm reflecting on my adventures in ageing, or perhaps doing something for the last time in my 50's I might blog about it here.  But mostly I'll do what I encouraged my 11 year old future sister in law to do 8 years before I courted her sister, and that is cherish the time.  

In the Bible we are encouraged to number our days. By delineating the last 500 days in my 50's I am inviting myself to live purposely.  It is of course very possible that I publish this post and then regular life and my ADHD conspire that I never think about it again.  This is part of the reason why  I'm publish posting this on my blog and on Facebook so I do pay  attention during these final days of my fifties.

Dear Facebook friends, this doesn't mean that there will be no more limericks.  It just means I'm commemorating the end of this decade differently than I did the last.  In fact, I think I feel a limerick coming on now:

I really thought it would be nifty

To write a limerick a day 'til I was fifty,

The days in my  fifties are numbered

I only have left 500.

I'll live them up, cause the will end swiftly. 

Wordless Wednesday 2014 Throwback Edition

 

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Poetry Friday -The Ampersand

 The A to Z challenge is over and now I can get back to my regular life for awhile. That means I can start  posting some of my poetry here again.  

Last month I participated in my first official poetry reading. The poetry group I attend with my daughter at our local library had all the poets who attend that wanted to read their works at a special Poetry month celebration. The poems I read ranged from being 9 months to 30 years old but on the walk to the library on the day of the reaidng. this poem popped into my head.

The Ampersand

The ampersand is very grand

When he is on vacation

He looks real great, is never late

For he is punctuation

The ampersand stands in for and

When and is on hiatus

He tells parentheses to let it be

When question marks berate us

He says to dash - don't be so brash

Because you are in morse

Without me

AT&T could never stay the course

The ampersand don't understand

Why pound signs now hashtag

The at signs name is apersand

Which really is a drag

The ampersand don't hang out late 

At exclamation point

But saves the drama for the comma

When he gets out of joint.

Check out all the other Poetry Friday fun and whatnot hosted this week by Teacher Dance by clicking here.

 

April Stats

 The A to Z challenge is finished. It is now May and time to look once again at how many times I posted last month.  I posted 38 times in the month of April that's 12 more posts than January Through march combined. At this rate I will have 192 posts for the year.

I of course, wont be posting at this rate for the rest of the year but I would like to try to average 10 or so posts for the rest of the year, so we will see what happens.