Posting my truth...

...and I don't give a flying fig if the opposing side in this lawsuit has checked out my blog or Facebook page.  It is what it is and I make no apology for any of it.  So there...have a nice day, you all over on the other side of the deposition table.

Wendell Berry: From another blogger's post...

....which blogger, I can't remember, but it suits where I am and possibly where I am going...so here it is...

No, no, there is no going back.
Less and less you are
that possibility you were.
More and more you have become
those lives and deaths
that have belonged to you.
You have become a sort of grave
containing much that was
and is no more in time, beloved
then, now, and always.
And so you have become a sort of tree
standing over the grave.
Now more than ever you can be
generous toward each day
that comes, young, to disappear
forever, and yet remain
unaging in the mind.
Every day you have less reason
not to give yourself away.
~ Wendell Berry ~

Hard journey...

The last year has been very eventful and not in what I would call a positive way.  It has been hard and tiring, wearing me down at times to a point where I don't think I can recover, but somehow I manage with God's grace.  It has not been a particularly happy year, more of a year of resignation to whatever comes along and remain moving forward almost automatically.  Time has been drawn out but the days have sped by, blurring from one to the other.

At this time, right now, everything that should be a positive thing, isn't, and it presses down hard on the soul and grinds the body and mind, seemingly crushing any will that might be left to keep going.  Admittedly I am in a very difficult part of my life.  Work is oppressive and my only bit of joy is in the patients themselves.  I still don't have a car or truck to call my own.  I am in the debt of people I once felt close to because they are allowing me to borrow a family member's car, but the pressure is on to return it and I feel that acutely.  Physical pain is daily, sometimes better, sometimes worse, but physical therapy continues every week.  My personal life is in reverse...being friends after being something more is difficult but I will stay the course because we can't seem to not be an integral part of each other's lives now.  That's ok...it will somehow be ok, though at times it is hard to see forward, this person is a good person; it's just the way life goes.  Mentally and emotionally I am drained and very, very tired.  Sleep does not come easily but it eventually comes for a little while.

Walking apart from my parish church is necessary but devastating in many ways.  I don't have that fellowship of spirit or community, and will embark on visiting for the next several months the UCC in Ashland and also the First Methodist Church there, alternating between them and visiting Trinity at least once a month to reconnect with people there.  The dissolution of what I used to know as a ministry that brought joy and purpose is painful.  The way decisions are being made there now is not how it used to be, fair and involved all concerned.  Instead arbitrary decisions are made by a few and applied to all in the ministry I was involved in, that of the Lay Eucharistic Ministers, those who served the altar and carried the Gospel...that's gone now.  I cannot abide such covert, destructive change.  It is so very unnecessary and has driven me to seek new community and solace elsewhere.

So that is the state of this blogger...I find little to inspire me these days with all the unrest and natural devastation...yes there are those who have it worse off, or so it seems but this is my reality, and my pain is no less than anyone else's who is in a difficult place.  No pity party here, just the facts as they are, and this explains why I have not written or posted.  I don't know the future of this blog...I'm still thinking about whether it is time to be over, having served it's purpose of a kind of outreach to my larger community.  And since I am no longer really active in that community, perhaps it is time to leave this endeavor and begin a different one.  Time will tell...thank you all for your past and current support and care.

Catherine

Presiding Bishop in Dublin, Ireland

Episcopal News Service report on the Presiding Bishop's visit to the Primates' meeting in Dublin, Ireland.

"We're challenged in this very body to 'show up,' to present ourselves ready, willing, and able to help heal this broken world," Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said on Jan. 30 during her sermon at the 9 a.m. Sung Eucharist service at Christ Church Cathedral in Dublin, Ireland.

Highlighting sobering statistics of child mortality rates in some parts of the world – like Angola, where nearly 20 percent of children die before their first birthday – Jefferts Schori said the healing of the world "needs the participation and leadership of all parts of the body of Christ. It starts with urgent voices, and changed hearts, our own conversion, and our challenge to systems that perpetuate all kinds of sickness and death around the world."

Jefferts Schori noted the brutal murder of Ugandan gay rights activist David Kato, who was bludgeoned to death in his home community on Jan. 26.

Kato "has been a strong voice for the basic human rights of gay and lesbian people," Jefferts Schori said. "His voice has been silenced. We can pray that others will continue that work, or be challenged by the brutality of his death into some conversion of heart. Will we challenge the world to respect the dignity of every single human being?"

Jefferts Schori is attending the Jan. 25-30 meeting of Anglican primates at the Emmaus Retreat Centre near Dublin. Seven primates have chosen to stay away from the meeting because of Jefferts Schori's presence and recent developments supporting the full inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the Episcopal Church.

Read the rest here.

-- Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of the Episcopal News Service.

"the road not taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost
Mountain Journal
1916

...and four days later...crunch...

...I was in a car accident.

The morning of Tuesday October 12th...7:30 am PST, downtown Medford next to the Rogue Community College campus, I stopped for pedestrians wishing to cross the busy three-lane north-bound avenue.  There's a sign that says "Stop at this --> white line for pedestrians" and the arrow is pointing toward the pavement.  There are three of these white lines in each lane.  If one car stops, they are all supposed to stop and that morning they did, right after I stopped in the far right lane.  I had just glanced over to my right where the two people waited to cross.  There was a click and then my world went black...

People have been listing on Facebook the things they are thankful for.  I've thought about my answers to that for a while now as I have been recovering from the accident.  I am thankful for a God so brilliant he puts the idea of superb engineering and technology in the heads of mere mortals so that other mortals might have a chance to live.  Some call my accident a simple fender bender.  It was far from that, especially if the vehicle that hit you sends you across three lanes of traffic and half a block up from where you started...not good.

There is nothing about losing consciousness or having a concussion that is simple.  It was far more than a "fender bender".  Sure, I didn't lose any extremities or bleed out from internal injuries, or break any bones.  And that is because my car was made of heavy steel and a frame that gave no quarter to the impact and subsequent flinging around that, maybe in another car, would have caused more injury.  The car and those who made it, saved me from things being much different than they turned out to be.  I have written BMW to thank them for such a great little car.  1990 was a very good year.

I am thankful for the prayers my parish have sent up on my behalf, for the prayers of those on Facebook and in my local community who have been supportive and caring to call to check in on me, bring me Eucharist and wait patiently for me to walk to the lectern to read the lesson, or help lift the cup to their lips when I first returned and served the altar.  I'm thankful for the assistance and understanding of coworkers too.

I am thankful too for my parish church, Trinity Ashland, for healing prayers and sending m home communion by way of lay Eucharist ministers, for the phone calls with offers of food, care and concern and offers of general help.  You know who your family is when they take care of you like I was and still am by my parish family.

From the outside, the hit doens't look that bad but the frame was bent from the back to the mid-line support right behind the driver and passenger seats, so much so that the back doors had to be pried open they were so jammed shut.  So there it is.

What's really weird too is that only four days before the accident I had signed up my "tag team" on my Advanced Health Care Directive and had theirs and my signature witnessed over coffee.  Talk about timing...there is nothing more comforting than having a retired trauma and surgery nurse and LMT [licensed massage therapist] as your main representative and a certified medical assistant--both close friends--as my "tag team".   Who need I would need them so soon?  One never can tell.  So if you don't have an Advanced Directive signed for the state you live in, DO IT.  Don't put it off.  Keep a copy in your briefcase or bag, or better yet, digitally scanned and in your phone or laptop.  Make sure your local hospitals have it scanned into their database.  Take it with you on trips, foreign or domestic. 

 It's good to write again...I see it as part of my recovery.  It's important to talk about things and since you reading this, you must care to know what happened in a more reflective narrative, so, Wallah!

Take good care everyone and be safe and prepared.

Blessings,

Catherine

RevGalBlogPals Friday Five...on a Saturday

SingingOwl over at RevGals offers this Friday Five Meme: Give us the the first word that comes to mind (you know how that works, right?) and then add a little something about why, or how or what.

Pumpkin:      soup

Campfire:      primitive


Apples:          pie, my fav with vanilla bean ice cream and cuppa...


Colors:          turning of time


Halloween:    a counterquarter day celebrated by the Celts...but for me, Celtic Christian prayers


The above intro lifted from SeekingAuthenticVoice....credit where it is due.