tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-304182742024-03-13T04:25:57.430-07:00Holy Inkspiritual writing, poetry, essays and short fiction by Cathy WarnerCathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.comBlogger222125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-36530088316879417572016-05-22T23:46:00.003-07:002016-05-22T23:46:32.773-07:00I've Consolidated My Creativity, AgainSeveral years ago I shifted "Holy Ink," this blog of spiritual writing, to its successor, "This or Something Better." Now, that too, has moved to my new website <a href="http://cathywarner.com/">cathywarner.com</a>. There, I also have photo haikus, a list of my publications, information about my writing services, as well as my life as a home renovator and real estate broker. Blogspot has been a wonderful host for years, and I plan to leave these archives online. Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-44789270208563827852014-04-18T23:27:00.001-07:002014-04-19T11:25:13.497-07:00That First Easter<i>I wrote this midrash as an Easter sermon ten years ago. Wanted to share it again</i>:<br />
<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5h3_8S7Nnok/U1IWoubsMyI/AAAAAAAABJs/mD_lmPfv6PY/s1600/2.2.Ma6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5h3_8S7Nnok/U1IWoubsMyI/AAAAAAAABJs/mD_lmPfv6PY/s1600/2.2.Ma6.jpg" height="320" width="316" /></a></div>
<br />
I’m not surprised the mourners didn’t leap at the news of
Jesus’ Resurrection with shouts of joy.
I’d join the Disciples in disbelief, if I hadn’t been there at the
tomb. What a cruel joke, this idle tale
they thought we’d invented. And if we
had been men, instead of women, if those Disciples had been willing to
disregard their disdain for women’s work, and their fear of becoming unclean,
and their utter grief at the very thought of touching the dead body of our
master, if they had come to the tomb instead of us, or with us, then would they
have believed? Would the others have
believed our fantastic story if men had told it?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Somehow, I don’t think so.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>How can you believe without seeing, the stone rolled away, the body
gone?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There were those who left the
group, searching the city high and low for the missing body of our Lord.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surely the Romans had no interest in it, and
really would our priests come in the middle of the night to roll away the stone
and remove his body at the risk being unclean, at the risk of violating God’s
laws?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could our teacher’s dead body
be of any threat or concern to them?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>They had silenced Jesus, had accomplished what they set out to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How could they possibly think he would
continue to shake up the world from the grave?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How can anyone believe or imagine something what has never
before happened in the realm of human history?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Yet, I stood with the other women, more out of obligation and curiosity,
than with any true faith as a real follower.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>A skeptic, a questioner in the crowd; that’s what I ‘d been, and Jesus
had welcomed and accepted me, had nodded and explained himself and this kingdom
he said was coming, patient with our inability to see things his way.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He had predicted his death and this rising, but I hadn’t
known what he meant, not when he was alive, and not in the tomb when these
glowing strangers appeared.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But their
authority and assurance was overwhelming in that space, so much so that I
believed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">something</i> amazing had
happened.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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That was the essence of the news we reported that morning:
Something unbelievable had happened, something incomprehensible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This was the news that leapt from our tongues
like wildfire, even as we searched for the body, just in case.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He had risen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But
what did that mean?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>All we knew was that
he had vanished.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We didn’t yet know that
we would encounter his risen persona again and again, entering upper rooms,
walking the road to Emmaus, blinding Paul, empowering others.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was an end to his physical existence, not
even a body to embalm, yet the beginning of a new life and a ministry that has
no end.<o:p></o:p></div>
Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-34449308418523912202013-01-28T10:10:00.003-08:002013-01-28T10:10:36.779-08:00I have an essay about learning to pray: "<a href="http://theotherjournal.com/2013/01/07/praying-for-words/" target="_blank">Praying for Words</a>" posted at <i>The Other Journal.</i>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-11325582026872277882011-10-02T15:02:00.000-07:002011-10-02T15:02:40.683-07:00Let Us Sing To the LordI wrote this poem back in 2004 to honor the many wonderful musicians in my church, and read it again today to honor one of our accompanists who blessed us with her amazing skills for the past six and a half years. It was a joy to work with Char. She thought so carefully about the theme of the service and chose appropriate and beautiful music to offer to us. <br />
<br />
This poem was published several years back in Alive Now. You are welcome to use it worship services to honor the musicians in your midst, just please give me credit as the author.<br />
<br />
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<h1 align="center" style="text-align: center;">Let us Sing to the Lord</h1><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To honor the musicians of Boulder Creek UMC, Feb. 1, 2004<o:p></o:p></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText"></div><div style="text-align: center;">In the ancient quiet of this world</div><div style="text-align: center;">one raised her voice and carried a note</div><div style="text-align: center;">she was joined by another</div><div style="text-align: center;">and melody began</div><div style="text-align: center;">harmony followed</div><div style="text-align: center;">spanning the distance between souls.</div><br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Song was born<br />
and the drum followed<br />
the rhythm of our hearts<br />
beating outside our bodies<br />
inviting our ancestors to dance<br />
<br />
Arms were raised to the firmament<br />
bodies began to sway<br />
feet to jump</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
Music<br />
our first worship<br />
our earliest praise</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Song<br />
so it continues today<br />
rising above our chaotic world<br />
teeming with sound</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Music draws us beyond the noise<br />
carries us out of isolation, beyond confusion<br />
satisfies the insistent cry of spirit<br />
<br />
The instruments<br />
of voice<br />
of piano<br />
of guitar, drum and flute</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">They are the instruments of God’s peace</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">Their notes restore our joy <br />
Their prayers bind us together</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">We give thanks to you and for you<br />
the ones who offer your voices in song<br />
and make music with your hands<br />
fingering melodies, drumming life<br />
strumming praise, and piping divinity</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">A testimony that slides in our ears<br />
and sets our spirits singing in return</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">©Cathy Warner 2004</div><!--EndFragment-->Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-13360248418369280822011-08-25T14:54:00.000-07:002011-08-25T14:54:03.747-07:00In The Emergency Room <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:DocumentProperties> <o:Template>Normal.dotm</o:Template> <o:Revision>0</o:Revision> <o:TotalTime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:Pages>1</o:Pages> <o:Words>562</o:Words> <o:Characters>3207</o:Characters> <o:Company>West Park Press</o:Company> <o:Lines>26</o:Lines> <o:Paragraphs>6</o:Paragraphs> <o:CharactersWithSpaces>3938</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:Version>12.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:OfficeDocumentSettings> <o:AllowPNG/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:WordDocument> <w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves> <w:TrackFormatting/> <w:PunctuationKerning/> <w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridHorizontalSpacing> <w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing>18 pt</w:DrawingGridVerticalSpacing> <w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayHorizontalDrawingGridEvery> <w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery>0</w:DisplayVerticalDrawingGridEvery> <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/> <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:Compatibility> <w:BreakWrappedTables/> <w:DontGrowAutofit/> <w:DontAutofitConstrainedTables/> <w:DontVertAlignInTxbx/> </w:Compatibility> </w:WordDocument> </xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="276"> </w:LatentStyles> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zxUF29PetqQ/TlbEcF6btrI/AAAAAAAAAGg/kHmyXWKIu8s/s1600/ER+Sign.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="191" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zxUF29PetqQ/TlbEcF6btrI/AAAAAAAAAGg/kHmyXWKIu8s/s320/ER+Sign.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">I went to the E.R. prepared last night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I brought a sweater, granola bar since I’d missed dinner, and a novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I brought my sister’s “barf bowl” and a box of Kleenex.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A parade of need hit the waiting room at 7 p.m. on a Wednesday night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The boy who might’ve broken an arm at soccer practice escorted in by his mother, the husband experiencing chest pains wheeled in by his wife, they arrived after us and were seen before us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Of necessity the broken, bleeding, life threatening takes priority over pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We had a two and a half hour wait in the sea of noise and bright fluorescent lights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I looked at my sister wearing her noise-cancelling headphones, the sash of her robe pressed over her eyes, flinching at the constant slamming of the outer doors as patients kept coming, and thought the E.R. was the wrong place to take someone with an excruciating migraine.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I should’ve taken her to a spa with dim lights, a burbling fountain, warm blankets, where people would murmur in low voices, apply a cucumber eye mask and caress her with lavender lotion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A spa where the aesthetician would insert a painless I.V. in the dark and administer narcotics along with hot stones.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The tattooed twenty-something who had fallen or been in a fight and was in so much pain he wanted to kill himself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The heroin addict who’d tried to cut something out of her arm rolled up her sweatshirt sleeve to reveal an arm not round, but swollen square.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The alcoholic behind the curtain in the other half of our room (when my sister finally was seen) who’d burned herself cooking drunk was ready to go home.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was freezing, threatening to rip-out her I.V. and belittling her husband when he asked her to calm down while they waited for a nurse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The E.R. was the wrong place for them, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Here they would be stitched and salved, patched, shot with antibiotics, and sent home with discharge instructions to get help for depression, addiction, alcohol abuse, which I thought they’d probably ignore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They needed help, but as I’ve struggled with my own issues, I’ve come to believe no one can save anyone else from their brokenness, or themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t in the mood for compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d missed dinner and the premiere of Top Chef Just Desserts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wanted to sit on the couch with my husband, a cat in my lap, drinking a cup of tea, watching a T.V. show where life’s biggest challenge would be who got sent home for poorly tempered chocolate, not immersed in this world of pain and suffering, a never-ending stream of people in and out of the automatic doors and an audible fire alert on top of all the beeping equipment.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Once her meds kicked in my sister dozed for a few minutes, and I took the headphones from her hands, placed them over my ears and tried to block out the alcoholic vitriol on the other side of the curtain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought that working in the E.R. must be one of the most horrendous jobs around.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Helping people who weren’t going to help themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I thought about rescue and saving and power and powerlessness while I read and re-read pages of my book, not really absorbing the words on the pages, or finding clarity in my swirl of thought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">This morning, safe and quiet at home, I think about my lack of compassion, about the barriers I put up in the E.R. so I could separate myself from the patients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Set apart I wouldn’t have to recognize our common humanity or remember Jesus’ words about the least of these.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today I have no doubt that Jesus sat on the arm of every chair in the waiting room, at the foot of every bed, looking at his children, so fragile, vulnerable, broken by the world and their own perceptions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sat there, willing each one to recognize his presence, to view his or her life and one another through a lens of love and healing, to accept this gift in addition to the medical care they sought.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It is only today that I know this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Last night I was blind.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-15234884288006355992011-08-22T18:27:00.000-07:002011-08-22T18:29:12.006-07:00This Or Something BetterDear Readers,<br />
My life is changing and so is my blog.<br />
I invite you to follow me at my new blog: This Or Something Better. Click on the title of this post, "This Or Something Better" to be redirected there.<br />
You can sign-up to follow via email on the new blog.<br />
Thanks for sharing the journey with me,<br />
CathyCathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-80879430817589471642011-08-22T18:25:00.000-07:002011-08-22T18:25:28.098-07:00Watered By the Spirit<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sA_2Ws6fKuk/TlMAmW57aDI/AAAAAAAAAGc/0y7SG4UqGWw/s1600/archipelago+cover+high.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sA_2Ws6fKuk/TlMAmW57aDI/AAAAAAAAAGc/0y7SG4UqGWw/s320/archipelago+cover+high.jpg" width="228" /></a></div>My graduating cohort from Seattle Pacific University has self-published an anthology, <b>Archipelago</b>. One piece each from the dozen of us. There is some great writing in here. I hope you'll consider buying a copy. Here is the opening to my essay <i>Watered By the Spirit</i>:<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">Jesus was thirty years old when he plunged.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He sought out his cousin, John, a desert dweller who ate locusts and honey and preached to a good-sized crowd to repent of their sins before he dunked the converts underwater.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An Armenian icon depicts Jesus’ baptism like this––Wearing nothing but a loincloth he stands waist deep in an oversized jar of water meant to be the Jordan River. Fish nip at his feet looking like swim fins at first glance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The halo over his head is crowded with the hand of John the Baptist, the arms of his future cross, and a dove descending directly below a few fingers that point barely noticed from the top of the frame, as if God is directing the bird to the right man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John, who is standing on dry land, rests his palm on Jesus’ forehead as if checking for a fever.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two angels stand behind John, their enrobed arms extend toward Jesus as if ready to dry off the wet and shivering Beloved by embrace.</span><!--EndFragment--> Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-56590926838324280562011-07-11T17:48:00.000-07:002011-07-11T17:48:38.764-07:00Circling God<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NGxscVHBazI/ThuZw2nzLjI/AAAAAAAAAGM/qrveT4i49lg/s1600/mandala+poem016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NGxscVHBazI/ThuZw2nzLjI/AAAAAAAAAGM/qrveT4i49lg/s320/mandala+poem016.jpg" width="272" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><u><br />
</u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal">The spiral relationship<br />
draws us toward God<br />
nourishing our souls<br />
filling our emptiness<br />
that we might circle<br />
out into the world<br />
and not be shattered<br />
by the brokenness <br />
we encounter there<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> </div><div class="MsoNormal">We can bear hope<br />
riding the ridges<br />
of the spirit’s back<br />
the way may look closed<br />
the lines impenetrable<br />
but in truth<br />
the space Gods needs <br />
to slip into our lives<br />
and the distance<br />
we need to bridge<br />
is thin as breath<o:p></o:p></div><!--EndFragment-->Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-8370265646722025752011-06-12T16:53:00.000-07:002011-06-12T16:53:50.256-07:00Waking to Words<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E5ibbAtoIrA/TfVRSAbWAII/AAAAAAAAAGI/pDnTEC8Hd-s/s1600/lf.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E5ibbAtoIrA/TfVRSAbWAII/AAAAAAAAAGI/pDnTEC8Hd-s/s1600/lf.jpeg" /></a>T.V. would have me believe that families of my generation ate breakfast together, mother at the griddle and father behind the newspaper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My father worked swing and graveyard shifts, my mother kept his hours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I woke to an alarm, fixed my instant oatmeal and read the jokes on the empty packet while standing over the sink eating.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If my younger sister joined me, I don’t remember. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I ate communal breakfasts it was with my best friend Katy who lived across the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We kept the cereal and milk on the table, reading the packaging, learning to pronounce words like thiamine and riboflavin. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She was an only child and could convince her mother to buy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Lucky Charms</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pop Tarts</i> and other breakfast treats my mother refused. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We were thrilled when her mother agreed to buy a box of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Super Sugar Crisp</i>––which we weren’t even sure we liked––on the condition that we ate all of it before we tore up the box.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Pressed into the paperboard was a real record, a 45-rpm of the Archie’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Sugar, Sugar</i> with a circle of dotted lines just waiting for Katy’s scissors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We read every inch of that box that weekend as we worked our way through the cereal.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I’ve eaten breakfast––and lunch since I left school and office for motherhood, pastoring, and writing––by myself most days of my life, but I haven’t been alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’ve always had words in front of me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reading a book while eating requires using the edge of the plate and clean utensils as book weights, and I worry about a splat of yogurt or drip of orange juice staining a page, especially on a library book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m not picky about content when it comes to read-eating, but I prefer magazines because they’re easy to keep flat on the tabletop, and smaller than a newspaper.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was young, I read what my parents left open, my father’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Herald </i>Examiner, my mother <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Women’s Day </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Family Circle</i>, her copies of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">People </i>when I was in college.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was a young mother the only books I could finish were children’s books I read to my babies, but I could work through an issue of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Parenting</i> and the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Auto club magazine in a month.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now I read the Sierra Club magazine, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Real Simple, Sunset, Mental Floss,</i> my husband’s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Family Handyman, </i>the free weekly paper, and two devotionals <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Alive Now </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Weavings</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">When I became a Christian in my mid-20’s I thought I was supposed to wake at five each morning and read the Bible while the house was quiet and the world had yet to make its evil mark on me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was supposed to begin each day with ammunition for the battle, like the woman who wrote the book I borrowed from the library about being a Good Christian Wife.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, I’m not a morning person, and the only dark force I was fighting was the alarm clock on a winter morning that was literally dark.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I couldn’t imagine read-eating the Bible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It didn’t tuck well under the edge of a plate, the pages were so thin that a spill would saturate an entire Gospel, and it seemed sacrilegious to read scripture while eating toaster waffles. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe if I’d been raised with the Bible on the table and learned words like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Leviticus </i>and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Deuteronomy </i>while eating Captain Crunch, my morning habit might be different.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I still wake up to Words and not The Word, and I’m not sure if I simply have a forty-five year habit or a spiritual discipline.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Either way, there is something that feeds my hunger when I read about wine tasting in Livermore, efforts to curb mountaintop removal coal mining, tips for repairing leaky gutters, and rhyming poems about Jesus while I eat peanut butter on gluten-free toast.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Wearing my bathrobe, I make tea, sit on a barstool, spread a magazine on the counter before me and connect with humanity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our pedestrian needs and desires––where to get a good pizza and how to patch a flat tire––mix with more profound––a dozen two paragraph reflections on the phrase <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Light of the World</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I want humor, I read the poorly phrased police blotter in the local paper and allow my fork to hover over the print, daring my syrup to drip. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes, when I’m finished with breakfast, I push my plate aside and flip through the articles on makeup and fashion, which I have no real interest in, but will read about if I want to procrastinate.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Every morning I taste a variety of writers and styles and purposes while I sip my orange juice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every day I glimpse another worldview––the foodie, the carpenter, the conservationist, the fashionista––and enter it vicariously through print.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I could say my reading is educational, that it’s good for me, that there’s something holy about reading and connecting with the spectrum of the human family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, I am saying that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I’m also going to say something else about my read-eating and reading in general, something that the early morning Bible reader in all her stoicism doesn’t want to let on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe she doesn’t approve, but I don’t care––waking up to words is fun.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-27931855671040013182011-05-30T14:33:00.000-07:002011-05-30T14:33:35.824-07:00Embodying the Body<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">I had minor surgery last week, an elective procedure to relieve excess and increasingly painful menstruation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I had reached my limit in coping with this problem that plagued me for decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thinking about what I’ve done afterward, I realize that for most of my life I’ve treated my body as a troublemaker, a problem causer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I swallow handfuls of vitamins and herbs each day to stave off symptoms, to make up for deficiencies and lack, treating my body as something that has failed me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I had an expectation of perfection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not that I’d be thin and tan and blonde and wrinkle free forever, but that my kidneys, digestive and reproductive systems, my thyroid and adrenal glands and hormones would function with one hundred percent accuracy, doing all the things they’re supposed to do without error.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I expected my body to operate in textbook fashion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When it didn’t I took up acupuncture and chiropractic, donned support hose, cooked vile tasting Chinese herbs and drank the brew, gave up wheat and gluten, eggs, soy, most dairy and half a dozen other foods, and added enzymes and herbal remedies to my diet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I have learned to accommodate and live with my chronic conditions, but I have not learned to accept and love them, just as I have not learned to accept and love all the aspects of my personality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I judge my feelings and behaviors that are fearful, angry, clingy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I view them as cause for shame instead of extending compassion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In theory, I know that being human means making mistakes and built-in imperfection, but somehow I expect more of myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Struggling to be good enough/perfect, it’s not difficult to understand why I have viewed my body mainly as something to manage, if not control.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I want it to conform to my expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Impossible expectations.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’d like to be able to let go of perfection and appreciate my body for all the ways it contributes to my wellbeing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’d like to thank it for holding up for nearly fifty years, despite my neglect. I’d like to honor the ways my body communicates to me—warnings of danger, feelings of safety, the ways it tries to get my attention, and protect me—even if I don’t listen well, even when I pop ibuprofen and tell it to shut up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I confess that I have been removed from my body’s messages and its wisdom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have not paid attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I have not acted with respect.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fa9gyzcskTw/TeQNAqN3xjI/AAAAAAAAAGA/IGifY3oWH_U/s1600/DSCN2554_2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Fa9gyzcskTw/TeQNAqN3xjI/AAAAAAAAAGA/IGifY3oWH_U/s320/DSCN2554_2.JPG" width="242" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal">I’d like to repent and move toward an attitude of gratefulness and thanksgiving.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Without my body, there is no me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My body is not inconvenient.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My body does not interfere with me carrying out my plans and intentions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Exactly the opposite.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My body is the only vehicle and conduit my mind and spirit have for self-expression.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is only through the body that I live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The body makes me human.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Incarnate.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And like all humans, I am imperfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My body is imperfect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I pray that I can learn to live differently––To accept my body and love it exactly the way it is. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In doing so my physical issues won’t magically disappear, but acceptance seems the next necessary step to continue my journey toward wholeness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Toward God.</div><!--EndFragment-->Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-50688948931224145092011-05-17T19:48:00.000-07:002011-05-17T19:48:52.859-07:00Showered with BlessingAt a baby shower earlier this Spring we played common party games––cutting yarn at absurd lengths we thought matched the mother-to-be’s belly circumference and surrendering diaper pins to the observant who caught us saying the forbidden word baby. We oohed and aahed at the sweet onesies, snuggly pants and flowered socks the new baby girl would wear and practical necessities—blankets, stroller, bathtub, the new mother received. At was all very nice, welcome and predictable. But before the festivities ended, the mother-to-be’s mother, who was one of our hostesses, took the celebration in a different direction. She asked the guests to gather in a circle surrounding the guest of honor and to offer her a blessing, a prayer for the upcoming birth, and the journey of becoming a family. <br />
<br />
We pulled our chairs around our pregnant friend on the floor and told her how much she meant to us. Some of us, her mother’s age, told her it had been such a joy to watch her grow up, to celebrate the confident woman she had become—a labor and delivery nurse––and the gifts she was offering to the world. Her peers laughed at the challenges they’d been through together and how they admired her determination. One young mother, who left her children at home to attend the shower, told her to make time for herself and her marriage in all the demands that would soon fill her life. Other mothers with grown children said that although some days with a baby seemed interminable, they looked back fondly on that special time with an infant, and wished her the ability to appreciate motherhood in the sleep-deprived moments. Some spoke of quiet time nursing their babies in the middle of the night, how precious it was to hold the sweet and holy being entrusted to them, and of how sometimes, especially when there were older siblings, this was the only time they had alone with the new baby. Many of us cried. All of us were moved. How often do we sit in a circle and tell someone what she means to us? And how often do we reflect on what our lives as friends and mothers have meant to us and speak the truth of our hearts with no other agenda than to bless another?<br />
<br />
This kind of vulnerability and honesty could feel awkward, especially at a party, and being the center of such intense focus could be embarrassing. The mother-to-be handled all this with such grace, and much of that comes from her mother, a single-mom for many years, with an incredible faith in God and reliance on the Holy Spirit for provision. This mother had to be strong, and she had to be vulnerable, relying on God and allowing herself to ask for and receive help from those who held her and her children in their hearts. She knows the power of blessing, and she called upon us to bestow that gift upon her daughter. <br />
<br />
In that circle we offered our prayers for a safe labor and delivery. But our offering and our tender words encompassed each woman in the room, no matter where she was on life’s journey, whether she was a mother or not. We blessed the mother-to-be and we blessed one another with our honesty and our words of thanksgiving. It was a moment of prayerful joy. It was worship. It was the best kind of party.Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-50019498100285590722011-04-18T15:20:00.000-07:002011-04-18T15:22:45.091-07:00Squirrel Savior<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rrBCkDmUDyo/Tay5Nd4G7oI/AAAAAAAAAF8/Qrm6dOowmBU/s1600/DSCN2665.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-rrBCkDmUDyo/Tay5Nd4G7oI/AAAAAAAAAF8/Qrm6dOowmBU/s320/DSCN2665.JPG" width="258" /></a>Our cats were acting suspicious yesterday evening, sniffing around the trunk of a coast live oak in the backyard. My husband heard what he thought was a blue jay. I ran outside, shooed the cats away, circled the tree, and there on it’s back, paws frozen in air, looking dead was a small squirrel. Thinking we would need to either bury it or put it in our trashcan, and remembering all the stern warnings I’d heard never to touch a wild animal, I sent my husband to the shed for a shovel. He returned and as he lowered the shovel toward the ground the squirrel stirred and let out a pitiful squawk. Kevin gently turned the squirrel upright, but it was too stunned to move. I got the cat carrier from the garage and Kevin guided the little thing inside.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">We tried to contact Native Animal Rescue, which was closed, so we did what we do best. Internet research. We switched out the towels in the carrier for t-shirts so the squirrel wouldn’t catch a toenail and risk further injury, and got close enough to see his face was bleeding and he was infested with fleas. We put a towel over the crate, a heating pad underneath, shut the door to my office and let the squirrel rest in the warm room until my husband finished our taxes. Before we went to bed we mixed up a rehydration solution and my husband administered it through a dropper while I held the squirrel in the bundled t-shirt. The little thing didn’t move, but did drink some and his mouth was bloody. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I fretted all evening about the squirrel. I wanted to save him, but despite reading rescue instructions we didn’t know how to assess the squirrel’s injuries or conduct the skin pinch test to see if he was dehydrated. We thought his mother was still in the oak tree and wondered if we could get all the cats indoors, put him under the tree and stand guard until she carried him to safety. Instead, we left him inside, safe, but unsure if we were doing the right thing. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The squirrel was still alive at six a.m. when my husband woke up and attempted to give it more fluids. The squirrel was also quite vocal, that blue-jay squawk again, he wanted something—his mother, the outdoors, away from these invasive humans. I began making phone calls at 8 a.m. when Native Animal Rescue reopened, and after an hour and a half, calls with three different women, and answering their questions to determine what was best for the little squirrel, found one willing to assess him and keep him until the baby squirrel specialist got home from work this afternoon.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">When I delivered the squirrel to Vicki’s home, she reached in the cat carrier, scruffed him with one hand and scooped him into her palm in a fluid motion. She looked at his wounds and said they weren’t from my cats (quite a relief) but associated with the fall. This squirrel is about five weeks old. His body is quite small, but baby squirrels are top heavy and often land on their heads. Bleeding from the ears, nose and mouth is common. She said he looked quite dehydrated—and most likely something had happened to his mother. When their mothers disappear, the squirrels sometimes leave the nest looking for food and fall. I spotted the nest this morning, a good twenty-feet up, and I saw another squirrel out on a branch and watched it return to the nest. Most likely it’s a sibling. I don’t know how many other babies are in the nest. If their mother doesn’t return, I may find more on the ground (dead or alive) or they will die in the tree.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I think about Annie Dillard who wrote <u>Pilgrim at Tinker Creek</u>, a book I read for my MFA program and one of our Art & Faith studies. I think about Annie stalking muskrats and insects and watching decay and reporting on death, and I wonder what would’ve happened if her tomcat had brought in a half-dead mouse and left it in her bed one night. Would she have sat there, notebook in hand, recording its blood loss, and labored breathing and timing how long it took to die? Or, would she have stepped back from her observer status and done something? Try to save it, or even try to kill it—quickly, “humanely”?</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">It’s not lost on me that my squirrel rescue project began on Palm Sunday. I retired from pastoral ministry at the end of June and bowed to the recognition around Christmas that my spiritual journey has lead me out of my local church and familiar context. In the past four months I’ve been waiting for what is supposed to come next. It hasn’t arrived yet. But the squirrel did and I recognize my desire to save, to do something. I see how too often in the course of my personal life and ministry I have wanted to save those I care for from pain. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I’ve wanted to do it, whatever it is, right, and right away. I couldn’t bear to think of this squirrel suffering, and it seems proper and reasonable to seek the help of people with experience and training. I don’t think they or I are in danger of fostering codependent squirrels, of doing for them what they and God need to do. But when it comes to humans, the situations are much more complicated. I think, that like this wounded squirrel, there are times when each of us needs intervention and saving. And, I’m also becoming aware that sometimes that saving really does need to come from God alone, and not from humans acting on God’s behalf. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">And so I am changing my usual patterns. I am praying for my long-time church and its members from a distance instead of wrapped in its midst. Coming from a home that broke and broke again, I’ve been desperate for belonging and terrified of being alone most of my life, and would gladly bear anyone’s pain just to stay in relationship. I’m learning to trust that healing is possible, and experiencing in my own life something I preached often––that God can work in and through you and me without any conditions, restrictions or requirements. Giving my life to a church isn’t the same as giving myself to God, and Jesus will drive that message home each day on this journey through Holy Week.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I can’t save a squirrel or myself no matter how carefully I follow website instructions or church doctrine. I can stand on that dusty road waving palms expecting Jesus to do everything I want and end up disappointed. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I desire the squirrel’s healing and also recognize its future is out of my control. I pray for myself, and this wounded world in need of healing salve, in need of saving that we can’t make happen, that is only given us through grace. I walk through this week, already knowing the outcome, and waiting to live it out. </div>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-45236010681463686382011-02-28T13:10:00.000-08:002011-02-28T13:10:39.149-08:00A Good Mother<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal">My husband and I laid our dog to rest in the little pet cemetery behind our house on February 12<sup>th</sup>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sterling takes his place next to an assortment of rats and mice, three cats––two who were taken by coyotes––and one tiny fish.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Small piles of rocks and crosses made from sticks and wooden stakes mark the other graves.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We placed a poly-resin statue of an angel on Sterling’s grave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The statue was a gift from a parishioner, out of place in my home with its somber colors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For years, I thought of her as the angel of death and that she belonged outdoors.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Now she stands underneath leafless oak trees and atop mossy rocks, the angel after death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Witness and guardian––honoring the life of my dog.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">In his absence, I’ve been stunned at how much my daily routine has been altered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sterling was as needy, difficult, enthusiastic and loveable as any child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>With his passing, my nest is truly empty and I have yet to fully understand the implications for my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>True, I have two cats (aged 9 and 15), but their claim on me is less consuming, if not less insistent than my children’s or my dog’s. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I agonized over Sterling’s decline and suffering in his last days, worrying and wondering if and when I should put him to sleep, overwhelmed by the enormity of the responsibility I had been given over this sweet and fragile soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I was faced with the limits of my humanity––there was nothing I could do to save him from death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The mother in me ached at my powerlessness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I was Sterling’s mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God knows why this abandoned dog came into my life with all his insecurities and need for constant assurance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We both needed to know this––I love you and I will not leave you––something essential I missed as a child and he missed as a puppy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I was too unsure of myself when my children were young to ever think of myself as a good mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I wasn’t sure I could trust my instincts. I was often overwhelmed, and the only guide I had was what not to do––repeat my past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">As I was sobbing my heart out trying to make “the right decision” for my dog, my husband told me something I hadn’t noticed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You’ve hardly left his side since we came home from Christmas vacation.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Once he spoke, I saw that my days were ordered around this furry being, and that even though I was keeping up with my writing, the scope of my life had become very small.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Could he stand on his own today?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How much was he drinking? Eating?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In what manner could I administer his antacids to keep the pain of the toxins the kidneys no longer processed to a minimum after meals?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I didn’t regret my choices, as unconscious and natural as they had been, for a moment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are the ways we live out love and walk with our dying beloved, a willing embrace, a pinpoint focus.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">I finally understood that there was no right answer, no way to avoid the outcome.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I gave myself permission to trust myself, and that my agony meant it was time to end his pain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My dog Sterling taught me that I am a good mother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I might not know what to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I might make mistakes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But I am all in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One hundred percent committed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will not leave you, nor abandon you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I will be with you, to hold and stroke you, to offer words of comfort and love, until the end, and longer. </div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">If I, in all my imperfection, can love like this, imagine how well God can love me, can love all of us.</div><!--EndFragment-->Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-60754334133305380942011-02-02T10:23:00.001-08:002011-02-02T17:04:37.446-08:00A Long Goodbye<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NSV1VV0R-aI/TUmg_2hBL6I/AAAAAAAAAF4/gKzf5YqPCSc/s1600/DSCN2410.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NSV1VV0R-aI/TUmg_2hBL6I/AAAAAAAAAF4/gKzf5YqPCSc/s320/DSCN2410.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><u>A Long Goodbye<o:p></o:p></u></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">This afternoon my dog is sitting next to my computer, his usual place. His breathing is shallow and too rapid. I’m awaiting the latest test results from my veterinarian. Sterling is fifteen and a half, ninety in human years. His spleen is enlarged. He’s on steroids for kidney disease and atrophied leg muscles, and is prone to debilitating diarrhea. He almost died when I was vacationing at Christmas. So I wait for the phone to ring as if knowing his kidney values and red blood count can prepare my heart for the fact that he is dying. Not today, not tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe…the truth is I don’t know when. And the not knowing has me wrapped in worry, running like a hamster in an exercise ball, spinning pointless circles, crashing into walls, completely without direction. I’d like to find the right direction. Any direction, for that matter, that can bring me into the present. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Even though it won’t add a day to my life, and even though Jesus promises that like the lilies of the field, I will have everything I need, I spend a lot of time worrying about the future. Planning for the future. I have airline tickets purchased for travel through August and events on the calendar in October. I like to know what’s going to happen and when. On the up side, to the world, I appear highly organized. On the inside, I fear that my incessant planning and future orientation is nothing more than an attempt to buy insurance against repeating a past where chaos felt palpable and imminent. When I was a child I couldn’t control the big things, like whether or not my parents were going to stay married. And I couldn’t stop either my stepmother or stepfather from running away without saying goodbye to me. I exercised the little power I had over the small things. I finished my homework, folded my laundry, and packed tuna sandwiches for lunch. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">So now, I return to the small things. I boil pork and potatoes for my dog, who after a lifetime of kibble has said, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No More</i>. If one of the few pleasures in his life is eating, I’ll gladly feed him something that doesn’t smell like stale bread and look like dirt clods. I cook. I wash urine-soiled towels, the result of his new incontinence. And I vacuum, taking great satisfaction in sucking wads of fluffy white fur into the machine. Dishes, towels, floors are clean. There is order and control, and my mind is less easily cast into the future when I’m scrubbing my pressure cooker, than when I’m not occupied with concrete tasks.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Night falls; Sterling’s breathing becomes more labored, his pain and fatigue evident. The veterinarian gave me bad news this evening. Kidney failure, worse than we thought. I ask how long, and she is noncommittal. She is not God, but gives me advice reminiscent of Jesus’ words; <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">No one knows the hour or the day</i> and a twelve-step bumper sticker, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">One day at a time</i>. “When Sterling’s bad days outnumber the good,” she says, not finishing the sentence. I call my daughters, away at college, ask if they’d like to come home this weekend to say goodbye. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I can’t sleep these days, anxious about my dog. I’m afraid to leave him. He’s always been nervous, and his separation anxiety has been manifesting in physical symptoms (loss of appetite and bloody diarrhea) that at this stage could kill him. It’s not that I need to be with him every moment, or that I feel obligated to orchestrate the moment of his demise so that I am there. He could slip away while I’m at the grocery store or the chiropractor and I wouldn’t hold myself responsible. But weeks of out of state travel loom large beginning the end of this month. I have made commitments, paid fees. I’m supposed to follow the plan. This is why I’m fretful. I am torn. The part of me who plans against bad things happening, is afraid I can’t cancel, that to be responsible I need to show up and do what I’ve said, or I’ll disappoint people, perhaps alienate them. But much more of me has a different need. I want to be present for this daily long goodbye. I don’t want to board a plane and let someone else, even someone I trust, shepherd my dog through his last days. Some people might say he’s just a dog. They’re right. He is simply a dog. My dog. For thirteen years he’s been part of my life, and it hasn’t been an easy road. His nervous anxiety, stroke, rattlesnake bite, have challenged and shaken me. His sweet nature, exuberance, genuine affection and smile—really he smiles—have filled our home with love. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I toss and turn until I allow love to rule. I will choose being with him over any other commitment. Finally, I can rest. I close my eyes, and I focus my thoughts on Sterling lying on the floor at the foot of the bed. With each breath I wish him love and light. My he be bathed and swaddled in light and love. I relax and drift to sleep knowing it is my great privilege to take this journey with him.</div>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-6500510822495722242011-01-28T17:46:00.000-08:002011-01-29T10:06:45.935-08:00What it Means to Pray<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">A third excerpt from a longer essay:</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">It’s been more than fifteen years, less than twenty since I’ve had a prayer partner. We began a bit tentatively and I felt awkward at first sitting on my friend’s couch, holding hands and praying. I was used to praying in a church building. It seemed very public and a little unnerving praying together in our homes with all their signs of daily life. Cats jumped in our laps. The phone rang. Someone would knock at the door. We stoked the fire and spread a blanket over our laps in the winter. In good weather, we sat outdoors listening to wind chimes, blue jays and motorcycles in the background of our prayer. We talked about our lives and our children, our husbands, our parents and siblings, and our church, all the things we cared for most deeply. We voiced our fears, our struggles, and our inadequacies.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Together, she and I wrestled with what it meant to pray. Should we offer each other advice? We did, but our advice was infrequent and gentle. We never expected each other to follow it, but to find our own paths. Did we ask God for exactly what we thought we wanted? To heal my father from cancer? Yes. But we also recognized that our will and our desires weren’t really the point of prayer. This was especially true when we prayed for our children. We wanted them to become the people God had created them to be, not the people who would be easiest for us to nurture. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Over time I began to embrace our prayer time because it allowed me to let go, if only for a few hours, of the burdens I carried worrying about my extended family and struggling folks at church. I began to ask less for solutions. Less of, “Please let my sister find a home.” And more of, “Please help my sister to find you, God.” </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">I began to notice how much lighter I felt after we prayed, and as the years progressed, how much joy I felt in the act of praying. What had once been awkward became something I craved. When we were done talking, we held hands, closed our eyes, and I felt myself both sink and float. I breathed deeply and felt myself settle, my body became heavy, I relaxed as if I might fall asleep. Another part of me floated and I bobbed in a rhythm, connecting to a presence outside myself. Basking in God, wrapped in love. In silence we each absorbed into Spirit, and we would’ve kept that dream state for hours if our schedules had allowed it. Instead, one of us eventually broke the silence, always with thanksgiving for the opportunity to pray together and for this holy time set apart. Often times we cried, releasing our hold on one another to reach for Kleenex, blew our noses, and continued. We learned to speak through tears and to be glad for rather than embarrassed by them. Some days we set a timer to call us out of prayer. The ding jolted us back into our clock driven days, and reluctantly we left our reverie in the manner we always used to end our prayers, The Lord’s Prayer. We prayed it together listening to and relishing every word.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-63478676962875014882011-01-16T16:50:00.000-08:002011-01-16T16:50:12.268-08:00I'll Pray For You<div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another excerpt from that longer essay on prayer:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I’ll pray for you.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I can’t count how many times I said those words during the seven years I served as pastor of a church. Usually my offer came after a conversation where parishioners confided in me their suffering––cancer, a strained marriage, job loss, depression. I knew I didn’t have the power to fix their situations, and even if I could provide something practical––a referral to a doctor or counselor––my help was never enough for their need. I offered the one response I felt equipped for. Prayer.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">**<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sometimes I forget that not everyone has had the privilege of travelling deep into prayer with a soul friend, as I've had for the past fifteen years. I was startled when in my pastoral role I asked, “Would you like to pray about that?” and the answer was a frightened, “Now?” or an uncomfortable, “That’s okay. It’s not urgent.” I would prefer to pray with them, right there on the spot, to invoke God’s presence and place the burden in the Holy One’s lap of love and compassion. But then I remembered the days when I felt awkward and too vulnerable to ask for prayer, let alone join my pastor in it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: justify; text-autospace: none; text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My path has led me to realize that prayer is not a magical power invested in ordained and qualified parties. And there are no particular or right words to invoke. I shed my early expectations that prayer (and my own prayer specifically) should impact outcomes. God does not respond to my requests as if he works in a worldwide order fulfillment center. Instead, prayer realigns my priorities.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When I say, “I’ll pray for you,” I imagine holding the person in need––and aren’t we all in need?––up to the light of an amorphous and loving God. For me, prayer is about coming consciously into the presence of the great power for good that is everywhere and ever-present. It is a place I never want to leave. I have my prayer partner to thank for that.</span></div><!--EndFragment--> </span></div>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-11842738458415468172010-11-20T17:16:00.000-08:002010-11-20T17:17:20.758-08:00Prayers of the People<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Here's an excerpt from essay on prayer I'm currently writing for my degree program :</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">Three Sundays a month for seven years I closed my eyes, bowed my head, lifted my arms in supplication, and prayed without self-consciousness or script. No creeds. No prayers from a worship book. My parishioners prayed together only one prayer––and not as a rote ramble, but as living words, often sung––the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, The Lord’s Prayer. The rest we created in worship. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">In my religious tradition, we invite prayers of the people. I listened to rambling stories, teary requests, mumbled worry, celebration of milestones, and less frequently, thanks. Summarizing and repeating for the congregation, so all could hear, I felt myself lift their joys and concerns out of our midst into a realm of spirit I felt intimately connected to. After worship, people often said to me, “Cathy, you do such a good job with the prayer time.” But I never saw it that way. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about job performance. I planted my feet and claimed the posture and attitude of prayer. I held holy space. I observed silence and focused on breath. (The Hebrew word for spirit is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ruach</i>, breath.) Others followed. We did not share our lives out of prurient curiosity or even for the sake of community building. We prayed because it was the least and the most we could do for one another. We prayed because we were God’s people, communicating with God in one of the few ways we knew how. </div>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-63465122034306995562010-11-08T16:02:00.000-08:002010-11-08T16:24:15.813-08:00Thanksgiving in a Box<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NSV1VV0R-aI/TNiOuh_ZD2I/AAAAAAAAAFA/wvMwHNiMLFE/s1600/Thanksgiving+in+box+1993044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="214" px="true" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_NSV1VV0R-aI/TNiOuh_ZD2I/AAAAAAAAAFA/wvMwHNiMLFE/s320/Thanksgiving+in+box+1993044.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>The November we began remodeling our kitchen, I wasn’t sure how I was going to prepare Thanksgiving dinner. The honor and responsibility had recently come my way, once my grandparents decided it was easier for the two of them to drive eight hours to be with us, than for my mother and stepfather, and my husband, me and our two children, ages five and two, to make our separate treks to Los Angeles. <br />
<br />
The week before the feast day, I leafed through the adverts in the mail and found in the Safeway circular, a ready-made Thanksgiving dinner. I signed up at the deli counter, and picked up my order the day before Thanksgiving. At home, in the company of my parents and grandparents, I opened the large cardboard box to reveal our dinner in a box. <br />
<br />
1 shrink-wrapped defrosted, uncooked turkey <br />
1 foil roasting pan<br />
1 box Safeway brand frozen Bread Dressing<br />
1 box Safeway brand frozen mashed potatoes<br />
1 tub refrigerated Ocean Spray cranberry sauce<br />
1 tub refrigerated turkey gravy<br />
1 dozen fresh dinner rolls from the Safeway Bakery<br />
1 boxed Entenmann’s pumpkin pie with a red ribbon printed on the packaging<br />
<br />
There was nothing technically “wrong” with this dinner, and if the advertisement had shown the components fully prepared and steaming in china serving dishes, well that wasn’t uncommon. <br />
<br />
It was simply that until that moment, I hadn’t fully appreciated the heroic efforts my grandmother had undertaken each Thanksgiving and Christmas. She constructed elaborate centerpieces and made decorations for each plate setting (one for each dinner guest and dozens more of that year’s craft to sell at her church’s holiday bazaar). Her home resembled Santa’s workshops for weeks before the feasts, as she and my grandfather ran their jigsaws, painted, and glued. She put every leaf in her dining room table until it nearly filled the room to accommodate ten of us and a myriad of china serving dishes. She pressed her best tablecloth and set out the fancy china and crystal goblets for our sparkling apple cider.<br />
<br />
Her food was fabulous too. The hors d'oeuvres tray was plentiful and healthy: carrot and celery sticks, crackers and dip, and black olives that my sister and I would stick on our fingers as children. Her menu consisted of turkey, of course, and a stuffing that contained onion, celery and giblets as well as breadcrumbs and broth. The potatoes were russets, mashed with milk and butter. The gravy was whisked thick from basting broth with giblets and cornstarch with no trace of lumps. There were green beans topped with Durkee onions. The cranberries were whole and mixed with chopped orange peel and nuts to make chutney. She baked pies, pumpkin and apple with a flaky crust we raved about, and served them with whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. <br />
<br />
My grandmother, whose energy was a constant source of amazement, would stay up nearly all night before the feast days, perfecting everything. On the big days, running on two, maybe three hours of sleep, she would dress up, tie an apron around her waist, and zip around her kitchen, attending to every detail, when launch into the role of gracious hostess as her company began arriving.<br />
<br />
One year her turkey wore a vest, collar, cuffs and spats perfectly crafted dough, shaped into clothing and made more realistic with the application of food coloring and an egg wash. She took a photo of that turkey in the kitchen, and also on the table. She always took a photo of the fully decorated table, although I’m not sure if she snapped pictures of her guests.<br />
<br />
There was no chance my Thanksgiving in a box could compare to the care and craftsmanship evidenced in my grandmother’s kitchen. My kitchen had temporary plywood countertops and all the overhead cabinets had been ripped out so we could knock out the upper half of the wall, making a large pass through into a bedroom that would become a dining room. We ate in a nook just off the kitchen. Our table sat eight and was much too large for the space. One long side was shoved against a wall so we could squeeze past it into the kitchen proper. Our Thanksgiving meal of 1993 would be served directly from foil, boxes and plastic containers onto paper plates, and eight of us would crowd around three sides of a table covered with a red and white checked plastic coated cloth. <br />
<br />
Instead of despairing, we laughed. My grandmother––given a reprieve from her usual time consuming preparations––laughed first and longest of all. We were all together, great-grandparents, grandparents, parents and children, and we would celebrate. It was Thanksgiving, and just as tradition dictated, my grandmother artfully arranged the components of our dinner in their colorful wrappings atop my dining room table. Then she fished her Kodak Instamatic camera from her purse and photographed our feast.Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-62538551969357820682010-10-26T23:51:00.000-07:002010-10-26T23:51:07.003-07:00DoggedThis is the beginning of a very long essay written for my daughter. Too long to post in its entirety, but wanted to share this snippet:<br />
<br />
The world doesn't need another dog story, and I hate to say it, our dog is neither genius nor terror, neither Lassie nor Marley, and I doubt my pen can magnify our ordinary lives into books and movies that will entertain the masses. Sterling, our fifteen-year-old American Eskimo, is hardly a hero. So, these words are for us. We have lived this tale, and now that Sterling is truly geriatric, you and I both know there will be an end. Each day, we see the last page coming closer. With each meal he leaves uneaten, with each time his atrophied leg slips out from under him, whenever we shout his name and clap our hands at the front door, and watch him bark or wait resignedly at the sliding door a few feet away, deaf to our racket, oblivious to our movements, we circle mortality, worried that death will step into view. <br />
<br />
Sterling's demise will arrive too soon, whenever it comes, because we want him to outlive us. We try to be rational. I say, “After all, he's fifteen years old. That's somewhere between ninety and one hundred and five in human years, and he's in great shape when you think of it that way.” You agree, out loud at least. But how can you think of it that way? You yourself are only nineteen and Sterling has been part of our family since you were six.<br />
<br />
We know very well that you are the reason he exists in our household, and that he, in the form of mythic dog, existed in our lives the moment you could assert your desire. You, born to cat loving parents, were enamored with dogs from infancy, so much so that you became a dog, shedding clothes and abandoning speech as a preschooler. When you reverted to your human self you explained your imaginative integrity, “Dog's don't wear clothes. Dogs don't talk.” Your father and I entered your fantasy. When you were canine, we allowed you to run naked at home, and in the homes of friends and relatives, saying to them, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, “She's a dog right now. When she's a dog, she doesn't wear clothes,” and because we weren't shocked or angry, neither were they. When you stripped at Round Table Pizza and barked your way through the Cub Scouts awards dinner in the banquet area, instead of scolding you, Dad scooped you up and said that if you could turn back into a girl, he'd take you to the playground next door. Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-57912532959509648032010-09-25T17:20:00.000-07:002010-09-25T17:37:54.813-07:00Writing Workshop<div style="color: blue; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Holy Ink </span></b></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Writing Workshop </span></b></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">in the Santa Cruz Mountains</span></b></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Sat. November 6, 9 am to 4 pm</span></b></div><div style="color: blue; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Led by Cathy Warner </span></div><br />
<br />
<div style="color: red;"><b><span style="font-size: small;">Telling Our Stories. Unearth your memories. Name what you know. Join in a day of writing.</span></b></div><br />
We will focus on personal and family stories, life journeys, and spiritual experiences. <br />
Sharing is optional and conducted in a supportive environment. <br />
<br />
$40 registration includes morning continental breakfast, coffee & tea, snacks and materials. <br />
To register email holyink@me.com <br />
Registration Deadline: Nov. 2. <br />
<br />
<br />
Bring: lunch (or visit local market/restaurants), journal or notebook & pen, or laptop computer. <br />
<br />
Gather at Cathy’s home in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Lunchtime recreation includes use of hot tub, relaxing in gardens and scenic walks, weather permitting. (Allergy sufferers note: I have indoor cats &; a dog)<br />
Address &; directions will be sent upon registration.<br />
<br />
United Methodist Advanced Lay speaking credit available on request. Text required for layspeaking credit: <br />
Remembering Your Story, Richard L. Morgan, cost $11.20. Order directly from cokesbury.comCathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-34348259070910018682010-08-09T18:48:00.000-07:002010-08-09T18:48:58.991-07:00Silly Poetry ContestAs you know, I'm studying creative writing through Seattle Pacific University. A highlight of our residencies is a poetry contest, where we parody the poets and writer's we've been studying (and sometimes our program director). Last week, we studied the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, with an emphasis on <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/122/12.html">"<i>The Windhover.</i>"</a><br />
<br />
Hopkins was always on the lookout for God, as was Annie Dillard (we studied <i>"Pilgrim at Tinker Creek"</i>), who perfected the art of stalking nature. Like those notable writers, I too have been on a quest (for the last 35 years) for the perfect pair of jeans. If I find them, I'll know God exists!<br />
<br />
Here is my version of The Windhover--<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>The Skinned Cover</b><br />
<i>To Christian Dior</i><br />
<br />
I sought this morning Macy’s markdowns king-<br />
dom of day’s designer-discount denim, Jeans for this—hiding <br />
Of the rolling bevel underneath slim, sturdy wear and striding<br />
Sigh there. Eeh, ow, my rump upon the grain-glove a dimpling thing<br />
Is this Ecstacy? Then off, off forth I swing<br />
As Kate’s* heel sweeps smoothe on a show-end; I twirl and gliding <br />
Rebuff the rear bend. My hind in hiding.<br />
Word! It’s absurd,––the aggrieve of, the misery of the sling!<br />
<br />
Brute booty and Valium and ack! No air, pride, doom, fear<br />
BUCKLE! And the tire that quakes from me then a million <br />
Times rolled, uglier, more strange than thus: dough, bagel, schmere.<br />
<br />
No wonder of it: beer, fod, makes chow down spillion. <br />
Mine the grand blue-jean tremblors. Ah, my rear, <br />
Sprawl! Maul the shelves and dash, bold civilian.<br />
<br />
<br />
*Super model Kate MossCathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-124715667837963282010-06-27T14:57:00.000-07:002010-06-27T15:09:31.015-07:00The Brady Bunch, Christ FollowersSometimes, we need a little humor. Today I preached my last sermon after seven years of serving as lay pastor to my congregation. What was I going to say? My daughter suggested I think of my retiring (to pursue my MFA in Creative Writing full-time) like the end of sitcom, maybe <i>Cheers</i>, since our church is small and everybody does know your name. I thought about it, and <i>The Brady Bunch</i> came to mind, specifically, "Here's the story, of a man named Brady." I thought about the Bible and what it's the story of. So, here, to lighten the mood of a tearful farewell, and with apologies to any Brady, living or dead, and understanding that I've taken great liberties by abridging almost all of scripture, is my new hit song, "God's Story!"<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>God’s Story</b><br />
<i>Sung to the theme of the Brady Bunch</i><br />
<br />
Here’s the story of the baby Moses<br />
Found in the Nile and raised in Pharaoh’s house<br />
He led his people from slavery through the Red Sea<br />
And wrote God’s ten big rules<br />
<br />
<br />
It’s the story of God’s son Jesus<br />
who spoke and healed throughout Galilee<br />
He was crucified yet rose from the Grave<br />
To save us all from sin<br />
<br />
<br />
And later Paul who had once persecuted Christians<br />
found his life turned upside down by a vision<br />
He wrote the letters we now read in the Bible<br />
That’s the way we all became Christ followers<br />
<br />
<br />
Christ Followers, Christ Followers,<br />
That’s the way we became Christ followersCathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-51358069590634633942010-06-07T23:24:00.000-07:002010-06-07T23:24:58.469-07:00Forging Ahead"Forging Ahead" appears in the Upper Room book, Rhythm and Fire.<br />
<br />
I wrote this poem seven years ago, the last time our church was in transition, as a thank you to Rev. Tarah Trueblood and in recognition of the difficult work she undertook in her first pastorate. It seems appropriate, as my congregation faces another transition with my retirement from pastoral ministry to focus on my MFA. A new configuration for ministry in Boulder Creek is still being dreamed up and formed, and it's stretching folks. <br />
<br />
<b>Forging Ahead</b><br />
<br />
We’re all being hammered down<br />
smashed flat, quivering red and molten<br />
like silver in refiner’s fire<br />
<br />
We’re all being punched and pushed<br />
squashed, spun, dizzy and thrown<br />
like clay on potter’s wheel<br />
<br />
Maybe we should’ve kept our mouths shut<br />
kept our noses in our books<br />
kept our hands in the dishwater<br />
kept our feet on the gas pedal<br />
kept our lives settled, stable<br />
and possibly, doubtfully, content<br />
<br />
But we had to do it, look up from<br />
our circumscribed lives<br />
remove our rose colored glasses<br />
pry our fingers from their death grip<br />
around familiar’s throat<br />
and belt out those words<br />
<br />
<i>Melt me, Mold m</i>e<br />
<br />
Who would’ve known asking for God<br />
would be this messy, this ugly<br />
leaving us purple and bruised<br />
dumped into the unknown<br />
Who would’ve known we’re not in control<br />
<br />
Whether we like it or not<br />
whether we admit it or not<br />
God always had hands all over us<br />
fingers poking and prodding<br />
hot breath in our faces<br />
whispering, shouting<br />
when we lost attention<br />
<br />
<i>You’re Mine</i><br />
<br />
So there we were and here we are<br />
forging ahead sharpening our trust<br />
kneading our faith<br />
<br />
How else are we going to become silver forks<br />
spearing meaty portions of justice for the poor<br />
How else are we going to become cooking pots<br />
steaming with hope to feed the hungry<br />
<br />
How else are we going to rise up and follow<br />
telling our stories of transformation<br />
from mound of slimy clay to communion cup<br />
from chunk of ore to steeple bell<br />
<br />
How else are we going to stare straight<br />
into the world’s face<br />
shift our weight in the Creator’s palm<br />
and cry<br />
<br />
<i>Fill me, Use me</i>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-71610660950352580192010-06-03T16:19:00.000-07:002010-06-03T16:19:15.822-07:00The Business of MemoryI just finished reading <i>The Business of Memory</i> for my MFA program. Amazed by the sacred gift and curse, burden and blessing of memory and what the writers in that anthology brought to the page.<br />
<br />
My annotation is filled to overflowing with quotes. My own thoughts in this last paragraph:<br />
<br />
As writers, we access and use memory for a purpose. We delve, finding scraps and snippets to assemble and reassemble, leading us into narrative. We engage, explore, and extrapolate from image, nuance, and feeling into language, word, sentence, paragraph. We create with material that we may have indeed created ourselves without consciously knowing it. We commit to the page, trusting as much as we are able, our memories to have retained the essence, the truth of our experience, if not the actual facts.Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30418274.post-60474794582473458712010-05-16T14:28:00.000-07:002010-05-16T14:28:22.851-07:00Our Cornerstone<i>A reflection based on 1 Peter 2:4-10</i><br />
<br />
One town founder, fond of rock walls, built a mile of them through Boulder Creek, rendering it reminiscent of the English countryside. The walls came down as lots were split and town grew, but one still runs the length of Boulder Street right in front of my church. Rounding the corner from Main Street, it’s just a few yards before the wall comes into view. Those stones, mottled with dirt, moss and age, held in place by gravity and occasional cement cry out, “This is God’s house,” as much or more so than our hundred-year-old building. The church built on land donated by lumberman J.W. Peery, is painted white and fashioned of wood and sweat. The pews have held logging men, resort-goers, retirees, baby boom families and commuters. The building has burnt to the ground and rebuilt twice. The wall is made of stones hauled from Boulder Creek and stacked by Chinese laborers who built railroads in the 1880’s and has withstood the great San Francisco earthquake, and more recent Loma Prieta temblor. <br />
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Our congregation dates back to Wesleyan class meetings 140 years ago, our name changing with each Methodist reconfiguration. This is our history, but not our foundation. God is our true founder and architect. Scripture is our blue print, faith the nails that join us together. We stand on the corner of Boulder and Mountain Streets. More importantly, we stand on the Cornerstone--the Living Stone. <br />
<br />
<b>O Cornerstone, help us to stand on the living stone, and in so doing become steppingstones for others into your home.</b>Cathy Warnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18343961489796430202noreply@blogger.com0