“Own Your Anointing” – Reflections On Sunday

January 28, 2013 By

I must admit that most days, I move through life in a very routine sort of way.
I try to keep up with my family,
to take care of my husband,
to do the errands necessary for the running of a home.

In the midst of all that ordinary,
I sometimes forget who I am.
I slide into the habits of the day like a pair of comfy sweatpants,
and I don’t think about it very much.

Yesterday morning, who I am sort of stepped up and slapped me ‘cross the face.
Kindly, of course. But ever so firmly.
“Wake up, Diana. Wake up!
Remember who you are.“

This is the phrase that did that slapping for me:

OWN YOUR ANOINTING.
Own it.
Live it.
Believe it.

Because that is the most central truth about me,
and I so often slough it off, set it on the back burner,
submerge it beneath the detritus of daily living.

I am anointed.
I am anointed for a purpose.
I am anointed to proclaim and to live the very same
Isaiah-message that Jesus himself read out in that Nazareth synagogue,
over 2000 years ago.

Do you believe this?
That YOU are anointed?
Set apart?
Marked by God?

“Hey,” you  might say to yourself. “Not me. I’m just an ordinary pew-sitter.
Sure, I go to church. I read the Bible . . . once in a while.
I even try to pray. But anointed?
Hey man, not me. I’m nothin’ special.”

Hogwash.

Have you been baptized?
Said ‘yes’ to the call of Jesus, that call that invites you to ‘follow?’

Then you are anointed:
bought with a price,
marked by love,
commissioned to be those who
* announce good news
*proclaim release to the captive
*help blind people see
*free the oppressed.

 As part of our worship experience,
we were privileged to meet two powerful people,
I mean POWERFUL people.
People who wholeheartedly own their anointing,
people who ARE good news as well as bring good news,
people who work hard every single day to
free those captive to ignorance, confusion and fear;
people who bring light to the darkness in the fields of
education and high finance;
people who seek to set the oppressed free. . .
RIGHT WHERE THEY LIVE.

And they live in Uganda.

Dr. John Senyonyi is the President of Uganda Christian University,
an education and training center for over 12,000 students from nearly 20 countries.
The University is located in East Africa,
but draws students from all over the continent.
Many of those students are pastors-in-training,
who learn from skilled teachers how to ‘rightly divide the word of truth,’
before carrying it back to their home churches.

His wife, Dr. Ruth Senyonyi,
is Chief Counselor to the Federal Reserve Bank of Uganda,
with responsibility for the mental health of over 1200 employees.
Everyday, these two people step into their anointing,
living out the gospel in ways
I can barely imagine.

So what, I wonder, does ‘anointing’ look like in my life?
When I write in this space,
or when I comment on others’ writing in spaces much like this one,
I try to maintain an irenic spirit,
to offer words of encouragement and affirmation.
And I think that’s a good thing, an anointed thing, to do.
Most of the time.
But I’m becoming more convicted and convinced
that from time to time, I need to speak with a little bit more . . .
I search for the right word here.
Perhaps that word is ‘anointing?’

Because that water on my head when I was an infant,
those words seared into my brain tissue as an adolescent,
that Spirit that enlivens me,
when I make space for that enlivening —
it needs to make a difference.
A difference in me, a difference in the small spheres in which I move,
a difference in the very air molecules I inhabit.
And that difference is this:
I am one who is called to bring and to be
GOOD NEWS.
I am one who is called to proclaim it,
to preach it — not with words alone, but with the very air I breathe,
the steps I take, the hands I offer, the prayers I raise,
the stands I take, the friendship I extend,
the money I have,
the time I live in,
the energy I expend,
the life I live —

ALL OF IT . . .
all of it.

And that means that when I see or hear something that
‘offends one of the least of these;’
when I witness abuse in any form,
when I see others doing battle, real battle,
against ‘principalities and powers,’
then I need to be the gospel there, too.

And to tell  you the truth, that scares the crap out of me.
I want people to like me, to see me as a person of positive impact and insight.
I care what people think of me.

God help me, I do. A lot.

So, if I am to ‘own my anointing,’ I think it means I’m going to be scared
a lot more than I’m comfortable being scared.
I think it’s going to mean speaking more firmly than I am sometimes
comfortable with speaking.
I, in no way, wish to cause or give offense,
but there is a time and a place to say, ‘enough.’
I can still do my darnedest to say it graciously, kindly, humbly.
And those adverbs are going at the very top of my personal prayer list
every time I open this laptop to write a single word.

But . . .
I am anointed to bring good news,
to proclaim release to the captive,
to offer sight to the blind,
to set the oppressed free.
And people may not always ‘like’ what that looks like.

When Jesus began to speak out his anointing,
the people in Nazareth disliked it so much,
they threatened to throw Jesus right off a cliff.

I am, as always, a work in progress.
So this will take time, thought, prayer and practice.
I’m hoping you’ll help me to embrace
the full extent of my own anointing.
And I am promising to help you to do the same.
Because we need to OWN it.

Yes, we do.

Signing on with the usual Monday crowd, each of whom I love a lot. Michelle, Jen, Ann, Laura:

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Church, church year, community, Encouragement, God's gifts, Holy Spirit, personal journey, Sunday Reflections, Uncategorized, worship

5 Minute Friday: Again

January 26, 2013 By

So, it’s that time of the week again. Well. . . actually . . . yesterday was that time of the week. It’s now 1:00 in the morning in California and before I head off to sleep, I thought I’d try my hand at this week’s prompt from Lisa-Jo. You know the drill – 5 minutes of free-writing, no editing, just write. There are a couple of hundred of us who do this and you can actually do it every single week. Except I haven’t been doing it very regularly for a while and I miss it. So. . . today, I’m gonna give it a shot.

Five Minute Friday

 

Our sanctuary last Ash Wednesday. I start work again just in time to lead this service.
Am I ready?

The prompt is: AGAIN

GO:

Am I ready for this? I’m not at all sure. I said ‘yes’ because I care about the people who asked me to help. I did not say ‘yes’ because I’ve been craving more to do. That’s been the most interesting part of retirement for me: I do not miss my job. I miss some of the people I worked with and some of the people I worked for (meaning members of the congregation that I don’t see as often as I once did), but I do not miss the job itself.

I thought I would miss it terribly, yes I did.

Because I loved it when I did it – I was called to it and I knew it. But then. . . that last year, when the decision was prayerfully made, I also knew that the call was shifting. And though I wasn’t completely ready for the feelings of displacement that happened in the first few months, I was ready to stop working.

And then I began to do spiritual direction more earnestly. And then I began writing on this crazy blog. And then I met some amazing people. And then I discovered the call wasn’t gone, it was just changing direction. And now I had this strange and wonderful parish of friends and acquaintances, many of whom I’ve never seen ‘in the flesh,’ some of whom live halfway around the world — and voila! I just did not miss my job.

And now, I’m heading back into it — fewer hours per week and only for three months while the Senior Pastor is on sabbatical.

So, the question is: am I ready to do this again?

STOP

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Learning, Un-Learning, Re-Learning: Mothering

January 24, 2013 By

My grandparents on their wedding day, their attendants on the outside edges of the picture.

Short and square, she could barely see over the edge of the steering wheel, but that size-five-foot managed to reach the accelerator with exuberance and commitment. My mother’s mother learned to drive just before her 60th year, and with every outing, attempted to make up for all those years of deprivation. Putting her large, General Motors vehicle in reverse, she would back out of the driveway at 30 mph, turning her car and her mind toward the street and the day ahead. This image of my small grandmother behind the wheel of a car is one of the strongest ones I carry to this day, fifteen years after her death. She was a woman of indomitable will, a gifted business person and from all I can gather, pretty much an absentee mother.

She had four children in four years and was often so completely overwhelmed by motherhood that she literally could not speak for weeks at a time. Fortunately, she had extended family nearby, maiden aunts who loved her kids and made themselves available when needed.

And were they ever needed. Nonnie went to work, you see. Her husband drank too much and gambled too much and they all needed the stability of a regular paycheck, so she did whatever she could find to do. And to tell you the truth, I think it was a relief to her. She never quite ‘got’ the whole mothering gig, although her children adored her, and hung on every word she said to them. The message my own mother got was this one: daughters take care of mothers. And that is exactly what my mother did during most of her growing-up life: she took care of Mother, standing between her parents when Grampa came home drunk, cleaning up his messes and their home, looking out for her siblings.

So when it came time for my mother to be a mother, she very deliberately did a lot of it differently. She never worked outside the home, choosing instead to nurture and support her husband and her kids by becoming the quintessential 1950’s housewife. She was a gracious hostess, a creative seamstress, a committed volunteer at church and school. One thing, however, remained exactly the same: the message she passed down to me — daughters take care of mothers.

And I got it. Oh, yes, I got it.

Mom, me and Dad when I was about two.

And I’ve spent a lot of years trying desperately to un-get it. At a very early age, I became a primary support system for my mother’s emotional health and well-being. It was not intentional, it just was. I was confided in, worried over, instructed in the ways of womanhood-according-to-mid-20th-century-conservative-Christianity, and generally expected to understand things that were far beyond my age or emotional capacity to understand. And I was a sponge for all of it, adoring my beautiful mother and wanting to be just like her.

Only, I wasn’t her. I was me. And it’s taken a lifetime to learn how to differentiate myself from her expectations and to find the courage to be the person God designed me to be, not the person my mother wanted me to be. This is a lesson I am still learning, on this the 68th anniversary of my birth. Still.

I hope the message stopped with me. I pray the message stopped with me. I was given the immeasurable gift of two glorious daughters, just 22 months apart, and then a son 30 months later. And while they were little, I carried around with me the image given me by my mom — stay-at-home, do-the-meals-and-the-laundry, be-sure-your-husband-is-happy-and-your-children-well-behaved. But I knew very early that I did not want that hand-me-down message to come out of my mouth or out of my unspoken expectations for either of my girls. More than anything, I wanted them to be their own unique selves.

Our three kids, ages 5, 3 and 1.

I did not mother them perfectly — not even close. I loved my kids more than life, but I often felt overwhelmed by the demands of motherhood. And I often felt more than a little bit lost. I hungered for adult companionship, for creative space, for more sleep! I often felt like a complete failure, impatient, distracted, inadequate. But one thing I did well — I enjoyed the ways my children were different from me and from one another. They were fascinating to me!

Even when I felt confused, even when I wondered if they’d live to see adulthood without killing one another, even when I wanted to walk out the front door and never look back — I was intrigued by who these small people were, each one so totally themselves. Yes, I was overbearing at times and yes, I sometimes expected too much from them. But this much I knew, right into my bones: I was their mother, they were my children. I was responsible for them — they were not responsible for me.

How could they be? They weren’t me. As I look back on those years, I believe that insight was a gift of grace, given to me by God, primarily through the gift of my marriage and our experience of living far away from family during those crucial early months of our married life. It didn’t come to me from my own experience of being mothered, nor from my mother’s experience of being mothered. And I hope and pray to God that this insight is the one that I communicated to my daughters, and not the one that came to me through our mysterious system of familial osmosis.

I’ve written here and elsewhere about my abiding love and admiration for my mother and my gratitude for the ways in which she and my father created such a remarkable and rich family life for me and my brothers. But this particular piece, this expectation of reverse-mothering-for-daughters — this does not land on any gratitude list. It’s been a difficult piece of my personal story for decades and I still must intentionally shrug off the debris that remains.

So I find it more than a  little bit ironic that now, at the end of my mother’s long life, after years of my own heavy-duty reflective work on this complicated piece of our story . . . I am indeed responsible for my mother’s well-being. I have a hunch I had to un-learn my grandmother’s and my mother’s version of daughters take care of mothers in order to finally be able to do that in a whole and healthy way. Time will tell . . . and grace, too.

All of us, spring of 2012. My daughters and DIL are doing such good mothering!

Joining with Emily Wierenga’s weekly theme, this week the prompt is ‘mother.’

Filed Under: family, family tree, Marriage, parenting, personal journey, The Journey with Mom, Uncategorized

Ups & Downs, Ins & Outs – Riding the Coaster

January 23, 2013 By

Remember the old movie, “Parenthood?”
A recurrent theme in that story of growing up
was the comparison of life to a roller coaster —
and our need to follow the ups and downs,
the ins and outs,
to tolerate occasional queasiness and to
look for joy and beauty along the way.

I’m feeling those dips and swoops a lot lately,
often more than a little bit queasy from it all.
And I’m trying hard to look for the joy,
the small beauties that show up, if I have the eyes to see.

On my evening walk last Friday,
I almost missed this glory.
 The fading sunlight was hitting our neighbor’s blossoming tree at
exactly the right angle to make us gasp with delight.
Such a lovely, serendipitous moment of beauty as the weekend began.

 And these three sentinels glistened against the sky as I made my rounds,

 The next morning, I drove south to meet these three sentinels —
my mom on the left (91), her ‘baby’ sister in the middle (on her 89th birthday),
their brother on the right (90).

These three have been the heart of our family for over a decade now,
the last remaining members of the older generation.
Their mother died in 1997 at age 101, her sister eight years later at 102.
I doubt very much that these three will live that long;
all are showing signs of wear and tear, the ravages of age.
I lunched with my cousins while our parents shouted at one another
in a private dining room at my uncle’s assisted living residence.
They’re wearing ‘hearing aids’ constructed out of water bottles
and offered as a fun gift by my cousin’s kids.

It is hard to watch this process — my mom is the only one with dementia,
but the other two are dealing with much more serious physical issues than Mom is,
so who knows how long they’ll be with us?

When I got back home, 4/5ths of our middle daughter’s family
was here, ready to relax and enjoy the holiday weekend.
It’s been a while since we’ve spent extended time with these dear ones,
and we were so grateful for their presence,
for their happy and sometimes boisterous reminder of youth
and life and promise
as we deal with our aging moms.

We opted to skip church on Sunday (gasp!) and went out to breakfast instead.
Then we drove to the butterfly preserve north of our home.

 It was a gorgeous day, mid 60’s and sunny.
The trail meanders through eucalyptus groves and out onto
the bluffs just north of the UCSB campus — gloriously beautiful.

 The deep hanging clusters of monarch butterflies were not to be found this day,
perhaps because of the unseasonably warm weather.

What butterflies there were flitted all through the grove,
enjoying the sunlight.
They are such stunning creatures, these monarchs.
Brilliant orange and black,
making the long migration between Mexico and Canada every single year,
stopping all along the California coast to rest and re-group.


We followed the trail all the way out to the bluffs,
stripping jackets as we walked and gawking at the endless view
of water, sand, islands.

It is a good walk, with enough ups and downs to make it interesting
and even a tiny bit challenging in the full sun.
Kind of like life, I guess.

Turning away from the water yields a mountain view,
beautiful in its own right.
This stretch of coast is one of the last and longest undeveloped
expanses in our state and we love it.

We are blessed in our children and in our grandchildren,
and they are blessed in each other.
Even though we’ve ridden some pretty steep and scary curves together,
I’d say the ride has definitely been worth it.

It’s good to be reminded of that sweet and powerful truth
when the queasiness sets in, don’t you think?

Once Lyla helps me straighten out some formatting grinches, I’ll join this with Michelle, Jen, Laura and Ann:


 


Filed Under: family, Family/Travel, God's gifts, Grandparenting, memoir, parenting, personal journey, Photo Essay, Santa Barbara, The Grandkids, The Journey with Mom, The Sea, Uncategorized

A Triple Whammy – the Prayer in Ephesians 1: A Guest Post at Bibledude

January 16, 2013 By

Like any good letter-writer in the first century, Paul begins with words of blessing. As Dan so ably pointed out yesterday, the opening verses of this lovely letter are a single, long sentence of doxology and praise. And with his next, very large breath (again, one single sentence in the Greek!), Paul moves from blessing to thanksgiving and prayer — thanksgiving to God for these friends, and prayer for their further spiritual development.  This is the only one of Paul’s letters to contain this triple-whammy of blessing/thanksgiving/prayer, so it’s worth our time to unpack these nine verses with care.

And as we do, I find myself wondering this: what might happen if all our correspondence — letters, notes, emails, blog comments — what if all of it borrowed from Paul’s pattern in this remarkable letter. Even if we find ourselves in disagreement with a writer or a friend, even if we’re concerned about a topic or a direction taken or a decision made — what might it mean in our written conversations if we always began with blessing, thanksgiving and prayer? Maybe as this New Year continues to unfurl before us, we could make that a resolution of sorts, to offer encouraging words first and foremost. We might find that any harsher words we’re harboring simply fly away with the wind if we concentrate on the kind ones first.

And what could be kinder than letting someone know that we thank God for them? Continually thank God for them? And what could be more encouraging than to hear that we are prayed for, prayed over, prayed about? Paul tells them exactly what his prayer for them is and I really like that. . .

Today, I am privileged to be guest-posting at Bibledude.net, a site run by one of my favorite people on the planet, Mr. Dan King. Please follow me over there to read the rest of my contribution to the community commentary on the book of Ephesians?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Come to the Water. . .

January 14, 2013 By

It was a thirsty kind of day.
After three weeks of deadlines and commitments,
the last one was in sight as I backed my car out of our driveway.
I was tired yesterday morning, and nervous.
A speaking/teaching engagement loomed after worship,
at another church in town,
one whose pulse I do not know.
And I am decidedly rusty — no public speaking in over two years now.

I was due to bring cookies for the Coffee Hour today,
and those had been baked and frozen earlier in the week.

Adult Sunday School was starting up again,
and my husband surprised me by wanting to go —
a class with a literary emphasis,
looking at poetry and prose from classic and contemporary writers,
pondering together how their words might be helpful to a life of faith.

So I schlepped my usual too-much-stuff, ready for each separate event of the day:
the cookies, a bag with printed handouts and
suggested books on the topic I’d been invited to teach about,
a cup of hot tea to sip in the Sunday school class,
a tired body and a very thirsty spirit.

The class was rich and good, the teaching excellent,
the conversation lively.
And then I walked into the worship center and I knew:

All that was thirsty in me would be satisfied, satiated, slaked.

The font was front and center, down from its usual place
at the top of the chancel steps,
and the water it contained danced in the sunlight.
A glance at the bulletin showed the baptism of Jesus in Luke’s gospel
as the sermon text for the morning,
and the music . . .
Oh.My. . . the music.

Two of my favorites as we began, setting the tone for the entire
morning of worship.

“Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world.
Have mercy on us. (Alleluia) Have mercy on us. (Alleluia). Have mercy on us.
Glory be to the Father. Amen.
Glory be to the Son. Amen.
Glory be to the Spirit. Amen.”

“All who are thirsty, all who are weak, come to the fountain.
Dip your heart in the stream of life.
Let the pain and the sorrow be wash’d away
in the waves of his mercy as deep cries out to deep.
(And we sing) Come, Lord Jesus, come.” 

Listening again to that wonderful text,
those powerful words of affirmation and commission,
given from Father to Son on the banks of the Jordan River
so many centuries ago, it felt as though they were
bouncing around our sun-strewn sanctuary,
newly offered to each one of us.
“You are mine.
You are loved.
You are pleasing to me.” 

And then the invitation —

“COME TO THE WATER — it is here for you.”

And we came.
By the dozens, we came streaming down the aisles,
as the music swirled around us, singing of amazing grace and glorious freedom.

On this second Sunday of the new year, we were given the rich gift
of renewing our baptismal vows,
together,
in worship.
Our pastors read them for us,
we responded firmly with, “We do!”
And then we walked to the front,
to the font,
and we got wet.

Swishing our hands through the cool, clear water,
a finger or a fist,
making the sign of the cross or not,
touching the hand of another coming into the water
from a different direction,
we did this together.
We remembered who we are,
We remembered where we belong,
And we marked ourselves once again with the Water of Life.

Which was exactly what this weary woman needed today.

The speaking/teaching thing went . . . well, it went.
And it was all right. It wasn’t perfect, but it was all right.
And then on my way back home,
I stopped for just a few minutes,
and I came to the water one more time
before heading up the hill.
I came to the primordial waters this time,
the ones that call my name and speak to me of the
immensity of our God.
I sat and stared,
I said, “Thank you!”
I shut my eyes and breathed deeply.

And I went home feeling loved and no longer thirsty.

I have not yet figured out how to embed videos into WordPress. But I have managed to get a link or two here! If you click on this link, you will hear our opening song, as sung by the worship team at Westmont College, which is just up the street from our church. I think our worship director helped arrange the strings that are added to this beautiful rendition. Click on over and then, leave the music playing as you browse the internet. It’s a lovely piece, taken directly from the liturgy of the Catholic mass.
And this is a short, a cappella version of the second song of the morning.

“All Who Are Thirsty”

 

Joining this tonight with Michelle, Jen, Ann and Laura.


 

Filed Under: biblical reflection, Church, church year, community, Encouragement, God's gifts, hope, Music, personal journey, Santa Barbara, The Church, The Sea, Uncategorized, worship

Five Minute Friday: Dive

January 11, 2013 By

It’s been far too long since I’ve done this and I miss it!

Jump into free writing with the rest of us who sign on over at Lisa-Jo’s place each Friday – set your timer and write without editing for five minutes on a single word prompt. Check out the rest of the entries by clicking on over to see who’s shown up for The Gypsy Mama’s party this week:

Five Minute Friday

So. . . the word this week is

DIVE

GO:

I remember standing on the edge of the pool, dripping wet,
ridiculous bathing cap pinching my head,
hands clasped in front of me, knees knocking.
“Come on in,” everyone shouted.
“Just put your hands together over your head,
lean over and let those hands lead the way.
Your body will just follow along.”
I tried. I really did try.
But I could not get over the fear of leaving the ground, head first.
My feet would not let go of the concrete. No way, no how.

So, I never did learn to dive. No, I never did.

And I’m sorry, in a way. And relieved, in another, very different way.
I’m sorry that physical risks are too much for me a lot of the time.
No swaying bridges, rock walls, high ledges, or even terribly crowded elevators.
Uh-uh, no way Jose. Not.Gonna.Happen.

But I have managed to find courage in other arenas from time to time in my life.
In fact, I do believe I have a bit of an adventure-seeking gene somewhere,
lurking about.
I stood on the deck of a freighter, all of 21 years old and newly married,
and I could not wait for that boat to move out of the harbor and travel across the sea.
I gathered my wits and my nerves,
which were scattered across about five years of wondering,
and walked into the admissions office of Fuller Seminary
(with about four of my closest friends, for moral support!)
and dropped my application in the slot.
I moved away from friends of twenty years, a community I loved
and which nurtured me for a long, long time
to take a job in a brand-new place with people I did not know.

All of those things were scary as heck.
And my feet left the ground, without a backward glance.
Now I’m diving into this writing life, scared sometimes, uncertain all the time,
but believing that the God who holds my hand also lifts my feet
and leads me right into the water.
STOP

Formatting and photos added after the 5 minutes of free writing.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Booked! – A Guest Post at Ed’s Place

January 4, 2013 By

Delighted and honored to be posting over at Ed Cyzewski’s wonderful holiday meme – picking THREE, just three non-fiction Christian book favorites. There are about 20 I could have put out without thinking at all, but choosing just three? That took a while. Come on over and see what rose to the top for me as this new year turns. . .

Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Song Goes On. . . A Deeper Family

January 3, 2013 By

As Christmas day came to a close, she sat transfixed, leaning forward, her face turned full into the open bell of the grand piano. Hands clasped, tired body at attention, she listened with every ounce of energy she could muster, working to sift out the sounds of a Chopin nocturne from the hubbub of happy family noises. Sounds that rolled into the room and surrounded her, flung there by the nimble fingers of her 18-year-old great-grandson.

This very piano once belonged to her husband and had filled their home with music every day, sometimes for hours at a time – beautiful music of all kinds, from Beethoven to Sondheim to self-styled hymn arrangements to medleys of 1940’s big band favorites. Music was part of the air we breathed when I grew up in that house. It flowed from the piano, or came through the speakers of a home-built hi-fi set. Whether coming from my father’s large hands on the keyboard, or from the vinyl long-play records my dad regularly checked out of the local music library, we were surrounded with melody.

In our 21st century culture of instant downloads, pocket-sized music machines and oh-so-private listening, it is sometimes hard to imagine living spaces serving as concert halls for entire families, but that is what we enjoyed in our home. I had my own small collection of 45 records, but more often than not, I chose to listen to the music my dad provided.

Please follow me over to A Deeper Family today, for my monthly contribution to that fine space. . . Mom and me in 1947, just before I turned two and my brother Tom was born.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Come On In!

January 1, 2013 By

My New Year’s Eve view as I walked last evening.

WELCOME TO MY NEW HOME!

Today’s the day – a brand new year and a brand new space!

My deep thanks to Lyla Lindquist for all the behind the scenes work, design skills and kind expertise as I shift from Blogger to WordPress. I’m a newbie here, so please forgive any formatting errors as I try my hand at writing in this space.

I’m loving the way it looks and slowly getting used to the way it works.

Please, kick off your shoes and take a look around. You’ll find some things that are familiar (like all my old posts, links to social media and buttons from places where I write and read) and some things that are new (like a button of my very own, featuring my backyard garden fairy, a beautiful new banner and a new address,  something my technologically proficient son-in-law has been begging me to do for about two years now.

Today’s post also marks something of a milestone in my own blogging history:

THIS IS #500

Yes, indeed – I’ve written 500 posts, most of those in the last two years. I’ve always had a love affair with words, but 500 posts? Who knew? So, in keeping with the turn of the calendar page and with fingers stretched both backward into the year just past and forward into this brand new one, shimmering out there in the future, I thought I’d do a little research and see which posts in 2012 received the most ‘looks.’ I’m not a place where lots of people leave comments. This is a low traffic site, but there were several posts that got a little bit more attention than the others in the year just past. And, true to form, the one topping the list was a guest post, from Laura Oyer as she and Megan Tietz took a blog tour as part of the second wave of promotion for their wonderful book, “Spirit-Filled Parenting.”

Coming in right after that as the Top Ten for 2012 were these:

1. A post I wrote for Rachel Held Evans’ synchro blog on mutuality, in which I told the story of our marriage and my call to ministry.

2. My contribution to the community Bible commentary series on 1 John over at Bibledude’s place,

3. One of my personal favorites – a prayer with photos last August.

4. A tribute post to my friend, Lucille Peterson Johnston written in August.

5. A letter to my teen-aged self, part of Emily Freeman’s wonderful invitation that so many bloggers participated in.

6. This one was part of a larger discussion between two blog posts over at A Deeper Story – mine on my call to ministry and Emily Wierenga’s wonderings about feminism – such an interesting ‘coincidental’ pairing that I thought we both handled exceptionally well. Here’s the link to my commentary on that, which includes a link to both of our posts.

7. In November I wrote about rainclouds and wildfires, looking briefly at my mom’s journey with dementia. There will be other posts on that topic as we walk this long road together.

8. And coming in just after the one above is a second post about my mom – this one with a link to Rachel Held Evans’ Women of Valor series.

9. I just finished a 24 day Advent series and one of those posts landed on this list – the one about the single red leaf.

10. And rounding out this list is yet another December post, this one in celebration of our 47th wedding anniversary, I wrote this post for A Deeper Family.

And that’s what people looked at in the year just past.

I wonder what will catch the eye, the heart in 2013?

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