Unfortunately, I think I'm now an adult

And now, for Part 2! (if you're not up to speed on part 1, it can be found here and I recommend that you wait at least a day after reading it to reflect before you come back to this post) So, for the most part, the entirety of this followup was drafted a couple weeks ago, just after the first one. The lectionary that Sunday held perfect inspiration and grounding. Unfortunately, I didn't actually get time to sit down and write this up until now owing to life happening.  So, Yay! My sister is married!! And also yay, things have calmed down enough for me to get back to writing. Part 1 intentionally left off with some hard issues to face and some (hopefully) thought provoking questions to assess. The primary metaphor was of the body, and how the church, both corporately and by individual members, tends to self-amputate.  While General Convention might go a lot smoother if the group was more homogeneous, I know it would not be healthier or stronger as a church.  The probl...

**WARNING** long distance communication of emotion and meaning is tricky, so I've added animated pictures (.gif files) to this post.  If you are on mobile or subscribed via email, you may have some trouble seeing these important components of this post. So for starters, I now have both a ticket AND a visa (I hear that's the winning combo)! No better way to celebrate than with PENGUIN GIFS! For seconders, I'm not only getting more excited, but massive amounts of panic are setting in, too. This is in large part due to having become much more type A than I realized over the past few years (sorry, it was the one thing I didn't keep track of; it sneaked up on me), and in slightly smaller part due to me taking on what looks to now be an excessive amount of belongings throughout my lifetime for someone who has never actually lived on her own (again, how did that happen?--not the living situation, the stuff).  Much like loading the dishwasher, I expect my suitc...

So in the last post, I babbled a little bit about the Original Call; mentioned some wisdom about characteristics of a Spiritual call; and gave you a story about my first call. So now, after all that setup, we're ready to talk about every Episcopalian's favorite thing: discerning a call, and responding to a call!  (I can almost hear the cringe from some of the former congregants I've known, and a cheer from others) For a group often jokingly referred to as "The Frozen Chosen" the stereotype tends to follow the lines of: I'll do as I'm called, as long as my call lets me stay in my pew.  Let me tell you, there lies danger in pews, and not just because I routinely stub my foot on the rogue kneelers.  So let me elaborate a bit about these pitfall in the Jeff Foxworthy style: If, by the 5th reading at the Easter Vigil, you bottom gets a bit sore, you're not meant to stay in the pew. If you ever look around and think you might want to get to know your ...

Once again, I'm woefully late with this.  I'm starting to think I should just never plan to write here again, that way I'll be way ahead of schedule next time I do.  Anyways, it's been a couple weeks since part 1 went on the book, and the meal plan and exercising is going pretty well.  I'm losing weight, but more importantly I feel better.  I have more energy (fewer naps needed) and am more consistently upbeat than before.  Plus, I'm currently winning the competition, so that doesn't suck either. Last post had just barely touched the topic of how the spiritual and physical interact on a personal and body image level.  Let's be honest, American culture sends a lot of really messed up messages to girls and women about themselves.  Whether it's the "damsel in distress" trope or just the photoshop augmented images held up as standards, there's a lot of really crappy stuff thrown our way.  Every single female I've ever known has gone t...