writing – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

Invitation to Conversation and Discernment

Posted on May 29, 20131 Comment

Hi folks,

This year at our Iowa Annual Conference one of our major topics of discussion will be the vision, mission, and strategic priorities of our Iowa Conference.

As part of getting people across the conference to think/pray/discern where we are heading with this document, I’m hoping YOU might think and write about the document this next week. I want to invite you to prayerfully read the full document and craft your response. If you blog, let me know where and when your post shows up! If you don’t blog, I would love to invite you to be a guest on my blog and will share your responses.

In this exercise, some questions we might wrestle with are:

What kind of difference would this make in the Iowa Annual Conference?
What are the obstacles to passing the vision/mission/priorities?
What are the obstacles to living them out?
What are some lingering questions you have or places you feel led to push back?
What excites you? What inspires you? What stirs your soul so that you can’t wait to get started?
What are we missing?

Up front disclosure: I was on the writing team for this project and have spent a lot of time invested in the work. It’s not perfect. It isn’t even really finished… that will happen on the floor of the Annual Conference as we adopt the priorities and then work to perfect the goals as a legislative body… and even then, we are creating a working document. I’m hopeful and prayerful that God truly is leading us outside of our old structures and into a new reality – focused on relationship, mission, discipleship, and life in our community. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have and/or talk about where I’m still struggling!!!

I’m not looking for your approval, but your deep engagement and conversation… and to invite those who respond in your own circles to do the same. I want us to be as informed, prepared, and above all SPIRIT LED as we get to the actual conversations on the floor of annual conference as we can be. And that takes connection and holy conversation.

PLEASE seek out others who are writing and read and interact with their thoughts and responses!

PLEASE invite others to blog also! And if you have friends/colleagues/church members/neighbors who don’t blog, invite them to write a guest post for your blog to broaden the engagement!

All in all… thank you. And let me know when you post next week so I can link your posts and share them broadly.

All Shall Be Well,

Katie Z.

p.s. I hope this might be the start of deeper connection among the bloggers in our conference, as well!

Prayers from the ego

Posted on February 18, 2013Leave a comment

Jesus and the devil have a contest of wills in the desert (Luke 4:1-13). At one point, “the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority.'” (4:5-6, NRSV)

… the devil said to Jesus, “All of this can be all about you.”

In your prayer-writing today, wrestle with God against the temptation to see life as “all about you.”

Breathe in God.
Breathe out my tendency to waste time.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out my doubts and regrets.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out fretting over my figure.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out the dirty dishes on the counter.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out the successes I had this week.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out my ambitions.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out tunnel-vision of a busy day.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out a selfish definition of “busy”

Breathe in God.
Breathe out time spent talking when I should have been listening.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out the stuff that fills my cupboards.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out goals and dreams.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out tomorrow’s to-do list.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out what I want people to think of me.

Breathe in God.
Breathe out me.

Gradually, may I be filled with what you desire. May I decrease as you increase.
Breathe in God.
Breathe out me.

Prayers from the wreckage

Posted on February 14, 2013Leave a comment

I’ve been following the Lenten prayer prompts from Faith and Water for these forty days. I’m a bit late and doing some catch-up, but the spirit is there.

Isaiah 10:21 (NRSV): “A remnant will return, the remnant of Jacob, to the mighty God.”

Life breaks us into pieces. To those seasons of our lives, Isaiah brings amazing good news: God only needs pieces to rebuild the whole.

Holy God. Whole-ly God.
There is a shattered place.
A land at war.
A house divided.

Brother turns against brother.
Neighbors who are anything but.
Broken remnants of relationship are all that remain.

God, I know my part.
I know my silence.
I know my anger.
I know my action and my inaction.
I have watched it fall apart and have felt helpless to stop it.

Maybe what I’m feeling is what the sons and daughters of Jacob felt so long ago.
Broken.
Confused.
Angry.
Scared.
Looking at all the land… crumbling around them.

A remnant will return.
Pieces are enough.
Whole-ly God, you take our broken pieces and make us whole.
You take this broken world and create life.
You speak good news into our midst.

Help me, O God, to hear a word of hope.
Help us to see light in the darkness.
Help us to pick up broken pieces.

Show us where to begin.

Friday Five: Blogging of yesteryears

Posted on July 1, 20113 Comments

I… like quite a few other folks who read the prompt this morning on RevGalBlogPals.blogspot.com have decided to get back into the game. here are the questions, and here are my responses…

1) Have your blogging (writing/reading) habits shifted since the days of yore?

Photo By: Kriss Szkurlatowski

Absolutely. There were days that I was posting something every single day. I’d get home from work and the thoughts would be reeling and I’d hop on my computer and post something. Or I’d wake up in the middle of the night and run to my computer and post something. They were sometimes funny, sometimes simple, sometimes deep, but I was doing it regularly. My reading was definately more sporadic… usually whatever popped up at the top of my google reader page… so the more you posted, the more I read you.

Lately, my blogging has NOT been a habit at all. It’s something I do when I have nothing else to do and it’s still “work time.” At home, I have to cook, clean, garden, and sometimes I’m just exhausted. I miss the processing time that more regular blogging gave me.

2) Do you have some favorites that you miss?

The bloggers I miss most are my food bloggers… Bread and Honey was an absolute favorite for me and the posts are more sporadic. I also haven’t done the best at staying in touch with others that aren’t listed here.

3) Are there some blogs you still put in the ‘must read’ category?

I think most of my favorite theology/ecclesiology writers are still regular bloggers. John Munier @ An Arrow Through the Air, Jay Voorhees @ Only Wonder Understands, Dan Dick @ United Methodeviations, Jessica Kelley @ the Parsonage Family, Matthew Kelley @ The Truth as Best I Know It, Kristin @ Halfway to Normal

4) If we gathered at your knee, what would you tell us about those early days of blogging?

I started with things like livejournal, and I’m not sure that I ever cared very much about comments. But then I began to see that blogging can be a conversation and a relationship with other people over the things that we write about. And I have been a very bad friend lately.

5) Do you have a clip or a remembrance of a previous post of yours or someone else’s that you remember, you know an oldie but goodie?

for your perusing pleasure, a link to an early post, and the first post after my introduction to RevGals… I think I chose this one because it brings up the kinds of questions that I try to ask on my blog, and also because it was one of those moments when I knew I had found something special with the community at RevGals… It is also a reminder for me that I really do need to start doing this more regularly.

Taking Authority

Posted on January 10, 20112 Comments

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In her book Reframing Hope: Vital Ministry in a New Generation, Carol Howard Merritt discusses the “diffusion of authority,” the empowerment of the fringes, and the “celebration of noncelebrity” in her chapter on Redistributing Authority.

As I read those words, I began to feel a strange sense of validation for what I am doing. I have a voice. I have the ability to write. I have a conversation that I want to start. I want to participate. But I don’t want to do it alone.

This whole blogging adventure has been, fundamentally, about maintaining the connections with colleagues and schools of thought that have fed my theological and ecclesiastical development. It is about hanging on tightly to those threads of tradition that have sustained my faith. It is about picking up pieces scrapped by others, deemed unworthy, and trying to figure out what we need to hear about God from them.

And at times, it seems silly.

At times, I find myself floundering around, trying to make sense of the world around me.

At times, I’m wrestling by myself with questions that have no real answers.

At times, I feel a little overwhelmed by the system and all of the things that I am supposed to do, all of the details of ministry.

At times, I really do not have the time to be a part of this kind of time intensive dialogue.

At times, I don’t have the energy to fight the man and to call out the parts of our tradition and practice that trouble me.

And at times, I really really really want to share something and it’s not appropriate to do so yet. Not enough time and space has passed to allow the insights of a particular experience to be shared.

So I give up here and there. I flounder. I don’t claim the authority I do have. I feel that what I’m doing here is not really very important.

But then, today, I find myself surrounded by colleagues in ministry at an orders event and suddenly my name is called out for all to hear. Someone has pointed to my blog as a place where vital theological reflection by United Methodists is being done.

And I feel humbled.

And a little embarassed.

And more than a little encouraged to keep doing what I am doing.

To take authority.

To keep writing.

To keep thinking.

To continue the conversation.

To accept that although I may be a young pastor, a small town pastor, someone on the fringe, someone who hasn’t yet put in my years, that I still have something worthy to say.

To give myself space and permission to keep writing.

A Writer? #reverb10

Posted on December 16, 2010Leave a comment

I’m not sure that I really consider myself a writer.

Or at least, I haven’t considered it before.

When I make a list of hobbies and things I like to do, writing never makes an appearance.

When I talk about the things that I am good at, I have never thought to include writing.

But, dammit, I am a good writer! (or should that be “I write well” – ugh – I have never claimed to be an expert grammatically, and probably never will)

Over the last three years as a pastor, I have probably written more pages worth of thoughts than I did my entire college career. I wrote a lot in seminary – so I probably haven’t overcome that work yet… but I’m getting there!

It is a completely different sort of writing, however. I’m writing not for a teacher and not an academic paper, but I am writing for an audience. I am writing things that are meant to be read. I am writing things that I read/preach out loud – writing that becomes spoken and heard by many. I write for everyday folks. I write to make connections with other people and to bring things to life. And besides the sermon writing I do – and many times I would include sermons, also – I write because it brings me enjoyment.

And I love doing it. I love bringing together different sorts of situations and concepts and making connections. I love telling some one’s story – whether it is someone in scripture or a stranger who has passed away. I love to write! I AM A WRITER!!!

So when I think about the prompt for December 2:

Writing. What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?(Author: Leo Babauta)

I think first and foremost that I do (did) not believe I am a writer.

And if I don’t think of myself as a writer on a daily basis, then I do not practice my craft. I don’t work on it. I don’t give myself time to write. I see it as something in the background, rather than a central part of who I am.

I have tried at various times to be a musician and a chef and an artist and to play guitar and to sing and what not… some of those things I can do – and am getting better at doing the more I do it. But I think if I look at all of those things, nothing really gives me the kind of satisfaction that I receive when I sit down and let my thoughts pour out. None of them have allowed me to connect with other people the way that my writing does.

What I appreciate the most about this whole reverb10 enterprise is the fact that I am discovering so much about myself. I’m letting go of doubts and self-denial and I’m just taking the risk. I’m putting it out there. And it feels so freakin’ good to say it!

I am a writer! And I can’t wait to see where this realization takes me.

do I want to be a blogger?

Posted on February 2, 20101 Comment

Maybe you’ve noticed I haven’t had a lot of posts recently. Maybe you never really paid attention in the first place so you don’t really care. Either way, I’ve been kind of taking a break from it all for a bit to think about what this whole blogging thing is about, for me, anyways.

I think when I started this blog, it was a progression from other random attempts at journaling in the past. I never actually kept a paper journal, unless you count the random one time-entries that I have posted in about half a dozen notebooks throughout my house (that I now use for taking notes when meeting with families for funerals). But in college, I started using livejournal because my friends were doing it. And I would write and think about being in a long distance relationship and how frustratingly wonderful and terrible it was. sometimes it was fairly emo. I never really cared if people read it – mostly it was for me. I was out there – people could read it if they wanted to – but that’s not what it was really about.

At somepoint, I stopped using livejournal and for the life of me, I can’t remember what I did in between. I had a lot of wonderful men and women around me during that time, so there were probably lots of other places to vent/discuss

This blog started in seminary as I was trying to navigate the waters of my faith. There were certainly things that I wanted to wrestle with and process and save and think about and some of that I wanted to do with other people. And I was preparing to leave a very supportive community and head into ministry all by my lonesome. So, I jumped on the blogger.com bandwagon and away I went.

The question that keeps coming up for me though, is what is this for? Is it simply an online journal? a place to express my thoughts? Or is the goal of this to build connections with others and to have community? Is the goal to create a network of people I can think with and wrestle with?

If it’s the second of those two options, then I’m not serving my task very well. JoPa Productions put out an article about how to build up readers for your blog – which isn’t so much about numbers, but about how to connect with more people. And the simple fact of typing something and putting it out there isn’t going to make that happen. It doesn’t happen in ministry that way either – just by announcing something doesn’t mean anyone is going to show up – it takes personal invitation and the building of relationships.

I haven’t done very much of that at all with this whole blogging thing. I’m kind of doing my own thing – casually reading others here and there as I have time. I’m not putting a whole lot of effort into building relationships, so I shouldn’t be surprised if no one comes knocking on the door.

I was a lot better at this whole thing a year and a half ago, but life has gotten in the way. Ironically, the more I need this kind of deep thinking theological community, the farther away I have pushed it.

So it’s a turning point for me. Do I keep doing what I’m doing, occasionally journaling here and there? Or do I take a step and put in the effort to build the support network? Do I make sure that I take an hour or two every day to read the work of others and engage them in their thoughts? Do I strive to post something that I’m wrestling with on a more regular basis so that I can seek the wisdom and advice and creativity of others?

I think deep down, I really do value this kind of networked organic community. I like the fact that I can build relationships and talk about common problems with people half a world away. I just need to stop being lazy.