Weekly post

Monday, Aug. 1, 2005
Back after a week of very relaxing vacation. I got the foundation laid for a new sermon, my husband was forcibly removed by a distance of several hundred miles from his lab, the children had fun, and a good time was had by all. The location was a beach house on a tiny tip of land on Chesapeake Bay, very remote and very quiet. Grand! Very renewing and healing.
Last week I got the chance to pre-register fot my very first class -- The Art of Ministry I for the fall semester. I know the instructor slightly -- it's a small school -- and her introductory material sounds at once sensible and challenging, speaking to ritual, community, faith and service.
Soon, in just a couple of weeks, it will be time for school supplies, bus schedules, and a whole shift in morning routines. "You can't go back to school too," my daughter informed me. "You're too old!" Well, I am a good 15 years older than many seminarians who enter straight from college. However, of the 45 or so students in my entering class, six are between ages 37 and 45, so I'm not the only one going out on a limb -- the theme for this year's orientation.
The sermon, to be preached next week, is on I Kings 19:9-8. When we order our lives toward movement, how to we allow the still, small voice to bring in the presence of God?
Grace and peace,
Beth