being: word-happy

Is having four, yes, FOUR, blogs a tip-off that I like writing and words and writing words?

In a word: Yes. I do.

I enjoy reading great prose and reading well-thought-out thoughts and wish, wish, WISH I could write like those so gifted.

So, I write in my blogs. This is the fourth of four.

I love words!

Every once in a while, several of us "get going," creating a thread of emails that usually is spontaneous, light-hearted and downright funny. Here's one that just happened today. Makes me smile. MAKES ME SMILE BIG.

I love words. I am word-happy.

being: thankful

I just wrote a posting on one of my other blogs about my sister, Ruth, and giving thanks for her presence in my life.

I guess my friend, Carol, and my conversation is still swirling around in my head about life as a gift. I can embrace that completely and, ... as a corollary to that, acknowledge my sister as a gift as well.

As the recipient of a profoundly generous gift, I want to acknowledge the gift, celebrate not only the gift but the gift-giver too, and thank the gift-giver for the generosity of the gift.

Being: theology and a small, insistent voice

A small, insistent voice told me to call my pastor friend, Carol, today. So I did.

Carol and I have known one another since 1984, the year that she came to East Lansing to serve as a campus pastor at the church I attended.

She gave me the names of two books which I may ask Santa for; both are by the esteemed theologian, Douglas John Hall.

The first title is Bound and Free; A Theologian's Journey which talks about life as a gift. We were talking about life as something to be "consumed" and how unappealing a verb that is. Carol mentioned that Hall speaks of being good stewards of that which is a gift, life. I'm intrigued.

The second title is Why Christian? People on the Edge of Faith (or something close to that) which, I presume, was her gentle nudging of me to seek and find a spiritual community with which I can participate.

As more than just a few people have told me, I probably should have studied theology. I positively LOVE reading theology.

And that is a "being" part of me, not a "doing" part.

Doing: busyness

One of the things that I suspect may impede my spiritual journey is my busyness. I tend to engage in more busyness than may be good for me. Yes. Truly.

For example, spending time on the computer. Blogging. Sometimes ... many times, computer time feels like something fun to do, something I want to do, but it also has an element of busyness to it. What is that all about?

Is spending time surfing on the internet, reading blogs, even blogging myself -- is that akin to (sharp intake of breath) watching TV???!?

Let's observe this, you and me, shall we?

Being: spiritual, part I

I believe that I am a spiritual being. I believe that we are all spiritual beings. Some of us have more awareness of that, some of us have less.

I believe in a Divine Creator. I also like the paradigm of a Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer although I have more of a problem with the word, Redeemer. That implies that somehow we are broken and need God to "repair" us and make us whole again.

I definitely believe that God creates us and everything around us.

I definitely believe that God sustains us, whether it is the oxygen-rich atmosphere that blankets our little world, the sun rising every morning or the involuntary pumping of our hearts, enabling our every breath and movement. Who but God could do such miraculous and marvelous sustaining activities?

I'll write more later.

Doing: piano playing (second post of Merry Dragon)

Good morning, world! It's Saturday morning, probably my favorite morning of the week, I'm home among the pine trees and with my sweetheart. All is well with my world!

I played the piano this morning. That is definitely an important part of who I am.

I'm working on the Second Prelude of the Bach's English Suites. I think it's in the key of G-minor(?)

And ... I am writing this post from Writely once again, testing out the software. I think I might like this.

Who am I?

I happened to catch Oprah earlier this week. The theme of her show was recovering your true inner self.

I've created this blog (my fourth!) as a stealth blog so that I can post about this who-am-I stuff.

We'll see how it goes.

By the way, Merry Dragon used to be the name of my blog over at Squarespace. While I wasn't crazy about Sq~~~~, I was crazy about the name. I felt compelled to recover it!