The CEB Women’s Bible

First things first, I love The CEB Women’s Bible. It is not simply a re-covered study Bible with “women’s” in the title put out by whatever Christian publisher you may want to name who has done that kind of thing. Since there are publishers who have done that kind of thing, I wish there was a way to distinguish The CEB Women’s Bible from those kinds of Bibles. I don’t have a better name. Everything I can think of would push away the very women I want to draw nearer so I am stuck doing the very best I can to give as much “good word” as I can.

What makes this different? To state the obvious: all of the Editors and contributors are women. Many of them hold PhDs. Several of them are PhD candidates. Some of them are Pastors serving churches. The front matter explains better than I can who they all are. That their Study Notes will be different than a “re-cover” does not go without saying; there are things to say!

The next thing that only shows if you look for it is that there is a variety of denominations represented. Not everyone bothers to read the front matter of the Study Bibles being carried around from Bible Study to Bible Study. The front matter discloses who writes the Study Notes. The variety of denominations, the academic training, pastoral experience, and the expectation of women reading the notes shows in the study notes. The CEB Women’s Study Bible hasn’t given up the academic notes. It does both! From the very beginning of Genesis the tone is set with the book introduction, reflections, sidebar articles, and portraits.

There are portraits are not necessarily more information about the Biblical character. The portrait may be a reflection influenced by a certain Biblical woman or something to consider regarding a particular woman’s situation. All woman, named and unnamed, are indexed in the back both with Biblical reference and page number if there is a reflection for her. They are also indexed in Biblical order. The detail of having all the indexes is thoughtful, thorough, and helpful.

A devotional guide based on Lectionary Readings is included. There are reflection questions for one scripture for each week of the Lectionary for the whole three year cycle.

When it comes to topics that are hard, The CEB Women’s Study Bible does not duck. Adultery, Divorce, Rape are all handled authentically, Biblically, and pastorally. The topics are placed in context. The index helps with looking up topics if needed for a ready reference. Adultery and Divorce are on facing pages in Matthew and pair well together. The entry on Rape is across from the portrait of The Levite’s Secondary Wife both in Judges 19. Neither of these contributors avoid the violence of this text. The weakness of this Study Bible is the soft pedal by the contributor regarding the violence, rape, and portrayal of God in the minor prophets of Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and Haggai. At minimum, I would have liked for her to have given a cross reference to pp. 316-317 (Judge 19) where no one ducked the hard topics. Overall, that is the exception and should not be held against the whole.

The maps in the back are excellent. What I appreciate most is having maps stay the same scale over periods of time for comparison sake (map 14 Jerusalem (David & Solomon) Map 15 Jerusalem Jesus).

The CEB Women’s Bible is a terrific resource! I received a free copy in exchange for a review. I am glad to have this Bible in my library and will not hesitate to recommend it to others. You can purchase it on Amazon here

#cebwomensbible

Father’s Day

Skip (Daddy) and Sarah (6 months)

My favorite teacher was not a teacher of elementary or secondary school. He didn’t assign Robert Frost’s poetry or genetics.

My favorite teacher taught me measurable things, such as, how to say the alphabet, how to count, and how to tie my shoes. But he also taught me immeasurable things. He taught me to take the untraveled road. He taught me that eye color, hair color, and skin color were just a way to keep name with the people they belonged to. He taught me to listen, not to the “what” of a person, but to the “who.”

Everything he taught me, he taught by example. He sang the alphabet song with me until I could say it without music or his help. We counted my fingers and his fingers until I didn’t need fingers to count on. He taught me to do right and take the untraveled road by taking it himself. He taught me the “what” of a person isn’t important by treating people like people. He taught me to listen to the “who” of a person by listening to me, not as a child but, as a person, and by listening to a quadriplegic, not as someone helpless but, as a person.

My favorite teacher was my father. Because my parents divorced, I only lived with my father on a day-to-day basis for six and one half years. For six years after the divorce, I only saw him for a weekend, at first on a regular schedule, and later the visits were fewer and father apart. When I was twelve, my father moved to California and I only got to talk to him on the phone once in a while, until he died when I was fifteen.

Every school teacher that taught me built onto the foundation that my father laid. I can read and understand Robert Frost because of my father teaching me the alphabet and to take the untraveled road. I can study genetics and know that it makes up the “what” of a person, but be able to hear the “who” because of my father — my favorite teacher.

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I found the above essay written for “Into to Education” in a folder of writings I have kept. It is dated Jan 21. I think it had to be 1986. Sister Cornine wrote on it “You write well!”

One of my early memories on one of the weekends with my dad was at Emmanuel Baptist Church way out in the country where my dad was the Music Minister. We often saw deer as we traveled the small twisty road in the early morning as the mist rose. I was standing in the front of the church singing for all I was worth, signing the words my dad had taught me, while he played the piano, and sang counterpoint to “O How He Loves You and Me.” Now when I hear the contemporary “O How He Loves Us” all of that comes flooding back to me.

My dad was also the first gay man I ever knew. He helped shape and form me as the Christian I am today. I know about God’s love, in part, because one of my first examples was watching my dad love his neighbor as himself.

I came back from CTCYM (Central Texas Conference Youth in Mission), where I was pretty much out of touch, to hear fully about what happened in Orlando. We Christians can’t let hate and fear have louder voices than love and grace. To quietly stand by talking about how sad it is for people die like that is not good enough. It is too much like those in the parable of the Good Samaritan who kept walking. There are people in danger! In both metaphorical and literal ways, we must step in and take care of them! We have to tend the wounds and stop the bleeding. We must keep people safe. People are people regardless of anything else. As Christians, we are called to care for one another.

I can’t help but think about my dad’s example on this Father’s Day. My dad knew God’s love. He showed God’s love. I learned about God’s love from watching him treat people as people. O how God loves you and me. We have to use more than our words to show God’s love.

Prayer of Confession

I wrote and prayed this Prayer of Confession tonight. While I was on mission trip last week Rev. Dr. Andy Mangum, Pastor, First Christian Church, Arlington, Texas called asking me to participate in the prayer vigil. Andy is a dear friend and colleague in ministry, he knows I’ll say “yes” to him if my calendar is open. He’s also the one who gave me the Prayer of Confession. There were 7 ministers and the Mayor of Arlington with a Community Choir and Praise Dancers.

“Rising From the Tragedy” (Churches of Arlington) Prayer Vigil for Mother Emanuel AME Church, June 22, 2015 @ 7:00 pm, College Park Center, University of Texas at Arlington

Prayer of Confession

by Rev. Dr. Sarah E. Howe Miller, Ph. D., Pastor, UMC of the Covenant

O God we confess that we have failed to love you with our whole hearts. We have not done your will. We have been more willing to pray prayers of confession than to love our neighbors as ourselves. We confess that we have not been willing to use our voices and our power to bring about racial justice and equality for our sisters and brothers so all of your children can be safe and valued without regard for their skin color or neighborhood or the building where they worship. We confess that we have jumped to conclusions about mental status or religious upbringing without regard to facts in evidence allowing the media to spin us based on race.

O God, we are praying people but we want to be people who put our prayers into action. Send your Holy Spirit to convict us of our complacency and move us to use the power we do have on behalf of those who need to be heard. Help us raise the voices of those who have been ignored or silenced for too long. We cannot sit by while our sisters and brothers continuously suffer and die. Call us out of our pews and our churches where we pray for peace and make us peacemakers. Put us into action.

O God, let us be the ones who work with You so that “justice rolls like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24) Let us be the bearers of grace and mercy with love written on our hearts. Let us be the healers of suffering and pain with humbleness born of sorrow. Let us be the partners of equality and justice with respect for those weary from the fight.

O God may the call of the prophets for justice so long ago resound within us so we turn toward you working to dismantle systemic racism, working to bring justice, continuing the work you have already begun, joining our voices with those already speaking and shouting. May our tears of grief and our prayers for comfort accompany those of Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church and all those affected by the shooting knowing that we are the Body of Christ joined with the great Cloud of Witnesses who have gone before us.

O God, we give you thanks for all the ways you give us strength in our weakness, comfort in our sorrow, and hope in our times of grief and loss. You are our Rock and our Fortress. We do not need to be afraid knowing that you are an ever present help. We lift up this prayer with the assurance of your grace and forgiveness through the gift of your Son and the power of your Holy Spirit. Amen.

Mimi

The advantage of waiting to tell a family story until you are back at your home away from the rest of the extended family is you get to tell it your way without their corrections. And those who know me best know that I usually tell stories better my way anyway … so here’s my version of some of the story. I’m sure I’ll come up with more later.

Before we had cameras on our phones, it was always a surprise to see what the pictures would be when they came back. There’s a picture on my Facebook feed from 1979 with Mimi laughing and Grandpa’s look of adoration is priceless. Everyone should be loved with that kind of immeasurable love.

Before Mimi retired, Grandpa would get up, start the coffee, go out and milk the cows, feed the animals in the feed lot, come back in, and bring Mimi her coffee in bed. After she retired, he would ask her if she wanted her coffee in bed or at the kitchen table. Grandpa died in 1989 and she missed him everyday. As someone who has studied grief, I honestly don’t think she had complicated grief. I think she simply had longing. Who wouldn’t when you had someone who brought you coffee in bed and adored you? Grandpa and Mimi had invested in each other and the community in which they lived. Everywhere she went and looked were reminders of him and their shared life and love. She wasn’t refusing to invest in each new day. She did that. She made new friends even at the “retirement” center. And protested God leaving her here because she had done everything she needed to do even while she continued to influence those who cared for her with her faith.

Mimi had the uncanny gift of simultaneously being able to find the cloud in every silver lining and lifting the gifts and blessings of God in life. She knew about suffering all her life since her mother died when she was 12 and she was the oldest. Even though her father moved all of them, her and her brothers and sister to live with her grandmother, she took the responsibility to raise them all very seriously. Mimi had a touch of TB when she was 14. They put her in the attic with the window open and froze it. The snow came in on the quilts and blankets where she slept as they worked to save her. She ended up with two small spots on her lungs for the rest of her 97 years.

Her first husband died of a heart attack when her youngest son was still in high school. She was a book keeper at the Missouri Farmers Association, the local feed store and grocery where Grandpa was the manager. He had compassion for her in her sorrow and struggle. His marriage had been long over many years before the divorce papers were inked but small towns will talk about anything. All of them had known each other for decades. Mimi had been my mother’s 4H leader. My Grandmother had taught Mimi’s daughter in 6^th grade and later became a Mentor landing Marie her first teaching position. Oh the scandal!!! But they had been Grandpa and Mimi all my life. It was years before I knew any of that story. What I saw whenever I was on the farm, which was as often as possible, were two people who were as transparent and authentic as they could be. When they were moving cattle and frustrated everyone for 5 miles could hear their frustration yelled across the field! But they never demeaned one another or called each other names. They focused on what was done never attacking the person. And their love for each other was as evident as walking.

They also were the kind of people who made their faith a part of the routine of life. So Jesus and God came up in conversation just like the neighbors and the St Louis Cardinals. You couldn’t have a very long conversation with Mimi without all of those weaving into the conversation. At the funeral someone said, “Oleda was one of those people who knew everyone’s stories.” She sure did. She remembered people and their stories. She saw everyone as a Child of God and people were drawn to her because it. She had a way of speaking plainly and getting by with it because we knew she loved us. She knew us and as much as she could complain and say things we hated to hear her say, she was a truth-teller. I love her so much for the stories and the truth she told when no one else would. It was a rare person who did not know where s/he stood with her.

She couldn’t wait to be with Jesus and everyone else who had gone ahead of her. So while I miss her here, I’m grateful for a profound theology of the Communion of Saints and knowing that she has also drawn closer to me.

I’ve told Grandpa and Mimi stories all of my ministry. I won’t stop now. It will be a while before I can do it without crying because she also was the one who told stories to me. I love you Mimi.

“There’s a Woman In the Pulpit” Blog Tour

One of the best things that ever happened for my ministry was to find this group of women who didn’t care whether I was speaking or writing, they heard my story – they listened to my voice – even when I found myself hardly able to speak. A true gift of God for anyone, a treasure beyond measure that we gradually were able to name on that first Big Event (BE) continuing education cruise where it felt like we already knew each other even though we had just met IRL (in real life). We had read each other’s’ blogs and stories and we already knew each other even though we couldn’t pick one another out of a crowd.

For me, it started with a Friday Five when I had a story to tell. If you go look at the entry, you’ll see I only alluded to the story instead of actually telling it. And many times I have found myself saying, “I’m a better speaker than writer. I know how to tell a story. I just don’t write that well.” So how did I get in this blog ring? Because I had to be in this precious community! I was drawn in by the laughter, the knowingness without a huge explanation, a camaraderie that was past “esprit de corp.” They got it! and I had to be part of it, too. The compassion and depth of care that spread instantly across the wires with prayers raised around the world still brings Holy Tears to my eyes as I think of things past, present, and even things to come. The Communion of Saints has a richness it had never had until RevGalBlogPals began to pray for one another and network with each other from Texas Sheet Cake of Solidarity to the TownCar of Justice, the Preacher Party, and jokes that weren’t really that funny but brought just the right note of healing laughter. The Body of Christ became so much more real in the cyberspace-blinking-cursor world where I was connected more deeply to Christian clergywomen, faithful lay women, precious men who valued women and God in ways that are best described as mysteries of faith. I am forever blessed to be a RevGalBlogPal and A Woman in the Pulpit.

The stories in this book are a glimmer of all of those things – the Worst Communion ever! Oh what a story! And how blessed I am to have a bit part in it. Liz and her presence during sacred transitions. I hear her accented voice as I read the story. I will also forever hear angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven sing because of Liz’s voice and clapping during our singing at worship during the first BE she attended. There are some things, once you have heard them, you carry them with you forever. The prayers are Holy Ground on paper bringing a bit of heaven to us here. The pray-ers voices echo in my head as I read, a privilege of liminal space. When I read the stories writen by those I’ve never met, I thought “Oh, yes.” There’s a resonance of knowing in the stories of ministry. Stories of power and grace in the midst of every part of ministry and life. There is breadth and welcome, grace that goes far beyond the “good manners” hospitality when the stories and prayers are shared by RevGalBlogPals. There’s really much more than “A Woman in the Pulpit.” There’s a communion of women saints in the pulpit standing together answering the call of God on their lives doing all they can to support one another as they do what God wants them to do. These particular women paused for a little bit to tell some of stories.

Don’t miss out! It’s so worth hearing the stories. The prayers are numinous. The Communion of Saints and the Body of Christ are all in “There’s a Woman in the Pulpit.” It’s a joy and privilege to be included as a contributor. It’s a Blessing in a Book. #AWOMANINTHEPULPIT

There’s a Woman in the Pulpit: Christian Clergywomen Share Their Hard Days, Holy Moments & the Healing Power of Humor (SkyLight Paths Publishing).

Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Contemplation on Holy Week

Last week before Holy Week, I read this article from years ago written by Elizabeth Edwards about Tony Snow. It struck me as I moved into Palm Sunday and Holy Week. I couldn’t figure out how to get it into the sermon. It was one of the things left on the office floor or the computer recycle bin, if you would, after the words that “made it” were fit to print. She remarked “And I thought more about the things on which we agree and the things on which we disagree. And as with my parade companion, I suspect Tony and I agreed on more things that we might have guessed.” And then later, “There will always be fault lines where we just disagree, but can’t we find—maybe in our founding documents—the things on which we do agree and work from there instead of starting always, always perched as soldiers along those fault lines?”

Those words wouldn’t let go of me. They are still under foot like a cat wanting to be fed or a puppy wanting to play ever present not going away just when I think they’ve left me alone there they are sticking a paw under the door that is closed or laying quietly in the hall when I open that closed door. Can’t we just start with what we have in common and work from there?

I keep wondering: What if the Scribes and Pharisees and Sadducees had taken that approach? Where would we be? How would our world work if we started with what we share? Instead of what is different?

Somehow I think that might have something to do with the notion of love and discipleship that Jesus spoke of when he said “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, when you love one another. Just as I have loved you. You must love one another.”

Maybe that’s what compelled him to keep going knowing what would happen. Maybe he was so committed to the love we have in common he wouldn’t let any difference stop the love. It is a powerful love that can face evil and betrayal with forgiveness. Maybe he never stopped seeing them as someone like himself.

What if we start with what we have in common?

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:34-35 NRSV

In Memory of Her

We don’t always think we have the power to make any difference. We downplay the power we do have which diminishes the power we have. So our power is lessened. Not by anyone but ourselves. My mentor taught me to use the power I do have. I watched her do it.

She had finally had enough. It was an election year at Annual Conference so there were conversations happening all over the place. There was a constant hum even as the reports were read over the microphone while at the back certain ones went on behalf of a caucus of The Women or The African-Americans to wrangle with the Good ol’ Boys for votes. Smaller groups would try to gain traction with The Women or The African-Americans because they were the only ones with enough votes to try to trade in order to sway the vote. This was a high year for politics with more openings than usual.

I was blown away as she challenged someone who now is in a position of power. He was one of the few that held some sway with the Good ol’ Boys but he wasn’t old. She said, “You keep saying you are for women in ministry but all you do is allow women to be in ministry. That is not being for women in ministry. Allowing ministry to happen while you do nothing is not the same as being for it. You only get to say you are for women in ministry when you push and shove to make room for women and you intentionally lift women up. Until you use your voice and your power on behalf of women in ministry you.are.*not.*for*.women.in.ministry.”

While he stood there sputtering, she walked off, and then he chased after her. His behavior changed dramatically from that time forward. He still had his moments as a jerk but he was an equal opportunity jerk. He intentionally watched for quality young women to put on his staff so he could help launch them. He also became more of an advocate for persons of color.

Not everyone listens.
But change won’t come from silence.
Sometimes you have to put on your brass bra and speak up.

Do you sing Christmas carols during Advent?

I used to refuse to sing Christmas carols during Advent. I used to say things like, “We are Christians who celebrate the Christian year! We are in Advent waiting for the coming of the baby. We can’t just jump to Christmas. The Twelve Days of Christmas begin with the birth of Christ! That’s when we sing Christmas songs!” I’ve relaxed my stance quite a bit. For one thing, the United Methodist Hymnal does not help weary preachers with the Advent struggle! There are all of the wonderful Christmas Carols and Advent just is kind of pitiful. So I always had to figure out how to “ramp up” to Christmas with the two well known Advent hymns “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus,” the lesser known but acceptable “Lo, How a Rose ‘Ere Blooming,” and “Lift Up Ye Heads” which usually sounded dreadful in most of the churches I served. Michael W. Smith’s “Emmanuel, Emmanuel” became available once “The Faith We Sing” was published which helped spread out the Advent vs. Christmas agony but as a UM pastor the scene and struggle has changed enough that the angst holds through the years. Because just as a new pastor thinks “maybe it will be different with this church.” The church thinks “maybe it will be different with this pastor.” Of course, that usually applies to things other than this topic as well.

After consideration of the changing nature of schools, of folks who don’t come to church so much any more, and of some pastors I respect, I don’t care so much about the Advent hymns vs. the Christmas carols anymore. What I do care a whole lot about is that when someone who hasn’t been in church for awhile does decide to come to church during Advent or what may be for her or him “Christmas time,” there’s music that sounds familiar. I don’t know anyone under the age of 48 who does not at least recognize “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” as that angel song from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” They hear Christian Christmas songs on the radio mixed in with Rudolph and Frosty and Jingle Bells because someone in Nashville or Hollywood thought they could make money from it. So be it. But if they wander in, looking for a place to belong during the season that the “gurus” say is the number one time the “nones” and “dones” look if they are going to look, then maybe we should have at least one song they recognize when they are here.

So thank you Linus. You have spoken to so many more than Charlie Brown. Thank you Charles Schultz. You continue to touch me. I love the Peanuts Gang. Charlie Brown was my first favorite but he wasn’t my last favorite. Thank you Mendelssohn for a tune that is so beautiful that angels must sing it. Thank you Charles Wesley for writing songs of faith that must be sung with heads back and mouths open wide. “Glory to the newborn king!”

More is caught than taught

I remember being 9 or 10 and my dad picking me up for a weekend visit. He told me that he wanted me to meet this guy at the hospital where he worked. As I remember, he talked about the guy the whole way there – 3 hours! My dad was an orderly back in the day when hospitals had orderlys. He worked on the quadriplegic and paraplegic floor. I learned what those words meant because my dad worked on that floor. I didn’t know those words before that day.

Of course, since I was coming, my dad had the weekend off, but he wanted me to meet this guy so we went in anyway. I didn’t realize everything we were doing exactly but hospital rules required visitors to be 12 years old. I’m sure we went in the employees’ entrance and not the main visitors’ entrance. I remember a few key spots where we sneaked past at just the right moment to get to the right room. Then on the way out we walked slow and talked to people. Everybody talked to my Daddy!

Those days were also days when smoking was allowed in the hospital. When we got in the room, the guy I was there to meet was smoking. There was a tube and clip attached to the side of the bed that he could lean over a little and smoke. As I came in closer to the bed, I was eye to eye with him and the smoke was bothering me. He noticed, said, “Is this smoke bothering you?” and had my dad put the cigarette out.

The very last thing my dad had told me about this man before we came in to see him was that he couldn’t move his arms and legs by himself. My dad had talked about him for 3 hours without telling me that! He told me all these wonderful things about the guy but only mentioned that “minor” detail at the last minute because he didn’t want me to be scared. He was a quadriplegic because he got hurt saving his buddies in Vietnam; we were going into the VA Hospital.

I’m guessing that was about 1975 or so. (Saigon fell April 1975.) When I was standing eye to eye with this guy who was lying in a hospital bed and I was just short since I was 10, I saw the darkest skinned black man I had ever met. Of course, lying on white hospital sheets made the contrast more stark. The whole 3 hours my Dad talked about him, he had never mentioned his skin color. He just hadn’t got around to it because the other parts of his story were more important. After we were introduced the guy said, “Your Daddy loves you so much. He talks about you all the time. I feel like I already know you.”

My Daddy taught me that people are people no matter what. God breathed life into each one of us and *that* is why we care for them. Not because of how they treat us but because of who we are. This is just one story that shows how he taught me that by how he lived his life as a loving Christian who cared for others. He was an Orderly who had to do all the jobs no one else wanted to do which means he did everything for this guy. It was a time when in other places folks were being mean to the men and women who had come back from Vietnam. My dad was going out of his way on his day off to bring his little girl in to meet this guy – sneaking her in! What better way to say to someone “You are important.” “I care about you.” “Thank you for your service.” What better way to live your faith? To teach your faith? We don’t always use words to teach important lessons.

A wholehearted 7

When I knew that the BE 7.0 with the RevGalBlogPals was going to be on the Enneagram — well really as soon as I knew it was a potential topic — I searched for the books I had, looked for the pages I had copied so my answers wouldn’t be in the book, and found an online test to take to see what it said my number was. The copied pages were from 16-18 years ago when I was working to save a marriage that couldn’t be saved and showed I was a 6. The online test had me tied for 7 or 9. So I read the descriptions and was pretty sure that 7 was it.

I thought I had some idea what I was in for. Thinking all of that would prepare me for Suzanne Stabile is like thinking playing MarioKart with the wheel adapter will prepare you for driving in Dallas traffic at rush hour.  They have a lot of things in common but really it works better going the other way. Dallas traffic at rush hour help you with MarioKart much more than MarioKart help you with Dallas traffic. All of that Enneagram language has a lot in common but Suzanne’s way of teaching has more depth and grace. What I confirmed very clearly is that I am a 7. Going into the BE 7.0 which was Suzanne’s teaching on the Enneagram, I had already registered and paid for the Upper Room 5 day Spiritual Academy and I had the application for the Upper Room 2 year Academy in the bag I carried with me. Having a seasick Suzanne who was down in her back talk about 7s last of all still left me with little room for doubt that both Spiritual Academys “would be good for me.” Kinda like broccoli … or wrestling with an angel. I knew deep within my soul they both were my next right step. God was pulling , calling, me there.

As I listened to Suzanne, I would often find places where Brene Brown’s “The Gifts of Imperfection” or her concepts of shame, vulnerability, and wholeheartedness would intersect with our ways of functioning as explained by the Enneagram. The concept at the foundation of it all is the imago dei. We are made in the image of God. Neither use that language but both are expressing how we have damaged (or had damaged) and need to restore to wholeness our understanding that we are made in the image of God. We are enough. We are whole. Not because of someone else but in ourselves from birth as we are/were created.

By the time I got to the 5 day Spiritual Academy, I was waiting to see what God was going to say to me. I knew God was going to speak, I could feel it, I just didn’t know when. I also knew, because I know me, and because of the work with Suzanne the silence would be hard for me. Every day there is an hour of silence in the morning and an hour of silence in the afternoon. During the first hour of silence on the first day,  the best I could do was take a nap.  🙂

The second hour of silence I had a clear sense of God’s call to “tell your story.” I didn’t even get out of the room before the tears started. I thought “God I’ve got *five days* you didn’t have to start so soon!” When I later told my room mate what I felt from God and my story, she told me I had to tell the speaker my story. I thought, “Why would she want to hear this?” But I heard Suzanne’s voice saying 7s often wait too late or almost too late to have their needs met, their voices heard. So I listened to those voices and stepped up. When I told Rev. Grace Imathiu my story, her response had the effect of a blessing on me. “That is a powerful story … if you will tell it I don’t know where you will be in 40 years.” I had the audacity to say to *her* “I can tell a story.” Thankfully, graciously, having just heard me tell my story, she answered, “Yes, you can!”

Every session after that was a continuing call, affirming that even though I am not very good at being silent I was doing it well enough to hear God pretty clear this time. And, in addition to the message to “tell my story,” I should go ahead and turn in the application for the  2 year academy to the director while he was there in person. So I did.

Now all of the various parts of application for the 2 year Academy have been turned in and I’m waiting to hear if I’ve been accepted. I’ve told some others my story. My sister and a good friend have said, “This is a book.” I don’t know about that yet. My spiritual director said “I have the sense that you are on the edge of something big.” Me too.

Several years ago, the RevGalBlogPals started blogstones (o) as a stone of witness when there were no words. I want to ask you to leave a blogstone if you will commit to pray for me as I figure out how to move forward telling my story, answering God’s call on my heart. If you have words too that would be great!

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If you want to know more about the Enneagram 7 here’s a link about The Enneagram and blogging http://www.leighkramer.com/blog/2014/03/the-enneagram-and-blogging-type-seven.html

You can find Rev. Grace Imathiu on Day 1 with a Google search.

Suzanne Stabile is at Life in the Trinity Ministries buying and listening to her Enneagram courses is better than an book. Go to a workshop if at all possible! In person is the best! Here’s the link http://www.lifeinthetrinityministry.com

The Academy for Spiritual Formation at the Upper Room can be found at http://academy.upperroom.org