What young adults say about faith?

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Can't go home again....

Home.  Where is home?  

I have admitted my vagabond ways previously.  I am comfortable most places, but where is home?  Is home the tired cliche, "where the heart is?"  Is home one of the evolving cliches "home is where you hang your hat," "home is where you lay your head," or "home is where your family or friends are."  Maybe you just want to go all theological and say that heaven is my home.  Maybe you want to go all financial, home is what the mortgage covers.  

Home.  Not sure.  But home for me seems to be wherever I am at the moment, and whoever I am with makes up the inhabitants.  It will be where I lay my head, for now. Most of the time it is comfortable, much of the time it is where my heart is, and occasionally, if I have a hat with me, I will hang it there. 

So over the past week I have been at home in Galveston, one of my mortgage homes. I have been in Colorado Springs, a new home for me.  And I have been in Allenspark Co, in a rustic camp setting home.  And later this week I will back track those travels and return to home in North Louisiana.  And not to long after that I will set out again on another small adventure.  

Now my immediate family and pup are in North Louisiana, so don't hear me say that I don't cherish them, i love them dearly, and being from them makes me sad and returning makes me glad.  But that may not be home  

Maybe home is where God sets us down?   And we can never really know how long that is for.  I am prayerful that my openness to home is something that God is up to, and that I can create home wherever God plants me.  

This will be a thin place.,  

Friends don't let friends...

I saw a t-shirt that caught my attention the other day,  and I will insert that I love noticing tshirts and admire the courage that  some people have in wearing them.  Some sport politiical leanings, some advertise (and not always what the wearer intended), some are just nasty, and some say profound things.

So saw a t-shirt in an airport vendor where you could buy coffee and donuts, let's call it Dunkin Donuts.  And I was there for the coffee, which is another conversation entirely.  This t-shirt said "friends don't let friends drink Starbucks."  I will admit that my first thought was, I didn't know this airport had Starbucks (it doesn't), but my next thought was how good it was to have friends.

Many, many years ago in somewhat of a wine induced stupor, my good friends confessed to me that they were not going to introduce me to any of their single male friends in the hope of "fixing me up."  But that they wanted all of their friends to know one another.  I appreciated there candor, and together we plotted out a strategy, which we keep to this day.  The person with the most friends wins!  And we have begun ever since that time collecting and sharing friends.  And what an enriching experience that it has been.

First, it has been a protective strategy.  Each of us have been able to alert the other about people that may not actually have friendship in mind.  I gathered in two work associates that were married to one another, and we really enjoyed the rich conversations and sporting events that we attended.  I introduced my new friends to my old friends, and later that evening receivied the warning "I think you need to be careful, they may not be who they appear to be."  I brushed off the warning, chalking it up to jealousy.  But  oh how right they were.  And when my long time friends met this single woman, and had her join our group, i instantly warned them that there might be something not quite right about her.  and the more time she spent with us the more apparent it became, that was indeed the case.

secondly, and more happily, it has become a strategy of extending myself and my search into a wider world than I could have imagained.  My closest friend invited me to her mediation circle, but warned me that they were all non-Christians or post-Christians and that I wasn't to feel out of place.  I promised to be comfortable.  I took my rosary, and planned on praying while they were sitting mediation.  Well, I pulled out my rosary and three of the women present pulled out theirs!  And after mediation we had a great conversation about the role of women in church and the ordination of women specificallly.

Finally, it has opened my horizons of places to go and see.  Turns out the more friends that you gather the more places they have been and can recommend, or veto.  And while your horizons get larger the world gets smaller.  So no surprise when sitting down at a dinner party, one of the couples introduced is from the small town where my neice goes to college.  And they are close friends with one of her favorite teachers.  And while in Colorado I meet a young woman on faculty at a seminary where a good friend of mine from Iona just graduated.

So while friends may limit the things you can or shouldn't do, like driving drunk or drinking another brand of coffee.  Friends make our life richer in so many ways.

The person with the most friends wins.

 

Living by the calendar

For the past several days I have been staying with a couple of dear friends in Colorado.  And they are both retired.  I mean seriously retired.  They get up early two days a week; Sunday for church and Monday to put out the trash (no, you can't put it out the night before because of the bears).  And those are also their only measure of time.  The calendar.  So for someone who lives by a watch with alarms, that remind her when to be somewhere and a phone that assists in that duty, living by the calendar has been an experience.  

We made it to all the places that I wanted to visit, and most times we made it dry, surprised by a sudden downpour a time or two.  We ate when we were hungry, and not nearly as often as the clock might have demanded.  The days were just packed, but essentially had no idea what day it was.  

It was a very thin sort of place to be.  Time wasn't in control,  and coming out of a hectic teaching schedule with all sorts of demands, that was a huge change.  And while our movements were purposeful, certainly wouldn't have put us in the wandering category, it was a delight.  It was Sabbath.

There is no one I can blame for my schedule, that all falls to me.  And while I look forward to my own days of retirement and calendar living, I need to remember that God said Sabbath was important.  

That is a thin place that should be here all along.  

Traveling on a certain airline

As you are probably aware, I have done a good bit of flying.  And airlines are not created equal.  And unless you have spent the last ten years under a rock, airlines have changed.  Most now charge you for everything.  To take your luggage with you is a fee.  To have a meal on a flight generally involves a fee.  I know of an airline, haven't flown with them yet, which may charge you a fee based on your weight and the weight of your alleged free carry one.  And I don't really quibble with much of that.  I try to fly as luggage free, and fee free, as I possibly can.  

Ultimately, it comes down to providing a service.  Seriously we pay for them to take us, safely, to the places we want to go, or at least as close as they can get us.  Some of them seem to have forgotten that point.  But they are service providers, and we are receiving their service.  Now I will be the first to admit that people paying for and receiving a service can, on occasion, be as nasty as they can be, and there is no excuse for that.  Stranded in a city because of a weather flight delay, I had received a fistful of neat coupons from the airline, basically everything they could have thought to provide me with I had received.  The woman next to me was not as fortunate, and was given the bare bones.  When she quered my hand full of delight, she asked "why didn't I get all that?"  And I told her,  "maybe if you had been more pleasant, "  She had actually blamed the young person at the desk for the weather.  So okay I get that, but at a company level, my choosing you makes your profits possible.  

Now some get it.  And I will name names,,,  Korean Air.  Now I have only been on four Korean Air flights, but have logged about 50 hours with them.  Yep, that long flight from Dallas to Soeul, that.s a humdinger. Some of there sevice is clearly a part of there culture, but they understood being in the air together and how to make you as comfortable as possible.  But my personal favorite -- Southwest.  Yes, crazy Southwest.  Now I do admit the bus like atmosphere of their waiting areas and their crazy lets line up and get on board.  But under all that craziness, is an absolute desire to serve others.  It is in their corporate DNA.  Employees that do well in their structure are the ones that provide "service with a smile."

How could this possibly be a thin place?  I am coming to an understanding that we are all bascially providing a service, whether it is air travel or teaching, if we contact and connect with others in our daily journey then we are somehow being service providers,.  How am I going to be a person that doesn't hinder the walk of others, but becomes part of their conduit to heaven on earth?

How can I be a thin place?

Traveling music

About to draw these two summer semesters to a close and head off; a little traveling music please.

This has been a stay at home summer. At least so far. A stay at home and spend bucket loads of money. Some on fun stuff – like MacKinnon. Some on necessary stuff – two fully functional toilets. A summer when most of my involvement in anything has been part of preparation for other things.

I have been working on a research project for then end of the summer.

I have been working on some consultation materials, along with a little trip to Dallas, and a side trip to Paris (Texas, not France).

I have been working on a sermon (yes, I get to preach).

I have been working on the arrangements for a major trip next summer (yes, more searching).

I have been working to pay for the major trip next summer.

I have been working on new ideas for the fall, both at school and at church.

Which brings me to; we are always headed somewhere. Sometimes it involves great plans; Walking the Camino de Santiago, volunteering on Iona, visiting Holy Island. Sometimes it involves extensive planning; drive to Galveston, spend couple of days with family, fly to Colorado, spend a couple of days with friends, drive to another part of Colorado, present research findings, fly back to Houston, couple of days with other friends, and then drive home. Sometimes it involves the banal; groceries, hardware, gasoline, avoid big stores, use small stores, can I get that done before the other needs done. And in all of that we are on the move, maybe at a glacial pace, maybe much faster.

But the preparation for our journey makes it so much smoother.

Let's make this a thin place.   

Old Boys

There are 170 units in my complex, and even with about 10% of them for sale or rent, there are bunches of people around. And since I tend to wander about early in the morning, particularly during the summer, when I walk and run in the complex, I know a lot about the comings and goings of folks. I know the nurses that work the late evening shift, and those that work the early morning. I know the residents at medical school, and when they change rotations. I know who else teaches school, and is taking it easy during the summer. I know that the retired folks tend not to emerge from their homes until about 9 a.m., and that the younger folks tend to come home very early in the morning.

A couple of my favorite residents are these two old boys. They live next to one another. They are in their later 70's, and are going through their second puberty. Both drive hot vehicles. One is in a Dodge Charger and the other in a massive Dodge RAM pickup. It is so massive that when he has been out late, he can't maneuver it into its narrow parking space. One is Catholic and worships on Saturday afternoon, and then they party afterwards. The other is Baptist and worships on Sunday, and then they party afterwards. One never married and the other is a widower, and they are both on their own. One has a cat, and the other complains about the cat.

They spend the early evenings sitting on the porch in front of their homes, mostly complaining in that generic old boy sort of way about everything. They aren't nosy, but they watch what is going on. They are cordial, but there are only two chairs, no one is invited to join them. They are apparently available, and enjoy the spoils of being two bachelor men far outnumbered by single women.

I think these old boys should be the textbook example of growing old grace-filledly.

They are a thin place.