For the next few months, I will be spending my Saturday mornings with 20 or so people doing that thing we don’t do much of:  talking about money.

Darn, it is a loaded thing.  In the household I grew up in, it was somehow unseemly to talk about it.  Money (and that other big elephant, sex!) was not talked about.  It was my parent’s to deal with, and ours to know that it was high stakes stuff, based on the tension and shame that somehow seemed to surround it.

So I have made my way through much of life with a sort of distaste-love of money.  I love the power of making choices.  I don’t like the feeling of not-enough that inevitably rumbles when I lose my moorings and give myself over to what my culture wants me to know:  Namely, I will never have enough money, and never having enough money means that I will always be found wanting at some core level.

Yuck.  What this class I am taking at church consists of  is the teaching of a get-yourself-healthy-financially guru named Dave Ramsey.  It is brilliant.  Though he shares not many of my feminist sorts of sensibilities (at least, based on some of his har-har not so funny jokes) the man has a mission and he shares it effectively.  Financial Peace.  The two can go together.

I’m taking the class with my 23 year old daughter.  The class is being led by two men in their twenties.  There are folk from outside the church and inside the church learning ways to live a relationship with money that empowers rather than enslaves.

I followed that class with a training on adaptive leadership, and the presenter there talked about the power of words.  Rather than talking about what we don’t have, or about abundance – which means there will always be unattainables – he suggested the word “sufficiency”.

What do I need in my life?  What is sufficient for me and my house?

The questions are great.  The class is great.  The power of taking money out of the closet and into the places of my life that make for hope and healing is mighty fine.

We’ll be offering the class again in the fall.  I’m bearing witness here.  It’s great.

Today was flat out fun.

I got to go in and see the Sunday bulletin and Annual Report go to press.  I got to preview slides used for worship and rehearse in my heart the rhythm of praise that will be shared by hundreds in two day’s time.

I got to have lunch with my daughter.

I got to have time at a coffee shop to read and think a bit.

I got to have coffee with a young adult who is a cauldron of ideas for our ministry and saints-be-praised has the follow-through capacity it takes to make things happen.

I got to visit a church member and wrap her in a prayer shawl made by the hands of her sisters in Christ.

I got to come home and hug my beloved before he left for a weekend church retreat.

I got to write a sermon I am excited to preach.

And now?  Now, I get to choose from the stack of books awaiting my reading or the dog who is always ready for attention.  In short, I get to while away these crazy rare unclaimed hours in any way I choose.

It’s been a great day to be in the midst of the buzz that is church and life.

And oh, what a gift to have the time to savor it.

Last night the political theatre was opening night stellar.

There was the sight of assumed foes coming into the House chambers two by two in order to take in the speech of the President.  After all the wrangling that erupts all too often in elevated stress and little progress, our leaders wanted to make a statement about playing and working well together.  Sign acts matter.  Let’s hope they do.

It’s hard not to be lumpy in the throat when watching the pomp and circumstance of the State of the Union Address.  In one room are the persons we have entrusted to represent us.  Say what you want about them, but the people dutifully or enthusiastically clapping in that room last night have traded in much of their lives in order to be a part of the workings of government.

I heard a commentator on NPR rue the day when the spokesperson role of the President changed.  He (or she) used to be heard as the President of the United States.  During the speech, he was perceived as speaking for the country.  Now the president is heard as the spokesperson for his party.  Rebuttals and counter statements are stoked throughout the speech in order to be shared by the other party’s appointed spokesperson.

Increasingly I feel less hope for unity.  As a confirmed Pollyanna this concerns me a bit.  I feel less hope because the rush to proclaim doctrine is seemingly more important than the desire to be still and listen and learn from each other.  The sexiest sound bite wins; the one most sure to inflame, while lives continue to be decimated by inequities and solutions seemingly beyond the power of our imagination and will.

But oh, as the hand shakes were shared and the vision proclaimed and the camera full of the visages of people who love their country, there was hope and wonder.

Truly, God bless America.

It’s not as though I relish pain.

It is really cold here in Minnesota.  It is in the double digits below zero.  My grand old house, full of windows and never apt to kill us because of carbon monoxide poisoning due to its leaky-sieve ways, is working mightily to hold warmth.  My car responds with an are-you-kidding-me groan when I start it up.  Sweaters and Smart Wool socks are the arraignment of choice.

It’s really cold.  And, it is stunningly powerful, this cold.  It is reminder that living in Minnesota cannot be done without a goodly dose of humility.  We are able to live in this wild place only if we are aware that it has teeth in the form of mosquitos, wild critters, and deep deep freeze.

We can domesticate so much.  This cold is not one of those things.

So finding warmth is a must.  Shelters across the city are full to capacity.  Energies are put to creature survival needs.  Those of us out and about assess the bundled up presence of others and together we have a sense of the power of enduring while facing the challenge.

I don’t relish the pain.  But I do relish the reminder that I am a creature alive on the land and respect for my limits is a must.

I’m blessed to have home, blessed to fear not about finding warmth, blessed to be reminded that I’m guest in the grand gift that is Minnesota.

I spoke recently with a young woman who is going through a painful transition.

She is claiming some space from a long-term relationship.  Part of that space claiming is moving to her own place.  I think I’ll say that again:  Her own place.

How many of us have had such a thing?  For many, having physical space to claim as our own has never happened.  We bump from home to college to friends to partners and often, so very often, we never have the chance to breathe in space that is not peopled with the needs, wants and desires of others.

I am proud of this young woman.  Proud because she is listening to the wisdom of her heart; the wisdom that tells her it is time to learn new things about herself and about life.

And oh, I join the others who have expressed envy.  I am one of the have-always-lived-with-others who sigh deeply when hearing about her studio apartment.  I love my life and my people and the gift of my man next to me each night.

And, yet there is this always within me; a longing for that place of my own arranging, my own adorning, my own.

Maybe that’s what the spiritual journey is all about:  Finding that place.  Not a place we control, but a place where we know that the arranging, the adorning, the inhabiting is ours.

In such a place, we settle in with ourselves and with our God and know ourselves to be home.

I have spent most of the morning listening to insipid recordings on automated phone machines.  I would scream, but no one would hear me!

It feels dehumanizing.  Clearly, I wouldn’t be making calls if I didn’t need to speak with the party I am calling.  Jumping through the “press one” hoops is like entering a maze.  Desperately you hope for resolution, but the possibility that you will be wandering for hours in the world of transfers, accidental hang-ups and dead ends is real.

There ought be a special prayer for those who have to summon the courage to get service.  Whispered with fervor, maybe the prayer would have much to do with patience granted, robotic sensibilities keen, answers, and – dare we ask for miracles?? – a HUMAN voice on the other end of the line.

God grant me the serenity…………….