Tag Archives: Presbytery

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Travel

Ghosts

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Imbolc                                                                          Valentine Moon

Today, a bit tired due to early rising, moving books put a weight on my shoulders.  It was the past and its tangled feelings.  Found my first passport and saw a young man with a full head of dark brown hair and a beard that matched.  Surprised me, so long have I seen his gray descendant in the mirror.

(arrestedmotion.com 2012 10 upcoming aron wiesenfeld new paintings arcadia-gallery)

That was my passport for Colombia, the trip to check out a bank for the poorest of the poor.  Carolyn Levy was in my life at that point, between my divorce from Raeone and meeting Kate a year plus later.  A hard time, raising a 6 year old boy, working night and day between church meetings and organizing.  A hard time, too, since the future had grown unclear.  Something big had happened or was about to happen, but its outlines in my life were not yet clear.

Then I moved out the books related to shifting my ordination to the Unitarian-Universalist movement.   Again, a time when the future had become unclear.  Writing had not shown the promise it offered when Kate and I agreed I should leave the Presbytery.  Frustrated there, I regressed, headed back to the trade that I knew.  More lack of clarity.

Poor decisions.  I chose Unity UU over First Unitarian for my internship.  An error.   The humanist congregation would have fit me much better.  Then, at the end of an interesting year, I accepted a job as minister of development.  Chief fund raiser.   OMG.  One of the really boneheaded decisions in my life.  Not the only one, for sure, and not the worst one, but dumbest?  Probably.  Kate saw it coming. I ignored her.  Sigh.

(Vincenzo Foppa The Young Cicero Reading 1464)

Those books were the heaviest to move because I’ve traveled out of the UU circle, too.  A solo practitioner am I, as the Wiccans say.  In that vein though I retained many of my books on spirituality, works on natural theology and those commentaries I mentioned on the Torah and the book of Revelation.

Heavy, especially with lack of sleep thrown in.  Ghosts.  They’re real and they live in the closets, basements and attics of our mind.

Holidays, Myth and Story

5 Useless Days

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Winter                                                          Waning Moon of the Winter Solstice

Now we come to my favorite days of the year, those between Christmas and New Years.   When I used to work for the Presbytery (a part of the Presbyterian church analogous to the Catholic diocese), no one in the church world wanted to talk to judicatory staff just after the major work around Christmas.  That meant a holiday of sorts with a light work load.  Later, I learned that the Maya called these the 5 useless days at the end of the year.  I don’t recall why but they saw them as  problematic in some way.

Not me.  I view them as a sort of secular time out of time, a hole in the calendar when expectations are low, interruptions minimal.  Often I’ve used them for mini-retreats, focusing on some area or another I’ve wanted to give some in depth time.  Though I haven’t decided yet, I may choose to get deeper into Ovid.

Anyhow, enjoy these days.  They are a holiday from holidays.