Frozen Fab Five from the RevGalPals

This week it's all about ice cream!

1. Ice cream: for warm weather only or a year-round food? Is this a joke? Ice cream could never be considered a seasonal food. It's the manna of my people!

2. Favorite flavor? B&R Chocolate andPeanut Butter or Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby.

3. Cake cone, sugar cone, waffle cone, cup? I could care less about the cone. I want the ice cream. Plus while you're goofing with the cone, your ice cream is in danger of melting or falling off. Who needs that kind of anxiety?

4. Childhood ice-cream memory? Going to B&R and having bubble gum ice cream and spitting out all the gum so that I could chew it all at once. Also, my parents got engaged at the Dairy Queen. I'm telling you, ice cream is key to my heritage!

5. Banana splits: discuss. Bananas should mind their own business and stay on the cereal where they belong. Or they should quietly turn brown before being made into banana bread. I do not need them in my ice cream.

Bonus from the RevGal List Maker: Baskin-Robbins used to make ice-cream sodas. During the 18 months I worked there, I think I made about 3 tops. They're no longer on the menu, but you can still order them. Question: What are the ingredients/steps for making an ice cream soda? Tall glass, pour in syrup, add ice cream followed by seltzer.

Cruciform shapes

I was reading P. Softly's blog and she's been looking for cruciform shapes in nature. As an alternate, she posted a lovely photo of a jack-in-the-pulpit trinitarian photo.

It got me to thinking and then surfing for photos. Here are two for her....

The first was a file from an English seed catalog site with info describing the shapes of blossoms... "Cruciform" had this photo as an example.

The second is a "Cruxifix Fish." My old colleague in Illinois had one on his credenza that someone had given him years ago. If you like it, go to Ebay, baby! You can get anything on Ebay!

CPE... glad that's over!

I have some friends doing CPE this summer and all I can say is "Been there! Done that! Donated the shirt to a worthy cause!"

CPE is an important part of the seminary process, but I'm not sure if anyone ever really understands how difficult it really is. For some, the congenitally shy, it means forcing yourself to "bother the sick and dying" when you're pretty sure that they'd rather see "a real pastor" or no pastor at all. For others, the trouble comes with the therapy. They've never been in therapy before and now they aren't sure why anyone would pay $150 an hour for that kind of torture.

I didn't mind the therapy, but I did find it hard to walk into rooms unannounced and unrequested. But it got better with time. And it was great training for the future.

Personally, one of the things that made CPE the hardest for me was a member of my small group who, unbeknownst to any of us, was trying to kick a heroin addiction while doing CPE. Needless to say, he was very moody! He confessed all of this to me on our last day together. Talk about your pastoral dilemmas! Do you share this kind of info with the supervisor? Or take it to the grave as a confidence?

Any great CPE survival stories are most welcome for my friend KS who, when she isn't tapping on hospital doors, finds a few moments to read this blog.

Bearing False Witness

Years ago, my mother made the snappy retort that "It's not bearing false witness, if it's true." We laughed and moved on, but the comment has stayed with me for years.

Luther's Small Catechism says this about the eighth commandment:
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor. What does this mean?--Answer. We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him (sic), [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

I'm struggling this week. When someone bears false witness against us, what do we do? I try to put the best construction on things. I really do, but this week it's been tough. On the commute home I prayed for forgiveness. Forgiveness for not being more forgiving. For being angry. For feeling slighted.

Don't know what more to say. Just needed to vent, I suppose.

God's Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins