Gracefull Things

A couple of years ago, Jeanene started making jewelry and prayer beads as a kind of spiritual discipline and creative journey. She was stressed after 20 years as a chaplain, and the act of creating beauty was calming to her. She began all of this on a trip we made to Colorado, where she has gone whenever possible since she was a little girl.

Jeanene's jewelry and necklaces are one-of-a-kind pieces. She buys precious stones and crosses from all over the world, choosing quality items and interesting religious icons. She spends a lot of time sorting and working just to create one piece. I think her work is terribly under priced, but that's just my opinion. This is her thing and she does it her way.

In the fall of 2006 and 2007, she began selling her jewelry and prayer beads online. I linked to her, and she sold pretty much everything she made. After taking a few months off, Jeanene has been working hard and has a whole new collection available online. I think this third generation of her jewelry is the best she's ever made. I'm amazed at the little details like tiny beads that connect larger beads and create delicate transitions.

I know she's my wife and best friend, but I love her stuff. I really do.

rlp

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Gracefull Things Anglican Prayer Beads & Rosaries

The retreat is done. We had 13 people from all around the country in for a weekend. It was delightful. All sorts of worldviews, beliefs, almost beliefs, uncertainty, and lots of questions and listening. We had a blast. I mean, who wouldn't want to sit around talking and listening and singing and hanging out with passionate, engaged, curious people?

I'm going to do some more thinking about the weekend and try to see if I can get my thoughts and feelings into about 750 words. I want to think and write carefully about something that is beginning to seem very important to me. Our small and powerless faith community seems to have stumbled gracefully into a need in our world. I think our world needs a place where you can go to find peace and friendship and love, a place where you can ask questions and talk about the meaning of life without feeling pressured or threatened by religious people with a conversion agenda.

I recorded the intro to this little video this morning at a coffee shop, which is why the sounds is pretty bad. But I caught this moment with my digital camera, and I wanted to share it with you.

Here are some photos from the weekend, in no particular order. A complete slideshow is available at Flickr if you want to see it.

Along the prayer path

Labyrinth at night

Lauds: 5 am

Ode to Saint Francis

rlp

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I got home from Austin yesterday afternoon. My car was finally fixed. The final charge was $1000, which really stung. I was not planning for that. Well, that's what car ownership is all about. The fuel pump cost about $600, as it turns out. Is that unbelievable, or what? A tow, an $89 diagnostic fee (for over a day of their work trying to figure this out), the part, labor to install it, taxes...$1000.

In spite of the cost, the folks at Lamb's were great. They definitely lost money on this deal. I'm grateful for the kind of service they provide. Car parts are outrageously expensive. There's nothing they can do about that part of it.

But I'm home. So that's good, right?

Tonight we begin our second RLP Franciscan retreat. We have 15 people coming this time, along with a handful of our folks. That's a full house. We originally said we could handle 20 people, but 15 is as much as we want to do.

Wilshire Baptist Church donated money to purchase sheets, towels, pillows, etc. Their pastor, George Mason, has been a friend for many years. Another friend, Kerry Horn, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Covington arranged for his church to purchase 25 high quality air mattresses, each with its own small inflation system. (FBC Covington has no website) So now people coming to these retreats will have a nice mattress, sheets, blankets, pillows, and towels. If you are coming to one of our retreats, you really do just show up and we'll take care of the rest.

THANK YOU, Wilshire BC and FBC Covington!

Paul Soupiset and I will be photographing the retreat. I'll show you pictures when we're done.

What am I working on? Life has made writing tough recently, but I have a new thing coming out in Christian Century which will be here soon. I began a new Foy story yesterday and a poem/essay today. Perhaps next week I can get back to my real love, which is creative writing.

rlp

Thursday morning.

I'm still in Austin, my car being as of yet unrepaired. The crank sensor proved not to be the culprit. They have ordered a fuel pump which was to arrive at the shop this morning. I assume the good people at Lamb's automotive are working on it as we speak.

I find myself somewhat less observant today, somewhat less interested in nature and speargrass and the little animals beside the road, somewhat less wont to make pithy observations about life and the blessings of the unexpected, somewhat less willing to be patient and enjoy taking a moment to smell the sizzling hot, burned flowers that might once have been roses had they not had the misfortune to be growing beside the road in the blistering heat of an Austin summer.

Somewhat less inclined to those things.

Somewhat more inclined to note my newest discovery - that I simply cannot write productively sitting in an auto repair shop or in a hotel room pondering how many times a man can wear the same pair of underwear before breaking into a manic case of the heebie-jeebies.

Somewhat more inclined to consider that we have 14 friends arriving tomorrow for a Franciscan retreat, many of them staying over for Sunday, and I have no sermon prepared. Moreover, the text I had chosen in advance is a particularly hard one. I'll try to do some thinking about that passage today.

Somewhat more inclined to frustration.

I did tell you that while I'm better at this at 46 than at 36, I have quite a ways to go.

The saving grace is the wonderful people at the automotive repair place. Not only have they been gracious in dealing with one of those situations when diagnosing a modern car is difficult, they are not going to charge me for any parts they purchased and put on while trying to fix it, even though they made it clear that the only way to do this was to start replacing things. Given that they have had to tow my vehicle back to their shop twice now when it broke down during their road tests and will not charge me for that either, they will lose money on this transaction. By the time the shop pays for two tows, the sensor, and a day's labor for a mechanic all under their $89 diagnostic charge, they will lose money. And yet they seem sympathetic and have treated me so nicely.

Now I understand why there are no less than 75 letters from customers pasted all over their walls.

When I broke down I did call a friend and ask him where I should take the car. He said, "Take it to Lamb's."

I am still inclined to be thankful for that.

rlp

Austin Texas

So the last couple of days haven’t exactly turned out like I expected. I’m sitting in a car repair shop in Austin, Texas trying to get some work done while I wait for my car to be repaired.

Some people connected with the Christian Life Commission of the Baptist General Convention of Texas read my story about our family’s insurance mishaps. It so happens that our state legislature is considering the powers and direction of the state insurance oversight department. I was asked to come to Austin to the hearing and give testimony.

The idea was to drive to Austin Tuesday (about an hour drive), tell my story, then drive home that afternoon. Well, that was the plan anyway.

Then my car broke down south of Austin. It acted like it had run out of gas, but I had plenty in the tank. Shelton Green (Political consultant for the CLC and a GREAT guy) helped me find a mechanic. I waited on the side of I-35 for about an hour and a half, waiting for a tow truck. Waiting on the side of the road in Texas in June is not pleasant, especially not at noon. I retreated to a nearby tree to wait in the shade, only to be attacked by rogue birds. Well, maybe attacked is a strong word, but they were definitely agitated by my presence and flew menacingly around my head.

The tree I stood under

This bird and his friends did NOT trust me

My car was towed to Lamb’s, a local mechanic shop, and Shelton drove me to the capital where the Sunset Commission was beginning testimony on insurance issues for our state.

Initially I was concerned that I might miss my call to testify, but that fear was clearly unfounded since I wasn’t called until almost 9 pm. From 2 pm until 9 pm, the legislators charged with analyzing our state’s insurance oversight department listened to a steady stream of lobbyists and advocates speak to various esoteric and painfully detailed insurance issues. I just wanted to tell them how easily working families can find themselves labeled as uninsurable. My 5 minute story might have been helpful since the legislators pay close attention to unpaid citizens who come to these things at their own expense to tell their stories.

Sunset Oversight Commission for the Texas Department of Insurance

Afterwards I had dinner with some new friends, various political advocates who work with non-profit organizations - the good guys. By then it was too late to get my car, so I had to spend the night.

And now....it’s 1 pm on Wednesday, and my car still isn’t ready. I have a 1999 Chrysler Concord. That’s not particularly new, but it is new enough to be run mainly by computers and various sensors. Something is telling the car it is out of gas or shutting it down for some other reason. The mechanics feel it is not a mechanical problem with a fuel pump or anything like that. They are replacing the crank sensor, which is apparently sending faulty information to the car’s computer.

So here I sit.

Observations from my time in Austin:

Politicians and the political process - As I watched advocates and lobbyists and citizens parade before a legislative committee, it was clear that there was no way I was going to be able to understand the complex power structures of our state political process. Sometimes the legislators seemed bored. They sometimes left and didn’t come back for a long time. But there were various aids listening and taking notes. I’ve been an insider in enough systems to recognize something complex when I see it. I decided that my story might or might not make a difference, but I came to tell it in hopes that it might. Someone is watching and taking notes. “A concerned citizen drove to Austin because his family cannot get health insurance due to being unfairly profiled.” Perhaps my testimony will end up being such a note in someone's report.

Still, the politicians definitely do sit up and take notice when an average citizen speaks. I think there were only two or three of us during the entire process. But we were treated very respectfully, whereas many of the lobbyists received some fairly pointed questions and criticisms. One of the senators called them, “suits.”

What I hope comes out of this is a greater understanding on the part of our state leaders that everyday men, women, and children are being profiled and labeled as “uninsurable” by private insurance companies. You have some protections seeking insurance with a group through an employer, but if you are seeking insurance on your own, you can be rejected for unfair reasons. With no incentive to take you, the insurance company can reject you for for any reason, real or imagined. Why should they take a chance?

This is a problem because health insurance is not a luxury item. You have to have it if you are going to get good medical treatment. No one can afford to pay for their own health care anymore. Even a simple mammogram followed by an MRI and a series of lab tests can easily cost $5000. A family of five with a health problem or two in a year can find themselves hopelessly in debt in no time without insurance. And of course, after you pay all that you have for the treatment - which will not be enough - you will never be able to afford the medication they prescribe.

Cars - The question with cars is not "Will they break down?" but "When will the next breakdown occur?" You never know when. And when it happens, you just have to swallow hard and deal with it. I hate spending money to fix cars, certainly, but I hate the loss of time even more. I don’t have a lot of time margins in my life. We have a retreat coming this weekend. I have a sermon to prepare for Sunday. And I have a lot of work to do with the blog networks I run. I did not want to lose most of Tuesday and - apparently - most of Wednesday.

It’s a spiritual exercise to take a deep breath and try to let go of worrying about things you cannot control. I’m better at this at 46 than I was at 36, but still not there. One spiritual excercise that helps me deal with this kind of stress is to intentionally pay attention to little things. Okay, I'm on the side of the highway, so what can I watch and learn while I am here?

That brings me to plants on the side of the road - While walking to my shade tree beside I-35, I stumbled through a strange kind of grass with spear-like points. By the time I got to the tree, I noticed that 8 or 10 spears of seed-laden grass had impaled themselves on my shoelaces and were on for the ride, hoping I would take them somewhere where they could continue to propagate their species. I’m always impressed with the various ways that nature has evolved to seize any opportunity to survive. In this case, these stalks of grass ended up in the trash, but their heroic effort was duly noted and appreciated.

rlp

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I'm away in Sherman Texas this week, attending our annual youth camp. Our church works with a group of, what we might call progressive Baptists in Texas to put on a camp for our 7th to 12th graders. On nice feature of this camp is that the pastors of these churches are strongly encouraged to attend. This is our church's second year to be a part of the group.

Last year I agreed to be in charge of the camp newspaper, a job no one wanted after the person who had done it for years left the group. Though no one else wants to do this, it fits my personality and talents. I love it. This is my second year as camp newspaper editor.

I have 9 reporters working with me. I made them press credentials. They fan out across the campus and write silly and funny things. I have a satirical piece in each issue and fill in whenever someone doesn't show up with their story by deadline, which happens pretty often.

If you want to keep up with me this week, I've put our camp newsletter online at SoulMusicCamp.com. Our theme for the week is "Soul Music," and Kyle Matthews is leading us. There is a brief blog at SoulMusicCamp.com with links to each day's edition. You'll probably recognize my slightly off-beat sense of humor and a heavy influence from The Onion.

I won't be writing this week, obviously. I miss that. But our kids are worth it.

I do have a new piece out at The High Calling. I'll link to it tomorrow.

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Well, here we are just days away from our first RLP Franciscan retreat. Our labyrinth is finished. I've created a website for it. There is no way we could thank Paul Soupiset enough for his design work, physical work, and the beauty of his vision for this thing. Two people have found the labyrinth via the web so far and come to walk it.

And Paul finished our retreat booklet, which is stunning. Seriously, this is unbelievable to me. It's got all kinds of information in it, including the details of our prayer services, etc. Every person who attends the retreat will get one. You can get all the information at our Retreat Blog. Whether you are coming to the retreat or not, this retreat booklet is very cool.

All of this for anyone who can get here and for nothing more than a modest volunteer donation to cover the price of food. Anyone who has trouble affording the transportation may forego the donation with our blessing and in complete anonymity.

I'll post pictures after the retreat, of course. And links to anyone attending the retreat who has a blog and offers thoughts of their own.

rlp