A mission

I am a person who cannot be idle. I'm always trying to get something done.

I think it is because I worked hard as a child and teen. I don't think most people would know it to see me now. My family of five had two big gardens, raised animals, hung out clothes on a line, and heated our home with a wood burner. My sister and I were the eldest, only 18 months difference in our ages, and our brother was significantly younger, so the hard chores fell to us. I hiked, fished, and backpacked my way through most of my early teens. I've helped build a barn, a chicken house, countless doghouses...we didn't play Wii. As a kid, I did the type of things that are formative to a young person, like jumping off barns just to see if you could do it without getting hurt. That means assessing that this'll probably hurt, but trying it anyway. And when you make it safe, you feel liberated. I spent long afternoons jogging in the country, stopping to pet the same horses that recognized me and came to chuff for an apple (if you were ever driving through N. Indiana and saw some crazy girl jogging with an apple in each fist, that was me).

Now, I lived in Northern Indiana, so it wasn't particularly strenuous hiking that I did, but I'd go for hours on end. Being outdoors so much taught me more than just how much water to bring, which animals to avoid, and how to find dry firewood. When you spend enough time at something, you learn more than you intially expect or can imagine. I learned how to listen, how to be still, how to breathe. When I didn't know it, God was there. His guiding love was most present to me in the quietness of His creation. Still is. I despise city life for this very reason.

I'm on a mission, currently, to find stillness again. But it's so easy to lose here, even when I can find it.

The need for creeds

http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/pelikan/

Nine months old, my blue eyes.

Ella Sue is now nine months old. Nine months is a crucial age. They're moving on their own, talking nonstop (Ella says Mama, Dada, Zach, goat, cat, and banana, clearly, and also babbles all the time), taking leaps and bounds towards independance. But then, just when you are afraid baby is already grown up, she needs you and can't abide without you. She holds up her arms and cries for you, and when you scoop her up she fits just perfectly still in the crook of your arms.

Baby girl is still baby girl, and Mama's baby girl most importantly.

Her baby blues are heartachingly brilliant and clear.

The Anglo-Papalist plow

An apostolic constitution is the highest level of decree issed by the Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. There is one on the market now, yet unpublicized (at least to my knowledge at this moment) that has already drawn "continuing Anglicans" into it's lure.

I am not comfortable with an Anglo-Papalist entity. It seems silly to the extreme. If you want to be Roman Catholic, BE ROMAN CATHOLIC. I don't understand why any professed, steadfast Anglican would, if realizing RC was to them the good and correct way, choose to just blur the lines and muddy the waters. You should open the gate and walk into the other field, not dig a tunnel under the fence. While I understand BenedictXVI's gesture, and see no ugliness or ill will in his extension, I do not understand the Anglican acceptance of it. There is no graceful way to make such a change. Why must it be embellished? Either you have the guts to stand up and take your stance, or you stay where you are. We are so afraid to choose sides, we make ourselves all the more the fools.

When I see a fork in the path, I know one path must be chosen. You should not choose two paths, and instead of taking either one try to drag an ecumenical plow between the two so they just become one big path.

The definition of plow is interesting to note at this point: an agricultural implement used for cutting, lifting, turning over, and partly pulverizing soil.

How can one say they are trying to preserve the beauty of Anglican heritage, while they are at the same time gathering energy to push the heretofore mentioned plow?

My baby girl