I'm a tired, grumpy camper this morning... I'm staying with the children of a co-worker while he's at a church conference, and the experience has led me to the conclusion that there is something inherently unbalanced about a system that requires children to be in school before the sun is up. It does not make their caretakers who had to wake up at 6 am (and who normally rise at 7:30 am) happy people. On the other hand, though, I can leave work earlier this afternoon. There is always a silver lining.

As for sleep, though... I saw a specialist on TV this weekend who said that the average high school/college age person needs about nine hours of sleep per night. What is the average? For most college students, about six. He said that most Americans are walking zombies, living in this half-awake haze that prevents them from being as happy or productive as they could be. I also read an article in National Geographic that says caffeine is the only psychoactive drug that people give to their children.

Now, I am not one to preach to you all. I remember one particularly hellish semester at school when I went to bed at 2 am every single night and took an average of two power naps a day just to get me through my 165-page portion of Dickens for the next class. I also remember having a meltdown around Easter that semester. It was around that time that I finally started letting go of a bit of my perfectionism to take care of myself.

When we follow the gods of achievement and material success, what are we doing to ourselves in the process? Do we have any time for creativity? Any time to just "be?" Any time to remember that we are beloved creations of God? When we're so caught up in what we have to do, we lose so much of who we are.

So I'm going to throw out a challenge for you all-- take a 20 minute "time out" at some point during the week to do absolutely nothing. You don't have to pray, or write, or even think, if you don't want to. Don't set out to take a nap, but if you do fall asleep, that's okay. Just go lay on your bed and stare at the ceiling for a while. Calm your mind of the business and just "be." I'd be interested to hear any comments you have about your experience of "time out," so feel free to post them and share with others. Next week I'll tell you about my experience as well.

And whether you do the challenge or not, just remember to take time for yourself this week. Rejoice in the fact that you have worth, simply because you are a beloved of God.

"I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus." -- 1 Corinthians 1:4

Kelsey

PS-- The new Women's Ministries temp just showed up in the office, and no one else is here to tell her what she's supposed to do!!! Curses on showing up earlier than anyone else!!

I'm sitting here at my apartment, eating grits for breakfast. Now, I would like to share with everyone who told me that this could not be done-- I am eating week-old grits from the CoCo meeting. Actually, given some water and enough heat, this can be done. Yesterday's leftover grits were kind of lumpy, though, so I think you have to reheat them in small doses. A note of translation for those of you not from the South or Midwest: grits are this corn product, kind of like the consistency of Cream of Wheat, that Southerners absolutely adore for breakfast. You have to doctor them quite significantly to get any taste out of them, though, so it is kind of hard to see the point. There is enough cheese mixed into these grits to give a horse a heart attack.

The reason I'm eating and typing at the same time, rather than waiting until I get to work? Because I'm meeting with the committee planning the 2006 Churchwide Gathering of Presbyterian Women today to talk about a joint event we're planning with them. For those of you who haven't heard, we're planning on holding the Leadership Event that year in Louisville on intergenerational dialogue. We want to invite some PW women-- women from second wave feminism, women who were among the first in their churches to be ordained, women from WWII interment camps, women on the front lines of the civil rights struggle-- to be in dialogue with us about the issues of the past and today. We feel that the learning process that would occur with this dialogue is essential for the survival of our church. We have to be able to talk to one another as one generation learns from the wisdom of another, and the other passes on the reins of responsibility for the church. I'm excited about meeting with PW today, and very excited about the future projects we're working on to help young women stay involved with the church. Stay tuned!

Have a great weekend! I'll talk to you on Monday!

"May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers and sisters. Amen." --Galatians 6:18

Kelsey

Question of the day: If you could inhabit the mind of any Biblical woman for a day (kind of like in that movie I never saw, Being John Malkovich), which one would it be and why?

My Answer: I think I'd inhabit the mind of one of Lot's daughters. Last night I went to a Bible study in which we went over the story of Lot's daughters committing incest and giving birth to the Moabites and Ammonites (Genesis 19:30-38). It is a very odd story-- you don't usually see a Bible study on them! The pastor's point on the outline was "Our bad actions have long term consequences." Umm... that's definitely one way to put it. All that said, I think it would be interesting to know what their reasoning really was for all that, beyond what the Bible tells us about it. It isn't something I think most of us would want to do. On the other hand, maybe they were still mad at Lot for trying to give them to an angry mob earlier in the chapter.

Think about this, though-- even though the Moabites were descended from this incident of incest, one of their nation, Ruth, eventually became an ancestress of King David and of Jesus (and got her own book in the Bible, to boot). It points to the beauty of God's redemptive work in the world, and in our own lives. Nothing, and no one, is out of the reach of God's love.

"We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to God's purpose." --Romans 8:28

Kelsey

What was the first thing you noticed when you woke up this morning?

Mary Elva Smith, the Coordinator for Women's Ministries here at the Presbyterian Church (USA), started off a spiritual healing retreat session with CoCo last weekend by asking this question. The truth is, we don't really notice much, do we? For me, I greeted this morning by hearing the alarm, noticing that it was 7 am, and wondering how much longer I could sleep before I absolutely had to get up. I missed so much in my focus on what had to be done... the warmth of my red-striped down comfortor, the enveloping security of pre-dawn light, the photos of loved ones smiling upon me from around the room.

Mary Elva taught us a useful pattern for getting in touch with the spiritual in our everyday lives, a pattern that allows you to quiet the mind and hear God: notice, pay attention, wonder. Maybe you're walking to class on a grey, wintery day, and you see the sun burst through the clouds. Perhaps you see a particular grin on a friend's face. Notice it. Really think about it for a minute. Explore it. You may find that your day has more of the divine in it than you initially thought.

I discovered the power of noticing after taking a photography seminar last summer at Ghost Ranch Conference Center in Abiquiu, New Mexico. Every afternoon, I went out on solitary hikes and looked for photo ops. I was amazed at how much beauty I found simply by pausing to notice a particular tree pattern or cactus bloom. The reflection process opened up wells of creativity, in fact, that I hadn't tapped for years. By the end of the week, I was writing poetry to go with my photos. I wrote an essay about my own Christian feminist journey. I found a place in myself that rarely emerged in my day-to-day life.

So today, notice the situations around you. Notice, pay attention, and wonder. Invite God in to join you on the journey. You may be surprised at the healing it brings.

"From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven?" --Job 39:12
Kelsey

After a day of lounging around the house and catching a matinee at the local movie theater, I'm back in the office and ready to get this blog off the ground. Last weekend was our semi-annual Coordinating Committee here in Louisville. What came out of it? What stuck with me about it? One word-- womanspace.

What is "womanspace," you might ask? Well, it is the place where women get together. In a world where the media presents unrealistic expectations about women's appearances, churches question women's gifts for ministry, and schools create nearly impossible standards of performance for all of us, womanspace allows us to simply "be." It is a place to reveal our secret struggles, receive comfort, and ask the tough questions of one another. Simply put, womanspace is a place to rest in the presence of God as women.

Why do we need this space apart from men? Mainly because being a woman is a unique experience of discrimination. For centuries, women have been rated second class in the church and society, somehow subhuman. One of the most influential thinkers of the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas, said that in the woman is "something deficient or accidental." Martin Luther claimed that a woman's purpose in life was purely for childbearing.* Every day, women still struggle with versions of these ideas that permeate the subconscious of our society. Women need a place to escape, a place to come together with others of similar experience to debrief.

I saw the power of womanspace this weekend at our Coordinating Committee meeting. On Thursday, a group of overstressed, overextended women came together in Louisville to talk about the business of NNPCW. And we did talk about business. However, we also did a spiritual healing retreat. We did a community Bible study through the "mutual invitation" model. And we "checked in," allowing each woman to talk for as long as she wanted about her life, her joys, and her struggles. I was amazed at the difference that a few days of spiritual retreat and sharing with one another in a community of women re-energized the members of CoCo. I see the same thing every year at our leadership event as well. There is something powerful in young women coming together to create womanspace.

So today, I would encourage you to seek out womanspace in your own life. This can be with other women, or even by creating a safe space for your own private conversations with God. Either way, give yourself the place to leave behind all the clutter of life and just "be" in the presence of God.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." --Matthew 11:28

Kelsey

*From Isabel Rogers, Toward A Liberating Faith: A Primer on Feminist Theology, Louisville, KY: Women's Ministries Area, Presbyterian Church (USA), 1999.