Imperfect Serenity Blog
I began this blog in 2005 while I was taking care of two young children and my dying mother, so the title, Imperfect Serenity, referred to my struggle to stay spiritually grounded during a difficult time. Eventually the title came to include my experiences in eco-justice activism, anti-racism work, and book publicity.
Poverty Continued…
Wallis' point about many of us not living with the poor was illustrated one night several years ago by my perceptive daughter. We were celebrating Lent, the forty days before Easter, when many Christians fast or give up some comfort, while trying to practice a heightened concern for the poor. We had decided to eat a simple meal once a week and donate the money we saved to Catholic Relief Services, which provided a small cardboard rice bowl and simple recipes from around the world for this purpose. One night when I was coaxing my five-year-old to try rice and black beans she asked, "Why can't we eat what we want and just give the poor people our rice and beans if they like this [...]
The Poor You Shall Have with You
My Quaker meeting recently had a session where we shared some of our experiences with money. Dealing with poverty–our own or other people's–was one of the themes that emerged. Afterward someone asked me what I thought of a famous Gospel quote about the poor. As it turns out, I have a few paragraphs about that which got cut from the book, so here's another deleted scene: Sometimes the things that need to be changed don’t affect us directly, making us unlikely to do anything about them unless we feel connected to those who do need help. Evangelical minister Jim Wallis makes this point, talking about Christians in the United States who do not live with people who are poor. Author of God's Politics: Why the [...]
What Voice Shall We Listen To?
Here's another story from Sophie's interview that didn't make it into the book. Sophie had been previously described as a petit white woman with blond hair and blue eyes: I recall another story Sophie told me once before she was ill. One night she was walking to her car on a dark city path in a neighborhood with a high crime rate. Sophie, who was in her sixties at the time, grew nervous when she heard footsteps. Then she heard a voice inside her say, "Turn around and go talk to the person behind you." Sophie turned and walked back toward a tall, young black man. As soon as she spoke to him, the fear left her. "Excuse me," Sophie said in her high, soft [...]
Sophie’s Story
Those of you who have read The Wisdom to Know the Difference may remember Sophie, who thought she was dying of leukemia and then had a remarkable full recovery after coming to complete peace. Well, here's a piece of her interview that never made it into the book, even though I was very touched by this story: Near the end of our interview, Sophie told me with some urgency that there was one more story she had to share. She had been visiting her grandchildren when her two youngest granddaughters, ages five and six, pulled her aside in secret. The six-year-old sat her down and said, "We know that you're going to die soon, Grammy." "You do?" Sophie asked, astonished because the girls had not [...]
Rant about Culture
As promised last time, I've been reading the "cuts" file from The Wisdom to Know the Difference, looking for things that feel worth saying, even though they didn't make it into the book. I've noticed that I did a lot of ranting about our culture early on, which got scaled back as I revised. Here's a taste: Our culture discourages us from the practices that help us to connect to our inner guidance. The gym music blares, the doctor’s office television is always on, our senses are constantly being stimulated. Our schedules are full of soccer games and PTA meetings, not to mention commuting to work that is often unsatisfactory. We come home and try to tune out the stress by watching “reality” shows about [...]
Outtakes
I didn’t blog while on a family vacation, and now that it’s my first work-day in over three weeks, I’m not sure where to start. I’m in a mood to tie up loose ends, cross things off my to-do list, and simplify. The Wisdom to Know the Difference is coming out in paperback in less than two months, and I’m trying to discern what I’m meant to do in terms of continued publicity, especially with limited work-time over the summer. I thought about taking a vacation from the blog (now over five years old), but my friend Lori Tharps gave me what seems like a fun alternative. She pointed out how people love to watch the deleted scenes after they’ve seen a movie and mentioned [...]
Work and Money
I have two schools of thought when it comes to work and money. One is that I am called to do certain work and how much money I make at it is irrelevant. I don’t buy the belief that our value equals our net worth. I don’t buy the belief that well-paid work is inherently more valuable than low-paid work or the common assumption in some circles that a good teacher is less talented and industrious than a CEO. By the end of my senior year of college, I was clear that money wasn’t my prime motivator, and I’ve been making unconventional career choices ever since that have brought me great satisfaction, though not great wealth. But lately I’ve been learning a different set of [...]
Technology and Simplicity
This morning as I was learning how to use my new iPhone at the Mac store, I got a call from my auto mechanic informing me that it would cost $7,400 to fix the broken monitor in my Prius. This has got me thinking about the pros and cons of possessing such fancy devices. I finally decided to get the iPhone when Mac announced a new generation of even more clever phones, which means that all the old ones are now on sale. Better yet, I discovered, they are selling refurbished models of old iPhones, so you can get a phone that could replace at least ten other gadgets for as low as $40 at Best Buy (not including service, of course). The fact that [...]
Your Best Life
Those who know of Joel Osteen may be surprised to hear that I’m reading his #1 New York Times bestseller Your Best Life Now and trying to figure out what speaks to me and what doesn’t. For those unfamiliar with the famous smile pictured here, Osteen is the pastor of Lakewood Church, said to be the largest and fastest growing church in the US with a weekly attendance around 38,000. An additional 20 million people per month view his weekly sermon on television, which is what publishers call “a platform,” the kind that helped his first book sell over 4 million copies. So, when I saw Your Best Life Now available for a quarter at a used book sale, I was curious. In some ways, [...]
Can We Trust Intuition?
I like observing the wild way my mind works. I’m a fascinating case—as are we all, I suspect. I’m especially interested in intuition, where it comes from, and whether we can trust it. Usually I do trust it, though that doesn't mean that things work out exactly as I expect. What got me thinking about this was the recent resolution of an intuition I had months ago when I first read about the Nautilus Book Awards in a writing newsletter. The thought immediately popped into my mind, “I’m going to win that thing.” I looked up the award—saw that is was for books that “promote spiritual growth, conscious living, and positive social change as they stimulate the imagination and inspire the reader to new possibilities [...]