It's the end of another great month of blogging and many of us are celebrating the fact that we made it all the way to the end! But before we get to pouring the champagne, or the cups of tea, I have an invitation for you. An Invitation for Tea & Treats Why an invitation, you say? Well, I'm always glad to see you, of course, but tomorrow, I have news I think you might want to hear. There are resources I want to tell you about that might be for you. You are most likely to love tomorrow's tea party if you ... are a blogger or work from home mom who wants guidance about using Pinterest or other social media to build your biz have ever wanted to take a baking class are interested in resources that help you nurture & grow your faith want more easy tricks for decluttering your home are ready to decorate & love new decorating or redesign ideas sometimes can't think of what to wear & would like almost 300 new ideas And those are just the highlights!! ;) I've Got Gifts Just to bribe - I mean, entice you - to come and say hello, I've got gifts for you. What's a good party without party gifts, after all? Hope I see you here! Thanks so much for spending this month with me, beloveds! I always have a wonderful time!! And this time, I wrote more than 30 posts so I got to give myself the ribbon. :) How was this month for you, if you participated in the challenge? Were you able to see an increase in traffic to your blog? I had 8200 pageviews, a 158% increase! That increase in traffic is one of my favorite things about doing the challenge, alongside getting into interesting discussions with other bloggers. See you tomorrow! Love, Jeanine ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ If you haven't had a chance to get access to my free lifestyle library, yet, click the highlighted link to get it. Then we can continue the conversation we have started this month, about slow living, hygge, faith books, growing your faith & other lifestyle/mom life topics. ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
12 Comments
I thought that being faithful was about becoming someone other than who I was…I thought that it meant ignoring my own needs… I thought that it meant always trying harder… -Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church In the beginning of the book, Leaving Church, Barbara Brown Taylor tells us that she has always known God as a Divine Presence that she felt most connected to in nature. It seemed an effortless connection, but she didn’t have words for this Presence until she began to hear people talk about God. Because, as she said, she wanted to be close to God always, she decided to major in religion in college, and then, go to seminary. She was following God all the way into a career, and eventually, she was ordained as an Episcopal priest. These stories are about the phase she describes as “finding herself.” Two more book sections follow, one about losing herself and the final one, about finding herself again. She says that we go through each of those stages in our lives, again and again. In the stories about losing herself, she says a lot that I can relate to about busyness and wanting to help. But, they both led her away from her connections, both with God and with herself, as she took on more and more, and kept saying yes. Her busyness seemed to be about trying to do enough, trying to help everyone she could. It was hard for her to let go of that in order to get the rest she needed. I think the part I can relate to is how hard it was to let go of it, but for me, it has always been about being enough, or becoming enough, rather than doing. There seemed to be virtue on offer, just in the trying, in the busyness, itself, because of the possibility of getting there someday. Eventually, I realized that I wasn't actually getting anywhere, except farther away from myself, and she seemed to have a similar realization. In the final section, she describes the road back to herself and to peace, but I was left wanting to know more about where she was with God at the end. Her faith had changed along the way, had shifted, but to what? Most of it is really great writing, but I felt like it ended in a kind of vague place. Maybe that was a reflection of an unresolved time, or a resolution still in progress. I loved learning the story of her journey of faith, in general, though. What do you think? Is it the kind of book that would interest you? And can you relate to her idea of the three phases in life: finding yourself, losing yourself and finding yourself again? That could make a great slow faith journaling question, especially if you felt inspired to look for memories of those stages at work in your own faith journey. See you tomorrow! Love, Jeanine What would it be like to have God walking with you and not know it? And is it possible that it happens to you all the time? Microfiction: A Fictionalized, Modern |
Hi, I'm
|