UrbanLife Ministry enters Phase 2

Over lunch with two great, smart and wise people today, I commented that the developing concept of UrbanLife becomes more incarnate everyday. I'm an ideas-and-vision person and I thrive in this stage of the game. But even for me, this feels really good to be moving UrbanLife out of my head and giving it structure, leadership, focus and direction.

If it worked for God to have The Word become flesh and live among us, then there must be something to the work of taking an idea and making it real and fleshy. (Not that I'm claiming that this ministry is the next best thing to Jesus...maybe sliced bread, but not the holy one.)

Here are some fleshy updates about UrbanLife:

• 
  
  UrbanLife has a mission statement (or a vision, depending on how you define the two things) -- UrbanLife seeks to build community and deepen spirituality among young urban professionals while helping them attain God's highest ideals for their careers, finances, relationships, self-growth, and connection to the world (mission and environment).


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  We are entering the development phase of the virtual home for UrbanLife--a fully functional cutting edge website that will be interactive, informative and inspirational. A leading national company is working on this project--SiteOrganics.com--and it is the generosity of the people at St. Andrew who are making this possible.


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  The first programming cycle for UrbanLife will begin mid-October and run for 4-6 weeks. The kick-off for this first programming cycle--a community-wide Blessing of the Pets--will occur Sun., Oct. 7, at 5:30 pm in Reverchon Park, off of the Katy Trail.


• 
  
  Plans are in the making now for an on-going Sunday morning class led by me for young, urban professionals. Cell/home groups will be formed out of this large class.


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  The branding of this ministry is in full development as well as logo development. Can't wait till I get to share it with you.

As this ministry begins to take more structure, I spent some time today reflecting on what leadership means and how it is best practiced in the unique culture of church life. This new experience will test and push me to become a more effective leader and in the words of my mentor Jim Dorff, it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that my effectiveness can be transformed into excellence in the kingdom of God. (I like relying on God, Jim...thanks for the reminder!)

One of the people at lunch today was Don McMinn with the Leaders Summit. I am very impressed with how Leaders Summit is organized and what they offer corporations, individuals and religious groups (the quote above is from their website). Others have come across this connection realizing that the best leader in our world today is a servant leader. I believe that developing leadership skills, however you serve with whatever job title, is part of what it means to becoming a Jesus-follower in this world today.

Want to assess your leadership skills? Take the Leaders Summit's free assessment by clicking here.

In my next blog posting, I will tell you more about why I think if John Wesley were alive today he would be a life coach.

One year down, 59 more to go!

If I live to be 92, then I have 59 more years of marriage. And I can't wait! This has been an incredible year for me. What I have believed about marriage has been shown to be true this past year: marriage really is an incredible laboratory where God gives you the chance to learn to love someone as Christ loves this world: practicing forgiveness every day...and cultivating the fruits of the spirit...joy, peace, patience, kindness, love, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. It has been an incredible year of learning how to be myself, how to let Troy be himself, giving thanks for all the ways we are so incredibly human and savoring those moments when my heart wells up in ways I never thought were possible for people like me who have a hard time trusting.

As this day of celebration comes to an end, I can't help but also remember the amazing friends who coached me through this life transition....to those incredible women who walked me through the range of emotions, encouraged me to step out and risk loving, and pushed me to forgive myself and forgive others...I say thank you!

And, as this picture shows, Sarah has always been a wonderful blessing in our lives. She even attended the wedding...not the honeymoon though (they would eat her in China!). Sarah is a curious dog, very aware of her surroundings and sensitive to human emotion. One of our favorite Sarah memories...About 3 months before we were engaged, in a very difficult conversation that couples have before they decide to get married when all the cards are put on the table, in the heat of the moment, Sarah jumped on my sofa, standing right between us and began to pee. She had never before, and to this day has not, done such an outright act of disobedience. But she achieved her goal: we had to work together on this little crisis and somehow in the working, we realized that we had just gotten stuck in our heads. Sarah pulled us back to the best place from which to live this life: in the present moment. Good dog, Sarah!

And I'm Back

I wish I could say that I've been on vacation and that's why you have not received blog updates from me. It was not very nice of me to leave my faithful readers wondering if my sore throat had worsened these past 7 days and whether or not the Lord had called me home. Why else except death or kidnapping would I abandon my blog?

I'm not sure what has happened these past 7 days and why the blogs ran dry. My sore throat was gone by Thursday, then we had a non-stop weekend, and then my marathon training schedule kicked-in this past Monday. All that being said, I've been a tired little pup at night which is why I'm writing my blog here at work (shhh...don't tell Dr. Fiedler, my boss).

You've heard it here first and now you can hold me accountable to achieving my goal. I'm officially announcing my entrance into the big 26.2-mile race--the White Rock Marathon, Dec. 9, 2007. This will be my third marathon, Troy's second marathon, and my brother Eric's first marathon. Eric will be training at his home in Kansas City then flying-in for the weekend. This is his last big race before his 3rd child is born in February.

I think the past week has been a recalibration for me as I've incorporated marathon training into my life and as UrbanLife begins to take on more life. But it's all good.

I had the funniest dream last night--also my first remembered dream in the past week. Troy and I were at a conference that I was really enjoying. He asked me to go get him a glass of iced tea. I had to walk 5 miles to get the tea. It was given to me in a crystal iced-tea glass with plastic wrap over the top. On the walk back, I saw Matt Damon and Ben Affleck who invited me to their house. At their house, they showed me a man they had just killed (bizarre!!!). They wanted me to help them figure out what to do. I kept looking at the iced-tea, then Matt, then Ben, then the dead man, trying to figure out what to do. About that time, my alarm went off.

Here's my dream interpretation: Boundaries are good... Sometimes crazy things are packaged in such appealing packages and they can easily distract me from my calling and purpose. It's hard to see past appealing packages and realize that what's behind it is craziness and there's a time just to walk away. The iced-tea represents my calling and passion and one of the things that I love about Troy is that he encourages me everyday to go and do what I'm called to do, even on the days that I don't feel that called to my work. The dead man--all the dead-end things that try to keep me from staying focused on my calling. Why Matt and Ben--you just can't make something more enticing than attaching those two guys to it...they can even make a dead-man seem like a good option for where to spend my time.

So that's my story today...stay focused on what I'm here to do...and just do it.

Peanut Butter + Chocolate

This evening should have been about me and the gym. Our youth minister at First Church offered us taste tests this afternoon of the limited edition Reese's Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Cups. Something as healthy as a banana held hostage in the fat and sugar of peanut butter cups is a crime against fruit. So, I should have been at the gym tonight doing time on the tredmill.

But I wasn't. This sore throat thing is still zapping me so I stayed home to "rest." So I watched television. I started about 6:30 pm and haven't stopped yet...it's about 9 pm and I can't figure out how to turn it off. I have not watched television in months. I had no idea that television is all about the search for the newest this or greatest that. In one evening alone, I've witnessed the search for the top model, the best impersonator, the greatest dancer, the funniest stand-up comic, the newest inventor and to cap it all off, I watched the Dallas bartender on that song-lyrics show that is a hybrid of Millionaire and What's My Line? Go ahead, fill in the lyric, "Now I've had the time of my life and __ ___ __ ___ __ ___."

If I ate Reese's Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Cups on a consistent and regular basis, I would be a little worried about my body receiving its nutritional needs. I would also worry about my hips, another story though. What I watched on television tonight was the intellectual equivalent of Reese's Elvis Peanut Butter and Banana Creme Cups. And I wonder about the society whose primary source of nutrition is this intellectual food.

The phone lines are still open...so I think I will get all my votes cast for the next greatest fly by night star.

Why don't they have America's Search for the Greatest Preacher? What a great show this could be. People would finally see that some preachers are more human than the average bear and some preachers really are just jerks. The show could highlight the preachers talk-trashing each other not knowing they were being secretly recorded for airing in that evening's program.....A great episode would be the diva preacher walking out of rehearsal because he doesn't like his makeup....And you could hiss along with the studio audience as they offered a sympathy groan when a preacher is given next week's Scripture and it is the "hard" Scripture....Best of all, the show would feature the Southern Baptist preachers all ganging-up and standing in the corner staring down the women preachers... I can just hear those male Baptist preacher boys exclaiming, "(click here at your own risk)".

To quote Alf, I kill me. This fantasy was worth all the empty calories.

Allowance

Today's post is a part 2 from the post "Allow." A life lesson for me is that sometimes I need to just allow: Allow me to be me and allow that to be okay, allow others to be who they are and allow THAT to be okay, and allow God to still be working on my life.

Since that post, I've been thinking about the word "allowance." Those were good days when money came from doing such simple tasks as taking out the trash. Chores seemed like such an imposition back in the day. Now, I would take my neighbor's trash out if only they would pay me. (Okay, maybe not unless it was priced per trip.) We don't use the word allowance that often, mainly when speaking about a child's allowance, IRS allowances, or travel allowances. It makes me wonder what God's allowances look like to us, God's children.

Paul writes in Romans 8:
15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ? if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. 18 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us.

Is our allowance from God this spirit of adoption and ultimately being made an heir of God? If so, what am I opening myself to receive from God and how is that changing the way I live my life right now?

When I became interested in teaching yoga classes, what drew me to teaching is that I saw more REAL transformation in yoga students than in church members who had listened to me preach Sunday after Sunday. Yet the message I was preaching had everything to do with transformation. It seems to me the church has this amazing message of transformation, of going from living a fear-based-life to living a spirit-based life, and yet the church does not offer the path to this transformation. We can speak about it, but we aren't quite sure how to show anyone the first step, then the second step, then the third step on this path. It's like we are missing Operations in the church today.

Okay, final thought for today's blog: Are you open to receiving an allowance from God, and if so, will you expect it today?

Okay, final, final thought for today's blog: So I sent out an initial email and survey to the 187 email addresses that First Church has for active members, visitors and prospects between the ages of 22-36. I made a mistake and did exactly what I have been saying I don't want people to do with this new ministry: make distinctions based on how couplehood is defined legally. So for all of you who fall somewhere between single and married, it was my blindspot not to have a third option for "coupled." My bad. Probably won't be the last mistake that I will make so it is good that we learn to practice forgiveness early in our relationship.

Allow

That slight twinge of a scratch set in last night. Today, the twinge morphed into a "it's-starting-to-hurt-to-swallow" kind of feeling in my throat. I can hear the grandmother voice inside of me saying it's probably just allergies. Nonetheless, I spent 2006 building the white-night-in-shining-armor-blood-cells and this first hint of illness in more than a year is not a welcomed visitor.

Being a fan of homeopathy, I loaded the dog in the car to trek to CVS for the miracle product, Airborne. I have found this plop, plop-fizz, fizz mixture to be a great relief--for sore throats that is. I added a second secret weapon today: the Airborne Gummi Lozenge. The instructions on the side of the box read, "Allow one lozenge to dissolve slowly in mouth." The adverb "slowly" first caught my attention as if I had any control over how quickly this lozenge could dissolve in my mouth. It seems that "slowly" is more in the design of the product and less in the chemical make-up of my mouth. I can't control how "slowly" this will dissolve.

It drives me crazy that I can't control how things will happen around me, as in this case, how slowly things will happen in my mouth. I wish I could control more, you know, decide when this event should occur or that experience should happen. Am I control freak? I took an online, official test to see if I was a control freak and it came out that I'm a 24% Control Freak. (Okay, those of you who REALLY know me are laughing). By the way, the yoga pose used to illustrate my control nature is one of my favorite poses--it's a pose all about balance and letting go of control.

You Are 24% Control Freak

You have achieved the perfect balance of control and letting go. You tend to roll with whatever life brings, but you never get complacent.

Are You A Control Freak?

You can take the "Are You A Control Freak" too by clicking on the link above. But before you do and leave my blog, I want to go back to the instructions on the box of Airborne Gummi Lozenges. "Slowly" is not the key word in this sentence. The key word is "allow."

Allow one lozenge to dissolve slowly in mouth.

Allowing and accepting are close cousins. Both are good goal-verbs for me--allowing what is right now to be enough; allowing who I am to be enough; allowing those around me to be who they are and allowing that to be enough for me....and the big one, allowing God the space and time to make a new creation out of me. When I don't allow these things, I create tension in my life and overtime, it manifests in my body.

Enough allowing...Got to run -- the closing scene of Grease is on and you just can't help but to sing and dance along to "You're the One That I Want."

Vital Friends

In memory of Rev. Bill Stephenson, founding member, Wesley Study Group

Here it is: the end of the day of the end of the week of the end of my first month at First Church. What did I do to celebrate on Friday evening? I cleaned the kitchen and took the trash to the dumpster. And, I am writing this blog entry. Sounds like the kind of life you can only dream about.

Today's Topic: Friendship....I attended the funeral today for Rev. Bill Stephenson, who is a founding member of the Wednesday morning book group, Wesley Study Group. I joined the study group two years ago. Bill helped found the group in 1956. (Click to read the article I wrote for the UMR in March 2007 upon the occasion of WSG's honoring Bill with a hymn commissioned in his honor.)

Group member Rev. Vic Casad spoke on behalf of the WSG and on behalf of the lifelong friendship between Bill and Vic's father, Dr. Gordon Casad. (By the way, Vic is an awesome preacher--my first time to hear him preach.) Vic described his father's friendship with Bill as being a "vital friendship," a term recently coined by Gallup to sum up its research findings on the importance of friendship.

Here's a quote from the book's PR that describes what their research found:
(The author's) team's discoveries produced Vital Friends, a book that challenges long-held assumptions people have about their relationships. And the team's landmark discovery — that people who have a "best friend at work" are seven times as likely to be engaged in their job — is sure to rattle the structure of organizations around the world.

Vital Friends suggests that success or failure on projects at work can be directly linked to whether or not the person has a best friend who is a consultant, confidant and even a critic to walk alongside with as projects and careers develop. Contrast this with another study I heard a few years ago that said if someone has more than one close friendship than they are beating the national average, meaning that most of America has only one or less close friends.

Wow. No wonder loneliness is the greatest disease in America. And no wonder we are so physically unhealthy. It may take scientists a couple of decades to prove it, but our mental and emotional states manifest in our physical health.

Wonder why it is so hard to make friends in America? I want the end of my life to be like the end of Bill's. Bill loved even when it wasn't the most convenient for him. And he cared about others success. As Vic said in his sermon, a vital friend is someone who cares about his friend's success as much as he cares about his own success. Once again, there is a big, gigantic flashing arrow pointing out the path towards healing in our society. Yet, we get scared to take that first step. Wonder why.

Well, the kitchen is clean, the trash is at the dumpster, and my blog is written. Time to read. I'm starting the latest book for Wesley Study Group...the Kite Runner's newest release. Thanks Bill for helping start this group. It has made all the difference in my ministry. Blessings...Kathryn

Let's all be WeLLO

After watching the documentary SiCKO last night, Troy announced we needed to do everything possible to be WeLLO. (The documentary could have been what convinced him that we need to be more proactive with our health or it could have been the phone call yesterday from our insurance guy who said if one of us [not saying which one] sheds about 10 pounds our life insurance bill would drop $40/month.)

SiCKO made me sad for lots of reasons. It made me sad to hear the stories. What this documentary does best is tell stories, lots of stories about people who die because their insurance companies deny coverage or necessary drugs. I've always believed in the power of narrative statistics versus quantitative statistics. Narrative numbers preach. They can also be deceptive about what is and is not real, which is the criticism of this documentary. (Is our health insurance really that bad or did Moore just find some rare cases? Cast your vote in my poll on this page.) I had a deeper sadness after watching this movie that might be better described as feeling helpless. Our society is so polarized politically it is hard to know the difference from fact and fiction and truth and shipoopie. It's hard to discuss any issue in our society before people square off and want to roll up their sleeves. And, it is so hard to really get solid information to make an informed opinion. (Another recent topic for me has been the sale of TXU. Is selling TXU good for the customer or is it really selling our power to the devil?)

The point Moore makes at the end of the documentary, regardless of whether you believe he is a guru or an ass, is worth hearing: what it all comes to is whether we are in this game of life for "us" or for "me." Do we live to take care of one another or do we live just to take care of ourselves? Moore asked the right questions to our Canadian and English friends: (my paraphrase) "So you are willing to give money out of your own pocket for another person's care? If that person wasn't wise enough to take care of himself, then why should you have to take care of him?" I will be honest--It startled my ears to hear humans say medicine is a right and not a privilege. Their words reframed the issue for me and I could not help but to think about all the things in history that humans tried to make a privilege until some brave person stepped forward to proclaim that this isn't a matter of privilege, this is a matter of what's right.

You don't have to go far in Texas to say the name Moore and have someone dismiss him as a fat, uneducated, attention-hogging, biased, liberal jerk. Most of my Methodist preachers who try to paint the Bible in its Biblical context through word pictures every Sunday morning say similar things about a man named John the Baptist: he was hairy, probably smelly, lived in the wilderness, and said things that most people probably didn't want to hear in the first place. Hmmm...Moore resembles that picture.

By the way, we watched a full-length version of SiCKO that Troy downloaded from the Internet. A copy of the documentary was leaked on June 27, 2007. Critics argue that it was Moore himself who leaked the video. Denying this action, Moore did say that he believed all people should see this film, regardless of whether they can pay $9.50 to go to the movies. Hmmm...$9.50. Almost the cost of a prescription in England.

The trailer from youtube is linked below.

Watch The Trailer for Michael Moore's 'SiCKO'

Whether you like Moore or not, this is a fascinating look into what is happening in insurance and healthcare in the United States.

Look who's on the Roof of First Church!

That's right, only 22 days into my new assignment, I made it to the top of the small tower on top of First Church. And, I managed to bring a Fiedler, a Fiddler, and a production crew so that we could shoot a little-ole promo for First Church's upcoming musical, Fiddler on the Roof. I really enjoy feeling like I'm putting my undergrad degree to use and so being given the opportunity to write and produce this promo was very enjoyable for me. By the end of this week, look for the video here on my blog.

The August newsletter for First Church will feature UrbanLife. As I wrote the articles about UrbanLife today, I came to another place of clarity as to why I'm doing what I'm doing: I really BELIEVE what Jesus said about this whole life abundant thing. Imagine the impact we will have on the world if we can get urban professional adults to believe, if only for a small stolen moment every day, that we exist in God's abundance versus the world's scarcity. Many of you know my love for the Greek word, zoe, translated as life in John 10:10. Today, I researched the word "abundant" in this verse and found that it can translate as "beyond" so that Jesus might have said, "I came to give you life, and life beyond." A life beyond...a life beyond our fears, our doubts, our worries, our egos, our neuroses...a life beyond the most abundant we can ever imagine.

How do we get past what we think life is and move towards a life beyond? As we were climbing the old iron ladders (straight up, two of them) to get to the top of the tower, I kept telling myself, "just take the next step" and don't look at the steps before or after. I wanted to appear brave in front of my colleagues and church members so I just kept breathing and focusing on the step that was right in front of me. And the craziest thing happened: I did not feel fear on any one step as I climbed up or down the ladder, even when it was time to take that step off of the ladder on to the roof and later off of the roof and onto the ladder.

I met a dear friend for lunch today who unbeknownst to her or me, she spoke this word from God to me. I share it with you as you seek "zoe" kind of living: "God will only lay the stones for your path in front of you and he will only lay the next stone you are to step on. So close your eyes and pray, 'God, only let me doe the next right thing for your will that is here in front of me.' Then open your eyes and do what is in front of you." (As soon as the words came out of her mouth, we both realized the depth of the wisdom she spoke...I wrote it down on my napkin!)

Open your eyes and do what is in front of you.

Just a personal note to you, the blog reader: It's really neat that you are reading my blog. Even if you weren't here reading my blog, this effort would still be worth it because it is like being able to stick your toe into the pool of writing to decide if the waters are okay. But it is so much more fun knowing you are out there reading this, keeping up with me. So feel free to leave comments here and there if something I say sets off a chain-connection for you.

So if there were no readers, I would still be keeping this blog because it's a great format to put some thoughts out into the world without having to have a publishing contract. Someday though I want a publishing contract and want a cover to wrap around my writing...so I'm putting that request out there for the Universe today, 7-7-07. Is it a lucky day? I bought 2 quickpicks to tonight's lottery thinking that maybe it is a lucky day. But I think our dating and calendar system is more our invention than the Universe's invention so it is hard to say that today has the same meaning for the Universe that it has for us. I'm open to good luck, regardless of the day.

I've been running an informal science project on the gas mileage in my standard car. As much as possible this last week, I've tried not to get the RPM about "2." I've gone through one tank of gas running this experiment and got about 25 more miles to this tank than I normally get. So I will keep trying.

Troy and I were the guests of Denise and Katherine Renter last night at the Dallas' Young Artists performance of "The Music Man." We knew 3 young artists in the play: Katherine Renter, Meredith Moore and Chloe Clark-Soles. Wow--these are amazing young actresses and it was a great performance. Although we did not know the actor personally, we experienced an amazing rendition of "Shipoopi." (Just in case you are not familiar with this rather effeminate song sung by a male character in the play, here is Family Guy's version of it.)

Speaking of Troy, we are about to walk out the door to go have dinner with some friends...so, I will post this blog and add my parabolic twist to the story later on. Happy Saturday evening!

About 9:45 pm on Saturday evening -- This is the PS to this blog posting. We had a great dinner with our friends. They have an 18-month-old and so it is so much fun seeing how parenting works and imagining what it might be like for us someday. When I got home tonight, I decided to read the paper, where a "Late Metro" brief on page 2A caught my eye: LBJ-Kingsley crash kills father; 3 kids hurt. About 11 pm last night, a fatal crash happened on westbound LBJ killing a young father and injuring his son and two nephews. It's just interesting how stories overlap. We were on westbound LBJ and passed under Kingsley last night, about 10:50, on our way from the Young Artists Performance to meet two friends for late-night coffee and dessert. Life is so precious and you just never know. May peace surround those families.

Finding Freedom

(l-r) Power of Self-alumni Jane Velton, Linda Bush and I, pose with Jet, Linda's 4-month-old colt. If it looks like the colt is nibbling on my arm that's because he was. Troy and I enjoyed a Fourth of July dinner at Linda Bush and Gary Anderson's ranch in Pilot Point this evening. Jane is a writer in the Dallas area and among the many things Linda does, she is a trainer of Brainstyles. What is your brainstyle?

After returning from the ranch, Troy, Sarah and I walked to the corner of Richmond and Abrahms to watch the Lakewood Country Club fireworks. As we sat on the sidewalk in front of the Glo Dry Cleaners, I thought about one of my favorite movies, Barry Levinson's Avalon released in 1990. I think I saw it in the theater that year. The opening words of the character Sam Krichinsky still whispers in my ears:

I came to America in 1914 - by way of Philadelphia. That's where I got off the boat. And then I came to Baltimore. It was the most beautiful place you ever seen in your life. There were lights everywhere! What lights they had! It was a celebration of lights! I thought they were for me, Sam, who was in America. Sam was in America! I didn't know what holiday it was, but there were lights. And I walked under them. The sky exploded, people cheered, there were fireworks! What a welcome it was, what a welcome!

Fireworks brings back memories of me working the Lions Club hot dog stand in front of Sikes Center Mall in Wichita Falls. Dad put us to work all day serving cokes and just about the time the fireworks began, the line for drinks ended and we peaked our heads out above the trailer's overhang to watch the explosions and the colors. It never lasted long enough and yet it seemed to last forever. And when it was over, the last wave of customers came through and then we got put on clean-up duty.

Tonight, watching the fireworks, the colors, the fire blooms, the explosions...it all still looks about the same as it did 20-25 years ago in the mall parking lot. The movie Avalon is a fictionalized-documentary about how a family changes as America changes in the 20th century. Each generation has to change and the pain of change brings about this life lesson: ultimately it is the freedom to change that makes life beautiful, even when our minds want us to fear change. (From Avalon: "You cut the turkey?!!)

The freedom to change -- it is a freedom granted to all of us. Creating the space for this freedom is the greatest gift God offers us ... find your space.

dove evolution

Read below to see my experiencce being "touched up" today. It reminded me of this video that has been out for a while showing a model being prepped for a shoot.

Mirror, Mirror

Today's blog is all about appearances. If vanity were only a sin, we might be okay. But be careful: it is a SEDUCTIVE sin that wants you to think that you, right now, are not enough. Here's what happened to me today:

I had an appointment today with a talented photographer. I needed updated headshots. As I walked out of my office, with my 3 outfits waiting for me in my car, I asked the summer college intern Leslie to pray for my hair. Leslie just had formal portraits made and she knows the crisis of it being a bad hair day on picture day. I had no idea that this event was about to be way larger than any hair crisis.

The photographer took the photos and sat down at his computer to pick the best in each category: casual, suit and robe. It's not easy looking at 15 shots of me in the same outfit and deciding which one is the best. We did narrow it down to one shot and he opens this picture with a different program. He starts clicking different tools to touch-up the photo. This wasn't touching up, though. This was more like Extreme Makeover for the Headshot.

Here's a list of the "tweaking":

1. Erased my moles (1 on eyelid, 2 on nose and 3 on neck).

2. Erased my scars (2 on my forehead thanks to older brothers).

3. Waxed my eyebrows.

4. Filled in one thin eyebrow.

5. Smoothed over my teenage acne scars on my chin.

6. Increased the height of one eye so it doesn't look like I'm winking.

7. Erased lines on my neck.

8. Erased lines under my eyes.

9. Lightened under my eyes to get rid of the darker spots.

10. Whitened my teeth.

11. Overall brightened the picture.

12. Added more contrast to the picture.

13. Added a feather filter that made the whole thing look Streisand "softer."

14. Erased the fly-away hairs on my head.

15. Erased a piece of my bangs that was hanging too low across my forehead.

16. Evened out the coloring on my neck.

17. Warmed the coloring on my forehead.

As I watched him work his magic, I kept saying this mantra, "I'm okay, I love myself, I accept myself." As he painted the picture, we talked about how the advertising industry does not portray real-life women and that even models, in all of their natural beauty, are not considered good enough. Yet consumers aren't protesting and demanding anything different. When he was finished with his retouches, he gave me the option to easily undo all the changes with one click and choose to go with the picture as is. He put them side by side, the untouched and the retouched, and asked me to choose. Which one did I choose? Despite every part of me that wanted to have the original picture, I chose the retouched picture. WHAT IS IT WITH ME BUYING INTO OUR SOCIETY'S DESCRIPTION OF WHAT IS BEAUTIFUL? And all of this happened the day after getting a call from a Youth Minister in the area asking me to come and speak to his youth girls about body image and eating disorders.

A video was released recently on youtube (posted above) that shows a model being prepared for a shoot and then shows how the photo was "tweaked" to get the final picture for the billboard. It is an amazing process to watch.

As I watched my picture being tweaked today, I saw in the finished product what I looked like when I was 13 -- smooth skin, no wrinkles, no lines, no splotches, no moles (why do they grow with age?). It was also interesting to see this picture side-by-side with the untouched picture and realize that when I think of myself, I see the 13-year-old. Deep down, I try to deny that I'm aging.

When did we become so afraid of aging that we created an industry, continue to throw billions of billions of dollars at it, to somehow convince us that we will never grow old, never age, and if we try hard enough, maybe stay forever young?

I know what you are thinking....you would never get a picture retouched, that you would always be your authentic self....yada, yada, yada....that's right, go ahead and say that and just to save you the time, here is Julian's email so that you can have your touched-up headshot too. He really is a great photographer, because truth be told, before I knew he could retouch, I was very pleased with the before-- Julian.Noel@gmail.com. The "after" was like icing on the cake. I think I licked the plate clean.

How Engines Work

Now that I'm living and working in the same neighborhood, I'm excited about my gas bill lowering. One friend who made almost the exact same geographical job change as I reported that she filled up her car once a month. Hallelujah! So this week, when I realized that I was filling up my car on Sunday, after having filled it up the previous Tuesday, I began to think about where all that gas went. This thinking aloud occurred in my car with my husband present. As I counted where I had been the past 6 days, my husband had a quick answer that had nothing to do with where I had been: I did not know how to effectively drive a manual transmission. I had a quick reply: Any person who gets stuck on 114 for 1.5 hours because the road is flooded out (and TxDOT did not have the forethought to have officers directing traffic through the intersection light that the entire freeway had to go through to be diverted from the water) after lovingly dropping their spouse at the airport this past Thursday would naturally use a lot of gas in all of that start and stop traffic.
That's when Troy gave me a lesson on how engines work. Now I have a new quest: using second gear as the starting gear (skipping first) and then trying to keep my engine below the 2 RPM mark. Supposedly I will see better gas mileage. I remembered my quest yesterday morning driving to work but totally forgot about it on the way home so I probably had some 3, 4 and 5 RPM going on. If Troy's mechanical theory is true, and if I really am not maximizing my gasoline with my driving, then it's as if I'm driving down the road pitching the gasoline out of my car like a person would do with a bucket on a boat that is sinking on the ocean. The price of oil has hit the psychological mark of $70 so my economic forecast is that the price at the pump is going to continue to rise. Learning to maximize my gas mileage would go a long way towards safeguarding against my costs for gasoline, and yet, it's probably not just about me in this world so it's good to conserve gas because deep down we all know burning all this fuel just can't be good for our world. If oil is the decayed matter of extinct dinosaurs who have gone before us, we would do well to listen to their bones that are probably eager to remind us that nothing lasts forever, no matter how much we may think that God is on our side. We might just be the source of fossil fuel for someone else someday. So then it must be good here and now to consider if I am driving my own life in such a way that I am maximizing my mileage. Or, am I driving through life so unaware that I have no idea that what I'm actually doing is just pitching gasoline overboard not even realizing the precious commodity that is my strength and my hope and my center. Another way to ask this, Am I working for meaning? or Just meaning to work? I'm writing this post early Tuesday morning and as I got out of bed, I heard a whisper, "See ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness...and ALL these things shall be added unto you..." God help all of us as we seek the kingdom first.

Cultivating Imagination

Today starts my third week at First Church and things are going well. Plans for UrbanLife continue to develop and this month I ask for your prayers as God builds the Leadership Team: 12 + me. This group will begin meeting the first of August for what I'm calling the 10:10-experience. Ten weeks of 10 practices that will create habits for cultivating the abundant life Jesus speaks of in John 10:10. Just out of curiosity, if you have a practice that you think should be one of the 10, I would be curious to hear your idea--post to the blog or email me at reverendkath@gmail.com

This morning in Sunday school, we talked about "the poor." We were given lots of statistics about poverty in America, so much so that I felt a little down towards the end of the class. It's just so complicated. Now I know why the most-often quoted verse related to poor people, according to our speaker, is the one where Jesus quotes the Hebrew Scriptures, "The poor you will always have among you." That Scripture makes it easier to let myself off the hook and not have to think so hard about the poor.

So what's the best cure for feeling overwhelmed by statistics about the poor? Follow it with a sermon about the Rich, Young Ruler. It's not really a cure, but it did convict me that it's not a choice to wrestle about the poor or about my need to consume. The spiritual life is that wrestling--it's being willing to stay in that place of discomfort and acknowledge that this isn't easy. To stay in discomfort--in our age of medicating anything slightly irritating, discomfort is not popular.

The challenge is to be in the middle of discomfort and also keep the power of imagination burning bright. There is something to that city of God, the kingdom of heaven. It is magical, transforming, inspiring and most of all, it is the story that unites us. If for 5 minutes a day, at the very least, each one of us put on our imagination caps and just imagined what life would be like in the kingdom of heaven, could we get just a little closer? Of course, the goal of meditation is stilling your outer self so that your inner self can touch the divine. What if that inner touch of divine had a magical power to transform our outer touch, and after imagining the kingdom, we become empowered to build the kingdom, literally. Build it by our forgiveness. Build it with our hope. Build it with our belief that nothing is impossible for God.