The Beautiful No

Donald Miller announced the winner to the story contest yesterday, sadly it was not me. I realized along the process that wanting/wishing/hoping/asking is the most important "winning" I could do. Somewhere along my 44 (almost 45) years I have had the hoping taken out of me. I am a positive person and usually quite content, so this surprised me when I realized it. Between the last week when they originally were supposed to announce the winner and yesterday I began to realize that not hoping/wishing/wanting somehow happened because I thought I was too fragile to be disappointed. I truly am not.

I don't like disappointment, but I would far rather hear the beautiful "NO" than live a life that is void of hoping. I also want to be able to hear the beautiful "NO" if it is one that protects me from ruin. Looking back the hard "No's" that I/we have received along our path have always been the best answer. That house we had our hearts set on - big, beautiful and a money pit - that no saved us from financial ruin as I can now see how much the current owners are having to do to keep up. How much more life giving our real home is because it doesn't need everything done to make it livable. That NO was truly a gift. We didn't think so at the time, but looking back truly understand it's beauty.

So, I am not fragile, and I will keep hoping/wishing/wanting/dreaming and listening for that beautiful no, even if it disappoints - because everything truly is unfolding as it should.

An invitation to the future

this is an invitation to an amazing future & I can guarantee it because most futures are & even if they aren't there are better things to do than blaming me about it

via StoryPeople

Dream Assignment

My long time blogger bud Jen Lemen has the biggest dreams of almost anyone I know - and one of those dreams is actually within her reach and you can help make it happen.

Jen is a Shutter Sister, mom, artist, poet, blogger-extraordinaire and she and her friend Stephanie have put together a Dream Assignment proposal and it's tied for 5th place right now - can you help them by registering and pushing them up to the top? Pic Hope:

Name Your Dream Assignment - Picture Hope

A Theology of Hope

This quote embodies so beautifully the community I have found here in St. Stephen. Thank you to all who engage in it.

Prophetic imagination, or prophetic dreaming, keeping visions alive, is what stimulates diverse groups forming society into becoming a culture of life, a biophilic, life-loving culture, to use an ecological term. It is also an authentic dimension of being and becoming Church. Together with the power of dangerous memory, these two activities are at the heart of a theology of hope. For prophetic imagination is outrageous---not merely in dreaming the dream, but in already living out of the dream before it has come to pass, and in embodying this dream in concrete actions.

Mary Grey, The Outrageous Pursuit of Hope

Prophetic imagination linked with dangerous memory - what an incredible combination.

via

Epiphany

 Today is the Feast of the Epiphany and also the third anniversary of our arrival in New Brunswick.

A few months after our arrival we found out that the New Brunswick motto is "Spem Reduxit" - literally "Hope was restored" - it is so true to our story. Epiphany comes in so many ways.

May you find one today.

(I took this picture at St. Saviour's church in Bar Harbor, Maine - I don't know if it is one of the Tiffany stained glass or not, it is very beautiful though)

Emergent Politics

I have been thinking a lot about the political race in the states since Obama sucked me in. I had divorced myself of tv news coverage and the bane of the talking heads for quite a few years until I began to hear the clarion call of Barack Obama's message. I must say that not caring what happened was much easier. I now care far too much - and will be heartbroken if America chooses what I consider to be fear, hate and unrest instead of hope, unity and peace.

I believe what is truly at stake here is so similar to what is happening within the modern church and the emerging church. Barack Obama is a politician for a post-modern generation. This is why many of the old guard cannot hear his message while those of us who do cannot hear anything else. Ears trained for modern facts and imperialism aren't able to grasp the nuanced messages of postmodern thought. The old guard cannot seem to get their head around the idea that many in the rest of the world already know.

This article by Frank Schaeffer articulates so well the choice our country must make - old or new - past or future - I for one want a hopeful future:

The Fight for Obama Requires Euphemisms and More Truth

I Want Change!

Yes We Can!