Mystical Murmurs: My Interfaith Life

OK, I left my church and found one I liked better. But when I left, I wrote a letter to the Vestry, explaining my position, why I left, and what I objected to. I also sent them three attachments, in the hope that these would better explain my doubts: why I don't want to become a fundamentalist; why I don't think everyone needs to agree on every point of doctrine; why the "Purpose-Driven" programs are splitting congregations; and why the enforcement of uniform opinion is not in the least Anglican. First, I sent the email to a friend on the Vestry, and asked her to distribute it to other Vestry members, since I didn't have everyone's email address. In a couple of weeks, and following a Vestry meeting, it became clear to me that my friend's best intentions had gotten cut off at the pass -- no one got my letter. So then I got really annoyed, and emailed the letter to everyone on Vestry for whom I had an address, on the supposition that a few are better than

I've been tagged for two interesting memes, but I've had my head in a dark place and didn't notice one of them till today. My apologies to Psalmist , who tagged me way back on Feb. 8 for this book meme. I may be slow, but I do get there! Book meme : Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. (No cheating!) Find Page 123. Find the first 5 sentences. Post the next 3 sentences. Oh, boy, I hope you're not holding your collective breath in anticipation, because I happen to be at my desk on my lunch hour, and the nearest book is (drum roll, please): Lieberman, Joseph I. In Praise of Public Life , 2000 And the text, according to the rules of the meme, is: "American politicians have become so hungry for campaign contributions largely because, as I noted earlier, so much of politics has become driven by and wedded to television, which costs a lot of money. In 1974, which was a midterm election year, a record-shattering total of$356 million was spent by the nation's

Things have settled down a little at home. We have cleared the air, and we have a plan. That's all I can ask for right now. So ... the diet resumes. I lost three pounds somewhere, but of course there are miles to go yet. I have stopped being hungry and resentful. At least, I thought I had. I came home to an empty house, so the only ones who had to be fed were myself and the three canines. Having provided for them, I microwaved a Lean Cuisine pizza (4 miserable points) for myself. It wasn't bad, even if it did need a chocolate cake chaser. Lacking a chocolate cake, I sat there gloomily regarding my empty plate. Then I noticed it. A teeny, tiny, nearly microscopic piece of sausage had escaped from the pizza, and landed on the tablecloth next to my plate. But I was not the only one who noticed. Shadow, my nearly 12-year-old standard poodle, had fixed her beady little eyes on the prize. She looked from me to the sausage, quizically. I moved my hand a fraction of an inch closer to

"Family troubles" have prevented me from blogging for awhile. I don't need to burden anyone with the details. But somehow I had gotten the notion that, once my kids were adults, their problems would be their own. That they would have sufficient commonsense to solve them (better still, avoid them). That I would somehow be on a higher, "post-parental" plane, looking down benignly (sort of like the Deists' "watchmaker" God), while the kids made their own way. Yeah, right. Ain't happening. I left home at the age of 20, and never looked back. Never needed to be rescued from myself. Never needed to draw on my parents' emotional resources. Never had them up all night, or pacing and muttering to themselves. So, nobody warned me. No one told me that, when my child made a bad decision that broke his heart, mine would break also. No one warned me that adult children sometimes need more mothering than they did when they were little. That they co

Which of Henry VIII's wives are you? this quiz was made by Lori Fury