Here we go again

Things got hairy.

Not really, life-threateningly-hairy, just can't-get-to-the-bottom-of-my-to-do-list hairy.  So there was a rather extended blogging break.  But I'm back, and happy to be so.     

It is no coincidence that I'm re-upping on Ash Wednesday.  I am using Lent to try to intentionally bring back two of my great loves: reading and writing.  I can't pinpoint when exactly they fell off my List of Important Things, but they did and I miss them.  I am (was) an avid and voracious reader.  Long working hours at the church and at home have lead to evenings collapsed in a useless heap in front of CSI or Glee.  It is a wicked cycle and I know I'm not the only one who falls prey to it.

So I'm letting Lent be my springboard back to spiritual and intellectual wellness.  Right now, I've got three books in the hopper: Deep and Wide by Andy Stanley, Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, and Building Emotional Intelligence: Techniques to Build Inner Strength in Children by Linda Lantieri. I'm enjoying all three to varying degrees and hope to use them for writing fodder in the future. 

The writing I'm going to do here.  Not every day, but several times a week. And I might add some photography, too, though that might be pushing it.  I plan on going back to some of the original themes of this blog, kids, politics, religion, parenting, and see what is stirring.  My hope is that you will join in these conversations and that I will inspired to keep writing.  We shall see.  Just this first, semi-useless entry feels good.  Let's hope I continue to stay inspired, even as the hairiness continues.

This is the sound of one voice

There is a really beautiful song sung by the Wailin Jennys called "One Voice".  In it, one voice begins with "This is the sound of one voice, the sound of one who makes a choice."  Over the next couple of verses, voices pile on one by one until the final verse comes together in a rich and lovely chorus of tight harmonies.

I'm going to use that as an overly-dramatic representation of what's about to happen here.  For some reason, a bunch of happy but over-committed mothers said "yes" to the idea of starting a blog.  The week before Thanksgiving.  The month before Christmas.

Um.  What?

So I, the fearless (ha!) convener of the group, am going to keep up this blog for the next couple of months until the extra chaos dies down and most of the gang is back to the regular level of chaos.  I like to write so I'm happy to take this on.  Hey, who knows?  Maybe I'll bust out a post about the insanity of trying to start a blog during the countdown to bananas.

First, an introduction:  I'm a mother of two sub-Kindergarteners, wife of a college professor and I'm an Episcopal priest at a large urban parish.  I'm also an avid runner and have recently discovered that long distances are good for my heart and soul.  That's my brand of crazy.

More posting to come.  I'm looking forward to telling you more about the amazing worship we had this weekend.

Something old, something new...

Women gathering is nothing new.  We've been doing it since the dawn of humanity.  We gather together to compare notes, to watch each other's kids, to complain, to cry, to laugh, to support, to learn... So gathering together is nothing new for women in general.

But this is a new group, a new gathering of women coming together to do these things.  We do not claim at all to be doing something out of the ordinary, but it is new for us, these are new relationships and new bonds we are forging.  We're doing what women have been doing for millenia, but we're doing it with new eyes.  A little old, a little new.

We're affectionately (and perhaps boringly) known as the Monday Morning Moms, or M3, a changing, welcoming, permeable group of about a dozen women with kids who meet at our church for coffee and a couple of hours with no small needy people clinging to our bodies.  We've got a lot in common, as you'll see, and a lot of differences.  We've got a lot of baggage (not including the diaper bags!).  We've been meeting together for a couple of years and have celebrated three new births together and at mourned least three deaths of family members in our group.  When we allow it to, our check-in time runs the whole two hours.  But when we control it, we also have some great moderated discussions on a whole gamut of subjects, nearly always circling back to God and/or our children, both of which we hold close to our hearts.  We thought it might be a worthy cause to capture some of this good stuff, write it down and keep it, at least for posterity if not for use by anyone out in the interwebs that might be so inclined to read it.

It should be noted that we do not share a common parenting philosophy or all hold common theology.  We disagree, politely.  It is part of what makes us rich.  We're a little thrilled and a little frightened about what keeping a blog might look like.  Feel free to comment and let us know if you like where we're going and what else you'd like to see us talk about.