My Pensieve

The first time J. K. Rowling introduced me to the magical object known as a Pensieve, I was hooked!  I have often said that if there were anything from Potter’s world that I could have in this one, it would be a Pensieve.

Well, I found one.  And I didn’t even have to get ripped off on Ebay.  (I am fairly certain I found this one “hiding” in the journal section of Amazon.com.)

It doesn’t look like much.  I admit that.  Most of you are saying to yourself, “Okay, it’s a pretty book and quite possibly a pretty journal but that is about all.”

I also admit that it is a far, far cry from the magical device that Professor Dumbledore kept stored in his office.  It’s not even close to that but yet I have desired for quite some time a device like Dumbledore’s – something to store my memories in so that I could look at them from different perspectives.  Some place where I could lay to rest painful things, store away wonderful things, and even piece together puzzling things so that sometime later I could take a look at them again and maybe, just maybe, see something different.

Not so long ago, I began taking a continuing education class on “Healing the Brain”.  It is one that is offered by the Center for Family Process in Bethesda, MD.  I took it out of curiosity – the main presenter had written several papers that I found fascinating and I took it out of convenience – the course is offered as a “teleconference” over a ten month period.  But mainly, I took it because something deep inside me needed it.

I have kept a journal of one kind or another for years.  Sometimes I am good at writing in them and sometimes I am not.  I guess you can see where I get my less than regular posting schedule for this blog.  It comes pretty naturally to me.

However, since I began taking this course, something incredible has happened.

I wanted to show an actual page from my journal – which I now refer to as my Pensieve. (But I couldn’t trust myself to blur and mar the image enough that it wouldn’t be readable at some point.)  But now, my Pensieve and I are now very best friends.  I may go days without posting on this blog, but hardly a day goes by that I don’t dip into my skull with one of my many colored pens and pull out some memory of the day or the long almost forgotten past and place it in my Pensieve.  I then spend three or four days going over the same memory from different angles to give me a better feel as to what really happened.

And that has been really freeing for me.  I am lighter these days.  I am less frazzled these days.  I am better rested these days.  I am still a bit forgetful, but maybe even that will heal in time.  I am very thankful that God finally found a way to show me a Pensieve!

Just for fun I will share one of the entries that I have placed in the Pensieve.  This entry came after recalling a particular event four times.  It is my summary of what came from that time:

I will write this in red, just for me:

A daytime nightmare woke me from my slumber
I was not asleep really – I found no proper rest
I was wide awake to the anxious forces around me
I was wide awake to my own pain
And yet it was a nightmare in the daytime
That jarred me
That shook my anger and rage awake
that took me to a dark night of the soul
that let me loose my own anxiety
and I found
I found
“I”

See you on the road home!  (You’ll know me…I’ll be the one with a pretty journal in my hand.)

Prayers from Home

I thought I would simply share a couple of prayers that I use on a fairly regular basis today.  The first is a prayer for Illumination based on Zechariah 4:6 and Acts 2:3-4.  I am not sure when I first started using this as a prayer before reading Scripture in worship, but it seems to fit me quite well.  This is also one of those that I am unsure if I heard it somewhere first or what, but am fairly certain I wrote it – at least in part…but I share it with you.  If you know the author, please let me know, so I can give them credit.

It is not by might;
It is not by power;
and it most certainly is not by cleverness of imagination
that Your word is read and proclaimed, O God.
But it is by your Spirit.
So, may that Spirit come and rest upon each of us,
work within all of us,
to bring us the Word which is Jesus this day.  Amen.

The second is a Benediction that I know I have borrowed, with permission, from Dr. William Lawrence, dean of Perkins School of Theology and current President of the United Methodist Judicial Council.  Dr. Lawrence had the daunting task of teaching me both preaching and church administration when he was at The Divinity School, Duke University.

Wherever you go, may God go with you.
Whatever you need, may God provide.
Whenever you stumble, may God lift you.
And when, at the end of you days –
you lay yourself down for the last time…
May God raise you up for all time.  Amen.

Still headed home….

Scott

Enough Again

Here is this past Sunday’s sermon which is also based heavily upon Adam Hamilton’s “Enough” series – especially the apple eating illustration. Once more, I do not do justice to Hamilton’s message, but I have attempted to make it relevant for our “place”. Peace!

Another Random Fact

I really am taking this “random fact” thing seriously.  I am not following any discernible order in writing about the facts and I certainly am not on any schedule to get them done.  I guess they are random indeed.

Pam and I had been married for about a year when we decided that we wanted to try and have a child of our own.  We were parents to Leslie, my daughter from my first marriage, but we still felt like a larger family was something we wanted.

Making that decision began a couple of years of disappointment for us.  We watched while other couples in my class at Duke Divinity School went through pregnancies and we hoped for our own.  But we were not getting pregnant.  At some point in time we decided that we needed to make up our mind about either adopting or seeking fertility treatments.  So, we scheduled a little weekend get-away so that we could really focus and talk about what we thought would be best for us.

We arrived in this little North Carolina town that we had decided to visit around dinner time and found an interesting local pizza place to eat.  It was the first time either of us saw a menu that offered spinach and pineapple as a topping selection and on a whim to see what it was like, we ordered one.  I can still taste that pizza. Yet, like so many other “firsts” in life, the taste has never been recreated.  We’ve had excellent “specialty pizzas”, especially at “Pies and Pints” here in West Virginia, but I don’t think I have ever had as good a slice of pineapple and spinach pizza anywhere.

There was one problem though.  Despite it being so good, Pam developed a terrible case of indigestion and hardly slept that night.  In the morning, she still wasn’t feeling much better but we went on with our visit and took time to have our discussion.

Sometime in the afternoon of that second day, we had pretty much made up our minds to start the process of adoption.  For us, it just seemed like the right thing to do, especially since we both saw ourselves as “adopted” members of Jesus’ family in the church.  We also just could not justify spending the money on fertility treatments that may or may not work.  So we enjoyed the rest of our weekend and went home “at peace” with our decision.

On Monday, instead of feeling better, Pam was so ill she thought that she needed to go see her doctor.  I had to head off to classes at Duke but she was sure she could make it across town to the docs office and then to work.

I was a little surprised and worried when I got back from class that afternoon to find her car in the driveway and began thinking that she must have really gotten sick.  I was even more befuddled when after I walked in the house and over towards where she was sitting on our couch.  She got up, walked over to me and handed me this little plastic stick before I had a chance to set my books down from class.

I knew immediately what she had given me and one look down told me that she was pregnant.

I said, “Is this a joke?”

“Nope,” she said, “the doctor wouldn’t treat me for anything until they did a pregnancy test and you see for yourself that it’s positive!”

Now…it is at this point in the story that I have to simply say that my response came more from surprise, shock and disbelief especially after the weekend decision we had made.  My books hit the floor and my mouth opened more in reflex than anything else.  I won’t tell you exactly what word came out of my mouth but I will say that it was a word with which I was quite familiar.  My grandmother used that used like some people use sighing. These days, well, we jokingly refer to the word as “Nana’s Word” in our house.  The word has a bit of family history, to say the least, and chances are I have done everything I can to pass on the tradition – even without knowing it.

There you have it…Random Fact Number 6!

Election Day Prayer

Rev. Cindy Briggs-Biondi, a colleague in the West Virginia Annual Conference shared this prayer earlier today.  I thought it was fitting for the day and it also carried me back to those days when I sat in Dr. Hauerwas’ classes at Duke.  Those were challenging times to say the least, but I learned a lot…mainly, though, I learned that I don’t have all the answers.

Enjoy the prayer…or not.  It should make you think.

“Sovereign Lord, foolish we are, believing that we can rule ourselves by selecting this or that person to rule over us. We are at it again. Help us not to think it is more significant than it is, but also give us and those we elect enough wisdom to acknowledge our follies. Help us laugh at ourselves, for without humor our politics cannot be humane. We desire to dominate and thus are dominated. Free us, dear Lord, for otherwise we perish. Amen.” -Stanley Hauerwas