bookworm? or not?

A post I recently read claims that the average American adult has read only six of the top 100 books ever written. I'm not sure who put this list together, or what (if any) significance there is in the numbering, but I thought this would be fun. Try your hand at the list.

The Rules:
1) Look at the list and put one * by those you have read.
2) Put a % by those you intend to read.
3) Put two ** by the books you LOVE.
4) Put # by the books you HATE.
5) (NEW RULE) Put ! by ones that you have seen in movie form
6) Post. (Don't forget to tag me.)

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen !
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien **
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte *
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling ! (* for some of them)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee%
6 The Bible **
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell*
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens*
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott*
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller*
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare (* many but not all, and !)
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien**
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger *
19 The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger %
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot %
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell % !
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald*
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy %
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams%
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky %
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck %
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll %
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame %
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy %
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens %
33 Chronicles of Narnia- CS Lewis (! for the PBS versions - have read the first two)
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis**
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini %
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell*
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown**
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez %
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery **
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood %
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding*
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan %
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel **
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens*
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley**
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon **
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez %
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck *
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac **
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding%!
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville *
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath *
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens*!
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker!
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White *!
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare **
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl **
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo **

I've actually read 27 of them... but I am a bit ashamed of my lack of reading. I need to set aside time to read each week I've decided.

McCain vs. Obama

A friend of mine did this comparison herself following the debate last night, and I thought it was a good idea. I wanted to comment on hers, but rather than hijack her own thoughts, I thought it would be constructive to make my own response.

I wonder sometimes though how already being a decided voter flavors the way that we hear and respond to such debates...


The Bailout Plan:
I don't think that either of them really said much of anything new or comforting. Neither seemed to really be able to explain to the American public what was going on or why the bailout was needed. It seems that the problem is everywhere from the mortgage crisis to a helping hand to wall street - but the real problem is that everything is intertwined and a piece of it all stopped working last week. Listen here for the best and only real explanation of the crisis that I have heard that makes sense

Obama had the edge in that he got to answer first. He stated four clear points. McCain basically reiterated those same four points, with a few exceptions. It is hard to think about McCain really wanting to go for it, based on his history of deregulation.

I was disappointed that neither directly answered Jim Lehr's question about what priority would have to go. At least not at first. When McCain finally said he would impose a spending freeze, I thought Obama's response that a spending freeze takes a hatchet to a problem that requires a scalpel was very on point.

McCain - C, Obama C+

Taxes and Earmarks:
I really don't care that much about earmarks. Well, I do and I don't. The truth is that our representatives don't get re-elected unless they do something to help out the folks back home. And that is a good chunk of what earmarks are... I'll pat your back, if you'll pat mine. Some things just wouldn't ever get through Congress on their own. I understand this from working in the legislative process at my own Annual Conference. I had an amendment to be made, someone else standing at the same mike had a different one, and we both realized that alone, neither would have the time to get through. So we sat down together and combined them into one amendment and voila - problem solved, we both got to be happy, and I think, everyone was better off.

If fighting earmarks and reforming washington is McCain's #1 goal - couldn't that best be done from a seat in the Senate? I guess the piece I don't understand is why he think that being President is going to give him the ability to really enact that type of reform.

I also don't agree with any of McCain's tax plan. Those who make the most (often at the expense of those who make the least - especially when you consider CEO salaries and how very little trickledown that has to the workers) should NOT be getting even more breaks.

Obama's plan makes complete sense to me. Tax the well-off a bit more. Thereby, you will have the money for more education, healthcare, and energy independence. I guess, I also have very little problem with government involvement and some moves towards socialism. I think that a free capitalist economy will always be oppressive to some and inordinately rewards others. There need to be checks and balances - I value equality more than freedom. (and that's what mkes me a liberal! and proud of it!)

In the debate however, Obama kept getting caught in dealing with McCain's taxes and earmarks and could have spent more time articulating his own policies... i guess that will have to wait for the economy debate... ALTHOUGH - he did a much better job of responding to the idea that the economy and foreign policy are innately linked. I don't think that McCain really did that at all.

McCain - D, Obama - B

International Relations
McCain is very well traveled. He has met many people in the world and understands the problems of the world. But to be honest, I understand things very differently. McCain sees the world in black and white, good guys and bad guys (all the more evidenced by Sarah Palin's response to whether or not we should second guess Israel... if you haven't seen it - gasp!). I simply do not see the world that way and it scares me to have another person in the white house who does.

Obama on the other hand is willing to sit down at a table with someone and have a conversation. And I respect that. It is the type of leadership that our country needs if we are to regain our standing in the world. And he also is fairly well traveled and the international community seems to respect him.

I think that the most telling indication of how each of these men would respond in meetings with people they don't agree with in the world was the way they debated. McCain refused to LOOK at Obama or address him directly. Obama continually spoke directly to McCain, affirmed the parts of McCain's argument that he could agree with and then proceeded to show how they were different.

McCain - C, Obama - A

Overall Grade: McCain C-, Obama B

I need a vacation...

or just a long long nap.

I was so looking forward to the back half of this week - especially sleeping in for a long time on Friday...

until I realized that we have our conference orders event Friday - and I have to get up at 6:30 just to make it there on time.

and then I remembered that I for some reason planned our youth lock in Saturday night...

HELP!

Lectionary Leanings

I am SO excited for this week's texts. I play a MMORPG (Massive Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game) and I so love the idea of Kenosis that I named my first character that.

Kenosis you ask? Check out the scriptures especially the Christ Hymn for Philippians.

Kenosis translated into English means emptying... self-giving... humility... pouring out

It is the embodiment of Christ into our human form - giving up his power, giving up his seat at the right hand of God, giving up his divinity in some respects in order to become one of us.

It is also the actions of Christ over and over again in his life and in his death. Giving up his power and status over and over to reach out to those who were hurting and sick and were chained by their sin. It is the action of Christ giving up his very life on the cross.

I'm really intrigued by how kenosis affects our views of leadership. A distant family member knew I was in ministry and he and his father are both pastors. We got to talking and they came to learn that I was THE pastor of my church. And not only were they amazed, but they also wanted to know if I called myself the "senior pastor." Senior pastor? I'm the only pastor was my response. It's not a question of being the one in charge, of being above everyone else - for me, leadership has always been about servanthood, about humility, about kenosis.

In Powers and Submissions, Sarah Coakley argues that we should come to see the incarnation and the cross as acts of “power-in-vulnerability.” These narratives remind us of our ultimate dependence upon one another and upon God while at the same time reminding us that letting go and opening up to the divine is what enables divine power to work in our midst. This power comes through dependence and relationship, through communion rather than a do-it-alone mentality. The practice of discernment exemplifies this power. Or, as Coakley describes it, “we can only be properly ‘empowered’ here if we cease to set the agenda, if we ‘make space’ for God to be God.”

In his article on postmodern leadership, Leonard Hjalmarson writes:

The leadership style that once dominated our culture is becoming passé. Instead of the Lone Ranger, we have Frodo: the Clint Eastwoods and Sylvester Stallones are replaced by ordinary men. Frodo, Aragorn and Neo (the Matrix) are self-questioning types who rely on those around them for strength, clarity and purpose. Indeed, while they have a sense of the need and a willingness to sacrifice themselves, they may not even know the first step on the journey.

He is describing a form of leadership that takes seriously both the interdependence of the Christian community as well as the idea of kenosis. Authority is shared and the agenda of the formal or ordained pastor is not the sole determinant of the direction of the congregation. At various times, Hjalmarson returns to the metaphor of storytelling and describes the pastor’s role as the narrator who weaves all of the various stories together, much like the mediating interpreter for Nicholas Lash. This vision of leadership is crucial if we are to emphasize the ways in which the Holy Spirit dwells in the community of believers – the body of Christ.

In many ways, I believe that is what kenosis is all about in the church... emptying ourselves so that the Holy Spirit can work through us. Embodying the mind of Christ means to set aside what we are entitled to, what we deserve, what is owed to us, and instead discerning the will of God and living our lives in obedience to it. And it is about coming together as the church - not a pastor leading as a lone ranger, but as the priesthood of all believers.

p.s. i wish i knew who did this watercolor - another blogger had it on their site, with no credits.

routine and roots

I'm working on routine in my life right now (yes, I know I've said it time and time again... but hey, what can I say, I'm a work in progress). So far this week, I've stayed fairly on target with my plans - focusing on two particular goals: exercise and spiritual centering.

For exercise, I run/walk on a nearby trail. I think the whole course, from doorstep to doorstep is a little over 3 miles, and I spend about 10 minutes of it running. I went Monday morning and again this morning... if I can do 3-4x a week, I'll be happy.

For centering, I'm working on quieting my spirit before I begin work each time I'm in the office. I have three candles next to a chair that I light and I pick up my handheld labryinth and work through it. When I get to the middle I say 6 prayers: for myself, for my family, for my church, for the church, for the nation and for the world... and then I pray my way out asking guidance for my work this day and with the Lord's prayer. It has felt amazing to set aside that time for myself! I really do feel like my work is more productive and more on task to what God wants me to do with the day than it has been before.

In the midst of that re-focusing of my time and energy, I'm thinking back to what I wanted to do and how I wanted to incarnate postmodern/missional views of church into this congregation and my life. One of those was through setting down roots - and I'm excited this week about going the homecoming football game and also the gardening that I did to weed and get things ready for fall in my flower bed. There is still a lot of work that is left to be done there. Both for me are about roots - about getting involved with the community, getting my hands dirty and meeting people where they are.

fighting global poverty and the presidential debates

Only two questions about global poverty have been asked in the history of modern presidential debates.

It's a shocking figure and in 2008, we need debate moderator Jim Lehrer to ask John McCain and Barack Obama "Just ONE question" on their plans to fight global poverty.

I just took action with the ONE Campaign and you can too, here:

One.org

Friday Five - Equinox

(first of all, I can't believe September is over halfway through and we are staring straight in the face of the equinox... eek!)

From RevGals: It's that time of year, at least north of the equator. The windows are still open, but the darned furnace comes on early in the morning. My husband went out for a walk after an early supper and came home in full darkness.

And yes, where we live, leaves are beginning to turn.

As this vivid season begins, tell us five favorite things about fall:

1) A fragrance
I think I would have to go with the smell of pies baking... apple, pumpkin, etc... or maybe even just the smell of nutmeg and cinnamon that seems to flavor everything - hot chai tea, spiced cider... all of it just warms up the whole house.





2) A color
As you can tell by my new color scheme, I'm thinking of fall already! I would have to say a deep vibrant firey orange is probably my favorite.





3) An item of clothing
My tweed pants and my brown pointy toe boots. They are just too warm to wear in the summer and really are too cozy to wear in the spring.

4) An activity
carving pumpkins! My husband and I go all out and make fantastic creations. One year we actually carved GW and then some of our roommates threw the pumpkin head off of the roof of our house (it was college, silly college kids)





5) A special day
I really do love Thanksgiving. I am a food person, and we normally have about 4 meals to attend in a day. I love all of the flavors - especially cranberry sauce and stuffing.

lectionary leanings

This Week's Lectionary

I'm in the midst of my "ABC's of Being the Church" series, and this week we are on "D."

After much back and forth, I finally found the inspiration I needed from Lindy Black's Sermon Nuggets and a thought somewhere on there about Daily Bread.

Our lectionary readings talk about the gift of manna in the wilderness, about the joy of fruitful labor, and about the undeserved pay for the workers who were chosen last.

I think I want to focus my sermon this week on how undeserving we are of the daily bread God gives us. We pray the Lord's prayer almost as if the daily bread were a right, and not a gift. We stand after a long days work and demand our wages, not remembering that it was a gift to be chosen for the task in the first place. We think the work we are called to is a means of getting somewhere else, instead of seeing the work itself as a blessing - our work every day for the Lord.

out of the loop

Alright, I've been avoiding the blog... well, not avoiding it, but i've been distracted by other things. namely - grey's anatomy. Sometimes I'm embarassed about how much I'm into the show... and how excited I am for it to start back up.

But I've also been legitimately busy at church. The week before last I had two funerals, and we are in full out meeting season right now - getting ready for charge conference.

I am desperately trying to get myself back in shape and keep falling off of that wagon - but I did get out and run yesterday for the first time in... oh wow, like 3 weeks.

Our kitties are getting along much better now that Tiki's ears are cleared up (he had an infection) and so we are (sort of) enjoying their frolicing around the house... (it gets a little annoying at 3am, when the little one is trying to eat my glasses and the big one is biting him around the middle and they are both yelping and making all sorts of crazy noise).

FF: Vulnerable

From Rev Gals: "I have recently been reading a book entitled Jesus wept, it is all about vulnerability in leadership. The authors speak of how Jesus shared his earthly frustrations and vulnerabilities with a select group of people. To some he was the charismatic leader and teacher, to others words of wisdom were opened and explained and some frustrations shared, to his "inner circle of friends: Peter, James and John, he was most fully himself, and in all of these things he was open to God.

So I bring you this weeks Friday 5:"

1. Is vulnerability something that comes easily to you, or are you a private person?

I find myself in situations where I am the person who listens, rather than talks. But there is also always this desire within me to share my story - our stories are really all that we have to share... but I hesitate to share, however much I want to because of a fear of being pitied. My grandfather passed away when I was in seminary, and because it happened to be over fall break and because of my schedule that semester, I was home for 6 days, and missed no classes. I got back and such a monumental hole was in my life, but no one at school knew what had happened. I didn't have to ask for class time off, so no professors knew. I had a really hard time sharing that with people because in a sense, it was easier to focus on school.

2.How important is it to keep up a professional persona in work/ ministry?

This is a hard question for me. Mostly because I believe a professional persona in ministry is overrated. And yet I do it anyways. I guess the professional persona I embody is a sense of neutrality, which comes naturally to me because I can see all sides of an issue/problem. If I were more vulnerable, my own positions and horror at the things people say would be much more evident. That may or may not be a good thing.

3. Masks, a form of self protection discuss...

Oh - absolutely self protection. But self-protection isn't always in our best interest. I think that omission is also a mask. I meet with a local group of clergy and I know that I am by far the most liberal among them and there are often sideways remarks that I usually disagree with, but I let them go, rather than become the target. I go to that group to have colleagues and to be around people who understand what it is to be a minister in our town... it is relaxing and not the place where I want to constantly have to defend myself.

4. Who knows you warts and all?

My husband - hands down. And maybe my very bestest friend. The more I think about these questions the more I think about how much I do keep my guard up, even with the people I love the most. The other person who knows many of my warts is my youngest brother.

5. Share a book, a prayer, a piece of music, a poem or a person that touches the deep place in your soul, and calls you to be who you are most authentically.

Manifesto:
The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

"Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" from The Country of Marriage, copyright ® 1973 by Wendell Berry,

Weekly Lectionary Reflection

** I'm giving up on my other blog where I only post lectionary reflections... my life, the life of the church, and the texts are not seperate - they all intertwine, so they might as well on my blog too! **

I'm quite far behind this week, as far as sermon preparation goes. I'm increasingly thankful for my local pastor's lectionary study, as we always look at the texts a full week and a half in advance.

This week, I'm thinking a lot about the confrontation that is proposed in this week's reading from Matthew, but also how that is only possible when you are bound together in Christ. So, in continuation with my "ABC's of Being the Church" theme, this week is B for Bound Together.

I visited with a woman recently about these kinds of confrontations when your neighbor wrongs you, and we agreed that it is a horribly difficult thing to do. BUT - in our families, we have no problems telling someone if they have hurt us, or other people. Especially she said as a parent and a grandparent, or as a sibling, there is a lot of intervening going on (some of it not so healthy). But we treat those people who are in the church with us as strangers, as people whose lives are private and none of our business.

Our text this week reminds us that we are bound together. And the Romans passage makes that even clearer as we hearken back to the 10 commandments. While the first commandments are all about honoring and loving God, the rest are about how we are supposed to live in community - take care of one another - don't do anything that would harm the fragile balance of our togetherness - because we all need one another to survive. In the United States, we are so individualized into our family units that we can't see the way that our actions affect other people. Or we ignore the effects. This week, as we talk about being bound together, we have to face the responsibility and accountability that goes along with that.

it's going to be a long week.

Even though this should be a short week, due to Labor Day, it has only just begun to be long.

I was at the church at 7:00 this morning to work on the church newsletter, which I had forgot I wouldn't have time to print on Monday since I would be relaxing at home.

And then the printer didn't work. So, the group that arrived at 8:30 to fold and mail them had nothing to do =( But they are so gracious and kind and suffer through my failings gently =)

It's also going to be a long week because we have had two deaths in our congregation over the weekend. I have a visitation tonight and funeral tomorrow and I am also meeting with another family this afternoon for a funeral at the end of this week.

Add to that a United Methodist Women's meeting, and Administrative Board, and you've got a doozy of a week.

Prayers for strength and endurance are needed! I'm hoping I don't die of compassion fatigue!

By the way... all of our charge conference forms came in - and there are piles and piles of paperwork to be done... why didn't anyone tell me how busy September would be?