Leanne Shawler, Artist

I haven't written much this Lent. My heart wasn't really in it after one of my dogs died. It felt like I had to write about it, or something. It is Easter now. The Lord is risen! Do I forget what I practiced (or not) in Lent?  I had more than one Lenten discipline of unplugging. The others? Lent Madness: stuck it out to the end with a decreasing level of enthusiasm -- not in the mood for the silliness really, although I was very happy Charles Wesley won the Golden Halo. I missed two days of voting due to being sick with a bad cold. Dancing: barely made it out of the gate. A couple of days and I abandoned it. Couldn't tell you why. A case of having too many new disciplines to remember to do probably. Sh'ma Daily: I made it into the fifth week before I stopped. The bad cold and grief did it in. I would fall asleep in bed chanting it too, so not entirely sure how many of them were "completed" :). There are 50 days of Easter, ending in ...

I did, very briefly, consider making this a rhyming post. First, my definition of unplugging meant no computer, no iPhone. I could use my iPod to play music but couldn't plug it into the computer to change up the playlists. I still have Christmas on my iPod, which is a pretty clear suggestion of how rarely I update it anyway. An opinion piece in the New Yorker posted back toward the beginning of Lent got me started writing this post. Basically, the article, entitled "The Pointlessness of Unplugging" , goes on in a polarizing fashion to put those who choose to take a day off from the internet into the same camp as those who want nothing to do with the internet ever. This not the case. The author, Casey Cep, points this out later. Choosing to take a day off from the internet is not an intent to abandon it. As someone who met her husband (before there was match.com), discovered new friendships and rediscovered old ones, has taken lots of online classes, and is all for ...

Mirrors have been coming up a lot lately and in two opposing viewpoints. The first that came to my awareness was during the 8-week course I recently completed, Coming Home to the Body (from Abbey of the Arts), which was all about getting out of my head and to start listening and trusting my body. One of the exercises involved standing in front of a full length mirror naked. (In the privacy of my home, thanks.) The second came about at the start of Lent when Jennifer Dukes Lee gave up mirrors for Lent . You can read all her reasons at her blog , but this spun out of her writing her just released book Love Idols . Her appearance was an idol and she's giving it up for Lent in order to see herself as a reflection of God. Having just done the course on dwelling in my body, I baulked at this denial of self. (I know, I'm of the monastic bent, but self-denial isn't really my bag.) But maybe this stemmed from my lack of understanding. I look in the mirror to see if I absolut...

"When Unplugging Makes a Miracle" is a great headline, but honestly, I had forgotten I had already signed up for this particular activity when I chose my Lenten discipline of unplugging from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, so I would've been doing it anyway.  But it also caused some first world problems like: I'm unplugging, how on earth can I call you if the pickup plans change? (answer, use somebody else's phone...) I decided a happy husband who wasn't waiting for me at the wrong place would be better than keeping the fast. A miracle did happen though ... both through hard work and opened eyes. Where to start the story? Let's start with a handful of youth group kids who went to an Indian reservation one summer and came back transformed, energized to start making a difference. Two of the youth and their parents found a non-profit that builds houses (among other things) in Tijuana, Mexico. They presented this idea to my church's vestr...

" Thanks giving  for God’s love always seeks to become thanks- living  – a living and giving of His love" - Ann Voskamp . Today on her blog, she asks us to share a habit that makes things new each day. I've been thinking about that, what I could write, and then last week during Morning Prayer, I discovered that Monday the 9th was the observed day for Julia Chester Emery. [I feel like I need to do a side note here. Julia is part of the Holy Men, Holy Women, that the Episcopal Church recognizes. Getting on this list is rather different than becoming a saint in the Catholic church, although we still share some saints in common (up to the 15th century split, anyway).] Julia Chester Emery, among other things, is known for starting the UTO program in the Episcopal Church. UTO = United Thank Offering. This worked by giving each woman a small box with a slit in the top and encouraging her to drop a small contribution in to it whenever she felt thankful for somethin...