Monday, Monday

Tomorrow begins September (where DOES the time go?), and I think I promised (or at least intimated) that Monday Missions would return in September after our summer break.

What are Monday Missions, you ask? Well. Monday Missions are a weekly (every Monday! Imagine that! Although I usually get mine up on Sunday to get the ball rolling...) carnival designed to encourage us to post in a certain style. I have found them to be very fun, and I usually use them humorously, but they don't have to be funny. They are basically a jumping off point for your imagination; encouragement for you to think outside of the the box; a chance to try writing in a different style. It's not a contest and there's no hard and fast rules; people have been known to take their posts in some fun and surprising directions. Sometimes they are just a complete break from the normal blogging topics, often people use them to share current information in a new and fun way. They can be funny or touching or technical.

You are welcome to play along for any and all, or none at all, as your fancy strikes you.

I try to announce the upcoming month of missions so your brain can get working, post reminders about the upcoming mission on the end of a Friday or Saturday post, and get mine up late-ish on a Sunday to get the ball rolling.

I've come up with a slate of September Monday Missions, but would LOVE your suggestions for the future. New ideas and resurrection of old ones you enjoyed totally welcome.

Your September Missions, should you choose to accept them (and it would be so nice if you would accept at least one) are to write posts in the style of:

Sept 7 - A letter to a teacher

Sept 14 - A facebook status (with or without comments. or maybe a series of statuses? play with it!)

Sept 21 - A photo essay - tell your story completely through pictures

Sept 22 - A resume

God of NOLA

We sang this song in church this morning. I managed to make it through without crying. Barely.

God of this City
by Chris Tomlin

You're the God of this City
You're the King of these people
You're the Lord of this nation
You are

You're the Light in this darkness
You're the Hope to the hopeless
You're the Peace to the restless
You are

There is no one like our God
There is no one like our God

For greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in this City
Greater thing have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done here

Remember

4 years ago today Katrina made landfall. I've been thinking and thinking about what to write about it this year. I saw a show on the Weather Channel where newsman Brian Williams talked about his time in NOLA after the storm. They showed a clip of him from shortly afterward saying that if we in the United States didn't have a serious discussion about the racism and classism exposed by the storm than the media will have failed us.

Where is that discussion now? I could write a post about that.

Last night Anderson Cooper did a special "4 years later" segment on CNN. When talking about the aftermath he actually stated as fact that the tragedy was met with "government indifference." Indeed. I could write a post about that.

I've thought about equating the problems everyone ran into with insurance to the health care crisis. Home insurance companies were exposed as phonies over and over again as they denied claims and raised costs and turned their backs on their clients. Just as health insurance companies do to the sick and dying day in and day out. I could write a post about that.

But frankly, I don't have it in me this week to craft that sort of well thought out post.

So I will just say that I am here, remembering the fear, the terror and the sorrow. I have not forgotten. I know that the recovery is not over. Not in NOLA, and not in our country. Katrina exposed deep, deep problems in the way our country is run. We need to shore up not just the levees of New Orleans, but the levees of justice in America.

*Photo taken on the shore of Lake Pontchartrain earlier this week. 4 years ago that was under water.

Past Katrina Anniversary posts:
Last year I posted an edited (but still quite long) rundown of all the e-mails I sent to family and friends during our evacuation from Katrina:
Flashback 3 Years - Hurricane Katrina

Two years ago I wrote a love letter to New Orleans. It still stands as one of my favorite posts:
I Know What it Means to Love New Orleans

Arts and Science: Theatre Thursday

When I lived in Los Angeles I had the pleasure of doing shows for children at the California Science Center. I was first hired to do a one woman show about Rosalind Franklin and her role in discovering the double helix shape of DNA (among other things). I went on to do a shows about how the brain works, about how building structures support so much weight and two magic shows to complement the limited time magic exhibit.

Here I am as the geeky, over enthusiastic (who me???) Magician's Assistant

It was a great job, paying by the hour for rehearsals, performances, and all the time we spent in between. If we had a show in the morning and not again until the afternoon we were paid for the time we sat around waiting. I saw every IMAX movie that came through the theatre there - not only for free, but I was paid to sit and watch. Our passes got us into the other museums (natural history and air and space) and we would visit those. I sat with a friend in the parking lot and he taught me some tricks on the guitar. When we arrived first thing in the morning we'd run through the exhibits, and any of the ones that took pictures, etc we filled with us doing silly things. We read books. We played endless games of Big Booty. We ate lunch in the rose garden. The directors of the program were trained theatre professionals, so the shows were well written and directed. They held us to a high standard. But they knew how to have fun as well.

I'm back

Did you miss me?

Nothing has really changed, on this blog or in my situation, but after some discussion The Big Guy and I have decided that the blog is not likely to factor into this fiasco one way or the other, and so here I am, public once more.

(incidentally, I'd like a new bloggerific name for The Big Guy, if you have any ideas)

Thank you, my blogging community, for always being supportive, for being willing to lovingly and respectfully disagree, and for listening.

(for those who had no idea I had left... I went private for about 20 hours)

Uncurling

When I was in college my acting teacher told me, several times, that I reminded her very much of a friend of hers. She talked about how much this friend of hers did, how cheerful she was, etc, but how sometimes she would find the friend curled up in the corner, weeping. She warned me to take care of myself.

I don't tend to curl up in the corner, but I do indeed have those moments from time to time.

What Jesus Would Do

I am brimming with pride, and a bit of trepidation.

Today the denomination that I am a part of voted to allow homosexual pastors to be in a committed relationship. Previously, if a pastor identified as gay he or she was expected to remain celibate or be "defrocked" (nicely known as "removed from the roster").

This has been a long time coming. Far too long. If you've been around my blog for a while you know that this is an issue that I feel strongly about. You may not know that one of the May Queen's Godfathers left the ministry because of this very issue.

Perhaps if this had come a few years sooner, the church would not have lost a wonderful minister.

But he is not alone. There are scores, perhaps hundreds, maybe thousands, of people who left, or were removed from, or chose to never enter the ministry. The hurt and pain that our previous policy inflicted upon God's children cannot be erased. But perhaps now the wounds can begin to heal.

I'm not so stupid as to think that this will be quick and easy. I do fear that it will break the church. Individuals and even congregations will, unfortunately, probably leave because of this. I hope they don't. I pray they don't. One thing we have always been fairly good at, in my church, is allowing differences of opinion.

But I truly believe, with all my heart and soul, and this move is following in Christ's footsteps. I believe it answers the tired old question "What Would Jesus Do?"

Jesus would hang out with the outcast. He would talk with the scorned. He would challenge the status quo.

Jesus would love.