Chicago

Lauren here with her second cousin, Scott.



The famous Chicago bean. It was really amazing. See the skyline and clouds reflected in it? If you click on the picture to see a larger image of it, you can find the five of us by looking for me in an orange shirt in the center, back, toward the buildings. You will see Marsha, my cousin, me in the orange shirt, Lauren, Stephanie and Scott, Marsha's kids. They came in from Bourbonnais, Illinois to spend the day with us.



Chicago welcomed us Texans with record-setting heat - it almost reached 90 degrees the day we were there. We got to see part of the Chicago marathon which was going on as we watched from the top of the Sears tower. We saw marathoners proudly wearing their medals of completion. We came upon a street where a fire hydrant had been opened up to cool off the runners - we had to re-route to keep from being drenched.

It wasn't until the next morning that we heard the terrible news that a runner had died and almost 300 others had been treated for heat-related illnesses because they simply were not prepared to run in that heat wave.

Morning Prayer

This year I became a part of the Two Year Academy for Spiritual Formation sponsored by Upper Room Ministries. There are just over 40 of us who arrive from all over the country four times a year to the Oblate Renewal Center in San Antonio for a week of prayer, study, reflection, silence, singing and community.

Each day at the Academy is framed by a rhythm of prayer: morning prayer at 7:00 a.m. (before breakfast, but on the first day I found my coffee before morning prayer - very important!), eucharistic prayer before dinner, and night prayer which leads us into The Great Silence until morning prayer. Within that framework we hear lectures from our faculty, reflect in silence, meet with our covenant group, eat our meals, and in short, do all the other work of the Academy.

The rhythm of the daily prayer has been calling to me - for a long time, really. I'm sure this is a big part of why I was drawn to attend the Academy. But I've always had trouble with the daily-ness of pretty much anything. Somewhere along the line the part of the brain that sustains routine did not develop in me fully. So I've been doing an experiment in morning prayer with the encouragement from my friends in my covenant group. My experiment is this: just do it! Get up every morning, and before I do anything else, I have my prayer time. I'm using a kind of daily office routine so that I'm not making it up as I go.

Now that I've been at this without missing a morning for almost a month now, I'm finding it to be like breathing. And the words from the liturgy and the songs are reverberating in my head and heart during the day:

"As morning breaks, I look to you; I look to you, Oh, Lord to be my strength this day."

"In the morning I will sing glad songs of praise to you."

"This very day our God has acted, let us rejoice!"

"Merciful God, hear our prayer."

Saying the Lord's Prayer this morning I did what I often do - I reached my hands out to the left and to the right as if I were holding hands with people next to me, together praying this prayer. Revelation: I am standing next to people holding hands and together praying this prayer.

When I sit on the bed in our extra bedroom by myself with the door closed and pray in the morning, I am not not alone. I am praying with all those who are praying this morning. I am praying with all those who have ever prayed morning prayers. I am connected around the globe and back through time with women and men who are part of the rhythm of prayer. I am connected to those who cannot pray, who haven't yet found their voice, or who, like me, have struggled to get into the rhythm.

As I say the Lord's Prayer reaching out my hands to hold the hands of the people next to me, I am praying with the world. I am praying with you.

Blessings and peace!
Jan

Somewhere on the way to the meeting my brain fell out

Have you seen my brain?

Or maybe I was in a manic phase. At any rate, it happened like this. Thursday I woke up with my brain in my head, and by the time I went to bed that night, it was gone. The reason I know this is that I have now become the co-President, along with John Dillard, of Proud Dragon Parents, and our job is to throw a $35 - 40,000 party for our seniors on graduation night: Round Rock High School Project Graduation 2008. This party is designed to keep our kids safe on graduation night and it is designed to be tons of fun.

Well, we are off and running - the new executive council and committee chairs of Proud Dragon Parents. We have a website under construction: www.rrhspdp.org. We have committee chairs for about 15 committees. Our secretary already produced and distributed the minutes for the first meeting, and the fundraising has begun. We are recruiting parents of RRHS seniors to join us! It is going to be a busy year, a fun year. Maybe sometime during this year my brain will come back home to me.

Chicago!

Lauren is taking the SAT right now, and this afternoon we are getting on a plane to Chicago to visit North Park University. We are so excited. My cousin Marsha is meeting us in the city tomorrow with Stephanie and Scott, her kids who are not kids anymore. We are going to share Chicago tomorrow with thousands of Chicago marathon runners and supporters and possibly Cubs fans if they have a playoff game Sunday.

We're going to Giordano's to get Chicago style pizza. We may eat at one of Rick Bayless' restaurants. We plan to go up in the Sears tower and hope the sky is clear so we can see forever. We hope to see Lake Michigan and ride the El.

We will spend a full 24 hours at North Park University checking it out.


Blogging

I started this blog talking about clearing the clutter. As I was sitting in that Project Graduation meeting Thursday night, and all eyes were on me as someone asked me to be President, a number of things flashed through my brain. I thought about clutter, because, of course, one of the ways to clear the clutter, particularly in my soul, is to say "no" to good things. I have learned that, and I know that I have to have space for quiet in my life. But I also had a profound sense that this was the right thing to do.

One image that flashed before my eyes was myself with the largest staff in the history of the Reveille Echo, the student newspaper at my alma mater, Bethany Nazarene College. I was mortified when they actually chose me to be editor - oh yes, I applied, and I worked hard on the application, but I really did not for one minute consider that I might be the editor. I didn't realize it until I saw our staff photo in the yearbook at the end of that amazing and sometimes overwhelming year of being editor, that the way I had managed this huge task was to gather around me a rather large staff. Now I haven't done the fact checking, but I'm pretty sure it was the largest staff to that point. Perhaps it still is. But I realized something about myself then. I am not necessarily the best at doing things, but I can certainly gather people who are good at doing things. How much fun is that?? I'm here to tell you it is a whole lot of fun.

Here I am, busier than ever, so this will be a great challenge for me as I continue to seek to clear the clutter, to make space for God, to have times of silence so that I can recognize the voice of God when God speaks.

And those of us who have embarked on Project Graduation 2008 will have a wonderfully rewarding year as we give our seniors the gift of a huge, wonderful, alcohol and drug-free party on their graduation night. That will be worth it all!

Blessings and peace!
Jan