I've been spending a lot of time in waiting rooms of late.It's that time of year - Annual Physical Exam, which includes blood work, EKG, pap smear, mammography, etc., etc., etc.This morning, I'm in the waiting room of my Volkswagen Dealership. Lucy True Bug is having her 10,0000 mile check up and service. As I looked around, I'm struck by the similarities of waiting room decor. Really, I can't tell if I'm in the waiting room...

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This is not a sympathy post. This is a very brief reflection on pain. As of 10 AM this morning when I received my official diagnosis, I am a person with a 'frozen shoulder'. Left one. I fit the profile - a woman, age 40-60 with an endocrine disorder (Thyroiditis). I'm very fortunate. The pain has already subsided and the prognosis is good for a complete recovery.There are people who live with intractable pain who have to learn...

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I know. I've given lots of air space of late to the Roman Catholic Church. If I'm not taking a walk down Memory Lane with the Nuns of my youth, I'm lamenting the catholicity of the crisis of power and leadership that filters from the Vatican and around the globe. Having said that, I want to reproduce here, on this blog, this open letter to The Pope from Marie Fortune the pioneer and undisputed expert in sexual & domestic...

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It's been rainy and cold all day today. I'm not sure if we're in the middle of a high or low pressure system, or trapped somewhere in between the two. All I know is that my sinuses feel heavy and a headache has been threatening all day. To add injury to insult, I've been going for physical therapy on the rotator cuff of my left shoulder, three times a week for the past two weeks. The progress has been slow but steady. On Friday,...

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Today's offering is a musical meditation on the Divine Feminine in the 23rd Psalm by Bobby McFerrin.The first time I heard this performed was 10 or 12 years ago at Princeton Chapel where I had the great honor and privilege of preaching. The choir director had called me the week before to ask if I might be planning to refer to God, at any point in my sermon, with a feminine pronoun.I thought that...

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In my travels the other day, I ran into a group of nuns I used to work with in The City, when I was Director of Pastoral Care for Hospice. I was picking up a friend who was arriving at Newark Penn Station and they were waiting there to catch a train to D.C.I hadn't realized how much I miss them and had forgotten just how much I enjoyed working with them. You know how that happens, sometimes? Gosh, it was good to be with them...

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Even though I was very carefully brought up to be the Best Little Girl In the Whole World, and it's taken years of therapy to work that stuff out of my system, if there's one thing I can thank my now sainted mother for, it's the fact that she taught me manners.I'm talking beyond please and thank you, yes sir, no ma'am.Being taught 'the basics' by my mother was more like an education in 'Manners 3.0' for everyone else in the world. ...

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Meet Helen-Ann Hartley, a thrity-six year old priest in the Church of England assigned to the parish of Littlemore, near Oxford, and featured in the April 26, 2010 issue of The New Yorker Magazine in an article entitled "A Canterbury Tale: The battle within the Church of England to allow women to be bishops" by Jane Kramer. Like many women, Mother Hartley patches together several jobs just to keep non-Eucharistic bread on the...

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But, you couldn't tell by me - or the day. It's all good, but I haven't had time to scratch my nose much less blog! So, here's the Band of My Heart - the Beatles - rockin' out my favorite birthday song.Now, it's quick into the shower to get ready to go out to dinner with some dear friends. You did know that tomorrow is Ms. Conroy's birthday, right?I mean, I've told you that our births were 2 1/2...

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Remember Jeff Foxworthy, "You might be a redneck if . . . ."?Yesterday, I ended my post about Evangelicals with a little riff on Foxworthy's joke. It was a version of "You might be Evangelical if . . . ." which was written by Evangelicals as a little joke on themselves.Turnabout is fair play. I invited folk to post their own version of "You might be a Progressive Christian if . . ." on my FaceBook page. In less than 24 hours,...

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A few posts ago, in the comment section, someone asked me what I meant when I used the term "Evangelical". Which was an interesting question to ask someone like me - someone who takes evangelism seriously but would never EVER be welcomed among the ranks of 'Evangelicals' - but mostly because I don't think most Evangelicals themselves agree on what it means to be an Evangelical. To my mind, it's a lot like being a member of a political...

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Nets and Boats - Yael Fine Art Studio Easter III - April 18, 2010 - John 21:1-19The Episcopal Church of St. Paul, Chatham, NJ(the Rev’d Dr.) Elizabeth Kaeton, rector and pastorSo, do you think it was Tuesday or Wednesday after the Resurrection on Sunday when Peter – tired, weary, confused and perhaps even a bit bored – slapped his hand on the table in that upper room and said, “I’m going fishing”?Like a periodic comet, this...

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