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 http://www.mypadlife.com/fjcaots/ekjyvdtocagc.htm                           Kathryn Timpany

countdown - one month to go

The title of the Lilly Foundation grant that is making this sabbaitcal possible is "What Makes Your Heart Sing?"  I've begun to think about that question as we make final preparations to step away from work and home for a while.  What happens to me when I do is a flood of memories.  My past opens up and I relive many different moments full of people and experiences that made my heart sing.  As I look for a common thread, it has to do with being surprised - surprised by awe, surprised by grace, surprised by a sense of wonder in the midst of the ordinariness of life. 

For the most part I have not made these moments happen.  I may have prepared for them, cultivated the ground in a way, but they all came as experiences beyond my control.

I suspect that is what I will be looking for this summer - a time of less responsibility that will leave me freer to notice singing in the world and in my heart.

Some people are saying to me - Be sure you blog so we can keep up with you!  I want to say - Sure, of course!  But then part of me does not want to commit to that, partly so I am not restricted, partly so I don't disappoint.

So time will tell.  You can follow along if you wish.

In the meantime, here's are a few interesting thoughts on traveling, in particular traveling by airplane, which has historically caused me a good deal of anxiety, in spite of the constant reassurances of my wonderful pilot son!  They come from Kathleen Norris, writing in Amazing Grace:

"...a commuter plane to O'Hare, and then a long flight to Denver.  Somehow, I had to be alert enought to give a public reading that night.  All I wanted to do now was sleep.  But I knew, as soon as I took my seat on the plane, that this was not to be.  My seatmate began talking to me.......

"...as weary as I was - every bone in my body crying out for sleep - I recognized this as divine intervention, and only hoped that I could live up to what was being asked of me.  Asecticism reminds us that our time, and our bodies, are not truly our own...

"....In many ways, airplane travel mimics the asceticism of the early desert monks:  a limited and uncomfortable physical space in which to sit, limited availability of water, food that is less than appetizing, small chance of getting much sleep.  As in traditional religious ascetisim, the danger is that the experience of deprivation will allow a person to become self-absorbed, etiher self-pitying or self-aggrandizing.....

"...Religious ascetisim, however, is always for others.  That is all it can be.  And if one is fortunate, as I was on that plane, one knows what one must do.  No polite excuses, no tuning out.  The command comes loud and clear:  be here, now.  And the demands of the body, the whining of the self, recede into the background.  The stranger, the demanding other, becomes gift and grace.'

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Sent from my iPad

your brain on technology

I think I am through testing for a while.  I have been busy trying to learn to use all these new ways of communicating with the world.  Not all of what I am learning is useful.

I am amazed about how differently various ways of learning affect my brain.  When I am working with the computer, the web, the blog, the iPad, I am focused on a 2-dimensional screen and my brain is in problem-solving mode - how do I access this?  why isn't this working - it worked the last time?

When I read an eBook, I get the content but it doesn't feel the same as when I read a three-dimensional book, one I can hold and caress and talk to in the margins with my pencil if I want to.  I can read reflectively, think poetically while I read, make all kinds of connections that are not possible when I am focused on a screen.  It has something to do with my eyes, and their connection to my brain.  When my eyes can roam around in three-dimensions, scan more than one page at once, my brain feels different than it does in the e-world (Kellen would understand what I mean).  It feels better, freer, broader, richer.  My moving eyes settle my brain, give it color. 

Maybe this is part of what Jesus meant when he offered us new eyes to see.

Maybe this is part of the story of his Transfiguration in the lectionary this week.

Maybe it is our transfiguration that is at stake.

I will not always write on this blog, but I am preparing to use it some this summer....we'll see how I feel about that once summer arrives.

Thanks for joining the conversation

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