More Meredith Gould

Obliterating Tolerations

2012-05-27T12:14:00.000-04:00

My beloved coach, Kimberly Bryant, is Coach University certified and a stellar example of CoachU's gold standard training. She received it years ago when Thomas Leonard was still among us.

I was the grateful recipient of her coaching brilliance well over a decade ago during the perfect storm of career and life transition. The half-life of her wisdom has lasted that long. My evidence? I still know enough to periodically obliterate "tolerations." I'm currently in one of those periods.

Tolerations? Those things, usually (but not always) little stuff, we tolerate. It's the 3-way bulb that has been blown out to 1-way forever. It's the slight water damage under window sill that requires repainting. It's the bag of clothes for Goodwill that lives in the car's trunk. In my case, the Roman Catholic church has finally made it onto that list.

You get the picture. This is the stuff that we tolerate. We'll get around to doing/fixing/dealing with it someday. Meanwhile, energy gets sucked right out of us every time we wander by and think, "Arrrggggh, must deal with that...someday."

I've been back from Seattle for a week, my head cold is 90% cleared out, I'm energized by what I learned from being with #pnwchsocm participants, and I'm moving forward by cleaning up tolerations. Big and small tolerations I've obliterated or planning to restructure this week:

Plastic hangers that have limited the efficient use of my clothes closet. Solution: flat velvet hangers (in pink! on sale!); plastic hangers going to the thrift store.

Twitter accounts by individuals who do nothing but broadcast their own content and never engage in conversation. Solution: unfollow and, in some instance, block.

Sunlight through the one living room window that still streams it in because I ran out of smoke-colored glare reduction film. Solution: get more film and finish the job.

Books I never got around to reading and never will. Solution: send to Amazon sell-back for credit when possible; schlep the rest to The Book Thing.

Pillows that are hurting my neck. Solution: new pillows!

Paper documents that are obsolete and stored in plastic bins that have taken over an entire closet. Solution: Scan what I need what I don't; find URLs for online stuff I printed out and dump it into Evernote.

Reading about retro craziness from the Magisterium that I'm allowing to get between me and God. Solution: ignore; focus on God; pray, "Come, Holy Spirit."

Go Fish (Friday, May 25)

2012-05-25T00:01:00.000-04:00

Because the 1st reading

for this Sunday is:

Acts 2: 1-11

Quote du Jour (Religion Department)

2012-05-21T21:55:00.000-04:00

I'm back from Seattle -- still with the head cold. I thought my first post would be about at least one or two of the realizations I had during my time with wonderful people from these churches: Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, United Methodist Church, and the Episcopal Church, USA. Those plans changed as I read Sunday's op-ed piece by Maureen Dowd, Here Comes Nobody.

Well worth reading in its entirety, not only for what Ms. Dowd has to say, but for her quotes from other disenfranchised Catholics. Here, meanwhile, are passages that resonate with me:

I was a Catholic and I wanted to be catholic, someone engaged in a wide variety of things. As James Joyce wrote in “Finnegans Wake:” “Catholic means ‘Here comes everybody.’ So it makes me sad to see the Catholic Church grow so uncatholic, intent on loyalty testing, mind control and heresy hunting. Rather than all-embracing, the church hierarchy has become all-constricting . . . .

Absolute intolerance is always a sign of uncertainty and panic. Why do you have to hunt down everyone unless you’re weak? The church doesn’t seem to care if its members’ beliefs are based on faith or fear, conviction or coercion.

─ Maureen Dowd

Philomena Ewing's Prayer for World Communications Day

2012-05-19T00:01:00.000-04:00

Philomena Ewing, who blogs at Blue Eyed Ennis, is a Cornwall, UK-based poet who I met via -- you guessed it -- social media. I count her among those Catholics who are willing to speak truth to power. How she manages to do so and still get invited to things like last year's bloggers summit at the Vatican is nothing short of miraculous.

Last week, Phil posted her own prayer for the Vatican's 46th World Communications Day (May 20, 2012). I spent about a half hour trying to decide which excerpt to post, before realizing that I want my blog's visitors to read the whole thing right here and now.

For those of us who are weary and exhausted by words,
who find it hard to find the right words to say without rancour,
for all that we wish we could say,
for all that we need to say to bring healing and unity,
please Lord, let us recognise you know it all anyway,
but nevertheless send us all the fresh inspiration
and breath of your Holy Spirit to be renewed.

Help us to be healed by your words and when we are angry and hurt
help us to find words that can express that anger cleanly and honestly
without inflicting more damage on others and ourselves.

Never let us shy away from our conscience and integrity
but keep us humble and open to try and dialogue
with those who are different in their views, however hard that is.
Help us admit our failures and ask for forgiveness.

Help us to move slowly beyond words of resentment
towards a place of healing and peace.

Help us remove ourselves from the petty power plays of words
that are often prejudiced and aimed to undermine others
and keep us from uttering words that deliberately hurt and alienate others.

Help us to find ways of using words to encourage a diverse community
of many opinions but where bullying and abuse is confronted and never tolerated.

Help us to find words of respect, compassion, inclusion,
reconciliation, encouragement and hope
in the darkest times when it is so easy to
barricade ourselves behind walls of despondency.

Where there are impasses in communication
help us to try and keep the lines of communication
and dialogue open to You and ask for your help
when we realise we cannot do it alone.

Where we find the broken-hearted
scarred by unjust words of bigotry and abuse
help us give them a safe place to speak
and to know they are listened to in Your love

For the rest in our church that have been silenced or censored,
for those who are under the threat of being silenced,
for those whose words are monitored,
for those who are afraid to speak out,
for those who are ignored,
who are not invited to the table,
those who have no voice,
for those prophetic voices that cause discomfort to the hierarchy,
for all those who are reviled and/or ridiculed when they do try and speak,
I pray that the Lord will listen and hold them close in Love in the silence of His heart.

I pray that He will keep their spirits and hopes intact
at a difficult and discouraging time
and move those who ought to listen to open their hearts too.

Go Fish (Friday, May 18)

2012-05-18T02:22:00.000-04:00

Yep, I'm still in Seattle.

Sneezing in Seattle

2012-05-16T13:53:00.001-04:00

Two days before leaving for Seattle, my husband sent me a link to a cheery little article about the whooping cough epidemic in this region. Like I had time to get a booster shot? I did not and want to believe that doing so would not have prevented what rolled in yesterday afternoon.

Today I'm being held hostage by a sore throat, sneezing, and post nasal tsunami. To make matters worse, I've completely lost interest in the fabulous gluten-free pastries I discovered at a nearby bakery.

But as bummer events go, this is rather nice. I'm staying at the Sorrento, a lovely old boutique hotel in the First Hill neighborhood. Comfy bed, abundant tissues, and WiFi. With regret I canceled two meet-ups scheduled for today so I can rest up for tomorrow's workshops . . . and wander (rather than crawl) back to that wonderful bakery.

Anything but Sleepless in Seattle

2012-05-15T13:08:00.000-04:00

When I finally sat down to do the calculations, I discovered it has been well over two decades since I visited Seattle. Really and truly seems like only yesterday that I inhaled glorious views of the Cascades. I guess I've never fully exhaled those images of God made visible.

My summer in Emerald City during the late 1970s included preparing for the oral exams required before full entry into NYU's doctoral program. I returned during the late 1980s because the National Pest Control Association held its annual convention here, and I had the pest control account. Ah memories.

Now, I've returned to deliver workshops and facilitate conversations about using social media tools to support church and faith. I'm also providing real-time critiques of websites and social media accounts for those (smart) brave souls willing to be coached in front of the entire room.

What started out as an invite to present workshops at the ELCA Southwestern Washington Synod Assembly, morphed into a week that includes sponsorship by the Pacific Northwest Conference (Seattle) of the United Methodist Church and the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia. Count on reading more, either here or over on the #ChSocM blog, about why I'm fiercely committed to working ecumenically.

If you're on Twitter and want to follow tweets from these workshops, the hashtag is: #pnwchsocm.

Go Fish

2012-05-11T00:01:00.000-04:00

Because the Gospel reading

for this Sunday is:

John 15: 9-17

Go Fish

2012-05-04T00:00:00.000-04:00

Because the Gospel reading

for this Sunday is:

John 15:1-8

Artist: Suhita

Life as a Clergy Wife

2012-05-02T17:39:00.000-04:00

Might be time to start writing about being a clergy wife. The politically correct moniker is, of course, clergy spouse but that screws with the rhyme and rhythm of this headline: Life as a Clergy Wife.

My public musing about blogging on this topic brought immediate enthusiastic feedback from Twitter-based wags. The broadly ecumenical response included this from a Catholic pal, "ex-seminarians would love to hear your side of the story!!!" (Exclamation points all his.)

For a while I wondered if I'd have anything to say on the subject. After all, my husband isn't a parish priest or rector or vicar. He's a canon (Episcopal church equivalent of a Catholic church monsignor) who serves on a bishop's staff and goes to work at a diocesan center every day. And while he does seem to be ~~stuck~~ blessed with "Sunday supply" a lot, I'm neither expected nor required to attend.* Nevertheless, a whole new world of twisted identity has opened up. Woo-hoo!

Being married to a priest sure is -- how shall I put it -- interesting. Stay tuned for more. I'm tempted to begin by writing about shopping for clothes. His, I mean . . . his.

*Does that make me a crappy clergy wife? I feel a blog post coming on about the unexpectedly poignant experience of the first time I witnessed my husband preside and preach.

My Kind of Spring Day

2012-04-28T21:19:00.000-04:00

Go Fish (Friday, April 27)

2012-04-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

Because the Gospel reading

for this Sunday is:

John 10:11-18

Quote du Jour (Religion Department)

2012-04-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

Can I get through a week without being in the presence of Curia craziness? Apparently not. Today's quote is selected from the opening paragraph of Gary Wills' piece, "Bullying the Nuns" on today's NYRBlog.

I'm keeping up with this latest WTF event by subscribing to SistersNews.net, which is curating news and commentary from all perspectives. It's balanced. I, currently, am not.

The Vatican has issued a harsh statement claiming that American nuns do not follow their bishops’ thinking. That statement is profoundly true. Thank God, they don’t. Nuns have always had a different set of priorities from that of bishops. The bishops are interested in power. The nuns are interested in the powerless. Nuns have preserved Gospel values while bishops have been perverting them.
─ Garry Wills

Go Fish (Friday, April 20)

2012-04-20T11:45:00.000-04:00

Today, I'm giving a plenary session at the annual meeting of CODE (Conference for Diocesan Executives). Around since 1963, this is a group of lay and ordained people who serve at the senior level of a bishop's staff. An Episcopal bishop's staff.

Last year, CODE met in Hawaii. This year, they're meeting in Baltimore. I just finished watching "The Descendants" and am fine with not going to Hawaii.

What's my topic? Social media, of course!

Quote du Jour (Religion Department)

2012-04-16T00:00:00.000-04:00

Easter is a season that lasts for 50 days. Does that mean 50 days of peeps and chocolate bunnies? Maybe for some people. For me, even at my crankiest about the havoc wreaked in the name of Christianity, Easter is a time to remember why I got baptized (when I was old enough to know what I was doing). Behold this quote:

Easter is not a "spiritual" event, but a surging of power that touches all of life. The Easter question for us is not whether you can get your mind around the resurrection, because you cannot. Rather the question is whether you can permit in your horizon, new healing power, new surging possibility . . .

It is a generous offer of an alternative. It is given to you. It is a dangerous chance. You can be on the side of the newness that God is now working . . .

─ Walter Brueggemann, The Threat of Life

Go Fish (Friday, April 13)

2012-04-13T00:00:00.000-04:00

Because the Gospel reading

for this Sunday is:

John 20:19-31

What I'm Reading

2012-04-09T13:36:00.000-04:00

While everyone else is busy reading The Hunger Games, I've been mucking around with other dystopian-esque texts.

Last month I slammed through all 500+ pages of Michael Korda's memorable memoir, Another Life: A Memoir of Other People, which I lugged home in hardcover from The Book Thing. It's a page-turner account of Korda's decades in the publishing industry that includes great dish (is that slang still used?) about high maintenance authors. His chapter about Jacqueline Susann is scary-funny-juicy.

What makes this romp a dystopian text? For years I've been comparing the imploding mess known as traditional trade publishing with what has (deservedly) happened to the financial services industry. Korda's memoir affirms my every suspicion by revealing how the publishing industry sowed the seeds of its self-destruction during the 1960s and by the 1980s, had created a living hell for authors and real editors.

From there, I segued into reading A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church by Rembert G. Weakland, OSB, a frank memoir that spans nearly 60 years of his involvement with the Roman Catholic Church. Weakland's writing isn't nearly as engaging as Korda's, but that almost doesn't matter. The content is jaw-dropping enough without literary embellishment.

I've only read as far as chapter 10, "Ministering in the Last Years of Pope Paul VI (Rome 1973-1977), but that's far enough along to see how quickly and insidiously the Curia scrambled to regain autocratic dominance after the Second Vatican Council adjourned. Weakland's memoir affirms my worst suspicious about the institutional church.

Does this make me an Educated Seeker or a Glutton for Punishment? Or is that a distinction without a difference?

Easter: Alleluia, Alleluia!

2012-04-08T00:00:00.000-04:00

Christ is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!

Now, what?*

* I've started a Pinterest board to help me explore this question.

Go Fish (Good Friday, April 6)

2012-04-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

Artist: Dorna McDonald May
The Legend of the Crucifix Fish

Can't Make This Stuff Up: Palm Sunday . . .

2012-03-31T17:54:00.000-04:00

and, no joke,

April Fools Day?

Go Fish (Friday, March 30)

2012-03-30T13:23:00.000-04:00

Artist: Ria Hills

Contemporary Life Rant: Google It.

2012-03-24T21:00:00.000-04:00

People laugh, albeit nervously, during my shtick about how my mother was the tech consultant for the biopic about Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest. Hanger scene? Lived it. And more! I mention this so you don't think I'm exaggerating when I describe another feature of my childhood.

My mother had a Zero Tolerance Policy for questions that began with, "How do you spell...?" or, "Where is...?" These were not inquiries born of intellectual curiosity, but evidence of laziness.

Go. Look. It. Up.

I spent much of my childhood and adolescence flipping through a dictionary, thesaurus, or volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia. My mother joined the BOMC so we could have dictionaries in every room of the house. Asking for information that could be found in a book we owned guaranteed a swift trip to my room. Eventually, I'd figure out this was the safest place to be and it was stocked with reference materials.

The Internet had not yet been invented and Google didn't exist. Information had to be carefully spelunked. None of this technology was available while I attended college and graduate school. I spent a lot of time looking stuff up, sometimes in specialized libraries if the information I needed was legal or medical.

Now we have Google, which I initially didn't use because I thought it was cheating. I'm over that. Not looking it up online? Now, that really is evidence of lazy.

Technology makes it so easy to find stuff, that I'm routinely shocked when people ask me for information that I can -- and will -- procure for them via Google. And while I'm not proud of the tone I'm starting to take while saying, "Google it," at least I'm not brandishing hangers to make my point. Yet.

Go Fish (Friday, March 23)

2012-03-23T00:00:00.001-04:00

Ripped-Off from Paul Brian Campbell's Headlines

2012-03-22T13:15:00.000-04:00

Seconds Of Beauty - 1st round compilation from The Beauty Of A Second on Vimeo.

60 seconds of beauty submitted by users to the first round of

The Beauty Of A Second short film contest.

H/T to Paul Brian Campbell, SJ blogging at People for Others.

About the Skimpy Posting

2012-03-20T11:16:00.001-04:00

Well, I hope you're enjoying my Go Fish series, cleverly scheduled for Fridays during Lent. I'm enjoying searching for and posting the images.

Am I ever going back to written posts? Of course! In fact, I've been writing lots of 'em -- for other blogs. Here are some you might find interesting:

On The Virtual Abbey blog, Due for a Change or Maybe Complete Transformation, is about what's happening with our beloved virtual community.

On the ChSocM (church social media) blog, Virtual Community & Social Media: It Takes a (Global) Village and What Else? poses some critical questions about whether additional or different community-development skills are needed for online communities.

On the Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media blog, Pinterest for Health is a Beautiful Thing . . . Literally, suggests that art has value for healing body, mind, and spirit.

On dotMagis, the blog of Ignatian Spirituality, I'm three questions into a blog-alogue with Jim Manney about using social media. The most recent one, about what Ignatius would have done with social media, was thought-provoking fun to answer.

On Lent Madness, I've advocated for several saints and one of them, Mary Magdalene, has made it to the Elate Eight. I'm especially happy with the post I wrote that helped her trounce Joan of Arc.

So, yes, I've been writing! I've also been preparing for upcoming presentations and workshops. I'm thrilled that church social media is finally becoming worthy of attention by church leadership and delighted that I get to continue my adventures in healthcare social media.

I'm scheduled to talk about and train folks about social media during these events:

Archdeacons & Formation Directors Conference (Association for Episcopal Deacons) in Baltimore, MD on March 23.
Social Media Residency Program (Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media) in Jacksonville, FL on March 28-29.
Conference on Diocesan Executives (CODE) in Annapolis, MD on April 20.
ELCA Southwestern Synod Assembly in Vancouver, WA on May 19 -- preceded by a week of consulting with a group of Seattle-based clergy and lay leadership.
Baltimore Nonprofit Leaders Circles Annual Forum in Baltimore, MD on June 20.

Meanwhile, Go Fish . . . on Fridays!