More Meredith Gould

When Thursday Feels Like Friday

2013-05-23T11:27:00.000-04:00

This is possibly the third week in a row Thursday has felt like Friday. Maybe it's because I generally work at least one full day on weekends and front-load Mondays and Tuesdays. By Thursday I'm basically done -- as in "turkeys are done, people are finished."

Around here, Monday is Clergy Day Off but that doesn't stop me from racing around. I tend to spend Tuesdays dealing with whatever suddenly occurred to clients over the weekend. I end the day either attending or moderating the church social media (#chsocm) chat on Twitter. Wednesdays I follow-up whatever got generated. Is it any wonder that Thursday has started feeling like Friday?

Apparently I am not alone. Last Thursday, my Loyola Press gal pal Denise Gorss (@Denise205) posted a tweet about it feeling like Friday. Hence, this exegetical exchange:

Yes, I do believe that two or more of us thinking it's Friday makes it so.

Also that Jesus the Christ is with us and expecting roasted chicken for Thursday's faux Shabbat meal. That's my time-tripping delusion and I'm sticking to it.

Pentecost! Come Holy Spirit Home Decor

2013-05-18T21:35:00.002-04:00

Our Fireplace Mantel

Altar/Theme Park

WooHoo Holy Spirit!

And do revisit this favorite Pentecost post of mine from 2010.

Working on the (Other) Side (Yard): Gardening Department

2013-05-07T13:05:00.000-04:00

Making my way across our driveway.*

Transplanted the yarrow and artemisia.

Fun continues with transplanting a
hosta from yet another section.

Closeup!

* Next door neighbor has conceded neither he nor his wife care about gardening and I'm welcome to work my over to their side of the driveway!

Beginning Continued: Gardening Department

2013-05-03T01:00:00.000-04:00

Blessings planted so far...
Working the other side
of the mini-land this weekend.

Not exactly "before" but not "after."

Coming along nicely.

Habemus Book Cover! The Social Media Gospel: Sharing the Good News In New Ways

2013-05-02T00:00:00.000-04:00

The Social Media Gospel:

Sharing the Good News in New Ways

Foreword by The Rev. David L. Hansen (@Rev_David)

Soon and Very Soon!

July 2013

from Liturgical Press

This fabulous cover designed by Stefan Killen.
Grateful to Liturgical Press for welcoming
my creative direction and ongoing input.

Beginning Again: Gardening Department

2013-04-29T03:00:00.000-04:00

Blessed work in progress...

There was even more stuff stuffed in here.

Cleaned almost everything out the moment I could.

Thank me for not showing you the before this before.

I'm Back From My Unintended Hiatus

2013-04-27T10:45:00.000-04:00

We were discussing how things were going and how I'd felt during the month between acupuncture sessions. Allyson had been on maternity leave.

Me? I'd been on a self-imposed merry-go-round of billable work; reviewing galleys for my new book; reading galleys of friends' books; contemplating the mess of a front yard inherited from previous owners of this townhouse; recruiting for the #chsocm chat moderator team and scheduling that through July.

Add the predictable, inevitable fibromyalgia flare-up that knocked me down, out, and supine on the couch whenever I could stagger there from bed. This, in turn, led to binge-viewing all five seasons of "Mad Men," sometimes until 2:30 AM.

No blogging. No writing. Barely any praying beyond, "God, let me know and do your will" and then being too distracted or otherwise out-of-it to read the signs.

I trotted all this out to Allyson before, during, and after she was checking my pulses. "You know," she said, "you could schedule a hiatus instead of collapsing into one."

Wow, what a concept!

Alleluia! No Joke.

2013-04-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

Resurrection Sunday & Tangential Exegesis for Easter

2013-03-30T20:00:00.000-04:00

He is not here,
but is risen!

Luke 24:6

For our sake

and for that of

yellow peeps.

Good Friday: Spoiler Alert

2013-03-29T00:00:00.000-04:00

I Support Marriage Equality but My Profile Picture Will Not Go Red

2013-03-28T12:20:00.001-04:00

I support marriage equality but won't be changing my profile picture on Twitter or Facebook. Call me shallow, but my decision has to do with aesthetics.

Red and pink?!? Even if you call it "crimson and salmon," it's still ugly. I shudder to think (or dare articulate) what the pink might represent.

Everyone is so darn sensitive these days, I can't even bust out one-liners that would've been perfectly fine back in the 1970s when I was a gay activist.* I mourn those days of smart snark when only the most doctrinaire radical separatist lesbian feminists got easily offended about anything having to do with sex, gender, or sexuality. Everyone else was Free to Trash You and Me.

Outraged offense is so revoltingly mainstream these days that I nearly wept with gratitude when I saw this:

*That's right, I was a gay activist. Yes, my husband knows about this.

Quote du Jour (News Department) | SCOTUS Hears DOMA and Prop 8 Cases

2013-03-28T11:08:00.001-04:00

Many decades ago, I would read the Supreme Court Reporter for fun and illumination. My doctoral dissertation focused on the sociology of constitutional adjudication relative to women's rights. I was super-geared up about the SCOTUS hearings on Proposition 8 and DOMA because so many of the constitutional issues relative to race, sex, and gender are applicable. Once again.

Although I'm not generally an auditory learner, I did find myself transfixed by audio coverage of the hearings. I chimed in. I tried to cite cases of first instance before counsel.

I also did lots of muttering about the verbal demeanor of some justices, which is why I was delighted to read Maureen Dowd's lede in her Op-Ed piece, Courting Cowardice: "As the arguments unfurled in Tuesday's case on same-sex marriage, the Supreme Court justices sounded more and more cranky."

Many many great lines and paragraphs to pull from Dowd's column but because I went ape-crazy when I heard bogus arguments about waiting for more social science data* to be generated, here's one of my favorites:

Donald Verrilli Jr., the U.S. solicitor general arguing on the side of same-sex marriage, told the justices, 'There is a cost to waiting.' He recalled that the argument by opponents of interracial marriage in Loving v. Virginia in 1967 was to delay because 'the social science is still uncertain about how biracial children will fare in this world.'

The wisdom of the Warren court is reflected two miles away, where a biracial child is faring pretty well in his second term in the Oval Office.

─ Maureen Dowd

*We actually do have longitudinal about the mental, emotional, and social health of children raised by gay and lesbian couples, dating back to the 1980s. I helped collect some of it during the 1970s.

I Love Sociology: "Urban Legends" Take Hold for a Reason

2013-03-25T10:30:00.000-04:00

Lots of wailing, whining, and gnashing of teeth in response to "urban legends" swiftly emerging regarding Pope Francis. John L. Allen, Jr. debunks a few in a National Catholic Reporter piece, "Debunking three 'urban legends' about Pope Francis."

Some have been characterized as "crude" and "cruel," especially by fans of the previous papacy. I confess to have recounted one in a recent post. In my own defense, please note I cite "reports" and provide a link, thus allowing my readers to track down the provenance of the quote.

I semi-digress.

The point I really want to make is one about why urban legends take hold and spread like wildfire. From the comment I left at NCR:

"Urban legends take hold for valid sociological reasons: they're signifiers. The fact that each of these gained swift traction reveals just how disgruntled and dismayed people have been with the previous papacy. I wish those who are so so outraged would think more meta-macro about what the popularity of these urban legends might say about what people are thinking and feeling."

Not the first time, nor the last I'll be wishing silently or out loud that people would think more sociologically, especially about current events.

Face Palm Sunday

2013-03-24T14:07:00.002-04:00

Holy Week Begins

Consider what it's like

for anyone raised Jewish. . .

Speaking and writing from experience? Holy Week generates quite a mash-up of emotions.

Life as a Clergy Wife: "We Have a Pope" Movie Night!

2013-03-18T12:42:00.000-04:00

So, how did we relax at the end of a week that included the election of Pope Francis? We went to the movies in the cozy confines of my husband's Rumpus Room.

This is what I call the first floor Sanctus Sanctorum in which the big but not-too-big flat screen television is located as well as sermonating resources that include but are not limited to gazillion volumes of Feasting On The Word.*

And what, pray tell, did we watch? By unanimous vote, my former Roman Catholic and current Episcopal priest husband and I watched: "We Have a Pope," a 2011 Italian drama-comedy (yes, hold those two concepts in your head simultaneously) about a cardinal who is dismayed to have been elected pope.

Against the background of this week's events, "We Have a Pope" seemed more prophetic and poignant than director Nanni Moretti probably intended.

Here, I'm thinking especially about reports about Pope Francis opting out of the ermine cape and purportedly saying, "You put it on instead. Carnival time is over!" and his comments about the papal apartments being a bit much. In this movie, the expressive face of the reluctant pontiff speaks volumes; no dialogue necessary. We, of course, had lots to say about the movie which staved off my husband's sermon prep for another hour.

Don't we get enough of this stuff? Apparently not.

* Great dowry or what?!?

Popes: Images that Signify

2013-03-17T15:00:00.000-04:00

Driven to despair by one,

invited to hope by the other.

Guess which.

#CatholicSpring

Pope Francis: Images that Inspire

2013-03-16T22:14:00.004-04:00

I keep seeing these images

even after I stop looking at them.

Habemus Papam: Pope Francis

2013-03-13T22:55:00.001-04:00

For the first time in years I find myself feeling authentically hopeful about the possibility of a Roman Catholic Church that acts justly, loves tenderly, and walks humbly with and for God. Still taking in this news, so don't know that I can write much more at this juncture.

Basically I'm wandering around in optimistic wonder, especially after reading, "The Horror! A Buenos Aires journalist describe Bergoglio." In it, Marcelo Gonzalez excoriates Pope Francis for lending "his Cathedral to Protestants, Muslims, Jews, and even to partisan groups" as well as being a "sworn enemy of the Traditional Mass."

And what's this? Our new pope has allowed himself to be blessed by Protestant ministers? Oh the delightful, welcomed, and much needed One Body in Christ-ness of it all!

(Video) Chimps: A New Life, Retirement

2013-03-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

Friends,

let's take a break from the daily dross to

contemplate how we might better

love and serve God's creation.

Quote du Jour (Religion Department) | As the Vatican Conclave Begins

2013-03-10T14:16:00.000-04:00

As the Vatican Conclave looms near (on Tuesday, March 12) I find myself pondering the holy synchronicity of this happening during Lent during the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council during the Year of Faith, proclaimed as such by the first pope who has resigned in 600 years.

If you read my stuff you already know I'm keen on the Holy Spirit, so-called "lost person" of the Trinity. Not lost to me. For well over a decade, veni sancte spiritus has been my primary prayer -- and not because the priest at my very first Confession assigned it as my penance.

I perk right up whenever I get to this in the Creed, "We believe in the Holy Spirit..." Even more so at, "who has spoken through the prophets." Hans Kung, reviled by some Shiite Catholics as a heretic, has long-been a prophetic voice in the Roman church. Here's a paragraph I've pulled from a New York Times Op-Ed piece, "A Vatican Spring?" * Veni Sance Spiritus!

. . .the church needs a pope who’s not living intellectually in the Middle Ages, who doesn't champion any kind of medieval theology, liturgy or church constitution. It needs a pope who is open to the concerns of the Reformation, to modernity. A pope who stands up for the freedom of the church in the world not just by giving sermons but by fighting with words and deeds for freedom and human rights within the church, for theologians, for women, for all Catholics who want to speak the truth openly. A pope who no longer forces the bishops to toe a reactionary party line, who puts into practice an appropriate democracy in the church, one shaped on the model of primitive Christianity. A pope who doesn't let himself be influenced by a Vatican-based “shadow pope” like Benedict and his loyal followers.

─ Hans Kung

* Of course I was thrilled to see the title for this piece because I've been trying for at least year (unsuccessfully) to get some momentum for the hashtag #CatholicSpring on Twitter.

The Pope Leaving Office . . .

2013-02-28T15:53:00.000-05:00

looks like this on Twitter . . .

More evidence that the Vatican

has never understood

the "social" in social media.

Personal Energy Conservation

2013-02-27T00:00:00.000-05:00

My socks reveal a way to conserve

my rapidly-dwindling supply

of patience and energy.

Quote du Jour (Religion Department) | Ecce Catholicism Inc.

2013-02-18T22:00:00.000-05:00

Other than my post on the day of the pope's announced resignation, I've been remarkably silent (for me) about what I'm calling the Switch Lobsters and Dance* situation at the Vatican.

Nor have I treated anyone to my thoughts about the possible correlation between @pontifex's appearance on Twitter and Pope Benedict XVI's retirement from public life. To some extent I agree with what Elizabeth Scalia has written in her post titled, Prayer and Penance: Did Twitter Hasten Benedict's Retirement. Still pondering.

Meanwhile, I keep reading what everyone else has to say. Today I stumbled across this Op-Ed piece in the New York Times by Bill Keller titled, Catholicism Inc. In it he writes about what the Roman Catholic church might learn from leaders in the secular business world. Some great suggestions and the kicker sentence is fabulous. Here's the lede:

Behold a global business in distress — incoherently managed, resistant to the modernizing forces of the Internet age, tainted by scandal and corruption. It needs to tweak its marketing, straighten out its finances, up its recruiting game and repair its battered brand. Ecce Catholicism Inc.

─ Bill Keller

* Abiding admiration for whomever gets that literary reference.

Thinking Big About Lenten Fasting

2013-02-18T00:00:00.000-05:00

When it comes to the Lenten practice of fasting, I tend to think big.

One year I decided to give up vengeance, a really stupid and short-lasting move since I happened to be going through a divorce at the time. The year after that, I decided to give up gossip, also absurd because I was in music ministry. I could barely make it out of choir practice and to the parking lot without sharing a few "observations" about the (other) sopranos.

When it comes to Lenten fasting, I don't bother giving up stuff like chocolate or prime time soap operas on TV. Those things don't separate me from this world, if anything they make embodiment more tolerable. I know I really need to fast from the unhealthy behavioral stuff I tend to feed upon. Much better for me to think bigger than bonbons and bacon.

Am I a paragon of self-awareness or what?

Since I admire me for this level of higher consciousness, I should probably give up arrogance. God only knows how long that will last.

Lent 2013 Begins

2013-02-13T09:44:00.001-05:00

But yes to social media if it brings you closer to God and deeper into community. I talk about all that in this dotMagis post from last year about "giving up" social media for Lent.