First Week of #AdventWord

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Advent, AdventWord, Christmas

December 2–Advent Word: Visit

December 3–Advent Word: Time

December 4–Advent Word: Humble

December 5–Advent Word: Raise

December 6–Advent Word: House

December 7–Advent Word: Unity

December 8–Advent Word: Worthy

XI Bishop of Georgia

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Bishop, Diocese of Georgia, Episcopal

It has been a busy week as we got ready for and attended the 198th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia. As Canon to the Ordinary (Assistant to the Bishop), my husband, Frank, and I  had to leave early with the rest of the staff to help with preparing our convention site at Georgia Southern University (where my husband and I met as students 37 years ago).

On Thursday, I attended a Creation Care Committee workshop on tree planting at the Botanic Garden at Georgia Southern University after visiting with my mother and taking her to lunch at a local restaurant. We planted four trees, beginning the Committee’s initiative to plant 222 trees in the Diocese by 2022 (see Revelation 22:2).

That evening, we attended Evening Prayer at Trinity Episcopal Church where I was Baptized, Confirmed, and one of the Diocese’s first female acolytes. It is also the church that sent my husband to seminary and where he was ordained to the Priesthood in August of 2000.

We decided to take a trip down memory lane that night and went to Dingus Magee’s, the restaurant where we had a lot of our early dates. Then we returned to the hotel to rest before the morning’s big event: the election of the 11th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Georgia in which Frank was one of the five nominees.

Following the opening Eucharist, we were led to an empty room to await the counting of the ballots. Imagine our surprise when the entire Standing Committee filed in and informed us that Frank had been elected on the first ballot! It is still sinking in. Frank will be consecrated by Presiding Bishop Michael Curry here in Savannah in May of 2020.

Mysticism

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Flowers, Mystic, Mysticism, photography

I heard flowers that sounded, and saw notes that shone.

~~Louis Claude de Saint-Martin on Union with God.

Cloud of Unknowing

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Christianity, God, Mystic, Mysticism, religion

Flying above the clouds enroute to Georgia.

BUT now thou askest me and sayest, “How shall I think on Himself, and what is He?” and to this I cannot answer thee but thus: “I wot not.” For thou hast brought me with thy question into that same darkness, and into that same cloud of unknowing, that I would thou wert in thyself. For of all other creatures and their works, yea, and of the works of God’s self, may a man through grace have fullhead of knowing, and well he can think of them: but of God Himself can no man think. And therefore I would leave all that 89 thing that I can think, and choose to my love that thing that I cannot think. For why; He may well be loved, but not thought. By love may He be gotten and holden; but by thought never. And therefore, although it be good sometime to think of the kindness and the worthiness of God in special, and although it be a light and a part of contemplation: nevertheless yet in this work it shall be cast down and covered with a cloud of forgetting. And thou shalt step above it stalwartly, but Mistily, with a devout and a pleasing stirring of love, and try for to pierce that darkness above thee. And smite upon that thick cloud of unknowing with a sharp dart of longing love; and go not thence for thing 90 that befalleth.

~~from The Cloud of Unknowing, 14th Century, Britain

A Way to the Manger

Tags

Advent, Books, Christianity, Christmas, Devotional

Now available for pre-order, my husband Frank, and I, have written a week of devotions for this book from Forward Movement:

Explore Christ’s birth as recounted in the Gospel of Luke through the lens of the Way of Love and the seven practices of turn, learn, pray, worship, bless, go, and rest. With daily devotions of personal stories, modern examples, art, and invitations to prayer and journaling, the authors challenge you to discover and incorporate these practices into your own life. During Advent and Christmas, walk with the shepherds and the angels, Mary and Joseph, Elizabeth and Zechariah, and Anna and Simeon. All of their paths—as well as yours—lead to the same destination: the humble manger where Love was born.

For more info, see here: A Way to the Manger

Empty in God

Tags

Meister Eckhart, Mystic, Mysticism, photography

Stormy sunrise on Jekyll Island, Georgia.

When I stand empty in God’s will and empty of God’s will and of all His works and of God Himself, then am I above all creatures and am neither God nor creature, but I am what I was and evermore shall be.

~~Meister Eckhart