Welcome to my blog.

My friend Leslie long ago urged me to set this up...sorry it took so long!

With the world going to hell in a handbasket---hell being a human condition designed by human mendacity, avarice, vanity and fear-- it is no longer acceptable for compassionate and loving beings to sit on the sidelines wringing our hands. Or worse yet: turning our faces away from suffering to gaze at the beautiful places and beautiful people within our tight circles of care. Should we simply redirect our gaze we will stare into the bald face of human evil. There is too much work too be done, too many people to reach, too many organizations to found to allow silence or comfort or lethargy to win our souls. But you already knew all that.

Some years ago I briefly served as pastor to a church caught in an entrenched dysfunctional system of deceit. When I turned my gaze away from the beautiful trappings of a comfortable life as a well-paid minister only to be confronted by the depths of congregational illness and hatred, I nearly gave up on my calling. I left my version of pastoral life and moved to a farm in rural Oklahoma to fulfill my spouse's version of pastoral dreams. On our 20-acre slice of heaven at the end of a dirt road, he hoped to raise communities of bees and I hoped to avoid seeing how truly awful human community might be. I watched flowers grow and made friends with dogs and cattle. Each evening I lounged on the front porch swing drinking in a westward view of sunlight filtering through oaks leaves, casting inspiring beams of hope and contentment onto the hay field across the road. I dreamed of creating a retreat center where other wounded souls would find the healing I had found in solitude. Then the trailer park moved in.

I've got nothing against trailers as living quarters per se and nothing against people whose meager finances require them to live in houses which WILL blow apart in this tornado alley---it is just a matter of time. As a child I would have gladly moved into such a trailer park and found it luxurious if it had hot water and a bathtub. But last year I simply was not ready to substitute the tranquil verdant view from my front porch for incessantly barking dogs, dozens of perpetually-burning street lights and wounded children who find amusement in throwing firecrackers at cats.

Jolted back to reality by the very social conditions that pulled me into ministry---a socio-political system which punishes the poor and enriches the few, I sunk deeper into a depression that threatened to take me out permanently. Because the only way out is through the pain that's where I went, grudgingly. On the way I found that I could do yoga and meditation without the guilty feeling of self-indulgence I used to experience and I discovered a deeper spirituality than I had ever found in comfortable times.

On the other side of the pain I found hope again, not in swinging on my front porch, but in joining my fate to the oppressed and forgotten people of the world. So that's what this blog will be about for me: bringing a vision of compassionate possibility forged in the crucible of disappointment and annealed through attention to spiritual growth and community ties.

Oh yeah, and I plan to rant too.
I look forward to your responses.

peace,
Valerie