Stuck in watching the rain wishing I had some lovely female company to share it with and laugh while we ran out in it

Stuck in watching the rain wishing I had some lovely female company to share it with and laugh while we ran out in it

Valuable information.

Bev, Thank you for your words. Grace is indeed a beautiful gift and I hope and pray I am able to live a life that makes that grace attractive to others. You've set a good example. I thank God for the gift of transformation, also!

Susan, I am so thankful I met you in Uganda and the times we've been able to meet in Quaker gathering since those days. I appreciate your ministry and I am blessed this article spoke to you. I don't know why I write what I write, but it usually is a way of making visible the things God is wanting to teach me. And hopefully making me accountable!

I am thankful for both of your friendships!

Pam

Wow! Pam! How far we've all come since the time my 2 young friends and I met you and Ron in East Africa! I'll be marking 12 years of marriage myself in a couple of weeks, and your message really speaks to me. Thanks so much!

Grace. . . that wonderful gift of God which provides so beautifully for us in all occasions. Thanks for sharing how Grace has the power to transform us as it works its way for our good.

Judy, Thank you for reading the post and for your comment! You've never had an annoying Pollyanna outlook, and I have witness God's incredible grace in your life through some very difficult times and through those life changing events. You give me hope that this experience of grace is the starting point for every relationship and every day. It is incredible that Ron and I have been married 34 years. Someone needs to send that man a sympathy card!

Blessings!

Pam

Pam, your article is one I need to read and re-read in order to fully appreciate what you're saying. My heart and experience, though, tell me it's true at the outset. I've gradually morphed into a committed realist as life has brought me its daily offerings, to the point that my probably annoying Pollyanna outlook has retreated from sight. Not a negative or undesirable change, in my estimation. I have to say, though, that the most incredible thing in the entire article is the fact that you and Ron have been married for 34 years -- wow.


Keep sharing your heart ...


Judy

Thank you for your very kind words Penny!

Stan, your faith in me always blesses me. Thank you! I am glad you touched the issue that being a romantic is not necessarily an outward way of behaving or a cultural norm, but a way of looking at life, of seeing our physical world, our relationships, our marriages, and our worship through the eyes of God's love and God's grace. I hope and pray I am continually challenged to understand the real meaning of romance and not bow to the cultural expectations of what romance looks like. You taught us that in so many ways....and I thank you for the witness of your life and your friendship. I will never ignore what you say!

Blessings!
Pam

This is a very interesting post coming from you. I had you pegged for a romantic without reservation.

Well written essay about marriage and God's grace, Pam. You and Ron have extended grace to me in so many ways...grace is beautiful and healing. Certainly God is a romantic, wouldn't you think?

I have appreciated your insights and your quality writing. This is a god example.

I'm not a romantic person on the exterior...especially in relationships. I do think, however, that I'm a romantic in my sense of the world and the possibilities available outside the bounds of rationalism, enlightenment thought, and western plausibility structures. Cross those boundaries and one encounters a world of love, passion, color, grace, and possibilities that are truly unbelievable. You don't dare speak of them, though. People just call you a romantic and ignore what you've just said. :)

Keep up the good writing. I find it instructional and helpful.

Stan

Beautifully expressed, Pam. Wow.

Life does change very fast. We take things like family for granted. I remember spending my younger years with my great aunt. She meant the world to me, and all of a sudden she was gone. Still to this day, I look back on the fond memories that I have of her. I guess that, in the end, we have our memories.

This is just so wonderful. I am so honored to be from Winchester were there exist such thoughtful people as you!!!

Oh Pam, your message of hope is a powerful one. We need places of real integrity where ex-offenders can find not just work but restoration of their lives, and help learning how to live in the world which is certainly evolving at an ever-faster pace. We expect these young men and women to come out of prison and step up to the task with very little if any help. Workforce Inc. sounds like a timely program, and your meeting sounds like it has taken up the challenge. Bless you all!
Love and Light, Linda

Thanks Pam for the reminder of your grandparents. I loved them both. John Farner was the first man that I can remember who ever hugged me. It was in the hallway just before we entered the sanctuary at Melba Friends Church. John was the demonstration of Christ's love that I needed. Treva Farner represented the joy of the Lord to me. She was so happy and teased me with such delight. Her eyes sparkled with joy.

Thanks for sharing Grandpa Farner's Queries. As I read them I remember your grandparents (and you and Frank). I remember their testimony for Christ in the Melba community and their influence on me.

Thanks for sharing your life journey and struggles. As your write it allows me to process the events of my life, too.

Pam,

This is a very nice piece of writing. Thanks. It is very much along the lines of my thinking this Lenten season. "Walking beside the living Christ" is a metaphor that names my experience, too,and you have captured it very well. To place the power of the resurrection in the hands of the community (rather than or maybe as well as academic theology)profoundly relfects Christ's leaving the church in the hands of the new Community that grew around faith in His resurrection. Right on!

I also liked Wilhelm's comment. Sometimes Quakers, in their love of simplicity and "plainness" neglect to recognize God's presence in beauty in art, music, drama, even nature itself. Nice to be reminded to listen to God in all forms of beauty. (except Barbie dolls, of course)

Nice job, Pam

What Pam Ferguson writes about her friendship and her conversations with the 72 year old ex-nun really struck me and had a great emotional impact on me. I remember with fond memories all the details that Pam's friend summed up and that had to do with the way Lent was celebrated by Catholics a few decades ago. I am a Dutchman, brought up in a typically Dutch Catholic family just after the war. I am now 66 years old. I am not an ex-nun, but I was at a seminary for 5 years, from 1955 to 1960.

Those were the days (not in all respects, but in some). I am astonished that there are so many similarities between what Pam's friend remembers of the Catholic Church and the way Lent was celebrated and what I remember. There is one aspect I missed. In Holland in those days Catholic children saved all the sweets they got from their parents during the Lenten season. When the first twenty days of the Lenten season were over, there was a sort of celebration, called Half-Lent and then the children were allowed to eat a small portion of the sweets they had saved. On Easter Sunday the children could eat as much of all they had saved as they liked!

Just like in the USA in those days a Catholic parish had one pastor, who was assisted by four or five chaplains (that is what we called them). All of them were priests. Nowadays a parish priest has to take care of 4 or 5 or 6 parishes and there is no one to assist him.

But I do not want this comment to sound pessimistic. There is not one way in which Christians can celebrate the Lenten season: there are many ways. It is a good thing that Pam is a Quaker: in her text she gives a number of excellent ways of preparing ourselves for the great feast of Easter. And I think that the ways she describes for preparing ourselves for the day when we will celebrate the resurrection of our Lord are excellent. There must be dozens of ways in which we can experience the joy that is brought about by what God and Jesus Christ have done for us: Pam mentions silence and meditation, but we can also think of prayer, reading the stories about Jesus' passion, death and resurection in the gospels, listening to the wonderful music that the greatest of our composers have made for us and that deal with Christ's passion.

Thank you for the comments on this article. I am thankful my "job" encourages me to read! I also have a great need/desire to remember people who don't have children to keep their memory alive....maybe it is my way to deal with not having children of my own. This story also reminds me of how important it is to learn from a shameful past and the shameful treatment of fellow human beings. May it never happen again.....to anyone of any color or culture or class.

Blessings!

Pam

Thanks, Pam, for reading widely and reporting in such an engaging way.

Wow!