Seeking Authentic Voice

On my sixteenth birthday I came home from high school to find a bouquet of long stemmed blue iris’s, a gift from parents. My birthday falls in February, one of the bleakest months of the year, when fresh flowers are an especially delightful reminder of the warmer weather to come. During the long season of Lent the church was void of fresh flowers. Instead we had dried sunflowers in muted browns and tan colors, and bare branches, rocks and ashes, stark symbols of winter and the spiritual journey of a season intentionally focused on our broken human nature, of the need for forgiving others and being forgiven ourselves.  Now the space is once again filled with flowers, in such an abundance that I have to use Flonase just to be in this room. Potted tulips, hydrangeas, hyacinths, daffodils, and lilies. They fill the altar space and the transept, overflowing from altar to step, down to the font. It is a heady sight. One church I served use to plant the bulbs left over from these flo

One sunny afternoon in 1987 I found myself having lunch with my boss, who was the owner of an interior design firm, and his clients, Maria Tall Chief Paschen and her husband Buddy. A dance major in college, I was thrilled, and a little intimidated to have lunch with this prima ballerina. I don’t remember much from that lunch, and I’m sure I said very little. However the topic of dance must have come up because I recall her comparing modern dance and ballet saying, in what I perceived as a condescending tone, that ballet was a much more sophisticated form of dance than those moderns “danced in their bare feet”. If Maria were still alive she’d probably be aghast that many modern ballerina’s now perform in the traditional ballet pointe shoes as well as in bare feet.  I have always loved being barefoot. Maybe it’s the result of growing up in the west, where everything is more informal? I recall spending all day outside, usually barefoot, climbing trees and running through fields and g

In a small town where life has been the same for 100 years, a war is about to break out between the tranquility of tradition and the fear of change. A power struggle ensues between acts of compassion and hospitality and a fierce adherence to protocol.  The shock of something  new, the excitement of letting go of what have become meaningless “rules for life”, the dangers of denying people joy and the consequences of intolerance are aroused by a chocolatier’s delectable sweets in the movie CHOCOLAT. At the heart of the story in CHOCOLAT is a gypsy-like woman named Vianne born with special powers. Vianne arrives as a mysterious outsider to the French village of Lansquenet where she opens a chocolate shop offering candy and beverages that can cure lost hopes and awaken long deprived emotions. Vianne's effect, and the impact of her chocolate, is immediate and extraordinary: the elderly find themselves recalling young love, troubled couples regain their spark, sniping neighbors beco