Seeking Authentic Voice

Serena, me, Barb Oh, what a delightful weekend I've had. Beginning with a fabulous meet-up with Serena and Barb on Thursday. Serena collected me from Sea-Tac and we drove to west Seattle for a meet-up with Barb at Dukes. Dukes is on the western shore of the Puget Sound facing east toward the city of Seattle and the Space Needle. The sun was setting and the view was beautiful I had the most delicious cup of lobster pernod bisque....we talked and talked and talked (well, I did anyway) for several hours...it was fun.  Leaving we drove south and then east, with a spectacular view of the city skyline - it was breathtaking! I spent the later part of Thursday night in meetings preparing for the weekend work. On Friday we started at 9am, gathering up the rest of our supplies and headed south to the Dumas Bay Retreat Center in Federal Way. Two of us on the planning team/staff settled into the center and set up our meeting space while the third one served as a shuttle making a couple...

Words Matter Teaser Trailer from Words Matter on Vimeo . This videoclip is from the WordsMatter Expansive Language Project consultation that took place in Chicago in August...it's just a little glimpse into what I will be doing this weekend when we hold the first WordsMatter Expansive Language Project of the Episcopal Church!

Take a look at my latest project: Words Matter . What do you think?

photo by David Skidmore on Ann Tiemeyers camera Words Matter: by The Rev. Terri C. Pilarski “For slightly less than half my life I was an intentionally de-churched person. Although the faith of my childhood had been a source of great comfort to me I also found that church to hold a very narrow view of God. My own prayer life suggested to me that God was much more expansive than the church was teaching me. And so while I left the institutional church when I was 15, not to return until I was 31, I never left my relationship with God, or at least I never left my pursuit of a life of faith. “ “A few years after I became de-churched, sometime around the year 1975, I found myself, and my college roommates on a pursuit for enlightenment. By the early 1980’s I’d wandered through a variety of new age pursuits, crystals and yoga, and meditation. One day, while meditating it occurred to me that I still celebrated Christmas and Easter. And not just in a social way, for the gifts and the ...

I spent the better part of six days working on two versions of the press release announcing the Expansive Language conference coming up in two weeks. I am on the planning team working with a group of fabulous women, all of whom are excited about this. Here is a link to the NCC release and below is the other  version of the press release I worked on which we hope will be picked up Episcopal News Service: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Office of Communication, Diocese of Chicago NCC group to meet in Chicago August 9-11 to discuss the words we use to talk about God Chicago, July 23, 2010 -- A diverse group of Christians will gather here August 9-11 to talk about the language people use to talk about God and faith. The National Council of Churches (NCC) symposium, “Language Matters,” will discuss how to talk about God and faith in ways that respects the sensibilities of people from a variety of Christian traditions and viewpoints. The conversation will focus on the languag...