Thursday Thirteen #9: Thirteen Things About Me

Angel Mama from Pearls of Wis­dom tagged me last week to par­tic­i­pate in the “Eight Things About Me” meme. Things have been so crazy for me that I haven’t had a chance to respond until now. So since I was hav­ing a hard time com­ing up with a topic for Thir­teen Thurs­day, any­way, I decided to present “Eight Thir­teen Things About Me:“1. I was bap­tized as an infant in a con­gre­ga­tion of the Amer­i­can Lutheran Church (one of the pre­de­ces­sors of the Evan­gel­i­cal Lutheran Church in Amer­ica that was formed in 1988).2. I began attend­ing Sun­day School as a preschooler.

3. I amassed ten years’ credit for “Per­fect Atten­dance” in Sun­day School. We were given pins with a “1” the first year we achieved “Per­fect Atten­dance” and a new num­ber each sub­se­quent year that we racked up. I still have my pin that boasts a “10.”

4. I have never had a “con­ver­sion” expe­ri­ence, i.e., a spe­cific moment in time when I “accepted Jesus Christ as my per­sonal Sav­ior.” I have just always been a Chris­t­ian … born to a Chris­t­ian fam­ily, bap­tized, raised and con­firmed in the Lutheran church.

5. I have never had a “cri­sis of faith.” Even though I have had my share of ups and downs in my life, I have never gone through a period of time when I either ques­tioned the exis­tence of the Divine Cre­ator or believed that I had been aban­doned or for­saken. I have always believed Matthew 6:25–27:

There­fore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more impor­tant than food, and the body more impor­tant than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heav­enly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valu­able than they? Can any one of you by wor­ry­ing add a sin­gle hour to your life?

6. I say “Divine” or “Divine Cre­ator” because I am uncom­fort­able with and offended by the con­cept of God which per­me­ates the male-dominated, patri­ar­chal, insti­tu­tional church. I don’t believe that God/the Divine has a gen­der, nor do I sup­port a lit­eral inter­pre­ta­tion of Gen­e­sis (I believe it is an alle­gory, i.e., a sym­bol­i­cal nar­ra­tive). Some peo­ple say “Godd” to acknowl­edge the fem­i­nine, but I can’t seem to get com­fort­able with that ver­sion. I love Sandy Carlson’s out­look on the issue:

You don’t have to say God if you don’t want.
Say higher power or Being or Spirit or Light.
I say God because it’s the name I grew up with.
It’s how I know I’m home …”

I don’t really think God/the Divine cares what title or label we use, so long as we communicate!

7. And on that sub­ject … every wak­ing thought is a prayer, an ongo­ing dia­logue. The Divine knows all of our thoughts, prayers, fears, secrets … noth­ing is hid­den from the Spirit.

8. I do not speak in tongues nor do I believe that the “bap­tism of the Holy Spirit” is a require­ment in order to be “saved,” as some folks do. Rather, I believe that the Spirit gives dif­fer­ent gifts to each of us. That is not one of the gifts I received.

9. I did receive the gift of music and am a clas­si­cally trained instru­men­tal­ist and vocalist.

10. Since Jan­u­ary, I have not been a mem­ber of any church or denom­i­na­tion — for the first time in my life. I have not set foot in a church since Jan­u­ary 9, 2007, nor do I have any desire to or inten­tion of doing so.

11. My favorite Bib­li­cal pas­sage is in the right side­bar. This is my sec­ond favorite:

Do not let your hearts be trou­bled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to pre­pare a place for you. And if I go and pre­pare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going.

John 3:1–4

12. I am pro-life and only vote for can­di­dates who iden­tify them­selves as such. Why? I believe that life is full of shades of gray and there are many areas in which answers are not clear-cut, mak­ing com­pro­mise appro­pri­ate and accept­able. The ques­tion of pre­serv­ing human life is not one of those areas and “via­bil­ity” should not be the legal touch­stone. I believe that abor­tion on demand should be ille­gal and the deci­sion to abort avail­able to a woman only in nar­row cir­cum­stances, in con­sul­ta­tion with her physi­cian. I believe that there is no such thing as “poten­tial” life except before con­cep­tion occurs.

13. I learn some­thing new or am reminded of a pre­vi­ous life les­son each and every day from so many of my fel­low blog­gers! I am thank­ful for all of you and the rich­ness you bring to my spir­i­tual journey.

Here are the “Eight Things About Me” rules:

Each player posts eight ran­dom facts/habits about him/herself and then tags eight other blog­gers to par­tic­i­pate. In turn, the folks who are tagged write a post list­ing their own eight facts/habits, along with these rules, and then tag eight more peo­ple … and so on.
Each blog­ger must list the eight peo­ple they are tag­ging, and visit their sites, leav­ing a com­ment noti­fy­ing them that they have been tagged and invit­ing them to read your entry.

I am tag­ging an extremely diverse group of eight won­der­ful female blog­gers that I would like to get to know a bit bet­ter. I’m only sorry that we can’t all have din­ner together … can you imag­ine the con­ver­sa­tion this group could have?

1. Amy at In Pur­suit of Proverbs 31
2. Biker Betty
3. Patty (aka Autumn) at Autumn’s Meadow
4. Shelly Kne­up­per Tucker at This Eclec­tic Life
5. Kuanyin at The Art of Liv­ing and Dying
6. Holly at Holly’s Cor­ner Blog
7. Viola Jaynes at Spir­i­tual Things Mat­ter
8. Star­rlight at Here Comes a Storm in the Form of a Girl

Tech­no­rati Tags: Thurs­day Thirteen

You might also like:

• Thursday Thirteen Edition #5: What’s in a Name? (Part 2)
• Thursday Thirteen #8: Thirteen Thoughts About “Radical Inclusivity”
• Thursday Thirteen #7: Thirteen Required Attributes of Any Church I (Might Eventually) Attend
• Thursday Thirteen #6: Thirteen Things I Don’t Miss About the Institutional Church
• Thursday Thirteen #3: What’s in a Name? (Part 1)