Traveling Thoughts

After the Hebrew people left their life of oppressive enslavement to the Egyptians, they found themselves wandering in the wilderness. One can't wander in the wilderness without learning and understanding more of what it means to follow God. When the Hebrew people were enslaved, they knew what to expect, and therefore, probably believed their own strength and sheer will saw them through. However, in the wilderness they were faced with the unexpected and the unknown on a daily basis. At times, they trusted and were faithful in their wandering which brought peace that transcended in the midst of an unknown future. In the Exodus store we read however, that there were more times of mumbles and grumbles (even talk about turning around and going back to what was known being in bondage and slavery) than stories of blind faith. It was words of complaint but underneath the words was a real panic and fear. It’s really easy to read stories of our ancestors of faith and think we would ha

Email: "Hi Kate, hope you are doing well! We are starting up our second season of Upward Soccer and we have lots of children already registered. We are looking for more coaches and one of the teens said she would be an assistant coach if she could coach with you. What do you say? Will you be a soccer coach this year?" A soccer coach, are you kidding me? I only played soccer one day in my life during a pick up game at a summer camp. My soccer career promptly ended 15 minutes after it began when a ball got kicked into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me as I fell to the ground. How am I supposed to coach a game I’ve never played? Also, I’m just starting to get used to working with children with the new position of Pastor of Children and Youth, my niche is working with teenagers! It was the beginning of 2016 and I was given the opportunity to get out of my comfort zone in serving. Believing the best leaders are servant leaders that led by example and understan

My brother and I are 15 months apart, practically Irish twins, and you couldn’t get more Irish with names like "Katie and Patrick" and my brother being born on St. Patrick’s Day. While we grew up in the same household and share the same parents, there are more ways that we are different than we are alike. While we share having curly hair, the same nose, and blue eyes - even standing next to each other people wouldn’t believe we were related let alone siblings. When it comes to disposition, we were on opposite ends of the spectrum as children. Being the older sibling, teachers having my brother the next year were often shocked to find out that we were related. Growing up we both shared a love of climbing any and all things but mostly trees! While we both started out fearless in conquering the scaling of branches and seeing how high we could get, our reaction to getting down was much different. Sure, it was all fun and games when we were climbing and looking out into t

Holy Week invites us into a story of betrayal, abandonment, mockery, violence, and ultimately death. So, it makes sense then that there a natural tendency to want to rush from the pain of Good Friday to the celebration of Easter Sunday.  Instead, we are invited on this day to sit in the sacred space of instead of Holy Saturday. Not only is it a sacred space, it is a wild place because of the unknown as it lingers between the suffering and death of Jesus on Friday and the resurrection of Easter Sunday. Holy Saturday is a reminder of the human conditions and is an invitation to let go of things or people, identities or securities and then wonder what will rise up out of the ashes of our lives. Anytime we find ourselves in pain, grief, sorrow, or suffering there is the haunting question, “Will I ever experience joy again?” Our lives are full of Holy Saturday experiences. So, before we rush to resurrection we must fully dwell in the space of in between. The liminal place of re

            Jesus was a name I heard the adults talking and whispering about around town. People couldn’t stop talking about the healing and teaching that Jesus was doing around our community. So, I was excited when my mom told me we were going to follow and see Jesus for ourselves. Packing my things quickly for this adventure, we joined the multitudes to search for this man called Jesus.              Once we found him on this mountain, I took advantage of my size as I weaved in and out of the crowd towards the front so I could hear Jesus’ words for myself. He was teaching his close friends but what I overheard was amazing. I had never heard anything like it: “Blessed are the poor in spirit…those who mourn…the meek…those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…the merciful…the pure in heart…the peacemakers.” He promised the Kingdom of Heaven, comfort, being filled, receiving mercy, and seeing God because we are children of God.              How could this be? It seemed lik

"What is an 'Any-a-gram?'" I asked. "It's called the 'ENNEAGRAM! " my friend retorted. My first introduction to the Enneagram was in January 2017 at the UMC Lead Conference  in Charlotte, North Carolina. I could barely say the word, let alone begin to spell it. People from the conference encouraged me to start my Enneagram journey on the drive home by listening an episode from The Liturgists' podcast. I imagine this advice came because it was safer listening to a podcast than reading a book while driving. It was two hours , but it was so engaging I barely noticed the time and after it ended, I was eager to learn more. It's episode 37 in case you want to check it out for yourself. The Enneagram is perhaps best defined by Enneagram author and expert Suzanne Stabile as, "nine ways of seeing and nine ways of processing our experiences in the world. Additionally, there are nine ways of answering some of life's basic ques