Summertime

We have had some lovely warm weather in Salem this past week, and it feels like summer around here already.  Summer is a busy time for Friends, between all the gatherings, conferences, and yearly meetings, and because I work full time, each summer I have to discern what I am feeling led to do.  As usual, my summer is booked, and I am looking forward to it!

Young women speaking at the 2010 women's conference

First is the Pacific Northwest Quaker Women's Theology Conference, which will be taking place June 13-17 in Menucha, OR.  This will be the ninth women's conference and the theme is “Living in the Life and Power: Inviting, Contemplating, and Enacting Grace.”  I will be leading a plenary with Darla S, pastor of Rivers Way Community, on "Inviting Grace."  Darla and I met this morning for breakfast and I am really excited about the direction we are planning to go with the plenary.  I am also grateful to have Ann S (next to me on the far right in the picture) as my elder as I deliver this message.  After the conference, I plan to submit my plenary talk as an article for a future issue of Western Friend.

On the fourth of July, my friend Kirsten K and I are planning to run in the Sauvie Island Flat Half-Marathon.  This race has become a tradition for us; although I missed it last year, I think this will be the fourth time we have run it together.  As the name suggests, the course is very flat, and the setting is beautiful.  Best of all, there is strawberry shortcake at the end.  I haven't been running as much as usual lately, and I am hoping this will motivate me to get into better shape!

Me and Mark W in "The Call"

A few weeks later, I will be heading across the country for North Carolina Yearly Meeting (Conservative) annual sessions.  Because my School of the Spirit residencies took place in North Carolina, I made many friends in NCYM-C.  I am thrilled to be able to visit them and looking forward to performing again in a play that my friend Charley B wrote about a young woman who experiences a call to traveling ministry.

Then, in August, I will be taking a long weekend to visit my family in Anchorage.  I am especially looking forward to seeing my nephew―I hear he has grown a lot since December!

Add in a couple weddings, some long walks, and a lot of time reading in my neighbors' hammock, and I think it should be a pretty good summer!

The irises currently blooming by my front door