tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11813508965637677672024-03-05T12:47:59.313-08:00The Next StepAndrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-41025435140800181592018-03-01T20:26:00.000-08:002018-03-01T20:26:47.406-08:00Meditation by the Numbers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwXaRnYdy5qO9Nyak1h5Sl1MkgCkQmz0kwBTY3-ojInL1-hsoJ90WbTcLcPisI5pwPqMoPB6jKkUTtjqWyV451pCsSHgIlK-6rVesMi1s-wumjpRzK8CL0awiauCQ4t3I4Ed4SVC3KJl06/s1600/Meditation+by+the+Numbers+image.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="471" data-original-width="542" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwXaRnYdy5qO9Nyak1h5Sl1MkgCkQmz0kwBTY3-ojInL1-hsoJ90WbTcLcPisI5pwPqMoPB6jKkUTtjqWyV451pCsSHgIlK-6rVesMi1s-wumjpRzK8CL0awiauCQ4t3I4Ed4SVC3KJl06/s320/Meditation+by+the+Numbers+image.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I am excited to announce my CD on guided meditations. Guided imagery or prayer is a great way to enter into meditation. The thought of silent meditation can keep people away from the experience. But I have found that short guided meditations serve as user friendly ways to invite people into the grace-filled gift of silence.</span><br />
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Meditation by the Numbers takes you from anger, fear and distress to love, faith and hope,</b> to be guided on a journey to the indwelling Presence of the Divine. These guided meditations integrate meditative practice with the Enneagram types and subtypes in a way that provides both support for the development of an inner witness and a clear sense of the different flavors of the habits. Guides for the interior journey you can return to time and again. You do not need to have any prior understanding of meditation, the Enneagram or spirituality to find this useful.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Table of Contents include:</b></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Body Center: Working in Love, Working with Trust, Working for Peace</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Heart Center: A Heart with Hope, A Heart to Share, A Heart for Life</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>The Head Center: Living Faith, Spreading Joy, Just Enough</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>each with Instrumental Background</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>Recommended by Richard Rohr</b>, O.F.M., Founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation and <b>Beatrice Chestnut</b>, Author of The Complete Enneagram, and <b>Carol Whittaker</b>, Ph.D. author of The Enneagram and Wholeness.</span></span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-stroke-width: initial; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><b>How to purchase: </b> Available online at Amazon, iTunes, CD Baby, or hard copies from Andrea Andress at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church, 4455 E. Lincoln Drive, Paradise Valley, AZ 85253. Phone (602-570-2270) Cost of Hard </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">copies $10 plus shipping. </span></div>
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Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-75617172242201556732015-01-26T08:15:00.000-08:002015-01-26T08:15:11.075-08:00Integrating what you left behind in Childhood - 9 different ways<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Rev. Andrea Andress, 1-22-15</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Childhood is all about surviving. In the process of choosing the way that seems safest and works for us, we leave behind some gold nuggets that could be really helpful. In adulthood we realize our habits limit us and find that revisiting our childhood allows us to resurrect some of the choices we buried long ago. It sharpens and brings into focus the essential essence of who we truly are. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The following can be used as a group meditation with space between the differing types. Discussion and/or journaling questions at the end allow for further conversation.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">For the perfectionist who is tied to doing things the right way there is a need to learn to lighten up. They need to ease up and allow for mistakes, realizing there could be two ways that work, not just your way. Imagine going on vacation and leaving the need to be right at home. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The giver or helper earns such kudos for being mom’s or dad’s little helper that it turns into a life-long goal to always find the way to help others. The process refuses to focus on the self, seeing that as selfish while longing for someone to take care of them. When the helper comes to realize they can’t save the world and begins to concentrate on themselves, it is a good thing. The focus on themselves tempers their pride into allowing others to be involved as they will. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Performers or achievers of the world focus on how the outer world perceives them, working hard to never fail. Maturity allows them to find and develop their own trust in others and in themselves. Overcoming the fear of going inside, they develop trust in their own conscience and the ability to follow it. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Romantics and individualists constantly seek what they don’t have, sure that it is just around the corner. When they begin to focus on finding value and seeing clearly, they discover that clarity of conscience brings healing balance. The acceptance of self instead of searching for another presumably better self, allows them to blossom where they are and enrich all of us as the unique individual they are. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Observers can spend their life on the sideline waiting until the right time when they know enough to enter the game of life. As they discover the way to convert knowledge into action, they find the courage and vitality to move forward in confidence. The head and gut finally connect. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Loyal skeptics can question the seemingly most secure projects, bringing new doubts to the front. Their ability to move forward fearlessly, trusting in their own inner sense brings calm to the inner storm. The step into right action brings security to their decisions. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The adventurer skims through life packing in the most they can with a eye towards high efficiency. Developing the ability to stop, dive deep and to not hide from the dirt in life enables them to live a truly full life. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Protectors stand righteous in defense of the vulnerable while covering up their own insecurities with denial and a strong offense. As they encourage their softer side in the service of justice a new stance opens up that shapes trust and integrity while building up everyone involved. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Mediators and peacemakers see everyone else’s point of view while lost to their own due to an inability to believe in themselves. The move to focusing on goals and constructive action toward completing those goals, builds a confidence in them that allows them to step forward in life. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Conclusion:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">From the enneagram point of view, each type needs to integrate aspects from the security point (Child Heart) or the arrow they go against to help complete aspects of the personality from childhood they have tried to escape. The enneagram gives clues to some of the facets each type would benefit from working on. As always, when one moves to another type, you can access the high or low side of the type, the essential essence or the crippling vice. Maturity searches for the healthier choice. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Integrating the aspects of the personality that one originally classified as useless is part of becoming adult. The road to maturity is liberating, like a snake shedding the skin it has outgrown. Messy and dangerous with all the squirming about, it takes deliberate effort to shake off the old habit and live into a new stronger life. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 1-retrieves from the 7</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 2-retrieves from the 4</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 3-retrieves from the 6</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 4-retrieves from the 1</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 5-retrieves from the 8</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 6-retrieves from the 9</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 7-retrieves from the 5</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 8-retrieves from the 2</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type 9-retrieves from the 3</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Questions for group or individual consideration:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What does the Type _____ receive from the security point (flowing against the arrow) ____ to help move them forward in life? Example: Type 9 – flowing against the arrow is Type 3. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What are the positives this brings forth?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What might be the negatives that come out?</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Can you think of instances in your life when you acted from the Child Heart aspect of your type?</span></div>
Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-62384537300872425662014-12-29T10:08:00.002-08:002014-12-29T10:08:48.561-08:00Winding up the Year, 2014: The Good, the Bad, and the Hopeful
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There is a
sign given every day </span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">that God is not yet finished with humankind – it is in
the promise of each child born.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A
popular song beats out . . . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“Each child
that’s born, a morning star rises and says to the Universe, who I am”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Each newborn cry to the world lets us know that life is an
amazing gift.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it is right to give
thanks for our gifts.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So in the Gospel
of Luke, Mary and Joseph take Jesus to be presented in the Temple; a bit like
our practice of baptism or christening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It’s a formal recognition, even a covenant that this child is not just
ours - but comes from God and is ours by gift - put into our keeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This child will have their own dreams; we can
guide them, but not control them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
story of the baby Jesus in Luke is a beautiful story - the one we retell each
year on Christmas Eve with the cute stable, adoring shepherds and multiple angels.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But there’s more to the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The nativity in the Gospel of Matthew points
out a darker side, just as life does. While there is still the Promise of
Tomorrow, it comes in the midst of a terrible massacre as King Herod searches
to destroy Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Life is made up of a
vivid mixture of good and light, but also the dark and the ugly.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet we seem to insist that God always bless
us with what is good?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We get angry with
God when life doesn’t go the way we want it to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>In the last rendition of the Hobbit, at one point when the village has
been destroyed by Smog the dragon, devastation is everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Among the wounded and dying one person is
rolling around at the water’s edge crying out, “Why me?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why me?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>As if no one else had suffered.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We all come to life with a certain perspective we have
developed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We can get stuck in that
perspective that keeps us from seeing life in a deeper, more meaningful
way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen to the words of Dewitt Jones,
a renowned photographer for National Geographic in Everyday Creativity (4:20 -
5:37)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">“I remember a photograph I took of Yosemite Falls . . . not a
bad</span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"> </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">photograph. I had already gotten rid of a lot of things that
might distract you from</span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">viewing the falls, like the parking lot I’m standing in and
the visitors’ center. But a lot of<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>people
would have said, “That’s a great photograph, Dewitt!”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">But as I looked through the lens, I thought, “Is this really
the essence of Yosemite Falls? </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Is </span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">this what got me so excited that I ran all the way across
and meadow and set up my </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">cameras?” </span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I realized it wasn’t. </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">What had drawn my eye up there in the first place was just
that area way</span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">down at the </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">bottom. Just that tree and the falls behind it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I had the wrong lens, the wrong perspective. The wrong angle
of view. And when I </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">changed </span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">my perspective, then I found a real photograph!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The lens we chose when we view a problem is critical. Our
perspective is what holds the </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">key </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">to weather the solution is ordinary or extraordinary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">So first we have to find the right perspective. If we can’t
learn to change lenses, we’re </span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">trapped. But I’ve learned there’s always another perspective.
And when we believe that, </span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">it can transform
the whole way we look at life.”</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It is in our humanness that we can ask God to take our
discomfort, our tears, our restlessness, our fears and foolishness and let us
use our humanness to heal ourselves and the world. What might change if we
become part of the healing?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Listen to a new perspective on your troubles that you want to
get away from so quickly:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Thanks to Bob
and Chris Atherton for bringing this to my attention.)<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy
answers, half-truths and superficial relationships - so that you may seek truth
boldly and love deep within your heart.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression
and exploitation of people - so that you may tirelessly work for justice,
freedom and peace among all people.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those
who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they
cherish - so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform
that pain to joy.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you
really CAN make a difference in this world -so that you are able, with God’s
grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">At the end
of the Year:</span></b><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> we have the requisite final week of commentaries and news
shows that parade the year in review.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
have a human need to look back and remember and it is amazing as we watch those
shows and find ourselves nodding and thinking - oh I had forgotten that
happened. Was that this year?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Remembering is a spiritual practice that comes to us as a need to reflect
on our life. (When we take communion, we remember who Jesus is for us.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>For every time there is a season, and looking
back is the action of an intelligent person.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Reflecting on what is past is the action of a wise individual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>An unreflected life is not worth living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Mark Nepo, philosopher-poet and cancer survivor, in The Book
of Awakening writes an amazing daily devotional book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I used his entry for October 17 as the
meditation for this service and it states “I did not survive to be untouched.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And he goes on to explain. . . <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #832625; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“The
emotional patterns of our lives are very strong.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They often come into being because we’ve
needed them to survive.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But sooner or
later, we all arrive at moments where the very thing that has saved us is
killing us, keeping us from truly living.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Being invisible once kept us from being hurt, but now we are
vanishing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or listening once kept us in
relation, but now we are drowning in our unheard cries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or avoiding conflict once kept us out of the
line of fire, but now we are thirsting for contact that is real.<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #832625; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Early
in my life, I learned to protect myself, and this meant that I became very good
at catching things.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, I never
went anywhere without my catcher’s mitt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>No matter what came at me, nothing could surprise me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And while this saved me from the unpredictable
assaults of my family, and even helped me in my odyssey through cancer, it
eventually had a life of its own.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Everything—birds, women, friends, and truth—was intercepted by the quick
reflex of my mitt.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Eventually, nothing
got through, and the very thing that helped me survive was now keeping me from
being touched.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The softness and wonder
of the world was vanishing from my life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #832625; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But
I did not survive to live at a distance from things, and so I began the long
and painful process of putting my mitt down, of regaining choice about when and
how to protect myself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I began to
realize that letting life in was a deeper way to survive.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The Teacher of Ecclesiastes wrote a beautiful poem<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>that has been put to many songs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is of encouragement that there is a season
for all, a time for everything under heaven.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Lucida Grande";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Comforting idea that there is a season – which means
there is movement. There is a bleak midwinter - but we know that spring will
come.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes it may come more slowly
than others, but the trees will bud and the flowers will blossom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the desert, don’t we rejoice in September,
knowing that the heat of summer is finally almost at an end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The most energetic days:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>are the 1<sup>st</sup> day of school<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>. . . . .<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>and the last day of school.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There
is movement - it won’t remain the same.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 1in; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Lucida Grande";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">a.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Part of the equation is that you can’t count on good
times all the time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have fun, we
enjoy life, we laugh - but not always. A serious moment in the TV show of MASH
that was about army doctors on the front line of the Korean conflict in the
1950‘s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It was a show that mixed humor
with seriousness in a masterful way.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One
time Colonel Blake gives some hard advice that Hawkeye didn’t want to hear. He
said, “In command school they told me two truths about war:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>#1 is that Young men will die and truth #2
Doctors can’t change truth #1.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 1in; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Lucida Grande";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">b.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Another part of life is not to forget that bad times
do eventually end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Kate Spencer author
of the 12 Lessons writes, “As you write the last chapter of 2014, give thanks
for the lows and the heights.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is
through our lessons that we learn, grow and become who we are.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And history proves that we have far too many
people who refuse to learn from the past and are inevitably doomed to repeat
the horrors of yesterday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When life is
hard, we need to learn from it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We need
to be able to go farther and see more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Isn’t the definition of insanity - keeping on with the same thing and
expecting a different result.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Listen
again to the photographer Dewitt Jones and how perseverance can make a
difference.</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 1in; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Everyday
Creativity (7:08-8:27)”</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">I remember another forest I was in one time. The Geographic
sent me up to the Red Woods. Beautiful place, but one that had been shot a
million times. I was going to have to come up with another perspective. And I
was out there in the morning and it was gorgeous, but I was shooting post
cards. Nothing new, nothing different. I could go down to the visitors’ center
and buy something like this, it was not going to shake them </span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">up
at the Geographic. I had to find the next right answer. But I know it’s there,
so I just kept going, you know. And eventually I’m down on that path, in the
mud, looking up through some rhododendron and I saw this photograph, and I’ve
sold this photograph more than any picture I’ve ever taken in my life. </span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">When
we work from that perspective, then as we press out looking for the next right answer,
we do so not in terror, but comfortably, knowing that it’s going to be there
for you. And you begin to embrace change, rather than fear it. We begin to hit
the world with a sense of abundance, rather than scarcity. And you just get
more and more comfortable with reframing a problem into an opportunity.</span></div>
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<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Problem . . .
opportunity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Problem . . . opportunity.”</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 1in; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p>Re</o:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">member, the picture comes
out of being in the mud and looking up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You
can change – God is all about the ability to change.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The word repent comes from a military term
that means to turn an about face – go in the opposite direction.)</span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt 1in; mso-list: l1 level2 lfo2; tab-stops: list .25in; text-indent: -0.25in;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Lucida Grande"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Lucida Grande";"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2.<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">The Teacher of Ecclesiastes is about balance. The
world moves on – let us live into it and move forward.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That is why the next generation will do
things we have never even imagined.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So we come
to the End of another year –<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Reflection of choices made and dreams to come.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Learning Forgiveness/acceptance for what is behind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How do we come to terms with the past so that
we can move forward. We have to work at it, be willing to change our
perspective, to go the second mile in searching for another right answer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Grace and wisdom for what is ahead – each day that you wake
and give breath to your life – you have a choice . . . .<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>40 years, the
people of Israel were finally at the edge of the wilderness, they were ready to
enter the Promised Land.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moses and Jacob
gather them together to remind the people of where they have been and where
they are going.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Moses gives them a
choice:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="color: #832625; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Duet.
30:19 – “I set before you today life and death, blessing and curse; therefore,
choose life, that you and your children may live.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The choice is in choosing how you will
live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There will be hard times, there
will be wonderfully bright times – how will you live in deprivation and in
abundance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 6pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">You get the good, you get
the bad – and you can live in hope.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It
is all in the way you live – in the choices you make:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To preserve and nurture, </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">to build up and secure new ways to love, to create compassion<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">To feed the hungry in body and soul.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt 0.5in; mso-layout-grid-align: none;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt;">Everyday
Creativity (18:39 - 19:40) “</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">There’s a line from the Bible that says, “The banquet is laid
though nobody comes.” And when I’m being creative, I see that life really is
that banquet, all around me, all the time, presenting me with endless
possibilities. Showing me a world full of light and beauty.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">And I know if we
let that beauty fill us up, that it will come out in a thousand ways. In</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the quality of the
way we conduct ourselves, in the caliber of the products we produce, in</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">the depth of
service we give to our clients and our customers</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"></span> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">In the way we treat
our families, in the service we give in our communities, in the stories</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">we tell to our
children at bedtime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin: 0in 0in 0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; mso-bidi-font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">That perspective,
that window, is always the</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">re
if we’re open enough to see it. And when</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">we see it, the world truly is
extraordinary.”</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Choose life – that you and your children may live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hope is what anchors the soul.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So I offer this prayer as an ending to this sermon:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Into God’s Hands - may you place your worries, cares
and troubles. </span><br />
<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"></span><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Trusting in God’s Wisdom - may you walk your path,
following your direction and your goals<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font-size-adjust: none; font-stretch: normal; font: 7pt/normal "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">and Believing in God’s love - may you place your life
in God’s keeping.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Amen. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span><span style="font-size: 13pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Thanks to Dewitt Jones, Everyday Creativity from which I took
three segments and to Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<span lang="en-US" style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 7pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: #0400; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-language: X-NONE; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: #0400;"><o:p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;">
<span style="font-size: small;"></span> </div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Worship
for Dec 28, 2014 at Paradise Valley UMC, Paradise Valley AZ</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Rev. Andrea Andress <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-20433989890776813732014-12-18T16:28:00.001-08:002014-12-18T16:28:14.324-08:00Nine Visitors to the Manger
Instructions: This meditation is meant to be read aloud to a
group, but can simply be read by individuals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Don’t rush through it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Give space
and pause between the visitors to reflect and let your feelings seep into your
soul.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Every year millions visit the manger of <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Bethlehem</st1:place></st1:city>, some wanting to give something; others
hoping to take something special away from the experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Close your eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Imagine a quiet night, starlight beginning to
dot a dark countryside.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Breathe in the
crisp air of the cool night and let the breath fill and renew you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A group of visitors approach the hillside
cave that serves as a stable.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
Hear the clip, clip of determined footsteps as <strong>Anger, the first to enter the cave,</strong> strives
so hard to do things right, to fix all the carelessness others have created.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Deep in his heart anger simmers at the
injustice and absurdity of God’s son being born under these conditions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As he looks at the babe, he senses an
invitation to let go.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The babe seems to
say, “I care.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Trust me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Let go of your need to fix my world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I am come in the fullness of time.” (Pause)<o:p></o:p><br />
<o:p> </o:p><br />
<strong>The next visitor steps forward in Pride</strong>, striving to see how
she can contribute, what she can add to make this scene complete.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The glance of the baby stills her mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“There is nothing to give, nothing to do,”
the eyes of the baby say.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Everything we
need is already here.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Enjoy this moment
with me.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Pause) <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
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<strong>The third guest, Deceit,</strong> comes forward with pity in her
eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Can anything good come out of such
bleak, humble beginnings?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It will take a
miracle and lots of hard to work to make something out of this.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The baby’s eyes stop her in her tracks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Relax,” the babe seems to say, “This
enterprise is bigger than you think.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>What God has promised, it will come to pass.” (Pause)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<strong>Envy, the fourth visitor,</strong> rushed forward to see the babe and
was disappointed to find no glowing aura, just a baby wrapped in common cloths,
lying in a filthy manger, cooing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Reluctantly
she looked at the mother gazing on her child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Love flowed between mother and child pulsing with a life force that
gathered Envy in, connecting her to the babe and encircling her in the warmth
of their presence. (Pause)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<strong>The fifth guest</strong> hugged the far stable wall hiding, concerned
that someone might expect something from him like a gift, and he knew he had
nothing to spare.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The gaze of the child
beckoned <strong>Greed</strong> to edge closer and let go of fear, realizing the baby has all he
needs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The child’s eyes say, “I invite
you to share freely what I have without reserve.” (Pause)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<strong>Fearful</strong> approaches the manger scanning all around, seeing
all that’s lacking, afraid of what the future will be for this child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the baby cooed, fearless in spite of the
setting and Fearful recalled to mind the words of the angels, “Do not be
afraid, for this is good news of great joy for all people. Today is born a
Savior.” (Pause)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<strong>Then Extravagance</strong> rushed in, not wanting to be late, caught
up in the excitement of a new baby.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“We
can’t have God in this smelly stable, I’m sure there’s something else that can
be arranged, let me work on it.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
baby takes this moment to burp, then smile at our seventh visitor causing him
to pause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The smile seems to say, “I
like it here, why don’t you stay with me awhile, much will be happening, tears
of pain and tears of joy, but it will all be good.” (Pause)<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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<strong>The eighth visitor, Violence,</strong> looks down at the baby and the
innocence of the newborn fills his heart with trepidation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“What is God thinking!” he booms in a voice
that startles everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The baby cries
at the sound, breaking the mood, demanding that he be attended to now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The truth shines bright and noisily, that God
is not helpless and will not be ignored. (Pause)<o:p></o:p></div>
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<strong>Self-forgetting, the ninth</strong> and final caller feels like a
guest, overwhelmed with the sense that everyone else deserves to be there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She slips into the background.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Slowly she lifts her eyes to see the baby choosing
to fix a gaze on her, full of compassion and love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is as if only the two of them are in the
room and she realizes she belongs there.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>(Pause) <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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So the last visitor dares to take another’s hand and as if
on cue, one by one, they all join hands and move out into the night.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They are now bound to one another through an
experience and wonder of a child; redeemed with a glance from God made flesh
and come to live among us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Redeemed by
following a way that leads to faith, hope and love.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
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Rev. Andrea Andress</div>
Paradise Valley United Methodist Church<o:p></o:p><br />
4455 E. Lincoln Drive<o:p></o:p><br />
Paradise Valley, AZ<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>85253<o:p></o:p><br />
<a href="mailto:andrea@pvumc.org"><span style="color: blue;">andrea@pvumc.org</span></a><o:p></o:p><br />
602-840-3860 ext 142 <br />
I am indebted to Dietrich Koller and his “An Enneagram
Sermon on Christmas” which appears in the book <u>The Enneagram, a Christian
Perspective</u> by Richard Rohr with Andreas Ebert. (2002) <o:p></o:p><br />
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<o:p> </o:p></div>
Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-59331544882534993272014-09-01T10:02:00.002-07:002014-09-01T10:02:55.457-07:00The Bible: Stories to Live By<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“The Bible was not given for our information, but for our transformation.” </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Dwight L. Moody</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></b></span></div>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> We are called to live with God in our time, our century and that requires that we have a living relationship with God - not based on just a historical book, but with a book that speaks to the essential qualities of the human spirit and can go beyond tomorrow. Andrea Andress</span></span></b></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Sermon: The Bible: Stories to Live</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b></b></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">By Rev. Andrea Andress</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Paradise Valley United Methodist Church</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4455 E. Lincoln Drive</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Paradise Valley, AZ 85253</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Bible: Stories to live by</span></b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span><br /></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">“Our Help is From the Lord” declares the Psalmist in poetic form - but what kind of help? How do you interpret God’s involvement in your life? We tell our children that God talks to us through prayer and our inner voice, through other people - in sermons, and through the Bible. Today we will focus on the Bible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">How do you connect with the Bible? How do you hear God in the Bible? A friend once sheepishly confessed to me – I can’t read the Bible, it seems so outdated and doesn’t relate to me! When I hear sermons I can understand that. But I can’t understand the Bible by myself. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I find that disturbing, but not unusual. First I’d say - what translation are you using? The general populace has been reading the Bible for only about 500 years. Before the printing press it had to be painstakingly copied by hand and it’s a big book. Few people could read. The general population saw it through preaching, the images of icons, stained glass windows and painted murals. Those were teaching tools. Today we are blessed to be able to read it ourselves. But we still need a guide. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What do you think of the Bible? Do you consider it a powerful book of inspiration? Is it divinely inspired? If so, does that mean for you it is literal in every way – or do you believe the words were influenced by the culture around it and it helps for us to understand that. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Bible was written in a culture – in a specific time – that time happens to span hundreds of years, because it is actually a collection of 66 individual books by many different authors in different countries, in different languages and cultures.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We know languages change over time. You can’t pick up Chaucer in it’s original English and understand it. The King James Bible less than 100 years ago was considered a good translation to read for its day - but not any more. It was written at the time of Shakespeare. Most of us need a “Shakespeare for Dummies” book to read beside the original if we read it in the original. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So yes, the language of the Bible (which is at least 1600 years older than Shakespeare) can be challenging. Which is why we have so many translations.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The content of the Bible holds timeless truths that still speak to us today. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Cultures and languages change over time. But the essential nature of people, the desires and needs for connection, for love, for safety and security for the ability to speak your truth, these are essential elements that stay true over the generations. They will be expressed differently, but the essential quality remains--that’s where translations comes in.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The stories of the Bible are some of the oldest in history. You will find plays, books, movies and TV using those stories as background. The jealousies, betrayal in families are not just in today’s soap operas - they come straight out of the bible with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The Bible stories were chosen because of the elemental needs they expressed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Take the Creation story: Why am I here on this earth? Where do I come from? One of the goals of the organization known as the Wycliff Bible translators is that every people on earth should be able to read scripture in their own language. They train translators to live in a culture, at times creating the first written language for them and then translating the Bible into their spoken language. They work first with Genesis and then a Gospel. Why do they start with Genesis - which means the beginning? Because every people has a history/myth or where they came from. And the Bible does too. It tells how from the very start we are connected with God. We, like the Bible, are God breathed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As Christians we draw our information of God in large part from the Bible. The United Methodists say we learn by the quadrilateral - meaning there are four things that form our faith - it comes from Scripture, reason, experience and tradition. When we get those four imbalanced, we tilt toward heresy or ridiculousness. Scripture has always been seen as the heavy of the four - but reason, experience and tradition also count.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If the Bible is the story of God’s people, what is the Bible not that people have tried to make it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Bible is not:</span></b></span></div>
<ul>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>A marriage manual:</b> People who talk about having a Biblical marriage, don’t really know the Bible. Polygamy was quite the norm early on in the Old Testament. Adultery – some of our greatest Biblical heroes had this fault – King David. The wisest man was King Solomon who had 700 wives and 300 concubines - wise? There was family incest; Abraham - selling his wife into prostitution. Our biblical heroes had feet of clay, just like we do.</span></span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Bible is not: </span></b></span></div>
<ul>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>A history book</b> -- We are called to live with God in our time, our century and that requires that we have a living relationship with God - not based on just a historical book, but with a book that speaks to the essential qualities of the human spirit and can go beyond tomorrow.</span></span></li>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Bible is not: </span></b></span></li>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>An instruction manuel on how to run a government.</b> If you take your stand from the book of Nehemiah and Ezra which told the story of when the Israelites returned from exile - how they built a new government - one part of it was an edict to create racial purity by denouncing the children and spouses not of Israel’s pure blood. (We believe that the story of Ruth, comes out of a wisdom that shows King David was descended from Ruth - a Moabite and not racially pure.) Both of these stories are “in the Bible”. But you are called to interpret them in the grace of God’s spirit and the understanding of culture and time. </span></span></li>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> The Bible is not: </span></b></span></li>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>A science book:</b> It describes stories in what is called, “mythical language” - that does not mean the story is not true. It does mean it may not be literal. I remember the child who went home and when asked what he learned in Sunday School that day explained that Moses had a speed boat to get across the water and he called in the heavy bombers to blast a canal through the water so people could walk across on dry land. The parents looked at him skeptically and said, “Is that really what the teacher said?” “No,” he replied, “but you wouldn’t believe what the teacher told me.” </span></span></li>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> The Bible is not: </span></b></span></li>
<li style="font: 11.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 10.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>A how-to book to meet every situation</b> - not possible, they didn’t have computers, or the internet and they hadn’t seen someone walk on the moon. The world mindset was different. </span></span></li>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So what IS the Bible? </span></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Bible is a book meant for transformation. Over centuries, it tells stories of how God and people interact and sometimes it’s not pretty. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The people of faith claim the entire Bible as their story. The Bible stories are our family stories just as much as the stories you tell of your parents, or grandparents when you gather for family events at holidays or weddings or funerals. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Why do I suffer? - the book of Job doesn’t truly answer that question. It causes us to search further.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Families – how do they work? Jealousy – the first soap opera came from the family history of the Patriarchs - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">II Tim 3:15-17 says, “There’s nothing like the word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another--showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.” (The Message) This is uniquely shown through the parables. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Jesus spoke in parables - saying that people can’t hear except in parables. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Parables are genius because they make us participate in the story. Parables subvert our unconscious worldview, exposing its illusions to us. Parables makes us a bit uncomfortable or we are not really hearing them. Richard Rohr in </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px; text-decoration: underline;">The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">, warns us that a parable is supposed to change our worldview and unlock it from the inside so that we can see and hear reality correctly. Context allows us to read text truthfully. Our whole universe has to be rearranged truthfully before individual teachings can be heard correctly. What we have done for centuries in the West is give people new moral and doctrinal teaching without rearranging their mythic worldview. It does not work. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A parable calls for conversion. Richard Rohr states, “It is the things that you cannot do anything about and the things that you cannot do anything with that do something with you. We realize we cannot transform ourselves, but need interior suffering and desperate prayer to change.... There are two kinds of religion - one that says God will love you if you change and one that says God loves you so you can change.”</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the 1960s and 1970’s I remember the Parable of the Good Samaritan being rewritten to bring it up to date. The question is, “Who is the good person? The answer - is it the Lawyer, the Priest - no! It is the despised outcast foreigner who shows love and concern and acts upon it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It was rewritten in the middle of the Cold War so that the Good Samaritan was a Russian. Today, it needs to be rewritten again. It will always need to be rewritten because it is timeless in it’s message and cultures change. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So how would we rewrite it today in 2014? Who would the Good Samaritan be? </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Arizona - put the illegal immigrant as the Good Samaritan.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>In Ferguson, MI - the Good Samaritan might just be a big, burly, black teen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This week when you go home, read the Good Samaritan with a modern day Good Samaritan of your choice - the person you would not want to trust - then wrestle over what God would call you to do and be in response to that.<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There are a multitude of ways we look at and study scripture allowing it to affect and change us:</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>We sing it. </b> If you look in our hymnals you will find numerous songs whose words largely come from the Bible. Music reaches our souls. Amazing Grace reaches millions each year, not just the religious.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>We read it for understanding</b> - the advent of the Protestant revolution came about with the demand for the common people to read the Bible - not just the religious orders. Up until that time, the religious orders had taken the roll of study and theological reflection. After Martin Luther, study of God’s word exploded. (So too did the number of Christian groups claiming they understood the scripture). That comes along with all of us reading the Bible. Some people try reading it through in a year -</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>We read it for comfort </b>- People have often sought out particular scriptures to lift them in times of stress and distress. It’s really easy to look for these with the aid of today’s computers. The 23 Psalm has been a mainstay for centuries. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>We memorize it </b>so that it comes to us easily when we need it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>We read it to soak it into our being: </b> Lectio Divina are the latin words for “Praying the Scripture” - and has existed since 600 AD when St. Benedict introduced it to those of his monastery. He didn’t want to just read the scriptures, he wanted people to breathe it in and out of their body with each breath. Here is how praying the scripture goes: </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>You read a scripture twice - let it soak in and let a word or phrase jump out at <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>you in about 2 minutes of silence, as you think on it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Read the scripture again - consider in a silence of 3-5 minutes of how this <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>scripture feels to you and the emotions it evokes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then read the scripture again - and in the silence of 3-5 minutes you consider <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>what is this scripture calling you to do today or tomorrow? How will you answer <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>what God is asking of you right now. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>One last time read the scripture - and if you are with a small group you pray for <span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>each other that you might be able to respond to your calling.</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What will you do with your Bible? Will you read it? Will you study it? Will you pray it?</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We have small groups that study the Bible, adult classes offered, maybe you could help form one to meet your needs. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Today - right now the 3rd Graders and their parents are in Fellowship Center participating in what we call the Bible Blast. They are becoming acquainted with the Bible that the church will give to the children at the 11:15 service. It’s one of the best things we do - to introduce our children to the Bible. I want us to look at our commitment to study and immerse ourselves in the word of God as a way to hear God’s voice in our life. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Bible Blessing: </b> I ask you to hold, touch your Bible, whether it is a special one you brought, or one in the pew or on your phone. Hold it as I speak this blessing for you and the scriptures you hold. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">May God plant in you a deep desire to search, to read, to understand and to live the love of God in the world. Let the Word of God be like food and water to you. Let the words of God soak into your being like the long awaited gentle rain soaks into dry ground, feeding the earth from within. Amen</span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><b>Benediction and Challenge:</b> Take a story from the Bible - one of your own or the Good Samaritan and let it speak to you in today’s language. Wrestle with it and decide what God is asking of you. And may God connect you to God’s Word, so that the thoughts you contemplate, the words you speak and the actions you perform clearly spread your love and grace to the world. </span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The following was used before the sermon in the service:</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Call to Worship</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Leader: The Word of God is alive and active;</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">People: It is sharper than any double-edged sword.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Leader: The Word of God divides the soul and spirit;</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">People: It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Leader: The Word of God does not return empty-handed;</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">People: It accomplishes God’s will in the world. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">All: The Word of God is alive. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Opening Prayer:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Almighty God, whose word is authority and power and whose way is love, grant to us today clear minds, understanding hearts and willing spirits so that we may wisely appropriate your word of truth. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Prayer of Confession:</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">God you have given me all I need: breath to live, a mind to search, a heart to feel. Forgive me when I don’t take time to read your words of wisdom and to let them sink into my heart and mind. Help me draw encouragement from the stories of my ancestors of faith. Connect me to your Word, so that the thoughts I contemplate, the words I speak and the actions I perform clearly spread your love and grace to the world. </span></div>
Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-13488742591967783402013-03-27T14:04:00.000-07:002013-03-27T14:04:14.856-07:00What we expect and what we really want<span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 16pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><strong><span style="background-color: white;">Palm Sunday Expectations of a Savior<o:p></o:p></span></strong></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white;">The journey of Holy Week starts with the joy and party spirit of Palm Sunday.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The expectations at the start of the journey will go quickly downhill to the cross and on to the dark tomb before Easter morning shines.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white;">There is no way to the empty tomb but by way of the cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Psalms 23 long ago reminded people that you must travel “through the valley of the shadow of death” before you can reach the other side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We travel from Vice to Virtue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the journey to the virtue can never be reached except by letting go of the vice to take hold of a new life in Jesus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our vices will never get us to our deepest desires; in fact they make it impossible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We must go through the cross, by surrender of our self-imposed control to God’s will.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We have to learn to let go of the need for what we have determined we must have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"><span style="background-color: white;">The turmoil that blocks us comes out of our own expectations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When we discover how to let go of our habitual belief in what we think we know, then we begin the road to freedom. What we want, what we deeply desire and what we settle for leaves us longing for authenticity in our life.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">EXPECTATIONS</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 18pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; mso-highlight: yellow;">If your deepest Desire (Virtue) is</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"> - <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></b><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS';">You may try to get there by (Vice). </span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">. . .<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Serenity,</span></b><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">a peace that passes understanding</b></span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></b><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;">– you may try to get there by enforcing a pseudo-peace with rules and regulations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being a perfectionist you will not get to Serenity until you learn to let go of resentment and realize your focus on seeing faults must open to allow yourself to see the good that is present.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Humility,</span></b><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to be loved for your true inner self</b></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may try to get there by gathering idle praise and affection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Being full of pride that you don’t need anyone else, you won’t get to Humility until you see that you are as needy as others; it is not a failing to need someone or something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You can express your inner self with a freedom of the spirit of Humility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Honesty,</span></b><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">to be loved for who you are</b></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may try to get there driven by an energy that you must succeed and earn approval.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you perform one task, you continually need another task to feel worthy; so stop and see that you do not have to earn another’s love, it is freely given.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are loved for “being” who you are, not “doing” who you are.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Balance, the perfect relationship</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may continue to work to deserve what you can’t truly see, longing for what is always out of reach.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The envy of always missing out will drive you to grief, if you would only stop, look and appreciate what you have in life instead of focusing on what you don’t have.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You stand in the midst of holy if you will only open your eyes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Nonattachment,</span></b><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">valuing true abundance</b></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may try to get there by hoarding the intellectual riches and ideas you believe will give you security in what you have. The greed that drives you to collect and keep needs to perceive that less is often more fulfilling.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Faith, that everything is alright</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may try to get there by living without fear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You either run from situations that cause anxiety, or you run toward it to rise above such puny dread, defying life to hurt you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Faith breaks through when you recognize fear is more in your mind than in the world that touches you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Then you can courageously step forward in true knowing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Satisfaction, that you have enough</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may try to get it by always doing, seeing, planning for more to fill in a perceived emptiness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The fear of missing out and being limited by life only exacerbates your need for more.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The need for more is a race to avoid pain and boredom through rationalizing your motives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is needed is recognition to stop, cut back and enjoy the beauty of commitments and sober work.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Justice, for yourself and others</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may try to impose your own sense of justice on everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>There is a rush to make things work, to protect and take revenge for the innocent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recognizing and accepting your own vulnerability is key to finding the road to justice and grace endowed from within.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">Harmony/Unity, a sense of belonging to all</span></b><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;"> – you may accept a false sense of harmony by ignoring the problem, going to sleep to let time make the decisions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dropping the comfort of false unity empowers you to take right action and participate in your own transformation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="background: yellow; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-highlight: yellow;">So how do you reach your deepest desire?</span></b><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 11pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Let go of the methods you are using to keep your vice in place. (Spiritual Disciplines)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Recognize how you are settling for second best.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Practice opening your eyes to see life from a fuller realm of possibilities <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 10pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Ask God to help you see and perceive personal habits that cause you harm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Symbol; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7pt 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 10pt;">Live in the present moment; not in the past, not in the future, and not in your imagination.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><o:p></o:p></div>
Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-59106292588763638692013-03-26T21:59:00.001-07:002013-03-26T21:59:44.571-07:00Type and False Identity: a small group workshop<br />
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Personality is “who I think I am.” It is a self-concept that builds in childhood and, once formed, is so much “who we are” that we do not recognize it as a highly sophisticated construct built from imagination, imitation, and a need to be appreciated. Our identifications protect us from feelings of anxiety, discomfort and uncertainty about facing the unknown, yet limit our freedom to experience and act from a truer, inner self. Jesus talks about dying to self and it is this false self he is referring to so that we can live to the true person we are meant to be. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The objectives of this course are to clarify and deepen our understanding that personality is a structure which is formed and held in place by habits of attention</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #fc2218;">,</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> and to develop and strengthen one’s awareness and experience of their inner observer. The format is highly interactive and includes exercises, practices, and dialogue on the habits of attention, idealization, identification, secondary gain, stress and security points that reinforce the structure of type.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">This is the first class in a series on reducing the barriers to spiritual freedom. It is presented in five 2½</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #fc2218;">-</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"> hour sessions. Check with Rev. Andress if you want more information about the Enneagram as a basis for the course or scholarships contact Rev. Andress at <a href="mailto:andrea@pvumc.org"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #203af9; text-decoration: underline;">andrea@pvumc.org</span></a> or 602-840-8360 ext 142. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Cost:</b> $100 includes class materials. <i>Scholarships are available</i> </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Registration:</b> online at <a href="http://www.azenneagram.com/"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #203af9; text-decoration: underline;">www.azenneagram.com</span></a> or by phone at 480-367--1998 with Diane Shevlin. If applying discounts you must register with Diane and not online.</span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Location:</b> Room H-7 at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church, 4455 E. Lincoln Drive, Paradise Valley, AZ 85253. Park at the far south parking lot to enter the Hobbs building. </span></div>
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Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-61331982078406101942012-04-19T08:01:00.000-07:002012-04-19T08:01:54.752-07:00TheNature of God - to empty one's selfThe nature of God is often declared in words of power, wonder and glory. God's multifaceted nature is bequeathed to us as our creation in the image of God. How marvelous to be powerful, right and mighty. But God also gifts our very nature with creativity, compassion, love, self-emptying - it is in our make-up.<br />
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If God's nature is to self-empty, then so is ours. We struggle with the giving up of things, how much more we struggle with the giving up of ourselves especially when it reaches to our core. Today I came across a section from Elizabeth Johnson, <i>She Who Is</i>, p. 234 that spoke to me.<br />
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"Within the Christian story it is possible to see that divine self-emptying in the incarnation and passion of Christ is not an uncharacteristic divine action. Rather, this historical moment discloses the pattern of Sophia-God's love always and everywhere operative. Divine freely self-giving love did not begin with God's personal entering into human history but is so typical that it plays out at the dawn of creation itself."<br />
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The butterfly's cocoon is wound up so tightly in itself, it doesn't know (mentally) what is coming. But time reveals the deeper instinctual knowing that lies within of how it can break through and spread it's wings to fly. How do I claim the power of God to empty myself so that I am ready to receive and move into what I dared not believe was even possible - a transformation and resurrection into new life. Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-46394444625573521012012-04-17T22:10:00.000-07:002012-04-17T22:10:03.766-07:00We often cause our own pain<h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">An amazing prayer I would share with you: </span></h6><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}"><span class="messageBody" data-ft="{"type":3}">"God of justice, </span>God of mercy, bless all those who are surprised with pain this day from suffering caused by their own weakness or that of others. Let what we suffer teach us to be merciful; let our sins teach us to forgive. This we ask through the intercession of Jesus and all who died forgiving those who oppressed them. Amen" - p. 59 People's Companion to the Breviary</h6><h6 class="uiStreamMessage" data-ft="{"type":1}">I read this in the morning and experienced the truth of it that evening. God have mercy to us all. </h6>Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-30187932959372654462012-04-10T08:29:00.000-07:002012-04-10T08:29:24.109-07:00A Gift to those who Give"Humanly speaking a genuine gift is given freely, out of love and not out of necessity; its reception is occasion for gratitude and joy. In the divine freedom to be present to all creatures, empowering them to birth and rebirth in the midst of the antagonistic structures of reality, the Spirit is intelligible as the first gift, freely given and giving. Her loving in the world is gracious and inviting, never forcing or using violence but respectfully calling to human freedom, as is befitting a gift."<br />
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I came across this fabulous quote from Elizabeth Johnson, <i>She Who Is, </i>during devotions. With the force of a hammer hitting a nail, it helps me understand the relationship between gift and freedom of will which I don't always connect with. So many times I give out of duty, but true gift comes from love. What a gift of freedom that the Twos share with us. So my gift to all the Twos I love is this passage. Enjoy!Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-37111626375896475112012-03-24T10:48:00.000-07:002012-03-24T10:48:14.806-07:00The Power of Positive Thinking<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I never thought much about positive self-talk until last year. It always seemed artificial to “talk yourself into something”. I’ve changed my mind. The habits of thinking, feeling and doing that make up our personality are created by our rehearsing what we think, feel and do largely on an unconscious plain. So if we are going to successfully break into our habits and change them, becoming conscious of those old tapes helps us pierce through the frozen ice of old habits. Beginning to rehearse in our selves the different action we want can only be beneficial. Replacing old tapes with new tapes that serve me better in this day and time help me navigate my life today. Brain research shows we like to repeat old patterns because they are easy to fall into. But the brain also likes to create new avenues of working and continues to do so all of our lives. Balancing the two integrates old and new into satisfying ways of being.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">So I took the old tape of indecisiveness with inclinations to sit on the fence and began to replace it with a call to right action. Instead of going down the highway of life with one foot on the break and one foot on the gas, I began to say to my self “right action”. I found that “right action” almost immediately was fueled by fear of going into the unknown way too fast. So I added to my new tape, the concept of courage. Then with right action and courage, I realized I needed to have a direction, a goal to move toward. I added a third concept to my new tape: vision. My new tape now reads right action, courage and vision. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">With no specific goal in my mind other than changing the immense unseen power of the old tapes, I begin to say to myself during times of meditation: Right action, courage, vision. I flood my being with the three concepts. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>First I place myself in a venue of receptivity, allowing a vulnerability of being. I sit comfortably with back straight, feet on the floor and have several cleansing breaths. With my hands placed downward on my legs, I allow the flow of being. Then after a time I speak to myself the words of power: right action, courage, vision. Depending on which one seems to generate more pull for me at that time, I might stay with it. I sense the new flooding into my body. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then I place my hands up as if to offer to share this wonderful new power with my world. I open to let it move out into my day. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>Then I place my hands over my heart and invite the new words: right action, courage, vision to cover my body like honey or sunshine, flowing and soaking into every pore beginning with the heart. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>And finally I outstretch my hands in a gesture of giving and hope for each person the ability to move in right action with courage and vision.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">During the day is when I see specific situations arise that I have the opportunity to meet using the ability found in the delivery of my new tapes. These concepts have always been there, but I had covered them up with the unconscious need to fear, and to become indolent about my goals and life in general. The walk is day by day, creating new habits to replace the old.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What do you think? </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Andrea Andress, March 24, 2012 </span></div>Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-29651077290612504552012-01-30T20:16:00.002-08:002012-03-24T10:52:57.174-07:00Jerry Wagner Presents Integrating Our Inner Polarities, May 5 & 6, 2012<div class="posterous_autopost"><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt; text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #ce912f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; letter-spacing: 2.4pt;">Arizona</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #ce912f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; letter-spacing: 2.4pt;"> Enneagram Association <br />
presents</span></strong><span style="color: #ce912f; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt; letter-spacing: 2.4pt;"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;"><br />
Jerry Wagner PhD </span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial;">There is Wisdom in the Shadows!</span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 16pt;">Integrating Our Inner Polarities</span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 12pt;"><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: small;">12 CEU's available !!</span></span></strong><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
9am-4pm May 5 & 6, 2012 <br />
</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church 4455 E. Lincoln Drive, PV, AZ</span></strong></span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> We are so excited that Jerry Wagner is coming to the AEA May 5th and 6th!! He's new to our AZ community but a renowned author and teacher in the Enneagram world at large. Read about him at <a href="http://www.enneagramspectrum.com/">www.enneagramspectrum.com</a>. </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">He'll be presenting his transformative workshop "Integrating our Inner Polarities" What the heck does that mean? Read on:</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Do you think of yourself as right and exact? Then you probably don't want to be seen as wrong or messy. How about strong and tough? Bet you don't want to appear weak and wimpy-to yourself or anyone else. These are examples of disowned parts of our being known as the Shadow Self. We all have one. When we re-identify with our "bad", unseemly parts and re-own them, we find some valuable assets. Like inner integration and wholesome connections with other people, both of which lead to an increase of energy since we are no longer divided against ourselves and others.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; text-align: center;"><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">For details and to register, go to: <a href="http://www.azenneagram.com/" title="http://www.azenneagram.com/"><span style="color: blue;">www.azenneagram.com</span></a> </span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"> </span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;">Jerry Wagner, Ph.D.</span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">is the author of <em><span style="font-family: Arial;">Nine Lenses on the World: the Enneagram Perspective and The Enneagram Spectrum of Personality Styles: an Introductory Guide and the series Two Windows on the Self: the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs.</span></em> He has also published articles in the <em><span style="font-family: Arial;">Enneagram Monthly, The Enneagram Journal, and the IEA's NinePoints Bulletin</span></em>. Jerry is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist and consultant and is a faculty member in the Department of Psychology and the Institute of Pastoral Studies at Loyola University, Chicago.</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
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</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">What others are saying about this workshop:</span></strong></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">"I knew Wagner's work from his books and classes I had taken, but this was my first encounter with his delightful sense of humor."</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">"He made it inviting for me to actually face and embrace my own divided nature, assured of the hope and possibility of change and integration." </span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">"Jerry's ability to treat serious issues of human nature with wit takes the sting out of "fessing up to them."</span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Arizona</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> Enneagram Association</span></strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<a href="http://www.azenneagram.com/" title="http://www.azenneagram.com/"><span style="color: blue;">www.azenneagram.com</span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 4.8pt;"><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">Arizona</span></strong><strong><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"> Enneagram Association Email</span></strong><span style="color: #6d5444; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;"><br />
<a href="mailto:azenneagram@gmail.com" title="mailto:azenneagram@gmail.com"><span style="color: blue;">azenneagram@gmail.com</span></a></span></div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div><div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br />
</div></div>Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-39279254897931912712011-09-29T08:32:00.000-07:002011-09-29T08:32:48.757-07:00What we want and what we settle for in life<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Out of our deepest desires</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">What we want and what we settle for . . . </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">These notes are shared from an afternoon with Richard Rohr with the Arizona Enneagram Association Professional Members in February, 2011. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Out of our deepest desires our life energy seeks what we want in life. The energy of our vices never get us to our deepest desires; it fact they will make it impossible. When we discover how to let go of our vice, that sticking point that we habitually insist on using, then we begin traveling the road to freedom.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="background-color: white; border-collapse: collapse;"><tbody>
<tr> <td style="background-color: #bec0bf; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 2.0px 2.0px 2.0px 2.0px; height: 28.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 217.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>What we want at our deepest core through our Virtue</b></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: #bec0bf; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 2.0px 1.0px 2.0px; height: 29.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 195.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>What we settle for through our Vice</b></span></div></td> <td style="background-color: #bec0bf; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 2.0px 1.0px 2.0px; height: 29.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="background-color: #bec0bf; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 2.0px 1.0px 2.0px; height: 29.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="background-color: #bec0bf; border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 2.0px; height: 29.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 2.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type One desires SERENITY, a peacefulness and calmness through the midst of life - Serenity.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.5px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for ORDER, a pseudo-peace. One’s get in trouble when they try to enforce order according to their own set of laws. They allow inner irritations to take focus about picky things.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.5px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.5px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.5px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Two desires TO BE LOVED FOR THEIR TRUE INNER SELF. They look you eye to eye for the I-Thou present moment - Humility.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for IDLE PRAISE AND AFFECTION FROM OTHERS, reveling in the pride they receive from providing for others.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 98.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Three desires TO BE LOVED FOR WHO THEY ARE and not what they do or bring - Honesty. </span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 98.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for the IMAGE that is driven by the future desire. It energizes them to settle for what they don’t want, like a carrot on the stick - the reality of the images just always out of reach. They twist reality to fit the image they have.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 98.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 98.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 98.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Four desires a PERFECT RELATIONSHIP with all things - Equanimity/Balance</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often TRY TO DESERVE SOMETHING ELSE. They want the perfect relationship, living in perpetual longing for what they can’t achieve. They love the metaphor/symbol more that the object itself.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Five desires a TRUE ABUNDANCE in all of life - Non-attachment.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for the IDEAS AND INFO IN THEIR HEAD. The past feels safer and so they substitute attachment to ideas for God, intellectual riches; the more info they have the more secure they feel.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> </tr>
<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Six desires FAITH, a knowing everything is all right, effective, practical - Courage.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for SECURITY that gives a superficial approach to faith. They search for a way to live without fear to get things done with no whining. They can rise above bad feelings by mental activities.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 84.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
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<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Seven desires SATISFACTION. Only when they rest in the now can the find that they have enough. They learn to enjoy their own satisfaction - Sobriety.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for MORE. The desire for more never allows “enough”. Planning is more fun than the actual event. </span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 56.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
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<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Eight desires JUSTICE. They are acutely aware of injustice and protecting the small - Innocence.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for REVENGE on reality. The lust for life is an over identification with masculine energy. They have to find the softness in themselves and value it.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
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<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Type Nine desires HARMONY/UNITY that refuses to let problems dominate - Right Action.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">They often settle for SLEEP. Let the issue resolve itself. So they sleep through the conflict; self-forget with no opinion about the events of the day.</span></div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 70.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
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<tr> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 14.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 218.1px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 14.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px; width: 196.7px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 14.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 14.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
</div></td> <td style="border-color: #000000 #000000 #000000 #000000; border-style: solid; border-width: 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px 1.0px; height: 14.0px; padding: 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px 5.0px;" valign="top"> <div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><br />
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</tbody> </table><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div>Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-26485684118467214182011-09-25T17:53:00.000-07:002011-09-25T17:53:46.943-07:00The Nine Facets of God’s Image through the Nine Types of the Enneagram: Exploring how Defense Mechanisms keep us in a holding pattern blocking our virtue<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The essence of our self lies deep at our core. We are made in God’s image and that image is expressed through the nine virtues (similar to the nine fruits of the spirit) in that they express the nature and essence of God. When we connect with these virtues life is full of meaning. The nine virtues seen through the Enneagram system are: 1- Serenity, 2- Humility, 3- Honesty, 4- Equanimity(Balance), 5- Non-attachment, 6- Courage, 7- Sobriety(Constancy), 8- Innocence, 9- Right Action. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Each of the nine personality types is grounded in a virtue that bears the intelligent quality of energy. We live out of that energy. Along the way as our personality develops we run into conditions and problems. To protect ourselves we develop a natural but unconscious response (by way of an emotional energy) generated by the frustration of being deprived of our virtue. Deep within us we desire to return to the virtue. To do so we develop a defense mechanism that manages the emotional passion with a mental projection to explain the passion. For example, for the Type One - the virtue is Serenity. The One’s passion is anger with the defense mechanism being reaction formation (which means feeling one thing but doing the opposite, such as feeling resentful but acting nice). The defense mechanism leads to the mental projection of constantly looking for error. When the One’s perception of the world is disturbed they automatically seek out the perceived error, and on finding it the mind thinks it has accomplished what is needed to reestablish serenity. But in actuality the One has merely settled for a rigid perfectionism instead of the calm, peace of true serenity that contains it’s own perfection. Sensing failure, we try harder by way of working through our passion, because it fuels our energy as we keep our mind on the projection, in the One’s case of looking for error. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In a misguided way, we struggle with ourselves in an unconscious effort to return to the virtue. The way back to the virtue is not through the passion. Each type has a different sticking point that they have to learn to let go of to allow themselves to become receptive to see the world as it is instead of how they imagine it. For example, One’s believe if they can just make everything line up perfectly, then things will BE perfect. The need to be perfect according to a rigid personal set of rules becomes the answer to living a successful life. Focusing on error actually brings forward the need to correct, which quickly crosses over to criticism delivered both internally and externally. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So the One must learn to drop their anger and begin observing themselves, truly seeing that where they see error, someone else may see an opportunity to try something different. Their reaction is only a developed habit, there could be a different way. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">The habits that develop our defense mechanisms build a wall around the virtue which separates the person from God and is difficult to pierce. For the One, the defense mechanism keeps the emotional habit (anger) and mental habit (looking for error) in place. Look at is as a visual:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><img alt="pastedGraphic.pdf" src="webkit-fake-url://6E420755-092F-4554-85BC-D1728E3FD3A3/pastedGraphic.pdf" /></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 11.0px 'Gill Sans'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Visualize the Defense Mechanism as managing the passion by the habit of the mental projection. The virtue is imbedded deep within (visualized by being in the belly-but not meant to be a physical location). The Defense mechanism keeps us in a holding pattern as we act out of habit. </span></div><div style="font: 11.0px 'Gill Sans'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 13.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 11.0px 'Gill Sans'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">People want to live out of the virtue, but as one pays attention through the practice of going in and down - through mind and heart, the habits of a lifetime get in the way. People must learn to drop the mental habit and passion in order to bypass them to reveal the virtue that has been there all the time. Each person has their own unique set of habits they have developed to deal with life.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Gill Sans'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">____________________________________________________________</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Gill Sans'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">You have heard it said that all you need is inside you - you are born with all you need to be you. But our potential lies buried deep inside by all the habits we created to protect our vulnerable selves when we were young. As adults we need to learn ways to uncover these automatic defenses that no longer serve us well. It is like peeling an onion to reveal who we really are. On those occasions when One’s act out of their grounded being, everyone knows it. And that is the time when people truly see God/goodness being lived out in the world. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">So the defense mechanism creates a holding pattern through our emotional and mental habits that get in the way of living life through our virtue. To operate from the virtue one must:</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Recognize the energy flowing through you as the passion. Develop your “Inner Witness” through receptive prayer practices. Spotting the projection of the type’s mental habit provides clues this is happening. </span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> In a reflective practice, such as the “In and Down” practice release the hold the energy of the vice and defense mechanism bring up. Allow that energy to go, to be able to receive the energy of the virtue that is available.</span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><ol style="list-style-type: decimal;"><li style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"> Going into a receptive mode, a vulnerable state, we are open to seeing the world as it is instead of how we usually perceive it through the lens of our passion. </span></li>
</ol><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Each type holds only 1/9th of the wisdom of the world, only 1/9 of the face of God. We need the wisdom of each type to live in wholeness. We see the world as we are and not as the world is. Finding ways to become receptive opens the world to us. Being able to fight your demons comes through prayer and fasting (denying energy to the passion). Each type must find their own way of acting out of their virtue.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Andrea Andress</span></div>Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-32909632444051849772011-09-21T18:23:00.000-07:002011-09-21T18:23:20.921-07:00Class for the Foundations of the Enneagram - October 1<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">If you are stuck, if you don’t feel as close to God as you want to be, this is a class that can help you change. Rev. Andrea Andress</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 14pt;">Foundations of the Enneagram</span></b><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 14pt;"></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;">Saturday, October 1, 9 AM - 4 PM</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;">Grow your spiritual potential through understanding yourself and others. Discover how and why you get stuck in your spiritual development. The 6-hour class provides a thorough foundation for understanding and working with the Enneagram system. It describes the nine personality types, the habits of emotion and thinking, and the avoidances, defense mechanisms and habits of attention that hold each type in place. Methods include teaching, exercises and brief panel interviews with class participants. The Enneagram Discovery Inventory developed by Dr. David Daniels MD is used to assist participants to identify their own Enneagram personality type.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;">Please register ahead at: <a href="http://www.azenneagram.com/" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color: blue;">www.azenneagram.com</span></a> or by calling Mary Bencomo at 602-266-4228,<span style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;"><a href="mailto:marybedu@cox.net" style="color: blue; text-decoration: underline;">marybedu@cox.net</a></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;">Location:</span><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 16px;"> in Room H-1 (park in the south parking lot)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;">Paradise Valley United Methodist Church</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 16px;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 16px;">4455 E. Lincoln Drive, Paradise Valley, AZ 85253</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 16px;">Instructor: Andrea Andress Fee: $70 (includes class materials – please bring your own lunch)</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="color: blue; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS'; font-size: 12pt;">Questions? Please contact Rev. Andress</span><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Rev. Andrea Andress,</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Children and Family Ministries</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><b><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">Paradise Valley United Methodist Church</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">602-840-8360, ext. 142</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 12pt;">fax: 602-840-8767</span></div>Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-85788982713814770892011-09-19T22:24:00.000-07:002011-09-19T22:24:48.611-07:00How would knowing the Enneagram Personality system benefit you?<div style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;">In answer to questions about why would someone want to invest the time to learn about the Enneagram as a way of spiritual growth I wrote some thoughts to express what I find helpful in the system. </div><div style="font: normal normal normal 14px/normal 'Times New Roman'; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 14.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>How would knowing the Enneagram benefit me? </b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">“I don’t like being put in a box!” is the complaint of many when looking at a personality system. But each of us is already in a box of our own making. The accumulations of years of habits of how you think, feel and behave have created your personality. With the Enneagram, by careful non-judgmental observation of the structure of your habits (not so much the content), it can allow you to identify the box you are already in. With that knowledge you can begin to develop new choices and habits that allow you to go beyond the limits of your box. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; text-align: center;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Enneagram System</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>The Enneagram</b> comes to us from an ancient spiritual path of observing and understanding our own nature, a</span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #fc2218;"> </span><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">system that has experienced a renewal in our age of psychological awareness. It is a way to understand the patterns and habits of emotions, thoughts and actions we create in our lives. By observing our patterns we discover ways to get out of them. People are creatures of habit and we love repetition; it’s how we learn and grow. But too much of a good thing creates its own downside. We become so attuned to our habits that we don’t realize we are doing them. Detrimental habits can trap us in unhealthy lifestyles. Just try to change eating, sleeping or exercise habits! How much harder it is to change who we believe ourselves to be. Consider your habits as patterns you have created that once served a good purpose. But as you grew, ingrained habits became rigid and couldn’t adapt to meet the person you were becoming. So within you is a tension, a war against who you think you are versus who you can become. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">As a Christian, I take the premise we are created in God’s Image. In the center of our being, the essence of who we are lies buried. Spiritual disciplines don’t create our being; they allow us to discover the essential being that is already there. We have covered it up habit upon habit by thought upon thought, emotion and action upon one another. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Enneagram is a valuable tool uncovering patterns inherent in our personality. Remember the story of the blind men looking at the elephant and how they couldn’t “see” the “whole”, but only the part they touched. So we don’t see the essence of God in us, the mystery of faith, the hope of glory. God has given us what we need to live and that includes a personality. We are not trying to wipe away our personality, but to see how we can live to our fullest potential. We come together in community to create a whole, not just for our self, but for all of us together. As we see the internal difficulties that we and others struggle with, we become more understanding of the pain and grief we bear and become tolerant of others as we begin to work together.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">The Enneagram details nine basic types/patterns people develop, but within that are subtypes, how we react to times of stress and security, and dynamic avenues that lend toward creativity and uniqueness within the system. People resist being forced into a box. But habits create types and structures that can be observed. As we notice the patterns, the Enneagram helps individuals discover the box you are in and ways to break out of it. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Enneagram Introductory, Basic and Advanced classes are being offered at Paradise Valley United Methodist Church. Please call for more information. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>Rev. Andrea Andress, Paradise Valley UMC</b></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><b>602-840-8360, ext 142; </b><span style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #203af9; text-decoration: underline;"><b><a href="mailto:andrea@pvumc.org">andrea@pvumc.org</a></b></span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0.0px;"><span style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; letter-spacing: 0.0px color: #203af9; text-decoration: underline;"><br />
</span></span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;"><b>The article was published in the TALK magazine, the magazine for the Enneagram in the Narrative Tradition. Explore the magazine at: </b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times; font-size: small;">http://www.aetnt.com/why-AET/talk/</span></span></div>Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1181350896563767767.post-82755397655957531012011-09-16T14:24:00.000-07:002011-09-16T14:31:13.789-07:00Welcome to my blogThis is my first attempt at a blog.Andrea Andresshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02486336095017146831noreply@blogger.com1