try this

When they asked me to spend a week as the bible study leader at Camp Gilmont I said "Sure" mostly because I say that to anything Gilmont asks me.  But when they told me I was going to talk to the kids about the Holy Spirit I knew my moment had come.  The moment I was morn for.  The moment I had waited all my life for.  The moment I had dreamed of. If you calculate that I have said the Apostles Creed 50 times a year for the last 50 years using averages and giving me two weeks vacation here and there, I've declared I believe in the Holy Ghost about 2,500 times in my life.  Then when you calculate all the little children standing around me listening to me tell them I believe in ghosts I figure I had some 'splaining to do for these tikes.

It turned out I needn't have worried.  Either the kids had not been listening or they don't care about ghosts.  The Holy Ghost part didn't scare anybody.  When I showed up dressed as a Holy Ghost not only did they not buy into it, one little girl tried to pull my sheet off.

However, I did have one miraculous experience instead.

I have never done the bibles study leader gig at Gilmont before.  I didn't really know my role or how to prepare for it.  And I need to confess that I was woefully unprepared.  However, being a firm believer in the power of the Holy Spirit I figured I could wing it.  So I did.

And I don't mean this as a joke at all.  I'm very sincere. I am also in awe and grateful.  For a few of the sessions with the kids my predessors had plowed the ground before me and all I had to do was walk the path they had made for me (Thank you, Jennifer Rigoulout).  And for a couple of sessions I could let the kids guide a "conversation" with their questions.  But there were also moments when I sat in jfront of the kids and opened my mouth and prayed for the Spirit to speak and it did.  Somehow words came to me and I said stuff.  Ideas came to me, thoughts I had thought of before, maybe things I hadn't thought of in years would return to my mind and the perfect story would hop out of my mouth. It was a partnership.

But the best came last.  Because I had to leave early Friday afternoon and couldn't make it for the evening's vesper service James suggested we video my message for the kids. And I knew what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.  What I didn't know it what a great sidekick the Holy Spirit makes.  See for yourself:

https://youtu.be/gAKWQ4YKfDg

Bible Study Leader Week 4

simple gifts

http://youtu.be/o-zxn-YGUI4

here's the link:

 

post

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=14945452#editor/target=post;postID=9112212639408972751;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=27;src=link

Para Sonia

video

Here's a video of just one of the things that makes the Garland Womens Retreat so popular:

<div id="fb-root"></div> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>

<div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151965057464013" data-width="466"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151965057464013">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jane.els1">Jane Stuart Els</a>.</div></div>


This is Bobbi Snider.  Every time she goes to sing I grab my camera and hope for a good seat.  But that wasn't the only great thing.  I can show you gobs of photos of stuff.

Here's a video of just one of the things that makes the Garland Womens Retreat so popular:

<div id="fb-root"></div> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>
<div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151965057464013" data-width="466"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151965057464013">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/jane.els1">Jane Stuart Els</a>.</div></div>

This is Bobbi Snider.  Every time she goes to sing I grab my camera and hope for a good seat.  But that wasn't the only great thing.  I can show you gobs of photos of stuff.

Old Friends Who've Just Met

This week I will celebrate my 42nd year as a mother. That sounds like a long time but I swear the last time I looked at Elizabeth she was only 8 years old.

When she was around that age The Muppet Movie came out.  We went to see it at the movies then I got the album of songs.  (Anybody remember records? We asked Sarah if she knew what a record is and she replied, "Yeah.  It's that black flat thing.")  The girls would listen to the album every night as they fell asleep.  You could say we’ve heard the music a couple million times.

The most famous song from the movie was Rainbow Connection but I’ve always loved one of the other songs as well:  “I’m going to go back there someday”: It’s a soft song, sung by a campfire with the moon in the background and a harmonica playing……

This looks familiar, vaguely familiar,

Almost unreal, yet, it's too soon to feel yet.

Close to my soul, and yet so far away.

I'm going to go back there someday.

Sun rises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls.

Is that a song there, and do I belong there?

I've never been there, but I know the way

I'm going to go back there someday.

Come and go with me, it's more fun to share,

We'll both be completely at home in midair.

We're flyin', not walkin', on featherless wings.

We can hold onto love like invisible strings.

There's not a word yet for old friends who've just met

Part heaven, part space, or have I found my place?

You can just visit, but I plan to stay.

I’m going to go back there someday

I’m going to go back there someday

 

There’s one line in the song that stops me every time:

“There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met”

And I always say, Yes, yes, yes, there is.  The word is “children.” 

In the last 42 years,I have been blessed with  two daughters and two granddaughters and I can tell you it is exactly like having four old friends that I’ve just met.. 

It’s a feeling of being totally comfortable with someone yet an excitement at the same time; a feeling  that every second is just the beginning of something wonderful and new. It’s the intense intimacy of childbirth coupled with the wide-eyed generation that’s never been seen on earth until now.  It’s the feeling that you will be connected from beginning to end by bonds that cannot be broken by anything.  Yet this connection doesn't hold you back like an anchor-- it spurs you into the future, into new things you might never have seen if left to your own whims. With children you get to hold someone’s hand while you explore the future.  And sometimes you say you need to hold their hand to give them courage when it’s really the other way around.

Whether it’s exploring New York City with Elizabeth or reading Shel Silverstein in bed at night with Essie;  planting a garden with Emily or cooking with Sarah, every moment has that feeling of something new just around the corner but at the same time as comfortable as an old shoe.

It’s the feeling of knowing where you stand , knowing her bones carry your own DNA, her habits were honed  in the home you created.  Yet a generation or two separate you and you marvel at the newness of her ideas. 

I'm thinking this might also be what heaven is like.  I guess it's about whatever you want it to be about.

Like most things in the world, it's about whatever you want it to be about.

Music and lyrics by Paul Williams and Kenny Ascher

From The Muppet Movie