notinKansasanymore

Not much to add, except to say I'm glad we're out, and that we have this place to gather. (Waving)

Okay, this is not a fun reason to post. Joe Kriston shared the news late Thursday evening that our sister Moira Kenney Hutchinson had passed away early that morning (Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012). She's being laid to rest in Glendora, California, on Saturday. What is there to say about Moira? Wow. She was steel and hope and laughter, all rolled up into one dynamic person. No words could ever attempt to capture her. I think that the rest of us are going to have to get our acts together, and be cooler; that's a lot of slack to take up.

Happy Spring, Everybody! May this year be a great one for you.

Happy, happy birthday to Pawtucket's Big Adventure! Thank you so very much for doing this for us; it has been a therapeutic place. As I've said before, you are a minister to the ministers. You are greatly appreciated. Love, NotInKansasAnymore.

Can you BELIEVE that we have over a hundred and fifty-five thousand views? And most of seven thousand posts? Hey, we may be a weird Corps, but we're certainly . . . enthusiastic!

This is a very good question. I think that part of the answer has to be . . . what are you going to do TODAY so that you will be happy with where you go FROM HERE?

Excie makes a good point. Thank you to all of you, 9th Corps and friends, for making this thread such an interesting, funny, and healing place. I can't say "See you at the Rock," but some day, we'll all be together at that big Ice Cream Bowl in the sky; until then, I certainly hope to run into you again, somewhere along the way, if fate permits. John Richeson's Way Corps ning site might be a nice way to keep in touch. I love you! "My heart can sing When I pause to remember A heartache here is but a stepping stone Along the path that's winding always upward This troubled world is not my final home. But until then, my heart will go on singing. Until then, with joy I'll carry on. Until the day my eyes behold The City, Until the day God calls us home." Tremendous thanks to Pawtucket for the intense labors of time, love, and personal expense that this site has been. Let's all pray for him as he goes through this transition.

Kit, thank you for reminding us about the donate button. I hadn't thought of Greasespot when the economy was tanking; it just makes sense, though. Hey, if it was only money, we could fix that. But everybody gets the chance to breathe, and if Paw needs that, I'll be thankful for what we've had. That said, let's all of us go to the button on the front page, and donate what we can. I doubt that we'll come close to reimbursing him for what he's spent on Greasespot over the years.

It's crazy time at my house. Finals week is next week, there's a stack of grading as high as an elephant's eye (which has been growing daily, no matter that I take some from the pile every day), and the kids seem to have another Christmas concert every night (third one within a week was tonight). It was wonderful. But I really wish you could have seen what awaited us as we left the middle school gym this evening; out into the pitch-dark night we walked, all four-and-a-half hundred of us, right out into the very first snowfall of the season. Wet, fat snowflakes plopped on our heads and all around us as we walked to our cars. Nobody ran. Nobody cared that the snow was positively drippy wet. Everybody marvelled, and walked so as to take just enough time on the way to their cars to enjoy it. I'd felt tired before that. Now, an hour later, I'm still smiling.

(Tap. Tap. Sound of feedback. ) Is this thing on? Work crews meet at the back of the tent.

Hey, ya'll. Been pretty busy at work lately, but wanted to stop by and say that I was thinking of you. Happy Late Summer. The tomato plants haven't made any new fruit for three weeks, because it doesn't get cool enough at night for them to set any fruit. There was an utterly fantastic sunset last Saturday, sending out radial spokes of sunlight through the clouds left by a passing summer storm. That's all for now. Love you.

Woh. Thirty year anniversary of our graduation will be next summer. That's enough to make a person think.

Woh, Excie. 29 years? The folks who got married in the Corps weddings could tell us. How long have ya'll been married? That just seems like awhile ago, when I count it up on all of my fingers and toes. I'd better exercise, or something.

Well, this was years ago, now, but I had a little barbecue, and held a little ceremony; I burned my Corps diary and my Corps sweats on the barby, and was never going back. I boxed up all of my Way books, and gave them to someone who still gave a mouse's butt about them. I went back to college, made Townie friends, and got on with my life. I always felt that I'd gotten into the ministry for the right reasons, and I also feel that I got out of it for the right reasons: in both cases, I was honestly trying to do the right thing. I don't feel that I moved away from God when I left TWI; I feel very deeply that TWI moved away from God. God has very generously protected me, with both His grace and His mercy, during these past 24 years. He has established to me, in no uncertain terms, that leaving The Way International was His will for my life.