Feeding God's Sheep

2012-01-18T13:17:00.001-05:00

As many of you know, last March, 27th (the day before my 59th birthday), I had a heart attack. I was in Albany, NY where I was going to take a week of vacation, of sorts, and celebrate my birthday with friends. Within 24 hours of my arrival, I found myself in the St. Peter's Hospital emergency room followed by a 7 day, all expense paid, vacation in the CCU.
Most people have a number of "watershed" events over the course of the life and for me, this was not only a "watershed" event, it was the most significant moment in my life, thus far. I knew in an instant that my life would never be the same again.

With change comes more change. That's the way it usually seems to go, at least for me. Looking over this Blog I started quite a number of years ago, I decided it also needed to change to reflect my own changes that continue to unfold. I planned to begin this new endeavor on the first of the year, but I wasn't quite sure how to begin. So after considerable thought, I decided to just start at the beginning of the beginning of my journey. A road not previously taken, at least by me.
So there. I have started this new chapter in my blogging and will no longer ruminate about how I would do it.

2012-01-01T12:00:00.003-05:00

May blessings abound as you begin your new call as Bishop

The Right Reverend Jim White

Assistant Bishop of Auckland New Zealand

Read the entire article at

http://www.anglicantaonga.org.nz/News/TIKANGA-PAKEHA/Jim-joins-scandal

2011-12-28T11:00:00.005-05:00

The visit of The Presiding Bishop to the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania

2007-08-09T10:06:00.009-04:00

Surge, illuminare

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.

A Prayer for Today - A New Zealand Prayer Book

2007-04-13T19:58:00.001-04:00

The Lake of Beauty

By Edward Carpenter

Let your mind be quiet, realising the beauty of the world,
and the immense, the boundless treasures that it holds in store.
All that you have within you, all that your heart desires,
all that your Nature so specially fits you for - that or the
counterpart of it waits embedded in the great Whole, for you.
It will surely come to you.

Yet equally surely not one moment before its appointed time
will it come. All your crying and fever and reaching out of
hands will make no difference.
Therefore do not begin that game at all.
Do not recklessly spin the waters of your mind
in this direction and in that,
lest you become like a spring lost and
dissipated in the desert.

But draw them together into a little compass, and hold them
still, so still;
And let them become clear, so clear - so limpid, so mirror-like;
at last the mountains and the sky shall glass themselves in
peaceful beauty,
and the antelope shall descend to drink, and to gaze at her
reflected image, and the lion to quench his thirst,
and Love himself shall come and bend over, and catch his
own likeness in you.

2007-03-27T07:25:00.005-04:00

i thank You God for most this amazing
By e.e. cummings
i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes
(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)
how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginably You?
(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Photo by The Rev. L. K. Schoonmaker: Sunrise in State College

NOVEMBER SUNSET

2006-11-15T13:38:00.003-05:00

Photograph by The Rev. Lisa K. Schoonmaker

FEEDING GOD'S SHEEP

2003-09-01T00:00:00.000-04:00

This photograph was taken by a parishioner at St. Paul's in Fairfield, CT in October of 2003 at the Blessing of the Animals.

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my lambs.’ A second time he said to him, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ He said to him, ‘Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Tend my sheep.’ He said to him the third time, ‘Simon son of John, do you love me?’ Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, ‘Do you love me?’ And he said to him, ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Feed my sheep. Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.’ (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, ‘Follow me.’

✠ ✠ ✠

Early in my first year of Divinity School at Yale I was in the Rector's office once again whining about my life. It was always, "Why me?. Look at my life, why would God want me to be a priest. There must be some mistake." Sandy, who had heard all this before, got up and went over to the shelf and took down her Bible. After a few flips of the pages she handed it to me, pointing to John 20:15-19. She said simply: "read". I dutifully read the pericope and stood in silence for what seemed an eternity. And then, perhaps for the first time, I got it! Not that I wouldn't question it time and time again over the next several years, but it was a beginning. I still had a lot of learning to do, not just from the books or the professors or scripture, but the kind of learning that leads to understanding and eventually acceptance and action.

Each and every day I work hard at living into my priesthood. Those days when the questioning begins to dominate my thinking once again, making everything I do just that much more difficult, I pull out that quote from John and read it over and over and over again. " . . . someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go. . . Follow Me" Renewed and recommitted I go about doing what I know in my heart I was called to do:Feeding God's Sheep.

Grace & Peace,

Mother Lisa+