Sometimes the tools we once used need to be replaced: a patio umbrella or wellness strategies. If you're wanting to build a healthy relationship between your public role & your private life, please join our cohort discussing Leadership & Public Intimacy in September! meadville.edu/light/public...

More from the garden! I got some lupine seeds this spring. I love lupines, but have terrible luck with transplanted ones...so I put the seeds in a random spot in the yard to see what would happen. I have babies--probably seven of them. Here's hoping for blooms in a couple of years!

As a child, I read the encyclopedia. (No surprise if you know me!) I read about ghost pipes...plants without chlorophyll that grew in forests. For almost 50 years, I never saw them outside of a photo. Now I see them at home! I'm in love with them & always a little surprised that they truly exist.

Having a public job can be wonderful, challenging, & exhausting, no matter how much you love it! #PublicIntimacy is complicated by identity & social location. If you'd like to learn more about how to be in public well & with well-being, join us this September! meadville.edu/light/public...

Frederick Buechner talked about the place where "your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” Do the good and necessary work of justice, and if that's not what gives you life, then also do what does! Gardening creates a nursery for bees and butterflies. Art can help build community.

No one just knows how to thrive in a public-facing role. It's not about "bringing your whole self to everyone." Learning to BE your whole self and knowing what to share, when, and why? That's the key to a sustainable career in the public sphere. Learn more: meadville.edu/light/public-intimacy/

When people learn that I study #PublicIntimacy, first they want to know what it is (sharing a genuine self with audiences as paid labor) and then they want to know why I study it. Here's my origin story as a researcher... Come join our certificate program & learn more! meadville.edu/light/public...

In an interview with Julica from @uuministers.bsky.social, we talked about #PublicIntimacy, the idea of Intimacy as labor, and what you might learn about in our 26-27 cohort on Leadership & Public Intimacy from LIGHT through @meadvillelombard.bsky.social meadville.edu/light/public...

Squinting into the sun a little bit this July Friday, but I'm looking forward to seeing people without the harsh glare in the cohort group I'm leading through @meadvillelombard.bsky.social starting in September! meadville.edu/light/public... #PublicIntimacy

Just brought out my “what is UUism” elevator speech with a phlebotomist. Maybe we should call it a blood draw speech? 🤔

Ever been in a season where things are just breaking down, requiring mending or being released? There’s been a bunch of that for me lately—from house stuff to clothes and a relationship or two—and here’s one more unexpected example. I guess I need to get new sandals! #LetItGo #Breakthrough

Today’s delight while taking the dogs on a walk: a praying mantis that clearly belongs on an oak tree. I have loved them since I was little: Meditative and still, decisive in action, hiding in plain sight, and confident even in the face of larger, powerful beings. /|\

A couple of good omens on my walk today: a powerful seed and transformative emergence!

Here’s another good book along similar lines!

Chamber is in recess, so it’s a good moment for a pic or two, including the really pretty wall treatment! (A little frivolity amidst everything isn’t bad.)

Back to the CT state capitol with Equality CT advocating for HB6913, to prohibit discrimination against LGBTQ+ people in long term care facilities!

At the CT state capitol with colleagues for Transgender Day of Visibility events and meetings with legislators! 🏳️‍⚧️🥳

At the CT State Capitol to offer a prayer for irejn.org ‘s legislative prayer breakfast today: interfaith, community-based work is bringing me hope these days. I hope you are finding ways to connect with those who lift you up, restore your spirits, and prompt you to act!

Agreed!

Last week I got the gay fix of my entire lifetime…if you’re able to get to Broadway for this one, and want to see something hilarious, ridiculous, and completely self-aware…please go! It was fantastic!

It’s the day after the longest night of the year, so we engaged the value, meaning, and beauty of the dark in today’s worship. /|\ I started “Darkness, Luminous and Deep” by considering darkness in art, particularly these two paintings by American artist Maxfield Parrish (1870-1966).

I am about to grade 8 final projects in one go while also finalizing orders of service for all the holiday services: Solstice, Christmas Eve early and late, & Hanukkah. Blessed Yuletide! Pray for me. 😳 #AcademicSky #ParishMinistry #UnitarianUniversalist

I literally just preached yesterday on generosity and greed with this as a metaphor! And yes, I used myself as an example. 😂

Greed makes the world small. It disconnects, but worse, it spreads that disconnection by limiting what can be shared.   Applying deep generosity to our resources changes everything. It makes more goodness available. It encourages us to grow, to transform, to thrive, to keep improving the world.

Had a wonderful discussion with clergy & activists this week about how we show up in the world, share genuine selves with others as our work, and keep ourselves healthy and well-boundaried. I’m looking forward to more discussions in 2025 about #PublicIntimacy thru @meadvillelombard.bsky.social

Sometimes I rediscover and am sustained by my own words! This passage is from “Cherishing Our World: Avoiding Despair in Environmental Justice Work” in www.uuabookstore.org/Justice-on-E...

Today I am leaning into… faith and hope and deep, abiding love over fear—to act from the knowledge that we will save what is of great worth and sacredness to us. Let us refuse to be made immobile by fear and despair, instead choosing one more faithful action in every moment.

One of the things that I value about a platform like this is that by embracing and discussing the fullness of ourselves, we can make resistance to domination a daily part of life, in big and small ways. Protest or worship, journalism or theater, gardening or climate justice, all of it has a place.

We’re in low mountain forests here—when we moved in I just kept saying to myself “We live ~here~” It’s a special spot—especially because we have black bears that wander through our yard regularly! This is a young one in our front yard. ☺️

Lovely! This is the view from my back door—no ocean, but plenty of woods.