Home, it comes from within a wise person told me recently. That's a notion I struggle with. For so many home is a physical place. Maybe you lived there for your whole childhood, maybe it's a place where you had a major life event or two. Maybe it's the places where you felt at peace and rooted. Right now I feel like I embody the song "Motherless Child" - a very long way from home. I do not feel connected to a place. Kentucky was home for 9 solid years but when I left and then went back it clearly was not home. Des Moines is my hometown on paper. Lived there since I was 2. It's the place I've come back to when needing to regroup. May parents and brother are there. My sister is not that far away. But it doesn't feel like home. I feel like a visitor in others' space. I don't see myself being here for an extended period of time, which is not all a bad thing either. So if I don't feel connected to a place then maybe my opening sentence needs further exploration. Home comes from within - feeling rooted to that energy/spark/brahma within yourself. How does one get into better connection with that inner energy? How does one get rooted in one's self. I've been a fan of mediation and journaling for years now. Both are good starts but both have to be done in honest ways. One has to be honest when doing both -truly acknowledging the feelings and emotions that come and go. Being real with myself in those times of quiet and really engage myself of really working at acknowledging this things, letting them speak to me with what needs to be said and then letting them go and pass on through. This is home within. For me it's a work in progress. Some days are better then others. I'll share more as I work on this. To find home within - a long journey of a lifetime.
As a minister I have the honor of performing rites and ceremonies for people at a variety of stages of life: baptisms, blessings, marriages, funerals, etc. I usually enjoy planning and leading these events. But lately I've had a rash of folks shocked that as a minister, I would have a fee to do some of these services. So lets talk about why I have fees. To start with, if you are a member of my congregation you do get my services as a part of my contract with the congregation as long as they are spelled out in the contract. Generally if you're a member of the congregation I serve, it is expected that I will preform baptisms, blessings, funerals, weddings, etc for you because I want to remind you of God's continuous blessing in your life and especially at important moments in your life. However some folks are shocked that there would be an honorarium suggested for the minister. The reality is that these blessings, weddings, funerals, etc. are extra work in our wee...
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