Chrysalis Voyage

I’ve taken a break from blogging. There have been other projects that have demanded my attention and drained my creative energy. Since the last post, we moved on from Alghero, Sardinia (wonderful spot for cruising. Quaint, great food, lots to see) and have returned to our old Barcelona stomping grounds at Port Forum Marina. As in Malta, it is wonderful to be back to someplace familiar. The last few years in the Med has revealed to me how much I take for granted the comfort of being in familiar surroundings. During all that time, I have rarely known where I was going nor could I speak the language. It can be a draining experience.

The latest news is that we have decided to ship Chrysalis back to Florida on Dockwise. Chrysalis will be loaded onto a tanker in Palma, Mallorca, and will arrive roughly two weeks later in Ft. Lauderdale. Part of me is ecstatic. The amount of time spent planning for a journey of this calibre (6 months through Canaries, Cape Verde’s, Brazil, and the Caribbean) on our own, as well as the emotional energy required for a trans Atlantic passage is huge. It will be so great to have Chrys just show up one day in Florida! More »

February 9th, 2009 | Category: Kim | Comments (5)

When we first moved aboard four years ago, I started up a conversation with a lady in the grocery line at the check out who, when hearing about our lifestyle, said, “wow, must be nice to be retired at your age!”  I laughed out loud.  Don’t I wish.  We are still pursuing work and careers, homeschooling, just leading a nomadic life while doing it.   Mike has been actively trading for much of that time and I’m excited about his new blog discussing trading, ethics, and theology/spirituality.   Check it out at: 

www.chrysalisoffshore.com

November 7th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)

There are certain elements of living
on a boat
that sink like a stone in slow motion
to the bottom of your soul.
Like now for instance
a stiff breeze blows
off the coast of northern Sardinia;
the resulting swell
curves around the breakwater
and hits each hull stacked
up like dominos
along the dock
at a slightly different interval
their rise and fall
reminds me of the human wave
rolling across Mile High Stadium
during a Bronco game.

With each upward motion
there is a crescendo of groaning lines
a creaking of fenders rubbing together
that blends
with the eerie howl of air
rushing by the mast of the sailboat next to us.
The winds version
of blowing
into a plastic 2 litre pop jug.

They are familiar sounds-
as familiar to me as breathing.

Somewhere
over the breakwater
ships make their way in the night;
but here in the harbour
we make ice cream sundaes
which drip on the floor and are licked up by the dog.

November 3rd, 2008 | Category: Kim, Poetry | Comments (1)

“Evangelicals have misunderstood the Bible. They’ve turned it into a bloody Ikea manual.”
Oxford Prof Giles Fraser as quoted by John Humphrys in, ‘In God we Doubt.”

At a bookstore in Malta, Mike picked up the paperback “In God we Doubt: Confessions of a Failed Atheist” by British radio host John Humphrys. If his radio broadcast, Today, is anything like his book, full of honest questions interspersed with witty, sarcastic remarks, then I’m fairly certain I would be a fan. I have been interested in doubt as a part of the faith journey since we lost our infant daughter to SIDS sixteen years ago, today actually. Her death on All Saints Day, propelled me into areas previously unexplored by the fundamental, “pat answer”, “happy clappy” (as per Humphrys description), me.

Humphrys grew up in the Anglican Church, confirmed and devout, until as a young adult the bigger questions got the better of him. He seems to suggest that even then his life of faith might have taken a different turn except for the fact that there “are no ifs, ands, or buts about the evangelical message. There are no grey areas. That may be fine if you’re trying to persuade a three year old why he should eat his broccoli, but not so fine when it comes to interpreting what the Bible has to say about how we should lead our lives.” No doubt he is speaking of the tenets of evangelical faith: God’s existence, His creation, our subsequent sin, Jesus’ payment of that sin through his death, our repentance and acceptance of forgiveness resulting in our passing through judgment and into eternal bliss. These you accept or not, to your immortal peril. Despite the lack of dogmatic wriggle room, Humphrys has a great desire to believe in the traditional sense, but has reluctantly pitched his tent in the camp of agnosticism, hoping for someone of faith to come along and give him a reason to hop the fence. Until now, no luck. More »

November 2nd, 2008 | Category: Book Review, Kim | Comments (9)

 The Latest Laughs

Stefan: “You guys are supposed to spare the rod AND SPOIL the child. You have to do both. Look, I don’t make the rules, but since its Biblical you better obey it. So can I get an X Box?” More »

October 20th, 2008 | Category: Kim | Comments (1)

In The Solace of Fierce Landscapes Belden Lane describes habitus. Habitus denotes the intimate connection between spirit and place. Belden writes that this connection,

“..is hard to grasp for those of us living in a post-Enlightenment technological society. Landscape and spirituality are not, for us, inevitably interwoven. We experience no inescapable link between our “place” and our way of conceiving the holy, between habitat and habitus, where one lives and how one practices a habit of being. Our concern is simply to move quickly (and freely) as possible from one place to another. We are bereft of rituals of entry that allow us to participate fully in the places we inhabit.

“We have lost the ability even to heed the natural environment, much less to perceive it through the lens of a particular tradition. Modern western culture is largely shorn of attentiveness to both habitat and habitus. Where we live - in what we are rooted - no longer defines who we are. We have learned to distrust all disciplines of formative spiritual traditions, with their communal ways of perceiving the world. We have realized, in the end, the “free individual” at the expense of a network of related meanings.

“Without a habitus - particularly one that is drawn, at least in part, from the rhythm of the land around us - our habitat ceases to be a living partner in the pursuit of common wholeness. We become alienated from an environment that seems indifferent, even hostile. Habitat turns into scenery, inconsequential background. Habitus is reduced to a nonsacramental, individualistic quest for transcendent experience. We lose any sense of being formed in community, particularly in a tradition that allows us to act unconsciously, with ease and delight, out of a deep sense of what is natural to us and to our “milieu.” We are, in short, a people without “habit,” with no common custom, place, or dress to lend us shared meaning.”

Saturday mornings I typically grab some morning coffee and catch up on some of my favorite blogs and websites. While cruising my brother in laws blog, Open Hands, (at which I am regularly inspired) I noticed Mark had added a couple of new blogs on his blogroll and decided to check them out. I found the above quote on Resonate, a community of Canadians posting about life and faith in a postmodern era with thanks to Len Hjalmarson for posting it. It gave me something to chew on as I watched the sunrise over Grand Harbour here in Malta.

More »

October 19th, 2008 | Category: Kim | Comments (7)

Welcome Morning

By Anne Sexton

There is joy

in all;

in the hair I brush each morning,

in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

that I rub my body with each morning,

in the chapel of eggs I cook

each morning,

in the outcry from the kettle

that heats my coffee

each morning

in the spoon and the chair

that cry “hello there Anne”

each morning

in the godhead of the table

that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

each morning

All this is God

right here in my pea green house

each morning

and I mean

though I often forget

to give thanks

to faint down by the kitchen table

in a prayer of rejoicing

as the holy birds at the kitchen window

peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,

let me paint a thank-you on my palm

for this God, this laughter of the morning

lest it go unspoken.

The joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,

dyes young.

More »

October 12th, 2008 | Category: Kim | Comments (2)

I have been following with interest a conversation between a friend of mine, Dan Wilt, and Frank Viola, who wrote an article a couple months ago for The Ooze on why he left the institutional church. (For Franks article click here Dan’s response click here ) I am interested because my story is similar to Franks, in that I grew up a student of the Bible. Going to church was assumed and attendance was linked to faithfulness, an outward sign of inward conviction. I figured it out once, while growing up I went to roughly 3 services a week, then there were daily chapels at a Christian university, more at seminary, and you might as well throw in the yearly conference or two I’ve heard well over 5,000 sermons/inspirational devotionals. Man, what a lot of verbiage! I can’t remember much of what was said, but I’m pretty sure the words sunk into my subconscious and still rattle around in there without me knowing it. (which on some days scares the crap out of me and others inspires me to new heights). Without a doubt the institutional church experience has influenced my faith and is a part of who I am today.

More »

October 6th, 2008 | Category: Kim | Comments (11)

“Love your neighbor as yourself,” we’re told. Maybe before I can love my neighbor very effectively, I have to love me–not in the sense of a blind (egotistical) passion but in the sense of looking after, of wishing well, of forgiving when necessary, of being my own friend.”

“Listen to the sound of your own journey.”

Frederick Buechner

While in British Columbia I bought my first tube of wrinkle cream at the drug store. I figured I had a kid going to university and wrinkles would be forthcoming at any second. Just that morning, I had scrutinized my face in the mirror and sure enough, those tiny grooves were starting to remind me of the old craggily wagon trail ruts in Colorado.

More »

September 17th, 2008 | Category: Kim | Comments (11)