Here's a dialogue that I hope will coax some of you shy ones into the water....from Peg Gerrity's story 'Becoming a Woman God Could...and is... Using.' in the Stories of Hope section--would Peg have been the being of beauty and grace that she is, if she had not survived and grown deep roots of faith and joy through the healing of her wounds?
Please consider responding to this blog...put your thoughts, opinions, prayers out there (they may all be the same). You don't have to have a reasoned out systematic theology to address these real-life issues--we want to hear from survivors, from those that love them. We just want to hear what you know in your heart (not necessarily your head) about these issues.
What will you receive in return for your couarge? Hopefully a dialogue that may help you better understand your self, your dark spots (those spots of unhealed wounds that we all have). The conversation may also catalyze you into some kind of spirit-directed action. It may tick you off. It may affirm you. It may 'convert' you (in the broadest sense of the word!)...but ...if you don't engage, you'll never know what you may have missed!
While it's much too early to know how healing from the rending of the fabric of safety that happened at Virginia Tech this week will unfold, please see the "We are Virginia Tech" posting on one of the resources featured on the Virtual Tea House: PeaceXPeace. They do a weekly blog and foster peace circles that can become sisters with women in places around the globe who are struggling. PeacexProse also hosts a regular blog about the same issues we're hoping to probe here on the Virtual Tea House.
One of the most profound blogs I've read this week was hosted on NPR and stated that the amount of carnage that was suffered at Virginia Tech this week is that of a predictable day in Iraq. Staggering and humbling (a somewhat different persepctive of 'shock and awe'). I tend to sit numbly in the face of it, leaving it for others to get out in front of this issue. Not sure that's the best call...
Let's have a cup of tea and chat. It doesn't have to be pretty or even spelled correcctly. Just 'come on back...'
Beth Patterson
Host, Virtual Tea House
Tea Drinker and Vision Seeker
Comment Notification
If you would like to receive an email when updates are made to this post, please register here
Subscribe to this post's comments using
About Beth Patterson
The Virtual Tea House website became 'word-ripe' when, over a cup of jasmine green, I realized that the web has an expanding part to play in the communal aspects of spiritual growth.
One of my favorite hats, among several is: initiated firekeeper in the Sacred Fire Community. Hosting a monthly community fire circle, I'm being taught that the simple act of sitting around a fire with the intent of holding open-hearted space makes for some soulful community!
With a master's degree in religion, my career spans 20 years in end of life care and I currently work in the field of child abuse intervention and advocacy.
Here in beautiful Central Oregon, my spiritual homes of the high desert and the mountains are both in proximity. And for good measure, four hours away is Grandmother Ocean and the stunning Oregon Coast.
I'm making decent progress on the goal set by my mother early on: she taught us that the goal of humanity should be to become ever-more eccentric, i.e. more fully human.
Entering the 'forest-dweller' phase of life, I am honored to host the Virtual Tea House for all who wish to explore how our lives are enriched and made new a thousand times each day by the spirituality we embody. Exploring this engagement together is the purpose of the Virtual Tea House.
Welcome! Let's have a cup of virtual tea together and share what brings us joy, what we are being taught by life, how we are leaning into the Big Questions posed to us each day in sometimes 'distressing disguises'.