Wondering if you have any thoughts on speaking as a calling rather than a career? While I know it can be both (and that is fantastic for some folks) I also think there are many churches/organizations/small businesses that would love to "hire" a speaker but cannot afford the freight. Those are the people/organizations with whom I love to connect.

I spend Holy Week at Holy Cross Monastery. On Maundy Thursday the monks and guests dine together and then the superior of the order and a few others wash the feet of each guest. It is humbling and prompts introspection. Forget suits, ties and oil changes. I think modern pastors, elders and deacons should get down on their hands and knees and wash the feet of their congregants at least once a year...

This is a very interesting dialog. I spent most of my life as an atheist following exactly this approach - categorizing people and prioritizing my interaction with them based upon my needs, my comfort-level and what worked conveniently into my schedule. It was simple. Difficult people were avoided and pleasant people were engaged. When I became a Christian in 2003 at the age of 37 I had no idea where to start. I'd grown up in a secular home and had no genuine notion of what it meant to be Christian beyond the bad PR I had believed and used as a stepping off point for the pretty aggressive Christian-bashing I'd done over the years.

Thankfully the Holy Spirit gave me an immediate and voracious appetite for the scriptures which I devoured in multiple translations for hours each day for the first few years after my conversion. It was then that I learned about this paradoxical faith where he who is last is first, where gentleness and kindness trump smarts and money and where loving those who are difficult to love is actually what sets followers of Jesus apart from the pagans. This resonated with me deeply. I implored God in my prayers, asking how I was meant to live now that I had been drawn into this faith that I neither wanted nor thought I needed. I learned that "they would know me" by the extent to which I was able to genuinely reflect the fruit of the Spirit on both the people I loved and those who annoyed me. Thus began the true journey - allowing myself to be transformed by the renewing of my mind, heart and soul in a way that results in my viewing every annoyance as an opportunity for me to further examine my lack of patience, understand its root and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit on how I might grow into the woman I am called to be.

Sometimes this involves setting and holding a boundary with someone who is asking for my time (which is always actually God's time). Other times it involves scrapping my schedule and making time for a lost soul. Growing in discernment and deepening my relationship with Jesus is the only way I can know the response I am meant to pursue in any given situation. If I used my level of patience with the difficult or negative person as the barometer for these decisions, I would miss many opportunities for service and personal growth that God has put in my path over the past 6 years.

I think that faith-based answers are wonderful, but parents also need to be able to respond to what the kids are hearing about celibacy from friends/others who are not making these decisions based upon faith. Messages about how women can "use" men or get things from them using their sexuality as currency. Messages about how much it would suck to wait for marriage and then be stuck with a guy who doesn't know what he is doing in bed. Messages about how going down on someone is not sex. This is what these young women are up against out there, but it appears to me (admittedly an ousider since I did not grow up in church) that people of faith have a tough time talking sex - especially the blow by blow details (pun noted, but not necessarily intended) with their girls. And, when and if they finally have the conversation, the girls are 15, 16 or older and are either already sexually active, or they have been talking about it in a different way for years. I think these girls would benefit from some frank stories from women who did the wrong thing - slept around, got pregnant, wished they had done it differently. Unfortunately the culture does not always allow for that kind of candor without repercussions -- real or imagined.

I am a first-time author with a book coming out in May, 2010 developing my marketing plan for its release. I am also a professor of marketing who did PR in NYC for 17 years. One of the greatest challenges with my clients was quantifying the value of a newspaper article - a commodity that, while they paid their agency or in house folks to procure it, they viewed as something that could have happened for free. Somehow, paying millions for advertising "felt" more valuable than a "free" front-page article in the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal or NY Times, all of which clearly had value. I've had this book on my "to read" list but my "to buy" budget is a little light. Getting free for free would be a nice treat.

If fear is a lack of faith, fearlessness is a reflection of a deep and abiding one. Your story is a powerful example of what it means to live in the freedom purchased at the cross. A freedom many exchange with or without intention for the illusion of control, stability and propriety. I commend you Carlos (and Heather if you are reading this). I also challenge you....didn't I read something somewhere about you "wanting to write a book some day"? :0)

Of course. May blog about it too...if I make it out alive :) All kidding aside, I think this God we serve loves us enough to prompt us to be where we need to be in order to forgive and to heal. My guess is that this very uncomfortable leading is that kind of a gift in the making.

Going to church tomorrow for the first time in many months. Returning to the same church where I converted to Christianity at age 37. The same church where I was falsely accused of something pretty heinous a couple of years ago. The same church where there are still some folks who refuse to say hello or acknowledge me when I meet them on the street even though I was completely vindicated when the elders learned that the accuser had done the same thing at a different church to a different worship leader. But that's where God is leading us to go, so I am going. Will be interesting to see what I am meant to learn.

In recovery one lives one day at a time, but there are certain milestones of sobriety (30 days, 90 days and subsequent anniversaries) that are celebrated. Many people (myself included) would prefer not to attend a meeting, stand in the front of the room, receive a coin and kind words, etc. but are told that the celebration is not for us - it is for the still sick, suffering or struggling person that might find a modicum of hope in the accomplishment of someone who was once a slave to substances finding freedom in sobriety. I have never considered the parallels between this and the example we set for our children as we celebrate (or fail to celebrate) life's milestones in other areas...

:)