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Not your average church lady


I spent this morning at Bible Study Fellowship where I'm a group leader. This afternoon, I spent 2 1/2 hours online shopping for supplies for a simulcast we are hosting at our church. More specifically, the simulcast is sponsored by our women's ministry - the ministry I volunteered to lead about a year ago. And then later this afternoon, I emailed & texted & called about a fundraising event our women's ministry is hosting in about 3 weeks. I had a conversation with our Pastor this evening. And just a short while ago, I worked on my Bsf lesson (while sipping my Cabernet).

And it hit me - a comical thought if there ever was one ...
I've become the church lady!!

Now isn't that special!
And crazy??!!

The 20-something Kathleen Bowen is certainly rolling over in her boozy or hung-over stooper and saying something like "What? Are you crazy? I haven't been to church in a really long time!"

And while I'm a long way from THAT 20-something version of myself, I'm certainly NOT your average church lady.

I say inappropriate (often funny) things. And sometimes they're even said in church or Bible study.

I enjoy my glass or two of wine. White in the summer and red the other 10 months (hey, I live in Michigan!).

I laugh at bawdy jokes. Watch TV shows with a MA rating (House of Cards, Law & Order SVU, Orange is the New Black) and read a lot of non-Christian literature. I'm politically liberal and a feminist (and think if Jesus were here now that he would be also).

Yet, here I am in leadership roles in church and studying the Word. The church lady.

And grateful to be here at this time in my life.
And that is special!

Comments

It's not a popularity contest, but ...

When an ass is so much more

  Body image. Body positivity.  Or about coming to an appreciation for a previously much maligned back end.  In junior high (that's middle school for all of you non boomers), I was given the nickname "big butt Bowen". It was a nickname that stung because I did indeed have a large ass. I tried to mask it, a difficult endeavor since the current fashion (and remember this is junior high when fitting in was paramount) was wearing hip hugger jeans with midriff tops and my disguise of choice were peasant blouses or dresses. That style choice earned an additional nickname, Mama Cass. For those of you that don't know who Mama Cass was, she was part of the Mamas and Papas and known for her beautiful voice but also for her large body.  All about Mama Cass I was cruelly nicknamed at a time when nicknames can really mess with a girl's psyche. And I spent a lifetime as that girl with the messed up psyche. I'm sure there are more than one of you out there that can relate. B

Peter Pan no more

                          It's time. Peter Pan had to grow up.  For nearly 18 months of his life, Matthew dressed in this costume. In this picture it's new, just out of the box. He picked the costume out of a catalog and when it arrived, two weeks prior to Halloween, he asked daily if today was the day he could finally wear his Peter Pan costume. He didn't like the hat and only wore it on Halloween, but the rest of the costume he wore daily! You read that correctly - DAILY. He wore it to Meijer (for those of you unfamiliar with Meijer, it's a cleaner, friendlier, more 'upscale' version of WalMart), to church, to play dates and preschool ... Heck, he was three and adorable and it worked for him!  (Yes you read that correctly, he even wore it to church on one or two occasions when it seemed arguing with a three year old about not wearing a costume to church was not a battle worth waging. He once mentioned the priests wore dresses . . . I don't think Joh

Cabin fever made me do it!

Like nearly ever person in West Michigan, I have a serious case of cabin fever.  I won't waste your time however, complaining about the two-hundred feet of snow that's fallen in the last two hours. I won't share about the twenty or thirty times I've had to shovel my walk today as gusts blew it right back in my face. And I certainly will not lament about the temperatures that hover around negative double digits making your nostrils freeze together within moments of stepping outside. To bore you with tales of how we have to shovel areas in our yard so that our large dog and can do his 'duty' because the snow is deeper than he is tall and dogs for whatever reason cannot poop in the same place twice, is not what I will share. You will not hear about how when I open the slider to let aforementioned dog outside, gusts of wind blow drifts of snow inside and require a shovel to once again close the door.  Nor will I share how some roads around here are drifted shut be