Friends and Strangers by Karen Mains

Friends and Strangers is a collection of essays Karen Mains wrote when she first began to recognize the divine interplay that often occurred when meeting strangers. Some of the chapter titles include “The Loneliest Man I Ever Met,” “Guess Who Came to St. Patrick’s Day Dinner?”, “Writer Without Words,” and “A Comfortably Rumpled Advocate.”

Close Encounters of the Casual Kind

by Karen Mains

For my birthday last week, David and I used our Metro Regional Transportation Authority “Seniors Ride Free” passes to go into Chicago. Rumor has it that the state legislature is going to cancel this program since Illinois is facing one of the worst budget deficits among the 50 states so we are trying to employ these passes as much as possible before the hatchet falls.

Last spring, because of the fact that Riccardo Mutti was named the new artistic director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, my husband purchased a series of tickets, which are serving as our anniversary, Christmas, birthday, and Valentine’s Day gifts. We arrived at Ogilvie Station on January 19, where a bitter biting wind forced us to catch a taxi. Consequently, we had an hour to spend in the Art Institute (where the Chagall stained-glass windows have been cleaned and reinstalled) before our dinner reservation. At 6 p.m. we hustled across Michigan Avenue to have dinner at the Russian Tea Time Restaurant.

How to choose from Ukrainian Borscht, Eggplant/Zucchini Duet, Lamb Samsa or Pumpkin Vareniky? David leaned over to the woman eating alone at the table beside ours and asked, “Do you have anything on the menu you especially enjoy?” That was the beginning of an enchanting table conversation with this woman who had grown up on the South Side of Chicago, spent her career teaching at South Shore High School, resides now in retirement at the family home in Saugatauk, Michigan, but makes regular trips back into the city where she keeps a condo in her old neighborhood. Read full article at Hungry Souls.

Message of Christianity

by Karen Mains

“So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” 1 John 4:16 NRSV.

This is the message of Christianity that we too often forget. It is not the protestors standing on the fringe of gravesites protesting gay lifestyles. It is not the self-righteous judgments of television evangelists. It is not the angry denunciations of self-appointed “prophets”. It is unaccountable acts of loving sacrifice that make a difference in the world. It is shared homes and meals. It is kind words spoken in harsh environments. It is forgiveness offered to persecutors. It is two people who work, for the sake of the God of love, to make a marriage succeed. It is weariness because of well doing. It is giving of one’s means. It is an overwhelming body of evidence that there are people in society who actually have known and believe the love God has for them, who abide in that love and consequently abide in God and He in them.

I Wish I Could Take Credit For

by Karen Mains

I wish I could take credit for making the decision not to have television in the house.

But the truth is, one of the children dropped the portable television set. We had bought this with the idea that we could put it away in a closet when it was not being used. Well, that never happened.

I set up all sorts of controls—a chart beside the television for the children to record the amount of time they watched television and what they watched; a rule that homework had to be done before television; a limit on viewing. We even had a Saturday-morning-cartoon violence-tracking chart—but none of this worked well. It didn't because television regulation required that I be the television vice squad, something not suited to my style of discipline. Indeed, the greatest viewing offender in our household was I! I am a latent television addict. So when one of the kids dropped the darn thing and it broke, we decided not to replace it and to go cold-turkey TV-withdrawal instead.

And do you know what?—it was one of the best decisions we ever made for the life of our family—not to mention my own intellectual and spiritual development. Read more at Hungry Souls...

The Fragile Curtain by Karen Mains

The Fragile Curtain by Karen Mains won the Christopher Award given for works that exemplify the highest values of humanity.

In this deeply moving book, join Karen on her very personal journey through the crowded refugee warehouses of the world. She went to write about the pain and suffering of these people. Instead they showed her the meaning of her own life. The sacredness of family. The miracle of love. The hope of birth—and death.

Karen dares us all to look at our own lives; to assess the good—and the bad. To celebrate the joy and the blessing of family life. To be thankful that despite sorrow and suffering we dare to begin again.

Listening Groups Start in February 2011

Karen Mains is gathering material to put a book on Listening Groups together and would love to journey from February 2011 through eight months until September with people who wish training as Listening Group leaders. This will keep her mind in the Listening Group mode and in dialogue with people who feel strongly about this spiritual exercise.

Her covenant is to have the first draft of the book written by September 2011.

As usual, the groups will consist of 3-4 members; we will meet once a month at the Mains’ home in West Chicago, IL. The meetings will last 2 1/2 hours, but will include training and hands-on activity with each participant taking turns leading the group. Karen is a small-group specialist, certified by Riva Institute as a focus group moderator.

We will be looking at the neurobiology of well-being cuased by the listening process, at how to ask good questions, at how to guard the architecture of the listening process, at how to create safety in a group, etc.

The fee for this 8-month journey is $125. If you are interested, contact Susan Hands at Mainstay Ministries at info@hungrysouls.org

A Prayer Said During A High School Reunion

Our Heavenly Father, We come to you at this cycle of our lives, our later years.

We remember those, friends and companions, who have been in our midst, but who are now gone. We thank you for the part of their lives that we have shared, however brief or however joyful. Let us remind ourselves, because of them, that each day is a gift, not a promise, to be lived as beautifully as possible within our abilities and our means.

Thank you for the fleeting marvels in each moment, for the solaces of friendship, for the continuing miracle of love coming into our lives, sometimes unexpectedly, sometimes through the touch of a child or the embrace of another human, sometimes in the overwhelming reality that You approve of who we are or of what we do.

Thank you for laughter through the years and for those events, small or large, that bring us delight.

Thank you for mercy in the midst of suffering, for comfort when we are afraid or distressed, for sleep that eases our sorrows.

Thank you that we have danced, that we have celebrated, that we have sung and praised, that we have been privileged to live deeply in a time of amazing advancements.

Thank you that many of us have had meaningful work in our days.

Thank you that some of us have made a difference for good in our world.

We are sorry for the times that we have disappointed You, or abandoned others, or betrayed our own selves. Forgive us, please, and help us to do better.

Bless us this evening, we pray. Give us joy in meeting again. Give us tenderness for those who struggle. Help us to be kind in word and deed. Grant that we may be alive with curiosity. And as we leave one another, perhaps never to meet again, help us to wish one another peace—peace for living and peace for dying.

We pray this in Your name: in the name of the Father, and of His Son, Jesus Christ. May we use the time still left to us, through the help of the Holy Spirit, to be more than we thought possible. Amen.

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This prayer was prepared and said by Karen Mains during her 50th high school reunion.