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.

-----

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

50th Reunion Revelations

by Karen Mains

My 50th High School Class Reunion was full of all sorts of revelations:

• It helps that I had dropped 12 pounds, let my hair go white and found a new spiky hairdo. Nothing like physical confidence to help you face a crowd!
• Old friends are important. They have often accomplished surprising and amazing enterprises.
• Age, no matter what anyone says, is an huge advantage.
• Old boy friends remember their first loves fondly.
• Incarnational witness, backed with prayer, makes a huge difference in the world, even when we don’t know what is happening.
• Don’t avoid reunion events. Go and work the floor like you are campaigning. Don’t be afraid of asking the question, “What has your spiritual journey been like?” (People want to tell you!)

Hungry Souls Advent Retreat 2010

Hungry Souls Advent Retreat will be on December 1-2, 2010. The cost for the days, including a private room with bath and three meals is $120. If you register by October 1st, the early registration fee is $100. If you bring a friend who has never attended, the fee will be $90 for your friend and for yourself. You can begin early registration by e-mailing Susan Hands at info@hungrysouls.org.

Open Heart, Open Home by Karen Mains

Can a simple dinner party for the neighbors change the world? Karen Mains says, "Yes!".

And in Open Heart, Open Home show shows how. In this classic on Christian hospitality, Karen Mains steps far beyond how-to-entertain hints to explore a biblical and spiritual approach to using your home to care for others. This approach to hospitality can literally transform the fabric of your community and your world.

Whether you are a business executive or a homemaker, a professional minister or a layperson, a seasoned entertainer or an entertaining klutz, you will find here the encouragement and skills you need to reach out with the gospel through daily acts of acceptance, belonging and love.

Scriptural Hospitality

by Karen Mains

I always laugh inside I encounter Christians who consider the theology of hospitality to be a “woman’s issue.” Rather, practicing hospitality is the expression of a radical life view that often pierces to the heart of justice issues and demands of its practitioners a stance of either civil disobedience or some kind of cultural radicalism.

This is so important. Let me repeat: Hospitality is the expression of a radical life-view that often pierces to the heart of justice issues and demands of its practitioners a stance either of civil disobedience or of some kind of cultural radicalism.

One pastor once told me he couldn’t think of four sermons that he could preach on hospitality! I was amazed. I could spend a whole year sermonizing about this topic.

Let me illustrate. Scriptural hospitality should be the basis of the church’s position on the knotty immigration issues that now face our nation. Instead, we are caught in debates that have nothing to do with Christian conversations but everything to do with personal opinions. For Christians, the dialogue should begin with, “What does the Scripture have to say about this issue?” This may be due to the fact that our premises are faulty—we assume the Bible has nothing to say about this contemporary issue (according to statistics, some 200 million people are on the move globally!) In fact, the truth is diametrically opposite—Scripture has everything to say about the immigration issue, and the sheer volume of passages alone should inform our thinking about how we treat the immigrants (legal and illegal) among us. Read more at Hungry Souls...