The Bible Through the Art of the Renaissance

The travel seminar is afoot! Dr. Johanna Bos, Artist-in-Residence Joanie Lerman, and a group of intrepid scholars are studying the art of the Renaissance in Italy and France, and grasping its connections to the interpretation of the Bible. Find out what they’re experiencing and learning at their BLOG, Travelseminar13.wordpress.com!

 

Seminar This Saturday!

We ARE looking forward to this seminar, which -- although it is shaping up to be one of our best-kept secrets of the year -- deserves to be well-attended!

 

Let me introduce myself.

Hi!  I’m Amy Hartsough, and I am the Student Coordinator for the Women’s Center this year.  Allow me to share with you three introductory facts about me:

1)  I’m a first-year M.Div. student at LPTS, in the ordination track with the PC(USA) — that’s the Presbyterian Church, USA.

2)  Today in chapel, I was reminded of the simple pleasures of honey, when I asked a friend to drizzle said substance on my communion bread.  (My hands were full, as I was holding an apple and a banana as well as the bread – the Table at LPTS is filled to point of overflowing, amen?)

3)  I am a coffee drinker.  I try to be a consumer of locally sold, fairly-traded coffee when I can.  But today, I made what might be a seasonal shift for me.  Today, I am drinking tea.  Carmel apple flavored tea with, you guessed it, honey, and a splash of milk.

So, now that we’ve been properly introduced — (I’m trusting our readers to leave comments introducing themselves!) — let’s talk a little bit about my presence on this blog.  Allow me to share something else about me, this time, some insight into my sense of passion and purpose.

I am passionate about language.  I remember reading one of Emily Dickinson’s poems in college; her words prompted a sort of mental “gasp” within me.  I “got” what she was saying.  It resonated with my own experience.  And then I thought, “how remarkable, that a woman in a particular time and place in the past wrote these words, and I’m reading them now, and they’re becoming my words — they’re about my life too.”  Since then, I’ve been fascinated by the way that human beings use language to create meaning and connections across these chasms of space and time.  As an English major, I became very aware of the privilage and power that I have because I know how to use words.  I can read, write and think about an endless number of things.  I can participate in so many conversations in my culture, because I have access to the tools of meaning-making.  I am a thinker, feeler, lover, friend, daughter, woman, human being.  And because I am also a student, speaker, writer, poet, liturgist, I am in a position to share my experiences with the world.  Or at least with particular parts of the world.

I continue to be in awe of the position in which I find myself.  As I continue in seminary, and with this blog, I hope to be guided by the unending purpose and hope of working towards the realization of a world in which all people’s voices are heard and celebrated, as mine has been and continues to be.

May it be so.

 

Coming Soon!

It's almost here!

Make sure to plan for the Monday After the Katie Geneva Cannon Lecture, September 19 — there is still room in the workshop with Traci West, “U.S. Christianity and Violence Against Women” — REGISTER ONLINE NOW for this event — which will be followed by lunch and closing worship in the Women’s Center.

Note that this Fall, the Katie Geneva Cannon Lecture comes first in a full schedule of Women’s Center events, which continues in September with:

Light + Lunch with Rev. Melissa DeRosia on Friday, September 23; Melissa will share the story that led to the publication of her new book, Girlfriend’s Guide to Minstry, over lunch in the Women’s Center.

Participation in the Louisville AIDS Walk on Sunday, September 25. Now is the time to JOIN TEAM WOMEN’S CENTER, WOMEN AT THE WELL, AND MORE LIGHT AT LPTS, and raise money that will benefit people living with HIV/AIDS and their families in the Louisville area. The Team will gather on Sunday, September 25 at 2:00 p.m. at the Belvedere for the walk, which gets underway at 3:00 p.m.

We are looking forward to a scintillating September — sparkling speech, setting fire to new ideas, and next steps.

Click here to help fill the Women's Center's cup.

There is still time to make sparks fly at the Women’s Center, before Summer Donation Days stop in September!

You can go to OUR ONLINE DONATION SITE, the LPTS Online Donation Site (designate your gift to the Women’s Center), or send your check payable to LPTS – WOMEN’S CENTER FUND to The Women’s Center at Louisville Seminary, 1044 Alta Vista Rd., Louisville, KY 40205.

Thank you!

 

Announcements!

There is a lot going on in the Women’s Center this week . . . maybe because even though the weather still feels like summer, the season is rushing to a close, fall is approaching, and with it a host of events that will focus out attention on gender, justice, and action.

Beginning today, Tuesday, July 26, it will be possible to join the team that is now being formed to raise funds for Louisville-area services for people with HIV/AIDS and their families (or donate to the effort, or both). The AIDS Walk happens this year on Sunday, September 25, starting at 1:00 p.m. at the Belvedere in downtown Louisville.

Wednesday, July 27, 12:30 p.m., the Katie Geneva Cannon Lecture Planning Group meets in the Women’s Center, to update and finalize plans for the lecture and the events on the following Monday. High on the agenda are handling next steps for publicity, reviewing developing plans for the Monday worship service, and encouraging committee members to prepare bios.

Wednesday, July 27, 7:30 p.m., the Transgender Day of Remembrance Task Force meets in the Women’s Center, to begin preparing for the Louisville area observance of the Transgender Day of Remembrance, November 20, and the Week of Awareness that precedes it.

Click here to help fill the Women's Center's cup.

Help keep the Women’s Center planning and programming, during our Summer Donation Days!

You can go to OUR ONLINE DONATION SITE, the LPTS Online Donation Site (designate your gift to the Women’s Center), or send your check payable to LPTS – WOMEN’S CENTER FUND to The Women’s Center at Louisville Seminary, 1044 Alta Vista Rd., Louisville, KY 40205.

Thank you!

 

The Longest Day

A long day in the sun

Today is the Summer Solstice — the longest day of the year. From here on in the days get progressively shorter. It’s as if we’re poised at the peak of the annual solar rolar coaster, about to throw our hands in the air for the descent into the short days of fall and the dark tunnel of winter.

That’s the solar calendar. On the liturgical calendar, we’re already a week into the long, long stretch of ordinary time that runs from Trinity Sunday, this past Sunday, through November’s celebration of the Reign of Christ Sunday and the beginning of Advent on the last Sunday in November — November 27 this year. If it’s true that “when you’re green, you’re growing,” these months of ordinary time should be a stretch of growth for those of us tuned in to the rhythms of the church year.

On the academic calendar, the bass beat for the dances of seminarians, teachers, and mothers of school-age children, this is still the heat of summer in every way. It’s the brief, intense time for team sports and competitions, summer camp with its provisioning, packing, and packing-off-to, tending to gardens, getting in some afternoons at the county pool or some hours at the local library. For some it’s the time of packing, moving, re-organizing and re-structuring, taking a deep breath and taking the plunge into a new movement of the dance.

In the Women’s Center we notice all these rhythms, as each day brings us closer to the events of the Fall: Katie Geneva Cannon Lecture, September 18, and the Post-Lecture Events of Monday, September 19; the Louisville AIDS Walk the following week, Sunday, September 25; a series of lunch-hour talks with Louisville-area clergywomen, on the delights and demands of life in a religious profession; the Transgender Day of Remembrance, Sunday, November 20; 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence (November 25 – December 10), for which we are hoping to do something . . . active; and of course, more fundraising, in the form of the Evening with the Stars Benefit, and the now-becoming-traditional Fall Arts and Crafts Sale.

We recognize that the days, even though they still seem long, sunny and warm, are growing shorter daily. We appreciate their tremendous potential for reflection, deliberation, learning, and growth. And we know that they are limited, and for that reason, precious: the summer doesn’t last forever. Nor would we want it to. One day in August, we know from experience, we will notice that leaning towards the fall that is anticipation and desire for its new beginning. For now, though, we are trying to make hay while the sun of this long day is shining, and to cultivate what is green and growing now, so that it will be fruitful, and nourishing, in the days to come.

Click here to help fill the Women's Center's cup.

Among the green and growing things we are cultivating this summer is our annual fund! You can help by making a contribution to the Women’s Center during our Summer Donation Days!

You can go to OUR ONLINE DONATION SITE, the LPTS Online Donation Site (designate your gift to the Women’s Center), or send your check payable to LPTS – WOMEN’S CENTER FUND to The Women’s Center at Louisville Seminary, 1044 Alta Vista Rd., Louisville, KY 40205.

Thank you!

 

Breakfast Brightness

Friends of the Women's Center breakfast today, May 3, 8:00 a.m., rain or shine!

Despite the rainy, gray, foreboding weather, a dozen or so Friends of the Women’s Center turned out for this year’s Friends of the Women’s Center Breakfast. Umbrellas may have lined our hallway, but the companionship, renewing of old acquaintances and making of new ones, and sharing of stories from seminary days and beyond occupied us all well past time for some of us to be on our ways to other events of these Festival of Theology and Reunion festivities.

It is always a privilege to be able to welcome the dedicated and talented women and men who call themselves Friends of the Women’s Center. This year we were particularly happy to have with us, once again, the Rev. Arch Taylor. Rev. Taylor’s recent generous grant to the Women’s Center in honor of the late Margaret Hopper Taylor made possible the series of seminars “Mending the World: the Margaret Hopper Taylor Seminars Challenging Domestic Violence.” These seminars were a centerpiece of the Women’s Center’s program this spring semester, and we are still celebrating the learning and insights they produced, and considering how to build on those.

We hope to be building on some of this morning’s conversations in the months to come, as well: looking into making further progress on the funding the long-anticipated Jane Krauss Jackson Award for Collaborative Ministry; cultivating connections between the Women’s Center and Presbyterian Women of Mid-Kentucky Presbytery; reflecting on the complexities of the current political situation; and collecting more of the stories of our foremothers who championed the cause of the Women’s Center and brought it into being.

We also look forward to seeing Michael Whitman’s pictures of the breakfast – which he assured us would not feature any actual eating.

All in all, for a gray and rainy Tuesday morning, this year’s Friends of the Women’s Center breakfast was a bright occasion.