Posted by Allison Cambre on September 03, 2022 at 01:04 PM in Church, Religion | Permalink | Comments (0)
I put out on YouTube recently, a fairly dense version of my reasons for staying United Methodist. Here I am breaking up that video into five discrete units. The first three are here.
Here is the beginning and a touch on some of the historical standards of the church. There are four:
Download ProlegomenonAndDoctrinalStandards
Section two deals with the Bible
Section three deals with the episcopacy and Jesus Christ
Download Episcopacy & Jesus Christ
Posted by Allison Cambre on September 03, 2022 at 12:05 PM in Church, Ministry, Religion, Self-defined | Permalink | Comments (0)
I had a friend by the name of Jack Kellam, God rest his soul. But one of the things I noticed about him was that whenever he got a piece of important information on a piece of paper, or maybe some inventory list, or packing list, and didn’t want to deal with it at the moment, he would, without hardly opening the drawer, slide it into the middle drawer of his desk where it would be safe.
I really don’t know if he ever went through that drawer.
Ever.
I have a rather large desk that is in my study. It’s got seven drawers that face where I sit down, and it also has a very large center drawer that is shallow. I, too, like Jack, have oftentimes put stuff in there thinking that one day I am going to go through it, and rarely ever do.
I had some inspiration the other night from who
knows where, and took out the drawer and walked into my living room and just turned it over on my living room Berber rug. It took me two different days to try to sort through it all.
I know I had over 45 pens and pencils which were all of good quality. I had dozens of paper pads that I have gotten in the mail from non-profit organizations. I always kept those, thinking I might need to take one out and write some note on it, but I never did. I instead would get some envelope on the top of my desk and write on the back of it whatever I was talking about on the phone, or doing some quick figuring. I also had bolt parts to shelves, ear buds I’ve never used, lots and lots of calling cards that I fool myself into thinking I better keep these just in case. I’ll bet I’ve got close to 100 of those! A bag full of twisty ties. The scroungiest paper clips you ever saw, even though I have also a package of brand new paper clips as well, etc.
I threw a lot away. But if you had not seen it before, you’d look at it now and wonder why I was so messy.
Posted by Allison Cambre on August 05, 2022 at 03:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Posted by Allison Cambre on March 30, 2019 at 11:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Since I am retired, once a month or so, I volunteer to put in some time toward helping the staff out with pastoral care needs. While Marvin UMC is a big church (3000+ members), we are tilted toward the upper end of the age spectrum. Hence there are far more pastoral care needs to attend to than the clergy on the staff can possibly get done.
Each time when I set out to do this, there are usually 30 names or so to choose from. I try to see who has had some minimal pastoral care work in the last 30 days, and then I set out to write three people, call three people, and visit three people. I never really know who I am going to pick in these categories ahead of time.
One of the people I called had cancer. They were trying a stem cell replacement in their bone marrow. It's really dicey. I shared that I also was undergoing cancer treatment. They immediately opened up about how hard it was on them. Having to be in Dallas for 7 more weeks as they had to be within half an hour of the hospital if things suddenly went bad. It was like being in prison in some ways. They apologized for getting into so much detail about their condition with me, and said they knew I didn’t call to listen to their troubles, and what did I really want? I said I wanted nothing from them. I knew they were on our prayer list and just wanted to touch base with them. They were surprised. When I call people, I rarely know if anything is wrong or not. All I really know is that they haven’t been in church for a while.
Another person that I actually went to see, opened up about their fear that their child was an alcoholic. “Is pushing them down, really the best option?” That’s a tough one, because ordinarily the answer is, more often than not, a “yes” to that one. I said that this parent had to learn to become exceedingly well self-defined—to love their child, yes, but to not enable their child. I didn’t know where the conversation was going to go. I had never met this person in my life, yet I told them that in my last church that I pastored, we had an exceptional program in place to help women with their addictive issues.
When I volunteer every so many weeks, I never know what people I am going to meet or talk to, and it always surprises me that I might be the very person they need to hear an encouraging word from. In fact, I realize in those moments I am but a tool that God uses to reach out to others. That’s a very humbling position to be in.
Posted by Allison Cambre on August 09, 2018 at 10:23 PM in Church, Compassion, Family, Feelings, God, Health, Relationships, Self-defined | Permalink | Comments (0)
I am a veteran acting in over 20 plays. But for the first time ever this year, I was asked to fill in a role
for Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, put on by Tyler Junior College's Academy of Dance. Ballet, while performed on a stage like a play is, is nevertheless a horse of another color. Completely.
“How so?” You may ask.
Well, let me count some of the ways:
1) Tchaikovsky’s music is sheer genius. I don’t see how one man could possibly come up with so many memorable tunes. It is astounding and stunning. While musicologists, I suppose, would say that Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven are his superiors, nevertheless, there is a magical element in Tchaikovsky's compositions that blow me away. Mozart’s tunes are also so memorable. The only thing I can conclude is that all of these men were somehow such sensitive spirits that they were able to channel music that was coming to them from a higher realm. I just cannot buy that their genius in music was solely the product of some human initiative or intuition.
2) Our cast for the Nutcracker had over 150 people in it.
I’ve never been in a play with that many. Kids were everywhere. Stage moms were running to and fro trying to corral their little darlings, yet they and the two principals that we hired all did a really fantastic job. The coordination, the choreography blows me away. Choreography is my absolute weakest suit with doing anything on stage, and all these dancers poured their hearts out. I would smile as I watched them give their all, knowing that what they were doing, I could never do. I marveled at their art and their singular focus to give the very best. As soon as they came off stage into the wings, some looked like they wanted to collapse, but going out again under the lights, you would never know it. They were once again in character making a valuable part of the story come to life.
3) I never knew how noisy pointe shoes were till I was up close and personal with them on stage. Whoa!
4) While the principals were dancing on stage, people in the wings were shouting paeans of affirmation and applauding their every move. I was astonished to put it mildly. In the theater of which I am accustomed, you would never do that kind of a thing. But in this instance it seemed more like fans rooting for their favorite players out of the boards!
5) When I was conscripted to take the part I did, I was looking for a director who was serious, hard charging, impatient, demanding, somewhat sarcastic, trying to push and motivate her dancers to do better than they had ever done, with zero toleration for any miscues or mistakes. In fact, when I first met Carolyn Hanna , I thought, she can’t possibly be the director. She’s too nice, too pretty, too laid back, too comforting, too empathetic, etc.
Then I read about her.
She studied at Julliard? No way! Those people are too full of themselves, allowing the basic snobbery with which people who inhabit NYC look upon the rest of the world. Not Carolyn Hanna. But it was Carolyn Hanna. I came to understand that she was the bowsprit figurehead who would calm the turbulent waters of anxiety with her experienced insights, her subtle coaching that “You can do this.” Her calm, collected self-defining behavior imparted health and a greater resolve to do even better next time, to the entire cast.
6) Ballet is a wonderful artistic medium
that can stir all sorts of passion not only in the dancer, but also in the individual and collective audience member(s). If you’ve never been to one, put it on your bucket list. I still marvel at how the thighs of the ballerinos
look like football players, yet they are as graceful and energetic as any human being I’ve ever seen.
Posted by Allison Cambre on December 09, 2017 at 09:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Well, I have finally begun to accept the idea that no one is going to ask me to teach in seminary.
So, I have thrown out notes that I took over 40 years ago on courses like "Church and World", "Theological Method", "Systematic Theology", "Hebrew I", "Greek I" etc.
It was fun sifting through some of the notes and comments of my own teachers had put on my papers, but I can recognize that I probably should have done this long ago.
I had one binder that was probably 4 inches thick of notes and papers. I've whittled it down to two inches.
Posted by Allison Cambre on June 26, 2017 at 10:10 PM in Feelings, Growing Up, Ministry, Religion, Seminary | Permalink | Comments (0)
My gosh, I can’t believe it has been five years (to the day, no less). No one wants tomes; they want sound bites, hence the popularity of Twitter, which is being eclipsed by Snapchat (and now that I sent my youngest son one, he has sworn off that.)
Posted by Allison Cambre on April 04, 2017 at 09:24 PM in Change, Church, Compassion, Current Affairs, Politics | Permalink | Comments (2)
Oh, she was w-a-a-a-a-a-y out of my league. But I had always admired her from afar. She was a cheerleader at Beaumont High. She went to the church I grew up in— Trinity UMC. She sang in our youth choir. For a period of time she was in MYF when Patsy Quested was there and Al Frost and others. She would volunteer as a junior high kid to work with the Vacation Bible School kids in the summer. In 1967 she was the Neches River Festival Queen. But I just found out last night that Debbie Thomason has died.
I do not know all of her claims to fame. What I remember was that she played the part of the girl, Luisa, in the Beaumont Community Players rendition of the Fanastaicks, back in the ‘60's. Until she landed that role, I did not really know that that troupe even existed. It shows you how sheltered I was. The reviews she got were raving. The first play I was in, For Heaven’s Sake, she was in as well.
I can’t get over that she has died.
She was one of Dean Martin’s Golddiggers and toured with USO. She was a charmer to be very, very sure.
I remember her parents, M. V. and Clarice. They seemed older to me as a child, and perhaps they had her later in life. I never really knew. What I did know was that she was larger than life—energetic, infectious, mesmerizing, coltish, stunning, beautiful, alluring.
I just can’t believe that she is gone.
Good bye, Debbie. I’ll see you down the road.
Posted by Allison Cambre on May 12, 2012 at 08:57 AM in Beaumont, TX, Change, Church, Compassion, Drama, Feelings, Relationships | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted by Allison Cambre on February 04, 2012 at 09:12 PM in Church, Current Affairs, Politics, Relationships | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
Tags: humility, President of the United States of America, surprises