I create, therefore I am

Inspiration informs creativity. Creativity informs creation.

I have been a creative person all my life, a dabbler in many arts, fine or otherwise. I've sculpted in clay, I've created jewelry with saws and sandpaper, I've built wood projects, I currently crochet, I write.

Our "Father"

Tomorrow is Father's Day, and I'm calling the day after our Other Fathers' Day. There's so many ways to honor our collective and individual "other Fathers".

Food and Spirit

The power of the sun feeds the plant helpers, the algae, moss and fern, that in turn feeds the fish and animals, birds and all of these, every creature and creation on earth that can be consumed whether for fuel, supplies, or for food, is at times consumed by humans.

The holistic concept

When I was studying herbalism, 20 years ago, my teachers Robin Rose Bennett and Susun S. Weed would point out the roots of the word "holistic" as being "whole" and "holy".

Remembering

Memorial Day is a time of remembering, so I thought I would write about memory itself.

I have a particular psychological disorder that affects perception and memory. On the spectrum of this disorder, I am for all intents and purposes minimally impacted, but there are ways that my peculiar way of storing memories impacts my daily existence.

Inner Voice or Outer Voice

In meditation we get quiet with ourselves.

When we are quiet, we can access messages that are not usually accessible. Some may call it our "conscience" or our "intuition", some may simply think it's another layer of our own thoughts.

It's all in the Mind

In the normal modern consciousness, we are often caught up in the next moment, the next day, the next week. We’re always planning and preparing, thinking through the future, criticizing our past, reminiscing, acting in habit while our mind wanders elsewhere. A mindfulness meditation is the opposite and cure for the act of living outside the moment. A mindfulness meditation involves being completely in the current moment, acting with deliberation and clear consciousness, bringing the mind back time and again to the present and what is actually going on. This is a tool we should all have in our consciousness arsenal. There are times to plan, and times to focus on the present moment. It is possible to find a place in every moment where you are completely aware of your surroundings and your place within them, and of nothing else. We should each take some daily action without being focused on what we’re about to do, or going over what we’ve already done. The act of being fully present to what you’re doing helps relax us and calm the mind. This quiet time for our mind can bring us to profound peace with the world and with whatever is going on right now in our lives. Please join us this Monday evening at 5pm EST for Let’s Heal the World Together and we’ll discuss our experiences with mindfulness meditations.

Taking care of our Mother

On Mother's Day we celebrate our individual mothers, the beautiful wonderful women who perhaps brought us or our parents or grandparents into theworld, who scrubbed the crayons off our childhood bedroom walls, who soaked the gum out of our hair and who cried as we walked down the aisle -- whether for kindergarten graduation, college graduation, as the bride or bride's maid, or carrying the casket of a friend who went off to war and didn't come home. Perhaps we were celebrating the beautiful woman who brought our child into the world or nurtures our children. With the weight of life's roller coaster on each of our shoulders, there's one Mother to us all who bears the weight of every one of us, both in resource and in spirit. Our Mother Earth. I know we have "Earth Day" but that's a planetary garbage awareness day, a day for reusable shopping bags and ecopreneur shows, and quickly being commoditized. We need a day to honor our spiritual global Mother, and by extension the connection we share with each other, regardless of our species. And it would be nice if that day didn't require reusable bags and trade shows. Do something simple to give back to Our Mother. A simple healing or prayer, as her blood is spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, sending her love, giving her a giant hug, welcoming and loving all her creatures, donating to the World Wildlife Fund, thinking peaceful thoughts, walking barefoot, or whatever you can think of and join us on Let's Heal the World Together on Monday evening at 5pm EST to talk about our connection through Mother Earth.

Heads of State

I try to read the Hudson Valley Business Journal, but for the last couple years I’ve mostly been breezing past titles of doom & gloom. The March 3rd front page: “County execs want to change the way the state does business” however the article turns out a quick skim shows leaders in my state (New York) playing games with people’s money and security. Inside we have stories about Restaurant Week (which is promising for tourism in the county) and for the shutting down of state parks, which is REALLY BAD for local tourism and taxpayer morale. A true sign of state-wide panic in a state that is absolutely gorgeous and truly worth seeing and desperately needs tourist’s money. I could teach government something about panic vs. peace vs. passion. Panic is putting us where we are now, panic is keeping us there, and since panic is contagious it’s no wonder that the panic of our leadership is filtering down to the personal household and individual level. Stop making decisions out of panic. If government is panicked about money, of course individuals are going to panic about money. Then the economy tanks -- how many times did the HVBJ cite falling tax and sales tax revenues? I saw several and I didn’t finish reading any of the articles I started reading except the upbeat one about Restaurant Week. Lessons from running great businesses come into play here. Let’s just take the idea of what makes a great leader -- whether it’s business or government. Leaders can be afraid inside, but a great leader leads with passion, not with panic. Democrat or republican, I am not saying who should have the Chief Executive position in our federal government. Changing the head of our nation won’t get us anywhere if the leader can’t inspire those under him (and a lot of the decision about who is under the president is out of his hands and instead it’s in our hands as voters!). The lay of the land in the United States sets up a very odd dynamic. Each state is, in true Constitutional terms, a sovereign entity. These states are governed under a central body of rules that provide ties between the states and lowers the barriers to inter-state commerce & travel, similar to what the European Union is now attempting to do. So on a state-wide level, this calm passionate and inspiring leadership must be seen in our governors and legislators. I’m afraid these qualities aren't why we vote people into office. We vote people in based on their campaign promises, so-called experience and their track records. It’s made a circus out of our political scene. I’d rather have someone I didn’t agree with 100% who isn’t a tyrant, had a calm & cool head on their shoulders and a vision to live into of what I can at least generally agree is a better future than someone who knows which corporate or lobbying interests to brownnose, how to hide his fooling around from the media and his wife and plays a great political game flipping their opinions at a moment’s notice and no idea or goal for what the future might be like other than increasing his own salary whether or not at the expense of others. A terrific business has a vision, a mission and a clear idea of whom they serve. Our country has none of that to my knowledge at this time. With so much divisiveness about who we are, what to do and where we’re heading, it’s no wonder our politics are corrupted and sick. Who are these pitiful individuals in our government trying to represent? They’re a reflection of us. The divisiveness and selfishness runs right down to you, me and our neighbors. The Constitution had some very clear missions, clear ideas of whom to serve, and we’ve padded it with so much political nonsense that it’s lost almost all of its meaning. The keys are in the preamble. To paraphrase: Who are we? We are the people of the United States. What is our mission? Providing justice and ensuring domestic peace while providing for the common defense and promoting general welfare and liberty for ourselves and our every generation of our children. Wow. Compare this with what’s going on now? We treat our own citizens as enemies. As individuals, we treat our neighbors as enemies. We take care of ourselves today and to hell with our children’s children. Instead of defending our own nation, we’re being presumptuous and babysitting the entire world with or without the blessings of the United Nations (and often without the blessings of the voting population either). We’ve forgotten the meaning of Liberty as a country, and happily enforce our ideas of what is right on others without giving them the freedom to define their own idea of liberty. I think we should have liberty to do as we please until the point at which it is infringing on the idea of domestic tranquility. So yeah, speed limits are a pretty good thing, but gays should be able to get married. In any case, the passion with which our forefathers crafted this brilliant document has been lost in a sea of selfishness and panic. If we get back to passion, compassion, love, neighborliness, and get our collective act together it would help a lot. Top-down change needed: Passion and calm directed reassurance. Bottom-up change needed: Security and peace. If the leaders can get passionate about providing for individual’s safety and security, calm and peace will follow, spending will increase, businesses will hire, taxes will increase. The more you panic and shut down spending the worse this situation will get. That’s not saying to spend what you don’t have but to choose what not to fund with a PLAN for a future that’s sustainable and with compassion for the people you serve. Cutting medicaid and closing parks won’t do it. WHY is medicaid costing so much? WHY are the parks costing so much? I want to see one leader stand up and say “Money is tight in our budget. I have some money socked away, so I’m voluntarily reducing my salary because I can’t stand asking everyone else to tighten their belts unless I’m willing to do it too.” Fear. Is. Contagious. Namasté, Rev. Criss

Awakenings

It’s always around this time of year that I really can feel the world awakening around me. Even though there’s still snow on the ground, there’s buds on the trees, the birds are back, and the world is ready to bring forth fruit again. Many people also start to wake up -- in the spiritual sense -- around this time. Like, “Helloooooo! Life here....what’cha been doing lately?” Aerosoles sent me a “Spring Awakening” discount code. I’m making plans for more events, even ones out of my house! I’m going to have not one, but 3(!) new (shared) offices to have client meetings and hold workshops and group coaching in. And I’m starting a new networking group for the holistic community. It’s Spring Cleaning time -- I haven’t really touched the house, though. I’ve been cleaning up my business. All sorts of new behind-the-scenes technology fiddling going on, planting seeds for a year of growing and harvesting the fruits of my labor. And the people I’ve been working with for years are bearing fruit -- like fine fruit trees take years to come to harvest, these ladies have been digging deep deep roots, but WOW the changes, the new excitement of spring, the plans coming to fruition, the ability to reach out and give such enormous value to others that it is a pleasure to exchange money for it. Many of us are hitting 5 years in business, the very start of “adulthood” for most of our little babies. The real trick is not to pour every ounce of your energy into it, but to choose wisely how to give to your projects without losing focus on yourself. A certain amount of moderation is in order, as is knowing what energy to put into your projects. That’s what I’ve been teaching in my teleseminars. Namasté, Rev. Criss

Udon with Spicy Ginger Sauce

Ok, this is for my SCA friends who helped us cook for that Medieval event I mentioned. They might remember this one....

3 tbsp oil
3 tbsp rice vinegar
1 1/2 tbsp soy sauce (low sodium)
1 tbsp sesame oil
2 tsp ginger (fresh, peeled & minced)
2 cloves garlic (fresh, minced)
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp crushed red pepper
2 green onions, thinly sliced
1/2 cucumber (peeled, seeded & chopped)
1/4 c parsley (fresh, chopped)

Whisk all ingredients to blend in a large bowl. Refrigerate. Serve cold with chilled Japanese noodles, such as Udon (cook as directed). Original recipe called for 1 carrot shredded, omitted for Medieval event.

Creamed Cheese Spinach

Another recipe requested by my ex-roommate....


LOADS of baby spinach, without stems. The more the merrier, it really reduces when cooked. (20 oz of spinach approximates 2 cups of packed spinach and when it reduces you'll be disappointed)

Steam & strain spinach, then chop and squeeze out liquid.

5 tbs butter, softened
1/4 c flour
1/4 tsp salt (optional)
1 c half & half
4 oz cream cheese
2 tbs minced onion (or fresh)
1 tbs minced garlic (or fresh)
1/4 c parmesan

In a medium saucepan:
-melt 3tbs butter over low heat
-stir in flour & salt until creamed (smooth)
-slowly add half & half, then cream cheese & increase heat to medium
-whisk together until thick & smooth, set aside
-sauté onion & garlic in remaining butter until transparent
-add spinach to pan on low heat, stir
-add cheese sauce and parmesan cheese, stir until blended.

Balsamic Roasted Vegetables

By popular demand by my recently removed roommate: A Russian roasted vegetable recipe adapted for Medieval ingredients. For a New World version substitute potatoes for turnips, carrots for parsnips. This is one of the recipes served a zillion years ago at a Medieval event thrown by a proposed Brooklyn, NY canton in the SCA.


3 medium turnips (or one rutabaga) peeled and cut into 1 1/2 inch pieces
1 medium red onion cut into wedges
6 small parsnips (or carrots) peeled and sliced into 1 1/2 inch pieces (or 2 cups peeled winter squash, 1-inch pieces)
2 fennel bulbs cut into wedges (or 6 celery stalks but much better with fennel!)
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
3 tbs olive oil
1 tsp fennel seed, crushed (or dried rosemary crushed)
fresh rosemary (garnish, optional)

Lightly grease a 15 1/2 x 10 1/2 inch, 2 inch deep roasting pan. In the pan combine turnips, parsnips, fennel and onion. In a mixing bowl stir together balsamic vinegar, olive oil, sugar, crushed fennel seed, salt & pepper. Drizzle over vegetables.

Bake uncovered in 450-degree oven for 45-50 minutes or til turnips and onions are tender, stirring twice (or more) during baking. To serve transfer to a serving bowl... if desired garnish with fresh rosemary.

Importance of Language

I've changed my website branding, the subtitle of my upcoming book (now Healer in the Hotseat: Rekindling energy for your burning desires), my seminar & workshop titles to talk about "energy management" rather than "burnout". I realized that people aren't able to "get it" when I'm talking about "burnout". Whether out of self-defense, denial, or misunderstanding the language, they don't relate to the term burnout. The people who needed the workshop haven't changed. Their problems haven't changed. In fact, my workshops haven't changed. I'm just changing the package the workshop is wrapped in so that people have a better chance of "getting it". It should have been obvious to me: I had no idea that I was on the road to burnout until I was reading the literature. That's not what I would have called it. I have people coming to my workshop on Friday (now called 9 Keys to Energy Management) because they have been listening to me and realize they're on that road. It's like I'm the pied piper or something. But just like the pied piper, there's a danger of falling off the cliff when calling it "burnout" too. It sounds too absolute, too final, too pessimistic, although I transform not only the symptoms of burnout but the term burnout itself into a positive in my workshops. Before my workshop in that space where people acknowledge that they need my classes, I don't want them to depress themselves or feel fear of what they're going through. Exhaustion and overwhelm are enough, I'm not trying to cause people to prematurely hit rock bottom. Changing the title means I don't have to work against days or weeks of suffering with the notion that one is at the end of their proverbial rope. My SURRENDER™ system isn't just about burnout; it's about managing your energy. Every day we transact energy with the universe. Those of us in most balance may be sourcing some of our energy outside ourselves. Others are trying to get water from sand in a desert and are too depleted to go on much longer. So on this note, for a limited time you can sign up on my mailing list and get "Transforming Burnout into a Burning Desire" -- the recording of a conference call on October 6th that includes some exercises from my book. Last night I had a teleseminar titled "Introduction to Energy Management" which is a 1 hour version without exercises. Once it's ready I'll be swapping the Introduction to Energy Management audio in the place of the burnout audio.

Thinking Bigger: Worldwide Calls

With no small thanks to Michael Port (creator of the Book Yourself Solid 15 week course I'm currently enrolled in, author of The Think Big Manifesto that I'm currently reading -- and the leader of the revolution via the website http://thinkbigrevolution.com ), a nodding acknowledgement to Peter Gabriel (Big Time), I am thinking bigger and bigger. Many of you know that I've been a holistic healer for many years, and that's one reason I've always extended a discount for my services to holistic professionals. You may not have known that I have been an ordained Interfaith minister for over 10 years, although if you've been reading this blog you should be aware of that as well. I've decided that I am going to practice (and preach) what I preach more often: unconditional love, non-discriminatory healing of anyone and anything, raising the bar on planetary awareness. This is part of my personal Think Big Revolution. Now it's on your doorstep. "Whatcha gonna do 'bout it?" Sorry, you can move the girrl outta Brooklyn butcha can't take da Brooklyn outta da girrl. Here's what you can do about it: Get on the calls! Not interested? Get someone else on the calls! You know the type -- they think they can help people, heal people, save people. Maybe they're even doing their part already. Invite them to this call. My ultimate goal is to make sure the healers are taking care of themselves. How better to do that than to have them share with each other about how they work, what they're up to, getting help with the work, sharing the burden. In my self-examination in Michael's Book Yourself Solid course, I realized WHY I want to work with holistic healers. My answer to why: "I can't heal the world alone!" Well, duh, of course not. But maybe all the other healers are thinking the same thing! So get them on the call -- because if we can't heal the world alone, we can heal the world together! Hence the "Let's Heal the World Together!" Collaboration Calls are born! Let's Heal the World Together - free collaborative calls* Motivation - Connections - Group Healings Mondays: August 17, August 24, August 31 Time: 5pm EST, 2pm PST Get together on a conference call with healers from around the world to talk about how we can raise awareness of healing modalities and collaborate together to perform group healings to help people all over the world. Everyone is welcome - this is free, you don't need to be a holistic practitioner or healer to participate on the calls. All modalities of healing welcome. Please invite other healers to the call! if the calls are successful, they will become a regular offering! Register for the call here. *This is not a toll-free call. You must cover the expense of connecting to the call. The call is in the USA area code 530. For now only the first 50 people can be on the call, but we'll have the ability to have break outs into smaller groups to have intimate discussions. If you're too busy to join the calls, I'm going to try to record them and offer recordings to my mailing list for free after-the-fact, so be sure to sign up on the mailing list!

Follow Your Burning Desire - without burning out

I've been working on a proper marketing plan for Liberated Life Coaching and following a path that seemed to resonate with me, and I ended up in the category of burnout in the holistic practitioner market.

It was an interesting cubby, I thought, as a life and business coach, to help practitioners identify and manage burnout. There's a reason these things happen. Call it Law of Attraction, synchronicity, kismet, coincidence, what have you: I'm pondering dozens of articles about burnout, printing them, making mindmaps of a variety of concepts on my whiteboard, digesting all this information.

When I got to the second article, or was it the third, I stopped in my tracks. That veil of ignorance or is it denial suddenly fell down and I was looking at a profile of myself on paper. Signs & symptoms of burning out vary from person to person, but enough of them fit my former incarnation as a web designer that I realized that I was at minimum at very high risk if I had not already succumbed.

I won't go into all the symptoms here and now, the list is tremendous, but I checked in with my life coach, Sheila Pearl about it.

So our meeting this week was an overview exploration of my burning out, whether complete or in-progress, and what I needed to do to start getting un-burnt.

Causation or correlation, no matter, when you burn out you are no longer living your dreams, no longer taking care of yourself, not maintaining a steady energy and beneficial stress (eustress) level, and you are succumbing to exhaustion, lack of motivation, distractions, and sometimes a sense of fight (gripe) or flight (change careers, change cubicles, something).

I have an extreme problem in how I frame my "to do" list. It's my "Do I have to?" list. It's full of should's, have to's, musts, someone will get upset with me unless...but on the other hand the entire list, top to bottom, are things that I decided, wittingly or not, to accept onto my plate. How something I've said "yes" to (even if only by not saying "no" to it) suddenly transforms into this heavy weight of obligation is beyond me, but it does.

I recognize that I did the same at my last employer too. At every weekly meeting, I was given a few more things "to do" aside from requests that came in from staff during the week. I ended up with a "Do I have to?" list of over 100 items, frozen in my tracks unable to define an action plan or prioritize the list, and I was fired.

That's ok, I usually would burn out and leave a position in about 3 years -- long before they wanted to get rid of me. I've only been fired twice out of a dozen jobs, and I take being fired as a great learning experience. It's only taken 3 years to learn this particular part of the lesson, and I've never said they were wrong to fire me.

Well, I have to fire my "Do I have to?" list. It's now becoming a "Want to" list. This is a challenge for me, having been blackmailed out of being comfortable with saying I want something in childhood. 

The fear says that "When I want something, someone is going to use it against me." So if there's something on my "Do I have to?" list that can't be reframed as "I want to..." then I'm going to have to -- oh, there I go again -- then I want to get rid of the sense of obligation. I want to find the person who handed it to me (yay monkeys! Which book has the monkeys again?) and give it back.

I may be doing a lot of apologizing, but at least I'll be able to sleep.

Oh, I see 2 paragraphs above, I did it there too: I WANT TO fire my "Do I have to?" list. **Phew** This is tough work.

Sheila asked me to spend time this week exploring why I'm reluctant to label things as "wants" rather than "shoulds" or "musts".

For example, I caught myself this afternoon saying "I should check if there's a UPS number for my book order" and corrected myself to "I want to check if there's a tracking number" because there isn't even a client involved.  Checking for a number won't change when it gets here. It's not an obligation, and it's absolutely unreasonable to call it a "should." It's an unnecessary burden -- framing my desires as obligations is hurting my ability to finish even my personal projects.

As I work on my own burnout, I'm also taking note of the process I'm going through. I will be helping others with this process in the very near future.

Update: I ended up having a complete epiphany and writing a whole book on burnout recovery:  SURRENDER™ to Passion: Worried to wonderful in 28 days by Rev. Criss Ittermann.  Check it out on Amazon.com & Kindle.

Victim or Perpetrator?

If you're in professional services of any type, where you have to put a price tag on your time, this definitely happens to you. If you are not, it's likely you're doing this to people delivering professional services to you.

Let's look back, for a moment, to my post "Thank You For Your Time" -- are you expressing gratitude to people for their one finite commodity, their time?

Service professionals in all industries struggle with the question of pricing. The actual real value of the dollar fluctuates constantly, the purchase power of each greenback gets weaker by the moment, housing, stocks, retirement savings plans, investments, everything around us is bouncing around like a yo-yo on a daily basis, but we need to have a snapshot fixed hourly or service-based rate that we can quote to people. Or perhaps today we're sending out a 20-page proposal on a 6-month contract and trying to gaze deeply into our crystal ball and project our financial needs for 6-months + the period of time we'll be looking for the next contract + padding for inflation and emergencies over 6 months, and oh yeah a profit margin so maybe we can actually advertise.

But for some reason, people have little or no respect for time -- our one finite commodity. As they firmly grasp and push forward the hands of our lifetime clock, taking our time that we will never get back, the mechanisms screaming protest in clockwork agony, they hold onto their wallets for dear life. Money, however, is an asset that you can quite readily get. Ask any affiliate marketer, you can get a residual income for an up-front investment. That up-front investment, again, is time. But it will continually pay off, the check's in the mail from the company paying you a commission. If you ask law of attraction aficionados money is ready to come to you in great quantities once you free yourself from disbelief and actually act on your dreams, fulfill your mission in life and STOP WASTING TIME by getting in your own way.

Even as they lengthen our lives with medicines, cybernetic enhancements, nanoprobes, and everything that the creativity of science can leverage against the Reaper, lives will still run out. We can squeeze only so much out of life before it is gone. With the caveat of a few people on ice awaiting immortality.

So why do people "leak minutes" on the boob tube? (I don't) Why do we often commit sins of robbing others of their time and being stingy on the compensation? While we should come at this with an attitude of gracious thankfulness, instead we hang on to our wallet when someone is willing to leverage their expertise, blood, sweat, and most especially precious moments to further our cause. It's perhaps one of the leading causes of burnout amongst the experts, since we always have to fight for the right to feed our families, insure our business, plan our financial future. Hear the sound of clients crying in agony, clinging to their wallets like we were ripping out their heart, when what they're paying for is the ransom for saving them that one absolutely finite commodity -- time.

If you could do it yourself, in less time than it takes you to make that money, and with the same quality, then you should do it yourself. What you are hiring is higher quality than you can produce, with less of a <cough> commitment <cough> of your time (remember: the pig is committed*), far less stress, and the ability to "set it and forget it" with regard to achieving the results you need. You decide what price that's worth to you, and PLEASE save the expert a lot of time by telling us up-front if there's a hard price limit on what that's worth to you. We shouldn't spend 5 hours writing the 20 page proposal if we can tell we'll need over $15,000 to do the work, but your hard limit is $10,000.

Below is a video message that's absolutely brilliant. I think it was meant to be funny, but I didn't laugh. I thought I would share it to help you understand the patent ridiculousness of arguing with service professionals who have set their fees, or poured over your RFP to give you a quote.

Are you the victim or perpetrator? Enjoy:






Perhaps this can help change people's attitudes? Here's my wishful-thinking:

If you're in need of an expert's services...quit haggling. If you must, ask if the price is final, or if there's budge room, but don't whine if the quote is final. Perhaps removing a few unnecessary items from a quote will lower the price to an acceptable fee for excellent service. You can save precious minutes, or hours if you keep requesting revisions to a quote -- both yours and the professionals. And if you're more interested in price than the high quality of the professional who gave you the quote, ask: "Do you know someone who can provide a comparable service for $1000?" Cut to the chase. Everyone can save some grey hairs on the issue.

On the service person's end: if you've poured over pricing and you think it's fair -- It Is! Quit letting customers haggle. If you really feel that you want to work with them, level with them: "What exactly are you willing to pay?" Then decide whether you can remove some items from the list of deliverables to bring it down to their price, but don't compromise. If there's no equitable solution cut your losses, reclaim precious minutes and walk away. Someone so willing to haggle over everything is going to be a source of pain for every moment while you're on the job. If you lower your prices, you will resent doing the work. You shouldn't charge money if your very best will be tinged with resentment or regret. Don't low-ball yourself by jumping the gun and offering lower fees if the potential client hesitates. Just keep your trap shut and wait. Either they want you or they don't want you: they'll speak with their wallet.

*In the making of the average american breakfast, the chicken and cow are involved, the pig is committed.

The Word of Love

Many civil marriages are not considered “holy matrimony” by religious institutions because they do not conform to the rules of the religious institution. Those marriages have not challenged religious liberty. We must see that civil marriage, which has always been separate from religious marriage, will remain so.
-- New York Times, Why I Now Support Gay Marriage by Tom Suozzi

As a proud supporter of the Queer community, and an open-minded Interfaith minister, a statement like this raises my hackles. I agree about the separation of religious marriage from civil marriage only because I'm a staunch supporter of the separation of church & state. I want to debunk absolutely any implication that Gay marriages may not be suitable for "Holy matrimony." They are entirely suitable in my church. I challenge people to give a great deal of consideration to how much of their particular bible is in favor of love and inclusion, against mortal judgement, and what a small portion is dedicated to statements telling you to hate, to exclude. If God is Love, and we wish to spread the Word of God then we must spread the Word of Love. Where there is love, let there be marriage. Where two mindful respectful beings decide to share their lives together in the name of what is most holy, which is to say in the name of love, we as ministers are but there to witness that which has already taken place, to set it in stone, to bring it to the people, to create a certificate and to show without doubt the explicit vows for those that have already been whispered by the fireplace, whispered from the pillow, written in private love letters, engraved on the inscription of a ring too tiny to use for a proclamation, the spirit of the roses given now dust, the intent, the promises, the decision to spend a minimum of one's life with another. We are genderless spirits incarnated for a time into bodies with gender. No matter what the bibles say about that which is not condoned by God, the same bibles say to love thy neighbor, to forgive, to not pass judgement. It is not our job, and God has left us with contradictions rather than explicit instructions, with rules that say first this, then that. I'd rather go to the pearly gates and beg forgiveness for having solemnized marriages than be eternally damned for having violated the one supreme commandment: Love. It is with great love that I look forward to performing my first legal and religious marriage ceremony. Thank you, Tom Suozzi, for your explanation of your reconsideration of equal marriage. I pray that you're able to help change minds, and that more and more people will listen to the Word of Love.

A Minister on Marriage Equality

A note to share on one of my personal & professional struggles for change in the world. Governor Paterson has introduced a bill for marriage equality to the New York State congress. I have written to my state senator: As your constituent, and as an ordained resident minister in the state of New York, I request the right to marry all loving and committed couples, and to officiate their access to the civil privileges and responsibilities of marriage. I applaud governor Paterson's support of equal marriage, and I am asking for your support and your vote for the Governor's program bill to provide equal marriage for lesbian and gay couples in the state of New York. New York is always on the forefront of equal rights movements of all types. We enjoy civil liberties in New York that we take for granted, however we always pave the way for progressive change across our nation. Our stance is a strong vote towards a future without hate, where people enjoy simple but profound freedoms regardless of their color, their religion, or the gender of their true love. As an ordained minister, the lack of equal rights legislation is preventing me from performing my ministerial and civil duties when I am asked to perform joint civil and religious ceremonies of love and commitment for gay or lesbian couples. This legislation is pivotal to my granting access to civil liberties and equal rights, hampering my full access to the same rites/rights and rituals I am privileged to perform for heterosexuals. I hope you'll vote for this important legislation and make clear that New York is a state that honors and respects all loving couples and all families equally, and grant the freedom to ministers like myself to do what is right for committed and loving couples. Rev. Criss Ittermann I wanted to publicly post this as a reminder that it is not all religions, nor all religious persons, priests or ministers who are in opposition to marriage equality. I support the change and my church of ordination respects the equal rights of all people regardless of religion, sexuality, gender, race, (dis)ability, etc. I have already vowed that the first wedding ceremony I perform will be a same-sex marriage. I know we are closer than ever before, and I will happily and proudly officiate once this legislation has passed. Here's hoping that President Obama keeps his promises to the Gay community, that New York remains on the forefront of change in our nation and stops dragging its feet. I bless and thank all states that have already recognized that equal access to marriage is pivotal to remaining a society that is free and respects basic human liberties, and here's hoping those states that have recognized then overturned equal rights to marry wake up and smell the freedom coffee brewing.

As the Portfolio Unfolds (humor)

One day a nice Jewish Family girl named stopped for a Minute to check out some Superior Sheds. She had the Ways & Means* from her Scholarships & College Planning, in fact she was Beyond Rubies*! In a Spirit-to-Spirit meeting with Life Coach Sheila Pearl, she rediscovered her Sophistication & Abundant Life. This Lucid PEP talk revealed that every cloud has a Silva Lining, and was Simply Flawless. After the delivery of the Savvy Structures, she hopped on the Great Hudson River Water Quilt, powered by New York Solar Energy, and flew from Pine Island for her Luxury Sun Vacation. All this Independent Living made Emily homesick, so she hopped into a Newburgh Envelope and mailed herself to Weinert t-Shirts, a well-known Middletown Business. She got there Just In Time to SCORE 4.0 on her exams.


* website pending

So, can you come up with an interesting story based on YOUR client's business names? My apologies to clients who were left out. I'll try to come up with revisions that add more clients in!