Terry Hershey

“Let us develop a kind of
dangerous unselfishness.”
- Martin Luther King Jr.

“Which is worse, the intolerance that commits outrages or
the indifference that observes outrages with an undisturbed conscience?”
- Rabbi Leo Baeck

“For we are called to obey not God’s power, but God’s love.
God wants not submission to his power, but, in return for his love, our own.”
- William Sloane Coffin

“We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake,
not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the prominent.”
- Henry David Thoreau

“Dogs are our link to paradise. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon
is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring, it was peace.”
- Milan Kundera

“Help me to be supportive of my family members
By giving them alternatives
Of what the perfect family should be.
Help me be a source of inspiration to my family members
By being as open as I can about my life and condition
So they can better see for themselves
Who I am
And the love I have for them.”
- Daniel Gebhardt, I am this one walking beside me: Meditations of an HIV positive man.

Don’t miss this conference!

Gardens and Grace:
Gentleness and Beauty, Spaciousness and Healing, Stillness and Delight
May 21-24, 2006

Kanuga Conference Center
Gardens large and small, wild and manicured are extraordinary containers for life-enhancement and spiritual growth. This unique conference, in an exquisite garden setting, will provide breathing space; time for solitude and community, time for relaxation and restoration; time to learn about and to cherish the natural world. Inspirational meditations and workshops, teaching and input, sharing and celebrating will encourage a deepening of faith, hope and love. Come and see how the garden grows!

Speakers include:
  Esther de Waal
  Rev. Philip Roderick
  Rev. Terry Hershey

Some of the workshops offered:

• Body Prayer:
  The gentle interplay between heaven and earth
• The Cardboard Band:
  Contemplative Christian chant with an Afro-Celtic flavor!
• Still Walk
  (A walk of awareness around the lake at Kanuga)
• Soul Gardening
  (Lessons the garden teaches us to live fully and with passion)
• Prayer and Healing in the Garden
• Creating a Sanctuary Garden
  (practical suggestions for making a sacred space, applicable to small or large gardens)
• The Garden and Sabbath
  (slowing down and stillness)
• The Gift of the Garden
  (spiritual, emotional, social benefits)
• Garden Design Workshop
  (nuts and bolts basics to consider for personal gardens and for Church memorial gardens)
• Caring for the Earth
  “Pledge allegiance to the earth, and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports; one planet indivisible, with clean air, soil and water, with liberty, justice and peace for all.”
  - William Sloane Coffin
• Labyrinths and the garden

Workshop Information

Hi Terry, You are absolutely the best! I watched your piece from the Blue Smoke in NY yesterday morning. I was crying once again into my coffee cup. Maybe I should stop drinking coffee, cause I am not gonna stop watchin' you. I have been knee deep at the B&B with my Rita evacuees. Talk about a lesson in patience, grace and love. The couple in there, arrived on the 19th with the wife's 87 year old mother, two 12 yr. old Shelties, a bird and a turtle ( I obviously waived my 'no pet' policy.) They are the kindest, sweetest people. I have had to find them other accommodations for this weekend, but they 'come home' on Sunday morning. Their patience is unequaled. You see grandma lost her house to fire in Beaumont. They haven't told her. And they have no idea when they will be allowed back into Beaumont.. So with only a two days supply of clothes they have gone to Walmart and bought a 7,000 piece puzzle, dominoes, coloring books...and on and on. I spoke with the 'dad' this morning and he said it was really kind of a blessing. They hadn't had this kind of time for many, many years. They have no idea if they have a home to return to, but they are passing the time together. Waiting and leaving the rest up to God. I am going up Monday and spend some time with them. I think he is about ready to do yard work...and she is worried about getting the dog's toe nails clipped. These are not the people you see on Fox or MSN, but they are the survivors! . They told me the dogs think this is 'home' now. Blessings to you, Patsy

I hope and pray this gets to you. I have tried three times to e-mail
you at this address and always got that lovely note from the "postmaster"
telling me my e-mails did not get to the addressee. I acknowledged an e-mail from a young lady telling me I'd have to wait for your book I ordered; she did not receive my e-mail and then, Praise the Lord!!, I received my copy of your great book. . .Anyway you can understand how delighted I was when I saw your newsletter on our computer this evening. And I was extra delighted when the word KINDNESS hit me...I remembered that one of my deeply-held beliefs for many years now is that there is no such thing as a small kindness. And I also believe that kindness is charity with warmth (have you ever been the object of some cold -- often condescending -- act of charity??!!).....Sometimes, I believe, "churchy" people turn people from Jesus by such acts. Anyway, I don't have to preach to you...good grief! Keep up the great work, dear Brother; you are indeed a blessing to MANY. Count on my supportive prayers.
Your devoted brother in the Lord Jesus, Lee

Dear Terry, My name is Chris and my wife's name is Kim. We spoke to you last night, December 12, at St Gregory the Great in San Diego. I shared with you about the grammar on you newsletters. It seems as though every newsletter has a grammar error. My question was, are you driving us crazy, testing whether we actually read the newsletter or trying to show us what really matters most! It was our pleasure to meet you and have you sign our book. Your speaking has influenced us and we feel more freedom knowing what really matters most! Merry Christmas!
God Bless, Chris and Kim Kargas.
Dear Chris. I will try not to do it agin. I promis. Terry

Terry – I am a 22 year old who just recently attended a Singles retreat and found myself very glad that I attended. 1) Your comments and stories were really funny. Stories about kids that either showed how kids look at life differently than us or how they are more optimistic than a majority of people above the age of 21. I loved when you read from the "Frog and Toad" book by Arnold Lobel because I work with books daily and never thought that a book that is on the reading level of about a 8 year old could have an ability to make me think about something like taking the time to re-connect with a friend. Many other stories like that one that are too numerous to type. The second thing that made you appeal to me (and I believe a lot of other people at the singles retreat in Lincoln) was the fact that you were authentic. This is more than just being honest. Being honest is saying that you were divorced, being authentic is connecting with an audience and talking about going into a restaurant and dealing with peoples' judgements regarding you as a person who is "alone" (as though that is bad or wrong or whatever people want to think) I encounter that feel and knowing that someone who is older than me understands that feeling. Often, I feel like people don't really realize what it is like to be single in a couples world if they haven't been single in a long time. I felt that you really understood because of the fact that you openly discussed your life status and you openly told stories where you used humor to deal with people who make you feel awkward. I guess I just think that I realized that so much of what you said about how we don't live as though we don't care what people think as often as we should (especially regarding dating relationships)could cause a younger person (20's/30's age) who is feeling overly-aware of this idea to say that it is great, but you have a life that most people want (being married) so it is hard for you to understand feeling stuff that single people do, but that isn't really the case because of the fact that you are single as well and that can allow you to feel some of the things that many people above the age of 30 don't feel unless they are single. Anyway, I better stop writing because I have said what I want to say. I hope you eventually do get on this site and read this comments/praise on your speaking because I wholeheartedly agree with them (knowing that people thought so highly of you was part of the reason that I considered attending the retreat I went to myself) and am now adding my own two cents to this message board deal on your behalf. AL, Lincoln, Nebraska

THANKS FOR ALL THE GOOD YOU ARE,
INNATELY EXPRESSING ALL THE GOOD
YOU DO! IT'S ALL INSIDE AS THE J.C. PENNEY ADS STATE! THANKS A GAIN!

Terry – Thank you for Sacred Necessities. What a beautiful book! I especially appreciate your acknowledgment that seeking and maintaining such necessities as stillness, simplicity and grace are easier said than done. But what a gift it is to have the reminders and reinforcement to live an authentic, centered life. I am looking forward to reading Soul Gardening.
CJ, Seattle, WA

Babette’s Feast on DVD

Babette’s Feast is one of my favorite movies. (Do not watch this movie on an empty stomach) It is the Isak Dinesen story of two maiden sisters from Jutland, pious daughters of a stern and dictatorial minister, who spurn their chance for love to remain devoted to their austere Church creed and to their puritanical and selfish father. There is Martina, enchanted with the young cavalryman (rebuffed by Martina and subsequently devoting his life to success in the military), and Phillipa, whose angelic voice won the heart of a Parisian Opera virtuoso Papin. Both sisters say no to overtures of love, staying in Jutland to tend to the aging and dwindling group of their father’s followers.

Flash forward many years to the entrance of Babette, whom the opera singer sends to the sisters to hide (she is a refugee from the 1871 revolutionary violence in Paris). She serves the sisters and the community with grace and goodwill.

After serving for fifteen years Babette receives news that she has won the lottery in France, a windfall of 10,000 Francs, an extraordinary amount of money. Instead of leaving, Babette asks to stay, and to prepare a feast for the tiny community, on the occasion of the late minister’s 100th birthday. Martina and Philippa initially consent to Babette’s plans. Consent, however, turns to alarm, as they begin to grasp the scope of her plans (a boat of food and beverage supplies from France carries some rude and outlandish shocks). (Babette has spared no expense. We learn later that she spends the entire 10,000 Francs on this one meal.) The sisters express their concern with the community, fearing that they may “expose themselves to dangerous and maybe even evil powers.” (Clearly, this group is wound tight, and kinfolk to the church in which I was raised. Constitutionally antipathetic to anything remotely pleasurable, anything associated with our senses, or our bodies. Our church mantra: If it feels good, it’s wrong! This is not easy to purge.)

By consensus the group chooses to allow the meal, but have agreed to neither “taste nor speak of the meal,” hoping to protect themselves (through willpower, determination and prayer) from the sin (or is it the joy?) of any pleasure of the flesh. But one fortuitous guest (the young cavalryman, now a general, returned to visit his aunt and invited to the meal) who is unaware of Babette’s presence among the villagers, perceives the extravagance of the meal, and the hand behind it. “Is this not Blini Demidoff and Cailles en Sarcophage?” he asks. “Am I not drinking Clos de Vougeot,1845?”

As the General eats, he revels, rejoices, feasts, takes delight in each fragrance, each bite, each sip. He sees in the food and the wine, the transformation of a dinner into a love affair. For this was no dinner. This was a sacrament. He sees in the meal a window to grace, just as the disciples on the Emmaus road recognized the Lord in the breaking of bread.

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