Kirkepiscatoid

You might be wondering where the name from this blog came from. Well, you have to first know that the term "Kirkatoid" is one of the nicknames we Kirksville folks call ourselves. ("Cricker" is another, but technically you should be from the wrong end of town or just be grossly uncouth to be a cricker.) Kirksville is also occasionally called "the Ville" or "da Ville" but mostly that is a term used by folks under middle aged age.

As for my blog name, it's Latin. Roughly translated, it's "quick study". I finally decided on a nom de plume rather than just use my name because I wanted you, the reader, to not see me necessarily connected to a gender identity but to try to engage you in things that gender might hold you back. I have been anonymous on other blogs and what my friends and I have learned is that words are not always necessary in order to comunicate.

As I start working on topics for future posts, I may end up introducing you to several people; hopefully eventually I'll list a "cast of characters" so you can keep them all straight. The word "family" kind of takes on a new dimension when you are talking about my life. There are the "real" relatives, the relatives that were once related by various family marriages that now technically are not relatives anymore but are still "kin" in my eyes, and the non-relatives that have found a niche in my expanded definition of "family." It's all very convoluted and hard to keep straight without a scorecard. But in typical northeast Missouri fashion we can keep it all connected. (Around here you hear statements like, "He's Joe's ex-wife's second cousin once removed," and the listener goes, "Oh, ok, uh-huh, got it.")

What I have found, though, as a blogger, is that removing myself from my real name is a great way to think outside myself. One of the things I actively try to do in my prayer life is to make my prayer life more "other centered" than "self centered." The amazing thing is when I can do this, I feel a stronger connection to God than I would if I were asking things for myself. Not that I don't occasionally divulge my personal fears to God, but I just no longer choose to treat God like some sort of "Great Coke Machine in the Sky" where your put your prayer quarters in and expect a Coke to come out. I have discovered in recent years, when praying on my own behalf or in others' behalf, that I am usually asking for wisdom, or strength, or courage to deal with what is laid out there on the table, rather than a specific outcome. I can feel a deeper connection to it all when I remove the "want list."

This feeling of "connectedness" has been my Holy Grail of sorts that encourages discipline in my prayer life. I still wish I were better at it.