Speaking Engagements

I've enjoyed my speaking engagements to discuss You Mean I Have to Look at the Body?! My next engagement is with the Boone United Methodist Church then in June near Lake Champlain on the New York side. Recently I spoke for the Hospice Volunteer Conference in Hickory NC. Speaking with Hospice volunteers was a particularly rich experience. If you have such a group in your area, let me know how to contact them for a talk.

Tarnished Pulpit

I'm about halfway in the my latest book, "Tarnish Pulpit," the tentative title. This book is fiction and I'm happy to not have to dig into my soul as I did the first book. It is set in the years 1967 - 1972, turbulent times for the country with Civil Rights, Vietnam, assassinations, and the ethics of Richard Nixon and turbulent times for First Parish Church of Ironton Corner. I hope to have several drafts completed by the end of the year.

Two Books to Recommend

For the grieving, Tear Soup A Recipe for Healing After Loss by Pat Schwiebert adn Chuck DeKlyen. And for those who love the writings of Henri Nouwen, Befriending Death: Henri Nouwen and a Spirituality of Dying by Michelle O'Rourke.

Find Me in All About Women

If you go to www.aawmag.com and go to the online edition you will find two articles by Marcia M. Cham. One on page 12 and the other page 36. Enjoy

Wesite

Finally, after much hassle from my book talks I have created a website. www.marciamcham.com. I can't believe how easy it was. Of course Ken was at my side and a wonderful person on the telephone to guide me. I need work on it some more but its up. I've been lazy about the draft of the Tarnished Pulpit but I'm getting back to it. In the meantime, I've wrote a piece about getting ready for a wedding with my mother (96) and aunt (82) It will be published in the March/April Issue of All About Women--a magazine put out here in the mountains. I hope they accept three other pieces...The Wedding is One Thing, The Marriage Another, The Work of Love, an adapted homily from my wedding liturgy, and Wedding Anectdotes. Enjoy.

Forget the other new book...check out this one

The other new book start sounded too angry so I've turned to a fiction book based on a real situation. The present title is Tarnished Pulpit. First pass at a synopsis.
Ironton Corner Parish Church is dying. Matthew Henry Stiles, 26 year old working on his Masters of Divinity from Harvard hears of the parish. Being from a wealthy family he comes to Ironton Corners. He refuses to take a salary and lives in two rooms of the church. His ambition is to build Ironton Corner Parish Church into the most prominent Unitarian Parish in the country. Some in this quiet dairy farm and residential community welcome him and the changes he makes; others are irritated by the changes he does to the town.
At the end of his second year at the church the Unitarians refuse to ordain him. The parish ordains him. He agrees to stay for years if he is made the president and sole person in charge of church trusts and other moneys.
The various Trusts amount to $394,000 when he takes charge in 1968. By 1975 the Trust balances are zero and the parish is indebted to local banks for another $250,000.
A lawsuit looms over his head for $474,000 brought my seven families of the New England Academy for defrauding parents and other sealed charges in regard to the students.
Stiles sells government artifacts and other loaned collections and is arrested and convicted.
A lawsuit looms over his head for $474,000 brought my seven families of the New England Academy for defrauding parents and other sealed charges in regard to the students. He is found guilty but then disappears.

New Book

The work has begun in earnest, at least on most days, on my new book. The book is fiction but based on my experiences with church...the joys, the sorrows, the power struggles, the politics, the clergy, the wars, the peace, the struggle with 'isms', and... I've been thining about the book and sketching ideas in my mind and on yellow lined legal paper. I've found it is one thing to play with it in my mind; another to put it on paper. So stay tuned. The first four chapters are in first draft: Chapter 1. A Love Hate Relationship, Chapter 2. The Deacon's Meeting, 3. October Welcome Dinner, 4. Men's Breakfast. Several conflicts are in the making...gum chewing in church, church member arrested for sexual abuse of students and his presence at church, those people you sat at our dinner table. I'll keep you posted as time goes on. Marcia