Fun Monday - Dinner with Luci

The GA Girls at In Good Company continue their hosting duties for March. The assignment for the 21st could turn out to be quite revealing. Their question: if you could invite five people over to your place for dinner and conversation, who would be on the guest list and what would be some questions you'd want to ask? Well GA Girls, I'm one of those introverts who like and appreciate people a great deal, but find being around most anyone for any amount of time a bit challenging. So, if it's all right with you, I'll just invite Luci Swindoll, author, motivational speaker and adventurer.

Do you know of people--or are you that person--whose friends and associates are always trying to help you with your spiritual life? I'm one of them. I've had work colleagues ask me if I'm on good terms with Jesus. I've had people come to my door trying to save my soul like the couple of Jehovah Witnesses who came knocking one Sunday afternoon and asking me if I thought we would ever have world peace. Before closing the door firmly, I replied that I really hadn't planned to deal with world peace this particular Sunday afternoon. I just hoped to read the Sunday papers! And then there's this long running joke among some of my friends. If we're traveling together, they don't want to room with me because if the Rapture should come that night, I'll surely be left behind. They'd feel badly, but they're leaving without me!

I guess to make up for "leaving me behind" one friend from this group gave me Luci Swindoll's memoir, I Married Adventure-Looking at Life Through the Lens of Possibility. Right away I totally identified with this unlikely woman. Her approach to living was so close to my own. From an early age she loved learning, beauty in all its forms from music to art to literature, traveling the world. Luci also had her demons--how could an unconventional daughter please a conventional mother? how would she find work that was meaningful, but still provided enough financial resources to live without fear? how to live single in a married world? how to find peace and contentment as she aged? These were the important challenges I also wrangled with all my life. I felt such a kinship with this woman.

Now here's the ironic twist to this tale. Luci Swindoll comes from a family whose members have always been involved in Christian ministry, including her brother Chuck's radio ministry, Insight for Living. Luci was his VP for Public Relations for five years after spending 30 years in the corporate world as a Mobil Oil Company executive. Now she is a wildly popular keynote speaker and author with Women of Faith Ministries. I heard her speak in Chicago a few years ago and she didn't disappoint. I'd still have her as an honored dinner guest. I'd have questions about faith and soul work, but I'd also want to know about her life adventures and what she was looking forward too.

Asking her questions may be a bit difficult based on this video, but there would be guaranteed laughter:




And yes, for sure Luci and I would have dessert because life is uncertain but always an adventure!