Podcast appearances and mentions of linda williamson

After 100 guests it's Season 2 on "U n' I with Rashmi Shetty"! This is episode 1, in conversation with one of India's best storytellers as celebrate World Storytelling Day on March 20th. Our guest today is Geeta Ramanujam who is an internationally renowned storyteller, educator, academician, and administrator. She is the Executive Director of Kathalaya Trust established in 1998 which is the culmination of her vision and wisdom. She also founded Kathalaya's International Academy of Storytelling –the only credible and globally recognized Academy for Storytelling in the World with affiliations to USA, Scotland, and Sweden. She has completed 187 batches of her certified Beginners and Diploma courses so far. She has trained over 99495 adults so far. Geeta Ramanujam is an Ashoka fellow and has widely traveled to 48 countries and the 27 states in India to establish Storytelling as a tool of learning and also to set up centers. Geeta has also performed and trained people at the Scottish Storytelling Centre, UK, Norway, Germany, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, South Africa, Austria, Greece, Istanbul, Thailand, Japan, Sweden, Poland, USA, Sri Lanka, and Brazil to name a few.. She is also the Indian Coordinator for the International Storytelling Network –RIC besides being the Indian coordinator of the Indian Storytelling Network. Geeta has several awards to her credit including the recent International award for the Best storyteller at the BOCADEU storytelling festival in Brazil and the Governor's award in Tamil Nadu for the Best Story Narrator. She has won the Bangalore Hero Award twice and was recently honored by Prime minister Modi ji in his Man Ki Baat program. Geeta uses storytelling as an effective educational and cultural tool in training for parents, teachers, NGOs, and corporate sectors both in India and globally. Geeta is also a consultant in Education and is on the board of several educational institutions and storytelling centers both in India and abroad. “Geeta is the goddess of storytelling and Kathalaya her heart beating for the world.” Linda Williamson – author and storyteller in Edinburgh https://www.facebook.com/kathalaya https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClySzU6XownTvOIb1WNHIKA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nRK3dT8oWgTed talks-www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2ccK66KKe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTKVvUewrkM Email: kathalaya@gmail.com Webpage: www.kathalaya.org, Contact: 8277389840, 9845207073 --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/the-third-eye1/message

Linda Williamson Rosenberg talks with us about her debut novel, Embers on the Wind. Telling a tale centered around Whittaker House, a haunted stop on the Underground Railroad, past and present converge in this novel about women connected by motherhood, slavery's legacy, and histories that span centuries. Find the recommended books, the author's social media links, and the video version of this episode at www.BestofWomensFiction.com All books featured on the podcast are listed in The Best of Women's Fiction List at www.bookshop.org and amazon.com Lainey's author website: www.LaineyCameron.com

Helen Needham with Linda Williamson and John Slavin discussing Duncan's life and stories

How your service providers can collaborate with: Linda Williamson from Fulfillment Strategies International Derek Griffin from Speartek   Subscribe Free on your favorite podcast platform: iHeartRADIO: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/product-genius-with-tiffany-krumins-29496794/   iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/tiffany-krumins/id1406649018?mt=2 Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=206658&refid=stpr   Android: http://subscribeonandroid.com/tiffanykrumins.libsyn.com/rss   Visit us online: https://www.tiffanykrumins.com/

This special edition of “The Tiffany Krumins Show” was a live broadcast from the “LIVE @ FSI” Networking Open House in Austell, GA. Guests included Linda Williamson with FSI (Fulfillment Strategies International), Matt Bravo and Stosh Cohen with PutterPong, and Willie and Saleema Cartwright with Hydratherma Naturals. TIFFANY KRUMINS Tiffany Krumins, the first Shark Tank winner, is […] The post TIFFANY KRUMINS SHOW: Broadcasting from LIVE @ FSI appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

Sam Nebel & Charlie Siciak/Goodwipes Sam Nebel and Charlie Siciak, also know as “The King of All Wipes” and “Mister GoodWipes” respectively, are the co-founders igniting the hygiene revolution with their company Goodwipes, a fun, modern and eco-friendly wet wipes brand empowering people to do more, feel good and live clean. After converting all of […] The post TIFFANY KRUMINS SHOW: Sam Nebel and Charlie Siciak from Goodwipes appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

Emmie Howard/Southern Proper Emmie Howard and her sorority sister shared two common passions among college-aged women: Southern men and fashion. Their uncommon pursuit of that passion? Starting their own men s clothing brand. Southern Proper, haberdashery for the Southern gentleman, is a tribute to the southern preppy style. Just check out the brand s bowties or neckties. […] The post TIFFANY KRUMINS SHOW: Emmie Howard with Southern Proper appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

Tom Vooris/Choices To You Let Choices To You bring the restaurant to you! If you live in the North Fulton or Gwinnett County area of Atlanta, they re about to make your life a whole lot easier. If you ever ask yourself, Where s the best restaurant delivery near me? , they have got you covered. Try their food delivery service today! […] The post TIFFANY KRUMINS SHOW: Tom Vooris with Choices To You and Seth Gilland & Linda Williamson with Fulfillment Strategies International appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

Seth Gilland & Linda Williamson/Fulfillment Strategies International During their 20 years in business, Fulfillment Strategies International has established itself as a leading provider of third party logistics and fulfillment services, helping companies to deliver merchandise to consumers, retail stores and businesses around the corner and around the globe. FSI offers a full suite of 3PL fulfillment […] The post TIFFANY KRUMINS SHOW: Seth Gilland & Linda Williamson with Fulfillment Strategies International appeared first on Business RadioX ®.

All this I laid to heart, examining it all, how the righteous and the wise and their deeds are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hate one does not know. Everything that confronts them is vanity, since the same fate comes to all, to the righteous and the wicked, to the good and the evil, to the clean and the unclean, to those who sacrifice and those who do not sacrifice. As are the good, so are the sinners; those who swear are like those who shun an oath.  This is an evil in all that happens under the sun, that the same fate comes to everyone. Moreover, the hearts of all are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.  But whoever is joined with all the living has hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion.  The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost. Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun. Go, eat your bread with enjoyment, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has long ago approved what you do. Let your garments always be white; do not let oil be lacking on your head. Enjoy life with the wife whom you love, all the days of your vain life that are given you under the sun, because that is your portion in life and in your toil at which you toil under the sun.  Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going. Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them. THE MODERN LESSON Richard R. Blumenthal   In the context of religious life after the shoah [Holocaust], I wrote a terrifying book called Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest. I began with a theological prolegomenon on how to think about God. I, then, moved to textual study and, then, to dialogue with a survivor and a theologian. Then came the time to draw conclusions: Is God, or is God not, abusive? I admit to having fallen physically ill before writing that section; I just didn’t want to say what the evidence told me to say. But I wrote it anyway (“Being honest entails holding God accountable”). Then came the question, Now what? How does one pray after saying that God can be abusive? I called up the tradition of protest, beginning with Abraham and Job, and continuing through the Jewish poetry of the Crusades and coming right up to Elie Wiesel. And I decided that it was okay to accuse God…   Everyone missed the chapter entitled, “Seriatim, or Sailing Into the Wind.” In that chapter I pointed out that that one cannot sail into the wind. Thus, if one wants to get from point A to point B and the latter is the place from which the wind is coming, one must “tack”; that is, one sails to the right and then to the left, repeating the process as often as necessary, until one gets to one’s goal. Furthermore, if one stays on one “tack” too long, it gets harder and harder to return to one’s course and get to one’s goal. I, then, suggested that many processes in life are like that. All human negotiations proceed by repeatedly moving right and then left until one reaches an agreement and, if one remains too long on one issue, one can never resolve the matter at hand. So it is with prayer, I argued: One must be angry with God and express one’s anger, honestly as Frank says, but one cannot be angry with God for too long or one will get lost in the anger. Rather, one must consciously “tack” in the direction of loving God, but, again, one cannot be loving with God for too long or one will lose the power and honesty of justice.   When I wrote the book, I overstepped some of the traditional boundaries. Still, I think survivors of all kinds of abuse would do well to follow this advice: Be genuinely angry even if it makes you nervous; then, be loving even if it makes you feel compromised; and keep alternating; it is the only way to sail into the wind of that true relatedness to God that we call prayer. This past week is the last for a little known but important organization call the Sunshine Activities Center, down on Montrose Ave. The Center worked with mentally challenged adults by providing them a space to learn and interact with others, and perhaps, also provide a chance for their caregiving families to have a break during the day. Linda Williamson, along with others, began this wonderful organization some decades ago, but because of the state of Illinois not paying them during the recent budget standoff, and new rules that made it impossible for them to continue, they had to shut down the Center. Linda invited the church to see if there was anything we wanted to purchase at rock-bottom prices, and we did so last week, acquiring some much needed almost new chairs for the Fellowship Hall. I was back at Center this week after Linda offered some free learning materials that might be useful to our children’s Sunday School, and while I was there I met some of her current and former staff members. After finding out I was a pastor, one of her former employees, who has also had a child who went to the Center years earlier, she said to me, in a gracious way, “If I get to heaven, I’m going to have a lot of questions for him!” I replied that all of us will be full of questions, but I think she was referring to the injustice of this moment, of what was happening to the Sunshine Center and the people who created it, of having spent a lifetime in service to others, and yet coming out of it poorer than when you began. And she was right – the rich seem to get richer, the poorer get poorer and goodness and compassion so often do not get rewarded. It reminded of a time a few years ago when I was encouraging my sister Allison to find a new job, perhaps in Mississippi state government, and I was looking over their job opportunities, and there was listing after listing for social workers to work with abused children, jobs that required a master’s degree, for which the starting pay was $24,000 a year. Frankly, that said to me that we Mississippians don’t give a damn about protecting our children. And that gentle but frank questioning of God by that lovely woman I met this past week, it’s something most of us would do, if given the chance, to ask God why someone like Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase, is a multi-millionaire, while those who change people’s lives for the better end up with no financial security, nothing but the good work they once did, which is, of course, not nothing, and valuable – but which doesn’t quite pay the rent in retirement.   Now, this may sound like an odd way to begin a sermon on the sovereignty of God, which is the last of the Reformation principles touted by reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin, though, in this case, it was John Calvin who emphasized this particular doctrine. What he and others said was simply this: God is in control, and God is all powerful, all-knowing, and nothing, absolutely nothing can stop God from doing what God wants to do, can stop God’s will from becoming reality, if God so chooses. Often those who argue for this doctrine will point to the book of Isaiah, the 46th chapter, where God is believed to have said “My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” Now, for many of us this may not sound like an all - that - radical of a doctrine, but set against the time that Luther and Calvin lived in, the reformers felt it was necessary to assert that God was, indeed, in charge of God. Perhaps the main reason for this need to say this idea aloud, and to say it loudly was that there was a sense that we Christians had gotten ourselves into a pickle with some of the ways we thought we could manage God – say these kinds of prayers, give this much money, obey these commandments, and God will forgive you or bless you or reward you. If you do this, God will do that – again, the idea of the transactional God I mentioned in an earlier sermon, that God who makes a deal with us human beings, as if we could control God’s responses by our actions – pray this prayer 10 times, do these acts of devotion, and God will surely forgive you. It was as if we humans could manage God by our actions, our doings, our prayers – and the Reformers found this repugnant, this idea that this relationship between God and humans was simply another deal we human were making, another transaction like the ones made in those medieval food and mercantile markets found throughout Europe.   And so, in order to challenge this idea of the transactional God, the God we can control by our actions, Calvin wanted to make sure that we humans did not think that God’s goodness, God’s salvation, God’s wholeness, was something we deserved, or was something we were rewarded for because of our good behavior, or even, frankly, was something we were given because we chose God, we chose Christ. No, they said, it was God who chose us. And thus there was no divine/human transactions for brother Calvin, no pretensions that we can control God by what we do, what we say, for everything was always in God’s hands, and always God’s choice. The good news for some is that it made us aware that, in fact, it was always an “amazing grace,” undeserved by us, but nonetheless given to us, as a free gift from God. God does this work of salvation and not us – and nothing we can do or not do will compel God to give it to us – we can do nothing or say something that will make us deserving of grace. God will decide who is saved and who is not, an idea that is rooted in the idea that God is ultimately in control and not us. But the shadow side of that doctrine, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty was the idea that God also destined some to hell or annihilation, however we understand the absence of salvation, that God destined some to the opposite of salvation, abandoned some to hell, so to speak. Not many people nowadays endorse this idea, what was once called Calvin’s doctrine of double predestination, for obvious reasons, since the cruelty of God would be enormous in such a case. In an attempt to wrestle the burden of our salvation from our own hands, some have said Calvin boxed himself into a corner, since logic necessitates that if God chooses some, God must necessarily choose against others. Most of us are not interested in this shadow version of Calvin’s God, the one who chooses some to exclude, for no reason as well.   Now, for Christians like myself, we’ve taken the doctrine of the sovereignty of God in a different direction, believing as we do that if God wishes all to be made whole, God can make it so, whatever our choices on this side of the veil. We can’t get in the way of God doing what God wants, and there is every indication that God wants wholeness for all the world God created, and thus, in my mind, that will happen, to world and humans alike, despite all our best human efforts to get in God’s way. God wins, and not because God convinced us to do better, be better, chose better, or even accept the ways of this Jesus of Nazareth – but because God can and will complete the love and work began by the Christ. For some, this violates human freedom, the right and ability for us humans to damn ourselves through the exercising of our freedom, but I must say that I don’t deny human freedom – I simply deny that it can, in the end, thwart what God ultimately wants in this world, which is wholeness, which is love, which is salvation. As much as Calvin got it partially wrong in his doctrine of God’s sovereignty, the part where he focused on God choosing some, but not others, Calvin got one part of it really right, in my humble opinion – the need for us to realize that grace, grace being often defined as unmerited favor, is something we do not deserve, that grace is really the heart of the Christian Gospel, and that we are loved by God not because we are good enough, kind enough, righteous enough, but simply because God has chosen to love us, for no reason at all.   Now, in our Scripture today, we have the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes sharing some thoughtful, if not fatalistic and cynical words with his ancient listeners, but with us as well. The writer seems to wholeheartedly endorse the idea of the sovereignty of God, though in a roundabout way, when he says that whatever we do, we all end up with the same fate, death in this case, a place in Sheol, the place of the dead, echoes of the Egyptian place of the dead, of which the Israelites knew of because of their time in Egypt. This was before late Judaism and early Christianity embraced the idea of a heaven, and a place of eternal punishment, but the point for the writer of Ecclesiastes is that, in the end, we all receive the same fate, and that God controls that fate, whatever we may do on this side of the veil. Obviously, Jewish thought and belief extolled the need for being a good person and a follower of the Jewish Law, but for this early Jewish thinker, God will do what God does, whatever our actions, good or bad. There is a fatalism here that makes some of us uncomfortable, as did Calvin’s idea that some were predestined for heaven, no matter their worthiness, no matter what they did or did not do. Still, there is wonderful advice here to work hard, enjoy good wine, and a good marriage, to simply enjoy life, despite not having much control over what will ultimately happen to us in our lives. And in this final set of lines you can see this ancient writer acknowledging that God will do what God will do, and sometimes it is seemingly not very fair what God does: Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the skillful; but time and chance happen to them all. For no one can anticipate the time of disaster. Like fish taken in a cruel net, and like birds caught in a snare, so mortals are snared at a time of calamity, when it suddenly falls upon them. You can do everything right, and do if for the sake of the least of these, and yet still end up with nothing – it is almost as if this text is echoing that woman at the Sunshine Activity Center, and that hard truth is echoed in this text, in the words we just heard. And that is the rub, isn’t it, for those of us believe that God can do what God wants to do, that God is in control, or at least has the power to be in control, if God so chooses to do so. The shadow side of believing that God is sovereign, that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, is that we are forced with trying to make peace with the moments when God doesn’t step in and do the right thing, or at least what seems the right thing. In the Modern Lesson you heard today, Richard Blumenthal, a professor of Judaic Studies at Emory University, one of my alma maters, wrote a book that changed my life and my understanding of God, especially when it comes to the sovereignty of God. In this book entitled Facing the Abusing God: A Theology of Protest, Blumenthal argues that the Jewish people have been abused by God, and that within the Hebrew Bible, which is our Old Testament, there are multitude of passages that accuse God of not being fair to the Israelites, texts that protest against God’s lack of action, or even God’s absence during times of personal and community disaster. Probably a third of the Psalms found in our Bible are written in anger and disappointment at God’s actions or lack of action in the life of the psalmist – and the wonder if it all is that no one at that time seemed to think that accusing God of not doing the right thing was something that shouldn’t ever be expressed. If God is in control, if God is sovereign, the logic seemed to be, well, then they could protest God’s decisions, and hold God accountable for not being faithful to the people of Israel. And no one seemed to want to edit those psalms of protest and disappointment out of the Bible, because just because God was God, and we were not, that doesn’t mean we humans don’t have right to protest God’s actions, or lack of action, at certain moments in time and history. And never was it understood that by protesting, by holding God accountable, a person was somehow severing their relationship with the Divine, or walking away from the relationship. Sometimes God in the Bible would reply defensively, as God does in the book of Job, and other times, God was simply silent, as if by the silence somehow acknowledging the injustice allowed by God’s lack of action. Like Jacob, one must sometimes wrestle with God deep into the night, and often still receive no answer, no satisfaction at dawn, limping away wounded, but faithful, wounded but present for the relationship with God. Anger expressed in prayer at the injustice in our lives and in the world is still a faithful and good prayer.   In Blumenthal’s Modern Lesson, he shares his thoughts about prayer and our relationship with God, even as we sometimes must protest God’s absence, or lack of action. The way to find ourselves back to God, after moments when our lives are upturned by some injustice, some hurt not of our own devising, was to be a spiritual sailor when we are sailing into a strong head wind, zigzagging our way to God, angry one moment, loving the next, and repeating the cycle until we find ourselves back home, to the God who is, the God not of our making, but the God who will do what God will do, no matter how much I plead, no matter how much I try to manage God with prayer or good deeds or even protest. We don’t owe faithfulness to God without the truth, and sometimes truth is found in moments when we’ve and others have done the right thing, and what we’ve received in return is tears and ashes, and we simply need to say that such a reality is just not right. I think of the Sunshine Activity Center, I think of Mississippi children, I think of a 12-year old child I pastored who died too soon, I think of a million different moments when I hoped and wanted God to step in and God chose not to do anything. I don’t think God intentionally causes pain, cancer, death, hurt – but I do think that God could intervene in the natural processes that govern this world, and most of the times God simply does not. But our holding God accountable is an act of faithfulness to God, an act of saying “this ain’t right,” because we remain in relationship with the God who is God, who is the One who can do what God chooses to do. This God is much like the God who can choose to welcome all, despite all the grossness and meanness we humans have wrought upon each other and the earth. God is God and I am not, but that doesn’t mean being in relationship with God doesn’t have its challenging moments, moments when we have tack our way back to God, zigzagging between love and rage, acknowledging the sovereignty of God, but making sure that the Divine hears our pleas of protest and anger at the injustices of this world, injustices that God could have done something about and did not. Of course, before we get too self-righteous about God’s lack of action, we need to acknowledge how we too have stood on the sideline as acts of injustice have simply passed us by, even in simple ways, such as letting places like the Sunshine Center close, while the stock market explodes with growth, and the rich just get richer, and the poor become poorer. God is God and we are not, and we have to make our peace with that reality, if we can, knowing that loving someone doesn’t mean you don’t hold them any less responsible and accountable. It’s complicated, isn’t it, this relationship with the living God, this sovereign, all powerful God, but like all relationships, human and otherwise, that doesn’t mean they are any less worthy of our time, our attention, our care. So, I say this: choose a relationship with this beguiling and mysterious and loving and sometimes maddening God, and I say choose whatever way gets you home, tacking left, tacking right, saying yes, saying no, being angry, being loving, but, in the end, choose a path home towards a God who, among the many choices She has made, has still chosen you, and me, and the rest of this beautiful world. Amen.